Part 2 The Next 3

Selfie with Mary at one of our Lakes.
"Why are you so short?" she asked me before grabbing the
phone and taking the photo herself.

And now the last three countries, which I was going to post yesterday for Joanna in the hospital with Evie, but then I got distracted by being very angry at someone who stole months of work from me, and I started contemplating a career change, writing nasty emails I didn’t send, and also looking at all the nice photos Marian took of our super-awesome family time together to change the subject. I woke up this morning with a renewed fervor, which I then lost as I tried to run in oppressively muggy weather before getting a very sane response from a kind colleague about taking the high road. Stupid high road. There’s less oxygen up there. How do you know the decisions you make from the high road are really better? Lack of oxygen is bad for your brain. But I’ve always liked climbing things (as you saw in Part 1), so whatever. I’m going to do it.  But I reserve the right to base jump from the top of the high road down to the abyss of the low road if needed.

So anyway, next three countries were Sweden, US, and Canada.

IAS is a Swedish organization, and one thing I’ve learned while working with them is that I really like these Viking people. I like them as much as I hate ABBA. And I really really hate ABBA.

Sweden:

·      Leksand, is the most “Swedish” part of Sweden (this observation is not original to me, it was donated by an authentic Swede). It is know for a large red wooden horse, which Leif pointed out as the largest in the world. I mentioned to Paul that this is likely because no one else in the world has thought it important to build a large red horse, but we didn’t mention that to Leif. Let him be proud of this Swedish accomplishment. The houses here are also all painted red with a paint that is made of copper dust mixed with water that is supposed to protect the wood. Leif said, “As you can see, all the houses here are red. Except for that one, which is yellow, but it is wrong.” Leif’s house is 120 years old and sits on the banks of one of the many crystal lakes in the area. All of us Africans in for the meeting started dividing up the lakes between our countries. Mary said, “I’ll take these for Kenya. Ketema, you can take that one for Ethiopia. Moggas, take that one for South Sudan.” This is what happens when water program people travel together in water abundant countries. I’d take some lakes to Chad, but I know in 10 minutes of arriving in our great country, they would be full of camels and cows and no longer safe to drink. But the cattle would be happy.

Making Juliet try out the trampoline.
She loved it.

You can take the Chadian out of Chad,
but when you give him a scarf to help him stay warm
at a Swedish cookout, he will still wrap it around his head like
he's about to go out and get on his camel.

IAS Tchad in Sweden!
Sadly, the first day we found out that Hervé's mother passed away,
and he had to go home quickly.

Eating raw pickled herring, event documented by Rune.

·      Food is…. Well, let me explain with a story: Anders, Danish colleague who used to live in Tanzania, told me  about a Scandinavian restaurant that opened in his town to his great excitement…until it closed down 3 months later because there weren’t enough Scandinavians in town to keep it in business. It takes a Viking palate to appreciate their cuisine. I tried dill-flavored caviar paste that comes in a tooth-paste like tube.  At the first bite I thought, “This isn’t so bad.” But as I continued to chew, amazingly, it got worse. But the worst was the raw pickled herring. Initially, I wasn’t going to try it, but Rune saw me skipping past it at the breakfast buffet and goaded me into trying it, “Don’t you eat bugs and other strange foods? I thought you would be brave enough to try our Viking food.” He challenged my courage! So I took some. Then it took me about 10 minutes to convince myself to put it into my mouth. It was truly terrible. I can’t describe it, but it triggered my gag reflex, which I had thought I didn’t actually have, as I usually can’t throw up, even when I’m sick. Later, as I was discussing his country’s horrible delicacies with Leif, he said, “That wasn’t herring you ate. It was seal. Wasn’t it seal?” he asked the cook lady who happened to be popping out of the kitchen at that moment. “Ja. Det är sill,” she said.

“So you’re saying I ate a seal?” I screamed in horror. “Seals are the puppies of the sea!” I then proceeded to tell everyone that I ate seal because – cool story. Until Desiree heard about it. “That was herring. We don’t eat seal here. Who told you it was seal?” I told her about Leif and the cook lady. She kindly explained that “sill” (pronounced “seal”) means “herring” in Swedish. I’ll get you next time, puppies of the sea.

