13 Weeks.

I keep saying that if I don't write it down, I'll forget, or be unable, to see if Reno is making any progress. So I'm writing it down.

We took him hiking three weeks ago. He has his own backpack because anybody, no matter their species, has their own backpack when they head out with John:

He loved hiking. He did not love the other dogs, whether they were off leash or on.

We brought him home 13 weeks ago yesterday. And so 13 weeks in, I am documenting that he has gotten more comfortable in our house. He can go up and down the stairs confidently, which was not the case originally. He still cannot go in the kitchen. He loves his kennel (aka his house) and sleeps easily in it every night for 8 to 10 hours.

He stays to his blanketed-spot on the couch nearly always, and has not jumped on the coffee table since that first day. He started wagging his tail, which when it began, was when we noticed that he had NOT been for a month! He now wags us a welcome in the morning, at night after work, and when we cross the room or have been gone for 3 minutes or more.

He jumps at fewer noises in the house, but still jumps at some.

And most importantly, let's chat about the reactivity. I'm not sure if he's less reactive - though I can say we are better at managing it. I can duck a dog heading our way before he even sees the thing. I can position us behind a parked car or in a stranger's driveway so that we can practice watching the dog walk by without his going over threshold. With me, he can currently handle a distance of across the street. Any closer, such as an unexpectedly chained or fenced dog, and he is over threshold in three seconds flat. It seems he can handle a closer dog with John.

One thing that has improved, without a doubt, is his recovery time. If he does go over threshold and starts lunging, growling, snapping and acting like he wants to devour the other dog, he can recover within one city block now.

Another improvement is that he has learned not only his name, but he's learned Sit and Shake! He is working on Down, Sit Pretty, and Come. I include Come in the 'working on' category because he's at about 80%. And 80% is really good but that other 20% is the time you really want him to obey. I don't know if any dog is 100% on the Come command. At the dog park, and on his long line, he has 90%+ recall of Come. We have not ever used it a true off-leash situation (because he's never been in one). So I call it 80%, to be safe.

But this past weekend was a slight digression from his improvement in anxiety reduction, thanks to the fireworks. Friday night the last ones that woke me up were at 2:05 AM. That erases any excuse that it's for the kids. I hate neighborhood fireworks. For Reno, the vet prescribed Xanax:

It worked for a while, and then it stopped. Next year, Xanax for me and a sedative for him. He is just today coming down fully off the heightened cortisol of the 3rd, 4th and 5th's all-day explosions. This dog has PTSD and I'm not even trying to be funny. 

Of course what I'd like to see is for him to be able to pass an oncoming dog (first on the other side of the street, and eventually on the same side) without having a reaction. I'm not sure this will ever be possible; everything I read is not encouraging. But, at the 13-week mark, I can say he definitely is less anxious on walks - he does not cower at EVERY bicycle, loud car, shuffling foot, crunchy leaf. He only cowers at some of them. He used to pass all people with rolled-back ears and a low posture. He now is more perked up, almost looking like he could go over threshold, but he never does. He is less interested in people who are not me, John, and Auntie Beth (John's sister, and his bi-weekly dog walker). 

He does not bark in the backyard ever anymore (thanks, we think, to the two weeks of the citronella collar), and now likes it out there - he goes out willingly and stays out there without us even, from time to time.

He is rarely interested in birds now; he saves that energy for squirrels - and cats, and dogs, of course.

He still sheds a ton; I think we're screwed on this one. When he's anxious, it seems to increase from the normal rate of Daily Shit Ton to a momentary Are You Dying? level. 

In three more months, I'll remember to update on his reactivity, his leash-pulling tendencies (which are still fairly high, depending on the time of day) and his anxiety. Hopefully by documenting, there will be continued improvements seen, and thus we'll move away from feeling so on-the-fence about adding the little red leaner* to our house. 

*Little Red Leaner is one of his nicknames; when he greets us in the morning, he likes to lean into us, or put the top of his head on your shin, or even on the floor, curling over and leaning in for maximum back scratchin. 

Comin' up on the Jesus Year...

I've generally been the youngest in the group, whatever the group may have been… playground, locker room, homeroom class, new job or office, new tribe of friends. And as many of near-peers turn 33 in the year before I do, I get to look ahead this summer to my coming Jesus Year.

You're familiar, right? Even Urban Dictionary has an entry. And it's perfectly succinct: it's the year to get things done.

Over the last couple weeks, between a relaxing vacation, the new dog's ongoing antics, increasing work responsibilities, SIBO diet living, and the wonder of these long pre-summer days and evenings, my personal philosophy has (suddenly) expanded.

Please allow me one bit of back story first. Every family has it's lore and legends; in my family, there's a piece of lore that places me at about age 8 or 9, when my mother was having some normal-for-her, low-level, anxiety-filled, long verbal run-on about life, and challenges, and what does it all mean. When she turned the question to me, I said, "Don't ask me, Mom. I'm just a kid." Everyone laughed. And in a similar episode a few months later (as noted, this sort of out-loud rumination was the usual at home), I quipped back, "God, Mom. The point of life is that you make mistakes, and then you learn." (I do not remember the former exchange; I do remember the latter. We were at Murphy Lake and I wanted to touch the antlers of the stuffed elk in velvet on the wall but knew I was not allowed to.)

