IDPs and Rock Climbing and Consequences

This week I learned that it is possible to make unwise decisions even if one is almost 30 years old.  (Who knew, right?) What started as an innocent trip to an IDP camp to see if we would dig some wells there, ended with me hobbling around for a day—only a day though. I was back out running the day after that. Blistered feet can’t slow me down. Well maybe a little. Temporarily.

Bushrat for dinner anyone? We met this intrepid hunter in the camp.

So we were supposed to go to this IDP camp outside of Juba, where apparently 2000+ internally displaced people (IDPs—for my slower readers) were supposed to be living. We were supposed to go there with the commissioner for Mundri East County and his armed guard (probably the only reason the Boss agreed to go that close to Juba anyway), but at the last minute the Commissioner bailed, meaning his armed guard did too. We were on the road already, though, so we went on to the next town where we were supposed to meet one of the Commish’s deputies who also bailed. Then we went on to yet another town, meeting with the local administrator of that area who had not been informed of our coming and also could not accompany us, but he sent a pastor with us, so it was OK. God was on our side that way, I guess. He also (the administrator, not God) updated us on the situation in the camp, which is currently housing approximately 500 people since the other 1500 had gone on to stay with friends, relatives, or returned to Juba.

I drank this water, and I'm still OK.

We began to seriously re-think our plans to work in the area, but we did hang out with some Dinka SPLA guys and let them show us the river where the current IDPs and soldiers are getting their water. They bathe and wash clothes directly in the river, but they dig small holes beside the water and drink from those holes. I’m not sure of their reasoning on that one, but I took a swig, and I didn’t die or get sick, so I think they’re fine. But they are worried that the river will dry up soon (it’s dry season now and very possible), so we are still looking into helping out.  The thing about South Sudan is that often you can put a pump in what seems to be the middle of no-where, but when you go back a while later, a small town has grown up around the well. That’s the power of water.

The Gunfire Bridge

Anyway, we made it back to Mundri with only one scare, which was when a truck went over a nearby metal bridge and the Boss thought it was gunfire, but other that that, no issues.  Still, since we were traveling with a camera man, it took a while, as he kept wanting to stop and get this or that shot. He was talking about wanting a landscape shot, and I knew just the rock I had been wanting to climb up for a while. Since it’s dry season, most of the elephant grass has burned off and you can see up to the base of the rock and not worry about accidentally stepping on a black mamba and dying a horrible painful death. I find snakes and all reptiles fascinating, but there are other ways I’d prefer to go. But now would be the perfect time to climb up, so I suggested we go. And we did—well, the camera man and I did.  He followed me to the rock (he is definitely more afraid of black mambas than me, and probably willing to sacrifice my life, hoping to get my death scene on film for his Pulitzer. I know it’s not personal—he’s a camera man…) and started up behind me, but since he was wearing shoes and I was wearing some chunky flipflops, he went faster. I decided to ditch the shoes and go up barefoot. I got up really quickly, and didn’t notice any problems until all of a sudden I felt the skin separate from my feet—not because I cut it, but because large blisters had bubbled up under the front of my feet where I’d been climbing. Then I realized that getting down was going to be very painful.  It was.

I backwards-spider-man crawled down the mountain, using my heels and the palms of my hands—there’s really not a modest way to do that in a skirt. The Boss was concerned, and he even came out of the car to ask if I was OK. I think he thought I didn’t know how to get down the mountain. I did, but I was already testing the limits of my pain tolerance, and speeding down wasn’t an option for me. Anyway, I made it down and to the car, and spent the rest of the day and the next hobbling around. Before I doctored it up, I took photos. I’m warning you now because I’m nice, and I know some of you (my sisters) are a bit squeamish. But if your curiosity is stronger than your stomach, scroll down and down for the gruesome photos.  I’ll also include the photos of my doctor skills because the medical profession is seriously missing my bandaging creativity.  Scroll down if you dare.

Keep going.

A bit more.

