Today was a weird day for me. I had a realtor meeting which went well and then I had a bunch of little things to finish up. I had no energy. But, I made a bunch of phone calls, did some work on the beach, and then ran out to finish up the few things that I had left to work on. I was feeling emotional. I learned that Ted Kennedy died. I cried in the car. And then, for some reason, I started thinking back to when my Mom’s friend Doris died of cancer, and our last visit with her, and then I cried some more. Then when I was out, some lady in the shoe store got mad at me for writing down prices of her shoes, and I felt really bad. I tried to explain to her what I was doing but she was offended I didn’t ask first. Then, I tried to ask prices of some medicines at the pharmacy next door and they wouldn’t give me any prices. It was only for 2 things, I was feeling discouraged. Then, I saw some crazy man hanging out (literally) with his penis out on the side of the road. I noticed his pants undone and then I took a closer look and I was so confused. I wasn’t sure if he was peeing or what was going on. I had to park right around the corner from him.
I went home, thought maybe having a couple drinks, relaxing, and writing up some reports would help me, but it really didn’t at all. Then I ate dinner alone and it was a bit depressing. I’m not sure where it came from all of a sudden! I was meeting Josue to go to Lady’s Night that night, and after thinking about it a little I was feeling like I really didn’t want to go. I didn’t have a good feeling about this either. We drove the 25 minutes to Red Hook, had a drink, and then he wanted me to try the Shark Attack which was their version of a scorpion bowl; literally was a jug of alcohol meant for much more than one person and I drank about half of it and felt a bit tipsy. Josue doesn’t drink, so at least I could feel good about him taking me home. But, when we finally reached the hotel, I had heard a bunch of compliments from him, and was semi-prepared when he tried to get me to come back to his room with him that night. I knew it was going to happen, he had semi-tried many times in the past few nights. I politely brushed him off and got back into my hotel room, safe and sound and not worrying about boys. It just wasn’t a very good day, all-around.
Every now again, someone comes into your life and inspires you – for whatever reason. It happens very rarely, but it is someone whom leaves a stamp on your being, and may even change who you are or how you feel. Usually you will never see this person again. Sometimes I think they may be an angel sent from God meant to reinforce that you’re doing the right thing and you should feel fortunate for who you are and what you have chosen to do with your life. In walks Larissa. I was at the absolutely gorgeous Trunk Bay when the beach was starting to become sparse of people. I had seen Larissa talking to some people on the taxi over about the beaches and St. John in general, she lives on St. Thomas (in a boat which she doesn’t know how to sail!) and had a store in St. John (so she worked here). She is originally a micro-biologist. She was still here and was lying not too far from me, so I wanted to ask her how you get back. “Well” she said, “either you run to catch a taxi (looking at her phone clock) around 5 o’clock before all the taxis leave the beach and don’t come back, or you hitchhike back” (which according to Larissa is completely normal and safe here). She is a very pretty 41 year old woman, who could pass for being in her early thirties, but she has a tone of voice that came across to me as experienced and made me wonder if she was older than early thirties. Her body, by the way, is way more fit than my own. She invited me to grab a bite with her before we left St. John, and I couldn’t have spent my evening a better way. We chatted as though we were long lost friends catching up. All the while, she wanted to see all my pics, she was completely inspired by the way I lived my life. She gasped at my pictures, at my stories, and you could just tell she really appreciated everything I have been through. She even called me an inspiration, but in a way – I felt that way about her myself. She has never been married, never had any children, and doesn’t regret it. I wonder if that will be me. She was so easy to talk to, clearly a very happy, positive person, and I really wish I had met her sooner and had been able to hang out with her for longer. She invited me to visit anytime on her boat.
St. John was beautiful. Now I know, that would be an amazing place to go on vacation, and stay at The Westin. I wonder how expensive that would be. Seriously though – it was unbelievable. The beaches were pristine and turquoise. Many of them were part of a national park on the island. St. John was quaint and cute. I got off of the ferry and went to where all the people were going and I was asked, do you want a taxi? So I said, I guess so. Where to? I have no idea. So, I decided to follow the crowd to Trunk Bay. So glad that I did! The seagulls dive and steal food from you though. Not good. I got some sun, a really yummy cocktail, and I did a lot of hanging out in the water. And then I met Larissa. I was glad I did, because even though I knew I was on the way home – I was feeling a bit discouraged. Maybe it was all about being ready to come home.
I thought I was going to die driving from the ferry to the hotel. There was no one behind me on these super windy roads, and I was going a very decent speed, but randomly I looked up and the car behind me was so close I couldn’t even see the headlights. I started freaking out. I sped up significantly and maybe drove erratically not even paying attention to the cars coming on the other side of the road because I seriously thought I was going to be, and expected at any moment, a huge crash in my rear-end. Maybe the guy was trying to drive me off the road. I really couldn’t tell what his deal was. I was pissed though. Thank God the maniac eventually passed me on the right. Geez, driving is hard enough here on the left side, through windy hills, is there a need to throw in an erratic driver??
This trip The Marriott has been a bit of a huge pain in the ass. They took almost 2 hours to deliver my lunch one day, they lost my DHL slip copy (but luckily found it the next day), my damn laundry was not finished by the time that I needed to leave the hotel this morning for the hotel, and also the blow-out of my air-conditioner probably left me with lungs full of smoke and needing to change rooms in the middle of the night, and THEN, the other night, I came home to no running water. They never warned me they were going to turn the water off. Then the next day in the morning, the water ran brown and eventually the cold water was fine, but the hot water was still running brown until I got home at night. Grrrrr!!
Funny enough, last night when I was on the way home from St. Thomas, I was on the American Airlines website and was just poking around, and I thought maybe I would change my seat. And I did. But considering it was only a 30 minute ride, I figured that I would leave it where it was. Maybe fate was such that I would meet a nice person on the plane ride to PR, in the seat that was randomly chosen for me. So, the next day I go to sit down and there is a pretty girl to my right. I mentioned to her that I loved her dress. As the plane was going up, we started talking because she mentioned that she was scared to death of flying, and I could tell it helped her to talk about it. I agreed. I mentioned to her that she looked familiar. She currently lives in Marblehead and went to Wheaton. She was a year below me, and then I knew exactly who she was. I had seen her many times and knew she was on the dance team. So, we’ve been hanging out since St. Thomas. Way to go fate! I had a feeling you would pull through. It was somewhat humbling to see this pretty girl whom I had thought had everything: the looks, the friends, the activities – get freaked out by flying. I guess I’m not the only one, am I! I wonder what percentage of the world actually can’t stand flying either. (PS I love you airplane - I’m currently on the plane now, haha. )
I can’t wait to get back to Boston. We will be arriving in less than an hour now (50 minutes) and I might cry when we land.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Fear of food? How in this world is that possible? (Unless you are like me and can be killed by them, of course..)
I learned today, that in St. Thomas, you must a) buckle your seatbelt if you are in the front and b) NOT drive while talking on your cell phone – but – it is perfectly acceptable to drink alcohol while driving. I didn’t think it made sense either. To recap, you must wear your seatbelt in the front in Gambia. In Haiti, there is no need to buckle up (apparently – even though they drive like maniacs), and also – the drivers here seem to rather you didn’t buckle up, for whatever reason that may be.
My realtor set me up today with one of her agents - Nick. It was pretty random actually – which is fine cause that’s how I roll (Ha Nick says this all the time). He happened to call while I was talking to her and she said what are you doing tonight? You must take Lauren out – even before she asked me what I was up to. So, we went for some drinks and some food (though I had really just eaten dinner, not knowing that when we made plans it was suppose to be for dinner). Nick has never tried wine before. In fact, he has a fear of trying new foods. Like a phobia. I think it’s hilarious. He told me the #1 rule was to never pick up a hitchhiker. I actually saw 2 today for the first time. Nick was a cool guy – he was going to come with me to St. John but he ended up having bad luck with the jeep he was buying and he had to take care of some appointments. I didn’t see him again, but I do wish him goodluck. He learned to live with the oddities of living on a vacation island, and eventually fell in love with it – but it took him quite a while to get there, including once when his bag was packed and he was leaving, and he was convinced to stay by the real estate agent I met with, Kerstin.
I went to eat something, and it was happy hour – so apparently you get 2 drinks for the price of one. I got 2 mango mojitos at once and almost wasn’t able to drive home. Rather, I shouldn’t have driven home. It’s OK that I did, by law here though.
My realtor set me up today with one of her agents - Nick. It was pretty random actually – which is fine cause that’s how I roll (Ha Nick says this all the time). He happened to call while I was talking to her and she said what are you doing tonight? You must take Lauren out – even before she asked me what I was up to. So, we went for some drinks and some food (though I had really just eaten dinner, not knowing that when we made plans it was suppose to be for dinner). Nick has never tried wine before. In fact, he has a fear of trying new foods. Like a phobia. I think it’s hilarious. He told me the #1 rule was to never pick up a hitchhiker. I actually saw 2 today for the first time. Nick was a cool guy – he was going to come with me to St. John but he ended up having bad luck with the jeep he was buying and he had to take care of some appointments. I didn’t see him again, but I do wish him goodluck. He learned to live with the oddities of living on a vacation island, and eventually fell in love with it – but it took him quite a while to get there, including once when his bag was packed and he was leaving, and he was convinced to stay by the real estate agent I met with, Kerstin.
I went to eat something, and it was happy hour – so apparently you get 2 drinks for the price of one. I got 2 mango mojitos at once and almost wasn’t able to drive home. Rather, I shouldn’t have driven home. It’s OK that I did, by law here though.
Pushovers
Car dealers here are really strange. They all eventually gave me in the info that I needed, but they are very hesitant to do so. Everywhere else I have been they would say sure and happily read off prices to me. I’m thinkin maybe it’s a US thing, since this technically is part of the US. Or maybe they are self-conscious because they know that I am comparing the price to the continental US and it’s the same car here, just more expensive due to the importation of the vehicles. I’m not sure. I tried numerous tactics to get information and it did end up working out just fine – (because in reality, I am sorta relocating a large group of clients who will be buying their products… well, not really, but…..)
The grocery store owners like me. They are all middle-eastern for the most part. I bet it would be interesting to go to that part of the world; ha – maybe I wouldn’t be safe on my own there. I tried to be very wary of my surroundings today. I feel like I was out on my own in the dark a little too often at times. I was in a really questionable area and there was a guy who approached me to tell me I was pretty (this was in broad daylight though). I was still a little nervous. I must go to bed now. I don’t know why I stay up this late all the time.
The grocery store owners like me. They are all middle-eastern for the most part. I bet it would be interesting to go to that part of the world; ha – maybe I wouldn’t be safe on my own there. I tried to be very wary of my surroundings today. I feel like I was out on my own in the dark a little too often at times. I was in a really questionable area and there was a guy who approached me to tell me I was pretty (this was in broad daylight though). I was still a little nervous. I must go to bed now. I don’t know why I stay up this late all the time.
Caribbean Beach (check) Happy (check)
Ah, I love the Caribbean. Today my friend Josue and I went to Megan’s Bay beach (which is considered one of the top 10 in the world) and it was pretty nice. There were sea gulls and large pelicans flying all over the place trying to find the schools of fish that kept on swirling around us. The seagulls would repeatedly land on the pelicans and try to steal the fish out of the pelican’s mouth as they were catching the fish. It was very comical. The vegetation was lush and the mountains crept up the sides of the bay area. I’m curious though, what was the determining factor in declaring this one of the top ten beaches in the world? No complaints here, though – we spent the afternoon bobbing in the ocean bath water. Large foot-long iguanas are all over the place, I even almost got rear-ended yesterday while stopping for one that was walking in the middle of the road. I made the quick decision to stop because I couldn’t really swerve to the right (there was a blind drive and THAT could have been a really bad situation).
I feel really bad that I keep turning down Josue when he asks me to hang out after we get home from dinner. This is the third time he has asked me and I turn him down. I really just don’t want to put myself in an awkward position – not that I feel threatened by him in any way, but I’m just worried that he’ll try to kiss me or something and I don’t want that. We’ll see how long I can avoid it for; this was our 5th day in a row hanging out together though! We sat down to dinner and he said he wanted to sit in a particular seat because he needed to be looking at the door. I thought ewwww… I have heard THIS before, last time I dated a cop. I think it’s cheesy, one of the show-off things that they say. Josue is a customs officer at the airport here.
Josue introduced me to Kineps. They are little green fruit that have sweet/tart fruit under the skin but surrounding the nut in the middle. They are really good! One of the locals cut down like a tree of them so that I could take them home with me and put them in the fridge. Breakfast tomorrow.
Last night we went out to a latin restaurant – I ate some concoction made of fried plantains and some other stuff. It was good, but a bit too filling. And I was told I have never eaten Dominican food unless I have tried mangoo. I think that is how you spell it. It’s almost like a stew (apparently) made of plantains.
Tonight I worked out and a very large guy said to me (we were the only two in the gym) that he was amazed to see me go on the elliptical machine, and said that he could never ever keep going that long. I was pretty flattered, especially after how amazed he seemed. He said he may have even been inspired to try it himself. “Don’t you ever get tired on that?” I happened to have a non-winded session (I would have kept going if it wasn’t so late).
I feel really bad that I keep turning down Josue when he asks me to hang out after we get home from dinner. This is the third time he has asked me and I turn him down. I really just don’t want to put myself in an awkward position – not that I feel threatened by him in any way, but I’m just worried that he’ll try to kiss me or something and I don’t want that. We’ll see how long I can avoid it for; this was our 5th day in a row hanging out together though! We sat down to dinner and he said he wanted to sit in a particular seat because he needed to be looking at the door. I thought ewwww… I have heard THIS before, last time I dated a cop. I think it’s cheesy, one of the show-off things that they say. Josue is a customs officer at the airport here.
Josue introduced me to Kineps. They are little green fruit that have sweet/tart fruit under the skin but surrounding the nut in the middle. They are really good! One of the locals cut down like a tree of them so that I could take them home with me and put them in the fridge. Breakfast tomorrow.
Last night we went out to a latin restaurant – I ate some concoction made of fried plantains and some other stuff. It was good, but a bit too filling. And I was told I have never eaten Dominican food unless I have tried mangoo. I think that is how you spell it. It’s almost like a stew (apparently) made of plantains.
Tonight I worked out and a very large guy said to me (we were the only two in the gym) that he was amazed to see me go on the elliptical machine, and said that he could never ever keep going that long. I was pretty flattered, especially after how amazed he seemed. He said he may have even been inspired to try it himself. “Don’t you ever get tired on that?” I happened to have a non-winded session (I would have kept going if it wasn’t so late).
Remember... Drive on the LEFT
So, I may have completely and absolutely forgotten that Puerto Rico was a US territory. Completely forgot. They even use US currency. My friend from Puerto Rico mentioned it to me when talking about some lady who was stupid because she didn’t know that and I just laughed like… duh… ya she REALLY must have skipped that geography lesson. Oops.
My A/C blew out tonight. Me being slightly tipsy, was thinking – eh whatever, no big deal. However; smoke poured out of the A/C and the bellhop couldn’t even come in my room the smoke was so bad. I didn’t realized it until afterwards; I didn’t want to open a window cause I wasn’t sure if they were going to believe me that the a/c blew out and there was smoke everywhere. Haha, how silly. If you even go out of my room now and into the hallway you can smell the smoke. So then, I had to pack up my life and move down the hall. A superfun thing to do at 3 am after you have unpacked everything since you were going to be here for over a week.
Everyone has been very nice so far. Permission isn’t a major issue, but people just seemed puzzled, like – um, what are you doing? Usually it’s either a problem or it’s not. Here, I feel as long as you explain yourself well enough, and act super sweet in the mean time, it’s fine. I have actually found the managers to be extremely nice, if you play your cards right. Though the car dealerships seem to be a bit of a challenge. I am 1 down 4 to go and I have heard the owner of Ford here is kinda a nightmarish asshole. We will soon find out. I love it here. I love the music, I like the people, the food is great, the beach is lovely, it’s humid as hell. And everything, even my work to a certain extent, is just relaxed. Though, I try to take extra precaution when trying to remind myself to drive on the LEFT. Drive on the LEFT. I will need to take a picture of the Reminder: Drive on the LEFT side signs. As a matter of fact, I would love to take one home with me as a personal souvenir. Hmmmm….
