I am sitting in the UP of Michigan watching the rain stream down lichen-crusted pine trees. This is the kind of forest that, when you stare into it, you think it stretches to infinity
The problem with this rain means that there are tornadoes plowing through the lower Midwest. I can say "lower" Midwest since I am in the UP
Harvest is done. Finally. We are still tallying the results.
Togolese farmers, around the new year, develop this vacant stare that bespeaks too many cotton rows in their near past and future. I've felt my face collapse into this expression frequently the past two months. The constant roar of machinery dulls the senses. The constant repetition required for successfully operating said machinery numbs the mind. Life is reduced to the single pursuit of slugging golden grain into the elevator.
I forgot how much the weather changes. This is the time of year when cold air washes over the landscape cackling its way south. Sheets of clouds tumble across the horizon in its wake. The sky is capped with grey shrouds and girded in a bitter wind that spits in your face and pricks your lungs with ten thousand icicle fingers.
Flaming red trees blossom out of the early morning mist when the sun comes out. Frost rimes everything you can see and then vanishes like so much smoke. And then sneaks back again when Jack Frost dances his chill midnight waltzes
I am glad I'm back to see another fall. I love seeing maple trees belching yellow and gold in the fall fog. It is one thing that west Africa lacks
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Sunday, October 13, 2013
welcome, dear reader, once again
I've discovered that my blog has been in semi-hiatus while I farm. This is because, when I drag myself inside about 19h00 every day, I find that I am to brain-dead to do much besides fiddle with my fantasy football settings. Apparently shepherding 25 tons of grain up and down roads all day is mentally draining
I just got done with a bike ride. 9.7 miles in 45 minutes. Biking here is much easier than in Togo. it is at least 20 degrees colder here. The land rises in short bumps, rather than long, slow swells that crest on the horizon. And the roads are, mostly, paved
Today is one of those gorgeous fall days that I missed when I was in Togo. Until I realized that most days in Africa are like this. Only a lot warmer. The sky is clear blue that shows you infinity. The sun embraces you and the land laughs when you go by
The one difference being that today most of my bike ride went into the teeth of a north wind that grabbed my lungs with chilly fingers and snickered
I feel a lot further from the sky there though, than I did in Africa. I cant figure out why
One thing I have been having a hard time with here are dogs. There are three houses within a mile of mine that have a set of dogs that come running out to confront someone, like me, when he is walking/running/biking down the road. I find that I dislike being confronted by barking dogs immensely. When this happened to me in Togo, the dogs' owner would immediately smack the shit out of them. If not, it was perfectly sociably acceptable to do it yourself. Of course there dogs are usually politer, or more cowed, probably due to some innate knowledge that one social misstep too large and it would find itself on the menu for the next fete. Here, though, people think of their dogs like their children, and of course its taboo to chastise someone else's wayward child. Even when that child is running at me with a bristled ruff and blood in her eye
We are about to start harvesting corn. Each load I take into the elevator is about 850 bushels, on average. I will take in at least 3 loads a day. Hopefully. The average corn consumption per capita in Togo is about 137 kilo per person. Or 302 pounds. Which works out to about 5.3 bushels. So every day, I will take enough corn into the elevator to feed 481 Togolese for a year. Which would be about 1/3 the population of Nampoch. Assuming we produce at least 20,000 bushels of corn this year, we could feed 3,7775.5 west Africans. This is not counting our soybean production
Of course, though, if we are going by the US national average, 38% of our corn production will go to livestock feed. It takes 6 pounds of corn to produce 1 pound of beef. It takes an average of 80 bushels of corn to raise a steer from infancy to slaughter weight. That amount of corn could feed 14 people in west Africa for a year. Think about that next time you're looking at a T-bone steak in the supermarket
I've discovered that my blog has been in semi-hiatus while I farm. This is because, when I drag myself inside about 19h00 every day, I find that I am to brain-dead to do much besides fiddle with my fantasy football settings. Apparently shepherding 25 tons of grain up and down roads all day is mentally draining
I just got done with a bike ride. 9.7 miles in 45 minutes. Biking here is much easier than in Togo. it is at least 20 degrees colder here. The land rises in short bumps, rather than long, slow swells that crest on the horizon. And the roads are, mostly, paved
