A Case of the Mondays

Went into the mountains to watch my Steelers. I got that chance. And I woke up this morning roughly where I went to sleep (at about 6:30am): just a little sad. Which is how every season ends for everybody, everywhere...except when it doesn’t. Then it’s amazing, it’s anarchy, it’s ice cream. The problem is that as positive possibilities accrue so do negative ones, so we get to the point where nothing would make me sadder than the Steelers losing the AFC Championship Game, except for the Steelers winning said game, and then losing the Super Bowl. Which happened, and thus I was, and am, a little sad. It’s stupid, it’s childish, it’s just a game. I know all of it. But the way I look at it, if I choose to not care, to not be saddened to some degree or another by every season’s end, I also forfeit my right to be joyous, jubilant, and jocular in victory. And as I rather enjoy my jocularity, it is therefore today’s duty for me to hang my head, just a little bit.

We watched the Super Bowl from a hostel room with two beds and a 10-inch TV. At 4am, as halftime began, we prepared our gameday snack: chapati (sort of thick tortillas), guacamole, french fries, beef, and chili sauce. More than anything else this is what Peace Corps means to me: adaptability. Whether it is chopping up avocados on a hostel floor with a Swiss Army Knife, hacking down the Christmas tree with a machete from someone else’s forest, or performing minor foot surgery in someone’s bathroom (read on), we are what the situation demands of us here, and we make the best of it. Why? Because we were the ones who wanted to be here, made it so, and now shall live with it.

Couple of stories coming about bugs. One a little graphic, one just quirky. For those weak of stomach, maybe skip the next two paragraphs. Might as well start with the bad and work backwards. Been running and running and running forever these days, and I noticed a calloused lump developing next to my left big toe. Thought nothing of it for a few days. Error, me. Turned out to be a jigger. A jigger, you ask? Oh, it’s a lovely little creature, like all of us in search of a home, shelter from the storm. And shelter it found. In my foot. It therefore began efforts to propagate its species. At some point in this process I realized that I had acquired a guest. Efforts were undertaken to bid him adieu. By that I mean I made use of my Leatherman and my pain tolerance. Little hard to see and operate on the bottom of your own foot, in case you were wondering. Particularly if you are late in attending to the problem, and there are, I’m afraid to say, a whole lot of little eggs to remove from your foot. Also in case you were wondering, a day that begins with a few dozen tiny C-sections on your own body tends to go downhill in a hurry. Did my best, I really did. But eventually had to employ the help of an expert. Which is how I found myself sitting in the hostel room, having the great Logan Loyola doing surgery with a nail clipper, and sterilizing myself with hopes, dreams, and antibiotic cream. Just another night on the other side of life.

Speaking of insects and moving to quirky. There is a new snack-craze sweeping the region. This happens every year. It requires shelling, frying, and salting. The resulting dish is delicious and nutritious, and is also, well, insects. They are called kumbikumbi, and you catch them (not sure how yet), remove the wings, fry ‘em, and throw some salt on top. I want to try sugar one day. When I first tasted this scrumptious treat, I was impressed, and said so. My neighbor and partner wanted to know the literal translation of kumbikumbi. I tell him that I sincerely doubt that my smallish dictionary has a definition for this specific type of edible flying insects. He insists, I acquiesce. We open the dictionary to the appropriate page. The entry for kumbikumbi reads: “flying termites. Tasty when fried.” Touche, dictionary.

Proceeding moja kwa moja (directly) into the realm of the blasphemous. Went over to a friend’s house for some chow the other day. We got to talking, and the topic veers, as it often does, to mambo ya utamaduni (cultural stuff). I, at some point, make the very silly mistake of mentioning that relationships in American are extremely different. That wasn’t the slip-up. The real gaff was saying how on occasion interested men and women may live together outside the covenant of marriage. My friend is a little distressed by the fact that these men and women are living their way straight to eternal damnation. Food arrives, and we eat. Not sure if her glimpse at the godless decadence of the modern youth caused what followed, but my guess would be...yeah. Getting ready to leave, when she begins to talk to me. It’s grander talk than normal conversation, and I understand fewer words, so it takes me until I hear something about rain, a boat, and “wanyama wawiliwawili” (animals two and two) to realize that we are talking about Noah. No sweat, I know this story. Then things get a little stranger. I start hearing that in the future, “watu wazuri watapaa!” and “wakosefu watabaki duniani”. Good people are gonna take off and sinners will stay here. Something about “mpinga Yesu”. And it takes me a while to catch on. But once she starts gesturing towards the forehead, talking about a number, and saying “mia sita, sitini, na sita”, I get it. The number is 666, the Yesu in question is the Anti-Christ, and I’m being told the story of the Rapture in Kiswahili. And how was your lunch?

I have to say that it was not the message that brought out my church giggles (I successfully held myself together). It was the memory of a fantastic episode of American Dad (lots of Fox cartoon references today) about the Rapture. Shortly after the children and pure disappear, people are understandably confused. So who arrives in this episode to bring clarity and dispel uncertainty? A sock puppet named Ricky the Raptor, to explain the Rapture. Couldn’t stop thinking about that damn puppet.

Had another episode of the church giggles in regards to witchery. But to begin at the beginning. Read a wonderful, engaging book before I left written by a Peace Corps Volunteer named Sarah Erdman, “Nine Hills to Nambonkaha”. In it she talks often about the communal use of witchcraft to explain the unexplainable, or even just the inconvenient (poor test scores by secondary students? Witches. Poor rains or harvests? Somebody angered a wizard. Soccer team a little loose on the defense? Warlocks. Kidding on that last one. Maybe). I was excited to learn about different belief systems, and was ever-so-slightly disappointed that my villagers are rather normal, if perhaps fervent, Christians. But maybe we were just getting used to each other. In the last few weeks, couple of nice moments: across the road from me lives a charming little bibi (grandmother). She’s sharp, no-nonsense, and likes to occasionally give me bags of tomatoes. I mentioned this to my other neighbor, and he remarked, in English, “You must be careful. She is such a wizard.” I like this phrase. I can picture Vince Vaughn saying it to a down-and-out buddy: “you’re such a wizard, baby”. Then, a couple of weeks ago, the kicker: as we’re walking back from a meeting, I say hello to a guy who runs one of the village shops. My counterpart again tells me to be very, very careful. Apparently there are a few wizards/witches in the village (a coven, if you will), that are working out an unusual spell upon the village. If you buy anything from them, and you don’t have the exact cost on you, you will give them a larger bill. They will return the difference. And at some point in the near future, that returned money will...disappear. Poof. So if you take nothing else from these random musings, remember this: when dealing with wizards, always, always, use exact change.

I love you all, hope people start commenting on the posts from time to time, if there's anything you want to know (or would like not to hear about going forward). Love you all, be well.