The Year Ahead

No year-end recaps for me. This was one of the most stable years we've had in a long time in that we lived at one address for the entire thing. When we leave Bujumbura this summer, almost 2 years to the day we arrived, I think it will be the record for the longest amount of time we've spent in one abode. (I hesitate to say "house" because we've had so many apartments and hotel rooms along the way.)

Forget about a decade recap. My head hurts trying to list all the places I've lived in the last ten years, let alone jobs I've had and other stuff that's happened.

We are ringing in the new year by resting. As usual for us after a busy period (trip to Kenya, family visiting, and then Christmas) we are feeling flu-ish. We have a busy year ahead of us, what with moving from Africa to India and planning to spend some time in the States. Also, I'll be losing my job when we leave here and will have to find another one when we get to India. Plus I registered for an online master's program starting in March. So I think we deserve a low-key, do-nothing new year's long weekend to build up our strength for the rest of the year. 

Regular blogging will resume soon, both here and at What I Eat. I have lots to say. I just need the energy to type it all out.

The Time We Forgot Christmas

That would be this year. Obviously we know Christmas is in a few days, but it's way too late to get any gifts sent out from Burundi to Rhode Island to arrive in time. We didn't even think about getting gifts for ourselves! With Mike's family visiting we were too preoccupied to think of presents. And since it's no where near cold here (twinge of jealousy for the snowy day in the Northeast today), and there just aren't too many advertisements, there aren't any seasonal or commercial clues to remind you to get ready for the holiday. 

Again we are treeless this year. I can't stand fake trees, and the only ones you can get here are really, really fake. Real pine trees are rare, but I've spotted a few. However, the ministry of the environment forbids them to be cut down. I have a small "Christmas area" set up with some faux pine branches that don't look too bad, some lights that I bought in town last year, and my Burundian and Mexican creches. I'm not religious, but I was raised Catholic and I've always liked nativity scenes.

Mike's working today so I'm spending the day watching all the Christmas movies that he doesn't like. It seems more obligatory than celebratory though.

I think on Christmas Day we're going to blast the air conditioner and make hot chocolate. 

This is the place to be

My article on Bujumbura has been published! I'm very excited to finally see it in print after working on it for months. Some of the photos were taken by Mike and me, too.

Go to State Magazine and click on the December 2009 issue to download the PDF. Then go to page 24 and start reading all about Bujumbura.

It's been a long time since I've seen my name in print. I kinda like this feeling.

Quiet Time

I was thinking of going running this morning but when I woke up, and no one else was awake, I decided to indulge in quiet-time morning activities like drinking coffee and watching CNN sans commentary. We have family visiting us here and while I think everyone's having a good time, this country is starting to feel small.

It's been fun showing off Africa to people who have never been here before, people who have only heard our stories and seen our photos. We started in Nairobi, which to us is the big city. While we marveled over bookstores--with English-language books even!--and elevators and coffeeshops, others worried about pushy craft and safari vendors and overpriced taxis. I impressed all with my bargaining skills at a market. I'd seen something in a shop for 6,500 shillings (about $85), and at this little craft market the vendor opened negotiations with a bargain price of 6,000. I talked him down to 2,000 (about $25). I probably still overpaid, but at least I played the game and didn't overpay too grossly. It was something I really wanted and the only souvenir I bought on the whole trip. And it gave Mike's mom a good story to tell her friends back home.

Now we're at our home in Buj hoping that when folks say they really do enjoy all the doing of nothing that gets done around here, they mean it.

Just holes in the roof

That's not exactly what I want to hear during the rainy season.

I was cleaning up in the guest bathroom yesterday when I saw a patch of sun on the wall that I'd never noticed before. Between the unusually brilliant sunshine, a series of open doors and curtains, and two hanging mirrors between the front door and the bathroom I thought it wasn't impossible that the sun was coming in through the front door and somehow being reflected on the bathroom wall. 

Out of curiosity I tried tracing the beam of light from the wall back to the door. As many curtains and doors as I closed and as many overhead lights as I turned off, I couldn't make the patch of light disappear. When Mike walked by after a few minutes of my fruitless investigation I asked him if he thought he knew where the patch of light was coming from. 

"Holes in the roof. I didn't mention it sooner because it hasn't started raining in through the ceiling yet."