The roads are windy, they are steep, there are numerous blind drives, and there are hills that my car can barely get over. It’s quite amusing, so far. We went to the Fat Turtle tonight and danced a little. I love the music. Reggae, reggaeton, it just screams Caribbean, vacation , Block Island type mentality. As much as I’m ready to go home, I’m not quite sure I’ll be ready to leave here yet. I guess it will depend on how fast I can finish my work! Time for bed so I can get it done!
My A/C blew out tonight. Me being slightly tipsy, was thinking – eh whatever, no big deal. However; smoke poured out of the A/C and the bellhop couldn’t even come in my room the smoke was so bad. I didn’t realized it until afterwards; I didn’t want to open a window cause I wasn’t sure if they were going to believe me that the a/c blew out and there was smoke everywhere. Haha, how silly. If you even go out of my room now and into the hallway you can smell the smoke. So then, I had to pack up my life and move down the hall. A superfun thing to do at 3 am after you have unpacked everything since you were going to be here for over a week.
Everyone has been very nice so far. Permission isn’t a major issue, but people just seemed puzzled, like – um, what are you doing? Usually it’s either a problem or it’s not. Here, I feel as long as you explain yourself well enough, and act super sweet in the mean time, it’s fine. I have actually found the managers to be extremely nice, if you play your cards right. Though the car dealerships seem to be a bit of a challenge. I am 1 down 4 to go and I have heard the owner of Ford here is kinda a nightmarish asshole. We will soon find out. I love it here. I love the music, I like the people, the food is great, the beach is lovely, it’s humid as hell. And everything, even my work to a certain extent, is just relaxed. Though, I try to take extra precaution when trying to remind myself to drive on the LEFT. Drive on the LEFT. I will need to take a picture of the Reminder: Drive on the LEFT side signs. As a matter of fact, I would love to take one home with me as a personal souvenir. Hmmmm….
The roads are windy, they are steep, there are numerous blind drives, and there are hills that my car can barely get over. It’s quite amusing, so far. We went to the Fat Turtle tonight and danced a little. I love the music. Reggae, reggaeton, it just screams Caribbean, vacation , Block Island type mentality. As much as I’m ready to go home, I’m not quite sure I’ll be ready to leave here yet. I guess it will depend on how fast I can finish my work! Time for bed so I can get it done!
Finally in St. Thomas!
Tomorrow I will be driving on the left side of the road. Ick! This makes me slightly nervous. The roads here are very windy and hilly, very dangerous. Hopefully it won’t be too difficult to get around.
Today I ordered room service and it took an hour and a half to get to me. I actually had finished all my work and needed to wait until they arrived at my room before I could go anywhere, or even take a shower. I was so annoyed.
Luckily, I had no permission problems at the grocery store that I went to (the 1st one). The manager was nice and I worked for 4 hours and had to leave because they were closing. He started explaining to me why everything was so damn expensive. Ugh I hate that I didn’t finish.
When I got back to the hotel, Josue was waiting for me outside. Just kidding. But he just happened to be there and so we went out to get some food at the Shipwreck. He really is a nice guy, he has helped me from figuring out where everything is to driving to show me some of the places, showing me tricks in the business center so that I don’t need to pay the ridiculous prices they charge just to use the internet and print anything. He has a great room a floor above mine; he actually has a loft. Not a bad deal. Well, I guess he is living there for like 8 months, I think I would want that too…. Anyways, I hope he’s not thinking that we will be anything more than friends. He’s a nice guy but I’m not interested in more. (Ha, when am I ever?) He asked me if I wanted to go to the Fat Turtle tomorrow night, so of course, hell why not. Oh by the way, he’s a customs officer, the guy you have to talk to before you can be let back into (or let in for the first time) to the US of A.
Anyways, somehow it got to be much too late. I think I’m still on Brazil time – (wait no that doesn’t make sense, it would be later than it is now if that was the case….) Goodnight!
Today I ordered room service and it took an hour and a half to get to me. I actually had finished all my work and needed to wait until they arrived at my room before I could go anywhere, or even take a shower. I was so annoyed.
Luckily, I had no permission problems at the grocery store that I went to (the 1st one). The manager was nice and I worked for 4 hours and had to leave because they were closing. He started explaining to me why everything was so damn expensive. Ugh I hate that I didn’t finish.
When I got back to the hotel, Josue was waiting for me outside. Just kidding. But he just happened to be there and so we went out to get some food at the Shipwreck. He really is a nice guy, he has helped me from figuring out where everything is to driving to show me some of the places, showing me tricks in the business center so that I don’t need to pay the ridiculous prices they charge just to use the internet and print anything. He has a great room a floor above mine; he actually has a loft. Not a bad deal. Well, I guess he is living there for like 8 months, I think I would want that too…. Anyways, I hope he’s not thinking that we will be anything more than friends. He’s a nice guy but I’m not interested in more. (Ha, when am I ever?) He asked me if I wanted to go to the Fat Turtle tomorrow night, so of course, hell why not. Oh by the way, he’s a customs officer, the guy you have to talk to before you can be let back into (or let in for the first time) to the US of A.
Anyways, somehow it got to be much too late. I think I’m still on Brazil time – (wait no that doesn’t make sense, it would be later than it is now if that was the case….) Goodnight!
Trashy city no pun intended
I had to go through downtown Port Au Prince to go to a couple locations for survey yesterday, wow was that a sight. First off, the road there was just a solid mess of huge holes. Then, piles of trash everywhere and people rummaging through it and around it, it almost appeared that the whole city was a public dump. Not only that, but I drove through a street full of cars, broken cars, with the most insane parts missing. My driver told me that this was the street for the public garage. You take it here and people take care of the car. Out of all the places I have been so far, I have not seen a town quite in shambles this badly.
I drank coconut water straight from the coconut today, well I’m not actually sure if it was a coconut or not, I think it was like a coconut but not what we know of a coconut. It was a green/yellow large round fruit - the top is sliced off so you can drink the water from the spout in the middle. I thought it was alright, not great though. They said it was very healthy for you. Then, they cut the fruit in half and scrape out the inside, which is a thin strip of a jelly-like substance. Surprisingly (especially for me!) I really didn’t like the consistency of it, so my driver ate the jelly.
Here, for some very strange reason, everyone has 2 cell phones and 2 landline numbers. EVERYONE. I’m really lost as to why this is the case
Never seen such incompetent people at a flight location in my life. Here and back. The Haitian people in general seem very nice, very smart but man – there were about 10 fights over seats on the plane ride back, and I had my own issue which I spoke about above about the ride over. The stewardesses had to get in the middle of all the fights to be the one to sort them all out. I couldn’t believe it.
From there, the flights were fine. Although, we had a really hard landing in St. Thomas. Right before landing, the plane kept rocking back and forth and dropping and going back up again. I was really nervous and almost screamed when we landed really hard, but then I realized we were fine and on land. Without realizing it, I actually grabbed the hand of the lady sitting to my left.
I met a nice Puerto Rican guy at the hotel who was here working who helped me find good restaurants to visit and also tried to convince me that I should rent a car rather than use a taxi, which I might actually do.
Well I really need to get to work now! More tonight.
I drank coconut water straight from the coconut today, well I’m not actually sure if it was a coconut or not, I think it was like a coconut but not what we know of a coconut. It was a green/yellow large round fruit - the top is sliced off so you can drink the water from the spout in the middle. I thought it was alright, not great though. They said it was very healthy for you. Then, they cut the fruit in half and scrape out the inside, which is a thin strip of a jelly-like substance. Surprisingly (especially for me!) I really didn’t like the consistency of it, so my driver ate the jelly.
Here, for some very strange reason, everyone has 2 cell phones and 2 landline numbers. EVERYONE. I’m really lost as to why this is the case
Never seen such incompetent people at a flight location in my life. Here and back. The Haitian people in general seem very nice, very smart but man – there were about 10 fights over seats on the plane ride back, and I had my own issue which I spoke about above about the ride over. The stewardesses had to get in the middle of all the fights to be the one to sort them all out. I couldn’t believe it.
From there, the flights were fine. Although, we had a really hard landing in St. Thomas. Right before landing, the plane kept rocking back and forth and dropping and going back up again. I was really nervous and almost screamed when we landed really hard, but then I realized we were fine and on land. Without realizing it, I actually grabbed the hand of the lady sitting to my left.
I met a nice Puerto Rican guy at the hotel who was here working who helped me find good restaurants to visit and also tried to convince me that I should rent a car rather than use a taxi, which I might actually do.
Well I really need to get to work now! More tonight.
If only men knew how charming they really are...
So today I found out that my Brookline friend is actually the nephew of the President of Haiti. Go figure. He’s also got a MIT grad school education. Not too bad. He also “smoothly” tried to sleep in my bed last night. He had originally got a room but ended up checking out and staying with his co-worker instead, on a really small bed, and tried to convince me (well – half-assed tried to convince me) that my bed was much more homey and looks very comfortable. After I left their room after hanging out for a few he knocked on my door and tried the “I got kicked out” excuse to try one other time. I don’t get what it is here, I usually don’t have these sorts of situations. Really persistent French guy. Nice Brookline guy who tried to get into bed with me. And then today while in the market, I exited the phone place just to be completely surrounded by about 10 young men who were very aggressive, really surrounded me and were all saying some pretty crude things. I was a little nervous but also in a bit of a weird position because I was looking for my driver at the time. There was a guard standing at the door of the phone place of course, and when I couldn’t immediately find my driver I turned to go back in but then he called my name and I made my way through the crowd. Ugh so sketchy. The people here in Haiti are nice, for the most part, but I think it’s mainly surface nice. Maybe like we are in the US. This is no Africa. Though, I really like many of the workers here. I think it’s a combination of the men liking the single blond girl, and the women admiring me for being here on my own.
The realtor I went out with yesterday seemed to be a really nice, genuine, smart guy. Grew up in Haiti until he was 15, moved to France, then back to Haiti and now lives in NYC. We went to an excellent restaurant (Quartier Latin) and just talked and talked, and I had escargot for the first time. Actually, I had it for lunch, and I tried it for dinner as well. It wasn’t bad! Especially in the right sauce. I asked Mr. Klang about safety here in PAP and he told me that it use to be an issue because there was gang violence, but it has improved very much so. He said he was even approached once as people tried to hijack his car, he had a guy on his left pointing a gun to his head and another one with a gun on the side where his daughter was sitting. The guy near his daughter actually shot the gun and it missed his daughter and hit Mr. Klang’s leg; instead of surrendering the car he slammed on the gas and got out of there and then drove to the hospital. I’m really not sure how long ago this was. Mr. Klang shared with me (which I never knew!) that when you eat oysters, they are very much alive. Ewwwww, I really never knew this! I don’t know if I can ever eat another, even though I really don’t like them in the first place! Also, interesting home fact: In the restaurant, there were balls of water (plastic bags with water in them) hanging from the ceiling. Apparently, this keeps the flies away because they see their reflection and get scared!
I went out last night with the older French guy that I had met. We went to a local, much less expensive restaurant, we got escargot fritters for an appetizer, so ya – twice in one day! Ian appears to be a sinister, opinionated French older man, (which I have found is not unusual for the French) but we had some good conversations, from history, to travel, Obama, to the pros and cons of European and American society. In the middle of our meal, the electricity cut out leaving us all in the pitch black (at which time I quickly grabbed my purse!) Electricity cutting out really isn’t unusual here; actually it happened many times at the hotel. I ate way too much at dinner, and afterwards we took a ride around the town. It was creepy – it was pitch dark aside from the small candles and fires in the street. Twice we drove through people partying and dancing in the streets, and I do have to say I was slightly nervous. It was a good night, though, I had a good time with Ian. Then we went back to the hotel and I ran into both my French/Haitian lover who had been trying desperately all evening to get in touch with me (he was leaving tomorrow and tonight would be our last and only chance together) and my Brookline friend who looked exhausted. His colleague asked me if I had any interest in helping them write up a business proposal for sustainable wind energy in Haiti, and I said that I would be interested. Why not, and – they are trying to do good for the country. I think it’s a great idea.
The realtor I went out with yesterday seemed to be a really nice, genuine, smart guy. Grew up in Haiti until he was 15, moved to France, then back to Haiti and now lives in NYC. We went to an excellent restaurant (Quartier Latin) and just talked and talked, and I had escargot for the first time. Actually, I had it for lunch, and I tried it for dinner as well. It wasn’t bad! Especially in the right sauce. I asked Mr. Klang about safety here in PAP and he told me that it use to be an issue because there was gang violence, but it has improved very much so. He said he was even approached once as people tried to hijack his car, he had a guy on his left pointing a gun to his head and another one with a gun on the side where his daughter was sitting. The guy near his daughter actually shot the gun and it missed his daughter and hit Mr. Klang’s leg; instead of surrendering the car he slammed on the gas and got out of there and then drove to the hospital. I’m really not sure how long ago this was. Mr. Klang shared with me (which I never knew!) that when you eat oysters, they are very much alive. Ewwwww, I really never knew this! I don’t know if I can ever eat another, even though I really don’t like them in the first place! Also, interesting home fact: In the restaurant, there were balls of water (plastic bags with water in them) hanging from the ceiling. Apparently, this keeps the flies away because they see their reflection and get scared!
I went out last night with the older French guy that I had met. We went to a local, much less expensive restaurant, we got escargot fritters for an appetizer, so ya – twice in one day! Ian appears to be a sinister, opinionated French older man, (which I have found is not unusual for the French) but we had some good conversations, from history, to travel, Obama, to the pros and cons of European and American society. In the middle of our meal, the electricity cut out leaving us all in the pitch black (at which time I quickly grabbed my purse!) Electricity cutting out really isn’t unusual here; actually it happened many times at the hotel. I ate way too much at dinner, and afterwards we took a ride around the town. It was creepy – it was pitch dark aside from the small candles and fires in the street. Twice we drove through people partying and dancing in the streets, and I do have to say I was slightly nervous. It was a good night, though, I had a good time with Ian. Then we went back to the hotel and I ran into both my French/Haitian lover who had been trying desperately all evening to get in touch with me (he was leaving tomorrow and tonight would be our last and only chance together) and my Brookline friend who looked exhausted. His colleague asked me if I had any interest in helping them write up a business proposal for sustainable wind energy in Haiti, and I said that I would be interested. Why not, and – they are trying to do good for the country. I think it’s a great idea.
Seatbelt not recommended
Strangely enough, almost ever time I reach down to put on my seat belt my driver willem says “no, no seat belt” like it’s going to kill me or something. So I have obliged his request to not wear a seat belt, though I don’t understand it. “In Haiti, no” he says, even though I’ve already almost gotten killed twice. Also, I went on a realtor meeting with a guy who has lived between Haiti, France, and NYC, USA his whole life and he also said “you really don’t need to put your seatbelt on here”. This is quite a difference from Gambia, where there is a seat belt requirement, and there are roadblocks everywhere so that police can catch you and make you pay money. Here, the roads are windy, sometimes steep and otherwise absolutely horrible, you can’t get around unless you have a SUV of some type. They drive like maniacs here, too. No stop lights anywhere. No stop signs, or none that are actually taken seriously anyways. They are always passing each other, like who can drive faster on a street that’s going to ruin your car if you do. I held my breath as we climbed up the mountains today so that I could go check it out, especially when passing cars around a windy bend where you couldn’t see if someone was coming on the other side, while he’s on his cell phone. In general, my driver is alright. If I give him an inch, he takes a mile so I’m trying to be careful about that. And often I’ll go in a place and come out to the car and I have absolutely no idea where he is. Then he’ll show up from somewhere across the street like 2 minutes later. He’s always pointing to people and saying “my friend”. This is a very small city.
The “my… endless love” song which is sang by a man and a woman in English is very, very popular here – it plays over and over in my driver’s car and at the hotel. I’m not sure why, it must be from the 80’s. I don’t remember who it’s by, unfortunately. But, I do find it very bizarre. I think that Jamaican music/island music suits this place very well. If it wasn’t so poor, it certainly would feel like a vacation destination for me.
Doing all this traveling really make me realize how unique the USA is as a nation. Our need for each individual person to find their own way and be different really creates a system of promotion and growth, which is not seen in most of the countries. I have a bit of an admiration for it, and even for my own desire to be different. If only everyone was like this, and competition/being unique was actually desired everywhere – the world might be a much better place.