You know you’re curious.

It’s not too late to go back up now.

Last chance.

NOW it’s too late to back.

Congratulations, Brave Reader. You have arrived.

 

This was the first attempt. I had to stick a bandage on because I was planning to go make some brownies in our oven which already had coals ready, and so I was in a hurry. Later I cut off all the extra skin and put on medicines and stuff. And now it's totally fine because I am a genius doctor.

Lesson learned:

Barefoot rock climbing after a day of 100+ degree weather is not a good idea. Even if the rock feels ok to your feet, there are certain temperatures that the sole of the foot is not designed to withstand. Yes, I could have let Camera Man go it alone, but he did seem to need my expert advice on where to go because he decided to climb up a big jutting rock with trees around it and couldn’t get a shot. I showed him a better place and he handed his camera down to me while he jumped down to get the view he needed. Also -- like I was going to let Camera Man get up the rock without me… It was MY rock in the first place! Anyway, I climbed my rock even if I paid for it all by myself with a little bit of pain and backwards-spider-man crawling humiliation, and next time I go up, I’ll bring my camera (phone not fancy video one) and I’ll wear flip-flops with better grip. Climbing in shoes is for sissy foreigners.

One more bonus photo from near where I work where someone just put up mine warning signs while I was gone. Who knew?  Good thing I didn't see a monkey or a shiny rock or something else irresistible over there before those signs went up.

Unofficial Travels

The view from Bhutan, complete with Buddhist prayer flags

If you have forgotten, having not seen me in a long time, I have blue eyes, dirty-dishwater brown hair (which is currently red, thanks to henna), and light beige skin (so says the make-up I use). I am hardly one of those people who could be from anywhere, and yet many times in several different Asian countries, I have been told that I could pass for a local—Egypt, Syria, India, China (OK, just kidding about the last one, although I was mistaken for a Chinese person on the phone a few times, which was very flattering. Chinese people were more impressed by the differences in my appearance—my protruding nose, the three folds in my eyelids. Apparently, that’s a sign of beauty, but to me it means that I’m probably going to end up like my grandfather who had surgery a few years ago to remove excess eye-skin that was impeding his vision.).  In the Middle East, it wasn’t too much of a stretch for me to be a local. As Joanna used to point out, there’s a lot of Crusader blood mixed in there…but when I was told I could pass as a light-skinned Indian, I admit that I was a bit skeptical. 

My hand is in Bhutan

It started a few weeks ago when I was planning a trip to the Bhutan border area for work. I knew the partners I was going to visit are well-connected in the area, and I thought, “Why not ask if they could get me in to Bhutan for a day?” Those of you unfamiliar with the Bhutanese immigration policies may not know why that is a big deal. Last time I was in the area, a mean-looking lady refused to let me even set one foot across the border into her homeland, since foreign tourists (i.e. not Indians) must have very expensive permission to enter. In protest, I stuck my hand through the fence and took a picture. Why did I not just get the permission to enter? Because I am not that rich. To go to Bhutan, an American tourist (and I believe it is the same for other Western nationalities as well) must pay $220 per day and stay at least 7 days. That equals $1540 (I think) and I don’t have that kind of money or 7 free days, for that matter.  But I had heard rumors that there was a way to get one-day permission to enter. So I asked the partners, and they, being SOOO happy that I was finally coming to visit again, agreed to arrange the permission for me. I brought along my passport and extra passport photos in order to be prepared for whatever information they might need from me. OK, fine, I always bring my passport with me whenever I travel, and I always keep extra passport photos in my wallet. Yes, some of them were taken almost 10 years ago, but that’s the benefit of never growing up—I still look mostly the same.

After completing my work in the area (and that was awesome, too bad I don’t have time to tell you about that here), we drove to the border town of Jaigaon. Jaigaon is technically a part of Bhutan, but the Indian government is renting it from them. I’m not sure why they want to do that, but maybe that is easier than building another entry gate into the country, since the British already messed up the boundary there a while ago. Still, I don’t count it as being in Bhutan because I didn’t officially go through the gate. I did buy oleh-olehs for the niece and nephews though, and I will count those as being from Bhutan, especially since I got back some Bhutanese money as change.