Today is one of those gorgeous fall days that I missed when I was in Togo. Until I realized that most days in Africa are like this. Only a lot warmer. The sky is clear blue that shows you infinity. The sun embraces you and the land laughs when you go by
The one difference being that today most of my bike ride went into the teeth of a north wind that grabbed my lungs with chilly fingers and snickered
I feel a lot further from the sky there though, than I did in Africa. I cant figure out why
One thing I have been having a hard time with here are dogs. There are three houses within a mile of mine that have a set of dogs that come running out to confront someone, like me, when he is walking/running/biking down the road. I find that I dislike being confronted by barking dogs immensely. When this happened to me in Togo, the dogs' owner would immediately smack the shit out of them. If not, it was perfectly sociably acceptable to do it yourself. Of course there dogs are usually politer, or more cowed, probably due to some innate knowledge that one social misstep too large and it would find itself on the menu for the next fete. Here, though, people think of their dogs like their children, and of course its taboo to chastise someone else's wayward child. Even when that child is running at me with a bristled ruff and blood in her eye
We are about to start harvesting corn. Each load I take into the elevator is about 850 bushels, on average. I will take in at least 3 loads a day. Hopefully. The average corn consumption per capita in Togo is about 137 kilo per person. Or 302 pounds. Which works out to about 5.3 bushels. So every day, I will take enough corn into the elevator to feed 481 Togolese for a year. Which would be about 1/3 the population of Nampoch. Assuming we produce at least 20,000 bushels of corn this year, we could feed 3,7775.5 west Africans. This is not counting our soybean production
Of course, though, if we are going by the US national average, 38% of our corn production will go to livestock feed. It takes 6 pounds of corn to produce 1 pound of beef. It takes an average of 80 bushels of corn to raise a steer from infancy to slaughter weight. That amount of corn could feed 14 people in west Africa for a year. Think about that next time you're looking at a T-bone steak in the supermarket
 |
| dance! sometime in the hot season or harmattan |
 |
| now |
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Harvesting
Since my return from England I have been playing farmer boy. Or, as my Linkedin account says, acting as an International Agricultural Specialist.
I have two main jobs. The first one is washing the windows on the cab of the combine, so my dad can see what he is doing. The other one is taking loads of grain to the elevator.
This means that I drive a tractor, two wagons, and roughly 25 tons of soybeans 11 mph down the merrily down the road, dump, and come back at 20.6 mph. That is the fastest the tractor will go.
In the elevator, my grain gets weighed, tested, and dumped in a highly systematized process. My main concern is getting my wagons into the dumps (I have about 4 feet of clearance. total) and not running over anyone. The nice part about the whole process is that the only time I have to leave my tractor is when I run over to the office to get my scales ticket.
I, or my dad, makes more money on each trip that I make than a Togolese farmer makes in a lifetime. Or in a very long time anyway.
My dad harvests, threshes, and cleans more grain in an hour, or less, than my host dad in Togo does in a year. My friends in Togo used to tell me they want a tractor to help them farm. What they really want is a combine because that would save days of labor.
Still, whenever I am rolling to the elevator, holding up traffic and listening the radio, I often space out and have visions of lines of women walking home in the dusty evening with basins of soybeans on their heads.
The radio plays 95% of the same stuff it played when I left for Togo. so much for "new-rock alternative". It has been an interesting re-education though. I am re-learning all the crappy bands i listened to in high school.
since this post kind of sucks, here are some pictures from farming
I have two main jobs. The first one is washing the windows on the cab of the combine, so my dad can see what he is doing. The other one is taking loads of grain to the elevator.
This means that I drive a tractor, two wagons, and roughly 25 tons of soybeans 11 mph down the merrily down the road, dump, and come back at 20.6 mph. That is the fastest the tractor will go.
In the elevator, my grain gets weighed, tested, and dumped in a highly systematized process. My main concern is getting my wagons into the dumps (I have about 4 feet of clearance. total) and not running over anyone. The nice part about the whole process is that the only time I have to leave my tractor is when I run over to the office to get my scales ticket.
I, or my dad, makes more money on each trip that I make than a Togolese farmer makes in a lifetime. Or in a very long time anyway.
