Missing American food... And new shoes

One day, I was laying out in my backyard and I got bored. I took my fingernail and scratched these delicious American foods (that I am practically starving for) into the chair. I called Brendan and told him what I'd done and he said, "That's gross! You could probably clean that nasty film off with some bleach and a sponge." And I said, "Meh.. No."

In case you're wondering, the list reads:
BBQ, salad, shrimp, cheese dip, pita, margarita, bacon, meatloaf, lasagna, blueberries
NEW SHOES

November already!?

Dear readers, are you there? It's me, Leah.

Finally, the blog website is accessible from school again. Why does it come and go? I do not know. I was just thinking this very morning about how I wish I could blog all of my fun stories to you!

This past Sunday (otherwise known as yesterday) Bren and I are eating breakfast together, but very separately. He is sharpening his knives with this cool kit-thing he bought off the internet. I am shoveling food into my face as quickly as possible while he scrapes these knives on these metal rods. We have this conversation:

Leah: You know, biscuits and gravy is one of my top ten favorite foods.
Bren: Really? (scrape, scrape)
Leah: YES. And also grilled shrimp ceasar salads. And lobster. And pie!
Bren: Hm. (scrape, scrape)
Leah: (takes a huge bite of B&G) I could really eat a salad right now. That's the first thing I eat when I get home and before I come back here, you know?
Bren: Yeah?
Leah: Dude? Why can't you just relax and not do anything? Just like Daddy, you know? Whenever he has time off, he's got to be doing something. Why can't you people just enjoy some free time?
Bren: Free time is a waste of time.
Leah: (thinks hard) ... But... I love wasting time. Let's go to the pool today.
Bren laughs hysterically.

This is when the light bulb goes off in my head. I realized that I have a very specialized talent called The Ability To Do Nothing and, apparently, not everyone in the world has this talent. I see this as a blessing for me!

Anyway, where am I going with this? Today I'm in the Corolla on my way to school and I'm just a careless blob taking up space in the universe. And I wish I could explain to you what it really is like to be in this state. I'll try: My mind is pretty blank, I'm not seeing anything, the annoying British woman on the radio is talking about the free trip to Mombasa but it's kind of faded into the background. I'm looking out the window and I'm enjoying my little quiet time.

And then I see this scary guy. He's wearing black pants, black shoes and a black shiny pleather jacket. The collar on his jacket is flipped up, covering the lower half of his face. He's crouched down on a stoop in front of a weird music store. His knees up in his arms, all facing to the side, but his head is turned towards the street. And he's staring at me! He's got a really mean look in his eyes and I immediately realize that he's gonna be one of the Crazy Ones who randomly pick someone out of a crowd, rush their car and start screaming at them. (Yeah, this happens. Usually people who've been abusing illegal substances and come to the realization that other people in the world are living better than they are.) I'm thinking, Aw man, I don't want to do this today. And I put my sunglasses on, find something to fiddle with, and turn back to the window expecting to see him there yelling at me.

But, in a creepier twist of fate, he continues to sit on his step and stare at me. Which, in a way, is actually kinda worse. And then all of a sudden, this voice fills the air and I can hear it over my own radio in the car! It's a reeeeeally deep manly voice which I can only describe as devilish and it's calmly saying something in Arabic. The noise of it is surrounding EVERYTHING. But you know sometimes you hear a foreign language and the words sound kinda familiar? Like, someone says a word in French that sounds like olive and you're like, Olives? But you totally know they're speaking French and not talking about olives, it's just that you want to understand and your brain immediately tries to turn the French into English. Well, what this guy is saying Arabic sounds an awful lot like what someone would say in English that could translate to: "Hey! Little girl in the Corolla! Yeah, YOU! I'm gonna get you!!!!!!!!!!"

I consider freaking out because I don't understand where the voice is coming from and it's SO LOUD. I look back to the creepy guy and he's still there, staring at me, completely unaffected by this voice. And then the voice goes away and strange music fills the air and I think, Oh wait, maybe this is coming from that little music store? Then I notice a huge speaker in front of the door to that music store, and I sort of giggle a sigh of relief and realize that the voice is probably a deejay announcing a song.

But for a second there, I totally thought the Devil was coming for me and that I was about to witness some kind of Jesus v. Devil event in Ethiopia.

