Aaaaand…we’re back!

Yes, I’ve been back in Malawi for quite some time now, but I haven’t had much time to write.

First of all, before I got here, I had all that packing to do. Packing takes time. Packing for Malawi takes more time. As many people don’t know, it gets cold here in the winter (June and July), which I wasn’t prepared for last year. Thus, more sweaters got packed.  The government is also in a crisis with its foreign currency supply, meaning there is very little, so there is a chance that supplies of things I generally use might not be available. And if I can find them, there will be a much higher markup now for imported goods. Who wants to pay $10 for a bottle of Fructis conditioner? Not I. Conditioner and shampoo got packed. Then there are the items I know I can’t get here, like a certain type of multi-vitamin and Starbucks coffee (both equally important!). Still more things to pack. And then I weigh the suitcases, take items out, repack, reweigh, until finally both suitcases are filled and weigh exactly the weight allowed by the airline. It’s a process.

Is it sad that I actually think this is fun? (Don't answer that.)

Now, packing is easy compared to saying good-bye. Although I only cried the first time I left to live abroad 12 years ago, leaving is always bittersweet.

Quality time with people I love makes it harder to leave.

And then there’s the time-consuming trip back. This time, I left around 10 a.m. on Sunday and arrived at my apartment in Blantyre around noon on Wednesday. 

Near the end of the lengthy travel, I look out the window of the plane, as it nears landing in Malawi, and I am reminded what a beautiful country it is. (The below picture really does not do it justice.)

Now, it's a new semester, with new students and new lessons to write.  With 65+ students in each class I teach, you can imagine how time-consuming reading even short assignments can be. And I know many of you love to read the hilarious errors that are written in assignments, but today I’ve decided to show you some of the English that I’ve found elsewhere.

We'll start with my hand soap. 

Notice that it not only "protects" but also "smoothens." I just don't think 'smoothens' should be a word, especially not paired with 'protects.' It sounds too much like a condom package.

Next up, a truck. I'm still trying to guess the intended meaning of this statement in the context of a truck's tailgate. Is someone attesting to the truck's own strength, separate from the strength of the men in the back?

 

And finally, the message that a very caring tissue company wants to share with me.

 

I'd prefer not to have anything blown into me, thanks. And having things drop off of me, well, sounds like I need a doctor, not just a tissue.

Yup, it's good to be back.

 

Up close and personal...or just ignore me

In Japan I knew several Americans who, when eating out in Tokyo, would wistfully reminisce about the large food portions found in U.S. restaurants. Not surprisingly, I only got disturbed by the portion discrepancy there when I was served a cup of coffee. My replies to the baristas as they served me a seemingly thimble-sized cup of coffee were never said aloud, mostly because my Japanese vocabulary lacked words like ‘thimble.’ But if I had been fluent and if I could have eschewed the propriety that I was brought up with, my responses would have gone something like this:

            “No no, I ordered a regular coffee, not an espresso.”

            “I believe this must be for the fairy in my pocket, not for me, a grown-ass woman.”

            “Do you really think this tiny cup of coffee is going to take the edge off?”

“You’re sliding this midget-sized cup of coffee across the counter at me, an American who, according to your stereotypes of Americans, is most likely carrying a gun right now. Is that really smart?”

Cultural differences when living abroad are going to be encountered, of course. In general though, most cultural differences should be more laughable and fodder for great stories than points of serious contention and frustration. (Note: lack of coffee is never laughable.) Of course, there are always days when one’s level of patience is tested due to multiple events of cultural differences. That seems to happen here some days in regards to what I deem as inappropriate personal questions.

For example, a mechanic’s worker came to my apartment complex to look at a truck that wasn’t running. The mechanic's worker -- a complete stranger to me -- who now knows where I live asks me, as he’s leaving, “So, you live here alone?” Maybe that question seems innocuous to you, but in a place where home invasions are increasing – and where one just happened on my street during which someone was killed by the group of thieves – having someone know where I live, that I live alone, and that I’m American (read: money) is not a good idea.

I just don’t understand strangers asking me for such personal information. Maybe it’s my steely New England heart that prevents me from confessing my fears to strangers within a few seconds. Or maybe it’s being a teacher for so long, protecting what I can of my personal life from my students’ prying eyes and, in some cases, tech-savvy research skills. (For the record, there is another blonde teacher with my first and last name out there, so be aware that everything you find may not be about me).

An example of inappropriate questioning happened last week when I met a neighbor’s teenage daughter in the neighborhood grocery store. The exchange went something like this:

            “Hi, how are you?” I asked.

            “Are you here to buy chocolate?” (Seriously, that was her response.)

            “Um. No.” (Do I really talk about my love of chocolate that much? I need to stop that.)

            “Was your university mad at you for taking so long to come back?”

