A tiny glimpse of Guangzhou life and food

A faithful blog reader asks what a typical day is like for us. We actually have a few different "typical" days here in the G-Z based on the particulars of our work schedule, but there are some common themes among them. 

Being part of an English teaching couple, a lot of our days at home -- that is to say, in our residence -- are actually indistinguishable from days at home-home in the U.S. (wherever that home-home may be). If Brian and I are hanging out in the apartment watching a movie, blogging, reading, or having a glass of wine, there is nothing particularly Chinese about the scene. Our apartment is in one of many, many indistinguishable apartment buildings found in Guangzhou and other cities: tall, grey or earth-toned, rows and rows of places to live. It's a one-bedroom (desk, wardrobe, nightstands) with a small living room (couch, glass coffee table, bookshelf, TV, cable, DVD player), dining area on the side (where we also have our shoe rack), small kitchen (fridge, microwave, stove, sink, tiny countertop, dish drainer) and small bathroom (dark blue tile floor, glass-doored shower, no bathtub). I'm reminded that I am in Asia by the washing machine on the balcony/laundry area whose buttons are still indecipherable and the rods on which we hang clothes to dry. Dryers: the ultimate electricity-devouring appliance that is definitely not standard in minimalist apartments around the world. 

It only now occurs to me that I should probably take pictures for this blog post. Oh well, a thousand words are worth a picture. We'll do a visual tour in some upcoming entry. 

Since we work in the evenings, we usually spend our weekday mornings at home. We make French press coffee and breakfast on fruit and/or bao zi, the latter of which are sold hot and fresh about a 2-minute walk from our building. I'm partial to the shu cai bao (vegetable dumpling) while Brian often gets pork. This is an incredibly cheap breakfast of champions -- 1 RMB per dumpling! That's like 16 cents. Yum!  We always get bao zi  when we head out to our weekly morning Mandarin language class or when we head to work at 10 a.m. on Saturdays and Sundays, too. 

I like to go on walks, listening to my mp3 player, and I haven't really found a good nearby running route yet. I've done a few runs to the river and back, which sounds nice, but isn't at all -- we are in the middle of urban crowded urban-ness, and the route to the river is a throng of cement, people, storefronts, traffic, hotels, taxis, parking lots, restaurants, you name it. I can go either by busy street or by the little canal/river off-shoot, which, again, sounds like it would be nice but is really just full of people walking and is more like a sidewalk. A crowded sidewalk. I spend most of the run, about 3/4 of a mile from here to the river, dodging people and cars. I should also add at this point that neither the river nor the canal smell nice -- the Pearl River is evidently quite polluted. Such a shame.  Brian usually works out on our all-purpose balcony, which is small, longer than it is wide, and sadly has a not-very-exciting view of the sides of tall grey buildings and a smattering of green plants and treetops.

We live right next to the subway station, at the corner of a very busy thoroughfare-like road and our less busy road from which you enter our place. Everything small is within walking distance: convenience stores, snacks, banks, the pirated-DVD selling man, Lenscrafters, 7-11, the bottled water place with which we have a contract for delivery -- you know, those big bottles you turn upside down into the water cooler, like in an office, and then they come back to trade out the empties for new full bottles. It's a little bit farther (one subway stop or a longer walk) to the big grocery stores, of which there are many in GZ, including several with imported goods (I totally found everything I needed for a Cinco de Mayo party for my students), but within a five-minute walk between here and the river is our local market, a crush of people and stalls and chaos where we can buy vegetables, meat, tofu, snacks, condiments, live chickens (no thank you), and plenty of other things for incredibly cheap. 

Within a 1/4-mile radius we probably have three dozen restaurants; we have tried a bunch and have a few favorites. Sometimes they have picture menus. A few have English printed on the menu, including our much loved northern cuisine restaurant right on the corner which has a giant menu we are working our way through. We dine out weekly or so at one of these nearby places. Our evening work schedule isn't really conducive to going out to dinner, so we often dine separately on our way to or home from our separate workplaces. We like to lunch at the delicious noodle places and other spots nearby, and Brian has been using his wok to cook up delicious lunches with vegetables, tofu, pork, fried rice, and his newly discovered favorite condiments. 

Every afternoon I spend time at my desk writing, checking in online, emailing, organizing my life, making lists of books to read, etc. From the desk I can gaze through the window at the less-than-thrilling view of the air conditioners and windows of the side of another wing of our building and the always gray sky. I do mean always gray. We see the sun for an hour or two about once or twice a week, but even then the sky isn't really blue. This is partly because of the seven-month rainy season and partly because of the ever-present pollution haze, as I understand it. 

We leave for work around 5 p.m., scattering in opposite directions on the subway. The Guangzhou subway is extremely crowded and although it is clean and convenient, the sheer mass of people who refuse to stand-to-the-right-walk-to-the-left on the escalators drives me batty. It's cheap, though! We have our transit cards and probably spend about $20-25 a month on commuting at most. 

On Saturdays and Sundays we leave for work in the morning and work a full 8-hour day. I almost always lunch at this place by my center called Long Lin which is kind of like a cafeteria -- you go down the line with your tray and just tell them which dishes you want (or in my case, you point). There are always at least a dozen options, and I almost always get a tofu dish (I've had five or six different ones there) and a vegetable or two, but I've also had fish -- even a whole fish once, just there on my plate -- and accidentally some unidentifiable things too that I had thought were chicken or beef but could be any animal, really, to hear the Guangdong province locals tell it -- they eat everything from turtles to what we would call house pets. It hurts my heart and brain. I have been trying to go completely back to vegetarian, and it's not too difficult to do so, but I tend to indulge in a meat dish when that is the path of least language-barrier turmoil. I also eat the occasional burger at the Western, expat-filled pubs we go to. I suck. Brian has an awesome lunch spot near his center, and we eat there together every week after our Wednesday Chinese class, which is also held at his center. It's a large food court in a huge, nice mall, but get those pictures of Sbarro's and Hot Dog on a Stick out of your head. This mall is full of Louis Vuitton and Dior and elegance, and they don't let people loiter around near the doors, and the food court is full of real, delicious food of all sorts: Flavors of Xi'an, Macao, spicy hotpot, vegetarian place, Japanese place, Vietnamese place, etc. 

