End of the year cleaning

Some tidbits from the last week or so I want to file away...

On Monday of last week my Dutch teacher started class by asking us if we knew what year WWII ended.  Instantly sobered by the idea of a lesson on the devastation in Belgium during the war, I was relieved and disappointed when the pertinent detail was that in 1945 they set the record for the most snowy days in December.  (Brutal timing, no?)  They had 16 days of snow that year.  That Monday was the 20^th, Winter had technically not even begun yet, and we had had 18 days of snow.  Since then it has kept snowing more often than not.  I am looking forward to hearing our total, and getting bragging rights that I was there in the winter of ’10 when it snowed all month.  Unless climate change makes that the new norm.  Gawd, climate change is such a killjoy.

A couple weeks ago we went up to Antwerp for the day (the picture above is downstairs in the train station and the last one is upstairs).  Katrien and her cousin went shopping, while I walked around from holiday music band to band, people watching, and occasionally taking (disappointing) pictures.  It was a tad below zero, and I went to heat up in my default favorite option for this, a massive bookstore…to find that it was a travel agency.  Turns out just the bottom level is a giant travel agency, packed with people buying package tours at desk after desk, while upstairs is the bookstore, which focuses on, surprise, travel books.

Fine by me, so I had just lowered a massive tome about South America when my phone rang, Katrien calling to say she was ready to meet up and head home.  I replaced the giant book and was hustling down the stairs, answering the call as I went.

On the other end Katrien heard me say hello, then I assume a moment of silence or maybe rushing wind, then a massive banging sound, silence for a second, and me saying “s’alright.”  Yeah, I had fallen down the stairs.  In front of the entire flat of travel agency.  The stairway, slick with melting slushy snow, was of course metal, so the acoustics on this thing as you can imagine were mighty.  The ratio of concern to hidden smiles was just about right, maybe 1:473.

Good thing that didn’t happen when I was younger and easily embarrassed, hey?

And today I applied for a job with Procter & Gamble, and in addition to sending a resume they have you answer an ethical and hypothetical questionnaire, then take a “reasoning test”.  That thing was hard!  I had to take one before they’d let me take the Dutch class (oddly enough), and the questions were along the lines of

What comes next in this sequence?  One dot, two dots, three dots, _____.

A: Four dots.  B: A triangle.  C: Turmeric  D: A circus monkey.

But not P&G!  Theirs were way more interesting.  Abstract shapes with surprising shading and indecipherable 3 dimensionality.  And you only have 2 and a half minutes to figure them out.  So if anyone here has access to those tests, send me a copy, I want to figure them all out!  Maybe on the plane to Edinburgh tomorrow…which reminds me, I should pack.

Festive Hogmanay and Happy New Year to all!

Holiday Progress

My first blog was going to be called “A Year Without Holidays” because I spent the holiday season of 2008 abroad, traveling away from home and family, and I felt like those holidays weren’t real ones, basically just more expensive hostel dorm rooms.  (Not exactly my real sentiment, but it’ll do for now.)

This year I am still abroad, but no longer travelling, and I found my holidays.

I spent Thanksgiving 2008 in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and although it is still one of my favourite places, that day I was standing in a basement grocery store, deciding if splurging on goulash was worth it or whether to go with basic spaghetti again, when suddenly I realized I was far from home and family, surrounded by people who had no idea it was even a holiday (for me anyway) and I was choosing between shitty goulash and boring spaghetti on Thanksgiving.  And it sucked.  It was no longer fun.  I stood in front of that damn counter, fighting the water in my eyes while I ordered goulash I no longer wanted (and ended up forgetting in the hostel fridge).

It was one of the two lowest moments of my trip, I think of my adult life in general, and I was not looking forward to Christmas.  Life is a tricky bastard though, and that Christmas I met Katrien, the woman I now live with in a snow-buried studio apartment Belgium.

So this year, I spent Thanksgiving back in the States with my family.  And Christmas will be here with hers.  And although I still basically missed Halloween (it’s not very popular here…yet) I had my first Sinter Klaas, the Belgian tradition where an old white-bearded guy with elf helpers brings presents to kids.  Except he has nothing to do with Christmas, is rake thin, sails up from his home in Spain, and his elves would be inadmissible in America since they are basically in blackface, “Black Pete” being the chief among them, face blacked by the soot of your chimneys.  (I particularly like that he lives in Spain.  I have a mental image of when that detail was added, some kid asking “Daddy, where does Sinter Klaas live?”  The dad frowning for a second, “shit, I dunno…um…Spain?  Yeah, Sinter Klaas lives in Spain, son.”)

And New Years here involves carolling and something like trick-or-treating but without the tricks and costumes, going house to house singing and giving treats and hot drinks.

And even more!  This year I will spend (weather permitting) New Years Eve in Scotland, where that day is Hogmanay, whose roots go back to Norse winter solstice rituals and incorporate Gaellic elements of Samhain, with local customs varying from throwing fireballs into the harbour in Stonehaven to carrying decorated herring (yes, the fish) in Dundee.  The most common tradition though is “first footing” also known by its more charistmatic Gaelic name “quaaltagh”, where the first person to cross a house’s threshold sets the luck for the year.  The first-footer (I’m not making that term up) often brings symbolic gifts like a coin (prosperity), salt (flavor), bread (food…not exactly symbolic, that one), coal (warmth), or alcohol (good cheer…cuz that’s how Scots roll) and is in turn given food and a hot drink.

