I'll vote for the candidate with the best cookies

Sorry to not write for so long. It'll be a little longer yet for anything substantial. I'm in the middle of processing a bunch of things (my research, job applications, the meaning of life...) so I haven't given much thought to story-telling here. In short, all is good. In the past few weeks I have been in a 1,200 year old mosque, strolled along the Mediterranean, applied to grad school, smoked Red Bull shisha, drank Tuskers with my mom, danced in a Nairobi burger joint turned night club, made two homemade pumpkin pies, ate Thanksgiving turkey and lost my phone and camera. I'll analyze-verbalize it soon enough.

In the meantime, I have found confirmation for my strongly held belief in the power of cookies. From The New Yorker:

At each caucus, any candidate who does not gain the support of a certain percentage of the attendees—typically, fifteen per cent—is considered nonviable, and supporters may disband and align with other candidates. “Realignment” is a chaotic moment when campaigns descend on each other’s groups and try to poach from them. The arguments used during realignment are notoriously haphazard, ranging from the high-minded (“Join my group because my candidate opposed the war”) to the pedestrian (“Join my group because I loaned you a snow shovel last week”). This, Waliser explained, is why every Obama group needed a corraller—to ward off the poachers. “This person will in a polite and respectful manner physically contain the Obama group and ask them to stay in their place,” she told her precinct captains. She suggested feeding them in case they got restless. “The name of the game on caucus night is stand and stay, so this is where the chocolate-chip cookies are crucial.”

See, it's not just me.

Ten things

1. I’ve moved in with two amazing women. Eva is a 30-ish year old française who works (really hard) for UNPD and salsas like she's trying to hypnotize. Livy is a 25 year old grad student from Southern Mississippi who swears like a sailor and dresses in J. Crew.
2. My roommates and I sharing a car. Driving is soooo nice (compared to being driven everywhere). I’m getting good at averting potholes.
3. I leave Saturday to go to Nairobi to see my mom and then to Cairo to see Garza. Expect full-on giddiness for the next two days.
4. I have found where to go for good hot chocolate. With the rainy season underway, my new favorite retreat will be to sit under the awning at Botanica hotel and watch the rain with a cup of thick drinking chocolate.
   
5. A little crisis occurred at work when I realized that the surveys – the core of my evaluation – that I thought were sent to the police officers a month ago (you know, only because someone told me they were sent) were actually still sitting in sealed envelopes in a filing cabinet at the Police Headquarters. All 250 of them. This week has been full of damage control meaning me calling policemen and saying, yeah that due date of October 22, you just want to ignore that…
6. Work otherwise is getting interesting. I've done about 20 interviews so far and some are duds (completely useless, officers trying to sound impressive but never actually answering the questions) but some are really quite rich. This is one area where I particularly appreciate the Burundian tendency to, shall we say, soliloquize.
   
7. December travel plans are finalized! On December 7^th I hop from here to Addis Ababa to Ramallah to Paris to Portugal to London to New York to home on December 23^rd. It’s about time I fill up that passport. Also I’m broke.
8. I’ve applied to 7 jobs in the past couple weeks and will be spitting out cover letters and resumes until someone responds. I know it takes a while but seeing as I’ll be unemployed and broke come January I could really go for a quick response… Don’t these people know how good I am at things? Just give me a chance (and a paycheck), you’ll see, I’m really good at things.
   
9. Clarification: the dress broke before the Marine Ball. About 30 minutes before, to be precise. After trying it on and having it fit perfectly that afternoon, I put it on at home to feel the zipper pop, followed by a cluster of girls descending to fiddle and fix until after several more pops we gave up and I borrowed clothes. Thank goodness for roomies with cute clothes. And arrrgghhh.
10. As for the Marine Ball, the best part of the evening was probably when the Marines formally paraded a cake in with pomp, circumstance and swords. And yes, they used the sword to cut the cake. It was a treat to see pastries put on such a high pedestal. And I finally met the American Ambassador who was sparkling in a hot little strapless dress and, if I'm not mistaken, fishnets. That's my kind of diplomat.
    

How do you use "shorty" in a sentence?

Last Saturday morning I went to Willy's English class. Willy is a 24 year old guy from Cibitoke suburb of Bujumbura who decided he wanted to learn English. He has an amazing mastery of the language that reflects someone who learned a lot but has obviously taught himself. For instance, he'll make small grammatical errors but will toss out vocabulary like “extemporaneously” and “whet my appetite.” He also decided he could teach others, so on Saturday mornings, about 50 Burundians from ages 15-30ish cram into a small school room and create an English class for themselves.

The entire lesson is made by the students: they bring in the vocabulary, the prepare the exposes, they find stories to read aloud to the class. Willy and a couple of his friends act as facilitators, but otherwise it’s completely collaborative. Which is impressive, first of all, but also incredibly amusing. For example, take some of the vocabulary of the day:

• Sex maniac: a man who wants to have sex all the time
• Gold-digger: a woman who uses the fact that she is attractive to get money
• Demoniac: stupid person (which dictionary.com defines as “of or relating to a demon” but I swear I’ve never heard)

If anyone has a question he will thoroughly discuss the word as if he was debating social policy – from the heartfelt explanation you would think pinpointing the difference between “hear” and “listen to” could save someone’s life. The facilitator for the day responded to good comments and the exposes by calling them “breathtaking” over and over again. Burundians take the things they say very seriously and these kids are passionate about learning, which is admirable but means there is a lot of exaggeration.

And then there was a whole religious part to it which I didn’t expect but you know, why not? Three guys got up to sing a worship song, one with a guitar, and if a little out-of-place for an English class, it was wicked cool. They had great voices and in the cloudy morning classroom set a beautiful scene. Best part was the second song they sang: they went to front of the class, one started beatboxing, the other shouts “You know we’re back! This is the remix!” and they rap (pretty well!) for a bit before busting into “Lord I lift your name on high.” I get the feeling they practice this for ten hours a week but it totally pays off. My face hurt from smiling at the end.

Computer lessons

Everyone has guards. If you’re a muzungu or if you’re wealthy, you have guards at your house, pretty much all office buildings have guards and since my office is in a compound with UNESCO and a section of USAID, we have about 10 of them at any time. Adrian made friends with some of the guards last year when (being Adrian) he worked late. Arthemon and Elie in particular were tight with Adrian, so when they met me and knew of my association with him, we were instant friends.

One of the things that Adrian had helped them with was a computer lessons. So at some point I offered to pick up where he left off. These are some of the highlights from last week’s lesson with Arthemon and Elie.

In trying to master the double left click on the mouse, Elie was clicking and dragging icons all over the desktop. “No, here, you have to hold it still….” I clarified. So he would gently move the cursor up to the icon, let go of the mouse, and click straight down on the mouse button with his pointer finger. They were both fascinated by the squiggly auto-spell check lines, realizing that when you make a mistake Word can just fix it for you! Arthemon read Adrian’s email out loud and the two of them responded verbally to his comments.

Adrian's email: You'll have to forgive for not writing for so long...
Arthemon: Oh, it has been too long, you must be busy.
Adrian's email: Did Elie get married yet?
Elie (in stitches): Noooooo!!! Not yet! Hahahah, oh Adrian, you'll come to my wedding when it happens!
Adrian's email: Are your classes hard?
Arthemon: Yes, they are my friend, but we make it through.
Adrian's email: I think of you guys often, I hope you're doing well.
Arthemon: You are so kind. God bless you.
Elie: I can't believe he thought I got married! What a great guy, Adrian...