We've been doing a bunch of traveling on our days off but there is also stuff around here to do. We like to go to Shamian Island, which is a tiny little island of city created by the river that was once a foreign concession and now has an interesting look and feel, architecturally and plant-wise. We enjoy our favorite Starbucks there -- it's in a really cute setting with great outdoor seating -- followed by a walk along the river and dinner. Yes, I openly go to Starbucks, often. There are eleventy gazillion of them in Guangzhou. I have also tried a few other coffee shops, and I drink tea, too, but coffee is just a part of my life and it's completely a part of the (urban) landscape here as well. On Wednesdays we go to trivia and dinner at The Tavern, a British-y pub with lots of western grub. Imported beer is much more plentiful here than in Korea, although it's still cheaper to drink Tsingtao or Harbin or Pearl River Brewery beer, but Chinese beer is leaps and bounds ahead of Korean beer, in my humble opinion. 

We're friendly with a bunch of our co-workers including a group of teachers who live in the same apartment building as us. We often join them for dinner or drinks or to see a band play live. I've been to a bunch of different bars and restaurants, which are everywhere, but there are definitely concentrations -- in Zhujiang New Town, the super-modern, all high-rise district where the Opera House, Guangdong Provinicial Museum, and two of our Western pubs are located; in Taojin, the foreigner-laden district with all kinds of nationalities and some sketchy people and several Indian restaurants among other cuisines; Tianhe, which is where Brian's center is and has a bunch more tall buildings, malls, modern things, cafes, bookstores; and the Party Pier, which is a new crop of restaurants and bars and clubs along the south side of the river, also within 10-15 minutes of our place by cab. And this really only scratches the Guangzhou surface! The subway stops running at 11-something, so we head home in a taxi for about $2-3 dollars from many of our nightspots. 

It rains at some point about six days out of every seven. 

I like to stop at the little Uighur-bread stand near my work, when I get off early enough and they are still there, or sometimes I'll get bread before work. The Uighur culture is from the far west Xinjiang province of China, bordering Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, and in multiple places you can find Uighur Muslims here in GZ selling the round bread baked in their oven right there on the sidewalk and kebabs that they grill up right there as well. There are other late-night street food options to be had, too. You cannot go hungry in Guangzhou and you will not run out of new places and delicious foods to try. We also have a favorite Uighur restaurant, in the Tianhe district, one subway stop away. 

I'll stop jabbering for now and maybe even go take some photos to illustrate all of these things I've been babbling about. And I will talk about our work and students and job environment in a future post! 

One Year After the Mountains

One year ago was my first day back from my Tajikistan odyssey. It was a fabulous bit of travel because it also involved stops in Ireland and London as well as a couple wonderful days in Istanbul. It was a great Habitat build because the people in the Tajikistan office affiliate are awesome, and the location was so interesting. It was definitely good for me - as it would be for anyone - to connect with people in a village so far off one's beaten path, so different in life experiences and yet so similarly willing to sing goofy songs after the lunchtime bowl of plov has been devoured.

It was also interesting because on that trip I came across many people who were also travelers, wanderers, thinkers...and the wanderlust became a theme of the trip, specifically, that one must cast away whatever is tying one down. I found myself repeatedly involved in different conversations with different people in different countries about how I should just go, go, go. At the time I was feeling "stuck" in Chicago, even though I loved my new city of Chicago, and I had some discontent churning around the back burner of my brain. I marveled throughout my Tajikistan odyssey at how well-placed people kept cropping up to say things to inspire me to go back out globetrotting, from random Bosphorus acquaintances to the fellow Habitat builders.

I have found it difficult to describe the experience in Garm - it was such a far away village in misty mountains that lay in front of bigger mountains, and when you peeked past those you glimpsed the peaks of a lifetime. I will never forget first spotting those 6,000+-meter high crags when I got high enough on the hill outside of "downtown" Garm. I will never forget seeing those same jagged snow-capped points from the air, a group of them covering miles and miles and miles.

As it happens, today was a strange day in Korea, for a variety of reasons, for us personally. So it was a day that gave my brain a lot to contemplate all around.

Tajikistan made me feel full of good things, and made me think things are worthwhile. Also? I was pretty terrible at hurling mud at walls to reinforce them. But we all have different skills in life, I suppose.

Thanksgiving Week Thankfulness #2

Today I am thankful for airplanes. I didn't mean to make this so technological invention heavy; tomorrow I'll do one about people. But I am really, really thankful for airplanes. Every time I fly I sit in quiet, grateful awe that I can get to any country in the world in one day. It's ridiculous. The airline passengers around me and their complaints and stress are so unfounded, and so unfortunate. I wish they would "stow it" as Mel would say. If they are unhappy about their security checks, their airfare, their leg room, their stupid carry-on bags, their precious few minutes of delay sitting at the gate, and so forth, why don't they just go to the bus station? Seriously. Get over yourselves, folks. You can go ANYWHERE. Fast. It's a miracle, and you should be thankful for it, too.

This year, in May, I was able to realize my goal of traveling to Tajikistan with Habitat for Humanity. Tajikistan! If I had attempted to travel there from Chicago in May 1910, I might still be on my way back in November. If I had set out in May of 1810, or 1710, I might still be on my way *there* in November. I owe my world travel to airplanes. I think about this all the time. I think about the Mark Twains and the Thomas Jeffersons and the Marco Polos and the marauding forces of the Roman Empire who had to invest far more effort and time than I do to travel the world.

I am completely, totally, enthusiastically thankful for airplanes.

Baggage, Lost

soundtrack to this entry: Indigo Girls, Rarities

Since returning from my Habitat trip I have had two dreams that I was back in Tajikistan trying to leave, but finding it logistically difficult or close to impossible. I'm sure the psychological symbolism of that sounds pretty straightforward. On the other hand, I suspect it's not as much about Tajikistan per se as it is about my wanting to be internationally traveling and doing volunteer and other humanitarian work right now.

