The Next Journey

This blog started five years ago with a long (three month) work trip to Central America.

Most recently, it documented every thought (that I wrote down) while on a short (three week) volunteer trip and spiritual journey to Africa.

And now, dear reader (I think there are about three of you left)… you may want to go on your merry way. For this blog is about to turn inside. Way inside. Like inside my digestive tract. Inside the very walls of my small intestine.

This fall, my health insurance began accepting Naturopathic Doctors as Primary Care Physicians. And my sneaking interest in alternative care then combined with the fact that I have not had a regular doctor since I had a pediatrician, and the end of the equation was = I have a new ND! (There was a false start here worth noting; the first ND I met with made me feel unhealthy and skeptical and mean. The second one was - and is - amazing.)

So as me and my ND made our way through everything about my health, everything I'm concerned about or interested by, everything I've been through and want to achieve, we kept coming back to my digestive health. Which is … not great.

Don't say I didn't warn you; this is the journey, like it or not. Feel free to look away.

And my digestion (which, yeah, ok, is a nice word for bowel movements) has been worse and worse over the last 18 months or so, and been pretty atrocious in the last six. Just never regular. Just never satisfying. Just daily meh. So I took this totally crazy breath test (that turns out not to be crazy at all), and have the classic result of SIBO: small intestine bacterial overgrowth.

At first, I thought SIBO was crazy. I thought it was in the league of non-medically-accepted diagnoses, like adrenal fatigue or vertebral subluxation. This could not be a thing. Could it? Well, it is.

I went to a shiny, high end, solidly Western medicine, practically concierge-care type gastroenterologist - and he not only assured me the test for SIBO is very real, but that my results were indeed classic SIBO. His treatment plan, as a second opinion, was extraordinarily similar to my ND's plan.

And that plan starts tomorrow.

It is no easy plan. It is 10 days of very intense antibiotics, while starting a diet that should last from 3 to 12 (or more) MONTHS.

If you know the GAPS Diet - that's what it is. If you don't know it, all you need to know is what I won't be having, for 3 to 12 (or more) months:

• Flour, wheat, barley, rice, corn, oats, cous cous, quinoa, rye, parsnips, white, red and sweet potatoes and everything made of them: tortillas, pasta, bread, cake, cookies, chips, crackers, chips, risotto, pizza.
• Garbanzo beans, kidney beans, fava beans, black eyed peas, butter beans, cannellini beans. 
• Ham, hot dogs, smoked or preserved or processed meat.
• Ketchup! Chocolate! Cocoa! 
• Maple syrup, molasses, sugar.
• Chèvre, gruyere, feta, cottage cheese, mozzarella. 
• Beer (but I don't care about that).

So when I come to your house, or we go out, what can I eat?

• Beef. Lamb. Chicken. Wild Game.
• Eggs.
• Nuts (raw only).
• Ghee, butter, olive oil, avocados, coconut oil.
• Sauerkraut, kimchi, kefir, fermented sour cream and yogurt.

And ok, to be fair, I will be able to eat lots of vegetables and some fruits, too, eventually - and hard cheeses. Eggplant, squashes, onions, garlic, lettuces, carrots, cauliflower, capers, beets, asparagus, pineapple, pears, cherries, and more. But when you look at a list of things you can eat, and things you can't eat - it's hard to stop your imagination. 

So filled with anxiety, and total dread, I've been eating like a madwoman for the last month, since the diagnosis. I've put on another ten pounds. I've been thinking, if I just eat everything I want NOW, I'll be OK on this restrictive diet - which starts out literally with fat, meat and eggs for days before letting other things trickle in (first avocados, then nut butters, then soft lettuces, cucumber, etc, over the weeks that follow).

But I know that's not true. And so tomorrow it all starts. And I ate five pieces of sourdough toast for dinner, and then made a cherry-chocolate cake at 9 PM and ate three big squares. I'm gonna give that bacteria a big ol' feeding frenzy before I boot them out.

August 1: Last full day in Pommern.

(As written in my journal that day; grammar and minor edits only. Italicized portions are additions written after the trip.)

It's CTC day - and through Meggie's excellent manipulative conversation skill with Edward, she's gotten me out and about, assigned alone to the Clinic, and herself over to the primary school - where she has wanted to volunteer since we arrived. 

CTC means Counseling and Test Centres - the HIV/AIDS clinic that serves seven villages, including Pommern. My energy is too low to do justice in describing the inefficiency with which 62 AIDS patients were seen today, at this monthly clinic. It is actually every Thursday, but each patient is on a monthly rotation - first Thursday, second Thursday, etc. They get ARVs or other drugs. And it wasn't the plain, pitiable, understandable inefficiency of no shelves, drawers, computerized lists of patients, or drug inventory. It went far beyond that and I want to do it justice when I have the patience to walk through it in each excruciating detail. 

After a long morning of work, and a late lunch, Meggie and I said our goodbyes to the tech and athletics team at the secondary school, who made Zumba possible, Adrian and Flavian. And then to Nurse Patricia. Meggie's totally hellish morning in the primary school has moved her to an interesting place - from guilt or pity to frustration that people are not helping themselves. I remember my brother being there, then in another phase of compassion, and finally he moved into a sort of Zen acceptance. Acceptance by attrition, maybe!

To try to do this description justice... first you have to imagine a cold morning, and the cement clinic. People "line up" to be "checked in". I use quotes because they sort of stand or sit around, near the door to the children's ward - no kids here today, so apparently it will be the CTC clinic. Every person has already waited outside on the far side of the clinic - the shaded, coldest area - to be tested (I can't see this happening; is it a blood test? A weight on the scale? Something else?) and given a number on a scrap of paper. Then they mill over to the yard in the sunshine, in front of the children's ward, where I sit at a table with another huge bound book in front of me. 

The nurses bark, "Next! Next!" and snap fingers at each patient to hand over their CTC card. They shuffle in, sit down, hand the nurse their card and slip of paper. (Or they don't, appearing as if they've never done this before. The nurse snaps for the scrap of paper, then, too.) A CTC card is a battered piece of card stock bearing their name, village, CTC number (it's a national registry) and instructions on when their clinic meets (what week of the month, what location).

This second line I'm helping with is to create a hard copy record of who showed up today, and whether they'll be getting ARVs or not. So I write their CTC number down, reading it from the card, and then the nurse tells me their village and their age, to fill in the next two lines. The age is asked for (why is it not on the CTC card!?) and if the person does not know, it is guessed at. Then their mystery number is written down and by science I don't understand, I'm told whether to check "ARV" or "No ARV" on the sheet of paper. 

The person is sent out, back into the yard, to mill around in a large group. No order is kept. 

We get through all 62, recorded in the book - the youngest patient is 9, the oldest is 72 - and most are female. The average patient is a woman in her 30s or 40s.

The young man diagnosed on Monday, in front of me and Meggie? He was in the line.

Then, everyone - the nurses, me, all the CTC patients - are herded to the very front part of the clinic yard. We spread out on the ground and on the few benches, sitting just in front of all the junk that's been mysterious to me since we arrived (rusted bed frames, broken old-fashioned wheelchairs, rotted boards, smashed bookshelves), not just for the content, but also because I look at it every day and wonder, in a village with so little, what is the social contract that prevents any item from being stolen? These are not useful wheelchairs or good boards - but surely someone could repurpose them and get great value. However, that sort of theft seems to be neither considered nor allowed; the village rules are clear and illustrated to me, if definitely unspoken.