With my bodyguards

We stayed in Jaigaon overnight, waiting for the government official friend of the partners to arrive. We met the next morning at breakfast. He asked me about my passport and visa, we hopped in the car and headed to the Indian immigration office where I handed over my passport. At this point I still thought that my passport would be involved in getting me in the country, but I was wrong. My passport would not be going with me to Bhutan. When I found out, I felt a bit disloyal leaving it behind—my passport and I are great friends, and we go everywhere together. I also kind of wanted a Bhutanese stamp, but not enough to pay more than one thousand dollars for it.

As we drove up to the gate, the Indian immigration official riding in the front seat of the fancy government SUV we were in, turned around and said to me, “Don’t tell anyone you are from America.”

I said, “OK, but won’t they figure that out when they see my passport?”

He said, “Your passport is back at the immigration office. They won’t see it. Also, speak only in Hindi.”

That’s when I realized that the success of our plan was based on tinted car windows and my Hindi ability. Also powerful Indian government officials who assured me that Bhutan can’t really get mad at them because everything in Bhutan comes from India, including their religion (which originated in Bihar, fyi).

I did it! Walking on Bhutanese soil!

So we casually drove through the border, not even bothering to stop for the Bhutanese soldiers, and it was completely no big deal at all. We drove through the little town of Phuentsholing where there were actually quite a few foreign tourists wandering around. The partner with me mentioned that they didn’t look too happy, and I’m pretty sure they were thinking about their rapidly dwindling bank accounts back in their home countries. Meanwhile, I hopped in for free, escorted by an immigration official, an Indian government representative, and his two bodyguards. We drove up the mountains to a famous Buddhist temple next door to one of the queen’s palaces.

We wandered around a bit, and I had just posted a ‘success’ photo on Facebook when the immigration guy turned to me and said, “Oh yeah, don’t tell anyone about this for two days.” I’m not sure why, but I deleted it, in case any of my Facebook friends are Bhutanese officials in disguise. And then I waited two days to write this…also I may have waited two days because I’ve been traveling and I’m tired and I didn’t feel like writing…

While Bhutan and India share a border, these two notices found in Bhutan in the language of the people they were directed at, speak to vast cultural differences between the two neighbors:

In Dzongkha (Bhutanese language), people are warned about releasing pigeons...compare to the sign below written in Hindi:

Here people are warned not to "urine or toilet" around the monastery...and my Hindi is particularly good in the area of toilets, so I know that the Bhutanese writers spelt "urine" wrong in  Hindi.

Bhutanese man spins the prayer wheel 

Going up the mountain 

All too soon it was time to go. We piled back into our fancy SUV, which is so fancy it talks to you and gives advice like “the car is starting now. For your safety, it is recommended that you fasten your seatbelt.” But of course, much like we ignored Bhutanese immigration law, we all ignored the car’s advice as well.   Then the Indian government official ignored us when we told him that we could only take a quick side trip to a project site he wanted to show me, and he took us on a journey that involved a 30 minute drive to and from, plus a 45 minute hike up and down a mountain and three 30 minute meetings with a large number of people we didn’t know at all and several tea breaks. It was OK, though, because I got to hike up a mountain on the Bhutanese border with some heavily armed Indian soldiers.

So the moral of the story could be “Never give up on your dreams” or maybe ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way” or “Don’t Be Afraid to Use Your Wasta (an Arabic word meaning something like ‘having good high-up connections in government/business/relationships/etc that can get you want you want with minimal trouble to yourself).” Those are all great mottos for all of you, but for me it’s probably “Go to as many countries as you can, as cheaply as possible.” Also, Bhutan has a really cool flag with a dragon on it, and I've always wanted to go there.

