A Whole Lotta Nothin' Goin' On

I'm stuck in neutral over here - in the next couple days, I'll get the SIBO Test #2 results. As I've said, I'm certain it's not gone - but I'm dying to know what the reduction is. In half? Less? More? How much bacteria do we think is still in there, wreaking havoc?

But in the meantime, there's a whole lotta nothing going in, dietarily. I've admitted that almond flour and me don't get along. Things seem to be better with coconut flour, but I have more experimenting to do this week. It really is like the universe is trying to take away ALL my food joys. At least I still have peanut butter, and I'll be giving that up with cold, dead fingers, trust me.

I haven't added in many new foods; I'm still figuring out what amounts of the existing list of 25 or so are good, and which cause belly aches or bad poops. And it's getting depressing. I don't get to participate. At work, I ordered ice cream sandwiches - even gluten free ones, and vegan ones. But no makes a grain free, refined sugar free ice cream sandwich. I order lunch for the whole company every Friday, but I never get to eat it. I put out the snack jars a couple times a week, but there are no snacks for me. It's boring. It's isolating. It's frustrating and at some point, if I don't start getting healthier, the depression is going to outweigh the striving for health, and I'll go back to the SAD. (Standard American Diet.)

But know this, friends. Maranatha nut butters? They all contain cane sugar of some sort! Those little liars. Give me Justin's every day of the week.

July 29 into 30: A long Pommern night.

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

I think of John forcing me to drink water the last time I had food poisoning - so I try hard to be my own pusher, and keep hydrated. I spent the day at that clinic. I'm not putting myself in a position to have to go there!

Hour on the hour, I'm up - and it is worse each time, more violent. I may never eat peanut butter again after the taste of those noodles and weird sauce coming back up. Everyone is so thoughtful but I besieged by anxiety. How long will this last?

I don't want to be alone, and Meggie is the best nurse - we move rooms to be in one vacated by Peg and Nancy. Their room has a bathroom! Meggie puts on some music for me (precious battery life on the iPhone), gets me an extra blanket - I'm freezing - and half a case of water bottles. I want music with no words, and she makes me chuckle - the piano music she has is from an album called Dark Night of the Soul.

At one point I say, "Meggie, some day this is going to be a funny story."

The generator lights go out - must be around 10 PM - and thus I'm on the hourly puke-and-shit round. I've been able to do one, then the other, but can feel myself losing strength to walk very far, strength to carry my bucket in with me. (Thank god Meggie got me a bucket - I was so sure I wouldn't need it...)

Fluffing up a famous quote, our family friend Dennis is known for saying, "It's always darkest before it goes completely fucking black."

I sit on the throne. I am going to have just enough time to turn and flush before I have to vomit.

Pull. Pull on the chain. Pull on the chain again. Stuck, stuck. No movement. Nothing. "Meggie! Meggie!" I shout, as I realize it. "There's no water!"

"It's ok then, it'll be back on in the morning."

And standing there I look at the shower drain hole in the floor, and the unflushed toilet. Gotta do it. And so I vomit into the bowl, filling it further - a classic scream-puke, if you're familiar (second definition at that link). I'm also crying, just to add another liquid-shedding bodily function to the mess, and I stumble back to the bed - I've given up on fiddling with the mosquito net, and am just leaving it up, so let's hope that puking up the malarone is not putting me at any risk.

I'm out of breath and lay there, panting, sweating. Meggie has left - to get Joe, it turns out. He brings an unused half-bag sun shower; the water is cold now and he's going to fill the toilet tank with it (I unknowingly used the last flush an hour ago).

"Oh no, no, don't look in there," I half-call out.

"Oh, please. I'm a veterinarian," he says. "And I have four kids," he adds as he lifts the toilet seat. "Eh! It's nothing." Later I think that he looked to be sure there was nothing dangerous going on - blood or anything - since he's the closest thing we have to a doctor. I mean - it's him or Dr. Elton, the dentist at the clinic!

He fills the tank, flushes, fills it again, and comes out. "OK, you've got one more good flush in there for a bit. Need anything?" I sort of moan. Meggie tells him we're alright.

Eventually the two bodily functions merge into one, and I have to hold the bucket on my lap, and then dump it into the shower drain or toilet after using the throne - the bucket contains such clear liquid it looks like water you could drink. There is literally nothing left in me.

