Wednesday

I'm in the staff room during our morning break from classes. The teachers get served tea every day during this break, and it was pretty good today, not too sweet and piping hot. Even as I write that, I can't quite believe I'm describing this tea as "good", because if I'm being honest, it actually falls under the general heading of "bilge". The whole room is in uproarious laughter right now, including me, as we're talking (in a lunatic mix of English, French and Kinyarwanda) about poor Peter teaching sex ed to his O-Level biology class. One year ago at this time, I had recently returned from France, was busy at work planning our lab's move to a new building, and was vaguely thinking about going to Africa at the end of the year. I am surprised to find myself now, chuckling over the menstrual cycle with Rwandan men.

With the free time I have in the evenings here, I've been catching up on all that delicious purposeless information seeking that I'd have loved to have done in San Francisco if there were more hours in the day. Here's what's been keeping me from going postal:

PODCASTS

Fresh Air from NPR - I never listened to this in the US, but now I love, love, LOVE to hate Terry Gross's smugness. Plus, sometimes she talks to interesting guests, although usually their smuggery is outclassed only by TG herself.
The Archers - I've revived my love affair with that gloriously mundane English village of my dreams. David Archer reigns supreme. Lillian can die.
This American Life - After being given a whole data CD full of episodes as an (excellent) gift, I've been listening to these would-be-sappy-if-they-weren't-so-damned-good hour-long awe-fests every week.
The BBC History Magazine Podcast and BBC's From Our Own Correspondent - Both really interesting romps through mainly useless brain fodder from olden times and the world today, respectively. I'm totally out of my depth with the first one, but I like to pretend, and sometimes I catch a brief idea of what they're talking about.
A History of the World in 100 Objects - Haven't started listening to this yet because I'm waiting for 100 consecutive days to do so, but I'm weirdly excited about it. I think I'm also going to give my English class an assignment to write the history of their lives in five objects. Thanks, BBC!

BOOKS

One Fifth - Complete and utter drivel, like the worst book I've ever read, and also the most amazingly satisfying when I arrived in a country where all of my norms and comforts were decidedly absent and I just wanted to bathe in a trashy novel and forget that I wasn't in the United States. One Fifth is pure awful, but it saw me through some dark times, and I'm grateful to it.
Table By the Window and Table Number Seven - Two halves of Terrance Rattigan's Separate Tables collection, and both awesome. His plays are all about the dramatic happening within the mundane, and for some reason his stuff really sits well with me.
Baking Cakes in Kigali - As I think I said before somewhere (this blog?), this was a little heavy on the folksy African wisdom for my taste, but it was nice to read, if only because you have to have been to Rwanda to understand what she's talking about half of the time.
Jurassic Park - UNFORGETTABLE AND AMAZING. Why hadn't I read this before?! Why did I throw Michael Crichton under the bus so? I don't care if it's not great literature, I don't care if it's infuriatingly unrealistic, this shit was GREAT. I think I might have skipped a class or two towards the end so that I could read more, and I don't even feel bad about it.
Tess of the d'Urbervilles - Oh Tess! This started out a tad slow, but became a total page-turner towards the end. As in, it took me about two weeks to read the first sixty pages, and three hours to read the last hundred and fifty. Hardy is my mum's favorite, and I've been meaning to tuck into some of his books for years, but it wasn't until I saw them on display at Nakumatt for just 2.500Frw that went for it. And now, thanks to John, I've got The Mayor of Castorbridge on its way!
The Road Taken - I've only read the back cover and introduction of this Michael Buerk autobiography, but based on those alone, I have high hopes.

And now, one more class before lunch. Wednesdays are the new Thursday. I love them.

a useless post

So here we are at Bourbon, and I'm swimming in comfort and wondering at this life that has become so pleasant, that has been so pleasant all along.

Friends from New York, DC, San Francisco, Grand Rapids, Madrid, London pass in, say hello, share a story or two, commiserate, laugh a bit, have a coffee, make a plan, pass out. We're weirdos in Rwanda together and that's the foundation that all of our very varied relationships are based on. Billy Bragg, Blind Pilot, and the Avett Brothers are playing and my book of Jack London's Great Short Stories sits open on the table; I've just finished with Batard and now I'm right on the brink of digging into The Call of the Wild. Batard was excellent, the kind of story that makes you gasp at the end and feel a little scared and a little lucky to have read it.

This weekend is a big reunion of my group in Kigali, so about a week ago the emails started circulating about what media everyone has to lend and needs to return and wants to borrow. I'm bringing back Baking Cakes in Kigali, a nice easy read and cool story idea, but featuring a bit too much folksy African wisdom for me (offensive?), and the plays of Oscar Wilde, hilarious, fullstop. At the request of my friends, I've brought to lend out the entire British Office, Amartya Sen's Development as Freedom, and all my This American Life podcasts on CD. Finally, I am pretty keyed up about all the loot I'm borrowing: the entire first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Jane has ALL SEVEN SEASONS with her on DVD, so...!), Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park (the book!), Breakfast at Tiffany's (the movie!), and Lost in Translation, which I've been craving since I got here. It would be so easy to get any of these things at home, whenever I wanted, but here they feel like gleaming golden treasures and buoys in a potential sea of ennui.