So this may have been my own self-stated guiding philosophy about life - from age 9, until very recently.

And suddenly… it feels sudden, having bubbled up in the past few weeks… I've decided that life is now about two other things entirely. It's about losing judgement, and it's about not being first.

I am a very judgmental person; I know how you should live your life, AND why. And I will happily tell you. Or if I don't know you, or you won't listen, I'll happily tell one of my friends. And now that I'm walking a little red dog around the block in a damn raincoat, a sweet little red dog that goes ballistic at the sight of another dog, I'm thinking, "Well, fuck." I didn't teach the dog to bark like that; he's not reactive because of me. But it sure as shit looks that way. And I don't love putting a raincoat on a dog, but he reacts to it a lot like he reacts to the Thundershirt and any way to take the edge off his anxiety is a good way to go. So I mosey along with our raincoats, and realize that I would normally look at me and judge the hell out of me. Uh-oh. Jesus Year. That means I have to start understanding people better. Give them more slack. Really, deeply believe they're doing the best they can with the tools they have - and not just say it.

And secondly (ha ha!), it's time to no longer be first. Who is not first in their own lives? Well - parents, for one. And spiritual leaders. And people dedicated to their jobs as deep vocations and true callings. In other words: the good eggs. The good eggs don't think about being first, and don't think about putting their own desires, satisfactions, whims, needs, moods, recognition and preferences first. The good eggs do make certain their own needs are met - sure, of course they do. But they do so mostly because it makes them better people who can turn around and better be able to serve and love the world. And you know what? For the first time in my selfish little life, that sounds really delightful. I get it. I paid lip service to not being first, but all along, I knew this was my movie, my soundtrack, and you were all supporting players. But this new philosophy - boy, does it take a huge load off. I don't have to be the center of my own universe. I can cook, read, play, love, work and write - like I do, and enjoy, of course - but it all doesn't have to be So God Damn Important. What a relief. To loosen my grip.

I mean - a bit. I'm not letting go, just letting up. I still think you're a huge fucking asshole if you take the outside seat on a bus. Just move goddamn over, dude.

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.

Almost Done Right: Grain Free, Refined Sugar Free Carrot Cake (SIBO Diet Friendly)

The world appears to have a ton of GAPS, SCD, paleo and grain-free baking websites, books, recipes and Pinterest pins that go on for days.

But if you read the comments on these recipes, this is what you hear, over and over.

"Looks great! Can't wait to try it!"

BOO. You suck. Looks great? I can frost a pile of cat shit and it looks great. Those who comment before trying to bake it should be banned.

But then, it gets worse. I cannot find a recipe measured in weights. And as any person who bakes even once in a while knows, you need weights rather than measurements. Save yourself the dishes, and get it perfectly right. 5 grams of salt, thank you very much - not 1 teaspoon.

So I've been a mad baker the last month, and failing miserably. It's taking something I love and turning into something I hate. It's taking something I was very good at and suddenly teaching it in Cyrillic.

But I've made something good today, and the reason it's "almost done right" is that I didn't weigh my ingredients either! I measured, carefully, and with a bit of my mad baker estimation to round up or down on certain things - but tah-dah! A carrot cake of decent quality! It is, to be sure, VERY carrot-ey. It's not a sugary sweet cake, but it feels pretty close to a cake - a texture missing from my life the last six weeks - and has a nice honey-carrot flavor with the crunch of slivered almonds. Here is the original recipe, followed my version. I'm not crediting the recipe because I think if I made it as-is, it would have tasted like a carrot soufflé and been undercooked. My previous experience with these ingredients has me extremely confident of this pre-judgement.

Someone Else's Coconut Flour Carrot Muffins

• 6 eggs

• 1/2 c coconut oil, melted

• 1/2 c honey

• 2 TB vanilla

• 1/2 tsp sea salt

• 1/2 tsp baking soda

• 2 tsp cinnamon 

• 1/2 c coconut flour 

• 2 c carrots, shredded
• 1/2 c raisins or dried cranberries, optional

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
• Line 12 muffin cups with liners, or grease with coconut oil.
• Combine the eggs, coconut oil, honey and vanilla in a large bowl or in the bowl of an electric mixer.
• Add in the salt, baking soda and cinnamon.
• Sprinkle the coconut flour over the mixture and then whisk into the batter.
• Mix well so that there aren’t any clumps. Fold in the shredded carrots and raisins or cranberries.
• Use an ice cream scoop to divide the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups.
• Bake for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. YUM!

Emily's Coconut Flour Carrot Muffins

• 5 eggs (room temp!!)