I probably jinxed it.

The dress broke.

Searching for a ballgown

Fifi told me she knew a good couturier who could help make my dress. We planned to meet on Monday to go look at fabric stores together.* What I didn’t realize beforehand but was most pleased to discover was that the dressmaker was coming to be my personal shopping assistant. All I needed was a little dog in a handbag to round out the scene.

We started by going to her studio, (Atelier de Hippie, which Neela and I found amusing), to look at some examples of her work. Adèle tried to get me to try on a tiny gold dress she had made for a friend of hers. I stepped behind the curtain, pulled it up to my hips and called out that it ah, wasn’t going to work. Incredulous, she stepped back to assist – here, try it from above, wait, just hold still – and gave up when, with one of my arms in and one out, the fabric refused to wiggle over my ribs and we started laughing. Then Fifi tried and it fit like a glove and she stepped out looking stunning. Please though, I’m American. The comparison just isn’t fair.

Adèle took us from shop to shop, greeting her friends behind the counter and introducing me to all the luscious fabrics that could be wrapped all around my body. In one shop were a bunch of colorful African and Indian batik prints, patterns and colors that made me feel like I was in a candy store and instantly imbued me with visual ADD. In another was a little girl singing songs to herself and jumping around with a doll. Her mother, the saleswoman, told her to hush but I hoped she wouldn’t because her voice was almost as cute as her bashful two-foot high smile. In the last one we visited we were helped by an Arab woman who spoke a very nice English and French and laid out soft and shimmery fabrics that glided just so over our fingers.

As I gushed over fabric at the final store and told Fifi “There are so many pretty things!” she dryly responded, “Then which one do you want?” I got the message - they’d had enough. Some might call my indecision exhausting, but I like to think of it as careful deliberation which (usually) leads to a wise and well-informed course of action. But you say tomato, and so after two hours and with a fistful of samples to consider overnight, I let them go. I spent the rest of the afternoon browsing Anthropologie and Nordstrom.com and wrote Hannah to find inspiration.

And sitting there mid-search, it donged on me that here I was, liberated. Having a dress made means I can indulge in complete creative license. With the maker right there at my disposal, anything I could imagine is possible, along with a lot of things I can’t. Torn asunder from the rules of fashion and cultural conformities that pinch us in the shape and size of the moment! No going into the store and having to choose among racks of redundant designs that everyone and their mother wears for me! Right here in my grasp: ultimate freedom, the chance to make and own something totally unique. I turn my back on the bland, I refuse to settle for what’s in season, I outright defy the style du jour. What did I do next?

I went with the simplest design possible. Full circle, came I. By scrutinizing bushels of pictures and pawing through armfuls of fancy fabrics, I either got scared and retreated back to my first option or felt like the first one was just more and more validated. I mean, of course, it was definitely the latter.

I went to the market the next day with Livy to pick out a classic yet classy African fabric. We swept past the unidentifiable and nauseating smells at the entrance, past the distended-belly babies and the legless men with collection cups, past the stands with a 12-foot high assortment of foreign condiments and straight into the canopies of color. There, unavoidably, we disappeared into the narrow aisle, feasting our eyes up and down either wall of us to scan all the possibilities against a soundtrack of “Hey sista, this one very pretty!”

I felt like I was in a paper store, surrounded by pretty things and not really having a use for them but wanting to scoop them all up, take them home, and be happy in the fact of having so much prettiness in my possession. I ended up with a black fabric with large bold abstract flowers (or petals, I’m not really sure) in red and yellow. I talked the seller down from $20 to $15 and gave him $16. I thought Adèle would kill me when I showed up and said I had chosen something entirely apart from the dozens of fabrics we saw yesterday (and I didn’t dare mention that I found it in a quarter of the time). She smiled, understood, and went to taking my new measurements. I realize I really enjoy having measurements taken.

I pick it up on Halloween to wear to the Marine Ball on Saturday. If anybody from home wants something made and can send me measurements and a request, I’d be delighted to go shopping for you!

*Sidenote: Monday was a holiday to commemorate a massacre of schoolchildren that took place in 1993. The assassination of then President Ndadaye occurred the day before as a signal for the killing to start. These events precluded the quick descent into genocide and a decade-long civil war.

Kids These Days: Part II

In a recent column, David Brooks gave us an alternative to the young professionals: the unrushed adventurers. What defines them? Well...

After graduation, they’ll spend a few years in different jobs, maybe they’ll go to graduate school and then they’ll figure out something more definite – or not. They’ll live in another country or two before they hit 30, or they’ll spend a year hiking/fishing/climbing/sailing/being outdoors. They are pretty good at packing all of their belongings in a car, or even in a few pieces of luggage. They’re not actively looking for “the one” and they’re not planning on doing anything permanent anytime soon. In life, in love or in work, they’re open to the idea of changing any plans they had because they don’t know all their options yet. They've got nothing against stability, but they don’t see a need for it, personally. They have long-term goals… they’re just not sure what they are yet. They are floating through their Odyssey years.

Wait, did I say they? Cause it sounds a lot like a lot of my friends and more than a little like me, dabbling in various interests, ambitious if uncertain, easily excited and uneasily committed. Yuck, it's always annoying to be pegged (by David Brooks, no less).

It’s definitely a luxury to be able to dawdle through our twenties like this, but according to Brooks’s column, everybody who can is doing it these days. "Odyssey years" is his term to describe the time when we’re off trying to figure things out before life requires that decision be made. No longer is finding yourself just a college thing. We’re extending the indecision into “real life.”

Personal mentality is part of it, but even more than that, it’s a function of a cultural change (hence the merit as a Times Op-Ed). The whole transition lifestyle has become a perfectly valid post-graduation option these days, right up there with going to work for the man or starting a family. And if my friends are any example of the larger population, it’s actually way more popular. Just to take a handful of examples:

Brian and Stephen went to Ramallah in the West Bank to teach in a Quaker school, neither of them Quaker or having extensively studied the Middle East. Anna took a road trip across the country and worked as a waitress in Oregon. Heather and Amon are working on environmental something-or-other in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for a year. Robert left Wall Street and is traveling to a different Asian city every week and writing a novel. Then there are the friends in Peace Corps, Americorps, and Teach for America, all programs which last a year or two by design and draw in students from every background. And I’m in a country I had never heard of until last year, unsure of where I’ll be two months from now, or eight months from then, but I imagine it will be two different places.

The adventure itself is good. The tricky thing is we aren’t always sure of our reasons for taking it, and that’s where we should be wary. Brooks writes that we’re not just wasting time; on the contrary, people are doing it with very professional goals. We’re very aware of how we can use these experiences in the future… what's disconcerting is that we might be primarily using them for those goals. We’ve been heavily groomed in interview skills and programmed to pursue extra curriculars and encouraged if not forced to seek out unique life experience that will impress someone at some point. We're so conditioned that we’ve almost made routine the quest for adventure, forgetting that the adventure has its own inherent value.

To some degree, it’s fine to combine those experiences with more concrete objectives. What’s not okay is how doing so can keep you from living in the moment. Contextualizing youth in terms of adulthood keeps us from indulging in full revelry, and leads us to take ourselves and all we do much too seriously. And on that point, Brooks paints a very vivid picture of the ambitious kid who has lost the free-spirited excitement for life. In a different article, he wrote about professionalized adolescence with a clever allusion to modern-day interpretations of Kerouac’s On The Road. It’s worth reading, but to sum up:

“If Sal Paradise were alive today, he’d be a product of the new rules. He’d be a grad student with an interest in power yoga, on the road to the M.L.A. convention with a documentary about a politically engaged Manitoban dance troupe that he hopes will win a MacArthur grant.”