Bhutanese schoolgirl, in uniform, admiring the view while waiting for her bus

Leaving Yemen

Having finally bought my ticket for the States, or rather, having finally had my sister and power of attorney buy my ticket on my behalf, this whole “leaving Yemen” thing suddenly became more real. Spending lots of money will often have that effect on me. I’ve been sad all week as people have come to me and insisted I stay and regaled me with stories about how they haven’t been sleeping or eating since they found out I was leaving or how they went home and cried for hours thinking about it. Walking through the camp several times this week I even felt tears pricking behind my eyes, although I think that might have been because the hot steamy wind was blowing chunks of sand into them, but I will count it as a sign of my humanity and compassion. So I was going to write about all the things that I am going to miss when I leave Yemen, and then I thought about the things that I won’t miss. And then I realized that even though there are things that I will be glad to leave behind, I will kind of miss them because they made great stories, helped people to feel sorry for me (I’m counting on that translating into lots of nice things that will be done for me when I get back to the States, Joanna), and eventually (as was the case during one horrible terrible camping trip I was dragged to in Syria) I will be able to find these little hardships kind of amusing. So I’m just going to make a list of the things that I won’t have anymore when I am no longer a resident in a country on the brink of civil war, the majority of whose population lives on less than $2 a day (that last bit of the sentence is courtesy of every single article ever written about Yemen in the last six months). Here goes:

· Being Amina Nuur Jaamac- the Somali name that Mosman (Mohamed Osman) and I came up with. Everywhere I walk in the camp, there’s always someone who knows that name and they yell, “Amina, Amina!” after me. A few know Amanda, but they usually forget it and call me Amina anyway. Most also know the “Nuur Jaamac” which in Somali culture at the names of my Father (Nuur) and my Grandfather (Jaamac). I hope they like their new names. I actually chose those names because in my mind they sound more feminine and I like them. Nuur is a girl’s name in Arabic, but a man’s name in Somali. Also I didn’t want to join the crowd of “Mohamed’s” as I think there are too many of them. Although I do find it convenient in a way because whenever someone asks if I know him (and I know that I should know him, but I can’t remember his name), I say, “Yeah, you’re Mohamed, right?” And half the time I am right and they are amazed! Incidentally, I came up with Mosman’s name, but he didn’t appreciate it much and resents the fact that others now call him that as well. I knew it was catchy!

·Sandstorms

· Fasoulieh (spicy beans) and khubz tawa (large, soft, flat naan-like bread)

· Rocks

· Living in the Women’s Section and talking to boys through the wall at night when I’m not wearing ‘outside clothing.’

· Flamingoes in the Gulf of Aden

· Crazy Khadra—she really is crazy. I like her because she scares the crap out of Filip who has actually run for cover a few times when he’s seen her coming. She is thin and black and chews qat perpetually. Occasionally a violent stone-thrower, she is also sometimes very affectionate. Apparently her son is very smart and doing well in Aden, but I’ve never met him. I wonder what happened to her to make her crazy, but I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know.

· Swarms of moths. I really think that God should have thrown this plague in for the Egyptians. Moths are seriously annoying and when you kill them they squish disgustingly.

· Being attacked by children who want to hug me, kiss my hand, and/or get candy for me. Just so you know, they hug me even when I don’t have candy! Love these cute African babies…like the Yemeni ones too, I just don’t see them that much.

· Being screamed at by children who have never seen a white person and find my odd skin color terrifying.

· Convincing a couple of those children to love me anyway (to see my true colors shining through, of course) by shear perseverance involving candy and learning the word for “high five” in Somali.

· Livestock-goats, donkeys, especially camels wandering around. I like to see goats who have climbed to the top of the shrubby little desert trees and camels with crows perched on their heads.

· UNDSS text messages telling me that “gunfire has been heard in Ma’alla district. Please avoid the area” or “Demonstration in Crater near al-Ahli Bank and road blocks in Tawahi. Please use alternate routes” and of course “Celebratory gunshots being fired in honor of the president’s speech. Stay inside away from windows.”