In walks a guy I met at a party last night; he's from Germany but it turns out that he spent the last few months of 2009 researching at Berkeley, hanging out on the weekends in Dolores Park, a block above my apartment. And then we both flew thousands of miles to Rwanda and then finally we said hello. If you meet a fellow foreign aid worker/volunteer here in Kigali, it's not necessarily to get their email or phone number or even their name if you want to stay in touch or be friends; all you have to do is hang around at Bourbon for five minutes and they'll show up. We're all the usual suspects here; you could write a novel if you wanted about a bunch of people sitting out on this balcony and Bourbon and how varied their lives are and they're all really connected somehow and ain't life strange?!

Seriously, quick tale: On Thursday, I read an article from The New Times to my S5 students about a team of heart surgeons from Spokane, WA who had come to Kigali to perform sixteen open heart surgeries due to the lack of qualified doctors here. The next day, sitting here in Bourbon, two guys at the next table strike up a conversation with me and my friends, and I ask where they're from, and they say Spokane, WA. I ask them if they might happen to be heart surgeons, and they say yeah, they are. I tell them that I talked about them with my students for about half an hour the day before, and they're tickled pink. Coincidence? Rwanda.

When you run make sure you run to something and not away from cause lies don't need an aeroplane to chase you anywhere.

During a rare bout of gchat access, I found this old status, and felt like it should be blogortalized rather than lost to the sands of the internet (although I realize that now, with Google Buzz aka every thought you so much as brush up against is now broadcast to everyone you've ever emailed including your ex-boyfriend's mom, nothing is ever lost!):

Benny: i dont care where my progeny end up as long as they dont know where i am

Yessss.

oh hello little blog i didn't see you there

An interesting conversation with P and A today: Why does there seem to be absolutely zero rebellion or counter culture among this country's youth? Because they're focused, we concluded, on the goals they've been handed, on saving the country. Once they've worked hard their whole lives and saved the country, achieved their goals, perhaps their children will look at the saved country they live in and conclude that technology and upped GDP doesn't automatically equate to happiness, and they'll say fuck it. Perhaps, kind of like...us. Haha. Had we any choice in the matter? Have they? We like to think we do. They like to think they don't.

You're welcome, entire culture of the country I've lived in for precisely seven weeks. I will be speaking for you now.

I really should just stick to liking music, I'm alright at that:

What's been turning me all inside out, reminding me of my old home and making me comfortable in my new home, nightly: The Avett Brothers. Oh, oh, oh, would that I were in California: tour dates in Indio, Oakland, Santa Barbara, San Diego, Quincy.

I keep telling myself that it'll be fine
You can't make everybody happy all of the time...

The weight of lies will bring you down
And follow you to every town
Cause nothing happens here that doesn't happen there
When you run make sure you run
To something and not away from
Cause lies don't need an aeroplane to chase you down.

Well you send my life awhirling
Darling when you're twirling upon the floor
Well who cares about tomorrow?
What more is tomorrow than another day?

New house, new roommates, new music for them to ask me to turn down in the middle of the night.

la la la laaa

When I think back on the year and a half I spent here, I'll surely think about the shops in the Mission and the views from Alamo Square, and about the opera and needle exchange and of course the flatest of flats. But I count myself infinitely lucky that the first things I'll think of will be my FM and my JM. Through ups and downs, loves, likes, extreme dislikes, sickness and health, mountains of snow and mountains of granite, bound solidly together in hatred of the T and love of San Francisco and each other, even when I'm stretching their patience just a liiiitle bit thin.

Love her,

and him.

And this, forever and always, amen.

photo, typo, lame-o, weirdo, no-go, frio

Where's my botany photo of the day? I guess I'm not supposed to expect it till 4pm, and it's only 3:40pm now. But yesterday it came at 2pm. I have only been a proud member of the listserv for two days. It's like looking at another planet, but it's my own planet. I just got an email as I write this but it was something from Mike. I'm pleased to get an email from Mike but I wanted that BPOTD.

Have you all seen Ordinary People yet? It's really excellent, my favorite movie after Moonstruck, which I barely count as a movie because it's more of an experience or a frame of mind. Recently I've been accidentally typing words that start with "f" as "ph" words instead, then looking at them squinty eyed until it dawns on me that I made the f/ph switch again and I fix it. I feel like admitting this because Google Wave is the future so you'll all find out what a horrible typo-committer I am soon anyway.

