I realize I smile a lot in foreign countries. I smile because I’m seeing things I’ve never seen before. I smile because I don’t understand what’s going on and smiling is a reminder that I’m a very lucky person. I’ve smiled a lot in South Africa because even though everyone is speaking English I don’t understand what they’re saying. I hate having to ask people to repeat themselves (especially multiple times) so I smile to mask my uncomfortableness and embarrassment.
After flying for 22 hours, I looked down to discover I have swollen ankles. AHHHHHHHHHHH! That’s what old ladies who eat too much salt get. I’ve traveled to Australia, South Korea, and Cambodia, all 20+ hour travels, and I’ve never gotten swollen ankles. This had better just be temporary.
We landed to the most beautiful sunrise I’ve ever seen. The light here is magical, bathing everything in a pure goldness. I exited the place and stood on the tarmac, watching the sun drench the airplanes, the runway, the grassy fields nearby.
Zacharia, a taxi driver arranged by my South African colleagues, met me outside of customs. He had such an easy going manner, we began talking right away: my flight, South Africa, San Francisco, sports, families. The 90 minute drive to Pretoria flew by.
The afternoon was spent catching up on email, meeting with colleagues and unpacking. We walked across the street to an outdoor café. As we ordered, flashes of lighting lit the hot, humid sky. I breathed in deeply. The minerally smell was overwhelming. Heavy drops began falling, one by one, faster and faster. I closed my eyes. I like it here already.
I am compulsive about finishing books and movies. No matter how bad they are, I finish them. This is a bad thing when trapped in an extremely confined space, such as an economy seat on a 11 hour flight. I watched three movies that made me glad I was single, or at least not in the relationship on the screen: The Last Kiss, Running With Scissors, and The Upside of Anger.
I walked into the Adult Immunization Clinic hoping the nurse would tell me I was fine, I didn’t need any shots or pills, enjoy Africa – bon voyage! As I approached the sign-in counter, I noticed a large placard heralding the new “SINGLES VACCINE.” Holy crap. Now they’re trying to rid the world of singledom, along with smallpox, polio, and tb? I did a double take, curious what the rationale behind funding such a vaccine would be. Oh. Shingles vaccine. Don’t need that one either.
I waited patiently, listening to my new iPod, loving the shuffle function – every song is a surprise! Lisa, a café au lait skinned, salt and pepper dreadlocked nurse with the deepest brown eyes I’ve ever seen, called me back to her consultation station. We talked about where I was going, what I’d be doing, and how long I’d be gone before she made her recommendation: I needed my second dose of the hepatitis series I’d started before Cambodia and a prescription for anti-malaria prophylactics.
When I saw her tapping the needle I stammered, “I don’t like shots. I might cry, but it’s okay. I won’t pass out.” She smiled and grabbed my arm. I flinched. “I know, I know, I need to be still. I know.” My stomach was slowly rising in my throat. Why was the room spinning? She punctured my shoulder and I let out a whimper and collapsed. She withdrew the needle and pushed me to the floor with the words, “Lay on the floor.” My phobia of needles competed with my disdain of public floors. I looked into her deep brown eyes and murmured, “Seriously? You want me to lie on the floor? Right here?” She nodded and gently pushed me down. “Don’t think about how many people have walked here. Don’t think about how often they vacuum government offices. Don’t think about this is where people come to get vaccinated and immunized and droplets of live viruses are probably squirming all around you,” was what I thought. And for each “don’t” I told myself not to think about, I did.
Lisa had left, returning with cold wet paper towels and a sickingly sweet juice box that, at the moment she inserted the straw into my still-horizontal mouth, tasted like the nectar of the gods. Each time I said, “I’m okay,” she pushed me back down, urging me to rest. After several rounds of coming up, being pushed down, coming up, I stayed up. And rose (very slowly, but on my own).
I left the clinic, one shot closer to Africa.
Knowing that I always wait until the last minute to pack for international trips, and have almost not gone on two such trips because I still couldn’t find my passport within an hour of leaving for the airport, I decided to pretend I was leaving a week before I actually was. And it worked. I completely panicked, not being able to find my passport. After about an hour of pulling drawers apart, going through files, and looking in previously used bags, I found it. Now, where to put it for a week so I don’t lose it again?
On my nightstand, doubling as a coaster. Perfect. I’m so ready for Africa.
