What Do You Do For Fun?

It looks like we are just chilling, rocking out
to some Swedish tunes (not ABBA),
but actually we are having a Whatsapp meeting.
This is not an example of "what I do for fun,"
but hanging with Leif is always entertaining.
FYI: don't share earphones with him-
he can't sit still.

“So what do you do for fun?” many people have asked me. Ok, one person asked me that one time. It was a Royal Air Maroc flight attendant who slowly worked up the courage to talk to me one day while I was at the pool at the Hilton. When he first got to the pool, he kindly sat a polite 4 lounge chairs away from me. Every 20 minutes or so, he moved one chair closer. Unfortunately for him, by the time he ended up in the chair next to me, I was already leaving, so when he asked me what I do around here for fun, I was able to mutter something about having to leave without actually having to have a conversation.

Truthfully, I’m a really boring person. I do love adventures, but an average best day is one where I can hide out alone and not have to speak to any other living being.  This is called being an introvert. There are many of us out there, but we hide a lot so you don’t always realize it. For me, the more I’m alone without having to talk to other people, the less I ever want to see anyone else ever again. I know this is not a healthy way to be a human being, so occasionally I make myself crawl out of my cave and interact with other carbon-based life forms that communicate using verbal and nonverbal language skills.

OK, so it's not exactly the little skirt uniform,
but I have pompoms.
And it took me like 10 minutes of feeling
like an idiot to get this photo, which
definitely make me look appropriately ridiculous.

Sometimes that happens when I’m invited to a birthday party for a really cool person that I would have preferred to celebrate from a small crudely-fashioned canoe on a hippo-infested river. Sadly, no one else preferred to celebrate that wonderful person’s life in the same way, so instead I had to attend a “Murder Mystery” birthday party in the assigned character of a cheerleader. This is amusing to people who know me well, especially my family who enjoyed my mocking rendition of the cheerleaders in the high school I attended for one semester of grade 10 in my mother’s small hometown in middle Tennessee. Did you know there is a thing called a “Pep Rally” that students are forced to attend in lieu of school? I propose that this could be one reason why American students are so far behind the rest of the civilized world in terms of academics. It could also be why we consistently out-perform most of the rest of the world in athletics, though.  Anyway, I did not know what Pep Rallies were, anymore than I knew that “going Greek” meant joining a sorority in college and not taking a joint trip to Greece, which I was totally up for until my American father kindly explained. Thankfully, he got to me before I attended the session and embarrassed myself by asking if there were Greek language classes involved to prepare for life in Athens. I didn’t have to embarrass myself at the Pep Rallies. I just got swept along in the current of school-spirited students heading for the gym where I was able to watch and take notes as a third-party observer, marveling at this cultural aspect of American high school life that outsiders are not always privy to.  The few months while I was in American high school, I said almost nothing at school but came home, bouncing off the walls, full of amusing observations that I hadn’t been able to share with anyone, as the Indian girl who sat with me at lunch wasn’t that good at speaking English yet and my Gujarati was limited. I did not have a literary outlet like this blog at the time, as it was not even this millennium (see how old I am?), so I had to wait and share my jokes with the family at home. I got pretty good at being a fake cheerleader with a southern accent, and my kind family laughed in all the right places (they still do that most of the time, bless their hearts).

This is how I had to leave my house.
I think the hair and the make-up still
made the men who sit across the street from my
house all the time a bit concerned.

 So I got to be a fake cheerleader again, which was not too bad, as I got to wear my tiny shorts and shirt in public (aka the house where the party was held). A kind friend bought me pom-poms, which have since been donated to the drama department of the little MK school here in N’Djamena. The downside was having to wear make-up and a side pony-tail (80’s party), which always makes me feel lop-sided. Symmetry is important to me. I don’t like one-shoulder dresses or skirts that are longer one side than the other. It has been pointed out to me that my ears are pierced in two different places, and that was mostly intentional, but I do have an equal number of piercings in each ear, and that is what counts. Anyway, I’m digressing from the point of this, which is that it is kind of exhausting to be a cheerleader in your 30’s. There is a reason why you get that kind of behavior over with at a young age.

Emelie came to the party too,
and was only slightly concerned
for the crazy foreigners she hangs out with.

The party ended up being fun, but my favorite part is still that when everyone was assigned something to bring to the party, Amanda was assigned chips. CHIPS!!!! This has been my dream! I may have ranted on this blog before about how annoying and sexist I find it to be when you get the following instructions for potluck parties:

           

            Girls bring a side dish.

            Guys bring chips or a drink.

Giant bag full of chips.
I was not going to fail at my one
shot to be a "Guy." I brought 10 bags.
Only about 3 were actually opened.

I HATE that. First of all, what qualifies as a ‘side dish’? Second, I don’t make side dishes, whatever they are. I make peanut butter stuffed brownies or ginger coconut hot pepper mango pie. I don’t make quinoa salad. I’ve only a vague idea what quinoa actually is. And you know what? Maybe I don’t have time to make something, and I just want to stop by a store and buy a bottle of soda on my way to the party. And also, in the interest of fairness, maybe one of those guys really wants to make a great side dish like seven layer salsa dip or a salad of gummy bears mixed with M&Ms. And if you know that guy, please make sure he is single and in his 30’s and looking for someone to wander the world with for the rest of his life and then send him my way.