· Wearing a burqa to sneak out of the camp and avoid potential kidnappers.

· Going to church with a lovely Pakistani family, a couple of Ethiopians, a Filipino, a Canadian, and a Brit—the beautiful diversity of the family of God!

· Checking the car for bombs before we start it. Pretending to be joking about having someone check the car for bombs before we start it so that we can check anyway. This is a recent development since a British captain (not my British captain though, Thank God) was killed by a bomb in his car last week. It has made things more exciting for us. It seems this incident is not connected to him being a foreigner, but rather to the work he was doing. Still, you never really know in Yemen.

· Swarms of mosquitoes in the girls’ bathroom that make it sound like a helicopter is in the room with you while you’re sitting on the toilet. An awkward feeling.

· My Adeni AC which occasionally, usually in the middle of the night, bursts into a squeaky sound much like the violin music used in horror films to signal the entrance of the ax murderer or the impending doom of a secondary character. My body has been trained to respond with trepidation to this sound and I find myself awaking in a panic looking for the creepy little girl with scary eyes who should be standing over me with a knife. Still, I’m really grateful for the 22-hour electricity we have in Aden.

· Having a sauna for a bathroom.

· Having naturally heated hot water coming from my faucet that is hot enough to make tea at certain hours of the day.

· Running with Osman, the driver for CSSW who talks like he’s got a wad of qat in his mouth even when he doesn’t. Most of the time I have no idea what he’s saying, but I am so good at pretending. We have had many great conversations, most of which have likely been on completely different topics. We usually run around in circles for about 3 minutes (me holding up my abaya so I don’t trip on the skirt) and then he goes off to do his 7arakat (literal translation=moves) which include some intense stretching and high kicks while I put in my music and keep walking around and around the compound like an insane hamster.

· UNDSS security emails from Simon Butt. I am going to miss that guy.

· Swarms of flies that attack me while I’m trying to shower.

· Showering and then finding myself dripping with sweat two minutes later.

· Showering with no electricity so I have to grope around to find my shampoo.

· Hanging out with Oromos on the weekend, drinking strong coffee, eating wonderful spicy Ethiopian food, smoking sheesha, and playing with cute kids.

· Running, hiking, exploring the rocky Adeni mountains with the Captain.

· Swimming in the sea with the Captain.

· Learning random seaman’s facts from the captain-how to tell when the sun will go down by measuring with my hand and how to tell how far it is to the horizon on a clear day and how to count between the wave cycles.

· Eating “spicy goat” with the captain.

· Practicing driving a standard car with the captain.

· Finding unexploded mortars in the mountains with the Captain and carefully walking away.

· Doing anything at all with probably the coolest 70 year old man in the world. What is cooler than a British sea captain living in Yemen, climbing and swimming during his free time, and generally being awesome?

· OK, I’m really going to miss the Captain.

· Kafa dying my hair with henna.

· Speaking Arabic as fast as I can with Nusaiba because that’s how she talks…

· Practicing Somali.

· Flirting outrageously with the Yemeni security escorts and check point personnel. They taught me how to shoot a Kalashnikov but I didn’t actually pull the trigger because I didn’t want to kill any of the nearby camels and/or people. They love me. Always be charming to people with guns.

· Wearing the same clothes two days in a row because everyone else does.

· My home gardening team. Man, I love those guys so much! Abdulqadir, Jihad, Jeylani, Osman, Mandela, Abdirizak, Yusuf, and even crazy Isaq—ok, maybe especially crazy Isaq. There is something about being patted on the head by a seven foot tall skinny Somali man in a sarong that I find charming.

· Pulling off an event I’ve planned even when I have to improvise to fill in gaps left by the Aden team not procuring the stuff that I requested decades previously.

· Hearing heart-breaking stories that make me love these people more than I ever thought I could.

