A Very Special Dinner in Togo

My senior year of college, I worked with a group of grad and undergrad students to go over to Lomé, Togo and partner with a small microfinance institution (MFI) for the summer. Somehow, I was convinced into being a bridesmaid (yeah...me in a frilly blue dress) for a friend's wedding, and thus ended up in Togo a few weeks after everyone else. Their misadventures had already resulted in the one guy in our group being attacked by giant mosquitoes, or contracting some weird tropical disease, or having to fight off bearded pirates, or something equally horrible that I can't quite remember. But, in the spirit of exploration, halfway through my stay in Togo, we decided to pack up for a week and hit the road on an escapade up north.

For anyone who has had the...pleasure...of road tripping through a economically developing country, you know each has its own unique set of (often pretend) restrictions. In Togo, soldiers posted throughout the country enjoyed building make-shift barriers on the road, and charging people fees to cross. "Just like a visa," one soldier told me. I asked the soldier if he knew that visas are for people who cross into a different country, which he didn't. I believe he now calls them "regional crossing fees" or something equally meaningless. But no matter, the founder of the MFI/our tour guide successfully got us more than halfway up the country to our first stop.

"La Lutte Traditionnelle" is the national sport of Togo, and is vehemently described as being absolute and unique to the country. I later found out this is also said in Senegal. And Madagascar. And Côte D'Ivoire. And...well, it seems every African country colonized by France, Belgium, or a combination of the two.

La Lutte basically involves two or more men walking into a flattened out field, and trying to wrestle each other to the ground. A referee walks around surveying their progress. Sometimes the ref throws a guy out when his shoulder touches the ground, sometimes the ref throws out a guy when his head touches the ground. Sometimes it's when two men have been deadlocked for 15 minutes, sometimes it's when a guy is wearing blue shorts, and sometimes it's when the ref decides he's hungry and wants to take a break. Though everyone in the audience looks intently in unison, cheers in unison, and says "C'est pas vrai!" (It can't be true!) in unison, to this day, no one can give me a clear set of rules of La Lutte.

Our first stop of the trip coincided with the national championship of the sport. Apparently our visit was big news, so the founder of the MFI/our tour guide scored us prime seats in the blazing hot sun, where we sat for the next two days and watched the matches. Though I was constantly shocked at the peak physical condition of what seemed like every person in the country, the lack of rule knowledge resulted in me falling asleep more than anything else.

Fortunately, there were distractions. The first was around hour two, when a small army of soldiers came rushing out of a van, and for 90 minutes, proceeded to set up a velvet covered umbrella on a giant velvet covered box. A few minutes later, distraction two followed in the form of a helicopter touching down less than 200 feet away from the center of the field, and almost knocking a small contingent of women unconscious. A man in a suit emerged, and everyone began applauding. "It's the president!" Someone shouted. "President of what?" I asked one of the people in our group. "Of the country, you idiot," she replied.

And so the President of Togo sauntered by our group, paused for a few pictures, and eventually working his way on the velvet covered box under the velvet umbrella. After ten minutes of enthusiastic cheering, he fell asleep. So I did.

Typical post-La Lutte celebrations include drinking warm beer, covering players in white powder, singing, and jumping up and down all night. After I woke up, our group thus took the obligatory pictures of said celebration, and even joined in for a little jumping up and down. It appeared the team with the red shorts won. Or maybe they lost. I don't think anyone knew, so everyone just assumed they won, and all was merry. So was I, but I was also starving. It was dinner time.

It was explained that a dinner had been arranged especially for us, as we were the guests of honor (I guess minus the president?) at the championships. Upon hearing this, I imagined we would be escorted to a banquet hall and be seated with high political powers of the country. We were instead escorted to a plastic table with six plastic chairs - just enough for our group. Normally, it was at our discretion to eat whatever we felt comfortable with. Tonight, however, one thing was made clear. Out of respect, we were to eat whatever was given to us.

We poured ourselves glasses of warm beer and warm water, and sat in a half sun-baked silence. Two women came sweeping towards us, each holding three bowls of food. As they put the bowls down in front of us, I was hit with a terrible feeling of repulsive pleasure. Kind of like when you're a hard-core liberal, and you realize the person you've spent all night flirting with is a staunch conservative who thinks "Liberia" means "liberty" in Spanish, and you have to decide whether it's worth sacrificing part of your soul for like five minutes of fun. Like that.

Inside of each bowl was a small, inexplicably gray, cooked animal floating in a pool of broth, onions, peppers and tomato. The problem was that though the meat could not be identified, it smelled delicious. Since it had been made clear that not eating was not an option, we each carefully took a small bite of food. It smelled delicious, and it tasted delicious! For those five minutes of fun, I forgot about the little gray body, and ate in relative happiness. Then it happened.

The guy in our group who had been attacked by poisonous bears or whatever said he knew what the meat was. Out of a morbid curiosity, we asked him to tell us.

"Rat."

He said. That's all I needed to hear. We all knew he was right. The five minutes of fun had been summarily ruined, and I could feel that terrible sensation of total grossness wash over me as though I had been dunked in a pool of paint. Like cockroaches, rats are one of the world's true vermin, in that they eat anything, live in the least hygienic conditions possible, and probably carry every disease known to the human race. And I had just eaten one for dinner. Yum!

I managed to contain myself for approximately 60 seconds before making a mad dash from the table and relieving my body of its despicable contents. Somehow the rest of the group managed to eat their way through the beast of vermin, but I'm pretty sure at least one other group member broke later that night.

The next morning, the founder of the MFI/our tour guide asked how dinner went. I quite literally couldn't stomach a response, and instead took my seat to watch day two of La Lutte. It turns out that the unregulated repetitive motions of the sport are the perfect cure to a getting over the fact that you just ate rat. I say this because, well, I fell asleep. In fact, I very fortunately maintained a semi-conscious state for the rest of the trip. I only truly processed the fact that I ate rat after coming back to the States, and tried to eat a slightly gray hamburger in the JFK airport. It cost $16 + tax and tip.

And that, my friends, was a very special dinner in Togo.

Berlin, Meet Virginia

By February of 2008, my living situation in France had gotten a bit out of control, as two of my French roommates, officially known as the "Couple from Hell," had made it a point in their lives to drive me insane. A woman I had been tutoring for a few months told me that the French police don't get involved in a crime until someone is killed, so lease or no lease, I should get the hell out of that apartment.

Since I had one of my five, two week vacations (Hallelujah French work schedule!) coming up, I decided to reconnect with Luis, whom I had met in the epitome of geek land: a Model UN Conference. Luis was doing some kind of Masters that involved speaking every romance language and living all over Western Europe. At the time, he was in Berlin, a city I always wanted to visit, so I figured a quick trip to finish off my last days in the apartment of crazy was in order. (After I got back from Berlin, I literally ran out of the apartment holding all of my stuff, not telling my roommates where I was going or that I wouldn't be coming back. But that's another story.)

Despite my ability to utter random German words out of context, such as Schwein, I possess little to no ability to speak the German language, and was thus very relieved to find out that every single one of Luis's friends I met in Berlin could speak perfect English. In fact, I thought about asking them a few lingering English grammar questions I had, like where, to use commas and, stuff.