In the first dream a few days ago, I was packing my suitcases (yes, plural! so not real life) in my hotel room (also much bigger than in real life) when Ezra, the team leader, showed up with the entire rest of the team, ready to depart for the airport. I had said that I would be ready at 2 o'clock, but it was 2:01 and I was still trying to pack. I promised them I'd be only a few more minutes, so they sat down to wait. I kept trying to hurriedly pack, but I kept finding more and more belongings of mine in the hotel room. I would open the closet and find an entire row of shoes I didn't know were there, etc. As ten minutes went by, then twenty, I was so nervous and the suitcases were full and there was still SO much stuff to pack, and Ezra and everyone were really mad at me. I kept promising them "Just one more minute! Just thirty more seconds!" Then, my sister and an old friend from teenage years through the present day appeared, and I tried to get them to help me by taking some of my stuff and packing it in their bags to take home.

In last night's dream, I was trying to get out of the Dushanbe airport. It was kind of like the real life Dushanbe airport in that it had bizarre layers of security checks by various random workers but it was also bigger, and it was daylight (as opposed to the middle of the night, which is mainly when we hung out at that airport in real life), and after getting my boarding pass torn at the gate, I went back into the airport to do some last thing I wanted to do. Then, I lost my boarding pass stub and was trying to convince them I really had been validated to go on the plane, because now I didn't have time to go through all the shenanigans again.

"If I stay here just a little bit longer,
if I stay here won't you listen to my heart?"

Like I said, I think Tajikistan is a readily available symbol right now. In the second dream, I think the telling part is that the official powers-that-be, if you will, had approved my departure but I was chaotically holding myself back. In the first dream, I think the main point is that everyone else was ready to go and I wasn't, because of all these things from my home life preventing me from just going. I even tried to get some people from back home to just take the things off my hands temporarily by taking responsibility for them, but I couldn't just leave them behind.

I may not have yet made clear on this blog how much the personal theme of my trip became the desire to keep seeing the world right now. It started on my Bosphorus ferry cruise in Istanbul. I happened to meet some bad-ass traveling Texans and I chatted with them for a long time about it. These two fifty-something men had seen a lot of the world and were seeing more of it, departing from Istanbul to drive through Turkey next, then go to Lebanon and Syria, that kind of thing).

"I thank the lord for the people that I have found..."

We got to talking about why I am not still out there right now, since I'm young, unencumbered, and the like. I had no answers. All I could say is that Brian and I signed a lease in Chicago. Chicago because...? It was the nearest major/walkable city to Michigan, and cheaper than New York. And I am working there...? Actually, freelancing, work I can literally do from anywhere with an internet connection. And Brian is working as...? Nope. So we don't go because...? Um - because Brian doesn't want to? It's hard to even say those words out loud. It's hard to type them out loud, too.

"Drink from that wishing well but it may never quench your thirst..."

Later in the week, in Tajikistan, I talked extensively about this with two new Habitat friends. The three of us had a moment in time where we clicked, and we had late evening chats over a few beers, discussing life and travels. I became friendly with them separately, and they two were close friends separate from me, but at that life moment I was just really tapped into their thoughts on this matter and we all understood one another. Even if I never see those two again, which after all is somewhat likely, they will have contributed something to me just by those couple nights of conversation.

"For a moment, stand real still and you'll feel me movin' on
You go ahead with your plans, you won't be seeing me again,
But you'll feel me in the hand, the hand that holds the plow.
Let me go easy..."

I mentioned to them my conversation with the Texan-traveler-friends met in Istanbul, who had asked me why didn't I just go, then, out into the world, and for whom I had no good answer. I talked about how I lived with Brian and despite my (best?) efforts I have been unable to convince him that we should just go to Japan and teach English for a year and see where the world takes us. I do have sympathy for Brian's position: I remember how it was before I went to Korea, when going to live in Asia seemed like an impossibly big deal, and when it seemed like all the ducks had to be in a row (financially and otherwise) before I could possibly leave the country. But that's simply not true, and the only way you really learn that is by just doing it (as Nike would say - we totally learned about the Roman-god-origins of the swoosh in Istanbul, by the way). I suppose it was inevitable that in these conversations with fellow travelers, as many things were discussed, that someone would gently suggest that one cannot continue to cling to everything and everyone at home forever without disappointing oneself. I suppose I was in some way looking for someone to suggest that.

"For all that we've been through, for all that we've promised,
your wayward direction seems insensible..."

When I came back to Chicago, one of the first items on my re-entry agenda was to watch the next-to-last episode and the series finale episode of Lost, which I had missed while I was halfway around the world. I really enjoyed watching the finale with Brian. A lot of Lost fans didn't love it, but it was perfect for where my head was at. I was really moved by the idea of the Losties creating a space where they could all find one another. Also, I loved how important love was. After the episode ended, Brian and I just lay there in silence processing it for probably fifteen minutes. People in that show are totally torn apart by their lives, their loves, and their journeys, but these things that are most important to them are always going to be with them, and always going to be found, not lost.

"When we get back to Winthrop, a few miles from the airport,
on a plastic chair on a deck where my friends live,
I watch the taking off airplanes, I watch the ocean waves crashing,
I know with all of this movement, something's got to give."

Brian and I had a bunch of plans in place for the week of my re-entry. Sadly, our plans to watch the Suns beat the Lakers didn't pan out, but other gatherings with friends and family did. We went to the housewarming at our friends' new condo. After midnight, when my fatigue was turning me into a pumpkin, I suddenly felt rather detached from the group of friends as we tried to have a sing-along to someone's iPod. Why wasn't I in Central Asia anymore, I suddenly asked myself?

On my flight home from London to Chicago, on which I joyously had a two-seat patch to myself, I had pondered all of these things: plans, travels, life, love, journeys, destinations, and going one's way in the world. I mentally committed to working my way through my Lonely Planet Chicago and "traveling" and discovering my new and still-very-new-to-me city before becoming entirely restless to live somewhere else just yet. I can live with that, until I worry that I am wasting time.

"We talk about time, we talk about tides
under the moon with the deep night coffee black
I hear the dim roar of the last flight out
and for someone there is someone never coming back."

