Painting Tintagel Blue

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Possum continued to have pain from her kidney stones, although blunted by pain killers.

“The doctor described what kidney stones are like,” she said.  “They’re not like stones at all, they’re more like bits of coral—jagged and razor sharp—so they tear your kidneys from the inside as they’re moving through them.”

I felt nauseated listening to her describe what was going on inside of her, but she was chipper.  “It was really interesting!” she declared.

“But was the doctor good looking?” I asked.  “Lynn said he was well dressed and had nice hair.  But Lynn’s married so maybe she’s not as observant as you or I would be—both of us being single.”

“Oh yeah, he was well dressed.  He had a nice tweed jacket with a green tie and yes, his hair was thick and wavy and silver.  But his face was just okay.”

“Was he wearing a wedding ring?” I queried.

“I don’t know!  I didn’t notice.  I was a bit delirious.”

“I think you may need to have a relapse so he has to come back and I can get a look at him,” I jested.  This was met with a stern look.

It was the morning of our second or third day in Cornwall.  Lynn was sleeping and I Possum and I were chatting while I washed my clothes.  Foreign washing machines always throw me for a loop.  Here’s the one in the cottage; note it has at least 25 options:

How hot is 40C?  I have no idea.  What did the symbols on the right mean?  No clue.  I had shoved everything in and chosen “Fast Wash,” which took two hours and 20 minutes.  After an hour and a half, the machine seemed to stop so I forced the door to unlock by shutting off the power.

This was a combo washer-dryer, and I had inadvertently added the dryer option.  “Drying” did not mean tumble drying.  It meant heat was pumped into the unmoving canister so that after an hour you extracted a compact, crispy-on-the-outside and damp-on-the-inside wad of clothes.  I have never known any European or English person to actually use the dryer option—they all hang their washing on racks.  I think they would say they do that because it’s better for the environment.

I went upstairs with the drying rack to hang my clothes dry.  The American washer and dryer (separate appliances) in my condo are so huge I can do two weeks’ worth of laundry at one go.  The washer takes 20 minutes and the dryer half an hour, tops.  I would love to see an energy use comparison between my giant, “Get ‘er done!” US appliances and European ones.

I peeled open the crispy-damp wad and found an unpleasant surprise.  All my clothes were blue.  I like the color blue, but blue socks, underwear, bras, shirts, and pants?  How did this happen, I grumbled to myself, as I hung up my blue tie-dyed dress.  It would take me a month to register it had been this dress.

—

Too soon, it was time for Possum to drive back to Oxford, despite Lynn’s and my protests.  She sent us texts along the route to assure us she hadn’t fallen asleep at the wheel from the pain meds, and had arrived home safely.

Meanwhile, Lynn and I headed out in the Picasso to Tintagel Castle.

This was supposedly the home of the legendary King Arthur.  We took a quick spin through the interpretive center, where we learned that there may have been a Roman settlement here but there’s no proof of that.  Some time after the fall of the Roman Empire, the King of Dumnonia, as the region was then called, built the first castle.  In the 13th Century, Richard, First Earl of Cornwall, took over and built the structure whose remains are still visible.  And so on.

We scraped our way down an extremely steep, dusty road, then climbed up about three hundred stairs.  It was the hottest day of summer so far, so we stopped for breathers and to appreciate the stunning scenery.  There wasn’t much left of the castle but the climb was worth the effort.

  

Getting In, Getting Around

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Looking back on my three months of working remotely from Europe, Ethiopia, and the UK, I can say I would love to do it permanently.  From what I can tell, there is no legal reason I couldn’t live in the UK without a work visa as long as I was working for a US employer.

According to the UK immigration website, as a US citizen I automatically get a six-month visa when I enter the country as a tourist, without even applying.

Paying rent could be a challenge.  I’m certain it would be impossible to open a UK bank account.  I would have to find a landlord who was willing and able to have rent paid electronically, probably from PayPal.

What stops me from seriously considering this plan?  Well, every time I enter the UK I get grilled by border control.  This happens to my UK friends when they enter the US, too.  I got grilled by Danish border control when I entered Denmark, so it’s not uncommon.

