Excerpts from the Peanut Gallery

Why I Love Thanksgiving (an grade 3 essay by Kiki Tegelberg for Mrs. Cowan)

2011-10-09T08:44:00.006-07:00

Over the last few years, thanksgiving has become one of my top holidays. Of course I love Christmas, don’t get me wrong. And doesn’t my mother know it: I’ve abused her for years with enormous present-pressure requiring each person of the family to receive equal and obtuse gifts and over-bearing Martha Stewart decoration regimes. However, I think thanksgiving is becoming my secret true love that I don’t want Christmas to find out about.

I love thanksgiving because it has all the wonderment, all the hearty good food, all the beauty and all precious time with loved ones, but without the hype, or the violent parking lots of Christmas. It doesn’t have the commercialization of any other holiday. We all know Christmas is atrocious, but even Easter (which I will defend vigorously as my other favourite holiday for reasons more profound) has the energizer bunny droning on in offensive pastels. That does wear on one’s nerves so.

Thanksgiving is, naturally, an opportunity for some quality time with family, and it never seems to have the angst-filled snappishness of a holiday previously named. One year I booked myself a tour with the Eric & Jeanie Travel company (I have a brochure on their fantastic itinerary to France if you're interested). That particular Thanksgiving my dad and I had a lovely bonding experience along the Naramata wine route as he taught me how to taste wine properly while Jeanie drove the tour bus. And it was such a treat to be able to give - in person - a hearty congratulations to the Alberta cousins (that we so rarely see!) who participated in the Kelowna marathon that year. Sharing in the post-run spoils without actually doing the run itself is entirely justifiable if you have come such a distance just to see them cross the finish line. Of course, we stayed in bed while they were running and crossing all lines, but it was great to see them later that day, after their respective showers.

In the last two or three years, I have also come of age through Thanksgiving. I baked my first turkey last year, which provides no end of mirth and merriment to this day as I recall showing up with a half-thawed bird at my friend Krystal’s house ready to bake that thing into submission a mere three hours before guests were to arrive. That night was one of the evenings that I cherish most to this day. It encapsulates my life in Vancouver – we ate until we couldn’t fit any more. We decided the definitive top 10 reasons to de-friend someone on facebook. We learned that turkeys take DAYS to defrost and that Jamie Oliver means what he says about stuffing. We laughed so hard the wine may have come out our noses.

Last night, a friend and I hosted a Canadian thanksgiving dinner in Antananarivo for 19 guests at my apartment. I didn’t know I had 19 friends in Tana! And think of the ones who wanted to come, but couldn’t! How lucky I am! How obscenely blessed I am that I could cook for 19 people! How ridiculously rich my life that I could have my cook, Perline, to help!! She came for the whole day and managed the turkeys (last year’s escapade was delicious, but it didn’t give me much of a boost of confidence) and I handled the desserts (to which I will pledge undying affection for all my thanksgivings to come). I had never done a sit down dinner for that many people and I admit just to you, dear reader, that I was terrified.

I woke up at 6 am yesterday morning (after a week of jet-lag and sleep deprivation over a big work project) with feverish anxiety dreams about a dearth of potatoes. I managed to procure an extra bag of potatoes by 9:30, but I still had those two birds to worry and wring my hands over. Let me just tell you – Gasy turkeys are not the same as Canadian turkeys. For one thing, there is no butterball here. We get them as they come. That means that you have to buy two to get what you’d get from one back home. Oh and they come home from the store with all the body parts God gave ‘em. They still had claws attached. I wish they wouldn’t leave the claws attached. It humanizes them. Poor Gus and poor Sylvia – may they rest in peace.

But, lo and behold, it was scrumptious and fantastic and we had more food that we could possibly imagine. What a day to be thankful for indeed.

Many of my friends here are not Canadian, as one would imagine. I have quite a few, in fact, who are British, who are less familiar with thanksgiving á la Canuck, than with the well-touted American version. I was asked on Friday night what the point of it is for us, since we were more reticent than our American neighbours to be done with our colonial ~~master~~ mother. Well, you know, we have a um… a harvest, and we’re… we’re just generally grateful people… But it is more than that. As one lovely person remarked during the toast, it came from a time when people were pulling in the harvest and batting down the hatches for the coming Canadian winter, it was a time to be grateful as one looked the worst square in the eye.

I love thanksgiving because we know that winter is coming. We know that we will always face hard times and that we should always cultivate a grateful heart. But we need a reminder to do it and we sometimes even need a reminder of the very things for which we are thankful: beautiful friends and family, a full belly and a full heart, change of season and change in circumstance. We know that these things are good and I know the One from whom they come, but I don’t always remember to admit my gratitude for them. Thankfully, he is more than willing to put them right in front of my face all at once, usually about once or twice a year, to make it very obvious.

My lovely guests around the tables

This is what was left over AFTER 19 people had gone through (My co-host and I twisted their arms to go back for seconds, thankfully).

Lost in Translation

2011-07-31T10:32:00.007-07:00

I would like to dedicate this post to Walter.

Some time ago, I wrote a post that introduced a Spanglish dictionary I compiled of the ‘niquismos’ (nicaraguanisms) that found their way into daily conversation over the time I spent in Central America. Being an Anglophone in Madagascar is a double challenge, because you have both the French and Malagasy language barriers. However, similar to life in Nicaragua, ex-pats tend to have a dialect unto themselves. You mix languages and slang and, my personal favourite, just generally butcher proper speech with a horrendous accent, not because you can’t pronounce the sounds, but because you’re just plain lazy. I am sure one of these days I’ll update the dictionary to make it multi-lingual and then you’ll all be really impressed. Rightly so; it’s a pretty neat trick, this language business. Today, however, I want to focus less on vocabulary and more on the advanced translation component.

Let me first get out all the appropriate provisos, caveats, and qualifications. I know first-hand that learning a new language takes guts. I remember talking with a Korean friend who once made the point that she felt that people assumed she was stupid because she was inarticulate in English. This is a serious error that often gets applied to the whole lot of foreigners. It’s easy to mock that which you don’t understand.

It takes a lot of courage to sound stupid so that you can be smart – anyone who knows five languages, like my Korean friend, can hardly be considered a twit. So I would like to preface this post with admission that I am writing this from a place of utmost empathy. Heaven knows I’ve massacred the French language since coming to Madagascar, although if you ask me, the French had theirs comin’. Mark Twain is supposed to have once insisted that “in Paris they simply stared at me when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language.” Quite.

And long before French, I more than had my way with Spanish. Although I’ve pretty much got that one down pat now, there was a time when I too would make the classic blunder between ser and estar (pfft, amateur..). Now I know when I am and when I am, but to show magnanimous I really am, I will start this off with my shining moment as a hispanohablante. When you point the finger at others, after all, there are three pointing back at you (the thumb really just points awkwardly at hapless passersby).

My friend Noel is the owner of Artesanos, which I can confidently say is one of the best café/bars in Latin America. While living there, I had come into a bit of renown among my friends for my frequent baking. Here’s a good tip too for those of you entertaining the thought of moving to a new country but worried about how to make friends in your new surroundings: nobody, regardless of culture or creed, ever turns down a banana streusal muffin. I was talking with Noel and a few other friends one morning over breakfast at the cafe about how my contract was coming to an end and I wasn’t sure if I’d stay in Nicaragua or go home. Noel, bless his pea-picking heart, told me that if I wanted to stay in Nicaragua, I could come work for him. He was the type of guy that would hire you first and find something for you to do later, so as an afterthought he asked me, in Spanish, what I’d want to do. I replied – tumbling over my words as usual because I just have so much to say and not enough time to say it – that I’d be happy to bake for everyone.

Or so I thought. You see, to bake in Spanish is “horñear,” pronounced “orn-yey-ar.” But that ñ can be tricky and if you don’t pronounce it properly, it comes out awkwardly sounding more like orinar (orr-yee-nar). That, my friends, means “to urinate.” Noel’s response was to look at me with his most serious face and say “lo siento amor, pero aqui todos podemos orinar para nosotros mismos” (Sorry love, but here we can all pee for ourselves). That was the sad end to my career as a Nicaraguan pastry chef.

Many times in Nicaragua, we’d cackle over spelling errors in English documents. One of my favourite restaurants in Managua had a typo at the bottom of the first page of their 20-page menu that said “If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask your walter.” While the poor chele who translated 20 pages of flowery culinary descriptions deserves some whole-hearted respect, it never got old to ask if Walter was available to take our questions about where babies come from and the meaning of life.

In order to highlight just what a global affliction mistranslation is, I give you the “Sunny Golf Guide to Gasy Life.” The other week, I was staying at a hotel in Tamatave and the proprietors had thoughtfully placed a bottle of water, a tea set and the “Inside Procedures” on the desk for me. Usually things like this might provide one or two mistranslation gems, but the whole page was pure gold, so I have selected for you my very favourites:

You are asked to not serve some current water than exclusively for the purpose of toilet (I am not sure what they are referring to with “current water” or “the purpose of toilet,” but I for one, am not touching the bottle of Eau Vive they left me).
For your dirty linens and ironing, our laundry services stay at your disposition. It is prohibited positively from ironing the clothes in the room, to wash the linens in the sink or tub and to throw some objects there can obstruct them (Utterly and positively).
Thank you to respect the sleep and rest of the other. To avoid the nocturnal uproars. (Oh but I do so love a good nocturnal uproar).
In order to avoid possible temptation, all values […] can be deposited at Front Desk (You just can’t make this up).
The non respect of these Inside Procedures entails the exclusion of the hotel directly.
ENJOY YOUR STAY

In light of the positive prohibition on nocturnal uproars and treacherous toilet water currents, I feel that the last point is more of a command than well-wishing, but I can’t quite tell. Some things are just lost in the translation.

The Most Terrifying Thing I Ever Did

2011-07-03T11:32:00.005-07:00

The most terrifying thing I have ever done was hand small children highly flammable objects, light them ablaze and then send the kiddies out into the dark streets of their already dangerous capital to play.

Now before all my dear friends at UNICEF start howling at me in outrage, remember that a) it was all conducted with a respect for the culturally acceptable celebratory practices; and b) that I did at least make a concerted effort to keep the large kitchen knife used for cutting up candles away from the smallest members of the party.

It’s not always clear what is best (or worst): over-zealous, cautionary parenting born out of a culture that loves their law suits in the west and the lackadaisical, free-for-all in the rest of the world. I am not sure if one is better actually, but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, which one I found myself in on Saturday night.

The event started off on the right foot. I had made plans with a friend and about Thursday or Friday of last week, she sent me a text saying that she had a proposal. June 26^th is Independence Day here in Madagascar. Since it ain’t no party ‘til you spend a week lighting off firecrackers and tooting party horns into the wee hours, the Saturday night, (the 25^th) was just as exciting. In fact, I think it’s the big event, sort of like Christmas Eve – you have all the fun and excitement and anticipation and then Christmas morning involves a lot of quality family time spent in one’s pyjamas.

My friend sent me a message saying her housemate, who runs an orphanage, is going to do the traditional Independence day lantern walk and would we like to come along and help, because they could certainly use some extra adult supervision. Well, who’s going to say no to a bunch of orphans?

Not me.

We decided to go do the lantern walk and push our plans back a few hours. I have volunteered in a few kid’s homes and youth programs as volunteer before this and I even did it for pay in my own wild youth. I worked at a high-adventure camp for kids. We routinely sent kids off a 70 ft zipline. We woke them up in the middle of the night and told them the camp was being invaded by the bad guys from the Matrix and that they had to save it with their flashlights and smelly-felts. We had milk chugging contests and let them wrestle for inner tubes. We devised all sorts of madness and nonsense for crying out loud. Nothing prepared me for this.

Just a taste of the madness (note the awesome, though somewhat unnecessary, snowsuit bottom right)

There are a range of stimulants that can produce team wall-bouncing in a group of 20 children: new faces, dinner time, fun and games… did I mention there were 20 of them? All these factors together colluded to create utter mayhem. In my amazement, as I watched these kids run and skid into each other like roller derby champions, I felt a nice patting sensation on my head. The patting changed to a light massage and before I knew it there were little hands braiding my hair from multiple directions. This is also not so strange in a group of small children.

However, it was a bit strange that it was the 10 and 12 year old boys who ended up being the stylists. But I am not one to judge. And if that is what they want to be when they grow up, then I, Kiki Tegelberg, will happily be their hair model.

As the makeover was winding down, the boys were drawn to bigger and brighter things – literally. I had made the mistake of pulling out my camera and setting off the flash, at which point (photographic evidence to follow), not a single one of them would rest until they had their chance to strike innumerable poses. Luckily I was saved by other lights: a small rustling over in the corner started gaining more and more participants. What was that rustling? It was the unfolding of accordion-style paper lanterns. Now, I am all for this lantern idea and being the silly vazah that I am, I thought they must have little battery-operated flashing LED lights inside.

Hahahahahahahaha no.

Nothing but live ammunition for these precious little ones. The rustling was the lanterns, but the ominous thwack that punctuated the roaring din of 20 children all talking excitedly at once was definitely from the one child (let’s be generous and say she was eight or nine) who was using a sizable kitchen knife to cut candles down to size and then melt off the ends to stick them in the lanterns. Small hands grabbed from all sides, giant paper bubbles bobbed and batted around and a nice layer of melted wax coated the scene.

Is anyone else hyperventilating at this point? Because my breathing was certainly mildly uncomfortable. If not, well, prolong the mayhem and fire for another forty minutes while each and every lantern was lit and then relit and after that factor in the flailing coats and scarves as the children suited up in their “winter” gear for a chilly night walk. It was, after all 20 degrees Celsius – better bundle up!

Finally we assembled the crowd and set off into a completely dark street, save for the other bobbing paper lanterns of hundreds of other children. I know this is rather anticlimactic, but it all went swimmingly. Maybe it’s because children aren’t pampered here with functional electrical grids that provide a steady supply of light and power and are sensitized to the fact that that flamey thing will hurt like the dickens if you touch it. Maybe we were drenched in divine providence. Probably a bit of both.

I was not quite sure what to expect: how far were we walking? (Please not far) What happens if a candle burns out? (catastrophe) What was the end point? (we’re still not sure). Out in the dark street, I felt a bit of trepidation. It was 20 of them and about 8 of us adults. Sure, good odds if you’re in Canada where people can afford leashes for their children. We had no such leashes. We didn’t even have a street lamp. But I didn’t need to worry about the dark. We quickly joined one of the main roads through the village and there we joined the throng of bobbing lanterns held by other children and their accompanying adults. It was a bit touch and go to keep track of the kids when in that lighting, and since I really didn’t know any of them, they all sort of looked the same as the other 700 running around, but somehow we managed.

The final destination was mercifully only a few blocks, where we proceeded to promptly turn around and head home (my friend who organized this wasn’t completely mad). I can remember as a child going out trick-or-treating and felt like we conquered everything between the Tsawwassen ferry terminals and the North Shore, but I am sure it was a similar situation. We were lucky if we made it to the end of the block with out getting a bunchy wedgie from our costume and needed to be carried home out of exhaustion (or perhaps, my Dad was lucky if we made it any further). I wasn’t upset when it was time to round them up. It’s easier to breathe slowly and enjoy the bobbing, brightly coloured lights when you know that the direction is home.

Voyages of Discovery

2011-06-05T12:33:00.005-07:00

Sometimes it feels a bit ironic that I live in Madagascar. I am not the most intrepid of explorers among my friends and aquaintances. Ok, sure, I’ve lived in a four countries and travelled to their various neighbours so that's got to make me somewhat credible, particularly if you were the type of person that considers a trip to Bellingham a perilous journey (and depending on border traffic, it may well be). Then sure, I’m a regular Christopher Columbus (actually I’d prefer to be Juan Ponce de Leon because I’d get to discover the Caribbean but on the other hand, people might call me “Poncey” for short so I suppose that has its drawbacks, but this is all neither here nor there). But throughout my travels I have met these real “explorer” types, and trust me, I’m not them. They are the people that roll out of their mosquito net/tent in the morning and don’t have the foggiest clue where they’ll pitch it that night. I on the other hand, generally like to have a room with a bed and a bathroom lined up well in advance. I’m perfectly willing to try going somewhere new, but I’d prefer to be home by 11, because, you know I just don't enjoy pulling all-nighters and I never have. This is perhaps why I prefer to move into a place and make myself at home and explore from within. But the people that run, jump and dive into the complete unknown - that's ballsy if you ask me.

Just thinking about being on the opposite side of the globe is a bit awesome. Well first, in the interest of full disclosure, I should honestly state that the polar opposite of Vancouver is actually just to the south east of Madagascar, but since there are no inhabited land masses between Madagascar and Antarctica in the southern Indian Ocean, the former will simply have to satisfy.

Secondly, I am fascinated with explorers, particularly the historical sort who have become, in my mind, a bit of the stuff of legends rather than real people who lived and breathed. It boggles my mind that people would sail off for a year or forever. Can you imagine not really knowing how big the world is and just going out “to see what we see”? I am reading Brown’s A History of Madagascar, which covers everything up to the 1990’s. So far I am at 1664, which was just the time when the Europeans started showing up around here and there and all over the map, if you will. Brown recounts stories of how trading and exploration ships would land on Madagascar’s shores and sometimes would have a friendly trade of goats for beads and sometimes would get massacred by the locals.

In a way, this is so far out of my experience, but in another sense, it is very close to our world today. It is so totally alien in the sense that in order to come to Madagascar it takes 40-odd hours, instead of 40 weeks. I can google Madagascar before coming here and I can use street view to see where I will stay before I touch down. I can watch the Madagascar episode of Departures to get a sense of the culture looks like to the travelling Canadian. I can call ahead to see what type of visa I should acquire or if there is any significant chance that I will be harpooned upon arrival at Ivato International. Imagine though, for a moment, being a 2nd or 3rd century Indonesian, getting in your canoe and shoving off of Bali thinking 'Well, here we go,' and then somehow crossing the Indian Ocean (ok, realistically, they hopped from land to land around the edge of it, but I still maintain that such a feat is nothing to sneeze at). Or even being a 10th century Mozambican and deciding that sailing out into the middle of the big blue just to see what the horizon looked like up close was a good idea. Or imagine being a Portuguese sailor in the late 16th century and putting up with scurvy on the off chance that you find some incredible pile of gold and rare spices sitting on an abandoned dock somewhere. That’s why these people baffle me.

Yet there are points that I have in common with the crazy intrepids. Early explorers had only a mythical concept of the limits of the earth, or if they did have something more concrete, they assumed that they would not be the ones to finally find it and have to deal with it. Here is where we are one in the same, Poncey and me. I today have but a cerebral notion of the limits of humanity. I know that there are some 6.922 billion of us, but that number doesn’t really make sense and I can’t get to know all of them, so the limits of the world remain far beyond anything I’d have to tackle.

I wonder though what the motivation was – if it was really the sense of fearless curiosity. Brown tells a story of a 17th century ship that limped home to Britain after sickness and storms destroyed the fleet that was with them and much of the crew. They carried home a paltry cargo of pepper as their prize for years on the seas.

On the other hand, if I didn’t have pepper – or any of the array of condiments now widely available to me largely thanks to the invention of high fructose corn syrup and red food dye no. 40 – maybe the arrival of pepper would be a pretty big deal. Without these and the wide array of amenities, such as strawberries in February in Canada, I wonder if my senses would be heightened (would meat taste meatier?) or would a small taste of pepper drive me mad enough with delight to get on a boat and sail off into the wild blue yonder like a nautical don Quixote? Today… we’ve got the Planet Earth DVDs to answer what those remote places look like and Whole Foods can provide even the silliest of exotic sundries for our cravings.

So why get on the boat? I find the idea of 10 months at sea and 10 hours in a plane equally terrifying, and yet, here I am, at 18°55’ S, 47°31’ E, which is pretty far from 49°15’N, 123°6W. I’ve been thinking and mulling this over with some friends this week. Some of you know how tough the first 6 months have been here, and I’m not going to get into that too much, but one of the themes of my rants to those close to me for the last six month has been an impatient stomping of the foot and the demand to know just what the big idea is here, God.

I am coming to the place where I think perhaps there isn’t a big idea. Perhaps, there are a few smaller ones: maybe like the average Portuguese sailor, I needed a job, and getting on the boat meant a job that would change every other job that would come. Maybe also, a little bit, like Poncey and the Indonesian canoer, I wanted to see what we could see. Call be a naive idealist if you must, but I think I understood that this place would have people and things worth investing in - that it would give me something in return for that investment that I couldn't produce back home. I don’t have to be the intrepid explorer, who bushwhacks her way into the middle of things and finds the climactic answer to all this and riches to boot. I can just come and be and, hopefully, barter some good and uplifting things, in return for enough good and uplifting things to see me home.

There are worse things

2011-04-08T12:33:00.004-07:00

This weekend my visa expires and I have been left with no choice but to go to Mauritius for five days to renew it. I have experienced this immigration delinquency before and I am once again reminded that there are worse things in life than a visa expiration trip.

The last time this happened I was in Nicaragua and I was “forced” to go to Costa Rica. Now, this really cheesed me because it the visa expiration happened to fall on the very weekend that all my friends were going up to Matagalpa for a friend’s concert. Those days, I would make the two-hour trip up to Matagalpa about every other week, so it is not like I was missing out on a once-in-a-lifetime event, but you know how it is when you feel like everyone is going to have a party without you. So I stomped around the office in a cranky mood trying to find a place to stay in Tamarindo… stupid beach town… mumble mumble… maldita immigracion... mumble jumble…

Yes, I was a spoiled cranky-pants until I arrived in Tamarindo, one of Costa Rica’s premier surf resorts and realised that there are worse things than an enforced, paid holiday to the beach: My roommie Shannon came along so I wouldn’t get lonely and we had a lovely adventure running away from the other backpackers, getting top notch spa pedicures and even met us some handsome fellas. As I recall, I had a jolly good time all around.

Here’s a bit of advice from Auntie Kiks for those kids who want to grow up and try to save the world: clam down and enjoy the ride. This week, faintly in the back of my peanut gallery mind, there was the kind voice saying “it’ll be ok, this will be good, you will get a visa and if you don’t, they will figure out plan B or C or Z…” Unfortunately, the rest of the peanut gallery was the usual, charming gong show, so poor little gaffer didn’t get much credit for being wise or calm or right. Instead, I stomped around my office trying to get answers and make people run after my anxious inquiries.

So often I hear that in order to make it working overseas, be it as a humanitarian worker, a missionary, in the diplomatic corps or just any old international business, there is one virtue above all others: flexibility. It’s true, but it is something deeper than that. You have to be able to roll with the punches on the surface, because deep down you trust. There is nothing naïve or weak about this trust. You make the best arrangements you can with the knowledge you have and then you let it go. It is also called "faith" and what makes it work is that it delights in people - lovely, flakey, people - but doesn't need to rely on them.

Of course, it's much easier said than done. Of course, it's much easier to be cynical. I hear other expats whine about how people take advantage of you or won’t do what they promise or this or that or the other…

But so what?

So they tell you they will do something and then don’t do it for four days. So what? I have the sneaking suspicion that, contrary to what popular culture tells me, my time is not as colossally important as I think it is. I think that's the difference. The beauty of faith is the wonderfully freeing idea that if it doesn't work out - shock and disbelief - the world won't come to an end, because it turns out that I'm not at the centre of it all.

Man I should take my own advice… At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if I am in Madagascar or Canada though. Being at peace with the things I can’t control is not a challenge unique to a new culture. Some days we're better at it than others. I am happy to report that at the end of the day, I can trust that this is in the hands of someone greater.

It’s the other 23 hours of the day that are a problem …

Going Places

2011-04-03T06:50:00.007-07:00

I travel a lot for work and there are two key travel methods I’d like to discuss here, one I use all the time and the other I simply look upon with awe. The first is flying: you will be happy to note that I’ve been doing jolly well considering that, as I’ve said numerous times - I don’t like flying, but I want to go places. I don’t love the whole 30,000 ft in the air part, but airports on the other hand – big fan. I’ve been known to peer pressure friends into sky-training all the way from Waterfront to YVR just for an airport starbucks, which is different from regular starbucks. It has the extra sense of anticipation and importance and it comes with the rather exciting warning: “Caution, this beverage is hot and if left unattended, it will be subject to immediate seizure and disposal so your $6.32 worth of coffee-themed milk will be a double waste of time, money and recyclable product packaging.” After all, numerous peace and security studies have indicated that one of the tell-tale signs of a terrorist is their flagrant disregard for environmental sustainability.

I’ve been flying about four or six times a month for work these days, each time to Tamatave, Madagascar’s second city. We take a nice wee 15-seater, where I can sit behind the pilots and heckle them. For some reason, this takes the edge off the fact that I am flying through a lightening storm in rural Africa. No big deal.

Pre-bording at the Tana airport has very specific pleasures, even if it lacks alarmist coffee cups. At Ivato International, one can find second-hand editions of the Economist and the International Herald Tribune for about $2 (compared with $10 in town – highway robbery if you ask me), left behind by business passengers on the international flights. Also, I would like to clear any misconceptions about Malagasy air security. To illustrate just how seriously they take air safety, above the Air Madagascar check-in counter there is a sign that clearly states:

Please ensure that your hand baggage does not contain any of the following:
and then, in picture format, what look like:
- Bursting fireworks
- An open can of paint
- An oven, particularly with some sort of sloppy spill on it – perhaps paint.
- Rifles

You know, all I can think when I see this is that at some point someone attempted to bring an oven in their carry-on and the airline was unimpressed either with the girth or the unclean state of the appliance. It was not immediately apparent which from the picture.

Travel in Tamatave is another story altogether. I LOVE Tamatave because it’s hot and sticky and sandy and it looks like what would have happened if Cannes had suddenly been overtaken by a massive hurricane and then deserted for 60 years. I often take an early morning walk down to the beach and there’s nothing – nothing – like the smell and weight of the 6am air that hangs under mango trees that form a sand-swept street into tunnel to the open ocean.

One of the reasons Tamatave so enticing is the movement in the town. It is the diametric opposite of Tana’s tightly packed streets and winding labyrinths of people, buildings and congestion. Perhaps it’s just that Tamatave isn’t smushed into the crevices of 6 or 7 towering hills, so you feel as though you have space to roam and commuting in Tamatave is a different world from Tana. The difference is the second form of transport I mentioned. For all its simplicity, it towers over the sophisticated technology of any other mode of transportation. I would like to herewith attempt an adequate description of these venerable contraptions that you may never get to experience yourself: let us take a ride on le Pousse-Pousse.

To say it is a rickshaw or a pedi-cab takes away from the mystique. Technically, it would seem very similar to a common rickshaw. Oh but it’s so much more. There is something about the pousse-pousse that even the well-to-do driving lot can recognize. In Tamatave pousse-pousses are given the right of way. If you’ve ever been anywhere outside of the OECD, you will recognize that is no trifling honour. As shocking as this may seem, in other places of the world pedestrians and bicyclists don’t have the pampered existence they enjoy in places like Vancouver or Amsterdam. There are no designated bike lanes and pedestrian-controlled intersections. If you are one of these hapless bipeds getting around on pure human kinetic energy in the global south, you look both ways about ten times and then run for it. Cars don’t stop for you because you’re being environmentally conscientious.
Ha! They speed up.

