Ghouls, Goblins & Witches, My Pretty!

Happy Halloween 

    to all you celebrating the night of dress up,
      debauchery, and candy-coated disguise.                    Boohahhahahha! 

Polls show that the eponymous witch with the pointy-hatted costume (however old school and dated) is still the American costume de jour.  Nevertheless, I have heard that people this year will likewise be dressing up to match fast-fading trends: reality star and teen pop *sensations* such as the Justin Bieber, Ms. Kim Kardashian, the thing that is Gaga, and all things New Moon are in vogue.  With the tween-gone-mainstream phenomenon of television vampire entertainment (Twilight and True Blood and Vampire Diaries and The Gates, among others,) many o' persons shall be dressed as werewolves, she-wolves, fairies, shape shifters, and vampires (both diamond-y and of the scarier ripper variety).

"Finger Food Anyone, Anyone?"

In years past I have dressed as a skier (last minute!), a jester (lots of bells), Marilyn Monroe (hello blondie), Rainbow Brite gone bad (the teenage years), Jem of Jem & the Rockers (awesome star earring), Wonder Woman (middle school), a crazy chicken (el pollo loco), and alas, I will admit it, a vampire (sigh).  Needless to say, I find the time of dress up amusing.  What will you be this year?

Most countries abroad don't celebrate such a ghoulish holiday so I plan to relish it!  May your night be happily scary.  Woohahahha!  

                     Cheers to candy, 

                       cauldrons,

          and all the things that go

               BUMP

                                      in the night!

Mumbai, Chai, and Indian Film (Oh My!)

                   Our first two-year posting
                   in the foreign service is to

     Mumbai, India... 

Mumbai, City of Dreams, 

                                       City that Never Sleeps:

   AKA Bombay (the city formerly known as...)

        AKA Bollywood (Indian Hollywood).

India has been on my bucket list for a while so I am thrilled we were given the opportunity to jump into the life of a Mumbaikar (Mumbai resident) for the next two years.  We plan to make the most of it and plan excursions across India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, time permitting.

Mumbai you say, hmm?  Perhaps you surmise, "Just what will you be doing there with all your free time, eh?"  Well then I am much obliged, good sir!  Let me imagine my near future.... (Bollywood music plays melodically in background as throng of Indian dancers enter stage right.)

Let's see.  I imagine, at a *minimum* that I will become a beloved Bollywood princess, learn Hindustani (Hindi, English, and Marathi combo used by Bollywood ruffians), attend Diwali and Ganesha festivals, visit Hindu temples, trek through monsoon weather, adjust to heat that is Hot-Hot-HOT and check out the amazing vegetarian food, silk saris, copper wares, ancient architecture, and the burgeoning cosmopolitan metropolis intermingling the world's wealthiest with some of the country's poorest.



  Mumbai, like many frenetic cultural melting pots, is a land of juxtapositions.  Mumbai comprises the good life and the tough life; the up and comers rubbing shoulders with the downtrodden and down and outs; immense beauty interspersed with littered landscapes and stolen dreams; ancient structures neighboring freshly built global facades; and modern skyscrapers adjacent to shadowing shanties and hovels.  When Mumbai comes to mind, I think of the paradoxical combinations of Prada bags and puja worship; movies and government ministries; the miraculous and mundane; the powerful and powerless; the dilettante and disenfranchised; the opportunists and the option-less; the lover and the listless; the skilled craftsman and the CEO...

In a city which makes twice the number of movies than Hollywood annually, I imagine the realities of life both intermingle and widely diverge from the glitz of Bollywood dance numbers facilitating the scores of a three-part romance.  The question for Mumbaikars and travelers alike may be, "Where does the fantasy of film end and the realities of life begin?"  Ne'er the twain shall meet... who knows?   
 
Mumbai is located in southwestern India, is a coastal island town, and is known for having busy streets, markets, and events twenty-four hours a day.  Per 100,000 people, there are less than 200 major crimes per year (as of 2007), which puts NYC (over 2,400 per 100K) and DC to shame.  People say that individual females can walk around comfortably around the city at near anytime of day and feel safe and move freely.  How many cities afford such an opportunity?  (You know, while still having stuff to do, people to see, sites to visit?)

There are nearly twenty (20!!!) million people residing in Mumbai and its outskirts alone.  That's 1+1+1+1x 5 million.  (I'm sure by the the end of week one I will be on a first name basis with everyone).  It goes without saying that Mumbai is a happening city.  We are elated to go.  We leave, most likely, sometime in mid-February.  I can't wait for y'all to share on my journey through this lil' here blog.  And, if you're up for it, be inspired for a visit to the land of saris, chai, and Bollywood dreams?