And speaking of wandering the world, I snuck into anothercountry again. It has been itching in my mind ever since I touched Cameroon a while ago. This time I went without a pressing engagement, so I got to climb up the bank and wander around for a while. I visited a little village, tested some hand pump water to that I could have a reason to give if local authorities came by asking why I was in Cameroon without an entry stamp in my passport (it’s important to always have a reason, no matter its basis in veracity), ate some oranges from the orchards around the village and tasted a very hot red pepper from a local field. All the while we were followed around by a large group of young men, who seemed very amused by this tourism of their side of the river. And by ‘we,’ I mean ‘me,’ of course, because no one else would have considered going on this slightly not-legal adventure, which could have negative impacts on one’s future lives and career paths and such, though I did suggest it as a possible location for a birthday party. I have great ideas. I don’t know why people don’t get that.  Just because they aren’t exactly “legal” doesn’t mean they’re not awesome.

So excited I can't handle it. Here's the awkward laugh-squint face.

So if you ever want to come have fun with me, we can cross borders without passports, ride rickety boats down the river, avoid being hit on by Moroccan flight attendants, and of course, consume copious amounts of junk food. It will be fun. Please bring enough money to bail yourself out of Cameroonian prison, though, because I probably won’t have enough money for 2 people.

The view from Cameroon.

The entourage

Native Cameroonian kids.

Hot pepper field of spicy goodness.

Ladies washing clothes and dishes on the Cameroonian side.
I really need to start the biosand filters over there too.
Who wants to donate?!

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Superlative Moments

Isn't she the cutest?

I have a new niece! And that was a superlative moment, of course. Also, it means that I can get photos early in the day while everyone else is sleeping, but Marian is awake feeding a hungry baby. But that’s not what I meant by superlative moments.

The other day as I was backing out of my driveway, I nearly hit a horse pulling a cart stacked with firewood, and I thought, “That is the Chaddest thing to happen to me since I’ve been back.” Then while we were eating lunch, the local news did a hard-hitting exposé on how most people don’t stop for red lights, and I changed my mind because THAT is clearly Chadder. I don’t mind ignoring red lights myself—that is the freedom of Chad. Also, slightly related moment that still makes me smile: when I was able to successfully cut off a soldier on a motorcycle in the middle of traffic and he was so mad that he hit my car. But then I was gone and he was stuck and HA. Sometimes I really like Chaddy driving.

If that little red car is me backing out of my driveway,
then my adorable nephew walking behind me is a horse cart,
and everyone else (including the dog) is a reckless motorcyclist,
zipping around, trying to do serious damage.
And this is what it is like backing out of my driveway.
But picture it with more sand and no grass.

Then there have been the IAS-est things that have happened to me. One reason why I get along so well with IAS, or with Leif at any rate, is my general attitude towards planning ahead. One way to define ‘ahead’ is ‘up to or possibly rarely exceeding one hour in advance.’ So when I got the return ticket information for our drilling chief, coming back from Kenya the next day, I was ready to pick him up at the airport that night. But I got to the airport and no one was there—I don’t mean that he didn’t show up on the flight, I mean no flights came. No cars were there to pick anyone up either, so apparently everyone else but me somehow knew that the flight wasn’t coming. But don’t blame this on Chad—this was the Asky Airlines fault. Since I couldn’t get a hold of Emmanuel, as he was still presumably traveling, I called Leif, since he bought the ticket. The ticket was all in Swedish too, so I couldn’t really help. Leif had no idea and no further information, so we agreed that Emmanuel is a grown man who can take care of himself, and we would wait until he contacted us. I went to sleep. At 2:00am, I was awakened by a phone call from Herve. Startled out of a rare, deep sleep, brought on by gummy melatonin vitamins, I answered in Chinese. He didn’t notice, assuming that I was just speaking my usual poor-quality French.  Apparently Emmanuel had arrived at 1am (though the guy at the airport had told me there were no more Asky flights arriving until the next week). He had taken a taxi to the office, but didn’t have keys to get in (they were with me). His phone was dying so he asked the guard to call someone. The guard called Emelie, who said she could not go out alone on her motorcycle in the middle of the night (she makes good choices). Then Emelie called Herve who was leaving the next morning at 5am to go to Abeche and should have been sleeping. He called me, and I stumbled out of bed, woke up my guard as I noisily opened the gate and drove to the office to hand over the keys, sign and stamp some papers, and hand over money.

Me and Emmanuel during the waking hours

But was that the IAS-est thing? I think probably the IAS-est thing was after Leif arrived and informed me about this team of Americans that were stopping by. Suddenly our office was in charge of getting all their paperwork together and arranging housing and transportation and visits and translation for a team that we had only the vaguest idea about. Of course we were amazing at it, but doing a lot of work on short notice just to be nice to people who are loosely connected to us is very IAS.

Then there are the Amanda-est moments—was it eating poptarts in bed while sick? Or going to the pool in sub-33 degree temperatures? Going for a run to test how sick I was? Honking the horn at all the other drivers on the road?

No. It was probably getting into a boat and convincing its surprised owner to take me across the river so I could touch Cameroon. I would have gotten out and stayed a while, but we were in a rush to get several water samples in to the lab for testing before they closed for Friday prayer time.  Next time I’ll bring a picnic lunch and a harpoon to stab at the hippos—just in case.

In the meantime, I’m preparing for a month and a half of crazy domestic and international travel, which will likely provide fuel for more exciting blog posts than this one, but the sisters (one of them anyway--or was it Claire?) were restless, so here’s this mundane look into my platonic life.

Sometimes if you just do something like it's
totally normal, people will respond as if it had
always been a part of the plan. And that's how you get in a boat
and cross over the river to Cameroon before your
project manager realizes what you were going to do.

I touched Cameroon! Next time, I'm getting out of the boat.

Boat selfie. I'm not very good at these,
but at least my hair is not flying in my face.