photocopying is hard

while photocopying one day, i looked at the copies that came out of the copier and tried to compare it to what i was holding in my hand. it took me, embarrassingly, more than several moments to realise that the reason they did not match was because what i was copying was still in the machine and what i was holding was the subsequent pages of the same document. 

in my defense, it was probably the 2561st piece of paper i was copying, AND, the document was in arabic!

afternoons in sudan

what do you do with afternoons with no electricity, in a place where there's nowhere to go? i think if there's one lesson i've learned in sudan, it's how to sit under a tree (for hours at a time), more than content to watch the world go by (trust me when i say this takes a LOT more patience AND practice than it sounds). 

naps under the tree

life can be very hard

it's a job trying to avoid the sun

waiting for the evening

08.37 vs 20.37

one night, while looking at my friend's phone, i noticed that it said 08:37. so i asked him, 'why isn't your clock at 20:37?' he's like, 'why should it be on 20:37, it's still the same time.' and i was like, 'well, how else would you know whether it's AM or PM.' (....)

lost in translation

i came across this purchase request the other day. i guess we're purchasing '3 dozen different types of women', oh and '5 dozen different types of women jugs'. :) talk about double entendre!

conversations in the field

one evening i found myself having a conversation with a grasshopper that was climbing up the side of the cooker while i was cooking (er, if you can call making ramen noodles cooking, i guess). it went a little something like this-

me: (pointing a damning finger at the darn g'hopper) you! go away.

g'hopper: ....

me: i mean it, go away!

g'hopper: (still slowly but surely climbing up the side of the cooker) ....

me: come on now!

g'hopper: ....

me: fine!! don't go away but don't jump in my food!!

i did think i was going a little bit crazy until later that evening i heard my friend talking to a frog.

friend: you, frog! don't go in there!

frog: plop plop plop

friend: no, no, no! get out of there right now! go go go!

i later witnessed the same friend talking to a cat: you idiot monkey, get out of here! 

there's actually sanity in there somewhere.

old school

a colleague wrapped up a discussion we were having on a (not very good & rather old) engineer that is working for us thus: "the problem is, he is 1960s series."

one of life's more difficult dilemmas

i'm still trying to decide whether this was an insult or a compliment: 

one day, our driver was trying to open the plastic packaging of a torch that he had just bought. so i took it from him, whipped out my leatherman (which sounds vaguely dirty i know), and knifed it open. 

so he turns, and says to the finance assistant who was sitting under the tree with us (life is hard, isn't it?), 'i just need 10 women like her'. i was like, 'err...' because i couldn't decide then and i still can't decide now whether it was a compliment or an insult!

irony at its best

this is what i get for making fun of other people's english. 'deep friend & minced' indeed!!

deep fried AND minced!

yummy!! only in thailand, right? have always loved creative thai english.

this biscuit...

...smiled at me before i ate it's face off :). a friend asked me if it was yummy - i told her not really but it sure was fun! yes, i am easily entertained. 

only in america

so i will admit to being totally fascinated by this contraption in the states - an escalator especially for carts!! crazy!!

taken at Bed, Bath & Beyond
Los Angeles

a spot more trouble

got in a  car accident in somalia once, when a truck carrying goats literally ran us over after hitting 3 cars before the car i was in. despite the totaling of 3 cars and 1 kiosk, nobody was hurt.

the truck that ran us over

the car it was trying to pass

the first car it ran over

the second car it ran over - our security car

our car, which was hit,
then dragged for about 5 feet, which hit...

this kiosk

a spot of trouble

so we had a spot of trouble one morning. 

funny story - while we were waiting for the tractor to come from town to pull us out, a bus came by. the driver of that bus came out and asked our driver, 'why are you parked there?' our driver said, 'well, we thought it would be a great place to park and wash the car.' hahahaha. i love this man, truly. :)

this is what we were trying to cross

oops

yep, well and truly stuck

tried to use the winch,
but tree was too far away

you might wonder why the car looks so clean

it's because our industrious driver decided
it was as good a time as any to wash the car

and because we're good employees

while waiting for the tractor to arrive

we used our 'on the clock' time wisely

and took pictures

after all, i AM M&E, i document

i suppose it does kinda look parked

if you close one eye, squint the other and
cock your head to the left

tractor finally arrived

we DID manage to get out

but we were so stuck it took a good
20 minutes, about 10 different tries and 3
different kinds of winches

i love kikois

if there is one lesson i've learned that i will carry with me always, it is this: you should never leave the house without a kikoi. never.

