What’s Your Greatest Fear?

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admin
on October 6, 2008
in Africa, BrushWith. . ., Kenya, Lebanon, Sweaty and Uganda
. 1 Comment

I once heard a friend of mine relay a conversation he’d had with his wife:

Husband: Honey, what’s your greatest fear?
Wife: Well, I think it would be that if one of us died and little Sally had to grow up with just one parent.
Husband: Oh, I see.
Wife: What’s your greatest fear?
Husband: Bears.

LOL, I know. But seriously, what’s YOUR greatest fear? And what kind of fear are we talking about? One that threatens your life, your perception of the world or your sanity? Now that I’m safely on American soil, devoid of any disease and free of bullet wounds, I can talk about this. In general, travel was FAR, FAR less dangerous than people imagine–largely, I believe, because people picture us dodging suicide bombers and hiding from Al Quaeda. And that didn’t happen. However, there were a few times when I began to wonder just what the hell we were doing. . . .and these were legit.

Location: Beirut, Lebanon
Inner Monologue: Oh my God. The Sunnis and the Shiites are about to begin killing each other and we are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Didn’t this happen on a subway in Adventures in Babysitting? This is the warzone the news is always talking about. We must get the hell out of here. Now. But how?
What Happened: We’d been dropped off a few blocks shy of our apartment on a street between ethnically divided neighborhoods and had lost our way. Recent days had brought violence and riots. It was rainy and windy. As we walked, we noticed armed soldiers—not the bored looking ones we see sitting atop tanks at intersections—but men hidden under overhangs and around corners. A lot of them. Looking alert and ready for action.
Physical Condition: sweaty, shaky
What I Say To Make Myself Feel Better: Be calm, Andrea. Your chances of getting hurt are still pretty slim. Really. You can duck into a million places. The soldiers are here to protect you. If you are hurt, we’re in the city. Lebanon has ambulances. They will come.
Conclusion: There’s nothing we could have done differently here. You can’t hole up at home and not live when times are tense. We almost always know our way–this is an anomaly. Like the Lebanese do, you must continue with life. At least it’s not personal. I am not their target.

Location: Uganda
Inner Monologue: This vehicle is going to crash and roll and burn. And I am on it. This could be it. This could really be it. The cops will call. My Mom will answer. Hopefully they’ll find the gifts in our bags. I am never going to see my nephew. I can’t believe it. Traveling is not worth this fear.
What Happened: A busdriver has found a paved road and is going so fast around curves that people are falling out of their seats. He is honking every couple minutes at the swarms of people on the shoulder or crossing the road who are carrying babies, herding cows, balancing bundles of bananas on their vintage bikes and toting baskets of vegetables on their heads. Our destination is still hours away.
Physical Condition: Tears
What I Say To Myself To Feel Better: If we are in a head-on crash, I will probably survive. I am high-up and in the back. If we roll, I do have a seatbelt on. Plus, in this country, it is widely known that crowds will form and attempt to lynch the culprit, which, even if you’re dying in the ditch at least provides a bit of justice.
Conclusion: What can we do? This is simply the state of transportation in Uganda. It’s the worst case so far, but its been bad before and it will be again tomorrow, too. Unless I want to walk or spend some serious money, I don’t have a choice.

Location: Nairobi, Kenya
Inner Monologue: Nairobi is called Nairobbery. At least we don’t have a LandRover to hijack. But still, I know that guy wants my bag and this is a very dicey neighborhood. I feel like we’re in the projects. The AFRICAN projects. At any moment, I could be attacked. Those people are watching us. This is personal.
What Happened: We’d been looking for a hostel and a bad neighborhood had seemed to engulf us very quickly.
What I Say To Make Myself Feel Better: Well, even if I’m mugged, the injuries will be minor. I’ll just fall down and lose all my stuff. Whatever. So why am I so scared?
Conclusion: Take precautions as in any city. Don’t go down dark alleys. Stay in crowded areas. Clutch your bag as you walk. I can’t tell you why I was so freaked out–maybe because its more personal or more targeted. But I was. And I didn’t like it one bit.