One of the nights I was there, Luis had a party to go to, so I tagged along. Unfortunately, it involved karaoke, which is both a word I can never remember how to spell (thank you Google dictionary) and an activity I will forever suck at doing. Nevertheless, I grabbed a beer and made the sad discovery that despite being the only person in the room who was born and raised in America, I have the American song repertoire of a Tibetan monk. And no, I'm not talking about your Uncle Joe who ran off to join the cause because New Jersey "just wasn't doing it." I'm talking about an actual Tibetan monk.

One of Luis's friends, however, had a seemingly thorough knowledge of bad American pop songs...so good, in fact, that she seemed oddly familiar. On top of her knowledge of bad American pop songs, she had that vaguely goth style of dress about her. Strangely, it's this vaguely goth style of dress that seems to be the only style of clothing I have seen everywhere from Hicksville Virginia, to big city Europe, to scared tourist in Indian airport terminal. She was somewhere in between this and this. That's not very useful, is it?

Anyway, the point is that I was thoroughly confused about where this girl was from. At this point in my life, I had already been through the wine tasting fiasco, so I stayed easy on the alcohol, and approached with caution. As I was carefully inching up to her karoake karaoke area, another girl came up to me and asked where I'm from. I started in on explaining the patterns of Indian immigration and the evils of imperialism, when when the other other girl put up her hand and said, "No no, not your ethnic origin," (Go German girl! Perfectly phrased!), "I meant where in the States did you grow up?" Want to know my amazingly articulate response? It went like this: "Oh. Virginia."

Thankfully, that was enough. The vaguely goth girl turned around and said to me, "Oh! I went to Virginia once." Still not useful. Maybe she was from Connecticut and was making a swipe at Virginia. To signal I needed more information, I proceeded to awkwardly stare at the TV for 30 seconds. Finally, the vaguely goth girl elaborated, "I had a boyfriend from the States a few years ago, when he studied abroad here in Berlin. He went to William and Mary. I visited him once there...only place I've seen in the States."

Then I spit out my drink. Seriously. Do not give me liquid substances in public. For those of you who do not know, and I imagine that's 99% of you, William and Mary is a small liberal arts college in Williamsburg, VA. Jon Stewart went there to explore what he called "The Jewish mecca of Eastern Virginia." Suddenly, the poor choice of pop songs, vaguely goth dress, and impeccable mid-Atlantic US accent became clear: this girl was part German, part college freshman.

William and Mary isn't your typical state school. If this girl had visited my Alma mater, Virginia Tech, I would have told you this is exactly what she saw, and be done with it. But I guess even the social misfits of William and Mary are capable of saying stupid crap, so here is a selection of quotes she told me she heard during her two week stay:

1. "Like ooooh my Gooood...an 11 AM class! Who gets UP that early?"
2. "Where's the party? Who's the party!? Can anyone find me the paaaarty!?" ::Boy collapses::
3. Boy 1: "Come on, let's go watch the soccer game." Boy 2: "Is that the one with sticks?"
4. "So I was like, I know I'm like hot, but like I don't know why I keep gaining weight!" ::Turns to cashier:: "Yeah, I'd like double whopper with a large order of fries and a chocolate milkshake. No wait, Diet Coke."

In conclusion: higher education, lowered expectations.

Even the Bubbles in Switzerland are of Better Quality

For the 2005 fall semester, I studied abroad in the gorgeous, breathtaking, mesmerizing, and incredibly boring country of Switzerland. I say boring because...well, it is. Anybody who has lived there and in any any major city outside of Switzerland knows this is true, so stop pretending to be angry. Your display of bias and emotion is sooo un-Swiss. To be fair, I still find it amazing that in a country where the only thing that can be bought for less than one Swiss franc is a bar of chocolate, no one is fat!

Anyway, the majority of my fellow study-abroaders used much of their time and money for the most common American study abroad in Europe activity: live in a constant state of drunkenness. I, however, chose to engage in the second most common American study abroad in Europe activity: pretend I'm European. In the nearly six years of reflection since, I have seen enough idiot Europeans to be happy with just being one of those cool Americans who understands that Andorra is not in Africa.

Since my primary interest at the time was showing my fellow Europeans how Europeany I was, when the opportunity came to stay in the house of a friend of a friend in Geneva, I couldn't resist. My friend said that his friends would just put the keys to the house in the mailbox for me. So I put on my best French jeans, coolest Italian shoes, new Swiss watch, and favorite German shirt, carefully hid my annoyingly blue US passport, and Europeanly walked to the train station while Americanly scarfing down 50 grams of chocolate. Old habits die hard.

Riding the trains in Switzerland is always hilarious. The Swiss Italians in the south HATE the rest of the country for their total neglectfulness. Still, the Italians recognize the merits of having more than 30 seconds in between a train arriving and departing at the station, as well as having a postal system that has been updated since the 19th century. They therefore choose to stay in Switzerland, but refuse to show any national pride. In fact, most wave the Italian flag on the front of their Swiss homes. The Swiss Germans, on the other hand, loooove their country. They don't bother learning the other national languages, and instead all speak English and fly the Swiss flag everywhere. This in turn confuses German tourists (from Germany), because Swiss German sounds like gibberish to them, and flying a flag reminds them of a dark-haired fellow with a mustache from World War II who talked about...well, you know. The Swiss French just don't give a damn, and tend to fly flags that represent a bank, the UN, or perhaps even Andorra. This national culture via flags is clearly seen from train rides in Switzerland.

Finally having arrived at my destination in the part of the country where they don't give a damn, I walked to the correct maze of city houses, and realized I had no idea where the hell the mailboxes were. Slightly panicked, I ate another 50 grams of chocolate, while Europeanly walking around the block. I eventually found them tucked away in a corner. Thankfully, they were clearly labeled. Not thankfully, it required a code to open. This being before the time of smart phones, I had no way to check my email to see if my friend sent me the combination. This being Switzerland, sending a text or calling would require 7,204,587 francs, and so I had insufficient credit.

Completely annoyed, I went back to the train station area, and got a room in a hotel close by. After I paid the full non-refundable price, I sat down at their computer station, checked my email, and found the combination sitting in the top of my inbox. Brilliant. When Europeans get frustrated, they blame Portugal or take a bubble bath. Sometimes both. Portugal seemed out of grasp, so I went to the closest Manor (department store) and bought myself another 200 grams of chocolate, a bottle of red wine, and Swiss bubble bath.

The French instructions on the bubble bath said to use with caution, but French instructions also sometimes say this about sugar. That so, I poured half of the bottle in the tub, turned away for two seconds, and then turned back around. In those two seconds, the Swiss bubble bath managed to cover nearly half of the surfaces in the bathroom. I didn't have the heart clean up the mess, so I piled the bubbles in one corner, and went to bed thinking they would be gone by morning.

WRONG. Apparently even the bubbles in Switzerland are of better quality than in America. American bubbles would have moaned for three hours about being in a socialized country, then passed out from drinking too much beer. But these damn Swiss bubbles stood tall and attentive 9 hours after being summoned from the bottle.

