Family update: China edition SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCE FINAL INSTALLMENT!

Guest post by my mama. Featuring: police handlers, Attractive Sheep, Hello Kitty, primal screams. This is the final Mom Email from China; my mother & stepfather will be back in the Wild West sometime next week, where antics and adventures of a different sort are sure to ensue.



Shenyang is a small city that you never heard of- about the size of Los Angeles- about sixty miles north of North Korea. We spent the weekend there for Jim’s last police training, and except for the cigarette smoke, it was fun. There is a smaller version of the Forbidden City that is in more pristine shape, and a good museum. The police are always very considerate hosts, and I was “handled” by a young policewoman named Miss Ho who toured me around to see things and shop.

I asked to go to look at some handmade folk art or some crafts, and she said, “I know just what you want!” Then she took me to a mall where you could pay to paint a plaster copy of Disney characters or Attractive Sheep, the big cartoon character in China. Oh well, anyway, it’s a nice city.

Each night there was a banquet, as always, and one night they took us to a North Korean restaurant- the food was good, with dancing girls to entertain. The Boss Dancing Girl came into the room and said grudgingly, (in Chinese) “Well most Americans are really bad people, especially the soldiers, but you guys seem to be okay.” After the dances, they served a dish of cold noodles, and some stewed dog. Jim ate this but I could not. Also I felt guilty that we had all the food for the whole PRK on our table.

Our hotel was a beautiful old one on a main square with a famous statue of Mao. We were on the third floor facing him, right at his eye level, and it looked like he was waving hello as he peeked into our room. Lots of people were gathered in this square all the time, doing tai chi, or dancing or roller-skating. Some people had the semi-interesting Chinese habit of standing outside at dawn and doing a primal scream. Since Shenyang is about halfway to Vladivistok, it is about 600 miles east of Beijing in the single time zone of China, that means dawn is somewhere around 4 a.m. right now, and I was bored of the screaming after the first day.

At the end of the training the police gave Jim a complimentary police badge. It is brass and weighs two pounds; it’s at least eight inches across. They put it into a Hello Kitty! bag to present it to him.

After the training we went to the end of the Great Wall where it goes into the ocean, and to the first fort, all of which has been restored a lot, but it is still very pretty and interesting. Then we took a train to the resort where all the leaders of China like to go for vacations, called Bei Da He- on the ocean. Our friend Kaho brought spirit lanterns, little hot air Chinese lanterns that we set off on the beach after dark, and watched them fly up over the water.

We stayed at a hotel that is owned by the Department of Building Oversight. It was actually called a “sanatarium”, not a hotel, and it was staffed by a group of bewildered, fluttery girls who never seemed to know quite what to do about anything. We were the only people in it, possibly because none of the plumbing worked. It seemed as if this was run-of- the- mill - Leslie went down to tell them that her floor was flooded, and the girls came and looked at it and then went away.This is the best way to do oversight. She had to go back twice and complain before they switched her room, but the same thing happened in everyone’s room- water just poured out all over the floor during each use of the faucets. But the beach was lovely, and the air was fresh, so it all seemed good. We got back last night, and are in Beijing for the last week before the movers come.

Healthful Advice: dispatch from China

My mother says:

In the two months we were gone, the only piece of mail we got was a first aid/health care guide booklet from the government. (Our mailbox doesn’t have a lock that works, which is okay because we don’t get mail. I check from time to time to see if anything has come, but that almost never happens. The person who sometimes watches our lobby keeps things in our box because of the no‐ lock thing; sometimes candy and snacks, sometimes other odd bits they need to hide quickly if their supervisor comes by. At the time of writing the box has in it: someone’s gloves and some candy, cracker wrappings, some folded papers and two pens.)

Anyway, the booklet we got covers every facet of a healthy life, and tells you everything you always wanted to know, and many things that you didn’t. We got one last year aimed at newcomers to the community telling how to exercise and what to eat, but I didn’t keep it, which I later regretted; the difference is that I didn’t have a scanner then, and now I do, so I can share! It’s a good thing that I am easily entertained…

The book is a miniature masterpiece of exciting dramas, with fantastic graphic drawings to illustrate the action. It’s all in Chinese, of course, but not being able to read just makes the pictures more interesting. The heroes are a typical family who are dealing admirably with all these tragic and terrible things. The children feature as the most heroic, and the little girl seems to have the most sangfroid of them all.

