The Avocado tale

I know that I am acclimatising to living in the US because today, after one year, eleven months and fifteen days, I bought four avocados that were only marginally bigger than marbles for a dollar a piece. For almost two years I have held out against purchasing these puny fruit as the memory of my Kenyan garden, filled with half a dozen avocado trees of varying kinds has filled my mind. We would make weekend forays to whichever tree was in fruit and pluck them from the high branches, the unlucky one hovering with a big basket underneath waiting to make a catch – although in my case, ducking and running as soon as a fruit started to fall always seemed to more sensible approach – avocados need to be picked unripe, and being the size of small melons and rock hard, make excellent adversaries, so only-just missing a catch is something to be avoided wherever possible. Once our basket was brimming, too heavy to carry, we would drag it back to the house, and line the windowsill with the week’s haul. Even the dogs ate them. We frequently supplemented Pedipup with mashed avocados, and whenever they could, PD and AD would disappear for the morning looking for soft fruit that had fallen but hadn’t yet succumbed to the hoards of hungry safari ants.  Some days they would return home, jaws stretched around half a fruit and spend the afternoon gnawing it down to skin and stone. The donkeys too could be found gorging themselves in the heat of the afternoon, and quickly became the fattest donkeys ever to walk the African continent.

So, I have never been able to part with money for something that was once free and plentiful, and is now so ridiculous and pathetic. Until today. I don’t know if that is a good thing or not.

The Electrician

I’m still reeling and it’s been four days. The electricians came back for the third time, Jimmy from a weekend deer hunting trip, and it was immediately obvious that familiarity had loosening up his tongue. On the previous visit he asked me if I’d seen any Zulus or Pygmies when I lived in Africa to which I replied, “Well Zulus come from South Africa and I’ve never been there,” and “No, why should I have done?”

This time round he asked about Tarzan, “Every seen Tarzan swinging through the trees when you lived over there?” The thing is, I don’t think he was entirely joking; in fact I don’t think he was joking at all; and he didn’t seem to think it an odd or funny question, or to expect a negative in the answer. I began to piece together the realisation that his view of the world is shaped from the big square box in the corner of the room. (He previously asked me what people wore under their suits of armour and if we (the British) always said, “Would you like a spot of tea?” having heard it on some WWII film.)

Anyway, sometime later when I am trying to explain that South Africa is one of 53 countries in Africa and I still haven’t been there, he starts with “What about Mogadishu? Where’s that at?” The warning bells should have started ringing immediately but I was slow on the uptake and let him continue “There’s this film, Black Hawk Down, it’s about one of the first American pilots killed in Mogadishu, and he came from Little Rock and they’ve named a street after him, ‘Donovan something’.” I try to conjure up an image of Somalis, after sixteen years of war, famine and anarchy, calling their main street ‘Donovan Something’, and fail.

From Mogadishu we leap straight to Israel: “I’m all for the Israelis really. You’ve got to admire them, when those Black September guys kidnapped the Olympic athletes in 1972 and then murdered them, the Israelis said they wouldn’t rest till they’d hunted them all down. And that’s exactly what they did. It took ‘em two years but they hunted them all down and executed every one of them. I really admire that about the Israelis.”

The tour of my friend’s understanding of foreign affairs continues with a brief discussion about (Somalian) pirates: “I wouldn’t make a good politician, I’d just wipe ‘em all out,”; and good politicians: “These marines were kidnapped and held for two years whilst Carter was president but then they were released 45 minutes before Reagan was sworn in ‘cos they (the captors) sure knew what they’d be in for with Reagan as president.” I knew there was little I could say to influence his thoughts – what could I possibly do in ten minutes after decades of brainwashing from the American media? – but I did my best with a little plug for the Somalis and a question about what the US were doing there in the first place. I may as well have brushed a fly from my nose for all the difference it made.

Finally, Jimmie stops by my office for one last blast:  “Now I don’t have a problem with the Iranians having nuclear weapons just like we do, but I think we should just bomb ‘em all. A friend o’ mine, and this is the best idea I ever heard, he says we should fill up some of them C27’s with pork fat and drop it all over them before we bomb ‘em. ‘Cos they say they don’t mind dieing for Allah and all that, but if they are covered in pig fat they’ll be dirty, like, when they die, and that way they won’t be happy. That’s the best idea I ever heard of.”