I like Haitian food. I especially like Haitian food because it tastes a bit like Mrs. Salas’ cooking (though in reality, that can’t really be topped) – but it’s the salad with the simple vinegrette which is really good, with fish, and special rice, and of course, plantains – yum yum. Busy day tomorrow, time for bed. Goodnight!
The “my… endless love” song which is sang by a man and a woman in English is very, very popular here – it plays over and over in my driver’s car and at the hotel. I’m not sure why, it must be from the 80’s. I don’t remember who it’s by, unfortunately. But, I do find it very bizarre. I think that Jamaican music/island music suits this place very well. If it wasn’t so poor, it certainly would feel like a vacation destination for me.
Doing all this traveling really make me realize how unique the USA is as a nation. Our need for each individual person to find their own way and be different really creates a system of promotion and growth, which is not seen in most of the countries. I have a bit of an admiration for it, and even for my own desire to be different. If only everyone was like this, and competition/being unique was actually desired everywhere – the world might be a much better place.
I like Haitian food. I especially like Haitian food because it tastes a bit like Mrs. Salas’ cooking (though in reality, that can’t really be topped) – but it’s the salad with the simple vinegrette which is really good, with fish, and special rice, and of course, plantains – yum yum. Busy day tomorrow, time for bed. Goodnight!
FYI Mom I'm getting married on Monday
Internet sucks here. I need to pay my bills eventually. I got a really hard-to-pass up offer by a Haitian French lawyer tonight (born in Haiti, mainly grew up in France). First and most importantly, he made it clear he wanted me to be his lover for the weekend, and then maybe I could move to Miami where he lives, and we could have a house in Cape Cod, travel the world together, maybe get married Monday, and of course, being French, there would always be a nice French meal made when I got home from work every day, with wine, cheese and lovely French music playing in the background, and don’t forget there would be the flowers in my bedroom on a normal basis, and I would never need to pay for anything. I had to listen to all of this starting on my way to dinner (which was where I was stopped) through dinner until he had to go get ready for a party. I could have been very forcefully blunt and mean to him, but I really thought all of it was quite amusing so I hung around to see what he would say next. Despite the fact that “I have been in a serious relationship for a year and a half” this didn’t even scratch the surface when I was trying to give him reasons why I wouldn’t just shack up in his bedroom with him. Quite forward, I have to say – maybe expected being French, and I certainly can see why he is a lawyer. He just doesn’t give up until you inch towards a yes. But I was not inching! It took him way too long before he let me go. And I’m sure I’ll hear a lot more of it tomorrow. Oh, and apparently he’s a rich, reputable lawyer in Miami. And, his Haitian friends carry loaded guns around in their pants. I saw them myself – my friend soon-to-be-husband (on Monday) whose name I don’t even know made sure to flash them for me.
Ahhhh Haiti. I actually kinda like it here. It has character, and flare. It’s so very colorful. People are pretty friendly, and I love my hotel – give me a beautiful view and I can put up with a lot. But the government is beyond corrupt. There is a very large disparity between those that are well-off and those who are poor. And those who are well off could give a rat’s ass that there are thousands and thousands of people living here off of $2/day, while the cost of an average fast-food meal itself is about $15. Even my French husband confirmed that his Haitian friends live in luxury, and don’t care about those who are dirt-poor. It’s sad. Luckily, it’s said to be much safer here over the past couple years – the kidnapping gangs have been driven out so it’s not nearly the problem it use to be. But still, security is very tight (despite the lack of all infrastructure, even banks scan you with a metal detector before you can enter), and there are pictures everywhere indicating “NO GUNS ALLOWED HERE”. Like that would actually make a difference.
Tonight at the reception desk I actually met a guy who lives in Brookline. Go figure. He was here on business too, and it was his first time here. He appeared to be stoned, or really tired. I couldn’t really tell. Anyways, maybe he can save me from creepy French man in the coming days. We already realized that we have the same flight to Miami on Wed. I already have dinner plans tomorrow night with the other nice French older man to go to the typical Haitian restaurant. He told me that I can’t go there alone, a young blonde girl. Though I’m sure two white people walking in won’t be that much better, though at least he’s French and can speak/understand it.
Ahhhh Haiti. I actually kinda like it here. It has character, and flare. It’s so very colorful. People are pretty friendly, and I love my hotel – give me a beautiful view and I can put up with a lot. But the government is beyond corrupt. There is a very large disparity between those that are well-off and those who are poor. And those who are well off could give a rat’s ass that there are thousands and thousands of people living here off of $2/day, while the cost of an average fast-food meal itself is about $15. Even my French husband confirmed that his Haitian friends live in luxury, and don’t care about those who are dirt-poor. It’s sad. Luckily, it’s said to be much safer here over the past couple years – the kidnapping gangs have been driven out so it’s not nearly the problem it use to be. But still, security is very tight (despite the lack of all infrastructure, even banks scan you with a metal detector before you can enter), and there are pictures everywhere indicating “NO GUNS ALLOWED HERE”. Like that would actually make a difference.
Tonight at the reception desk I actually met a guy who lives in Brookline. Go figure. He was here on business too, and it was his first time here. He appeared to be stoned, or really tired. I couldn’t really tell. Anyways, maybe he can save me from creepy French man in the coming days. We already realized that we have the same flight to Miami on Wed. I already have dinner plans tomorrow night with the other nice French older man to go to the typical Haitian restaurant. He told me that I can’t go there alone, a young blonde girl. Though I’m sure two white people walking in won’t be that much better, though at least he’s French and can speak/understand it.
Guns not allowed
Today I got up and went to the gym, which felt good, but tiring. Then I had a great shower and a breakfast and proceeded to head out; I was already feeling overwhelmed by the amount of information I hadn’t started to collect yet. I hired a driver and I was off. I was feeling hesitant and nervous at first, after the warnings and nervousness I had received from everyone, but all-in-all, I have to say, I might even like Haiti, relatively speaking (despite the large guns not allowed signs EVERYWHERE) and the guards with weapons standing at every single doorway. Even they speak only French and Creole and can’t understand a word I say, they are all very friendly, and really don’t ask many questions. When I was at the grocery store today the manager offered me food and invited me to take any products without a price to my own personal check-out isle so I could check the prices with no delay. Not bad. He really was super nice. You don’t get many managers who are very happy to have you surveying their store, and with competition such an issue here, I was wondering if he was viewing my visit as a supporting gesture towards the store, like I was going to promote it to expats. He can think that.
I can’t believe how expensive it is here. I was told by my French friend that they want to pass a law making 5 USD minimum wage here in Haiti (per day) but there is a lot of opposition from people who want to make it 2 USD instead. Also, the cost of goods here are ridiculously expensive, much more expensive than in the USA. No wonder everyone here is dirt poor.
I was starving all day but came home and had a really lovely fish dinner at the hotel and watched some latin dancing from the crowd on the “stage” of the restaurant. I think it was really a get-together birthday for one of the ladies in the crowd. It’s amazing to watch latin women dance, they are just so good at it. Everytime I see it I want to learn to dance like that. I ate at the salad bar tonight so I really hope I don’t get sick tomorrow, though I think I will be fine. I might go to dinner with my friench friend tomorrow.
I can’t believe how expensive it is here. I was told by my French friend that they want to pass a law making 5 USD minimum wage here in Haiti (per day) but there is a lot of opposition from people who want to make it 2 USD instead. Also, the cost of goods here are ridiculously expensive, much more expensive than in the USA. No wonder everyone here is dirt poor.
I was starving all day but came home and had a really lovely fish dinner at the hotel and watched some latin dancing from the crowd on the “stage” of the restaurant. I think it was really a get-together birthday for one of the ladies in the crowd. It’s amazing to watch latin women dance, they are just so good at it. Everytime I see it I want to learn to dance like that. I ate at the salad bar tonight so I really hope I don’t get sick tomorrow, though I think I will be fine. I might go to dinner with my friench friend tomorrow.
So long Brasilia, HELLO Haiti!!
Time to leave day. I had a nice breakfast, made some calls, took a shower and finished my packing. I didn’t make it to the gym, and I checked out a half hour late, but no one was counting. I finished up more of the survey, went to Farm and bought a gorgeous dress that I can’t wait to wear. I went back to the hotel to get some food and my love at the front desk suggested that I go to the tower to see the city (cause you can’t see as much from the top of the hotel, and I wanted to take some pics). So I walked to the tower (and j-walked over a 6 lane highway, by the way), up the elevator, and took some pics. This really is a weird city, I’m not sure what to say about it. Boring and business, but thankfully yummy. I was starving and decided to get some fast-food pizza, which took 15 minutes to cook, and I downed the small pizza and had to make a run for it. My flight was at 645 and it was already 510 and I had just run back to the hotel. I asked the taxi to make some pit stops so I could check out gas prices, and we had a communication barrier. First he went to the one that I already went to. Then he went to another one that I already went to. He was so confused when I kept asking him to go to another one, and another one. Finally, we arrived at a third and he got the gist of what I was doing and he rolled with it and I got 3 other gas stations before arriving at the airport at 6 PM (due to gas stations AND traffic). I freaked out when I saw the line was long. After waiting for 15 minutes (and only getting halfway through the line) I really started freaking out and went up to the desk, told them my destination, and they said they would help me next. But, I had all my bags on a cart in the middle of the line, so I really annoyingly maneuvered my way out with everyone wondering why the hell they were being cut. Oh well. The guy at the desk chatted me and everyone else around me up for 10 minutes before giving me my ticket and telling me to run. Thanks. I made it in at last call, once again. By some miracle my bag made it too.
My flight from Brazil to Miami was an 8 hour pain in my ass, but I sat next to a nice guy and we chatted. Before arriving in Miami, the captain told us that we were going to be flying through a string of thunderstorms so all the flight attendants had to be seated for the remainder of the 30 minute flight. I freaked out a little, I don’t think I have ever flown through thunderstorms. Surprisingly, turbulence was very minimal and we made it in just fine. The skies were clear as we approached Miami, and man it sure was a beautiful sight to see. I have flown to Miami more than once and I really don’t remember it being quite that beautiful.
Miami’s airport is much too large for my liking. I arrived in the terminal I had to leave from, but meanwhile had to walk across the whole damn airport just to get to customs before going back to the same terminal. Once I got there, I sat down and was easily pinpointed as one of the very few white people on the flight. Being a minority can be tough, man. And I was scared of Haiti. The people on the flight were a pain in my ass too. Pushy, aggressive, the flight attendants were throwing bags under empty first-class seats (including mine), and there was a man in my seat. When I tried to dismiss it and get into another one, the rightful owner of that seat came and so I had to tell the guy he was in my seat. He didn’t even wince at me but when someone else overheard me and asked him if he was going to move, he got very defensive and said he was already planning on moving. I tried to put my seat back and the guy behind me asked me to put it back up again. You just don’t do that. Anyways, I passed out on the flight on my tray table but had to move when someone needed to go to the bathroom and then the guy next to me started chatting me up. I just wanted to sleep, for once. This was the most annoying flight ever.
Then I made it to the airport and a guy in back of me kept saying “let’s keep it moving keep it moving” when we were in line for passport control when there was an inch in front of me. Ahhhhh I was sooooo annoyed. Then when I was waiting for the lady in front of me to finish with passport control (she was still standing there) he started yelling at me: “next. NEXT”. So I yelled back “she’s not done yet!” I was SOOO fed up. Then, despite an email and a phone call, the hotel wasn’t there to pick me up and I had to take a taxi which freaks me out cause it’s impossible to know who is legit and who isn’t. There are a bunch of people with plastic tags around their necks and a small sign placed in the window of the car. I almost didn’t care at this point. If I was going to be kidnapped, I was gonna be kidnapped and there wasn’t much that I could do about it.
But, I made it to the hotel. Haiti appeared to be similar to Africa – carrying baskets on their head, poverty, selling food and random items in the streets, streetkids begging for money on the side of your window, but the “buses” were adorable. They were all made up in lots of colors and cute sayings, and they were pickup trucks with a shell covering on top. I’ll have to get some pics of these. Also, randomly there would be a nice-looking building with western influence. It was strange. My taxi ride was $40, but the average Haitian makes $2 per day. These poor countries are ridiculous, I really fall short of understanding how this can actually be the case.
My hotel is beautiful. In the hills, overlooking the city, with lush vegetation and lots of outsideness all around. (Yes I know that’s not a word but it was the only one I could think of to describe what I wanted to say). A good restaurant, awesome hang out areas with great furniture, I love it. I’m happy here, so far. Tomorrow will be interesting. But, as soon as I got in I took a 6 hour nap. I woke up and couldn’t find my travel wallet. I looked EVERYWHERE, and then went down to the front desk to ask them if they had seen anything. Nothing. I re-traced my steps; I authorized my AMEX when I came in, I paid the bellboy 4 quarters when I got into my room. It HAD to be in here, unless someone came in my room when I was sleeping. This was freaking me out. After 30 minutes of complete freak-out, and about to call Tony (my boss) in freak-out mode, I found it; it was lodged between my mattress and the foot of the bedframe. Unbelievable.
I was gonna head out and survey a grocery store, but my freak-out set me back a little, so I decided just to do some work downstairs. I ended up meeting a nice older French man and we chatted a bit, then I did some work and had a pretty good dinner, did some more work and here I am. I think it’s really time for bed now. Night!
My flight from Brazil to Miami was an 8 hour pain in my ass, but I sat next to a nice guy and we chatted. Before arriving in Miami, the captain told us that we were going to be flying through a string of thunderstorms so all the flight attendants had to be seated for the remainder of the 30 minute flight. I freaked out a little, I don’t think I have ever flown through thunderstorms. Surprisingly, turbulence was very minimal and we made it in just fine. The skies were clear as we approached Miami, and man it sure was a beautiful sight to see. I have flown to Miami more than once and I really don’t remember it being quite that beautiful.
Miami’s airport is much too large for my liking. I arrived in the terminal I had to leave from, but meanwhile had to walk across the whole damn airport just to get to customs before going back to the same terminal. Once I got there, I sat down and was easily pinpointed as one of the very few white people on the flight. Being a minority can be tough, man. And I was scared of Haiti. The people on the flight were a pain in my ass too. Pushy, aggressive, the flight attendants were throwing bags under empty first-class seats (including mine), and there was a man in my seat. When I tried to dismiss it and get into another one, the rightful owner of that seat came and so I had to tell the guy he was in my seat. He didn’t even wince at me but when someone else overheard me and asked him if he was going to move, he got very defensive and said he was already planning on moving. I tried to put my seat back and the guy behind me asked me to put it back up again. You just don’t do that. Anyways, I passed out on the flight on my tray table but had to move when someone needed to go to the bathroom and then the guy next to me started chatting me up. I just wanted to sleep, for once. This was the most annoying flight ever.
Then I made it to the airport and a guy in back of me kept saying “let’s keep it moving keep it moving” when we were in line for passport control when there was an inch in front of me. Ahhhhh I was sooooo annoyed. Then when I was waiting for the lady in front of me to finish with passport control (she was still standing there) he started yelling at me: “next. NEXT”. So I yelled back “she’s not done yet!” I was SOOO fed up. Then, despite an email and a phone call, the hotel wasn’t there to pick me up and I had to take a taxi which freaks me out cause it’s impossible to know who is legit and who isn’t. There are a bunch of people with plastic tags around their necks and a small sign placed in the window of the car. I almost didn’t care at this point. If I was going to be kidnapped, I was gonna be kidnapped and there wasn’t much that I could do about it.
But, I made it to the hotel. Haiti appeared to be similar to Africa – carrying baskets on their head, poverty, selling food and random items in the streets, streetkids begging for money on the side of your window, but the “buses” were adorable. They were all made up in lots of colors and cute sayings, and they were pickup trucks with a shell covering on top. I’ll have to get some pics of these. Also, randomly there would be a nice-looking building with western influence. It was strange. My taxi ride was $40, but the average Haitian makes $2 per day. These poor countries are ridiculous, I really fall short of understanding how this can actually be the case.
