These Things Only Happen to Me

Ok and sometimes Amy.

So after my parasite issue finally went away (and I mean fiiinally) I ended up with more problems below the waist. Why can't my below the waist ever cooperate with my above the waist? Above the waist never has any issues.

Anyhow, so I had to go to the health center to give 'a sample' (use your intuition) because the drugs that I talked them into prescribing over the phone that I picked up over the weekend without having to go in and give said sample were not working. So I finally went in, braved Red Sox traffic, and got it over with, excited for some relief. I got an email the next morning with my results. The healthonline program is kind of not really well thought through. The email I got was just a bunch of numbers and medical letter combinations saying what's 'normal' and what my numbers and medical letter combinations were. It looked to me, Dr. of all things health-related below the waist, that something was really off. No surprise given my long-standing issue with microscopic critters below the waist. (If you're cringing, I apologize, but this is a really good story).

So I call the clinic and they tell me that the numbers and medical letters looked off so much because the specimen was contaminated and I had to come in and give another. I'm like, what? How could it be contaminated? Whatever, don't ask questions. So again, I sit on Storrow Drive, I get mad at thousands of people crossing against the lights at Fenway Park and I make my way back to the health center to give another sample. I drink a Diet Pepsi on the way over.

Now part of the problem I'm having below the waist includes not being able to resist using the bathroom as soon as I drink something so I prepared appropriately for my sample-giving by having a beverage before I got there. So I go up to the lab and they're like 'Sorry, your name isn't in the computer'. Dammit! I'm like how about I pee in the cup and then you guys figure out the computer part because I'm crossing my legs and wiggling around like a 5 year old right now and if I go, I'll have nothing left for you by the time you figure this stuff out. But they said no. No cup without a record in the computer. Dammit.

They tell me to go to Urgent Care and tell them my story. It's already 6:15 at this point so I'm very sure that the B team is on shift all around. This does not bode well for me. I go into Urgent Care and a doctor comes out looks at me and continues to walk around and not acknowledge my existence. Clearly he got trained in biology and not in customer service. A-hole. Finally, I'd say 4 minutes later, another doctor comes out who says I'll be taken care of shortly. My bladder was on fire but there was nothing I could do but pretend to be a reserved adult.

Finally this over-taxed nurse comes out and the doctor needs something from her, and the phone is ringing, and random me who showed up out of nowhere needs to pee in a cup. She's like oh ok, I can do that quickly. She's like ok (type something on the computer and ask my DOB) you're all set. I waited for my cup but then she told me I had to go back up to the lab to do it! Dammit!

So me and flaming bladder go back upstairs and finally everything looks alright in their computer. But please ladies! A sense of urgency on my behalf please! I won't go into the details because you've all had to do this procedure before but you can't just unbutton and let loose - there's a whole algorithm you need to work though. And the problem is, another symptom of this stupid infection is that anytime I look at a toilet my bladder like explodes inside me. See the story has come full circle...that's why I needed to come here in the first place.

So that was last night. It's 2 pm - I have not heard from the clinic. Below the waist has added complications over night to this dilemma which I'm not excited about. I could really use some ice cream.

You Know What is Really Bugging Me Today?

Why is aspirin and stuff like aspirin called 'Over The Counter'? I don't get it. OTC to me means that the pharmacist hands it to you from OVER THE COUNTER. Aspirin is on a shelf. In the store. It's not Over The Counter.

Discuss.

Debating the Merits of Yellows

After talking about it for months, the bedroom is getting its makeover. I got one yellow I liked at Home Depot but it was a smidge to strong for such a big room. So I got a new color called 'Butter' and though I was skeptical at first, I think it's going to work. I'm surprised at just how much it really does light up the room.

This is one coat on just one part of the little wall. What do you think?

Because Eyebrows Always Come Up In Conversation

* understood that maybe this is a conversation that happens a lot only in my social circles *

http://skirt.com/node/6823

You are going to need a cable converter in 2009

Do you know what is annoying me to no end right now? How many commercials is the government paying for to tell the population, 95% of whom have cable already, that in 2009 we are going to need special boxes for any TVs we are using that run on rabbit ears or some other kind of antenna? What kind of ridiculous budget was created for the pervasive ads on TV, magazines, and billboards to get this across? Honestly, how many people does this affect and haven't they gotten the message by now? If only the government would spend this kind of attention to health, poverty, and human rights instead of TV!

