Austro-Hungarian Empire Travels

The Austro-Hungarian Empire was a thing until they lost WW1. But Austria and Hungary still have a convenient train route that connects a city that offered affordable tickets to both myself and the Family Seymour, and that is how I plan my vacations these days. Also, I plan it around my birthday, which is one of the greatest things about working for Neverthirst. They respect the birthday travel plans.  And truthfully, I didn’t plan it at all.  Emily planned it because being a mother has turned her into a J even though she is still trying to be in denial about that—Emily, you finally grew up! Scott is still working on it though.

But once again, I do blame my parents for poor planning because no one should have to celebrate birthdays during the winter. I know that I should have been a summer baby. Still, this way I got to see the Family S in the last week that pregnant Emily was allowed to travel (but just in case, she followed TV actress protocol, traveling in loose flowing clothing with oversized hand-bags blocking her belly, casually standing behind a couch whenever possible). Also, traveling with 2 kids, aged 4 and 2 is not the easiest thing, and I think adding a small baby would have increased the complications a bit. Jack isn’t too worried about what or where he eats at this point and he stayed warm and cozy inside Mommy while the rest of us waded through snow and ice rain. Of course, he missed all the views, and I don’t think that you can count countries you visited in the womb on your List. (I have a List of places I’ve been. It’s a thing for travelers. We have to keep count so that we don’t accidentally visit the same country twice. Airport countries do NOT count.)

As usual I planned my travels with haphazard abandon, making the weeks before I left filled with unnecessary stress and frantic last minute phone calls. But also as usual—it all worked out in the end.

I won’t go into all the details of the trip, but I’ll post a few photos that turned out to be discernable objects with minimal thumb-lens exposure.

Here is a brief trip summary (Note-the formatting was beautiful in Word, but it didn't carry over, and I don't care enough to try to fix it. OCD people: try to look only at the numbers/numerals/letters and not spacing. Of course, you're OCD people, so it probably won't be possible for you to take my excellent advice):

I.               Travel to Europe

A.     Mundri to Juba

i.       Bus trip

ii.     Only broke down 3 times

B.     Juba to Khartoum

i.                Juba Airport is getting worse

ii.              Kids traveling reserve the right to be bratty whenever they want to. This is a fact that crosses borders and culture and language and race.

C.     Expedited exit visa process

i.                Because we love Leif, but we don’t fully believe him that it is possible to transit through Khartoum.

ii.              Made it out anyway with valid exit visa.

D.    Khartoum to Doha

i.                Why is it SO COLD in Doha Airport?

ii.              Had to buy an over-priced pashmina scarf in a duty free shop to protect myself from Air Conditioner Frost Bite.

E.     Doha to Budapest

II.             Hungary (basically just Budapest)

A.     Stayed with wonderful people

i.                Thanks, Borders for being awesome and great cooks and wonderful hosts

ii.              Thanks also for giving me your Russian books. I have learned how to read and now I’m building up my vocabulary.  Starting to plan my Russia trip now. Who will host me? Somebody reading this blog in Russia come clean now and help me out because Русский очень хорошо.

B.     Visit Budapest on February 19, the greatest day in the History of Awesome People’s Birthdays, aka My Birthday

i.                Saw many things including the Danube River (yes, had the annoying song going through my head for the rest of the day until we heard that dude playing the digeridoo in the market and that sound will cleanse your brain), the parliament building (beautiful), the market (presents for sisters bought on my birthday—Check), ate lots of sausages

ii.              Scott and Emily bought me grown up birthday presents: gummy turtles and sour gummy ropes. Because I’m a grown up and that’s what I really wanted. Ate them all in one day because why save candy when you don’t know if an asteroid will hit earth tomorrow before Elijah Woods and Ben Affleck can think of a plan to stop it. And then all that candy would have been wasted.

iii.             Cile made me a wonderful birthday cake and lots of excellent food. AND THEY GAVE ME THEIR OLD RUSSIAN BOOKS!!! Are there better people than Glenn and Cile anywhere in the world? Probably not.

iv.             Enjoyed hanging out with the Family Seymour again because they are super-fun always.

Budapest Parliament building. Cile had a way better photo
that she sent me that I wanted to use, but it only works on my phone.

Cute old people buying sausages.