What we attend, I start to understand, is a lecture on the importance of treating HIV and AIDS. Taking medicine, getting partners and family members tested, and then the longest segment on how it is possible to give birth AND breastfeed, without passing the disease to the baby. There is a young mother, who has AIDS, nursing her baby, and she seems to be telling everyone the baby is regularly tested but is negative, since she is taking her drugs and taking care of herself (she mimes eating food). The lecturers are Nurse Nema and Doctor Elton - and it's not fair that I am hard on Dr. Elton; I mean, yes, he's a dentist, and so that's an easy thing to point at and tease - but he's probably had enough clinical experience to push himself right into internal medicine, right?! 

The lecture is about 30 minutes long - and I'm glad for a seated break, I won't lie. Plus the sunshine warming me a little; it is another cold morning (though the sun is back out today, after being hidden by clouds and drizzle for both days I was home sick). 

Then, all the patients form another half-assed line, and I go back into the children's ward with the nurses. We sit at a table with boxes of drugs, and each person comes in with an old pill bottle. They show the kind they've been taking for a month, and are given a new bottle of the same kind. They also might have a scrap of paper with other prescriptions written on them - usually antibiotics, ibuprofen. 

The people getting ARVs are shit out of luck today; there are none. I'm told the government didn't supply them. No nurse appears to explain whether they should come back next week, out of their usual rotation, or what they should do for a month, being out of pills and all. In my head, I'm screaming, "Of course there is a contingent of Africans who think AIDS drugs don't work and that Americans and Brits are just poisoning their minds! The drugs DON'T work if you don't take them properly!"

A couple people don't have their old pill bottles anymore. We spend 15 or 20 minutes trying to decide what to do. We have to give them what they are used to taking - how can we possibly know if they don't have the old bottle, nor can remember? (There are two choices, friends, of pills to take. Two.)

Nurse Patricia leaves for 20 minutes by my count, with no reason, and comes back so we can pick up again with distributing. While she was out, the other nurses chatted on their phones. The line just stopped outside our door. Meggie said later she saw Patricia having a Coke and a snack at the little coke stand. 

These other drugs are available, for those not getting ARVs - getting what I think is a simpler protease inhibitor combination pill. And hey, they don't send the CTC ARV patients away empty handed... they all get vitamin B12 pills! That'll cure your AIDS.

Charting & Pill Dispensing:

I stay at the Clinic until about 1:30 PM. So in 5 hours, we've made people line up three times. Once to get their number determining ARVs or no. Another time to get registered at attending the clinic, in the big useless book. Then they attend a lecture - and all I can think is, is this something required by USAID or the Tanzanian government, and is the same lecture every week? - and we've made them line up AGAIN to get handed the right pills. When I leave, 9 of the 62 have their pills. It takes until about 4 PM to get all 62 through the lines and process here.

It appears as if this is the first time such a clinic has happened - and we know that's not true. We know this happens Every Single Thursday. 

Why line up three times? Why not see one patient at a time? Why not have pills counted out in a 30-day's supply, instead of waiting to count them out for each person? Why ask their age each time - why not ask them to be ready to supply it? Why record the check-in process in one large useless book, and then record who gets what drugs in a SECOND large useless book? 

And the best part? The second book records only what was prescribed. ARVs? Check. They were prescribed. The fact that they're not fucking available is not recorded anywhere. Check the books, and all looks well. This is Tanzania. 

So - I'm writing this so long after the actual day, I know I've forgotten some details of all the other tiny inefficiencies I witnessed. And as frustrating as it was - and, oh, lordy, it was! - in the middle of it, I sat there, patiently, for hours, waiting for bursts of activity, waiting to be told to record certain data, and generally not trying or wanting to tell anyone what to do. I just took it all in, and with the exception on the one mental scream above, I felt useful in recording the data - because it was something. It was freeing up a nurse's set of hands to actually chat with patients, and touch their shoulders, and look into their eyes. But for me to not want to tell someone what to do, how to do it faster, better, more efficiently... well, that's basically an African miracle! 

July 25: The Best Laid Plans

(As written in my journal that day; grammar and minor edits only. Italicized portions are additions written after the trip.)

Before Edward excused himself last night to go home, he warned Meggie and I that tomorrow, the headmaster would be gone from the secondary school.

"Things may not be as well there tomorrow. When he is gone, Madame Sbarra is in charge, and she can like to hide. She pretends not to see things, her head in the sand, like the ostrich bird. So just be aware of this. And when teatime comes, do not have tea with the teachers. Come back here to the mission house. It won't be good there, and you shouldn't be there at that time. Have some tea and toast here, and then you go back for your next assignments with Onalina in the secretary's office and Adrian for planning the physical exercise."

We walk down early, for a 7:30 AM class of different English students (one 50-minute period, not a double period this time!).

And? Mr. Msugu is out - but his substitute sure is ready for us to take over. And this is in fact the same class of students as yesterday (we were assured it would not be).

!!!

I freak out - inside. I get wide eyed and silent; the sub does not know what lesson we taught yesterday or where this English class is in their curriculum. I think he said he's been teaching for about five months?

But Meggie steps up. She sets the expectation - no, sorry, our plan is to observe and observe only, and here is what we taught in the Standard 3 book yesterday. He says, "Oh, ok, yeah, and then you'll teach the next lesson?" She is firm and says we'll be sitting by, but we can mark the papers - if the homework was indeed done.

It was extremely unclear at the end of yesterday's class whether any homework was assigned. The pat little lesson about Mr. Tortoise included a homework assignment. If you recall, the tale of Mr. Tortoise was a fable about how he ended up with a bumpy and cracked-looking shell. The homework assignment was to write a creative and original story that ends, "And that's why the snake has no ears." 

No small task in your first language, if you ask me - much less your third! However, homework was a vague concept to us - sometimes done at home, sometimes done in class, but always corrected/marked during class time. The sub wanted to know if homework was assigned and we shrugged. It was explained (sort of) while the bell was ringing yesterday; did the students take that to be an assignment due today, or a suggestion? I guess we'll find out - and the sub doesn't seem overly worried about it. 


Teachers are dressed down. The bell rings. Students are slipping in, late to class.

"Good morning teachers!" That rigamarole.

And of yesterday's two star pupils (the two that understood), just one, the boy, has done the homework. The rest of the class just blinks back at us. And his story is wonderful - the Frog convinced the Snake to trade over his ears so that all animals could see and hear equally well, but then took the ears and hopped away quick - not trading in his own eyes to the pile of senses. (Never mind that frogs don't have ears either; the basic concept of his story is there and has enough logic to stand.)

The sub asks who understood the story (it was read by the boy in English, of course). No hands go up. No nods. No eye contact.

The sub has been switching between Swahili and English and now says to the students, "I want to understand why the assignment was not done - what part did you misunderstand? Is it not understanding what creative writing IS or did you not understand what this one assignment was asking, about the snake and the ears?"