It starts fairly calmly, with the grandpa having a heart attack. (I interpret this as a heart attack; although I can’t understand why the little girl is so angry at him- maybe he is drunk instead?) Obviously the father is thrown for a loop, and the mother is just upset.



Next, no problems in understanding this, some people being sick: what is causing the projectile vomiting not clear… maybe drugs for the grandma, and possibly bai jiu for the dad. (Because of the dizzy symbol above his head)



(A picture is worth a thousand words!) In the section on first aid, along with great drawings about how to bandage things up, how to splint your legs, etc; comes: How To Wrap Up A Severed Finger! What To DO With It! All in four small drawings!



Then there is a section about cleanliness that has my favorite picture. The action here is utterly mystifying to me. What on earth is she doing? Why is the toilet shaking? Probably it is about earthquake safety, but why put that with the other directions on the page, which have to do with hand‐washing and AIDS? Why is the pillow so nervous?



Also on this page is a condom being smug. This picture is ambiguous. He also seems angry.




The authors of the booklet may not realize the subtext about Chinese life that is revealed by the next chapter; I have included a little selection of the drawings about being wary of criminals‐ disturbingly, in every case the evil person is obviously a weiguoren with blond hair and a chiseled face.








Except for the lascivious Big Boy trying to get the Good Girl drunk (the booklet covers almost all aspects of a healthy life):



On almost the last page, there is this great drawing to tell how to duck stray bullets: hide behind the soda machine! (FYI: don’t worry! This doesn’t happen here very often as far as I can see) Only after I had cut it out did I see that on the other side were directions about how you can foil a bank robbery ‐by bravely sending a text message on your phone! I couldn’t salvage enough of the picture to use, though.

For everyone I love who is far away from me.

(another guest post by Jocelyn)

Loretta spent the weekend with me in Ithaca.

Today, we cut up some hearts to see if we could find the love, and then we cooked and ate them. It was a combination Valentiney activity and maybe some anatomy review for me.

There was a little bit of a technical difficulty about the photographs, and so some pictures are with my computer camera and are therefore not great, while others are with Loretta's camera and will be added later.



The hearts in question were a lamb's heart and a turkey's heart, both provided to me when I bought the entire animal for cooking and eating. It turns out that in the butchering process, pretty much all of the vessels are removed, along with the right atrium, most of the left atrium, and (in the case of the turkey heart) the entire right ventricle too. So there wasn't as much anatomy to look at as I would have liked, but still some.



So before making any cuts at all, we could look inside what was left of the right atrium. We found the great cardiac vein, draining blood from the muscle of the heart itself and emptying directly into the right atrium.





This is the great cardiac vein as it empties into the right atrium.













Here I have made the course of the great cardiac vein in a dotted green line, and the toothpick stuck inside it in yellow. We could see the toothpick through the wall of the vessel, definitely.



We could also look inside the right ventricle and see what was left of the right atrioventricular valve, including the papillary muscles, the chordae tendineae, and a little bit of the valve itself.




Except that in this picture, you can only kind of see the chordae tendineae; the light appears not to have been right to see the rest.





The pulmonary arteries and whatnot were all gone, so then we moved over to the left atrium, where we could see part of the left auricle with its pectinate muscles. At this time we also found the aorta (or at least the base of it) with the coronary artery.



















Then I cut open the left ventricle, which is the most exciting part of heart dissection.
















We looked at the valve parts here too. You can see the muscles and whatnot a lot better on this ventricle, as well as a little bit of the pectinate muscles in the atrium.






















You are probably wondering where the aortic outflow tract went; here it is! (With the toothpick stuck through it.)













Since all that was left of the turkey heart was the left ventricle, I went ahead and cut this open too. Again, the toothpick is where the blood goes out through the aorta.















Then we were done dissecting! So I cut the hearts all up.








I actually had a turkey gizzard that I cut up and put in too, because why not. They went in a skillet with butter and garlic and onion and mushrooms and red wine, and cooked for a long time on low heat.

















Happy Valentine's Day!

Some Families Play Cribbage

This family plays Bridge.

Sometimes when we play Bridge, there are cards and bidding and tricks.