Some young people and an old person eating
birthday sausages and hot *juice*.

The face of a 31 year old.
Bday presents are the best.
Gloves were another present from Cile.
They kept me alive this winter.

Unexpected Happy Cake! Cile is a kindred spirit who believes
in the magic of all things sugar.  She said, "Yeah, I tried that thing
where you don't eat sugar for a while, but I didn't notice any difference."
I tried it too, but I did notice a small difference--I hated EVERYBODY.
Sugar--making the world a better place since Cavemen finally invented it
and gave up on that Paleo crap.

This is the universal language to ask
train conductors if this is the right train for us to board.

Once in a while, Adelaina agrees to fall asleep,
but she better be draped over Mommy or Daddy.

III.           Austria

A.     Traveled to Salzburg and stayed 2 nights

i.                Salzburg is full of snow, Mozart balls, and places touched by the cast of the Sound of Music

ii.              Emily and I went on the Sound of Music tour, while Scott pretended to want to watch the kids because he was afraid we would humiliate him by singing songs or dancing in public (we didn’t—we behaved decorously at all times).

iii.             Scott and I went to hear a local quartet play Mozart and Dvorak in Mirabel Schloss. It was beautiful. Only we got there way early and wandered around a creepy palace alone at night. We were up on the top floor looking for the ticket place, surrounded by nefarious-looking cherub statues and dead silence, when suddenly we heard ear-splitting screams from down below. They stopped abruptly, and then--- we heard the disembodied voice of a man singing quietly. I don’t watch horror movies, but I was pretty sure we hit all of the warning signs and we rushed down from the top floor, keeping an eye on all the evil cherubs, until we finally found the ticket booth. Then we forgot about all the mass murder by the serial killing cherubs and just enjoyed a night of beautiful music.

iv.             Also, we saw Mozart’s house. It was fun, and I bought some Mozart balls. They are chocolate balls with Mozart’s face on them. Though there is some debate about whose likeness actually adorns the balls. Austin is sure that it’s George Washington, but he doesn’t care that much as long as he gets to eat chocolate because he knows what is really important.

v.              Emily remains sick and miserable for the entire trip, but manages to have moments of fun in between coughing fits.

View from our hotel. The snow was my first clue that it was going to be cold.

Hotel Hide and Seek

TCKs watch TV in any language.

Sound of Music Hop On Hop Off Bus tour.
Emily: I love you so much that I'll go on the Family Band Dakota Bus Tour
with you on our next vacation, but only if Scott comes along to sing all his favorite songs.

In front of the gazebo! It took us a while to find it, but
our Sound of Music radar kicked in at the end.

This important photo is for the true fans--the front of the Von Trapp House.

The back of the Von Trapp House and the ice pond.
Fun Fact: they are NOT the same house.
Good news: the movie was not filmed in winter or children would have died.

Von Trapp Family Lake House Obligatory Selfie

Below the Abbey. I'm so tall, I had to duck
so that you could see the Abbey behind me,
and that's how you missed the bottom of my face in this photo.

Mozart's House--somehow this is the only photo I took….
Emily has the rest.

A Mozart Chocolate Ball

Creepy-a$$ cherubs.

We eluded the crazed ax murderer with our evasive
maneuvers and went to listen to Mozart

The Twins Quartet playing Ein Kleine Nachtmusik
I think the violinists were twins, thus the name.
Marian: I had to work really hard not to call them the "Twans"

I am now a professional panorama photo taker.

Ach! An Austrian in native dress--they do exist!

Highlight of Salzburg for Adelaina--sitting under a pile of
 pink stuffed animals in the toy store with
Aunt Amanda while Mommy is in the bathroom.

B.     Halstatt

i.                We took a bus to a train to a boat to the lakeside town of Halstatt, especially picturesque in the snow, but not friendly to tourists hoping to get just one room for one night to get out of the icy rain. Fortunately, we found a place, and managed to enjoy the beauty and quiet

ii.              Left the kids with Scott and climbed up to the beautiful church on the hill.

iii.             The kids loved the boat the most.

iv.             Chinese tourists LOVE Austria. Note to world: during Chinese New Year, hotels everywhere will be filled with Chinese travelers because it’s their holiday and there are a LOT of them and they travel and they will visit all the countries, probably. I enjoyed eavesdropping on their conversations. I was ready to help translate, but never needed to. Each group traveled with at least one English speaker because they are prepared like that.