Still too tired to clean up the mess, I found the sink, brushed my teeth, and went sightseeing for the morning. The bubbles had to be gone by check out, right? WRONG. Two hours of trying to dissolve the bastards later, and I had only managed to make a small dent in the seemingly indestructible pile of fluff I had created.

I heard a knock at the door. It was the concierge making sure I would check out in time. Not knowing what to do, I tried throwing some of the bubbles out of the window, putting as many as possible in the trash can, and covering the rest. After surveying my work, I decided to cancel the credit card I had used to book the hotel room. The bathroom was a total disaster.

Since I hadn't responded to the knocking in awhile, the hotel employee used his key to let himself into the room. I tried slamming the bathroom door shut, but it was too late. He saw the mess, walked into the room, and started laughing hysterically. He turned back at me and said (translated for your convenience), "Not Swiss, huh?" "Uh, what?" I said. "You're not Swiss, are you?" He asked again. "Um...no. How did you know?" I replied. He said, "You used too much bubble bath! I'm from Morocco. The first night I got here, I poured the entire f-ing bottle in!" My face fell with relief. I told him I'm American...a very sorry American. "Don't worry," he said, "The maids can clean it up. We get a lot of tourists here."

And so the bubble saga ended. The cool Moroccan even let me store my stuff the rest of the day, and let me hang out on the hotel couch until my 5 AM train ride that morning. 40 hours after I gave life to the millions of indestructible Swiss bubbles, I sat on the train, Europeanly gazing at flags while Americanly eating more chocolate.

A Subway Proposition

For the impact the city has had on my life the past three years, I don't write enough about New York.
Here goes.

Last week, I was coming in from JFK (Airport) to my friend's apartment in the Lower East Side. This subway ride is one of the few I enjoy, because the J train is always clean (by NYC standards), most of the ride is above ground, and I always get plenty of room to sit down and pass out. In fact, most J train rides from the airport are usually much more comfortable than the plane trip that got me there.

When the J train pulled up to the station, I walked on determined to relish the next 50 minutes, as this was definitely the only subway ride that week that would not be filled with the stresses of fighting rats for the food I bought at the deli, pretending to not notice obnoxious couples making out in the middle of the car, or fighting aggressive homeless people for even the smallest piece of pole to hold on to. So you understand my annoyance when a pudgy little Indian man in a wrinkled suit and his overzealous father walked onto the train and proceeded to awkwardly stare at me for the next two minutes.

Despite the fact that there are more than a billion Indians on planet earth, most are still absolutely dumbfounded when they see another Indian walking on the street anywhere outside of the motherland. Those of us who grew up in a country heavily populated with white people tend to hide this amazement well. Those who grew up in the motherland...not so much. Typical signs of amazement include intense staring, waving, pointing, grunting, the Indian head nod, and complete paralysis. I was hoping this might be the cause of said excessive staring. It was not.

After five minutes of ruined subway ride, I finally looked over at the little man and his father. Man might be too generous of a term - this kid was somewhere in between puberty and my little's brother's age. I suppose this is part of the reason why his overzealous, now bouncing father said to me, "What are your qualifications, Madame?"

"What are your qualifications" is Indian for any of the following:

- How educated are you?
- How much money do you make?
- How much money is your family worth?
- If I gagged you, tied you up, threw you in my car, and wrote to your parents for ransom, how much would they pay, and would any of the payment be made in gold?

Asking this question is also step one in figuring out suitable matches for your child in an arranged marriage. The other steps are:

2. Listen to the answer in step one
3. Say yes or no

It appeared this little Indian...boy and his father were riding around in expanse of the New York City subway system to find a potential suitor to marry. At this point, I had two options: engage in this conversation to any capacity or appear to be crazy. Crazy it was!

To answer the question, "What are your qualifications, Madame?" I simply looked at the little boy's father, and very poignantly said, "Schwein!" This of course means "pig" in German. I spent the next ten minutes drooling in my sleep, dramatically twitching, kicking my bag, and making weird noises...basically anything to seem as undesirable as possible.

Convinced I had done my part in playing insane, I looked back at the little Indian boy and his father, who WAS STILL LOOKING AT ME. The father blinked a few times, then very carefully asked, "What are your qualifications, Madame?" Somehow my Schwein-filled, drooling, twitching, kicking self was still desirable enough for this man to pursue me for his son. Since I already had half of the car believing I was some kind of schizophrenic, I couldn't continue with crazy. So I looked back at the father and said, "I dropped out of high school. I work as a bartender."

The father and his son got off at the next stop.

I Wish I could Travel by Submarine

I have been on more flights than I can count. (Meaning I lost track, not that I am only capable of counting to around 130.) This experience has led me to one conclusion: I wish I could travel by submarine.

Though social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Four Square expound more detail about our lives than anyone should ever need to know, Google Analytics has not yet bridged the gap to computing trends of my aerial life. If it could, I’m sure it would look something like this:

- Crying baby within three seats of you on 23 percent of flights
- Creepy Indian stares at you for more than 10 seconds on 78 percent of flights
- 1465 peanuts, 128 cookies, 23 pounds of genetically modified chicken, 45 ounces of alcohol consumed
- Seat located right over plane turbine on 56 percent of flights
- 32 in-flight movies that would not be worth the time in any other situation
- Obese, hypertensive man sitting next to you on 83 percent of flights

For any of you who have the sad fortune of partaking in short domestic flights, I’m sure you’d find this last statistic particularly harrowing. In some Indian crowds, my stature is considered Amazonian in nature. For the vast majority of the Western world, I’m average at best. Average-statured people tend to fit comfortably in current domestic airplane seats, unless of course they try to move or breathe. The rest of the world, including the obese hypertensives, find sitting in domestic airplane seats a challenge. Sure, the airline requires some to buy the seat on either side of them to accommodate extra…luggage, but us average-statures know this is rarely enforced, and in fact, on 83 percent of flights, I am next to one of them.

Obese, hypertensive man is usually a nice person. In fact, he might actually have a good reason for why his body weight went so astray. But in the moment when I realize that I will once again be sitting next to an obese, hypertensive, I. don’t. care. All I can focus on is whether there is a conceivable exit strategy to avoid another set of the most uncomfortable 60-120 minutes of my life. I’m sure Google Analytics will be tell me this is not possible 71 percent of the time.

Usually domestic flights are the only time I am truly distraught over the prospect of this particular set of people. There are so many other fascinating people to worry about on international flights: droolers, snorers, alcoholics, and tourists with the insatiable desire to tell you about the exotic lands they are coming from (usually the Eiffel Tower or something lame in London). However, on my last Dubai to New York flight, I began to worry about the obese, hypertensives once more, as volcanic ash decided to make a European Air Traffic Control nightmare from hell.

As the co-pilot and head flight attendant began to explain the trajectory, I knew this would be the worst flight ever. Emirates has a policy of only hiring gorgeous people who speak 4+ languages and have very soothing voices, but even their models couldn’t bring me comfort at the prospect of being on one single plane for 16 straight hours. We’d basically have to go against the air stream, fly through the entire Mediterranean Sea, cross half of Morocco, fly across the Atlantic Ocean, and travel up from North Carolina to New York.