My hotel is beautiful. In the hills, overlooking the city, with lush vegetation and lots of outsideness all around. (Yes I know that’s not a word but it was the only one I could think of to describe what I wanted to say). A good restaurant, awesome hang out areas with great furniture, I love it. I’m happy here, so far. Tomorrow will be interesting. But, as soon as I got in I took a 6 hour nap. I woke up and couldn’t find my travel wallet. I looked EVERYWHERE, and then went down to the front desk to ask them if they had seen anything. Nothing. I re-traced my steps; I authorized my AMEX when I came in, I paid the bellboy 4 quarters when I got into my room. It HAD to be in here, unless someone came in my room when I was sleeping. This was freaking me out. After 30 minutes of complete freak-out, and about to call Tony (my boss) in freak-out mode, I found it; it was lodged between my mattress and the foot of the bedframe. Unbelievable.
I was gonna head out and survey a grocery store, but my freak-out set me back a little, so I decided just to do some work downstairs. I ended up meeting a nice older French man and we chatted a bit, then I did some work and had a pretty good dinner, did some more work and here I am. I think it’s really time for bed now. Night!
All Sorts of Weirdness
Man I am tired. This survey wore me out. For the past 5-6 days, I have been having really strange pains in my leg. It started with my skin feeling very sensitive to the touch (my left leg) and now my left hip feels bruised and I keep getting shooting pains down my leg. Wonderful. I think this bed is my major problem, but I’m wondering if I also have a virus. I’m gonna give the doctor a call at home, I believe. I think I should. I can’t wait to get into a Marriot bed in St. Thomas… but first I need to go to Haiti first. Tomorrow. Yippee…. One of the last colleagues recommended that you don’t pay over $50 per day to a taxi which does not have a gun in the car. Ugh I can’t wait.
Anyways… moving on from the bad stuff, I’m a little excited about being on my own, although all in all I had a great time with both Joe and Patrick and now I’m on my own for the next 2.5 weeks. I think that it will be fun though, I haven’t been on my own for this short of a time on survey… ever.
Tonight at dinner, I ate a very interesting dish of banana, potatoes, gruyere cheese and fish. It sure was an interesting combination – it wasn’t too bad either. The menus here (unless you are at a hotel) are completely in Portuguese so Patrick and I did a lot of picking entrees blindly. I think maybe they think having your handbag on the floor is a sin. Everytime, at every restaurant we have been to here they grab another chair for my pocketbook to sit on before I even get a chance to throw it on the ground. Then there were prostitutes on the main street on the way home. I didn’t expect clean-cut, conservative, much too normal Brasilia to have such things as prostitutes. It has been an interesting experience. We don’t really know how else to describe it than – it’s just been fast, and weird. And really weird.
Today I had an appointment with the head of the housing department of the US embassy on the grass outside because my passport had needed to be turned in the day before in order for me to have been able to get past the security gates. Talk about strict.
The front desk people at the hotel here are great. They helped us in many ways and, one of the guys is going to make a point to buy a local fruit for me at the market tomorrow so I can try it. I think he likes me. He seems to have a really great personality and he’s always smiling. If only I had more time!
We hired a translator yesterday and he was a nice guy but he liked to be way too specific. Like, oh I don’t want to call this number, it’s too far from the hotel. Everytime I wanted to say but that DOESN’T MATTER!! As long as it’s in Brasilia it’s FINE! He didn’t understand what we were doing. Not that I really expect anyone to, but it’s frustrating when you want to say – no; no questions, just do it! And he knew everyone in the whole damn city which also made it difficult because he constantly wanted to call friends to ask them the answer – but we can’t use that info because we won’t have a contact to check up on the information next time because it was a personal call…
Tomorrow I am going back to a store I really wanted to check out in the mall. It is called Farm, and the clothing there seems just amazing, gorgeous patterns. I really can’t wait. The malls are great but they have all mostly high-end local brands, which makes it more difficult for survey.
Anyways… moving on from the bad stuff, I’m a little excited about being on my own, although all in all I had a great time with both Joe and Patrick and now I’m on my own for the next 2.5 weeks. I think that it will be fun though, I haven’t been on my own for this short of a time on survey… ever.
Tonight at dinner, I ate a very interesting dish of banana, potatoes, gruyere cheese and fish. It sure was an interesting combination – it wasn’t too bad either. The menus here (unless you are at a hotel) are completely in Portuguese so Patrick and I did a lot of picking entrees blindly. I think maybe they think having your handbag on the floor is a sin. Everytime, at every restaurant we have been to here they grab another chair for my pocketbook to sit on before I even get a chance to throw it on the ground. Then there were prostitutes on the main street on the way home. I didn’t expect clean-cut, conservative, much too normal Brasilia to have such things as prostitutes. It has been an interesting experience. We don’t really know how else to describe it than – it’s just been fast, and weird. And really weird.
Today I had an appointment with the head of the housing department of the US embassy on the grass outside because my passport had needed to be turned in the day before in order for me to have been able to get past the security gates. Talk about strict.
The front desk people at the hotel here are great. They helped us in many ways and, one of the guys is going to make a point to buy a local fruit for me at the market tomorrow so I can try it. I think he likes me. He seems to have a really great personality and he’s always smiling. If only I had more time!
We hired a translator yesterday and he was a nice guy but he liked to be way too specific. Like, oh I don’t want to call this number, it’s too far from the hotel. Everytime I wanted to say but that DOESN’T MATTER!! As long as it’s in Brasilia it’s FINE! He didn’t understand what we were doing. Not that I really expect anyone to, but it’s frustrating when you want to say – no; no questions, just do it! And he knew everyone in the whole damn city which also made it difficult because he constantly wanted to call friends to ask them the answer – but we can’t use that info because we won’t have a contact to check up on the information next time because it was a personal call…
Tomorrow I am going back to a store I really wanted to check out in the mall. It is called Farm, and the clothing there seems just amazing, gorgeous patterns. I really can’t wait. The malls are great but they have all mostly high-end local brands, which makes it more difficult for survey.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Camaroes?
Patrick and I have found ourselves very confused. This city is just weirding us out. It’s like we’re in a Portuguese oasis far away from Brazil, because this is nothing like what I thought Brazil would be like. It radiates rules, organization, boundaries and nothing to do but eat good food (phew). I got laughed at yesterday over and over because I couldn’t speak Portuguese. They just couldn’t fathom it, they thought it was hysterical. This made me laugh hysterically myself. They clearly wanted to help but, well, first I didn’t want them to and it wasn’t always easy to have them leave you alone. I had someone who searched his store for an English speaker before trying to tell me there was no one and I just kept trying to say it’s ok. It’s ok it’s ok! (Thumbs up) I look only! (Point to eyes). I really think that I have never had such a major issue with the language barrier before, even in Portuguese Africa. Even they can understand a word or two of English. We had the taxi drive us to the shopping center and when we went to leave there, there was no taxi in sight. None. We had to walk along the road which really was not pedestrian-friendly at all until we came upon a Hyundai dealer. We stopped there for some car service prices and ended up talking to a super nice guy who spoke perfect English; he had lived in NY for a long while. He gave us a long list of great restaurants to visit while we were going to be here. We finally ended up getting a taxi back (taxis don’t appear to be used that often in this city, it seems most people drive.)
We wanted to go to dinner yesterday at one of the suggested restaurants. We got in the taxi, and arrived at a small center with a gym on the first floor and a spa on the second floor and that’s all we could see. “Is this Camaroes? We asked the driver. Yes, yes. We got in an elevator and pressed the “restaurant” button for the 3rd floor. We were at a restaurant, but there was no name of this restaurant anywhere. In fact, the menu even had an advertisement for a different restaurant (I was convinced that the different restaurant was the one we were actually at). We had no idea where we were, or if we were at the right place. It was so strange. We sat outside and cracked up as I tried to tell the waiter no nuts but he completely thought I was talking about looking for a creamy entree. Then it took forever to order and he found a guy who spoke some English to help out a little in order to pick “the best entrée” because Patrick and I couldn’t read a word of the menu. We both got girly drinks, and when Patrick tried to order a beer, he got another girly drink. Then it took a while even to get a taxi because we had language issues. Wouldn’t you think TAXI is an international term? Once we said taxi, the hostess said tax… tax… no TAXI Patrick said. Eventually we figured it out, but not before causing the girl to have to go behind the wall and crack up which caused me to crack up as well. The only way we found out we were actually at the right restaurant was because Patrick’s charge slip said it. Ahhh what a really strange city. Really. We live in the hotel sector which is all hotels dating back to the 60’s. The architecture is all from the 60’s, or appears to be as well - all space-lookin architecture. Probably one of the strangest places I have ever been.
Today I slept in. To 12. It was really nice, especially because I couldn’t sleep well at all last night. I kept having the strangest, broadest range of nightmares from spiders crawling on me to people being in my room (coming in from the door and the balcony) and my friends drugging me so I had no idea what was going on, to trying to scream and not being able to. Very disturbing. Time to get a move on to the day…. Lata!!
We wanted to go to dinner yesterday at one of the suggested restaurants. We got in the taxi, and arrived at a small center with a gym on the first floor and a spa on the second floor and that’s all we could see. “Is this Camaroes? We asked the driver. Yes, yes. We got in an elevator and pressed the “restaurant” button for the 3rd floor. We were at a restaurant, but there was no name of this restaurant anywhere. In fact, the menu even had an advertisement for a different restaurant (I was convinced that the different restaurant was the one we were actually at). We had no idea where we were, or if we were at the right place. It was so strange. We sat outside and cracked up as I tried to tell the waiter no nuts but he completely thought I was talking about looking for a creamy entree. Then it took forever to order and he found a guy who spoke some English to help out a little in order to pick “the best entrée” because Patrick and I couldn’t read a word of the menu. We both got girly drinks, and when Patrick tried to order a beer, he got another girly drink. Then it took a while even to get a taxi because we had language issues. Wouldn’t you think TAXI is an international term? Once we said taxi, the hostess said tax… tax… no TAXI Patrick said. Eventually we figured it out, but not before causing the girl to have to go behind the wall and crack up which caused me to crack up as well. The only way we found out we were actually at the right restaurant was because Patrick’s charge slip said it. Ahhh what a really strange city. Really. We live in the hotel sector which is all hotels dating back to the 60’s. The architecture is all from the 60’s, or appears to be as well - all space-lookin architecture. Probably one of the strangest places I have ever been.
Today I slept in. To 12. It was really nice, especially because I couldn’t sleep well at all last night. I kept having the strangest, broadest range of nightmares from spiders crawling on me to people being in my room (coming in from the door and the balcony) and my friends drugging me so I had no idea what was going on, to trying to scream and not being able to. Very disturbing. Time to get a move on to the day…. Lata!!
Friday, August 7, 2009
Brasilia
Today, same stuff as yesterday. Pretty uneventful – had no problems with permission. Language is really a huge barrier here for some strange reason. Usually when I have a problem it’s not that hard to deal with, but I’m wishing I was able to say a little more than bon tard and bon noch and obrigado. It’s an odd sense of uncomfortableness walking into a store. I can picture how odd it would be if someone came into my store speaking only some strange foreign language, like French or Italian. I would think it was really strange they couldn’t speak my language. I think that’s how they feel here, since Brazil is such a large country and the city is land-locked surrounding the rest of Brazil. I don’t normally feel this way about international cities, but I’m kinda starting to feel like the locals are wondering why the hell some random American who can’t speak Portuguese is hanging around in Brasilia. I relate it to a French tourist traveling to east-bum-f*** Montana – I’m sure they would wonder why someone who doesn’t speak English has even wandered into the country.
The city is very modern so the availability is very good, (except for name-brand clothing). There is an eery sense of security here, whether or not it is true or known is relatively unknown; though the locals seem to express that it is a safe city. Patrick mentioned that maybe that’s why it was built here some 50 odd years ago – it’s away from the rest of civilization – let’s build a city in the middle of nowhere and ask people to come live here and we’ll call it the capital of our country. Sure, makes sense. It’s perfectly methodically planned out unlike any other city in the world. As boring as that makes it, it’s actually quite captivating at the same time. And the building structure is uniquely modern in an outer- space 70’s style kinda way. I’m still trying to get a handle on the city so I’m not quite sure what to make of it just yet.
Patrick and I had a productive first half of the day at the grocery store and then at a nearby mall. We went to some surrounding stores as well and then decided to call it a half-day and do some bookwork at the hotel. We planned on doing some calls/online work as well, but beer got in the way of that plan. I then checked out the gym for all of 20 minutes and got ready for dinner. By recommendation of the hotel, we went to a steak house just around the corner from the hotel. It wasn’t what we would normally consider a steak house, because it was what we would call a Brazilian barbecue. I had never been to one. What better way to experience it than in Brazil itself. The food was all wonderful. The salad bar was incredible in itself. And I tried so many different types of meat which I can’t remember what they are for the life of me. Except I do know that I ate a chicken heart. Yum. Service here at the restaurants is pretty unique as well. Fairly exquisite. They pull your chair out, place your napkin, make sure there are more than enough guys to take your order and get you anything you need. It was a nice dinner. After talking online tonight, I’m exhausted. Goodnight.
The city is very modern so the availability is very good, (except for name-brand clothing). There is an eery sense of security here, whether or not it is true or known is relatively unknown; though the locals seem to express that it is a safe city. Patrick mentioned that maybe that’s why it was built here some 50 odd years ago – it’s away from the rest of civilization – let’s build a city in the middle of nowhere and ask people to come live here and we’ll call it the capital of our country. Sure, makes sense. It’s perfectly methodically planned out unlike any other city in the world. As boring as that makes it, it’s actually quite captivating at the same time. And the building structure is uniquely modern in an outer- space 70’s style kinda way. I’m still trying to get a handle on the city so I’m not quite sure what to make of it just yet.
Patrick and I had a productive first half of the day at the grocery store and then at a nearby mall. We went to some surrounding stores as well and then decided to call it a half-day and do some bookwork at the hotel. We planned on doing some calls/online work as well, but beer got in the way of that plan. I then checked out the gym for all of 20 minutes and got ready for dinner. By recommendation of the hotel, we went to a steak house just around the corner from the hotel. It wasn’t what we would normally consider a steak house, because it was what we would call a Brazilian barbecue. I had never been to one. What better way to experience it than in Brazil itself. The food was all wonderful. The salad bar was incredible in itself. And I tried so many different types of meat which I can’t remember what they are for the life of me. Except I do know that I ate a chicken heart. Yum. Service here at the restaurants is pretty unique as well. Fairly exquisite. They pull your chair out, place your napkin, make sure there are more than enough guys to take your order and get you anything you need. It was a nice dinner. After talking online tonight, I’m exhausted. Goodnight.
Please hold the plane - thanks.
So I land in Brazil, and I have received a text from a co-worker. “Are you in the airport?” I text him back; it’s 9:03 PM and my next flight leaves at 10. I tell him I am worried because I’m cutting it close. Then, I get off the plane and realize that I still need to pick up my baggage. Ugh. Now I’m more worried. But, at least my co-worker tells me that it’s a really simple process. This is good. He keeps reassuring me, even when it approaches 9:24 and there is still no sign of anyone’s bags. Finally, by 9:30 I am bag in hand, run through customs as fast as possible, then on to the transfer counter where I hear them talking about my flight but have no idea what they are saying because it’s all in Portuguese. The girl at the counter hurdles over the desk to put my bag on the scale, but she needs help. I guess it’s heavy. Even though she speaks in Portuguese I can understand her. She tells me to run, so I do. I briefly panic because I don’t know where I’m going but finally, I’ve got it. I approach security and there is a man yelling Brasilia (last call) – Portuguese again. I stick my hand up and yell.. ME!!! ME!!! He sees me and motions me to come up front, I throw my bag through the security belt, don’t even take out the computer or take off my shoes, and then we’re off running ; walky-talky guy leading the way. “Do you have a friend waiting for you?” He says. Oh Patrick, I sure do. Thank goodness for him. We run out the door and he tells me to get into a car parked just outside, and I get a personal taxi to the plane. I thank him and hurry on the plane quickly as the doors seal behind me. Phew!!!
The taxi driver took us on a ride to our hotel. What a dick. We paid twice the amount we should have; good thing it’s not our money! I need to find an ATM tomorrow. My card worked in NY but so far it’s not working here. Our hotel is alright. They call themselves a 5 star but really, it was a 5 star when it opened 50 years ago. It’s old and could use some renovations. Oh well, apparently all the hotels are nearly the same here.