Other than that, my ride to school was completely typical and I'm happy to report that the scary guy on the step never did come yell at me.

You wanna know something fun? I had a friend here last week. A real, live friend from college came to Addis Ababa for an Operation Smile mission in Jimma. I was so excited, you guys!! So I hung out with her and her group and I took them shopping for souvenirs on Churchill Road. I took them to lunch at my favorite Indian restaurant, where the rest of their group met us for a nice meal. They kept asking me questions about Ethiopia, but I couldn't tell the truth because there were two local people with them. So I tried to avoid their questions by doing the classic non-answer, change the subject routine. A doctor from her group demanded to go up on this mountain to visit a church made completely out of rock. I didn't really want to go, but I did anyway.

You see, these trips out of the city on mountains and stuff are not REALLY the right kind of trip to take in a Corolla. Since I refuse to go in a taxi or to get stuck anywhere without my car and my English-ish speaking driver and my stuff.... I got G to drive, so Brette and a cool anesthesiologist named Terry rode with me. As I suspected, the cement road ended and turned into your typical rocky dirt road filled with people yelling "FERENJI!!!" ("FOREIGNER!!") at the car.

At several points on our voyage, the road was so bad that we all had to get out of the car so G could maneuver over the mini-boulders without scraping the car up. That was funny because we got to see all the interesting things happening in the little village areas. For example, a new groom dressed in white, adorned with flowers, surrounded by his chanting and dancing bridal party (but where was the bride?!) Children running towards us and screaming to get our attention until they were out of breath.

I don't know if you've ever been in a situation when literally every eye is on you, when every person is considering your presence, when small children are running towards you down hillsides, when people slowly move closer to you and say "Money? Hello? Money? Hello?", when you didn't really want to caravan up that darn mountain the first place and now you're the center of attention and you're trying to avoid eye contact with people so they don't mob you.

G has to stop and ask for directions from a few guys herding cows (and holding rifles). Brette looks nervous, Terry looks excited, G looks bored, and I am fervently hoping I don't have to pee anytime soon. We weave around the countryside, get out a few more times so G can get the car over various road blocks, and finally arrive to an open area where we have to leave the car and HIKE the rest of the way up the mountain to the church.

I'm wearing Birkenstocks and Brette is wearing cowboy boots. (She later regretted this.)

It turns out that one of the cow-herding, rifle-holding guys allows himself to be our unofficial tour guide to the church. Basically, he is following us around. I'm not entirely comfortable with this situation, but I'm trying to go with the flow. I guess he could be helpful if we get ourselves lost. Either that or he'll take us to the top of this mountain and shoot us (ha ha?). We hike for about half an hour straight UP through the forest. My legs (and lungs!) are on fire. I'm sweating and swearing and wondering how the people who actually attend this church do this every week. Young children start are drawn from wherever they were in the forest and start to follow us. They never really walk with us, per se, but they hike close enough to us that they can see us and try to join the adventure.

It's pretty freaky when people appear out of the forest and hide behind trees to stare at you. You know that feeling you get when you know you're being watched? Yeah. It's uncomfortable to KNOW there are people out there that can see you, but you don't know where they are.... Then you look up and BAM! Little faces peeking out at you from behind Eucalyptus trees!

The local people who were at lunch with us are easily zooming up the mountain and, though I'm a pretty small person, I'm starting to feel fat and lazy. And also? The vegetable curry I had for lunch is threatening to come back up. (A free tip for you: Do not EVER eat Indian food and then go hiking. Bad bad bad!!)

We finally reach the top of this mountain and take turns taking pictures of each other in front of the sign that says "This is the entrance to the Rock Hewn Church (Washa Michael) ------->" and then it's repeated in Amharic. The church turned out to be pretty cool and kinda strange. I didn't really understand which part was the actual church where people worship. It just looked like a bunch of caves to me. But I did learn that the Italians bombed this church about 60 years ago, so that's why it doesn't have a roof. I also saw some goat bones. Yay.

Here's a picture of me crawling through the window of the church:



We hung out here for awhile, then hiked over to an open area with a massive pile of rocks on it. If you stand on the rocks, you get an incredible view of the city. From here, I noticed that the city is kind of split in half. The city on my left is small buildings and the city on my right is tall buildings. And I announced that the city looks a lot nicer from up there. Then the guide (whom I trust now because he didn't try to kill us, though I'm kinda irritated because I've been trying to take pictures of his rifle on the sneak-sneak and he keeps eluding me...) leads us back down the mountain to our cars so we can all be on our merry way.