            “Uh…no.” (Seriously? You’re a fifteen-year-old, not my mother.)

            “Well at least you got to spend more time with your family. Your mom must miss you.”

            “Yea, it was nice to spend so much time with her.”

            “Did you tell her about me?”

            (Ummmm…really not good at lying on the fly…)

            “Sure.” (Phew, dodged that bullet, I think.)

            “What did you tell her about me?”

I think my mouth probably went slightly ajar at the cheekiness of this girl at this moment.

Another one of my favorites here is people talking about me as if I’m not directly in front of them. This happened just yesterday. I met my Malawian sisters in town outside of a shop. They were talking to an acquaintance. I walked up, introduced myself, shook his hand, and stood directly in front of him. The guy then immediately turned to one of the sisters and asks her,

“She works with you?”

(Hey, jerk, I’m right here. The ‘she’ is ‘I,’ and I’m standing a foot away from you.)

“No,” my Malawian sister responded, “She’s our sister.” (My two Malawian sisters and I have practiced a rather elaborate story of how we are sisters, and it’s actually believable when we tell it right.)

“She lectures at the university with you?”

(STILL right here!)

“Noooo,” my patient sister said, “I said that she’s our sister.”

He looked confused. Perhaps it was because he’d suddenly looked up and saw me still standing in front of him? You know, because he thought I’d magically disappeared while he asked personal questions about me. 

The frustration level from such interactions is kept at a minimum, as long as I can laugh about it (thank you, Malawian sisters!) and write about it later. And, thankfully, I now know of not just one but two places to go to get a good cappuccino around here, which keeps my cold heart humming rather happily.

A Musical Travel Tribute

First, a caveat: the contents of this post are in no way intended to persuade people to listen to any of the below-mentioned songs, artists, or bands. I am not pretending to be a music connoisseur. In fact, before you read any more, you should know the following in order to judge accordingly:

1. The only Christmas songs I will willingly listen to are by Wham! (and I write Wham with an !) and Run-DMC.

2. Lately, I cannot stop listening to Jay-Z's 'Dirt Off Your Shoulder" and Run-DMC's 'It's Tricky' because I think both songs are awesome.

3. Regarding the Ray LaMontagne songs 'Hold You in My Arms' and 'You Are The Best Thing': I think any guy who sings them to me would be subjected to my immediately getting down on one knee and proposing.

So there ya go. That's me and music. Well, not exactly. Some music becomes inextricably linked to places. I hear a specific song, 'Cliffs of Dover' for example, and I am immediately transported back to my adolescent self sitting in my Isuzu Trooper in the parking lot of Baird's Store  (no, it's not that kind of parking lot memory) where a friend and I were hanging out listening to music while waiting for another friend to arrive. Music can make memories rise from the dusty storage of my mind. That's what this post is about.

Most people around my age remember their first-ever album, and I am no different (The Muppet Movie soundtrack on vinyl; before you laugh or judge, I was only 7).  I even remember the first CD I listened to in my then brand new portable CD player. I was living in Tokyo at the time, the city where people breathe technology, where I had a cell phone that was years more advanced than any cell phone my friends had back in the U.S. But, foregoing music technology, I listened to music on a Sony Walkman.  I was finally convinced to take the plunge into the 21st century (it was 2001) and retire the cumbersome, outdated Walkman.  One day, I took the Yamanote train line to Akihabara, the neighborhood to buy electronics in Tokyo, where I purchased a Sony Discman.

Akihabara (photo from Wikitravel)

And then I bought the newest G. Love and Special Sauce CD: Electric Mile.  I put it in my Discman, pressed play, and immediately heard this: "It could be so nice but the world is not ready, yeah. It could be so nice but the world is not ready yo. Whether you're a black man, or you're a white man, or you're from England or from Japan." As soon as he sang "or from Japan," I was hooked. Since I actually was in Japan, the song had some meaning to me, as lame as that sounds. Thus, the song became my Tokyo-train-platform-walking song. And my walking-home-from-the-train-station song.  I felt so cool to have a new Discman and jam out in line on the crowded train platform. Yea, you don't need to tell me just how uncool I really was; just let me have the memory.

 

There I'd be, bopping along to G. Love, right before being shoved into the most crowded space I ever willingly entered on a daily basis, a train car on the Saikyo-sen. Below is an example of exactly how crowded it was. And, yes this did actually happen. Everyday.

 

Before I became an expert at napping on packed train cars in Tokyo, I took my first trip driving solo across the United States. I was 22 or 23 at the time, freshly graduated, with a DJ friend who made me several mix tapes for the ride.  I had a brand new car, gas was as low as $1/gallon, and the entire country stretched out before me. I listened to his tapes over and over again; how could I not repeatedly listen to a tape he had titled 'Cuts For Ya Butt'?