Ironically, early on in our acquaintance Jimmie told me how racist his brother-in-law was (against African-Americans), a thing he just couldn’t understand. Now I look at him. I am worn out. I wonder how this huge country can ever drag itself away from its bellicose background and hostile intent when thoughts like those of Jimmy’s probably fill 50% of its minds. There is little hope.

Post Script. For a critique of Black Hawk Down go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hawk_Down_%28film%29 (Controversy). And for an excellent insider story of what life on the front line in Somalia was really like for the Somalis, and what the Americans did or didn’t do, read James Orbinski’s ‘An Imperfect Offering’ or watch the film about it.

Summer’s end

Today was the last day of summer. Twenty-four degrees and sunny. My three-year-old and I walk through the leaves, scooter through the leaves, run through the leaves, and bathe our faces in the warm sun. It is fun. E is away and as we are enjoying a period of harmonious co-habitation (which isn’t, I believe, always a given in marriage), he is missed.

Flora and fauna

It had to come at some point, but my three-year-old’s sudden desire to stop napping is a body blow from which I have yet to rebound. The result of this overnight change of heart is that I am eight hours behind on my domestic admin for the week, which includes editing a couple of blogs I sketched out. I have just managed to impose sleep this afternoon, after once removing the crown and jewels adorning both her and teddy in their sleepwear, and once returning her pyjamas to their rightful place on her shoulders rather than strung, toga like, across her chest. But I can see that it is a losing battle and that I will have to reschedule my life from this point forward.

The inordinate amount of cleaning I’ve done in the past two weeks is also taking its toll on my intellectual time (and yes, writing this blog really is as intellectual as it gets). The end of the sweltering summer brought with it the realisation that our bedroom wall was tinged with a blue bloom, which, on closer inspection, turned out not to be dust but mould. And you know how it is, once you start looking you find it in places you never knew existed. So I have cleaned and scrubbed and wiped most surfaces in the house, up to and including the skirting board behind the cooker, and removed a rainbow’s worth of fungi: pink (bathroom); blue (bedroom); brown (windows); black and green (skirting boards, windows, blinds). E says he can breathe much better now, so that’s a relief, as I’ve used enough chemicals to make even Monsanto a richer man.

On top of the mould there have been clothes moths, meaning that all my winter woollies (now full of holes) are enjoying a short stay in the freezer – the non-toxic solution of choice to compensate for the mould issue – and I now need to empty out both closets, hoover again from floor to ceiling, and wash everything (the website I read says to run a nail file under your skirting board and, if you find a hair on it, your house is too dirty). Oh dear.

Then there are the mice. Again. Which has meant washing out all the kitchen cupboards. Again. The pest control man came to lay glue traps and then told me just to throw them away once they had a mouse attached to them. “It will be squeaking a lot,” he added. I turned a bit pale, and asked for a more humane option. “Just drop them in the toilet, they drown in 30 seconds. That’s what I do. But whatever you do don’t flush.” Don’t flush? The only thing I can kill without feeling queasy is a mosquito. I deliberately hoovered a spider up the other day (there have been millions) but then felt so remorseful at the thought of it whizzing round and round in the bag that I had to spend half an hour carting its brothers and sisters to a safe spot in the garden. So how Steve thought I would be able to drop a mouse down the toilet and watch it gasp its last gurgling breath I do not know. In the end I’ve opted for poison, which is pretty God-damn awful, and a total cop-out I know. But my three-year-old’s just got a lovely book about a little grey mouse with beady eyes who rescues a bear from a life of solitude. Dropping him down the toilet would be more than I could live with.

A quiet moment

I sat for an hour this afternoon on the porch in my big white circular chair that is so deep and so wide, that guests look warily at its gaping mouth before opting for the safety of the sofa from which they know they will be able to rise after a glass of wine. All but a few leaves from the big oak tree in front of the house have fallen to the ground, leaving a crisp crunchy carpet, and the sun hovers a few degrees above the horizon. But it is as warm as a summer day and the sky a pale watercolour blue and I find time to stop and sit and relax for an hour whilst my three-year-old sleeps. All but the most resilient of the mosquitos are dead, and I am suddenly reminded of what it is like to live in a country with a clement climate – sitting out here on my porch unbitten and warm. I try to stop thinking, or at least stop thinking about all the things which have been turning round in my head for days: what we are going to do; where we are going to live; what course our lives might take; all the things we need to decide; all the things I might have done differently. It feels good to let that drain away and to enjoy a few moments of peace.