Where Are You?

A year ago I had just moved into my first ever home and was busy making it feel like a home. I was bored at work and preparing for my sister's September wedding. I was feeling a little overwhelmed by all of the associated moving and getting my shit together costs and was busy making plans to have no social life.

Today I am so happy to come home every night to my very comfortable and well-decorated little home and am excited to think of new wall colors and the deck that I know will eventually move through the Boston City permit department and end up outside my kitchen. I am feeling a little better about the costs associated with paying a mortgage and getting my shit together and feel like I have more of a plan now, if you will. Grace has helped out a little with some of my debt, and I really have cut back substantially on spending money that was never mine to begin with.

A year from now I wonder if I'll be looking or a home with a yard in a nice neighborhood. I wonder if I'll still be bored at work or if I will have found a way to get around my existential dilemmas that all too often involve work. I doubt it. I don't know that there's much more on the horizon for this girl.

How about you?

Partnering with Parasites: How to Lose Weight for your girlfriend's wedding

Oh my! I brought back a personal souvenir from Liberia. It's been a lovely transition back home and I've spent some very comfortable time bonding with my toilet. Thankfully my health center has Sunday hours and I've started on 2 different kinds of antibiotics. Hopefully whatever is swimming around in there will be soon be gone.

Coming home was so nice. I actually really enjoyed my stay in Monrovia and never tired of watching the energy on the street and marveling at how different life is on the other side of the earth. And how much we take for granted. And how to deal with that with myself.

But Savory Man has been simply wonderful about dealing with my latest malady. He says he's going to blog about my ailments. He takes out his laptop and types at warp speed impersonating me and the personal stories I share. It's really very funny.

I'm labeling my digital pictures. If you want to see them, shoot me an email.

And you know, no matter how many times I get in a plane, I still am amazed at the science of flying. Isn't it incredible that we can fly above the clouds around the world? I really can never get my head around how incredible it is that we can sit in these pressurized compartments and eat bad food and somehow make it around the world.

And even though there are sometimes scheduling problems and even though JFK airport is a circus and I had to walk a mile to get to Border patrol ( I actually thought I was walking to the border itself after about 15 minutes hoofing it through the terminal) and then another mile to get back to my gate, and even though they sometimes can't figure out the whole getting the plane to the gate without a huge wait or getting the plane to take off without a 45 minute wait (yup, JFK again those turkeys), all of the scheduling and coordination that must go on on so many levels to move so many people everyday also fascinates me. I would LOVE to see those spreadsheets!

And finally, this is one of the reasons I love to come home to my home.
This lovely bedroom where the sun sets every night through these windows with its friend the lovely, slow breeze. If I'm lucky enough to be here at 6 o'clock, the bells from the local church will toll and serenade me while I close my eyes and take a break in the rays of the setting sun. Wow that was like a line from a calendar or something. I should write lines for calendars.

Layover

Flying requires a lot of patience. I don't know how people with little kids do this; I can really hardly get through the flying process myself.

The plane was an hour late leaving from Monrovia which kind of sucked since their waiting room was a room that made me think I was waiting to go to get my mugshot taken and booked in jail. The flight thankfully was underbooked leaving me with some extra room which was a lovely surprise.

The lines at the airport in Monrovia were something else. Since they don't have a lot of modern technology they took digital pictures of our passports and itineraries. There certainly was no store selling magazines and lifesavers.

And here I am in Brussels. It's 6 am and I just saw two guys order beers.

This old, old Liberian woman sat across from me on the plane. She didn't speak a lick of English, just what I think was an African dialect. Her son was bringing her to the U.S. where she is going to stay with her daughter. I don't think she'd ever been on a plane and I don't think she knew what was happening. Because she didn't speak any language that was spoken and because she has probably lived in rural Liberia her whole life, she couldn't communicate with anyone. Her son was on the plane but didn't get that since the plane wasn't full, he could move around and sit by her. That probably would have helped a lot. The woman didn't know how to get to the toilets and to say she had a stomach ache!