So far, Brasilia is not too exciting. No one speaks English here. It’s a 75+ degree wintertime here, now. No permission problems, so far luckily. After asking permission at one electronic store the guy told me to go outside and come in the employee entrance and sign in there before I was able to take down prices. Not really sure what kind of difference that made, but I did it anyways.
I probably had the most fancy dinner service tonight. Cleaning the table with a little comber, the dinner presented with a cover on top, 3 waiters just to take your order and then stand there staring at you until you order something. Crazy stuff. But, we had 5 beers but didn’t order more than 2. Not sure quite how that happened. OK time for sleep, goodnight.
The taxi driver took us on a ride to our hotel. What a dick. We paid twice the amount we should have; good thing it’s not our money! I need to find an ATM tomorrow. My card worked in NY but so far it’s not working here. Our hotel is alright. They call themselves a 5 star but really, it was a 5 star when it opened 50 years ago. It’s old and could use some renovations. Oh well, apparently all the hotels are nearly the same here.
So far, Brasilia is not too exciting. No one speaks English here. It’s a 75+ degree wintertime here, now. No permission problems, so far luckily. After asking permission at one electronic store the guy told me to go outside and come in the employee entrance and sign in there before I was able to take down prices. Not really sure what kind of difference that made, but I did it anyways.
I probably had the most fancy dinner service tonight. Cleaning the table with a little comber, the dinner presented with a cover on top, 3 waiters just to take your order and then stand there staring at you until you order something. Crazy stuff. But, we had 5 beers but didn’t order more than 2. Not sure quite how that happened. OK time for sleep, goodnight.
10 hour flights are THE BEST!!
I planned for a torturous 10 hour plane ride. I’m really glad that airlines usually overstate the time that we will actually be in the air. Before I knew it, we were already down to 7.5 hours left. But, just checking in took me over an hour. The worst I had seen in a long time. They had no convenient check-in computers like most of the airlines have these days, and it was just taking forever. When I finally got up to the front, I was told my 11.5 kg carryon was too heavy for the airplane, and that only 5 kg would be accepted. WHAT? This is an international flight! Just a laptop computer itself would weigh 5 kg! Even funnier, when I took everything that I possibly could out of my carryon to place in my checked baggage (without taking out the really important stuff) my checked bag weighed over 30 kg, which most airlines usually do have an issue with. But she said nothing. This made no sense to me. I politely but firmly mentioned that I could get the weight down to 8.5 kg, but everything else in that bag absolutely needed to come with me on the flight. She was OK with it. Ironically, I looked out and saw many other people with much larger bags than me. Who knows, maybe it’s because I have a US passport.
This is probably one of the worst international flights I have been on in a while. The seats are absurdly cramped and the entertainment is very limited. The “map” that they offer permanently shows the plane situated near Hamilton, Bermuda. And in many cases, unless I stare at the stewardesses they make no notice of me and skip whatever they are giving out to people, maybe because I am in an aisle seat. I hate aisle seats. I got some food that had almonds in the rice and a nutty-looking dessert. Then I briefly fell asleep and had this very vivid 5 second dream of the plane suddenly taking a dive down and everyone screaming, and then we hit water and I woke up. So much for sleeping the rest of the flight. At least I have some nice people around me and the bathrooms aren’t too bad. I guess just about anything isn’t going to seem that great after my business class flight from France. But, at least somehow the time has disappeared and there is only an hour until we land, and I am caught up on work which is always a great feeling.
This is probably one of the worst international flights I have been on in a while. The seats are absurdly cramped and the entertainment is very limited. The “map” that they offer permanently shows the plane situated near Hamilton, Bermuda. And in many cases, unless I stare at the stewardesses they make no notice of me and skip whatever they are giving out to people, maybe because I am in an aisle seat. I hate aisle seats. I got some food that had almonds in the rice and a nutty-looking dessert. Then I briefly fell asleep and had this very vivid 5 second dream of the plane suddenly taking a dive down and everyone screaming, and then we hit water and I woke up. So much for sleeping the rest of the flight. At least I have some nice people around me and the bathrooms aren’t too bad. I guess just about anything isn’t going to seem that great after my business class flight from France. But, at least somehow the time has disappeared and there is only an hour until we land, and I am caught up on work which is always a great feeling.
Continent hopping: Africa, Europe, USA!!! (for 1 night)
Getting back into the USA is always a breath of fresh air. And, it was nice to arrive and then know I was done for the day, even if I wasn’t going to get back to Boston. Though, it took about an hour for my hotel pickup to actually pick me up. I was already annoyed when I got to the hotel, and then they tell me that my room wasn’t going to be ready for another half hour. This was killing me. I don’t think I have gotten in anywhere on survey thus far where my room wasn’t ready for me as soon as I arrived at the hotel. Really, I just got in from 24 hours of travel and you really don’t have my room ready? BLAH.
The day went by fast, I spent some time catching up on emails and preparing to send the Fed Ex back home. Eventually when it came time, it felt great to take a shower. After my spa time, I had showered but I couldn’t figure out which one was the shampoo so I just rinsed my hair after a greasy head massage. And I smelled. The lovely spa perfumes just weren’t doing the trick anymore, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed it if I was still in Africa after getting use to the smell of body odor.
I tried on my new lovely African tube top dress I had bought at the market, it was scratchy material, but very pleasant to wear otherwise. Somehow I had forgotten to take my contacts cases with me and it was driving me crazy. I had contacts, solution, but no cases. I meant to stop to grab some at the drugstore now that I was finally in a country that had good availability of products (haha still in work mode) but never got around to it.
I had some really yummy greek food with my sis and her BF Shane that night. We stayed in. It felt good, but after the first half hour and before our food even came I was just exhausted. It was four hours ahead where I had come from and I only got airplane-sleep the night before. By the time I got home and into bed, I only had 5.5 hours to sleep. When my phone alarm woke me in the morning, I shut it off half-consciously, but was very glad to receive a phone call that I had scheduled from the front desk. Otherwise, I’m pretty sure that I absolutely wouldn’t have woken up.
The day went by fast, I spent some time catching up on emails and preparing to send the Fed Ex back home. Eventually when it came time, it felt great to take a shower. After my spa time, I had showered but I couldn’t figure out which one was the shampoo so I just rinsed my hair after a greasy head massage. And I smelled. The lovely spa perfumes just weren’t doing the trick anymore, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed it if I was still in Africa after getting use to the smell of body odor.
I tried on my new lovely African tube top dress I had bought at the market, it was scratchy material, but very pleasant to wear otherwise. Somehow I had forgotten to take my contacts cases with me and it was driving me crazy. I had contacts, solution, but no cases. I meant to stop to grab some at the drugstore now that I was finally in a country that had good availability of products (haha still in work mode) but never got around to it.
I had some really yummy greek food with my sis and her BF Shane that night. We stayed in. It felt good, but after the first half hour and before our food even came I was just exhausted. It was four hours ahead where I had come from and I only got airplane-sleep the night before. By the time I got home and into bed, I only had 5.5 hours to sleep. When my phone alarm woke me in the morning, I shut it off half-consciously, but was very glad to receive a phone call that I had scheduled from the front desk. Otherwise, I’m pretty sure that I absolutely wouldn’t have woken up.
BUSINESS CLASS baby
I arrived at the airport where I was told that my flight hadn’t even left Dakar yet and it was going from Dakar to Freetown back to Dakar and then to pick us up in Banjul. Excellent. Oh well, I sat around for a little while longer and even had an airport worker (lady) tell me that I was no good cause I wasn’t married, but of course the guy standing next to me immediately obliged. I had someone already tell me that he wanted to talk to me when I was in the terminal waiting for the plane.
Banjul is a very interesting society. It consists of super poor black people, and well –off white people who come to vacation. Many of the white people who come to visit take on “mates” while they are visiting, especially the older women. Because this happens regularly, the guys, and I’m sure girls as well are always driven to do whatever they can to target and get involved with whatever white person of the opposite sex they happen to see. It’s almost a competition of sorts, so it seemed. For many of them, it poses as the only chance at a potentially better life. On the lighter side, it’s pretty hilarious to see huge fat ugly white women with thin young good-looking black men. And there are many of these couples around. This was confirmed, by the way, but 2 sources of both races.
My flight to France wasn’t too bad. Surprisingly, Senegal to France was only 5 hours, and I got to fly on Air France. I felt fairly safe on it especially after the recent crash. Ha, no really. But then even better, from France to the USA, (an 8 hour flight), I was UPGRADED to business class! It was awesome. The chairs even recline all the way down so you can actually sleep fairly comfortably, they give you hot wet cloths to wipe your face and hands, AND they give you a menu of their food for the day, which included foi e gras and roasted duck (you bet I kept the menu). It must have been the best flight ever.
Banjul is a very interesting society. It consists of super poor black people, and well –off white people who come to vacation. Many of the white people who come to visit take on “mates” while they are visiting, especially the older women. Because this happens regularly, the guys, and I’m sure girls as well are always driven to do whatever they can to target and get involved with whatever white person of the opposite sex they happen to see. It’s almost a competition of sorts, so it seemed. For many of them, it poses as the only chance at a potentially better life. On the lighter side, it’s pretty hilarious to see huge fat ugly white women with thin young good-looking black men. And there are many of these couples around. This was confirmed, by the way, but 2 sources of both races.
My flight to France wasn’t too bad. Surprisingly, Senegal to France was only 5 hours, and I got to fly on Air France. I felt fairly safe on it especially after the recent crash. Ha, no really. But then even better, from France to the USA, (an 8 hour flight), I was UPGRADED to business class! It was awesome. The chairs even recline all the way down so you can actually sleep fairly comfortably, they give you hot wet cloths to wipe your face and hands, AND they give you a menu of their food for the day, which included foi e gras and roasted duck (you bet I kept the menu). It must have been the best flight ever.
Spa Day in Africa
Joe left last night. He got really mad the night before over a taxi pickup which they shouldn’t have charged us for, but they did. It was frustrating. Even though the hotel is gorgeous, the customer service sure does leave something to be desired.
Today was my spa day. It was incredible. I got a bath, a full-body exfoliation, and a full-body massage. Amazing. Though, I was really a bit surprised when it was just expected that I would be stripping down to my undies (no bra) for the masseus, showering practically in front of her (cause the scrub needed to come off) and then didn’t realize that my breasts were included when putting on the full-body scrub. It was a bit awkward at first until I started getting comfortable with my nakedness. It was a bit of a liberating feeling. I didn’t want to leave the spa.
I said bye to my spa friend. His name is Mila. I’m sure he just wanted a shot at a foreign white chick, but he was a nice guy who took a chance at talking to me while I was at the gym and he was working (the workers were not allowed to speak to guests aside from cheerful hellos). He told me working there, they were promised “good luck and sprits”, tips from the guests, and decent money. He saw none of this. I gave him my business card so that he could have my email and write. I doubt I’ll hear from him.
Now, I had to leave the spa. But before I left, I had a quick bite at the hotel. The restaurant that I ate in for lunch was directly on the beach, practically. There was a guy who was watching me, staring while I ate lunch, from the beach. He psssssssssssst me (which is what they do in Africa to get anyone’s attention), said hi, repeatedly, and I finally couldn’t take it anymore and gave in and said hi back. He didn’t say much else aside from staring most of the time, and then he came up to one more time again and said hi. Then, he said he was going home, so he wanted to say bye. It was so bizarre. I wanted to give him my french-fries or something, but I didn’t think it would be socially acceptable to feed a beachperson through the holes in the restaurant. He was wearing tattered clothing and was alone. I felt so awkward. Such a strange place, Gambia is. Such a vast disparity, it’s just a mixture of well-off and extremely poor. I just felt wrong sitting there in my perfect little world, in a gorgeous picturesque hotel right above/next to him, eating a burger he couldn’t afford and getting first class service while he sat right outside probably wondering what it was like to be me. As much as I loved Gambia for how well they catered to tourists, it really was a bit of a psychologically messed up experience for me.
Also, I had a tough taxi ride. Joe had warned me a little bit. Our quiet taxi driver we had used all week asked us for a) an invitation letter to come to the US, or b) help with money so that he could buy his own taxi and stop renting it daily from some other guy for the price that he normally got on a good day, especially in the rainy season. Ugh, this was tough, and once again, sad. I tried to explain, for US standards I really don’t have much money – which I’m sure he found hard to believe after knowing which hotel we stayed in and what kind of meals we ate every day.
Today was my spa day. It was incredible. I got a bath, a full-body exfoliation, and a full-body massage. Amazing. Though, I was really a bit surprised when it was just expected that I would be stripping down to my undies (no bra) for the masseus, showering practically in front of her (cause the scrub needed to come off) and then didn’t realize that my breasts were included when putting on the full-body scrub. It was a bit awkward at first until I started getting comfortable with my nakedness. It was a bit of a liberating feeling. I didn’t want to leave the spa.
I said bye to my spa friend. His name is Mila. I’m sure he just wanted a shot at a foreign white chick, but he was a nice guy who took a chance at talking to me while I was at the gym and he was working (the workers were not allowed to speak to guests aside from cheerful hellos). He told me working there, they were promised “good luck and sprits”, tips from the guests, and decent money. He saw none of this. I gave him my business card so that he could have my email and write. I doubt I’ll hear from him.
Now, I had to leave the spa. But before I left, I had a quick bite at the hotel. The restaurant that I ate in for lunch was directly on the beach, practically. There was a guy who was watching me, staring while I ate lunch, from the beach. He psssssssssssst me (which is what they do in Africa to get anyone’s attention), said hi, repeatedly, and I finally couldn’t take it anymore and gave in and said hi back. He didn’t say much else aside from staring most of the time, and then he came up to one more time again and said hi. Then, he said he was going home, so he wanted to say bye. It was so bizarre. I wanted to give him my french-fries or something, but I didn’t think it would be socially acceptable to feed a beachperson through the holes in the restaurant. He was wearing tattered clothing and was alone. I felt so awkward. Such a strange place, Gambia is. Such a vast disparity, it’s just a mixture of well-off and extremely poor. I just felt wrong sitting there in my perfect little world, in a gorgeous picturesque hotel right above/next to him, eating a burger he couldn’t afford and getting first class service while he sat right outside probably wondering what it was like to be me. As much as I loved Gambia for how well they catered to tourists, it really was a bit of a psychologically messed up experience for me.
Also, I had a tough taxi ride. Joe had warned me a little bit. Our quiet taxi driver we had used all week asked us for a) an invitation letter to come to the US, or b) help with money so that he could buy his own taxi and stop renting it daily from some other guy for the price that he normally got on a good day, especially in the rainy season. Ugh, this was tough, and once again, sad. I tried to explain, for US standards I really don’t have much money – which I’m sure he found hard to believe after knowing which hotel we stayed in and what kind of meals we ate every day.
If you give, they will take
This turned out to be a fun but pain in the ass trip. We negotiated a price of $100 USD each for me and Joe for the day; this was to include the ferry price, boat price, lunch, and any museum entrances. The guy that we negotiated the price with wasn’t the one who ended up picking us up. We had to politely but firmly tell him that the price we paid included the museum price, included lunch, included the ferry trip, no we were not going to accept joining a large tour group, etc. etc. It was annoying. That’s what the people here are like. More and more money, if you give, they will take. We were suppose to take the 8 am ferry, but our tourguide came back to tell us he couldn’t get on this ferry and it might be another 2-3 hours before we could get on. Not OK. So he parked his car and we went across. We were going to join a large tour. Also not OK. We ended up hiring a driver to take us to the place where we would take a boat, and this was NOT going to be extra money from us. OK. It went on and on from there, and then all the extra people who come in and want tips – other drivers, boat captain, entertainer – Joe refused to pay them and told them to see our tourguide if they want any money from us (it would come out of our already negotiated price).