Just picture it

"A double negative? You mean you have photographs?!" -- Clue

I think it's funny that before I left for Tajikistan so many people said things like "Take lots of pictures!" and now that I'm back, there is much clamoring to see more more more photos.

Allow me to explain. Nilay might think this is about him, as he just recently commented on Facebook that I "need" to post more pictures, but actually I was already thinking about this yesterday. Ezra and Kelly could think some of my thoughts are directed toward them, since I actually commented aloud to them while we were there how I just don't even exist on the same plane as them vis-a-vis the taking of photographs, but this isn't about them either. This is more of a philosophical pondering, if you will.

I mean, I can enjoy looking at pictures as much as the next gal, especially when I need to procrastinate working. I of course agreed with my fellow Habitat Tajikistan volunteers that we'd all share our trip pictures. I am definitely eager to see the pictures people took of the trip of which I was a part, and I am usually at least mildly interested in seeing pictures of trips of which I was not a part. Even if I did find Betty White highly amusing during the Facebook portion of her SNL monologue when she said they used to consider it punishment to have to sit through other people's vacation pictures.

My point is, there's something interesting to me about the way people say it. First of all, sometimes they say, "Don't forget to take lots of pictures!" That amuses me. Does anyone really forget? I sometimes can't be bothered to take pictures, but it's not as if I have somehow forgotten that the option is available. Also, I detect just the slightest hint of entitlement in there to see the pictures. And that's kind of funny, because it's not as if I really owe you anything. I mean, at the end of the day, maybe if you want to see Tajikistan, then you should get yourself on a plane to Tajikistan. No?

But the thing I find super philosophically interesting about it is how people clamor for me to "hurry and post more pictures" when maybe I am perfectly content representing my trip to you in other ways. To wit, this blog. I have proudly declared on more than one occasion that "a thousand words are worth a picture." I was famously the last among my friends to care about whether my cell phone was a camera phone and I'm still planning to be the last to own a digital camera (for now, I usually just use Brian's). I remember a month or so into my time in Korea when I was prolifically blogging all sorts of stories and juicy details and someone back home was like, "But when are you going to post pictures on your blog?"

What if it's "never" - are my travels any less real to you somehow? Maybe I should be offended. Maybe I think less of you if you don't like to read about a trip and you only want visuals.

The fact that I am philosophically amused by this is probably all the more amusing (and philosophical) since my Tajikistan trip was led by a professional photographer. Like for real - his full-time job is as a staff photographer for Habitat for Humanity. So, I was absolutely in the presence of great pictures being taken for much of the time we were there. I totally appreciate that there are talented people out there who take wondrous photographs. I am impressed. But in spite of that -- or perhaps especially because of that -- why the assumption that everyone else should take photographs too? Is it like food? There are great chefs, but the rest of us inevitably have to cook at least a little bit, at least sometimes. Food is just a tad higher on the whole hierarchy of human needs, if I'm not mistaken. I mean, every educated person is expected to be literate enough to write competently, but of course some of us write better than others. I probably wouldn't want to read everyone's written accounts of their travels. But why expect everyone to take photographs?

It's interesting to ponder. If I told people leaving on a trip, "Don't forget to blog about it!" they would look at me quizzically. Especially the ones who don't have blogs. But why is that any more bizarre of a request, really? Maybe I will start saying that to everyone. "Bon voyage! Blog lots!" Then if someone says they don't have a blog I'll be like, "Why not? Blogs are free. Cameras cost money."

I think the real heart of the issue is that despite all of our photo albums, and blogs, and travel narratives sections in bookstores, and the Travel Channel, and the public radio travel show where I myself used to work, and all the Rudy Maxas and Anthony Bourdains out there, despite all of those things it's kind of a self-deception, isn't it, when we look at our friends' pictures of OR when we read their words about Rome, or Machu Picchu, or the Himalaya? It's like denial. We're either telling ourselves that we will get there someday (that's what I tell myself), or we're telling ourselves we're fine if we never get to see those places in person (and that notion is completely antithetical to my being).

I really never thought about it much until this trip. I think the last place I went that intrigued people this much was Cuba, and maybe that's part of it. But for whatever reason, I am totally amused, and I remain totally blase about and thoroughly uncommitted to "taking lots of pictures!"

And, of course, I now have Indigo Girls' "Dead Man's Hill" stuck in my head:

"Don't you write it down
Remember this in your head
Don't take a picture
Remember this in your heart
Don't leave a message
When everything falls apart
Talk to me face to face..."

Swampy Things

Today I was reading a travel newsletter feature about packing light. It was all about how to go on vacation with only a 16x14x12-inch bag. One of the suggestions was to do a load of laundry while traveling. Obviously this is not new to many of us, but what was funny was their comment on it:

"If you don't have access to water to wash your clothes, you're likely not the kind of traveler that's concerned with having a new outfit for every hour of the day."

I love it! One of the things we talked about a lot on our Tajikistan trip was that to some extent the group of people who would go to Tajikistan in the first place were a self-selected group, already clearly up for at least some degree of adventure. We really did not have to "rough it" that much at all. Our hotel in Garm, though small, did have running water. All of the rooms on the first floor had individual bathrooms; the higher floors have to share bathrooms. This was clearly not a Hilton, or a Holiday Inn, but I for one enjoyed my patio (slab), view of the mountains, and television which got three Tajik channels - two of which showed the same thing, but with different amounts of static.

We even had laundry service. They did a plastic Target bag's worth for ten somonis -- which was around $2.25. The only problem was this whole concept of drying.

When we gave them our dirty clothes we wondered, just curious, how long before we would get them back? "It depends," was the cheerful reply, "on the weather." A-ha! If it's sunny, they'll be back sooner. Well, it was sunny the next day, but when the clothes came back I would not exactly call them dry. More like, let's say, not wet.

It wasn't just the returned laundry though! Other clothes had a way of becoming slightly damp in our little mountain town hotel room, too. I never did figure out if it was better to leave the clothes zipped in my duffel bag or take them out to hang them. Everything in that room was just kind of damp after a while. No big deal.