· Shada, Abdishukur, and Shayma-my favorite kids that I have actually dreamed of adopting if their mother didn’t get better.

· Washing my clothes by hand. Not rinsing them. Hanging them up on the line.

· Washing my clothes in the washing machine in Aden which I often leads to floods when the water overflows because I forget to turn off the stupid hose.

· Being able to love the poor, the oppressed, the down-trodden. Being able to proclaim the Good News of the Gospel of Peace to a people who have seen violence all their lives and show them where to find freedom for the captives.

I’m going to miss this place! There’s a lot I’m looking forward to in my future—seeing family, loving nephews, niece and the Unborn, the next adventure… But knowing that I have a future to look forward to while others do not is what makes leaving here one of the hardest things I’ve done in a while. Never before have I felt so much like I’m abandoning people I love when the wanderlust catches me again. Many caring friends, more than just my mom even, have been reminding me that I’m not the savior of these people. While I know that’s true, I hate that I am another person they’ve learned to love who they must say goodbye to, possibly forever. I hate that I’m leaving during the most miserably hot time of year when the situation in their ‘refuge’ country is uncertain. I don’t know what’s going to happen to these people I care about. I know I was supposed to come here, and I’ve done my best in a difficult place. As usual, I came to give, work, help, love and I’m leaving with so many memories wonderful blessings, special friends, exciting stories, and enlarged CV. I’m also leaving behind another piece of my heart in another precious country, and again, wondering why I do this to myself and when I won’t have any more pieces left to leave behind…but I love it and doubt I’ll stop anytime soon. Of course that means that I’ll continue to sporadically update this blog with sappy paragraphs like this one and longer stories of random things that amuse me.

More Somaliland Musings

Dundumo

If I were a photographer, I would travel the world make coffee table books. I feel that it is an important market niche. There are many excellent subjects for coffee table books in Greater Somalia. (I refer to Greater Somalia in an attempt to be politically correct for Somalilanders who are hoping for international recognition as a separate country from Somalia and the state of Puntland which is also Somalia and plans to go back to Somalia if Somalia ever gets its act together. I think Somaliland deserves recognition but I will not write about that because it would take too long and require sources and MLA format and lots of stuff I left behind me when I completed my formal education.) Driving around the countryside visiting ADRA worksites gave me a great view of this strangely beautiful country. While I am always fascinated by camels and flocks of goats, I am also interested in muddy unpaved roads and dry riverbeds, but I recognize that buyers of coffee tables books might not share that interest. But who could possibly not share my interest in the subject of what would be my first coffee table book--dundumo (Somali for ant hill)?

Ironically, in spite of my self-stated desire to coffee-table-book dundumo, I didn't get many photos. While it shouldn't nomally be too difficult to take photos of stationary objects, in my case, I was taking all these photos from the back of a speeding car. Occasionally we'd hit a bump, catch some air, and go flying over several deep holes only to slam on the breaks in order to avoid hitting a wandering camel. I imagine it would be bad to hit a Somali symbol of wealth and future someone's future dowry. In Garowe, someone offered 100 camels for me, but I told him that as an imported women, I was naturally going to be more expensive and I wouldn't go for less than 500 (shipping costs are higher with the pirates). He tried to bargain but then realized that in the end, products imported aren't worth as much as you pay for them-they don't last much longer than those that are domestically-produced and it is often difficult to get used to their systems. Also the owner's manuals are written in so many different languages, it's hard to find the one that you want. Anyway, I don't have many pictures yet. I'll have to make a special trip on somebody's dowry camel so I can go slower and take more photos.

These dundumo are massive. They can be more that 2 meters high. Some are tall and slim and look like how I imagine Lot's wife turned out after she became a pillar of salt. Others look more like funky dirt snowmen. Some, fittingly, are reminiscent of sand castles. I like the ones built around trees that remind me of Angkor Watt temples that have been covered by jungle trees and vines although in this case, I'm pretty sure the trees were there before the buildings, unlike the Cambodian ruins. I also appreciate the dundumo that are right beside a tree. They look like they're in a competition to see who can grow taller. Sometimes the trees win, sometimes the ants pull it off.