I looked over at the seat next to me. Empty. Ha. Like that would ever happen. My obese, hypertensive was probably just running late. Right on schedule, I felt someone walk up behind me and wait for me to get out so they could get in to the aisle. In a painstakingly slow fashion, I got up, turned around, and saw…a short skinny guy!

It turns out this wasn’t the worst flight ever. The beautiful flight attendants of Emirates and the quietest, short, skinny guy ever made the 16 hours relatively comfortable. Sure, it was a bit odd that short skinny guy would use indecipherable hand motions when he wanted to get up or drink something, but I’m not complaining.

I can now happily report my flight statistics as such:

- Crying baby within three seats of you on 25 percent of flights
- Creepy Indian stares at you for more than 10 seconds on 80 percent of flights
- 1465 peanuts, 140 cookies, 25 pounds of genetically modified chicken, 50 ounces of alcohol consumed
- Seat located right over plane turbine on 59 percent of flights
- 37 in-flight movies that would not be worth the time in any other situation
- Obese, hypertensive man sitting next to you on 82 percent of flights

But I still wish I could travel by submarine.

The Sophistication of Wine Tasting en France

There are two kinds of people in this world: me and everyone else. Unfortunately, this distinction does not narrow down the latter category by any significant amount, so many Americans seem to draw a line between the "Average" and the "Sophisticated." The "Sophisticated" group enjoy finer things of life, such as the theater, dark clothes, gym memberships, and WINE. Some "Averages" also try to partake in the joys of wine, though the "Sophisticated" tend to pair their wine with aged cheese, pretentious topics of conversation, and corkscrews that cost more than the GDP of many countries.

For many years, in an attempt to place myself with the "Sophisticated," I would partake in wine tasting parties, while overusing words such as "crostini," "aroma," "palate," and "delightful." Though I tend to ride comfortably between the "Average" and "Sophisticated" of America, when it came time to prove my wine abilities in a tasting in France, I was prepared to take the plunge into the land of sophistication with no intentions of turning back.

The Rhone region in which the city of Lyon (where I lived) sits, is home to a type of French wine known as Beaujolais. Most of the small, private wineries in the area debut their Beaujolais wine in the late fall in "caveaus" (large underground cellars), where the wine is aged in barrels. Veeeeery Sophisticated!

Nearly all of the French roommates I had in France were, how to say this in a sensitive manner...f**king crazy. Before I discovered the dormant crazy in the second set, I managed to secure a ride to a Beaujolais caveau, owned by a family friend of one of my roommates, at the debut of their wine season.

Did I mention Americans think of wine tasting as a "Sophisticated" endeavor? Well, French people think of wine tasting as a "Everybody" endeavor. That is to say, rich or poor, black or white, "Average" or "Sophisticated," EVERYONE in France goes to wine tastings. I was not prepared for that fact.

For starters, I was the ONLY brown person that had ever been in this particular Beaujolais caveau. I had chosen to wear a black sweater, dark jeans, and black shoes. Combined with the dim lighting, the very pale selection of French people had trouble separating rock formations with my person, and made it a habit of bumping into me as I drank copious amounts of free wine. Second, most of the people in caveau looked as though they had just come from a long day of shopping at Wal-Mart. Granted, they were still better dressed than actual regular patrons of Wal-Mart, but I attribute this to the lack of obese people. French women really don't get fat.

Needless to say, I was uncomfortable. Somewhere between my fourth and fifth glass of Sophistication, a man heavily bumped into me, and my dormant crazy began to unfurl. He turned around to see what he had hit, and was shocked to see it was an angry brown person brimming with Sophisticated insults. Unfortunately, none of my Sophisticated French words made an appearance, and I instead noticed this poor country Frenchman was wearing...A YANKEES HAT!

After I sloppily set down my glass of red Sophistication, I said in my best slurred French (translated for your convenience): "Why are you wearing a YANKEES hat!? Do you like BASEBAAAALL!? Do you have ANY idea of the cultural significance that hat bears? Do you!?" Then I started to growl. Seriously. For some reason, I assumed a threatening posture, and I started to growl. My roommates were having a fantastic time letting me go about my Sophisticated business, but at this point, decided it was best to stop my Sophisticated drinking, and feed me cheese.

Half an hour later, I was sober enough to realize that I am quite good at growling, but unfortunately, had discovered that in public. Monsieur Yankee casquette had mercifully disappeared, so I bumped my way over to the sales table, and bought three bottles in the hopes that all would be forgotten. As I got out my money to pay for the bottles, the cashier and daughter of the winery owner leaned over to me and said (also translated for your convenience), "You must come back next year! This was the most fun beaujolais debut we've ever had, thanks to you! They are usually so...average."

So there you have it. In my attempt to be a "Sophisticated," I was inadvertently thrown in with the "Average," only to end up thoroughly entertaining. Riding the fence once more. You're welcome.

Santo Domingo Cab Rides: $10/mile

In a picturesque world, Christmas is a time for family joy, gift giving, carol singing, and general merriment. In the real world, my friends tell me it is the cause of most alcohol-related diseases in the Western Hemisphere. As a passive (read: lazy) Hindu, I have used this holiday season for precisely two purposes. Namely, watching overly aggressive soccer moms beat each other down at the local shopping mall, and catching up on 12-months worth of television.

Despite this productive use of time, my parents decided that we, as a family, should venture a relaxing vacation to get to know each other better. After a brainstorming session, we listed the collective requirements:

1. Must have beach access (dad)
2. Must be far away from beach (me)
3. Must be English speaking (mom)
4. Spanish speaking would be cool (brother)
5. Round-trip travel time must be less than 5 days (dad)
6. Let's go away for the month (mom)
7. What? (me)
8. Are we out of peanut butter? (brother)

Out of annoyance and a general desire to not hear us speak any more (yay family bonding!), my mother decided that the Dominican Republic would be our best bet. I volunteered to buy the tickets, but as my net worth is about $12, ended up calling the travel agent and impersonating my parents, and put us down for non-refundable tickets to Santo Domingo.

Christmas morning, millions of children around the country awoke to the joys of a winter wonderland, for it had been and continued to snow for 13 straight hours. My family, on the other hand, began our exploration of alcohol-related diseases. Our flight to Atlanta got canceled. After much deliberation, we decided to rent a car and make the long drive to Atlanta to catch the flight to Santo, which was unaffected. Then we decided not to go.

Finally, after a long drive overnight, we made it to Atlanta (we decided to go after all). Family bonding was great! I even saw my parents a few times! One such occasion was dinner the second night. A friend of a friend recommended a Spanish restaurant. So, we saddled up, paid twice as much as we should have for a cab ride there, and ate a fantastic paella in thankfully dim light that disguised how under dressed we all were.