When I come shuffling back to bed again, and lay down, Meggie is hovering above me. "Here, drink some water!" She looks anxious. I'm out of breath from the sheer act of full expulsion and gasp, "Just give me a second!" I have to catch my breath before I can drink water - with that awful knowledge that I am providing my body with exactly what is going to be coming back up again, so painfully, soon.

A little while later, the water comes back on.

At about 1 AM, I awake but am able to ride out the urges, and I fall into something a little like sleep, a little like passing out.

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 22, Iringa to Pommern/Pommerini/Pommerine/Pommerin.

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

The road out of Iringa is, at last, this "real Africa" we keep being told about by Edward. Within minutes of turning off the main paved road, the huts change. They are still stick-framed and mud-walled. But unlike the slums of Dar, they look built to last. Heavy walls and decent window openings. Thick thatched roofs. And children, everywhere children - so many I get overwhelmed. I wondered if I'd want to adopt when I saw all these kids, but I don't feel that at all. That would save one of, what?, four million? And effective 0% savior rate while taking a child of Tanzania away, maybe considered a net loss to the people living here. It might, however, be pushing me toward adopting in my own city or country, but interestingly pushes me away from international adoption thoughts.

The sky really opens up once we leave Iringa; maybe it is the anticipation of life in the village, but the air feels cleaner and thinner at the elevation. It is so dry, and the red dirt we've heard about makes its first appearance. 

The 1.5 to 2 hour drive on dirt roads from Iringa to Pommern looks like this...
Buildings that have more substance:

Stick frames, that will be filled with mud and topped with thatch:

An enormous sky, and room to breathe for the first time:

Red dirt... which will be ground into our heels, between our toes, in our beds, our eyes, our teeth, soon enough:

And dried corn fields - where corn only has one ear per stalk, and it sounds like a Halloween sound track in the breeze, all the time we're there...

Then we arrive in Pommern! The reason I gave it three names in the title post here is that there is no agreed-upon pronunciation of the village name. Pommern, like Pom-urn, is a German name from the German East Africa Lutheran missionary days. But the local people call it Pommerini, also the demonym for residents. They sometimes also call it Pommerine - rhymes with tangerine. Or, some call it Pom-er-in. The sign posts spell it "Pommern" but even many people over in Iringa were not sure where this village is. There are 4,000 residents - and the census a couple years ago showed roughly 53% of that 4,000 are ages 0 to 18. 

How John would laugh at our bedding! Twin beds with a thin sheet stretched over the "mattress" and wood frame mosquito nets... and each one with a lumpy pillow and a thick, warm, polyester animal print blanket. 

The EXACT type of blanket that John once had... called the tiger blanket because of the print... that I despised. It always felt damp, and even though it was ridiculously warm, it just grossed me out. Having these exact same disgusting-but-warm blankets makes me laugh.

Living out of a suitcase, all my gear uber-neatly organized:

The dining room table; the only place to sit in the mission house other than our beds:

This gives a sense of the house; very worn, indeed. Cold cement floors that made us grateful each night for a fire in the fireplace, even if it made us smell like campground residents all the time! The yellow basket is the trash can (there are no plastic bags to be found, and nowhere to purchase any).

The beloved tea table... tea, instant coffee (Africafe), powdered milk, powdered hot cocoa, hot water, sugar (and hot sauce, margarine, peanut butter and jam)... out 24/7 for us to get a hot drink or little snack. And hot drinks we needed! We continue to be shocked how chilly it is when the sun goes down, and well into the morning, until 11 AM or noon.

The wall of water... bottled water for all drinking, tooth brushing, and it only took about three days before we busted out the little flavor packets (Crystal Light, Mio, etc.) that it was recommended we bring, to spice up the pathetic American palates that grow bored so quickly.

Dinner tonight is chunks of stewed beef or goat, with bone and tendon still attached, in a spicy sauce and served with white rice, toast, a few canned green beans, a few slices of watermelon and some boiled greens (much like frozen spinach). The greens are "local cabbage" we're later told; it looks like a kale growing in the backyard garden (the only thing in the garden), but with less flavor and less bulk - it even tastes thin and low in vitamins to me, though it's something green and that's warmly welcomed, even if we each only get about a quarter cup that first night. Later, more is cooked each night, as the cook realizes we all crave greens and pile our plates with them, all the drowning in cooking oil be damned!