Aside from that, the trip was pretty cool – the best part, and the part that took up the most time, was the jeep ride through the back country in Gambia – through all the little villages. The children see white people and are taught to refer to them as “2 bob” - which apparently represents the 2 pence coin that the people from the UK use to throw at the African people years and years ago when they would come to visit. As soon as the children see a vehicle coming from way down the road, they start running towards the road from everywhere – literally, I have no idea where they came from – their little huts, working in the fields, etc. Following 2 bob, they would yell “sweets!” In English. I gave in. This was nothing short but a racist form of entertainment, as I saw it – maybe racist on both sides of the spectrum, but I bought candy to give to the children and really felt satisfied being the Mother Theresa of candy for the day. Seeing how excited they became to see a butterscotch candy was intriguing, sad, motivating and beautiful– all at the same time. If they didn’t get candy from you right away, they would sprint after the car. Literally, until they couldn’t keep up any longer. Though, while I was roaming through the absolutely beautiful countryside, I wondered how bad it could really be. It would be a simple, probably fairly short life – but If you didn’t know any better, life would be so simple. You would grow what you eat, fetch water everyday, and enjoy the company of your neighbors and family. Maybe these people wouldn’t really like/adapt well to our way of living.
After getting back from our excursion, and the guide offering me a back massage (creepy), we took a really nice dip in the pool as the sun was getting low. Our resort really was eye candy. Absolutely beautiful. After a quick dinner, we met up with our expat friend we had met who, by the way, just through some small bits of information helped us finish a half-day of the information we needed to collect for our survey over a lunchtime meeting. It was incredible. We had decided to meet him out for beers tonight. We went bar hopping (his well-dressed driver drove us everywhere in a really nice SUV) to about 5 or 6 different expat bars which I had no idea existed. I sang karaoke for the first time ever by myself; the Monkeys. I only did it cause it was the monkeys. Beer after beer after beer came my way, and I only paid for one round. We met up with expat’s friends (expat’s name is Gary) and in the last bar we ended up with talking to a hooker for about 20 minutes. It was foggy, but Joe was my husband and Gary was my father and some funny, jokingly inappropriate things were said here and there which made us all laugh hysterically. Gary thought it would be entertaining to talk to her, and it sure was. We made a run for it when she went to the bathroom.
That night I woke up numerous times thinking I was going to be sick. I think this was my first beer hangover ever. The next day I didn’t get up until 2 pm. My head hurt so much, and I was still feeling really nauseas. I took some Tylenol and felt better, but that didn’t stop me from seriously needing a nap later in the evening. It was all better when Joe and I split 3 mangos we had bought at the local market. I had never tasted mango so sweet.
Aside from that, the trip was pretty cool – the best part, and the part that took up the most time, was the jeep ride through the back country in Gambia – through all the little villages. The children see white people and are taught to refer to them as “2 bob” - which apparently represents the 2 pence coin that the people from the UK use to throw at the African people years and years ago when they would come to visit. As soon as the children see a vehicle coming from way down the road, they start running towards the road from everywhere – literally, I have no idea where they came from – their little huts, working in the fields, etc. Following 2 bob, they would yell “sweets!” In English. I gave in. This was nothing short but a racist form of entertainment, as I saw it – maybe racist on both sides of the spectrum, but I bought candy to give to the children and really felt satisfied being the Mother Theresa of candy for the day. Seeing how excited they became to see a butterscotch candy was intriguing, sad, motivating and beautiful– all at the same time. If they didn’t get candy from you right away, they would sprint after the car. Literally, until they couldn’t keep up any longer. Though, while I was roaming through the absolutely beautiful countryside, I wondered how bad it could really be. It would be a simple, probably fairly short life – but If you didn’t know any better, life would be so simple. You would grow what you eat, fetch water everyday, and enjoy the company of your neighbors and family. Maybe these people wouldn’t really like/adapt well to our way of living.
After getting back from our excursion, and the guide offering me a back massage (creepy), we took a really nice dip in the pool as the sun was getting low. Our resort really was eye candy. Absolutely beautiful. After a quick dinner, we met up with our expat friend we had met who, by the way, just through some small bits of information helped us finish a half-day of the information we needed to collect for our survey over a lunchtime meeting. It was incredible. We had decided to meet him out for beers tonight. We went bar hopping (his well-dressed driver drove us everywhere in a really nice SUV) to about 5 or 6 different expat bars which I had no idea existed. I sang karaoke for the first time ever by myself; the Monkeys. I only did it cause it was the monkeys. Beer after beer after beer came my way, and I only paid for one round. We met up with expat’s friends (expat’s name is Gary) and in the last bar we ended up with talking to a hooker for about 20 minutes. It was foggy, but Joe was my husband and Gary was my father and some funny, jokingly inappropriate things were said here and there which made us all laugh hysterically. Gary thought it would be entertaining to talk to her, and it sure was. We made a run for it when she went to the bathroom.
That night I woke up numerous times thinking I was going to be sick. I think this was my first beer hangover ever. The next day I didn’t get up until 2 pm. My head hurt so much, and I was still feeling really nauseas. I took some Tylenol and felt better, but that didn’t stop me from seriously needing a nap later in the evening. It was all better when Joe and I split 3 mangos we had bought at the local market. I had never tasted mango so sweet.
Lions, tigers and bears OH MY!
We got the chance to do some super-fun excursions while we were in Gambia. First, we went to a park that kept the crocodiles so well-fed and fat that you could pet them, sit on them, feel their cold bellies, whatever. It was intriguing to see the big crocodiles and their little babies. We tried to be careful not to go too closely to the babies because Mom might attack us for another reason besides food.
We also visited a fish market and a cattle-raising park. The fish market was very interesting; the boats came in and they had special places to smoke the fish, dry the fish, whatever it was they needed to do with it. But, there were flies everywhere swarming on the fish. I was very glad I didn’t have any sandals on. I would like to think I hadn’t eaten any of that this week, but I’m sure that I had. At the cattle park, we saw all of them – it was a bit sad. Most of them were tied up, but appeared to be fed fairly well for the most part. This was my first encounter with a little child who asked for sweets. I didn’t know what she was saying at first, I thought she was saying I was sweet, but I was sad to tell her that I didn’t have any once I figured it out. This little girl had a little baby on her back. Then she asked if she could be my friend. Of course, but I’m not sure what she means by that, because I wasn’t going to be back.
From the cattle place we went to another really neat park area to see animals. There was a crocodile lake here too, but you couldn’t touch the crocs here! We didn’t see any though. We did see plenty of monkeys though which was quite entertaining, especially the ones holding the little babies. It’s amazing how much monkeys act like humans. Also as we were walking through the park, a python passed directly in front of us! This was pretty freaky. It was gone before we knew what was happening, but man was it a huge snake. I was impressed. There were lots of beautiful birds here as well. We eventually got to a little park area with caged animals. Local baboons had been caged because of their aggressive behavior towards humans. At one point I apparently got too close to a small one who was reaching his hand through the fence to get some grass, and the big baboon came running at me on the other side of the cage and lept at the cage and then started shaking it furiously. I guess they didn’t like me! I did feed them some grass which they fought over through the holes in the fence that they stuck their hands through. I also noticed them sitting there and picking bugs from each others’ mains. It was quite entertaining. In another area, they housed animals that were sick for some reason which they kept for observation until they got better. There were a couple monkeys, a ginormous tortoise, and a really impressive looking bird, possibly a stork. In another fenced area, there were hyenas. The ones we could see were all sleeping, but they were huge beasts/dogs. I wouldn’t want to mess with one of those.
From this park we went to Lamin lodge which is another landmark for Gambia. It was a rickety old place, but you could rent a boat for an hour and go around and see the wildlife, and the oysters growing in the water. We took the boatride after annoyingly talking down another local scam-artist from the ridiculous take-advantage-of-tourists price of 1500 dalasi which is 60 USD/hr. We laughed and started walking away, but eventually talked him down to the equivalent of $12 USD for the hour which was still probably too much, but we got the best boat that he had. After talking about how we heard there was a lot of pot in the country, our guide ended up taking out his “Bob Marley” and passing around the joint with his two other guide-friends. Two joints. Along the way we noticed some really beautiful, very very large birds. It was a nice way to end a wonderful day.
After this, we got Indian food and then I went home and passed out at 9 am, and didn’t wake up the next day until 7 am, last minute because we had a guide picking us up to take us on another full-day excursion. I was still exhausted when I woke up.
We also visited a fish market and a cattle-raising park. The fish market was very interesting; the boats came in and they had special places to smoke the fish, dry the fish, whatever it was they needed to do with it. But, there were flies everywhere swarming on the fish. I was very glad I didn’t have any sandals on. I would like to think I hadn’t eaten any of that this week, but I’m sure that I had. At the cattle park, we saw all of them – it was a bit sad. Most of them were tied up, but appeared to be fed fairly well for the most part. This was my first encounter with a little child who asked for sweets. I didn’t know what she was saying at first, I thought she was saying I was sweet, but I was sad to tell her that I didn’t have any once I figured it out. This little girl had a little baby on her back. Then she asked if she could be my friend. Of course, but I’m not sure what she means by that, because I wasn’t going to be back.
From the cattle place we went to another really neat park area to see animals. There was a crocodile lake here too, but you couldn’t touch the crocs here! We didn’t see any though. We did see plenty of monkeys though which was quite entertaining, especially the ones holding the little babies. It’s amazing how much monkeys act like humans. Also as we were walking through the park, a python passed directly in front of us! This was pretty freaky. It was gone before we knew what was happening, but man was it a huge snake. I was impressed. There were lots of beautiful birds here as well. We eventually got to a little park area with caged animals. Local baboons had been caged because of their aggressive behavior towards humans. At one point I apparently got too close to a small one who was reaching his hand through the fence to get some grass, and the big baboon came running at me on the other side of the cage and lept at the cage and then started shaking it furiously. I guess they didn’t like me! I did feed them some grass which they fought over through the holes in the fence that they stuck their hands through. I also noticed them sitting there and picking bugs from each others’ mains. It was quite entertaining. In another area, they housed animals that were sick for some reason which they kept for observation until they got better. There were a couple monkeys, a ginormous tortoise, and a really impressive looking bird, possibly a stork. In another fenced area, there were hyenas. The ones we could see were all sleeping, but they were huge beasts/dogs. I wouldn’t want to mess with one of those.
From this park we went to Lamin lodge which is another landmark for Gambia. It was a rickety old place, but you could rent a boat for an hour and go around and see the wildlife, and the oysters growing in the water. We took the boatride after annoyingly talking down another local scam-artist from the ridiculous take-advantage-of-tourists price of 1500 dalasi which is 60 USD/hr. We laughed and started walking away, but eventually talked him down to the equivalent of $12 USD for the hour which was still probably too much, but we got the best boat that he had. After talking about how we heard there was a lot of pot in the country, our guide ended up taking out his “Bob Marley” and passing around the joint with his two other guide-friends. Two joints. Along the way we noticed some really beautiful, very very large birds. It was a nice way to end a wonderful day.
After this, we got Indian food and then I went home and passed out at 9 am, and didn’t wake up the next day until 7 am, last minute because we had a guide picking us up to take us on another full-day excursion. I was still exhausted when I woke up.
It's nice to be nice. It's nice to be good.
I asked the driver to take me to the place where I can find out about satellite TV, and he takes me to the television headquarters of Gambia and I try to explain to the workers what I am trying to do. Before I know it, one of the guards is knocking on the padded door of the director of the television station and I am introduced to him. I didn’t really know what to say, but I said I was doing some research for the European Union and wanted to know prices for satellite television. What he told me was that it wasn’t finished yet (though I’m sure he had absolutely no idea what I was really looking for) and then he gave me some other sort of technical information and a sheet with all the satellite coordinations, etc. which I completely couldn’t understand. So I said thank you! And walked out cause I had no idea what to say.
The longer I am here in Gambia, the more I realize what a tourist-driven society this is. The people will do anything they can to get money from the tourists. This creates a major disparity. People like me and Joe feel bad for people, but after getting ripped off we are very hesitant about anyone pulling a fast one, and when and who we give our money out to. For example, when we arrive at Senegambia to use the internet, we know where the internet is, but we have someone all up for welcoming us and asking where we are going and then holding open the door for us as we walk into the internet café. Then he just hangs around expecting to be paid. “Can I help you?” Joe says. He finally leaves after realizing he’s not going to get any more money from me. Also another time, after we left for the café we went to get some lunch, and then I needed to exchange some currency so that I could pay the hotel bill. It starts pouring outside the second we leave the restaurant. We hop into another one to get a drink while we wait for the rain to die down. Joe decides to ask if they can change money at the restaurant. So they say yes, and we tell them the exchange rate we want which is perfectly do-able. After some research, they come back and tell us the only exchange rate available is 25 which is bullshit. (Clearly they are passively trying to rip us off). Here, you can trust someone with your $100 bill. They won’t steal from you. But it’s not going to prevent them from trying to honestly rip you off. That’s what it is. The people here will honestly rip you off. As long as you know one way or another what’s going on, it’s not stealing to them. If you’re naïve you’ll get played, otherwise they will leave you alone and apologize to the nines if you are upset about something. We walked by one guy on the street who very nicely, as they do, said hi to me and Joe and asked if we needed any help, or something like that. Joe instinctively replied with “no thanks”. Man: Why not, man? Joe: Because we just don’t want to be haggled. Man: It’s nice to be nice, man. It’s nice to be good. That’s what they say here. All this happened before we got a 5 dalasi car ride to our hotel for 25 and the taxi driver wanted to drop us at the street until Joe said fine. I’m going to get out here and only pay you 10 unless you drive into the hotel. The guy grudgingly drove us into the hotel, finally. It’s tiring, all the haggling. It sure is.
They like to call people Boss here. I’m sure it’s another way to make people feel important and have them give you money. I was Boss Lady. Joe was Boss Man. And to everyone’s perspective, and I’m sure it was better this way especially after my experience being alone here at the airport which I will talk about later, we were married.
The longer I am here in Gambia, the more I realize what a tourist-driven society this is. The people will do anything they can to get money from the tourists. This creates a major disparity. People like me and Joe feel bad for people, but after getting ripped off we are very hesitant about anyone pulling a fast one, and when and who we give our money out to. For example, when we arrive at Senegambia to use the internet, we know where the internet is, but we have someone all up for welcoming us and asking where we are going and then holding open the door for us as we walk into the internet café. Then he just hangs around expecting to be paid. “Can I help you?” Joe says. He finally leaves after realizing he’s not going to get any more money from me. Also another time, after we left for the café we went to get some lunch, and then I needed to exchange some currency so that I could pay the hotel bill. It starts pouring outside the second we leave the restaurant. We hop into another one to get a drink while we wait for the rain to die down. Joe decides to ask if they can change money at the restaurant. So they say yes, and we tell them the exchange rate we want which is perfectly do-able. After some research, they come back and tell us the only exchange rate available is 25 which is bullshit. (Clearly they are passively trying to rip us off). Here, you can trust someone with your $100 bill. They won’t steal from you. But it’s not going to prevent them from trying to honestly rip you off. That’s what it is. The people here will honestly rip you off. As long as you know one way or another what’s going on, it’s not stealing to them. If you’re naïve you’ll get played, otherwise they will leave you alone and apologize to the nines if you are upset about something. We walked by one guy on the street who very nicely, as they do, said hi to me and Joe and asked if we needed any help, or something like that. Joe instinctively replied with “no thanks”. Man: Why not, man? Joe: Because we just don’t want to be haggled. Man: It’s nice to be nice, man. It’s nice to be good. That’s what they say here. All this happened before we got a 5 dalasi car ride to our hotel for 25 and the taxi driver wanted to drop us at the street until Joe said fine. I’m going to get out here and only pay you 10 unless you drive into the hotel. The guy grudgingly drove us into the hotel, finally. It’s tiring, all the haggling. It sure is.
They like to call people Boss here. I’m sure it’s another way to make people feel important and have them give you money. I was Boss Lady. Joe was Boss Man. And to everyone’s perspective, and I’m sure it was better this way especially after my experience being alone here at the airport which I will talk about later, we were married.
There are no free lunches, or are there....
Joe is doing everything he can to prove that there ARE actually old white women who come to The Gambia to find young black men. It is really quite amusing. We have an older white guy staying next to us who came out of his room with a really young black girl. He looked at Joe and Joe gave him the head nod, in which case the guy quickly turned around and walked away. Joe couldn’t wait to come tell me.
I had my first meeting with the EU today. It went really well; it was a young woman who really didn’t have many question, we just ended up asking her a ton. It was very helpful for us and we finished in an hour.
