Part 1 of Six-Country May (aka 3 countries)

So in May I managed to be in 6 countries—two extra-long transit countries, two meeting countries, one just for fun and one because I live here. It was a good month. To recover, I took the first weekend back in Chad for sleep and ignoring phone calls from caring friends.  If you want to talk to me, send me a text message. Come on. There are plenty of articles online about how terrified introverts are of talking on the phone.

I’m not going to go into detail about each country, though I should because apparently details are important. People are always asking me for details like “how much will it cost to construct and install a rope pump?” and “what time do you need me to pick you up from the airport?” and “what are you having for dinner?”* These are all difficult questions to answer specifically because when people ask for details, they want cold hard facts, but in my fluid reality, such things are hazy at best. Anyway, I enjoyed my travels, but instead of details, I’ll provide photos and some observations.

 Morocco

Pottery shop

Plans you make with the Zetterlund family are pleasantly vague. “Take the train from the airport to Rabat. Whatsapp me when you leave the airport so I’ll have some idea of when you’ll arrive.” This means that you might end up in a heated Palestinian rally at the wrong stop with only Daniel’s Swedish whatsapp number and no wifi.  It’ll all work out in the end and you’ll find him, buy some nice pottery for your mom’s Mother’s Day present, eat some tahjeen and hang with some cool Swedes for a little less than 24 hours.

Moroccan mint tea before a week with coffee-mad Swedes.

Did I get a photo with DZ and his adorable family?
No, but I do have about 20 photos of me and their puppy...
I want one.

Denmark

·      What we in America call “danish pastries,” Danes call wienerbrød (accurate spelling unimportant as long as you get to use the ø). It’s good.

Breakfast with the IAS Denmark office

·      Take the cheesy boat tour in Copenhagen, you might get to see the Queen! I did. She was taking a small motorboat out to her yacht for a maritime tour. They shot off cannons and all her little soldier boys stood up on her boat all stiff and salute-y. Also, question: is it a law that all navy-type people must wear white uniforms with backwards bib collars? I know all about the importance of “TRADITION” but where did these traditions come from? At one time were these backwards collars fashionable or is there some sort of sailing purpose for them? Do they flap in the direction the wind is blowing or inflate into a life preserver for your neck if you fall in the water and forget how to swim?  WHY DID THEY EVER HAPPEN? In a later blog, I will rant about berets, a purposeless, unsymmetrical hat that neither protects one’s eyes from the sun nor one’s ears from the cold. Also weirdly favored by militarian uniform designers.

Cheesy "I'm on a boat" selfie for the family.
Special thank you to  Anders's wife for the use of her jacket,
which I wore 24-7 while in Scandinavia.
When I arrived in Copenhagen, the first thing he said to me was,
"Don't you have warmer clothes than those?"
I mean, I was wearing a hoodie! And flipflops...
(No, I didn't.)

Queen's yacht. Queen is in small boat on the right-hand
side of the yacht. Cannons were firing.
Tourists were standing up to take photos.
Amanda, hiding from the icy wind, took this from a safe distance.

Climbed it.

·      Climbing buildings is fun. I decided to climb up a church steeple I’d seen from the boat. I figured out my way over and decided that it was worth it to pay to climb up to the top.  I was right, of course. Then I found another tower from that tower that I decided that I wanted to climb, so I went there and climbed it and waited for my friend, former roommate in Yemen, who somehow still likes me even after having to live with me for several months (a rare quality with my roommates).  She let me come home with her to her beautiful little house in the Danish countryside where I got to meet her family and go for a beautiful green woodsy run. I don’t mind my sandy desert runs, but it’s always fun to explore new places. I’m usually slower, though, because I sometimes stop to take photos and admire the scenery.

·      If you leave your phone in your friend’s car when she drops you at the train station to head to Sweden, find a nice Nepali guy in a train shop and he will let you use his phone to contact her to come back and find you.

Thanks, new friend!

·      Also, while you’re there, buy the Ginger Pepsi Max. It’s good.

This is good. Je dis oui.

·      Regrets: I didn’t get to meet Chili Klaus or Michael Learns to Rock, but Johanne had emailed back and forth with the Michael Learns to Rock lead singer about an art auction she was doing to raise money for refugee minors in Denmark (because she’s super cool like that) and so I felt very close Michael. Almost like he was teaching me to rock, painting my love and all that, in spite of the fact that I’m not an actor and not a star and I don’t even have my own car. While we are on the subject of Scandinavian pop music, I’m pleased to note that I never had to hear any ABBA songs while traversing the great white north. If that’s not a successful Nordic trip, I don’t know what is.

Johanne gave me a hot water bottle for my survival.
The previous week in Chad, I'd been sleeping with a frozen water bottle.
It took me a long time to convince myself to leave that warm bed.
But the sunny, spring-green run WAS worth it.

Yemen/Denmark--it's basically the same place.