I listened to it so many times, and I drove by so many cornfields in Nebraska and Iowa, that now when I see this:

from: http://www.ecofriend.com/

             I hear this:

 

Nearly everyone listens to music while driving, so I'm assuming we all have similar types of associations with places we've driven by or to or through.  I also assume that all runners who listen to music while running can hear a song and remember a place they ran. When I lived in Costa Rica, I rarely deviated from my usual running course. The reason for that was because my running route looked like this:

I didn't want to run anywhere else. Ever. So every other day, I made the easy downhill run to the beach, ran the length of the beach and back, and proceeded to run back up a really steep hill to home. The hill was so brutal, in fact that 1) I never took pictures of it, and 2) I made a special playlist on my iPod entitled 'Hill to Home,' with songs competing for my billing as the best song to listen to while tackling the hill. The winner?

 

 

 

I made it up that hill  every time.

 

 

Nightmares and the bear that almost got me

What makes us wake up one day and begin living our lives differently than the previous day? Sure, maybe people don’t stick with their New Year’s resolutions or to the promises made to loved ones that today will be the last cigarette. And maybe our public announcements that we are writing a book (um…why yes, it is continuing to write itself!) don’t quite act as the catalyst of change we were hoping for. But sometimes, for some reason, something clicks and we change the way we are living. For real. And for good.

I imagine that a near-death experience might be an impetus for change. Or an actual death – of a loved one or even a stranger, someone you saw every morning at the newsstand as you walked by with a coffee on your way to work.  Then again, like so much of life, there might be the ironic twist that perhaps such events cause a person to remain static, stuck like a deer in headlights, in life.

While traveling and living abroad, I’ve had enough experiences during which I thought I might not make it to see the next day’s sunrise. Any time I was in a car in the Philippines, I considered the possibility of death. My boyfriend at the time and I would sit in the backseat, stare straight ahead in fear and hold hands tightly. There was one point where we leaned in and confessed our love to each other, whispering intimately amidst whatever chaos we felt was going to soon kill us.

Then there was the time in Japan. I was living on the north island of Hokkaido and decided to go hiking alone one weekend. I drove to a trailhead where I saw a lot of signs posted around the parking lot but no other cars. Since I was just learning to very slowly read only simple Japanese, I didn’t want to spend the time to decipher the gist of the signs. So I ignored them. It was about 30 minutes into my hike that I heard the first sound. A low grumble that proceeded to get louder and louder until I realized: there was a bear in the woods on the right side of the trail. Slowly, I turned around and without looking back walked the very long 30 minutes back to my car. I got in, locked the doors, and realized my entire body was shaking. That’s when I read the signs, which stated emphatically: Warning! Bears! People don’t enter! (Or something like that.)  Death-by-bear escape #1.

There was only one time abroad as a child that I felt death nearly grab me. I used to go to the Caribbean with my family when I was growing up. I played on the beach a lot and adored the water. But once a wave hit me while I wasn’t paying attention, and I was hurtled and spun around underwater without knowing which way was up. At that time, I could feel my body moving fast but my mind slowing down. It was like watching baby bunnies slowly hopping about while listening to hardcore music: totally disparate and unexpected yet oddly heightening the senses. I thought I was going to die. Clearly, I didn't.

For me, the actual momentous impetus didn’t happen with any of these or other near-death experiences; it came in a dream. Well, more like from a series of nightmares over the course of a few nights. And no, I did not finally let my love of Frankenstein and Mary Shelley get the better of me. Because, again, this isn’t about the changing of my writing habits at all -- “I write when the spirit moves me”, ya'll -- but rather about my financial future. And let me be honest and tell you this: those were some dark nightmares I had. Like locked in the basement of a nursing home at the age of 5 kind of dark.

However, we all wake up, don’t we?  After my subconscious found a way to turn the idea of my financial planning – which consists of little more than cotton candy and crayon drawings – into horror-filled scenes of the future, I woke up: literally and figuratively. I tend to forget that the catalyst to any change I ever want to make is simply me. We have the control to remake our habits, to take at least some step to be the person we want to become, to act in ways we admire. “Our own life has to be our message.” We shouldn’t rely on other people to propel us toward this, shouldn’t wait for an accident to push us into action. It takes effort to change and to start that change now. But I want to live in a way that won’t give me nightmares.

---

Quotes courtesy of William Faulkner and Thich Nhat Hanh

Bad vs. Good, Travel Edition

Anyone who has traveled knows that setbacks can occur. Sometimes flights get cancelled or luggage gets lost. Sometimes the hotel is so noisy that you're awake all night. Or maybe the person next to you on a long flight is snoring so loudly that you can’t get any sleep yourself. Also, there are those rainy days when a bus window just won’t close all the way and you get rained on for hours.