When I came to the UK from Ethiopia, I walked from the plane through halls festooned with welcoming slogans, “Welcome to the UK!” “See the English Countryside!”  “Visit Historic Palaces!”  In other words, they want people to visit and spend money in the UK.

I waited in line for a border agent.  Again, there were banners above the agents’ booths proclaiming the beauty of the English countryside, historic sites, museums, etc.

I stepped up to the booth and after looking over my passport, the Sikh border agent barked at me, “Why are you coming here?”

“Tourism,” I replied.

He looked skeptical, especially when I said I would be staying for two and a half months.  Would I be working in the UK?  No, I replied.  And this was true to the spirit of the question, I believe.  I would be working remotely for an American employer, not for a UK entity.  I would not be stealing a job from a UK citizen, or being paid by a UK employer and transferring my paycheck to an American bank.  I wouldn’t be collecting any public benefits.

I was afraid that if I tried to explain any of the above I would be whisked into an interview room.  Just in case they did that anyway, I also had a letter of employment and documentation of all my US assets including my condo in an envelope in case they wanted proof that I had reasons to return to America.

He asked for the addresses where I would be staying, the names of my friends, and the places we were planning to visit.  He asked to see my return plane ticket, which I had printed out and ready.

Finally, reluctantly, he stamped my passport and without even speaking to me, waved the next passenger forward.

Maybe I was overly concerned about being turned away since I had been refused a visit with my son in prison, and then banned for six months.

So I got in okay this time.  But—what if I cooked up a plan to stay in the UK for six months—the length of a tourist visa—and got turned away at border control?  How much more suspicious would they be of six months than two and a half months?  The uncertainty just wouldn’t be worth it.  There’s no information about this on the UK immigration website, and I don’t want to raise a red flag by asking about my personal case.  I can just imagine them flagging my record somehow to ban me from entering.  All because I love their beautiful country and want to spend my American paycheck there.

—

And it is a beautiful country.  You may be thinking, “America is beautiful too!” and you would be right.  I’ve seen the Grand Canyon, Florida beaches, Monument Valley, Lake Superior, and Highway 1 in California.  There’s plenty of beauty in both countries and I intend to see as much of it as I can.

From the Lost Gardens of Heligan, Possum drove us through tiny, twisting roads to Portmellon, where we walked on the beach and had a half pint in a pub called The Rising Sun.

Lost Connections, Lost Gardens

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My cough-drop induced discomfort passed, and I turned my thoughts to catching up with work after being out of communications for a few days.  Possum was feeling better on the pain meds, so after obsessively rebooting the router half a dozen times we all walked over the lodge.

The cottage we were staying in was one of about 20 cottages surrounding a big central lodge with a dining room, pool, game room, and so on.  This was where the front desk was, and this was where Possum and I demanded action while Lynn sat at a discrete distance, cringing at our combined American and Australian demands for action.

We’ve all been there: promised something that doesn’t work, facing a customer service person who can’t or won’t help.  Different people approach it differently. In general, I think Americans and Australians believe we can fix anything! if only we demand action loudly enough and refuse to give up and go away.

After politely badgering a series of women at the desk, we came away with four theories ranging from sinister to silly: 1) the owner of our cottage hadn’t set up the router correctly, 2) the owner of our cottage had set up a router even though there was no Internet, then falsely lured people to the cottage with a promise of wifi, or 3), a storm had knocked out the Internet to that particular cottage three weeks ago and the owner hadn’t fixed it.

Bottom line, no Internet.  “It’s just not very good here in the best of times,” explained one young woman.  “We’re so remote.”

I had expected to have lousy Internet in Ethiopia, but in England?  But it made sense. If I go to northern Minnesota, to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area we share with Canada, there is no 3G or even cell phone service.  There are probably large swaths of the western states like North Dakota and Nebraska that don’t have Internet.