Where in the World is.... Our Very First Posting???

Destination Paradise

So we have officially received notice about our first tour posting.  The first abroad tour is a directed post that lasts for two years and is generally considered the most memorable/trying/laughable/heart-warming/frustrating/endearing/insert competing, paradoxical adjective HERE.  


Are we excited?  Yes.
Am I nervous?  Maybe a little.
Scared?  Nah.
Looking forward to it?  You betcha. 

Waiting on The Road of the Unknown/ The Road Less Traveled/ The Road of Life: you get the drift...

As of Tuesday, we now know where we are going, when we are leaving, the size of our posting, the weather, the food, the language(s) needed to be acquired, the religions de rigeur, and our potential traveling plans for the next 24 months.  So, where are we going, you may ask?  Hold onto your horses for one second here, and let me first set the mood... It will give you an idea of how we heard about where the wind will take us in our first tour abroad in all of its joy and mayhem and magical fury.

Before learning about what your first posting entails, the foreign service sets up a handy network of support, a bid list, and an official event called Flag Day to get you prepared and seasoned for an upcoming life abroad.  Flag Day is a formal event where they gather all of the people in your training class, including those in different professions and fields, and they invite family and friends to attend as a sign of support and encouragement.  Because where you will be posted is a complete surprise (you may get your first posting of preference, or, to work with the needs of the service, something much further down your list), Flag Day is an afternoon that invokes stomach butterflies, idle nervous chatter, tapping legs, growling bellies, winks of excitement, and new dreams.  At Flag Day you show up, smile, cross your fingers, and, if you are into that kind of thing, make prayers, promises, or call in for favors to the universe and higher ups in the hopes you will get one of your first bid-list choices.

Bridge to New Beginnings?

 For me, perhaps because I like to know my options and prepare for them accordingly, I wrote down all of the names in the class and all of the potential postings worldwide that were listed.  As the speaker showed a PowerPoint slide of a new flag, I would jog through my mind what country it was affiliated with, whether it was on our list, and, if it was, get my camera ready in case they called my husband's name.  If they called the name of someone else, I clapped and cheered and either counted my blessings or said, "Dang!  That was a good posting!"  As more names were called and postings for countries from multiple continents were determined, a few of my favorites were taken and all of our bottom o' the list preferences remained.  Needless to say, I felt---well, I was at the edge of my seat.  Literally.  A flying elephant could have landed in the room, jumped on a trampoline, and sang Happy Birthday Mr. President and I wouldn't have batted an eye. 

Focus was my middle name as I became momentarily thankful for my forever-ago statistics class enabling me to quickly calculate the possibilities based on remaining people, percentages, and postings.  Some of the postings were better for kids, others were better for singles.  Some required language, adaptivity, inoculations, and the like, while others were in developed English-speaking countries with similar lifestyles and cultural tendencies.  Some were safe, others would take some getting used to.  That's what it means to be worldwide available: you must express flexibility and be adaptable, amenable, and service-oriented.

When there were only seven choices left, I breathed a sigh of relief: all of the postings still available I would be happy and comfortable with, and dogs were allowed in-country.  (We didn't want to have to get rid of our two puppies!)  From that point on in the ceremony, I was just waiting for the familiar name to be called and to accept our fate gracefully.

Romeo says: Take me with you, please!

Lola breathes a sigh of relief!

                                                Here's a few clues:
                                               1) the flag they showed us is striped orange, white, and green;
                                               2) the country's name has three vowels, two consonants;
                                               3) the city we are posted to changed its name in the past 15 years;                                                 4) this highly populous entertainment city is the city of dreams
                                                    that never sleeps.

Guess I won't be wearing this sweater for a while...

                                                                                What's your guess???
                                                      The place we are going to is, drum roll please.....

                                                                             M-U-M-B-A-I.  
                                                                        We are going to INDIA!!!!!!!

Trekking About DC

Summer's end

 The last few days I have been keeping myself busy meeting new friends, visiting family, playing tennis, and trekking about DC.  At U Street and 13th we found an amazing borough that has an entire city block of Ethiopian restaurants.  Ethiopian food differs from most other African cuisines because it combines Italian propensities with Mediterranean, Arabian, and East African spices.  (Try the sour Injera bread with lots o' dipping side dishes and you will not be disappointed.)  Around Clarendon we found a local pub hotspot, Harry's, and a Mexican restaurant with bangin' guacamole in Ballston.  In Falls Church is Eden Center, a Vietnamese food haven with loads of restaurants carrying pho, boba tea, and market stalls selling jack fruit, durian, lychee, and the small sweet bananas that I get a hankering for every few weeks.  Durian is a pointy, long-developing east Asian fruit that is likable to rotting flesh or extraordinarily stinky cheese: my great aunt Leeta had a taste for the fruit after living in Indonesia for three decades.  She regaled us with tales of tourists getting kicked out of hotels for opening durian in their rooms and permeating the filter system with its uncanny pungency.  Mmmm.... not for the light hearted. 