Though impressive, the new-rules Sal is a tool, almost pathetic in his desire to impress. He’s constantly caught up in how he’ll fit his experience onto a resume, and constantly updating his resume. He goes on adventures bescause that’s what you do now and it makes great cocktail party conversation. He is interested in this stuff, but mostly because everyone else is. The new Sal isn't the protagonist of On the Road, but rather of Getting to the End of the Road.

So the question is – is that why we do it? Do we embark upon these travels and take up these causes because we’re wowed by them or because we know others will be? And if it’s a bit of both, are we finding the right balance?

I thought about this in the context of Nicholas Handler’s article (see previous post), because in a lot of way, Brooks and Handler are describing the same person. Handler’s Che t-shirt kid will soon grow into Brook’s power yoga grad student. He will replace the trendy and impressive activist causes he pursued in college with the trendy and impressive Odyssey years experiences. Our adventures, like our activism, assume a professional veneer inspired by current fads, and we’re a little bit opportunistic about everything.

Sliminess aside, the most detrimental part of this habit is the toll it takes on the bright young overachievers. College was my Odyssey primer when, with my friends who wanted to accomplish everything and often thought we could, we forgot how not to be stressed and prided ourselves on being able to sleep the least. We obviously cared about what we were doing but we probably cared more about how much we got done, so we lived out an unofficial competition who could collect the most marks of success: exotic travels, fancy internships, leadership titles and competitive grants – these were our gold stars, good for both social status and personal statements.

In the end, we got really good at taking ourselves seriously. We might have gotten a lot done, but the way we did it was a little bit sad. Looking back on that, I want my Odyssey years to be a chance to step away from the exhausting and not very healthy trend of investing all of yourself in everything. Because sometimes you have to remind yourself that some things are more important than the important stuff. That there doesn’t have to be a point to everything, and the trivialities of life are ultimately just as valuable as the big stuff. That walking on a dirt road or dancing like a fool or staying up till sunrise are not the stuff of interview banter but they are the secret behind a reminiscing smile that will far outlast your latest resume. A great thing about those moments and experiences is that they are for you and they are for your friends but you’re not going to be judged on them, in an interview or anywhere else. They are yours.

Brooks ends the Sal Paradise article with this:

“Someday some hypermanic kid will produce a moronically maxed-out adventure odyssey that will spark the overdue rebellion among all the over-pressured SAT grinds, and us grumpy midlife critics will get to witness a new Kerouac, and the greatest pent-up young-life crisis in the history of the world.”

I hope it happens when I’m still in my Odyssey years. It sounds like good fun. :)

Kids These Days: Part I

Lately the New York Times has been all about some commentary on college kids and twenty-somethings and what we’re doing with our lives. David Brooks says we’re taking longer to find ourselves and we’re taking ourselves more seriously in the process. Tom Friedman thinks we’re playing it too cool and says the reserved activism of today is for wussies. A Yale history major’s says we’re writing a revolution, we’re just trying not to look too into it.

Since I happen to be one of those wussies taking myself too seriously and trying to save the world but pretending not to care, I've been thinking a lot about it. This is as much as I could organize the first part of my thoughts, but more to come.

Nicholas Handler set off a comment board frenzy when NYT revealed his essay as the winner of a national student essay contest on “Why College Matters.” His response, a curious effort to blend blasé and idealism, drew enthusiasm from a few sympathizers and harsh dejection from more than a few disappointed readers. So yeah, he didn’t present anything very new, hardly anything cogent and on the whole the article was more annoying than entertaining. In a kind of sad way, he finally answers the question “why college matters” with the unexpected and incredibly uninspiring summed-up response: online organizing. It’s the activist style du jour, the response of the rally cry-skeptics, tired of prefab protests and trying to get at change from another angle. And our parents, and especially Tom Friedman, just don’t get it.

In light of his own lackluster take on activism, I can't help but think he was trying to polish off the essay with something nice and hopeful but he’s not even sure he has convinced himself, so it came out very strained. That said, in some nuggets of his article are very on. This is the passage that stuck out to me:

“On campus, we sign petitions, join organizations, put our names on mailing lists, make small-money contributions, volunteer a spare hour to tutor, and sport an entire wardrobe’s worth of Live Strong bracelets advertising our moderately priced opposition to everything from breast cancer to global warming. But what do we really stand for? Like a true postmodern generation we refuse to weave together an overarching narrative to our own political consciousness, to present a cast of inspirational or revolutionary characters on our public stage, or to define a specific philosophy. […] We are a generation for whom even revolution seems trite, and therefore as fair a target for bland imitation as anything else. We are the generation of the Che Guevara tee-shirt.”

For the most part, I’m with him. More than a few of the social justice sparkplugs that I went to school with are flippant about getting involved, doing it as much for the t-shirt as to raise the extra $1 of the t-shirt’s proceeds that go to charity. They like the idea of the cause more than they know about the cause. (I’ve already said my piece on the shirts.)

The more interesting thing he hits on is the transformation of activism that results from everyone getting fed up with the over-hyped LiveStrong bracelets. From the sixties picket-sign stereotype, we’ve been strewn in two directions: first plasticization and now professionalism. The first part of it consists of the Che t-shirt (or bikini) wearers who don’t know who Che is. This type is certainly still around and in full force, but the others are coming out of the woodwork now. Handler calls the professional side “the organization kid,” someone who is using savvy and non-traditional methods of activism to make things happen. I think a better term is the divestment kid, (maybe even the DMill), who is wearing suits and attending board meetings to persuade some pretty big wigs to move their money out of Sudan. And ironically enough, those two work very much in tandem on campuses these days.

Facebook, as ever, provides the case in point. NYT shows that three of the most popular tags for Handler’s essay are “facebook,” “activism,” and “Darfur.” Facebook Darfur activism. Our activism is conducted through social, sometimes superficial and incredibly image-conscious means. At its core, Facebook is a tool for expression – yes, you can use it to retrieve information but it’s real purpose is to dish it out. You can definitely still go to a campus Darfur event without a facebook RSVP, but you use it anyway because the planners want to be seen as the planners, the attendees want to be seen as attendees, and the MIAs wait to decide to go until after they see the guest list. It's personal marketing for free. The organization kid knows how important it is and seizes the masses through an e-invite. (The divestment kid goes a step further.)

It all comes down to what I think would be Handler's activism timeline:

1. Activism defined sixties style: Hyped-up, long haired, peace sign, rally crying, poster carrying rebels with a good cause.
2. Activist spin-off causes burst out from the seams: Hunger, AIDS, tsunamis, polar bears… how can one girl choose?!
   
3. Activists and wannabes lose their credibility; kitsch activism emerges: For every 100,000 people that join this facebook group, I will donate $1 to Darfur.
4. The post-modernists point and laugh and turn up the Shins.
5. The new activists decide to change tactics. Welcome Dan Millenson.
   

But as far Handler’s critique of our post-modern refusal to define an overarching theme, can you blame us? You’ve just got to chalk it up to the fact that we are immature and we don’t know what drives us and we’re not rushing to decide to what causes we want to dedicate our lives. And in that sense, it’s okay that we’re a little cheeky with our activism and that dip our feet in here and there without any larger cohesive theme or purpose. Political parties exist to weave an overarching narrative, it’s up to individuals (especially young ones) to figure out where they fit – or not – within that. Fickleness is in part the point and in part the luxury of youth.