• 1/2 c butter

• 1/2 c honey

• 1.5 tablespoons vanilla

• 1 tsp sea salt

• 1 tsp baking soda (leave this out for GAPS, and hope for the best)

• 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice blend 

• 1/2 c coconut flour plus 1 tablespoon

• 2 and 1/8 c shredded carrots (measure after shredding, not before)
• 1/2 c slivered raw almonds

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
• Grease a 10 x 6 pan with coconut oil.
• Whip butter with electric hand mixer on high for 3 full minutes, until white and fluffy.
• Whip in slightly-warmed honey for 1 minute on high.
• Add the eggs one a time, mix on medium speed, for 30 seconds each. 
• Mix in vanilla extract on high, for 30 seconds.
• Sprinkle in the salt, baking soda and spice mix; stir in well by hand.
• Sprinkle 1/2 cup of the coconut flour over the mixture and then whisk into the batter with mixer on low-medium for 30 seconds. Let batter rest a 3 full minutes. Then whisk again with mixer for 30 seconds on low-medium and if you feel like it needs the extra tablespoon of flour, whisk it in now. 
• Fold in carrot and almonds gently. Pour into prepared pan. 
• Bake 40 minutes or until firm to the touch in the center, and evenly brown underneath (use a glass pan). YUM!

Two steps forward...

It was, it turns out, too many foods introduced too closely together. And though if I see you in person I will happily share TMI about my digestive tales, should you be interested, I think sharing in writing with the wider internet world is not a wise thing for my future run at the U.S. Senate. Suffice to say I did not feel 100% this week. I took quite a few steps back. 

I'm back on a diet of mostly meat stews, with carrots and celery in them, and a little bit of pureed fruit. There is one problem: I had started grain-free baking. And I probably need to dial that to Zero for a week or two. But among the four or five failure recipes - like the almond flour 'bread' - I've hit on two good ones so far! A banana bread that tasted like banana bread - and not like 'pretty good for almond flour banana bread' and then… ahh, for the Super Bowl party today… peanut butter cookies!

Grain free, refined sugar free. Just peanut butter, butter, almond flour, salt, honey and a pinch of baking soda. I don't know if I am allowed baking soda; I am not asking about it. Head in the sand on that one, I fully admit. But I've baked up a storm for the Super Bowl party and like any good plan it is starts tomorrow. I am going to take all the baked goods out next week to see if I can't start more steps forward again. 

And in related taking-steps-back news, I have never been a hot bath person. This is because I am a clean freak. And almost everywhere I've lived since the age of 21 has been a rental, and no matter how much I clean that tub, it still (emotionally) feels dirty and used to me. (I know. I know. Psychological field day.) 

And so it just became a habit to always shower. Even after a long day or when enduring a sickness, I'll take a nice long hot shower - not bath.

Well, this week broke me. I've taken a bath every night. I just needed to be surrounded, immersed; held.  And you know what? Baths are really nurturing! (Yes, you did know that.) This year's word of the year for me, if you recall, is Nourish. These baths have been quite nourishing to this slowly repairing body and fragile spirit. So that's something. 

Go Sports Team! Happy Super Bowl! An American holiday especially treasured by this fantasy football league winner right here.

(Photos of all the baked goods to come.)

Sweetness.

The illness is 90% kicked. I feel almost normal. A little lingering cough, still having no problem sleeping 9+ hours a night, but overall: I'm back.

And so, the big report: new foods today. Oh, my sweet lord in heaven above - it was the day for applesauce. No sugar, no additives, just pureed apples. But it feels like I'm cheating on the diet, it was so damn sweet; even though this is not a cheat - this is a step I'm supposed to take. (Soon, a peeled ripe apple. Then a full raw apple! I'm already dreaming of pineapple.)

And I made the GAPS Diet "bread". Drumroll… puh-leese. This is not bread. It is eggs, butter (or coconut oil) and almond flour baked into a dry teething biscuit.

That said - don't get me wrong - I'll take it. It feels akin to a carb. Like I'm biting into something filling. And I made them very lazily; I can do better. A good friend, by way of giving great support to me, said, "Just think - at least you know how to cook!" I keep hearing her say that in my head, and she is right. If I have to eat simmered  meat, at least I know how to make the best simmered meat possible. If I have to eat vegetables cooked to mush, at least I can make a killer silky butternut squash puree and sweet, soft, salty carrots in coconut oil.

So if I put some of my baking smarts to work, I can make this "bread" taste better and have a decent texture; I started browsing some GAPS Diet sites, and holy cow! There are some real dessert recipes on there! I may get through this three, five, ten, twelve months yet. (But dear universe, please don't let it be twelve months. I have weddings to attend and vacations to go on; I need to have a little fun.)

But all this here is the frosting. This is all the show. The details, the food. The three cheers for being done with antibiotics (today!) and on to straight dietary treatment.

Because beyond all that, the truth is, I'm stripping away how I identify my Self. Food, cooking, baking - for myself, for others, for little daily rituals I partake of and invite others to partake of with me - if you take that away, as it seems I have, what's left? Who am I? And how do I interact, out there in the world? It can't be chamomile tea dates forever, and I can't keep hiding at home for much longer. Now that I'm feeling well, I have to venture out there and so far, the Me without refined sugar, without grains, is a tender little Me. I cry at the drop of a hat. I feel prickly-alive. I feel so aware of the Right Now.

So I'm poking my sensitive little foot outside this week; stay tuned.

Tender

My word of the year is Nourish. (What's your word of the year? Any time you're faced with a decision, you just plug it in. What could do I right now that would be the most nourishing choice?)

