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

Senegal part 8 - 3 = 5

Hola! Guten Tag! Ciao Bella! Namaste! Perestroika! This is me stalling for time because I don’t know how to start this email! More “!!!”
Ahem, well, I suppose that can count as a lameass opening, so let’s just jump right into the midst of things…

On Wednesday, Ngoné reappeared out of thin air from Dakar. The actual trajectory from Dakar to Matam entailed about four buses, three donkeys, two coughing drivers, and a chicken in a coop/partridge in a pear tree (if you were keeping up with the tempo) spaced out over the course of 15-20 hours, but because I walked in to get breakfast not expecting to see her, to me, it appeared she materialized out of thin air. Needless to say, it was a rough night of nonexistent sleep for her, but after 3 cups of Nescafe and an entire can of condensed milk, she rallied enough strength to make it to the office to go to work.

Honestly, the thought of her journey and the bags under her eyes were sufficient to make me want to go to sleep, but we managed a fine morning of checking email, and exchanging chuckle-inducing stories interspersed with mild discussions about our project. Somehow after staying awake all morning and early afternoon (minus a few minutes during lunch when Ngoné fell asleep), we slammed our two shots of lunchtime tea (I kid you not, we’re served tea in glass thimbles that acutely resemble shot glasses), Ngoné was on fire. Let me explain…

Perhaps it’s the nose ring, perhaps it’s the helping hand around the kitchen, perhaps it’s the smile, but it is very clear that when Andrea leaves here uncommitted to any Senegalese man, many hearts à la Matam will be broken. Ngoné has picked up on this fact, and in her sleepless state, decided to teach Andrea a new word: Diongué. It is important to know one’s audience, and I know there is only one person copied to this email list who speaks Wolof fluently, so Jojo, this is your cue to start laughing. “What is Diongué?” the rest of you are probably asking. This is exactly the same question I asked myself, and by the graces of our internet connection, found the answer to be this, “Diongué: The Woman’s Art of Seduction.” Yes, my friends, somehow, with the very purposely loose-fitting clothes and sticky-ish rice, Andrea can be equivocated to having “seductress” powers in Ngoné’s mind. For many reasons, I found this absolutely hilarious, and spent the next few minutes doubled-over with laughter and tears coming out of my eyes…in fact, here comes another fit…

::10 minutes later:: Ok, back. That night, I had another “practice” with my girls soccer team/hodgepodge, and showed up promptly at 6 as agreed the previous Saturday. 40 minutes later, the other coach and the girls decided to make an appearance. Given my renewed tiredness, this didn’t bode well with me at first, but I held my tongue and we finished 1.5 hours later with limited success. After a confusing conversation of agreement disguised as disagreement, we agreed (I guess) to meet on Friday at 5, and after dodging hoards of 10-year-old boys demanding I give them my new soccer balls, I made it back to our room tired but moderately content, though much of the contentness stemmed from actually using my duffel bag as a duffel bag instead of as a clothes holder. The oddness of day cannot be properly captured in this email, but let’s just say we were all off, and I went to bed fairly positive someone laced the Matam air with some kind of “Make Me Crazy” solution.

The following morning, we got dropped off one street before our office, so I charged out of the car expecting this to be part of Ngoné’s new exercise routine, but we instead meandered into the office of the community radio station. After demonstrating that I know absolutely no Pulaar (the local language), the head of the radio station launched into an hour-long explanation of his various programming activities, including lamenting the one mid-wife Andrea and Latsouk specifically warned us was absolutely unhelpful. In the midst of my fly swatting, the head found out my name is not “Kuemr,” but “Mala,” to which he took great joy in explaining that if you take out the second “a” and add an “l and e”, you have his name. I tried to look interested, but instead made a slight notion that I had his name written down throughout the course of the interview, and my being American does not preclude the ability to spell. Fortunately, another man came in a few minutes later, the Regional Coordinating Assistant Director Head of Chief Bureau Administrator (or a title equally as long), and steered the conversation back to something of warrant, and actually interjected a few points that were quite useful to our research. Wanting to go out with a bang, Ngoné and I left and finally made it to the office.