Just so you know, it is beautiful enough to be worth a trip.

Our boat.

Everyone loved it. Austin said, "I never thought we'd be on a bo-at!"
Joanna, make Benji read this blog because that really happened,
and he would never ever have stopped singing the song for the rest of the trip.
He is why you can't travel to exotic places.

Church climb with Emily while Scott and kids stayed hotel-side.

Snowy grave yard. Not a bad final resting place,
though I'd prefer to be buried at sea.

Crisp cream cheese strudel while waiting for the boat.
Not bad.

Another excellent pano shot on the sunny day in Halstatt.

One more because there are swans.

Adelaina loves cheese.

Everyone loves giant pretzels.

Everyone also loves watching Cinderella
 on Aunt Amanda's iPad

C.     Vienna

i.                Emily in extra misery. Scott, Austin, Adelaina and I brave the rain for the Rick Steve walking tour. Scott and I enjoyed it. Adelaina tolerated it. Austin hated the Unfairness of Life that forced him to have parents who make their kids experience Culture. Austin: I feel you, pal. It will be years before you realize that they are actually awesome. Years of more pain and unfairness and walking in the rain. But at least there will be hilarious half-naked statues because that amused him enough to smile. And also, chocolate cake and candy because if you travel with me there will be lots of chocolate cake and candy.

ii.              Austria is for culture. I convinced Emily to come out at night to the opera with me. Not hard to do because she really wanted to see some of Vienna and had rested all day. We scalped some tickets for Andrea Chernier. We enjoyed watching an Italian opera set in France during the revolution, trying to guess what was happening, while I took illegal photos of the stage in spite of being told not to by the show announcer. Of course the Operahaus expects its cultured guests to follow the rules, but I had waited at cross-walks for lights for a whole week of wasted law-abiding minutes, and I am good at taking sneaky horrible photos. Also, I do enjoy opera, but I love laughing at things more than that and I was very thankful to see the tiny leading man paired with a tall plump leading lady. Their passionate embrace as they were led off to the guillotine left me with a pleasing sense that operatic capital punishment scenes CAN be comedic. And that proves that the world that we live in is not such a bad place after all. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for making me lead a cultured lifestyle so that I can appreciate the opera while still making fun of it.

The expressions sum up this day.
Scott + Amanda = Happy for Vienna Walking Tour/Famous Building Scavenger Hunt
Adelaina = yeah, whatevs. I'll chill in the stroller.
Austin = I HATE you all for making me do this and I refuse all photographs.
Emily = Coughing fit in the hotel under a pile of tissues (not pictured)

We hoped seeing this skeleton of a famous Austrian guy
 in a church would cheer Austin up, but nope.

He was briefly amused by some naked statue butts, sorry 'booties.'

Adelaina was happy because Lunch + Daddy

OK, the Sacher Torte IS overrated, but it cheered everyone up.
Except for Scott who is afflicted by a strong dislike for chocolate.
Please pray for him. We're starting a support group.

Pano shot of the square in front of the Hapsburg Palace because I'm so good at panos now.

Pano shot of the square with the Operahaus and some other famous buildings.
Yes, that weird roof thing is really like that.
Yes, I forgot what most of those buildings are.
Yes, I took this photo really fast because it was raining
and this was the best way to get one fast photo.

Opera Star Walk of Fame. Too bad they didn't get Strauss's hand prints.

India friends: They have Cafe Coffee Day in Austria!
Are they franchising internationally?

Scalped opera tickets and a nice dinner make Emily happy!
And me too.

An quick "Yes, those tickets ARE real!" selfie

Operahaus

Illegal and terrible photo of the opera 

Curtain call

IV.            Travel Back Home (Note: in Point F, Home = Khartoum, Sudan)

A.     Train to Budapest, bus to airport, last meal with Family S in airport, boarding planes and heading to separate countries and continents and doctor’s appointments for pregnant women with bronchitis

B.     Doha airport is STILL miserably cold, but this time I came prepared.

C.     Was able to move my ticket up 6 hours for only $30, reducing my time in the airport by 50%.

D.    Translated for a nice Algerian man to the Pakistani ticket agent because most of the Arabic-speaking inhabitants of the Arab nation of Qatar don’t work menial jobs in airports, leaving the many Arabs traveling through this international hub at a loss for translators while still in their own regional-language area. Lucky for some of those guys, one or two Americans have made the effort to learn Arabic and can make some translations.