Oh, always an adventure. The 8 hour flight to NYC is going to be brutal but having to go the 1 hour from NYC to Boston might be worse. It was a great trip, but me and my stomach virus are ready to be home.

It's Friday Friends!

It's my last day here and I'm packed up and in the office trying to wrap up some guidelines I am leaving for how and when money should be spent and how to track it. I'm trying to organize my email so that when all hell breaks loose in the office next week, I can at least track down the documents I need to keep the heat down.

So, did I mention it rains here? ALL THE TIME. It makes me very thankful that the pilgrims chose a country without a rainy season to come to when they emigrated from England. Thank you ancestors! The rainy season, says one of our drivers, is July through November. Seriously, it just pours and pours. I do not understand meteorologically how it could possibly rain so much with such ferocity. Wednesday night it rained as I was going to bed, it continued to pour like a mother all day. A bit off and on, but every time it rained, it poured. We were to go to this restaurant on the beach last night, but alas, wasn't it raining? It was!

Of course the camera can never capture all the rain and you'll just have to take my word for it. This was from the fantastic Lebanese place called SAJJ that we went to for lunch yesterday.



Here's a great traveling story for you. Yesterday on our way back from lunch, the driver humored me by driving into some of the neighborhoods because I am still fascinated by the street scene and watching people live their lives here. So I'm holding my camera with my finger on the button to keep it focused and don't we get pulled over at an intersection by the police. It was a little scary, but moreso funny. The guy couldn't have been more than 23 and was like, "What are you doing taking pictures? Did you take my picture? You can't take my picture" and we're like brother, we're just taking pictures of the street. He's like, "where do you come from what are you doing? you can't take pictures!" so we showed him our work IDs and told him we were taking pictures for the Ministry of Health. That seemed to quell him. Easy to have a big powerful chip on your shoulder here as a policeman. You'd think they'd have bigger battles to be fighting. Maybe not this guy.

For the record, I'm all set with the toilet that doesn't flush in the office. I'm ready to not be grossed out by that anymore. And I have had a bug ever since I got here. It's been manageable but uncomfortable to say the least. I stopped eating really for the past couple of days but even tea and toast at breakfast this morning didn't sit well. Parasites are fabulous by products of travel!

Here are some more pictures of the streets here. I would call these pretty typical of the neighborhoods where people live. The main stretches are paved and dense with people selling things.





And lastly, it is a good thing it is four hours ahead here because that is how long it is taking me to upload these pictures. I will post more after I get home and edit the others I have taken. Hopefully if the rain holds off (though it looks like impending doom outside the office which is REALLY frustrating because it was gorgeous at the hotel this morning during breakfast) we can get out and perhaps take a few more shots this afternoon before the long trip home.

Tuesday Update

Hi Friends!

Nothing newsworthy really to report here. The internet is down which really hampers efficient work. It kind of forces you to be smarter about what you can get done, but also necessitates lists of what has to get done later in order to help the people back in the US do their work. It’s frustrating but of course, there once was life without internet. Wasn’t there?

I took a lot of pictures today when we went out to run errands. I still feel like I need to be sneaky because ultimately it’s so rude to take pictures of people in their own living environment. There are a lot of little kids who I think have never seen a real white person and they stop and stare at me. There are PLENTY of Westerners here but they all have drivers and they mostly work for embassies so are behind closed doors in guarded buildings – ie not out shopping for office supplies. But really, life is on the streets and it’s fascinating to watch time go by – the yellow taxis jammed with passengers, the ubiquitous UN cargo trucks, the men selling goods from wheelbarrows (today I saw one full of flashlights and another full of bras!), the women selling any sundry good from pots, baskets, and buckets on their heads, the babies wrapped and sitting on the back of their mothers’ hips, the hundreds of school kids in their colorful uniforms, people combing and braiding each others hair on the sidewalks and on their porches, the shoe fixers and polishers, and the motorcycles making their own road rules apart from the cars and the pedestrians.

Here is the beach I told you about last week. It could be soooo lovely. It is also the same beach where I showed you the dilapidated shacks the first couple of days I was here.






These are some school boys. There are a lot of different schools - this one is right by our office. All the kids wear pink shirts. Today as we came in there was a flood of pink as we turned the corner.



And here, a great picture. The women carry their babies in back like this. God, they are so strong, I can't get over it.