So at the sub's direction, our start pupil reads his story again in English, and then paraphrases it in Swahili. I'm soaring, watching eyes light up around the room with comprehension of this specific story and what the assignment was - and perhaps even the very basic concept of creative writing - making up a story from your own mind! - and I'm thinking, oh my gosh, we can explain the 5 W's now, using HIS story! This could be a tiny piece of helpfulness; heck, even writers and journalists in America can use a brush up on the 5 W's from time to time.

And literally as he finishes the Swahili recap, and heads for his seat in the back row among the tallest boys, two young women come in, with tall bamboo sticks. With a swagger. Swinging the sticks. I realize they're teachers, and though dressed very informally they're impressive and intimidating, and I say later to Meggie I thought right away, "They do a very good SS officer impression."

Then they ask all the boys in the back to stand up, shouting at them. Meggie and I are seated in the front and between us is a woman teacher who had a prep period, and rather than work in an office, asked to observe this class so she could, as she whispered to me at the start of the class, "get all the wisdom from you." She whispers to us what they yelling is about.

"The headmaster is gone, and they did not clean their rooms, you know, their dorm areas, this morning, so they have to be punished."

The women begin beating the kids with bamboo sticks. It's not fair to call them sticks; but neither are they quite bamboo poles. Somewhere in between.

They hit them - hard. Full, lean-back and put your back into it, get-a-good-grip and a fulcrum point hitting. Go-all-out beating. A beating that breaks the bamboo sticks eventually - in a few pieces, leaving shards behind and leaving students crying in their wake.

I look away pretty quickly and take in only the sounds - sticks hitting, kids screaming, other kids laughing, some gasping. The women teachers yelling. Ostensibly, it looks like corporal punishment is normally doled out on the palms - but those who don't volunteer their palms up at about head height are beat about the shoulders, back, head.

I look up as the women leave the room, sticks fairly demolished, and many of the children are pointing at each other and laughing, even with tear-stained faces of their own. A couple are quietly crying; many are blowing on their palms to take the sting out. I had to look down as the beating worked toward the crescendo - to not cry, and also because I didn't want to appear to condone it. I ask the teacher sitting with us, "Is this common, is this a regular thing?" and she says it is, but these women are wrong to do it without asking the presiding teacher's permission.

I think I can make it through the rest of class. I haven't looked at Meggie yet.

But then the sub asks us to go. "The students... the students they have a fever now. From this. They cannot learn well now. You go, and you come back another time." I'm a little confused and affirm with him - we should leave? Now? I point outside. Out the front door of the classroom? I point at our own chests. Us? Now? He nods.

We don't make it down the four stone steps before Meggie's losing it; it'll be a little later for me. Instead, you might have guessed, I'm angry at these women - these backwards, gleeful, power-hungry teachers. So ror a second day in a row, we walk up the long red-dust path from the secondary school to the mission house, my arm tightly around Meggie as she sobs and I clench my teeth in anger so hard it hurts.

July 24, Pommern - Real Post.

(As written in my journal that day; grammar and minor edits only. Italicized portions are additions written after the trip.)

Picking up where I left off with yesterday...

Edward asked us for the day's rose and the day's thorn at dinner tonight.

Well, thorns first... so Meggie and I were assigned last night to our first real job: the secondary school. This morning, despite the pained glances last night and anxiety all through breakfast, we were delivered to Mr. Lemphoid Msugu (or at least that's what Edward thinks his name is; Edward is not great with names and I said to Meggie that if he struggles with pronouncing "Lemphoid" then I am perfectly fine calling him Mr. Msugu the whole time, which I can at least pronounce). 

He is an absolutely handsome young man in a sharply tailored narrow suit. The male teachers wear suits here - though they usually don't match coat to pants. And I saw more than one young man with the label still affixed to the outside cuff; I am guessing it looks cool, English writing, rather than incorrect, as it does to me.

With high cheek bones, almond eyes set wide, and a hefty dose of cologne (but hey, considering the alternative, it smells great), Mr. M is so eager to talk with us, to learn from us. We spend the prep hour or 75 minutes he has in the English Department office, talking. (The office is so small that we have to move the lone desk to sit in the two chairs. Then we pull the desk back over our laps, and Mr. M gets another chair to join us. There is now no room to walk in or out of the office, but perhaps the sign on the door is what keeps students away. "No English, No Service." The other English teacher is prepping - by reading a newspaper about futbol. He asks us if we know Thierry Henry and we try to describe America's MLS soccer and how there are few teams nationwide and we're watchers of the NFL (or I am at least), but on in our city, to have a popular team, is very rare... none of it lands. We clearly must live in a place where every city has professional futbol and everyone loves it; Americans are smart and it's a great game; you all love it, right?? Sure.) 

Mr. M asks me how people apply for jobs in America, and not being sure what he means, I stumble to explain that most jobs are posted on the internet, but that you would find one you liked and could do well, and then send in a resume and a cover letter. He doesn't know the word resume - but he does know curriculum vitae, of course, the British version! Then he shows me the lesson he designed on how to apply for a job, and it was excellent. Not only did it teach the proper steps of how to respond to a Help Wanted Ad and how to craft a CV, it was creative enough to teach persuasion (convince the business why you are a good fit), as well as some descriptive and instructional writing. He showed me his lesson on poetry, and a poem he wrote about love using a prompt in the syllabus (book) - and it's not Keats but it's not bad at all! Sprinkled through our time together, he says he is starting a unit on creative writing with his students today - who are about 9th/10th graders.

Since he first mentioned it, Meggie has been furiously writing ideas on how to talk about creative writing - what goes into it? How do you describe such a vast concept to students totally new to the idea? I'd rather ignore the ticking clock. But Meggie is making an outline. Character descriptions, motivations. The 5 Ws. Mr. M has never heard of the 5 Ws and really likes the idea. He asks if we will teach the lesson.

Pause.

Edward told all of us - except those on the water tower base construction project - that today was observation day. We'd be in classrooms (everyone else is at the primary school or the kindergarten; only Meggie and I are at the secondary school) to watch the teachers, and get a sense of the pace, the lessons, the students, the process.

But we stumble. We don't communicate with each other. I answer quickly and suggest we observe for ten minutes, and then take over. I believe the class is 50 minutes long. It's not until we're in the middle of one of those anxiety attacks where everything feels simultaneously sped-up and slowed-down that I realize it's a double period, and class is 100 minutes long.

We go as a group of three to the Academic Office to pick up the books. This is a pink book: English for Tanzanian Classrooms, Standard 3. Madam Sbarra, second in charge behind the headmaster, glares at us from behind her walled-in Academic Office, covered in dust and stacked with messy papers, and checks out the books for two days, begrudgingly. We get eight books - they are beat-up paperbacks in a totally British style, plodding from one little lesson - title, objective, reading, conversation questions, homework - to the next. English in a box, from literal language to concept.

We go to the Standard 3 classroom with the ringing of the bell.

"Good morning, teachers!" greets us all, in a shout.

Mr. M introduces us. There is a bit of giggling and lots of staring. There is a world map painted on the abck wall. Meggie speaks in her teacher voice. "Hello and thank you for having us. We are from America. Here is where we live in America..." and she walks back, through the deep rows, and puts her finger on a green bit of land on the far side of the United States. Boisterous and hysterical laughter erupts. I'm not sure still why this was funny. Was it because it is even farther than the side of America close to Africa?