When we reach the bottom of the mountain, of course our he asks for money for his services. Like we asked him to follow us around, you know? But that's how it goes, so someone gave him 50 birr, and told him we would only pay him if he allowed us to take a picture of him holding his rifle. This delighted me! And a simple picture of the guy holding his rifle turned into a group photography session. Please see my contribution below:



I know my parents especially enjoyed that picture! I think it might be a framer. All in all, the mountain escapade was pretty fun and I took some awesome pictures up there.

In other news, I'm coming home in 16 days! I am so excited!!!! I have less than three weeks in Addis, then I won't be back til next year. It feels good to say that. Especially because Bren gets to come home this time!!!! Did I mention that I'm SOOOOO EXCIIIIIITED???????

Enough blogging for the day. I have more stories to share, so I will be back tomorrow to blog again..... if the internet lets me!

Experiencing Meskel- A video tribute

Behold, my random pictures

Welcome to hail. (Get it!?)

Making tortillas by hand. I don't speak Spanish, but I know these tasted no bueno.

How do we feel about body odor? You decide.

Me and Bruk on his first day of 9th (?) grade

gap.com & LB, bff forever

I'm super surprised that I'm able to sit here and blog right now. The website has been inaccessible from school, so I haven't been able to connect to you guys in awhile. I know... I promised to blog every two weeks. Can we just skip the part where I apologize profusely for being such a deadbeat blogger?

Let's talk about recent events, shall we? Ethiopia has celebrated two big fun holidays in the past month. 1. Eid ul-Fitr and 2. Meskel.

Let's disucss.

Eid ul-Fitr is the end of Ramadan, when the Muslims see the full moon or whatever and fasting can end so the feasting can begin. I was particularly bummed that Eid ul-Fitr was on Sunday, because if it had been on Monday, we would have been out of school. At the same time, I was not interested in staying up to see if there was a full moon at midnight (ever), so I hoped for the best that it happened Sunday and school wouldn't be closed Monday when I showed up. How else am I supposed to know it's a holiday? Ask someone? Like...... who?

**Public service announcement: Do not read the following paragraph while eating**

This holiday was interesting to me, because everyone was fattening up street chickens and herds of goats for what I like to call "Slaughterfest 2K2". You know it's only 2002 in Ethiopia, right? I'm sorry if your head just exploded with this wealth of information, but I need to share the love. Anyway, there's nothin like cruising down the road and seeing fifty goat carcasses. I especially adore the discarded guts my fabulous neighbors leave in the road. You really haven't lived until you've seen dogs eating/fighting over goat brains on the corner. I have to admit my favorite part of this holiday was awakening in the dead middle of the night to the sound of an animal being slaughtered at the house next door. If that doesn't make you clutch your husband, I don't know what will.

This past weekend was Meskel. Wanna know how you celebrate Meskel? Well, it involves everyone wearing these white gauzy outfits, okay? And then a huge group of Ethiopian people (wearing white) start dancing and chanting around this pyramid of wood. On top of the pyramid of wood is a huge cross. When the jig's over, they light the pyramid on fire and watch the cross burn and everyone starts going LALALALALALALALLALALALA.

Let's recap: People wearing white. Burning crosses and chanting.

I totally filmed the whole thing.

My favorite part of Meskel was accidentally catching a high school girl running towards me try to jump over something, but tripping instead. Heh heh heh! I tried to pretend I didn't notice, but I just couldn't very well help myself. But in all honesty, I was a little bit wide-eyed after seeing the group (I almost typed "clan" ooooooooooooooops) set the cross on fire. I kind of kept looking around to other people to see their reactions, but nobody else was spooked. For all the crap I get from people about being from the South, you'd think Africans wouldn't make a freakin holiday out of burning crosses.

I'm just sayin.