Sometimes, there is just Bridge. Or, you know - a lack of bridge, and some earthworks to fix the situation.



































The brave vehicles waiting for their "road".














(note from Jocelyn: the events pictured took place on the way to the beach, after the trip with the rowboats but before the trip to Kruger. I am a lazy blogger, hence the delay. Also this post is written from the Johannesburg airport and there are problems uploading pictures; so the pictures showing the triumphant success of the vehicles crossing the earthworked bridge will have to come later.)

Name a Form of Transportation

(Note from Cecily: Jocelyn wrote this all up last night but encountered technical difficulties, and I was already in bed. That is why you had to wait so long for another blog post. This will help you learn to be patient, which is a valuable skill, so we aren't going to apologize at all.) (also there will be pictures eventually. BUT ONLY IF YOU ARE VERY PATIENT.)

(Note from Jocelyn: see! the reward of virtue! Pictures!)

TodayYesterday we had a relaxing trip up the Incomati River to a lodge, where we had lunch. Then we took a brief swim and a nature walk and took a boat back down to Marracuene where we retrieved our vehicles and drove home. Or at least that is what was supposed to happen.



Boats are wooden

We left Maputo on schedule, having joined the rest of our party at a pleasant coffee shop. We drove for a while, through some nice fields and woods. There was only one unplanned stop when someone's tire deflated and we needed to inflate by the side of the road, but that was mostly pleasant. We got to a restaurant at Marracuene, parked the cars, used the bathroom, bought water, and met the boat. At this time, all was still on schedule. I don't have pictures of it because I didn't think of it.




This boat was made of inflated rubber with nice teak benches. It went real fast, and we all got kind of wet from the spray. Fun!

In this picture, Ben is attempting to keep his face dry. Or something.





Pleasant conversation amongst the ladies ensued. Or, amongst the ladies and Ben - because it was us and then a bunch of wives of diplomats, ten travelers in total. Everyone was nice, all day.


Looks like somebody didn't read the fine print

Then our first mishap occurred. We are still not certain whether the tank had contained insufficient fuel to begin with, or whether there was some kind of leak in the fuel line. By the time we were interested in this question, the actual boat and actual engine were completely unavailable for inspection for reason to be discussed, so all of it is speculation. There had been an unfortunate near-collision between the boat and a fishing net which may, or may not, have been involved in the engine failure.

Regardless, the boat was no longer going. It was pretty windy - fighting a headwind the whole way may have had something to do with the lack of petrol in the boat. Or it might not. But once the engine quit, we fairly quickly got blown onto the reeds on the lee bank. Phone calls between the boat driver and the lodge to which we were headed were made, and we were reassured that someone was coming in a different boat with additional petrol.







We sat in the sun and chatted.







No different boat came, and no additional petrol.








More phone calls were made.








You could make a car out of wood...

Ben got bored, and some excitement happened.

This mud was not nearly as stinky as it could have been, and nobody lost any shoes.

Eventually, a different boat did come. Actually three.

We were confused - why are there two canoes and a rowboat, and why do none of them contain additional petrol?

I was under the impression that you could win prizes, or money

As it turns out, the lodge had only a small amount of petrol, and all of it was in the tank of the truck. This amount was sufficient to get the truck to a place where more petrol was to be had; the problem would be thus solved, except that the truck's battery was in the boat, attached to the engine.






So the ten of us, plus Bennie our original boat driver, needed to get into the two canoes and the flat-bottomed fishing rowboat. No problem. Three passengers per canoe (two paddles in one canoe, one in the other) with the battery in the first, four ladies plus Bennie plus two fisherman in the rowboat. Off we go, paddling into a headwind.






The Rolling ... Bears?

This took a really, really long time. Fortunately it was nice out. We looked at birds and occasionally got stuck on a sandbank. Cecily and I were in the rowboat, which took the longest time and got stuck on sandbanks the most often. I enjoyed it a lot. We saw two hippos and some other things. The hippos were on the east bank; we were told later by informants from other canoes (Ben and Nancy) that they were not told about the hippos because the guides and/or fishermen did not want to frighten anyone.

I don't have any pictures of this journey because the boats were precarious and wet, and Nancy's camera stayed in my bag.

An hour and a half later, we arrived at the lodge. The north wind had blown invasive Water Hyacinth all into the beach there, so it was hard to get the boats in.