I just realized that the entire month of January is in draft form. I’ve started several entries, saved them, and never come back to them. It’s been that type of month.
To summarize, January was a month of many firsts:
More to come from Africa…
During the morning worship service at my parents’ church, there is a portion of the service deemed the “Children’s Sermon.” The little ones join a guest minister at the front of the church, sitting on the carpet, ready to listen to a parable, a story, a bible story relevant to the lesson of the day, told in language and examples that are particularly appropriate for children.
It was difficult to hear the guest minister this morning, but what I did hear caused me to pause. She started by introducing Benjamin Bunny, a bunny rabbit with a large extended rabbit family (as rabbit families are wont to be). One day the foxes came through and killed everyone in the rabbit family except for Benjamin Bunny.
At this point I glanced at my mom. She wouldn’t look at me. A Christmas story, with a massacre to start it off? Call me old fashioned, but I prefer the unwed pregnant mother-to-be beginning.
One day, Benjamin Bunny was crying in the woods (apparantly mourning the death of his entire social network) when a wolf appeared. Benjamin was sure he was going to die. At this point I’m looking at the once-sweet, now slightly terrified, faces of all the three, four, and five year olds gathered around the minister.
But the wolf is not there to kill Benjamin, he is there to offer words of wisdom. “There are many people in your family that need your help, Benjamin.” Benjamin looks at him with surprise. (I think he’s about to explain that the evil foxes wreaked rabbitcide on his family.) The wolf continues, “All the animals in the forest are your family. You have so much to offer. Look, there’s the widow squirrel (We can only assume her husband was gunned down by an evil hunter. Wait a minute, we’re in NC, hunters aren’t evil. Who’s the villian in this story?) with her six baby squirrels and nothing to eat.” Benjamin remembered some acorns he had spied earlier. He took them to the family of squirrels, no strings attached. He continued doing good deeds all throughout the day, for friends and foes alike, until he noticed a mouse freezing to death in the snow (maybe the story takes place in Denver). He offered cover to the mouse and then the wolf reappeared saying he was going to take Benjamin home to be with his loved ones.
This time I nudged mom. “Did the wolf just eat the rabbit?”
“No. He froze to death in the snow.”
I think the moral of the story was supposed to be: everyone is part of God’s family, no matter how many legs they have, so be kind to everyone and don’t expect anything in return. What I took away: beware of foxes and wear lots of layers when out in the snow.
Merry Christmas.
“Aint Looooo-ri. Aint Loooooo-ri.”
I slowly opened my eyes. I was somewhere familiar; I just couldn’t remember where. Baseball greats stared down from the walls. The huge white eyes of plastic bendable animated characters peered over me. I turned over. There stood my six year old nephew, blue eyes widened, ready for me to wake up.
“What is it, honey?” I mumbled.
“Aint Looooooooo-ri. You have to wake up,” he pleaded.
“Okay, dear, I’m getting up. Is everything okay?”
“Noooooooooo. You’re missing the pigs in a blanket.”
“Pigs in a blanket? For breakfast? You are indeed correct. I MUST get up now. Thank you, sweetie.”
When I sign in to my yahoo email account, there’s always an ad to the right side of the screen, a tall skyscraper ad, for Yahoo! Answers. Each rendition of the ad shows an animated character posing a question. It seems like for the last, oh, every time I’ve signed in, the question in the thought bubble above his head is, “What do you think happens to your soul when you die?”
This bothers me. In my life, I’ve answered this question in many different ways.
As a little girl, dying meant heaven. You donned a white robe and floated amongst the angels, playing gilded string instruments and singing in tune (this was very important, as it was something I could not do here on earth).
Then I went through a phase when I tried not to believe in God. I was skeptical. I naively thought, How could so many bad things happen on earth if there were a God? What was he doing up there? So I adopted the attitude that there is no soul. You die, you decompose, you fertilize the ground.
Then several people very close to me died. And yet they were still there. Not really there, but there in spirit. They would come to me in dreams. I would feel their presence. I would feel their guidance. Made me reconsider the whole fertilizer argument.
Now. Now I don’t know. I’ve gone from being very “everything must be black and white” to everything in my world being a thousand shades of gray. What I do know is that I don’t like being reminded of death every time I log into email.
LoriLoo 