:)

whoa!

Poodwaddle.com

less than a week, seriously?

my brother-in-law, before i left los angeles, told me that it was amazing that i would travel so short a time and yet be so far away in so many different ways. i didn't understand, not really - the reality of a 16 hour flight + 1 night in dubai for a 15 hour layover + another 5 hour flight was looming too large for me to consider his words, especially since they began with 'travel so short a time'. 

i didn't understand, really, until a full 6 days after i left los angeles and i spoke to my sister online and discovered, to my absolute shock and awe, that i had left less than a week ago. i had come so far, from los angeles to malakal, in culture, in way of life, in daily realities, in so many other insignificant (yet significant) ways, that it seemed impossible to me that less than a week ago, only a 16 hour flight + 1 night in dubai for a 15 hour layover + another 5 hour flight away, i was sitting in los angeles, chowing down on pho and tofu rolls and now i was in malakal, struggling to make spaghetti sauce.

life defined

in 2006, as i was unpacking from a trip to thailand trip and packing for somalia, it occurred to me that i spent much of my life packing and unpacking. back then, at 26, i had no home, no bank account, no serious possessions (everything i owned fit into a suitcase & 2 boxes), and nothing to hold me anywhere. at 26, it was the most amazing feeling - holding down a first job in a country of my choice, and yet not really having any ties, truly feeling like the world is my oyster and i could pick up and go anywhere.

in 2010, now 30, as i was unpacking from a trip to los angeles and packing for sudan, it occurred to me that despite the fact that i now have a home, a bank account and despite the fact that my possessions no longer fit into a suitcase and 2 boxes (i proudly count amongst these possessions an antique desk that i adore, which obviously does not fit into either a suitcase or a box), i still spend much of my life packing and unpacking, i still live in one country and work in another, i still feel like the world is my oyster and that i could pick up and go anywhere (even though it'll probably take longer than an hour to pack now :)).

i guess this then defines my life - from one suitcase to another. 

(note: another epiphany to follow in 2014, after cheering ghana on in brazil. :))

hob-nobbing with the big wigs

sitting in a government office chit chatting with a minister or a director general, drinking tea

ghetto livin'

really gotta love his shirt 
(picture was taken in Midisho, the greenest village
in the Sanaag Region of Puntland/Somaliland)

workshop wisdom

all heard at a workshop:

from our resident tough guy: "i wouldn't force him to resign, i would resign him."

"i'm an agriculturalist, i move with seeds," from our resident expert on seeds (after this blogger was given about 3 kilos of seeds to take to someone else and wondered out loud what in god's name the speaker was doing with so many seeds). 

on seeds and seed certifications: "it's a little very complicated."

programme expenses?

one day, in somalia (this was in 2006), we had a guesthouse meeting, and we were having a serious discussion about whether DSTV (cable) could be filed under programme expenses, and thus charged to the donor.

the joys of development work...
--
an e-mail sent to friends on 09.03.06

ocean view

somalia has, at 3,025 km, the longest coastline in east africa, and the 3rd longest in the continent. long, dazzling, a breathless gorgeous blue green blue, empty (except for the crabs), untouched, delicious. see for yourself, even though the pictures cannot do it justice (and i decided not to attempt to do it justice with words). i did think though, throughout the 3 or 4 hour journey traversing the gulf of aden from las qoray to bosaso (one of my last road trips in somalia, and definitely the most memorable and the most beautiful) about the enormous amounts of money that is being lost to somalia, with the coastline unused and undeveloped, with illegal fishing, and rumours of toxic waste dumping. i'm just afraid this amazing resource, one of the few somalia has, will soon be lost.

active bottoms for active bottoms

taken at a TJ Maxx

21.10.10

Los Angeles

chinese english

your guess is as good as mine!