It was extra hard to get the rowboat in, because we needed to turn right and all the ladies in the back of the boat were acting as a sail, turning the boat into the wind, which happened to be a turn to the left. Eventually in order to make this turn, the fishergentlemen had to put the boat on a sandbank, get out, and push us around until the wind was on our stern.


But it happened in the end, and we had beer and lunch at two o'clock on the veranda. It was really nice.





Blue is not a form of transportation

As soon as the first canoe arrived, the battery went in the truck and the owner went off to get more petrol. As soon as he got back, the petrol and two men went in a canoe back to the big boat, with the idea that they would start up the boat, bring it back, pick us up, and have us back to our cars by maybe 4:30 pm.




After lunch, some of us went for a walk through the sandy woods. The dog went with us, which turned out to be a good thing. We saw some birds, and some lovely cattle.

The cattle were blocking the road we wanted to walk on, so we turned around to go back the way we had come, and promptly got lost.

Some combination of wandering around, asking villagers for directions, and repeatedly telling Kai the Dog to "go home! good boy!" eventually got us back to the lodge.

We were surprised not to see the big boat back. Further consideration led us all to notice that the battery was still in the truck, and so, petrol or no petrol, motorboat was not going anywhere.

A car could be blue!

Backup plan: the lodge owner and a farmer friend of his would put us all in their trucks and drive us down the peninsula to the ferry. We would cross on foot and, since the ferry dock was where the vehicles had been left, rejoin the cars with relative ease.






It took a while, but eventually this did occur. The waiting included sunshine, veranda, and beer, so we enjoyed it.






Two trucks, nine ladies and Ben plus one other guy along for the ride. Some fuss about pillows and towels for those of us in the bed of the bigger truck, but we got underway.





Anyone who is interested in making snarky and judgmental comments about the quality of this photo and the one following is welcomed to zip it. YOU try taking pictures from the back of a truck on a dirt "road".






Round Two, where the orphan points double

We had not gotten very far underway, however, when the second truck got a flat. A bad one.


However, the time was drawing near when the ferry would quit running, so we could not stop to fix it. The passengers from the second, little truck squished into the first truck, with careful attention paid to who was most likely to throw up and thus needed the front seat, and we left the lodge owner on the road with an electric pump for his tire and our best hopes for his success.




The section of road that followed was unbelievable, like the moon or something. I wish I had pictures, but it was too dark. We got to the ferry dock and watched the stars come out and hoped that the ferry (visible on the far bank) would come back that night.

Boats ARE Wooden!

It did. We watched it leave the far bank and, as a car ZOOMed down the hill and was four minutes too late, watched the ferry turn back and dock to pick up that truck. I wish that would happen to me more often.

When the ferry got to us, some trucks unloaded and some other trucks loaded. The ferrymen were not great at organizing this; at one time, the boat was loaded in a way that made the gangway a foot off the dock at one end, and then the last truck couldn't load. Some moving of trucks on the boat and some powerful shoving solved this problem, however, and we were away. Back to the west bank, back down the street to the cars, back down the dark dusty road to the city, and thence home. Maybe only four or five hours late.

Some members of the studio audience will also receive: orphans!

All in all, it was a pretty great trip. The weather was nice, the hippos didn't try to kill us, we saw some birds and ate some good food.

Nobody threw up.

No boats sank.

Tomorrow, maybe we will find caipirinhas. They make them here. Delicious.

another note from China: Altitude Parabolic!

Mama says:
The corner street market is open almost all the time now, and I got back from a quick shopping trip this morning to find this notice in the downstairs hallway:

Please! Do not high altitude parabolic!
Please refuse into the bin of life!
Thank for you cooperate!

For several reasons I feel that this might be aimed at us. (Not, of course, that we would EVER high altitude parabolic! Heaven forbid!) We are the highest-up people in the building, and would have the best chance to make things go parabolic if we wanted to, since we also have the only balcony to throw things off. We are also the only English speaking people in the building, and most notices are put up only in Chinese. So why else would they bother to translate it if they don't think that we are doing something in this nefarious vein? I feel slightly paranoid about them thinking this, but also a little miffed. I have been so scrupulous about recycling and I never have put the trash any where except the bin of life!