V.              Travel from Airport in Khartoum to IAS Office

A.              This shouldn’t be a big deal, but no one could come to pick me up because they were visiting a staff member in the hospital

B.              So I took a taxi

C.              The taxi driver told me I was very good and kind after I agreed to up the amount I was going to pay him AFTER I got him to agree to the price that I wanted initially because I would rather be generous by choice and not because I feel someone is cheating me. It’s semantics, but it’s how I play the game of Bargaining. He then asked for my hand in marriage, after which we had an odd conversation, where I first thought he was complimenting my figure (“You aren’t ‘full’ like most people like you. You don’t have a ‘body’. I like that.”) until he said, “I will pray that God will ‘fill you out’ so that you can get a ‘body’ and become ‘full’ like other women.” And I felt encouraged to know that the bags and bags of Haribo gummies, Mozart chocolate balls, Austrian pastries, ropes of sausages, plates of wiener schnitzel, wonderful homemade food in Budapest did not add anything to my gaunt waif-like figure. But of course, I can’t go against God, so for dinner I made sure to eat an entire can of Honey Mustard Pringles, several pieces of chocolate from Grandmom’s birthday chocolate (the only present I got to open on my birthday—thanks, Grandmom and Grandpop!), and half a bag of Haribo gummy cherries (got to have the fruit for health).

And anyway, I’m home in Sudan for a few weeks before I go home to South Sudan, and it turns out that writing about the trip in outline form did not make this post any shorter. Oh well. Scott and Emily and Austin and Adelaina—I miss you already. Glad we got to hang out because you guys are the best, even if you do bring me to snowy places on our vacations.

Hungarian family photo.
I believe Adelaina's request for more candy was just shot down.

See--they DO love me

Reunited and it felt so good.

Not relevant, but check out the Sudanese version of Dove chocolate.
Masterful copyright infringement.

Taking You to Church--Again. Mundri-style.

Bishop swearing in the new lay-readers.
Esther is second from left.

Superbowl Sunday is a thing, I’m pretty sure. Because one time while I was in college, Joanna and I went to the store on Sunday after church and it was way crowded with people buying stuff and talking about football. Anyway, I’m also sort of sure that Superbowl Sunday happened on the same day that I spent 5 hours in church in Mundri. For real. I left my house at 9:30am and didn’t get back home until after 4:00pm, having eaten nothing but Holy Communion all day.  But thank YOU all for posting all about your favorite Superbowl party snacks all over the internet. Even though, no, I was not looking at Facebook on my phone for most of the service. I did occasionally sneak a peak to check the time. I was really curious.  At least I got to Communion before they ran out of bread—but don’t worry: the loaves multiplied. Vaida has one of those extra-large grandma purses. You know, the kind that is usually filled with peppermints and other hard candy that no one actually wants to eat unless you are in church? But they don’t have peppermints here, and probably they would never make it to the bottom recesses of the Grandma purse here, because kids don’t get much candy here and they will eat any of it as soon as it gets in their little hands. Anyway, Vaida had a package of “glucose biscuits” in her purse for her son or grandson or whoever. When she noticed the bread running low, she grabbed it and handed it up to be the Body of Christ, broken for our sins. And I think it was just as good as Coke and pound cake that I had for the Lord’s Supper as a kid one time in Indonesia (Best church day ever).

If you are doing math on the times I included in that first paragraph, my first question to you is “Why do you really care that much?” But my second question to you is not a question, it’s just the answer to your question about how I got 5 hours out of 9:30-4:00. The answer is that I spent 5 hours of that 6.5 hour time period in church. The other 1.5 hours were spent walking to/from church and a quick trip to the market to pick up some food. I went home and called the khawajas to tell them that I couldn’t make it to khawaja church because 5 hours was all the organized church time that I had in me for the day. They understood.