My dad harvests, threshes, and cleans more grain in an hour, or less, than my host dad in Togo does in a year. My friends in Togo used to tell me they want a tractor to help them farm. What they really want is a combine because that would save days of labor.
Still, whenever I am rolling to the elevator, holding up traffic and listening the radio, I often space out and have visions of lines of women walking home in the dusty evening with basins of soybeans on their heads.
The radio plays 95% of the same stuff it played when I left for Togo. so much for "new-rock alternative". It has been an interesting re-education though. I am re-learning all the crappy bands i listened to in high school.
since this post kind of sucks, here are some pictures from farming
 |
| Ntifoni picking cotton. It was about 115 that day |
 |
| threshing soybeans |
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
An English Interlude Part II: Notes from 52,000 Feet
Under my ass as I write this is 50 something thousand feet
of frigid air and then the Atlantic.
Or Newfoundland. Or
something. I am surrounded by what
appear to be old, Brit, 1st time tourists, judging by their
inability to operate the touch screen TVs and handle turbulence
I am swaddled in a blanket
Don’t fly Air Canada if you can help it. The seats make your clothes reek when
you get off the plane. Which seems
like its older than you are. The
food is passable, but sparse, they give you pretzels, and professionalism isn’t
that high on the priority list of their cabin staff. On the way over a
stewardess spilled coffee behind my head and was like “shit!” And looked like she had a face full of
SourPatch kids. Seriously.
~update: I did have a wonderful experience with an Air Canada baggage agent in Toronto- she was very helpful and seemed to enjoy doing it.
This blog post may sound somewhat whiny do to jet lag and
only sleeping 2 hours last night.
Saturday was a lot of fun. D and I took the train to a town outside of London to meet
up with my friend Karim and his wife.
Then he drove us to Salisbury.
He has a Mercedes. It is fun on English roads.
I wanted to take D to the Salisbury cathedral because it is
my favorite one that I have seen so far.
For a modern person who is use to seeing amazing things, it is awesome. Driving up
into town, the spire shoots up into the sun and spikes the eye even against the
backdrop of a somewhat modern town. I cant imagine what it was like for a 14th
century peasant to see it for the first time.
The architecture of cathedrals is built to mimic and reflect a vision on
heaven. To invoke a certain
feeling of the divine. To impress
on all who see it what someone thought God should feel like. Salisbury definitely does that,
even some 800 years later. I spent
the whole time wandering around goggling in some quasi-state of awe. Then D brought up the point of what
if all the money and resources that had been poured into that cathedral by a
wealthy church institution and rich noblemen had been instead spent on
improving the lot of the peasantry around it? Granted, this is imposing modern values on a pre-modern
society, since concepts like universal education didn’t really exist then, but
cathedral-sized pile of money could have fed a lot of people. Again paraphrasing my smart girlfriend,
what a cathedral is meant to be and reflect is awesome, what it actually
represents is disgusting.
Then we went to Stonehenge. Karim’s take on Stonehenge is that it is a heap of stones
you can see just as well with a telephoto lens and avoid the entrance feels and
tourists. He has a point. Stonehenge the second time lost its
charm, in and of itself. What is
really cool for me about it isn’t the standing stones themselves, but
rather the entire site. If you
walk around Stonehenge and look out from it, you can see rows of burial mounds
dotting the countryside.
Stonehenge isn’t just the pile of rocks, it is the whole area. People have been coming there for
thousands of years to bury their dead and to worship because they feel some sort of mystical connection to the area
D and I spent the last couple of days in London doing
touristy stuff. Aside from our
trip to the countryside we wandered around the Tower of London. Having recently watched the Tudors, I
was more interested in re-visiting the Tower than otherwise I might have
been. It is really cool. And sobering when you think about how
many people died there as victims of the corrupting nature of absolute power. The Crown Jewels are about 200 yards, or
less, from the place where people were executed for somehow offending the same
monarchy that those Jewels glorify.
We walked across Tower Bridge. Which I learned was not actually “London” bridge. It was massive and cool.
Yesterday, we wandered around the British Museum and saw the
vast galleries of trophies of Britain’s imperial heyday masquerading as
archeological wonders. Does the
fact that artwork hacked from the walls of an Egyptian tomb is preserved for
eternity in a climate-controlled glass box somehow justify the other fact that
only wealthy or privileged Egyptians will ever be able to see it? Did the old lady whose mummified corpse
I saw really want her nude body to be gawked at by hundreds of thousands of
people? Mightn’t Sudanese benefit
more from their ancient statues than we do? Just wondering.