Cecily says:
I know I never tell you anything about MY life anymore. But it is the end of the semester, and the end of the year, and also it is almost my birthday, and also I am extremely lazy and disorganized. Here's what's on the horizon though: Science Birthday 30!

See you soon.

Jog Vlog!!!!!

So, after much ado.. and reminding from my most awesome friend Cecily, I finally got my act together and finished our final vlog from Rwanda. It's about the fun times we had with the Hash Harriers of Kigali. Enjoy.



UPDATE: P. S. from Cecily: Shockingly, we weren't paying attention and our tape ran out right as we got to the conclusion and coda parts of our narrative (HI KRISTIN!!!!) so the end kinda cuts off all sudden-like, there. We are very sorry and promise to do better next time we are making a vlog about going on a Hash run in Kigali.

(also added by Cecily: exclamation points!)

Prague Vlog

I'm not in Prague. I'm in bed. I have a fever still or again.

But Kyle! Kyle is in Prague. (or at least, he was until recently. Hey Kyle where are you?)

And since Prague rhymes with you know what, Kyle made you a video about it. Et voila!

d

Audiological identity

Utter sabotage- complete with beer. humph. I swear Cecily wants me to fail out of school // oh wait, HAHA, never mind.

“Oh she doesn't talk?”

What is interesting here, as the hearing person, is that I get all the comments about us signing.

Actually that is not true. What I get is, “So, she can't talk?” And with this question and in this situation I always freeze, like a Mutzig in the freezer*. How am I supposed to respond?!

My first thought is to say, “Yes, she can.” (However, this seems a bit like if I got pulled over for speeding in South Carolina and as he hands me a ridiculous ticket, the police officer asks if I have any questions and then I ask him how many seagulls are there on Hunting Island**.) It seems to me that they are actually inquiring about why we are flailing our hands about and that saying “Yes” will not actually answer their question even if it IS their question.

Cecily, I agree- discourse is confusing!

So...after an awkward silence to a seemingly simple question... I just continue to freeze. I think most of the time I just mumble my way through and smile. Who wants to get into a whole freaking debate about the difference between being Deaf and not being able to speak and why signed languages are important ...and....and.... who knows what else in the grocery line at the German butchery. I SURELY do not-- as you all must know by now, I have more important things to attend to—like going to watch the storks!***

No, Cecily's driving; LINDSAY must be deaf!

And recently, at the school (full of Deaf children) we have sort of, half way been in a bunch of conversations discussing why Cecily is driving and why I am not. As I try calmly to explain that it'd be better for society in general if I do not drive-- they get into their own arguments about who in fact is deaf and who in fact is hearing. Apparently the driving conditions these labels. Then we have to clarify, once again, Cecily is Deaf. Lindsay is not. Cecily is driving. Lindsay is not. END OF DISCUSSION.

Then they all ask for a ride.



* SOMEONE may have accidentally left 5 or 10 giant bottles of beer in the freezer after the dinner party last Friday. This may or may not have been the reason we were buying more beer at the German Butchery.

**This happened once. In my head only. Thus, I did not spend the night in jail.

*** and drink the beer!

Storks remind me of flamingos....except they hang out in trees.

This is my favorite tree in Kigali. It's next to the German butchery La Galette. (Let's think about this for a moment: a German store with a French name in Rwanda. Yes, I like it. Plus, they sell beer.)

Hash Run TWO: Nyambagogo.

Last saturday at 16:00, Cecily and I went to La Gazelle hotel and bar to meet up with the hashers again. We waited around for a few others to show up while we sipped on a Fanta (I still do not understand the appeal of drinking carbonated soda before an hour long run- but hey, when in Rwanda, run like the Rwandans... right?). It seemed this week would be a much smaller group, and it ended up being only two runners (Sraith and me) and two walkers (Egide and Peter).

This week's route was straight up and straight down a mountain. I'm not sure where the running was supposed to come in—but me and Sraith ended up walking most of the trail. Some would argue that this is because we are not in shape enough to run up a 90 degree incline for forty minutes. Humph. For argument's sake, we are that in shape. I, however, was focused on other things such as 1. not falling off the mountain and 2. of course, the baby farm animals. And above all else, we had to safely arrive back to drink beer. Priorities people! But, I have to say this crazy trail has won a place in my top ten runs of all time (joining the ranks of the harry potter run in England, the Clamart-Meudon run in France, the Uluru run in Australia, and the Central Park run in the US).