I looked up to the bathroom ceiling, and sure enough, I could see several bits of light up above me. The ceiling is made up of what I thought was strips of dark wood and light wood, but apparently the "dark wood" is actually some kind of screen or cloth. When it's brilliantly sunny outside, you can look right up through screen to the roof.

But Mike's right. For whatever reason, it's not actually raining through the ceiling.

In other news, the turkeys were delivered about 10 minutes after we arrived home from dinner on Thursday. Still frozen, so we can use them later.

Also, in two days we're taking off for a mini-vacation in Kenya, where we'll be meeting up with some of Mike's family. We haven't seen any family members in over a year.

Oh, and we finally got our haircuts.

Turkey Update

You may recall that I've been having some trouble getting turkeys into the country. It is now about 6:00 in the morning on Thanksgiving and the turkeys are not here. By the time the flight gets in this afternoon, if the shipment is even on it (yesterday they somehow got left behind on their layover), they'll be too late for today's dinner. 

We'll be having a big roast chicken dinner today and there will be plenty of turkeys in the freezer for Christmas next month.

More than one person back in the States has said something along the lines of "It's Africa, why can't you roast an ostrich or some other big bird?" The answer is we don't have those in Burundi. We have chickens. All other birds have to be imported, and expensively. I did find some frozen turkey on the local market yesterday, imported from France. They cost nearly $100 for a six-pound bird. 

Even by Africa standards, we don't have a lot of variety in our consumer goods here. And we have so few flights coming in and out. Even once you find the product you want to bring in and make all the arrangements, if there's a problem with just one flight somewhere on the continent, the whole schedule could be thrown out of whack. 

All the questions I've been fielding from people back home have bumped me out of the little groove I've created for myself. We've grown accustomed to life here. I don't like thinking about all the things I'm missing.

Sunday Fail

The day started with all sorts of promise. I miraculously felt fine after staying up later than usual with good food, good wine, and good friends. I made some good coffee and started the laundry with 30 cloth napkins. The napkins are part of my festive touch for the table setting on Thanksgiving. They've been sitting in a box for over a year so I thought they could use a wash, dry, and iron.

While the napkins were in the washing machine I went to my boss's house to go over a few details for Thursday. I'm happy to report that we've found a convenient, monkey-free location for the buffet table. 

When I returned home I put the napkins in the dryer, did yoga for about 30 minutes, then was so relaxed I fell asleep for nearly an hour. When I woke up from my nap, my head was in a good place regarding Thursday's event. By now, everyone is laughing over the fate of the turkeys, agreeing that we can roast a half dozen local chickens if the turkeys don't arrive in time. 

I got my napkins from the dryer and brought them upstairs. I tried to open the ironing board, but some screws that hold the legs in place are missing. With Mike's assistance I set it up with the board just sort of resting on top of the legs. Good enough. I grabbed one iron. It looked like it had been dropped, and a wadded up piece of paper was stuck into the little opening where you add water. I pulled it out to add water, but couldn't get it back in. Hmm. I grabbed the other iron. I plugged it in and nothing happened. Ironing Fail.

Somehow our housekeeper has broken the ironing board and two irons, yet he still manages to iron every bit of clothing within an inch of its life (even the underwear!). So I decided ironing the cloth napkins would be one of his chores this week. He's obviously got a system for it.

Then Mike and I decide that it's really time we got haircuts. We are getting shaggy and we've been putting it off for several weekends. We only have one more weekend free before we go on vacation and see Mike's mom for the first time in over a year. We want to look presentable. But while Mike was eating lunch, he got pili-pili in his eye (the super-hottest hot sauce on the planet, made from local chili peppers), and cleaning that up delayed us a bit. By the time we got out to the salon, it was 10 minutes before closing time and they weren't opening the gate for anyone. Haircuts Fail.

We considered going out for ice cream because we were feeling sorry for ourselves for not succeeding in Burundi today, but the ice cream place we like isn't open on Sundays. Luckily I remembered that before we drove all the way out to it. We called a couple friends in hopes of just stopping by to chat, since we were on the road, but no one was answering their phone or radio. At home, the satellite isn't on because of the never-ending battle between Mike's employer and DSTV and the bill-paying methods, so we can't even lazily watch documentaries on British History Channel. Afternoon Distraction Fail.

It's hot this afternoon and we are laying around being lazy and cranky. Sometimes c'est la vie en Burundi.

Can Turkeys Fly?