DC Religious Sites

National Cathedral, DC

 Anyhow, it's good to back on the DC stomping grounds, especially while the weather gives off its last warm rays of a still straggling summer.  The DC metro, amazingly, is spotlessly clean, at least in comparison to NYC subways.  This is mostly due to the more recently constructed infrastructure and the strictly followed rules of no eating or drinking on the metro--I heard someone got kicked off once for (gasp!) chewing gum.  In NYC, conversely, I sat on subway cars that exploded into all-out food fights, with french fries turning into teenage rocket launchers.  Needless to say, I am thrilled to be back in a city where international food predominates and mixed fashion, religious fusions, and multiple languages litter the open spaces with a frenetic hybridity that begs the onlooker to stretch her own sensibilities. 

An architectural dream: lots o' chiseling

 

I am also curious to see how my own sense of style, speech, dress, and demeanor will shift to match new community expectations.  I am looking forward to representing America abroad, as well, which should be an educational experience.  Having to explain your own cultural norms and mythos (like a big old dude being magically transported worldwide overnight to children's households by flying reindeer) always puts things into perspective.  Just because I don't know about it, or am not used to it, doesn't mean that it isn't meaningful for a large majority.  That's one of the reasons why I find cultural relations so fascinating: norms and the expected are constantly questioned and evaluated.  Who says hot pepper fish and rabbit stew isn't a great breakfast snack?  (Well, besides the rabbit and fish?)

Waiting on Tomorrow...

Minarets with attached audio system for Muslim call to prayer, Southern Ghana

Tomorrow we find out which country we will be sent to for the next two (2) years.  Two years is also known as: 24 months; 104 weeks; 730 days; 17,520 hours; 1,051,200 minutes.  That's right, a million.  What would you do in just over a million minutes?  (And does anyone else have the Rent song stuck in your head--"525,600 minutes, How do you measure a year in [daylights, sunsets, midnights, cups of coffee, laughter]"?)  My plan for the million is to eat lots of food, explore local sites, dance to good music, travel, hike, trek, write, paint, cook, learn a new language and, if I am feeling up to it, get my Nobel Peace Prize.  You know, save the universe, make world peace, create the pill for immortality, end cancer, world hunger, the AIDS pandemic, and general suffering as we know it--basically a cake walk.  (Then what else will I do with ALL of my free time???) 

Trekking about Cape Coast, Ghana

Two years seem like a long time.  In retrospect, however, I have noticed with age that years fly by more quickly.  It's funny the way time works: when you are waiting for something to happen (as in tapping your foot impatiently in a queue at the bank) ten minutes can feel like hours.  The weekend, a hundred times as long, nearly always goes away in a flash.  Where is my time-stopping machine when I need it, hmm?  
 
Over the last few days I have been imagining all of the potential country options and am optimistic that no matter the outcome we will have an adventure, though where and what kind of adventure I cannot say... for another 24+ hours.  The phrase, "be careful what you wish for 'cause you just might get it," is running amok in my head: all of the places I have hoped to see, breathe, and engross myself within are coming to the forefront.  I am now faced with the potential reality of living in Country X in four to five short months.  Fortunately, foreign service spouses are able to take immersion language classes when available so I am looking forward to taking a foreign tongue and working to pronounce all of the words that just a few weeks ago were off my radar and out of mind.  So please, cross your fingers, send good vibes, and let's hope for the best.  I am, most definitely, intrigued and emboldened by the possible country outcomes. 

Our top five options are on four different continents, so perhaps it is apropos to say the world is our oyster?

Sunset in Cape Coast, Ghana, West Africa

   

Long Live Country X!

Market Vendors and Hot Peppers in Ghana, West Africa

The foreign service invites a life of travel, a sense of adventure, and the ability to see and engage the world through multiple creative mediums.  I envision a life that will be filled with tremendous highs and lows, a sacrilege combination of mundane and marvelous, boring and frenetic, appalling and appealing, awful and awesome.  Basically, I imagine my upcoming life of travel as a way to encounter and experience the full spectrum of life on this beautifully imperfect planet o' blue.  

Market at Akatsi in Volta Region, Ghana 2009: raffia and gourd bowls.