It just means we get to embark upon the Odyssey years to figure it all out. (Next.)

Status update

Listening to: Feist “1234” and Regina Spektor “Flyin”

Mood: Frustrated but optimistic

Reading:The College Issue

And by the way: Polish women are my new sheroes.

Nothing like graduating and moving halfway across the world to start questioning, you know, everything. I never liked introspection very much and I’m a little miffed by how much time I have to indulge in just that.

To sum up: I’m not quite sure what I’m doing. I am sure that what I’m doing is not the same as what I expected to be doing, nor is it the same as what I want to be doing. Frustration and confusion are duking it out right now for reign over my mind, and on good days confusion comes out ahead.

Today is a good day. It’s beautiful out this morning, I’m going swimming in an hour, I ate a great tomato sandwich for lunch and I’m taking the afternoon off. This weekend I’m playing croquet, visiting my soon-to-be Burundian host family, and going to a bar-b-que for the US-South Africa rugby match. And not to be underestimated, the newly downloaded aforementioned songs are a very important part of the mix.

And some things are about to change. I don’t know yet exactly what that means, but I’ll over-frazzle if everything stays the same so I have no choice but to try to make a few changes. I have a few starting blocks. I desperately need to learn and I really want to be around women but mostly I’m aching for a passion… I’ll see where I get with that.

I’ve finally uploaded some pictures and hesitated to send a link because they don’t begin to depict the whole scene here. But since nothing could: picasaweb.com/taylorsteelman/Burundi.

Did you do something to your hair?

So I realize that compliments are not always genuine. People will toss out a “Have you been working out?” just to say something nice. And even though it might have absolutely nothing to do with your working out (or lack thereof), people might actually think you just look nice and grab a ready standby phrase to express that. A phrase sure to make someone feel good.

I haven’t seen Reverien, our cleaner at the office, in a week or so now because he’s been on vacation. He stopped by this morning to say hello and we indulged in a bit of chit-chat as I was making coffee. When suddenly, as I turn to fill the coffee pot with water, he says from behind me:

“You’ve gotten bigger!”

Oh gosh. I’ve seen this happen to Liz. I sat at my desk while she greeted an old friend (Burundian man) and witnessed him call her fat. Right there, to her face. I think my eyebrows were an inch above their normal resting place but she took it in stride. A gracious nod, a polite dismissal. And slowly I caught on to the dreadfully ironic exchange: he was offering an American woman a compliment – by calling her fat.

I swing back around to Reverien: “Huh?!”

To make sure I understood what he said, he smiled jovially and held his arms out around his belly in that limp-ballerina-arm pose to show that yes, it looks like your midsection is expanding. He even looks to Freddy beside him for confirmation, and they both shake their heads, still smiling.

Okay. Thanks guys.

It's Monday

There is a massacre happening around me. Savage actions befall the victims: drowning, beating, squishing. I’m completely complicit in and overwhelmed by it. Almost everywhere I go, I find the desire to kill. It started at home, mainly in the kitchen, but now it’s followed me to the office. I got back from lunch today and saw them there, my enemy and my prey, on my computer. So what else could I do but I huffed and I puffed and I blew the little ant off my laptop! There. Eek – another one! You too, get off. Shoo shoo, off. Countering their defiance, the wind whirls out of my puffed cheeks and I try to tornado them out of the crevices in the keyboard… ah, but what if they just crawl inside?! Ants in my motherboard, arrrghhhh.

I don’t understand where they come from. These ant trails don’t necessarily have any origin, they’re just long lines of ants that start and end from and at nothing. The ants go back and forth from the top of the line to the bottom of the line, in motion the whole time and existing completely independently of everything, it seems. And there is no predictable reason for them coming where they choose to come, they just decide to come and they collect in hordes as if one sprouts out of another every minute. And that must be where they come from, each other. Which would explain the lack of a trail. Illogical, origin-less, pesky tiny ants that never ever sit still.

Like you! How in the world did you get on my arm? When I didn’t feel you crawl up from my elbow where it’s connected to the table, I didn’t even see you on the table, but all of a sudden here you are halfway up my forearm leaving me no other thought but that you magically appeared there, right there. For that bit of trickery I feel no shame in flicking you as swiftly as I can across the room. If flicks had a sound effect it would be a high-pitched, tight-lipped quick and determined *Pinnng* with a tiny little ripple of an echo. Pinnnnng!

Admittedly, still the new girl

I don't mean to be so personal. But I had a doozy of a day.

*****

What does it say about me that after a crummy day made crummy in large part because of unsettling confrontations with personal privilege that I’m sitting in the garden of a nice hotel on a nice afternoon eating chocolate crepes so I can access the internet?

She’s a white girl listenin’ to hip-hop driving on a Tuesday in her daddy’s SUV.

My feet are dirty by the time I get to work. I wore my little red ballet shoes one day and realized that for their sake I oughtn’t attempt it again. It would mean risking the soft red material to the clanging paws of dustbowls a foot off the ground.

Did I mention there’s a splendid view of the mountains from this garden?

*****

“Good afternoon,” he says to me right after I leave the house. As he says it I’m typing in my phone to tell Matt we’ll go for drinks later.

“Good afternoon,” and a curt smile. That’ll do.

A few steps and I think maybe we’ll make it, silence, silence, duck, duck, and then… ah, broken. Goose. Here it is.

“My name is Joseph.” A nice smile though. We shake hands. I smile too. But he… “works with orphans in this area. And we look for help from people around here. We have some letters of support from the administration,” opening the folder in his hand, “if you’ll just take a look.” He pulls out something official-ish and crowds me on the dirt sidewalk.

I used to think I didn’t want to give to people who asked for it because I felt more sympathy for someone with the humility not to ask. But what good does that do if your only strategy left is asking. When you actually need to ask. When you actually need. The thing about the soup kitchen that always bothered me was that most of the people who ate there were overweight. And that’s part of why I’m in sub-Saharan Africa.

It’s hard to tell which I hate more: having a lot or not having enough. Cause if I had mountains of cash then I wouldn’t care about giving away. Yeah, we all pull that line. What does this look like to other people? Through what lens do you see this and does it look like what an H2 looks like to me? That is, completely unnecessary and wasteful and an insult to most any other person and every single tree in the world.

“What do you want me to do?” To the point.

“If you could make a contribution…” he tries.

Yeah? What are you going to say this time, Taylor? You’re not going to just let him get away with that are you. We’re in the middle of the road man, why do you have to come up like we’re in an office or something and show me your papers and pretend it’s normal instead of harassment. You should know that there are boundaries here and you’ve not respected them and you’re just going to get anything done that way. No problems allowed in the no-complaining zone. A zone cordoned off by iPods, cell phones, and nasty American looks.

But how are you going to justify it? Especially since you and he both know you are lying, you’ve got to make it sound good. Make yourself the victim.

“Just right now, I can’t.” Make sure to use poor French, so when you fumble to explain it’s not because you’re unsure of yourself. Just your language.

Possessions. Somewhere a family who considered giving away all their worldly possessions did just that. Somewhere someone just became a nun. Fundamentalism is the only real religion, Alex said the other night. Reformists and compromisers are hypocrites. Unless you’re telling Anna that she can go out to nice dinners with Creighton because she’s so selfless otherwise and to feel guilty about something so standard in our culture would be debilitating. Indulgence allows good deeds.