Indeed, everyone has had a little setback when traveling, right? But, has anyone had all of the above (and more) in just a few short days? My last couple of blog posts have been showing you the honeymoon side of traveling; I mean, I seduced you with baby elephants and lion-petting. But now it's time to see how the seduction of the honeymoon stacks up against the ugly. That's right, it's time for a match of Bad vs. Good, Travel Edition.

Saturday, 10 December 2011

With bus ticket in hand, early this morning I walk the 10 minutes in the rain to the bus station from the hostel in Livingstone. I spent more money to buy a ticket for the ‘executive’ bus today (which basically just means I get an assigned seat instead of having to get to the station hours early to grab a good seat). I board the bus, hand the conductor my ticket, and sleepily watch him change my seat number. “Huh…I wonder why he did that,” then sit down in the new seat which is completely wet. I jump up, look at the window; it's opened a bit and when I try to close it, no luck. It’s stuck. So I take my towel out of my backpack and put it on my seat. Problem solved. I think I’m pretty clever…

And then…it doesn’t stop raining. I’m getting wet, with the rain coming in the window that won’t shut all the way, but I think it’s not so bad: my iPod is charged, and I had coffee this morning. All is good, albeit slightly wet. And then, at another bus stop, I get a new seat neighbor. He smiles, looks at my towel on the seat, reaches across me, and shuts the window. Huh. So it closes after all. Imagine that.

He is a Lebanese guy who lives in Zambia; he talks to me most of trip, buys me Pringles and loads of chocolate, and is genuinely nice. (Did I mention he bought me chocolate?)

Nice guy: 1. Rain: 0.

Once in Lusaka, I go to the hostel where I stayed just a few days earlier, when I was on my way to Livingstone. However, when I find out my room is the same room as last time, I almost leave. It’s early – just 2 p.m. at this point – which means a few hours to find a new place before dark. Seeing me about to leave, the staff member assures me – in fact, she promises me – that it will be quiet tonight. Last time wasn’t too too bad; it’s just that this particular room is a stone’s throw distance away from the bar (actually, more like a feather’s throw). With no A/C or fan in the room, the windows need to be open, just to cool down the room enough to sleep. 

Once she makes the promise, I trust her – mistake of my life #193,400,201. So I stay. I make arrangements with a taxi driver to pick me up at 3:30 a.m. to take me to the bus station the next day, for the 5 a.m. bus to Lilongwe, Malawi. Thus, by 10 that night, I want to be able to get some sleep. But there’s loud dance music playing and people talking at the bar. It is Saturday night after all. I close the windows, but it doesn’t help much. Around midnight, the music stops. “YAY!” I think for about five seconds, right before the huge TV above the bar is turned on to a soccer match – and based on the continuous yelling and booing and cheering from the people at the bar, it is quite a soccer match.  Around 2, it finally quiets down, just in time for me to get an hour of sleep. Except at this point, I can't sleep.

Noisy hostel: 2. Sleep: 0.

Sunday 11 December 2011

A couple hours later, at 4 a.m., I am on a bus slated to leave at 5. But it doesn’t wind up leaving until 6:30. Now that’s the Africa I know! I’m super grumpy for most of the morning (no sleep + no coffee + an extra 2 ½ hours on a bus does that to me…okay, mostly just the lack of coffee), so I just try to nap and listen to music. At the Zambian/Malawian border, with most of the trip behind me, I start to perk up and actually talk to some people. But first, I discover something sad. Really, really sad. 

At immigration, there is a huge book that each person must write in before showing his/her passport to an official. The book is like the biggest wedding guest book ever, if guest books asked for passport numbers and nationalities and addresses and length of visits. And, because I’m on a bus with a lot of other people, there’s a chaotic mass of people waiting to write in the book. No line. No order. You just sort of politely nudge your way in when you can. Except, because I went and peed when I first got off the bus, I’m now behind about ten nuns and five old ladies, and I don’t feel right about nudging them even slightly. So, I give up and assume I’ll be the last to sign the book. 

I’m trying so hard to be patient, but it is taking so long, and I start wondering why it's taking so long. As I get closer and watch several people trying to write their information, I realize something: they can’t read or write very well. Or at all. So it takes them at least five minutes apiece to read and write what I am able to do in seconds. 

You'd think that realization makes me more patient. But sadly, no.  Not wanting to wait any longer, thinking the bus will leave without me, and wanting so badly to get out of the cramped little room that houses this book and away from the realization (and guilt) that I’ve been getting impatient because of illiteracy, I do something kind of rude: as an elderly woman is slowly writing her name on one page of the book, I find a space at the bottom of the opposite page, draw in my own boxes, and write my information. It takes me less than 30 seconds. I leave as the woman is still writing her name. A couple of people look at me and smile. But I think the whole thing is sad.