Mr. M recaps the previous lesson to blank stares (it was about how to identify and complete those various types of writing - descriptive, instructional, persuasive, expository) and then turns to us, sitting on the side, in the front. "Now, you want to teach creative writing?"

"Oh God." Explosively, but under my breath. Just to Meggie. And away we go.

So many things we did wrong, and so much was laid bare. We were fooled yesterday by the uniforms, the polite and well-behaved room of about 56 students (my count was a little shaky; 53? 56?). All, all, ALL the talk of education so far as the only savior from the greater minds around us.

We begin our lesson by reading the story out loud as a group - thank god for Meggie the teacher knowing how to at least start off a lesson; I stand there frozen - and it's like me reading Spanish. I can do it, all day long, reasonably well. But do I know what I'm saying? No, and neither do they. The reading has hit or miss inflection and zero comprehension.

We get to the questions (the best part of class so far was the every-other-paragraph that I read, in an overly animated theatrical style, making them laugh at my expression even if they don't know the words) and it rapidly becomes clear that this is rote memorization at best, and bureaucratic plowing through a fucking British style textbook at worst.

In the next day or two I learn that they say, "Good morning, teachers!" And we say, "Good morning." They reply, "How are you?" and we respond, "Good, and how are you?" and they say, "Fine, thanks for asking!" But if I were to say, "Good morning," and then they asked how I was, and I said, "Why don't you go shit a brick?" they'd say, "Fine, thanks for asking!"

45 kids don't what is going on at all. 10 are muddling through, at 30-40 %. 2, one boy and one girl, get it nearly all of it. 2 of 56. Sharing seven books because sadly, Meggie and I take one to share so we have something to cling to, to teach from. "Teach" from.

The structure of class, the homework and the marking (Brit for grading) - it's all a goddamn sham. At least in America we don't lie to kids. We straight up tell them that money, fame and athleticism equals success and happiness. These lies... that this English class and this joke of an education system is the path to safety, security, income and success? Please. It's just another imperial/colonial trick. Well done, us. Too bad for you.

We're supposed to teach creative writing based on a fable about Mr. Tortoise - and how his selfishness and trickery landed him the bumpy, cracked-looking shell he has today - but they don't understand the fable's actual words, much less their metaphorical meaning or lessons about being kind to others. I don't think they know what a tortoise is. During the vocabulary section - structured AFTER trying to teach metaphorical language!!!! - Mr. M asks me what "great orator" means. Jesus. We need to go back to fundamentals. But these are 9th and 10th graders. That ship sailed. They learn in English all day - WHY!? Teach them about similes, characteristics, and proverbs in fucking Kiswahili! Get the concept in your second language before your third.

And this is one class in one school on one day in all of Africa.

A good school! (They tell us.) A respected school! (They tell us.) But when I give it up as my thorn, even Edward first asks if we marked papers today, or will need to tomorrow.  Bureaucratic habits. They can't go to their next class, see, until marking is done. So you're telling me (I say this in my head, not out loud) that they do the reading, learning, homework AND wait for grading of 56 assignments to take place during class? Well that's a great use of class time. Great use of limited teaching resources. Glad the teachers have hours of prep time each week to pull some non-sensical shit out of a book handed to them by the government and not expand on it at all - but they'll be godddamned if they don't get a 30 minute teatime break with hot mandazi, yes sir. I come to realize all the teaching and learning happens in the classroom and not a minute happens outside of it. Think how hard your teachers worked, and work, outside of the classroom!? My brain hurts. 

But it's not their fault either, and I know it - but to see the entire show, the entire joke of a system in concert with each ridiculous moving part at once, and how generations of this crap got us here... in a single moment... is... overwhelming. Dejecting. Anger and guilt inducing. And then the blame sets in, elsewhere, off the kids and off the teachers and off the system.

I never should have said OK to leading the class after ten minutes (that was actually two). How did I not see the true level they were at? Was the wool pulled over my eyes - as I feel - or is that a cover to protect myself? Why didn't I listen to my intuition when he asked for ten minutes of observation, then teaching? I cry a lot tonight; I hate the lesson of the great pain that comes from ignoring my intuition - but this lesson comes again and again and again, so I have much to learn.

And I ignored it because I can't say no here.

Sure, I can say no to giving away all my money. I can say no to food or water I know will make me sick. I can say no to things I'm too afraid to try - walking outside at night. But I can't say no to an emotional ask - there are no boundaries when it comes to a rural African teacher with just a year and four months' tenure asking me to pick up a book, in English, and teach it, in English.  I don't get to say no to that. That's an entitled person's boundary to set.

But then here I am, having not let myself set it, sobbing to Meggie, and in so doing failed myself and failed Mr. Msugu.

We let him show the kids that he thinks we're superior - and what? After two weeks, we go, and the next white American volunteer is also superior? We all are? There's my imperial system. It was our job to empower him by observing, encouraging, and maybe later suggesting. Our job to build him up and assist and serve him. I failed at it, because I couldn't listen to my inner voice and because I couldn't set a boundary, and that first world issue results in me causing hard to the third world. And with the tiniest bit of time I get to spend here, using it to hurt?... that feels significant enough to make me want to run away right now.

July 24, Pommern: Preview Post.

(As written in my journal that day; grammar and minor edits only. Italicized portions are additions written after the trip.)

Today is the day I don't want to write about. So before I start, a couple notes...

• When Mamatony cooks us a chicken for dinner, it is a plucked, chopped-up and complete hen. Lungs? Still shriveled in a little duo, inside the tiny skeleton chicken ribcage, sitting in the pot, staring at the last person or two in line, too late to get decent meat. How happy I was tonight to be in the line a bit earlier and have a dark meat leg available! Unlike 11-year-old Michael, I could find the meat. And it was wonderful. Protein, my friend. 

• In case you remember, and are wondering about, the solar repairman who rode all day with us from Dar... well, he fixed it! But no one knew that while he may be a solar expert, he is not also a plumber. So the heater part works - but it can't be hooked up to the house, and alas, no hot water will be flowing from our faucets any time soon. We're told it could be next week, but that's our last week, and I find the optimism amusing. It must be to keep us quiet?  

I realize I haven't filled you in on showers and water yet. We have a bathroom with two Western toilets behind stall doors, and two shower stalls beyond that. There is another little sink near the dining room table. That one gets a lot of use - hand washing whenever we enter the house, before we eat, before we make coffee or eat peanut butter from the tea table. The sinks all have pump soap - Tanzanian soap with English writing, something along the lines of DOUBLE EXTRA SUPER CLEAN XX SCRUB YOUR SKIN OFF IT IS SO TOUGH! Or similar. 

I started calling the toilets "magic toilets" after the first morning. The water comes from a gravity-flow system, so it works best when the big black tanks, high up on a tower outside the house, are very full. But I don't really know when this happens. All I know is: the magic toilets are thus named because a flush gets rid of the water, but nothing else. Everything in the bowl stays there, and the water just drains away slowly, and then refills. Magic! Right?! Replace the water but keep the contents! Within minutes of walking in the door on the first day, I had to put away my inner clean freak. The toilets have dried chunks of... stuff... on the outside, and each has a couple brutally strong developing-world mothballs behind them (probably made by the XX SOAP COMPANY). We're cryptically told these help "with the smell". What smell? I don't want to know. I only smell mothball. 