Bottom line, we were allowed to log on to the lodge’s account.  The catch: we could only get a connection in the lounge, where holidaymakers enjoyed their G&Ts, raucous hen parties took place, kids ran through in wet swim suits on their way from the pool, women in lycra workout gear strutted through to get to the yoga studio, and MTV blared on multiple big screens 24/7.

—

But before work came pleasure, and we had a wonderful first day.  The weather was fine and we went to one of the places on my bucket list, the Lost Gardens of Heligan, near Mevagissey.  Heligan was an 18th Century estate that fell into ruin after World War I and has been restored to its splendor.  There’s the stuff you expect in a botanical garden, like glass houses and lots of gorgeous flowers.

There were loving memorials to the servants who made Heligan tick in its heyday—supplying everything from pineapples to honey to beef to the household—and who were decimated by World War I.  This is the plum room, with a photo of its tender who died in the war.

There was even a memorial in the Thunder Box, which was an outdoor toilet for servants.

There are also extravagant sections like The Jungle, which is … well a jungle.  In Cornwall.

There are hidden confections like the lying lady and the shady lady.  I hope you can spot them.

—

We got back to the resort in time for an important call I had about the proposal to the UK.  I staked out a table in the far corner of the lounge and got ready to Skype.  Oh, no.  A DJ arrived, set up, and began projecting videos on the wall above my head.  It was Disco Karaoke Nite! The Pet Shop Boys’ “It’s a Sin” started throbbing at a deafening volume.  People around me were drinking and laughing and yelling BINGO! and having a great time.

This was the beginning of my remote work experience.  This was it; this was where I proved to my employer that I could show up for meetings on Skype, respond to emails in a timely manner, and produce proposals as usual, no excuses.

Possum Problems

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I had been looking forward to a restful 10 days in the beautiful southwest of England after an intense week of traveling, rats, and work in Ethiopia.  Just great, I muttered to myself as I reached for the cough drops from my perch on the toilet.  I get a spasmodic cough and diarrhea. Thanks a lot, Ethiopia!

Fortunately the cottage had two bedrooms and two bathrooms, and Lynn had insisted I take the suite upstairs, from whence I hoped they couldn’t hear any bodily sound effects.

As I reached, my eye fell on the bold-faced notice on the cough drops.  “WARNING: Do not exceed recommended dose.  Excessive use may cause severe diarrhea.”   The dose was one cough drop every four hours; I had sucked down 12 in four hours.

I’m sorry, Ethiopia!  It wasn’t you, it was me.  I’m an idiot.

—

I felt better by the time our friend Possum arrived, and thought it would be a good idea to drink some wine with her and Lynn on the patio just in case I wasn’t completely dehydrated.

Possum, as you may have guessed, is Australian.  She’s lived in England forever and works for Oxfam.  Normally very bubbly, she seemed subdued.  We were both cranky that we couldn’t get internet.

Possum had been wrangling with the router.  “False advertising!” she declared.

“They said it would be intermittent because of the remote location,” Lynn said.

“But it’s nonexistent.  That’s just not on!”  Possum groused.

“I really need to work while I’m here,” I bemoaned.

“It’s very naughty of them,” said Lynn.  “I specifically booked this place because it promised internet, even though it wasn’t steady.  Possum, are you okay?  You look knackered.”

“I feel a bit funny,” Possum acknowledged.  “I’ve got a pain in my back, just here,” she indicated with her hand.

Lynn and I proceeded to suggest various things.  Was she dehydrated?  Had she pulled a muscle?  Maybe her back was sore from sitting in the car on the road for so long.  No, no, no, Possum insisted.  “It started yesterday, so it’s not from the driving.”

She went into the cottage and lay down on the floor.  Lynn and I continued to drink wine and talk, figuring there was nothing we could do to help.

Possum emerged half an hour later, looking drawn.  “It’s a bit worse,” she said.

“Maybe you should call your GP?” Lynn suggested.  GP=General Practitioner.

“No, no,” it’s nothing, I’m sure.  “I’ll just lie down some more,” Possum said, trying to seem cheery.

Lynn and I finished off the bottle of wine and some nibbles and then I, having been up all night and all day, excused myself to go to bed.

