the secret life of bags

i just found a dime in a bag that has never been to america with me (and as far as i know, i've never seen or had a dime since i left america), i wonder where else the bag has gone without me?

you never know with leather bags. they look like they're always out for adventure.

watching the wheels

often my favourite driver because of his calmness, sense of humour and quirkiness, i found him on this particular seat one day and couldn't resist snapping a shot.

tmail

while chatting with a friend, she wrote:

so you can open your blog but not your tmail?

haha tmail - i mean gmail!

you should register tmail as a domain

this is my belly laugh for the day. (my name begins with 't')

it's raining mangoes!

this is certainly something new! :)

on malaria

me: i had malaria.

friend: welcome to the club, I've had it 1000 times. mosquitoes run away from me now. they get malaria from me.

definitely one of the best laughs i had after i got malaria for the first time in my life. for those of you wondering - no, i wouldn't 'recommend' it to anyone. ;)

always a smile

this picture never fails to make me smile or laugh. i've no clue what was so funny, but it's a lovely candid shot, and it was a good day.

one headlamp

on a 10-hour drive from where i'm based to where i was supposed to go for a training, we left our base around 10 am (even though we were told in no uncertain terms by the operations manager that we were to leave at 8 am - and in the end it was because of him (and his team) that we left at 10!). so we drive along and eventually it gets dark (apparently this is a daily thing - but somehow always seem to catch us by surprise no matter what the situation). so it gets dark and we turn the headlights on - and well, they don't quite work and eventually sputter out. at this point, it's about 8 pm and it's pitch black (as in piiiitch blaaaaack holy shit am i blind??). so being the creative problem solvers that we NGO workers are - we took my headlamp, gave it to the person sitting in the front seat, who then hung out of the car window shining the light on the road in front of us which gave us just enough light to move on (albeit very very slowly).

so there we were, in the middle of the bush in the pitch black, one little headlamp shining in the dark and one co-worker hanging out the window. this is how we arrived at our destination (a big town no less, unlike the small village we came from). on the way, we almost drove into a swamp and also laughed our asses off when we confused the bejesus out of one motorbiker who couldn't decide what the hell we were (he thought we were a very tall person with a torch) and eventually rolled to an abrupt stop on the side of the road where we heard him say the arabic equivalent of 'what the fuck?' as we passed.

and on our way back to our small village, we started out from the big town at 8 am sharp and somehow still managed to arrive at our small village at 8 pm. i have decided that there's definitely a conspiracy against us ever arriving anywhere before dark (this is true - in my old base, no matter what time we would leave our base, we always arrived either just as the sun was setting or long after).

i did have a good laugh though because the person driving (the operations manager, or 'acting driver', as he likes to joke) turned the headlights on long before it got dark. i matter of factly pointed out to him that there was currently no need for headlights, but he just grinned at me. i figured that he was just showing off the fact that he had headlights again and was being over enthusiastic about using them (which i also pointed out to him and at which point he grinned at me even wider).

thrills?

i just pulled a car out of the mud. seriously, what  a thrill! either that, or my life is very very sad.

--

text sent to friend on 14/09/11

in control

so this is our driver while we were 'hovercrafting' in our car. i think he deserves a 'driver of the year' award.

it's a hovercraft!

travelling on a rainy afternoon, it's not so much a road as a...(i don't even know what to compare it to! feel free to complete!)

my pet sheep

on romance

in a conversation about marriage one day, one of my guys mentioned that he would like to be married in 7 years, when he is well established and able to support a family. although he felt being able to support a family comfortably was very important, he did regret however that he would be 37 at that time and thus that would give him only 3 years to be romantic with his wife. when i asked him why only 3 years (after all, you can be romantic the your whole life, right?), he said, 'well, you can't be romantic after 40, because by then you're grown up and you can't be acting like that anymore.' 

:)

it's an art

(i'll let you decide whether the art is in giving these kinds of directions or actually finding the right place.)

so I gave the following directions to a village one day: there's a big tree, then 2 trees that are very close to each other, then a big hole on the ground, then a tree with a fence around it, then the village. 

think we made it there?

today's laugh (because i can't think of a clever title)

a colleague of mine, learning how to drive, was backing out of our creative 'parking space', and spoke rapidly to our driver in arabic. i was curious about what he said so i asked him, "what did you say?" he replied, "i asked him: 'what about my behind, is it fine?'" 

:)

a restroom please

a colleague from headquarters came for a visit to the field and asked our staff, "where is the restroom?" our staff replied, somewhat puzzled, "you want a room where you can rest?"

it doesn't get cooler than this

only a goat...

as a follow-up to a previous post...

told ya south sudan was beautiful!! (and these were taken with a camera phone!)

no, i did not stick my hand into a socket...