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Before we move on to the next three countries, I’m going to pause and pretend to write a country report for IAS, which is actually something I might have done at an earlier time had I not been busy doing more important things like whittling my inbox down from 1200+ to 315 emails. NOBODY RESPOND TO ANY OF THE EMAILS I WROTE PLEASE.

Sneak preview of Sweden photos:

With my favorite francophone Swedish family in Stockholm
before they told Gösta he couldn't get ice cream.

Being a Viking in the long-boat we wanted to take out on the lake,
but there wasn't enough water.

There was enough water for us to bust out the canoe, though.

* Here's what I had for dinner:

Pineapple salsa made by This Genius.
And you thought I never ate anything healthy!
Note: pairs well with nacho-flavored chips and gummy smurfs.
Amanda=Nutrition

Regrets and Facebook Memes

The other day I saw a motivational Facebook quote superimposed over a tranquil landscape scene. It said something to the effect of “At the end of your life, you’re going to regret the things you didn’t do and not the things you did do.” It was much more elegant than that, of course, but even if it wasn’t, it doesn’t matter because I’m pretty sure there was a waterfall somewhere in that tranquil landscape scene, which automatically classes up everything. I thought to myself, “Yeah, that’s kind of true. I still regret not petting that lion at the museum zoo in Niger while I was there.” At the last moment I decided not to because there were lots of children around, and I thought it might not be a good example for them, as they had all run up to pet the hippo after I did.  But who cares about that? I should have pet that dang lion through the bars of his cage. When else am I going to get a chance to do that? Other countries don’t just let you walk up to the cages with carnivorous animals in them and stick your hand in to pet them. I will regret not doing that for the rest of my life.

Re-creation of Motivational Facebook Quote

Pause for the moment that it took me to realize that quote wasn’t intended for people like me. That moment lasted for about 5 minutes of staring at my computer screen realizing that I am bored writing this dumb concept note that I should have finished an hour ago and that I’m no longer thinking about wells in the Guera, but about not petting lions and not shooting that camel with the Yemeni soldier’s rusty old AK-47 and not going to that one party at that one place—no wait, I DID do that and I definitely regretted it. Forget waterfalls. That quote is dumb. Whenever I manage to stop myself from doing something at the last second, it is usually because common sense finally kicks in. Better late than never, I guess.

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Anyway, here are some things that I did before I had a chance to regret them (still waiting to see if the regrets kick in later). And some memes that really spoke to me that I wanted to share with you.

Such a tranquil scene-unlike the first time I rode a motorcycle
when I nearly drove off a cliff. I still have a burn scar on my right
calf from the knalpot (I think that is 'muffler' in English)
No regrets. Except I kind of wish I had a motorcycle here...

Rock climbing with the Captain (and Matt)

Ditching the tour to try out the bamboo swing

Climbing into this alligator pit.
My parents were with me. They must not love me as much as they say they do.

Eating a scorpion in China. Tastes like chicken.

Rolling down a sand dune in the Emirates.
Then combing sand out of my hair for days.

Convincing Melia to climb up the scaffolding with me in Jordan.

All zoos can be petting zoos if you really try.

This could have been me with the lions in Niger...SO MANY REGRETS!!!

Swimming in shark and pirate-infested waters,
off the coast of Somalia.

Kissing camels

I don't know...cannon balls are cool.

He's clearly disappointed in the state of civilization these days.

Brain Gaps

I am TO Sudanese

The other day I was wearing a thobe and enjoying the smell of my bakhour (Sudanese incense that melts over coals and fills the room with fragrant smoke—don’t try this in places with fire alarms), and I was congratulating myself for my Sudanese-ness. My friends had been joking with me about how I’m not a khawaja anymore, I’m now Sudanese, and it went to my head. I know because I was hanging out with our West Darfur team, telling them that if wouldn’t matter if I broke curfew if I were wearing my thobe, because if I were, no one would know that I wasn’t Sudanese. I was helpfully informed by one of our staff, “Amanda, even if you are wearing a thobe, you are still white. And people will see your white hands.” This was really surprising and disappointing to me.  I mean, just the other day I took one of those online quizzes called “How White are You?” and I got 8 out of 100, which classified me as ‘not white at all.’ This is the same website whose informative quizzes helped to determine that I am Harry Potter (something I’ve suspected for some time now) and that I should be a red-head (which is going to be less possible since I’ve run out of henna I brought from India). Now it seems like these quizzes may not be entirely reflective of reality, and it has shaken the very foundations of my world. But the good news is, my wrists are no longer white because I got sunburnt in the car-ride on the way to Sirba, and even though we did break curfew (it’s the curfew for people who are obviously foreigners--7:00pm, i.e. the time that fun is just starting for all non-foreigner Sudanese), I was not abducted by any angry tribesmen, nor did I crash the car into a donkey or get stuck in the sand.