Illiteracy rate: 10. Language teacher: 0.

But then I meet Ru-shan.

Funny Dutch guy: 1. Bad day on the bus: 0.

And I find out my friend (also an English Language Fellow, or ‘ELF’ if you will) will pick me up at the bus station in Malawi…and I discover that the Dutchman is staying at the same lodge in Lilongwe that night, as is the other ELF...and I get completely dissed by a Brit later that night (if you’d talked to the guy, you’d agree this is a plus).

Late night drinks with an ELF and a Dutchman: 10. Exhaustion from staying awake for over 40 hours: 1.

And then, after a very lovely Monday spent in Lilongwe, I assumed the competition was over. Until Tuesday. When the opposition came back. And came back strong.

Over the hills and far away

12 December 2011

Settling down. Most of my friends have given up on the idea of my doing this and instead have begun to advise me to find someone with as much wanderlust as I have, as if that would fulfill the societal obligation of ‘settling down’ in at least the coupling part of the equation.  It’s a good idea – in theory.  Because trying to date someone when you know either you or he will be moving on soon is difficult to do, especially without sounding psycho and needy:

“Hey, so, I know we just met an hour ago, and today I’m heading back here and you’re heading back there, but, um…wanna jump into a long-distance relationship?”

“Uh…(I would anticipate a long silence here)…uh…(if he’s nice, he’s probably thinking of how to break it to me gently that I’m completely insane)…uh…”

Exactly. So, although I know my friends want me to be happily coupled while moving around the world, it’s just not going to work out.

Plus, the non-coupled me finds it quite lovely to be able to say, “I want to go to Botswana tomorrow” and know that I can. And will. Which is exactly what I did the night I came back to the hostel in Livingstone after walking around the Zambian bush with lions all afternoon.

At 7:00 the next morning, I was sitting in a van with five other people (1 from the U.S.,  1 from the UK, 1 from the Netherlands, and 2 from Japan), being driven to the border between Zambia and Botswana. Going from Zambia to Botswana is fantastic for a few reasons. First, it’s crossing a border, and I get a little thrill every time I set foot in a new country. Second, the border crossing at this location is done by boat. In Zambia first, zip across the Zambezi River, and then set foot in Botswana. And finally, this is the area where four countries meet: Zambia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Namibia. Although there is no actual legal quadripoint, it’s pretty satisfying to be in a boat on the Zambezi and have the driver point out the landmass of each of the four countries.

The boat to cross the Zambezi River between Zambia and Botswana

Once on land in Botswana, our guide whisks us through immigration quickly – we don’t even have to wait in line. We pile into a safari jeep and get driven to a little café that seems like it could have been in the US: Led Zepplin is playing on the stereo, and coffee and muffins await us. We eat and then walk a short distance to the boat that we take for our river safari. 

 We immediately begin to see flocks of birds, birds perched on trees along the banks, and lots of hippos which are of course still much loved by me. They're just so big and cute (and vegetarian!). And I think I like anything that is related to whales. Plus, random hippo fact: hippos can hold their breath for 5 minutes underwater.  

Snake bird -- named because its neck can resemble a snake

"Eating 150 pounds of grass each night makes me sleepy."

We also encounter many crocs during the trip and always get a little too close for my comfort. Sure, I'll almost get the group of us trampled by elephants by leaning out of the jeep to try to pet one as a herd walks dangerously close to the jeep, but I still cringe at being five feet from a croc.

 

Random croc fact: crocodiles open their mouths (like in the above picture) to release air. Crocodiles don't have sweat glands, so this is the way they cool themselves down, by panting and releasing heat through their open mouths. They sometimes even sleep with their mouths open.

After the river safari, we head back to the café where lunch -- and more Led Zepplin -- awaits us. I've reapplied sunscreen about five times already, but when I look in the mirror in the bathroom at the café, I can already see myself starting to get sunburned. The sun is hot and powerful in this area of the world.

The afternoon is a driving safari in Chobe National Park, which is touted as having one of the largest concentration of game animals in all of Africa.  Halfway through our safari, and I don't agree with the statement about game animals. What I think is meant is: highest concentration of impala in all of Africa. Because that's what we see a lot of. And not much else. At this point, the highlight has been the huge dung beetles seen rolling dung. The males do this to attract the females. From our tour guide, random dung beetle fact: the larger the ball, the more attractive the male is to the female (yes, we all started laughing when he told us this); if the male rolls a tiny ball, then the female thinks the male is lazy.

Our guide tells us that we are halfway done and will be heading back, taking a different route than the way we came in. The guy from the Netherlands is really disappointed, as he wanted to see at least one animal from the 'Big Five' today.  I tell him that I feel our luck is about to change; why I say this, I'll never know. But I'm right. Our luck is about to change. In a big way.