On the other hand, looking at stuff dug up in Britain itself is pretty cool . . .
. . . until my feet started hurting, and I got tired of
tripping over and dodging tourists and just wanted a pub with a cold beer where I
could sit and watch the world go by.
Because the world goes by in London.
One gets an interesting sensation on red-eye flights when
your biological clock tells you its 1 am and you’re really tired but your
actual clock tells you its 4 am and you’re even more tired. You lose your sense of time and space,
probably compounded by the fact that you are in a tin can being shot through
the air at 500 miles an hour. I
made myself a note on my phone – “staring at my jet-lagged self in the dim
light of in a lavatory rocking with the bobbing of a tin can booming through
ice at 500 mph wondering at how marvelous life can be”
Thursday, September 19, 2013
An English Interlude
A red doubledecker bus just crawled past the hotel; its brakes squealed at the corner like a crypt door opening
It rained today. It has rained every day since we got here. I now understand why people used to have sun gods. I am now treating any of its appearances like minor miracles.
I am in London with D. She is starting a master's program at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. To get to class she walks by a church that was built in 1850.
We have been looking for a place for D to live, so we have been bouncing all over Greater London. Mostly in zones 1 and 2, a bit in 3. It has been an educational experience. 10 days ago I was looking at a map of London, thinking "oh god." Now you can tell me a postal code and I can tell you what part of a city map you should be looking at. I have ridden, at least once, on every Underground line except for the Victoria. And on the Overground too. In one day we went from Shepherd's Bush to Kensington to Stratford to Kennington to Euston Square/King's Cross and back to Shepherd's Bush.
We found her a room finally. After much stress. She pays 125 pounds a week for it. This works out to roughly 800 dollars a month. A one bedroom flat starts at maybe $1200 a month.
We're staying in Shepherd's Bush, mostly cause it was the cheapest hotel we could find and still be sort of near the center of the city. It is a multicultural area. I think I hear Arabic more than English on the street. We eat at this little Arabic cafe every morning for breakfast. It is so good.
I used to think London fog was romantic and mysterious, now, without the sun, I wilt. Thanks, Africa. I only packed t-shirts, jeans, and sandals to come here. Mostly because I did not own anything else. D made me go shopping. I have worn shoes for 5 days straight. And a sweater. Who knew 60 was so freaking cold?
Getting to London included taking a train from Chicago to Detroit. I rolled past miles upon miles of the ruins of the American dream. Empty, rusted hulks of factories and steel mills standing as silent, shrieking memorials to the almighty corroding dollar and Moloch. Here, I stared down solid rows of houses built for factory workers during the Industrial revolution. Blank windows that have been staring at each other for hundreds of years. Or scuff my feet on cobblestones that count their ages by monarchs. The buildings here exude a kind of ancient, world-weary nonchalance. Or at least that's how it seems to an American who thinks "old" is the number of centuries he can count on one hand. American exceptionalism is such a crock.
We stopped in a pub in Blackfriers. Aside from the suits whining about the temperature of their Guinness, it was great.
I love London, aside from being cold. There is always something different to think about here.
It rained today. It has rained every day since we got here. I now understand why people used to have sun gods. I am now treating any of its appearances like minor miracles.
I am in London with D. She is starting a master's program at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. To get to class she walks by a church that was built in 1850.
We have been looking for a place for D to live, so we have been bouncing all over Greater London. Mostly in zones 1 and 2, a bit in 3. It has been an educational experience. 10 days ago I was looking at a map of London, thinking "oh god." Now you can tell me a postal code and I can tell you what part of a city map you should be looking at. I have ridden, at least once, on every Underground line except for the Victoria. And on the Overground too. In one day we went from Shepherd's Bush to Kensington to Stratford to Kennington to Euston Square/King's Cross and back to Shepherd's Bush.
We found her a room finally. After much stress. She pays 125 pounds a week for it. This works out to roughly 800 dollars a month. A one bedroom flat starts at maybe $1200 a month.