Sunday, Sunday

Amazing how fast a week can go. And there is so much work to be done here. I'm doing a little system creation and auditing of money spent here and um, let's just say figuring that out will encapsulate my scope of work for the next 5 days.

Internet is everywhere but it is also very slow everywhere. Therefore getting through emails with attachments (ultra slow) is a labor of love. Or pain. Or something. Thankfully there is the sweet pool to break up the day.

I surreptitiously took pictures of some of the women and men carrying things on their heads. You name it, it can be carried on the head. We would be so smart to pick up this custom and use it. We'd probably have fewer back problems!

See this guy? He's carrying jeans and pants on his head. This makes a lot more sense than holding them. And this woman, pregnant and carrying A LOT of food in that pot on her head. Good golly woman! Meanwhile, I was only carrying my camera and sweating up a storm. I would never be strong enough to live my life in Liberia. People here, by the sheer fact that resources are not plentiful like they are in developed countries, have to be ingenious. They work together to get goods places in wheelbarrows and on dollies, they are ever-present entrepreneurs selling what they have simply by carrying it with them wherever they go. They find ways to sell powdered milk, diesel, and something called monkey apples. Me, I just type on a computer.

Last night I went out for Moroccan with Megan and Charlotte. Aren't they happy to be eating Moroccan?

Runaround

So, as I said, yesterday I spent three hours riding around Monrovia visiting different organizations to get some budgets and letters from them that we need.

As you know, it was raining buckets.

The car had no air conditioning. So we kind of opened the windows, but you know, when it's raining buckets that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

The roads we were on were ridiculous.


I saw a lot of things I wish I hadn't. People defecating outside. Some very young pregnant girls. Huge empty buildings that have been destroyed by war and are shells of their former selves.



This was probably the house of one of the Liberian government's ministers or a foreign dignitary.

It was probably the best introduction I could have had here. I had a driver who told me who used to live in all those shells of buildings, though I didn't really understand most of what he was telling me unfortunately.

I was tired and sweaty when I got back to the office, but I had seen a lot and gotten a better idea of Monrovia outside of the roads between the office and the hotel.

Random thought for the day - there are no alarm clocks in the rooms. We figure this is because the electricity goes out for short periods a few times a day. Should the electricity go out while we are sleeping and reset alarm clocks, the guests would be screwed and the hotel would be, in a sense, liable for all its guests not being able to stick to their schedules. Also, the phones don't dial out from the rooms. Only room to room and to the front desk. Everyone here has a cell phone. There will never be landlines laid down here, there just is no reason. Cellular technology and internet are as much a part of global commerce as money itself is.

Update with Pictures!

As we were waiting for the driver to come this morning in our Red Escalade (haha, I’m still getting a kick out of being in a Escalade) ((wait super parentheses: what I haven’t explained is that though gas is just as expensive here as it is in the US, having a big car is enormously more comfortable when you’re always packed in with 3 or 4 people and you’re navigating huge ditches and holes in the dirt roads)) a big dark storm rolled in. It is the rainy season here and let me tell you, this is a STORM! If this was a storm at home we’d be staring out the window and going oh my! Holy cow! But yeah, no one here even blinks an eye. The last bang of thunder shook the windows to the veranda.





Strangely, the Austin Powers music is playing in the background. Just before this they played that old song from the 80s that goes,”Ain’t gonna need this house no longer ain’t gonna need this house no more, ain’t got time to fix the shingle, ain’t got time to clean the floor”. I love that song!

A few random notes:

o There are proportionately a lot of people on crutches, usually with one leg. I’ve been told that the war created a lot of amputees. It’s really sad. There are so many stories and you will probably never hear about stuff like that given the severity of other problems here.
o The poverty is not untouchable for us here. We told one of the staff that he could take a laptop home and work from home for the US holiday today and he said, no it doesn’t matter, they don’t have power in their house.
o We eat fresh fruit - pineapple, watermelon, mango, and cantaloupe every morning for breakfast. What a fabulous way to start the day.
o The Liberian handshake, especially for men, includes a snap at the end. I’ll practice so I can show you when I get home.
o Pedestrians have no right of way here. This is really too bad for them since cars and trucks really do whatever they please on the roads. This being said, there is a method to the madness marked by friendly honks. It's like Boston. If you don't live there, you shouldn't drive there but the people who do definitely know the insider rules to the local roads.