So in 2008, Halloween was sadly forgotten, Valentine’s Day (happily) ignored, and Thanksgiving a new low of crapitude.  But in 2010 I got my Thanksgiving turkey, Sinter Klaas put gingerbread and marzipan in my shoe, and maybe I can first-foot our hostel on Hogmanay.  If two years ago was the year without holidays, then this is the year of twice as many.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all!

Fijne Kerstdagen en een Gelukkige Nieuwjaar!

And what the hell: Feliz Navidad y un Próspero Año Nuevo too!

Stop, heyey, what's that sound?

I heard a new sound last night.

The leaves of the grandfatherly tree were frozen, and when the breeze seeped through them it was a crackle of dry and cold.  Elsewhere leaves famously rustle, but here they sometimes crackle.

Then it started to...I don't know the word, I actually doubt English has the right word for it, I need one of those anecdotal Inuit languages with their 23 words for snow.  It wasn't snow, nor was it hail.  It was salt crystals of dry frozen water that decorated my jacket and sat like sleeper cells in my hair, waiting for body heat to melt them into unexpected cranial kisses as I took my seat in class.

I stood out in the dry precipitant salting, smiling up into the tree, listening to its skittering giggles.  Winter may be a sever old man, but he can still sometimes giggle.  The Belgians waiting for their classes may have thought I was a tad touched in the head.

The Romanians walked up, sleep-deprived eyes burning even more intensely than usual.  He gets up at 4:30 AM to go to work at the construction site.  He sets his Coke down next to him, and sometimes when he goes to drink it, it is frozen.  He does not blink while telling me about never having time to do anything beyond work and sleep.

"Sometimes I am want to look at the TV, and I am there 10 minute only and you hear me...""  He makes a snoring gesture and sound.  I cannot quite remember what a snoring gesture looks like, but I understood it clearly at the time.

The cold is punches, and I fear the Romanian's boss may soon hear what "all work and no play makes Traian a dull boy" sounds like in Romanian while axes chop down doors...but last night that cold gave me a gift.

I was riding home, cheekbones a broadening sting, nose (thankfully) not even communicating any more, and as an oncoming car drove by I made a screaming face at it.  And remembered!  That's me!  I do things like that!  I sing to myself on crowded streets, and dance on street corners (if the song is good) to the confusion of commuting Berliners.  Oh yeah!

Lately the prospect of building a life overseas and otherlinguistically has seemed daunting and impossible, and it has squeezed me in a bit.  I started going to temp agencies yesterday and was nearly mute with shyness.  But Father Winter reminded me last night that some crazy lives in me, which makes everything so much better.

So when I went temp-agency-trawling today I was still blushing and sweating, sure, but not nearly as profusely as yesterday.

Thank you Father Winter, you passively belligerent bastard!

Amurrika, funk yar!

I am getting too close to abandoning this blog to the dust, so I am going to sit here with a pack of chips and a 3 flavored wheel of hummus, and tell you about my trip back to the states.    The yellow hummus tastes like cinnamon.  Not really in a good way.

Our layovers this time were in Philadelphia, where my exuberance at speaking the local language led me to try and talk to airport staff.  I am not sure if they just didn't hear me, weren't expecting conversation, or whether smug jokes from a Giants fan about the Phillies were not a good idea.  (The prospect of the second one makes me sad...where people talk to each other amiably so infrequently that they stop even listening for the possibility.)  The airport is pretty normal, but they do have cool rocking chairs lining the hallways.  Here's Katrien relaxing.

The early part of the trip was fantastiliscious.  Friends and food and family and fun.  (This part of the trip is brought to you by the letter F.  I'm trying to remember if there was any flamboyant fabric...)

The old hometown of Santa Cruz was oddly offputting at first, perhaps because I couldn’t remember how to be there or what to do.  Enjoyed it though, a few precious old friends, a cookie factory, wandering around the downtown drag (did I really just use that expression?), and eating the nostalgic food; Santa Cruz is arguably the best place in the world for breakfast.

People-watched at the farmer’s market until the stomach flopped then got the hell out of town

Road trip to Santa Barbara to visit Grandma, who was never actually called Grandma.  She is an interesting woman who I feel I never really met before my grandfather died, their conjoined personality focusing on each other so much that outside dealings were diffused between the two, aquaintanceship the barrier.

She is still mostly sharp, and taking her to the dining hall the first night was enjoyable, though a busybody pain in the tookus bureaucrat lady impinged on it a bit, and I was not sure how much rascally disparagement of this was appropriate with Granny.

Leaving the peculiar silvered world of the retirement community, with its blazing exhortation to enjoy life while it’s flexible, we headed down to Santa Barbara’s (in)famous State Street, which I remember as a promenade of SoCal mass-produced and unimaginative “beauty.”  This time however it was pretty darn cold, and Sunday night to boot, so there was nay a swollen and precarious ego or carefully copied image to be seen, just some steadfast hippies with their nag champa.

We retreated to the hotel room, which was ill equipped for the chill, with enthusiastically noisy but ineffectual heater and one thin blanket.  It was like Malibu’s version of a gulag.

The next morning we headed back to take Grandma to lunch, but she was heavily depleted by a fever the night before and kept falling asleep.  Instead of heading to the main dining room, we tried the smaller one in the “Health Center” (the more intensive care facility…i.e. Hell-th Center).  Bureaucracy had an even tighter grip there though, so when we sat down and filled out the little menu on the table it threw an arthritic wrench in their machine and we were kicked out, but not before the man who normally sits at that table peered at his filled out menu and yelled “who the hell is Virginia Tendick?”

