Quote of the day:

"Did I hear Celine Dion at 4 in the morning? Was that you?"

My co-worker asks me this morning, confused as to how she could have woken up early in the AM to hear Celine seeping from somewhere in the Ituri Forest. Mmm... nope, wasn't me.

Sweet Dreams

Last night I had a dream about food. I have never had a dream about food in my life.

I was sampling frozen yogurt with a friend, and though he had already ordered and was eating his carrot cake and vanilla flavored swirl. Me? I was struggling. I could not choose between hops flavor (yeah, I know, right?) and another I can't recall. I ended up going for the carrot cake and vanilla swirl to avoid the panic of choice, but then the toppings... I went for vanilla wafer cookies, but regretted not getting fudge brownies though they would only go well with the vanilla. Apparently my logic works exactly the same in my dreams.

I headed for the table to meet my friend.

Then it switched to an image of a hot dog, not just any hot dog, but a big ball park dog getting all plump and black and blistery on the grill, just like I like them.

And then I woke up.

Needless to say, I was disappointed at the reality of my consciousness.  

Feminism in a Land where that's not a Word

I am one of the lucky generations of American girls turned women in a world where it was expected I go to college, I get a good job, I live a self-sustaining life of non-dependency on a man until I choose to partner with one and then when we make the decision together to have children, I would have maternity leave and flexibility in how and where to raise our children. It all seemed so natural.

My mother’s generation was close to it. 

My grandmother’s generation? 

Forget it. 

But - aside from singing along and throwing my hands up in the air with Destiny’s Child at the age of 16 - it wasn’t until university that I discovered that feminism was even really a thing. Perhaps this late blooming of my own ideas feminism was product of a sheltered upbringing, though more likely it was the lack of necessity. 

As an adult, I have spent my fair share of time in countries and cultures where being a female is a disadvantage at best. The vastly different take on gender roles and opportunities available to women in these areas has shifted my perspective of my place in the world as a woman and my posture in life relative to the women around me. 

I did not grow up cooking much, I have learned what I know of making meals from time spent sitting in kitchens with women in West Africa, India and Mexico. In many of the rural areas these places have to offer, if you don’t want to be the only female hanging out in the sitting room or in the office, you go to where the women are – in the kitchen. What an honour to be able to sit and laugh, head scarves off, restraint ebbed and free of social norms dictating every word and movement. 

All this background blabber brings me to my point – or, if I do not have a point, it brings me to the most recent social issue that has been churning in my mind and heart. As a young female base manager in a small village which has not seen many women with authority over men, where being told “you work like a man” is a high complement, were eight months ago I did not see any women wearing pants or driving motor bikes, etc... 

I stick out for more reasons than my skin and thickly accented French. 

In a balancing act between the extremes of enforcing my cultural ideals on people and making space for gender equality in our workplace I have slowly been feeling my way through the culture and how an independent woman such as myself can influence the community here in a positive way without being a home wrecker. 

You have already met Charlotte, but she is an easier case, being young, unmarried and from a family who valued education for all of their children regardless of gender (she is doing great by the way). Now lets take the mamans in the kitchen, for an example. Maman Suzanne just had a little baby a few months ago.When we were looking for her replacement for maternity leave, one of my (male) staff members made a comment, something to the tune of, “This is why it is not good to hire women, they get pregnant. Do you see the women in the kitchen? They are all pregnant. We should hire old women or young single girls only. It is not good to hire women.” 

I got to thinking about women’s rights more so than usual. Discriminating against hiring women because they have a fertile womb sucks. Not that is not perfect Stateside, but at least has been identified as an issue that needs addressing. Aside from the recent introduction of condoms (since Medair's arrival), there is no birth control available and of what is, usage is the man's choice. Then, what to do with the baby while she works? There is no baby formula available here, you cannot leave a young child in the care of anyone but their mother. So, now there is someone right outside the base who takes care of the baby until it cries then Suzanne goes out and feeds him.



