Lady Angels in India

Ladies Room at the Gandhi Museum in Madurai

Ceiling Fans at the Dreams Beach Resort in Varkala

Temple Greeting from Hampi

Little Angel Bus in Mamallapuram

Donkey Daze

This photo is an "Only in Iowa" shot because this type of shot expresses the rural, Midwestern, agricultural, mellow, laid back lifestyle of my childhood homeland. Corn peaking its green rows into the world; creeks carrying mallard ducks on their currents; and town population sizes of 5,000 or fewer- each with their own water tower- dot the landscape. Imagine being dazed by a donkey in a parade that is one city block long! I admit that I was rather juvenile when I took this photo, and I apologize to the man who was attaching the letters and date to announce the festivity of Donkey Daze to the community. But I am sure he would smile if he only knew he brought a smile to the face of a woman engaged in a childish prank. And, you can't see his face, only another more prominent part of his body, ha ha.

Definitions in Color: Integrity

I am blogging the rancid memories of a disfigured romantic entanglement out of my system. When a revelation comes to mind that will help me make sense of the catastrophe, I jot it down for further contemplation. At one point in the interchange with this man, I told him that if we were a continuum, we would BE the opposite ends. This is particularly true in our unity/separation of the personal and professional.

My definition of these two terms is rooted in the lessons from the feminist movement. Both the political and the professional are also personal. There is very little separation or division between the code of conduct I follow in the personal or professional roles I play in my daily life. Maintaining one unified principled rulebook of behavior in all areas of my life is how I define integrity and gauge the success of my relationships with others.

On the opposite end of the continuum are those who separate their professional roles from their personal lives and establish dual sets of regulations governing each sphere of their existence: separate, disunited and lacking in integrity is how I experience these people. The word "fake" comes to mind or lacking in authenticity and not to be trusted. I feel as if I am dealing with a person who has a personality disorder split down the middle.

I can only express my opinion here. It would be fascinating to discuss this with someone on the opposite end of the human continuum. I have realized from this experience that interacting intimately with people whose vision of the world is so fundamentally different from my own forces me to define my stance on the issues.

Palm Wine Sunday Sun

Being calmly exhausted from a day spent with spiritually enriching people is the best! Packing six people from four nations into a stormy sky-blue compact car imported from France for a trip to the Congolese countryside is a sure way to get to know your neighbor. French and English, English and French, the linguistic ping pong ball warming the ears and delighting the mind. A few legs fell asleep in the backseat, ants marching up calves stinging as they went, but to be with people who spiritually fed me teaspoons full of mini-nirvana was a day well spent. [If I manufactured a breakfast cereal, I think I would call it Mini-Nirvana!]

In Congo, people don't consider being alone to be joyful. Interdependence is the norm. Interacting socially, helping a neighbor or friend, and participating in community life is how it goes. To state the obvious: Life is tough here, and no one can exist as an independent entity.

As an American who held the values of independence and individuality so close to my heart, I have done my share of cultural adjusting after my arrival in Brazzaville in late August 2010. Let's just say, I am not as independent as I once was, and I am learning to enjoy the Congolese outlook on life.

Saving Soap - Measuring Time

I wish I would have thought of this idea from the first day I arrived in Congo, but fortunately the inspiration came to me mid-September. That's why you only see 13 circles of soap in the photo- 2 more and I would have constructed a pyramid.

Every day Juliette, the maid at my hotel, delivers one disk of soap. And every day, like a surly pack rat preparing for a soap famine, I drop the disks in a pile on a bathroom shelf hidden from her view by a bag of cotton balls.

Counting time...

Note: The color of the packaging is not consistently the same color red. I would describe some labels as a muted red and other lables as notice me- I'm a Flower of the Evening- orange.

Inconsistency is the consistency of Congo.

Suckling from the Malnourished in Brazza

A Bony Trio

I saw my first street cat today, and I'm now fairly certain why there are so few street animals living in the capital. The cat I saw was depressingly female with two horrendously dirty mouths suckling on her emaciated teats. I was surprised her dwarfed body had maintained the strength to endure a pregnancy and the live birth of two kittens. The trio was weaving through diners' legs at a small snack shop while I was dodging trash scattered along a major highway. I was on my way to shop at the Total Market- a street market overflowing with toxic black exhaust fumes; photocopy shops; wobbly stacks of not-so-orange oranges; and painfully poor people discussing the day's gossip when I realized that nearly everything in this city appears to my eyes as unfinished, broken, half-dead, never enough and lacking. As much as I try to put a positive spin on the place, and I do consider myself an optimist, it's ugly to my eyes. In addition, I am slightly terrified of how the city will transform into a giant muddy sponge during the rainy season when the temperatures and humidity numbers spike to even more sweat-soaked levels.

Cocktail Hour in Brazza!

I attended an educational fair at the French Cultural Center this afternoon and was surprised at the tightly packed bodies pressing against each other forcing everyone closer to the two counters where liquor and food were being served during cocktail hour. Students are commonly lacking funds and often hungry, but a group of students waiting for lunchtime finger food and wine filled the overheated room in the cultural center with the never enough hum of deprivation echoing through life in sub-Saharan Africa. When I looked down at my feet, I saw empty Coke cans and soiled napkins littering the floor.

I know that all emotions pass, and that tomorrow I will hit the restart button. It's okay to have a blue day as life moves forward.

sadly, youth makes a whore of beauty

Excerpt from “Meeting Elise” in the collection of short stories by Nam Le in The Boat
Sadly, youth makes a whore of beauty.

Don’t get me wrong, I like kids- Olivia was thirty years younger than me. I even wanted to have some with her. The problem is there are just too many of them. You can’t throw a brick on this island without concussing one. I wish I had more restraint. But I can’t help but hate how they look at me, how they don’t look at me. I hate their interchangeable bodies, their mass-rehearsed attitudes, their cars that look like boxes, like baseball caps, like artificial enlargements, their loud advertising, their beeps and clicks and trings, I hate how they speak words as though they’re chewing them, how they assume the business of the world revolves around them- how they’re right- and how everywhere this cult of youth, the pedamorphic dumbing-down, has whored beauty- duped, drugged, damaged, pixilated it and everywhere turned it to plastic.