On the way out, I noticed there was bowl containing free candy for all diners. Naturally, this kept me distracted for a solid fifteen minutes. Successfully covered in processed sugar, I came outside to see my brother, father, and some confused looking Dominican guy arguing about the cost of the cab ride home. Between my brother's intermediate Spanish and my sugar-coated French, we deduced the cost of the ride home contained the number "5," though the exact placement of this "5" was unknown. My brother thought the placement of the "5" meant the cost breakdown equaled to about $10/mile. Having lived in New York for more than two years, I knew this was a rip off, because if the cost of ANYTHING is more than it is in New York, you are getting screwed.

After another ten minutes of hand gestures, angry sighs, and gum drops, my father had the genius idea of giving confused Dominican guy a sheet of paper to write down the price. As it turned out, high school Spanish in the States failed again, and the placement of the "5" meant the cab ride would cost half of what it did on the way to the restaurant. So, we piled in the cab, all did a silent gasp as we saw a gun in the cup holder, and went back to the hotel. I believe this is why we average one family vacation every four years.

India: on the art of cockroach musings

There's a famous expression whose origins I do not know, and in fact, I have no idea if it is really famous, or if I made it up. Either way, it goes: "Truth is stranger than fiction." Clearly the author of this quote did not grow up in Virginia, because I assure you that nearly nothing about the first 18 years of my life was stranger than the crap I managed to find in the public library; however, I am happy to report to you fine people that I have indeed heard a story that makes this quote, every "Fear Street," and every "Babysitter's Club" seem entirely possible. (Side note: "Babysitter's Club" was in fact quite boring, but the amazing qualities the series possessed were the facts that what's her face author managed to publish so many books, and I continued to read them until the age of 13.)

Bring Your Own Cockroach to School Day

My self-congratulating plug in this post is as follows: Thanks to the help of a friend, I managed to land myself a nice little grant to do thesis research in Bangalore, India. Go me.

As it so happens, said city houses the majority of my blood relatives. My dad decided to join me in India a week after I landed, and as expected, a series of visits to each of his sibling's houses took up the majority of our nights. My brother and I are perpetually reminded by every person in this city that neither of us speak either of the two local languages. As kids, our cousins couldn't speak English well enough to communicate, so our visits usually consisted of the two of us seated on one couch staring at our cousins seated on another couch. Needless to say, this staring, blinking, awkward coughing, and warding off large, unwanted quantities of oil-laden Indian food didn't do much in the way of bonding with our Indian counterparts.

Thankfully, through the perils of Indian education, my cousins all speak English now. Unfortunately for my appetite, but fortunately for this blog, these English speaking skills relayed the stranger than fiction story of "Bring your own Cockroach to School Day."

For those of us who went to American schools, we can all recount at least one story of dissecting a random animal or worm. My childhood stories include two girls and one guy storming out of the room in near vomit spurts during rat dissecting, one guy seeing how far he could drop kick a kidney during frog dissecting, and one teacher nearly cutting herself on a blade during worm dissecting, prompting an emergency room visit for a Tetanus shot. What's my point? I had to dissect a lot of creatures.

Anyway, on father's sibling visit #43, one of my cousins, Pallavi, told me that her school required her to dissect a cockroach. For those of us who live in New York, Chicago, LA, or really any city ever, the "cockroach" equals five things:

1. Gross
2. Disease
3. Really gross
4. More Disease
5. Your first apartment

But, I figured hell had indeed frozen over, and someone, somewhere, decided that there aren't enough cockroaches in the world, and they should be grown en masse in a lab and neatly preserved in formaldehyde. Apparently, I am a still too much of a Western thinker, for this was not at all the case.

Pallavi's instructions went something like this:

"Each student must obtain his or her own cockroach that is to be measured at least 6 centimeters in body length. Appropriate places to obtain cockroaches include trash piles, sewers, and under buildings. Students shall bring the cockroach alive to class, and will dissect the cockroach alive. Please bring scissors."

Somehow, after hours of rummaging through the trash heap outside of her parent's house, poor Pallavi was able to find a large enough cockroach, and lure it into a container. So she tossed the little bugger (see what I did? huh? huh!?) in the carrier of her motorcycle, and spend off to school.

To make these even more disgusting, when Pallavi opened the carrier of her motorcycle, she found Mr. Cockroach dead…and fried. Apparently the engine sits under the carrier of the motorcycle, which produces enough heat to fry the damn thing to a crisp. Ironically, the bug was cooked to exactly the same point that upscale restaurants in northwest China cook cockroaches to serve as delicacies. THAT’S A LIE. Restaurants in northwest China don’t serve cockroaches. WHY!? BECAUSE THEY’RE DISGUSTING! Every freaking person on the planet knows that. But I bet you believed me, right?

Anyway, so Pallavi was a little stranded. Somehow, this family genius faced failing her first assignment ever because she didn’t successfully wrangle a live cockroach for class. Not to worry. Finally, dirty kid comes in handy.

Every class has dirty kid. Dirty kid is, well…dirty. He or she bathes less than three times a week, has things growing in their hair, and is probably in possession of an ant colony. My class dirty kid kept his ant colony in his backpack, which I discovered by accidentally kicking said backpack while trying to retrieve a school graphing calculator. Damnit mom, you were right. I should have put my stuff in my bag the night before.

Needless to say, cockroach assignment was Pallavi’s class dirty kid’s glory day. This little dirty girl managed to secure not one, not two, but 20 live, 6+ centimeter cockroaches – enough to outfit the entire class. So “luckily,” Pallavi was still able to participate in the class exercise. Then the real fun began.

Guess what the scissors were for? Yep. A star quality decapitation. To be completed while the cockroach was still alive. Makes me think of this. After the decapitation was complete, Pallavi was instructed to [censored, because even though cockroaches are f-ing disgusting, describing this the slow dissection of their body parts is about a million times worse.] And then she was done!

Her parents are thinking about changing schools next year.

Ich bin hier, I think.

Hello All!

After a 3 month absence, I'm back! This post can only be attributed to one thing: insomnia. So let's finish this up before I actually get sleepy.

Right then, after Senegal, I enjoyed a relaxed summer, which included lazy days at museums, a quick trip to DC, seeing my family, and cheese. Lots of cheese. It also unfortunately included getting my debit card stuck in an ATM the day I got back, cleaning an apartment that had been left as a bio-hazard by the subletters, and an unnecessarily confusing trip to the Library of Congress. But no matter, it certainly made up for the lack of social contact I endured in Matam.

Exactly three weeks after I landed in JFK from Senegal, I found myself standing in the despot of society: Newark, New Jersey. Most Americans find themselves in Newark for two reasons: They were actually in Hoboken and thought it was Newark, or they had to go to the airport. I was the latter. Why you ask? Oh, you didn't ask? Well, pretend you asked. So why you ask? I went to Germany to visit Anne! Yay. I'm poor, I flew Air India! Big boo.

There are two international Indian airlines. Jet Airways, the privately owned company, is fantastic. Big comfortable seats, great food, excellent service, and actually entertaining on-board entertainment. Air India is the government run airline. For those of you who don't know, Air India is also the worst airline on the planet. It sits on par with Crocs in the "attractive shoe department," and Heroine for the "least harmful substance department." Really, it's that terrible. Let me explain...