I did try to take some meaning from the program the third graders put on about Meskel, but I just couldn't follow it. I got some parts about the rain and lightning and something about thunder and digging for "the true cross", but I got so lost because, in the middle of the program, it actually DID start raining. Of course, Meskel is also a way to celebrate the end of the rainy season, so I had to giggle uncontrollably at the irony! Instead of finishing the little concert, we were all banished back to our classrooms until they set up tents for us to stand under to watch the cross burn (don't wanna miss out on that!). I ended up reading Bud, Not Buddy to our kids. Guess what a main theme of that book is? Racism. Is anyone else seeing a pattern?

Friday at school is always fun, especially when there's something to celebrate (even if it's something creepy like Meskel). So it's no surprise when I run to the car, excited to go home and put on my snuggly pants and ring in the weekend. That is, I was excited until I got to the car and it smelled like my driver's B.O.!!!! Sick! I rolled down the window and basically hung my head out like a dog. Then I sent Brendan the following text message: "We need to stage an intervention on G's body odor before one of us dies." No response. So I send this text: "And by 'one of us' I meant 'me' because I'm riding in a dumpster on wheels."

Now, I'm not sure how to politely tell G that he smells like a rotten onion, so I ignore it and put Vick's Vapor Rub on my nose and try to trick myself (thanks to my mother in law, Molly, for that idea!). It might help if the man changed clothes, but honestly, I don't know how to go about fixing the Stinky Man Problem. I stopped riding shotgun, now I cower in the back with my face at the window. And when he asks if I want him to roll up the windows to turn on the A/C, I practically have to hold myself back from screaming "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, NO!" Being boxed up in the car with his funk is more than I am willing to endure for my beloved air conditioner. (By the way, the whole country smells bad, so the fact that I'm opening the window to face the stench of the world should let you know how bad G smells.)

But basically, I couldn't wait to get home to tell Brendan all about the Meskel thing. I made him sit and watch the videos and look at the pictures and he was like, "Really? This really happened?" And then we giggled and ate pasta. (Okay, I didn't eat the pasta because I didn't think it smelled very good. I was right. Brendan declared it to be so disgusting that he didn't even want to give it to Mwala. Brendan has NEVER said anything I've ever made was nasty, so I took his word for it and threw it away. Seriously, who screws up PASTA?!!)

Another funny thing happened when I was making pasta. At the last minute, I realized that it wasn't looking quite right, so I decided to make a cake to neutralize the grossness of the main dish. I also decide to make a strawberry sauce to go on top of it. I'm in the process of using that whirring machine (what's it called? the one with the two things?) and of course, the power goes out. Why does this happen to me? Every freaking time I try to bake a cake, the electricity cuts out. So I got really mad and stomped out of the kitchen. The power came back on about half an hour later (just long enough for me to get good and mad and then get over it), so I let the oven preheat and baked the cake. I'm just saying, that was the best cake EVER!!! I'm not sure if letting the batter sit out for like an hour is what made it so good? But dude, I was thankful that the pasta was The Nast because I got to waste all of my calories on sweet, delicious cake (aka- the sustenance of life).

Did I tell you guys that me an B watched the "X-Men" series a few weeks ago? It made me kind of obsessed with superhero people. I'm really wishing I could be one of them. I decided that my future children will be named after X-Men characters, including but not limited to, Phoenix, Wolverine & Mystique. But not Cyclops because he's awful.

I filled my Mom in on this idea and she thought it was horrible. She's like, "No. Definitely no, Leah." I told her to give it time, that the names will eventually grow on her. She did not agree. But it's okay, Mom, we have YEARS AND YEARS until this whole thing comes into fruition. Speaking of children, I'm at work right now and I'm completely confused by the drama of fourth grade life. These days, the kids are forming their own fake governments and appointing each other offices and creating rules and stuff. Then they pretend someone got kidnapped and they trade fake money to get the person back to their "home" country. I'm befuddled by the whole thing. Also, they made these paper cell phones and call each other all the time. So they sit here holding paper to their heads, talking right next to each other. When I (so stupidly) asked why they can't have a conversation without holding paper to their heads, they responded "Because we can't talk without a phone, Ms. Leah." Oh. Okay then. What do I know?

I've been working out lately and pretty diligently. I've fallen in love with the rowing machine (in the free gym at school) and hit it up everyday. It brings the pain, but it's also a lazy-man's workout since it doesn't hurt my knees, joints, and it involves no bouncing or running. You sit, pull, push over and over. It's amazing!