I had to leave when these
guys were just coming 

So I’m not white, if the characteristics of being white are directly related to being a 6^th grade girl in the 90’s (dancing to the Macarena and debating which boy-band is better, according to the quiz), but I am white if we are trying to hide from local police who enforce curfew and/or hostage-takers.  Wearing a thobe and knowing how to light coals for bakhour doesn’t make me Sudanese anymore than eating rice for breakfast makes me Indonesian or always bringing presents to people who invite me over for dinner makes me Syrian.

What I am is an American who has spent a cumulative two-thirds of her life in Asia and now lives in Africa, and with that comes many strange idiosyncrasies.

Eighth Grade at Deaf School graduation. Hey--Where's Waldo? 

I get annoyed when people tell me the weight of something in kilos and then remember that I’m American and try to translate that into pounds—like I didn’t have Canadian teachers all throughout my elementary school career, EY. But I do measure my morning running distances in miles, though I can tell people the distance I covered in kilometers, just in case they don’t understand. And I’m not the only one who mixes the English and the metric systems—in India everything is in kilos in the stores, but you measure well depth in feet.  So there, World.

Our rainy season family vacations were great!

But the truth is that there is a lot of American common knowledge out there that I’m not aware of (much of it having to do with ways of measuring), just as there is other international common knowledge that I missed out on, probably while I was flying over the international date line losing brain cells or something like that. I’ve been sorting through my brain, trying to find things that I don’t think are normal (which is hard since they ARE normal for me), and I’m pretty sure other third culture kids will relate to this, but even in our little group of identity-confused kids of multi-cultural upbringings, we have different brain gaps, which my bro-in-law likes to call affectionately the “third culture delay.”

Here are some of my brain gaps:

If we’re talking about the weather, I’ll give you the temperature in Fahrenheit if it’s hot and Celsius if it’s cold. (But I did just have to spell check ‘Fahrenheit’ because not only it is less practical when trying to remember the boiling or freezing points, it’s also harder to spell.)

I’ll tell you the length of something in centimeters and use the word ‘gallons’ with misguided confidence. I will admit to having no idea what a ‘quart’ is, but it is a fun word to say. Quart. Quart. Quart.

Wearing the right clothes is the best way to fit in--you can't tell I'm not Yemeni!

I can never remember if I’m supposed to put the day or the month first when writing dates numerically, so I usually just write the whole thing out: 19 February 1984 or February 19^th, 1984 (it’s my birthday—you should also remember this important date. And Hackers: take note that I never use it as my password anywhere because of my confusion with numerical dates. Also, I don’t have that much money, so it wouldn’t be worth your while anyway.).

When riding in cars, I prefer just to go sit in the back so I don’t have to worry about which side of the car the steering wheel is on.  I CAN drive—automatic and manual, but I sometimes forget which side of the road to be on and whether or not traffic rules are enforced. So it’s better just not to let me…

First camel ride a long time ago-my skills were acquired young

I could tell you almost as much about the Danish royal family as I could about the Obamas.

I find cricket and baseball equally boring.

Age 29, wearing a sari I bought at age 15 in Little India in Singapore.
My life came full circle once I finally fulfilled my destiny of living in India.

I can tell you as much about Premier League Football as I can about American Pro Football, which is to say, I know enough not to sound like an idiot in a brief conversation about favorite teams, but that’s about it.  Definitely do not ask me about names of any players who are not married to famous beautiful women.

The longer I stay out of the US, the less I know about famous musicians or the names of anyone who won a Grammy, and if you scroll through my iTunes account you will find that a significant portion of my music has been designated as “Unknown Artist” or “002 ÇáÍÇáÉ Çíå” because my taste in music is broader than my computer's ability to guess what the name of the singer is.

Crashing an Ethiopian wedding in Somaliland
with Kenyan and Sudanese friends.
This is my normal.

I can tell you the capital city of Burkina Faso, but I really don’t know what part of the US Iowa is in, much less if it even has any cities, one of which may have been designated as a capital. I'm only about 80% sure that it is a state. Iowa is a thing, right? It's not just a mispronunciation of Ohio, is it? (I know that the way to pronounce 'Ohio' varies from country to country. In India I heard it called "OH-HEE-Oh.")

A Somali friend in Yemen with more patriotism for my country
than I'll ever be able to muster. She deserves my passport more than I do.

I could fill in these gaps in my knowledge, and sometimes I’ve even tried to do that, but usually I just embrace the imbalance in my life or I try to balance out the imbalance by taking on as many characteristics as possible from countries where I’ve had the privilege to live. It’s OK. Make fun of me at will—people all over the world have been doing it for years. But don’t expect me to listen to boy-bands or dance to the Macarena or join your fantasy football league—whether it’s American-style football or The Rest of the World-style football.

High-school me demonstrating how to balance on the imbalance in one's life
OR
just climbing on a weird totem pole at Pangadaran because climbing things is fun.
(I always climb in flip-flops.)