But the pousse-pousses of Tamatave are different altogether. They are a respected herd, like the Riders of Rohan. If they come pounding down towards you, you keep your head down and let them pass.

The pousse-pousse itself is sort of a misnomer. Literally in French it is a “push-push” but it is really more of a “pull-pull.” Most have bicycles on the front, but there is also the simpler model - a wooden bar rectangle that the driver will hold up at chest level and push, with you and your lazy… backside … sitting behind. And it may not be just you in tow. I once saw a pousse-poussse that had a moto-scooter in the passenger seat. They feature brightly coloured awnings that cover the passenger, but the noble driver is out in the bleeding heat all day long. I have no doubt that these men, given permission to unhook the backseat, could easily lap Lance Armstrong. My favourite day was when I saw a pousse-pousse that had Usain Bolt written on the back. Apparently Usain has used his Olympic winnings to invest in an entire cooperative of them here, as there is a prolific number bearing his branding. Another cooperative is “sponsored” by Subaru. One pousse-pousse I have seen is the quintessential representative of all others: on the back is a union jack (best not to ask) and a very friendly “Hello my friend!!” painted across the middle, which I am sure was selected only because “Hello my friend!! Eat my dust!!” was too long to fit.

Make way, all yield to the mighty Pousse-Pousse.

Ends of the Earth

2011-03-04T10:55:00.005-08:00

I often think how incredible it is that I get to see places on earth that only a handful of people may ever see. And I may very well be one of a few westerner, maybe only one of two or three a year, maybe not even one or two every ten years. Statistically speaking, I’ve got to be the only Canadian. Ever. There just aren’t enough of us to go around – we’re no Indian subcontinent.

In truth, sometimes I feel like I really am at the ends of the earth and in its secret pockets.

I used to think the same thing in Bolivia, when I was doing my research. The seditious thought came into my head while I was writing my thesis that I could say anything, for who would drive 5 hours into the Bolivian jungle to check my facts?!? (Note: to preserve my academic integrity, I didn’t conduct my research alone so it is all verified and reproducible).

I don’t think I have the particular spirit of an explorer, which makes this all rather funny. Sometimes I think it may well have been more comfortable to stay home and enjoy my cup of coffee at leisure, knowing that I will be safe and no unpredictable misadventures will befall me. In short, I am a hobbit - a very tall hobbit.

But one can’t shrink from it. You can’t say it’s not worth it, at the end of the day – even if at the beginning you sort of dread it, and only partially enjoy the time spent in the blistering heat of the middle of nowhere. After all, you do come to the realization at some point that you are enjoying it.

I think at this point I could go one of two ways: I could finish it off with the simple and truthful point about how the views alone are really worth it. They are. The end.

Or… I could be brutally honest about what it’s like being alone on the other side of the planet trying to work in development (loosely) and how I’m feeling at this point. Here’s that option: It’s like that view at the top of Cypress Mountain when you get off the chair lift and sit at the top of the run. On a clear day can see mountains and mountains for days and days and days to the north and the east. They are absolutely terrifying. There’s no one at all on those peaks facing you – just trees and bears and crows.

But you still want to go and you think, actually, if I just stretched my arm far enough, I could touch that next mountain over. I don’t think I’m breaking any major news here by telling you that every person working in development notices that projects seem go on forever and ever without the certainty that they’re making a difference. And we wonder if people here would have gotten along just fine without us (we all have a hunch on that, don’t we?).

But you know that there always is the flip side of that coin. Just as often we think: if I just give this one a good stretch – maybe there is something at an arm’s length that will make it all burst forth.

K – promise the next post will be less melancholy. Really!

Grateful Heart

2011-02-13T09:44:00.002-08:00

This is my third attempt to write this post today. I won’t foist the first and second upon you, because they are both rather dreary contemplations of how truly baffling and heart-breaking I find poverty at this moment. I’m not sure what to say on that without giving you the whole sordid story, but let’s put it this way: I am stuck trying to balance a) the “big picture” route of dealing with poverty through sustainable solutions in aid and development long-term work with b) the imperative need to figure out how should I face the street children and mentally ill people living on my street, for whom my presence here in Madagascar does not seem to have much of a tangible benefit.

See? Dreary.

So rather than arguing aid practice theories with myself here, I’m going to take a whole new direction than versions 1.0 and 2.0. I’ve been dancing between complete bewilderment and frustration lately. There are days that I think, “where the heck am I!?” BUT there are also days that I think, “I am in freaking Madagascar!”

Today was not one of those days, unfortunately.

But today did offer a lot of good things and I think at this point I need to be active in cultivating that wonder and excitement rather than staring at the fields and hope it will magically grow. Last week a British friend recounted the American she knew who made everyone share his or her “grateful heart.” We laughed about it, but there is value in it, as cheesy as it may be. One of the things that is a direct hit to the discouragement that I seem to be entertaining too often, is to recount the things that have been very good gifts (and acknowledging the gift giver in the process, which will be the main point). These things are signs that I am not left hanging, despite what I let myself believe.

So here we go – in no particular order I thank God for:
- Utown (Oh, am I thankful!), and that I could find a place here in Tana to fill the void that is left by not having that community. First time attendee today at Tana City Church.
- Writers, particularly Mark Buchanan when he wrote the Holy Wild. Even the Preface was hitting home this afternoon. Apparently I need to read more.
- Rachel – obviously one of my favourite people in general – but today particularly, for being the person who taught me how to make quiche, and thereby giving me a very top notch supper despite being 15,000 kms away.
- A lovely taxi driver named Tina, right outside my gate this morning, with his fair prices
- A job. I have a job.
- A safe ride home last night
- Gentle reminders about what I am owed (nothing) and provided (everything)
- That prayer is a conversation. There was a response there, and I need to remember that
- Sleep – and on that note, it’s time for me to put myself to bed after a very long 20 hrs.

So What's It Like?"

2011-01-30T05:15:00.006-08:00

"...So what’s it like?"

I have been getting this question fairly frequently. At home people are unsurprisingly curious, since Madagascar is not a regular destination. Here, people want to know what I think of it so far – which can be taken a couple of different ways: either they want to know if I am fed up with all the things they are fed up with or they want to know if I am totally enamoured yet and ready to marry the first Malagasy that offers me a cow and a good home or they want to see if anyone else is as baffled as they are (this one being entirely from ex-pats, of course).

If I had to choose one – and as tempting as the cow is – I would say the latter. I feel like I have barely scratched the surface. I gave that as an answer at a party last weekend and was politely told that wasn’t good enough. I was asked for my first impressions, whether I understand what they are about or not. That has gotten me thinking (and looking around) quite a bit, so here you go, this is what it is like:

Tana (Antananrivo) is the capital city, which sits up on the central plateau, so the weather is warm and mild and there’s a lovely breeze this time of year (as well as crazy thunder storms, though out on the coast they are even better). From my vantage point in Tana, it seems to be a sort of scattered ring of hills covered in houses, clinging to the sides wherever they can.

The houses, for their part, are one of the delightful little surprises about this place. There is, of course, your normal range of shacks and shanties and square stucco bungalows. Most often, however, they are French colonial two-stories made of brick with verandas covered in potted plants – and though they be derelict, they have charm (though perhaps not for their tenants depending on how things are inside). My favourite part is that so many of them have bright blue shutters. I don’t know why I see so many blue shutters, and now come to think of it, there are plenty that are green, but the blue stands out everywhere and they’re my favourite houses.

Not to miss the forest for the trees though: another thing about Tana is the bizarre mesh of streets. My impression is that the city has just been carved out where ever they can find a spot for a new crop of houses or alleys. The result is there isn’t much design. Mostly there are several maddening one-ways that merge together at hair-pin turns up the hills and down. My friend pointed out this week that as Madagascar develops, more and more people are getting enough money to afford cars (even if they are only beater Peugeots that are miraculously still hobbling along since the 1960s). The trouble is that the streets haven’t kept up. The streets of Tana are generally narrow affairs and I can only think of three places with sidewalks. The streets are so twisty and curve around so that you can wander up and down hills, having no clear vision of any direction at any given point in time. Case in point, this morning we went off for our run, planning to do 6 miles and ended up doing 9 as a result of a few key wrong-turns (and then remaking the same wrong-turns, but we knew something was up when we saw the same life-size crucifix and the board bridge over the rice paddy for the second and third times – they obviously hired us all for our keen sense of observation).

While I am at it, there are rice paddies in the city. That’s interesting too, eh. I have joined a group of ladies that go out running every Sunday and we jog just over half a mile down this one road that goes through what we call “the village” because the main road is lined with shop-fronts selling about a handful of vegetables and charcoal. More than that, it’s like a little rural village – but it’s in the middle of a city of several million. At the end of the village the road continues along, passed where all the micro-buses sit and is unpaved. If you follow it for another third of a mile, you will have rice paddies on both sides and a lovely view of the plain, the mountains in the distance and then strings of houses here and there. After a mile, you come to a T-intersection with another higher dirt road. Turn left and you will go another two and a half miles to get to the main road to the airport. I tell you all this because it can take anywhere from half an hour to an hour to drive to Ivato (the airport). But I reckon I could run it in about that time by crossing the rice paddies instead of the main roads. That’s just how winding and convoluted the streets of Tana are.

If there are plenty of cars, there are hoards of people on the streets – at almost all times of the day. I have walked out at 7am on a Sunday and find the street outside my compound already buzzing. The only time it’s quiet is at midnight or after 5 on a Sunday afternoon. Apart from that – people everywhere. This is somewhat disconcerting because the cars whip down like they’re Surrey drag racers.

I kind of like that there are people always out on the streets, though naturally, I am concerned for all our safety. There is an assortment of standard people out on the streets at any given time. Around the corner from the Jovenna gas station by my house is a row of fruit sellers. The second one in from the left will charge you too much because you are vaza (foreigner) but the others are quite nice. Of course, they’re all charging more than the average Malagasy would pay by virtue of the fact that a) almost all their clientele are vazas who roll up in chauffeured 4x4s and b) the stalls are positioned kitty-corner to the Prime Minister’s house (not to get side-tracked, but what self-respecting PM would take a residence, however grand, behind a gas station?). Still, in order to retain a shred of dignity, Mr. 2nd from the left - you are black listed until you are willing to play nicely.

Down the road just a few metres on the other side are a collection of flower-sellers, another fruit stall and a young guy who runs the bamboo furniture business, which has provided me two very lovely side-tables that look quite swish with my rocking chairs. He has some nice deck chairs with red fabric that might be my next purchase. Moving along, you’ll see guards in front of compounds, restaurants, the municipal offices, the stadium, and of course, the army barracks. They loiter, are generally quite reassuring and not terribly obtrusive. Unlike what I am used to in Central America, they do not often hiss, holler, hoot or declare their love to you and your blue dress as you pass by (“I love you! Hello! Blue dress! I love you! Okey, bye bye”). Malagasy men will thank you, sometimes profusely, for walking by, but mostly they seem to just watch with varying degrees of interest, surprise or pining.

When I first got here, the Jacaranda trees were in full bloom, which is something to see indeed. The Bougainvillea came next, and it’s one of my favourite flowers to see in a garden because it’s so bright and it grows over everything. It’s not a smell unique to Tana, but there is a particular smell that is wonderful when the bougainvillea, this cedar-like hedge that I can’t identify and burning garbage all waft together. I know that latter part doesn’t sound appetizing, but trust me. I’m here and it’s my impression and you’re not so you don’t have much choice!

I should mention the downtown area I suppose – it’s full of old, colonial villas and houses. My favourite place is the Café de la Gare, which is in the old train station. They have deep green leather seats with wicker and dark wood tables and large photos of Madagascar from the turn of the century. The chandeliers are huge wrought-iron affairs and there is a large roasting machine next to a giant fireplace. Outside is a long lawn where you can sit if the weather is good and the bathrooms are in an old train car. It’s about as wonderful as it can get. I can’t believe I come dressed in anything other than head-to-foot white and without a parasol and straw boating hat. The shame is great indeed, but they graciously do not stand on ceremony there.

I know that what I’ve given you here is basically my visual impression of Tana, without really telling you much about the culture. That’s the part that I still barely know, so you won’t get it out of me yet!

Next week I’ll tackle Tamatave, out on the coast, which is a whole other delightful story.

Taking a Page from a Fellow Swede

2011-01-19T09:10:00.002-08:00

January 16, 2011 – Antananarivo

I got back to Madagascar on Wednesday in the wee hours. I have felt barraged with one frustration after another since about New Year’s. I won't get into the details because when I list them off they all sound so petty, but we all know what it is like when things build up each day, you don't think you can take another hit - and that's about the time your toilet breaks and no repair man can come until after the weekend (true story).

Since I have been back, I see again the beautiful things here for which I am thankful and that make being here an experience worth having. I was also reminded when running through the village today that most houses here don't actually have toilets - and that this too shall all pass. I am, therefore, incredibly frustrated at my own lack of grace in handling these problems that are being constantly thrown at me.

I have a few thoughts that I’ve been mulling over in response (between my other responses of foot stamping, fist shaking and the hand wringing):

First (1), I don’t understand why God doesn’t just make me nicer.

There’s the minute possibility that is my responsibility though…

Secondly (2), we really weren’t designed to be hermits. Even if for purely self-preservation reasons, we need people around us, to help us, to protect us, to tell us when we’re being unreasonable and to laugh with us about it after we’ve managed to stop telling them where to shove it. We need people who we can trust so that we don’t always have to shoulder the burden of moving apartments alone or letting the plumber in when you’ve done it the last four times and need to be at a work meeting. I am convinced that I need to be more grateful and kind to my past roommates than I have been. They are true prizes.

Thirdly, (3) I picked up Dag Hammarskjöld’s Markings today – it’s a bit like reading Gandi or Martin Luther King or Paul’s epistles from prison. I mean, I don’t know of any great suffering in his life, but I can imagine being Secretary-General of the UN for 10 years, especially during things like the Korean War and the Suez Crisis would be a life that had its fair share of stress, and yet here he is, saying all these gentle, wise things. So it is convicting stuff. Two quotes I’ll share: “ Never measure the height of the mountain, until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was.” Followed later by “life only demands from you the strength you possess. Only one feat is possible – not to have run away.” I don’t believe for a second that Mr. Hammarskjöld was one of these self-help gurus that believed that if a person just tries really hard, and thinks positively, all would be well. I think he knew that we come up against some real tough stuff sometimes, but we also have a tendency to think we’re the only ones to see trouble. When I read the latter quote, I was reminded of Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians – “ no temptation has overtaken you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”

I remember the first time I ever lived overseas there was another person talking to me about mountains in a similar way. At the precious age of 18, I did a study abroad program in Guatemala. I remember talking with my friend Jenn about something that I had to do that week of which I was truly terrified – it was some new step out of my comfort zone or other. She said to me that this was “the first hill in a series of foothills and then mountains – don’t look at the mountains, because that will be too overwhelming. Just get on with this hill and you’ll be surprised at the end.” For whatever reason, I’ve been in stuck somewhere in the Kootenays for the last little while. I am far too easily angered that it’s not more like Regina.

Third-point-fifth (3.5), I was talking with some friends over the holidays about faith. One friend was relating conversations she has with a very bright friend of hers who is an atheist and presses my friend on her faith. As the three of us discussed these conversations, we came to the point that you can’t convince someone of faith – as Hammarskjöld says “only through the self-knowledge we gain by pursuing the fleeting light in the depth of our being do we reach the point where we can grasp what faith is. How many have been driven into outer darkness by empty talk about faith as something to be rationally comprehended, something ‘true’.” I told my friends that my faith has sometimes been comprised of moments: moments of complete assurance of God’s presence, conviction of God’s truth, confident of God himself – not in an intellectual way, in a way that you simply can’t explain. Those moments are enough.

Fourth, and final: I am not impressed with the “self-knowledge” I’ve gained this week. I’m cranky and not always cool when things break and I’m alone and tired. I asked God to throw me a bone (literally, I used those words in prayer). I got a whack on the snout from Dag and Paul as my answer – but, it’s actually quite comforting. That one about not running away and the connection to Paul's point on God's faithfulness when you don't run away are swirling around each other nicely in my head. Ah ha! In this instant, it all makes so much sense! D & P, your reminders are moments enough for me today.

Home Jeeves!

2010-12-14T13:41:00.001-08:00

I should clarify something: I like going out but I like being home too. In the early haze of consciousness this morning at about 6:14am a week or so ago, I was thinking about nice things that will happen because I get to spend Christmas in Vancouver. I could see my little, cosy apartment with it’s little, cosy Christmas tree and then my little, cosy neighbourhood with it’s little, cosy Christmas lights strung up and people in their cosy (not so little) parkas. And then I started thinking what a great place to be from Vancouver is – really! It’s got everything: mountains, ocean, coffee shops, I can ride the bus without having to call the driver first and see if he’s eaten lunch yet (having a chauffeur can be harder than it looks). And ever since the Olympics, Europeans know that it’s not near Quebec so we can’t speak French and Americans don’t say “oh, Washington huh?” Yep, we have finally arrived.

You know Vancouver is a great place to be from and it’s a great place to come home to. I may not spend my whole life there, but I had the thought that morning that I am so grateful it is home base – because I never have to justify the $3200 plane ticket. I can go any time. Of course, being from the South of France or Buenos Aires would probably be just as cool. I wonder if people from other places say to themselves “I wanna live in Vancouver – if only for a year” like Canadians do about Paris or somewhere hot. I am sure they do. In fact, the French probably have an inferiority complex about our style, what with our classic sleek yoga pants and reflective running gear and all…

So, I’ve packed my (one underweight!) bag and am once again setting off home. Maybe, since I know I am coming back, it is much more exciting to be going home. There is no denouement to the return, it's just a pause - the plot thickens, maybe even! There’s a small chance that I might not be as happy to get on a plane (as “happy” as I can be about that task), if I were going back to job searching and sitting in my little, cosy apartment for another 6 months. But I was never really discontent while doing that either. So, I think I’ll just make this short and sweet and to the point:

I’m thankful.

Punto.

Take me home, Jeeves!

Bizarre de Noel

2010-12-05T08:07:00.003-08:00

December in a hot country again: It’s a bizarre experience for me every time. The decorations and music sneak up on you when you feel like you should be getting ready for a Canada Day BBQ or something. You’ll be wandering around in the blazing heat, and suddenly see Santa and his polar bear buddies socking back an old-fashioned Coca-Cola up on a billboard. In Managua, the roundabouts always had very snazzy over-sized decorations, usually in, ahem, alternative Christmas colours, like a 12-ft pink snowflake that was put to shame by the blooming bougainvillea. That year, all I wanted for Christmas – other than my two front teeth and you, of course – was this absolutely wonderful fake Christmas Palm Tree. It came with lights already strung up on it’s incredibly vibrant and – may I add – very life-like branches. About a week ago I walked into Jumbo Score (the big grocery chain here) and was shocked into December by the double-wide yuletide decorations aisle – which, distressingly, had replaced the double-wide wine-tasting aisle. This upsetting exchange notwithstanding, I was impressed with the quantity and quality of Christmas decorations available here – they obviously take trimming the tree quite seriously. And so they should.

So, into the Christmas Spirit we go. You will be relieved to know that I participated in shopping excursions to not one, but TWO Christmas Bazaars. The first one was at the French school last weekend and one at the American school yesterday. Now, I will just note that last weekend was my initiation into Malagasy Christmas Bazaars and I was highly unprepared for what awaited me. I expected something featuring picture frames with painted popsicle sticks and macaronis that the children of said school had made and were selling to raise money for new pinnies for their gym class or something. But lo, it was a real festivus and included pretty much anyone who makes anything cool in Madagascar - and then some more things that are only semi-cool and the occasional ugly item, that I am sure SOMEONE buys, because SOMEONE makes it - and I have enough economics to know that people don't just supply things if they aren't in demand. They don't. Trust me.

Anyways, these Christmas Bazaars are very serious affairs here. If the Christmas deco aisle was any indication – well, I just simply should have known. Any body who is any body goes to see and be seen and buy jewellery and throw pillows and baskets and purses and spices and shoes and soap and the odd quilted hippo (it’s very cute, trust me). The first round, at the French school, I was caught completely unaware of the cool stuff that was to be found. So the second round at the American school I came to well armed and was not disappointed. I was able to make out like a bandit with all sorts of things that I am sure will be lovely gifts for Christmas, if and when that rolls around - I am still unconvinced, but my Google calendar has never been known to lie yet.

These are the chronicles of an Ex-Pat in the Land of Lemurs (catchy eh?)

2010-11-18T22:00:00.004-08:00

*Note: I wrote this last week, but still don't have internet at my apartment, so I am a bit behind on posting. Sorry for the old news!

I have been in Madagascar for about five days now, which means that I am still sleeping heavily one night and wide awake the next. Turns out, jet lag is not as glamorous as they tell you. The first few days I was put up in a hotel just a mere block and half away from my snazzy new office. I could see it from my window, especially because the hotel and the office are the only two buildings with modern architecture and taller than two storeys on this “highway.” Now, let’s just pause here for a point of order. Personally, anything with only two, very congested lanes filled with pousse-pousses (rickshaws) and walkers doesn’t qualify for highway class in my taxonomy of things. On the other hand, the government of BC has been calling Hwy 10 a ‘highway’ for years, despite the inordinate amount of stoplights, so who am I to argue? The proximity didn’t stop the company from providing me with a chauffeur for the new commute either, but I am not complaining. The hotel was a nice introduction – ease yourself in, go for a swim, watch some BBC, have a French buffet breakfast for the first few days so your stomach can become accustomed, don’t push yourself over the limit the first week, etc.

But Friday was a big day. I moved into an apartment AND was invited to happy hour put on by the American Embassy. I am a pretty big deal around here already! Let’s comment on the apartment first. I’d like to entitle this chapter:
“Why Won’t my Toilet Stop Running? And other tales of moving woe:”

Even when one is moving in Canada, where you know that you will be able to find and purchase toilet paper with relative ease. I forgot though that moving in a foreign country is twice the excitement. Not only are you not quite sure where your next roll will be coming from, but you also are met with bizarre configurations and unfamiliar technology. For instance, there are two plugs beside the normal plug that are, as of yet, unidentified. They fit no French, South African nor Canadian electrical plug. They don’t fit a phone or Internet jack. They are just two thin strips with a little tear drop on the end that are there to confound even those most experienced techie. My toilet, as I have already alluded, is another issue entirely. It runs constantly. CONSTANTLY. So I have to turn off the water at night because the sound drives me mad. Some might liken it to having your own soothing indoor Zen waterfall. Sure, if your idea of Zen is the deafening roar of Niagara. It’s also funny to me that the toilet is in a separate little room from the rest of the bathroom. It’s the definitive “water closet.” Who designs these things?

Answer: the French.

Yes, I’ve taken to abusing and praising the French for much here – mostly because I still don’t know the Malagasy way of doing things yet. Nevertheless, I feel certain that the Malagasy would never do something so absurd as separate the toilet from the sink, bathtub, towels and (more importantly) magazine rack. But, despite the disastrous experiment that was colonialism in Africa, we can be thankful to the French for a few things here. I have made a list:
- Daily fresh croissants
- Daily fresh baguettes
- Superb charcuterie
- Heated towel racks
- The availability of tampons in major grocery stores (don’t ever take that for granted)

So you see, it’s not entirely bad. On Friday, my driver Lala (yep, that’s his name) took me to Jumbo, the supermarket near work. I was astounded by the goodies that were to be had. I believe I have previously spoken about my love affair with third world grocery stores before. I could (and have) wander the cool, calming aisles of grocery stores throughout the developing world for hours. Jumbo is a real treat. It must be owned by Casino, the French grocery chain, because that is the main brand it sells for everything (including foie gras and ratatouille – add those to the list). But I will firmly say that any grocery store that carries tampons, however limited the selection, and two-week old Economists is all I need to survive. This place is fine - they have no need for development professionals like myself, which is worrisome, since I only just got here. Ah well, perhaps for the sake of the nationals I should be happy.

Don’t I wish it were so. Tana (short form for Tananarive or Antananarivo) is a city of about 3 million. It is beautiful with white houses with brightly coloured shutters cascading down the small mountains on which the city sits. Rice paddies fill the bottom and line the way out to the airport. Jacaranda trees are in full bloom as are the Sacuanjoche (Frangipane) trees. Hibiscus and bougainvillea line the gates in front of houses. You can buy flowers from every other corner – tall lilies and gladiolas of literally every colour – for pittance. It’s a gorgeous place, but, as more than one local has already said with varying degrees of scorn or sadness, “c’est pauve.”

On the other side from the Jacarandas etc, is a busy city: on the main “highway” there is a cluster of shacks lining each side. Sunday was apparently washing day, since the women were out beating the dirt out of their clothes in the run-off ditches lining the paddy on the right hand side. Some were working the stone piles also there.

Yesterday, a friend recommended to me a taxi driver to take me around to see some of the sights and do a bit of shopping. Gabbie the Cabbie was an excellent chauffeur, French tutor and local guide. I had a good laugh from him too. We were talking about how to get to the Palais du Roi, which sits on the highest point in Tana, overlooking the rest of the city. There had been protests so it wasn’t safe to go the one way. I asked him what the protests were about and got the run down on the political situation in the country – taxi drivers the world over are always the best source of that type of information, - they don’t hold back. The conversation was going on about how these protests have become regular, but they won’t make much difference:
Me: You know, where I lived before in Bolivia, they say there that protesting is their national sport.
Gabbie: Here in Africa, I would say that our national sport is making babies.
Me: (laughter)
Gabbie: it’s true! The people are so poor, that they need the children and it is all they can do.

It’s funny, but sad too. Children are current labour and old age pension payments at once. They help you with the kiosk or hawking now and then when you are old, they can care for you. There are a goodly lot of children around, I will give him that.

I thought about it later that night and decided that in Canada our national sport is apologizing. I’ve been a champ at it, much to the chagrin of foreign friends who were weary of the word. I went to the Embassy happy hour and got into a discussion with some Americans who thought our accent was “cute.” They wanted to brainstorm all the words that we Canadians say differently. ‘Sorry’ was a big hit. I think I made the very salient point that our pronunciation must be the correct one, since we have perfected it by using it so frequently.

So, this is my introduction to live in Madagascar. Turns out that it is not a cartoon and I have yet to see a lemur, but I have seen lemur bridges so that they can get across the road without getting hit – it’s cute. Stay tuned for my next edition: “My first coup.” That's bound to be exciting, isn't it?

Can we go out?

2010-09-17T12:23:00.003-07:00

When I was a kid, I always wanted to “go out.” I’d ask my mom if we could go out today and she would reply “Where?”