That night at our regional director’s house, I asked Latsouk if his program director would be coming to Matam soon. Latsouk replied that he was supposed to come today, but no one has heard from him since yesterday. Right on cue, the program director rolled up in his truck, which in apparent decoration for Bastille Day (week?) was decked out with flashing red, white, and blue lights, and stumbled out of the car with nothing but the clothes on his person and a confused expression on his face. He is hilarious in his own rite, but one of the slowest moving people I have ever met. After a ten-minute journey through the front door, he walked up the stairs to meet us, and speaking at approximately 2 words per minute, told us that he just rode in the car for 12 hours. I must hand it to the man, because after a 12-hour journey, I would probably run straight for the nearest bed, but he joined us for dinner and lumbered off to sleep at a decent hour that night.

Friday brought a slew of interesting events, not being limited to being informed that I would be carted off to nothing cubed for sure on Sunday with a truckload of Senegalese UNFPA workers. We also enjoyed a second batch of sticky-ish rice, and I committed to cooking an Indian meal for the following day with the spices Ngoné brought back for me from Dakar. Enter yogurt chicken…

For those of you who know anything about Indian cooking, you probably know that one of the easiest ways to make a “curry” sauce is adding whatever spices to plain yogurt and mixing in any proteins, potatoes, vegetables you desire. Stick it in the oven, boil some rice, pitter around for an hour, and presto!, you have the perfect meal for a family, an awkward third date, your friend visiting from Germany, or whatever else. Apparently, the concept of cooking anything not sweet with a dairy product was highly bizarre and prompted grave fits of nervous laughter, so for one whole day, I had 4 (5?) Senegalese people questioning, doubting, pondering, visibly showing their fear for this concoction of a dish, which, not very affectionately, garnered the name “Yogurt Chicken.” Ngoné, in her constant silent quest for competition, told me to “shove it in their faces” and make the best damn dish possible.

Saturday proceeded with average hilarity: coordinating my coming to the kitchen to make my dish with the cook with whom I share no common languages was highly time-consuming, as were buying the ingredients (which entailed a special opening of our preferred store). Once in the store, we found out that the only type of yogurt was sweetened vanilla, which presented a problem for two reasons:

1. Ew
2. Our regional director is diabetic

But very much wanting to cook the best damn dish possible, or at that point, any dish possible, I went with the sweetened vanilla and prayed whatever the hell is in “Madras Curry Powder” would be potent enough to mask the taste. As for the regional director, he can’t be THAT diabetic, right?

I walked into the kitchen, which is really a room with a bunch of utensils and two propane gas tanks on the floor, and spent the next hour mimicking motions and sounds for “tasting,” “smelling,” “looking,” “chopping,” “scooping,” “cooking,” and “ow! I stabbed myself trying to do my fancy chopping thing with this tin knife!” Our cook knows what she’s doing though, and within in an hour, we managed to finish all the prep work and left everything to cook for the next few hours. We even found unsweetened yogurt in the fridge, so all turned out well and I returned back to our place to finish exercising; an hour and a half later, I sat in the car with Andrea and 4 (5?) Senegalese skeptics by my side.

Upon reentering the kitchen, I made the slightly alarming discovery that the cook forgot to cook (I know, awkward sentence) the regional director’s meal, but since the chicken had been pre-cooked and any French/French derived yogurt lasts longer than your diamond ring will, we turned up the gas tank to the “burn a house down in 60 seconds or your money back guaranteed” mode and got everything out toute de suite.

Latsouk had already tasted a potato piece from yogurt chicken dish, and knew it was safe/appealing to eat, so he dove in first, and an alarmed crowd of Senegalese followed suit and, TA DA! Enjoyed the meal! Or at least they ate enough and gave me enough compliments to make me feel like they enjoyed the meal. So long as no one gets sick, I’m happy to take in the praise, even if it’s even slightly false. We finished off with the rest of the sticky-ish rice, so between Indian food and Thai d-e-s-s-e-r-t, I was in Matam heaven.