In the coming future I imagine avenues of culture shock intersecting with moments of bliss and epiphany.  I imagine there will be countries I love, times I will love to hate, and scenarios where I will only be able to lift my hands magnanimously and shout to the sky, "Why universe, why?"  (Or perhaps that is a bit too dramatic?)  Needless to say, I am absorbed and enthralled with the expectation of world travel.  Whether my idealistic and theoretical visions will match, surpass, or clearly underwhelm the actual, feet-on-the-ground realities, well, I cannot yet say.  But I can tell you that as I write this lil' blog here my heart thumps deliriously as I conjure up all of the happy, crazy, socially awkward, physically fantastical, hopelessly unreachable, and culturally unimaginable moments that may spring forward and eventually become tangible, actual experiences.  

The amazing view from the public transport trotro on the way from Klikor to Aflao, Ghana.

Klikor, Volta region, Ghana, 2008

My life thus far has been blessed: I am a happily married seasoned traveler who has taught and trained in universities, loves reading, chuckling with good friends, and howling at the moonlight generally.  (If you howl at the moonlight 'specifically,' it means trouble!)  I have lived and studied in Ghana, West Africa; Salzburg, Austria; southern and central California; South Carolina; New York City; Connecticut; and Virginia.  I have visited over a dozen countries in Europe, a few countries in Africa, the Bahamas, Canada, Mexico, and nearly all of the contiguous United States.  I have come to recognize from these experiences that it is in the moments where I am pushed to my limits and am challenged to step beyond my self-imposed, liminally-defined thresholds that I have grown the most as an individual intellectually, relationally, and personally.  You come to know that who you are is indubitably connected to where you are at, whom you are with, and what you envision yourself to ultimately become. 

Good for soups and (my favorite) groundnut stews.

Being in a comfortable bubble of the familiar is nice, easy, pleasurable.  I respect the life that this sense of stability has to offer: there is substantive power in building long term relationships contextually embedded within the cultural continuity and local specificity of community.  There is also something quite magical about knowing a place, its movements and ticks, potholes and best-kept secrets.  To have a place where everyone knows your name, your story, your struggles, your history and where your own sense of personhood is enmeshed within community values and memories often makes for a happy, rewarding life.  Finding your niche in community is a rare and immeasurable gift.

Living in Nogokpo, Ghana 2008

That being said, my hope in choosing this chapter of exploration and experience of the new, the other, and the different culturally, linguistically, socially, and regionally, is to step outside of the 'myself' created within the confines and construction of assimilated cultural boundaries.  In other words, to see who 'I' am beyond the scope of the familiar, the known, and the expected.  Also, I would like to make a positive mark on this world in this life and I think travel will facilitate this developmental process.  I enjoy the potential to be challenged, to re-think cultural assumptions and community expectations, to step into scenarios where the skills I have previously acquired must be adapted and adopted to meet this yet-to-be-known encounter.  Plus, I am excited about the art (ooh la la!), the food (deelish), the sights, sounds, and smells (touche), the people (alas), the temples, shrines, and sacred monuments (aha), commemorations, celebrations, and community festivals (hurrah!) and the excursions, adventures, and inevitable daily surprises (oh my!). 

The local mascot for the Denu artist cooperative, Ghana.

Of course, I am nervous, thrilled, and anxious about letting go of the control and expectations over my own fate, social location, country of residence, language of interaction, availability of foodstuffs, accessibility to activities, and all of the other things encapsulated within externally-chosen world travel locations.  As a foreign service plus one I think it is an adventure in itself bidding on (and then living in) country X for the first two years and country Y for the next, all the while crossing our fingers as we reform and adjust travel bid lists over and over again for many years to come.  

An all-night walking procession, Klikor, Ghana

Dancers & Performers at the Sankofa Youth Inauguration ceremony, 2008.

Contemplating man after Muslim call to prayer, Lome, Togo.

Turtle Cove, Ghana January 2009: Breathtaking!

Village life in a western Ghanaian coastal town, 2009.

Visiting the mangroves and seeing our first toucan!

It is both liberating and exhilarating (as well as a bit fear-inducing) to accept travel orders under the auspices of worldwide availability.  So go ahead and close your eyes, take a deep breath, and see where the chips fall when, like a jester pulling your destiny from a tarnished bowler hat, you imagine hearing your name attached to country X or country Y for the next 700+ days.  Just put your finger across the globe and see where it lands.  Would you go there?  Would you like it?  I am sure when we hear the name of our first posting there will be a good laugh and a proper cry as we learn whether we will need to bring a scuba pack or anorak, flowers or combat boots.  At any rate, this is what I am currently dreaming about, thinking about, and envisioning.  And in just a few days, I can't wait to hear those two little words that will forever alter our destinies and current life trajectories: capital and country name of the notorious Country X.