“I don’t know, just… out.” I always wanted to go somewhere fun, that would generally involve shopping, although for the record, going to home depot with dad, despite being a technical example of ‘shopping,’ did not meet the minimal requirements for ‘fun.’ Other than that, I had pretty low standards. I would take a toodle through the IGA with grandma as a good time.

I still find Home Depot the most boring place on earth and I still want to go out. I appreciate coming home a bit more these days, but for the most part, I want to go out and see what is going on. Get me outta here. I will go anywhere – I just want to go!

Ok, that’s not quite true – I should qualify that I have a list of places I will not go. I have informed God that Afghanistan, Somalia and the Central African Republic are off the table. I think the first two are fairly understandable. As for the Central African Republic, the thing is I don’t actually know anything particularly damning against it, but that’s precisely my concern. I’ve never heard anything good either. I am fairly certain it’s in the bottom five on every UN development indicator list ever drafted. It doesn’t have to be the worst, but if you only squeak past Somalia in terms of maternal health but not the Congo, that really isn’t saying much, is it?

But aside from those reasonable exemptions, I’m pretty flexible.

Ok, that’s not true either. I do have a few marginal requirements. For example, I have to have access to reasonable sanitation systems somewhere in the country or at least in my house. Now I am willing to concede that ‘reasonable’ is a loose term. My friends make fun of me because I am incredibly picky about cleanliness in Canadian loos. If a stall isn’t up to snuff, then I have no scruples about rejecting and moving one to the left. “How on earth do you survive in third world countries? You can’t possibly hold it for eight months at a time” They sound only marginally incredulous – like they secretly think I must. Personally, I believe that though I may have to put up with it in third world countries where infrastructure lags decades or centuries behind, I certainly don’t have to do so here in Canada, the land of peace, order and good septic systems. I saw a book at Chapters once on implementing sanitation systems using the basic environmental resources available. I will be purchasing that book and memorizing it. I may not have any ability to fathom modern engineering, but people have been disposing of their poop in creative ways since the dawn of history. I am sure it can’t be that hard to sort out.

So there’s that to consider. Issue number the next is that slight fear of flying. I think we’ve covered that previously. Damn oceans are always in the way. But the truth is, all the good viewpoints in life require taking a bit of a running leap, don’t they?

I’m sorry, that was rather cliché. It’s still true though.

Speaking of oceans, another issue I have is the distance to water. I am from Vancouver. It rains 75% if the year, and you know what? It’s actually wonderful. I’d take 10 degrees and drizzle over -30 and dry any day. My prairie counterparts always counter “oh but it’s a dry cold.”
No.
Hell no.
Forty below zero is just damn cold. Anyway, if you are from Vancouver, I think you are bred with a higher water requirement. You’re not a cactus; you are a kelp. You need the water and you can take more of it. I remember during the dry season in Nicaragua thinking to myself “I could go for a little rain right about now.” I dry out; I get parched. I live in a city that puts up palm trees and pretends it is a tropical rainforest. It is technically a rainforest region – it’s just a temperate one (we tend to downplay that aspect though). What's important is that we get a steady supply of water in large quantities

While any old body of water and a fairly reliable annual rainfall is necessary, a short distance to the ocean in particular is what would be sufficient. There is something about being within a short distance to the ocean that makes one very calm. It’s just good to know it’s there if you ever need to get on a boat in short order – if you need to escape a revolution or if there is a major disaster for instance. It’s also nice to have in case we do end up running out of water after all but have a working desalination machine on hand (I think they mention some pointers on how to build one of those using cedar planks and broken clam shells in the Sanitation for Dummies book). Even if you just feel a little woebegone, it is very calming to have a sit next to the ocean.

So that rules out Uzbekistan for sure (double landlocked).

I have also decided I could not ever move to Abbotsford. Yes, I know it’s in BC, has a fine sanitation system and is within a reasonable distance to the ocean (although, a bit petulant if you ask me – not entirely unreasonable but petulant). I don’t care; it’s still not worth it. I’ll admit that it has some beautiful mountains. But aside from that, all I think of when I picture it is a row of giant box stores and large SUVs sitting in front of them (the Escalade and Durango type, not the respectable 4x4 type).

I don’t have anything against chain stores per se – it’s always nice to find your favourite brand of toothpaste in an unfamiliar town thanks to a neighbourhood Safeway. But these are not the benign type of supermarkets with an overactive cheese section and an aisle of underwear and sweatpants to fill out a few extra square feet. No, places like Abbotsford have the serious big-box giants. There are many heinous reasons to hate them: they mistreat overseas workers and undercut the economy so that we all become addicted to the cracksicle of cheap, disposable consumer culture. But that’s not even what really frosts me about these places. No, it’s actually much less noble: inevitably, you go in, find the ONE thing that is unavailable to you elsewhere and then look at the range of 25 check-out counters and see that you have an option of TWO that are open – both a football field’s distance away from wherever you happen to be standing and each other. By the time you check one to see how busy it is (and it’s always busy, because they hide the true size of the line by snaking it up and down) you find that the other less busy one has filled up. What was just a three-minute trip to get duct tape and popcorn has just left you in line-up limbo until the next morning. You remember that book/movie with Natalie Portman about the girl that gave birth in Walmart? Yeah, she goes in for a pregnancy test and some olives and 9 months later…

Poor Natalie… you’d think her agent or someone would have noticed she was missing.

So, I have ruled out suburbia, landlocked countries, failed states that are terrorism hotbeds and Home Depot. That happily leaves a lot of places though. I am ALWAYS willing to go out to coffee-growing countries. This includes, but is not limited to: Brazil, Colombia, Nicaragua, Mexico, Kenya, Vietnam (although, I take issue with the mass-production of poor-grade Robusta almost entirely destined to become instant “coffee” so that is qualified heavily), Indonesia, Ethiopia, Papua New Guinea and Madagascar.

I recognize that many of these places are exotic. I can lower the bar if that would help. I still enjoy a good toodle around the grocery store (provided it falls below the giant box-store square footage requirement). Even as an adult I have found grocery stores to be at times incredibly wonderful – and other times incredibly harrowing, like Superstore on a Sunday at 3pm when every mother brings her entire brood and shops using the extra-wide carts that double as strollers – it’s the nightmare you imagine it to be, but what have I been telling you about big box stores?

When I lived in Managua, I used to stop by a grocery store called La Union on my way home. Sometimes I needed things; often I just made up an excuse. There was something so calming about the place – maybe it was the air conditioning or the shiny magazines detailing the glamorous lives of the Hispanic world’s royalty or the fact that it had a bookshop in it. Maybe it was the fact that it was the only place in Managua (and thereby in the entire country) that had a steady supply of feta cheese, peanut butter and fine Argentinean wine within five feet of one another. I think what it really was though, is that it was like home. Grocery stores the world over are organized in the same typical way. Moving clockwise or counter-clockwise from the entrance around the perimeter: fruits/vegetables, dairy, meats, fish, bakery. Inside: rows and rows of canned goods, cereals, baking supplies, and then the junk food and – anywhere except Canada – the wine and beer aisle. While I love going out and seeing new things, there is comfort in finding that we all need the same basic things, the world over. The brands lining the aisle of La Union are often different from home, but you can find the same sort of thing that people everywhere love and need: food, beauty and toilet paper.

Nelson Mandela said, “There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.” I don’t think I can justly boast that that is my intent when I yearn to “go out” but I do think I can justly say it has been the most delightful surprise consequence of all my outings. Some times we go out and find little mundane things that lift our spirits (two-ply on sale!) or we go out and life is forever changed – we cannot return home without seeing things in a new way.

Job Hunting like an Amazon

2010-07-27T10:44:00.002-07:00

Job searching is about the most abysmally depressing thing a healthy, educated young adult can do these days. It is as though some masochistic mind designed it just so that when you sail out of a degree with the wind of triumph, you are then unceremoniously dumped on still seas, to float, endlessly, on and on, no horizon in sight, waiting for a breeze, crackling in the searing sun, parched – I’m sure you’ve all gotten the picture. You spend all day clicking link after link and assess within an instant if it is a job that A) you could realistically do, or B) would realistically be considered for. I find myself ignoring the former and cursing the latter. Then, once you’ve trawled the mass of links and find that you have identified precious few opportunities, you spend hours upon hours carefully crafting a cover letter, resume – and in many cases, essay questions and writing samples. You tailor them to the organization’s goals and paradigms and you customize it even further to the vacancy in question. Then, after wanting to poke out our eyeball at the thought of trying to come up with yet another way to say “takes initiative,” you package it all up the way they like – I’m coming to resent websites that make you upload it in some obscure old form or worse, may you input your employment history one at a time when it’s already listed on the resume – and then, with a single mouse-click, you send it off.

Perhaps what makes it so particularly awful is that you never really know what happens to your application after it leaves your email message page. I can only imagine the terrible weight upon human resources managers across the globe as they carefully and painstakingly and attentively and laboriously examine each and every individual application. I am confident that is how it is done and I tell you, I don’t envy them that task. No wonder it takes them so long to reply to my request for confirmation that my delicately constructed resume, hand-tailored not only to their organization, but to the specific position in question, has not gone directly to their junk-mail due to a mammoth organizational webmail spam filter. I can only imagine how acutely they feel it - that they are missing out on all sorts of potential employees due to the pure and hapless misstep of someone in the IT department.

Coping with this sordid reality is difficult. After much consideration I have come to the conclusion that the following responses will be ineffectual and counterproductive:
- Heavy drinking,
- Crying,
- Staging a hunger strike outside the office of the desired employer,
- Binge eating chocolate cupcakes, particularly those enticing ones sprinkled with decorations
- Clasping desperately onto the arm of a contact who hazily remembers having a friend who worked for an organization similar to the one you just mentioned at while making small talk with them at the supermarket/church/art show
- Binge eating chocol – oh wait, I said that…
- Snarling

Yes, despite being highly ineffectual, they all sound rather satisfying, don’t they? I mean, short of the satisfaction one would feel if one had a job that allowed them to pay rent, buy groceries, have some self-respect, etc, of course. Obviously, that would be the consummate definition of satisfaction. But since consummate definitions are just the sort of things that post-modern kids like myself are taught to run screaming and flailing from at a very tender age, then I think it’s understandable why I’ve taken the time to assess other options, if not carry them out.

Thus far I’ve managed to avoid bingeing of any kind, although I am never really above snarling and crying is more of an involuntary reaction, sort of like a sneeze. You can’t really control a thing like that so I think I could be excused for a perfectly natural and biological catharsis every now and again. As for the hunger strike – well that wasn’t likely with me anyways. I’ve never been one of those girls that would willingly forgo her supper. On a related, yet tangential note, I am baffled by girls that say, “Oh, I was just so busy all day I totally forgot to eat.”

WHAT.

No, I am sorry, I might be TOO BUSY (on a very rare and specific occasion) but I never forget. I am always thinking, “Gee, I wish I were eating” in such circumstances.

Which brings me back to the subject at hand. I need to eat. Not right now, but at least a few times a day. This is a critical area in my life that I do not foresee ever being wholly resolved. So how do you think I feel when I scan the website of a well-respected, large, funded, organization with offices in hundreds of countries around the world (not to name names, but the UN), offering MA grads unpaid internships? How do I feel?

I feel hungry. I feel like a sandwich. I feel like I am sandwiched uncomfortably between the interns and the 10+years experience job categories – and ne’er the twain shall meet. How does one go about getting 10+ years experience if they are destined to die of starvation within, well medically speaking probably, the first 40-50 days of their wage-less job?

I’ve always said that, like the facebook group, I picked a major I liked and in ten years I’ll be living in a box – but at least that box will probably be on a beach in Mexico. I am posting this today because I am actually quite hopeful. It’s been crappy, this job search, but I am becoming more and more convinced that my job right now is to run it well, remembering that God does not abandon his plans with us. Forget the snarling and the bingeing options - pursue the good even in the abysmal. When you know there is something coming down the pipe – even though you don’t know when or what, there is hope in that.

Posits on International Relations Theory and the Global Polity: whither stupid titles that vaguely reference moving toward a new understanding

2010-06-26T10:29:00.005-07:00

Yesterday, after four lovely days in a secluded cove cabin up the Sunshine Coast with some friends (read: deliciously away from all technology), I returned to find that I had missed both the beginning and the deadline for the second round of an application process I am in with a UN job. When I explained the situation, they gave me an extension but to my dismay the essay questions were largely on topics of international relations theory that weren't my particular cup of tea. Luckily, I am nothing if not skilled in speed-writing essays on subjects on which I have only vague assumptions. By the end of lunch I had turned myself into Vancouver's leading authority on cosmopolitanism, peace building and which way forward for multilateral relations in an age of colliding discontent over divergent governance structures (and you thought I was just being modest about my speed-BS-writing, uh I mean speed-essay writing). I am not sure Vancouver hitherto realized the gaping vacuum it previously had without such a leading expert, but now that I have reached such a height, I think we have all arrived at a very good place philosophically, dialogically, grammatically...

Every so often though, when dwelling too long and too hard on International Relations - particularly when considering global systems and international "solutions," I have a thought. Yes, it's a dangerous acquisition, to be sure.

I can't help but thinking how funny we must all look to God. I have this vision of him sitting on a big, antarctic snow bank, his crampons and thick boots dangling over the edge, with a funny grin on his weather-whipped face. He's looking down on us at the edge of the ice floe, all us penguins waddling around and chatting sociably. We waddle over to one and then another and then two more over there and busily inform one another of our very inventive plans and ideas on how to manage the ice. And he can hear it all, it is just the sound of "mer mer marrrr, mar. Mar mar... mermermer merrrrr mar!"

What funny creatures we are. Mar mar. Waddle, waddle... occasional "weeeeee!" as we jump into the water, pause, heads up and shake quickly with a startled look on our little beaks. Who knew it was that cold?! That wasn't what we were expecting AT ALL.

It's not that we shouldn't discuss these things. Of course we should - we were created to waddle and swim and murmur. But we do tend, rather oddly, to think our ice floe is the only thing in the world and man, have we got it set up well. I can't help but think just how much is beyond our ice floe - our vision of comprehension. In our globalized world we are bombarded with options and visions of ice floes thousands of miles away from us, in Mumbai or Iraq or Switzerland. Ice floes in Cape Town seem to be very exciting these days, despite the tepid water and distinct lack of ice for most of their penguins. But while we have so much knowledge (or maybe a better term is 'awareness' - I wouldn't say we are all necessarily knowledgeable), it is almost too much to fathom, let alone manage. Which cause should I take up? Climate Change? Darfur? Human rights abuses? Oh blast, now there is some trouble in Kyrgyzstan - is it the Uzbeks who are being chased or the other way around? I can barely spell the country name... And where should I travel next?? - That's another pressing issue. The world is my oyster (I am told), but it still requires an awful lot of money and energy.

Back to the penguins. Even if we know about the other floes and penguins, and even if we - in a rather strange turn of events - decide we care about them, how funny it is that we pretend to be able to make decisions that will benefit them, as opposed to resulting in a very sordid menagerie of negative externalities (oh that's a doozy of a phrase!). I don't want to be Negative Nelly here at all, that's not my goal. I just think we should realize that we are all just penguins, that's all I have. Swim well, murmur kindly, remember to look up at the one the snow bank. Other than that, I've got no further moral lesson or "way forward toward a more consistent trajectory" or some other concluding remark. Just some reflective murrrrmurings.

The Lost Art of Train Travel

2010-05-21T11:13:00.003-07:00

Those who know me well are acquainted with my distaste for airplanes. I hate flying, but I want to go places. My mom used to be a travel agent in Winnipeg in the 70s and she has told me the story of a man who once came into her office and wanted to book a trip to Hawaii – by bus. Needless to say, when she explained the deal about the Pacific Ocean, he was a bit consternated. After a bit of inquiry into possible routes to Honolulu via train and boat, he finally settled on a trip to Minneapolis. I can relate.

I mean think about it – have you looked at a plane recently? It’s rather obtrusive. How on earth can something so morbidly obese not only get to 40,000ft, but stay there. I am fascinated by the marvels of modern engineering in the same macabre way that one might be fascinated by looking at a hairless cat or an eel.

Aside from my experience in first class on a return flight from Seoul to Vancouver, I do not actively enjoy flying. There are two moments of exception: the take-off (come on, it is a bit exciting) and the liberal disbursement of wine on France-bound flights. Those aspects aside, there is generally short-shrift given to leg-room and peace from screaming babies. I know it isn’t a very nice character reflection, but come now, we all want to slap it, that howling box with exorbitant projection capabilities that, no matter what seat you have booked, is always two rows behind you. There, I said it. And to top it all off, I am still not entirely convinced that if I do not close the lid prior to flushing those inordinately violent toilets, I will not possibly be sucked down and ejected out a back hatch into the stratosphere.

Flying is a means to an end: it gets you where you want to go relatively quickly. I don’t love it, but compared with a four-month journey across the choppy Atlantic sleeping in bunks doused with vomit from newbie sailors and the very real threat of scurvy, it is a cake-walk. On the other hand, I am continually baffled by how giant this earth is, and – not to be outdone – how vast my own country is. I don’t think I have taken a Toronto-Vancouver flight that didn’t make grinding my teeth on the pavement sound pleasant, resulting with me flinging myself on the ground, crying out “LAAAAAAND!!!” upon arrival.

But on my most recent journey abroad, the clouds parted and the sun shone down on a new method of transportation that makes the plane ride to get to it all the more valuable: Trains – and European ones at that. As with a plane, you arrive at a destination much faster than with a car, bike, shoe, horse-and-buggy, etc, but you get to see it all go by at the same time! And this is an important point. Trains let you get there by exploring from the comfort of a rolling armchair. Castles and vineyards whip by for your viewing pleasure like a toucan to a birdwatcher. You can pick and choose which ones to stop for. And as a bonus, sure, you might fall over from the rocking when trying to use the toilet – but at least you can be safe from an impromptu free-fall to your death.

I think my favourite part though is the dining car. It is reminiscent of the ages of Agatha Christie thrillers and Cary Grant. There is an element of nostalgic class. The door to the dining car is actually a magical threshold, similar to Lewis’s wardrobe or Carroll’s looking glass. It will take you to a new time and place, where women in silk evening gowns smoke cigarettes on long, slim filters and gentlemen puff pungent cigars and somehow, miraculously, we are not all having a coughing fit as a result of the excess carcinogens in the enclosed space. And rest assured that there is plenty of diamond jewellery and brandy to go around.

On my train from Paris to Barcelona, my daddy booked me a first-class sleeper ticket. “If you are going to do it, you may as well do it properly.” That ticket was also apparently good for complimentary champagne in said magical dining car. It was a shame I left my emerald necklace at home. If you still need proof of the beauty of this form of travel, I offer one more: I was served the first meal involving asparagus that I have ever eaten with alacrity. See what I mean?

Now, I will say that despite having a bed all to myself, I, bafflingly, could not sleep for the life of me. But the rest of the experience was so pleasant and exciting that I am more than willing to forgive SCNF for the insomnia.

Even when travelling with the plebeian hordes in regular coaches there is plenty to delight. Take, for example, the return train from Barcelona to Montpellier. Sure, the train itself was a step down from the other ones I had been enjoying. It definitely was a left over from the era of Mary Tyler Moore’s orange tweed-clad 70s and not the roaring 20’s – but let’s say that it too is ”an homage to a bygone era” and let it hold its head high. Sure it is an era that no one had particularly missed, but there is room for welcome, particularly when the large brown armchair seats with a touching napkin spread over the headrest still manage to be stunningly comfortable after more than 40 years of Australian backpackers and Belgian businessmen bumming down on them. And yes, the curtains looked like a tennis skirt that must be dearly missed by the Bitsey Hetherington-Jonses or Muffy St.Clairs of the world who mourn the year of their athletic zenith (1981). But my favourite part had to be, yes again, the dining car. I was informed just half an hour after pulling away from the station that the train featured a celebrity on its staff. The Australian seatmates across from me swore that the car was manned by none other than Manuel from Faulty Towers.

I thought they were joking, but no, it really was him: small grey moustache, pinstripe waistcoat and all. But the resemblance was truly uncanny in his demeanour. His method was the madness. He took orders one at a time from the small crowd that had gathered at his bar and he never doubled up on a task. It didn’t seem strange to him that despite the last three people ordering the exact same thing, he still did each order one at a time, heating each sandwich separately in an spaciously industrial Panini-maker. One by one we all ordered a sandwich or croissant with coffee and one by one, he would put on one cup of coffee in the espresso maker that was not only held together with twist-ties, but that was also teetering precariously on the metal counter, ready to tumble head-first at any moment.

The whole act was truly complicated by the fact that the kitchen was separated from the bar by a wall, with only a small hold a foot and a half tall through which, ostensibly, a chef could pass orders back and forth with the wait staff. Someone obviously had high hopes that there would be a long line of two-man teams to service the train. Alas, they were sorely mistaken. It was our loss (mine and that of the growing crowd now assembled) but also our gain in amusement. We had a front-row seat to watch Manuel, after he received an order, determinedly step out, march around the counter, walk down the full length of the car and enter the galley and step lively to the warming oven which sat mere inches away from his original post on the other side of the porthole, insert sandwich, wait three interminable minutes, take out sandwich, march back, make coffee, accept payment, repeat. It was a high-calibre performance in the very least.

This is the beauty of trains – I can understand why little boys are so fascinated by them even with fighter jets and aircraft carriers with which they must contend. It doesn’t matter how old they are – they still have a mysterious power. They go like stink and rock and roll you into a nice state of humour where everything looks just a little more exotic that it might otherwise be. They aren’t sanitized corporate jets bearing the standard navy blue upholstery and the standard meticulously groomed attendants, who are lovely, to be sure. Instead, train station attendants sit behind a glass window in an arching art deco foyer and hold their hands behind their back and ask you to guess right or left. You never know if the hand you pick will slowly open up to reveal the Orient Express or Thomas the Tank Engine, but you can’t help but win either way.

Buenos Aires, Argentina

2009-09-04T19:46:00.000-07:00

My Gaucho Initiation

2009-09-04T18:08:00.012-07:00

Good grief mother, if you only knew what your daughter was doing some times.

Tonight I shared a yerba mate (pronounced "mah-teh") made by our wonderful hostel guy, Javier,** out of a communal cup (Oh yes, I prayed over it before drinking- I would appreciate your continual prayer for my protection against swine flu and mono though).

Before I can talk about tonight, allow me to take us back to grade 11, a good nine years. I first heard of and saw yerba mate then at the precious age of 16 when it was a big fad with the Ekkerts, the Fasts and the Seels (also known as the 'Menno Mafia' at Richmond Christian Secondary - three families of minimum 6-8 children that all, funnily enough, happened to be cousins. One wing of the clan, (the Ekkert wing, I believe) had grown up in Paraguay so they brought the mate ritual over to Canada and the tradition was rapidly incorporated by the rest as if they too had been gauchos in the pampas all their young lives.

The mennos all did mate, along with a strange dice game that never made any sense to any of us other kids (and by the others I mean myself, my brother, my fellow tsawwassenite Rachel, a few of Rob's carpool buddies and the 40 Asian kids who made up the rest of the student population - a motley crew indeed). They did mate and to me it always looked like some sort of drug. It was what I assumed all the cool kids at the public schools did after finishing their cigarettes and red bull. Cool kids did red bull - I still don't like red bull, but that is beside the point.

Anyways, so that is what I thought of yerba mate. That and I knew that you were supposed to drink it with all the flakes still floating in it - from a cow's horn. It did not look tantalizing. But somehow, nine or ten years down the road, whilst held under Argentina's dazzling spell, I was gripped by the desire to try it. Apparently it is a social thing, so very few places actually sell it, you are just supposed to buy your cow horn cuppy-thingy from the hippies selling in the middle of calle Florida and have a cuppa "whenever you feel like it" (so sayeth Javier). I think everyone just packs it around instead of asking for a venti at Starbucks. I suppose it saves on paper cups.

Jessi and I discussed it and decided to ask Javier, who has quickly become a favourite with us. A funny thing about him - our first couple meetings one or both of us (Jessi and I) were either breaking hostel rules or hostel hardware. We brought home a bottle of that famous Argentinian wine one night and realized as we walked in the door there were fairly conspicuous posters everywhere clearly informing us that alcoholic beverages from outside the hostel were not permitted. But what could we do? We couldn't return the wine, so we decided we should at least plead stupid. I walked up to the desk and there sat our friend. I kind of danced around, wine bottle clearly in hand and tried to explain the situation. His response: "Entonces....? (So then...?) one eyebrow raised. He let me bite my lip nervously for a minute and shift my weight a couple of times until he felt the moment was just right and then softened and informed me it was alright - this time - eyebrow still raised, with a twinkle.

The next time I had an interview with Javier it was to inform him that the toilet was broken and that the face plate that held the flush button on the wall above the toilet had fallen down while Jessi and I were in bed and broken into two pieces. Javier responded with a politely alarmed "OH my Got!" to my spanglish explanation. Needless to say, we needed an experience to repair the friendship. So we asked Javi for the mate hookup. He obliged and gave me a thorough lesson in the guarani tradition.

I was a bit - a LOT - grossed out when he pulled a mate cup off the counter in the hostel kitchen, shook out the mate tea leaves from the last person and rinsed with water and then started preparing my cup. I asked if it needed soap and he looked horrified. If you use soap it gets into the wood that lines the cup. I still thought the silver straw could be disinfected, but he seemed convinced that it was just right, and I didn't want to be rude - story of my life these last 4 months working in the campo - so I took it. It has not been my downfall yet. I informed him that in Canada we are very concerned about mono. He looked askance until I remembered that 'mono' in spanish means monkey, not a terrible flu that lasts for 6 months. I tried to explain the difference. He assured me he didn't have mono (still not sure he was only referring to the monkey type) - and he continued that in fact, one had to get some germs inside in order to be resistant to them.

So i took the cup and drank and hoped for good germs. And, you know, it was quite nice, it is more bitter than regular tea - which I am accustomed to having with milk and sugar. But it seems like it would be a nice half way mark between tea and coffee. Not so strong, but not so mild as tea.

Now, a few interesting tidbits - there is quite the process involved in preparing it, including slanting the mate and pouring the water into the resulting gap, multiple times, allowing it to simmer in each time. Also, if someone offers you mate, you must drink all of it in the cup and not hand it back until you have, or else it is a signal that the mate is bad and could result in hurt feelings on the part of the maker. You know you can pass the cup back when you hear the sound, Javier informed me. The "sound" is that gurgling that a straw in an empty cup makes. I thought it would be something more adventurous but I guess some things are the same in every language, including "all done, that was yummy. Thanks."

