Planes

Today my journeys brought me to the end of the airport. It's not far from my house, about 10 minutes, but I don't usually get to this particular place. About 3 weeks ago a plane crashed at the end of the runway. They didn't have efficient fire equipment (imagine that) so they just let the plane burn and quite a few people died. Since then they've just left the burned out plane where it stopped, I guess as a reminder to everyone flying in or out just how 'safe' our airport is.

So here's a picture, not great but I think you can make out the remains of the airplane. Then another plane crashed this week just outside of town. Both belonged to our national airline. My local friends call it 'insha'allah airways' or 'if God wills' airways. I think I'm understanding more and more how the jokes are really true.

This is one of my favorite little girls. She is 5 years old and teeny tiny but carries her 1 1/2 year old sister around on her back all day long. The baby is terrified of me and cries when she looks at me and screams when I look at her but the little girl takes care of her like she is the mom. Imagine sending your 5 year old out in the street with your baby on her back?

Anyways, after our trip around the airport we went out to the camp. One of the goats is sick, probably with worms which are so common we just keep worm medicine in the car. If anyone hasn't ever seen animals take liquid worm medicine it involves a huge syringe and you stick it down their throat and shoot it in.

So my friend brings in the medicine and says something to the effect of 'I'll give them the medicine now.' Every single kid within hearing distance looked up at him and then started screaming at the top of their lungs, it was the funniest thing I've seen in a while. They all saw this foot long syringe and thought that the white guy had brought this huge shot for them!!! Even their moms were laughing until they cried. It was great.

Princesses

Last week I went to the camp to have a meeting with all of the goat ladies and 8 of 10 showed up which was a pleasant surprise. When we all get together it's a little hard to get them to talk out loud in front of the group. I think it comes from the fact that none of them are educated and they don't have the confidence it takes to express an opinion in front of other people.

That's fine, no problem. We just play little kindergarden games to get them comfortable and to talk about different topics and they love these games. It's so much fun to see all these women 25-70 years old playing these games and just giggling away!! This week we played telephone, it was especially fun in Arabic. Then I brought out a ball and we did one where when you got the ball you had to say the first thing that came to your mind and then pass it on.

So I started with the example 'I am really sweaty, today the weather is really hot.' When I threw the ball to the next lady she said 'it is hot today but yesterday was hotter.' She tossed it to the next lady who said 'it is really hot in the day and just a little hot at night'.

So I stopped the game and said 'it doesn't just have to be about the weather. It can be about anything, your kids, your house, any thing at all. For example, I wore this shirt today because it was the only clean one.'

The next lady says 'I wore this tobe today because I like the color.' The next lady 'I wore this tobe today because it was clean'. Ughhhh, can we not do this? It's not their fault that they have trouble forming an original thought and expressing it in front of a group but still, it's also so hard for me to understand how this simple game can be difficult.

OK, so Sandy gets the ball next. She doesn't want to say anything about clothes because I've now reiterated the fact that I would like it to be an original thought but she also doesn't know what to say so she sits there thinking and looking at the ball. And then she gets this look of horror on her face and it's in that moment that I realize that we've brought a 'pornographic' ball.

The family downstairs has little girls and they have these balls that they play with at the pool that have Disney princesses on them. I guess I just never noticed that little mermaid is really wearing nothing but a bra, or that princess Jasmine is actually kind of scantily clad. Really every Disney princess on this ball is scandalous in some way when you're living in an Islamic country.

Another of the ladies tells Sandy 'just say anything, any thought you have' and Sandy, looking at the ball, says 'well I have a lot of thoughts but I don't think I should say them out loud.' I'm not sure if she was referring to the porn ball or not but she ended up passing it on without saying anything.

Later on another lady was holding the ball and I saw the look on her face when she actually looked at it and realized what all those princesses were wearing. It was hilarious. I couldn't help but laugh and they had no idea what I was laughing about but I didn't want to explain and draw attention to the fact that this is what we give our kids to play with. That just about every little girl in America can name every single Disney princess because they have seen all the movies.

Afterwards neither woman asked me about it so I didn't bring it up. But they were probably thinking 'no wonder America is such a sinful place full of infidels and all the women there dress like Britany Spears. They teach their little girls to dress like prostitutes.'

Who knew that Disney princesses could be so scandalous!!!

Sugar

Today in a span of 4 hours I drank (some would say 'I was forced to drink') 2 glass bottles of coke, 2 glasses of tea and 6 cups of strong coffee.

No big deal unless you realize that when they make tea and coffee they put sugar in it while it's on the fire. Then they actually fill your glass half full of sugar, literally, and pour the tea or coffee over it...and that's after I specifically request to have 'sugar simple' or if I really want to make them laugh I call it 'white girl sugar'.

Did you know that it's actually physically possible to become high off of sugar? When we finally finished our visit I felt like I had just spent several hours in a room where the walls were being painted and someone forgot to open the windows. It was a bit ridiculous.

And the local people wonder why the most common disease here is diabetes. If I ever end up having diabetes I'm blaming it on the Sandbox. I think that every time I get sick for the next few years I'll blame it on the Sandbox. No reason really except for that I know that I've got quite a few things just hiding out in my body waiting for the right moment to remind me of all that time I spent in Africa.