As we scaled “the hill,” we passed through a community of houses/ dwellings that could not be imagined in the US. Groups of children ran behind us laughing and letting me know that I was a mzungu. So, right, my dear children, so right. A few said “bonjour!” As we climbed, the houses became fewer, but they still dotted the landscape in the must unexpected places. How do they even build houses here?!



We passed by manioc patches and exotic flowers. A group a kids sat together under a tree staring at us as we passed by. A little later we'd realize we lost the trail. (The “trail” is marked by shredded paper from the embassy I'm told. How curious!) So, we headed back the way we came (just to let the kids stare again) and eventually found the trail again leading up some obscure path that was not there the first time.

At the top, we took a few minutes to enjoy our accomplishment: a view of all Kigali. It was stunning. Everything looked so far away and so peaceful...ridiculously different from the crowded chaos we'd left behind just a half hour before.

But all things that go up must come down. Remember, the beer was down there-- and Cecily, and ... beer. Our descent was fast. This was not particularly by choice. It was due to the fact that going down a 90 degree incline lends itself to gravitational pull... and falling. Sraith said if I fell off the mountain, he'd watch until I landed and mark the spot in his mind. Then he'd continue on to La Gazelle and get a Mutzig to bring back to me... how thoughtful!

Luckily however, and by some miracle of I don't know what, I did not fall. I did get distracted by a little really cute baby goat-- which again I did not pet, although the adults around could totally tell I wanted to. And there was a little child who held my hand for some ways down the mountain until someone told him to let go. I got petted a few times too-- felt like I was in Japan again. MZUNGU MZUNGU!



The beer was delicious and totally worth the run. I wish we could have stayed longer to hang out—but it was getting dark, and well driving in Kigali is scary enough as it is. Driving in the dark is just.. eh, let's all just give a round of applause to Cecily. She deserves it. So another successful run on Africa, hopefully I have time for a few more. One of these days I might get my lazy butt out the door on a non-hash run. We'll see....

driving around

Will you be having pig or cow tonight with your Fanta?

It seems my friends that another Friday is upon us..which means another dinner party!! Woop woop! Sam has been cooking dead animals alllllll day (Sam: So Lindsay, if the people do not like pig then they can eat cow. Lindsay: okay, that sounds good Sam.), and we have a lot of beer and Fanta to hold us through the night. It should just be downright lovely. (oh- I made brownies ALL BY MYSELF.)

oh yeah! we did research today. However, someone forgot to mention that on Fridays everybody gets done early. So, after only an hour at the school all the kids and the teachers were making their way toward the door. Oops. This happened also to be the one day that we did not have a car. So we waited with some of the kids until someone picked us up. They were all very worried about the idea that we might be walking home. Or that we lost our car. And they were very very concerned that we did not have a cell phone. (I later found out, anyone who is anyone in Rwanda has a cell phone. Including, apparently, most of the deaf kids. Eh.)

It was fun. Yay for research! Yay for dinner parties!

this blog always gets an A++

okay- so we made a vlog about dogs. say that three times fast-- hah, for fun say it four! BUT, it is taking a very very long time to upload. (it is raining after all) So, y'all'll just have to wait. sheesh.

Today cecily and I bought beer, videotaped children, drank beer, made a vlog about drinking beer (although what you will see is mostly about dogs), and are now watching the hilarious comedy 'napoleon dynamite.' We just got to the part where Napoleon has a date and now he's shopping for an outfit. "That suit-- it's incredible." You know where we're talking about.

It's been a hard and trying day.

hopefully tomorrow if the technology gods are smiling upon us (and you know how much they smile at me) the vlog will be READY FOR BUSINESS!

a+

***

(note from Cecily: Lindsay wrote "a+" and I laughed and said it would be funnier if she gave herself a B+ instead. Then she explained to me that "a+" is trendy French slang. And also PHONOLOGY. It stands for " à plus" and that means "see ya later" if you're French.)

introducing: LINDSAY

So- isn't it just super nice that Cecily let ME be a part of her blog awesomness? I think so. But, anyone who knows Cecily knows she's a rockstar like that. Ahem.