** Here is where things become truly strange: When I asked Javier his name I could not help laugh as I walked away. On the last trip I had with Jessi, in Ometepe, Nicaragua, we befriended the guy at the front desk there. Over our four days, we often sat, enjoying the shade by the desk, asking for advice or just chatting to wile away the time. He became an instant friend on the day of our arrival we broke his polite reception exterior with a shocked look of delight that resulted from hearing us foreign girls using Nica slang. He quickly regained his composure when the boss came around the corner, but from then on we had a special bond with him. He looked out for us and we were delighted with him. He was- also named Javier. Coincidence? We think not.

El Tegelberg Glare-o

2009-08-29T21:05:00.005-07:00

I present to you a cautionary tale for all who may fall under the Tegelberg Glare and a difference of readings in body language. We all get confused by it sometimes; unfortunately, we seem to have a deeper misunderstanding between Canada and Bolivia. No one ever says this in Canada:

Morning, the office. R is sitting at one of the desks. Enter K.
K: Buenos días
R: Hola Kiki… (looks up) oh Kiki! Why are you so sad?

And there you have it. Unless you work with your therapist or your granny (if your grandmother is the cuddly, emotional type that talks in an insidiously high voice and over analyzes your every movement for emotion and passion. I mean, mine wasn’t, but yours might be), you are unlikely to hear those words out of your coworker’s mouth before you even sit down at your desk. Ah yes, in Canada you are blissfully unmoved by another's facial expression. And it is not because you don’t care. Perhaps you don’t care much for that girl who is slightly smarter, definitely thinner and just that little bit nicer than you are, but if she came in bleary eyed with tears from a disastrous breakup or other woebegone tales, you’d offer her a sympathetic look and some scratchy brown paper towel from the office bathroom. Of course, unless anyone, including that girl, came in with anything less than tears you would know that the proper decorum of allowing one to sit down, arrange their papers uselessly and get one – more likely two – cups of coffee, are in order before ever approaching a subject that might relate to one’s emotional state.

But that is only in the case where it is evident she is indeed sad. There are traces of tears, giant bags under her eyes. Her mouth is in a permanent puppy pout. And a great deal of pausing and gripping the desk while her back is turned to everyone else are indicators that something is amiss. Without a multiplicity of these indicators though, you have no case. The fact of the matter is that Canadians know that unless several minutes, if not the entire morning, are taken for keen observation, then such a question is over-zealous and clearly out of place.

But here in Latin America, it is a flippant greeting – thrown out to accuse you covertly of being anything less than passionately and ardently happy with life in that moment. It is said with a thin veil of care and concern, but really it means “How could you not love waking up on this glorious morning that you brings you here to this tiled space of generic office-ware? You – you do not want to dance? I do not understand” and a hurt look of a smacked puppy ensues.

But how, oh how, do you say in Spanish: “I’m not sad, this is just how I look at 9am when entering my place of work and beginning my concentration for the day. Leave me alone you bloody fool.” It is my dilemma probably twice, maybe thrice a week. How do you explain across that great cultural divide the Tegelberg Glare? In English it is simple so allow me and maybe google translator will do the work for me.

I inherited it from my father, Eric Tegelberg – or as he is known by the “peeps” in the “hood,” ‘Eazy E.” The Tegelberg Glare though is something that most of the Tegelbergs share. We don’t flaunt it, but perhaps there is something of a quiet satisfaction in partaking in it. It is our musing face: our pondering and wandering face.

Unfortunately, it is the glare that, once it settles on you, may well strike the fear of God into you more than anything else you’ve ever experienced from another human body. And now I should clarify something – it is a glare when perceived from an outsider, but a stare when given. Inwardly, the Tegelberg may be thinking about a golf game or what type of coffee they are going to order at Starbucks or maybe pondering which day to make laundry day. Unfortunately, the poor schmuck on whom our gaze has settled perceives that the Tegelberg is thinking “I want to rip your arm off and beat you with the bloody end.” Eric maintains that occasionally that is his thought, but that is such a rare occurrence that I believe he says it only to maintain fear in any potential gentlemen callers. I am fairly certain it hasn’t actually been thought since the boyfriend of 2002 – a good seven years, so you are likely clear.

Simply put, it is our concentration face. I guarantee that 99% of the time we are not concentrating on you – you should be so lucky. And yet… these people just don’t get it. They don’t get that I am not sad, and I am not mad.
I just look like this.

Escapades of the Gallery's Members Part 1

2009-08-15T09:00:00.002-07:00

Marcee and Adreana, my housemates, work for Cristo Viene Hogar de Ninas (Christ Comes Home for Girls). I got to come with them all to the zoo (because I had been such a good little girl lately!)

Marcee and the Jaguar

Vendors outside the zoo

Front gate to our house and our neighbour, Greg's

Escapades in the Gallery Members Part 2

2009-08-15T08:58:00.002-07:00

A 'despulpador' - a hand-cranked or bicycle-cranked depulping machine for coffee beans

Artisan shop in Buena Vista, close to the main coffee processing plant, Agricabv, which supplies to Level Ground/Ten Thousand Villages

Santa Cruz's main cathedral. It's not too shabby from the front either.

Extremely excited to go to the zoo!

A Day in the Life of Someone Who Generally Fakes Knowing What She's Doing

2009-07-31T16:21:00.003-07:00

Let’s just re-cap the events of the last 24 hrs shall we?

Tuesday:
3:30: leave house, take taxi to “Ex terminal” – the city broke up with it in a nasty event last February. Most people still go there, but they don’t mention it in front of the city, in case it looks like they are choosing sides.

3:48: arrive at Ex, wander down side walk along the road next to the terminal to where trufis are waiting (a trufi is a taxi with a set route that will pick up and drop off passengers along the way – generally a station wagon or a Japanese minivan). See, now where would be the sense in having the trufis waiting IN the terminal? Like I said, we still gotta keep up appearances.

4:02: leave Ex in the dust and head out to Yapacani (or as I ‘affectionately’ call it, Armpit – erm, that would be the literal translation).

6:30: arrive in Yapacani. Find moto-taxi (yes, that is a motorcycle taxi) to take me to office. With one bulging backpack on my back and a smaller-yet-similarly-crammed one nearly choking me around the front, I saddle up behind a nice man who takes me to the office.

7:08: multiple repetitions of that time I shot down one of the guys I work with when he whistled at me. The line “in your dreams” has since become the stuff of legends. I am not kidding. They are way too easily amused.

8:14: We decide that 7 am is unnecessarily early to begin work, and settle on 8. I also pretend to be working while really skyping mom and friends. Handily, my male coworkers mistake my guy friend I am chatting with for my long-distance lover. He obligingly agrees to take the heat and the boyfriend ruse continues. Local attentions are somewhat on the wane. We are grateful for the repose – although I regularly have to defend my non-boyfriend’s fidelity.

9:22: make tuna sandwich in dorm room. Our office is sort of out in the boonies, and while I know that I don’t have to go to Santa Cruz to get dinner – I still feel like I do, because there is no way into town if someone isn’t willing to drive me – other than my feet, but that isn’t much of an option if you ask me.

10:28: glorious bedtime.

5:00(ish): awake to sounds of rustling leaves, light patter of rain and –what’s that? Oh yes, the high school band practicing – or at least, the drum corps. It’s only slightly creepy to hear drums emerging from the nearby jungle.

7:09: awake for real.

8:14: on the road again – Willy Nelson not included. I think to myself as I walk out of the office, ‘time to go for a motorcycle ride, you LIKE this Kiki” in order to psych myself up for what I am expecting to be a long, bathroomless day in the campo (field) doing interviews in Spanish-which-turns-out-to-be-more-Quechua.

8:35: Am pelted with either a stone or a bug kicked up from the tailwind of a semi-trailer. “You LIKE this, Kiki!” I am also regretting the choice of footwear (flip-flops) as the dust kicked up from passing trucks and cars feels like sandpaper. But the sandals will come in handy later, just you wait. The scandalous truth though is that I DO like motorcycles and the palm trees they pass.

9:02: Begin interviews “Frank,” my compañero from work speaks to many of the interviewees only in Quechua. Sweet. Turns out that some speak in Spanish though, so interview carries on, without too much double translation for my head. I am now becoming quite accustomed to the blank stare and then the drift in gaze when they don’t understand me. That look kills me. I know what I said! I know it’s grammatically correct! I just don’t know why it doesn’t make sense to you! However, when things are translated into Quechua a funny thing happens. A look of understanding and then a nod and then they launch into a nice long story in response. The lights are all on and all of us are home. It is a brilliant moment when it happens. It also makes you marvel at language – how they can be so different, and how impressed I am when someone is fluent in something else, but also – how comfortable it is to hear your own familiar words. We are all fluent in at least one!

9:49- 12:00: More interviews are conducted. A river is portaged with the moto (2 times of course – Frank does the portaging) and I pray against piranhas and leg worms (which I am CONVINCED I will soon get on my next micro ride or by crossing rivers in flip-flops. There was a woman on the bus the other week that had a worm in a tight squiggle in her leg. Not kidding you. I know they are not contagious – certainly not by just looking at them down the aisle five rows back and with multiple bags of oranges and other market products in the way. But part of me still wonders and checks the backs of my calves daily).

12:37: We are back on the road. Dirt road. A road Willy would fear to tread. Actually, that’s a lie - I’ve seen worse. But I hear that Willy is a bit of a diva anyway.

1:21: arrive back in Armp- I mean, Yapacani for lunch. Discussion centres around bottled Starbucks frappuccinos and the Korean Hogwan educational system. Best not to ask.

2:19: return to office, spring my computer from the dorm and head back for the city.

4:41: arrive in Santa Cruz, in time to purchase flag (Independence Day is only one week away) and bottled Starbucks Frappuccino. Make friends with FOB American school teachers in line ahead of me in the supermarket, feel solidarity as one of them is a redhead.

6:36: arrive home. Sigh of relief. Tomorrow we do it all over again, but for tonight I am home.

Epilogue: The devastating events of the next morning are worth noting. I had planned to return for noon the next day to do interviews with a large group. This would have been an interview goldmine. I would have been able to get many more than I can get in a day of trying to go farm to farm (it’s a lot of distance and by mid-morning they are generally out working in their fields that could be far away). So I went back to the Ex and squish into the front seat of a trufi and wait patiently for our driver to sally forth out of the city.

Only to be informed that there was a blockade in Warnes, about half an hour out of the city. Now, blockades are not uncommon. Once already this summer I have had to cancel work because of a blocked highway. I was told that it is a very bad idea to cross alone (which apparently you can try to do on foot sometimes). The issue is this: often “they” are just protesting illegal taxis or some sort of regulation that they don’t like. But if the protest is political, it can be a pretty big deal. So I made the call to ditch the wonderful, beautiful few-and-far-between opportunity to get ahead in my interviews and stayed in the city. On the one hand – I was so frustrated to miss them because I didn't stay the night but on the other, can’t really change that decision now and coming home was a sweet rest. So I was set back, but not completely defeated: I had a blessed encounter with a doctor which leads me to our next post. Stay tuned.

Intentions and Attentions

2009-07-18T11:44:00.011-07:00

I was once told that I was not allowed to make cultural judgements until "I had been here six months" ('here' being Nicaragua, but I heartily concur that the rule applies pretty much anywhere that you move). The following isn't so much a story about making a cultural 'judgement' so much as being able to maneouvre adeptly within a culture that at times baffles and/or confounds and other times works EXACTLY as you would wish.

I went on Monday and yesterday to do interviews in one of the communities out of the city. The micro ride is about 1 hr to 1.5 depending on several issues such as time of day, the whim of the driver and the relative responsiveness of the on-board market for yoghurt-selling pre-teens who bombard the micro during its stop in the El Torno market, and therein detain it until every passanger has either bought one or declined at least the obligatory 4 times. After the micro ride is a breezy 20 minutes or so on the highway leading to the lush foothills on the back of a motorcycle with my co-worker, an agronomist from our organization. So that makes about 2 hrs of my travel time just to get there and get settled.

I went out Monday - yes, I went out monday after booking the week before to do interviews with a person within the local government, only to arrive and find out that no one was there. Let's not mind that. So I call again to see, as we agreed, if we could indeed do it later in the week (like Thursday or Friday, as I was told). Of course we can do it Friday. Sure, sounds good. So arrive at the appointed hour on Friday, ready to get this done so I can move on to the next zone for my interviews. This is, this is the last one I need from the south zone and then we are on to other issues. Right? Riiiiiiight.

Of course, I am informed that the person we are supposedly going to interview is not going to be at the office until 5pm. FIVE PM?! I can guarantee you that 5pm on a Friday is NOT the time I plan to arrive at my office if I am a public official. No sir, there is a bureaucratic union that has LONG sorted out the issue of working hours in government offices. 5pm ha! But we go, to see whom we can find and perhaps they're at home and not the office, so we check there.

Now, after finding all houses void of any adults, we decide to sit in the park that forms the town square and wait. I use the term 'park' loosely. But there are benches, so it will do. The thought momentarily crosses my mind that this official is not coming at 5pm either. But we decide to sit anyways. I take the opportunity to interview my coworker instead.

Now, cultural cue number one: there is a strange obsession with trying to find a husband for me amongs the people I work with. So I also take the opportunity to start casually spreading rumours in my workplace that I have a nice boyfriend waiting for me back home and that is why I am not trying really hard to marry a Bolivian so I don't have to extend my visa and get citizenship instead (the major selling pitch that they usually give me). The question arises frequently from the gentlemen of my organization (both married and single - I think they are plotting to help out one particular fellow who doesn't seem to have much luck): "Well Kiki, have you thought about just marrying a Bolivian? That would solve a lot of problems." And I now reply that while I agree, naturally, that would be the simplest way to do - ahem - solve things...(!?!?) it would make my flame upset, so if it doesn't happen, perhaps it is all for the best. I know, I know. In some cultures (my own for instance) my part in the following conversation would be considered a "lie" but really he just assumed I had a boyfriend, so whom am I to contradict?

T: So what does he look like - is he dark like us or blond like you guys?

K: (without hestiation) "He's blonde. Very blonde. Yes, pasty like me, shame really - our children will probably have melanoma by the time they hit puberty." Maybe next time he'll be asian, who knows? Whatever takes my fancy. But I will have to keep my stories straight with the different crews at the office.

If anyone calls me on it, I will stand by my defence: I simply didn't understand the question in spanish. He said 'boyfriend??' OHHHHH - Still working on those language skills!

Anyways, after an enlightening 2 hrs discussing Bolivian agriculture, politics, visa requirements, migration and of course, my love life, the appointed hour of our meeting came. "Give it a few more minutes and we'll call to see if she's ready" I am told. A few more minutes pass (it's now about 5:30 - 'few' is a cultural term as well). We call. The Very Important Person is currently running a marathon. Or they are caught in the midst of a bicycle chase with the fuzz in hot pursuit. Or they are pumping vigorously to make the swing go higher. I can't quite tell but there is wind and a lot of huffing and puffing. And no, incidentally, they will not be in town any time soon. Could we meet tomorrow? No, that doesn't work for us (are you kidding me?! It's SATURDAY! we both seem to say with the mutual roll of our eyes). So we book Monday afternoon between the three of us.

But I know that I really don't want to come back Monday, two strikes are enough. So I climb on the back of the motorcycle and consider my options and settle within about .4 seconds that I will just call back Sunday to cancel. That will look legit: "something came up, sorry but it just won't work tomorrow. I will call you when I get this week's schedule sorted out, ok?" I am already planning the spanish version in my head. It's all settled. So when I climb off the moto at turn to say goodbye to my coworker, he says "You know, it's best if we all meet in El Torno so you don't have to come so far, so I will call one day ahead of time next week to figure that out."

And the thought dawns on me - culture cue #2 - not a single one of us has, had or ever will have any intention of meeting at the appointed time on Monday. I am SO off the hook. There is a certain satisfaction in that.

Here's a saturday story for you entited "We Ate Steak and It Was Fabulous"

2009-07-04T10:37:00.007-07:00

A few posts ago I promised stories soon to come. If I recall correctly, the insinuation was that they would be stories about my trip to Argentina. I can tell you without hesitation that was a fabulous adventure full of wonderful stories, such as "The Time Steve eats Three Steaks in the Meal to End All Meals" or a little ditty I like to call "Tango with Dulce de Leche" (That one is more of an ode, put to music it becomes quite romantic). These and other tales that will confirm - heed ye well - that what you've heard about Argentina being the magical land flowing with steak and wine is. all. true.

Yep, we had a good time. No, we had a GREAT time. But I don't want to spoil the magic (or the forthcoming bestseller) so I will summarize in point form:

- Get up

- Drink coffee at trendy cafe

- Wander charming park, sit on bench,

- Drink coffee at trendy cafe

- Wander charming streets, sit on bench

- Eat steak and drink Malbec,

- Sit on bench

- Sleep (not on bench, but at nostalgic-if-somewhat-frgid hostel in early 20th century art-deco architecture apartment building).

- Repeat

There were a few deviations, most often for photo opportunities at which point I would "kindly ask" Steve, my aussie partner-in-crime for this adventure, to do something rather embarrassing in public (see for example facebook photos of Steve running through a flock of pigeons or wearing gold lame hat). And by "kindly ask" what I suppose I really mean is "plead and badger shamelessly" until I got my photo.

However, as you may surmise from the list, most events either entailed happily wandering or happily eating. The former usually provided surprises tucked around each corner: booksellers in a park or a magnificent cathedral, just sitting there, minding its own business. The latter was a bit more ostentatious. Buenos Aires knew she was fine and she did not mind showing you so. Let's take, for example, the evening we went to a place called La Cabrera. We should have known from the start: we arrived and figured we should get our names on the list that was for an empty restaurant (apparently was booked full with reservations). We were skeptical about all this upon arrival until... The girl out front didn't even take my name or how many were in our party. She just handed us two glasses of champagne. Not kidding.

We would have been content to just sit at the table on the sidewalk-patio at which we sat to wait to see if we could enter (still a bit baffled that they were holding out on us, seeing as there was about 8 other people mingling on the sidewalk and no one inside except a few waiters). However, within about 10 minutes of sipping our bubbly, they allowed in the VIP guests who materialized out of thin air and cobblestone (who were legion, after all. Moral of the story: reservations, who knew?). We were ushered past the red curtain on the door and seated. The hitherto empty dining hall was now crowded with beautiful argentines. We were seated rather close to an all-american family (oh yes, beautiful argentines and that one american family) who's headship was loudly proclaiming that what we have here was a prime example of the Real Argentina. The family was also about as fresh off the plane as they come - having arrived earlier that evening and so they would know. The big kahuna's slightly sullen 15 year old son didn't seem impressed. We'll give the young lad the benefit of the doubt and assume he was jet-lagged. But for all the father's gusto, he was right. He hadn't seen nothin' yet.

What ensued was quite possibly the most encredible meal of which I have had the honour to partake in all my quarter-century on this earth: Carmelized garlic, fresh artisan bread, sautéed mushrooms in a brillant sauce, creamy garlic potatoes, sundried tomatoes and olive oil.

Most of all: Steak. Steak like you never imagined steak could be. Steak in all its bountiful glory. Steak that noble heifers would willing give up their lives to become, knowing that their sacrifice makes the world a more beautiful, a more peaceful, a more wonderful place to live for all. Steak that makes you - for the first time in your life - mindful of those precious little buds lining your tongue: 'Oh THAT'S what those were made for!'

Really, I like writing, and I'm not one to toot my own horn, but I know I am not horrible at it.

Nevertheless, on this subject, words just don't work. Suffice to say, that it is WORTH the 1500$ plane ticket to Buenos Aires - I. kid. you. not. The next morning I was still full. It didn't really hold me back from having quite possibly a heart-stoppingly wonderful dulce-de-leche filled pastry warm from the oven of a bakery we accidentally wandered by in La Boca. But... I feel like there should be a but and then something that justifies that pastry after such an extravagant meal. A 'but' that legitimates the insanity of such perfect steak and pastries in such an imperfect and broken and hungry world. A 'but' that puts it in worldly terms so that the whole experience makes sense. But there is no 'but' in Buenos Aires. There is only senseless joy of senses. To that I can truly add nothing. Provecho!

As promised, the Sucre images

2009-06-30T18:09:00.003-07:00

Steve prepares to be a tour guide.

The three musketeers! me, Steve and Pete (Steve's friend from World Vision)

View from on top of one of the many cathedrals.

Same rooftop, different view.

Erm, getting a little uncreative with the captions here...

A secret passage-way ;)

Pondering why we never saw any birds other than pigeons. I have subsequently noted condors, parrots, several unknown-but-longtailed varieties and hummingbirds.

Belltower.

There is more where that came from, as always: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2022656&id=180500624&l=e6cf63c34a

Also, flickr will have more that you have not already seen by the weekend. and I apologise, the last post was no story time! But soon! I just gotta narrow down all the good ones!

Because I miss writing papers THIS MUCH.

2009-06-30T17:55:00.005-07:00

I miss writing papers apparently, because I was compelled to write this monster this afternoon. It MAY or may not, have something to do with the fact that I was avoiding doing transcripts of last week's interviews, which incidentally is about as exciting as listening to public service announcements on mute. So, for your reading pleasure (or for something only a notch above a muted public service announcement...) I give you my thoughts on Climate Change, Skepticism and Development.

This morning, my old friend Paul Krugman writes in the New York Times about the opposition from Climate Change skeptics in the US Congress. Reminds me of the time that I got the response "What if I don't have kids, what if I don't even like kids??" from a professor when I used the 'protect future generations' line of argument in a paper on Climate Change and Development initiatives. He actually wrote that in the margin. There truly are all sorts of objections out there.

Now, nota bena, I am about as Canadian as they come in my feelings toward Climate Change: yep! We should do something! But – of course – in a calm, peaceful and orderly way. I am skittish of doomsday extremes; I am most comfortable smack in the middle. Let's not get carried away here, oh and while we're at it, allow me to apologize for that over which I have no control (such as, the weather). I am terribly sorry for all the inconvenience caused by melting ice caps both for the economic disadvantages caused by extreme weather patterns in the last few years and also for the personal discomfort you may feel during a particularly hot summer or wicked wind next winter. Mea culpa. Moreover, I know that there are extremes in the responses to tackling climate change, which also don’t sit quite right with me. For example, completely destroying today's opportunities for the poor with burdensome regulation that retards any chance of success in developing countries all in the name of climate change is also not an optimal response. But then, just ignoring it, denying it or dancing around the issue will also be an unlikely method for making it all go away.

This morning, though, I also came across this document on migration caused by climate change from CIESIN. I haven't read more than the synopsis - so a careful disclaimer that I don't actually know the details of it! The introduction is indeed a letter from Debbie Downer (most CC documents are – when I was doing my major lit review on the subject in January I seriously had nightmares from reading the Stern Review and got to the point that I had to change the subject of my readings within an hour before bedtime just so as to be able to sleep. Seriously). However, my intuition is that it is similar to what I am witnessing on a small scale here in Bolivia and what I experienced in Nicaragua. Climate Change predictions always sound so dire: millions displaced by flooding and fires and earthquakes and lack of water. We are not experiencing the disaster that some climate change predictions appear to insinuate. The popular conception of Climate Change warnings would make one think that we are just waiting for a levy to break and 6 billion people will all drown, with a few renegade survivors left to fend off aliens and robots and to perpetuate the human race from a hitherto unknown island off the coast of New Zealand. But that's not how climate change works. And in the very least, I am sure the Kiwis would be very cordial to aliens and not stupid enough to create self-promoting robots that destroy human life. The kiwis always seem very even-keel about these things...

I truly see a need to wrap our minds around this (Climate change, not aliens). Here's the way I see it: One year the rains are a bit more scant that usual. And, if you are a farmer in oh... let's say Bolivia, you think, "well, we're hooped, the crop is gone." (Only it sounds more like "puuuchica! ahi se va la cosecha!" but I digress) But then the next year, or maybe even later in that year (like this one in Bolivia) the rains come when it is normally dry (June, for example) and roads get washed out because they were only dirt and sand to begin with and what is left of the crop that wasn't destroyed by the abnormal monsoon rots on the patio because there is no way to get into the city for two weeks to sell it. That is the climate change I see – some physical effects that are compounded by political and economic factors (i.e. not having quality roads). There is enough environmental and economic discomfort to cause sincere problems of livelihood.

In both Nicaragua and Bolivia I have witnessed what it means to be dependent on rains that are by no means a farmer's friend. When those rains become less and less dependable, as they seem to have been in the last decade, then it is harder and harder for those who have less make a go of it with what they have. Just because Climate Change is not going to melt our skin off in a bath of acid rain tomorrow, doesn’t mean that Climate Change is a hoax. We are noting that the environment and the economy are rarely in sync these days. (Of course, the economy is not in sync with much). And granted, humans have always been at the mercy of nature when it comes to food production. But the scale of the amount of people who are at the mercy of it now does make our era peculiar.

In light of that, I make a case for paying attention to these sorts of documents – read them carefully and critically. Moreover, I think we need to put aside our dislike for children and children's children and take ourselves calmly, peacefully and with intelligence to a place where we are willing to steward the earth rather than squeezing out the last drops since our time is short (‘we all have to die someday’) and it might not last (‘we'll create technology in the next few years to replace it anyways’).

Moreover, I am compelled to remember that just because it does not affect me visibly (I can go buy my food easily from Safeway if the IGA market runs out!), this is not the case the world over. First, the chance of birth – that is, being born in a country and to a socio-economic circumstance that leads me out of subsistence living – does not excuse me from the dues I must pay to a global public good (the environment), which incidentally are far more valuable to those with another circumstance of birth.

Secondly, many people make do on much less nutritional variety, say nothing of material goods, than what I do. If there is a particularly nasty winter in Vancouver as we had this year, I am inconvenienced, but my livelihood is not jeopardized. I did not move to Bolivia from Vancouver in search of income. I know though that many Bolivians may move to Argentina or Spain because they can't afford to stay here any more. True, there are many factors involved there - not just poor crops. Urban and rural people are moving. Nevertheless, there is a collusion of so many factors, to which I often contribute blissfully unaware. And it is this contribution of mine which behoves me to examine my lifestyle and how I can take part in a larger picture of curbing the excess of western environmental and economic damage. What is going on when I drive to the store in my 4runner and purchase subsidized or undervalued food products and which have been produced using damaging environmental practices because of the grandiose scale of production – soy interestingly enough is one of the most environmentally damaging crops here in Bolivia because the industrialization of slash-and-burn production. (Now all the vegetarians feel bad – sorry bout that guys).

So hear what I am saying, please. I am NOT saying we should stop eating soy – or bread or bananas and for heaven’s sake not drink coffee! I am NOT saying we should stop driving all cars. I am NOT saying we should never go to the supermarket, and all revert to growing veggies and become hunter-gatherers. Nor am I advocating wallowing in our collective guilt.

I am advocating though a bit of a sackcloth-and-ashes moment for the western world. Back in the day, the Biblical day that is, people would wear sackcloth and put ashes on their head as a public sign of mourning, remorse and a changing of the ways. I think we too do right to come out with public signs of remorse for the extremes of carelessness we have for those more vulnerable to precarious climates, both economic and physical. Moreover, it is late, but better than never to take some time to "sit in the ashes:" examine the damage as it truly is, with vigorous science – both physical and social – and ponder where to go from here so that we do the best we can by our neighbour and ourselves with the resources we have.