Yesterday I went to the gym that is associated with the hotel. It’s across the street in a complex of apartments. It’s nothing special, pretty antiquated and sparse but it does the job. As I was leaving, I went to find my colleague who had gone to swim laps in the pool. Turns out the pool is gorgeous and right on the beach. I looked over the rusty barbed wire to see a beach covered in garbage. There was a teenager running through the surf; I wondered if he was a soccer player getting a workout in. It was sad. What a beautiful tourist destination this could be. Looking down the beach it could easily have been a Nantasket, a Crane Beach or a Duxbury.

So there is no flush on the toilet in the office. Instead, you take an empty paint can and dump buckets of water in the toilet once you’re done. Very nice.

I went down after the first round of rain to see the street in front of the hotel and this is what I saw. I also made quick friends with these little boys who wanted me to take their picture. They were carrying goods in a wheelbarrow into town to sell. I took their pictures and showed them on the camera. It’s fun to interact with little kids but at the same time it exacerbates me feeling as the big, rich, white person.


As we arrived, the street in front of the office was blocked off by UN Police. We realized as we came in that the Liberian Vice President had come to visit the organization from whom we rent space, and subsequently, JSI! So we just got a visit from the VP and his entourage. They stayed for the requisite 2 minutes - so glad I didn’t leave for my run around town before they arrived!



The woman with the good posture is our Liberia rep for JSI and the man on her right on the couch is the veep.

Today my task is to run around to other NGOs with whom we do work and collect letters of collaboration for the proposal we’re putting together from. The rain however, has started again. Miss Common Sense also wore a white t shirt today. Score another point for common sense! Common Sense 2 – Kristen 0.

Sorry this is kind of Serious Too

So my first two days here are meeting heavy. It’s really one meeting stretched over two days which is for a big proposal we’re putting together and strategizing about with partners. When I get back home I will likely be spending some really late nights at work putting the proposal together. It’s kind of exhausting to think about, but what can you do?

I’m working with a bunch of really strong women with really strong personalities. A bunch of them have been living here for a while and the rest of the travel here often. Understandably, this is an ‘easy’ place to live and work. The people here are friendly, they speak English, and everything is conducted in US Dollars. In comparison to Ukraine where people are not friendly, do not look highly on Americans, and really make no effort to help you and definitely make all efforts to take advantage of you – it’s a welcome change. Because you are here to help people and to help create change for them. If they aren’t nice and judge you simply by your stupid president, if they rape you every time you go to dinner or take a taxi, you really become jaded while in country. Here, there is incredible leadership on the national level. This is an incredible article written by a Scott fellow – a group of really bright young people who have been funded by Nike and other foundations to work in the Ministries here. The woman that wrote this is a little spitfire full of sass, energy, and motivated for progress and change. You can tell she’s the type that won’t take shit from anyone. JSI is in charge of the fellows’ stays here - their housing, stipends, travel, well-being. I met a bunch of them last night. You can read about them here.

Random information – sodas and water are imported from Lebanon and Algeria. The writing on all the containers is in English and Arabic.

A good quick Kristen story: The women’s bathroom was not flushing with water yesterday and the sink wouldn’t turn on so we were using the men’s bathroom. Forgetting I mistakenly used the women’s bathroom yesterday which was a bad idea and I had to run fast from the bathroom with my head bowed pretending I wasn’t the culprit for whom the toilet didn’t flush for. Today, I immediately used the men’s bathroom. When I went in, a woman knocked on the door and asked me what I was doing. As I was sitting on the pot, I’m telling her how the women’s room was broken yesterday and didn’t flush. I outed myself while sitting on a toilet in the men’s room!

Pictures are from outside the hotel I’m staying at the hotel next door where we are having our meeting. Yes, it’s right on the ocean. So, so weird that this is the same ocean that is a mile from my home in Boston. I’m completely on the other side.