The bathroom, though, was a slightly bigger deal. Around day three I started calling it "the swamp." The floor just would not dry! We had a kind of small square shower, built in the corner of the bathroom, and there was a rag on the floor that acted as the mat, but it was soaked when we arrived and never did dry during our stay. My roommate bought another towel at the open-air market next to the hotel, which meant that after that we had two soaking wet towel mats. Hang them up, lay them flat, no matter. Also, even though I wiped the tile floor after every shower, it just kept a constant layer of wetness. I suppose all three fixtures in there - shower faucet, sink, and toilet tank - may have leaked. I think it was just part of the swamp ambiance. It did start to get a little gross. By the fourth day I was rolling up my jeans before I went into the bathroom. My roommate was so jealous that I had stolen the free slipper slabs from our hotel in Istanbul! Without those (or flip-flops) one had to wade in a serious layer of wetness just to get in and out of there.

On our last night I started having a little countdown with myself. The last morning when I woke up, my first thought was, "I only have to use that bathroom two more times ever!" Or, you know, until my next trip to the Rasht Valley? After breakfast at our very favorite 'teahouse' down the street and loading the van, I entered and exited my swamp bathroom for the last time. The shower curtain and its rod fell on my head that day, totally unprovoked by me. On my way out of the hotel room the final time, the key got stuck in the lock. Despite the finest efforts of several Habitatters, we had to summon the hotel man who also couldn't jiggle it free. It was like one big-self-destructing hotel room we left in our wake. Luckily we made it out alive. But watch out for Swamp Bathroom II: Return to Garm's Way.

"Let no one shirk..."

I realize that I haven't talked much yet about the house-building in Tajikistan. There was so much more to the Habitat trip than the house-building of course, which is part of the point. For example, the man of the house where we worked? Could do the work of five of us, in less time. Maybe with one of his hands tied behind his back.

We were in the village of Shulonak in the Rasht valley, twenty minutes or so drive down the road from the Garm city center. (Don't forget that when I say "city" center I'm just teasing you a little bit. Besides the center, there ain't much city. I'll get the Garm pictures up here any day now so you can have a look.) This being a super-mountainous country, it's prone to earthquakes and has had some that damaged a lot of homes. It also happens to be a place where the mulberry trees grow plentifully. And just like that, Habitat is working with families to restore damaged homes, rebuilding the mud walls and reinforcing them with mulberry.

Tying the mulberry into reinforcing grids was my favorite job - because it was easier, I confess, than the other choices. The other choices required a whole lot of arm muscle and a whole lot of mud. I pitifully lacked the former, but was rather quickly plunged into the latter.

I spent the entire first day and half of the next day flinging mud at the wall frame of a house. This is not as easy as it sounds. You have to pick up very large clumps of heavy mud. You have to fling them - hard - with one arm. The mud sticks with a kind of spreading splotch, you hope. Sometimes it falls. Falling is not so good. It takes a while to get the hang of throwing the mud. After you throw the mud for a while, you start to empathize with baseball pitchers. If you're right-handed, like me, you feel it not just in your right upper arm but also in your left hamstring. You try to keep your form good so you don't also feel it too much in your back.

By the middle of day two, I pointed out that major league pitchers are usually given rest and not asked to pitch two days in a row. I was seriously in need of a bullpen.

But like I said, our homeowner shepherd, who was not out tending his flock because he was working with us on rebuilding and reinforcing the walls (his brother was substituting as the flock tender, we were told), was so much stronger than us it was kind of pitiful. He could cover a ten-square-foot area of wall in the time it took us to do two square feet, I swear. The first day he would watch for a bit, then step in to demonstrate his technique when he just couldn't take it anymore. Then he would go outside to put the mud-mixing crew to shame. I also tried my hand at that mixing job, the next day. Bad idea - that took even more muscle! I need to do some serious pull-ups before my next Habitat trip.

The homeowner's niece, who also lives around there with the family in the next house up the hill, was around a lot. She's about 18, and she brought us bread for lunch and helped watch the two small boys, and just generally hung around sometimes. On the first day, after a morning of building curiosity, she finally came up and started talking to me. Of course, she spoke in Tajik. I didn't have a flying clue what she was saying except I caught "Tojiki" (Tajik) and knew she referred to the mud and walls at some point. Mind you, I was working in a mud-splattered t-shirt and jeans, goggles, a backwards cap perched on my head, and sopping wet muddy gloves. I kind of looked like an alien, or possibly like someone fighting aliens in a terrible movie. After I summoned our translator, I learned that she was asking, "Why are you [a female] doing such dirty work?" Good question, sister friend.

Over the next few days we got to be pretty friendly with the family. By the third day, we were teaching our homeowner and some others to sing "Head, Shoulder, Knees and Toes." Not a particularly brilliant choice, but one that we all knew and it did have some English vocabulary-learning potential. He totally dug it. He requested it from us many more times that day and the next day. We even performed it for his wife and for the grandma patriarch of the family at some point. I also took my turn performing some classic Tajik song they taught me line by line. I bet I sounded like a total idiot. It was awesome.

The two young boys were adorable. They hung around a lot too, usually being cute, occasionally causing some trouble. The two-year-old wandered off at one point, making it all the way to the village school before niece went to retrieve him. The four-year-old schooled us all in donkey-riding. He also climbed the dirt mountain that awaited mud mixing, and then he began throwing big dirt clots around. Inspired, I grabbed one of the mulberry sticks and motioned for him to throw the clot my way. When I made contact, his face lit up and we had a new favorite game. I hope he gets to play baseball someday! He was totally into it. Maybe he should have been inside throwing mud with us, too.

So while this Habitat trip, much like my first Global Village build, totally reminded me how little upper body strength I have, it also reminded me that when it comes to traveling and exchanging interactions with people, there is always some "work" that any of us can do, despite our weaknesses.

Slippery Slopes

We spent a lot of time on the road from Dushanbe to Garm. The road back from Garm to Dushanbe took far less time. It always happens that way.