But the word of today was Tender. Feeling tender hearted, tender spirited. I've been making big batches of beef broth - which is fatty, messy, and smells gross for a while and then turns into smelling amazing. So today I had beef broth and the soft meat and gelatinous parts off the soup bones for breakfast. I had a beef broth, broccoli and onion pureed soup for lunch. And I'm going to have a simmered pork soup for dinner, with bits of mushy butternut squash. I'm not certain the squash is allowed, but I'm dying for it.

My snacks were: one cup of plain, lactose-free, organic yogurt. Three big sips of the juice that my live sauerkraut is sitting in. And three small sips of lactose-free kefir.

And a lot of chamomile tea.

Tomorrow will be identical, in terms of what I am directed to eat. I'm making chicken broth, too, to have something a bit lighter in which to stew my butternut squash, onions and carrots down into mush. Oh, and I can add garlic to all this too! Excuse me one minute.

I keep thinking how this will be in five, fifteen, fifty more days - and I keep trying to stop myself. One day at a time, and who knows how quickly healing will happen? And who knows how I will feel off of sugar for that long? That's the intriguing motivation of this lone day. I'm intrigued to know what it will be like to have no sugar, no fake sugar, no maple syrup, nadda, for a few weeks. I can't imagine I've gone more than two or three days without sugar in my entire life, after the age of about 11 (when I could get my own hands on cookies). What will it feel like? And is that enough to keep me toeing the line for as long as it's going to take?

Oh, sure - the Zurich pics!

Happy Friday! Enjoy the pics from Zurich.

Lake Zurich, aka, Zurichsee.

Swans all over the lake.

After that long hot shower, and podcast, my meal. A 4 ounce glass of wine, a pretzel, and a salad buffet. Beets. Arugula. Apples. Peppers. And a little pasta, a little meat.

The rivers running to the lake... a city of bridges, like my own.

One rainstorm for about 45 minutes, and the rest of the time was postcard-perfect.

Famous Grossmunster Church.

I wanted to eat at every little tucked-away place. 

Middle of the city, crossing a bridge from Hallwylplatz into the financial district.

An art installation of enormous tapestries. There was a metaphor in there for me about the laundry drying in the third world providing art in the first.

Dinner. 4 dl of wine (about 13 ounces), meat, cheese, apples, tomatoes, pickles, figs, nuts.

On a boat, on Zurichsee. 

You sort of have to. It's Swiss chocolate. 

Tanzania: Epilogue

The last night's dinner was lovely - three of us were leaving, and eleven were staying another week. The three of going said a few words to each other volunteer, and then the eleven said something to us three.

Turns out, I was appreciated mainly for being sarcastic, and funny, and calling shit "shit" when it was needed. I was also given what I think of as a blessing... told that Meggie and I are seekers, and for seekers, the journey and the experience are often the whole purpose, not the destination. I was admired for being in a marriage that "allowed" me to travel alone, to complete my heart's calling, that it was ok it was not John's heart's calling. Meggie and I were solemnly toasted as a model of a beautiful friendship, a model others said they're going to strive to emulate.

We were up in the dark Friday morning - but Mamatony was too, with a little green onion omelette and toast for our journey. This time, we drove all the way to Dar in one push - stopping only for lunch, and for more "surprise!" experiences with public toilets. (You never know what you're going to get, but I learned one thing - check the faucet first, see if there's running water. It's just good to know before you see what the stall has to offer.)

We got to Dar in the dark, and went to one of those food-court strip-mall places that you see and read about it in the developing world. Attached or near a shopping mall, they're bad food in a safe setting, they're places the middle class socializes with itself, and shows off as members of the middle class. Meggie and I had burgers - she had beef, but I wasn't quite ready to let go of the flavors of coastal Tanzania, and had a chicken tikka masala burger. I tried to get a photo of the sign across the street - we make fun in America of "any excuse for a sale" but this was pretty well on par:

(That's "Pay only 80% during Eid!" I think 20% off is smarter than pay 80%, but there must be a learning curve up to American standards of marketing.)

We stayed at the same hotel from two weeks earlier; this time, we comfortably strolled around the market area, got an ice cream, had a glass of wine at the oceanfront restaurant and felt perfectly at ease with the currency, the people, the music. This time we knew to expect a Ramadan party all night, and put in ear plugs. And oh - the shower. The long, hot shower. To be honest, I showered first, and Meggie said, "How'd it feel!?" And I said, "Just OK. That shower was getting the grime off. Tomorrow's shower will be one I can enjoy."

(Me after 6 days without even attempting a hair wash, and just a couple half-bag half-warm sun showers from the safari in Ruaha, up through the last week. My hair was so fantastically matted, I could shape it into any style.)

The next day was Saturday, and all flights leave Dar for Europe at night - so we spent the day shopping, buying trinkets and thank you gifts for our supporters, trying some candy and Saudi Arabian dates. We learned a new tradition from a volunteer... when people leave, don't wave. Don't say goodbye. Dance them off, and then you can dance them home again when they return. So we danced off the first of us to leave (she sent this ridiculous picture later, and note I am still snug as a bug in a rug in my hiking boots:)

And then we went for an early dinner. Note the Sprite - I'm considering it medicine still, at this point.