Our cook is named Mamatony; Tony is her first born, and she's been known by this name for over 20 years. It's a little weird to know there will be a cook; but on the other hand, with no electricity or refrigeration in the village, cooking is done over open wood fires. Peeking into the kitchen, with just a couple pots and running water from a gravity-flow-tank system. I can't imagine ensuring everything gets boiled and sterilized and cooked safely, all while keeping the wood fire at the right heat - and making sure dinner for 14 is on the table at (roughly) the appointed time. The guilt of being cooked for is outweighed by the challenge it would present to any one of us (it would be our full time job). And, this is why there was a program fee, I think, and why our support network pitched in to help get us here. For us to be able to go out into the village, ok, yeah - we will need a cook. 

After a few days, I see that Mamatony has more variety of clothes than other people around us. She has earrings, she has a nice coat - so this is a lucrative gig, and it's interesting to know that her salary, which we pay, is probably supporting a family (and how odd here that a woman's salary supports others!).

Edward tells us what to expect tomorrow, our first full day in the village. It is touring and introduction day; no official work. Much like meeting the General Secretary today, we need to meet all the important people in the village tomorrow, to show respect and ask permission to begin working. We're reminded by Peg, the volunteer who was here last year, that no villagers are allowed in the house. 

Edward uses a pen on the table as an example to illustrate why. This pen, he says, is nothing to you. You'll set it down, and if it's not there when you come back, you might not even think about it. But that pen would mean so much to someone who has nothing, someone who works to save a few pennies, all month long, just to buy a small supply of salt. He extends this story, then, to iPods and phones and books and clothes - things we do value that someone who has nothing literally cannot resist taking, to use, or perhaps, to sell. By having the rule that villagers cannot enter the mission house when guests are residing there, we will be able to set anything down at any time, and expect it to be there when we return. On another day, Edward says that he and Mamatony and Mohammed only use their eyes, not their hands, in the house. This is true; no one ever loses a single item, nor do things even get moved more than a foot or two.

I feel for the first time today, a long emotional day with the ever-present poverty in my face, but now growing from urban filthy poverty to a drier, starker, thinner and more dangerous feeling rural poverty, that it is OK to be a wealthy Westerner who loves having baby wipes with me, my pretty pink hoodie, my headlamp, my earrings, my comforting gear. Edward's speech about the wide gulf between his people and us visitors makes me realize it's neither my fault nor theirs that this grinding poverty stands between us. That my unearned, unfair, imbalanced wealth exists, and that their desperate lack of any material items, much less wealth, exists. We're all in this system together - is it the system of reality? - and there may be ways we need to protect each other - but faulting each other (for wealth, for theft) is like faulting the dog for his spots. 

Tonight, my first Pommern sunset: 

July 21: Dar Es Salaam to Iringa, Part 2.

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

On the radio, we learn a new phrase. "Drop it hot!" the DJ says. (Mom, that should be "drop it like it's hot".) Meggie and I giggle (she finally woke up!) and claim we're going to start saying, "Drop it hot" at home on the dance floor.

We stop for lunch at a nice but creepily empty tourist hotel and though it has changed so slowly, it hits me that we're in the mountains now, past Morogoro (not Ngorongoro, please, how could you confuse them?!), and when we comment that it looks like rain, Mohammed says, "No. No rain. No rain while you are here."

We drive. We get tired. People are nodding off. My dad told me an African sunset is so fast - from light to dark likethat - but our climb into hill country extends a long sunset that just gets better, and better, and better, and then - gone. (I didn't take any pictures.) It's so wide - it's a sunset that spans a horizon of two normal sunsets at home. I actually look all the way behind me to see if it meets on the dark side of the horizon.

The final 2 kilometers into Iringa Town are uphill and there's a vicious speed bump every 20 yards or so - that government again, keeping the cars slow but not thinking to put in stoplights or streetlights or sidewalks or crosswalks most of the time.

This is Iringa Town, but the photo was the next day; we arrive in the dark:

Iringa Town suburbs, headed down the hill out of town, over the speed bumps but again, taken the next day:

We arrive at the Lutheran Center of Iringa and when we step out of the car - brrrr! It is not just chilly, and we're not just road weary. It is downright COLD. We're at 5200 feet elevation and it's not more than 51 degrees with a big gusty wind. I almost didn't pack a coat, and boy I'm sure glad I did!