And if you've never used TP in the developing world, well, suffice to say the world's great paper processing IS great - and it is saved for the Western world, most especially for America. This stuff is far closer to cardboard and it flakes onto your pant leg and the ground around you just unwinding it off the roll. 

When it comes to the two slightly spongy-floored showers, with random nails for hanging your items, they do indeed turn on - with cold water. And here I would point out again how cold we've all been each night and well into the morning, just to say this isn't tropical "cold" water; this is truly cold! The lone male volunteer tried to shower the first morning, and he made us laugh with an imitation of trying to force his body under the water. He couldn't do it. He got a slight shampoo but that was it; no other body part would endure the discomfort. I'll spoil the shower surprise to say that our fantastic family of volunteers brought FIVE sun showers! (Six actually, but one broke.) 

We put them out on the cement block each morning and by about 4 PM, they are anywhere from 90 to 110 degrees - amazing. We end up sharing a bag with a friend about every other day - for example, I hang a bag in the shower stall (and by the end of next week, we've broken a few nails with the weight) and go first for about 3 minutes with a "navy shower" and then Meggie goes next, with the final 3 minutes of water. It's a weak spray, and it's navy style - and I have hands-down never been so refreshed by running, splashing water in my entire life as I am on the days I take one here. We take them in the afternoon and I feel like a new person. Meggie takes one in the morning one day - by adding cups of boiling tea water to the now-cool bag to get tepid water. And you guessed it. She runs out of water with a head full of shampoo! I, on the other hand, don't waste water on my hair, sheesh! So this is six days of no hair-washing, just before I get back to Dar and a real shower and wash it twice:

Pictured are the blessed sun shower bags in the backyard on the left side of the frame. Useless solar power machine is center/rear, behind the pole.

• You know how you always think of a thing to say in response... too late? This time I got it in real time! The adult helping our teenage volunteers and young villagers on the brick project today (water tower base to add gravity flow and water storage tanks to the secondary school kitchen, pictured below, completed brickwork) said that the village young men were so slow - and our Global Volunteers kids were faster. "This is why things here take so long! This is why they don't get done, or done on time. I mean, we were working much harder than they were." I replied, "Well, you did have a warm shower and a hot meal, with more than enough to eat. I don't think those other guys did." And I'll say this - she took it with total grace and kindness. She was truly thoughtful and said back to me, "Huh, yeah. I hadn't thought of that," as she wandered away. 

And now, rather than go two days without posting to the blog, I'm leaving this as a cliffhanger. 

As I wrote in my journal in the first line - and it's there, you can ask John, he saw it - this really was the  first day I didn't want to write about. It was too hard, and I made too many mistakes. So I'm going to wait until tomorrow to post the real journal entry, and hope you enjoyed this Preview Post. 

July 23, Pommern Intro Day.

(As written in my journal that day; grammar and minor edits only. Italicized portions are additions written after the trip.)

Breakfast: oatmeal (already sugared and margarined), toast, jam, peanut butter, bananas, a thin delicious omelette with green onions in it.

We start with a tour of the secondary school, introduction to the entire staff and greetings from the headmaster. That is followed by a tour of the primary school, and introduction to the principal there. Then we visit Edward's home, the kindergarten/pre-primary school, and have lunch.

Primary school-age kids... after classes in the first pic, and in uniforms in the second:

Inside the secondary school classroom: the smell is the kind that you'd describe as knocking you over. I'm one of the first volunteers to walk in, so I get to watch all the other faces when the smell hits. How do you teach in this? Hormonal 10th graders in dirty shirts, sweaters, wool skirts or pants, socks, shoes - with unbrushed teeth and unwashed bodies. All the cliches are here today - rows of well-behaved, eager looking students. Primary children with snotty noses, ugali-smeared mouths and flies flitting in their eyes. Classrooms with crumbling walls, stained and incomplete books, old and uneven desks. The vat of ugali is hissing and steaming in the late morning, in the school kitchen (the secondary school is a co-ed boarding school, as all in Tanzania are by law). The porridge for the primary school (non boarding) looks like a thinner, watered-down version of the ugali to me. This brings it home - the food. I am intensely struggling with the guilt of being taken care of so well - we have more than enough food, bottled water, beds, clothes.

At the secondary school, we meet all the teachers during their teatime - mandazi and hot tea. Mandazi is  like a fritter, like a lump of fry bread, a doughnut - it is what you make the world over when you have flour, fat, sugar and oil. The headmaster, Haran, used to have Edward's job with Global Volunteers and   we are told he rules the school with a tough approach. Many of the teachers are in their first job, and all board here with the students; few are from the village. 

At the primary school, we only peek into a classroom but meet with the principal. We find out the wells have been turned off here because the handles have been broken off, again and again, but the students playing with them, or pushing on them, causing them to leak. When a leak is spotted, the water is turned off, but then they can't wash their faces or get a cup of water after lunch. 

At school, breakfast is porridge (corn, sugar, water). Lunch is porridge (corn, sugar, water). Teachers have no breakfast but have mandazi at 10:30 AM teatime. Dinner, if available at home for primary school kids, is ugali (corn, water, salt) and greens, or ugali and beans. (Secondary school kids get the same, and a piece of banana, at school.) At the secondary school, they get rice rather than corn on Sundays, and an orange rather than bananas with dinner, for a treat. Meat gets a passing mention to me, but I can't really tell if it served every Sunday, or less often than that. 

The drinkers take out a bottle of wine at lunch today. I find it fascinating; this is a sort of drug against the intensity of what we just saw. I didn't partake, per the pact with Meggie (neither did she), because I don't want to be relieved of the experience intensity at all. But then again, my struggle seems likely to be about allowing myself any relaxation with, or enjoyment from, the billion Western conveniences in my little suitcase pile.

Here's a building in the village... and some tough chickens. How tough? Tough enough that our 11-year old fellow volunteer, at one point, holds his drumstick up to his dad and says, "I can't find the meat!" I guess these chickens work hard to stay alive too and are not slaughtered until they're probably a couple years old. They largely run wild, but some folks keep them fenced in (if they can afford to build and maintain a fence).

Another building; no one living in the crumbling part on the right, but living in the part on the left.

The carpenters, using hand tools. Each night we scoop up some shavings to get our fire started.

Earlier this morning, four of the other ladies continue telling us how they never wear skirts at home and how unusual it would be to even OWN one (we've been hearing this since our first night dinner, as we discuss what we've packed to wear, and how well we hewed to the directions - which asked us to wear knee-length or longer skirts/dresses in the village). I am overcome with anger. This community agrees to host Global Volunteers all the time and they are a people deeply uncomfortable with a woman in pants - and you can't relent on that one single fucking point? You like pants, so you can't give at all? When the imbalance is so enormous, how can you not feel ashamed for your unwillingness?

After lunch, we tour the clinic, then the orphan center (see brief description below), and meet the Roman Catholic priests. I'll save the clinic description and photos to go along with the journal entries from the days I worked there (next week). 