Alas, I will be going into the field to finally chase nomads today, so wish me luck, but don’t even try asking me where we’re going, because save geographic coordinates, this places barely exists on a map. I find it entertaining that in exactly two weeks, I will be on a plane heading back to my apartment in lower Manhattan, so in the span of 15 days, I will have covered the very extremes of the earth in nearly any way definable. One of those moments that makes you stop and ask how your life (in a very good way) got to this point? Fortunately for you, my natural writing style manifests in more humorous ways, so you do not have to read about this musing; however, if you’d like to circumvent this very “study abroad” conversation altogether, I suggest you avoid my physical presence like the plague for at least the next few months. I’m feeling a big spout of deepness coming on.

Anyway, depending in which country you’re reading this from, good day or good night, and I will talk to you next week in inevitably hilarious renditions of chasing some of the most removed people on the planet.

Cheers,

Mala

Senegal part 1 + 2 + 1

Don't even start on me, no, it's not an original blog composition. And no, this does not mean you can have your money back.
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Lou Bess Everyone?,

That means “What’s up” in Wolof, and serves as the one phrase in said language I can say with full confidence. Well, that’s not entirely correct, but for the sake of the general theme of not ever knowing what the hell is going on, pretend it’s true.

To start off the week of not knowing what is going on, Ngoné, my Senegalese student counterpart, had to go back to Dakar again to take another exam, and as a parting gift, Matam turned off the power for the previous 12 hours. Normally, Ngoné would spend any free time we have (which, mind you, is a lot) studying in the comfort of her own room, but as our hollowed out cinder blocks tend to accumulate the heat of the day with the upmost fervor imaginable, within 2 hours of the power going out, our rooms were stifling hot, so when I went to go talk to her about my “bring me back crap from Dakar” list, I found her in the common area instead of her room. If there was any doubt we were destined to work together, it was the scene in which I found her that confirmed this destiny. I pride myself in having, using, testing, and unintentionally smelling every Sharpie known to man as I use them often for my artwork; when I found Ngoné, she had spread in front of her, quite possibly every hi-lighter known to man.

After recovering from the initial shock that hi-lighter comes in 2,000 colors, we started in on a conversation about soccer balls when I was abruptly interrupted by the loudest squawk I’ve ever heard. I was fairly positive that someone had died, but Ngoné told me to stop being dramatic, there was merely a frog inside of the wall. And by “in the wall,” she meant in the room, but regardless, the frog was bothering Ngoné because it “Won’t stop chatting, and I really don’t have the time to chat right now,” so Ngoné did what any adult would do: she starting throwing toothpicks at the frog. Frogs are thick skinned, figuratively and literally, because after a series of rather hurtful comments and a handful of toothpicks, Ngoné had only managed to drive the frog to the other side of the table. Naturally, her next weapon of choice was a can of air freshener, but the only effect the air freshener had on the frog was leave it with a subtle scent of lemon and “summer breeze.” Finally, after using the air freshener as a bat rather than as an odor remover, Ngoné got chatty, nice-smelling frog out of the room, and we went back to discussing the virtues of Indian spices and quality soccer balls. I somehow got the time of her departure mixed up, and missed seeing her off, but we continued our soccer ball conversation over the phone the next day, so I know she made it back to Dakar safe and frog-free.

Call me romantic, call me inspired, call me a lazy American, but my favorite thing to do in Matam is ride around in our air-conditioned car and watch the scenery outside. God must have heard my laziness/romanticism, for we spent the better part of the workweek riding around finding small villages and hamlets for my project. That was interesting. Let me explain…

Day 1: We stopped by the office and picked up a sheet listing 30 villages, one of which (as pointed out by Andrea’s Senegalese counterpart, Latsouk) was named “Peru.” Despite my lame pleas, we did not end up in Peru, but instead went to another village whose name I cannot remember nor did I copy down. I know, great investigation skills.
After some navigating around cows and asking half a dozen confused people where our mysterious village was, we stumbled upon our desired hamlet and spent the next hour and a half talking to various people of the hamlet to gather quantitative data. Being two foreigners and two Senegalese, we managed a fine audience of dumbfounded adults who masked their interest as best as possible, and dumbfounded kids who made no effort whatsoever to mask their interest. But no matter, we got the data needed out of the short interviews, and proceeded to do what’s contractually obligated by any Westerner visiting a small African village – get pictures with kids to post to Facebook. Check and check, a successful day.