Stories soon to come

2009-06-21T13:54:00.004-07:00

Some fotos from the recent trip to Buenos Aires, stories will follow shortly, but if you'd like to see more click the title to see my flickr page. Sucre fotos will also soon be up! Keeping you on the edge of your seat ;)

Sidestreet in Palermo

Books in a Park.

Reverence.

Tango at Cafe Tortoni.

Interior of the Central Cathedral

The Novelty Wears Off

2009-06-20T07:26:00.004-07:00

There is a moment that comes when one is in a foreign setting where the novelty wears off. You get tired and frustrated. And it might just be PMS, but for whatever reason, on that day, you just can't handle things. I am sure I had these moments in Nicaragua, but I was badgered by the strict rule of "thou shalt not make any cultural judgements until you have been here six months" and so learned to accept things enough that now those moments have been fairly well erased. Heck, I've even had them in Vancouver, but its Vancouver - like a silly goose of a girl: you want to smack her, but she is so naive and ditzy and pretty that you can't help but dote on her.

The problem this week starts here: Things are moving at a glacial pace in so many areas of my life. My work is one day forward and four back. This week has felt like a board game, one turn is awesome and you have landed exactly where you want to be and then the next roll you are sent back to the start square. Even on one day at 3pm I was giddily lining Boardwalk with hotels. Hours later at bedtime I was tottering between Baltic and the Income Tax square.

But still mornings are my favourite, and so now that I have one, I should be thankful. I should be thankful now that its all such a "leisurely ride," because 'they' tell me that you hit a point where you want to stop growing and moving forward and go back and just sit on a particular moment. I have a few in mind already - that evening on the beach in Omtepe with Jessi, that day that I finished my last term paper and then watched 5 episodes of the OC in one sitting, that phenomenal steak dinner last week - Each a moment made up of a few hours when I could have stayed days.

But these are also moments where, even if it's not easy and it's lonely, something has been given to make it good - droplets of God's presence and signals of that divine breeze. Just look:

Wednesday morning, the dust that is not my dust and the noise that is not my noise were so infuriating. And I wanted to flip off the truckers that unreasonably laid on their astoundingly loud horns (because it's been SO effective every other time in your life that you've honked! But keep trying, maybe it will work this round!) SO LOUD. Louder than any sensible horn ought to be be under normal circumstances. I steadfastly hold my ground that there are somethings in our globalized, matieral-infested world of offerings that we simply don't need -industrial-strength car and truck horns being a prime example.

The dust kicked up by endless wind and construction - constructing a road by deconstructing the never-existent sidewalk, storing the dust and dirt to the left so we can move it to the right and reveal more gaping hopes that will be filled in with the dirt and dust that must now be added to the dust and dirt. It never ends and it gets in your eyes and sticks to the bug that flew in there the day before and has built himself a hammock to lay in peacefully. Stuck-on just like the stick-on stares that are glued to your pasty foreign skin. Curses on whoever invented paste! And damn that fly!

So I sit on a cement stump to wallow in the moment that shows me that the honeymoon is over, that I am genuinely a crabby, mean, awful person and that I just might not be cut out for this.

And then I are reminded by a wisp of insensible, delectable breeze - so wholly different from the blustering physical wind, that in the midst of this wretched street corner that he is present: that it is the same God, different dust. And not just with me - but with them too, while they stare, honk, sit on cement stumps and look blankly out of the dust.

It doesn't necessarily make it prettier, but it makes it good to be there.

I'll put a fresh pot on.

2009-06-06T06:39:00.004-07:00

Those of you who are familiar with my writings will wish to apply the British narration track for the first paragraph. Also, it is recommended that you read this with at least a 'coffee-themed' beverage.

Scene I: the South American Wild.
Supplies are down and although the sun is glintening in the early morning, a Surazo - the cold south wind from the Argentine plains - threatens on the horizon. Its been days since the Brazilian contingent sent the necessary provisions. An early morning foray out into no man's land proves fruitless and the canteen is still empty. Yet our intrepid explorer does not lose hope or her spirit. Back at the camp, she rigs a contraption of ingenuity and wit to bring forth the elixir of life that will steel the resolve of her and her companions: coffee. It is a triumph of will over circumstance- and no little matter of joy. Though the situation was indeed a close call, they will now be able to forge ahead with renewed vigour and strength of heart.

End scene.

Scene II: in Hotel Flamingo, where the girls live. It is night.
Marge: I have sad news.
Kiki: coffee filters are out?
Glum nods all around. The lights go out and it is very black indeed.

Scene III: Also in Hotel Flamingo, morning.
Kiki enters kitchen, surveys the bottom shelf. She finds a seive, picks it out and scrutinizes its mesh. A nod of resolve and she puts water on to boil and pulls out a roll of paper towel.
Lights fade.
Beat.
Lights back on. Kiki is clearly proud and tickled by her contraption now sitting in the sink. She pours a cup of coffee and goes to sit at the kitchen table. She opens her laptop.
Enter Adreana.
Kiki: I have finally gotten inspired!
Adreana: (absent-mindedly) Great. Is that cuz you had coffee?
Kiki: heck yes!
(pause) Adreana: Inspired to do what?
Kiki: blog, post a facebook status... Live.

End scene.

Playwright's Notes:

Now, dear and faithful friends, allow me to explain much of what may have become a point of befuddlement (yes, befuddlement). I think some of you may have surmised that I have a bit of a fanatic love of coffee. Years ago... oh so many years ago in my short life, I explained to someone why I think the coffee industry is worthy of my dedication. You see, there are many reasons. First, coffee is that dark, brooding, strong warm arm around you when you are first yanked unceremoniously from the warmth and comfort of your eiderdown into the cold and harsh first light of day. Everything is garish and cold. Even light is cold. Yet with a hot shower and an even more-so hot cup of Joe (no plumber here), you feel the strength, the resolve, the courage of the dark friend. Joe has seen much, who has been roasted and ground down by life, just like you. Now he consoles like only one who has been scorched and survived can. When your mother has already been awake for three hours and had time to console her own terror of morning, relish the sweet quietness of early morning and then bake muffins, once again proving what an over-achiever she is in the household department, and you just need an ally, a friend to look you in the eye and communicat - without words - that it will be ok.. in an hour you will be like her, made new and ready to talk. And that she will understand - one day - why you didn't respond to any of her questions. The universal mediator, friend, confidente.

But its more than just a morning addiction, a moment of panic in the midst of disorientation. Yes friends, my love is not the type of the needy and the insecure that calls to her friend only when wanting something. Coffee passes the afternoons away too: sitting with a mutual friend in a cozy spot, watching the rain drip by; by the big storefront window with a newspaper catching up on the reports on stocks, stats and gossip; or by idly staring with you out onto the gentle point grey street from the velvet chair, watching the shopkeeper from three doors down hurry off on her lunch, the pub-owner unlocking the front door, getting ready for the evening's pints, the neighbourhood vagabond who sweeps the sidewalk leaves through fall, pushes pff the snow in the winter and sits under the cherry blossoms in spring and summer.

How many of those conversations have you had over coffee? A wise man named Jim Badke used to talk about 'the third object' in relationships. When I was working at Qwanoes he used to tell his eager little counsellors in training that sometimes what you need is a third object to get conversations moving. Campers were between the ages of 8-18 as the teenagers they are, aren't always forthcoming with chit-chat and verbosity (unlike someone you may know...). And sometimes staring face-to-face to a person and gabbing might not be the first thing on their to-do list, especially if the conversation may have any importance at all. A third object, like a bag of chips or a car dashboard on which to fix the gaze... at least until we are all settled, can make words come a bit more easily. Coffee is the consummate third object. It disarms us all with it's crooked grin - a bitter taste that makes you wonder why on earth you like it. Ironic isn't it? Its not the handsomest, but its winsome because it doesn't pretend to be as sweet as a cola and as smarmy as an iced tea. (Not that they don't have their moments to shine either- indeed they do). But coffee has a bit of an edge - it has wit to put us all at ease and then a straight gaze for when we are ready to divulge whatever is on our hearts. And if nothing else, when we don't want to look in an eye, we can look in a never-empty cup.

Sounds like another cup that I know of...

Allow me to try and wrap this all up and bring it back with us to Bolivia. I am, as many of you know, working with coffee farmers for my research here. As my roommate Courtney said when I told her "that's great! ... Am I supposed to be surprised?" Yet there was a race on, that some of you may not know of - between the coffee project and a few other ones working with farmers that were growing all sorts of different crops. I thought about them for a while, because I had been reminded that "the coffee-thing has been done" - and it really has. How many of us would love to just pack up and move to the beach and open up a little neighbourhood coffeehouse and pass away our days like that? How much literature have you read on fair trade coffee? How ubiquitous is this product???

Exactly. By circumstance (divinely-directed, I believe) I was led to pick the coffee project over rice, fish, or forestry. But the fact that there is so much on it, and it has become almost blasé does not dissuade me. It is, I have read, the second most highly traded commodity. Many of us drink it multiple times a day. But like so many of our foodstuffs, we really have no idea - nor do we often care- where it comes from. Far away, that's all we know.

I have been reading a bit from a guy named Michael Woolcock, who happens to be among other things: a World Bank senior social scientist, a Harvard professor, a political economist and a theologian. He is also my new friend. He was explaining in our latest conversation (entitled "Getting the Social Relations Right: Towards an Integrated Theology and Theory of Development" published in Globalization and the Good, Heslam, P. ed) that the problem with the way we look at 'development' in many circles is that it is often framed by a Justice discourse, and not a Glory discourse. We talk about "Social Justice" and "Fair Trade" and we usually do it with a fair bit of fire and brimstone and contempt in our language - we want the world to be a better place and we are frustrated that it is not. We are mad that farmers in Bolivia earn less than oh, say a grad student working as research assitant part-time in Canada (gulp! that sounds strangely familiar). And we are annoyed that Globalization has made it possible for us to see this easily, without providing an equally easy auto-switch to make it all not be so.

But Glory. That's something different than just an appeal to being fair (as Michael pointed out, "even in a 'fair' world we can all live Hobbesian lives that are poor, nasty, brutish and short"). I am still wrapping my head around what Glory really means in 21st century life. In my experience, it is either: a distant Biblical term to be given to and yet already completely owned by God; or it is what soccer and hockey players get when the goal siren sounds. But they can't be the same thing. A short burst of adrenalin coming from a matter of chance and mere human skill working in varying combinations cannot possibly be the same thing that is embodied in the fingertips of the one who spoke time into being and then within seconds (or rather, outside of them stretching years and eons into his morning and evening) created the most specatular and baffling spread.

Breath.

Coffee? Yes, I am getting there. The point of a Glory discourse of development is that it is about having right relationships - to God, to one another, and to creation. It's about running so hard that your lungs are about to burst and kicking that ball straight to the upper corner, evading the goalie who wants to thwart you and your teammates - even those who are from the other half of the world- at every shot that earns you livelihood not just a trophy. Its about speaking life into a moment and working to create a baffling spread. Its about watching in wonder as a pretty, unpretentious little white flower buds and a few weeks later a cherry appears that gives you a nice view, one that crosses your mind when months later you are back in Vancouver, watching the rain drip outside and sitting across from an old friend on the slightly musty couches in Bean Around the World, getting ready to share the heart. Its about knowing the man who cared for the beans and knowing the agronomist who came by one day to check the plants and sit and chat for a while - also over coffee, although at that point it was still a just a white flower. Its about knowing that that relationship is good, like creation, like the one in front of you now.

Whew. I think that's about all I have for now. Thanks for sticking it out with me through this muddle. Can I top you up?

Vista de La Paz

2009-05-23T11:54:00.003-07:00

World's highest golf course. Just for you, Dad!

"I claim this land for Spain."

Back of the Main Cathedral, in downtown La Paz.

View from my bathroom window

Street life in the market

1835 Catedral: The main entrance is 12m higher than it's base on the other street.

Catedral de San Miguel. I met up with my new friend Rachael here - she told me to get in a microbus and watch for a church that looks like an egg. I sort of laughed when I saw it. She was right, I knew it right away. Its pretty cool though, inside and out.

Life at 3700 metres (12,000 ft)

2009-05-23T09:21:00.005-07:00

As promised, I have the much anticipated second installment of "I'm in Freaking Bolivia!" Now, just to bring you up to speed, we (as in, the royal 'we') have spent about three and a half days in La Paz, situated at 3660 m above seal level. It definitely felt like a week. Then we have journeyed up (in yet another plane) to go back down (much more down) to Santa Cruz, (416m above sea level). Now, much has happened in the Santa Cruz region - including, but not limited to, drinking honey shots with an Inter-American Development Bank (IBD) official, the consumption of more than 3 kilos of steak by one small party in about 40 minutes and the senseless and wonton killing of three large bugs in one day. However, I promised you La Paz and so La Paz you will have and we will tell Santa Cruz to simmer down for the time being.

I think the best plan of action, so as not to let you fall too far behind, is to organize a laundry list of highlights from my whirlwind tour of the city (because after two weeks, today is the first time that I've had the opportunity to do laundry, so its the theme of the day). Let's try to do this in an orderly fashion, shall we? So, I give you an abridged glossary of La Paz aspects, items and events.

1. Asociacion de Instituciones de Promocion y Educacion - this is one of the organizations involved in SFU's project with the Universidad Andina Simon Bolivar. It is a network of NGOs in Bolivia and the project (a certification in development for practitioners) is offered to its member organizations and their staff. I went and met with the director and the liason between the university on Friday and we started off talking about traffic in Managua versus Santa Cruz and then before I knew it we were discussing philosophy of development. Was I stoked?? You betcha. Good people there.

2. Economists - I was invited to go to a extra-cirricular lecture at the Universidad Nuestra Senora de La Paz. Now, normally at a Canadian institution such as oooh, let's say, Simon Fraser University, you have one of these lectures regularly during the evenings and a handful (maybe 30-40) dedicated and eager young minds (read: 'undergrads and their even keener graduate counterparts') will come out to hear a speaker flown in from probably New York (one of those REAL universities with the Ivy and stuff!). It is almost entirely students, with the sponsoring profs showing up and a few community members (read: 'retirees'). This lecture was a little different in terms of its demographic. In file about 15 or so middle-aged economists. Most wearing snazzy suits. Different demographic indeed. I was the only woman for the first 3/4ths of the event - oh wait, one of the speakers brought their wife, so I was one of two women. I was also the only person under hm, let's say 35 (and that might be generous). There was a young guy there my age, sitting behind me at first, but about 20 minutes in, I looked back and he must have "excused himself to the men's room." I am unsure if I was an item of interest for my demographic or the fact that I was Canadian (and the matieral being presented, I was informed, was of Canadian origin). Ah well, I should be used to the fact that as a redhead, I really stand out anywhere but Scotland.

3. Insulation - I know, I know, "no cultural judgments until I'm here 6 months" But allow me just one observation then: you think they'd have figured out insulation by now. It gets to about -1 at night, what with the altitude, and yet houses are just brick and stucco. On the bright side, there are plenty of trendy llama-hair legwarmers to be had. I acquired my own pair within the first 15 hrs of being there (and yes Susan, one for you too).

4. Mascots - also known by the long name of "Holy Chocolatey Inside and Hard Candy Shell Outside Batman!" I was sitting in Cafe Alexander, a trendy little place for which I particularly recommend the Quesadillas de Pollo, in Sopocachi (a trendy little barrio of La Paz), looking across at the Plaza Albaroa on the other side of the street, when what do I see, but all colours of M&Ms wandering through traffic trying to meet up with their logo-bedecked SUV. Yes, walking, talking M&Ms. Or at least, people dressed as M&Ms.
A little while later I look up and the M&Ms have vanished but in their stead are Superman, Wonderwoman, Batman, Batgirl and a man dressed as... a tree? SuperTree? Maybe an Ent? I don't really know but he's wearing an entire branch.
A few moments later and half way into my Quesadilla and coca tea, the superteam has vanished, ostensibly to the same meeting as the M&Ms. But what's that I see? Bam Bam!! It's BAM BAM!! I can now die content.
Wait- I spoke too soon! The entire Flinstone gang just rolled up in ... a car with a roadrunner on top...? A Duck? Maybe it belongs to the tree man, but its not entirely clear what cartoon it references. At any rate, they all fit into the equivalent of a Honda civic, Bam Bam's club to boot. What a day!
SWEET MOTHER, its Zorro and his trust horde of Bees!! (Best not to ask). Can this get any better?? The Plaza Albaroa, ladies and gentleman, where all kind of mascot may be spied by the careful mascot watcher.

5. Nomenclature - I really love the way they name things in Latin American countries. Maybe this is a silly point, because the Spanish language reverses the order of most things, so things are essentially "Supermarket Safeway" as opposed to "Safeway Supermarket." That's fine enough, but combine the names with the punctuation and you have to admit, for an english speaker it just tickles me pink: Reposteria "Nicole" and Fotocopias Snoopy are my too favourite so far (Reposteria = Bakery, cake shop). The quotation marks were included on the sign.

6. Mating Rituals - after the Lecture described in #2, I was milling around schmoozing with the best of them, when I was suddenly asked by one man (bald, 5'7, 50+) for my name and number in Santa Cruz. He quickly proceeds to tell me that since I was moving to Santa Cruz, he has a son there - soltero, single -muy importante - who would be happy to help show me around or really do anything I needed and was given his number and address quickly after. Now, I think its pretty well known that I don't generally know if a guy is making a pass at me unless it hits me in the face, but I caught on pretty quickly to this guy's ruse. So apparently I already have a date with the son of an economist whom I know nothing about. The thing is, when anyone figures out you are single in a foreign country, the immediate response is that you came here for the sole purpose of selecting one of their top-choice eligible young men:
Bolivian: "And Kiki, where did you leave your boyfriend?"
Kiki: "I don't know, I must have misplaced him somewhere!"
Bolivian: WINK "Ah! So you don't have one!? YOU MUST GET A BOLIVIANO!"
Obviously. What else would I do there in three months?

... on the other hand, I feel like pointing out that if I haven't gotten one after a few years in Canada, you think three months here is going to be super effective? Just asking...

7. Traffic Zebras - Perhaps the highlight, so let's end on this short note. In downtown La Paz, there are men dressed as Zebras (more mascots, this seems to be a theme). They stand on the side of narrow major boulevards and direct traffic. I KID YOU NOT. They tell people to slow down, merge nicely and wave at children in backseats. The more I think of it, I think it to be quite the slick trick. I mean, wouldn't you slow down for a Zebra in the middle of the road?

Overall, I quite enjoyed La Paz, even more than anticipated! I have to thank a few folks for their kind hospitality (Rachael - and Jessi for introducing us, and the Molinedo family). The city was something completely different than what I was expecting. I am not too sure where to go with its description, clearly it's not all mascots and marriage proposals. There were lots of tall buildings, even taller rock formations... and tallest of all, Illimani and the Andes. Hot sun and frigid shade, some very trendy people with some very traditional. Tree men and Economists. Some contrasts indeed.

Flight Insight

2009-05-12T14:26:00.004-07:00

First stop: Dallaaassss Texaaassss! – Thank you William Shatner.
It´s midday and one flight of three down. I have little to offer other than the ramblings that sally forth from fatigue and a bloated stomach full of texas chicken-burger and a double side order when they messed up - ´no, really, that's ok, I just want one.’ Oh well, they tell me things are bigger in Texas, and as far as somethings go, it is not always good (´but I don't want a 68 oz cola... I really just want a small one… That can't possibly be your small´).

But I will tell you one thing that´s nice about the grand life of the lone star state: the bathroom stalls are fit for a truck. Do you know how awkward it is to get the carry-on and yourself, regardless of your size, into a normal Canadian sized stall?? Have we thought through how ridiculous this?? And another thing (why, oh why, do I always descend to pontificating on bathroom design? Doing it anyways!) another thing: American bathrooms ALWAYS have seat covers and toilet paper well-stocked. I just find that so civilized!

See here is the thing, and I've complained about this to a few people, but I really do not enjoy the solo travel gig. I mean it would be ok, if airport administration hadn't gone off the deep-end in the last decade. But I have to say, sometimes you just want someone who will watch your bag while you pee, because Lord knows that I am struck with guilt every time I hear that calm woman come over the intercom and inform me that my bags may be subject to destruction (she says that last word like she´s at a monster truck rally: DES-TRUCTION! TION! TION!) if left alone. Then she directs instructions to servicemen. Why do servicemen get special instructions? Don´t they know how to navigate airports too? More importantly – why are they here?? Should I be alarmed??

So I wander the halls of Dallas like a sad little waif buckling under the weight of her overstuffed carry-on (hey, you never know when the airline will lose your bags and you need provisions for those first few days). Then suddenly, they call my number and I´m running down the aisle to the cheers of Rod Roddy to get my seat on the plane to Miami. Now, once safely buckled in and with my airplane blanket carefully tucked around my legs (dare I eve ask how often those are washed?), we prepare for the next stage. Round two: Dallas to Miami.

Now here´s a thought for you: I would like to see just once, ONCE, someone on those airline safety instruction videos who is not bedecked in soothing pastels and carefully ironed slacks. I look around my plane and half of us are in pajayamas and the rest of us are wrinkled from the last three layovers. All of us have bags under our eyes and there is some not-so-carefully-disheveled hair littering the tops of the seats. Is that what I see on this "Important Safety Announcement?" No, they are carefully tinted versions of Martha Stewart to make sure we have an equal vision of women, men and your major minorities. And when their masks drop due to a change in cabin pressure or it is time to put on the life vest, I´d prefer they do it again, this time with feeling. Because , Lord knows that the ambiguously-washed airplane blankies don´t provide much warmth, but they can´t possibly be inflating those vests for extra warmth. I know that would probably be psychologically distressing to show the real emotions, but I´m just saying maybe if their slacks weren´t so neat I´d be able to take it…

And now for something a little different. I was thinking as we taxied out of the gate at Miami (a dangerous pastime I am sure). It is a funny perspective you get from an airplane porthole window. The backside of an airport never looks like the front where you drive in. I wonder if those who design airports take this into account. At any rate, airports are weird places floating out on a sea of cement – far from any city life. I´ve been through Texan airports several times and yet my frame of reference for life in that state still comes from watching Reba. It is hard to figure out if the city looks a certain way from the air. I do strangely, find myself counting swimming pools when we are coming in for a landing. Those nice aqua-coloured jellybeans make me unaccountably happy about a place. I just think that a city with lots of pools would be a nice place, as I do like swimming myself and that must be an indication that it is a relatively sunny life there.

Plane rides afford you a very different view and different views tend to make you question what had previously seemed irrelevant – or more, non-existent. Flying over what I assume to be was West Texas, and thinking of the oil legends of that place from reading the Prize, I was suddenly insatiably curious to know why there were crops cultivated in huge circles when the plots were quadrangular. They looked like big ol´pies from the sky, but clearly they were missing some land on the four corners, seems a rather inefficient waste of land to me. Waste of land, like time, is money according to my economics professor.

But then maybe there is more going on than one can see from so high. I thought as I flew over the gulf of Mexico, towards Florida, what a crazy bit of water this can be and yet…and yet I am looking out and the sun is setting out behind the starboard side of the plane, and the docile tufts of cloud beneath order themselves in neat little rows below, like simple strokes of a brush, mistaking the air for the sea and painting gentle waves that roll over and over one another and the blue below. It makes me want to resolve to study cloud formation – along with Texan agricultural practices (useful stuff, indeed), because, this cannot possibly be the birthplace of Katrina, Felix, Mitch and their horde of wretched siblings.

I am not entirely sure what I am doing on a plane to Bolivia at the moment. I´ve never had a desire to go there – but then Nicaragua was last draft pick on my list of places too, so maybe this is how I roll – maybe if I think about how much I´d hate to go to Spain or Hawaii I´ll get sent there next! And I am a bit of a basket-case when it comes to travelling (see above), but I do feel in this very moment very, very lucky to be watching the sunset over the gulf from the vantage point normally reserved for God and birds.

Well, enough of that nonsense. It is time for me to go catch a bus. Next up: after our descent from the air to La Paz, we have the adventures of Kiki at 13,000ft. Our La Paz notes will include lore of Zebra-men directing traffic and a date with the prof´s son. Hold your breath.

Even Hawaii

2009-01-17T09:58:00.003-08:00

I am resisting the urge to pound out something on the destruction of the UNRWA compound and instead will give you with something slightly more hopeful. These letters to President-elect Obama were written by kids in an after-school program in various US cities. There are more (click post title or here for the full article from the NY Times) but my three favourite are:

"Dear President Obama,
Here is a list of the first 10 things you should do as president:

1. Fly to the White House in a helicopter.
2. Walk in.
3. Wipe feet.
4. Walk to the Oval Office.
5. Sit down in a chair.
6. Put hand-sanitizer on hands.
7. Enjoy moment.
8. Get up.
9. Get in car.
10. Go to the dog pound.

— Chandler Browne, age 12, Chicago

(re #3, 6- this is a kid after my own heart).

Dear Pres. Obama,

Good job on winning. I heard about Area 51. I wanted to ask you if there are any U.F.O.’s there. I think that you should tell people in public the truth about Area 51. You would just maybe say, “That we will take care of it.” And do it.

— Edwin Jara, age 9, New York

"good job on winning"... ahahaha....

Dear President Obama,

Could you help my family to get housecleaning jobs? I hope you will be a great president. If I were president, I would help all nations, even Hawaii. President Obama, I think you could help the world.

— Chad Timsing, age 9, Los Angeles

Something a little more bittersweet in the last.

Joyeux Noel/Feliz Navidad

2008-12-24T00:45:00.004-08:00

Some scattered thoughts on Christmas that, funnily enough, all seem to be leading in the same direction:

1) as stated in the previous post I LOVE Christmas, generally. Let's recap- last year's Christmas was spent in sunny Managua far from home, and although my brother was there to make the yuletide gay, I did have an utterly low moment about three weeks prior to Christmas when all my friends went home to their families and mine had not yet come. The Christmas that came was, I was to find out, a total gift, because while Rob and I were sitting in hammocks under Derek's palm trees-and yes it actually looks like the pictures- three of my four friends were at home in the States breaking up with their respective significant others, and the fourth was having a wee family crisis. So lesson learned? The big homecoming Christmas hullabaloo is not quite what it once was nor is glorified in Bing Crosby songs or Bay ads. Kind of ironic that I would die to be there right now. Rob and I are going to put on shorts and flip-flops tomorrow and pump up the heat in the family room to keep the tradition alive.