Breezed through 3 full grocery stores today! That’s almost like the survey is half over. Wahoo! While in one of the grocery stores, 4 little girls in uniform came up to me and touched my hand one at a time, while I was bent down. It was such a strange thing, but so cute. I think that maybe it is a Muslim tradition? A few other Muslim girls asked me for a donation to repair furniture at their school (first touching my right hand) and I gave them 25 dalasi which is like 1 USD. But, this is a lot of money to them. They looked at each other wide-eyed and kept watching me and saying “bye bye!” as I went into the cab.
Muslim is the primary religion here, so I have been trying to remember to use my right hand for everything, but it’s tough.
I have killed at least 20 bugs tonight and have captured 3 crickets the size of golf balls in my room. My room Is gorgeous but the amount of bugs is killing me. I got a weird bite on my leg today and it really puffed up. No idea what it is, but it kinda freaked me out. It rains all the time, and my room is located with the door right outside my room so there are bugs constantly getting in!
We went into a grocery store today, asked permission, and everything was fine. The manager told me later that he had seen me at my hotel the night before (I was standing outside my room and just waved at a couple guys walking by). Well, he recognized me so he asked, do you like me? And I was like… uhhhhh, and THEN he said, want me to come to your hotel? And then I was really like… uhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Sooo akward. I tried to play it off like I was here with Joe. There are so many Indian people here. I am a bit surprised by this. For some strange reason, whenever I catch someone staring at me it’s always an Indian person. Creepy. So then, grocery store manager man tracked me down via the front desk and CALLED me, once at 1130 at night to see what I was doing, and if I wanted to get together sometime while I was there, and I said I would let him know if I had any time. I was hoping not to hear from him again. But then, he called me AGAIN the last night before I left, as 12 am and asked if he could come to my room. Please. Just for 10 minutes. Ummm hello, NOOOOO. So sketch. I double locked my doors that night.
Here, everyone sounds like a Jamaican! Well, I think they do. The official language here is English but all the other Gambians speak other languages amongst themselves, these are the tribal languages. There are about 4 major ones.
I saw a sign that said, “buy this cell phone plan, win 3 free tractors!” That kinda sounds like the sign I saw in spain – “buy this cell phone plan, get a ham leg for free!”
While I was in a car dealership today, a girl probably my age at the Xerox counter says to me through the window: “Hi, what’s your name? You look beautiful I like you.” Such a strange, yet flattering thing to hear from someone!
Instead of pigs roaming the streets, it’s goats. Lots and lots of them in herds running all over the place, including in the middle of the main streets. There are many stray dogs here as well, and I have seen some cats. Streets are much better quality here than in Bissau, there is actually one main paved road of very good quality.
People are also very friendly here too, though they are more use to tourists. The young girls seem much more in awe of me here than they were in Bissau. It sure is a strange combination here of tourism and dirt poor, while Bissau is strictly just dirt poor.
The second you say hello, someone will respond with a “how are you today?” This type of greeting is just as important is a: “What’s your name?” I really wish everyone in the world was as friendly as they are in this part of the world. Even in crowded streets, I will frequently get a hello from the random street vendor, person out on a stroll, etc.
Speaking of numerous Indian people, we went to a recommended Indian restaurant today for lunch and it was definitely up there for the best Indian food I have ever eaten (Jenn, I guess you gotta make it here some day!) Apparently the Indian guy also owns a Chinese restaurant in our area – (where the hotel is). But we asked for the bill, twice. After the 2nd time, the two guys were in conversation and kept talking, talking talking for another 10 minutes before giving us the bill. Though, I made it back here again for dinner (Joe insisted) and I had a close call with nuts. I ordered Nann that did not claim to have nuts, but I noticed the little green pistachios and did try a little in disbelieve before quickly chewing on some benedryl (that stuff is amazing). Joe got upset, especially when the manager mentioned that the menu said there were nuts when there really was no mention of nuts on the menu for this item, so we got our dinner for free.
Meals here at the hotel are excellent. For dinner, you get a complimentary appetizer courtesy of the chef. Then your meal. Then they provide you with delicious complimentary tea and cookies. It’s amazing. And for breakfast, (which is ALL complimentary, if you are a guest at the hotel), you automatically get fresh juice, coffee/tea, fruit cup and a huge basket with pastries and jam/butter. THEN, you get a menu of breakfast options (really, really good stuff) which is still all for free if you are a hotel guest. (Do you really want to eat more after all you have already been served?) And, it’s quite fancy; one person will place your napkin on your lap, the next will give you coffee, then someone will give you juice, someone else will provide you with the menu – one after the other after the other. Cool experience! If only you could get rid of all the bugs…..
Sleeping with towels under my door tonight. Goodluck to me!
I had my first meeting with the EU today. It went really well; it was a young woman who really didn’t have many question, we just ended up asking her a ton. It was very helpful for us and we finished in an hour.
Breezed through 3 full grocery stores today! That’s almost like the survey is half over. Wahoo! While in one of the grocery stores, 4 little girls in uniform came up to me and touched my hand one at a time, while I was bent down. It was such a strange thing, but so cute. I think that maybe it is a Muslim tradition? A few other Muslim girls asked me for a donation to repair furniture at their school (first touching my right hand) and I gave them 25 dalasi which is like 1 USD. But, this is a lot of money to them. They looked at each other wide-eyed and kept watching me and saying “bye bye!” as I went into the cab.
Muslim is the primary religion here, so I have been trying to remember to use my right hand for everything, but it’s tough.
I have killed at least 20 bugs tonight and have captured 3 crickets the size of golf balls in my room. My room Is gorgeous but the amount of bugs is killing me. I got a weird bite on my leg today and it really puffed up. No idea what it is, but it kinda freaked me out. It rains all the time, and my room is located with the door right outside my room so there are bugs constantly getting in!
We went into a grocery store today, asked permission, and everything was fine. The manager told me later that he had seen me at my hotel the night before (I was standing outside my room and just waved at a couple guys walking by). Well, he recognized me so he asked, do you like me? And I was like… uhhhhh, and THEN he said, want me to come to your hotel? And then I was really like… uhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Sooo akward. I tried to play it off like I was here with Joe. There are so many Indian people here. I am a bit surprised by this. For some strange reason, whenever I catch someone staring at me it’s always an Indian person. Creepy. So then, grocery store manager man tracked me down via the front desk and CALLED me, once at 1130 at night to see what I was doing, and if I wanted to get together sometime while I was there, and I said I would let him know if I had any time. I was hoping not to hear from him again. But then, he called me AGAIN the last night before I left, as 12 am and asked if he could come to my room. Please. Just for 10 minutes. Ummm hello, NOOOOO. So sketch. I double locked my doors that night.
Here, everyone sounds like a Jamaican! Well, I think they do. The official language here is English but all the other Gambians speak other languages amongst themselves, these are the tribal languages. There are about 4 major ones.
I saw a sign that said, “buy this cell phone plan, win 3 free tractors!” That kinda sounds like the sign I saw in spain – “buy this cell phone plan, get a ham leg for free!”
While I was in a car dealership today, a girl probably my age at the Xerox counter says to me through the window: “Hi, what’s your name? You look beautiful I like you.” Such a strange, yet flattering thing to hear from someone!
Instead of pigs roaming the streets, it’s goats. Lots and lots of them in herds running all over the place, including in the middle of the main streets. There are many stray dogs here as well, and I have seen some cats. Streets are much better quality here than in Bissau, there is actually one main paved road of very good quality.
People are also very friendly here too, though they are more use to tourists. The young girls seem much more in awe of me here than they were in Bissau. It sure is a strange combination here of tourism and dirt poor, while Bissau is strictly just dirt poor.
The second you say hello, someone will respond with a “how are you today?” This type of greeting is just as important is a: “What’s your name?” I really wish everyone in the world was as friendly as they are in this part of the world. Even in crowded streets, I will frequently get a hello from the random street vendor, person out on a stroll, etc.
Speaking of numerous Indian people, we went to a recommended Indian restaurant today for lunch and it was definitely up there for the best Indian food I have ever eaten (Jenn, I guess you gotta make it here some day!) Apparently the Indian guy also owns a Chinese restaurant in our area – (where the hotel is). But we asked for the bill, twice. After the 2nd time, the two guys were in conversation and kept talking, talking talking for another 10 minutes before giving us the bill. Though, I made it back here again for dinner (Joe insisted) and I had a close call with nuts. I ordered Nann that did not claim to have nuts, but I noticed the little green pistachios and did try a little in disbelieve before quickly chewing on some benedryl (that stuff is amazing). Joe got upset, especially when the manager mentioned that the menu said there were nuts when there really was no mention of nuts on the menu for this item, so we got our dinner for free.
Meals here at the hotel are excellent. For dinner, you get a complimentary appetizer courtesy of the chef. Then your meal. Then they provide you with delicious complimentary tea and cookies. It’s amazing. And for breakfast, (which is ALL complimentary, if you are a guest at the hotel), you automatically get fresh juice, coffee/tea, fruit cup and a huge basket with pastries and jam/butter. THEN, you get a menu of breakfast options (really, really good stuff) which is still all for free if you are a hotel guest. (Do you really want to eat more after all you have already been served?) And, it’s quite fancy; one person will place your napkin on your lap, the next will give you coffee, then someone will give you juice, someone else will provide you with the menu – one after the other after the other. Cool experience! If only you could get rid of all the bugs…..
Sleeping with towels under my door tonight. Goodluck to me!
Thank God for Brussels airlines
Joe and I kinda lost out on our day in Dakar. We got all ready to go early, (by 9 am, I was the slowpoke today, for a change! – really, I was on time all the other days!) and I met Joe in his room. Somehow, we both ended up passing out for over a good hour, and then we decided to head out, but we were worried about time now, (we had wanted to see Goree Island). We made it to the dock (we were already SO sick of all the people haggling haggling haggling for this that and every other thing, it was so frustrating). The ferry had just left and now we were out of luck to get there and back in a reasonable time. We went all the way back to the hotel and found out how nice the hotel atmosphere really was; there was outdoor seating by a pool overlooking the ocean and it was lovely and relaxing. We had a 2 hour lunch there before our flight, why didn’t we just come here in the first place!
The flight was lovely. I really wasn’t even afraid (maybe because it was only 25 minutes??) AND we were on Brussels airlines. The hotel pickup never made it to the airport and we ended up jumping in a car with a couple more hagglers which I was a little skeptical about; but we made it to this simply gorgeous hotel in the middle of poverty-stricken Gambia. It’s like heaven here, and we can even eat normal food like fruits and vegetables! It’s overlooking the beach and has 9 swimming pools and amazing ambience. I feel like I really should be here on a hot romantic getaway; not with a co-worker who just got married!
The flight was lovely. I really wasn’t even afraid (maybe because it was only 25 minutes??) AND we were on Brussels airlines. The hotel pickup never made it to the airport and we ended up jumping in a car with a couple more hagglers which I was a little skeptical about; but we made it to this simply gorgeous hotel in the middle of poverty-stricken Gambia. It’s like heaven here, and we can even eat normal food like fruits and vegetables! It’s overlooking the beach and has 9 swimming pools and amazing ambience. I feel like I really should be here on a hot romantic getaway; not with a co-worker who just got married!
And off to Dakar...
We get up and packed and I ask Mamadu if he’s hungry and wants to eat something. “No, airport” he says – clearly he’s concerned about my ticket that I couldn’t get confirmed yesterday. We travel on our way and he says “TACV” (which means the airline office, not at the airport) but I inform him that I had found our ticket. So, we head to the airport to check in. Unlike yesterday, I have no problem checking in at all, I have my boarding pass in hand (paper ticket), but Joe is having problems. He doesn’t have anything on him proving his ticket because it was a paper ticket. He eventually gets by, but we were informed that we should have known to print out our ticket beforehand because the Bissau airport doesn’t have computers, so they can’t look up the electronic ticket via a passport, for example. Yes, this place is really THAT poor! Finally we check in and head to get breakfast. We get gypped for nearly 20 USD but are quickly compensated when we bring it up to management. It was a frustrating morning. Joe had even started to lose his cool from time to time but I tried to remind him that TIA and you have to just go along with it. But, on the way to the airport we had to take a shortcut due to traffic through the villages and we got to see a bunch of naked children playing in the rain and mud. That was quite amusing.
We got safely into Dakar today and made sure to be aware of our surroundings and anyone who could possibly try to con us, again. Countless guys asked to help us “why not, why not, no problem, I work at the airport”. One guy even said “welcome, welcome, welcome” over and over to Joe and then actually asked for a tip before we got into the taxi. Priceless. Once we got settled I was determined to go to the French Cultural Institute for dinner which a co-worker who had studied in Dakar had recommended to me. Everything was great except for the beef that Joe had ordered, it was lined with cartilage and fat. I had also ordered beef (steak) and it was delicious – melt in your mouth delicious, probably one of the best steaks I had ever eaten! On our way to the restaurant, the put-put taxi (which you could see into the engine from the seats, by the way) took us to many of the popular tourist attractions, but really they were quite wonderful. The coastline was very pretty, so we stopped for many pictures. We went to the lighthouse, and to get some pictures of a beautiful mosque. The city looks very modern, and I can see how there can be many wonderful things to do here. It was a world of a difference from Guinea Bissau. Joe and I actually went a little overboard because the food was actually edible! It was very exciting to know you could actually eat something other than spaghetti and possibly still live. Went home and talked to Mom tonight, it was great to hear from her. More tomorrow, from Banjul!
We got safely into Dakar today and made sure to be aware of our surroundings and anyone who could possibly try to con us, again. Countless guys asked to help us “why not, why not, no problem, I work at the airport”. One guy even said “welcome, welcome, welcome” over and over to Joe and then actually asked for a tip before we got into the taxi. Priceless. Once we got settled I was determined to go to the French Cultural Institute for dinner which a co-worker who had studied in Dakar had recommended to me. Everything was great except for the beef that Joe had ordered, it was lined with cartilage and fat. I had also ordered beef (steak) and it was delicious – melt in your mouth delicious, probably one of the best steaks I had ever eaten! On our way to the restaurant, the put-put taxi (which you could see into the engine from the seats, by the way) took us to many of the popular tourist attractions, but really they were quite wonderful. The coastline was very pretty, so we stopped for many pictures. We went to the lighthouse, and to get some pictures of a beautiful mosque. The city looks very modern, and I can see how there can be many wonderful things to do here. It was a world of a difference from Guinea Bissau. Joe and I actually went a little overboard because the food was actually edible! It was very exciting to know you could actually eat something other than spaghetti and possibly still live. Went home and talked to Mom tonight, it was great to hear from her. More tomorrow, from Banjul!
Branco
Another incredible day, of course. We head straight to Gashon’s house and he has things to do, so we plan to meet him for lunch at 1 pm. Meanwhile, we head to the market and find all sorts of cool African treasures. The sellers are trying to give us rip-off prices but Mamadu stands his ground and fights for us over and over, amongst his own people! It was amazing. He fought one big battle with some guy who he thought was really ripping me off; I was getting worried at one point that there were even going to possibly be punches thrown. Joe and I have gained a ton of respect for this guy over the past week. He is genuine and has worked very hard for both of us.
We head to the restaurant and Gashon shows up, pays for our drinks we had started while waiting for him, and then we are off to another restaurant. We walk in and there are very large ladies in their typical African dresses and hair covers cooking home-made meals, for the restaurant that we walk into. There is no menu. We all get the same food, and it’s very good. Typical Senegalese food. Rice, meat and vegetables (all cooked well, of course). Joe and I eat too much again and Gashon won’t let us pay for our meal. His cousin comes too, he is also Lebanese and went to school in Texas. He is a shipper. Joe brings up that he still thinks something is really fishy about Gashon, and now his cousin. But we will try not to judge, he is giving us a free meal, after all! We were a little sad though… in America, we don’t really have “classes” in relation to people. When we went to the restaurant with the Senegalese food, Gashon came in the car with us, and we asked Mamadu to come in with us. Gashon promptly said no. We asked why and he said here, you never ever eat with your driver, or any of your “help”. If you invite them in to the restaurant, they will sit at a different table. We were sad for Mamadu, he seemed excited to eat. When we got back in the car, we expressed that we were sorry but he he had no problem with it. Then we looked back, and wondered; when we ask him to eat with us, he says no, but then once we all sit down and he figures out it’s fine, he orders something along with us. Maybe he feels privelidged to be asked to sit at our table with us!? Such a strange thought.