First of all, despite India running the world with software export and design, Air India has not mastered the art of online check in. And by that, I mean it doesn't exist. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, screaming kids, and senile grandparents. In order to board an Air India flight, one must stand in line behind a dazzling selection of awkward Indian families en route home in order to obtain a boarding pass. In Newark, Air India's check in is located (I kid you not) next to baggage claim carousel number 4, in the basement of the airport. After at least a hundred stifled laughs and ten text messages to various appreciative friends and family, I got my boarding pass and headed further in the lairs of the Newark Airport basement to Air India's security check-in.

My dad always says that "old school" India held its assets in three forms: land, cash, and GOLD. Indians who use Air India are the very definition of "old school" and usually hold every piece of the third form of said assets on their person. In other words, every damn Indian who walks through the Air India security check point has at MINIMUM, 40 pieces of gold jewelry on. Times that by 200 passengers to the power of 3 screaming children, compounding a rate of f-ing tiny hallway, and you get a four hour endeavor through security.

Needless to say, after getting through that nonsense, I headed straight for the bar and had a drink or five. Soon after, I was herded onto the plane, and proceeded to wait the next 1.5 hours sitting on the damn runway. I'm about 85% positive that Air India took kickbacks to have our takeoff kicked back a few times over. After another rousing 8 hours, I shuffled my way off the plane, and proceeded to explain to the Air India staff that I, an Indian, indeed wanted to get down in Frankfurt and not continue on to Calcutta. Fortunately, customs in Frankfurt consisted of one burly man with 8 jagged teeth and a stamp, and I had no trouble getting through to baggage claim. Finally, on my last ounce of iPod battery, dear Anne ran up and gave me a big hug, and a cartoon picture she drew of me. After recovering from the shock that she had drawn almost exactly what I was wearing, we went to the train station to get the hell out of Frankfurt.

The next few hours were a total blur. I remember a pastry of some sort, and a lot of German. Thanks to Anne's Deutsche Bahn negotiating, we made it to her apartment in Göttingen, almost exactly 24 hours after I left my apartment in Manhattan. After dealing with my wine soaked clothes and shoes (a bottle exploded in my suitcase, brilliant), we spent the next two days wandering around the town and hanging out with her friends, which included Sarah, resident traveler, and Fabulous. Oh Fabulous, better known as Fabian to his friends and family, but given his flamboyant awesomeness, will forever be fabulous in my head.

Highlights of the two days were largely provided by Fabulous, who, among his many talents, knows every damn detail of Göttingen, including the origins of its older-than-the-USA library. Since Fabulous is more comfortable speaking in French than English, he gave me, Anne, and Sarah a fabulous French tour of the place. While there, I managed to set the elevator alarm off, cover my jeans in dust, be informed that all of the library's collection of anything in the English language was entirely British, and use the bathroom twice. Ah, the perils of good literature!

Fabulous also joined Anne's Göttingen crew for drinks the second night we were there. Somehow, the conversation turned to fashion, and at one point, the three girls were stumped trying to figure out the English word for a German expression. I recognized "Schuhe," which, duh, means shoe, but had no idea what they were trying to say. Thankfully, Fabulous, in all his fabulous fabulousness, stared dreamily into the sky, and in a very emasculating (yet deep) voice, screamed, "HIGH HEELS!" Willkommen nach Göttingen.

Apparently, my sense of German geography is terrible, because I positively thought my entire week would be spent in the central part of the country. When Anne started talking about the ports of our next destination, Hamburg, I became rather confused until I used her computer to Google the city, and found out that Hamburg is about as freaking north as you can get in Germany. Oops. Whatever.

So after a 4 hour trip on the train, we found our way to a hostel in the city, and out on the streets of Hamburg soon after. We ate a nice lunch, and met up with Anne's friend Simon. Simon's fortes include playing guitar, buying ice cream, and smiling in lieu of speaking English. While Simon and Anne caught up about friends from school, the moon, HIGH HEELS, and marshmallows (I don't speak German, I have no freaking idea what they were talking about), I fell asleep on a park bench for a quick nap.

That night, we met up with Anne's friend Johanna, who had lived in Hamburg for 5 years. Our tour included the red light district, the best worst bar ever, a bar composed of couches and gold paint, and a small dance spot. In the midst of the wannabe EMO DJ's hip-hop mix, we met two guys from the Netherlands who bucked a fundamental stereotype of North Europeans. As it turns out, some of them suck at speaking English. Two hours of unsuccessful attempts at conversation, a few beers, and some decent dancing, we caught a cab back to the hostel, and got back up a few hours later to hit destination three: Wolfenbuttel.

For those of you not in the know, and I imagine that's 99% of living human beings, Wolfenbuttel is where the original Jägermeister is manufactured. Though this obvious draw is great, we ended up there because Anne's parent's live in a small suburb of the city. In addition to the tour of the town, we also celebrated Lena, Anne's younger sister's birthday the day after we arrived. We ended up doing most of the celebrating, as she drove us to Anne's friend's house for a few drinks before going out.

Upon entering the the house, I noticed one of the girl's German's accent was quite different than the others. It wasn't until she said the word "basketball," though that this resident Sherlock Holmes figured out the girl is American. Balancing the proportion of native English speakers to German speakers, we soon got a fine mix of Deutglish going until we finally headed out to the bar. Bar one was a permutation of the latest great genius German innovation: a fake beach bar. Mind you, it was about 45 degrees Fahrenheit, so the "beach" came complete with heat lamps, hot tea, and thick jackets. But, I played in, and ordered the biggest long island iced tea in the history of the world. Thankfully, Senegal has turned me off of any real desire to drink, so I stayed perfectly sober as we headed to destination two: the most oddly placed euro club in the world.

If you talk to any 20 year-old in the States, especially ones who have studied abroad, you'll inevitably be forced to talk about the stupidity of American drinking laws. I wholeheartedly backed this argument. Then I turned 21. It turns out that American drinking laws have a great side effect: it keeps incredibly young people out of the bars and clubs I want to go. Ergo, when we pulled up this this randomly placed euro club in Wolfenbuttel, I immediately smelled the stench of teenagers. They have a strong odor, you see. Regardless, we all had a nice time dancing to fine songs such as "Sexy Bitch," and headed back to Anne's parent's house at a decent hour for any night.

On to destination 4: Frankfurt. Yes, dear friends, Frankfurt is indeed more than an airport. It is also a small city. Granted, I caught the city on a good weekend, as there was a giant museum fair going on all weekend. My personal highlight was recognizing Senegalese music at one of the stands, and talking to a woman who turned out to be from the Gambia. But I must say that as a brown person, being in Frankfurt was a breathe of fresh air as there are more than three shades of people (white, really white, Scandinavian white).

Anne's boyfriend, Martin, has lived in Frankfurt for the past year, so we stayed at his apartment. Due to an air mattress debacle, my first night of sleep was less than perfect, but he was cool enough to get me a bike for the two days, so the three of us spent the time biking around the city. I hadn't been on a bike since my days in Lyon, which showed at first, but my bike was affectionately named "Beast," and as we got to know each other, Beast became more flexible. During the three days, we (not including Beast) had a fine selection of Frankfurt's food, all of which was more or less tasteless. We also walked around an oddly placed Chinese garden, of which I took a few pictures to confuse friends. ("Bet you can't name where this is!") 40 hours after getting to Frankfurt, it was time to come home to New York.