Worse and worse

I should have saved the volcanic eruption for this week. E’s company came up with a package for our move to Mozambique, but being so wholly incompetent and with zero international experience they apparently have no idea of what they are talking about. We calculate that, once the high cost of housing is taken into account in Maputo, E’s salary will be $181 per month. The offer is so incredible it would be laughable if it weren’t so bad. E says he’s so sad he can’t even cry.

My bike or his?

I know a fair amount about bicycles because, in the distant haze that is my youth, I used to cause my mother endless angst and worry by disappearing for hours (and later weeks) at a time on two-wheeled pilgrimages. The complementary hours spent in a drafty hallway greasing, aligning and spannering my steed now stand me in trusty stead, and it’s not too easy to pull the oily rag over my eyes when it comes to bike maintenance. So last week, when E needed to call the bike shop to see about getting a repair done, he felt the easiest thing would be to get me to do it instead.

Now, I seem to spend a moderate amount of time being E’s domestic secretary, which is not a job I generally begrudge, but it does make me squirm a little when I need to say, “I’m calling about husband’s prescription/doctor’s appointment/driving licence/tax return.” I think the squirming is all to do with the perception of being allocated a lower-status job: the cleaning, the secretary stuff, it all implies that you are sitting at home gossiping in between cleaning and doing little errands for your man which he himself is far too busy to find time for.

Anyway, whenever I can, I try to avoid sounding like I’m my husband’s run around, so on the phone about the bicycle, through no conscious decision on my part, the words, “My bicycle,” immediately slipped out. It all seem so much simpler to say, “The front derailleur won’t shift and the bottom bracket needs adjusting,” than, “He says he can’t get it to go up when he wants it to.”

As soon as I started speaking to Bill the Mechanic about hubs and cranks, I knew I was on to a winner. Suddenly we went from, “Oh we can’t fit you in for a service until next week,” to, “I’ve had a couple of cancellations, bring it in this morning and I’ll try to get it back to you by tonight.” Now, I knew, I knew immediately that any mention that this was not, in fact, my own bicycle but that of my husband would instantly jeopardise all that I had just achieved. So I decided to play the game. I duly took the bicycle to Bill, got him to lift it out of the car (my interest in bicycle maintenance no longer goes as far as wishing to get oily) and string it up on the rack, and then went through the minutia of the bicycle’s wear and tear with him: how I did and didn’t clean it, how much I loved it, what kind of lubricant I wanted to use and so on.  And of course when Bill asked me how far my commute to work was, there was nothing I could do but fall into E’s cleated shoes and describe the daily trip.  And the organisation for which I worked. And how I ended up working them. At which point I felt that the ice was getting rather thin and I’d better retreat to dry land post haste.

That evening, Bill was as good as his word, giving me a winning smile and strong handshake when I returned to compliment his handiwork. “All ready for your commute tomorrow morning,” he said warmly. I thanked him profusely and skated off.

I described this little excursion into falsedom with a friend later that day, not exactly with guilt but with a certain twinge of je ne sais pais that I had used my feminine guiles so effectively to get the result I wanted. And although perhaps I hadn’t set out to do it that way, as soon as it was clear that the approach would work, I jumped on the bandwagon and gave it my best. But my friend instantly banished any reproach I might have given myself and suggest I look up the Mark Twain quotation that says something like, lying is OK as long as you don’t get caught. I couldn’t find that one but I did find another from, On the Decay of the Art of Lying:

“The highest perfection of politeness is only a beautiful edifice, built, from the base to the dome, of graceful and gilded forms of charitable and unselfish lying”.

Volcanic eruption

This weekend did not start well. In fact, the bad started on Friday evening when E came home from work with the news that yet again, his company had failed to come up with a definite offer regarding our move to Mozambique. It has been over five months since the idea was first put forward, and last Friday, it seemed, was going to be E’s final meeting with the HR department (from hell) to make a decision and come up with an offer. But no, all they wanted to do was tell E that they had identified  a moving company to use. E was able to point out that a moving company was rather premature, given they had yet to offer him a salaried position, to which they apparently pouted a little then moved on.

Psychologists say that uncertainty is one of the most difficult and stressful states for a brain to deal with. And to this I can now attest.  Here’s a list of decisions, which have been hovering over us for the last three months, made impossible by not knowing on which continent we are going to be living in two months’ time.

The car. It needed new tyres in August. It needs them even more so now, and am getting unhappy about driving it, but, I thought, it was going to be sold by now.

The house. Shall I spend a lot of effort and frustration trying to get the landlady to deal with the heating issue before winter sets in, or shall I assume we are not going to be here?