Ironically, I was never particularly all that scared in Northern Iraq.

Gates of Gold & Filligree at Sunset

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admin
on October 4, 2008
in Photo and Turkey
. 1 Comment

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A photo from Turkey. . I’d forgotten all about it.

DONE

Published
by
kiddo
on October 2, 2008
in Africa, America, Fussy, GoodTimes, Lessons, Thirdworld and WTF
. 5 Comments

I am depleted. I don’t know how to address the next room or meal or shower or person or bus or price. I am tired. Of my hairy legs and bug bites and greasy hair. Of dust. Of crazy drivers. Of the children at the window. Of rearranging my backpack. Of conserving toothpaste and treating water and feeling the plastic malaria pill on my tongue. Of all these bug bites—it doesn’t matter what I wear or what I spray or how secure my mosquito net is, my body is a buffet. I am tired of the exhaustive communication. Nobody understands what I want for breakfast. Nobody brings the right thing. I just want to sit down to pee. To wear clean clothes. To have electricity every hour of the day.

When you see a brightly-clad woman with a baby on her back and a bush of plantains on her head walking down the road and it doesn’t fascinate you anymore, you know you’re done.

But our ambition is having a hard time letting go.

I mean, if you’re given your favorite kind of pie (Grandma’s cherry, in my case) and told you can’t have it again for another three years, should you take piece after piece until it makes you sick? Just because you won’t get to have it for a whole ‘nother year?

No. And so you see, it’s time to go home. No matter when we get to have cherry pie again—in two years or twenty—we have had enough.

Survival

Published
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admin
on September 27, 2008
in Africa, BrushWith. . ., Cultura, Lessons and Uganda
. 1 Comment

At the market that morning, there was nothing special for sale. It was Goodwill in the shape of a shoe horn along the lake. Fourth-hand dresses and Old Navy sweatshirts and shiny department store shoes minus the box on blankets. Frowning vendors sold tough-skinned tomatoes. Very occasionally a car would roll by entirely too fast and send dust into everyone’s eyes and nostrils. At the waterside were uneven rows–dozens of faded blue, green and magenta dug out canoes atop Lake Bunyonyi. It was part of everyone’s commute. They sat parked, empty, humming to themselves between the reeds and up against the shore. The rafia once wound tightly around their owner’s goods had now fallen away creating an accidental crow’s nest in each cradled space.

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A Fave ‘Graph From Egypt

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admin
on September 23, 2008
in Egypt and Photo
. 1 Comment

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Gotta love this shot of Michael up top–a satisfied smirk on his face as a Boticelli-like chic dreamweaves into the air and a drunk Londoner gives a giggle. They almost look superimposed.

Hopscotch on Sixty Five Furry Heads

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on September 18, 2008
in Africa and Fussy
. 3 Comments

There they were. A barn full of Ugandan twelve year olds in thin white shirts and bright purple bottoms, staring at me, the teacher, the white, the female extra terrestrial at the blackboard. Sunlight slipped through the rafters playing hopscotch on sixty five furry heads.

We had come to Lake Nkuruba spontaneously at the suggestion of a fellow mzungu at the Internet café in Fort Portal. I don’t even know his name. It’s amazing how comfortable I’d become in a thatch-roof hut that smelled like hay. With the pit latrine at the bottom of the hill and a bucket shower with four walls of bamboo. But I guess the bright blue, wooden barn windows made me feel a little like Gretel. There was something blurry and soft about the air an hour before daybreak when I always had to pee. Marijuana grew just down the hill at the foot of the trail, a dark and dense forest where trees were covered in a medussa-like bramble and vines created a monkey wonderland. There were ants as big as your fingernail. Birds most often seen in a book. When black and white colobus monkeys are using your house as a jungle gym, how can you complain?