Not sure if I told you this, but my family knows because they saw me right after it happened. But I got WICKED BAD food poisoning from some Kenyan pork ribs (Yes. This does sound like an extremely bad idea. What do they say about hindsight?) right before I left here this past Summer for my USA vacation. I'll spare you the dirtiest details, but I'll put it out there that I blacked out on the toilet, so in addition to having severe stomach issues, I also had a bruised head and knee. I tell you this because about a month ago, I learned that there has been an outbreak of Cholera in Ethiopia. I'm not sure if it's centered in Addis or out in the bush, I just know that I don't want it because Cholera is apparently like the Diarrhea Virus times a million + death. I can't imagine anything worse than food poisoning, so I've been boiling the heck out of our water and bleaching the veggies for extra long. Imagine!! Pooping yourself to death!!

Other than these weird holidays and debilitating body odor, life has been pretty sweet. The shop I go to at the Hilton got in a huge shipment of Babybel cheeses (from where?!) and I bought as many as I could. I am loving some cheese and crackers. I had a bad day at work last week and quit my job (No, I've never been called impulsive.) and today actually went in and un-quit my job. So, it looks like I'll be employed until June. Yayyyy. I do this because I want to go on more awesome vacations. Other than that, I am counting down the days until I am home again. But for now, I gotta go because my darling Momma is on gchat and I want to talk to her!! Toodles!

Ten points for me.

I ate Ethiopian food and didn't die!!!!!

What is this, you may ask? This is injera, a spongey bread like pancake that the vegetables lay on. You tear off pieces of injera and scoop up some veg and eat away. No utensils are needed. This works well for me, because I wash my hands 23098402384382049 times a day. Someone who is not so hygienic? I dunno about all that. The vegetables (clockwise from top left) are potatoes/carrots, shiro sauce (orange spicy deliciousness made from powdered chickpeas) "yellow bean", ??, spinach, cabbage, beets, and lentils (delish).

Proof:

Props to LB, yall.

PS- Looking at this now is making me sick.

Irony!

Well, it's the rainy season here in Addis and we've certainly had some intense storms this week! Unfortunately, they start around 4am, which is just obnoxiously close to the time I need to wake up to get ready for work. (My alarm goes off at 5:37. I dunno why I chose such a weirdo time, but it totally works for me to have 3 more minutes until 5:40. I use this precious nugget of time to whine about getting up so early. Then, I flail myself out of bed and commence the showering.) So the storms wake me up and there's really no point/way to go back to sleep. The "storms" usually have crazy bursts of hail that last for 20 minutes or so and you can only imagine how loud that is on our aluminum roof. I really feel this weather is like a mini-hurricane everyday, sometimes twice a day. It's totally bizarre because then the sun comes out. This is why the Addis Ababa motto is "13 Months of Sunshine". It may rain cats and dogs (and hail) for four hours in the morning, then the sun comes out and defrosts you, then the sun melts your face off, then you go home to wash your stinky, sweaty, African-covered/scented self, and climb into two layers of sweatsuit + thermal socks so you won't freeze to death at night. In short: we have every season of weather through the course of one day.

This is exactly the situation I woke up to yesterday. It's 4am. I'm torn from Dreamland. I'm thinking someone is using one of those concrete blasters on the roof above my head. I'm confused. (Yeah, let's all go ahead and admit that mayyyyyybe I have the worst ideas immediately upon waking. They don't even make sense.) I immediately fight the idea that I also might have to go to the bathroom. But I don't WANNA get outta the bed to do this, because, well, then there's just no going back to sleep. I'll be awake and so will my body. I take the bathroom idea and push it to the back of my head and tell my bladder that it had better wait til my alarm says it's time to formally get up. Then I discover that Brendan is kind of awake, too. He takes a look out the window, groans, and throws his pillow over his face to hunker back down and enjoy what appears to be blissful sleep. I'm jealous.