Relegated to the “TV room” in the hallway, Grandma fell asleep, I read the paper, and the flatscreen plasma played endless classic Hollywood movies with their clipped speech, folksyness, and static close-mouthed kisses.  I did enjoy listening with half an ear to their quaintly out of date discussions of ridiculous morality.  The Australian woman swimmer (with a light British accent) went on the beach with her legs showing!  Gasp!

A denizen from across the hall painfully wheeled herself closer, inch by inch, conversation generally inaudible but relentless, though we did pick out occasional moments such as when she was jabbing a gnarled finger at Katrien and demanding “Does she speak?  Can this one speak?  Why doesn’t this one speak?”  Then nightmarishly pointing at the back of my grandma’s head and saying “We don’t like it when they come out like that one.”  We tried valiantly to interact politely and keep from condescending, but I was inundated with gratitude when one of the staff came and wheeled her away.

After saying goodbye to Grandma, with all the morbid overtones of finality that that always entails, we headed up to San Luis Obispo, where we enjoyed the recommendations of my brother, particularly with regards to the sashimi.  I normally go with sushi rolls over sashimi, enjoying the combination of flavours, but he strenuously recommended the albacore tataki, and dear lordie in the great big blue sky above, was he ever right.

So if you are ever in San Luis, go to Goshi, at the corner of Higuera and Nipomo.  My God.  Okay, I can’t think about it anymore or I’ll go crazy.  Then I won’t be able to speak, and we hate it when they come out like that.

We were staying in a greasy little hotel just off the highway and were woken up at 3:00 AM by the fire trucks and ambulances as the Ramada across the street burned.  We couldn’t see actual flames from our perpendicular window, but the world stank of smoke.  Greasy getting greasier.

Then back up the coast to Capitola, where we watched the sun set from the pier and listened to the exuberant crunches of a sea otter next to us cheerily eating his dinner.  Those animals are way cuter than necessary, thank goodness.

A quick burrito with another good friend, then up the coast to the Pigeon Point lighthouse.  I dunno if you’ve ever driven Highway 1 between Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay, but if you have, this is the lighthouse halfway between them where you should have stopped.  There is a hostel run out of the four little white cottages, though you can no longer go in the actual lighthouse, which is rusting away in solemn nobility.

Recommendation number two (you didn't forget the sashimi already, did you?): stay at this hostel.  They have a hot tub.  It’s right on the edge of the cliff over the godly waves of the Pacific Ocean.  You sign up for a half hour slot, and that half hour encompassed a fair portion of my soul.  The night was clear, calm, and cold.  (This Face of the Divine moment is brought to you by the letter C.)  The stars were riotous and reckless, despite San Francisco and the Bay Area lurking just beyond the hills, with the Milky Way in sacred full frontal overhead.

My two favorite places in the world right now are Chefchaouen, Morocco, and the Pigeon Point Lighthouse just south of Pescadero, California.

(My beloved Highway 1 between Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz.)

 

One more night in San Francisco, Indian food, a bar with a peculiar female denizen brazenly asking a friend for sex (awwwkward), and caught a morning flight back across the Atlantic.  Homes sweet homes.

Peaceful anxiety

I just spent a couple hours looking through job postings, and was well under the cold thick water of discouragement, frustration, and anxiety regarding my chances at successful living here.  Then I looked outside and saw snowflakes.

There is a unique stillness to snow.

Passing on bicycle under a highway overpass Monday morning, the sound of relentless and self-important semi trucks of shipping empires overhead was just the murmur of a television turned down a couple rooms away, and the modest whir of my tires was humbled and self-effacing between snow-covered fields.

Maybe my awe at the uncaring and intimate (it’s like a zombie that wants to snuggle) whiteness reveals that I am a nooby to this stuff.  Maybe one who has lived at mountainous altitude or monstrous latitude for awhile finds it simply something to deal with, but for me it is still magic.

So I still feel sick to my stomach at the barrier of finding employment here, but in the meantime the gentle drifts are slowly growing on the balcony, and this cup of tea sounds better and better.

Bring on the sacred gluttony

The rain has well and truly arrived here in Northern Belgium (Flanders) and I am enjoying my first Low Country Autumn (“herfst”) with its deeply amazing colored leaves, green holding on in places amid wholehearted golds and unabashed reds and ardent yellows.  But a few days ago the rain really began in earnest, and after continuing with barely any interruption for a fair stretch of the calendar I am getting a tad nervous that the only person I know named Noah lives 4843.29 miles away…  (What ever did we do before the internet?)  In the meantime I am learning all sorts of useful Dutch vocabulary relating to flooding.  Er zijn veel celders en huizen dat onder water staan.

I am fortifying myself for a winter that can encompass half the year, but first a short break, as I fly back to California in three days for Thanksgiving.  I have consciously decided to remove all limits and self restraint when it comes to eating while there.  At the fancy-pants gym here I had a little fitness evaluation not long ago; they did a spot ultrasound of my arm and told me I have 10.6% body fat…we’ll see what it says after two and a half weeks of pizza, sandwiches, cheezie-poofs and Kettle Chips (even though those latter ones are actually English), frozen yogurt (heaped with m&ms), ice cream (chocolate sauce), pumpkin pie (whipped cream), caipira omelettes, tandori chicken, garlic naan, lamb souvlaki plates, Pacific Cookie Company chocolate chip cookies (from the factory shelf), and, oh yes, burritos, burritos, and more burritos.  Wet, dry, vegetarian (hey, it could happen), pollo asada, and carnitas, I loves me them burritos.