Shall I replace the electric beater I broke or shall I need to give it away the moment I buy it as it’s the wrong voltage for where I live? Ditto the electric kettle (I’ve been doing a lot of breaking recently).

Shall I buy three litres of olive oil or one?

Clothes. Way back in the summer, I invested in a pair of sandals for my two-year old, believing she’d need them in October when they would be hard to find. Known as the Mozambican Sandals, her feet almost fit them now but Mozambique is nowhere on the horizon. Likewise, all through September, as trousers and long-sleeves hit the rails, I hesitated about buying winter clothes, but purchased a nice range of light-weight dresses on sale.  As the weeks trickle by, the dresses remain on their hangers and I dash out sporadically to buy ever warmer wear, culminating today with a full winter jacket.

Work. Shall I apply for a job with a lovely small company I used to work for, when the job starts in January and I may be flying to a new land with no house, car, phone or internet connection? I don’t want to waste their time or mine.

Family. My brother is marrying in January 2010 and I still don’t know which continent I need to fly from.

School. Should I get involved in the PTO or assume, as I have been doing, that it is not worthwhile this year.

Pets. Had I know in June, that I be thinking of travelling to the UK for Christmas on my way to Africa, the dogs could have been vaccinated and joined me in the UK. Now, any moving plans to Mozambique via the UK will have to involve hugely expensive kennelling costs in any one of three continents.

It may sound trivial but the mental stress of not being able to plan things, big or little, two months into the future is huge. So this weekend, when I thought I was holding it all together so nicely, the bubble finally burst; the uncertainty, the stress, and the inability on my part to do anything about it all got too much. I think psychologists call it learned helplessness. When you are put in a very stressful situation but there is nothing you can do to get out of it. Rather like an impending volcano, adrenaline levels rise, but there is nowhere to send them and pressure builds. Another deadline passes with no outlet, and suddenly it is all too much and the volcano explodes.

Poor E. He did the only thing he could and dragged me out for a walk, which partially worked. At least for a while. But the same questions still churn over in my mind: what will I do with the dogs, where will I be for Christmas, should I invest in new winter boots, when will I know? As psychologists say happens when the brain is face with uncertainty, it constantly looks for a stable solution and when it cannot find one, it runs round and round and round, getting more tired and more worried.

On a more positive note, whilst browsing the internet for something about learned helplessness, I came across a helpful piece of research, suggesting that religious belief may be a good way of warding off stress and anxiety. So watch out all ye who thought you knew me, next time we meet I may be out to convert you too.

Autumn colours

Arkansas has finally come up trumps with its autumnal weather, if a little belatedly, and today we hiked in sun and clear skies under blazing scarlet and burnt sienna foliage. If we do every manage to leave this place (more on that later if blood pressures allows), today will be one of those days to remember. For the good reasons.

Hot tea

The electrician came. Jimmy is a delight. A true southerner with an accent so broad you could bridge the River Arkansas with it and drive a ten-ton truck straight over. We discuss my (German) landlady’s name, which admittedly, by ending in ‘tanz’ is difficult to pronounce. I give him a demonstration, ‘tanse’ and he looks bewildered and stumbles on it, clearly not hearing the vowel sound I am making. After a few more goes I say, “OK, let’s try it your way.” Drawing back the corners of my mouth as far as I can to make a big Cheshire cat grin, and closing the back of my throat like a crocodile about to dive, I sound, “taeense”. His face lightens in instant recognition, “Oh, taeense,” he beams and turns it over in his mouth a few times.

This morning, Jimmy returns to give us the two new sockets that mean we won’t have to hurdle the cables that have been straddling the kitchen for the past fortnight, and I offer tea or coffee. “D’yuw drink hot tea? Hey, Jamie, she drinks hot tea. I haven’t had a hot tea in a long time. Sure, I’ll have a cup of hot tea.” Jamie sensibly declines hot tea in favour of more trustworthy coffee, but comments with delight on my use of the word ‘bit’, as in, “Can you pass me the bit underneath.”  Well, that a new one to me too: I certainly hadn’t realised that ‘bit’ was a rare word round here. I shall try it out on some other locals and see if it gives them as much pleasure and surprise.

In the meantime, Jimmy relishes his hot tea served in a real porcelain mug (“Thank you Mae’aem”) and then asks how it is made. He leaves a few hours later furnished with some tea bags and detailed written instructions regarding boiling water, mugs, milk and sugar.