I’m going to do my good deeds by my own design though. You’re not going to ask me for them while I’m walking back to work on a hot day. If there are times when you do good and there are times when you indulge then what are those times called when you tell a guy running an orphanage that you don’t have the $20 you have in your purse. And who should feel worse for creating that situation, him or you?

I would never donate to an organization that I don’t trust because I want to know that they’re really going to create something valuable with what I give them. We Americans like returns, they make us who we are. Show me that of all the parentless, shirtless kid-centers you’re the one that I should donate to. You need to earn this. For more reason than that you happened to walk beside me. I don’t know you man.

And I’m going to buy drinks later.

“Oh, you can’t…now. Maybe we could set up a meeting?” He’s on to me.

I’ve asked people for things too. But I never did so actually expecting to receive. Okay time out, not okay to put my UNC fundraisers on par with feeding orphans. I fed international NGOs and college students. Nuns probably walk around with small bills so they can give to someone whenever anyone asks. My mom probably does too. But it’s not worth doing if you’re going to feel bad about it, I told Anna. A bitter humanitarian is no good to anyone. Of course I’m not giving anything and I’m still bitter.

The real cinch is that I want to give and you want to take but why can’t you just want to take what I want to give?

Jeffrey Sachs, will you make me a formula please? Would you just design some algorithm or logarithm or some-kinda-rithm that can decide for me when and how much I can give away so that I don’t have to grapple with the decision each time and I won’t be unfair or inefficient but mostly so I won’t feel guilty. I don’t know what it is exactly I feel guilty about: either not giving or not caring enough to give or maybe just having enough so that I’m the one who gets to make the decision. And following guilt is shame at the fact that I stress about not giving money and they have to stress about not getting it. In all scenarios, I have the better end of the stick. It’s unavoidable and I remember my grandma telling me stories about how I was a brat when I was little and never did have patience for other people messing with me, telling me I’m cute.

And I don’t know who actually bothers me more, the men who ask for my money or the men who ask for my number. Both of you are presuming entitlement to something that is not yours and to which in fact, no, you are not entitled.

“Why aren’t you married?” he asks when after 2 minutes of conversation he can hardly pronounce my name.

Because pops, as hard as it might be for you who views me almost singularly as a chromosome-based identity to believe, I’m good for more than that. And for all the students of Mona Lisa Smile of course I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with marriage. All I’m saying is that if I was married or dating, their first question to me would not be “Why don’t you have a job?” or “Why aren’t you in school?” with the standard accusatory tone not very well hidden behind otherwise harmless words.

At home I feel no qualms about blowing people off but I’m treading carefully here, not always sure if the extra respect is merited. Of course I don’t want to disrespect your culture but I don’t want you to disrespect mine either, so don’t assume that I want to go for a drink with you in spite of our 20 years of age difference and having absolutely nothing in common.

“I just think you’re nice and I enjoy your company.”

No. There are prerequisites to having my number. One is a reason to believe that I would either want your number or would want to hear from you. Two is you actually having anything interesting to say to me upon a second meeting. Three is not being sketchy, and though subjective, it’s for me to decide and I won’t pretend that my perception is always perfect but it does affect my level of comfort so you deal with it.

“Why don’t you want to give me your number?”

And here’s where I try not to hurt your feelings.

“Do you have any money you can spare?”

And here’s where I lie in your face. But all I mean is:

Because it’s mine and some parts of me I don’t want to share. Because I would rather offer something than be asked for it. Because I’m short and smile frequently and it’s easy for just anyone to take advantage of that. Because I don’t like to be judged based on my skin color or gender or clothes. Because I think indulgences are important sometimes and because sometimes I delight in overdoing it. Because you need to give me time to think and because I don’t want to feel like I’m being sold something. Because I know how to sell things. Because I’m unsettled by the inequality between us. Because we have different perceptions of what’s important and of what’s appropriate. Because my sense of propriety might be somewhat old-fashioned. Because I don’t know you, I don’t know you, I don’t know you.

But the thing is each time I turn the corner those kids are there and each time I turn another corner Joseph is there with his pile of orphans and what am I supposed to do when the dogs at my house eat more than they do. I just wish they weren’t there every single time and I wish they were wearing shoes that fit them. I’m a fan of charity for people that deserve it and I don’t know what to say when I realize I’m not a fundamentalist charity-giver. It depends on my mood. It depends on how much you upset me. And ironically the less upset I am, the less I’m thinking anything through, and the less I’m prone to give. It’s not religious. It’s unfair, my choices, you being there, you asking me, me refusing, my caprice, our closeness, our being so far apart, all of it.

*****

There are good furrows and there are angry ones and angrily furrowed I also squint out the midday sun and walk back through a road that is too hot to a work that is too slow past people that make me feel bad about having slow work and I don’t want to give you this so please just don’t be nice and that way I’m not making a comparison between you and panhandlers on Franklin St. I know all too well there is a difference and it means something to me that you need what you’re asking for and it means something else that all I can do is spout the easiest fake excuse that comes to mind and when I go back to the States I won’t feel bad about turning down someone on the sidewalk outside a restaurant with access to hundreds of passersby with spare change because I turned down someone who hasn’t fed 20 orphans in 2 days. It’s all bullshit anyway I’m sure and I still wish I had a car to drive so I wouldn’t get my feet so dirty on these roads on dusty days. I don’t want to have to wash my sandals when I get home and I don’t want to sweat. I came to Burundi to see what its like somewhere with real poverty but just don’t show me that much please. We’re all hypocrites for our Club du Lac lifestyle and for swimming with crocodiles but maybe I’d rather just keep doing that and not furrowing my brow like this. And when I get to work give me someone I can talk to, hand me a politician please, a man not even a little bit of the people. We can get along because he is important and I am white but not to the extent that he gets to call me because I am not that important, I am just that white and that, my friend, does not count. And by the way, how am I supposed to act around stick-thin men who do my laundry, clean my dishes, and open the door for me? When I get home and don’t want to talk to anyone can I still blow them off or is that just being a colonialist?

Sometimes it seems the shock of having the comforts of home has somehow entrenched me even more in them and I don’t much feel like not being a hypocrite anymore and I wouldn’t mind going to Paris or New York. Businessman are honest souls because they admit that they’re completely selfish but NGOs are crazy political and selfish even though they claim to be doing everything for the good of humanity. It must be easy to make decisions when your own self-interest is the main concern. I have always been madly indecisive and always equally envious of people who can make quick decisions.

And oh how perfect if those quick decisions were also the right decisions, and if all of the raindrops were lemon drops and gum drops.

Manners lesson

Today I walked home from the bank with 400 USD, dressed in floppy sweatpants and my North Carolina t-shirt, with my iPod stopping up my ears. Such a muzungu.

While I was walking, Bus and Richard were following me. Thanks to the NPR podcast in my headphones I couldn’t hear them but I assumed they might be trying to talk to me. After about 5 minutes when I finally heard “Good afternoon” and responded, they introduced themselves and we kept walking together until my turn, when my little friends finally revealed that they weren’t just having fun with the muzungu but that they were indeed little enterprisers. I heard the standard: “J’ai faim, donne moi l’argent.” “I’m hungry, give me money.” My ears prick each time I hear it: street kids have got the general gist down but completely without manners (they don’t even using the respectful vous form). These seem like nice kids and I want to try something so we have an impromptu lesson there on the corner.

“You know you’ll be much more effective if you’re more polite. Try this: ‘Could you give me some money, please?’”