The time we spent on the road was epic. We were a dozen Habitat volunteers, plus our three new Tajik friends: the local affiliate coordinator of our trip, another translator, and our hilarious driver. I'm rather glad our driver has a sense of humor, now that I've seen the road. Even though I went in fully expecting a treacherous mountain and dangerous curves, I was blown away by some of the stretches of this particular dirt road, or should I say mud road.

With much hilarity, we bounced and jolted along, the four of us who sat across the back seat of the van clinging and bouncing and laughing as each hairpin brought us to yet another perilous perch. What could you do but gaze at the muddy river below, trying to guess how deep it was, and trying to estimate how good your chances were of swimming out of it once the van inevitably crash landed there?

Then after a couple of hours, with the promise that a couple more hours remained, we came to a grinding halt. A mudslide had blocked the road ahead, and we pulled up alongside the line of cars waiting for it to be cleared. Of course, being totally foreign and not understanding the language, we didn't know at first what was happening. Most of us disembarked from the van, joining the other passengers from other vehicles who stood around gazing at the blocked road. Men were the majority of the chatting crowd, but our group had more women, so we added a little gender diversity to the mix, not that anyone really told us what was going on. The stares were somewhat friendly, though.

Eventually we learned that "a machine" was coming to clear the blocked road. When? Who knew? Visions of staying the night on this mountain pass danced through my head. We all had snacks in our backpacks and layers to wear, but try as I might, I couldn't really come up with a way for fifteen of us to sleep in that van, unless we just sat in our seats taking airplane naps.

Lo and behold, while some team members found a friendly hillside resident who allowed the use of his bathroom, language barrier negotiations and all, the promised machine arrived and our path was cleared. Of course, we still had kilometers to go before we could sleep.

After winding our way along this highway, the rushing muddy currents below us, I had a much better understanding of the village in Three Cups of Tea that told Greg Mortenson, "No, for reals, a school would be awesome, but we actually totally need a bridge first. Then a school."

Mud continued to be a theme of our trip, but later on it would be us doing the slinging, in more ways than one. Stay tuned for those tales of dirty deeds and heartbreak.

Rhymes with folio

So there we were in the Istanbul airport, having finished a delicious Burger King dinner (OK, so the sandwich choices were really limited, don't hate), ready to proceed to the gate for our departure to Dushanbe. I had been talking about Starbucks a lot, fully aware that I would not encounter much iced coffee while in Tajikistan, so I went to purchase a final grande iced latte while other group members went variously to smoke, powder their noses, or proceed to the gate.

In the Istanbul airport, you pass through one security checkpoint and passport control to get into the international departures area, and we had already gone through all that, but then you have to go through another individual gate checkpoint. I hurried to this final line, then stood there waiting, breathlessly enjoying my iced coffee and chatting amicably with some random United Statesian guys I found behind me who were off to visit their expat buddy in Tajikistan.

As I got to the conveyor belt, my stream of happy chatter was suddenly interrupted by a tall man in a very official-looking orange vest who declared to each passenger, "We have had some polio problem in Tajikistan. You may have an oral vaccine before you get on the plane. Now you will declare whether you want the vaccine, yes or no."

I'm sorry - what? Polio? Polio? The man's English was pretty good, but didn't we long since eradicate that shit? The answer, for your information, is no. It remains endemic in four countries: India, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. That last one there is apparently to blame for spreading a little virus over the border into southern Tajikistan (well, and the obvious problem of poverty and many, many children not having vaccinations, apparently). People from a lot of nations were going to be on this flight. The vaccine was undoubtedly needed by few to none of us.

But these sorts of rational facts were not at all what was going through my head at this gate checkpoint, while the man in the orange vest (Tajik? Turkish? World Health? U.N.?) looked me in the eye waiting for my answer. Instead what was going through me head was, still, "Polio?!"

The next thing that went through my head was, quite simply, "I don't know!" Did I need a vaccine? When did I have a polio vaccine? Are they good for life? Are you sure we haven't eradicated this? Growing up in the U.S., one thinks very little about polio, unless one is admiring FDR's triumphant life. Wait, was it eradicated during out parents' generation? Did I even have a polio vaccine? OK, now I was starting to get paranoid.

The United Statesians behind me were no help. One was a military brat who grew up everywhere and has been vaccinated for everything many times over. In front of me were a few African businessmen (I later learned they were a few of the many passengers traveling to Dushanbe as delegates to some Islamic nations conference) who were highly amused by me as I peppered Orange Vest Official with questions: "Well, do I need it? Did I get sufficiently vaccinated in the U.S. as a child? How long does it last? What if I say no, can I change mind?"

"You will now declare to me 'yes' or 'no,'" he repeated.

Oh my. My group leader and U.S. cohorts had long since passed through to the gate seating area, while I was off getting this beloved iced coffee drink. Had they said they'd take the vaccine? I finally told the man yes, then barely noticed my bag going along the conveyor belt as I rushed through found them all in gate area seats.

"Um, I'm sorry, polio?! What's happening?" I said. I was met with blank looks. "Polio...vaccine...the orange vest man..." Nope, nothing. Obviously, the man had not talked to those who reached the gate early and had only just started to ask individual passengers. So now, my fellow Habitatters also thought I was crazy, along with Orange Vest Official and the random Africans. A funny thing happens once the paranoid thoughts start flying (and when I have just slammed a grande espresso drink in, like, ten minutes): I need a very specific, very strong reassurance to come back down. I got none of that. Instead I got a lot of, "Oh, you're probably fine."

Probably fine? This is polio we're talking about! Sure, I had been cavalier about the CDC-recommended typhoid vaccine (i.e., I didn't get it), but polio? The very word is scary. Earlier that day I had said something about "NPR" and one of the peeps thought I had said "FDR." Was that a sign?

Finally, I did what I had been resisting doing since leaving the U.S. I turned on my cell phone and called my mother, at $2.80 per minute, to demand information about my polio vaccines(s). Mind you, I wanted to keep the phone call to a few dollars, so I basically said, "I'm going to make this very brief and then hang up but have I been vaccinated for polio? Are you sure? When? You're sure it was polio, right? Does it last forever? OK, gotta get on a plane to Tajikistan. Bye!" Mom must have loved that one. Would it take her mind off the fact that Tajikistan borders Afghanistan?