“I hope you feel better, Possum,” I whispered gently as I tiptoed past her on the floor.

“You too, Annie,” she whispered back.

—

The next morning.  Whenever Lynn and I travel together I always wake her up because I’m an early riser and I just can’t help making noise.  Today was no exception.

“Did you hear the doctor last night?” whispered Lynn when she came out of the bedroom she was sharing with Possum.

“What?  No!  A doctor, here in the house?”

“Yes, she finally called the NHS and they sent this bloke out to look at her, and she has kidney stones!”

“Oh no, poor Possum!  Man, do I ever feel guilty!  We should have made her call a doctor right away.  I’ve heard kidney stones are as painful as giving birth!”

“I know, I know” replied Lynn.  “But the good news is that he gave her some drugs to manage the pain until she can get back to Oxford for more treatment.”

“Yikes.  I don’t know if it’s a good idea for her to drive,” I answered.  “But I can’t drive, and we can’t leave her car here.  Was the doctor good looking?”

“Mmmm…I don’t know,” Lynn answered.  “He was well dressed and had nice hair.”

As we had this important discussion I made coffee and eggs and toast.  It’s important to keep your strength up so you can be there for your friends.

Welcome to Cornwall

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Lynn and I found our hire car, an eggplant-coloured Citroën Picasso.  My computer is still set to British English for the proposal I worked on to UK Aid.  I’ll leave it that way, since the next events took place in Britain.

First, a little primer on UK terminology for anyone out there who may be confused.  The United Kingdom is the nation that includes England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.  Those are four separate countries, but together they are United.  Britain means the same thing as the UK, while Great Britain is the island that contains England, Scotland, and Wales—not Northern Ireland.  If you ask a native where exactly the Scottish or Welsh borders are, you will get a confused look.  That’s probably because they are so jagged, unlike say, the border between Wyoming and Colorado.

Then there’s the Commonwealth, which includes a bunch of former colonies like Canada and Australia and Belize.  Those countries are independent but Queen Elizabeth II is their sovereign. Then there are the Crown Dependencies, like Jersey; and the British Overseas Territories, like Gibraltar. I hope that clears up any confusion.

England has 48 counties, or shires. When you say the word shire independently, it’s pronounced like in The Hobbit, “shyr.”  That’s not an official pronunciation; the official Oxford English Dictionary one is ʃaɪə(r).  When shire is added to the end of a county name, like Oxfordshire, it’s pronounced “sure” (by Americans) and “shuh” (by Brits).  Some of the county names are shortened up for convenience; for instance Buckinghamshire is nicknamed Bucks, Peebleshire is nicknamed Tweeddale, and Berwickshire is Duns-shire.  Simples!

—

Lynn and I were driving to Cornwall, also known as Kernow in Cornish, the local language which has about 350 native speakers.  As far as I know, Cornwall is never Cornwallshire, just Cornwall.  The red-outlined section in the far southwest of the map below is Cornwall.

It’s 208 air miles from London to Cornwall.  If we could have driven in the air, we could have been there in a little over three hours.  With traffic and the twisting roads of the last bit of the route, Lynn reckoned it would be about five hours.

What she hadn’t reckoned on was not being able to figure out the gear shifting. The west country of England is so beautiful, in part, because of all its gently rolling hills.  Hills that were lined for miles with cars full of holidaymakers, as people on vacation are called there.

The Picasso had a manual transmission, and Lynn’s method for not rolling backwards on hills was to engage the parking brake.  I drive a manual transmission but I had always just kept my foot on the brake while engaging the clutch when on a hill.  The parking brake on this vehicle was a button on the dashboard, but nothing appeared to happen when Lynn pressed it.

I slouched  in the passenger seat binging on cough drops and blowing my nose between bouts of wracking coughs while Lynn did her best to keep the vehicle from rolling backwards into the car behind us.

“And of course they all pull up within inches of my rear bumper!” she growled.  “Don’t they know I have a manual transmission?”

Then the burning smell began.  “I think I’ve burned the clutch,” Lynn said.