My mind turns to the storm we had a few nights ago. I had woken up suddenly around 2:15. I was so shocked by how incredibly hard the rain sounded that I *needed* to make sure it wasn't raining in the house again. The noise was so absolutely deafening; it sounded like it was raining inside of my BRAIN. I was intruiged, so I got outta bed and went to the window to look. Of course it was all foggy, so I couldn't see anything outside. But I did happen to notice that water was streaming in through the window and soaking all of my (fabulous!) shoes lining the wall. FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC. Anyone wanna give a hip-hip-hooray for Ethiopian architecture and engineering? No. Nobody does. I ran to the bathroom and grabbed a towel, and apparently the best thing I could think of was to move my shoes and place the towel on the floor where the shoes were, to soak up all the water. I mean it's 2:15, what kind of ideas do you think I could come up with? Then, I crossed my fingers, hoped for the best and went back to sleep. The next day I woke up and was all irritated like, Geez, what idiot threw this wet towel on the floor over here? And why are my shoes all over the place?! Who would do this?

But back to my other story: I desperately want to go back to Dreamland, but it is now nearing 4:45, which is less than an hour away from my designated wake-up time. Boo. I stir around to see if Brendan is awake and wants to talk to me. I stick my face as close to his shoulder as possible (thinking back, my dogs do this exact same thing to me ALL THE TIME, I wonder where they learned it?). Bren responds very sleepily: You want to share my pillow? I said Yesssss. And he moved the pillow over and gave me some of it to help me drown out the crazy hail-storm noise. I lay there, thinking how totally sweet that is. Someone less-sweet probably would have just pulled the pillow back down on their own head and gruffly whispered something like "Hey crazy pants, could you please stop moving so I can go back to sleep?" (This is probably what I would've done.)

Anyway, I never did go back to sleep. But I definitely didn't get up before 5:40. I refuse to get out of bed until the last possible second. At least I didn't make Brendan late for work, for once! He's been really dreading me going back to work because we ride together, you know?, and I apparently always make him late. Here's what I don't really understand about it: He doesn't have to be at work until 7, and we always get there at least by 6:50. When I mention this fact to Bren, he says "Early is on time, LB." and I say, "Geez, you sound like Joel Emerson." And he says, "But I want to get here at this time to eat breakfast and have a cup of coffee and look out at the mountains before I start my crazy day of work." And I say: "Mehh. I forgot about that."

I would say I have more of a Work-to-Live philosophy and you will not see me at work more than 5 minutes early unless I have something important to do, or if it's absolutely mandatory. This goes for quittin' time, too. I'm like, school's out? Jack's gone home now? See you guys 'round like a doughnut. And I'm out. Also, I'm really lucky to have had the kind of jobs where this is possible. None of my recent jobs have required me to worry about work outside of the allotted workday! The extremely ironic part of this is that riding to work with Brendan makes me unintentionally arrive at ICS (my school) around 7:10. Which is a good 50 minutes before school starts. I use this extra time to play on the internet and see all the new goodies that Gap.com has to offer.

Anyway, I keep getting really off track. I'm trying to focus on my story about how cute Brendan was when he offered to share his pillow with me. We drop him off at work and G drives me towards ICS. I'm trying to think of some way to repay him, maybe by cooking something for dinner that isn't so horrible that he has to drown it in hot sauce. I'm absorbed in my own thoughts, when I notice a very disturbing sight in the distance.

I have to point out some obvious things to you in order to get to my point: This is Ethiopia, an undeveloped country, where people are dirt poor and are quite used to doing things we developed people would classify as "filthy" "sick" "gross" "nasty" "$#@!" and "backwards". People totally use the bathroom on the side of the road. I've seen a woman in a skirt hunker down on the sidewalk, do her thing, stand up and keep on walking. It's usually men, though, and they don't at ALL try to hide themselves from oncoming cars, passing people, anything. It's totally sick. I spend a lot of time cursing these men, because it's HORRIFYING to be riding down the road and suddenly see an exposed dude. My reaction is to scream and vomit a little in my mouth. I have mentioned the phrase "looking out the window without really seeing anything" a few times in my blogs. Now you know what I mean and why.

Which brings me back to the disturbing thing I see this on fine, stormy Tuesday morning. I'm on my way to an elementary school and see -SURPRISE- a dude using the world as his toilet. This time was a bit different, however, because his woman was standing behind him, fully covered from head to toe in her burkha/veil thing, and she's holding an umbrella OVER THE GUY to shield him from the insane rain. Not over herself. Over him. I was like, You gotta be KIDDING ME!! These people, well not all people, but most of these people just drive me crazy. What a crappy thing to do, man. I immediately deduct that this man is an absolute a-hole. In fact, I hope he was walking down the road sometime yesterday and stepped in human poop. Then, I'd feel better!