Day 2: Japan’s philanthropy runs in mysterious ways, not limited to agriculture development in the middle of nothing cubed Senegal. I have no profound comments to make of this endeavor; the reason I mention this is because in our first hour of driving around on day two, we went by pasture land that was restored by the Japanese, and at one point, I saw a sign that said, “Japon Techno.” Har har. That was funny.
Aaaanyway, day two consisted of asking more people along the street for directions to a hamlet exactly 15 people in the world have heard of. Fortunately for us, we found number 13 (he was wearing a shirt that said “13”) and pointed us in the right direction. Said hamlet had a current population of two: one adult and one kid. The kid of course wearing a “New York” t-shirt, but suffice to say that “We’re American” is all the information most people need, and we didn’t get to have a laugh about the coincidence of the shirt locality.

The luck of the week continued, because the one adult was able to direct us to the village center, where we found a few people capable of translating directly from the local language to French, so all of us could understand, but the results of the survey where less than encouraging. When asked what happens when someone who is migrating by foot falls very sick, our guy more or less answered, “Well you know…whoever dies, dies; whoever lives, lives.” The rest of the interview followed in similar fashion, so my genius conclusion on improving the health system from this interview is: “Uh?...”

Day 3: MC Hammer parachute pants day! We were told we’d be going to an even more remote location than the previous two, so I decided the occasion called for full-length pants. Unfortunately, the only location that got to see my pants was the car. Mysterious hamlet was so mysterious that it took us a full 2.5 hours to determine that it was currently uninhabited and only accessible by foot. Damn. We did manage to get some pictures of the neon grass up close, and convince our driver that his services should remained unpaid on our part. Andrea also got a marriage proposal by a 15-year-old boy. Last I heard, that’s a no go.

So on to the weekend! On Friday night, we were informed that we’d be attending a conference for World Population Day. The conference was planned to start at 9 AM, but in African time, this translated to anytime between 9 AM – Sunday, but being the good Americans and Senegalese we are, we woke up to be on time for the 9 AM start time. At 11:20 AM, the conference officially started, and the next few hours proceeded with a blur of two local languages interspersed with French words and some snoring on the part of the audience.

At some point in the conference, Andrea noticed that there was one office swivel chair that was nicer and rose above the rest of the chairs, and was surrounded by two smaller office chairs, which were surrounded by pink plastic chairs. One director sat in the biggest chair, our regional director sat in one of the smaller office chairs, and the local population sat in the pink plastic chairs. After drawing a depiction of said situation, Andrea lightly proposed getting up and asking the following question, “Dear Audience, I’ve noticed that the assemblage of chairs clearly manifests power constructs in this conference. What is your take on this issue?” I spent the better part of the conference prodding her to ask the question, and even offered $100 as an incentive. Perhaps it was the awkwardness of the subject, perhaps it was that the $100 was clearly a lie, but the question was not posed, and we are still left with the predicament of power play through pink plastic chairs and fake leather. An issue to be dealt with next year, I suppose.

On Sunday, I was feeling slightly ill, and was greeted with a torrential downpour of rain as my saving grace. I opened the door, looked to my left, and saw Andrea thoroughly drenched and smiling. Obviously, the solution pick-me-upper was getting soaked, so I stormed outside in full force, fully clothed, and ran as fast as possible to the edge of the pavement before I realized I couldn't see anything and was experiencing a sensation that is utterly foreign at this point: being cold. So after trying to strike a "Singing in the Rain" pose, I met defeat and instead settled for a Tim Robbins "Shawshank Redemption" pose instead. (The picture has since been deleted because I looked fat.) Sure enough, I feel a million times better after the brief run, and that night, fully enjoyed comfortably wearing JEANS in 77 degree F (23 degree C) weather. Hallelujah!

I now leave you with a few highlights of conversation from the past 10 days:

- Fallou: “I know I didn’t correctly predict the hour of rainfall, because you see, I’m not God.”
- Me: “Will I end up in the fetal position after reading the article?”
- Andrea: “Meghan told me she has a goat named after her. I told her I have a cow.”
- Latsouk: “Crap! I made a catastrophe. A mustard catastrophe!”

Cheers All,

Mala