New and Improved

As humans we adjust to the environment around us. For example, take three medium sized bowls and fill them with water. One cold, one hot (but not too hot), and one somewhere in the middle. Place one hand in the cowl of cold water and the other in the bowl of hot water and keep them there for about a minute. Now place both hands in the lukewarm bowl of water together. You should notice that the hot water hand feels cold and the cold water hand feels hot.

About three year ago I traveled outside of the US for the first time in my life (no, the day trip to Juarez at age 6 doesn’t count). I left the laid back atmosphere of Hawai`i and upon arriving in Seoul was immediately taken aback by how aggressive and forceful everyone seemed, how traffic laws were seemingly regarded as suggestions, and the haphazard way people seemed to walk, choosing to adhere to neither the left nor the right of pedestrian throughways. Three years later, returning to South Korea after 2 years in Kenya my immediate impressions were that everyone is incredibly polite, traffic is a perfectly ballet of glass and steel coordinated by law abiding citizens, and that everyone except for me seems to know exactly where to walk while I meander aimlessly throughout the sidewalk. What happened? What changed? When did everything become so harmonious?

This morning, a German traveler, freshly arrived from Japan, commented to me on how taken aback he has been by how pushy and hostile people seem here. What changed? Apparently just me. Al Gore tells us that if you put a frog in boiling water it will jump out, but if you put it in tepid water then raise it to a boil you’ll be the proud owner of a dead, boiled frog. Never mind what kind of sadistic frog boiling sicko the former VP got this info from and don’t please try this at home, we’ll just assume they did their homework thoroughly before making their findings public. The point is that I didn’t realize how difficult life was in Kenya or how I was adapting until I went somewhere else.

I’ve learned that I after two years of not wearing deodorant that the smell of it is too overpowering. I can’t pass an electrical socket without thinking about what I can potentially charge at that given moment and I’m constantly thinking about where I can get clean drinking water. I view internet access as a finite commodity and I can’t look at pictures or videos without thinking about how much data I’m chewing up. I’m more comfortable holding hands with other men than you would expect from someone coming from a country where homosexuality is a crime punishable by up to 14 years in prison and I still prefer to squat when going to the bathroom when the option exists. I think about all purchases in terms of how many village lunches I could buy for the same price and find it hard to believe that restaurants actually have all of the foods listed on their menu available at any given time. I’m unused to the idea of events occurring exactly at a certain time, I find it odd to be outdoors after dark, and I still feel the need to sleep with a mosquito net. I’m sure there are many more quirks and habits I’ve picked up that I’m not even aware of yet, so you’ll have to tell me what they are the next time we’re together.

Hard To Explain

Statistics have shown that 100% of Public Health Peace Corps volunteers working in Kenya will at some point during their service come into possession of a large number of condoms. The acquisition may be purposeful or unexpected, legitimate or in direct violation of multiple international laws (e.g. The Great Condom Train Heist of ‘72), but in the end it is an inevitable part of the Peace Corps experience and is a tradition as old as, if not older than, the Peace Corps itself. Of those condoms, 99.99% are distributed to would be users, destroyed in water balloon tosses, or fed to gazelles. Of the remaining 0.01%, over 99% are carried out of the country knowingly by the volunteer (let’s assume so that they can put them in their scrapbook). So imagine my surprise and excitement at being a statistical anomaly when, while unpacking in front of my friend’s family, a black plastic bag full of unused male prophylactics that I certainly don’t remember packing, should tumble out onto out of my bag. With hands quick enough to catch lightning and a mask of nonchalance that most texas hold 'em players lie awaking at night dreaming about I managed to tie up the bag and put it out of view, managing not to attract any undue attention and avoiding a spill of difficult to explain contents across the floor of a living room full of children.

Now I’m placed in a precarious situation. My frugal side can’t stand to throw anything away that’s still perfectly usable, my efficient (euphemism for lazy) side has no interest in carrying around anything that I have no need for, and my sensible side tells me that approaching random strangers and asking if they want a bag of full of condoms could land me in hotter water than my current level of Korean can get me back out of. In the meantime this bag seems to have a mind of its own, showing up again all the most inopportune times. For now I’m just trying to keep it out of sight, but if anyone has a better idea I’m all ears (electronically speaking that is).

Annyeongha-Say What?

They say (more specifically, the members of Cinderella say) you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone. Such is the case with my Swahili. No, I haven’t forget the language that’s been my life line for the last 2 years, but the longer I’m away from Kenya the more I’m realizing that there is a critical worldwide shortage of Kiswahili conversationalists. As fun as it is to see the baffled look on people’s faces when I respond to any non-English question, comment, or tongue twister in my East African dialect of choice, I would prefer for their befuddlement to be a result of the illogicality of my response as opposed to a plain old language barrier. I may be jumping to conclusions, but I have a sinking feeling that I am going to dearly miss conversing in a language where the difference between “I’d like roast chicken” and “I’d like to roast you” is the stressing of a single syllable. I guess for now I’ll just have to put my pride on the shelf and my Swahili on the back burner. First order of business: try to stop agreeing to everything by saying “haya” (Swahili for OK) which sounds far too much like “hai” (Japanese for yes) to be throwing around in a country that’s had it’s share of unpleasant run-ins with the Land of the Rising Sun.