The Center is like a little hostel or dorm, run by the church, where each double or triple room has a private bathroom, and there's a little dining room/cafeteria. We're served the best chicken cashew curry I've ever had, over rice with a semi-crunchy slaw (ah! crunch! the satisfaction!). Cashews are one of Tanzania's main exports,  and the only street food we've eaten so far, purchased through the car window. Edward warned us last night. "I know my people, and they do not know how to cook scientifically like your people. Do not eat street food. You'll get sick. No street food." He will repeat this almost every day while we're here - no street food! And street food includes food cooked in peoples' homes. But the cashews, oh, the cashews. Roasted, totally plain, and still almost a little springy - this freshness not found in a super-roasted-to-a-crisp-for-the-trip-around-the-world-tkind at Trader Joe's.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania - ELCT - is the country host for Global Volunteers. So while GV is the 501 C 3 non-denominational program we've paid to be part of, GV works in many countries and in each one, they are hosted by a local organization who helps identify the needs of a given community, and run the daily schedule of volunteers. It's a serious attempt to avoid the dictatorial American approach, and in many countries, including in Tanzania, the local host is a church. Churches, after all, are used to desperate need and trying to do a lot for a lot with a little. None of our volunteers are Lutheran (I'll later find out the family is devout Roman Catholic and we so have one more Unitarian Universalist, along with Meggie and I, who dabble in UUism). But the host organization is Lutheran, and so we know we'll be asking for permission and a blessing tomorrow from the regional Bishop, and we agree to abide by the rules. From what I can tell, this is actually just one rule - if you drink alcohol, do so in the house or private fenced backyard of where we'll live in the village, but not on the front porch or in the front yard. Beyond that, blessings and prayers and gratitude to God exist and are expressed, but are far from in our face, and this little church center seems more focused on feeding us well and switching on the mini hot water heater in our bathroom than trying to convert anyone evangelically. Perhaps it's because they think we're already saved, since we're staying there?

We find out that the majority of our bags won't be coming down off the roof of the vans tonight - and tempers flare. People's politeness begins to fade, shit starts getting laid bare, the first snappy words are exchanged. I decide to not engage in one exchange when their exhaustion from 12+ hours in the car turns to pettiness, and of course my favorite co-volunteer, Leslie, has a good natured laugh at us all. She still has no bag, and no word from the airline or the Dar airport on when it might arrive. It could be, as far as we know, gone forever. And here we are, worried about one night!

That said... I keep my mouth shut and refuse to complain but, oh, on the inside, I'm incredibly grateful to have stuck a pair of underwear, a tee shirt and toothbrush into my backpack, sitting in the van with me, and not up on top! I am sad to not have my mouthguard (I never sleep without it) but the consolation is that Meggie's bag is one of the minority to come down, so I'm treated to the kinds of nice-smelling lotions and good hair goop that I often don't even have at home, and so after a hot shower, I begin journaling, under my mosquito net, but am ready to crash.

Breakfast will be at 7:30. We will buy most of the supplies and food we need for two weeks - and then we'll travel another two hours by dirt road to Pommern, our village home. The real Africa, Edward tells us. "My Africa."

July 20, Afternoon Part 1. 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.)

Hotel Slipway market area. It's not at all like the aggressive hawkers and vendors at Jamaica market at all. (There the shouting prevented me from even thinking of what to buy - so I didn't.) Lots of quiet remarks of "Karibu" and "Come in" but not so pushy. Clothes, prints, beautiful mobiles to hang over a baby's crib, necklaces - but no earrings for shortie hair me! CDs, DVDs. We walk down the little wharf and see a perfect still image: a man hauling in and securing his handmade dugout canoe - while talking on a cell phone.

Meggie and I discussed this morning a feeling of responsibility to document this trip well, and thoroughly. And I would add that we have a responsibility to enjoy it fully - and not be scared to see and try things. As part of our fundraising and the support that comes with that, we owe great and honest documentation and experimentation in gratitude for the deep financial gifts so many people extended to us.

And so - to the fish market.

Fish is brought in twice a day, freshly caught and first sold to those who gut and clean. There are sardine guys, mackerel guys, squid (above) guys.

I wish this was scratch-n-sniff blogging because it looks pretty cool - but not when you're trying to keep your breakfast down, not when you're trying to play it cool in the swirling aroma of body odor, fish, sewage, wood smoke and stagnant water. 

This set of guys sell the seafood again, this time to those who smoke or cook it.

And then the cooking folks sell it again, to those driving cars or bajaj or riding bikes - and they stream out of the market and into the city to sell it once again, by bite or by bucket. The cooking is over huge open fires, in cauldrons, where nearby rows of plastic and glass bottles, labels peeled off, are filled with searing-looking hot sauces.