“It could be the brakes,” I man-splained unhelpfully.  We were back to where we’d been the year before, on our road trip to New Orleans.  This time we were in a rental car, but it was still the case that neither of us knew diddly squit about cars.

“I don’t even know how to open the bonnet of my car,” Lynn said.

The smell persisted but we ignored it and drove on.  We emerged out of the traffic jam onto a series of gigantic connected roundabouts and went in circles for about 10 minutes, then plunged off an exit and somehow had chosen the correct one.  Another 10 minutes and we pulled up in front of our cottage.

It was none too soon; my Ethiopia trip was catching up with me.  I made a dash for the cottage and spent my first hours in Bodmin, Cornwall, in the bathroom.

Moving, Here and There

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In real time—September 1, 2017—I just woke up in my own home for the first time in three months after living, traveling, and working abroad.  It’s disorienting.  My place feels the same, yet different.  Maybe that’s because I sold it right before I left, and as soon as I unpack my suitcase I will need to start packing everything to move in one month.

This will be my third move in two years.  This one will be hard.  I love this place—its location on The Hill near all the mansions and shops and restaurants, and the character of the condo itself—with beveled glass, graceful curved woodwork, exposed brick walls, fireplace, high ceilings, and warm wood floors.

When I woke up at midnight last night to the creaking and thumping of my upstairs neighbor walking around on his wood floors, I smiled and knew I had made the right decision.

I’ll be moving into a duplex on St. Paul’s east side.  You know what they say about rents and real estate: “Location, location, location.”  And it’s true.  The duplex is very nice but there’s nothing much nearby except other duplexes.  Therefore it’s cheap.  I’ve signed a 10-month lease and I can lay low there until I decide what to do next.

I am lucky to have the choices I do.  I knew that intellectually, but spending time in refugee camps made it visceral.

—

I arrived at Heathrow from Addis Ababa at 7am.  I had barely slept due to my cold and, well, having to sit upright in a cramped airplane seat.

There was Lynn waiting for me in the arrivals hall—the one where they filmed the opening scene in Love Actually. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a sweet montage of people meeting people at the airport.  Friends, families, business associates … smiling, waving, hugging, laughing, and then walking off to start whatever lay ahead for them in London or beyond.

I transferred myself from Maki’s good guidance to Lynn’s.  I am a “take charge” person but Lynn is even more so, and we were on her stomping grounds now.

First stop, Boots, the chemist, which is like a prettier version of Walgreens. I loaded up on sore throat spray, cough drops, and tissues.  We got a cup of coffee at Costa and found the car rental kiosk.  Lynn bought all the insurance they offered, which would turn out to be a good thing.

—

This was supposed to be the vacation part of my sojourn—two weeks of driving around the southwest of Britain, starting in Cornwall.

Until recently, I’ve never had a problem logging off of work email and not checking it while I’m on leave.  I crossed a line somewhere and started doing that, and when I did, at Heathrow while Lynn was making the car arrangements, there was an email about an opportunity for us to submit a concept note to DFID, the UK’s Department for International Development.  It was due in less than 10 days.

A concept note is like a preliminary sales pitch to a potential funder.  You send them 3-5 pages summarizing your big idea and hope they ask for more, in the form of a full grant proposal.  Thing is, you have to put almost as much work into a concept note as a full proposal because you have to give them a top line budget number, and to get that requires, basically, developing the full project and budget.

I was really glad we were going for this, and I wanted to work on it.  I had met with a DFID representative two years before when I was in Amman, Jordan.  We had tried to stay loosely in touch with him, and if we are funded, it would be almost a textbook example of how development/fund raising works.

But the timing that was inconvenient.  Lynn doesn’t need anyone to entertain her, but I thought it would be rude to be constantly checking my email and on Skype while she was having a G&T by herself on the patio at the resort in Cornwall.  Being online too much would turn out to not be a problem.

The People

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Terminal One, Addis Ababa Airport.  There seemed to be a few issues; the sign here says, “We are under a major and complete roof maintenance.  We sincerely apologize for the inconveniences caused due to any leakage that may occur during the rainy season.”