In the village there are two churches - Roman Catholic and Lutheran. The Catholics include real friars - men in long burlap-like brown robes who go barefoot. The Roman Catholic church is also a whole lot nicer than the Lutheran one - as are their schools and centers, when we walk up there to say hello and later to share donations. Both churches divide all volunteer supplies - clothes, medications, school supplies and entertainment - with each other. 

The Roman Catholic volunteers are all Italian (as are many of the friars and priests). This explains what the little children have been yelling to us since we arrived, whenever we walk through the village... either "Hi!" or "Ciao!". They don't know if the mzungu are Italian or American, but one of those words will work! In fact, I find it easier to hear "Ciao" than I do "Goot Even Eng" - which is "Good evening". 

On the walk back, we pop into a small shop selling skirts, purses, baby carriers, aprons and hairbands. They are made in the back room on sewing machines by young women; we find out that single motherhood is a "growing problem" in Pommern, and this was started to give them a job and income. I speak with Edward about this on another day; he asks what Americans do about the same "growing problem" in our country. The sewing is beautiful and while there are only brief tourist-volunteers like us to shop there, they are clearly modeling the shop and process on something like Neema Craft and are starting to, with the help of energetic Italian Roman Catholics, sell in other villages and towns, and take special orders.

Nighttime. I'm exhausted. I moved today to the unused single room; no one else wanted it and Meggie assured me she didn't feel hurt or abandoned by the move.

The just-before-dinner visit to the center for orphans and disabled kids pretty much broke me for the day. (It's a day-only drop-in care center for those being raised by aunts or grandparents who can't afford to feed them all three meals, and for disabled kids who need attendance while family works in the fields.) Stop having babies! Stop for ten years and imagine how we could solve some problems! But the visceral experience of poverty is even more overwhelming that I thought. That's not even a fair assessment because I didn't think I was so blind to it - the totally decrepit conditions in which is almost feels like a joke to try and learn in.

What can one old Acer laptop teach a child about thriving in today's work world? And the schools are more highly attended by girls than boys - good. The people here are happy about this! But this one primary school of two in the village, and the lone secondary school, in a village of 4,000.

There are a billion other people living this way on this continent and all day I felt it was superficial to want a warm shower and to have clean hands before dinner, but tonight I'm understanding the puritanical roots of the American cleanliness obsession, and the best intentions behind all the bizarre cleaning products, douches and personal hygiene products - heck - even Febreeze! You can build someone a house here but it'll still get tracked with red dust and filled with cooking smoke because it's not like NW Natural is coming in to hook up the gas stove, or like they'll suddenly know how to cook well over a modern stove.

Watching the sunset. Again tonight, I think that Africa's wild beauty - and it is so beautiful and expansive and vibrant in all the natural wonders - mocks me. The beauty isn't doing a damn thing to save any children or protect their health. It seems to have only drawn in money that never reaches the people, and has brought in jerks who want a piece for themselves and to put up a wall so no one can see in. I can't even appreciate the beauty. It feels like a theft - I have all the medicine, all the clothes, all the education, water, footwear, health, money and opportunity - and I greedily want to soak this up too???

The rural beauty of Pommern, in the late afternoon light:

But is that, I realize, an us versus them model of thinking, perpetuated? Is that saying the pie of natural beauty is only so big and can only serve so many, and that if I take some to enjoy, it will leave others without? Will it be stealing a moment of contentment and relaxation from a Pommerini?

That's crazy, I know - and yet knowing it's crazy still doesn't stop it. I can't write anymore, I know this negative thinking will spiral. Off to bed.

July 20, Afternoon Part 2. Dar Es Salaam (Haven of Peace)

(As written in my journal that day; grammar and minor edits only. Italicized portions are additions written after the trip.)

We drive to the National Museum of Tanzania, through a mini traffic jam, and I see the first women wearing pants, as well as tourists dressed even more inappropriately than me. Along the water we see one naked man, shaking out his clothes to get dressed, and I presume they are the only set he owns. There are endless people waiting by the road. For what? Buses? I've read that when Americans see this, they usually interpret idleness, laziness, boredom, unemployment. But I don't think that. I think, how frustrating to have to wait on an uncertain timetable, maybe for your whole life. How annoying to not be at work when you want to - or to not be doing what needs doing. To not be caring for yourself, for your family, but to be waiting. Again and again.

The grounds of the museum are well kept, and beautiful even in the heat.

We don't stand out in Dar as we thought we would. There are some catcalls, some glances, but no open staring. There are tourists (you can tell by their clothes, not always by their race) from Asia, Europe, America. We ask our driver if there are a lot of tourists and he says, "Oh yes. Too many."

The museum begins with a bit of African bureaucracy, as Paul Theroux warned of. And while we're warning of things, let me warn you: Paul's Dark Star Safari has been my preparation, guide and still-current companion. Poor Meggie must already be sick of sentences that begin, "Paul says..." or "As Theroux tells me..."

So.

Paul says the bureaucracy in African can be Rube Goldbergian. And here, we sign the foreign visitor registry, outside the gates, separate from the Tanzanian visitor book. It is manned by a serious government employee, and there a handful of his friends hanging around his glassed-and-barred-in kiosk. Then we go inside where it takes two more government employees to charge admission and fill out a lengthy handwritten carbon copy receipt, have us sign, and only then can we enter. No one else is in line, and we see no more than ten other (foreign) visitors in the museum. It's a nice winter Saturday, so this should be our first clue about the desirability of the destination.

It's heartbreaking. It appears that the printouts on old blue paper in Swahili and English are attempting explain everything under the sun that has touched Tanzania... but briefly, badly, and without real examples nearby. The history of the geology, geography, hunting, animals, artwork, human evolution, and AIDS are illustrated with pictures but few real items. Where an American museum would have prehistoric art, this museum has a bad reproduction of prehistoric art, or even worse, a picture of artwork that is surely housed in Paris or New York. The hunting display notes the use slavery in the ivory trade, and I tell Meggie to pose - she says she'll stand there but, "I'm not smiling in front of this!"

Our driver is very happy we're taking time to look thoroughly but he corrects us when we forget to take photos of things he believes we should be capturing. He is also very interested in our cameras, and puts me in front of the animal display and tells me to smile. I give a big, broad smile and he says, "Great picture!" while reluctantly handing the camera back. We're getting better at hearing through the Tanzanian accents, and as Paul would write it, he says, "Grate piktchuh." 

I was not especially interested in posing in front of the saddest and most deflated examples of taxidermy I've ever seen (plus an elephant skull), but my low interest was not as powerful as my desire to respect and please him. So, as a result, you get this:

Through the museum, I continue thinking of the slightly adventurous breakfast and feel waves of nausea. Warmth. Worry. When we leave, he asks do we want to go one more place? No, I say, I better get back. Turns out, to spoil the next 36 hours' surprise for you: I do not end up getting sick. And Meggie reminds me later that jet lag is a full-body experience, and can include nausea, dizziness and that strange disembodied feeling.

Photos below:

• The display of human evolution; 
• The bush artifacts display (and we'd go on to buy a basket exactly like the one on the right edge, making "artifact" a pitiful and angry joke to me, as these are still items in use everyday);
• An ancient bike, possibly with mud wheels;
• Plastic snakes in the biology "hall" (a small room). If you're going to have plastic snakes on display, why choose to keep the case so empty? Why not cram it full of things to label, write about, and look at?