First, we round a bend and find a herd of elephants that begin to walk straight toward the safari jeep. And there are babies which sends us all into oohing and ahhing because those things are just super cute.

 

  

We're all happy after that, but like I already wrote, our luck changed a lot, and as we're heading down one of the dirt roads to exit, we meet another safari jeep with a bunch of women who only say to us in as an excited tone as I've ever heard: "TEN! TEN! TEN!" Not even knowing what we're about to see ten of, we insist that the driver turns down the road they just came from. And we quickly discover that they mean lions. Lounging about.

They are all lounging until one hears something, perks its ears up, and starts stalking off, after an impala that we have spotted. We're enthralled already but when a hyena begins to creep up behind the lion, waiting for his turn after the kill, we're nearly ready to camp the night there. Our tour guide reminds us that the immigration office at the border has a closing time and that we now really have to go, so we reluctantly leave the scene, assuming that the lion got fed in the end.

Our guide is speeding down the dirt trails, racing his way back to the park exit, but we yell for him to stop when we see two young giraffes on the side of the trail, almost posing for us. 

 

We really have to get to the border at this point, so we race back out of the park, down the road, through the Botswana side of immigration, into a boat, across the Zambezi River, through the Zambian side of immigration, and into a jeep that takes us back to Livingstone. 

All in one day. All from a whim decision the night before. And from this whim and this day, I'm just not sure how I could factor in the 'settling down' part of life that works so well for so many of my friends.  Because I really like having these kinds of days.

Lions vs. Daydreams

7 December 2011

I don’t want to get soft. And I don’t mean physically. My distaste of getting soft is what led me to take a bus for 13 hours. Then another one for 7 hours, just to get to a place where I’d stay for merely a few days, after which I’d repeat the 20-hour bus journey going back. I don’t want to become a person who can’t stand to ride a bus for that long or who can’t sleep in a tent or who can’t pee in nearly any ‘toilet’ imaginable.

(Okay, there was the time at a bus station in China where I couldn’t use the public toilet, but that was only because there were no doors on the stalls and women waiting to use the toilet would stand directly in front of the stall a.k.a. in front of the person squatting over a hole peeing. Yea, not pretty. After not standing directly in front of a stall – to obviously give the person privacy – for about 30 seconds, I realized that I would never get to pee due to the fact that women were moving around me in order to stand directly in front of the stalls where women were peeing. I was getting cut out of line. So, I moved in front of a stall which meant I was standing in full view of an elderly woman struggling to steady herself as she squatted over the hole in the floor. I left. Quickly. And without peeing. Yup, that was a dreadful 4-hour bus ride.)

Getting back to bus rides: I took a bus from Lilongwe (capital of Malawi) to Lusaka (capital of Zambia) which lasted 13 hours. The bus left on time (so unusual in my experience of public transportation in parts of Africa) at 5:00 a.m.  And, although it was an uncomfortable, cramped, bumpy, and often interrupted (police stops, border stop, stops for cow crossings) ride, it wasn’t really that bad. For me, a bus ride means: naps, daydreaming, and music. It’s not often that I allow myself a really long stretch of time to do only those things. And by ‘not often,’ I think I mean ‘never’ unless I’m on a bus. So aside from the lovely opportunities to see the countryside, meet locals, fear a crash or breakdown, and impose self-dehydration, riding a bus gives me the opportunity to indulge in three of my favorite things. And when I meet a lovely person on the bus who insists on buying me multiple chocolate bars, I have all I need for a lengthy ride.

My night in Lusaka was fairly uneventful (this time – my hostel-from-hell experience in Lusaka came later), and I got on a bus to Livingstone, Zambia the next day. I must admit that it was a bit difficult to get on another bus again. But the visions of Victoria Falls kept me motivated.

I arrive in Livingstone in the evening, take a cab to the hostel, am greeted by a very friendly staff member who insists on my having a beer (okay, maybe it wasn’t hard to convince me at this point) and looking at all the available activities that I could join during my short two-day stay in Livingstone. Half a beer in, I read about petting baby lions, and they’ve got me. So the next day I make a plan to go see the Falls in the morning and go pet some baby lions in the afternoon. A quick dip in the pool and a much-needed shower later, I’m ready for sleep. 

The next day, I head to Victoria Falls. I know it’s the dry season, so I am aware ahead of time that the water levels will be really low. And they are. But the Falls are still spectacular.

The dry season and low water level allows people the opportunity to walk on top of the Falls, something that isn’t an option (without death, and I’m told by a somewhat unreliable, unprofessional ‘tour guide’ that seven people died trying to do that last year) during the rainy season. My guide, who just sort of glommed onto me when he saw me walking alone, turns out to be rather interesting, and we talk about Zambian politics and the economy for most of the time that he shows me around the Falls. With plenty of time, I get back to the hostel to eat lunch and then leave for the baby lions.