Sitting here in this solemn and dignified rain saturation, and preparing for sixteen days of gluttony, I cannot help but remember the very different reality only a couple months ago in Morocco.  It was in the mid-40s every day.  I remember in particular the thermometer on the board outside the band reading 46 degrees, which is 115 for you/us Fahrenheit people.  And 319 for you Kelvin people, 574.47 for the devoted fans of Rankine, and a whopping 36.8 for those who prefer Reaumer.  (Seriously, how did people find erratic and generally inconsequential tidbits before Google?)

46/115 degree heat is enervating enough, but it was also Ramadan, so no one could eat all day.  Well, no Muslims anyway, us soft tourists gathered sheepishly in the cafes, nibbling honey-soaked msemin flatbread and hoping the locals didn’t hate us for it.

Austerity has its place, and I have enjoyed the severity of isolation and the occasional (unplanned) fast, but I am very much ready for the candid emotional warmth and sacred appreciation for the joys of being alive that I plan to find back home this Thanksgiving.  Occasional and conscious gluttony is not a vice but a virtue.  A very happy Thanksgiving to you all.

Wait, what?

Okay, I want to go to bed but I just poked around blogspot for a second after posting that and found my stats page and there are a couple of things I need to mention before I can rest.

By far the most viewed post I have ever had is the Belgium vs USA fundraising contest, with over three times as many views as second place.  This is somewhat peculiar because there was so little there, and a tad embarrassing since the US got so badly beaten (a thousand more thank yous to everyone stateside who helped us!)

I have had exactly one pageview by someone using linux.  I want to know who it was and send them a Christmas present.

The fourth and fifth most common countries to read my blog are Russia and Ukraine, beating South Africa, where I actually know a couple people.  Also with enough to make the list is Bulgaria, with 19 views.  I now want to go to Bulgaria.  Either it doesn’t show all countries or my friend in Costa Rica was lying about reading this…Costa Rican friend, send me a message if you read this…

Finally, the search keywords that have lead people to my blog include “lastbussout”, which of course makes no sense whatsoever, a couple about vervet monket images.  And then there’s this one. “www;satanporno;be”

That was the thing that made me post this.  The only problem is I don’t even know where to begin to question where the f*ck that last one came from.

Okay battery is dying and confusion and bemused entertainment is voiced to the ether.  Good night.

Riding home from class again

Riding my borrowed bicycle home tonight was nice.  Since the October time change it gets dark early, and the coolness of day spreads unflinchingly into cold night.  This was one of those nights of undeniable mist, which was already seeping from the fields as soon as the sun stopped fighting, and by my homeward ride at nine thirty it was thick and lovable.

It lurked in that unique irresistible stillness of heavy mist.  The occasional car shwooshing past was oblivious and didn’t belong, like litter fallen out of passing spaceships cruising through our solar system on their way to someplace less beautiful.

The season has turned, and acorns no longer pop beneath my tires.  The only sound is the steady whine of the bike-light, which true to its Belgian heritage is slightly different and/or more advanced than what I am used to.  It has no battery, instead powered by the small wheel which presses against the rim of the front tire and turns as I ride.

The light stops as soon as I do, and walking it into the garage set behind our building is not enough motion to really get going, so I always look to see the ghouls hiding in the back among the forgotten rubbish of forgotten tenants, expecting them to skitter away from the wetly dismembered corpses they feed on, but they are staunch and hold mostly motionless among the moist cardboard, dried paint cans and rusting bicycles.

But while I ride the light shines proudly, warning drivers of my presence.  Belgian drivers have impressed me over and over with their awareness of and respect for cyclists.

I pass repeating scenes of square brick houses resolutely bare of adornments, and open fields where soil fraternizes familiarly with pools of rainwater in the furrows, at night the puddles a quietly confident navy blue that would be mistaken for black if it weren’t for the dirt proving the point.

The corn is all harvested down to stubble stalks now.  But only a week or so ago I passed a beautiful nightmare as a looming threshing machine annihilated a field of dry corn stalks.  It was mechanical thunder in the air, menacing power filtering in fleeing shadows between fear-rooted corn stalks as flood lights stripped away all resistance.  If a human walked into the front of that thing it would briefly make a slightly different noise and there would be a splash in an unexpected direction and the driver would probably not notice.

Brussels Flea Market

Yesterday was a good day.  I got up at 2:30, morning still distantly in utero, to listen to the Giants win the World Series, which culminated at 3:30 just as the alarm was going off for Katrien and I to start our day-trip to the flea market in Brussels.  I ate my cereal and drank my green tea and I listened to interviews with the nostalgic giant Giants of my past, specifically Will Clark.  I bet his bald spot was shining proudly.  I wonder if he was wearing eye black?

Misty pre-dawn ride to Brussels in the camionette/fulgonetta/van, hips pressed close on the bench seat’s chilly upholstery and the ubiquitous lingering of cigarettes past.  Still streets of brick buildings with the rare, one or two, pedestrian looking confused at the solitude of Halloween’s non-event here.  A red devil mannequin sat on a bench, with a sign around his neck declaring the Halloween party sold-out, his plastic face wet with dew.

It was All Soul’s Day, November 2, and Brussels was waking up a little later than usual on this bureaucrat-inclusive holiday.  We passed a bus stop with a man sitting inexplicably and smoking in the paltry shelter of the plastic panel and pulled up to the curb opposite the small plaza where the daily market happens.