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Afraid of the dark

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on September 16, 2008
in Africa, BrushWith. . ., Kenya and Travel
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Do you like the dark?

I’m not really a fan. I prefer a light switch, even if I don’t need one. Africa doesn’t have a switch. Often, its only teeth enamel and eye-whites which light the way along the lane as they sell fish, walk home, feed a baby or haul their harvest.

We’ve had no choice but to do the same. In Nairobi, which is infamous for crime, we walked in our own kind of dark into a scary slum, searching for a hostel which turned out to be more of a rooming house. In the village, it was along the red, grooved roads with faint stars overhead, lowing cattle at our sides and pinching ants underfoot. At Lake Naivasha, along the shoulders of a national park the half-kilometer back to camp. In Kisumu, it was around the Jomo Market where kerosene flames exposed our ruffled feathers and their dry fish heads.

But still. I wasn’t exactly comfortable yet. In fact, I’d been stockpiling escape routes as if a twister was on the way, taking refuge in cyber cafes, Western-style restaurants and ATM kiosks since we’d landed in Africa. The darkness. The blended expressions of wonder, desperation and apathy. The eyebrow arches of acknowledgement. We were a minority all through the Middle East, too. But something was different.

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Naked Eyes

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admin
on September 14, 2008
in Africa, BrushWith. . ., Fussy, Kenya, Lessons, Photo, Thirdworld and Uganda
. 3 Comments

We started this trip with two cameras. We now have none.

Yes, the whole stolen thing really sucked. So did the day-long police report experience. There was disbelief, devastation and denial. But there was, eventually, a solemn belief in the idea that this didn’t mean the world was bad, just that two people were bad. We had to move on. To do that, we engaged in a little exercise.

Why do we take travel photos anyway?

Answer One: To show others what adventurous, well-traveled individuals we are. To decorate our home with our excellent photography (so we can show others what adventurous, well-traveled individuals we are.) To color our blogs, (so we can show others what adventurous, well-traveled individuals we are.)

But this preoccupation with proof for others is no good. Who are you living for? You or your dinner party guests?

Answer Two: It’s about us! We want to be reminded later in life about all the exotic places we’ve been. Every action-packed moment. Each tri-textured vista.

I understand. But think about it.

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Pringles, Ghetto Kitchens and Bittersweet Red Chilis

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on September 10, 2008
in Africa, Cultura, Foodie and Fussy
. 2 Comments

We’re in a kitchen again. The most basic of African diners. Her name is Miriam. It was eggs and avocados by Grace in Lake Naivasha. Chapatti and beans by the team at the YWCA in Kisumu. Cabbage, potatoes and blue lantern-light at Mamma Joyce’s in Bujagali Falls. Their food leaves us content, regular and calm. We sit facing outward. The man in front of us–I can’t see his hands—I can barely make out his face. He could be massaging someone’s back, making a pie or gutting fish. But I know he is rolling our chapatti—a kind of homemade tortilla-pancake. The whole cow’s milk has become a soft silk bedspread above my tin cup of tea. A breeze I cannot feel threatens the candle, which is stuck to the white plastic patio table with wax. On the other side of the metal cage window, fluorescent strips light the space between sunset and dark in this ghetto enclave of local chores. Women pick tiny rocks from sacks of rice and fry fish in oil. Men carry gas-gallon containers of water on their heads across the plywood-bridged sewer canals. A black cat slides into a wheelbarrow of scraps. Around them is a mishmash of sticks, poles, two-by-fours, sheets of wavy tin, cement blocks and plywood bridges across sewer canals.

Michael says, there is an inverse relationship between the amount of money you spend and the richness of your experience.

The Pacific Hotel was sort of in the ghetto. I mean, it was.

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Acacia

Published
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kiddo
on September 7, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments


It looks so much like that flimsy print that comes in the frame. But it’s totally not. It’s from the African savannah.