The gang walking home from church

But truthfully, I really like church in Mundri. Yes, I prefer the “short” 2-3 hour services at my church because I just really like our music and the enthusiasm of our congregation for participation in worship. I love that that we have to wait for the dust to settle before we can see the preacher standing a few meters in front of us on our “stage” because the dancing kicked up our dirt floor into a cloud (asthmatics coming to visit our church, please bring an extra inhaler or two and a face mask). Also, our children’s choir is top notch. They have moves, Guys. For real.  They dance in to the front of the church. Then one lucky star kid yells to the congregation that they will be singing one song in Arabic and please listen nicely. Then they sing and dance the song, and then they dance their way out again.  

I also like Sunday Testimonies, an open invitation to the audience to share with everyone something important from their week, though when I've given testimonies, they are usually just intra-Church greetings. Other people’s testimonies are more exciting. One time a guy called out one of the pastors for drinking too much, while the khawaja-raised-in-Asia writhed in an agony of embarrassing public confrontation, but the pastor just calmly stood up and asked for prayer to help out with that. Another time a lady shared how she had been bathing when a snake (very poisonous one) slithered across her foot and she prayed that it would go away without killing her, and it did! Often, though, it’s people coming up and sharing their dreams and what they think God was telling them through that. The other night I had a dream that I was walking with Marian and she had one of the twins attached to her and was walking right into on-coming traffic, and I said, “Hey-why don’t you just wait for that bus to go BEFORE you cross the street?” But she was in a hurry to get to her new house (or wherever we were going) and also she was trying to lose me on the way because she didn’t want me to go with her. And then I said, “Fine. I don’t  care about your new house anyway. But you really should be more careful crossing streets.” Or something like that because when I woke up wondering why I was mad at Marian for some reason, the edges of the dream got fuzzy and then I just made up the rest of that, but I definitely remember her stepping in front of that bus. Seriously, Marian—look both way before crossing the street. But that isn’t really the kind of testimony that people share on Sundays, it’s just that it popped in my mind when we were talking about dreams and I thought I should make sure that Marian is not endangering her life and the life of one of her children (the others were probably home safe with Josh, but you never know what Josh was doing—maybe walking into on-coming traffic is just a Frizzell thing). Because you never know when a shiny red double-decker is coming down the street right at you, and those guys won't stop for pedestrians.

Being a foreigner in church is usually interesting. I’m not the only foreigner in my church anymore. There is a nice man from Uganda who also attends, though he doesn’t seem to stand out as much as me for some reason. He is working on the Amadi road, but he drives in for services. His name is Innocent, and I really like him. Sometimes they have English translations for him. Sometimes they just make sure he sits next to someone who can tell him what is going on. Before he started coming, they would always ask at the beginning of the service, “Is there anyone here who does not understand Arabic?” The first few times I attended, several people would turn around and look pointedly at me, and then the others around them who remembered my first attendance and self-introduction in Arabic, would wave them off saying, “No, no, she’s fine.” But even though people know me there now, and my pastor sees me as an official member of the church, who can be called upon to participate in church fund-raising games and answer questions about hand pump applications, there are always a few newbies who stare. I try not to take photos in church (though I’ve taken a few videos of the children’s choir, which I will try to post*), so here is a picture of me showing you the face of a young boy sitting in the row in front of me in church last week. Even though I didn’t get his photo, this is an exact replication of his expression. Trust me, I am a professional.

So I tried to be reassuring and I gave him this face:

He responded to me with this face:

And then I turned the other way to look out the window at the kids climbing trees and thought about how fun it would be to be out there too. But at least church was shady and I had my little batik fan—thanks, Mom. The fan keeps me from missing you too much because it makes me feel like I am you and then how can I miss you if you are right there sitting in my chair, fanning yourself and waving at all the small children?

Finally, I’m including a self-portrait of myself after the 5 hour church service. Just so you know—taking a selfie in church is rarely acceptable behavior, and butt selfies are never appropriate no matter how good you think you look in yoga pants. So that’s why I drew a picture of me and my post-sitting-on-a-log-bench-for-5-hours body. The skirt fabric stuck to my rear because—artistic license is a thing that trumps reality, and basically that is the shape that my butt took for the rest of the day.  Once again—you can totally tell that my dad is a professionally trained artist who studied under the masters in Florence, Italy.