The Doorbell

I’ve always considered myself to be a particularly lucky individual. I rarely break mirrors, spill table salt, or engage in any of those other nasty behaviors that tend to rub lady luck the wrong way. In return, she has cast her graceful smile down on me more than someone born on Friday the 13th is probably entitled to. But after getting bumped up to an exit seat on three out of three flights from Kenya to South Korea (twice because my original seat was taken and once just because) I had a feeling that I had just racked up a karma debt that I didn’t have nearly enough good deeds in my account to pay off. My only hope was that the gods of providence wouldn’t demand swift repayment in the form of a few permanent teeth, or that at the very least, that I could get on some kind of long term settlement scheme with me not having to part with said chompers until late in my 8th or 9th decade. Seems they had something else in mind.
After enjoying the free airport WiFi (short for “wireless Fi”) for several early morning hours I decide there is finally enough light for me to make my way to some place where I can dump my overfull bag and start enjoying some parts of Seoul other than the Incheon International terminal. I make my say through the mostly deserted subways and streets much faster than expected, finally arriving at the guesthouse entryway, nestled cozily at the top of a 4 story flight of stairs. I listen at the closed door. Silence. I know I’m early, but how early? Is anyone awake inside?

I set down my 20.8 kg bag (i know because that’s what it weighed at the Nairobi airport) and I debate with myself whether or not it’s too early to knock. As I look down at the my phone to check the time I catch a bit of movement out of the corner of my eye, turning my head and reacting just time to ALMOST catch my bag before it goes tumbling noisily down the staircase. I’m not sure exactly how many individual steps there were, but I am absolutely certain that my bag hit every single one of them as it clamored loudly away from me like a mischievous toddler in the checkout lane of a grocery store right after tossing their soiled diaper into some other poor shoppers produce basket. Even if I had packed my bag full of pots, bells, and automatic kazoos, I doubt it could have made any more noise than it somehow did lumbering down the stairwell.

As I drag my misbehaving luggage back up the top flight of stairs the staff of the hostel suddenly burst out the door, no doubt expecting to see either a dead body, or those two angry robot customers from a couple nights ago, who were clearly dissatisfied with their stay. Surprisingly, nothing inside my bag was broken, so I’m not sure just how far this will go toward paying off my fortune creditors, but at least it’s a sign of good faith that shows them I’m willing to play ball.
In a completely unrelated incident, while trying to tell someone that I was considering sleeping in a public bath house (totally culturally acceptable here), I may have said that I was going to sleep in a bathroom (much less culturally acceptable). It’s interesting, because other than both having 3 syllables, the Korean words for each really not very similar to one another and there is no good reason to make that mistake. Due to my lack of sleep at the time, I can’t really confirm or deny what I did or didn’t say, but the other guy’s reaction makes a lot more sense if I messed up. Either way, I’m counting it toward my karma debt.

Still Kicking

South Korea is undisputedly the most wired nation on Earth, narrowly beating out the Russian space station late last spring to retain its title for the 83^rd year in a row. With Wi-Fi emitters atttached to 90% of trash cans, grapefruits, and stray dogs you’d be hard pressed to find place where rocket fast internet is not to be had. So as I bask in the pre-dawn radio waves of this broadband empire, I’ve realized that the fastest internet in the world is meaningless if you don’t have someone to share it with…enter my legions of loyal readers. After two years of living in what sometimes seems like a different person’s life, I’ve decided the best way to shift back into the US is by taking the long way home, and even though it’s entirely possible that nothing of interest will happen whatsoever, I’ll try to post from time to time to let you all know that I’m still alive and as full of myself as ever.

Even Monkeys Fall From Trees

With just under a week left of Peace Corps service remaining two facts have made themselves apparent to me: 1) Two years can go by in the blink of an eye, and 2) the speed at which that time passes accelerates exponentially the farther behind in blogging one falls (I came up with a formula and everything). In a move that will doubtlessly disappoint my legions of undying fans, I’m sorry to announce that this is going to be my last blog post from Kenya. Over the years (both of them) there were countless happenings, mis-happenings, and near mis-happenings which ended just being happenings in the end. Through all these happening variations there were volumes of adventures that I wanted to share but just never got around to it, so from here on out we’ll just have to wait until we see one another to play catch up on all those missing blog posts. Some of the stories I started writing up but never finished include:

Practical jokes gone wrong: The clothes thief
The disappearing ATM card and the budget crisis of 2011
Traffic jam in Nairobi
Hey, lighten up man: The bitterness of foreigners
The look
Water free farming
Bargaining tactics: How to get the best price (spoiler alert: breaking merchandise and bartering with surgery are not off limits)
Changing a tire village style
Kilimanjaro: How does a Frisbee (direct Swahili translation: the plate game) fly at 19,341 feet?
Peace Corps survival techniques: Being lost in a foreign city
Treating patients at 30,000 feet
The sound of Cairo praying
Do you know how much: The Egyptian sales pitch
That flight doesn’t exists: Close calls in travel

Of course two years doesn’t pass anyone by idly, so I expect all of you to have your own stories to share when we meet again. Till then...

The Wordiest Blog Post Ever

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. So it is almost certain that they, whoever indeed "they" are, would also agree that a series of tens of thousands of pictures sequentially arranged to produce the illusion of motion must carry a word value somewhere in the bajillions or gazillions. In any case, it should more than compensate for a couple months of missed blog posts. On that note, here's a little something I put together with some people in my area. I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.