We're staying in Shepherd's Bush, mostly cause it was the cheapest hotel we could find and still be sort of near the center of the city. It is a multicultural area. I think I hear Arabic more than English on the street. We eat at this little Arabic cafe every morning for breakfast. It is so good.
I used to think London fog was romantic and mysterious, now, without the sun, I wilt. Thanks, Africa. I only packed t-shirts, jeans, and sandals to come here. Mostly because I did not own anything else. D made me go shopping. I have worn shoes for 5 days straight. And a sweater. Who knew 60 was so freaking cold?
Getting to London included taking a train from Chicago to Detroit. I rolled past miles upon miles of the ruins of the American dream. Empty, rusted hulks of factories and steel mills standing as silent, shrieking memorials to the almighty corroding dollar and Moloch. Here, I stared down solid rows of houses built for factory workers during the Industrial revolution. Blank windows that have been staring at each other for hundreds of years. Or scuff my feet on cobblestones that count their ages by monarchs. The buildings here exude a kind of ancient, world-weary nonchalance. Or at least that's how it seems to an American who thinks "old" is the number of centuries he can count on one hand. American exceptionalism is such a crock.
We stopped in a pub in Blackfriers. Aside from the suits whining about the temperature of their Guinness, it was great.
I love London, aside from being cold. There is always something different to think about here.
Saturday, September 7, 2013
Unpacking: 1 of some
I have not really unpacked yet. Most of my clothes are out and used/tossed. But I still have bundles sitting in a suitcase in the corner of my room. I pulled some stuff out the other night and started looking through it. I found my collection of 1/3 full notebooks in which I wrote down whatever drivel came to mind in Togo that was unfit for general blog consumption of the time and my journal. I decided to resurrect some of these lost gems for you, dear reader, in a mostly unedited form. Thus, this is the first of what will hopefully be a series. If you find some of it bothersome or offensive, stop reading.
The following poem has the dubious distinction of being one of the first things I wrote in Togo that was not in a blog or a journal. Its actually about Morocco-- about a Berber household someplace near the Anti-Atlas mountains. Do not ask about the formatting, I do not remember. I wrote this in 2010. During stage. I think
Three dugouts set
In a bank of
A dry ditch that never
Feels water's clammy caress
Anymore
Under a crumbling tower that
Once overlooked caravans plying their way
Through high mountains and trackless sands and
Now the sand whispers its story to
Bleating goats that must know
The secrets of their valley because
We lonely Americans only
See the three dugouts and
The ones in them
If I don't remember the next circumstances of this next thing, I can definitely picture the scene I am writing about. I apparently got poetic one morning about Harmattan. And decided to write about it. After a couple cups of coffee. Maybe late 2011.
the air is white
I am in that strange place that only
a large cup of coffee and a
calabash of tchakpa can conjure.
he air is white. If I squint I
can imagine that there are clouds of snow
powder billowing between the mango
trees. the air is white and shapes
move in it. shapes. lost desert
jinns wandering in pale green
wastelands far from their birthing dunes.
the sun is buried in an ethereal haze.
a baptismal, or burial, shroud of incorporeal
mass. wind kicks it around. the white.
carries it over the rolling ridges and
dipping valleys. my lips crunch white.
To post or not to post this one? I was apparently mad this day, especially at the ubiquitous trash that is scattered seemingly everywhere in Togo. Many PCVs have existential crises about littering etc. Apparently I did too in late 2010/early 2011.
Plastic candy wrappers are fucking stupid.
What is the point of a square piece of
Plastic after the candy is gone?
Environmental damage/pollution
Burn it? Bury it? Eat it?
Cum in it and see if you have toxic jizz?
Recycle it? Toss it?
The trappings of the modern world
Look so fucking pointless.
Instant gratification is an ugly whore up close
and personal. Because thats
all that little square of crinkly crap really is. . . .
If you are still reading, this next little nugget is apparently an epiphany I had one morning. I think it was the result of a couple conversations I had with my neighbor, Jenn, now that I think about it.
Living here is so much closer to being alive. So much closer to actual life. Not just distraction shrouded existence.
These next two are from my green period during my literary flowering in early/mid 2011
Thunder crunches over the horizon
And that's all
A million promises left unfulfilled
and. . .