People live in these shacks and sell goods from them during the day. I don’t know who the buyers are and I asked what the country is doing to increase jobs to improve the quality of life. I guess this is in the works and Firestone Rubber who worked here before the war and mining and diamond companies are coming in en force. Additionally, with all of these development companies coming in, including companies who work on infrastructure in construction (paving roads, rebuilding housing and government buildings), electrical grids and telephone/internet maintenance, etc. will provide jobs for local people in implementation as well as in future maintenance. It’s incredible the amount of work that needs to be done and incredible how the government is working to make this happen with so many partners and so many agendas and so many initiatives. More on what we’re doing soon.

This is the intellectual post (after this, back to the other me)

I arrived in Monrovia 15 minutes ahead of schedule on Monday night at about 7:30. It was pouring rain as we walked out of the plane across the tarmac to the airport building. The building itself was well-staffed and clean with a fresh coat of paint. Customs was efficient and my bags were some of the first out on the one baggage claim thing. Our driver and another staff person from the US met us outside amidst dozens of other drivers and people looking for a few bucks to drive new arrivals the 58 kilometers into town. My bags were loaded into, get this, a Cadillac Escalade. You know, me and my posse. While I would like to say it was nice to sit down, after a 7 hour flight, a 1 hour flight, another 7 hour flight and another 1 hour flight, I would have appreciated a little more stretching time.

Unfortunately, these kind of wants and needs are easily leveled in a place like this. While driving down the very long road to Monrovia, the capital city, hundreds of people were walking in the pouring rain along the sides of the road. I couldn’t see if there were houses and I did ask where they were walking to and from and was told that they walk to work, and there is no public transportation and no one has cars. I mean, I’m not ignorant to the poverty that I’m going to see here, but it’s still shocking. Unfortunate, sad, frustrating, shocking.

We finally got to the hotel after getting off the main road and getting onto the dirt streets in the main part of the city which were filled with bumps, holes, and now, subsequently, water. I had been told not to bring good shoes. Really, I should have brought boots. No joking! Actually, it had dried up a lot by this morning. I only had to walk from my hotel next door to the next hotel but I and others still avoided walking in the street and near the water.

The hotel is the nicest around from what I understand. The bedrooms are air conditioned, have CNN and BBC, and modern bathrooms. This is a big deal! There is wireless internet in the lounge of the hotel. This is a popular place for expatriates and consultants working on funded programs to eat and stay. We were pretty lucky to get rooms. There were a lot of white people at dinner when we went down at 10:00 pm last night. The menu was vast – Lebanese, Indian, Greek, Liberian, and American continental food.

Outside today things were so much different in the daylight. We’re right on the ocean and had meetings all day with the doors open to the veranda of the conference room where we listened to the roaring of the ocean as the backdrop to all of this very important talking! However, once again it’s hard to stomach the disparities of working in the nicest hotels and then walking right outside to see people selling cigarettes and sneakers in their dilapidated shacks that they sleep in at night. Not everyone lives like this, these people are probably the poorest of the poor but it still there’s a whole ‘it’s just not right’ feeling that is hard to ignore. I feel like the people that have been here for a while (months, years) are actually pretty jaded by it. I guess you can’t fret about things you can’t change.

After our meetings we came down to the JSI office which is where we are now. This was my first chance to see a very poor city of rundown buildings and shacks. Thousands of people were standing and sitting around. People were selling anything from shoes, to coats, to bananas. And just like pictures and tv shows I’d seen about Africa, women were carrying goods on their heads. Maybe I’m ignorant to seem so surprised, but I guess I didn’t expect it (I guess I didn’t really have any expectations though in my own defense!). The weather has cleared up and the sun coming out has made it pretty muggy.

I’m going to spend my few days here training our office manager, Earl, on JSI systems and some financial documentation techniques. He’s helping to manage a handful of different JSI programs and performs a lot of different roles. He has this great personal story of coming from rural Liberia and being adopted by a wealthy family from Monrovia who then left when the civil war broke out. Earl was lucky enough to have the motivation, will, and courage to keep up with his studies and network when they left. He’s building his career and the staff here are intent on helping him build skills and learn this industry. It’s a cool by-product of doing this kind of work.

The hotel shares a pool, Jacuzzi, and gym. I don’t know that I’m willing to investigate those alone – perhaps someone else will check them out with me. There are a thousand pictures to take here but there are also a thousand opportunities to look like that big, white American intruding on people’s lives and their dignity. But man, this is something I’ve never been exposed to before.