I'm attempting to come up with a way to keep this necessarily cumbersome conversation fresh and light:

Me: So, uh, I just wanted to let you know that this Friday will actually be my last day, so you'll be dealing with my replacement from Monday onwards, and she's excellent, so no worries, but just wanted to give you a heads up to avoid confusion, so, uh...yeah.
Them: Oh my goodness! Where will you be after this, if I might ask?
Me: I'm moving to AFrica [I always say it like that for some reason - AF rica - and am starting to get sick of the sound of my own voice saying AFrica].
Them: Oh My Goodness! What will you be doing?
Me: I'll be teaching actually [always with the fucking actuallies]! So yeah, I'm really excited, but sad to be leaving here.
Them: Oh wow! Well it's been a real pleasure, and be sure to [insert borderline awful comment about avoiding sickness, being wary of the natives, protecting the local flora/fauna, or not coming back pregnant/shaming my parents here]. And keep in touch, ok? Because we want to hear about all your adventures.
Me: Yeah of course, I'll keep in touch for sure [untruth]. It's been a pleasure.
Them: Ok, well if I don't talk to you before Friday, good luck and keep in touch!
Me: Alright, uh, thanks for everything! Bye!

I know everyone means well and this is exactly what I would be saying if the roles were reversed, but I don't know how to bring these conversations back to the realm of reality. Until my dying breath I will detest the perfunctory, even as I prop it up.

M.F. walks by my cubicle all the time and rubbernecks. There is NOTHING going on in here. I'm just sitting typing away, and he peers through the entrance in childlike wonderment as if I were training a cubicle full of highly functional chimps to mix bar drinks or something. Every time he's out of sight, I shake my head involuntarily and laugh, and for some reason it makes me feel good, to know that he's out there, weird as hell, doing his thing. I do weird stuff too and I wonder who thinks I'm weird.

In an email thread amongst my fellow RW09 WorldTeachers today, someone finally acknowledged that mixed in with all the excitement we've been trumpeting into each others' ears recently, he's also feeling nervous and sad. I jumped all over it with seconds and hear hears, and was quickly followed by the rest of the group. Nice to know I'm not the only one who's feeling a bit overwhelmed at the thought of spending some significant time away from loved ones and loved cities. You know it's all your fault right? You know I love you guys too much to leave, right? No no away I go but know that you've made it damn difficult and that that's a great thing.

It's COLD y'all! So, so cold. I love it because it feels like we're in Tahoe all the time now. But being outside even a little is painful. Luckily the Diller Building can't afford heat so I'm pretty much used to it. How cold will it get before none of us are expected to come to work? For some reason, and I'm ignoring the presence of snow here, as it gets colder things seem to get whiter and whiter for me. So I'm imagining it getting ten degrees colder and the whole world gets about twice as white and bright as it seems now, and as it gets colder and colder things get whiter and whiter and eventually it's all so bright that we can't see anything anymore and we just wrap up pleasant under the blankets and wait for some heat to come along and melt some color back into things.

blog, dave, morning, mum, worst, eight

Almost time for this little blog to close its doors so I return to what I never left which is signing in when my head's buzzing with no clear thoughts and writing what pops up and being equal parts surprised embarrassed pleased that you all give a look in.

Dave walks in and we have a pleasant little exchange he and I. Last week! he says is it? I say and we laugh because god knows I have been looking at this day with the shiny hopeful eyes of the nearly baptized since early June. He gets it and I wonder if Dave knows that he's the only one in this building that kept me on good terms with human kind this year. I'll tell him that before I leave, I'll write it somewhere, because I twist the spoken word too tight.

We got up early this morning and had coffee before work; there was a good amount of time to sit and talk and enjoy the coldest morning I can think of in San Francisco. The ferry and its terminal are crisp white beautiful and the seagulls prance around like they own the place. Having a morning before work is novel and lovely. Feels more like life. Man oh man we can do what we want.

My mom today: "I don't want to sound like your mother, but...". What?

Phoning Mike on our respective UCSF phones is knock-down-drag-out my favorite thing to do at work. When that phone rings and I'm expecting 49755 and I see 53987 instead, my heart does a tiny dance in its own throat and I know I'm in for a treat. I love how the conversations can be about the most significant things going on amongst our circle of friends, or about how he CANNOT FATHOM how phones operate without switchboards anymore, or about me yakking on for three to four full minutes before I realize that he's gchatting with Lees and not listening to me. I love how a 20-minute conversation can end mid-sentence with 'gottagobye' and how invariably as I reach to return the receiver to its cradle I can still hear Mike ranting about friendship and decency and calling me THE WORST. You are! The best of the worst of the best JM.

I started this around 10am today and now it's 6pm. Eight hours is a working day. Four more of these left. Number 9, number 9, number 9.