Veggies and fruit are for sale, some on the ground, drying in the sun. Tapestries hold drying cassava, hot peppers. Streams of water and fish blood flow past, and our driver, on occasion, will set his hand on my shoulder, out of nowhere - as if to make a point but it would be non-sensical in the verbal context. Then I realize! Oh! He is showing others that I'm protected, under his authority, and I would start to sense these men veer away, not wanting to have to go through him to sell to us, chat us up, give us a piece of their minds. It's now, hours later when I write this, that it occurs to my feminist self to have a reaction. But in the moment, I'm just grateful. I say to him, it must be difficult to catch octopus, as we walk past the long-tentacled begins, swinging from a hook or hand, being auctioned off to the highest bidder and he nods at me, admiring the octopi. "Very clever."

Meggie and I take these pictures as subtly as possible - which is not subtle at all. I feel very exposed in Bermuda-length shorts and resolve to wear skirts and dresses from here on out; women do not wear pants or shorts, much as we were promised it was OK for Western women to do so in Dar. It is incredibly hot but I keep the little shrug I'm wearing on - it would be almost pornographic, it feels, to have my arms fully exposed in a tank top.

Locavore Complaint

If you don't live in Portland, it is handy, before reading this, to know that Fred Meyer is a grocery store that also has a Kmart/Target-like store within it - clothes, garden supply, paint department, home decor, pharmacy, etc. Also, the City banned plastic bags at large retailers, so all grocery stores have paper bags and otherwise encourage you to bring your own.

I hope, I wish, I trust - that there might be some good reason why the Fred Meyer in the affluent, trendy part of town (Hawthorne) offers paper bags with handles... and the Fred Meyer in my poorer, decidedly uncool and un-influential part of town (Interstate) only offers paper bags without them.

Do you know why? Is it a better reason than people with money get nicer things for free? Is it a reason that makes sense, and explains the giving of flimsy, non-handled bags to the shoppers using the nearest grocery store to one of Portland's food deserts (the New Columbia development, a couple miles away, where the highest proportion of city residents are without cars and thus, carrying their purchases by bus, bike and foot)?

Do you know the reason? And is it a good one?

An actually-real Thursday-evening quiz

I think everyone has an environmental albatross. There's this thing... this action, this item... that weighs on you. And yet, it's everywhere. Or a-lot-of-where.

I know someone, who shall remain nameless, whose albatross is toilet paper. Yup. They feel really, really guilty about toilet paper in the waste water system, about killing the trees, about the bleach used on those dead trees, about the metaphor of throwing our shit into our water, day after day, without thought.

I know someone, who shall also remain nameless, whose albatross might be closer to yours... plastic bags. They hate even having them in hand, because it's just a reminder of dead baby marine mammals and littered beaches.

Mine is wasted food. Any bit of tossed out food (with the exception of mushroom stems, say, or browned bits of lettuce leaf) equates with a stricken, internal panic over wasted food. Which equals wasted money. Which equals... well, you can guess. And so on, and so on.

But the moral of the story actually is this... my poor husband can be quite put-upon to help with the leftovers. I love leftovers. He does not. And yet, he recently ate seven-day-old quinoa because I felt too guilty to throw it out and also didn't really like the taste. And he paid for it, digestivesystemthankyouverymuch. So I try to prevent that from becoming a recurring event, and in the meantime... quiz time... what's your albatross?

Impact

Our new house is just that - new. There is no need to replace, update or install sinks, floors, doors, fixtures, handles, paint or cabinets. However, to make the rule there must be one exception, and ours is that one of the toilet seats is nicked and scratched and missing paint, and also is a mismatch for the toilet itself. This weekend, we replaced it. And I realized that of all the mounds of garbage I've seen or read about in the world's landfills - the refrigerators, the toilet seats, the old drywall, the scuffed floorboards - I have never directly put part of a house in that mound. And that's a good thing for 29 years of living with rental toilets (with wooden seats), rental showers (with lilac tiling), rental screen doors (complete with rips) and rental paint (always white)... but it's also the beginning of a new search for ways to recycle all manner of trash. The toilet seat, I fear, it headed for the landfill, but John balanced our environmental pro-con list and installed this:




Our new 55 gallon rain barrel! I have to figure out how to paint it or cover it in decals, because as water-saving as it may be, it still needs to earn it's aesthetic keep around here.