After lunch, I really really want a hand-made dress! We go back to the market and look at material, but we have a communication misunderstanding. There is the cloth, but I thought you could buy the cloth and then have them make it for you there, but I realized I didn’t think that was the case. You had to buy the cloth and then take it to a dress maker. Mamadu tries to bargain for me anyways and he can’t get the guy to go down to the price he thinks is reasonable. So, we walk to another market but soon find out, this market goes all the way back. This reminds me slightly of the market I went through in Morocco, but this one was worse. I almost gagged from the smell of stale trash, cooking food and diarrhea all in one. We made our way through but there was nothing here but junk and lots of flies.
We get back in the car and I am a bit discouraged. Oh well. We make a quick stop at Mamadu’s neighborhood and he beeps the car. Up walks one of his sons and one of the girls from his family (not sure her relation) with her little baby on her back, just like the other day. She hands Mamadu a bag and he opens it for me revealing two dresses. I tell him I especially like one in particular, but he motions that they are both a present from his family. I am nearly moved to tears! A dirt-poor family is giving ME a present, of something that I really wanted?? How kind-hearted of them. Way to make the day!
We head back into the city area and we notice down the street it’s absolutely full of all people. We weren’t going anywhere, fast. We park the car and head to the very center of town where thousands of people are standing around celebrating and promoting their presidential candidate. There is even a very, very unorganized parade trudging down the street – police/military were standing around telling people from different parties to head in different directions. We met one of them who wanted us to write down our mobile numbers, again; even though we didn’t speak any Portuguese. I really don’t understand what goes on in these people’s heads. Anyways, there are hundreds of large flatbed trucks packed with people yelling and dancing all around in support of the election. It really was incredible to see how many people were here for the event. We sat and watched all the people go by and every now and again we would get a “branco!” for someone which means white person.
I found it amusing at one point, Joe told one English-speaker that he spoke Chinese and the guy said, why? You’re not Chinese. Why don’t you speak French. It’s a very good language.
What a great, eye-opening experience here in Bissau. Moving on to Banjul tomorrow, via Dakar!
We head to the restaurant and Gashon shows up, pays for our drinks we had started while waiting for him, and then we are off to another restaurant. We walk in and there are very large ladies in their typical African dresses and hair covers cooking home-made meals, for the restaurant that we walk into. There is no menu. We all get the same food, and it’s very good. Typical Senegalese food. Rice, meat and vegetables (all cooked well, of course). Joe and I eat too much again and Gashon won’t let us pay for our meal. His cousin comes too, he is also Lebanese and went to school in Texas. He is a shipper. Joe brings up that he still thinks something is really fishy about Gashon, and now his cousin. But we will try not to judge, he is giving us a free meal, after all! We were a little sad though… in America, we don’t really have “classes” in relation to people. When we went to the restaurant with the Senegalese food, Gashon came in the car with us, and we asked Mamadu to come in with us. Gashon promptly said no. We asked why and he said here, you never ever eat with your driver, or any of your “help”. If you invite them in to the restaurant, they will sit at a different table. We were sad for Mamadu, he seemed excited to eat. When we got back in the car, we expressed that we were sorry but he he had no problem with it. Then we looked back, and wondered; when we ask him to eat with us, he says no, but then once we all sit down and he figures out it’s fine, he orders something along with us. Maybe he feels privelidged to be asked to sit at our table with us!? Such a strange thought.
After lunch, I really really want a hand-made dress! We go back to the market and look at material, but we have a communication misunderstanding. There is the cloth, but I thought you could buy the cloth and then have them make it for you there, but I realized I didn’t think that was the case. You had to buy the cloth and then take it to a dress maker. Mamadu tries to bargain for me anyways and he can’t get the guy to go down to the price he thinks is reasonable. So, we walk to another market but soon find out, this market goes all the way back. This reminds me slightly of the market I went through in Morocco, but this one was worse. I almost gagged from the smell of stale trash, cooking food and diarrhea all in one. We made our way through but there was nothing here but junk and lots of flies.
We get back in the car and I am a bit discouraged. Oh well. We make a quick stop at Mamadu’s neighborhood and he beeps the car. Up walks one of his sons and one of the girls from his family (not sure her relation) with her little baby on her back, just like the other day. She hands Mamadu a bag and he opens it for me revealing two dresses. I tell him I especially like one in particular, but he motions that they are both a present from his family. I am nearly moved to tears! A dirt-poor family is giving ME a present, of something that I really wanted?? How kind-hearted of them. Way to make the day!
We head back into the city area and we notice down the street it’s absolutely full of all people. We weren’t going anywhere, fast. We park the car and head to the very center of town where thousands of people are standing around celebrating and promoting their presidential candidate. There is even a very, very unorganized parade trudging down the street – police/military were standing around telling people from different parties to head in different directions. We met one of them who wanted us to write down our mobile numbers, again; even though we didn’t speak any Portuguese. I really don’t understand what goes on in these people’s heads. Anyways, there are hundreds of large flatbed trucks packed with people yelling and dancing all around in support of the election. It really was incredible to see how many people were here for the event. We sat and watched all the people go by and every now and again we would get a “branco!” for someone which means white person.
I found it amusing at one point, Joe told one English-speaker that he spoke Chinese and the guy said, why? You’re not Chinese. Why don’t you speak French. It’s a very good language.
What a great, eye-opening experience here in Bissau. Moving on to Banjul tomorrow, via Dakar!
Obama Bar
And today was yet another pretty amazing day. We started out by trying to go to the “American Embassy” which I didn’t think existed; but our driver had mentioned something about it a couple days before. So we tried, a few times with no avail, and my knowledge was correct. In the general area where the driver thought there was the embassy, we found the United Nations so we decided to stop there (because we needed a quality housing source). We were sent from this person to that person and were eventually told that they couldn’t help us because they were not allowed to unless we had a document that had been approved, but finally; the last person we called agreed to see us. He is the head of the security department for the UN, a really nice man from Portugal. We took about a half hour of his time and it was amazing to listen to his knowledge and view of Bissau. Yes, economically speaking it is a very poor country, but the people are not desperate, you don’t see them dying of hunger in the streets. This was a great experience for me; having studied international relations I have always been extremely interested in the work the UN does; it was a pleasure to meet someone so high-up in the organization.
We finished at the UN and headed to the only well-known “sports” club in Bissau; a small gym with a run-down track. This was probably the most popular sports “club” for foreigners, so reluctantly we needed to get the prices.
The weather, I swear must be stranger than New England. It rained off and on today about 3 times, one of which was a VERY heavy thunderstorm which cause the worst flash-flooding I have ever experienced in my life. We had just eaten lunch at one of the nicer hotels in the city when a severe storm with pounding rain came through for about 20 minutes. By the time it was over, there was a river running down the street ; literally – a river up to your knees. This caused some serious traffic as people needed to drive up all the way to the concrete of the hotel to exit the car, and there was only room for one spot to do this. Our driver did the same for us because there was no other way to actually get in without being soaked in red mud water, or actually carried away in the street river!
In the name of the huge election there will be on Sunday, people all over the place are striving to support who they want to win. There are stations all over the city to hang out and play music, dance, and support the president elects. They put numerous posters up everywhere to show who they are supporting. Joe just HAD to get some posters, so I obliged and we got 4 perfectly cheesy maps to take home with us!
It really hit me today how nice everyone really, truly is. Everyone we have met so far has just been incredibly kind, you are always welcomed with a warm handshake, but not a smile – because I swear they just don’t do that here, even though they are happy to meet you but you wouldn’t even know it. They will, however; go way out of the way to help out. Some of the nicest people I have ever met.
The last really memorable thing that happened today was Obama bar. Driving by, and MAJOR props to Joe, we found a bar with a painted picture of Obama outside (and not a bad one too!) so we took some pictures, went inside to take more, and then we were summoned to the owner’s village. He took us into his small 1 bedroom room and when he opened the door, I was amazed to see the shrines to US actors, actresses, and famous American icons (including Obama and Victoria/David Beckam) in general. Proudly, I said, “you like America?” He sure does.
We finished at the UN and headed to the only well-known “sports” club in Bissau; a small gym with a run-down track. This was probably the most popular sports “club” for foreigners, so reluctantly we needed to get the prices.
The weather, I swear must be stranger than New England. It rained off and on today about 3 times, one of which was a VERY heavy thunderstorm which cause the worst flash-flooding I have ever experienced in my life. We had just eaten lunch at one of the nicer hotels in the city when a severe storm with pounding rain came through for about 20 minutes. By the time it was over, there was a river running down the street ; literally – a river up to your knees. This caused some serious traffic as people needed to drive up all the way to the concrete of the hotel to exit the car, and there was only room for one spot to do this. Our driver did the same for us because there was no other way to actually get in without being soaked in red mud water, or actually carried away in the street river!
In the name of the huge election there will be on Sunday, people all over the place are striving to support who they want to win. There are stations all over the city to hang out and play music, dance, and support the president elects. They put numerous posters up everywhere to show who they are supporting. Joe just HAD to get some posters, so I obliged and we got 4 perfectly cheesy maps to take home with us!
It really hit me today how nice everyone really, truly is. Everyone we have met so far has just been incredibly kind, you are always welcomed with a warm handshake, but not a smile – because I swear they just don’t do that here, even though they are happy to meet you but you wouldn’t even know it. They will, however; go way out of the way to help out. Some of the nicest people I have ever met.
The last really memorable thing that happened today was Obama bar. Driving by, and MAJOR props to Joe, we found a bar with a painted picture of Obama outside (and not a bad one too!) so we took some pictures, went inside to take more, and then we were summoned to the owner’s village. He took us into his small 1 bedroom room and when he opened the door, I was amazed to see the shrines to US actors, actresses, and famous American icons (including Obama and Victoria/David Beckam) in general. Proudly, I said, “you like America?” He sure does.
2 special visits
We tried to visit Air Senegal for flight info but the power had been down for 2 weeks so the guy couldn’t price flights for us. Why he was even there and “working” was a mystery to me.
One little boy started following me and Joe asking for money. I reached into my purse to give them a banana and all of a sudden about 8 of them came out of nowhere. I handed over the banana to the one who reached the highest and didn’t look back, I’m sure they fought over it like crazy.
Joe and I did 4 memorable things today. We bought a passport case that says Guinea-Bissau (and it’s actually very nicely designed!) We got yelled at a couple times for taking pictures of people, we had lunch at the house of our Lebanese friend, and we went to our taxi driver’s house after work. At our Lebanese friend’s house, he had rice, chicken, and potatoes (sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, carrots, etc.) in a lovely semi-spicy sauce. It started with cole slaw made from cabbage. Then there was rice, chicken and vegetables with a spicy sauce made with palm oil. It was a lovely lunch and I somehow was able to eat the whole thing (my plate was HUGE!) Well, I guess not a huge surprise for me. He had a cute little house, still very open, full of flies/bugs, only sometimes working electricity, run-down, but probably considered very high-class for the area. He had 3 girls in the kitchen working for him; cooking and cleaning. He also had a whole bunch of other people around doing odds and ends, including running his store. He has Mercedes for cars (2 of them) and drivers as well. His really cute 19 year old daughter was there too, and she invited a local guy who could speak a little English but was very quiet the whole time. We had great conversation and he helped us out even more with our survey. Along with the typical African dish that we ate, we also had some Lebanese bread and coffee, which was very good (strong and thick but unlike anything I had had before). We left from here to keep working, but I may go dress shopping with the girl on Friday. All of us plan to do something on Friday, so that should be fun and something to look forward to. (PS, still not sure if he’s a drug dealer, but we don’t think so).
At the end of the day our taxi driver took us to visit his family. We drove off-road (which is most of the road system here) through lots of garbage and huge holes until the car came to a stop in front of a lot of garbage piles, huts, and families hanging around outside who looked at us wide-eyed. After walking through some fly-infested garbage and checking out the chickens and pigs, we came to his house with the dirt floor in the middle of it all. There were houses of the same time all around this one, and a large trash pit was in the middle of it all, and the bathroom (which we assumed it was), was behind us. I kissed his wife in the beautiful African dress on the cheeks and said hello to his two little boys. There were two other girls around with their kids (I think?) One of the mothers couldn’t be any older than 18 years old and she had a baby wrapped in a sarong around her back. We played with the kids and amazed them with expensive sunglasses and digital cameras (which we let them play with and take pics of themselves). One little boy was attached to Joe, one of the little girls reminded me of Steph when she was little, such an attention-grabbing drama queen but man was she cute. The little boy rubbed Joe’s hair on his legs and on his chest, probably because daddy didn’t have that himself. There were shoulder rides and lots of laughing as these 2 cultures came together (without speaking more than a word of each others’ language) and enjoyed the day and each other’s company, no matter how strange the situation really was – especially for me and Joe. Our taxi driver doesn’t talk much at all, but he can understand and speak very little English. When he agrees with something, or understands us, he just nods his head and grunts. His wife talks a lot more, in general. No one really tried to even speak to us, and we didn’t try to speak either, knowing we sure wouldn’t be able to communicate much.
It was a great day in general, though; we got to hang out with residents of two completely different classes in a very personalized setting, all in one day. Just incredible.
One little boy started following me and Joe asking for money. I reached into my purse to give them a banana and all of a sudden about 8 of them came out of nowhere. I handed over the banana to the one who reached the highest and didn’t look back, I’m sure they fought over it like crazy.
Joe and I did 4 memorable things today. We bought a passport case that says Guinea-Bissau (and it’s actually very nicely designed!) We got yelled at a couple times for taking pictures of people, we had lunch at the house of our Lebanese friend, and we went to our taxi driver’s house after work. At our Lebanese friend’s house, he had rice, chicken, and potatoes (sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, carrots, etc.) in a lovely semi-spicy sauce. It started with cole slaw made from cabbage. Then there was rice, chicken and vegetables with a spicy sauce made with palm oil. It was a lovely lunch and I somehow was able to eat the whole thing (my plate was HUGE!) Well, I guess not a huge surprise for me. He had a cute little house, still very open, full of flies/bugs, only sometimes working electricity, run-down, but probably considered very high-class for the area. He had 3 girls in the kitchen working for him; cooking and cleaning. He also had a whole bunch of other people around doing odds and ends, including running his store. He has Mercedes for cars (2 of them) and drivers as well. His really cute 19 year old daughter was there too, and she invited a local guy who could speak a little English but was very quiet the whole time. We had great conversation and he helped us out even more with our survey. Along with the typical African dish that we ate, we also had some Lebanese bread and coffee, which was very good (strong and thick but unlike anything I had had before). We left from here to keep working, but I may go dress shopping with the girl on Friday. All of us plan to do something on Friday, so that should be fun and something to look forward to. (PS, still not sure if he’s a drug dealer, but we don’t think so).
At the end of the day our taxi driver took us to visit his family. We drove off-road (which is most of the road system here) through lots of garbage and huge holes until the car came to a stop in front of a lot of garbage piles, huts, and families hanging around outside who looked at us wide-eyed. After walking through some fly-infested garbage and checking out the chickens and pigs, we came to his house with the dirt floor in the middle of it all. There were houses of the same time all around this one, and a large trash pit was in the middle of it all, and the bathroom (which we assumed it was), was behind us. I kissed his wife in the beautiful African dress on the cheeks and said hello to his two little boys. There were two other girls around with their kids (I think?) One of the mothers couldn’t be any older than 18 years old and she had a baby wrapped in a sarong around her back. We played with the kids and amazed them with expensive sunglasses and digital cameras (which we let them play with and take pics of themselves). One little boy was attached to Joe, one of the little girls reminded me of Steph when she was little, such an attention-grabbing drama queen but man was she cute. The little boy rubbed Joe’s hair on his legs and on his chest, probably because daddy didn’t have that himself. There were shoulder rides and lots of laughing as these 2 cultures came together (without speaking more than a word of each others’ language) and enjoyed the day and each other’s company, no matter how strange the situation really was – especially for me and Joe. Our taxi driver doesn’t talk much at all, but he can understand and speak very little English. When he agrees with something, or understands us, he just nods his head and grunts. His wife talks a lot more, in general. No one really tried to even speak to us, and we didn’t try to speak either, knowing we sure wouldn’t be able to communicate much.
It was a great day in general, though; we got to hang out with residents of two completely different classes in a very personalized setting, all in one day. Just incredible.
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