Of course, Air India still wouldn't let me check in online, so I got up around 5:30 AM to get ready to go to the airport. Anne came with me to the metro station, and we walked up to the platform to say our goodbyes. A nice hug, hint of a tear, saw the train coming, train stopped, train door closed, I was not on the train. Shit. So we waited for the next train, another nice hug, this time with one foot on the train, and I boarded and waved to my friend running along side on the platform. Aw, sweet. Sappy moment, sorry.

Anyway, long story a little shorter, 6 hours after I landed in New York, I had my first class of the semester. I walked into the American building, to see the American professor...speaking German. WTF. Warp trip. Turns out the American professor speaks German, simple explanation to a well rested mind. To me, slight panic. Especially since that professor is one of the three shades of white. Two hours after slight panic, I walked out the classroom door, saw friends I hadn't seen since May, and had a fabulous (I love that word) Mexican dinner. Life is gut.

This One time in the Desert of Senegal, part DONE

Ahoy kind ladies, gents, and undecided (that joke is totally ripped off of “Will and Grace,” but for the sake of my internet ego, pretend it was all me),

I apologize for failing to keep you all au courant (up to date) these past two weeks, but as I made it out of nothing cubed back to Dakar and back to New York, my internet has been of variable reliability. Ironically, my steady internet connection in Matam was met with somewhat consistency in Dakar, and probably no access in New York since my lovely subletters apparently dropped the ball on bill payments. To that I say: Grrr!

Aaaanyway, I believe I last left you before my grand adventure to nothing cubed, so here we go…

After approximately 40 hours of discussion, it was concluded the best day for our departure to nothing cubed would be on Sunday, so of course, we left on Monday. The target area of nothing cubed is about 84 kilometers away from Matam, but since the roads consist of a fine selection of dirt and rock, it took us about 3 hours of steady bumping to reach the tin shack that would serve as “home” for the next three days.

That night, I decided to forgo eating dinner, partially because Ngone also decided to not go, and the thought of eating with our assemblage of 5 less than well-table-mannered Senegalese men + 3ish strangers seemed like something between purgatory and hell, so Ngone and I spent the night getting to know each other better through life talk and cereal. Enter trouble.

Somehow, I have managed to keep relatively healthy my entire time in Senegal, only throwing up once due to some overzealous Motrin taking (my back reaaaally hurt), but nothing cubed made sure to do a good job of kicking my ass. I don’t know whether it was the milk, the muesli, or the combination, and honestly, thinking about it is enough to make me nauseous all over again, but suffice to say that night was spent by the toilet and in bed clutching various parts of my stomach and praying the pain would go away, inshallah. The next three days proceeded with various states of consciousness, interspersed with work and explaining to people that the cure for my sickness was not eating strange looking fish covered in thick sauces and peppers; that Sprite might be a better alternative.

But despite all my suffering, nothing cubed turned out to be incredibly valuable for our research and probably saved the state of our (until that point) non-existent conclusions and paper. Thankfully I pulled myself together well-enough to make it back to Matam on Thursday through the maze of bumps and our entourage of Senegalese people shouting at each other via my ear. I even survived a rather long break when our car discovered the high-tech Orange (phone company) fleet who was going to nothing cubed to install landlines. After snapping a picture of the fleet as they parked by a donkey-drawn carriage carrying 18th century style farmers in hand-made clothes, our car successfully bought out all the mobile phones on the Orange truck, and we continued our bumpy journey back to Matam.

The final days in Matam was marked with a few notable mentions:

1. Ngone decided to accompany Latsouk and Andrea to the neighboring town to buy another phone, but first made them wait 40 minutes outside of our place. Then she had them drive to the post office 30 feet away and had them wait for another 40 minutes. Then they drove to the next town and waited for a few days outside of the phone store. Thankfully I decided go to the office in lieu of trip, and in the time the three of them waited on each other, I wrote a dissertation, drew a picture, and took a short trip to Paris. Au revoir Matam.

2. I spent the entire week in and out of normal health, and thus forewent having another soccer practice that week; however, my girls came in a few groups throughout the course of our last day, and the final batch arrived with the Minister of Sports. He’s a sweet old man, and made me a little certificate of awesomeness, which was presented to me on our stoop complete with handshake and picture. Cute ceremony, you should have come.

3. Athia, our cook, was by far the most valuable person to me in Matam, as her cooking kept me moderately well-nourished and totally not sick, so as a thank you, Andrea gave her a shirt and some money, and I gave more money. Not wanting to be uncouth/not wanting to do actual work, I used a Zappos shoes box, duct tape, paper and marker to make a…box. Yes, I made a box out of a box, but it was kind of cool and served its function of present holder well enough, and I’m pretty sure the box made Athia’s day; that, or the fact that its contents contained the equivalent of a month of her salary, and a shirt that she will totally rock out.

4. Andrea decided to cook the last night we were in town, and tried making Adobo, only with mutton. The dish was a huge hit, largely because the soy mostly burned out, leaving a dish that looked remarkably like what we ate for dinner 90% of the time. Yay for change.

Finally, the morning of our departure came, and after figuring out how to place all of Ngone’s luggage in the two cars, she bunkered in with Pap Sakho, and Latsouk, Andrea and I climbed in the other car with Pap’s normal driver, who turned out to be clinically insane. Andrea tried very hard to explain in French to Latsouk the term with which Pap’s crazy driver was afflicted: F-ING INSANE ROAD RAGE. The very sight of an animal, person, car, insect, or large particles of dust drove the man crazy, and we spent the first two hours on the road going about rocket speed until we pulled over to check out a small market. A fleet of kids immediately spotted us foreigners sitting in the back, and after 10 minutes had somehow concluded that I’m Italian. Out of boredom and an insatiable desire to practice my 100 retained words of the language, I went along with the charade and told the kids my name and that I’m from Rome, when one little girl looked up at me and then Andrea and informed us that we had a flat tire. Quelle suprise, Monsieur Road Rage flew over potholes the size of boats with no mercy, so after thanking the girl in a mix of French and Italian, Andrea told Latsouk, and we drove off to find a place that fixes tires.

In any Western country, the normal protocol for fixing a flat is pulling over to a gas station and having the interior slimed. The normal procedure in Senegal is oddly similar, and we soon found ourselves waiting by a small shack with what appeared to me to be a set of rusted tools entirely unuseful for fixing the tires; however, after a few minutes of watching the guys work, I realized I know absolutely nothing about car tires and decided to trust their judgment in the matter. Latsouk was in a National Geographic mood and pulled out his camera and started taking pictures of the area in an “artistic” fashion, and Andrea and I were soon half-ass posing. As my car skills extend to calling AAA, we thought it would be funny to take one of me pretending to change the tire, but given the color of the sand and my clothes, and the picture came out looking more like an advertisement attempt for Diesel shoes than anything else.