Turns out the baby lions aren’t so ‘baby.’ There are two 12-month old lions that we’re able to follow around the bush and pet when they are calmly lying down. The non-profit organization is trying to increase the declining population of lions by breeding them and then training the bred lions to survive. The lions are on a huge tract of land – not fenced like a zoo but actual African bush land – and a trainer goes out ahead of us to find the lions, walkie-talkie back to us so the second guide can then bring us to the lions. We then follow the lions wherever they walk, and we do this all afternoon, watching them climb trees, get lazy and lie down, and play with each other. 

I’m absolutely terrified at first. I mean, I’m walking alongside a wild animal that could kill me if she wanted to, and I could do very little to stop her. The guides are carrying very thin sticks, no guns. So when one of the lions turns and stares at me while I’m petting her, I want to scream like a baby and run away. But I just keep petting her, thinking, “good kitty, good kitty, good kitty." 

After what seems like way too long, she lazily turns her head back, gets up, and walks away from me. And I'm still alive. Which is very obvious to me because my heart is pounding fast and loudly. But after that, I'm no longer scared. It's kind of like getting lost. Once I get lost trying to find a place, I always know how to get there after that.

So you see, even more than being on a bus listening to my iPod, eating a Mars bar, and watching the Zambian landscape move by me, this kind of experience is what keeps me from getting soft.

Bus trips are bizarre

 7^th December 2011

Life is too short to sleep in. Then again, some days I feel that life is too short to not sleep in. This conflict is never a problem when traveling by bus in Africa because, believe me, you want to get to the bus station early. You want to take the first morning bus (usually around 5 a.m.). You want to board the bus as soon as possible. Once you see it pull into the station, you want to be on it. This is why I was at the Lilongwe bus station in Malawi at 4:15 a.m. yesterday.

If you’re not there early, things are nearly guaranteed to be more miserable than just being on a bus for 12 hours and praying/wishing/hoping that the bus won’t: breakdown, take a corner too fast, take a corner too fast while going downhill on a road without guardrails (wait, what are those things again?), hit a person who – believe it or not – is completely unaware of the bus honking its horn as it careens down the street and who decides to dart across the road just as the bus nears. Or maybe it’s a herd of cows that are in danger of being hit, as they meander across the road just as the bus turns a corner. There is, of course, always the risk of the bus getting waylayed by the police who decide that, because the bus is transporting too many sacks of potatoes, it cannot continue its journey for about, oh, eight very slow hours.

All of these are not what I want to experience on a long bus trip. But I have no control over them. What I do have some control over is my seat. So at 4:15 a.m., I climbed onto the bus for Lusaka, determined to get one of the coveted window seats on the two-seat-in-a-row side of the bus instead of the worse three-seat-in-a-row side. And at 4:15, forty-five full minutes before the time the bus is scheduled to depart, there is only one of those precious good seats left. And it’s mine.

The trick about being a woman traveling alone on a bus is to get a good seat neighbor. And by ‘good’ I mean not a man. Not that I’m trying to be sexist here, but I’d rather not have a man fondling my thigh under the cover of his trenchcoat that he has draped ever so casually over his leg and part of mine. (Yes, that actually happened to me once on the train from NYC to the town where I was living outside the city, on the very last train at around 1:30 a.m. I think.) I don’t want to be totally on edge for 12 hours on a bus. So I opt for women or children as my seat neighbors. I just place something on the seat next to me when a man boards the bus and remove it when a woman or child boards the bus. That simple. So you can imagine my surprise when, at 4:30 a.m. and still with plenty of empty seats left on the bus (and with one of my bags on the seat next to mine), a man asks me, in English, if someone is sitting in the seat next to me. I’m in the second to last row of seats on the bus, so I can see all the empty seats ahead of me. There’s absolutely no reason for the man to sit next to me.

"Is someone sitting here?" he asks, pointing to the seat next to me, where my bag is.

“Hopefully,” I say, not wanting to lie exactly.

 “Eh?” he asks, not understanding my response.

 “Hopefully,” I repeat again.

“Eh?” he responds, still confused.

“Hope-ful-ly.” I say it more slowly this time.

“Eh?”

“Someone might come.”

“Eh?”

Dude, it’s 4:30 a.m. Sit in the empty seat behind me. Or in front of me. Or across the aisle from me. But don’t make me want to kill you first thing in the morning. That’s not cool for either of us.

“YES,” I finally lie, and he looks crestfallen.

Boy, I sure ruined someone’s morning. But I have made my day more delightful when I move my bag off the seat so an 8-year-old boy, traveling with his older brother, can sit next to me. Children are my favorite. When the bus fills up, a little girl sits in the seat behind me. At one point, I place my hand on the top of the back of my seat, and she kisses it quickly, then looks away.