The dioramas of rural life puzzle me. Like the sandals made of car tires that are described as something "someone might wear out of economic necessity". Like, you mean, someone I'll probably meet out in the street in a few minutes!?

In the first photo, those ropes - I didn't even notice until now. They increase my sorrow. Protecting a dusty display of manufactured plaster skulls and a peeling poster of the globe? I'll come to realize this is a pattern in Tanzania where I see an intense focus on the wrong things, in the wrong order. Not cell phones first but roofs. Not ropes to protect the gallery but a real historic display. Not matching school uniforms and a long school day but teachers trained properly and lessons that build on each other to achieve true learning. 

Tanzania was German East Africa until the end of WWI, when it became a British protectorate until independence in 1961 (followed by eventual union with Zanzibar, creating Tangyanika + Zanzibar = Tanzania in 1964).

I'm fascinated by the German automobiles displayed outside under an awning, the photo of a German Bwana being carried on what is called a "hammock" in the English description, and the metal Imperial coat of arms:

But the most amazing display to me is the one on HIV and AIDS. There is a photo of the current president of Tanzania, President Kikwete, getting an AIDS test. He's the first president to do so (!!!) and was setting an example for the country to follow. Most of the display makes little sense - including a few cartoons, showing (I think?) the increasing attention paid by the media and donor groups to AIDS. Can you explain either of these to me?

And then the AIDS chair, with the classic red ribbon...

 ... interesting for the description...

It reads at the end, "Red colour was chosen to symbolize blood and danger. The tails of the ribbon pointing down was chosen to symbolize life flowing away."

That is the Tanzanian National Museum in a nutshell.

July 20, Morning. Dar Es Salaam. (First Full Day In TZ.)

(As written in my journal that day; grammar and minor edits only. Italicized portions are additions written after the trip.)

I'm overwhelmed by fear about food and water - too many awful stories told me before my flight and as Meggie and I realized - I've had food poisoning before and she never has. (Or the old joke - there are two types of people in the world. Those who have had food poisoning and those who have not. Yet.) Hence my fear of it and her fear of other things. Other things = bugs. Bugs that carry malaria or yellow fever or sleeping sickness.

And being overwhelmed by fear caused me to rebel this morning and eat the traditional dish served at hotel breakfast along with the American offerings. Stewed salad of some sort. All the wrong things. Lettuce. Bell Peppers. Bits of firm white fish. Am I tempting fate? Time will tell. It was a bad decision, I am now thinking, but on the other hand, if I don't get sick, then I'm going to feel immune to the current fear gripping me for the rest of the trip. Self-imposed immersion therapy of some sort?

-- -- -- 

At this point, we're waiting for our fellow volunteers to arrive. We think we see a pair of them but are wrong. Then we see a family - 4 kids and mom and dad - and sure enough, they are 6 of our group! We have until 6 PM tonight (Saturday) to spend as we wish, until the program formally begins, and that means lots of journaling on this day, and a bit of sightseeing in Dar. 

Meggie and I decide to say "screw the jet lag" and hire a taxi driver to take us to see Dar. The front desk clerk is a little confused; there is nothing to see in Dar. Tourists go to Zanzibar or off on safari; this is a layover, not a destination. She suggests the National Museum and the main fish market - they're near each other and will fit into the 2-3 hours we want to spend exploring before it will likely be pre-dinner-naptime. 

Boats on the ocean outside the hotel, and Meggie on the bay:

Too perfect.

Paid my bullshit arts head tax today. The one that is going to get found illegal, overturned, and I'll see my money back someday soon. The captcha to process my online payment?

MUST PHOULYA

You ain't just whistling Dixie!

(im)Maturity

Is it a sign of maturity or immaturity when in the middle of making a mistake or acting in a way you know you will regret, you recognize it - immediately?

It doesn't happen later... it happens exactly as the words are coming out of your mouth. Precisely when you're standing there quietly, and failing to ask for what you want and is completely reasonable.

This little, tiny, tinny, scratchy voice inside whispers, "It's OK to stop talking about this and abruptly change the subject. Couldn't be more awkward than it already is!" Or, "It's OK to ask for one of those to yourself - it wasn't assumed you would even share in the first place, so don't be forced to. Just ask."

Maybe someday, when I'm all growed up like a big kid, I'll recognize these mistakes the split-second before they happen? Instead of during? Or after?

But, ah, perhaps that right there is the height of immaturity.

Before? So you can be what, Emily; perfect? Serene all the time, and never ever unprepared, never stepping into muck or talking faster than your mind can think?

So the same quiet voice may in fact be saying to me right now, as I try to let the last week or so go and fall asleep, "Be grateful to recognize the mistake at all, much less in the bungling middle of it. That's an improvement! And don't cling to the notion you'll stop making mistakes. You only do that when you're dead. These mistakes are going to keep coming. The grace is in refusing to let them clobber you. And in going to sleep without feeding them."

In the parking lot...

... of the Fred Meyer this weekend, I watched a man move his groceries from cart to truck. His truck was parked two spots away from the cart corral - and two spots away from a median. What did he do with his cart? He dragged it up onto the median, precariously perched there - which was the exact same distance away from him as the corral.

The point here is that I'd like to be a little less observant. I'd like to see fewer things going on around me. I think it would be better for my blood pressure and the world overall if I was spaced out more often, in my head, wandering along not noticing things. Any tips?

Coda #1 - ! ! !

A coda to the theft story... as I was thunderclouding my way back home that night, I was stuck at a very long light waiting for the crosswalk to clear, with another woman. I realized I was thunderclouding her, and that wasn't very nice, so I gave a slight smile. She shivered and said, "It's cold!" I said, "I know! August, it's crazy!"

"Gonna be hot this weekend though."

"Yup, it will be nice."

"Last one probably, of the summer."

"Yeah."

Aaaaand we're still waiting on the crosswalk signal. We're leaning on the sandwich board fro the Zumba class.

"You know," I said, as I tapped the sandwich board, "I was just in this dance class, and four kids came in to join, and one of them stole $20 from the teacher!"

"Well, people need money."

"Excuse me? And stealing is the way to get it?"

"I'm just saying, working people don't have enough. You have to do stuff."

"What?! And stealing is the way to go about it?!"

As she turned the corner out of the crosswalk one way, and I went the other, she gave me a shrug, and a "well...."

I shouted something as I walked away, and I was so upset I can't even remember what.

So maybe these kids were sent by a relative, parent or guardian to thieve.

And in the sputters of my anger, I should have turned around and said, "Need money? Maybe you could try teaching dance classes for money. Or sure, just tell teenagers it is OK to steal. You know what lady, you deserve the bad day it looks like you're having and I'm sorry you're such a miserable asshole."

Tell me how to heal this.

At Zumba class tonight, 4 kids showed up a bit after it began, and stood in the back of the room. One was little, 7 or 8, with her older sister, maybe 14. They were tapping their toes. The teacher invited them in to be in the ballroom with us.

The older sister seemed to have a very sweet boy with her, who was crushing on her enough to dance Zumba with us! And the 4th one - maybe 13?, maybe 14? hard to say with boys that age - sat in the back, in the lone chair in the ballroom. Which is right behind the computer where the music is played from.