Will Ango's next generation of girls see and feel a difference?
Will their rights and opportunities shift as I have seen mine shift from what my mother and her mother have known?






We are working around all our ideals and needs, which are far from compatible in the environment here. But you talk it out, you make it work, you see how it goes and readjust where necessary. 

Ango is a land where your ideals detach from your reason and float around as you watch them from all angles - sometimes with scrutiny, sometimes in awe and sometimes feeling just as detached from said ideal as it has become from the reason and logic you thought it was born from. 

How did I come to that particular ideal? 

When did I decided that was important? 

On what basis did I ground that
world view? 

What now?

I Feel it All

It is hot and needs to rain.When I asked the question if this was the beginning of dry season I was told "no", that this was in fact "the end of rainy season". So, that cleared that up.

The thing with Ango is it becomes so unbearably hot and then the sky relents and releases torrents of rain and wind flavored with thunder and lightning that keeps your eyes glued to the sky for hours on end. Though rainy season wreaks havoc on the roads here and you have to allow hours more for travel between point A and point B, it does keep you from going insane in the humid jungle heat and the monotony of soul penetrating sun which, I mist point out, is a far cry from the healing sun I always knew growing up in California. My California sun was welcoming and wrapped its arms around you. The sun here is menacing and you just do what you can to hide from it like a playground bully.

These are two different suns, without a doubt. 

What makes the sun feel even crueler is the 101F/38C fever I am running due to my immune system frantically trying to figure out what to do about my red blood cells exploding one by one. 

You go to bed feeling fine after an evening of bitching about life then laughing about it over whisky before calling it a night at 9:37 because you are all exhausted and can't believe it is only Wednesday. 

Then, you wake up at 2am with terrible stomach cramps and think again about the latest batch of homemade yogurt from powdered milk but fall back asleep... until 3am when you scramble for your headlamp and make your way in the chilly clear skyed night to the pit latrines. This pattern continues twice an hour until you have a headache and are so exhausted you just sleep in the paillot (mud hut half-way point between bed and bathroom) between the excitement. 

Around 5am Ellen is there, working. Our health projects are needing lots of report writing these days. Being the good nurse she is, she asks how I am in all sorts of other details that I will spare you.

Ellen: I'll get you some orals.

Me: I get Oreos!?!

By 11am I can't walk to the bathroom without needing to stop and rest, which is problematic considering the urgency of the situation. A rapid result malaria test says negative, but the way those work is that if it says you are positive, you are, but if it says you are negative, you might or might not be. 1pm we pricked another finger for the blood and got a clear positive result. I started on malaria meds that have just as exciting side effects as malaria itself has to offer.

I can feel each individual cell, I swear. They have all turned into tiny sandbags and I can barely move. I give up on Skyping because it is nearly impossible to lay next to my computer and exert the energy required to lift a hand and 4 fingers as typing requires one key being hit at a time and thoughts are less clearly conveyed when your hand just lays on the keyboard with the weight of a thousand sandbags. I fall asleep and wake up in the exact same position, because even my subconscious cannot move me in this state.

Woke up this morning after two heavy doses of meds feeling half way decent. Well, maybe not halfway, but I am sitting upright and typing with two hands and that is a major improvement. I even ate a piece of bread. Miraculous.


While I can no longer say I am the only one in Ango who has not gotten malaria since being here any longer, I am happy it didn't require a medevac like two of the other expats here or just straight up kill me like a lot of the population because they don't have access to the right meds. Malaria kills more people a year than AIDS. Not cool.

Of course I got to thinking of the sick people around Ango. So many of them ride with their sick family members on the back of their bikes for miles and miles to get medical treatment, often waiting till it is nearly too late because of what a hard journey it would be and the questionable treatment they could receive. Recently a story came through of a lady from Ango taking her sick husband on a bicycle to a health center that was 15km away. He died en route so she had to turn around and take his body back home to be buried. 