I’m in charge of organizing Thanksgiving dinner for the Americans in my office. I’m not a huge Thanksgiving fan, but events planning is part of my job, so I’m thinking of it as another notch on my list of overseas work experience: Bringing frozen turkeys into the heart of darkness.

After some research, it seemed like the best bet was to use a South African import company that we’ve used for food shipments in the past. I emailed my contact and he said frozen turkeys would be no problem. And would we like any cranberry sauce, potatoes, or pumpkin pie filling to go with them? Everyone said, “Yes!” (Except me. I ordered some South African wines—my contribution to the party—and some other yummy cheeses and meats for personal consumption.)

I collected turkey orders from my American colleagues and my South African contact collected turkeys. He’s familiar with American Thanksgiving and knows the pressure is just as much on him as on me to get it right. Americans will not be refused their perfect Thanksgiving, especially when so far from home!

From our last shipping experience, we learned what to do and what not to do in order to get frozen foods through customs quickly. We were ready for Thanksgiving Success.

Who would have guessed that a Rwandair crash in Kigali last week would have any impact on receiving our goods in Bujumbura, from Johannesburg, this week? My contact called in a panic on Monday. The turkeys were supposed to arrive on Wednesday, yesterday, a nice week early. As best as I can tell, the one Rwandair plane that lands in Bujumbura happens to be the one that crashed last week (into the departures lounge at the airport in Kigali!) and Rwandair doesn’t have a spare plane, so all their Bujumbura flights are suspended indefinitely. However, even though they knew flights were suspended, they let me contact go through all the reservations and confirmations for the cargo before telling him it wasn’t going to fly.

The other options are Kenya Airways, which is booked full this week with cargo. Ethiopian Airlines has room, but has a twenty-four-hour layover between here and Jo’burg, which isn’t going to be great for frozen turkeys. There’s a chance Kenya Air can take them for Saturday delivery, but it looks like the earliest will actually end up being Tuesday. If that Tuesday flight doesn’t come through, then I’m the Girl Who Ruined Thanksgiving, even though it really has nothing to do with me.

I want everyone else to have a nice holiday, because that’s the kind of person I am. But personally I think it will be hilarious if Africa wins this one, and we don’t get turkeys. I still have a couple bottles of wine from my last shipment, so my Thanksgiving is all set.

I just sneezed all over this blog post

I refuse to believe the flu vaccine gave me the flu. Mike and I got the live vaccine, the nasal spray (yuck!), because there's a shortage of the killed vaccine shot here, and we are young, healthy adults who can handle it. I expected mild side effects; I always get them when they are there to be had. But I didn't expect that after a weekend of mostly sleeping, I'd start feeling worse every day instead of better. 

To be accurate, I don't have a full-blown flu. I have mild precursors. I'm annoyed that resting, drinking tea, and taking vitamins hasn't healed me yet. This morning I woke up feeling the worst I have in days, with a headache, achy neck and shoulders, and a sore throat. I'm not quite sick enough to stay home, but just sick enough to be mildly uncomfortable at work.

If we stayed home from work every time we felt even mildly sick, as we are constantly informed we should be doing to prevent spreading germs, we'd never get any work done. We have cycles of feeling flu-ish every couple of months from all the new and exciting bugs in the air here. We were probably going to feel like this for a few days anyway, and the timing of the vaccine was just a coincidence.

We got vaccinated for the same reasons we did last year. We live in an undeveloped region where if there's an outbreak, it will spread quickly. We also travel often through international airports, which are hotbeds of germ transferral. We've only received the shot for the seasonal vaccine. The H1N1 vaccine may be made available to us; if it is, I'm getting it. For those same reasons. 

The real worry will come in a day or two, when my supply of Riccola herbal tea from Switzerland runs out. I don't know what they put in it, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's illegal in the States. It makes me feel magical.

That's Tollywood, not Bollywood

We found out Mike's next assignment. We are headed to the site of India's second-largest film industry, yet the home of the largest physical film studio in the world. It's the home of the largest snow park in Asia and one of the largest zoos in Asia. It's a burgeoning IT capital. 

It's also a city that's more than 400 years old and the region is known for biryani rice dishes. 

It's Hyderabad! We are very excited. 

But it will be a few months before we leave here, so we suddenly have to do all the things we meant to do here but haven't gotten around to yet. It's going to be a busy few months.