This Week

Here are just a few highlights from this past week.

I saw an abandoned car with goats in it and when I say 'in it' I mean there were no windows and the goats were standing in the seats of the car. Of course there wasn't a chance to get a picture.

Then there was that bowl full of fried chicken heads, beaks, eyeballs and all. No bodies, just the heads. Chicken heads, really? Where did that come from? Some guy goes to get a snack and he's like 'I think I want some fried chicken, but I'm not so hungry. I just want a little snack, maybe something smaller than a wing. Can you just chop the head off? That's really all I want.'

We're going to have to do something about the walls to our compound. The construction guys from next door keep dropping things from the 4th floor of their building over into our yard (like entire 2x4s and whole bricks, things like that) and then they just hop over and get them back. That's really getting old and we've realized just how easy it is for people to hop on over whenever they feel like it so we're going to do something. My suggestion? Cement shards of broken glass to the top of the wall. A little tacky but much easier than most other solutions and cheaper. There's plenty of broken glass out in the street and they let you pick that up for free!

And I officially have tickets out of here. It's the strangest feeling, hard to describe so I won't even try.

I think I'm running out of things to blog about. I've been here so long, too long really, so that most of the things that would sound strange to y'all have become completely normal to me.

Eggs

The other day I was making a chocolate cake and I needed 2 eggs. Of course I had already started before I realized that I didn't have any so I walked down the street to ask the little store guy if he had any. Here's how the conversation went and, of course, it turned into a show for the neighborhood:

***'Do you have any eggs?'
***'Yes, how many do you need?'
***'hmm...a half dozen'
***'Here's one'
***'Well, I need more than one. Maybe not a half dozen but I am making a cake right now and I need 2'
***'OK, take this one' and he puts it in a bag like I'm going to buy it
***'no, I don't want one, I need two'
***'OK, take this one'
***'No, you don't understand. It's two or none. I can't use just one'
***'Well, more are coming. Just wait.'
***'When are they coming?'
***'Later'
***'Later like when?'
***'In the morning'
***'Sure...but like I've alread said, I need 2 eggs right now. I'm making a cake.'
***'So take this one.'
***'uggh....no...never mind'

And I pushed my way through the crowd that had gathered and went to borrow two from my neighbor and made a cake. I don't understand how every time I go into the street I end up having an audience but it never fails...I buy a coke, people gather. It really gets old after a while.

And not to brag or anything, but I am fairly confident in my Arabic skills. I've been here 2 1/2 years, I know how to buy eggs. Arabic wasn't the problem, it was this crazy cultural thing where people think you have to buy everything you are offered for crazy reasons.

I've been in the souq when guys will be like 'look at this shirt, it is great quality. Look at it' and I'm like 'I'm looking at the same shirt you are and I see that there is a hole and the zipper is broken. It's not good quality, I don't want it.' 'No but the material, look it is so good. This is a nice shirt, you must buy it'. 'Really I don't buy things that already have holes in them. No thank you.' And then it's like I have offended him more than anyone else in the entire world ever has before because I didn't buy his piece of junk shirt. I just don't understand how I am obligated to buy everything that is put before me.

I dream of the day when I can go to Walmart and know that they will always have what I need. Around here when you need something, you just never know if the store will have it. For instance, flour. Basic staple, generally available except for on that one day when you desperately need it to make something. On that day you go to 4 different stores and by the time you find it you're to tired to make what you wanted to make. Or coke...you go to buy a coke and it takes an hour to find a store that has one.

I just can't wait to make one shopping trip, go to one store and get everything I need in a short amount of time...and in my own car. The land of plenty....it's a great place!

New Streets

So if you've been reading for a while you might remember that when drivers say 'next time you talk to George Bush tell him....' and I usually respond with 'and next time you talk to OB tell him I want my street paved.'

Well apparently one of those drivers had some pull b/c last week they came and started paving my road. One day while I was sick the entire house started shaking but I just thought it was a malaria hallucination. Now that I am well I realize that it was just all the heavy equipment doing whatever it is they do.

Funny thing though, apparently our road was already paved. Who knew? They dug out about 20 inches of dirt out and, surprise, there was already a curb. A few more inches and they ran into pavement. Seems to me that, seeing as how the road was already paved, someone really dropped the ball there. I don't want to apply too much logic, but if we had just kept the paved road clean 10 years ago couldn't we not be paving it again now?

Cat Food

Some of my friends are cat-sitting. I was with them when they went on a city-wide search for cat food. It's not really a common thing, 3 stores carry it and it's really expensive. Animals aren't really popular in this culture. There are plenty of animals roaming the street but not many people have pets that you have to go out of your way to take care of. And now the trouble is that none of our 3 stores have pet food anymore.

At the last store we went to the owner told my friend that he can't carry cat food or dog food anymore because it's been outlawed. Apparently importing it is just 'ruining' the economy and it is unnecessary to import food for animals that can eat trash off the street. Sure. So it is now illegal.