BACK TO THE POINT PEOPLE (although Cecily being a rockstar is a perfectly acceptable point in and of itself)... The impetus for this blogging debut is that I recently finished my FIRST EVER RUN ON AFRICA.

go ahead, take a moment to read that last part again-- I know I'm still adjusting.

For any of you who know me, you know I have a thing about running on all seven (it is seven right?) continents. And, now, thanks to Rwanda (and Cecily's dad), Africa has been checked off my list. And, I have to say, it was soooooo much better than my most recent running adventures in in Asia (China) and South America (Brazil). I was dealing with some things there that'd I'd rather not remember.... ::shudder::

Anyhooooo-- this afternoon, Cecily's dad took me to run with the Hash Harriers of Kigali. Interestingly enough, this was my first ever hash run too. It just keeps getting better. We met at a bar somewhere in the city (i'm not oriented yet) and then after a while, we set on our way. The course was about 6-8kms depending on who you asked, and the scenery was very new and exciting. Oh, and it was high. I don't remember the exact number but Kigali is way higher above sea level than DC...or Georgia. Oh and there were hills too. Usually I'm not a fan of hills, as some of you know, but today I just didn't mind it.

The weather was not too hot either, which was nice. We started off and were soon on trail/ road/ something that people walked along. Kids called out 'Mzungu mzungu!' and ran beside us. They were laughing. I decided to laugh too, because then it was like we were laughing together and not them at us. I saw chickens. I saw cows. I saw goats. YAY- farm animals! (I did not touch them however, b/c well 1. I was running and 2. i'd have to mark the 'yes' box on the American customs/ immigration form on the way back that asks if you have come in contact with farm animals-- and there's NO WAY IN &%*! that I'm doing that.)

The flour marked trail led us through fancy areas with big houses inside big gates and not so fancy areas where the houses (made of mud/ clay?) were small and very VERY "basic." We got odd stares often. "Why are those crazy people running," I imagined them saying to themselves. Hah, or maybe they did say it out loud-- my kinyarwanda is a bit lacking.

We finally wound our way back-- after an hour or so through fields and over creeks. What a lovely run--Full of people, and flowers, and animals, and...and...and I recommend it to any traveller to Kigali. Oh- and I found out there's a marathon tomorrow. The Kigali Marathon. Perfect timing right?! WRONG-- there's no way I could run a marathon right now-- crazy people. crazy talk.

Now, me and Cecily are drinking beer. She's been working too hard on a syntax paper. She probably needs beer more than me--but I never leave friends to drink alone. Plus, I need to celebrate my recent accomplishment. Now all I have left is Antarctica....

BRING IT!

Safari (by Jocelyn)

(My sister's in Africa visiting our dad. And her friend named Anne. Here is what she has to say about Tanzania):

It's raining again, and I am sitting on the balcony again, watching it rain. The rainy season in Rwanda had not quite begun, and so everything was dusty and dry and golden, with only bits of green in the wetter spots. Here, it is still like a garden; I have found each a nice contrast to the other.

It took us much longer to drive to the Serengeti than we had thought it would; instead of two leisurely partial days of driving, it took us all of the hours of daylight on our first day driving to get to Mwanza on the shores of Lake Victoria, and much of the next day to get from there to Seronera.

I thought of Stanley and Livingstone and Burton and Speke and that other one, as we approached Lake Victoria. Not too long ago, a Rwandan man showed me decisively on a map the Source-of-the-Nile-in-Rwanda. There are, of course, sources of the Nile all over the place; in fact a whole watershed full of them, I would imagine. Makes me wonder just what those guys were looking to find, when they set out on their Quests for the Source, and whether Lake Victoria was ever enough of a Holy Grail for them, or whether they always felt unsatisfied. (I'm sure there are a lot of biographies about this in my future, waiting to be read.) I imagine Livingstone's journeys cut short by an enormous summer thunderstorm in Ethiopia - "This is it!" he cries, drenched by the rain that's about to flood the river, "I've found it! The Source of the Nile!"
But I digress.

Crossing the border from Rwanda to Tanzania took a long time. It is not that the Rusumo Falls border crossing is particularly high-traffic, but there was of course the requisite amount of standing in line to fill out papers, and the early-morning line of trucks waiting to cross that we had to navigate around.