:)

i just saw giraffes and zebras crossing the street in nairobi on my way to the airport on sunday. they were babies - well, let's say teenagers. they looked like they were on their way home from a night out.

very sweet. made my travel to somalia, always hard, somehow easier.
--
posted on 09.05.09

not alone anymore

i heard a while back that somali pirates had pirated yet another ship. but this one was different. this one contained 13 burmese workers. my first thought? 'hey!! i'm no longer the only burmese in town!!'

i wonder- did these pirates see the hand written passports and think, 'oh fuck...' because you know, somalia, with it's fragmented state of being and having no central government, actually has digital passports. you know, the ones with holograms. and little arrows that allow the immigration people to scan stuff. and is typewritten. and shiny. 

imagine that!!

--

posted on 26.03.09

well, i've parked MY plane just down the road, where's yours?

'i found a plane for you! i found a plane for you!!', our admin guy one day, when i was evacuated but unsure about when or even whether a plane would be available. (yes, dear friends, he just 'found' a plane for me - and not just any plane, but one that the mayor had just landed in, one privately owned by a very rich man from UAE).

security men, AKs and internet cafes

this blogger is amused by the fact that wanting to go to the internet cafe warranted 3 security men jumping into the car with her with their AKs, and even more amused by the fact that they are now waiting outside the door, AKs in tow of course, just waiting for her to finish. this blogger is also aware of the fact that talking in the third person is a bit strange...damn you facebook updates!!

--

posted on 29.06.08, after this blogger was evacuated from the town she was living and working in, to another town.

sudanese english

somali english

just hangin'

while working on a word document one day, i found my little 'office assistant' just hangin':

put a big smile on my face.

a sad world

well, you know you live in a sad world when your project manager tells you they have a gift for you, and the first thought that pops into your head is, 'we got toilet paper!!!'
--
an e-mail sent to friends on 26.09.06

very wormly indeed, from the beast

a welcome e-mail from an old timer to a new timer:

Dear ______

On behalf of field office team.

I would like to welcome you wormly to the team

Beast regards

amazing skies

starting to be able to tell the time of the night by the position of Orion's Belt in the sky

having the moon actually light the way on a otherwise black night

recognition

passing through a tiny village of perhaps 15 houses in the middle of nowhere and having the villagers know me by name

starting to recognize trees, rocks, bushes, blades of grass...when travelling from one destination to another

on identities and how to get them

a colleague of mine said, when i asked what a building was for, 'that's where you get your identity.' i think he meant ID card, but hey, identity works too!

on drinking

a Sudanese colleague and i were discussing the drinking problem in Juba and he managed to sum it up appropriately when he said, 'these people don't know how to drink officially.'

an interesting way to say the person went out to get pissed: 

• Oh, he went to 'refresh his mind'.

ways to say the person is actually falling down drunk:

• Ah, that guy, he's 'out of service', eh?
• Hahahaha, look at him, that guy has 'no network'.

are you sure this is the right address?

at one point, my work address was:

next to the nigerian high commission which is next to the italian restaurant next to casablanca (a club).

i got so used to these kinds of specific instructions in kenya that when i went to visit the states and was given just an address, i was a little bit confused and wondered whether i was in the right place even though the street, the house/building number, and the apartment number matched. when my friend finally arrived, i asked her why she didn't just tell me that her apartment was above a cuban restaurant because she could have saved me the trouble of being laughed at when i asked the taxi driver, more than once, whether he was sure it was the right place (at which point she promptly laughed at me too).

say what??

once, a collegue of mine asked me whether i could dance. he asked because he said i don't look like i could dance due to my being so serious all the time.

i was totally insulted!!

me, serious????? me, not dance????? (okay, so i'm no usher but i can kinda shake it if i need to!!) 

on the lighter side

when i was working at UNEP (this was in 2005) in nairobi, the kenyan interns told me that i sound like 'a polite black american'.

i told a good friend that and she said, 'yes, that describes you perfectly, doesn't it? because you're polite, black AND american!' i'd have to agree with her. :)