Finally, my group members' indifference convinced me I didn't need it, so I began to worry that as we boarded, they wouldn't let me change my mind and would force it upon me anyway. That wasn't a problem, but then - then! - after we passed through Orange Vested Vaccine Distributing Women who was kicking it in front of the jetway with gloved hands and a little cooler full of oral vaccine, I see that another group member, the feisty and fabulous Jane, took the vaccine! Aargh! I asked her if she hadn't already had one? "Sure," she replied, "I re-upped!" This unleashed a new round of paranoia, although I drew further reassurance from a Persian(?) woman who had become involved with my dilemma at our seats. She was on the whole more interested in consoling me than my teammates were, I have to say.

On the plane, I totally had to take myself down a notch. I rather enjoyed the flight, a wide-bodied Turkish Airlines jet with meal, snack, individual screens, movie choices, games, free socks and blindfold, and so on. We arrived in Dushanbe around 2:30 a.m., and as we waited to pass through immigration, we chatted it up with a British woman who works for the WHO and was in Dushanbe for a conference! Oh, she would have all the answers! Should I have got the vaccine? Sure, she said. Crap!

She also went on to tell us a few more things about it. She had heard about the polio outbreak before leaving England, from a colleague, so she got her "polio jab" as she put it before leaving home. It's basically spread through contaminated water, the outbreak in Dushanbe had mainly affected children (240 of them at that time; I've since seen numbers above 500), and we would probably be fine because we were off to a rural village in the other direction, safely away from the outbreak in the city.

Yikes. You could not get me out of Dushanbe fast enough after all that! (By the time we returned after the build, I was much more appreciative of Dushanbe, and I love it, polio notwithstanding). It was a bizarre experience made all the more unsettling for myself by my penchant for dramatic flailing in the face of decision-making. My mother, kindly, e-mailed me with a list of my polio vaccination and booster dates, which she looked up after my hurried phone call. In the future, like when I eventually finally go to India someday, maybe I'll get an adult booster.

On the return flight to Istanbul, while we stood waiting to de-plane, a flight attendant made an announcement in Turkish: "something-something-Turkish-something-something-polio vaccine-something-something." I caught a fellow team member's eye and just laughed. Good ol' polio vaccine at the gate. This time I walked past the woman and calmly said, "No thanks."

Seriously, polio!

I Went to the Mountains

I am back from Tajikistan, with so much to say! Not the least of which is how amusing it was to watch the slightly bored U.S. Customs and Border people at O'Hare go through the motions of blah-blah, young woman, flight from Europe, countries visited...oh, Tajikistan? They didn't really subject me to much other than an extra question or two about how many days I spent there. I guess a little Habitat trip wasn't enough to raise any flags, polio outbreaks notwithstanding (more on that later).

Well, I can honestly say that hands down the most amazing part of my trip was catching a glimpse of the many-thousand-meters peaks you can see in this picture, way off in the distance, at the same height as the clouds. In an instant, I had a better understanding of what my boy Jon Krakauer and Three Cups of Tea's Greg Mortenson had described so well. What you see above is the view from a little hillside a few minutes walk from "downtown" Garm (Garm itself being approximately the size of a postage stamp). One morning before going to work on our house building/restoring, three other team members and I rose at 5:45 a.m. to stroll up the hill. We had a beautiful view of the town after only a few minutes of walking up, but after half an hour or so I was high enough to see the mountains behind the mountains behind the mountains.

Garm is surrounded by the green foothills, behind which we could see mountains with snow on them, mixed with brown mountainside peeking through the patches of snow. We had called these green foothills and brown-with-snow mountains very beautiful, but were still told we were seeing only the little mountains. It was hard to imagine that, until I found myself standing alone on a boulder on a grassy, muddy hillside; I turned around and caught my first glimpse of craggy, entirely snow covered peaks. Peaks that are best friends with mountains like Everest. Peaks that disappeared into the clouds as I stood there staring at them. Peaks that changed me.

You can just make them out in this cell phone photo, so I understand if you don't have quite the revelatory experience I had on the mountainside. All I can say is that it is worth any cost to get yourself to the Himalaya, Pamir, or these suburbs of the Pamir. One glimpse made all my effort to travel to Tajikistan entirely worth it.

Stay tuned for more stories. Next up: we have nothing to fear but polio itself!

The Road Less Planned

So, I like to be spontaneous. We knew this. But tonight I realized it in a different way. You may remember that I am leaving soon for Tajikistan. Really soon! Gulp! There have been so many details to hammer into place (get it? Habitat for Humanity trip, hammer, get it?) for this excursion that I have really just had no time to do anything like actually get excited, because every day there is something else - a flight to book, a flight that doesn't get booked, a credit card problem, a hefty visa application fee, a requirement here, a requirement there, the fundraising, the eternal fundraising, the supplies, etc. etc. Not to mention trying to pick up a few words in not one, not two, but three languages. (Tajik, Russian, and Turkish, for our days in Istanbul on the way to and fro. Thank goodness my flight layovers are in Dublin and London, eh.)

Seriously, it was just today when it hit me for the first time how soon I am going. This despite the emails, oh so many emails, among the Habitat group members about the Tajikistan and Istanbul arrangements. Tonight, I realized that I am leaving in nine days!

I waited, upon realizing this, for a bit of panic to set in. After all, I'm traveling around the world to a super remote place -- and no, I am not taking malaria pills this time. ewww -- and about to work really hard hammering nails or reinforcing walls or restoring roofs or something along these lines. Let's see if I've done the things I probably should have done by now:

Packed. Uh - no.
Made a list of things to pack. Well, in my head. Does that count?
Acquired all the supplies on that list of things to pack. Maybe one third.
Photocopied i.d., cards, passport, etc. for reference in case of loss. No.
Left those copies + copies of itinerary with family/emergency contact(s). Really planning to do this. Totally.
Booked plane tickets. YES! This was so complicated. I can't even get into it. Just - so very complicated. Not because I think booking flights is complicated, but because my particular situation this past month was just a very long story with that.
Accommodations. Mostly taken care of through the Habitat trip; the additional night in Istanbul is also being booked for me by our tour handler - who emailed TODAY to tell me about a switch in hotels. Hello! I am not the only fan of the last minute here.
Learned the language(s). Nimnoga!
Figured out what to read/which books to bring. In progress.
Camera. Um - what to do, what to do. My cell phone will hold about ten pictures.