It was just after 5:00 AM, the trucks of flea market rubble had not yet arrived, so time for a drink in the café.  Green tea for myself and Katrien, coffee for the others at our table, beer for everyone else in the room.  The proprietor was a mountain of a man, with pockets the size of backpacks on the expansive backside of his jeans under a blue T-shirt with a dark ring of sweat around the neck and spreading from the arm pits; we were bundled in jackets, scarves, and gloves, he was a caloric wonderhouse.  His sweat’s domain grew as he served occasional beers.  I drank my tea and tried not to think about salt.

At no visible signal or glance at a watch our table stood up in lax military precision and headed out into the plaza where the first trucks were belching broken plates, warped records, and tarnished faucets onto the cobblestones.  The Regulars were already flitting between piles, flashlights in hand flicking around piles as they grew, impatience and the lust for Their Deal driving them sometimes to climb right up into the truck itself, wending between the unloaders talking at each other in rapid Arabic.

Most sellers also spoke French, and could probably understand Dutch, but Arabic was their comfortable language.  I shudder at the thought of the bitterness that must have sat rancid in this place as the traditionalists gave way to the new crowd.  The wailing and trills of Al Manar Radio’s mijwiz, qanun, and durbakke replacing traditional Belgian music; did you know the saxophone was invented in Belgium?

I cannot imagine the transition from Raymond van het Groenewoud to Mohammed Abdel Wahab went without rancor in this somehow simultaneously impressively multi-cultural and tragically prejudiced country.

We wound from pile to pile, Katrien catching Flea Market Fever’s irrational fear of losing a deal to someone else and flitting off authentically while I meandered about, taking pictures and trying without success to detect if doing so was pissing anyone off.  I  37% suspect it was.

Three hours later I was tired and the sun finally lightened the sky in the brief gap of time between one pile of clutter and the next, and Katrien had bought a retro, red, two levelled table-thingy that we are now deciding whether to put next to the sofa or the fridge.  As a frequent partaker of hot cups of tea, I favour the sofa.

We witnessed the clientele shift with the day’s arrival, the wreckage aficionados disappearing like vampires who would never make Twilight casting were replaced by dog walkers and idlers who picked through disinterestedly.

We clambered back into the van, pulled up to load our driver’s purchases, a sliding-front podium-desk-thing, a 10 euro table that can hopefully be trimmed and revarnished to resell for 50, and a baby seat for the new niece, then headed home.

A nap, a trip to the high-tech gym, and a casual birthday party for Katrien’s sister rounded out the day and I went to bed happy, eyes ready to close, tongue reminiscing of good wine, and muscles adequately loose-tired from the rowing machine.

Clearing my blog clog and seeing what comes tumbling out

Well I’ve certainly run out of blogging steam, haven’t I?  I suppose this is okay given that this was supposed to be a travel blog and I am not travelling right now, so I would tend to post opinionated rants which I would fear lean generic and would most likely make my mother cry, and since she is 50% of my confirmed readership (en ook goede dag Chris!) and I am hoping for a ride from/to the airport in a couple weeks, I probably shouldn’t upset her.

The only thing I’ve typed in the last couple months, a discussion of religion that degenerated into a diatribe against Christianity.  That would definitely make her cry.  Shit.

Most things I felt like talking about fit in a facebook status update.  Like my embarrassment that gay marriage is still such a controversy in America.  How can people still claim that its legalization will lead to the decay of society when the world is splattered with countries that have legalized it and not suffered one iota of moral decay because of it.  (Pot and hookers were already legal in Amsterdam, just for the record, though I would contest their characterization as decay also, but that’s another post.)

Even Spain legalized gay marriage 5 years ago, and this is the country that still hasn’t realized you can put something on a sandwich other than ham.  I love Spain, though I think the custom of men wearing thongs and strutting is indicative of a certain lack of subtlety and patience, no?

I give Spain credit for something else too, although the decision was made by a court in Luxembourg, in true inscrutable European Union fashion…

Dads in Spain are now entitled to Breastfeeding Leave.  This is awesome, albeit initially ridiculous.

The idea is for fathers to have more time to bond with the child and help the mothers.  What’s better are the court’s words that not giving fathers this time would be “liable to perpetuate a traditional distribution of the roles of men and women by keeping men in a role subsidiary to that of women in relation to the exercise of their parental duties.”

That’s beautiful.  So men should be allowed to be just as active in parental duties.  Hopefully this will extend to a mindset that they also be expected to do so.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfmoms/detail?entry_id=74928

Back to school

It’s not really raining in my part of Belgium tonight. Just that pittering of tiny drops on your face. Cricket morse code, beginning tap dance class for lovable spiders, limited engagement precipitation which only shows up quicking under a street lamp, making facet instants on the gutter water, and those pecks on your cheeks.


Riding home I pass through and over sounds and smells that are coming to mean Belgium to me. The honest reek of a field soaked in horse urine, the stink grown mossy and powerful in the damp, like incense in an ancient cult that’s going to take a lot of getting used to. The pop of acorn husks under my tires. When I get to the rich oil smell of the fries-shop, I know I am almost home. Just come abreast of the pharmacy with its sleepless and standard electric sign chanting the time and temperature religiously in little green dots like a Night Bright, then I’m home.

I am coming back from class. The first time I realized I needed to go to bed early because it was a school night I felt a chuckling nostalgia for the grimace that came back with surprising familiarity after all these years. School.