He watched, he laughed when we tried to get him come dance. I admit, my inner control freak wanted to give them the boot - what if they got hurt and hadn't signed a waiver? What about how they didn't pay, which is a loss to our amazing teacher? But I let the part of me win who respects authority - and I let the teacher, or more senior folks in the class, make the decision.

They left as we did our cool-down stretches.

I got a round of high-five's from my classmates on the 15-pound weight loss I'm now up to, combining Weight Watchers and Zumba.

And then I walked out, and picked up a water bottle that had fallen on the ground.

And another woman picked up a wallet that had fallen on the ground. She flipped it open, "Whose is this?"

And I looked at the ID. "That's R's. That's our teacher's wallet."

Sure enough, the kid in the back kept his eyes on us while he fished out her wallet and stole $20. He left her ID, her credit cards, her health insurance card - which is pretty important for a cancer survivor turned Zumba instructor.

I am enraged. This foments distrust in my neighborhood. This foments fear of teenagers, roamin' around in packs like they do. This encourages a really nice teacher, who was embracing the experience of letting some kids come dance with us - one of whom could certainly benefit from a good cardio class even at a young age, as she was rather heavy, and see that working out can be fun - to become hardened and wary.

Look, I don't care if he needed the money (and I don't believe for a second he did). I don't care if he has parents at home who ignore him or no parents at all. I don't care if he is teased for being a slow reader, a bad football player or too feminine. He came into our little fun workout world and stole money. And for the cost of $20, he sent home a room full of women with negative feelings, increased distrust and a reminder to not be kind, open, loving, or soft with the rules once in a goddamn while.

And don't you dare tell me our teacher could have made a better decision and not let them in, or made them sign their names, or not let him sit in the chair. She could have. But that comes awfully, awfully close to victim-blaming. And to use a more typical victim-blaming line: a short skirt did not a rape create. This kid stole. End of story.

So tell me. How do I heal that hurt? Sure, we students could pay our teacher back - but that's not the real loss, that's not her real pain, and if I come across that kid in my neighborhood, he better be fucking ready.

Facebookin'

Thing on Facebook that is incredibly weird: a profile photo of you, in your wedding dress, standing next to your dad. Putting that on Facebook is fine. Having it as your profile is creepy. I am unsure if that's groom or parent.

Thing on Facebook that is terribly good: all you people who have not set up your privacy settings! I love to see a person from high school who tortured me and is now fat and living in Idaho! I am terribly mean, it's true, but it's also true that you should set up privacy settings if you do not want to be on the receiving end of such schadenfreude. Privacy settings are good even if you were nice in high school, and no matter how thin you may be or far from Idaho may you live now.

Thing on Facebook that is terribly bad: the people who I am friends with that prompt a reaction in me of utter negativity. Whether it is an ex or an acquaintance that I can't seem to de-friend or someone who uses it solely for self-promotion and never, ever, has a dialogue, I manage to seek them out when I am feeling blue and trolling their profile just immediately turns my azure into navy. Boo. When will I learn to stay away?

Theft.

I would like to be smart enough to have said this, but I am not, so I must give credit to N where credit is due.

We saw Meek's Cutoff the other day, which I recommend highly - she liked it, I liked it AND John liked it! It's by a NW filmmaker, who made Old Joy and Wendy and Lucy and it has a similar feel to it, while being a grand Western like you've never seen before.

N said of the film, and the filmmaker, "If her movies were in French, she would be hailed as a master of existentialism and as an auteur of grand scope... a cinematic genius! But since her movies are in English, people think eww, they're boring." Nail. On. The. Head.

Go see Meek's Cutoff! Give Kelly Reichardt some of your intellectual love!

A simple test

You know prescription drugs? The pain killing kind? Maybe you had them when you had your wisdom teeth out, or when you broke a finger playing flag football? There's percocet, there's hydrocodone. You know what I'm talking about right, right?

Well, I have a simple test to find out if you're a fucking moron. (Yes, I'm angry.)

There's a common, brand-name drug in this family, and if you call it OxyCotton, instead of the proper name of OxyContin, then congratulations! You missed the letter N! You've annoyed me to a TEN on the 0-to-10 scale! You're a moron! I assume you can barely read, much less critically think, and you've failed my simple test! Woohoo!

*This message brought to you by the medical marijuana advocates and opponents on OPB's
"Think Out Loud" who BOTH mispronounced it.
And a hearty thank you to Emily Harris who pronounced it right,
marking a rarely-seen pro in her majorly tilted-toward-con column.

YouTube Thursday: 1 min, 33 sec.

Have you seen this? If you have not seen this clip of Bill O'Reilly misunderstanding the phrase "play us out" in the context of a television show wrapping up, and then TOTALLY losing it, you must.

Why?

Because the next time we hang out, I might shout "Do it live!" or "Fucking thing Sucks!" or "Fuck it, do it live!" in response to a totally unrelated question or comment, and you will want to know why.

(This is, clearly, NSFW and NSFChildren.)

#1 of 5

With no hesitation...
it is typing.

I'm not forgetting to email you, I'm not letting texts pile up. I'm saving myself a frustration level through the roof and saving my husband yet another cranky remark by not typing. CALL ME. Otherwise, I'll respond after March 2nd when this damn thing comes off.

Enter the Feminist.

I am really tired of having to soften my feminist views. So, instead of being tired of it, I'm giving it up. I no longer fear being called a Feminazi, and I'm no longer letting it slide by when something sexist or purposely/offensively heteronormative (or cisgender, if I want to be even more sensitive) gets tossed out there. I'm calling bullshit on it, and I don't have to have a sense of humor anymore.

When I was younger, I had no sense of humor about it and it was annoying. Because I was 19 and didn't know much about the world. But ten years of trying to be friendly and palatable about feminism is enough. I've seen a little more of the world now, and if something isn't funny or creative or thoughtful, I am not going to be the one who softens it with niceties.

Why all the ire? Did someone discriminate against me recently? Nope, not at all. I went to the annual Planned Parenthood Lunch in Portland this week, for the regional PP provider, and it fired me up.

There are a couple gems from the keynote that I want to share, but I'll start with the most-quoted line from it, regarding the protesters who claim PP targets black women and black babies, thus (in the theory of the great keynote speaker) associating donations to PP with racism, and driving away support:

These people are the pimples on the ass of time.

Man, she was great.

A new one.

First, you have to know how much I hate to be hot. I HATE IT. When hot, I become furious and mean and itchy and snap at people.

The downtown Portland shopping and in-out, in-out from store to store was making me hot. My rain coat keeps me warm, which is not good on a rainy day that is also 55 degrees (this is warm to a Westerner). Up four flights of stairs to my car in the lot, and I had the windows rolled down for some air, puttering toward the freeway entrance.

When I was panhandled WHILE SITTING IN TRAFFIC.

That's a new low, even for the clean, intelligent-looking, 21 year old young man with matching clothes and a Helly Hansen backpack. Does it seem remotely likely that walking up to my open window as I'm easing off the brake, and asking for change, is going to elicit a "yes"?

Gah. Chalk it up to Sunday Blues, perhaps.

I just gave a firm "no" and kept all commentary to myself - 'tis the season, after all.