Their faces are searching to see if I just told them how much I was going to give them. I look closer and motion, hands from me to them to me to them: “Repeat after me,” and I repeat after me. They respond: “Give me money.” Okay, these kids really don’t know French. “No, that’s what you don’t say.” From the look he’s giving me, I think the little one gets it.

I focus on him: “Could you…”
He starts: “Could you…”
“Give me…”
“Give me…”
“Money. Please.”
“Money.”
“Please…”
“Please.”
Well done! And you can throw in the ‘I’m hungry’ part too if you like.

After a few tries they can spiel the whole phrase and I reward them with ten cents. Hopefully they’ll remember it and acquire more with their new manners.

Grenade launchers and running shorts

I spent last week in Gitega (refer to map on my first post for reference!) at a BLTP retreat. In case you were wondering about my work, these retreats are what we do. We didn't have internet access and it's taken a while to gather my thoughts so this is the late but long and a little disjointed description.

The retreat

Howard captured it best when he said to me, “What humility, these presidents.” (Not that the seven term congressman and former American ambassador to the Great Lakes peace process who insists on being called Howard doesn’t have his own fair share of the stuff.) But he couldn’t be more right. Tucked away for four days way out in the country and put in the hands of a young team of foreigners, every living former president of Burundi laughed and ate and talked with all of us during the BLTP training last week. All of us being himself, two professional trainers, the BLTP staff, 3 young program assistants and 30-something of the most powerful men and women in Burundi. Men who led a country let themselves be trained in leadership skills, ate meals alongside people who vehemently oppose their policies and even sometimes, without pretense, talked to me.

It was probably the most surreal thing I’ve ever experienced. Just to get a feel for who was in the room, aside from the four presidents: the chairs and the most senior members of the party in power, senior members of all the other parties in power, three generals, the chief of staff of the army, the director of the national police, and a handful of other deputies or senators, ambassadors, and ministers. The American equivalent would be something like Howard Dean, Chuck Schumer, Mel Martinez, Mike Duncan, George Casey, George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, probably Hilary too, and a couple of Cabinet members and Congressmen all shmushed in a room. Throw in some hopeful extremists - the Michigan militia? - and you've got yourself a retreat lineup.

The most remarkable thing about the workshop was just how well everyone got along. Three years ago, some of these people couldn’t be in the same room as each other, at least certainly not without heavily armed guards at their flank. At least one participant founded a break-off faction of a political party represented by other participants. Some of the participants are still part of an armed struggle against the government. And nothing beats the Bagaza-Buyoya ish: one of the participants (Buyoya) performed a coup d’etat… against another participant (Bagaza)! And yet here they were, sitting together in a stuffy room for a few days of dialogue, and every last thing went off without a hitch. (Unless, of course, you count the moment when former President Ndayizeye fell out of his chair in the middle of a session.)

My only real job during the week was taking pictures, which was pretty much the best job imaginable: I got to get in the faces of important people with a camera and an excuse that made me not sketchy. And if it was impressive that they all got along with each other, it was incredible that they made any effort to get along with me. But really after a day or so, I was pretty much one of the gang. The FNL members said hello to me each day, President Buyoya laughed at something I said, President Bagaza told me at dinner that I looked a little bit Japanese, a party chairman asked for copies of my pictures, and at least two senators asked me if I was related to Charles Taylor. We were chatting up family stories in no time. “Oh Mr. President, you're such a cut-up.”

All in all, I was most struck by how able the workshop was to suspend reality. In real life, these people are not chummy. Real life is not necessarily the news that paints all of Burundian political leadership as rife with animosity and men constantly at each others throats, but it is somewhere between that and the pleasant morning scenes of rebel leaders taking coffee with the head of the ruling party and a slight breeze floating in from the entrance. In real life, these people do not spend all day in one spot following the directions of people who weren’t elected – the constant darting in and out of the room for cell phone calls was just one indicator of that separation. And in real life I would be thought a bit odd (if not a security risk) for incessantly taking pictures of generals chatting over a coffee break. But I think the reality suspension speaks both to the power and weakness of the BLTP trainings. On one hand, it is extremely effective in bringing people together for a week outside of Bujumbura. On the other, that’s just a week outside of Bujumbura.

Running on a dirt road

I was afraid to run most mornings during the retreat. I actually laid in bed turning off one alarm after the other, then one snooze after the other, not because I was tired or really really really didn’t want to run (which is usually the case) but because I dreaded the idea of stepping out of the seminary building and passing the clusters of uniformed men who hold really big guns instead of smiling and stare, and be wearing shorts. The highest profile people brought entourages that would make Hollywood types look petty and Secret Service agents look Hollywood. Because by entourage I mean two trucks loaded with armed men, and by big guns I mean grenade launchers. Intimidation exists on a whole different plane here.

But I actually regretted my hesitation on the last day when I went on my first run, and not only because my diet had consisted mainly of french fries and rice all week. The conference ended early on the fourth day so with my afternoon free I put on my white running shoes and white socks and headed up the dirt road, which then turned them to dusty red shoes and socks. And I’m not kidding when I say up, it was nothing but up for 10 minutes which quite sufficed to tempt my return. And even so… it was beautiful. Hills, colorfully clad people, banana groves and smiles: a perfect combination for an onslaught of cultural discovery.

The hills first of all, that I could look onto from either side of my road. In spite of my ongoing personal battle with hills, the relationship has to be termed love-hate because I can't deny their prettiness and I do like pretty things. The banks of the road I was on careened into valleys that rose like an about-face into a wall of green, spotted with dusk-time shadows – the shadows that are less shade on light than light on shade. Note: remember to look to the side when running.

But the overlook was only scenery in the end, begging photography for itself as much as to frame the people on the road. In Bujumbura people are interesting enough, dressed in recycled t-shirts and jeans, dress clothes and windsuits, and women in a traditional skirt with a t-shirt on top. But on this road, everyone was outfitted entirely in traditional clothes, which meant colors and patterns and more colors and a sense of complete displacement for me. My pink Nike running shirt looked like it came from another universe. Kids ran out from their homes and stopped at the road to stare or laugh, calling to their brothers and sisters to come see. Their homes are mudhuts and their feet were bare

Alongside the large and impressive views were tiny, discreet but equally impressive views into footpaths. When we used to drive to track meets in high school Coach Espo would look out the bus window, usually while driving, to the side of the road and scan for hidden trails. He would point them out when he thought he found one and he probably never did but in part because of that I have always loved the look and the very idea of trails. Since roads and sidewalks only exist here as paths taken by a larger public, everything else that goes anywhere is a trail. I’ve never seen a trail quite as mystically beautiful as one leading into a grove of banana trees on the dirt road in Gitega. Banana trees have these huge wavy leaves that fan out from the trunk to form a canopy letting yellow-ish light cascade through slits in the electric green leaves. They’re not too tall so you can actually see the ceiling from the ground. And the path that led into one, in this particular spot, cut a little dirt stream through the forest so thin that you’d have to enter single file and which disappeared from view about 10 steps up the way. If Pan’s Labrynth had been filmed in Africa (and maybe had been a little less dark) the Guillermo del Toro would want to use that path. In my head I heard “Send Me On My Way” and ached for a camera.