Its a tough life, no matter what way you look at it. 

Anyway, that's the news from Ango. 
I am never leaving my mosquito net again.

Safe and Sound

Nothing like a little random gunfire to remind you to get your saferoom in order...

Dafia

You really have to go into aid work knowing you may never be thanked, acknowledged or perhaps you will even disliked for your long hard days filled to the brim with ridiculous stress (and, by that, I also mean things that stress you out would be absolutely ridiculous and absurd in the “real world” back home). Why? Well, for more reasons than knowing giving without expectation of return. Mostly for reasons of sanity. 

Then, on Tuesday this week when we were settling in for our weekly coordination meeting, we were interrupted by a man bringing us three chickens, 6 eggs, a large sack of rice and a larger sack of peanuts along with a letter from the community of Dafia (15km from Ango) thanking Medair for the work we have done there. Later, we would all admit we were fighting tears the whole time. What an incredible gift, and that the community would all decide to give of what little they already had to thank us for the work we had done in their community. It was too much to take in, really. Photos were taken, words of gratitude exchanged and we dove back into coordinating more health centers, latrines, wells and the logistics that string it all together and make it happen. 

The next day, our maman’s prepared a meal for the whole team from the gifts we had been given, as it is really everyone’s work who has contributed to the projects there. I asked one of our base guards (kind of the lowest ranking position around) how his work had contributed to this gratitude of the community of Dafia. He sat a little straighter and with a smile on his face explained all of the links between the small projects he does around the base, the security provided, the checking of kilometers on motorbikes and Land Cruisers, loading cargo and other daily tasks were vital to the work that is done there. It was encouraging to hear his thoughts on this, because, as a base manager, I am rarely outside of my base. I see lots of emails, spreadsheets, meetings and cargo, but not often do I get to see the end product.

Yes, I know these 3 tones of medicines I am maneuvering into Ango will save thousands of lives and that these pipes I am counting for a stock report will keep people from getting some of the awful waterborne diseases available in and around Ango, but its not like I am there watching it happen daily, you know? So, hearing someone who is even more indirectly involved talk about all the ways his work helps people really touched me. How incredible to work for an organization where even the lowest man on the totem pole feels important and that his/her work is valued? 

So, thank you to you, people of Dafia.

Thank you for helping me regain perspective that gets lost in the paper trails all too often.

Why go into this work on a daily basis not expecting to be noticed?

Because when your work evokes the most earnest expressions of gratitude, it is awe inspiring and overwhelming joy and gratitude that floods your heart. 

Live Simpler

There is no such thing as a simple life. There never has been. Yes, there is a way to live with less complication, less technical things to break down and cause more bills. But simple? Not possible. It is nostalgia for our idea of what the past might have been our nostalgia for what has never actually been.

Jon Stewart proved this with one of his classic montages a few years ago – I am sure I posted it somewhere. 

So, I have a t-shirt with a whale on it soliciting readers of my chest to “live simply”. I like it, I wear it, I am pretty sure I want to live by it. But the thing is, the act of life and the nature of simplicity are mutually exclusive. People are complicated and even if you live the life of a recluse, you are still a people. 

I have long strove for the ideal of living simply and the closer I feel I get to it, the more complicated things become. This is not true only because I live in a remote village in the middle of Africa (really, look up Ango, DRC on the satellite view), but it was true even when I was living in an alleyway compartment or on a small sailboat, or a studio downtown, or my mom's house. I have managed to stay free of mortgage, car payments, blah, blah, blah, but I have never felt I did not have a complicated life. People are not simple and I live and work with people. I am a people. Not simple. You get the picture. 

I am pretty sure I am not the first to come to this realization. I am also pretty sure this is not the first time I have realized it - it is the first time I am admitting it to myself. Perhaps the answer is to just live more simply. 
There is always excess, even in the “simplest” of lives. 

Live simpler, there is beauty in complexity.