2) We've finally whittled presents down to just stockings and I am a-ok with this because all I really need are socks. About a month ago, I realised the hard reality that after a year straight in flip-flops (bring on the arthritis) I actually do not have enough socks to get me through a full week without doing laundry. This is ok if you are wearing slip-ons and can pull off the Euro-bare foot thing, however, Vancouver + November/December = Rain and wet feet. So I asked for socks. Perhaps it's the financial woes of the day, perhaps it's my terribly busy schedule, but something larger has happened to me that I've noticed. I don't really feel like shopping any more. Everything looks the same and it doesn't really seem worth what they are asking. This has been coming for a while, but I don't think I noticed until this fall.

3) I went Christmas shopping yesterday. I needed three things: some tea, a magazine and one other thing for my mother who will surely read this before tomorrow evening, so we'll refrain from mentioning by name, however it should be known that other than the magazine, pretty much all of my Christmas shopping could really have been done at Shoppers Drug Mart. Yet somehow I ended up on Robson for two and a half hours, in slushy freezing puddles up to my ankles and snowbanks as the only credible alternative walking lane crowded with people on cellphones. I was MISERABLE within 20 minutes. What almost a year in one of our hemisphere's poorest countries could not accomplish- that is, ridding me of any desire to be ever remotely involved in capitalist consumption- was accomplished in 20 minutes in the Christmas rush. Never again.

4) Later that night I was discussing the DSF service that I missed with Jessi and Clifton. He was talking about how their family, though Christian, doesn't really do the Christmas tree thing or much else. I jokingly asked him "that's a little 'bah humbug' don't you think?" to which his dear wife replied adamantly that it was (apparently Pandora's got the lid on that one not too tightly). Clifton goes on to explain how there really isn't any Biblical imperative to celebrate Jesus's birthday and many of the symbols aren't really related to the Christmas story, even if we are to do it. We discussed for a while the way the church has 'appropriated' certain things in the celebration. I don't really have a problem with Christmas trees or Christmas itself, but I am seeing his point. They are not Christmas.

5) Church sunday morning, which I braved the blizzard to reach, started to piece together some things that I have been getting at here thinking. They've been pumping this advent conspiracy thing. Which is cool enough. I am ready to get on board. This week instead of playing that video, there was the best Christmas performance there could be. This guy, who's dad was visiting from Australia, gets up and is barely able to talk even with the mic, explaining how he and his dad have been together for all of three days and he's been sick, so they haven't practised much, but they are going to do a song, but first... he needed to set the scene. They play the clip from Joyeux Noel, a movie about the ceasefire on Christmas during WWI. He prefaces it by questioning what a 'night divine' actually looks like. As if the image of trench warfare could be any more stark a contrast- one of the most hellish places on earth, transformed into one of the holiest.

6) Then they sang/played Oh Holy Night. But not just any Oh Holy Night. I was holding my breath for most of it. Quite possibly the most beautiful Oh Holy Night I've heard in a long long time. It was one of those rare moments where no one moves, because all are captured by the words, the beauty and finally grasping a meaning that had been lost or darkened to understanding and a worship that hadn't been practised. Something so familiar, suddenly became fantastically important again. It was so simple. There was Christmas: that moment, right there, as a room half full of hearts was turned to the point of all this- the pure, beautiful power of Christ entered the utter mess of the world and made it all lovely.

Yep, that's what I've got. I think this has been building for a while. Maybe it's nothing spectacular except me outgrowing Christmas like one is supposed to do when they become an 'adult.' But I really do think it is more important than that. While I acknowledget that there is no biblical imperative requiring or calling us to celebrate Christ's birth, I think celebration is definitely part of the Christian life, and we need a good hearty reminder of the cheer that the first night divine brought- and continues to bring in the midst of the mire of wars and confusion and grasping at straws.

So, I'm not ditching Christmas. But I think I'll stop with the buy-fest every year. I won't miss it, not one bit. I am much more excited for tomorrow night's peace, at the candle light service and after, than for anything that will come the next morning (that's not particularly new this Christmas- though it is good to affirm). I am letting go of 'Christmas,' to get a better one in return. I think I will also maybe start learning to play the piano again- though maybe not til August when I am done school though, but seeing as we've got that lovely Steinway and this guy Andrew who played for us at church gave us such a huge gift of open eyes and overflowing hearts, maybe it'd be a good thing to practise. When I'm eighty- by that time I'll be a quarter as good- I will explain to my grandkids why grandma never had presents for their mummies and/or daddies while they were growing up and why they've consequently not gotten any either- but that we've all been the richer for it. And then I'll play that clip and that song. Hopefully they'll understand.

Whisperings of advent

2008-12-07T21:59:00.002-08:00

I am internally sighing and wondering how it got to be 10pm already and I haven't even opened one of the 17 articles I have queued up for my next research paper. At the end of this week I have three papers due, two of which are 15-20 pagers and the other is but a paltry 12. One down (good work slugger!) but two to go (get back in there champ!).
But it is 10pm. And for the last several evenings- let's say, eight- I have not gone to bed before 1. I am le tired. It is the sabbath. Should i just give up? Don't mind if I do. Instead, let's just sit down here by the fire and in an effort to lighten the mood since my last post (mom cried- we already know I cried, it was a big ol' cryfest...) I will tell you of Christmas present (as in #4).

Being that it was Sunday, and I had been up until about 2:30 finishing off a seminal work pontificating on the Millennium Challenge Account aid program, I woke up this morning with every intention of sleeping in and then getting up to start editing and doing the graphs (apparently for economics papers they want graphs. I don't really have any graphs, nor do I generally care for excel and its tricks, but graphs they want, then graphs I will pull out of my...ahem). The familiar Sunday morning text message arrived "are you coming to church?" and I rolled over and all my will power to get up and work vanished. My resolve at 2am to get up and be disciplined and not to go to church withered. The enticement of the hot soup after Utown, where I've been hanging out the last month or so, was duelling with my heavy eyelids and fingers that were clinging to the blanket. But somehow after taking some time to sit, caffeinate and breathe with God, I was up and out the door- wearing my new hand-me-down shirt. Don't you just love getting hand-me-downs? It helps when your patron has nice taste like mine.

I walked into the service a good 40 minutes late and the breathing resumed. I don't think I have particularly impeccable timing, but the moment was beautiful. The band was in a bridge between a triumphant carol and the next song and everyone was so ... full. The room wasn't full so much as there was a fullness to the room and the church. You gotta love those moments eh. I find that the Christmas season can be beautifull like this. Maybe its because I like red best, or because I am mesmerized by twinkly lights (lifetime member of the Stanley Park Train Conductors' Society). Perhaps it's also the fact that everything happens at night. Nights are quieter and the twinkle lights show up better. It also gets dark earlier so things really are happening more at night (what was up with that- I went for a run at 4:15 and it was already beyond dusk... that part isn't as cool).

Much to my mother's chagrin, I am the biggest Christmas keener ever. I love it. I love the trees, I love the decorations, I love the music- whoever says that there isn't a Christmas spirit can't explain the fact that I can even tolerate Michael W. Smith's cheeseball crooning if it's one of his holly jolly songs.

One of the things that has come up the last few Sundays is the advent conspiracy. There is an internet video floating around that catches the spirit of Christmas. It is from a group called Advent Conspiracy. I am not going to rant about the ills of consumerism that seem to have swallowed Christmas- because I do not love that like I love fat little gingerbread men (nine! nitske drops knuefen!). I am going to let that be for now, as I am sure, if you have read anything else on this blog, you can get a sense of what my feelings would be (my mom will probably do two fist pumps of yuletide joy because of it's 'spend-less' theme of the video).

But focusing on that I think there is something even more important going on. I think they've hit upon something there with the idea of presence. Christmas represents the time where God became most tangibly present in Christ. What kinda of presence do I give to others as a response?
I have the attention span of a gnat -look! shiny objects! even more this time of year than any!
Gotta work on that one.

So there's my bedtime story for you. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Bleeding Heart

2008-11-08T11:09:00.003-08:00

I have linked the title to a NY Times photo-journal taken by a photographer who has been to Iraq repeatedly throughout the war. There is an audio interview with him and one other journalist talking about the changes he has seen over the last five years and the perspective of hitting the ground for the first time there. I am about to start working on a paper on the effect(iveness) - or lack thereof- of economic sanctions using Iraq and Palestine as two case studies. I have not done any of the research yet really, so I'll let you know what I find out. But this was interesting.

On the other side, I went to a lecture with Nick Danziger, a photo-journalist and travel writer, on Thursday night. Quite possibly the best extraneous lecture I've been to all semester. He is not an academic (not that academics aren't riveting at times). I had thought I was going to hear him speak on his exhibit that is up right now at the Teck Gallery at school, and instead he was talking about Afghanistan- he has been travelling there regularly since 1984, lots of stories. A few friends and I were commenting yesterday about how sometimes it is necessary to step out of academia for it to remain relevant. Not that being in academia isn't a good thing or that we should not pursue higher (and higher) education, but just that going from high-school to undergrad, to grad school and on to the phd without having the life experience, in my opinion, will leave a lack in your perspective, especially in a discipline such as development. Considering the history of one after another theories of macro-economic plans to save the world designed in Washington, London- or perhaps more particularly a cozy lodge in the countryside near these cities- which have all fallen flat, I think it is safe to say that if our head knowledge isn't tempered with comparisons of what we have seen in the world and what we know to be true by observation there, then it will be found wanting.

The point of this diatribe is that Danziger's experiences in Central Asia and other places have given him a perspective that few would have, a knowledge of the afghan people that is not quite what your average Times, Post, or Sun view would be. He chose to live through the soviet bombing of Harat with local Afghans. Not with the UN contingent- which may or may not have actually been there, come to think of it. There is something of great weight and importance to the story of purposely choosing to lie down during a war beside a people who did not have any choice in the matter.

I have sort of been going through a funny stage, and I am quite at peace with it, where I come home from school and watch the news, and find myself in tears. I get made fun of for being so emotional (cough, ahem, you know who you are), but on the other hand, I think that if this sort of thing didn't effect me, I would seriously question myself. On the one hand, we are sitting in a classroom on West Hastings discussing in a very matter of fact way what failed states need more: democratic civil society or strong economic institutions, . We discuss examples like Botswana and Somalia; Comparisons of Bihar to Kerala in India. At the end of the day, if I come home after thinking about the DRC all day and then see the a group of people who have set up their own make-shift refugee camp in a field and watch UN trucks go back and forth each day to some other place without ever stopping, how can I not care?

Perhaps I am just over-emotional and I'm just a girl who hasn't had enough sleep. Maybe this doesn't really count, because I am not walking through the mountains with them (now) and it's all just talk. I don't mean to be trite, or assume that I know how it feels. I cry because I only know enough to wish those going through this didn't know how it feels. Now maybe one or two more people have clicked the links and will think about what is going on, and eventually if we all cry enough, someone will stand up, tell us to stop our blubbering and work through this, piece by piece.

What else can we do?

Alfa and Beto ride again!

2008-11-04T14:28:00.003-08:00

While all I could find on the news seemed to be the Election that Wouldn't End, I also saw this tucked away and am, instantly, thrilled. Click the title of my post for the full article from the NY Times ("but what papers do you read? can you name one for us?" ah, it just doesn't get old).

I think I have mentioned this here before, but in the past I have considered a wide-range of possible careers (UN ambassador to Uganda, South East Asian rice farmer, Prime minister, back-up dancing for Chayanne to name a few). I think that when this guy retires, I will offer to be his protege. Who doesn't want to carry books to read with neighbours, travelling around on donkeys named "alfa" and "beto"??

They draw an interesting parallel/connection with Garcia Marquez- whom I also love- that is slightly humbling eh? What is awesome- latent- leadership out there on donkeys and not on Facebook in Belzberg library at the moment... I just wonder how guys like this are still living on $350/mo and yet others much less passionate are running mncs, countries, universities and news stations. Not that I am saying that our leaders are all dispassionate and soulless jerks. What I am saying is that I want more of these guys in the world. And less me's (as a representative member of mass-academia) sitting on facebook all afternoon.

Uh, but without the internet, how would I have even known and how would I have told you? Isn't it ironic. I'm off to read a book.

A news-stream of consciousness

2008-10-28T21:13:00.007-07:00

After deciding to be Sarah Palin for Halloween (I KNOW- BRILLIANT), I ramped up the youtubing of the Veepee hopeful. One of the clips was the infamous one of Katie Couric, getting straight to the issue a la Bridget Jones: "But what newspapers do you read??" I started thinking- what daily newspapers do I read?

Basically none, because I don't have a real mailing address at the moment- well I do, but I can never remember the postal code- and I refuse to read the free dailies. They're major headlines foretelling that they have ALL the details on why Jen took John Mayer back. I am only mildly interested in that. But more to the point, if I really want to know, I'll check People magazine, because they have the whole "who wore it best" section, which is miles more entertaining.
But I am not totally without a clue. I do have the internet- and I have my morning coffee and news (generally during my 9am classes) each day. So I've started a growing list of internet news feeds. Currently: google news alerts, the BBC world, Al Jazeera (honestly. Ok, it's in my toolbar, but not one of my regulars, unless I am in Middle East Politics class), and of course the good old CBC for hockey scores and the Globe and Mail, if a link pops up to remind me to check.

Which brings me to the point of this post: to give you a link from the Guardian today-another bastion of British current events. Why I have an affinity for British news sources, heaven only knows-it is a funny thing, because I feel the same way about British pop music-can you say WestLife?- I just can't get enough- and I don't think I'd care for it if it were from the New World. The root might be in my well-known weakness for accents. I do generally read all BBC news stories in my head with a British accent, occasionally Scottish, because of that one TV presenter... i forget his name, but he's cute or alternatively, Irish if I'm skyping with Susan while reading- anyways I digress...
Here's the link to Mary Kenny's post in response to the Atheism bus ads.

Bless the British for printing this.

Follow me here on this stream of consciousness folks, it also connects with Mark's latest sermon series, the Sceptics Forum. Go download them all, listen and then let's discuss. It all floats around in my head quite interconnected and I thought you all might enjoy that, faithful readership.

More to come soon, maybe I'll post my latest paper on presenting an analytical narrative of the development of Botswana. FASCINATING stuff I tell you! Or the one on how Wal-Mart is entirely the root of all evil, but actually paying small-scale farmers 15% MORE in Nicaragua for "tomators." Who knew? I mean, they are still probably looting and pillaging in China, but now you're curious aren't you? I was too- we all know, me of all people. This is what all them books and learnin' does to you. But I appreciate your willingness to stay with me thus far and look forward to future endeavours. In fact, if you've made it this far and you aren't Susan or my mom, You are a champ. Not that they aren't- they are just more seasoned veterans when it comes to this, well-acclimatized to my readings, and it's not as gruelling for them.

(highfive)

Anyone have Mr. Dressup's number?

2008-10-17T11:38:00.001-07:00

Ok, so I know there are far more important things on my mind than Halloween costumes and waaaay more has happened in the last month since the previous post that had much more to do with externalities, complementarities, capabilities and functionalities in the developing world. There has been a whole lot of nonsense about the Korean and Indian developmental states, political unrest of the 1970s in Cairo and a disproportionate amount of discussion and thought on economic incentives for growth not regression.

But, none of that matters right now! Even less so, the global agribusiness supply chain, the research on which is verily engrossing. As fascinating as propounding to you, dearest, loveliest reader, what that all entails, I am wholly consumed with a new challenge. Not world income inequality- sure that’s important, but it has waited since the industrial revolution, so why push it now? And global food supply is indeed pressing, but I mean, come on, that’s why they call them convenience stores. No, the issue that is burning in me enough to put the pen to paper (or key to pad?) is what I should wear.

Stick with me… I am not completely shallow (…tilts head… pause… resume). Guys! I just got invited to a Halloween party and this may be the first time for a dress-up bash in several years, so it’s game on. I have to take this seriously, because I am a serious adult now. I can’t really say that in the heyday of my youth my costumes were much to be respected. The pinnacle of that period being the costume party for valentine’s day- I know, right there is your problem, who dresses up for Valentine’s day? And the information I am to release to you cannot henceforth be used ever to ridicule or deride me not in private and under no circumstance in public, particularly a public populated by nice eligible young men. I tell you- the wide world web- all of this in the strictest of confidence.

Brace yourself:

I attended dressed as a valentine’s card store. No word of a lie. I taped valentines and heart-shaped cards to my red mock turtle neck and stapled heart cutouts to my snazzy stirrup pants (oh like you all didn't wear them too). I was 8. It was my birthday. I still insist that I get away with whatever the tarnation I want to because it’s my birthday on v-day. But this is October, so no dice with that excuse. We gotta bring it.

So, suggestions for a costume idea would be appreciated. In formulating your proposals, here are some that shall categorically not be entertained:

- A valentine’s card store

- A slutty barista

- Costumes that involve an unnecessarily wide girth- I need relative freedom of movement.

- A slutty electrician

- Anything involving fake teeth- I intend to eat all the single reese cups I can get my hands on.

- A slutty construction worker

- Rubber masks and cake makeup will be strictly forbidden- they make my cheeks puffy.

- Frankenstein. Please. That’s the best you’ve got?

- A slutty anything

- A pumpkin- my hair is red, not orange.

Back to School Special

2008-09-03T23:05:00.003-07:00

Well.
Here we are.
I am starting school now for the 18th time in my life. 18 isn't a particularly cool or monumental number, but it's better than starting this post off with the cliche "well, the weather is chilly, the leaves are turning and it's that time again." Shall we get on with it then? I had my first day of classes today as an MA student. It is a bold new world and let me tell you that we're not in Kansas any more Toto.

Last Thursday I attended the graduate student orientation at my new not-too-distant future alma mater. Now, I will admit I had some apprehension about the day to begin with: I'm not 18 any more and come to think of it, even when I was a freshman, I dreaded those ice breaker games. Perhaps I went in with a somewhat poor attitude. There was little tolerance for any sort of scavenger hunt, any type of "name game" or anything involving a cheer that would be or even could be yelled whilst in a pyramid formation. Thankfully, no relay races out on the soaking wet lawn- although there was a clapping-stomp thing to warm us up... considering I clap when I find my favourite pair of socks, I guess I can't complain. Too much.

My favourite quote of the day came during the information session on Teaching assistant positions from the guy representing the Teaching Support Staff Union (TSSU)- a tall burly blond who looked like an eerie cross between Dane Cook and one of my old youth leaders. The guy was probably 6ft4, and built like a lumberjack. I am not saying he was a hefty man, just muscular and manly. This is important to the punchline. He gets up in front of a room of probably 200 grad students and says totally deadpan, as if this is something he throws into conversation often- no kidding, he just ran through it: "So I'm here to talk about the TSSU... and as we all know, the TSSU was constituted as a democratic, non-hierarchical union built on feminist principles of equality and solidarity." I am pretty sure the term "grass-roots" also came up in there.
Non-Hierarchical.
Feminist.
Constituted.

Feminist.

Right. So there was that day. And then orientation yesterday with the faculty and students of my program. Which was really just breakfast. Now, that's more like it! But then today classes started and I am not ruling out the possibility that I am already sort of failing. The reading is um, gulp, plentiful. Here's hoping they're all short chapters.

It is funny to start over like this in Vancouver- my "hometown." It is the first time I been based around downtown though. I feel like I have moved to an entirely new city, only I don't have to deal with finding my way around and I already know where a good pupusa place is located. It was a year ago (to the day) that I moved to Managua. Funny how things work out. I sat looking through some of my photos tonight just before bed, and with all this talk about poor countries and development economics and readings on this place or that, I am really missing it now.

I suppose though that missing it is the whole point. I had to remind myself why I am doing this so that I would not be nervous during all these schmooze events that the orientations turned out to be. I am not particularly shy or self-conscious- I am not easily intimidated- but even I don't want to make new friends that much, especially when these new friends have a Phd in the area I would like to have one and will be deciding if my master's project makes the cut. Why am I doing this? To prove I can keep up with Over-Achiever Sally who has spent the last 8 months jumping from Mali to Malawi and can wear even skinnier jeans than I? Good lord, no!

This is why I'm doing it:

Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?

Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.

Is. 58: 6-7, 10

Right.
Let's get on with it then, shall we.

The Olympics- Everybody’s a critic!

2008-08-15T17:41:00.002-07:00

The following post is sincere in being light-hearted and positive. I am really proud of our best:

Welp, I admit, I didn’t think I’d weigh in on the Olympics, but seeing as there is little else to discuss in the final languid days of summer, and there is nothing else on TV except for Reba re-runs, I suppose I oughta get cracking, at least weigh in, put in my two cents- which is not worth much, considering I am not much of a sports spectator. The only sport upon which I can hold a decent conversation is Hockey, due largely in part to my years in a job where I was required on occasion to work graveyards, during which excess down time between completing office duties and the remaining 7.4 hours left in the shift allowed me sufficient time to read the entire newspaper (a feat few of us often do) sparing not even the sports section as I generally would but limiting myself to the hockey stats only to save myself from the depths of insanity. From this point on, if it doesn’t involve Luongo, Alfredsson or pondering the deeper-rooted questions such as “Can they even grow ice in Tampa Bay?” I am quite limited.

Ne’ertheless, I trod with fear and trembling into the world of summer games. I shamefacedly admit that despite being a student of International Affairs, I lack the basic knowledge of the Cuban judo; am ignorant that the Slovaks are formidable kayakers and am only now realising that Armenians are the juggernauts of Greco-roman style wrestling.

Yet the question everyone is wondering is, of course, “have we gotten anything yet?” I see that this is a valid interest, but am still stuck on researching the origins of kayaking, following up on some leads which I believe will blow some tightly held national sport security secrets ‘out of the water’ so to speak: “Wait a second! Didn’t the kayak originate in Nunavut? I mean, we should be good at that, right?”

And I am sure we are. The Canadians who competed in kayaking were probably very pleased- they did their personal best, and they are looking forward to the next Olympics where they can do even better. They probably set a Canadian record even. They are very proud. We are very proud. They paddled their heart out and it was a good day. Congratulations to the Slovaks.

You know at first, I was a bit abysmal about the fact that our best just doesn’t seem to be quite good enough. But there are so many issues pulling here: On the one hand, our kids get chubbs cuz we don’t invest enough in physical education. On the other, do we prefer to invest in athletes or health care? Aren’t they closely related (preventative vs. reactionary treatment some might say)? And where are those big bad corporations- shouldn’t they be trying to prove that they are not out to rape and pillage the world by sponsoring these l’il guys? But do we really want our athletes selling out to the man? It seems a loose-loose sitch.

But I have had some food for thought. It has been drawn to my attention that the first things our athletes say when they come fourth or fifth or fifteenth is how pleased they are with how things went, then I say we should be proud along with them. Minutes after finishing their bit, cameras are pushed in their face, while they try and de-sweatify themselves. The world waits, hanging on their every word. It can be hard to do that with grace and ease, especially if you are secretly disappointed that the Chinese girl who is and always will be skinnier than you just beatcho’ass. If the only competition we win is that we are the nicest losers, then that’s a damn good medal in my estimation. We don’t gotta be number one, we are small but proud country. We are peace-loving, and moderate. So you didn’t get the gold- you did well and Tim Bits are on me, kid.

This all intertwines with some things I have been challenged on personally: namely that it is really easy to be critical and cynical and confuse that for high-brow intellectual discussion. Its not, and if it is, then I would rather be content and stupid than smart and cocky. Thus, therefore and thereby, to the Canadian athletes with the stiff upper lip, at the risk of being a cheese ball, I will cough in a manly way, give them a figurative slap on the butt and say, ‘well done slugger,’ for being so bright when the light is on them.

A few observations from a downtown experience by an uptown kinda girl

2008-08-14T15:03:00.007-07:00

The following has been floating around in my head during my week's forays into the City:

Number the First: (During a stroll down Main at King Edward) What is it precisely that causes hippies to have a fetish for drawstring waistbands? From my keen observations I have learned the following hard fact: If you are wishing to wear natural fibres and make conscious consumer choices then you must also naturally have a penchant for pyjama-esq outer-wear and a decided aversion to business casual based solely on the high incidence of zipper-front closures. This is a difficult fact to swallow for many of my readers. Rest assured that I am as disquieted as any. I prefer to be one of those conscious consumers. But I find wrap-tie pants to be so frightfully unreliable.

Number 2: (During a walk on 1st avenue at Arbutus) Kits is supposedly the swanky laid-back west coast hipster joint. City volleyball leagues and micro-brews on the patio with views of lazy tankers are generally images that come to mind. Kosher burrito barns and an Italian panini places are the only restaurants that can get legitimate licensing here. And yet, as I "stroll" down the sidewalk, and over to the beach I notice how wretchedly fast-paced it is. Even the bikers coming off the bridge from work are tour de francing it so they have to get home in time for their ultimate frisbee tourney. I have to choke myself back on my ridiculously complicated coffee beverage to stop myself from shouting: "Slow down! Use your road sense!"

I feel like this might be an appropriate time to make a hasty generalisation regarding my culture. Let's be clear- I am proudly Canadian, and a Vancouverite at that- so I am humbly centrist and yet am quite comfortable telling you how incredibly centrist I am and how much better it is to be centrist in a light rain at 20 degrees celsius than in -40 with a windchill factor. With that disclaimer, I think I have to point out something that I don't appreciate as much.
I have been discussing with various people general cultural characteristics. At the lecture last night they talked at length about how Egyptians are world-famous for their hospitality. Central Americans will always have my love for being so outgoing. So what about us Vancouverites? You know what I think of when I think of the good old laid-back, casual left coast living? Fastidious. We are demanding when it comes to our lattes, picky about our yoga mats, and we have delicate palates and we expect that the majority of vehicles will get out of our way without inconveniencing us as we hurdle along in our audis and our minis and our Mini-van-sport-utility hybrid that is truly a worthy environmental investment.
We may not be perfect. But we are shiny.

Number 3: Yes, coffee at 8pm. Because you really can sleep when you are dead. There is a couple in the coffee shop and neither party seems to believe him or herself truly responsible for how the child with them came into the world.

Number 4: (A vignette observed at Kits beach near the paved promenade at sunset) A man is dragging his wonderfully cute little pregnant wife in a Oprah Winfrey-style power walk. I don't think he's doing it on purpose, he seems to enjoy her presence. Its just that he's so thickly built and taking very, um, "purposeful" strides and in contrast, she is little. Close behind is another couple with the woman as the central figure- I appreciate any woman between 35 and 45 who will wear a tulle underskirt, black leggings and doc martens and still look fresh and bright. Finally, for the young hollister couple- walking barefoot holding sandals along the beach seems more sensible in it's romance when actually on the beach, and more uncomfortable when you are on the cement walkway beside the beach. I also appreciate the child of 6 or 7 who scolded his older sister (let's suppose she's 10) for missing the sunset. A kid's gotta know a good show when he sees one.

Number 5: Is it even possible to be desensitized to the mountains?

**Finally, a correction to the previous post. I have called into question the existence of an Azerbaijanian populace. In view of recent facts that have surfaced to the effect that they have won four medals already in the Olympics, I stand corrected. There are 4 men who hold confirmed citizenship in that country. Their residence is, however, a moot point. Suriname remains an enigma- however, using that gauge, so does Canada.