Yes, I wrote this on the back of my notes
from a mostly-useless OCHA meeting because
I was running out of paper and it is important to conserve trees.
This portrait is Saving the Earth.
And somehow this drawing turned out Jules Feiffer-esque, all chinless and pointy-nosed,
so it looks like those multiple readings of the Phantom Tollbooth paid off after all.

*I tried. I failed. Maybe I can get them to go on Facebook somehow.

Planning Ahead Life

For me, planning a day in advance is planning ahead—and technically, you see, I’m right about that. But when I wake up one morning and say, I am going to do x and y tomorrow, and then on Tomorrow I only do x or even 0.5x, I can say to myself, “Well, Self, you should have been a better planner and it is your fault that you didn’t accomplish everything, so think about that and do better next time.” And then after my inner Responsible Self nicely chastises my inner Regular Self, I feel better about it, and I can move on with my life. But there are some days when Responsible Self takes over my whole body for a brief moment and plans everything so fast. My Responsible Self is not so chill and laid back as Regular Self. Responsible Self gets really annoyed when her plans don’t work out. This is because she tried so hard and planned so well and still hit zero for three tasks on Monday and only one for three tasks on Wednesday. She feels like the world is falling into pieces around her. If she didn’t have Regular Self’s resilient sense of humor, she would never survive here in South Sudan. Life can be really stressful for her.

This week’s plan was brought to you by Responsible Self, but Regular Self is the one who is making it to the end. Responsible Self started to feel doubts on Monday morning when her scheduled morning run was interrupted by a phone call informing her that they needed to leave at 8 instead of 9 to complete the day’s tasks. Since it was already 7:30 and she was still a mile away from home, she agreed, but knew that the other colleagues would undoubtedly still arrive at 9:00am, as she had asked them specifically to arrive at 8:00am (isn’t she such a good planner? Ready for any and all contingencies!). Still, diligently, she kicked it that last mile and was home in record time and showered and ready by a little after 8.  But no one was there—not even those requesting an ETD of 8am. It was a bad omen.

I don’t have to continue down the path of that story. Basically, Responsible Self was let down hard. Regular Self mostly survived, though Responsible Self tried to take her down too.  So the moral of the story is, as usual, never ever plan ahead.

And here are a few other South Sudan moments, so that you can see that it’s basically worth it to live here even if planning doesn’t work in this climate:

Clockwise from top left: origami,shredded sugarcane,
happy mother with clean water from a new well,
fishing the soccer ball out of the trash pit, my once-blue sandals.

Since I’ve been back, my local urchin posse has been most excited to see me. I see their little heads pop up over my windowsill, expectant eyes wide and ready for adventure. Almost inevitably this happens just when I have finally sat down to eat something.  Sometimes I kick them out but usually I go out and play for a bit because they are the urchiest urchins and it is really hard to resist them—this pack of kids that lives with a handful of their mothers, a tough matriarch of a grandma and an adorable tiny old great grandma. Their grandfather sits under the tree all day long listening to BBC news on the radio and perfecting his refined English. The various and sundry mostly nonexistent fathers are almost never around to take any notice of anyone or provide any sort of noteworthy contribution towards their lives. There are plenty of fathers like that around here, but I’m choosing to put in a photo of Repent cuddling his boys, whom he has missed while they have been staying at their grandma’s house since Christmas because—she makes the best food. Of course.

Because they are the best, even if this photo is not.
And Repent loves his babies.

The urchins and I do lots of origami and make paper airplanes and also play a lot of soccer. Once we kicked the ball into the trash pit/bathroom hole and we dug it out with a long bamboo pole to which I duct-taped an old plastic bag. It took us 30 minutes of fishing, but we got it back. And we don't think about the festering germs it was soaking up down there because that's not fun. Our other activities include me fixing sandals with safety pins and me trading candy canes for sweet potatoes. I was also recently commissioned to make “Thank You” signs for our donors. I decided to delegate this task to my posse because they love coloring and also, if I made the signs by myself it would look like kids made them and so if I let them help me make them then kids actually DID make them, and it is more honest that way. But I did learn never EVER to leave them alone with the signs and the markers. I was baking a sweet potato cake and I popped out for 2 minutes. When I came back the sign looked like this:

Imagine it turned horizontally and held up by some cute kids.
Charming, right? Does spelling really matter? Letters are so pretty.