I guess it's just so weird to think of how different cultures treat women, or how they even treat each other, I guess. People here are reeeeeeally nice to each other. Everyone is always kissing cheeks and holding hands (yeah, guys holding hands with guys!) and stuff that is just so mushy even I get put off by it. I never really got into the triple cheek kiss that Ethiopians do, so I try my best to send the don't-kiss-me-vibes. I know I sound just AWFUL, but I don't want a strange person smashing their cheek on mine and kissing me. Eeeeeeeegh. Freaky. Call me rude. (Note: This horrible behavior only applies to strangers and/or people I don't know well. Otherwise, I am very open and receptive to kisses.)

You know, you guys are probably thinking I'm some major uppity bee-itch. I swear to you, I have about 5% bee-itch in me and it really only comes out around disgusting smells, behaviors, sightings, etc. Otherwise, I'm pretty cool (if I do say so myself!) Besides, everyone needs a little bee-itch in them or you'll just get walked all over.

In completely other news...
1. I'm working in my teacher/friend's classroom and she (Sienna) is totally healthy. I'm talking vegetarian, all organic, etc. Now I'm trying to bring all these fresh carrot slices and cucumbers and junk to keep up with her. Isn't it the worst feeling to sit beside someone who eats really great healthy food while you're eating, say, triple cheesy enchiladas with no vegetables + extra guacamole? I am really determined to keep up with her and not be the "bad" one. I am inspired, because she is totally tall and beautiful and looks ten years younger than she really is! For these results, I am definitely interested in bringing my own veggies to work instead of PB crackers. However, my friend Paula gave me a Welcome Back to School BAG of mini-Mars candy bars yesterday and I have really been wolfing them down. I was barely even on the wagon and I've already fallen off.

2. Fre did NOT actually figure out Brendan's sock thing. It was a joyous one-time fluke that really got his hopes up. He was so excited to find that she had it under control, but the next day he wakes up to go to work (I wasn't working yet, since school just started yesterday) and I hear him say "That B*tch!!" I totally, TOTALLY turned over into my pillow and started laughing very quietly. I am really in love with this whole sock saga. It is absolutely entertaining!!!

3. This past week, Brendan and I celebrated our second wedding anniversary and his 26th birthday. For our anniversary, he and I went to the Sheraton and ate at "asian night" in the fancy restaurant there. There were asian people everywhere and the restaurant had an asian guy serving sushi, so we figured it was safe. Later in the evening, as I took a bite of amazingly wasabi-fied crab-something or other, I said to Brendan: "Hey, this might be a really bad idea.... You know, "sushi" in Africa. Think this'll kill us?" His reply? "Maybe." FYI- neither of us got sick. I am excited to announce that "asian night" is on my list acceptable dinner options.

For Brendan's birthday, I really tried my hardest to bake a decent cake. This was all but impossible with the power going out every 20 minutes. I wasn't quite sure it was alright to bake a cake for an hour and a half. I spent a lot of time wringing my hands. I kept thinking, Is it burning? Is it raw? Why is the curse-word power going off on curse-word electricity day, curse-curse-curse-word!!!!!!!! And I misread the directions and forced the cake out of the pan when it was still warm, so it basically exploded all over the counter and did NOT, in fact, stay in the shape of a bundt pan. So I made another one, but it sort of collapsed in on one side (I don't even know why!), so I tried to glue it back together with icing. Then I took strawberries (bleached, cleaned, washed, dried, of course) and stuck them all over the sunken crappy parts. Then I maybe ate 6 or 7 berries off the cake and had to replace them. It was a pretty wonky looking cake........... I sent Bren a text message that said: "The cake is delicious. Looks like a five year old made it. I did my best." In the end, I managed to put together a scrumptious dinner of: delicious steak, mashed potatoes & gravy, and grilled zucchini. And cake, of course!

The next day, I ate the rest of the strawberries off of the cake- by the way, strawberries + chocolate icing = DELIIIIIIICIOUS- and I sent Brendan another text message that said, "Please bring home more strawberries. I have eaten them all. I need more for the icing."

I did not receive any berries. But he did bring me banana applesauce from the Commissarry!

Hope you guys are having a great week! Will blog again soon :)