All that aside, the single best moment of the run was passing a group of women for the second time, on my return. They had giggled coyly when I first passed them and I didn’t hear much because I was listening to Nancy Griffith. On the way back, we saw each other coming from afar – ten or so colorfully bustled women are almost as hard to miss as a ponytailed white girl in running shorts in Gitega – and I turned down the music. Just before reaching them I eeked out “Mwiriwe” – “Good evening.” Complete and utter delight. The women keel and laugh and hold each others’ shoulders and show beautiful smiles. I’ve used the word plenty before but never has it created such a reaction and never have I felt so bonded by a greeting and I was so happy to run across women who reminded me how great women can be and how easy it is to discover that.

As if that wasn’t enough, when I got back a group of kids was walking into the seminary and they didn’t speak a word of French other than oui. I asked their names and told them mine and then let them listen to my iPod and they stood captivated until I put on 2Face Idiba and they started dancing and turned the volume up to unadvisable levels. Perfection.

Counter Culture: Indian food at a Lebanese restaurant in Bujumbura and this guy from Durham

My birthday dinner was at what I thought was a Lebanese restaurant which is actually now Indian; called Saffron, I guess it can choose which part of the Orient it wants to represent. Because of new ownership, the menu has recently transformed from tabouli and tagines to dum aloo and tikka masala. But slow to transform completely, the first pages still include Arab bread and hummus. As BKS and Garza will keenly understand, I picked the place because of the hummus. It was my birthday and that's as good a gift as any.

On arriving, Liz and I promptly seized on the most important part of the dinner and ordered hummus right along with our drinks. A quick, very Burundian bow and off our waiter went. The table filled up with friends, we got drinks, and 20 minutes later our waiter is back.

Waiter: “No hummus.”
Liz, semi-jokingly, still smiling: “But we came here for hummus!”
Waiter: Blank stare.
Liz, now in assertive mode: “You know you could have told us 20 minutes ago when we ordered it.”
Waiter: Anxious blank stare that says ummmm I don’t know what to do and I sure don’t how to respond in French – eyes dart, maybe there is a table I can hide under? – come on lady just tell me Ca va and let me go.
Matt: “We’ll take some naan instead.”
Me: Sigh…

Five minutes pass and the manager, having recognized the small crisis, comes to check on us. Liz explains the hummus situation.

Manager: “Oh, but we have hummus!”
Raised eyebrows all around: “Is this for real?”
Manager, half blaming the waiter and half covering for him: “It’s no problem. We can get it for you.”
Matt: “Alright, let’s get the hummus and the naan.”
Me: That’s right. Try messing with birthday powers.

The waiter bows once more and the manager shuffles off to dig up the cache of hummus. Before it comes we order the real food, having decided on three vegetarian dishes and 3 chicken dishes.

Waiter: “No chicken.”
Me: Hahaha. Of course.
Waiter: Waiting…
Fred, to waiter, in quick and feisty French: “How about instead of us reading a menu of things you don't have, you just tell us what you do have?”
Waiter: Resume anxious stare.

How bold of us to expect to be able to order something on the menu. I ordered palak paneer so I’m safe. The meat-eaters at the table check out the alternatives. Some unattempted options on the Indian section of the menu include Goan Fish or Mixed Vag. Your guess is as good as mine on those.

The manager returns, fixes up the order, we substitute some other meats for the chicken dishes, and one hundred minutes after arriving, dinner is served. Not quite sure where my palak paneer is but I do see something that looks like cheese chunks in a bowl of peas.

Adam: “Looks like the spinach of the night is little peas.”

Dinner gets underway and it is in fact delicious. We talk about service in Burundi and laugh off the night’s ordeal and discuss the phrase “Tastes like chicken.” A muzungu I don’t know comes up to the table and asks to join us. By now I’m used to introducing myself to people in the expat clique, so I extend my hand and smile: “I don’t think we’ve met, I’m Taylor.” The new muzungu introduces himself to me and then to the table, wondering if we’re all from the states. Ah, okay so no one knows him, and he just showed up at our table because we’re white too. He’s a little quirky, this one, but nice enough.

Turns out he’s here for a few days, works in coffee, and is trying to spark fair trade development in Burundian coffee. Apparently, Burundi used to be known for having better quality coffee than Rwanda and it’s really good stuff but fifty years of state control of coffee manufacturing has unraveled the attention to quality and made it uncompetitive on an international market. Rwanda capitalized on specialty markets and Burundi could do the same thing, he thinks. Coffee could be the new wine, but also socially-conscious: instead of drawing worldwide attention to lush French countryside people could associate their gourmet beverages with the developing world. It’s not good enough yet here though so he and his friend have come to talk through the possibilities with local farmer’s associations. His friend who owns Counter Culture Coffee in Durham.

“Do you know it?”

He must be kidding. Counter Culture was my fuel for four years, the power source of my longest days and nights. I start to reminisce about Daily Grind and 3Cups and memories flood into my head of Magical Mochas topped with a mountain of whipped cream and coffee dates with press pots and the cupping which resulted in me buying the most expensive coffee I’ve ever bought. It was the only coffee I correctly described in the cupping, after such mishaps as detecting grass when most people would say chocolate, responding bitter and flat instead of sweet and complex. But the Ethiopian Yirgacheffe was unmistakably and wonderfully blueberry.

Note: Counter Culture’s site says “this incredibly floral coffee offers sweet, fragrant notes of tangerine, lemon blossom, jasmine, and honeysuckle. Coffees from no other region can match the mouthwatering, beautifully sweet, and tea-like character of a great Yirgacheffe.” They make no mention of the blueberry, but everyone at the cupping agreed with me. And I know blueberry coffee sounds weird, but trust me, it’s so very yummy.

I told the Counter Culture guy about it and his face lit up because my knowledge of the Ethiopian Yirgacheffe proves that his efforts are working. I know about this tiny place in the Horn of Africa because its coffee made its way back to me in Chapel Hill. And what’s more, I liked it and bought it. This is exactly why he does what he does. So thanks to Brendan and Tom and Garza inviting Rachel and I to the cupping, in that moment I embodied fair trade development at work. And with a few more coffee snobs… the new wine… Burundian Breakfast Blend does have a nice ring to it.

And it really is a small world.

Thoughts from the past few days

Thursday – Writing Rachel

The light in the office right now, at about a quarter to 5, encroaches on unbelievable. It’s pretty hot during the day, almost at hot as NC summers, but at night is cools down remarkably. So much so that my runs are pretty pleasant and I don’t sweat TOO much. And right now is that time where the transition between African afternoons and light sweater evenings takes place.

The main thing I can say about here is I’m still trying to figure it out. It’s been two weeks and I still haven’t conjured a good description of what it’s like and what I’m experiencing because I cant quite tell how I feel or what it’s like. I feel like there are all sorts of things that I know but I just don’t know that I know yet...

Friday - Night life

I have been a terrible pool player since 10^th grade when my exposure to pool consisted of sleepovers at Julia Morton’s. And we didn’t play so much as we thought it was cool that she had a pool table and unfortunate that we couldn’t sit on it. From the looks of them, I think it would certainly be safe to sit on the pool tables at Kibira Bar but I did in fact play tonight and lived up to my own expectations of playing terribly. The table had small balls which bothered Matt from the American embassy; and I think the only reason he consented to playing on such an embarrassing table was because it was against someone sure to boost his ego by publicly displaying that she has the pool skills of a 10^th grade girl who sits on the pool table.

But the bars are fun. Crazy drunk French man who works at the UN danced with everybody to our great discomfort; I talked with the now newest muzungu Derrin who is applying to all the same grad schools as me and brought all the West Wing seasons I’m missing (plus all the ones I have); and Karen from the US embassy rescued me from a paperless bathroom with a pocket pack of Kleenex.