There was a half-hearted security check.  I think a camel could have walked through and they wouldn’t have cared.  Then it was up the elevator—no, cancel that.  There was no way I was taking an elevator in Ethiopia.  I chugged up the stairs and assessed my options.  I had less than an hour before my flight left, and no souvenirs.  I ran into the biggest shop I could see and after making sure they took credit cards, started throwing bags of coffee and wood carvings into a basket.  For good measure, I bought a necklace made of old Ethiopian coins with the image of Haile Selassie on them which weighed about five pounds.

Sated, I took a seat in the vast hall that served as a waiting area and people watched.  There was a line of a hundred people shuffling toward the gates.  There were people wearing turbans and fezzes and long flowing robes and skin-tight jeans.  There was a big group of white Americans taking home their adopted Ethiopian kids.  There were missionaries and mercenaries and every kind of misfit.

An Asian woman sat next to me and started telling me her life story.  She was Philippina and had been working in Brazil for the last eight years.  She loved Brazil but for family reasons it was time to go back home, so here she was transiting through Ethiopia.

My sore throat had turned into a full-blown head and chest cold.  I was blowing my nose and coughing my lungs out so I just nodded as she talked on and on.  Suddenly she stood up, wished me “good luck” (for what?) and went to join the queue.

An extremely large black woman sat down next.  Everything she wore, from her shoes to an elaborate hat, was bedazzled with sequins and rhinestones and feathers.  I didn’t catch where she was coming from but she had a French accent and was headed to Paris.

After she left a tall white guy sat next to me.  He was quite attractive and had what at first sounded like a British accent.  “I’m taking my mother home to South Africa,” he said, “from Sheffield.”  That explained that his accent sounded more British than South African, if he had lived in Sheffield for a long time.

“Oh, that’s nice,” I said.  “She misses the home country?”

“Aw, no, she’s dead.  I’m taking her body home for burial.”

He had a large duffel bag and I almost made a joke and asked if his mother was in it but I caught myself.  He started to tear up, then stood abruptly and walked off to join the line.

—

On the plane to London.  Whoopee, it was less than half full and I looked forward to stretching myself out across all three seats, especially since a small boy behind me kept kicking my seat.  I believe in being direct, so I stood up and turned around to talk to the mother.  She had already moved to another row and left him and his sister sitting there on their own.

“Don’t kick my seat,” I said with a smile.  They looked at me as though they didn’t understand English. I would guess they were Pakistani. I sat down again and he continued kicking.  Then I heard the sister tell him in very plain British English, “Don’t kick the lady’s seat, Russell!” He stopped.  Good girl.

Before I could lie down, a woman in what appeared to be Ghanaian dress sat down in the aisle seat.  “I will sit here,” she informed me.  Damn.  I tried blowing my nose and coughing extra hard.  She not only failed to be repelled, she propped her feet up on the middle seat.  Half way through the eight hour flight I nodded off and my hand fell onto her foot.  She glared at me as though I was a pervert.

Is it me?  Is it people?  Is it travel?

Terminal One

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In Shire, I said good bye to Maki and thanked her for everything.  I know it’s a lot of work to host a visitor from HQ, and having worked with her from afar on proposals, I knew how busy she already was.

I hopped back into the Landcruiser and we were off to Axum, from whence I flew to Addis Ababa.  There was a woman in front of me across the aisle who had clearly never buckled a seat belt before, and the flight attendant patiently did it for her.  Directly across, a woman started donning gold jewelry as soon as the flight took off.  I don’t mean delicate, little things, I mean giant, chunky bracelets, necklaces, a pair of earrings that looked like they weighed an ounce each, and some kind of headdress.  I wondered if she was flying to some international destination and this was her way of taking assets out of Ethiopia and getting around some limit on taking cash out of the country.  But maybe not.  When she was done, she looked at her teenaged son, who nodded briefly.  He obviously had not given her the feedback she wanted, because she leaned over and smiled at me.  I smiled and nodded vigorously and she sat back, satisfied.