Other important Sweden moments:

Andreas (a Swede) told me that he thinks I was the worst of anybody with the cold. We should note that this is me compared with Africans from Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Uganda, and Niger. People who had never seen snow until IAS decided to have meetings in Sweden in May.  I was worse than all of them. You know what? Screw it. I have other strengths. Note: I did NOT complain. I just wore all the clothes that I had with me all the time. And drank  a lot of tea. Also, friends loaned me their coats out of compassion. I just have that effect on people.

With Juliet after touching the electric fence,
With Julius "letting the body work,"
And with the cows...

I also enjoyed many Julius sayings. I knew I should have kept a list of them because now I only remember two. The first was when we were outside participating in a Swedish tradition of letting the cows out for the first time after the winter where they’d been kept inside for survival. As far as I could see, it was still winter. There was an arctic breeze blowing and I was on the verge of hypothermia. I was standing next to Juliet, who was appropriately bundled up. “Don’t touch the fence,” she said. “It will give you a shock.” Naturally, I touched it. She was right. But I was still freezing so she let me wear her scarf while I bounced up and down to generate heat. Julius, feeling sympathetic, as a Ugandan who’d moved to Sweden years before, advised me to embrace the cold, “Amanda, sometimes you have to let the body work.” Later that day at the fancy Swedish lunch buffet they took us to, he noticed my plate after I got back from the salad bar, “Amanda, you cannot eat only that grass," he told me, greatly encouraging me because I hadn’t found the rest of the food at that point and the salad bar had more gross slimy fish stuff on it. I had some Swedish beef instead.

Even in Sweden, sometimes we have to jump off our cars.

Then Leif asks me to drive, and I'm supposed to know that
this means to push the shifter down and up to reverse?
That is not clear from the drawing.

With Beatrice in the mines!

Of course this happened.
IKEA is all of my nightmares in one
nearly impossible to escape building.

I made Ilyasu try out the self check-out.
He loved it.

My photo of a moose I saw at 3am while driving to the airport.
I'm thinking about changing my career and becoming a wildlife photographer.
I clearly have skills.

The United States of America:

·      My observations mean nothing. Everyone has their own opinions about this place. I had fun eating various types of processed food (it’s what separates man from the animals!) and hanging with my family, including all the crazed progeny of my sisters. There were also some meetings I attended. I am happy to note that I survived them.

Cool aunts buy nerf guns for their nephews

Cool aunts share their tea

Breakfast with the cool aunt means you can eat
a plateful of bacon, and she is just so proud.

Canada:

A confusing photo I took in Canada

·      I think you all know how I feel about Canadian immigration policies. It turns out, they apply in Canada as well, but their results are more pleasing there than they are in South Sudan. Before leaving the plane, the flight attendant insisted that we ALL take the exit immigration papers for entering Canada. “I’m only in transit,” I said. “Everyone has to take them,” he said. (Amanda starts thinking dark thoughts again about Canada even though she reread Gordon Korman’s classic Canadian novel “I Want to Go Home” in the bathtub while chez her parents.) It turns out everyone had to go through exit immigration to get to the next part of the airport (insert eye-roll here for Canadian airport organization skills), but it ended up working out because I had about 6 hours to kill and I decided to go see Toronto because why not?

·         Canadian trains are nice. Canadian announcements in French and English are convenient because I start paying attention once they repeat in French, and in that way, I don’t miss my stop.

·      Canadian people are nice. I walked down to the water (of course) and sat on a bench by the Canadian maritime police station (because it was the first secluded bench I found). A police boat pulled out, and following what I assume are Canadian maritime customs, honked the horn before entering the lake. I turned as they honked because reflexes, and the gentle policemen all apologized to me for some reason.

·      Canadian birds will eat out of your hand. This must be because they are so used to all the nice Canadian people.

·      Canadians sell LOTS of maple sugar candies.

And that’s all! I’m home in Chad. It’s hot and muggy, but it’s also still MANGO SEASON! In conclusion, to deserve this great life, I quote the Sound of Music, “somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good.” And I’ll have to ask my mom what it was because I can’t remember it off the top of my head.

I'll leave you with these photos of ma famille:

I didn't take many photos in TN because 8 children
were wanting to play with my phone every time I took it out
and Marian had her fancy camera.

When you have a nephew on the spectrum who
gets overwhelmed by people and noise,
it's ok to hug each other under a blanket.

Playing in the creek

Oh yeah...and it's me...