So I am a student again. I bought a textbook with matching workbook. I bike to class on Mondays and carpool on Tuesdays. I bring two pens, a pencil, and a notebook, though I generally scribble any notes in the book’s margins. I need to buy more lead for my mechanical pencil before it runs out.

I am taking Dutch classes at a local night school with all the other immigrants and mail order brides. This tongue-tied community is deepening my welcome to Belgium with their Filipino names, Cuban gold teeth, Polish haircuts, Romanian giggles, Dominican accents, Congolese cool, Armenian eyebrows, and ridiculously broad Latvian shoulders. The Eastern Europeans came for work, the Latin Americans married Belgians and moved here, and there is a rumor that the Congolese guy plays semi-professional soccer, which may explain his customary absence.

Our skill levels span a decent range of the very bottom of the scale. I think the Spanish speakers have it the hardest, especially since the Cuban and Dominican accents heavily aspirate (to the point of deleting) “s” and the ends of syllables, which just doesn’t fly in Dutch. And none of us are proficient at the Dutch “u” sound, where we almost always replace it with “oe.”

But spirits are generally high, though Tomasz the Pole still whines horribly at any sliver of homework, and also-Polish Bogdan’s absences are competing with Congolese Tchite’s. Bogdan’s wife still comes to class, and I wonder how long she can keep up her explanations for his absence; he has gone from sick to working late to breaking an ankle playing soccer. But that’s probably okay because when he did come he refused to take notes, insisting that his wife was doing it for him.

Oh and one time, Tomasz, the whiner, on his first day actually, knowing full well when class ends interrupted the teacher with 6 minutes left to say “isn’t it time to leave?” I thought that was about the balsiest stunt I’ve ever seen from a student.

But other than those couple humorous Poles, the class is sweethearts. There is Shushanit, from Armenië whose husband has finally stopped patrolling the hallway outside the class with their daughter all three hours. I suspect she is the best Dutch-speaker in the class but she is so soft-spoken it is hard to say. Or the other Armenian woman, Lilit, whose eyes are always laughing. I biked home with Romans from Latvia the other day, whose bicycle has no brakes, and though I couldn’t understand all of his enthusiastic English I enjoyed the company. Eduardo from Cuba had a son born two days ago. I think Traian has a crush on Ewelina.

So even though the class moves pretty slowly, I am happy to be there, watching my classmates, learning the language, integrating with my new...home?

How do you tell?

How do you tell if someone’s opinion is just different from yours, from when they are a cold, calculating, vile, Cheney-like human being?

Today’s case: the people who say investing in Green Energy is bad for business and the economy, insisting that the staff of their oil rigs outweigh everyone else, and meanwhile China is cornering the market on solar panels and wind turbines in an industry providing well over one MILLION jobs. (1.3 according to this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/business/energy-environment/31renew.html)

In California right now, Texan oil companies have spent 7.9 million dollars (out of 8.2 raised) on a proposition eliminating a clean energy bill we passed in 2006, and they are expected to spend even more as the election approaches. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/us/17pollute.html?_r=1&hp) They are trying the same old scare tactics to justify their blatant self interest (at the expense of the REST OF THE WORLD) by saying the initiative will cost jobs and raise gas prices. Boogedy boogedy.

Do they know about those million jobs China has added to produce solar panels and wind turbines?  Do they realize they are full of shit or do they actually believe themselves?

I just don’t get it. They are a profanely rich oil company. The move towards renewable energy has to happen. It is going to happen. If not here, then elsewhere. It will create a massive amount of jobs, and be the economy of the future, with the fringe benefit of, you know, saving our fucking lives. The mind-shatteringly obvious question is “why don’t THEY do the work?” I understand selfishness, especially in a corporation where it is built into the fundamental charter, but why doesn’t Valero invest those 4 million dollars in making wind turbines instead of running manipulative TV commercials? Poor Valero, they want so hard to be the shiniest emblem in Satan’s porno magazine, but that damn BP is just too good at what they do.
Yuck, I can’t talk about this anymore right now. But I gotta say, if California passes this initiative and kills the (honestly fairly mild) green energy bill we passed four years ago... Nevermind. Optimism! It is a beautiful day!  Think about kittens!

And technologies are getting better. Like cars (looking for that silver lining pretty hard here). Did you know you don’t have to change your oil every 3,000 miles anymore? Cars have gotten better, and, depending on how severe of conditions you drive in, you can easily wait 5,000 or even 10,000 between changes.

Here, and I recommend the one about loading your washing machine and dishwasher properly too. (Yes, I was clearly browsing the NY Times while eating lunch today.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/11/your-money/11shortcuts.html?src=me&ref=business

Amerikan Kebabologist Discovers New Species

Amerikan Kebaboligist reports discovery of new species
By Harvey von Nubbinbubbler, AP


BRUSSELS - American Kebabologist Doctor Timothy Tendick is reporting in the current issue of the presitigious Kebablife Quarterly Journal the discovery of a previously unsuspected species of kebab.

The new find is said to dwarf all previously catalogued species of kebab, though no exact measurements have so far been released. According to Doctor Tendick “we took one look at this thing and knew we had discovered something...well...big. It was radically different from the conventional understandings and assumptions of kebabology.” There are apparently several key differences, but one above all made the case clear for Doctor Tendick’s team. “The bread is totally different too, but it took us awhile to notice that because shit man, have you seen the thing?”