On the other side, everything was different right away.

Okay, no it wasn't. But the landscape did change quite soon. The densely-packed farms with their banana trees and living fences, villages every mile, and people everywhere pushing bicycles loaded with water jugs and bananas, the children thronging their way to school, the steep hills and narrow valleys - these all all petered out almost immediately to be replaced by scrub woodland (the sort that looks as though it's exhausted from regrowing itself too many times) with occasional farms. And then as we drove east, the land flattened and the dirt stayed red. The woodland (some places fuller and better grown than others) changed to plains with enormous trees (some of them baobabs, Adansonia digitata, some of them not); the hills were made of exposed, weathered lumps of granite. There are not so many villages along that road, and not so much traffic on it, though more than half of it is paved. It is pretty empty country, is Western Tanzania. I mean - relatively speaking.

Driving is driving, I guess; not very exciting, either while it's happening or afterwards. So we did a lot of that, and then we stayed in Mwanza, which is a biggish town, and then we went on the Serengeti.

I feel a little dumb, trying to say anything about the Serengeti. I'm sure other people have said it better.
We found Anne (who is, for those of you interested in Anne, in glowing good healthy and apparently quite happy doing fascinating good work; as beautiful and amazing and fun as ever). Anne has a lot of fantastic bones at her house; all different antelope skulls with long curly horns, big beefy cape buffalo and also giraffe legs, looking like machine parts. I covet them, of course; knowing just how illegal it would be for them to have left the park in my possession, and knowing that I would never do that, does not make me any less covetous.

So, then, we went to a lodge and stayed there and drove around looking for animals for a few days. And found some! A few cheetahs, dutifully photographed and whatnot for Anne's Scientific Information. And so many other things.

We saw a pride of lions eating a zebra in the early morning under an acacia tree, with a bunch of hyaenas circling around. The lions would growl at the hyaenas, who were stealing a leg here and a chunk of skin there, making their hyaena noises (which, in contrast to what I had imagined, they make with their noses down almost to the ground) - until finally the lions had eaten enough and gave up and left or were driven off, leaving the hyaenas to chase each other around and jackals to lick the ground. Man, oh man are hyaenas ever beautiful and fascinating.

(In case anyone was wondering, these hyaenas were the spotted variety, Crocuta crocuta - the kind that people once thought were hermaphroditic, where the females have higher testosterone levels than the males, and false scrotums.)

We saw hippos out of water in the afternoon, a little suprisingly. A mother and two young 'uns eating stuff by the banks of a scummy pond. The mother had an oxpecker-dug hole in her side (with the oxpecker still poking his beak in sometimes) that looked ouchy. Anne says that someone published a paper recently suggesting that oxpeckers do not only eat the parasites off the large herbivores; they also seem to enlarge and keep open the parasite holes, and eat the flesh of the hippos (or whatever) directly. I say in response, a wildlife researcher is a wonderful companion to have in the Serengeti.

We a saw a porcupine that had stayed awake too long, rushing all waddly for cover in the early early morning in the shortgrass plains; warthog mamas and their little piggy babies running around; gazelles and antelopes and buffalo and jackals and all manner of neat birds; and then the elephants.

The managers of the lodge we stayed at, who are friends of Anne's, are Elephant Enthusiasts. And so I saw a lot of elephants. And I loved them! All huge and beautiful and intelligent - elephants often return to the bones of dead relatives and pick them up and touch them, and elephants sometimes bury their dead.

We watched some (a few mothers and several offspring) drinking when they had broken into a well near the lodge. The older ones with the long-enough trunks would kneel to reach down and suck out water. The little ones would suck it out of the mouths of their mothers and siblings.

We saw twenty-some of them, early one morning, heading off quietly and purposefully to god-knows-where across the plains. Anne took lots of pictures; we drove in circles around them for half an hour, and they looked at us, but just kept on going.

The most amazing part of looking at the elephants, though, is when they look right back at you. We sat one evening, drinking beer in the Land Rover parked right next to some elephants eating at sunset; we looked out at the elephants and drank beer, and they looked in at us and ate grass.

I'm back in Rwanda now; we are off to look at gorillas tomorrow, and then I will return to Virginia on Tuesday.

It has stopped raining. The sun has come out. I hope that all of you are well and happy.