And after a long, dusty trip to the airport, after buying Cuban cigars for John at the duty-free, we got to our waiting area at the airport - where the plane was late, there were no updates announced, and only Meggie's French managed to get us an explanation from the Swiss Air steward! We took off about an hour late, first for Nairobi and then for Zurich. One last photo at the airport....

And then we slept - sort of - but flew in relative silence. The guy in front of us puked the whole flight. The woman in the aisle over had malaria and was cutting her trip short.

Arriving in Zurich, our lateness meant Meggie had to run to catch her plane to Paris. I was to have my two nights in Zurich... and realized I had no idea how to get to my hotel, where it was in the city's districts (beyond an address), or how to use public transit. We squeezed hands and I shrugged and laughed, "I 'm sure I can figure it out!" Calmest I've ever been. I mean, there were clean toilets and drinking fountains I could use. How bad could it be? Meggie provided me with a few French phrases to use, and I wandered through customs (they thought it was very odd that I was staying in Zurich under 48 hours) and then up to an information booth. I got some Swiss Francs, I brushed my teeth, and I left the airport, determined not to take a taxi but to figure out the buses and trains, to get to Hotel St. Georges on my own, and ate my very last nutrition bar. 

It took three hours to do it - and should have taken about 40 minutes - but I got there. Zurich on a Sunday morning, with the church bells vibrating my skull, and hardly a person out, with all the shops closed, was as other-wordly as a Tanzanian dirt path. My room was miraculously ready for an early check-in. I opened my third floor window. I looked out on this:

I took a long, long shower and put on a podcast of The Splendid Table. Then I headed out to see Lake Zurich with the Sunday revelers. 

It's all in the journey. 

July 31 in Pommern.

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

At breakfast, Edward tells me I'm not allowed to work today. "One more day to rest. You don't leave the mission house this morning."

I'm so disappointed. To lose a second day!? Nearly my last?! But within thirty minutes of breakfast - one plain slice of bread (so oddly sweet, I need some sourdough up in here!) and 1/3 of a banana - I find I'm ready for a nap. So perhaps Edward knows best - and perhaps he's been through this before with a previous volunteer (ha, ha, ha - that's a joke; I know he has).

So today I find stillness, whether I want it or not. And it ends up a very powerful day, connecting with fellow volunteers. 

We're finally discussing openly our frustrations with African time versus American time, and our complete inability to understand how teachers can fail to show up for class, say, as happened today - there was a prominent death in the village. Then everything stopped. And so students go without teachers and lessons, while Nurse Patricia is in a fog (tells Meggie, who has been there yesterday and today without me) and can barely work. Most volunteers were sent back to the mission house. Everyone is feeling useless. 

Rather than find this stoppage an admirable sense of community, we volunteers are mystified and frustrated. You can't stop everything, every time a person dies! Or can you?

Oh, and on another note, Dr. Elton leaves a line of eight sick patients while he watches a tree being cut down, using a rarity here - a chainsaw. It seems that every, and any, interested person has the right to be involved in any decision or event - and so we have a village, region and country possibly incapable of making forward progress. Every voice is heard, maybe, but also everyone who wants to stop working to watch how cool it is to see a tree get cut down can take a break. A break, a break, a break.

I believe in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and we get into a group discussion meandering around it. Is there true happiness without emotional knowledge of the full self, and are we here to help, to hurt, to be neutral observers? Can we forge personal connections with villagers when the need to manipulate us is so great? (And so justified.) 

We asked each other if we'll try another Global Volunteers trip - yes's and undecided's. 

We discussed how this is called a volunteer vacation, or voluntourism, and can that phrase take a little pressure off (of, ahem, me)? Did white, Western colonialism create a culture of dependence - and are we reaping what we've sown? 

And then my great revelation - in which I realize, truly, for the first time, that for all the talk of global natural resources and the water wars we're sure to see - only one thing seems certain to me; we in the West aren't going without our hot showers to help anyone here. We'll absolutely let them die, and the clean water and availability of oil will winnow down to being available only over America eventually, and probably zoom right down on D.C. as the last place with modern comforts. 

I didn't write this to be heartless - or inflammatory - or because I think it's OK to let people die so we can have hot showers, cars, plastic baggies in our lunch everyday. I wrote it because it smacked me hard as truth. We will absolutely watch people die if it means we get to keep our Stuff. If it means we have to give up a lot, including the comfort we're used to, for them to live lives we don't understand and don't respect, I just don't think we're gonna do it. One of the problems a volunteer wants to solve here is to get the children to eat with a spoon, not their fingers. Porridge is wasted, it's messy and dirty, she argued. Tell me we're going to give up life as we know it for them? 

In the afternoon, I convinced Edward I was feeling recovered fully, and that I was ok to go to Zumba with Meggie - her last class, and my last chance to see the high-school girls. I promise I won't dance - I've been sick, I need to rest, I know. I'll watch. Lies! All lies. I dance one song, and that's where all the YouTube videos previously posted are from - not exactly in my best form dance-wise, and it sure tuckered me out - but it felt great to get my blood flowing a bit, to dance with the girls, to watch Meggie leading them in total joy and confidence. 

