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.