Red laterite roads gash through
Quick green countrysides
Storm cells slog over the horizon like
Wandering giants supremely disdainful
Of us mere mortals below
Green hill rising from rolling
Green ridges; so many fetishes curled
Beneath the landscape
Gray smoke smudging far
Green parks. Charcoal burners
Ridge top vistas where the countryside
Sweeps away into bowls over hills
Through hollows and emerges laughing
Against a far horizon. Ready
To do it again
And, for your patience, some pictures.
The following poem has the dubious distinction of being one of the first things I wrote in Togo that was not in a blog or a journal. Its actually about Morocco-- about a Berber household someplace near the Anti-Atlas mountains. Do not ask about the formatting, I do not remember. I wrote this in 2010. During stage. I think
Three dugouts set
In a bank of
A dry ditch that never
Feels water's clammy caress
Anymore
Under a crumbling tower that
Once overlooked caravans plying their way
Through high mountains and trackless sands and
Now the sand whispers its story to
Bleating goats that must know
The secrets of their valley because
We lonely Americans only
See the three dugouts and
The ones in them
If I don't remember the next circumstances of this next thing, I can definitely picture the scene I am writing about. I apparently got poetic one morning about Harmattan. And decided to write about it. After a couple cups of coffee. Maybe late 2011.
the air is white
I am in that strange place that only
a large cup of coffee and a
calabash of tchakpa can conjure.
he air is white. If I squint I
can imagine that there are clouds of snow
powder billowing between the mango
trees. the air is white and shapes
move in it. shapes. lost desert
jinns wandering in pale green
wastelands far from their birthing dunes.
the sun is buried in an ethereal haze.
a baptismal, or burial, shroud of incorporeal
mass. wind kicks it around. the white.
carries it over the rolling ridges and
dipping valleys. my lips crunch white.
To post or not to post this one? I was apparently mad this day, especially at the ubiquitous trash that is scattered seemingly everywhere in Togo. Many PCVs have existential crises about littering etc. Apparently I did too in late 2010/early 2011.
Plastic candy wrappers are fucking stupid.
What is the point of a square piece of
Plastic after the candy is gone?
Environmental damage/pollution
Burn it? Bury it? Eat it?
Cum in it and see if you have toxic jizz?
Recycle it? Toss it?
The trappings of the modern world
Look so fucking pointless.
Instant gratification is an ugly whore up close
and personal. Because thats
all that little square of crinkly crap really is. . . .
If you are still reading, this next little nugget is apparently an epiphany I had one morning. I think it was the result of a couple conversations I had with my neighbor, Jenn, now that I think about it.
Living here is so much closer to being alive. So much closer to actual life. Not just distraction shrouded existence.
These next two are from my green period during my literary flowering in early/mid 2011
Thunder crunches over the horizon
And that's all
A million promises left unfulfilled
and. . .
Red laterite roads gash through
Quick green countrysides
Storm cells slog over the horizon like
Wandering giants supremely disdainful
Of us mere mortals below
Green hill rising from rolling
Green ridges; so many fetishes curled
Beneath the landscape
Gray smoke smudging far
Green parks. Charcoal burners
Ridge top vistas where the countryside
Sweeps away into bowls over hills
Through hollows and emerges laughing
Against a far horizon. Ready
To do it again
And, for your patience, some pictures.
 |
| somewhere in southwest Bassar |
 |
| a football match. I was looking for a good picture of the dust |
 |
| coming in from the fields in the evening during Harmattan |
 |
| Ditto |
 |
| sunset |
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Food Breathes Salty
It has been a while, in US terms anyway, since I have updated this. What has happened in the mean time you wonder? Fun and games on the farm have included lifting the ATV off my dad after he flipped it and patching my parents' roof. I quickly remember why I am no longer in construction. I rented a car last weekend and drove up to Detroit for D's birthday and Labor Day. That was a lot of fun.