Tonight Edward gives a little lecture on Tanzanian migration patterns (of the Bantu and Masai, largely, and some Indian and Arabic), and then on modern society here. Of course the most interesting part if the Q&A - yes, polygamy is common. Yes, the 1964-65 history of integrated education, that sent people all over the country to school, to learn Swahili, broke tribal loyalties and thus has prevented civil war. Yes, men here think American women are funny - they hear in our country we talk more than men. How can that be?! Men do the talking! And that women in America expect to do all the same things as men - they get it in concept, but really can't picture it.

Tomorrow: hopefully I get to go back to work!

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 29, A Pommern Monday. Part 3.

Not written in my journal, but a couple quick stories. First, stool samples. Meggie and I did not witness one. We saw the slides, and we saw the specimens. They keep a couple formaldehyde jars of examples, either to impress visitors or to illustrate to parents the importance of treatment - or both.

Also, when urinalysis was ordered by the doctor, the man or woman had to give a sample. And what are you given to collect your urine in? A now-empty insulin jar. As pictured above (small ones on the left) with worms in it. Think of the size of the opening on those little jars. Have fun peeing in that! Oh and I'm sure hands get washed...

Also during our day, one of our cases negative for malaria, negative for typhoid fever, was an old woman - oh, probably about 300 years old. To my eyes. Her grandson was with her and he was in his late teens, so that would make her in her 70s at the oldest - if he were the youngest child of her youngest child.

The woman was asked to give a stool sample and when she left, Patricia engaged in a long conversation with her grandson. As an observer with no language, I relied on body language and tone of voice. It appeared like she was lecturing him. He didn't want to argue with her, he maybe even knew she was right, and he felt ashamed, but stuck. She showed him a Bible passage. Once he left the room, she explained to me. "He has completed his secondary school and it is time for him to go teach. To go away to a new place and to have a job. But every time he has made plans and found somewhere to work, she gets very sick. But no tests come back. Sick with what? Sick to keep him home? I tell him he needs to go; he cannot cancel again his plans and his life. Again and again."

Nurse Patricia:

The rules:

July 29, A Pommern Monday. Part 2.

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

After cleaning, I move into the pharmacy with Patricia. The "pharmacy" consists of a rickety, mostly-empty shelf of cough syrup, OTC pain meds and antibiotics.

After seeing Dr. Elton, patients bring a scrap of notebook paper to the dispensary window - most today were for tooth pain or an abscess (some oral, some not); 18 aspirin and 30 cipro is the common scrip.

Patricia tells me we're to make "a Chinese envelope" out of old homework paper for each pill type - because there are no envelopes, plastic or paper, in which to give you your pills. She explains, "We say things are Chinese when they are badly made," and I lean in and tell her, "We say that in America too." She laughs and laughs, and she loves that my mother's name is Patricia too - she calls me her mtoto, her child, for this week, and tells the other nurses they can call her Mamaemmy. (I've shortened my introduced name to Emmy, with an exaggerated pronunciation like Ay-Me, as Emily is just too hard to wrap around for Swahili mouths.) The other nurses laugh at her.

Finally we move into the lab, as tests have started being ordered. It seems like people are tested for one or more of: malaria, typhoid fever, HIV/AIDS, a baseline urinalysis, a stool sample. No other possible diagnoses are discussed. We don't see any malaria; we see one typhoid fever. The tests are all prepackaged single-use, but the procedure is, simply observed and without frustration or surprise to me, just totally horrifying.

Sometimes alcohol swabs are used to clean the inner elbow site where blood is drawn - sometimes not. A new prepackaged syringe and needle is used to draw blood each time but there's no hand washing in between (there's no sink with running water in the lab, only the common one just outside the door in the public waiting room), and the drawing of blood is probably done with a skill level that I'd have after a few weeks of training. 2, 3, maybe 5 stabs with the needle into each patients arm. A little digging around to find the vein. The blood comes out slowly, thickly.

A glove serves as the tourniquet first, and then as the sterile surface to place the test and blood-filled syringe on (see the background of the above photo). Sometimes multiple blood draws are taken, put on their glove, and only then is each test run. No tests got switched around - I think - but you can imagine the potential for a blood vial to get moved, and then recorded in the little blue-book-like health record of the wrong patient. Oh, those blue books. Talk about taking charge of your health care!

It's a little terrifying to be allowed to help with this, though all I'm doing is dropping blood into a small plastic hole and adding the right solution to start the test...

Meggie wears gloves. She is smarter than me. 

This is a close-up of a malaria test, sitting on top of the blue-book health record. If that was your health record, you'd keep it with you for each doctor visit. The "back up" record kept at the clinic is a giant bound book with lists of patient names, estimated ages, date of the test and results. So unless you know what day you came for a test, there's no way the clinic records are going to be helpful. Lesson? Don't lose your blue book! 

Drop-drop-drop the solution on top of the blood sample.

Multiple tests to get going; we wait two minutes by Patricia's watch for results. Who has malaria? Who has typhoid fever? I keep thinking, what if you have cancer? What if you're depressed? What if it's Chrone's Disease or fibromyalgia? What if you've developed an allergy or esophageal damaging reflux or a urinary tract infection? 