I also noticed that dundumo are often found in the middle of a farm with the land cultivated around them. They also aren't removed from their places even if they are right beside a house or tent. I was surprised by this at first, wondering why they weren't cleared away. First I thought that maybe the people were afraid of being attacked by large red ants, angry at the destruction of their homes. Then I was more charitable and chalked it up to Somali respect for hard-working creatures who take weeks (months? years? I have no idea...I'll have to find out before I make my book) to build their elaborate hives (hives? nests? Again, stuff I'll need to know before I publish). But later, when I requested a photo beside a particularly massive one, I was told that Somalis are afraid of them because they are "the house of the devil" which I think means that they think that evil spirits live there. It also meant that the security guard who was already mad at me for a short trip to the beach while everyone else was in the bathroom (The foreign girl will be attacked by gangs with knives! Why did you let her go down to the beach? It's not deserted as it looks! In fact there are many evil people lying in wait for her! Now I have to convince the other fatter guard to go down there and watch out for her because at least he kind of likes her.) and mad at me for stopping for another photo-op picking up a tortoise (I need to get home to chew qat because stupid ADRA refused to pay me extra money for my drug of choice!) was even more furious with me for this last stop I politely requested. He was also mad because we stopped before we noticed a large monkey clan hanging around the tree nearby (They will eat up the foreign girl and then who will get in trouble? That's right, me. The guy who didn't get to chew qat). He didn't have to worry about me going over to the monkeys to get them to pose with me. I know monkeys from childhood days in Indo. They are not nice creatures. Sure the babies are cute and fuzzy and it's so clever how they hang on to their mommies, but they bite, steal food, give you rabies, throw stuff at you, and break your things. I don't mess with monkeys. Unless I am throwing stuff at them. Fair's fair.





So I got my photo, escaped a loud lecture from the guard by feigning ignorance of the Somali language, which is mostly true but I did recognize several new words I'd recently learned (badeed-sea, deen-tortoise, daanyeer-monkey, cun- eat, dundumo-you know this word already if you've been paying attention), and sat demurely in the car for the rest of the journey planning out various titles for my coffee table book, hoping that my qat-deprived guard wouldn't start shooting at our car, trying to get us to go faster. Here are some of the titles I came up with.

My first creative choice: Ant-hills of the Somali Desert. It seems pretty straightforward, but I did struggle with the Somali part (see side note above about Somaliland, Puntland, etc). Genius will come through at the end though, of course.

Then I thought, if I were catering to a more academic group (of course academics make up a huge percentage of coffee table book consumers), I would go for something like: The Architectural Masterpieces of Somali Desert Denizens, subtitled: How Evolution Helped Ants Adapt to Harsh Surroundings that Would Ultimately be Caused by Manmade Climate Change so That When Humans Destroy Themselves and Ants Take Over the World They Will All Have Nice Places to Live.

Naturally, my very popular book would spawn a series for children which I would entitle: Ants are People Too and They Feel Sad When People or Camels Kick Over Their Houses and Usually They Eat People Who Upset Them. I think this could make a very pleasing pop-up book as well.

Sadly, photography is not one of my skills. While I do believe that those super-fancy cameras are a huge part of why many aspiring photographers actually take good pictures, A) I am too poor and too cheap even if I weren't poor to buy one and B) I congratulate myself on taking pictures when my thumb isn't making an appearance in the left corner of the screen, the object I'm trying to shoot is near the middle of the photo, and a casual observer won't find him or herself feeling symptoms of vertigo when looking the picture. Alas, I shall leave my idea to others who agree that coffee and ant houses go together and he or she can reap the rewards, financial and otherwise, thereof. All I ask is that a small donation be made to the charity I happen to be working with at the time made out to "Amanda Stillman's salary" as a way of thanking me for my awesome idea.