The kebab was locally assumed to be a common Chicken Kebab, also called a Poulet Kebab, after the great Luxembourgian Kebabologist Dr. Ivan Poulet.

The mega-kebab was discovered in a small town in the Flanders region of Belgium. Experts say this makes the find even more stunning, given that Belgium is in the heart of Western Europe, traditionally known as the kebab’s primary habitat. Most kebabologists had considered this area well mapped with regards to kebabular variety, but, according to Doctor Ignatius P. Wallyflower this makes the mega-kebab’s discovery actually somewhat less surprising, since the prevalence of kebab species in the area and the tremendous success with which they have propagated in this region make such mutation all the more likely.

“And this thing is definitely not a product of normal evolution, which is glacially slow. No, that baby is a mutant.” asserted Wallyflower, whose pupils remained dilated the entire interview.

The discovery took longer than normal to report because the initial investigation was unable to fully plumb the depths of the new species. According to Doctor Tendick “We left after the first trials exhausted and feeling kind of greasy, but the dedication to kebabology is not something to be put on the shelf in the fridge and forgotten, so at the first opportunity we were back in this thing, elbow deep, although it took most of a bag of salad greens and a cut up tomato to make the research possible.”

This is not the first time Doctor Tendick, also a professor at the European Academie for the Teaching of Ingestible Things (EAT IT) has discovered a new species. In 2009 he discovered the now infamous Apparently-All-Chicken-Skin Kebab in southern Spain. His reputation was tarnished later that year however when he claimed to have discovered another new form, which he called the That-Was-A-Horrible-Mistake Kebab. Authorities examined his taxonomy and declared it a Common Kebab. But this find in Belgium, if authenticated, should jump him right back to the top of the (unnaturally homogenous colored) heap in kebab epidemiology.

“My team was really unprepared for a find of this magnitude. I mean, I can barely carry the damn thing.” Admitted Doctor Tendick, seen below posing, like a goober, with the kebab, which is even larger than his also-famously-oversized noggin.

Border Crossing and Zambia

Traveling is full of different challenges from back home.  Taking public transport when you don’t know the language, the system, or any of the place names.  Bartering properly, which changes between countries.  Ordering food when you have no idea what any of it is. (Just do it! Play the culinary lottery! I love this one!)

And of course, border crossings.

Crossing from South Africa to Botswana involved a moderate amount of bureaucracy, a couple forms, a couple stamps.  The best part was when a guard peered in the window and saw the copy of Obama’s The Audacity of Hope that I was reading and came around to talk to me about it.  Despite his not speaking English, we got by on a few words, several smiles, and a big thumbs up.  (We would continue to see Obama bags, posters, and shirts throughout Africa...it is a better time to be an American.)  As we were leaving, another guard looked at our friend Lisa’s shirt, which had kind of a sherbet-colored swirl of reds and oranges and said in a soft, deep voice “I like your shirt, I want to eat it.”  We laughed and smiled politely and drove on up the road.

I crossed the border between Zambia and Tanzania on a train, sweating and gritting my teeth because I had substantial food poisoning and you can’t use the toilets (which are just holes in the ground over a short curved tube) when the train is stopped...particularly when the train is surrounded by women and children selling bananas, casava root, and balls of clay to passengers.  The clay is apparently to clean out your digestive tract...maybe I should have bought two.

We crossed from Botswana to Zambia at the Kazungula ferry over the Zambezi River.  The Botswana side was only a little waiting, filling out forms, and stamping, then we drove down to the river, past a mile-long line of trucks waiting about a day to cross.  Luckily cars cut to the front.  The ferry is a rickety platform of splintered planks falling into dust, and the rustiest, oil-leakingest motor I have ever seen hanging off the side.  It fits a couple trucks at a time, and when loaded unevenly the entire thing has tipped, killing everyone on board. Oh, and the river is full of crocodiles and hippos too, just for comic book good measure. Crocodilicious.

There were two trucks on the ferry when we drove up, and they gestured us on behind them, where our van basically fit, though when the ramp was lifted it also lifted the little trailer.  The poor thing looked kind of embarrassed, like it was at the Zambian proctologist.

There was a guard in camouflage walking around with a Kalashnikov, looking very conscious of the fact that if anyone actually made trouble for the ferry he would be desperately out-gunned.  Although the truck drivers might be able to back him up.  He stopped me from taking a picture, but turned out it was because he wanted to be in it.

On the Zambian side trucks sat in the central African heat and dust, piled with jagged scrap metal, massive pipes for the mines, and who knows what else, going through a mysterious and largely invisible process to get their cargo across the border.  Luckily a local guy just happened to be there, yup, to help us, guiding us from office to office to pay our entry fee at Immigration, and get our entry stamp, and then our Customs and Excise stamp, and then pay the Counselor Fee, and then pay the Carbon Tax, and then pay the Road Toll Tax, and then get Third Party Insurance, which involved substantially more negotiation than your local State Farm Agent.  And no, I did not make any of those up.

While my two valiant compatriots were navigating this web of suspicious extravagance, I was our security guard and spent the three hours standing in the dust by our van and trailer, though I left my Kalashnikov at home.

First was a hustler-vendor, who wanted to sell me tourist kitsch, and to whom I eventually traded the hat I never wore for a safari mask.  Then there was a group of children, girls aged maybe 6 years old?  They had trays and baskets of brown bananas and a few small apples to sell to truckers, though I never saw anyone buy; their playground the massive dusty tires of semi trucks.  We stood in the shade of a shipment of mining equipment and looked at each other, my attempts at communication invariably met with indulgent smiles and clipped answers of “yes, yes” no matter what I said.