...it's just that the water in somalia is/was shite. all these years in the field have taught me one invaluable lesson that i will carry with me always: it doesn't matter the price or the quality of the products you use on your hair if the water you are using is shite. 

case in point:

so a bush chicken flew into our windshield..

...and this was the result:

oops!!

your obedience is always appreciated

taken at a hotel in south sudan.

when pimples are cool

hey! it's a pub AND a club!! 

riddle me this: what do coffee & love have in common?

answer (picture taken at a coffee shop at the bangkok airport):

bathroom stories

"it all started with a latrine...," a colleague, speaking about how a professional relationship with a partner NGO started to go sour.

heard on the phone

in south sudan: 'yes yes, i'll talk to him, then i'll feed you back.' 

in somalia: 'speak up, you're breaking down!' that would, of course, be in lieu of 'breaking up'.

work?

travelling between field offices during the rainy season requires a 4-8 hour boat ride + a 4-8 hour car ride (and yes, travel times DO vary that much based on weather - consider that the same journey in the dry season is 6 hours tops - and only requires a car!). it can be very uncomfortable (especially when it starts to rain on you), but with a yoga mat and a life jacket as a pillow (a life jacket that the senior ops manager keeps insisting that i use as a life jacket for some reason - something about it's ability to save my life or something), life is good! :) seriously though, sometimes i can't  believe that this is work, that i'm here...boat riding down the nile, watching the sun set over the horizon, taking a 5 hour afternoon nap, sun bathing, savoring the beauty of south sudan, all on the clock. wow - who's lucky, eh?

formula for happiness =
yoga mat + life jacket + good music + african sun

the sun sets on the nile

goats on a boat learning how to float

BIG oops!

adventures in cooking

the other day, with every intention of turning the burner on to cook, i took a match, turned the dial on the stove to turn on the gas, and tried to light the burner with the match. it didn't work - i wondered why for a good 30 seconds before i realised that the reason the burner didn't light up was because i had not lighted the match!

after i made the shocking discovery that to turn on the burner, you need a lighted match - i managed to turn the burner on. after that, i put the pans (yes, making more than 1 dish! hallelujah!!) on the lighted burners only to realise that i had not actually cut up anything at all to put in the pan. so with a deep sigh and many laments about why in god's name i was cooking to begin with, i turned the burners off and put the pans away and started to cut up the onions.

hello, can you hear me?

one cold night in somalia, i had a conversation with my project manager that went a little something like this:

me: i think we should get heaters!

project manager: what?

me: (loudly) heaters!!

project manager: mosquitoes?

i don't quite know how you go from heaters to mosquitoes, but it sure was a good laugh!

coming soon!

i've no idea what any of this means, but apparently, whatever it is, it's coming soon!!

it's not just a condom

it's romantic love rubber (don't ask me why the picture is upside down).

101 uses for a kikoi

as a follow up to my previous post on how much i love kikois, here are a few reasons why. you can see it's not quite 101 yet (still working on it!), so feel free to add to the list! big big thanks to two friends (m & j), who's idea the concept is, and whose ideas i've stolen (with permission of course) below.

1. picnic blanket
2. skirt/sarong
3. dress
4. towel
5. massage cloth
6. laptop carrier
7. scarf
8. baby carrier
9. shopping tote
10. smoke diffuser (when the smoke detector at home drives you crazy and you’re desperate to stop it beeping, you wave the kikoy in  front of it to diffuse the smoke! genius!)
11. camera wrap
12. headscarf (bit bulky but works)
13. cleaning cloth for specs, hands, face, cars, car windows, etc.
14. sun shelter/parasol
15. blanket
16. shawl
17. pillow
18. pillow cover
19. rain cape (not amazingly effective in torrential tropical downpour though)
20. table cloth
21. superman/batman cape
22. dust protector
23. throw (for beds, shelves, sofas, etc.)
24. “garden glove” to pick up spikey leaves
25. steering wheel cover (if it’s too hot to touch)
26. modesty screen/lap sheet (e.g. when wearing  short skirt and having dinner at a Korean resto, i.e. sitting on the floor)/cleavage cover
27. wall décor
28. curtains
29. oven/stove glove (otherwise known as a potholder - very useful especially in Sudan because we can't seem to get off our asses to buy potholders!)
30. ring polisher
31. giant hanky (eeew)
32. giant serviette (also kinda 'ick' but beggars can't be choosers!!)
33. liner for a holey backpack (to stop small things falling out)
34. bedsheet/duvet cover
35. fire blanket/extinguisher (for small fires only!!!)
36. neck protector (for when you're in a car with unadjustable seat belt heights, and the seatbelt rubs your neck raw)
37. ironing board cushioning
38. closet lining (for when you're too lazy to clean the closet because you're not staying long, but you don't want your clothes to get dusty)
39. hijab