I was on the aisle and a young man was next to me at the window.  I had brought my stupid feather pillow that I carry all over the world with me.  I can’t remember why I had it with me in the cabin instead of stuffed into my suitcase.  It had a sateen pillow case.  My seatmate kept looking surreptitiously at it.  It used to be that men stared surreptitiously at my boobs.  Now they stare at my pillow.  I could tell he really wanted to touch it and finally his hand crept over as he sought my permission by making eye contact.  I nodded.  He stroked he sateen.  “Good material,” he said. I asked if he was in the fabric business or a tailor or something but he got all flustered and retreated to looking out the window.

—

We arrived in Addis at about 7:30pm.  My onward flight to Heathrow wouldn’t leave until 1:15am.  When I had arrived the previous week I had noticed the little shops that sold fly swatters and other trinkets and thought I would check them out when I departed, but they were closed.  There was one restaurant with an overpriced menu.  They only took cash, and there were no ATMs.  After counting and recounting the grubby handful of birr I had left, I ordered fries and a beer and sat down to watch China Global Television Network, which had news about world events on a loop.  The food took half an hour to arrive, but what did I care, I had six hours to kill in this place with no shops, no ATMs, no wireless.  Worst of all, I didn’t have a book.

I ate as slowly as I could and managed to make it to midnight without nodding off into my fries.  It took another half an hour to find someone I could pay.

I went to the bathroom and found more evidence of Chinese world domination.

At least it wasn’t called Golden Shower.

I took my time going to the security area, where a big guard looked at my ticket and said, “No London.”

“Wha…at?” was all I could stammer.

“No London.  Terminal One for London.”

I hadn’t even known there was a Terminal One.  After receiving conflicting directions from half a dozen uniformed people, I stepped out into the night with my purple suitcase, feeling very conspicuous.  It was inky dark.  There were no street lights, no sidewalk, no signs.  The only people around were men lounging against cars.  I walked for at least three city blocks, with each step convinced there was no Terminal One or that if there was, I would never find it.  I started to panic; tears welled up; I called myself an idiot.

Then I turned a corner and there it was, lit up like Las Vegas.

Inside, there were a hundred shops and restaurants, each with “free wireless” if you bought something.

Meditation on a Bed Net

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My last night in Ethiopia.  I woke several times to hear the rat scurrying around under my bed, but I no longer reacted.  If it was going to attack me, it would have done so by now, so I just let him/her scurry.

I gazed up through the bed net, at the window and door which were silhouetted by flood lights.

This trip had made me realize that I (probably) did not want to live and work in a developing country.  I say “probably” because I don’t believe in saying no, full stop.

I had lived and worked or studied in Mexico and Kenya and Jordan/Israel/Palestine for periods of up to two months.  I have applied for and interviewed for many international development jobs. I always thought—if I could just work in a place like Iraq or South Sudan for six months—I could get other jobs anywhere.  I was the finalist for a job in Ingushetia. I know, I had never heard of it either.  Due to security considerations I withdrew before they could make a formal offer.  I was offered a job in rural Rwanda.  I turned it down because I am a city person and I thought I would go crazy with boredom.

I accepted, and had my flight booked, to take a two-year volunteer job with CUSO-VSO, the Canadian version of the Peace Corps.  They were going to send me to Kolkata, India to work with disabled slum women.  Their philosophy (and budget) dictated that I would have the same living standard as the people we worked with, so I would have lived in a cement room with no air con.  I remember telling this to a guy I met who was from Calcutta.  He looked at me like I was insane.  “Do you know what 40 feels like?” That’s 104 Fahrenheit.

I think I could have done these jobs, but that doesn’t mean I should have taken them.  My fear was that I would not be able to hack the heat, the rats, the noise, the boredom, or the overwhelming needs and hopelessness.  I’ve always had a drive to reduce suffering and contribute to making the world a better place.  I also have a desire for air conditioning and rat-free accommodations.

—

My colleagues and I in the US and UK have been talking a lot about the trend among NGOs to move their offices to the global south and employ people from the country of operations rather than importing people from the US, UK, Australia, and other western countries.