Driving here is one thing. Driving here in traffic is something else. There is traffic in Lome. But it is civilized. Or chaotic to the point that it engenders good manners. Here you are caught in the quandary of being nice, driving defensively, and merging like your car is constructed of egg shells. Like everyone else on the road. Hence, no one gets anywhere. Too many rules.
iPhone update: I got myself the Google Map app for my phone since one of the main reasons why I own a smart phone is so that something can tell me where I am. Anyway, I was getting ready to leave for Detroit and I punched D's address into the app to see what route to take. A "start" button popped up so I hit it. Because I hit whatever buttons pop up on my screen just because. Probably a bad habit. Anyway, I hit start. And this sultry voice booms from my phone "in 500 feet, turn right on to . . . " I almost dropped my phone down the stairs. I am not even joking. But she got me to Detroit in good time.
D's parents took us to a Tigers game. That was a lot of fun. We ate a lot of peanuts. And saw a lot of entertaining baseball.
I like having BBC and Al-Jazeera in my pocket all the time. Except when the US is contemplating bombing Another country and I inwardly cringe and imagine what my friends in Togo are saying. I am sort of glad I am not there right now and in the position of being the resident American who has to explain away all the stupid shit in this country.
I may have said this before, but life here is so freaking stressful. And we have few mechanisms for dealing with said stress except for escapist pursuits. The worst part about stress here is how freaking trivial most of it is. Or abstract. Here I am stressed about student loans, in Togo I was stressed about feeding myself dinner. At the moment I was stressing out about having dropped a $42 bucket of adhesive off the roof into my mom's flower bed someone in the world was stressing out about not having the means to buy medicine for her sick child. I drove 350 miles yesterday on pristine (comparatively speaking) roads and stressed out about traffic. Granted a lot of this traffic was traveling at about 70 mph scant feet from my face, but seriously. I've ridden in cars with gas tanks in the engine compartment and whose brake pads fell out.
That didn't stress me out. But scratching my rental did. Go figure.
Food here is so salty. I feel like I am eating the sea any time I get a sandwich from somewhere. Like everything tastes salty to me. I never noticed this before.
I just uploaded most of my pictures on to this computer. Something like 3500 pictures. Here are a couple more of them:
Driving here is one thing. Driving here in traffic is something else. There is traffic in Lome. But it is civilized. Or chaotic to the point that it engenders good manners. Here you are caught in the quandary of being nice, driving defensively, and merging like your car is constructed of egg shells. Like everyone else on the road. Hence, no one gets anywhere. Too many rules.
iPhone update: I got myself the Google Map app for my phone since one of the main reasons why I own a smart phone is so that something can tell me where I am. Anyway, I was getting ready to leave for Detroit and I punched D's address into the app to see what route to take. A "start" button popped up so I hit it. Because I hit whatever buttons pop up on my screen just because. Probably a bad habit. Anyway, I hit start. And this sultry voice booms from my phone "in 500 feet, turn right on to . . . " I almost dropped my phone down the stairs. I am not even joking. But she got me to Detroit in good time.
D's parents took us to a Tigers game. That was a lot of fun. We ate a lot of peanuts. And saw a lot of entertaining baseball.
I like having BBC and Al-Jazeera in my pocket all the time. Except when the US is contemplating bombing Another country and I inwardly cringe and imagine what my friends in Togo are saying. I am sort of glad I am not there right now and in the position of being the resident American who has to explain away all the stupid shit in this country.
I may have said this before, but life here is so freaking stressful. And we have few mechanisms for dealing with said stress except for escapist pursuits. The worst part about stress here is how freaking trivial most of it is. Or abstract. Here I am stressed about student loans, in Togo I was stressed about feeding myself dinner. At the moment I was stressing out about having dropped a $42 bucket of adhesive off the roof into my mom's flower bed someone in the world was stressing out about not having the means to buy medicine for her sick child. I drove 350 miles yesterday on pristine (comparatively speaking) roads and stressed out about traffic. Granted a lot of this traffic was traveling at about 70 mph scant feet from my face, but seriously. I've ridden in cars with gas tanks in the engine compartment and whose brake pads fell out.
That didn't stress me out. But scratching my rental did. Go figure.
Food here is so salty. I feel like I am eating the sea any time I get a sandwich from somewhere. Like everything tastes salty to me. I never noticed this before.
I just uploaded most of my pictures on to this computer. Something like 3500 pictures. Here are a couple more of them:
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| the moon |
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| studies in goats |
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| Binaparba. D's house was between the minerats on the left |
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| Petite and Muwaku dancing at some point. . . the guy behind them was the one who got bit by a snake a couple months ago |
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