Basically if it doesn't show up on these few tests and it's not enough describable pain for a knock-ya-out course of Ciproflaxin, then it's probably not a disease recognized in Africa. Or not in Pommern, at any rate.

The four tests we take sit out, on the gloves, on a table also strewn with empty packaging, dried alcohol swabs, partial bottles of the processing solution. The disorganization, the mess - these are not too shocking. The trash can, however, is. I don't think they've heard of sharps containers.

It all goes into the same place - blood, needles, you name it.

Then a young man, who says he is 27 and has only a primary school education recorded in his blue book, has a malaria test come back negative. He's been feeling unwell for a little over a year and was referred here by another clinic in the nearby village for this set of tests. The AIDS set of tests. With fascination and horror, Meggie and I watch Patricia get a first-test positive. SOmetimes these aer wrong though, so she puts the rest of his blood in to the second one. Count down two minutes, and watch the lines appear. Positive.

Normally the doctor delivers this news but if he is really busy, Patricia does. Which, HIPAA concepts be damned, she does with Meggie and me in the room. 

I have the same reaction as when the students were being beaten - I try to become physically small, I look at the floor and refuse to make eye contact or be seen as a voyeur; I won't watch. I breathe quietly. I think, I want him to forget I'm here. Patricia speaks calmly in Swahili. She sounds straightforward and unemotional; she doesn't touch him or appear to give words of comfort. Just the facts, ma'am. She asks often, "Sawa? Sawa?" which is, "OK? OK?". He nearly whispers in response. Sawa." She gives him a CTC information notice; that's the once-a-week AIDS clinic on Thursdays here. I think, there's no way this guy is showing up again later in the week. 

Blood draws. Single use test kits. Recording the results in patient blue books, and again in the clinic ledger. Using our own pens - no one at the clinic can ever seem to find one. Rinse and repeat. How long would this relatively simple work take Patricia if we weren't here helping? At her pace, it seems like we're cutting the time by half, helping the patients move twice as fast through the line. And it finally feels like I am being useful. I'm supporting existing work and not supplanting existing knowledge. Just a pair o' hands here. And this is exactly what I wanted to do in Africa: pitch in, not harm, experience life as it is before I was here and will be after I go, among the poorest on the planet, as one of the richest.

July 29, A Pommern Monday. Part 1.

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

If there was only one day to journal about in Africa, this would be it, hands down. I'm writing late on the 30th and you'll see why. This is going to stretch over a few blog posts, partly to prevent an epically long post that only my parents would fully read! Meggie and I were assigned to the clinic today - the first volunteers, yet again, to take on an assignment. Somebody sure trusts us.

After Dr. Elton, a dentist and also the presiding medical officer in the village (actually, in the whole area - this clinic serves seven villages and he's in charge) introduced us to the three nurses - Nema, Patricia and Farajah - I learned from my past eagerness in the secondary school, and instead sat on the bench to wait for an assignment. When Patricia began to mop, Meggie and I jumped up to do it for her. Something we can do!

I mopped the laboratory, the children's ward, the IUD insertion and sterilization room, and the delivery room. (Sterilizing of materials, not people. As far as I could tell.) It was amazing that last week, on our first day, during the brief clinic tour as part of village orientation, I was horrified at the filthy conditions. Too-small sheets on rusted frame beds with mattresses about 2 inches thick. Peeling paint. Pitted cement floors, windows so covered in red Pommern dust you can't see outside. A stained, torn and dirty curtain over the window, if you're lucky. Chipped metal bedpans back from well into the last century. Side tables with the tops smashed in but nothing to replace them, chairs missing armrests. But then...

This is where your baby is weighed and checked, immediately after delivery:

Ladies room...

'

Inside the men's ward...

Need an IUD? There are instructions on the wall, so don't worry. And this is the room speculums are sterilized in too (in something that looks a lot like the cooking pots, to be honest). But it smells like the Piniest Pine Sol ever.

For the gents...

This pretty room is the maternity ward, where you'll labor and recover (though to deliver, you'll be moved - only two beds, not four, in there.

Ladies' ward...

Meggie making beds.

... after I straightened everything to my beloved right angles, and tucked in corners, and mopped it carefully with the most intense-smelling disinfectant yet (and that's saying something!), I look around and think, hey! This is pretty clean! It looks decent! Ah, satisfaction.

Just like coming through Iringa Town the second time yesterday, after being in mud-hut rural villages, I thought, yeah, this is pretty modern. Fairly organized. I'd rather live here than in a hut, I see why people come to live in towns and cities. I would too.

If in only a week my perspective can shift that much, what will a second week bring? And how those Peace Corps or State Department folks must feel after two or three years away? Unimaginable. Though I can try. What else is being a writer about?

July 28: Back in Pommern.

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

How can you give a gift when the balance of power is so badly weighted as to basically be a straight vertical line? For we Americans, we wealthy and confused (are we generous, guilty, or desiring of sharing the things we love and put so much meaning into?) little Americans, with our language taken from us - we want to give. But we want to give the things we treasure - to show gratitude for allowing us to come into the community and for being so patient with our cameras, our energy. But how CAN we give? We're so far from the first to bring boxes of school supplies - and yet, there are none in any of the classrooms. But if you got a pen, and were hungry, wouldn't you sell the pen for crackers? So how can our gifts make sense?