It’s been a trend for 10 years, but Oxfam and other organizations are really stepping up their efforts toward this shift.  The donors, like the US Agency for International Development, are also prioritizing local organizations for funding over international ones based in the US and Europe.  Soon, gone will be the days when an Italian or Dutch logistician or finance person will be hired to work in Bangkok or Amman and get perks like a house and driver and “hardship” allowance, while his or her local counterpart gets a regular salary and benefits.

At the same time, universities in the US and Europe have developed new degree programs like Global Studies and graduate degrees in International Development. I wish I could have earned one these degrees years ago when I was starting out, because I’ve pretty much had to learn everything on the job and I often didn’t know what I didn’t know.  Now these programs are churning out thousands of idealistic, ambitious young people who want to work “abroad,” just as NGO hiring preferences are shifting away from them.

—

Morning.  I hugged my colleagues good-bye and hopped in a Landcruiser for the ride back to Addis and my flight to London.  The airport would be the scariest part of my trip.

Penultimate Day in Ethi

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My penultimate day in Ethiopia.  There, I’ve always wanted to use that word.

Today I would be observing a training and a women’s group.  But first, I settled up my canteen bill, handed in the Chinese dongle that had never helped me get an Internet connection, and returned the ancient Nokia I had been given the first day.  For once, my age was an advantage with technology, since I had learned to text using the ABC system way back in 2005.  Pity the millennial or younger generation who has only known smart phone qwerty keypads with autocorrect.

I could receive messages but the phone wouldn’t send them.  I could see a queue of failed sends attempted by previous users.  I also received various messages in Tigrinya.  I will never know if the message below was important.  Had I missed an incredible two-for-one offer on camel milk?

Maki sent me several messages and I responded to her via my iphone.  Then she would reply to the Nokia. It was a little confusing.

I did some packing and noticed that my mattress was covered with this fabric.

I stared at it.  Why were there kangaroos all over my mattress and why had I not noticed before?  I had been here a week.  I can only posit that it was an example of how the mind narrows down when it is overwhelmed with too much new stimulus.

It could also be related to what I call “the gauze effect.”  I have often gone on a trip to a developing country thinking I’ll write blog posts every day, or fill my hours drafting a novel, or learn French because I’ll have lots of time on my hands.

I do none of that.  In fact I do nothing much, because the pace of life is so slow, the heat so intense, and getting the smallest task done feels like a major miracle.  It feels like a soft cotton gauze has settled over your head.  You can’t think, you can’t act.  Making a photocopy feels like a big accomplishment worthy of being rewarded with a nap.

—

I attended a two-hour training on attachment in the morning that was given by our expert psychotherapist to employees of other NGOs working with Eritrean refugees.  Several young women had brought their very cute babies, and I thought it must be a nice bonus for them that they got paid to learn about child development and attachment on the job.

A rooster had flown over the wall of our compound and was crowing incessantly in an alcove outside the training room.  Suddenly I saw one of the cooks stride purposefully past the door and the rooster gave an alarming “Bwuauck!”  We would be having poultry for dinner tonight.

—

After lunch we rode to one of the camps and hung around waiting for clients to show up.  One by one, women arrived, some with children.  CVT has a childcare tukul but the babies stay in the groups with their mothers.

About 15 minutes past the hour there were 10 women assembled and the facilitator began.  Thankfully she didn’t ask me to speak, she just told them who I was and I gave the same introduction as the rest of them: name, age, marital status, number of children, and how long I had been in Ethiopia.  “One week,” I said, smiling. And I thought, pained,  And I get to leave tomorrow, while none of you knows when she’ll return home or be resettled, if ever.

The facilitator translated here and there but mainly it was similar to the boys’ group the previous day; I knew enough to get the gist of what was going on.  All of the women were married with children and dressed in traditional clothing except one.  She was dressed in jeans and a tight-fitting T-shirt and had her hair in a glamorous up-do.  At first she sat slouched down in her chair with her arms crossed as if to say, “I’m not one of you.”  But as the group went on and the women shared she sat up and leaned forward.  It was a remarkable transformation, and a great example of the power of group counseling.