"...And we're back!" or "Wedding Bell Blues"

2008-07-03T17:49:00.003-07:00

Sorry for the delay there. Alright, now where were we? Yes, I am back in Canada. Yes I miss Nicaragua dearly and yes my "trip" was fabulous. Anything else you'd like to know, I think was basically covered in this blog. Feel free to look around.
Now for something completely unrelated. Or maybe it is sort of related (it always is just a little bit isn't it?). I have returned just in time (you lucky duck, you- Kiki) for wedding season. Last year it was my dear friend Jessi's wedding which I was bridesmaid once, and assisted in all things maidly such as throwing a shower and attending the stagette and enforcing full-participation in the list of silly stunts for bride-to-be to perform. I was also- suspiciously- out of town the week before the wedding for my pre-departure training in Waterloo and returned home conveniently at 11pm the night before the wedding. This year, I shall have no such luck- although I am twice a bridesmaid (its THRICE that you have to be worried about, so sorry friends, if you want me, you have to wait until I myself am married).
The wedding madness now includes three showers, a "staggettee" weekend, a rehearsal dinner, a hair appointment, the fluffy (but cute!) dress- don't worry, no seafoam nor hot pink here- and of course the whole day affair itself. Now, in her defence: the bride is no hag and for all three showers she had no hand in planning, pushing or performing. Its not her fault. Its just the way our crazy society is. "But you MUST have a lingerie shower! You need the crazy underpants!!" The camping staggettee that was four days of hot coco, campfires and Clue (as in the board game) in a forest, which in my opinion is immensely more valuable than a night of drunken mayhem just because "its your last chance to do so" when I wouldn't do it in the first place.
However, it does seem a bit overwhelming. I think all involved would agree to that point. So I have made some critical decisions regarding my own future nuptials, which considering the stereotypical non-involvement of grooms, it is of little consequence that I do not have any marriage prospects.
First- I plan to get married in a foreign country. This is sensible for a range of reasons. Considering my degree, chose vocation and desire to live abroad (esp. Latin America) I think it is reasonable to assume that in the next several years I may spend considerable time there, and may happen upon an eligible young man who suits my fancy. It is also reasonable to assume that regardless of his country of origin, we have, for various reasons, both chosen to reside in that hypothetical foreign country and would ostensibly have at least a few local friends who, judging from the economic situation of countries involved in the need for development workers, would lack the resources to attend were it in a developed country.
However, were I to lack said friends and accomplices, so much the better. The least amount of people involved, the better. Keep It Simple Stupid- KISS, a wise acronym from Mrs. Mckenzie's gr. 10 english class. Very appropriate considering the romantic nature of our topic.
Furthermore, this wide industry of weddings does not actually exist outside the global North. If that means that I look like such a bride as this, I am fine with that... er... ish. Anyways, i think just a nice white dress and some fresh mangoes after to celebrate really would be nice- and more than sufficient.
So, I have taken the liberty of drawing up a list of destination weddings which are PARTICULARLY enticing to me. The point here really is simplicity. So I say: if you can make it to my wedding, you are pretty much guaranteed a spot in my wedding.
- Papua New Guinea
- Equitorial Guinea
- Really, any of the Guineas
- Azerbijan- despite that it remains a country who's very existence I somewhat doubt. Really, have you ever met anyone from there? I mean, I believe the land is there, sure, but people... not so much. The same goes for Suriname.
- Bhutan
- And maybe Djibouti (Djibouti).
- Realistically i can't stay away from Latin America, so let's throw Chile into the mix. And serve chiles with our mangoes. Mmmmm chiles....

So. I guess I'll call it what it is- eloping but without the scandal. But if you want to come, you are more than welcome. SOMEONE will need to witness I suppose. Being legal would be the only other requirement beyond the white dress and the mangoes.

Picturefest

2008-06-05T07:05:00.004-07:00

So, here it is, the long awaited proof that I did indeed use the video-editing equipment that was crucial to my job and that i took photos like I was supposed to....
And also that I was in fact on a nine-month paid vacation to the tropics- KIDDING!!!
Ah, but seriously folks.... This is the video taht I am presenting in T-minus two hours to our head office in Waterloo that showcases a quick snipet of life in Nicaragua. There is so much more, obviously, but for now... I'll let the photos do the work.

Bang on me drum all day long.

2008-05-14T14:53:00.004-07:00

I just realized something.
I have two weeks to the day left in Nicaragua.
People keep asking me how I feel about that.
I keep shrugging, I don't feel anything. This is life, life goes on, every day is spent in Nicaragua, just like the one before it. It will be ten months when I get home. Ten months is enough to get a rhythm. It is a rhythm. I want to keep playing.

One day at a time.

Living Colour

2008-05-14T13:17:00.003-07:00

Ok, I lied, the Island is in colour. And that is me, second from the right, in the back. In front of the San Ramon Waterfall on the Island of Ometepe, which is currently and incidentally, in the running for a spot as one of the World's Natural Wonders. Whupah!

A few new ones

2008-05-14T12:24:00.003-07:00

I Went to Ometepe this weekend.
Here is irrefutable proof.

Yes, incidentally, everything on the island is in black and white. Very astute observation.

Quote of the week:

2008-05-14T10:04:00.002-07:00

This merits its own post:

"It does send the message of how lingerie could possibly save the planet."

Click the title for the full story.

Food for thought

2008-04-29T07:50:00.004-07:00

I can remember thinking to myself recently "this is what it means to be an adult" while I consumed half a bag of tortillas and salsa to pass the ten minutes of lull I had waiting for a friend to come pick me up for dinner.

This week again, "This life on your own, as a big grown up girl: dipping the knife into the jam jar right after spreading the peanut butter- without washing it first."

Last night: "This is life in community" as I came home, dropped my bag in my room and hacked my way around the banana leaves to Nicole's house where friends were just serving up dinner.

This morning: "This is absurd." I am pretty sure I know of NGO's that could buy more food than the WFP.

The New Digs: Not a bad scene...

2008-04-16T09:06:00.003-07:00

I moved yesterday. In about twenty minutes. To what I have christened the "German Gungle." Three big houses owned by ex-pat Germans and three little casitas, inhabited by one central american couple, a german-nica couple and then me, right in the middle. Incidentally, the place is a lush tropical garden hideaway. Infested with lush tropical bugs. I nearly died this morning from a heart attack when a centipede dropped out of the towel I had been holding for five minutes. They are, ahem, poisonous. It took me five minutes of running-shoe smashing, heavy watering and the final finesse being a good spritz of raid to kill the thing (even when 80 % of his body was shmushed irrevocably into the stainless steel side, his head was still moving... ominous indeed), but I did it. And I did not cry. I wanted to, but I did not. I did yelp.
Yes, I am a merciless insect killer. Sometimes I wonder if its necessary- before I knew what they were that that they were poisonous, I killed them because they were ugly. Don't judge me, in the words of Jack Nicholson from a Few Good Men: "I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it."
They really should offer training for this sort of thing upon entrance to these countries. Monday morning I woke up with a worm in my bed. It was harmless, but of course I have heard horror stories about long writhing worms that do not die and are creatures of malicious peril and imminent danger. So that one had to go too. I showed it to Santiago after, and of course, was reassured that it was not the cien-pie I had been fearing and was just days away from finally facing.
How was I supposed to know that you could actually SEE the feet of a centipede?
So, why do I share this with you dear reader? Because as I don't want you to fall into temptation of covetousness and envy. Yes, I live in a lush tropical paradise with mango, jocote and banana trees- that large one might very well be avocado- but this is only for the strong, the brave.

I will, ahem, be investing in more screens and raid tonight. No harm in preparing...

Satisfaction is a Piece of Cake

2008-03-29T22:11:00.006-07:00

DO you ever have one of those weeks where you get to Friday and you feel like you truly earned it. I did no great particular feat this week. But I pushed through several annual reports and an assortment of theoretically-important documents referred to only by their cryptic acronyms. I also had a heart-wrenching experience concerning a mouse. I don't want to talk about it right now- its too fresh.
So that's how I felt on Friday. 'TGIF' right?
...That phrase is ridiculous. I think you sound ridiculous when you say it. I don't like it, although I agree with the premise. But I digress.

I have that happy tired feeling right now. I am satisfied. That's what it is- satisfaction: from being with 'buena gente'- good people. People to sweat with and people to play with. I spent a wonderful Friday night around a table eating well and having good conversation. The next night I spent an hour or so with people I have barely met- doing essentially the same thing.
Here's the story: Last night I had the desire (the 'ganas' we say here) to do something, but not anything- if you say you'll do 'anything' you will invariably end up at the one place you didn't bother to stipulate against but should have. Every time.
Fortunately for me, my friends had the ganas to do what I always want to do. Sit around eating and talking. Talking and eating. Preferably followed by cake- which it was. I came home feeling very fortunate indeed for the good company and full belly.
Tonight, my friend Nicole and I came home to have a swim- considering that even after sundown it was still hot, this was a buena idea. So we jump in the pool, whilst Marshall-whom we didn't even realise was home, and apparently vice versa- leaves for the night, locking the front door, like any conscientious young house-mate would.

Now, if I had any security issues at all about my house, any preoccupations at all, they are gone. I stood outside dripping wet (and now cold- the pool is after all, unheated- sigh) and looked helplessly at the bars on my windows, with the knowledge there is a big fat padlock on the only other entrance to the house in the back of my head.
Long story short- we're dancing around the front of my house wondering what to do, meanwhile the new neighbours from the casa across from us who were sitting outside confirmed that yes, they had just watched him leave a little while ago. I am not entirely sure what happened next, but the next thing I know, Nicole and I have been sitting at their kitchen table for an hour, eating their son's birthday cake and coffee (they saw me coming a mile away...). We sat and talked with my new neighbours about where they're from (Bolivia) and swapped life-in -Nicaragua stories. Now that I think of it, its funny that we swapped "extranjero" stories with Latin Americans.
They were so kind, hospitable and fun. I am also thankful that after 7 months, I finally feel like I have a relationship with my neighbours.
The whole night just gave me a warm fuzzy.
The pictures have nothing to do with any of this. Except that in some way or another, those people were equally gracious and fun to talk to.

....I'm always weak on the conclusion part. Here's another picture.

For more information on the raddest trip to Ometepe ever, visit my facebook album

2008-03-20T16:25:00.003-07:00

Film is not dead!

2008-03-20T15:17:00.006-07:00

In the spring semester of my final year at Trin, I found out about, oh say a month before grad, that I was a credit short of graduating. I am not proud of this miscalculation, nor the tears I shed in front of a particular Dean of the department I had offended with it, but I share it because it is a funny anecdote that somewhat vaguely explains my entrance into my final course in undergrad- Art 230: Film Photography.

I will admit- I use a Canon DSLR now. And its been good to me, but there is still a nostalgic awe, love and respect for film. There is just something about the quality of colour and richness of tone and the fact that a little 35mm neg will always make a great print- even if its the size of your house. Its magic! I know how a SLR camera works, I've even watched taken the lens off at times just to watch the shutter open and close like a monkey with a piece of tinfoil. I "get it," but on the other hand, I don't. There is still a part of it- the light, the film chemicals, the tiny entrance of light, the backwards upside-down imprint of the world in front if me- that absolutely baffles me; delights me.

Its how I started, but moreover, it is how it all started. And up until I left Canada, I was still shooting both (luggage weight requirements and the desire to travel sans as many valuables as possible led me down the silly path of only bringing one camera body).

So the point of this little heartbroken note is that Polaroid has announced it will be discontinuing its line of instant film. I have yet to get into Polaroid photography (other than trying unsuccessfully at securing myself this hot number on ebay... oh such a sexy camera...I digress). I say yet, because i keep stumbling across sites like Film is not dead and Polaroid-only collective groups that tweak my interest and make eyes pop out like I'm looking through a Richard Avedon collection. Polaroid technology, when you really think about it, is one of our more magical inventions. An instant replica of the world around you. I am sure I could dig some sort of Christian object lesson- 9 years in the world of Christian education wasn't for nothing, that's for sure-but I won't for now.

I will just add, with a sigh, that there is a website called www.savepolaroid.com that I think is worth checking out. Polaroid came into digital late in the game and was never the pioneer with it that it was with film. So now its going to try to refocus. I don't feel like I have a legitimate right to be as upset as the photographers who've been working with it for years, but as a film-user at heart, there is a part of me that feels like we are loosing something beautiful and important.

I don't want to end this note with doom and gloom so: on the bright side, I did win a bid for a lomo action sampler and have it sitting awaiting my imminent return to my home and native land. I'll be able to make prints like Kevo's above and won't need any chump mac built-in digital webcam program to do it. But I'm not bitter ;)

Just a little more than two months to go it seems. I think I will give the old Olympus a nice session of lovin' as soon as I am back- along with my family and friends of course.

Sign the petition, do it. do it now, just so we can take pictures together. There is urgency! We're running out of time for both film and Nicaragua! Sign it! Join MEDA Trust! Unabashed self-promotion and tacky plug!
Just do something.

Afghanistan- Click This Title

2008-03-13T13:22:00.003-07:00

If you read all the way to the bottom, and are anything like me, you will be heartbroken by the final comments. But on the other hand, the girl who comments second to last is teetering in the balance- she wants to become a doctor, and never misses class and even saves up her money to buy as many books as she can (hm, its just not the same as when I dump a bunch of money on used books but still have lots left over for shoes...)

The one that gets me is that though the aid has gone up to $10.5 Billion- the women still go uneducated, scraping together what little they can, the politics still remain in shambles and corruption reigns.

So... tell me again, who's responsibility is it to take care/charge of dispersing that money...?

I know MEDA is working in Kabul with (mostly) women entrepreneurs. As I post photos from our rural clients on MEDA Trust and see the stories from my unknown counterpart there in Afghanistan, I can't help but pray for the day to come faster that the program- and others like it- is expanded to the rural areas, as MiCredito is doing here. We have a new branch opening in Esteli in April. I have learned so much about how microcredit works on the ground through this time here in Nicaragua. And while -obviously since I am still working here- I see the value in it, I know that microfinanace certainly cannot save the world from poverty and hardship (oh whaaat!). But there is a lot more hope in opportunity than without.

When you are done reading that, read this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7294800.stm

Turismo

2008-03-12T13:43:00.004-07:00

Sonia and Kevin, my two little buddies

Fifo, standing tall on volcan Masaya

Desfile de Carnival

In San Juan del Oriente, outside the Wedding, just before the funeral procession passed.

From "Prayer"

2008-03-10T07:48:00.003-07:00

From Richard Foster's Prayer, in his chapter on formation prayer after describing a big maple tree in his backyard go from summer to winter and drop its leaves to expose its real condition and irregularities:

"Winter preserves and strengthens a tree. Rather than expending its strength on the exterior surface, its sap is forced deeper and deeper into its interior depth. In winter a tougher, more resilient life is firmly established.

Instantly you see the application. So often we hide our true condition with surface virtues of pious activity, but, once the leaves of our frantic pace drop away, the transforming power of a wintry spirituality can have effect."

There are worse things than visa requirements

2008-03-08T08:43:00.001-08:00

While I am still having a hard time grasping the fact that it is already March (“I’m sorry February, what was that you said? I didn’t catch a thing”) I am on the other hand counting down the minutes until five and this day is over. Its not that I do not have a boat-load to be working on, oh yes I do, and it is not like I have worked my little tush off this week, because let’s be serious, I haven’t even been in the country, but somehow, in some mystical way- my biological weekend clock is ticking, getting impatient, screaming for the door on this office to be flung open so I can run out with my hands waving wildly in the air. It’s frenzy! It’s extravaganza! It’s insanity! It’s fritanga night. I am, in a word, antsy. But I will not give in. I will instead distract myself: I will play one round of traveller IQ- no, not that, it only makes me more frustrated- how am I tenth of all my friends!? TENTH?? I’m going for a walk- but where?? Fine, the bathroom, I may as well… well that was not nearly as satisfying as I had thought it would be. Drink more water, drink!

This little outburst has been brought to you by: the weeks of Feb. 24^th to March 7^th 2008. There is something impatient in me, and I think this is part of this season’s life lesson. You ever feel like you are in the middle of a fairly notable time of your life and you should be learning something important, but… uhhh nope, nothing?

I’ve been feeling this, contemplating this, praying over this, mulling it over with endless cups of coffee and the sounds of Maná, Adele, U2 and now Shakira - don’t even try to judge me. Then it all came unravelled this week:

It seems like my life is one big lesson in peace. What a funny concept for life eh? Of all the things- of all the fruit. I can think of so many periods in my life where it was one facet or another of Peace that I needed to start grasping, scratching, seeing, living. Apparently I wasn’t done.

Last week I was a stress-case. Why you ask? It’s really a conglomeration of issues. First: because I had to go to Costa Rica. Yes that’s right, had to. My visa was up. Of course, being the only one of my friends not to leave at Christmas, I couldn’t renew it in country this time.

Let’s just say that there are far worse places to be sent to renew one’s visa. I have included an abbreviated list here:

- The Republic of Molossia – it’s in Nevada

- Ohio- I don’t think I’d much care for it, but I could be gravely mistaken.

- Compton- I’d get capped.

- Iraq- “oh but I hear Mosul is lovely this time of year!”

- Churchill, Manitoba

- Chuck-E-Cheez

- Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, the World’s Coldest Capital City

I got a little stressed. Because I had to leave. And I had never been to Costa Rica before. And I didn’t really know where to go or how to get there- I think the latter may be intrinsically tied to the former.

But before I get ahead of myself, let me say, in my defence- last week was a bad week for more than just the curse of the Tica trip.

First, Silvio Rodriguez came to town. You don’t know Silvio Rodriguez unless you are a) socialist and/or b) Latin American (generally it is ‘and’ and not ‘or’). And while I pride myself on at least know who Che is, I didn’t know this “Silvio” character. But apparently he is kind of a big deal around here. He sings revolutionary music, is Cuban and is, ahem, “the man” in any Latin socialist country- viva la revolucion. That’s about all you need to know for now. Of course, everyone wanted to go- even us Cheles, because it is a cultural event, and we are supposed to go to every cultural event possible so that we can say that we have been open-minded and assimilated as much as possible in a culturally-sensitive, -respectful and -observant way.

Except that all the Cheles who wanted to go lived in Matagalpa- a good two and a half hours from anywhere that sold tickets. So being the contact “on the ground” in Managua, I went to Tip-Top (the Nica national fast food chain- yes that bastion of home-grown consumer-driven capitalism selling tickets for a ‘communist’ concert) at three different locations and four different times. By the time this show rolled around on Sunday, if Silvio HIMSELF had called me wanting me to pick up his ticket, I would have told him to go take his habaneras and place them where the sol does not care to shine.

Moreover: In that my job has been largely self-directed, I decided now would be a good time to push it into hyper-speed, in light of a few changes that will be taking place in my position in one month (no longer paid to take pictures- well it was fun while it lasted). So I was about to pull out my hair with self-imposed deadlines. It does add a bit of fun though if you really believe that you are going to fire yourself if you miss one.

And then, there were the applications. I despise applications. Loathe them. Hate them with the fire of a thousand suns. You see in a few months here, I will stop practising development and resume postulating about it. Grad School. Two little words, one big bill. I thought I was done with applications and references and transcripts- all of which I coordinated from Nicaragua, the country that failed to deliver Romalie’s cookies, numerous letters and who’s internet connection speed is about where NASA was in 1962. Its no small task you see. Sweet relief that it was over! But oh, ho ho, was I mistaken- its one thing to GET INTO a school. It’s another thing to get someone ELSE to pay for it. You know you are really smooth though if you can get the school itself to pay your way. Apparently they do that! It’s called a fellowship. What!? And I thought this was a secular school! But apparently they weren’t talking about Christian Café time. Hence, more applications. I’m no fellow, but I sure like ships, so I suppose it’s worth a try.

So, yes I was stressed. And can I tell you about this concert? Sunday night rolls around and anywhere form 12-20 people descend on my house- I am fine with that, I like people coming to my house. But when our 12-20 melds into the crowd of approximately 894,672 of Silvio’s biggest fans, the evening gets a little hairy. I have NEVER EVER been in a crowd where I actually feared for my life.

I didn’t fear for my life in this one either. But I seriously considered doing it, seeing as I was not actually moving my feet along- but instead just being carried- yes, carried by the people who were pressed up against me, there was no way to turn around, there was no way out, if you fell you would be dead. It’s kinda like rock climbing without a harness. The only way is forward.

Well that was fun. Some more misadventures ensued (including tales such as: “Kiki gets caught trying to go into the VIP section after the rest manage to loose the fuzz;” and “Silvio the Ant and his magical panflute.”). I was sent to the back, with a friend. The music, let’s remember is ‘revolutionary acoustic guitar.’ This is what you would hear in a hazy, smoke-filled bar in Buenos Aires, or better yet, around a campfire hidden in the highlands waiting for the contras. So the field packed with hundreds of people who are clearly paying great attention was not working out so much.

I understand that this man is wildly popular, and I have no problems against the large crowd, but I do think it’s a little ironic that a socialist revolutionary would have a ‘VIP’ section to his concert. I’m just sayin.’ One man in line behind us commented: ‘todos son iguales, solo es que hay algunos que son MAS iguales que otros!’ –Everyone is equal, it’s just that there are some who are more equal than others! Right then. Keith says that Nicaragua has a major earthquake or revolution roughly every 30 years, and we are due for either soon. I’m packing an earthquake kit first, that’s for sure.

So I realize that my attitude throughout the week was one of any range of emotions as represented by the following facial and body expressions:

- The Tegelberg Glare: The Tegelberg is thinking of ripping your arms off and beating you with the bloody end.

- The Tegelberg Stone-face: Not to be confused with the glare, while very similar; he/she is merely thinking of something mildly pleasant, unrelated to the task at hand, inconsequential or golf. I cannot say I have ever thought of golf, but know that the original Stone-face was created on many golf-pondering occasions. It should be noted that this is widely confused for the former and far more ubiquitous- as evidenced by the low number of war-amps in the world today.

- Anxiety

- Increased intake of coffee, that sweet, soothing, dear old friend

- Frenzy/Shaking- no wait- that was from the copious amounts of coffee.

- Concentration

- Hair-pulling

- Nervous-ticks

- Frequent use of washrooms

- “Enhnnn….-ing” and other forms of throat-based whining.

- Violent typing- the K key is still a little bruised, but she’ll be a’right

So the point of all this? Yes I will wrap it up here: Peace. I think this is supposed to be the jewel in my life. Its like this giant uncut diamond. And this time someone turned it upside down and I am seeing a completely new facet of it- so much so that I am not sure I was looking at the same rock it was cut from. It wasn’t anxiety this time, it was stress- stress that caused some pain for others. Oh. Oh wait. It’s never done that before. I guess I am learning to be more tranquila. Things turned out alright, and in the mean time you stumbled upon some breathtaking new views.

Correspondence

2008-02-25T11:17:00.008-08:00

Dear Men of Managua,
This shall hereby serve as notice for you (oh, you lucky ducks, you) that Moustache March is only a few short days away, so you will be granted a period of grace. However, please be aware that after said period is over, we will all return to marvelling at this ridiculous and persistent phenomenon you all seem so intent on pursuing and preserving.
The question needs to be begged- almost daily: WHY, Macho men, WHY??
Love Kiki

Dear Monday,
Yeah? well you've got fat thighs.
Kiki

Dear Joyofbaking.com,
Your carrot muffin recipe needs some reworking, specifically: less oil and more baking soda.
Warm Regards,
Kiki

Dear Coca-cola,
I truly believe that if you make more effort at marketing Fresca to the North American retail community it will pay off. You've really got something there.
Best Wishes,
Kiki

Dear Kiki,
This shall hereby serve as your notice that you were put on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now you are so far behind that you will never die. This, admittedly, has its benefits. However, in view of practicability and necessity regarding tasks and the fact that people they concern may very well not enjoy a similar fate: some better life choices regarding your time management are advised. We find it admirable that you figured out how to use the google calender attached to your gmail account. However, this will truly only be fruitful if you spend more time working on the items you enter into the agenda rather than entering detailed accounts of what needs to be done. Its just a suggestion, but we, the management think it will really open up this issue for you.
Also, on days such as this, while your hair may now be substantially better, compared to its previous state at 7am, spending 45 minutes on it is not entirely advisable under the circumstances of a) oversleeping and b) unfinished projects with morning deadlines. We realise you are not so shallow that this happens often, but we would just like to keep on track with you so as to synchronize future hair endeavours with optimal scheduling contexts.
That said, we understand that we all have our coping methods and slip-ups. We will not be penalizing you for the hair issue, and moreover, we FIRMLY stand behind your decision to buy that orange shirt this weekend. That looked fabulous. We know, "Orange?" we said. We were surprised too.
Take care,
The management.

Dear Self,
The Oscars aren't really worth your time. I think we've come to that. You can never seem to stay awake until they announce the big awards anyways and the speeches aren't exactly elegant elocutions that will either go down in history or at least be useful as some sort of quote in later writing endeavours. In fact, for a group of people who are supposed to be used to the limelight, they were a pretty jittery bunch last night, but I digress. And you hadn't heard of the majority of the movies nominated anyways. I'm strangely pleased with that. Let this suffice be a reminder for next year.
Me

Dear Readers (Aka Susan and Mom),
I would like to take this moment to thank you so, soooo much (gulp, deep wheezing breath) for your faithful readership and MORE THAN ANYTHING your commentating (sob) on my blog (waves flattened out right hand up and down in a catatonic manner). Your support has... like... meant so much to me, and I wouldn't (desperate suck in of air) -oh gosh!....I wouldn't be here without you (another sob)! (pause while recomposing self, not entirely successful) I just (begins mumbling in foreign language which we can only assume to be Spanish) cielos, que maravilloso...Quiero agradecerles...You are all just- (is drowned out by musical swell and shepherded off stage by a very daper-looking Orlando Bloom while still gasping for air and pumping hand).
Love, the peanut gallery

29 Degrees Celsius before 9:00am

2008-02-19T14:18:00.004-08:00

By the UCA (Universidad Centroamericana)

The Passage- Catedral Nacional

Horse and Cart beside my house.

La Cruz Blanca

All of the above were taken on a morning walk through Managua last Monday.

El dia del amor, la amistad y Kiki

2008-02-15T14:29:00.003-08:00

The Moto.

The Guajada.

The Mariachi.

Tbe Serenade.

The look. That says it all.

Love is a Moto Ride: Part 2

2008-02-15T13:33:00.003-08:00

"Love is a Moto Ride" is the continuing story of love in a Central American country as expressed through a mode of transportation. For an introductory story, please refer to the previous post entitled "Love is a Bus Ride."

Yesterday, Feb. 14th, was my birthday- 24 little years have I. I think I will like 24 even better than 23.