Bus trips are bizarre. Which is probably why I take them.

This is why I love Malawi

5 December

The story can’t begin at the beginning. What story does? Chronological order is overrated. Time travel is not. And what better way to travel through time than tell or read a story?

Today, I am still at the lodge in Lilongwe. I thought I’d be leaving this morning, but Mondays there is no direct bus from Lilongwe to Lusaka. And I’m on my way to Livingstone, Zambia to go to Victoria Falls, and in order to do that I need to first get to Lusaka. I leave the lodge around noon, heading on foot to Crossroads, a small shopping complex with a few banks, restaurants and clothing shops. It’s hot today, and I swear I can feel the skin at the part in my hair getting sunburned as I walk the ten minutes there. But I have a purpose. And that overrules the possible sunburn.

Yesterday, I realized several things: 1) After working everyday for weeks on end grading end-of-semester assignments of 300 students and then final exams of 300 students, I’m a bit off my game. 2) I don’t have enough cash to pay the lodge for two nights. 3) The ‘ticket’ I bought at the bus depot earlier in the day was not actually a ticket but just a reservation card, and I was worried I’d gotten scammed out of $40 (see #1 for reason/excuse for not checking when I bought it). 4) I realized my GRE math score is actually considerably lower than I had initially thought. As in “oh my god, I’m totally stupid” low. As in “if I weren’t the spitting image of my father, I’d kind of assume I couldn’t have come from my engineer father’s genes” kind of low. And if I could use #1 as an excuse again, I would. But, I’m just going to go with the fact that I don’t care about math anymore (shhh…I think I just heard the hearts of some of my nerdy math friends breaking).

For reasons 2 and 3, I needed to leave the lodge. I get to the shopping complex, get cash from an ATM, turn to think of my next move, and then immediately get distracted by a sign for a coffee shop. Mmmm…ice coffee. So. Easily. Distracted. By good-looking men and signs for coffee. I’m not sure which makes me more pathetic. Like a moth to a flame, I head to the coffee shop for coffee and then start talking to the cashier. I tell her my story about the bus ‘ticket’ and being worried that I won’t get an actual ticket today or that I’ll be forced to pay again. ‘So,’ I ask, ‘Do you know how I can get a mini bus to the bus depot, to Devil Street? I need to try to get my ticket today.’ (Seriously, no poetic license with the name of the street. That actually IS the name of the street.)

She gives me really detailed instructions, so detailed that I think I can’t possibly get lost along the way or back. And I easily find where to get on a minibus heading toward the depot. As I get off the minibus at the depot, a Malawian woman getting off the minibus looks at me, motions me to follow her, and says, ‘Let’s go.’ For some reason, I know she’s going to walk me to the depot where I need to go, so I follow her. It is complete chaos in the area surrounding the main bus depot. There are people everywhere, walking on the side of the road, in the road, carrying goods to sell or sacks of potatoes or grain to put onto a bus. Minibuses are everywhere, honking their way through the streets to clear the road enough not to nick someone as they pass. The road is bumpy and dusty and impromptu stalls line the side of the road, with people selling airtime for cell phones, mangoes, candy, soft drinks. We walk up the road for about five minutes, and she points for me to go right. She continues straight before I can get out much of a thank you.

Just as I knew she was going to show me where to go, I know that she has directed me to the wrong place. I was just here yesterday, so I remember that the place I need to be is nearby. I walk around for a while, trying to find the ticket counter that I need. I get a lot of looks and several men say ‘hi lady’ or ‘hi mama’ or ‘hi sistah’ as I pass. I weave around the stares and calls and minibuses and people and cars and finally find the ticket counter. The same guy from yesterday is there, cigarette dangling from his mouth. He remembers me, gives me my ticket, and tells me to be there at 5:30 the next morning.

A couple of weeks ago, I was teaching, winding up my classes, preparing my students for their intense final exam. The students had a 3-minute speech to prepare and give as well as two business letters to write, all within the final couple weeks of class. Even though I have 300 students, I know nearly all of them by name. I honestly don’t know how I’ve done this. Granted, sometimes it means looking at a student for a full 30 seconds before the name clicks in my head. But hey, that’s a lot of names to remember. And the names started out as foreign to me as Chikumbutso, Tiwonge, and Mphatso and as unusual to me as Novice, Precious, and Eden (the last three are men, by the way). So when, in Lilongwe amid the complete chaos that is the bus station, I hear “Hi Ms. Howland!” and turn to see one of my students, I know that it is Benjamin. He’s in a minibus that is about to leave, but we shake hands and say “hi,” all smiles. The whole country seems like a small town to me. And sometimes that annoys me. But most of the time I’m happy to run into people I know. It makes me feel like I’m back in Kent. Well, sort of.