Huh. So the 3 stores that carried imported pet food are responsible for all the trouble with the economy? Because I thought there might have been several things that weren't really working out so well but, I stand corrected, it was the cat food all along.

Sewer Systems

This is a little gross but I'm catching you up on all the excitement in my life...not so exciting though.

I guess while they're making the new road they decided to go ahead and clean out the sewer system...they did it last week while I was trapped in the bathroom but even without going outside I knew when they were cleaning it out.

The way it works, well, there are concrete slabs all along the side of the dirt street that loosely 'cover' the open sewer. They come and remove all the concrete slabs and someone gets inside it, literally. It is usually a man either barefoot or in flip flops and shorts who jumps in the hole that is about 3 feet deep with no protective gear. Then, without gloves, he actually scoops up everything that is in the sewer and puts it in the street. When he is done he leaves, leaving the raw sewage in the middle of the street and the concrete slab right next to the open hole.

And this is why there are always outbreaks of diseases in this place. He puts my dysentary filled sewage in the street, it rains and makes puddles that go back into the sewer and no doubt get into the water system at some point. Kids play in the puddles in the rain, then eat without washing their hands. The rain runs in from the street and floods peoples houses and they use buckets to empty out their house or the water gets into their kitchen and infects some of their food that they eat without washing their hands.

Top all this off with the fact that the people here who actually do wash their hands don't even use soap, they just rinse them with water, and the neighborhood has dysentary. It's not rocket science and it's also not my fault if and when people around here start getting sick.

African Kids

So I've always wondered why thousands of African kids die from dysentery and cholera each year. It's just a bad case of diarhea right?

Well I now know from personal experience that I was wrong. This week I had dysentery, malaria and an amoeba all at the same time and it's been pretty much the worst week of my entire life. Although the malaria wasn't that bad...I guess you know you were really sick when you think that malaria wasn't bad!

I wasn't able to get out of bed for 6 days straight and they even thought about putting me in the hospital which if you imagine the grossest, worst hospital you can think of this one was probably worse. PTL I did not have to be admitted, although I went prepared with my own sheets, pillows and water as none of those services would have been provided.

I was absolutely miserable and that's when I had access to various medicines, one to kill the dysentery, one to stop the cramping, one to stop the throwing up so all the others would stay down, one for the amoeba, one for the malaria and tons of ibuprofen. Plus I didn't have to mix my own rehydration solution, I just drank Gatorade, and my bathroom is an enclosed room inside my house as opposed to an open hole in the ground or even no bathroom at all.

Yes, I think I understand why thousands of people die each year although it is still unnecessary and with the proper education and access to medicines it wouldn't happen. And dysentery is infectious, it isn't like the parasites that you just get meaning that I got it from someone else, more than likely one of the families that I visit in the camp. I really want to know who it was, not because I'm mad that I got it from them but because I'm worried about their kids getting it and it spreads quickly. The rains haven't even come yet and there's already dysentery going around...It's going to be a really rough rainy season for a lot of people.

But a HUGE thank you to all my friends who helped me out this week, made me move in with their family so they could take care of me, helped me out at the doctor and were prepared to spend the night at the horrible hospital with me if necessary, brought me medicine at all hours of the night, checked on me every hour to make sure I was still alive. It was definitely a team effort and I've got an amazing team.

The New Restaurant

We have a new restaurant in town. It sounds like we didn't have many and now we have one, it's not that bad. We have plenty of restaurants to choose from but this new one is a chain from Egypt so people are particularly excited about this one.

We went there for lunch. Here are just a few of the choices on the menu:

brain panee
hod doog fahita
beams with sousages
rose beef/grilled leavr
pie with vegetables and cheese
milky rice
liver rice
spageti with see food
hod doog bikini
shrimp/carimari/viagra

I guess we should be happy that they have a menu and that it's in English.

Sorghum

My 6 year old friend showing me how to make coffee....even though I already know how I still let her show me!

The other day I was talking with a veterinarian about supplemental feeding of goats (I know, crazy) and he said something about the price of sorghum skyrocketing in the past week. I asked why and he told me that the Sandbox has started exporting sorghum because of the world food shortage. He said, and I quote 'there are people all over the world who are starving. How can we not share our blessings with them?'

Sure, I can see the logic behind that...when people aren't starving in your own country! I'm fairly certain that if a list was made of the top ten countries most anticipated to be affected by the world food shortage the Sandbox would be on that list and yet here we are so generously exporting our sorghum. I can only imagine they are charging an exorbitant price since it is 'so scarce'.

Then my friend boasted about how the Sandbox sent so many tons of food to help the cyclone victims in Myanmar. I'm sure that the World Food Program was really excited to hear about that since the Sandbox is currently the Number 1 recipient of food aid!!! I feel like someone could have saved a lot on shipping costs if they had just communicated the logistics of who was going to feed which group of starving people.

Sort of like the logs...you know, when you see two logging trucks passing each other going different directions on the highway and you wonder why, if they already had logs over there, that they needed more and vice versa? A little Brian Regan there for ya.

Today I have exactly 2 more months before I leave the Sandbox...strange!