I was born on Valentine's day. It's true. I've always said that is why I am a redhead. Yesterday was another one of those birthdays that just filled my heart with joy. I can't unequivocally say it was the best birthday ever, but it certainly was the most notable so far, thus beating out the 2003 heavyweight which has held that title undefeated for the last four years.

2003, let's all refresh our memory, was spent in Guatemala, between 'Guate' and San Pedro with my host family. I almost started crying when I realised my birthday dinner was going to be beans, rice and goat cheese- a meal that after a few short weeks in the country still gave me ahem "stomach issues." Guate food was good. That night, it was not. It was not a bad birthday, but it was definitely raro.

This year however, knocks 2003 off it's comfortable podium for a myriad of reasons.
First- 2008 is the first year to ever have furnished my skin with a sunburn. Not a point in it's favour for being the best birthday, but definitely a technical point for distinction. As the french judges would say, "You know, they took a chance, and eet was... not SO bad..."

Second- recovering the points for best birthday distinction category, the daylight hours of 2008 were spent almost entirely on a moto. Not only a moto in Nicaragua, but a moto riding through the crazy terrain of the departmento of Boaco, which is absolutely rugged and beautiful.

Third- In lieu of 2003's fatal goat cheese mistake, I was fed guajada at the home of one of our clients. guajada does not duele my estomago like the queso fresca of Guate and i really like it. I crave it often these days, but it is hard to find quality guajada in Managua. Boaco and Chontales are the two regions famous for making the best of the best.

I got to visit with some really cool clients too. That makes another 10 points.

I went home to a swimming pool which MORE than compensated for the burnt skin. Also the burn in and of itself pointed out something which I feel is worth noting: I've been here almost 6 months and this is the first burn in that entire time. That is quite a feat for any pallid little chela indeed.

After the swimming pool a very nice group of people came to make me feel special. That was awfully nice of them. Kendal even sang me the Medley from "Moulin Rouge." Oh sigh. My little heart went pitter patter.

Finally, 2003 did not include a Mariachi band, nor for that matter mariachi pants, of which i just can't get enough, and so cannot even possibly compete.

Thanks for making me feel special and loved even if you weren't in Managua/Teustepe with me. Happy dia del amor y amistad.

Love is a Bus Ride: Part 1

2008-02-12T14:38:00.000-08:00

Let me just preface this by reminding you my faithful readers, that this week we celebrate that four-lettter word: love. we also, coincidentally, celebrate my birth on the same day. I don't want to hear any anti-love talk, not a single word on the bane of relationships nor a pip about
the colour red. If you don't have someone to love, then I am your default. There. Happy now? you've got a red-headed Valentine.

Alright then, let's get on with it shall we?

There is nothing like a bus ride to make me remember how ridiculously wonderful this place is. Riding the bus at home is not really something that engenders feelings of patriotism and national pride (although the sky train does). Ironic, that the refurbished American school buses that I ride around this country on are the very environment to make me feel that giddy sense of pure and innocent love similar to what you get when you find out your crush likes you back. You just can’t get enough of their face- or their wheels; their eyes- or their windows- and the view rushing past those windows… mmm!

On Friday Shannon, Wendy and I took off for Matagalpa (also an environment that thrills me- it’s the mountains). We didn’t get out of Managua til about 4:15ish, due to the pit stops at Pricemart to purchase supplies for Noel and his café, Artesanos, and On-the-Run to purchase supplies for Kiki, Wendy and Shannon, and their road-trip. Several jugs of juice, whip cream, hot dogs, maraschino cherries and bags of platano chips later (I’ll let you guess what was for whom) we finally burn past the airport, one of the last landmarks on Carretera Norte out of the city. Next is Tipitapa (which, according to Amira, has the distinction of being the “Armpit of Nicaragua”- although this claim is hereto unchallenged and uninvestigated, so the author wishes to add the caveat that it is not necessarily the opinion of herself, MEDA, blogspot nor, evidently, the inhabitants of Tipitapa itself).

We got about 40 minutes out of the city and Wendy noticed the engine light go on. Next thing you know there is some serious steam coming out. We pull over behind a nice young girl who could not have been more than my own age, changing her own tire with her two brothers and grandmother. As she has the orange triangles already out on the road we decide to make use of that, seeing as we clearly don’t have these legally-required items (but then again, we let our car overheat after 40 minutes of driving, what do you expect?). This girl comes over and, as she has already finished changing her own tire, she takes charge of our situation. (Can I just reiterate that she changed her own tire. Herself).

Now I would just like to say that, in my defence, I know a little about cars- enough to be safe, and not have to differentiate them based largely on colour. But as this was not my car, and was a car that has had a plethora of problems lately, we really should have known…

So it’s not looking so good out there on the barren highway. Young miss flags down a truck carrying- among other useful tools in such situations- a large group of men, and asks if they are carrying any rope. Rope! Why didn’t I think of that! If we just melt the rope down, we can pour it around and it will cool off the rad… Not quite. Next thing I realize she is explaining to me how the guys are going to tie the rope between our two cars and tow us to the next town. Sweet. The rope is about oh, gosh let’s be generous and say 8 ft. Better double that over, so its good and strong. There, that puts a few feet between our car and hers.

On the other hand, considering that you have to wait 25 minutes for BCAA to drive four blocks over to you, I thought this might expedited the process rather than calling them. If you want to know what its like to drive three feet behind a cute little Mitsubishi click here.

Our nice little tow drops us off in Las Maderas, where some very helpful mecanicos rush out to meet us. They've see the rope tow before evidently. Before long it becomes apparent that we are not getting back in that car anytime today. Between Wendy's calls to the office-its a company car- and muttering obscenities- yeah that was mostly me- we finally discern that we will have to leave the old girl with this nice plump little mechanic.

Now we are faced with the ultimate question: there are two sides to the street. If we catch a bus on the right hand side of the highway, we go to Matagalpa. If we catch it on the other side, it's back to Managua. Clearly, the choice is already made- especially considering we are already on the right side- literally and figuratively- and that a bus appears within about 4.8 seconds. The swarm of helpful mecanicos then chase down the bus, yelling "Matgalpa! matagalpa! matagalpa! Chelitas! Chelitas! Chelitas!" which, loosely translates to: "Matagalpa! Matagalpa! Matagalpa! White girls! white girls! white girls!" (Don't judge me, that's what it means and that's what we get called). So I do what comes naturally in such situations: run. I shamelessly run and I jump into that bus. I almost rebound out because the back part where I get in is so packed that its literally shoulder-to-shoulder-to-back-to-butt-to-armpit. "Chelita! no hay espacio! que fumados!" (white girl! there ain't no space! You guys are crazy"). "Us guys" of course, was referring to me and the two guys working the bus and encouraging my entrance. Not to Wendy of Shannon of course, because they didn't get in the back of the bus. Nope I was back there, all by myself I soon realized. I assumed- nay, hoped that they got on the front. I sent them a text to make sure, which was about the only thing I could do as we were so tightly packed and my cell phone was pushed up against my chin in the pocket of one of the three bags I was able to grab while running for the bus.

So here I am in an autobuuuus. I am balancing entirely based on the grip provided by my right hand ring-finger on the luggage-rack pole . I have bags hanging off pretty much every limb. There is a guy who is becoming well-acquainted with both my elbow and the sweet smell of my deodorant's- ahem, if it was still working by this point.

And I couldn't be happier. What is this strange feeling coming over me? In place of the bad words, all that comes out are flowers of laughter. Hope springs forth within me. My heart bubbles over and spills onto Juan Carlos, the guy who is standing in the four inches of space between the last chair and the back wall, directly across from me. Why do Matagalpa-bound buses have this effect on me? Why have they taken my heart?

Answers to these questions and more to come post-haste.

Out and about ('Out in a boat? we're going in a boat??")

2008-01-22T13:41:00.001-08:00

Outside of Teustepe, in the Departmento de Boaco

With his new water pump.

Just after riding on the moto and just before playing with the bees.
I lead a glamorous life here indeed.

The local boys.

Smell: the Underrated Sense

2008-01-22T13:36:00.000-08:00

Let me take a moment on the wonders of scent. Sense of smell in Nicaragua needs its own post because it’s a little less accessible than the others. You can experience a little piece of Nicaragua through the other senses without leaving Canada: I can show you pictures, I can let you listen to raggaeton and mariachi music (cranked to 11). You can taste the coffee I fed-ex you or (more cost-effectively) recommend for your consumption available at fine fair trade stores across the country. You can even feel the love and humidity I send to you by reading my posts while visiting your neighbourhood steam-bath. But I cannot pack up smell.

And I don’t take smell lightly. You can live without one kidney, your appendix, your sight, your hearing (Wassat?? ENH?). We all know what it is to be blind and deaf, but no one ever lacks scent. This makes me think it may just be a little more vital to our survival than we originally thought. Apparently you can’t live without it.

So I, putting all my powers of speech to the test, hereby give you some of my favourite scents of Nicaragua:

First, people: I am living in a hot country, if you didn’t know. Shannon and I have, on several occasions, commented on an incredible phenomenon here. You are walking down the street and you pass someone who just bursts forth this smell that tickles your nose that makes you giddy with joy. It’s a woman who smells like flowers, or a guy who smells like he just jumped out of a Ralph Lauren ad and is about to sweep you off to a field of love. It’s a baffling thing in a country that makes you sweat and then laughs in your wet, flushed little face. I don’t know how they do it- especially the woman who is out Oprah-Winfrey style power-walking every morning and still smells like she has been dozing in Heidi’s alpine meadow. It MUST be something in the food.

There are some, ahem, interesting smells here too. There are places that I will forever associate with one smell or another: the fridge at work smells like crema that has gone just a little bit sour. I actually hold my breath now when opening all heretofore unknown fridges. The corner a block from my house smells like an outhouse. Carretera Masaya smells like smoke- someone, somewhere along that highway is ALWAYS burning something.

But I don’t want you to think it’s all bad; it’s definitely not. Like I said, there are people here that always smell good. Moreover, the Catholic Church across from my house early in the morning smells like something I love. It’s like it picks one of my favourite places to smell like each time I jog by- maybe as a reward for getting up to go jogging; or perhaps as a tempting little finger telling me to get myself to a church. One time I walked by and it was the forest at Qwanoes on Vancouver Island; another time it was the ocean.

And let’s not even get started on the flowers here! A couple weeks ago, two friends and I were in a restaurant that was absolutely empty save us and the two waiters, and each table had a sprig of giant peace lilies which smelled so good that I could not actually remove my nose from one of the blooms for a full three minutes. The waiter saw my addiction and kindly took pity on me, offering me a fresh sprig from an inside table to take home.

Ah yes, Scent: the underrated sense. You really can’t experience it unless you come here (oh and feel free). But these are the things I will leave you to ponder: If I start eating enough gallo pinto and drinking nothing but pinol and kola shaler, will I too smell like Heidi’s meadow?

This just in...

2008-01-11T11:11:00.001-08:00

The Hurrycane Coaster Roller

Octavio and Fred discuss the meaning of life in an Esteli restaurant

Awaiting a ride to little Corn

The Stevenson-Tegelberg Nose

Our place at Derek's place

The anatomy of a development worker wardrobe

2008-01-08T09:24:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I think to myself that I should completely forget the whole master’s thesis on fair trade or micro-credit strategies and instead do an in-depth dissertation on the anatomy of a development worker. We are such odd creatures.

There are, of course, different orders, geniuses and species of development workers within this phylum. I am fascinated by the various reasons people have for being here- to travel, to assuage some sort of quasi-healthy guilt complex, to save the world, to avoid settling, to avoid the ordinary, to feed the poor. The list goes on. I know some are here for truly altruistic purposes; I respect the integrity. Most are here for mixed motives. The younger ones are, generally, here for perhaps one part altruism, one part bewilderment of purpose and another part adventure.

The dichotomization, identification and classification of the whole phylum would be a work for years of study indeed; and that is nothing to say of the passing travellers who, to the untrained eye, would easily be confused for those who are actually living here. But to the trained eye, it is similar to twins- those who are related or very close to them cannot possibly mistake one for the other. Young development workers (YDWs)- the 20-something class of interns, volunteers, Peace Corp Workers- and backpackers often are the most similar looking group, mostly resulting from the fact that they interbreed: backpack for a while and you suddenly have the desire to stick around; or you finish a 10-month contract and finally get to do all the bumming around you couldn’t squeeze in on the weekends.

But these two groups are not the same. When one transitions from one to the other, there is a change in form- sometimes it is quick and decisive, in other cases it is gradual- borne out of necessity and routine but clear nonetheless. It is most clearly visible in the outward appearance of the YDW and the backpacker. For example, those MEC quick-dry pants are useful travelling, but once you settle into a place (and figure out that your housekeeper WANTS to do your laundry) you realise they are actually unnecessary and kind of ridiculous looking. This is generally distasteful, considering you already stick out in the local population enough. Ridiculous pants made of space-age material with a horde of pockets and secret compartments which suggest a sincere distrust of new surroundings might make you stand out enough, but a lot of the time they just look dorky.

More often than not the fashion sense of an YDW is strongly influenced by necessity- but not the same necessity of the backpacker. Its the influence of the alturism's child, simplicity clashing with the idealism of localisation (wear what the locals wear) clashing with the grinding reality that they don't make many pants for tall people in Central America. Its also a challenge to find women’s jeans in Nicaragua that do NOT have sparkles, studs, rhinestones or crazy metallic embroidery on the already sizable backside. It’s a slippery slope to becoming a fresa- the Nicaraguan pretty girl. Especially if you are working in the city, where the utilitarian is not always necessary, nor (surprisingly) practical. Ultra-light weight fabrics meant to cool you off on your Columbian river boat tour aren’t helpful when working in a Managuan air-conditioned office with average inside temperatures on par with those of Ulan Battar. Before you know it, you are wearing giant gold hoops, leggings and a shirt-dress that has “princess” written in well-nigh indecipherable silver script with rhinestones scattered hap-hazard across your chest.

But resistance is not always futile, as long as one has a high adaptability. They wear those same jeans that they came down wearing. There is even a rare bird indeed that wears those crazy Mary Poppins MEC pants back home- so why stop now? Thus, the YDW often becomes a modified version of it’s natural self. I LOVE the people who wear hippy bohemian stuff that is airy-fairy and usually has several strands of silver thread woven throughout. They are just as much in the Vancouver coffee shops as they are the Manguan coffee shops. Those are the people that can pull off dreadlocks and look good in the rugged and untamed manner of a Shakespearean shrew or a Scottish moor-dweller. And Scottish moor-dwellers have accents and as we all know I have a weakness for accents. I have a breezy cream scarf with Indian bells on the tassels that I love. My inner bohemian sometimes timidly asks that I take it out and hold it. She isn’t very bossy, so she doesn't often ask me go out the door in it, but she really likes the gold thread and the bells, so I humour her.

In truth though, I cannot account for nor explain my own clothing style here. This is likely because I am not entirely sure that I have one. Sometimes I wear trendy clothes, but I am hardly one of those people defined by her clothes. A friend told me that he went to high school with debutantes that actually wore cable-knit pink sweaters with pearls every single day (Bet they were reluctant to wash out the fuzzy insides too). I told him I didn’t believe in fairies or their tales anymore. I think of other friends I’ve had that always wear the sports shorts, or nothing but surf brands.

I am certainly not a fresa, but I have my days for each. I wore skinny jeans yesterday. While we all know I have been a firm supporter for those, I don’t need to wear them two days in a row- they just aren’t that comfortable. It’s a trend I support, but cannot realistically see it lasting.

Sometimes I’ll pick a style for several consecutive days, but they generally don’t go more than four in a row. It makes me laugh no to remember the time that I told a friend that I would define her style as “Sears catalogue sporty-casual” (SC²) We had a rocky few days after. I think at this point to be able to define my style at all, even it was SC²would be funny, but I am not sure I really want to be one of those people that are definable. It seems so high school.

One good thing though about being around all these YDWs is that every now and then I am exposed to new bands or manners of dress or foods, or ways of thinking- philosophies, ideologies and strategies. And every now and then I pick up a few things that I dig- like Feist (thank you Kevan and Jordan) or skinny jeans (thank you skinny asian girls everywhere) or street photography (thank you Fred Herzog). But I don’t need to jump on every indie-cool bandwagon on its way to being the next big thing. If we are going to continue this silly indie artsy-fartsy cool comp, I know I will be out in the first round. I haven’t listened to nearly enough underground Finnish ambient musical groups that uses sitars and banjos for their principle sounds.

The other good thing about the YDWs is that they are often as undefinable and lovingly tolerant for any way I want to go- bells and silver thread or Mary Poppins pants included.

2007 melds into 2008

2007-12-31T11:01:00.000-08:00

Deep Thoughts for the last day of 2007:

These are the things that come into my head while (attempting) meditation:

- Are coconuts a nut or a fruit? (“Botanically, they are a nut,” it turns out- shout out to Wikipedia)

- I still have a lingering academic distrust of Wikipedia. I mean I believe what I read on it, but then on the other hand, I feel like I need a more substantial journal to prove anything. But this is my blog and not Biology 490: Tropical Vascular Plants, so the wiki answer will suffice. This time.

- Why do I wear jeans here when I never did in Guatemala and it was cooler in Antigua than Managua is?

- How long can I go without washing my skinny jeans- I don’t want them to stretch out… Come to that, how long can I go without washing that sweatshirt I bought a week before coming here? I don’t want the fuzzy inside to go away…

o I only wear these items at night for short periods of time when it is cooler and I am not doing a lot of activity, hence they are generally spared any excessive sweat or dirt. Its not THAT gross... i don't think.

- Why do people travel during the holidays? This is a serious irony- consider: the first Christmas was an imposed travel for the Holy Family. I bet Mary was just thrilled about hopping in the family donkey at nine months and having some quality time with several tens of thousands of her closest relatives. And yet we choose to run around like madmen battling airlines (I’d rather walk than take Atlantic after all the horror stories I’ve heard now- trust me, if you ever go to the Corn Islands, take La Costeña, you will thank me).

And now for something truly original:

So, what will this year hold? Let’s forget New Year’s Resolutions, shall we? Let instead have a few 2008 Wildest Dreams- which I don’t actually think are really that wild after all, just the dream of me being motivated and ambitious enough to carry them out is…

1) Write a book (working title so far: “You can’t make this stuff up” …. And that’s about all I got).

2) Do a photo exhibit. I have a concept at least. Let’s get some friends together and make this happen. It doesn’t have to be a big deal, but why the heck not? By the way, when am I allowed to call myself a photographer? Once I have sold a photo? I got one on a travel site- but they use it for free, does that count?

3) Do another crazy road trip- Tacos in Tijuana- the Sequel or somewhere I haven’t been, like the eastern seaboard. Or Montana. Solid, dear friends may apply for traveling companion vacancies. Ability to read aloud to driver while in a moving vehicle and shared musical tastes are preferable.

4) Learn how to use a strobe. I am jealous of some people’s photos.

5) Go to more shows- like the one we went to for my birthday last year at the Media Club. That was a very happy memory from 2007. Not really an impressive dream or reaching for the stars, but I think when you find something that works, its important to keep it up. It will provide that necessary elements for sanity to carry out the bigger items.

I think that's plenty. Too many even. Let’s not over-do it.

It’s a simple to-do list. Resolutions are kind of personal, and far more meditative, and more outwardly focussed and... much more profound than I am able to come up with at this moment. I feel like I should have a list of truly thought-provoking and encouraging items for self- and community- improvement.

And just what is the difference between January 1^st and, say, April 19^th or September 3^rd? March 12^th for that matter? I used to always hate those creative writing exercises in elementary school where you had to write out your new year’s resolutions, because I never really made any, and knew that if I did, they weren’t going to stick just because of the date on which they were made. I've always been quite fond of March 12th come to think of it...

Well I am a real champ for New Year's festivity, aren't I? Maybe I've always had it in for New Years though. I don't want to start something off that I won't finish- not a project- a year. Why start it in a manner that I do not intend to carry out all year round? My roommate said something to me today- I was talking about how I am not the biggest fan of the crazy New year's parties and she pointed out that it all those did was make you start off the New Year tired, and that seems a bit contrary to the point making a big deal of starting the year off with a bang now doesn't it?

Am I Over-thinking again....? Mayhaps. I think for now, i will go clean the bathroom and have a snack. its these little steps that are so integral to getting that book written and all those other big items ticked off the list!

La Purisima, the precursor to Christmas

2007-12-24T14:54:00.001-08:00

Christmas 2007

2007-12-24T14:52:00.000-08:00

The calendar on my computer tells me it’s December 24, 2007. I know that is in fact, not true. The real date is July 14^th. It’s a scorcher; the summer is only getting started. There is a nice breeze, but that somehow seems to take a break conveniently at the same hour of the day when the sun is its hottest. Either way, it certainly isn’t Christmas. Or is it?

Yesterday I was convinced that it was July 13^th (Friday, naturally). There was no way it could be the day before Christmas. That day is cold and damp and generally a progression from cup to cup of coffee, coffee, Christmas tea, more coffee, Gingerbread latte, Christmas tea and finally hot water, to keep warm and awake.

Hm, come to think of it, I did have a similar progression- coffee, coffee, apple juice- which I suppose could be substituted for hot cider- caramel macchiato (“Que significa gingerbread?”) Christmas tea: maybe we’re on to something here kids.

I was thinking about it this morning as I sat with my legs in the cool water of our pool- the only cool thing about a Managuan morning, which at 9am already feels like midday. I read through Luke 2. It’s so easy to breeze over that after having heard it so many times. I sat there, attempting to snap myself out of the self-pity and strange sentiment that can only be described as ‘off’ that has been hanging over my head for the last few days (did I do something wrong? Am I about to do something wrong?). I wanted snowy mountains, I wanted my full Christmas tree covered in red ribbon, I wanted my own candle-lit Christmas eve service that I have attended every year of my life except for 2005. I wanted to meet up for the annual gift-exchange with my friends in the Ironwood Starbucks (tall, n/f ½ sweet GB latte, with a vanilla dip gingerbread biscotti). I wanted things that can only be made during this month and in an oven.

Then I got to thinking, The heat, the palm trees, the scrubby kids I was off to meet in a few hours- these things were all much more at home in the original version of Christmas. And quite frankly: a pinch of cinnamon with the grounds makes for a decent substitute for eggnog or GB syrup in the coffee; my brother came thousands of kilometres to make sure I didn’t feel this haze of depression; my mom sent three tubs of home baking; and I got to swim in a crystalline pool on a sunny day and play with some crazy, loving children, two of whom gave me bracelets for Christmas because they love me. I’m sorry, what? How is it that two little girls who spend their days (including Christmas and I’d hazard a guess, every other statutory holiday) squeegeeing windows in a busy intersection in a Central American capital of median global consequence- how is it that these two girls give ME a Christmas present off their own wrists?

Its just one Christmas to pass this way, but I would be a fool not to recognise that there is just as much to be thankful for this year.

And still I keep coming back to this thought that this is probably much closer to what it was really like. That isn’t a judgement on how it is here or home, although we could and often do go down that path so easily- perhaps with good reason. But regardless, the heat, the dirt, the foreignness of it all, and the fact that it seems like any other normal day for me here in Managua- At home I am so attuned to the culture and daily life that I can at once, tell you in is December 24^th, even if I don’t have a calendar or way to tell the date. Here, there are differences yes, but for me to realise all the nuances, it takes more effort. And at any rate, what I have done so far, has not be spectacularly different from any Saturday that I have off: rest, read, check email, drink coffee, sit by the pool, go see some of the kids, swim, blog. The normalcy that I perceive for myself here was there for so many in Israel despite the profundity of the events taking place.

So, I arrive at a conclusion: this is but one special day, and I am thankful.

You can't make that stuff up!

2007-12-18T14:30:00.000-08:00

You can’t make this stuff up

That’s the new title of my book. Yep, I am going to write a book (but don’t quote me on that, in case I get distracted… oh look a bunny).

I have been gallivanting around with some characters lately and noticed something: life in Nicaragua is prime material for a book. Ooh, on second thought, it could even be turned into a movie! I can see the merch that will follow: t-shirts! Action figures! Happy Meal toys! Key-chains! Because promotion of shameless pop-cultural consumerism is really what I am all about here.

Or not

But maybe I will still write a book, you know, just for kicks. It’s one of those things that have always been in the back of my head to do, kind of like being Prime Minister for a little bit or running a fair trade beachside café or something.

There are just so many good anecdotes here. I solemnly promise you a full explication on what a bus ride to Matagalpa really means. I also will give you a dissertation on the finer intricacies of bacanalear-ing (“partying”-ing) when the trendy café bar tells you on a Saturday night to go away and come back tomorrow because they are “out.” Out? “Yes, out of everything. Come back tomorrow and we are at your order.” Insert appropriate door-in-face description and we are set. All this to come, and more- in paperback!

The issue I have with the blog medium is that I don’t feel like I am doing justice to all the events, ideas and people that are intertwined here. Sometimes I am actually baffled how perfectly it all works out. My life reads like a book, like someone is behind it all, planning it (wait a second…). Example: Two nights ago, I had a wrenching conversation with a Nica friend named Juan. We talked about the issue of me being an extranjera and being richer than everyone else. Later that night, while I was still mulling it over, and wishing I hadn’t said some things and that I could have said others through my still immature Spanish, Steph came home and told me of her discussion with Noel, the Matagalpan friend who gave us a ride back down to Managua. Obviously our conversations took different paths, because Juan and Noel come from very different social paths in Nicaragua- even geographically. But they said almost the exact words about the same subject, though our conversations arrived there from completely different routes and left from there to different destinations.

The next day I listened to another Nica telling me the frustration of conocering (meeting) a Gringa who had little apparent respect for the Nica life, or at least wanted to insulate herself from it as much as possible while she was here. I was frustrated for him, for all of us extranjeros who are fumbling around, trying to get it right, some try more (or less) than others I suppose.

Here are three Nica men who all think alike, despite growing up in separate barrios, separate towns even. Despite having different jobs, despite having different opportunities and experiences, it’s so funny how a culture can do that, eh? Their thinking, even their way of expressing it, are at times even identical. Its funnier even so as I start to let go of some previous notions of what it means to be a foreign development worker, what it means to be an extrajera in Nicaragua, and how that manifests itself in my daily behaviour, these three conversations take place, two simultaneously even. That’s the truly baffling part of it. How does it all happen at once, like a carefully-timed symphony? Each layer- the strings, the horns, the drums, and I do love those drums- produce a different sound but yet are playing the same tune.

Hm, Am I supposed to be paying attention? She asks wryly.

I know I haven’t really touched on this here with you guys. And this is largely due to the fact that I don’t even know where to start. How do you unpack all of this? And where am I supposed to hang it out when I do start. Its not dirty laundry, but sometimes it feels that way as I, at times, I struggle, fumble and stretch- a good, catlike, post-deep-sleep stretch- to understand better, combat lethargy and habit and make good the view from Managua, Nicaragua through the Kiki lens (which often bears a striking resemblance to a Sigma 10-20mm wide angle).