Edward asked me what I was sorting, when I was inventorying medical supplies before Zumba class the other day, and it was a pile of dental floss (many small packages, a few yards each). When I explained, he asked me to put it in the clinic pile because if given directly to the people, they'll use it as fishing line. The things I don't about about this kind of generational poverty - and the things I don't even know that I don't know! - make me useless. As a giver of any kind. People say, "Oh, I learned so much from 'them'" in reference to a poorer or less powerful society and I've always - and still do - take that to mean that any people with less than us will teach lessons about what is really important - love, family, laughter, connection to the community. And I've thought that was total crap. And to be honest - I still do. 

But my head is figuratively spinning tonight as I come to grips with low little - how nothing - I'll contribute here. I'm stunned and embarrassed to realize that what will be learned here will ONLY be learned by me. But not the sweet things in life, not at all a reminder of the simple profound pleasures. Instead I'm learning the profound depth of sameness the third world endures. The pain of meeting daily needs with nothing leftover at the very best, or a debt as the sun falls, at the very worst. But never two pennies to rub together - never enough to have one task done for a week or a month. Every day is exactly the same and you're lucky to just catch up every 24 hours. My human desire to communicate with the person in front of me, but the overwhelming reality of a boggingly large group of individuals in front of me.

By way of hard details, the flickering generator light tonight makes me laugh - it's terrible illumination that gives me a headache, and it is still more than all the people here have. 

Most of the women volunteers swapped clothing stories tonight - yup, most of us are heavier than we were a week ago. And in our Rose & Thorn sharing tonight, my rose was the baobab trees and their evocative emotions. My thorn was reaching wifi for the first time in almost eight days only to have it be down today. I really want to hear from John - about his backpacking trips and plans, that he is OK, that all is well at home. It's 9 PM here, 11 AM Sunday there - and he is so close to me right now. I can't feel if it's because of nerves or a problem, or if he just wants to hear from me, too.

Finally tonight, I am burdened with a good bit of despair. I feel so much like I'm letting you all down. I've put on music for the first time since arriving in Africa - Sigur Ros - in order to let these intense feelings of disappointing you flow through. 

Don't get me wrong - enough of you warned me. 

"I hope you don't think you're going to help/save/affect anyone." 

"You know you're not going to make a difference, right?" 

"What can you do in two weeks?" 

"It's arrogant to do this." 

"Just go to any town and you'll find someone who needs help. Why go with an organization, that costs money?" 

Oh, I came with much caution and pessimism - those are all direct quotes from professed friends. I haven't thought I would save anyone. But now I feel I owe you - you who sent me and Meggie off with contributions, and so much excitement and love. How can I come home with nothing tangible to show you? How can I come home broken? 

There's the septic tank, thanks be, and the joy of Zumba. And that very well might be it. So if it is - I have to let go as this second week starts. If that is all there is show for it, by way of successes, then that is the truth. Or all there is for others. The soul lessons have been great, as I can even understand them so far. And the affirmation of intuition as a guiding force has been deep. Within ten minutes of meeting all the volunteers, I was immediately drawn to Leslie - the world is full of soul connections and one here is a sweet surprise, a little reminder that life as it was ticks on and on, and I'll rejoin it - but the Tanzanians won't. 

I was asked by Emmanuel if all us Americans - can we all afford most of the things in most of the stores? How to explain a platinum ring, a vacation house, owning two cars for two adults? WalMart versus Saks? How do I talk about disposable diapers and throwing away food? Or closets of clothes so big we probably could not make an accurate list of every tee, every pair of panties, every coat, sock, shoe and baseball cap that we own? I actually didn't recognize Moses tonight, when he came to stoke the fire, for he was in a new jersey! After I got back John said, when I was explaining how I struggled to explain poverty in America to Emmanuel, "Oh, I get it! It's like, how do you explain the difference between flying ON a plane and flying on your OWN plane? How do you explain the difference a Bentley and a Ford Focus?"

If the choice had to be made right now, I wouldn't come back to Tanzania. It is so broken, and I am so small, that my little dollars to the deaf women who make crafts, or to Mamamorrie for doing my laundry, just seem to make it worse. Dangling the prize in front of Wile E Coyote but never, not once, letting him win. And we are the roadrunners - moving too fast. Someone said to us, during one of our evening lectures, "You need to slow down, America, or we really will never catch up." 

So I guess I want to apologize for how little - or negatively - I might effect Pommern, when you sent me with such enthusiastic support. I want to apologize for possibly bringing back more pain, a deeper understanding of grinding poverty, dirt, smell, anger from those who watch us zip by in a private vehicle. 

I'm groundless again tonight and so I took in a little Pema Chodron reading... she's right about one thing... how can I be both so big and so small? How can I stay right where I am without resolution; how I need resolution! Ah, but how Pema wags her finger at me lovingly - no, no, no; you don't. Resolution is bad for you; better always to sit in it. And get softened because of it.