I gave them some of our carrots.  We smiled some more.  A prostitute walked over and climbed into the cab of the truck.  We all just kept standing there and smiling at each other while the stagnant stream of activity seeped along.  It was bizarre and heart-breaking.

AIDS is killing its second generation in Africa, and there, just above and behind the heads of these children, maybe it was taking another victim, adding another link.  This stretch of highway through Africa is sometimes referred to as “The Corridor of Death,” as truckers drive up and down it, going to prostitutes and spreading the disease wherever they go.  Condoms are still a concept for NGOs, not daily people, and the spirit world is credited and blamed for many ailments, from Robert Mugabe’s power to the symptoms we would recognize as AIDS.

I stood by these children, totally overwhelmed and helpless in front of the situation, wishing I could spend a lifetime talking to them.  Instead we just stood in the dust and the heat and the noise.  They were no different than before she climbed into the cab, such things are everyday there.

A new voice behind me said in the slow slur of the drugged “hey man, howzit,” the South African slang for “how is it (going).” I looked at his bloodshot eyes, stained thick yellow by disease, then back towards the children. They were gone, leaving a tray of bruised bananas in the dust.

He proceeded to spend an interminable hour trying to sell me drugs and bum stuff off me, his speech barely intelligible and gaze unfocused. Once he found out we were headed to an orphanage he told me about a daughter he had, and how she needed some of our stuff and my money. He tried until we were literally driving away. The kids never came back to get the tray.

Near death experience on the banks of the Zambezi River

The word "soothing" is itself soothing; is that onomatopoeia?

I guess that's not enough for a blog post, so I'll tell you about the time I almost died by the mighty Zambezi River.

We were in the middle of driving from Pretoria, South Africa, to Mansa, Zambia, which took four full days of driving.  And I mean FULL days, we didn't really even stop to eat, except once in Mazabuka, where I went into the American-1950s-diner themed fast food place (restaurant is too exuberant of a word for it) and as if it wasn't already weird enough, I perused the menu and asked for the rice and chicken.  No rice and chicken.  The curry rice?  No curry rice.  Meat pie?  No meat pie.  (Not sure what these were all doing on the menu of a place with drawings of Chevies with James Dean and Marilyn Monroe driving past Route 66 signs, but it's Zambia, so we'll give them the benefit of the doubt.)  What do you have?  Kentucky fried chicken and fries.  Despite the fact that this was not on the menu.  Okay, I'll take that and a soda called "Tingling."  It was actually a pretty good meal (Tingling turned out to be an excellent ginger ale).

But anyway, it was four full days of driving, so we stopped off halfway to rest for a couple days, which just happened to be at Victoria Falls, which is truly one of the most ridiculously epic places on Earth.

It is the largest waterfall on Earth, a mile long, 360 feet tall.  It was incredible.  If the falls don't take your breath away, the cold mist that rains down on you will.  It is chilly rain under the clear, hot African sun, kind of a trip, no?

A couple of local guys moonlighting as Vic Falls tour guides took us out along the top of the falls, walking first on a handswidth-wide submerged concrete wall where you had to grip tightly with your toes to resist the remarkably strong Zambezi current that wanted to sweep you over the edge, then down to the very edge of the falls.

Then we went river rafting past class 4 rapids with names like Devil's Toilet Bowl, Oblivion, and Gnashing Jaws of Death.  It was fantastic, but not when I almost died.  No, I almost died at the malicious hands of something far more evil.  Tiny little evil hands.

This, my friends, is a vervet.

Cute, right?  WRONG!  This is a deceitful, cold-hearted little servant of Beelzebub who is just waiting for you to let down your guard.  Here is another picture.

Did you let down your guard?  You let down your guard, didn't you?  Yup.  Sorry.  You're dead.

Was it the hand that got you?  The cute little, furry hand, that holds the piece of bread the tourist in front of you just gave the little guy?  Pretty cute, right?

Then I bent down to take his little itsy-bitsy-picture-wicture...
and the vile little son of a bitch was after me.
But I had no bread.  Oh but he wasn't after bread, no no no, he was after something fresher, bloodier, living-er.

What had been a cute and somewhat irascible presence in our campground on the first day was transformed into a half dozen remarkably fast-moving furry forms of flesh-seeking malice.  Especially the little one, he was the worst.

Okay, not that small.

There, like that.  Inside that pooched little mouth are way too many needle sharp teeth, and those cute little hands were suddenly far too eager to rend my skin like jello in the sun, man.

Actually, here is the actual picture I took, the only one I managed before the hunt was on.

That long tail is used for balance while flying through the air prior to biting off innocent Americans' faces.

Seriously!  The little one was pissed that I had no food, and got aggressive.  Then the adults, including the (suddenly much larger looking) alpha male picked up the mood and things got freaky, fast.

Now, I must insist on a little credit here.  I was with two women, and I let both of them go first while I stayed firmly placed between them and harms way.  And by "firmly" I mean "gradually backing away while visions of a cross between Outbreak and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre play in my head and I wonder why I didn't sign up for health insurance before coming."

We made it into the parking lot, an arbitrary boundary that they luckily seemed to respect.  Our hearts were racing, skin chilled, limbs rubbery with adrenaline.  At the far end of the lot a taxi was just pulling away and the driver shouted out his window "be nice to the monkeys!"

Yeah.  Thanks.

They haunt my nightmares...