Blackout!

The temperatures these days are getting up to 110 F or more during the day according to my thermometer. The nights don’t cool down very much either. Also mixed into this is a high humidity. It never rains either to take the edge off. The climate here is difficult to deal with from May to October.

Because it is getting so hot people are starting to run their air conditioners more. This means only one thing; it’s power outage season. Today the power went off three times. It usually goes off for an hour at a time but this afternoon it was off for about 2 ½ hours in the heat of the day. The last 3 nights it has gone off in the middle of the night. The temperatures in the house reach the same as those outside since the walls are not insulated. They’re made up of concrete blocks. The sun beats directly on the walls and heats up the house like an oven. We have air conditioners in our bedrooms and one in the living room but we don’t run them very often since electricity is really expensive. We have ceiling fans that make living somewhat tolerable. The fan dries the sweat on you, but when the fans are off, it’s intolerable. We even have to run the ceiling fans with the AC on or it’s too hot.

Electricity is created by large gas run generators and you know gas prices these days. There is too much demand and not enough electricity so we have these blackouts.

There is a local proverb that says that even a camel makes out his will before traveling here.

All's Quiet…

It was another typical security warning from our embassy. There was a lot of hype but nothing of significance happened. A few people got mad somewhere about their chickens being killed but not around here. Us yanks, except for a few of us, are known as being very security conscious and closed of from people here. Everyone says that they are afraid to go out. There is a lot of truth to it.

H5N1

A few weeks ago the Avian Flu was detected here. A girl from a small village about 10 miles from where we live became sick with the virus. Yesterday a security warning was issued by the US embassy for Americans to lay low because today the govt. is going to collect all the chickens in the country and they are not sure how people are going to respond.

This may seem like a big deal but we’re not too concerned about it. We’ve had many security warnings like this in the past for different events such as the cartoons of the prophet and the beginning of the war in Iraq. Really nothing has ever happened here against Americans or westerners in general since we have been here. We generally have good security although I’m a bit more concerned these days after Osama’s threat on individual Americans worldwide rather than just the US govt. on the whole.

Regarding the Bird Flu, we have stopped eating eggs that are laid locally and we have our house help leave their shoes outside the house. I’m not too worried about it since I have never seen any chickens in this country, although there are several crows and pigeons; real exotic African birds I know.

We’ll keep you updated.

I’m back…

Some highlights from the trip…

1. Seeing the beautiful 4 month old twins and of course, our friends, their adoptive parents, Noel and Heidi.

2. Enjoying the cool weather. I got to wear socks!

3. Catching up on life in the US by reading year old magazines in the lounge of the place we stayed at.

4. Eating injera and wat every day, classic Ethiopian fare.

5. Getting blown off by our American ambassador twice on the flight back from Addis Ababa, after trying to make small talk with her.

6. Lots of time to read.

I came back to a calm collected clean house.

-RN

Mr. Mom. Day 4

Roxy comes back tomorrow. Everything has more or less gone okay except for little Thor urinating all over the floor in his bedroom after his bath. It’s okay. Roxy can clean that up when she gets home.

We have had the same lady that cooks and cleans for us in the mornings for the past 3 years. She knows us pretty well. Roxy usually communicates with her about what to do and what to make for lunch. Today for lunch she brought out sloppy joes and her homemade croutons. Later she came back and asked why we didn’t eat the croutons. I told her there wasn’t any lettuce to eat them with. She looked puzzled. Maybe she thought it was coincidental that we always ate lettuce and croutons on the same day.

Joyeux Anniversaire

There is a large French military presence here where we live. Our daughter Jane goes to a preschool with the children of these soldiers. Everything is in French. Over the past two years she has done pretty well and has been learning the language with a pretty nice native accent. In this photo she is at a birthday of one of her classmates.

I hung around the party with a couple of the other parents eating pain au chocolates and foie gras. We talked about our favorite Jerry Lewis movies while listening to the Francois, the birthday girl’s dad playing Edith Piaf songs on the accordion. They loved my beret.

After the party Jane and I left Stereotypeville and went home.

refugees.

If you were to come to our city the first thing you might notice is the poverty. In our neighborhood some people have come recently and set up cardboard and stick houses. They are either refugees or people who have traveled here because there are a few more opportunities to make money. Some of our neighbors give them food and others give them water. Lately we’ve been getting some knocks at our door too for money, medicine or various other items. Roxy mostly has been handling these requests. It sort of drives our guard crazy that all of these people are coming to our door. He often times refuses to let them knock. So like this guy in the above photo they wait in the shade under a tree across the road for us to come out of our house. He came asking for money. They brought him in a wheel barrow because he can not walk. We gave him a few bucks and he was happy. It is not an uncommon sight to see handicapped people like this begging. There are no govt. programs to help these people. They are tolerated but here illegally.

Mr. Mom

Roxy Normal is going to Ethiopia tomorrow to meet some of our friends from the US who are adopting twins this week. Thor, Jane and I will be all alone until Friday. It will be interesting. I might have to sit through Barney a few more times than I would like this week.

Go Clippers

I've been playing in a basketball tournament for the past couple of months. We play once a week in round-robin type of tournament. We have won most of our games (maybe 6) and lost one to the perennial champion, the Port. We only had 6 guys that night, and no big ones and the Port had several big men. We got killed on the boards. We won our game tonight against the university team. The playoffs apparently start next week. I say apparently because maybe 50% of the time the game is actually played and they always start an hour to an hour and a half late.

The teams we play against are made up of local guys representing various neighborhoods, schools or some type of association. My team is multinational. We have some Philippinos, Malagasies (from Madagascar), French, Somali, and me the lone Yank. Our lingua franca is French. The name of our team is Meharie which is Malagasy. I don’t know what it means.

We’re going to win this thing. We’ve got a good team. I’ll keep you updated.

Voila. The Holy Grail according to Dan Brown's little book.

I took this photo last year at the Louvre.

La Vida Loca

The other day our guard was knocking on our door distraught. He told us he was leaving because he was going to kill his cousin, who is the guard of the house next door or his cousin was going to kill him. Living where we do and knowing his tribe and class of people, we believed him. He was very angry pacing around our porch like a caged animal ready to pounce on its prey; it was difficult to keep his attention in order to talk to him. We asked him what the problem was but we never got the story.

We didn’t want to lose him even though he hasn’t exactly done the best job. It’s difficult to find a good guard and one that you can trust somewhat. Plus he knows our kids and likes them.

He was done. He wanted his wages and was going to go back to his nomadic life.

I told him that if he left he couldn’t come back to work later since we would then have to fire his replacement. When he heard that everything changed. He went back out to the street to discuss the new information with the community of guards who were standing around listening in (life is not lived privately here). We heard he use a word that people never use here; he said that he loved our family. He thought that if he left he could come back later if he cousin left or things cooled down. He really didn’t want to lose his job. Jobs are heard to come by here. One of the other guards came over to tell us that things were going to be worked out. The next day everything was apparently fine and no body said anything. It was life as usual. Just another typical, bizarre day living here.

JN

At the Last of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

It was cold.