Finally the tire was fixed, and we headed out on the road once more, stopping for lunch in St. Louis. Being a little too giddy about eating in a restaurant, we ate more at lunch than we had in the past week combined, and packed back up to finish our ride back to Dakar.

Mr. Road Rage driver had an annoying habit of giving his opinion on everything from the color of the sky, to the virtues of small bananas, to idiot kids trying to cross the street, to anything and everything he had ever heard in his life. Fortunately for Andrea and I, we were happily seated in the back with iPods on at full blast and little to no comprehension of the Wolof language, so poor Latsouk endured the great brunt of trying to appear interested while resisting the urge to punch the man in the face. After he said the equivalent of “uh huh” in Wolof about 40,000 times, we finally found ourselves outside of the city limits of Dakar, which is marked by choking pollution and traffic backed up to Mali. I guess Matam has some advantages.

Thankfully we maneuvered our way though the city, dropped off Ngone’s luggage, and after a slight panic in not knowing where the hell we were staying for the next week, finally managed to get our stuff up to the dorm rooms we’d be crashing in until it’s time to go HOME. Half an hour later, a tin bus came rumbling up, and out poured the other 4 (plus 1 husband) New School kids and their Senegalese counterparts. Being that the bus was supposed to have arrived 5 hours ago, I got the general sense that no one who had been riding in the plastic and tin contraption was at all happy, but we all managed somewhat warm hellos and after half carrying/half throwing the 15 bags (12 of which were Veena’s) up the stairs, we gathered enough energy to make it out to dinner to an Ethiopian restaurant.

It was universally agreed upon by us Americans, the Senegalese students, UNFPA, and everyone at the university that recapping what we did the past 8 weeks would be a waste of time given the alternative of sitting on the beach/getting lives back in order, but despite this agreement, we found ourselves in a classroom with no internet for the better part of the week working on PowerPoint presentations that no one really cared to see nor talk about. Ngoné had things to do in her own order, so I (admittingly happily) spent the better part of the week getting my stuff together for the final paper and presentation, and on Thursday morning, we showed up to present first to a room full of 5 people. No matter, we presented, hi-fived, and at precisely the moment I thought we were done, everyone from the UNFPA office decided to show up. Crap. So, we presented again, hi-fived again, answered a few legitimate questions, smirked at a few asinine comments, and 2.5 hours after we started on our 30 minute presentation, finished for all its glory. Hallelujah, Inshallah, whatever you want to call it, that presentation was over!

On Saturday, my last full day in Senegal, Ngoné had me over for lunch. She was supposed to pick me up around 11 AM, so right on time, around 1:35 PM, she showed up and took Andrea and me over to her place. I had somehow imagined Ngoné living in a palace, but upon entering, found the house oddly comfortable and modest. I did get one image correct though. In my head, I imagined her sitting with her little glasses behind her giant computer at a table the length of Manhattan; indeed, a few minutes later, she was perched behind her giant computer with her little glasses at a table of a length twice my height.

As a present for all her help, I decided to give Ngoné my exercise ball so she could finally start her planned exercise regime. I should have known that bringing a giant rubber ball into a house with three kids would cause pandemonium, and sure enough, an hour after I got it inflated, everyone in the house except Ngoné had started their own version of an exercise routine. Ngoné’s son’s method was slamming the ball against the side of the house and headbutting his sisters when they attempted to do to the same. Somehow, an hour later, we managed to sit down and enjoy a fabulously cooked lunch while Andrea (yet again) dodged the subject of why she is not yet married with 4 children. I mentioned I wanted to go to the park, so Andrea, Ngoné, Ngoné’s kids, a random sampling of relatives and I piled into two cars and bumped our way down.

A few minutes after our soft landing, a friend of a friend of this guy Ngoné met once 15 years ago offered to let us into the animal park for free, so being the cheap ass profiteer I am, we went in despite the fact that I knew the animals would be in less than humane conditions and it would probably smell like a latrine. But damn is it good to profiteer! After getting over the initial shock that animals I have never seen outside of cartoon form were sitting feet away from me, I started snapping pictures of everything imaginable: ostriches, boars, hyenas, crocodiles, bunnies (they were cute, shut up), pythons, lions, crazy lakes, jungle gyms in an actual jungle, the list goes on. Actually, that was about it. Regardless, after spending 7 weeks in monochromatic Matam, the stimulation of the park was little overwhelming, but “Doesn’t take enough pictures Mala” walked out with 50+ pictures of the experience to document the drama.

Being that it was my last day in country, I had a modest list of things I wanted to do that day, but for all of our sanity, Ngoné and I have become friends, and I decided to go with the flow and instead went with her to her sister’s house, and then back to her house for dinner. Thankfully, my most important task of the day (buying chocolate croissants) was fulfilled by an oddly placed “La Brioche Dorée,” and I satisfied my fat kid tendencies, and bought Ngoné’s kids a little something as well.

Latsouk came over a little later, and after I animatedly told him of the various adventures of the week, we had lunch leftovers for dinner and tried our best to eat yet another batch of sticky-ish rice, compliments of Andrea. Finally, l’heure of goodbyes came, and for the first time, I felt a genuine sadness in leaving the country. (Here comes a serious part, so skip ahead if you can’t stomach the mush)

I think by most standards, I have done a good job of expanding my horizons through travel and putting myself outside of my comfort zone to grow as a person. Yet, in all honestly, through 5 trips to India and one trip to Togo, I have never worked nor lived so closely with the local population of a developing country. Latsouk and Ngone are amazing, well-educated people by any standard, but they are still very Senegalese in many ways, for whatever its worth, for better or for worse. Getting to know them on a more personal level, and sharing the experience of working in and living amongst some of the poorest of the poor in the world in Matam is something I will never forget. It’s easy to say life goes on in the fast-paced world of New York, but life also goes on in Matam; the latter is much harder to grasp. Hopefully I contributed something of worth with my soccer team, and will contribute something of worth with my research, but as much as it pains me to say, it’s possible I didn’t. Regardless of the fruitfulness of my work, I sincerely thank Ngoné, Latsouk, and Andrea for putting up with me and helping me better understand the phenomenon of poverty that I have witnessed, but have never had to endure.

Needless to say, it was the perfect last day in Senegal, and my goodbyes were heartfelt but happy, because as Ngoné has said many times, it is written I will be back to Senegal at some point in my life, and I will always try my best to keep l’Equipe Matam in my life if they wish to be a part.

I now write to you from my apartment in New York (picking up a free wifi signal!). Coming home has been shocking and amazing, and seeing people about whom I care very much will be a buzzed effect for the next few weeks. The duration of my stay this time around was not significant in the grand scheme of things, but the worlds I have seen in the past two weeks certainly are.

So, before I get too sentimental for my own good, I leave you with a jolly goodbye and genuine thank you for reading my various banterings. As a reward for your persistence, I’m getting a massage and every freaking possible kind of cheese out there. You’re welcome to come over if you’d like.

Good day, good night, loveundliebe, kys og kram, bisous, much love to you all,

Mala