Saturday – Lunch guest

Liz invited her friend Jean-Petit and his 9 year old brother over for lunch. “Little John” studied business and management in college and now runs a kiosk near the central market. He takes courses in homeopathy twice a week so he knows more about nutrition than most Americans which means he knows more than about all but 10 Burundians. He is a good conversationalist, used to run track and speaks a fair amount of English.

After he left and I was still marveling at how impressive he was for knowing as much as he does, Liz gave me the backstory. Jean-Petit came to Bujumbura for high school while his family was living in an IDP camp outside the city. He took classes during the day and worked as a guard at night for Liz’s friend Georgina, alternating watch with the other guard to sleep for four hours a night. He took charge of his brother Fiston who was then 4 years old because it was too dangerous for him to stay in the camp with the rest of their family. Money forced them to move to opposite sides of city from each other and in that time Jean-Petit visited Fiston every single day to check on him. In Bujumbura, it gets dark at 6pm and to cross the city he would have had to pay for a bus or walk for more than an hour each way, in the time between the end of school and the start of work. His break came when a woman offered the two brothers two years free rent if he built an addition on her house so he built an upstairs room where they both live now. He started the kiosk he now runs with some capital from Liz and Georgina and has since developed a thriving sales business with enough revenue to furnish his and Fiston’s loft with a table and some other basics.

I know about work ethic. But I have no conception of work ethic in the face of adversity. The amount of ways to get discouraged… by just how hard it is… and still.

Sunday - Sitting

There is a really weird noise coming from the road outside and I think it might be a goat. We saw goats when we went up-country from I haven’t yet in Bujumbura. But I’m hoping this one found its way down the hills because I think I would be freaked out if anything other creature was producing that bleating noise in such a close proximity.

In other news: I had one of those runs today that reminded me why I hate running. I have selective writer’s block that has selected to take itself out on my would-be personal statements. I haven’t had a shower with hot water in a week. I have begun Kirundi lessons with the guards at our house. One of the sentences Serge thought important to teach me on night two was Urubatse? Are you married? I lost my winnings from the first night of poker and am starting back over at zero. Okay fine, at negative 10,000fBu.

Monday – Twenty-two

Last year I missed most of my birthday party because I was working on the STAND Projects and Events guide which, incidentally, turned out to be my last STAND MC project. This year I’m going swimming with Matt at the ambassador’s pool (the staff has the day off for Labor Day) and to dinner with new friends at a Lebanese restaurant. Aunt Susan sent me the words to my grandma’s special birthday song, our director Fabien told me we must go for une verre, and I’ve gotten a card, a text message, a wall post and a gchat of well wishes doing more than their part to make my day.

At dinner a couple weeks ago with Liz and some staff from CARE, they did a round of where they were at twenty-two. I was sparse on the details: when I will have been twenty-two, I was in this tiny African country.

Raindrops on roses

A handful of concerned emails urging me to hang in there – while very nice, thank you – have convinced me that I should probably clarify that I do in fact LIKE being here and living my current life. I probably should have balanced my gripes with good stories, I see now. I feel like a politician qualifying a public complaint: “No no, I never meant to say that I don’t like corn from Iowa, I just meant, ah… I don’t eat it much… but really, it’s great… and so are cornhuskers!”

So here it is: Proof. A little collection of things that make Burundi (and the past two weeks) quite pleasant.

1. Dancing. So far I’ve been to two fantastic events that were in part so fantastic because of the dancing involved. The first was this big festival of peace that took place at a huge church in Bujumbura – the whole ceremony was in Kirundi so a very nice guy that I had must met translated for me. It was basically a bunch of different choruses and dancing groups and a few skits about redemption and good-person-qualities and it lasted way too long but the singing and dancing were quite lovely. The other event was a dote, which is the engagement party where one announces the negotiation of the dowry paid by the husband to the bride’s family. It was outside of Bujumbura about a 2 hour car ride up into the mountains. (The car ride itself was a whole experience that I’m still processing.) The family hosting the dote was crazy rich (the bride’s dad makes nails – and he must either make really good ones or a lot of them) and so there were performers there: drummers, singers, and dancers. The dancing was livelier here than at the church, the women jumped and fell and swooped their bodies to whistles and shouts. Part of me wants to be Marie Garlock so I can tell them “I’m a dancer too!” and then they would trust me and I could teach them and they could teach me and we could share our dancerliness. But since I’m not Marie but I am in love with the way their bodies move, I’m going to have to find some other way.

2. People. I want to take the time to properly introduce you to the people I’m growing more and more crazy about. They’re interesting and funny and smarter than me and most of them have funny ways of talking. These include Burundians and expats (Americans and other foreigners based here for work) even though, as I plan to explain in another post, the expat community still freaks me out. So until the details emerge, trust that the people I’ve met have been the highlight of everything so far.

3. The beach. I went to the beach for the first time yesterday with a bunch of young expats. We went to the nice one a little out of town, Le Club du Lac Tanganyika, where wealthy foreigners lounge around the pool and saunter from the tennis courts to the massage rooms to the shore. (Voila a peek at why expats freak me out.) It turns out lake beaches are a lot like real beaches, complete with sand and waves and bikinis and everything. We played ultimate and did handstands and swam in the lake and it’s the second deepest lake in the world and what’s awesome about swimming in a lake is that the water that gets in your face isn’t salty. Though you have to be careful swimming there because there are man-eating crocodiles in it. And I’m going to get to play on the beach until well into October.

4. Work! One day I won’t be an antsy 10-year-old who can’t sit still for 5 minutes, or even a presumptive 21-year-old who assumes that she knows enough for other people to trust her with responsibility. As my last posts attest, those aren’t true just yet, (though the second one changes next Monday, as luck – and my birth – would have it). The BLTP site is getting built and getting cooler and even more importantly, I’m soon going to have much less to do with it. AND I sat down with Liz today and we walked through how I’m going to start with my main project here, which is an evaluation of their trainings with the National Police Force. *Squeak: yay!* We made to-do lists and set deadlines and talked about methodology and discussed Adrian’s recommendations and it was heavenly. I’m smiling now with my loaded docket and giddy as Hermione with homework.

5. Running. I know. I almost don’t believe it myself. But I think I’ve finally found something that helps counteract the agony and silliness of putting your feet in front of each other quickly for a long time even after your body wants to stop and die. I get it from big groups of runners, I get it from the security guard outside the EU representative’s home, I get it from people waiting at the Coca-Cola stand bus stop, and sometimes I get it from little kids. It is the Bon Courage. The wish of strength that’s offered to me as I pass by Burundians, usually in shock and always amused, at a white girl running alone through Bujumbura. In the context, Bon Courage translates basically as “Keep It Up,” and people offer the well wishes in response to my cherry-red face that discloses just how un-used I am to running on these hills. The hills suck. Of course not everyone is so nice, there are the honkers and the hecklers and they suck too. But sometimes someone looks up, sees me, does a double-take, cracks a smile, and encouragingly Bon Courage-s me and it’s pretty cool. That, and when kids that jump in to run with me for a bit until I tire them out. I like outlasting little kids.

I’m sure I’ll post less frequently in the future but I’m so backlogged with thoughts right now anyway that I’m trying to clear some out while I still can. I MUST soon write something substantial about things that make Burundi Burundi. I’ll pretend to justify the delay in the idea that I’m not qualified yet anyway to accurately represent it.

But in sum, things are good. Full Picasa album of photos coming soon.