So you can see where my head's at. It occurred to me today that in searching for some semblance of panic, there was none to be found. In fact, I found myself thinking, the only reason I have been thinking about this trip as long as I have is that I had to in order to be able to go on it. Now, of course I can understand that a volunteer trip needs to be planned, don't get me wrong. But I realized that I can think of nothing more appealing than just up and going to Tajikistan next week. The notion of it is wonderful. As long as I have contact lenses, shoes, a scarf and a credit card, I will get by.

It reminds me of when I went to Korea. Can I help it if things fall into place at the last minute? It's not the very last minute. I have rarely gone on a totally whimsical unplanned trip -- maybe a couple drives from Phoenix to San Diego or Utah back in the day. If nothing else, airfare precludes truly last minute adventures for me these days. But what I find interesting is how many people I know who can't do this at all, mentally, who would be quaking in their boots if they were about to jet around the world without all the details solidly in place and double- and triple-checked.

But here's the psychological twist: I actually really like planning. In fact, I prefer planning to executing. Not with travel, necessarily, but with, just, you know, things. I like to plan them. I like to make lists and plot out the goals to hit and think of things to do. Actually doing them is nowhere near as fun. Unless it's taking a trip, I guess. Traveling and writing are the only two things that when I'm doing them, I don't feel like I should be doing something else.

The reason for my aversion to cooking has got to be in here somewhere. Ditto my utter inability to not procrastinate writing a paper. I'll leave that to the psychologists. I'm going to go read Moby Dick and not do anything about Tajikistan until the morning.

Another Chance!

I know, you didn't think you could still donate. What can I say, it's like an Easter miracle!

Click here to put the $10 you're otherwise bound to squander on something silly toward the fabulous cause of Habitat for Humanity.

Happy April, everyone! And you know me, I'm not the biggest fan of April -- but I have an OK feeling about this one!

Habitat Tajikistan - the final push!

I'm back from the keyboard-dead, just in time to talk about my Habitat for Humanity trip to Tajikistan!

It's the last day to donate online to my Habitat Tajikistan trip!
Well, that is, you have about 24 hours remaining to donate online. There is still a way to donate after that by check, but isn't it SO much easier to just click that link, whip out the credit/debit card, and be done with it? I have raised well over half the money, but I need to raise $739 more by tomorrow. This isn't as impossible as it may sound. A few people have expressed interest or promised to donate a small sum, so assuming they do so, I am closer than I feel right now. Still, I need a little bit more. Any amount whatsoever is appreciated, of course!

Why should you donate to this Habitat trip?
I can think of a million reasons, of course, not the least of which is what a great organization Habitat is. You can read more about that, and more about Tajikistan, here. But I also am a big believer that many small actions make one big difference.

What exactly am I going to do in Tajikistan?
A Habitat for Humanity Global Village trip is basically a group of volunteers who pay their own way to travel to a destination, usually one facing major poverty and housing needs, to work on building a house(s). Habitat has affiliates in many countries around the globe. The cost of going to Tajikistan is around $1900 + airfare. The cost includes lodging, food, and in-country transportation for the volunteer, plus materials and a donation to the local Habitat affiliate, perpetuating the work. We will be working with the Tajikistan affiliate while we are there. We will build all day, five days a week, like a full-time job.

We come prepared with sturdy shoes and clothes, hat & bandana, work gloves, and other accessories. The volunteer team often brings supplies in coordination with the local Habitat office. We mostly come ready to roll up our sleeves and work.

I have done one previous Habitat trip, in Honduras in 2008. We were able to work closely with the representatives from the local affiliate, a local mason who supervised the site construction, and the family who will own the home. Part of Habitat's requirements are that the homeowners put in "sweat equity" so the team of a half dozen to a dozen volunteers works alongside the family to build. Sometimes a volunteer team comes in at the beginning to lay the foundation; sometimes they arrive in the middle and lay lots of bricks; sometimes they raise the roof or finish the job. By showing up to build for a week or two or three, we can greatly speed up the work, helping the mason and local affiliates to move on to the next house, and so on and on.

What I learned working with Habitat in Honduras

• Construction is hard work. (duh!) And not just because I have spent the majority of the last three years+ sitting at a computer, for law school and for writing & freelancing. Luckily I am also training for a 25K run right now, so I hope to be in shape enough to be able to work hard. Hydrating is important, of course! So is persistence.
• Building a house is important, but so is building a home. I think Habitat works so well as an organization because it is a melding of the totally physical labor/materials and the totally emotional spirit of family that will live in the home. Habitat also welcomes people of any faith -- or of no faith (that's me!) -- who believe that everyone deserves a decent place to live. Many, many factors have contributed to difficult situations in many places in the world, from civil wars and corrupt leaders to reconfiguring of national boundaries and natural disasters. By putting my time and money toward this cause, I do a small thing, but many small things together equal big results.
  
• The learning! The growth! Everyone who has traveled or worked on a big project knows that there is intangible satisfaction and deep personal education that comes along with those things, and it's hard to describe precisely what happens in these situations. For example, in Honduras I got to use my fairly rusty Spanish every day and really brush up on it, but I learned more about communicating by working with the amazing "Maestro," our local mason, and my amazing fellow volunteers, who were all so much better than me at both construction and communication. They had also overcome some really profound struggles in their lives, and they were out there helping others, and it was really inspiring.

Feel free to ask me if you have any questions whatsoever about Habitat, the fundraising, Tajikistan, my trip, or anything else. I highly recommend that you, too, consider volunteering with Habitat for Humanity, whether in your local community or on a Global Village build. And I will be incredibly grateful for your support for my journey in whatever form it takes. How well I know that not all support is financial; the contributions just pave the way for so much more.