Of course, I didn’t notice anything until I handed the sign to the village to hold up for the donors and tried to read what I wrote. “That’s weird, “ I thought. “I don’t remember writing all the way to the edge of the paper. Also, why is there an ‘s’ at the end of ‘foundation’?” Then I figured it out and used the other sign which I didn’t like as much because Wani was a little too obsessed with the brown crayon but Oguna had used multiple colors on the other sign. Also—I had helped him color that sign, and I’m pretty sure I colored in the extra “H” that he added in there and had no idea because I am not the most observant of people.

But this week wasn’t a total bust. I got in some good hours on the back of the motorcycle which has given me the glow of someone who consistently goes to fry herself at the tanning salon without actually having to fry myself at the tanning salon. I even double suncreened and reapplied and everything (I put some on Ruben, Repent's youngest son, and he thought it was the most hilarious thing in the world). You know how all those magazines say that if you spend so much time in the sun, you will wrinkle up and look like you’re 50 by the time you’re 30? Well, I’m almost 31 and I currently have the complexion of a pubescent boy who hasn’t yet started shaving but will soon—that’s thanks to my pores constantly being clogged by sand, but anyway, maybe by the time I’m 50, I’ll actually look like I’m 50. I think that would be pretty cool. Looking one’s age is a very underrated quality, I think. Just look your age already, People—why not? It saves others lots of confusion. I would be glad to write a magazine article about that concept for anyone who is interested.

Many babies here scream in terror at my face (I get it, but it can be hurtful).
Baby Jenfer is one of the memorable ones who held our her arms and gave
the scary khawaja a big hug.  I will love her forever.

And that goes for the man who proposed marriage to me in the following conversation:

Potential Hubs: “Hey—where is your husband? Why don’t you marry me?”

Me: “I think you are too young for me. I’m old.”

P.H.: “No way—how old are you?”

Me: “31”

P.H.: “Well I’m 37!”

Me: “Or you’re a liar…”

P.H.’s friend: “Of course he is old enough—look at his beard!”

(Note: the little bit on fuzz on his chin might qualify him for Mundri’s premiere hipster club, but I don’t think it proves his manhood or advanced age.)

Me: “So how many wives do you already have?”

P.H.: “Just one. Come see how she lives. You will beg to marry me then.”

Me: “Um…no. I will be the only wife. I’m an American girl. It’s a thing with most of us [it was just not the time to talk about Mormons]. And also, it was the way God planned with Adam and Eve. There was none of this Adam and Eve and Ruta and Lusi and Mary. And also, you would not like the food that I cook.”

Note: that morning I had eaten nasi goreng for breakfast, which I made all by myself and ate straight out of the pan because if it’s OK for bachelors, it is also OK for bachelorettes, and I have no running water in my house right now so I’m cutting down on unnecessary luxury tasks like washing dishes and cleaning the bathroom floor. My nasi goreng involves lots of sheta/cabe/hot pepper and people here just can't take it usually.

Then I proceeded to successfully extricate myself from the conversation, telling them that if they wanted my phone number, they would have to ask Repent for it. And while he is a really nice guy who would probably just give it to them because why not? But he is also kind of a big dude, and he was farther away so they couldn’t see that he is always smiling. They didn’t follow me.

And so it goes. Another partially successful week concluded. And when one of the drillers tried to comfort me with a “This is Africa—nothing happens like you plan!” I got huffy and defensive for Asia and said, “It’s not ONLY Africa that messes up your plans, you know. Asia can do that too. It’s not always all about Africa. Africa ALWAYS tries to steal Asia’s thunder. And anyway Indonesians even have a saying for events not starting on time. It’s called jam karet, or rubber time. There aren’t any sayings like that here.” And he thought that was the greatest thing he ever heard and carefully wrote down “jam karet” into his little notebook so that he can remember it forever and have something important to talk about with all the Indonesian people he meets out here.  

And Responsible Self found herself cheered up by being able to teach some bahasa to a true lover of Asian culture and language.  And she has not developed an actual plan for next week beyond her usual stand-by—“Let’s wing it.”

And by the time I actually get internet good enough to post this on the blog, I will have been winging it for several weeks probably. Yeah…this is the life. Own it, Irresponsible Me.

One more because seriously--that face is too cute.(Ruben's face, not the dirt-covered white photo-bomber in the side).