Watch the Walk

  The stack "So you'll get there, and you'll see a veranda, and a stool or chair in the corner. Put your passport on the stool." I'm currently waiting on the bigger island for a flight to mainland Africa, but in these times we live in a negative Covid test is required before boarding that flight. That type of testing isn't available on my island, and same-day testing isn't available even here on the bigger island, so I had to come three days ahead of time to get tested. At 7am I went to the testing site, where they'd taken over a malaria project's compound to handle Covid testing for travelers. Sure enough, there was a veranda, a few chairs, and one stool in the corner with two passports on it.  I put my passport on the stack. More people came, more passports were added to the stack. Eventually someone showed up for work and took the stack inside, but more passports were quickly added to the stool. "Thrilled" to travel  Since I was sittin...

We often say that island life is more chill and easy-going than life back in the US. But there are times when it seems like the entire place is holding their collective breath, waiting for a real or metaphorical storm to pass. It depends on the time, but typically it's one of two things: A cyclone is coming. or  Political problems are anticipated.  It's interesting to note that the things we do to prepare are pretty similar: we stock up on phone credit, make sure we've got supplies for a few days of staying home, and pay attention to reports of what's going on. This time it was politics that caused the concern. The rotation of political power between islands has been disrupted and a significant date was approaching. Neighbors and friends were on high alert, encouraging caution in going out, keeping a good amount of supplies at home, and telling us to be careful. The significant date came and went... there were some days with extra military presence, quieter mornings as ...

There's a certain class of comment that is common on Clove Island, but rare in the US. Besides the ubiquitous questions about marriage, islanders also like to talk about weight gain and weight loss. They notice slight differences in arms, faces, collar bones that show or not, and of course how you fit your clothes. But weight gain isn't generally viewed in a negative light on the island. A woman who is plump is seen as being in good health, but a woman who is skinny is a subject of concern: - is she getting enough food? - is she worried about things and not eating? - is she being worked too hard? Homemade dumbbells - is she sick with a health condition that prevents her from keeping weight on? And it's not a taboo topic like it is in the US. In English classes here we teach how to describe people, but we've also learned to clarify to students that calling someone fat isn't considered a compliment. I can't tell you the number of times I've had students descri...

It's always better to do work projects together. Well, in island thinking, anyway. And I get it. A lot of activities require some step that is just plain labor intensive. For example, the other day I was learning to make these lovely snacks: Bhajias I'd arranged with a friend who would teach me to make bhajias, I'd gathered a group of friends to all learn together, and our "teacher" had told me the things to have on hand:   - small red beans   - onion   - garlic   - eggs   - spices   - oil for frying She told me to soak the beans the night before, so they'd cook well on the day of. The ladies all gathered, and 10 minutes after the appointed time I called our "teacher" to make sure she was on her way. She was, but she said we could get started before she got there. "Take the skins off the beans" she said. The skins... off the beans? I verified. Yep, that's what she'd said. So we spent the next hour and a half peeling 1 pound of littl...

Some people run to the action. Like a few months back when I was standing on my front porch and saw some military trucks full of soldiers go zooming past the intersection nearby, heading who-knows-where.    I looked across the street to see a teenage girl holding a baby, who was watching the soldiers too. Was she afraid? Going to hide? Evidently not, because the next thing I knew, she had handed off the baby to a nearby person, borrowed a face mask from them (gross), and was running to see where the soldiers were going and what they were going to do!   I saw a couple dozen people similarly running towards the action. I, on the other hand, was disinclined to follow that crowd, having seen tear gas and rubber bullets used recently to break up groups of people that weren't supposed to be gathering together due to health concerns.   Soon a larger crowd of people was running the opposite way, away from the action. Yelling, laughing, stopping to see if they were being foll...

I came back to the islands in December with two checked bags and a rolling carry-on, plus a backpack. The standard luggage allowance for international travel.   But travel between islands is a little more limited. No, it's a LOT more limited. They give you...  ... wait for it... ... 33 pounds of checked luggage and 11 pounds of carry-on.  I get it. The planes are small. They want to be able to take off and land on our little runways. But it's a tidge inconvenient for us international travelers who don't live on the same island as the international airport.  So what do you do? Especially when they charge around $1.75 per lb over the limit? Well, remember how I've carried things for other people? Sometimes I also get to take advantage of the island way of doing things. This time I ran into an English teacher friend on the big island who just happens to be a soldier, and he took over all things related to my travel-- the ride to the airport, checking in, navigating...

On Christmas Eve I went to an event on the other side of the island. By island standards the event was nothing to write home about. It was sparsely attended, there weren't a lot of flowers for making the traditional necklaces, the gift bags were generic in the extreme, and the food was... insufficient and not what people from my side of the island were used to. Oh, and my friends and I were supposed to be given a ride home by a friend, but he bailed and we had to look for a taxi bus to get home. When I got home, I was tired, but I had a plan-- bake cookies quickly, take some to a couple of neighbors, then head to my team leaders' house for dinner and a Christmas Eve service.  One of the broken latches That plan was quickly foiled when I opened my wallet I'd left home and found it emptied of cash. Uh oh. The back door had been broken and put back in its place. My secondary cash storage was emptied also. A thief had come and gone sometime while I was away.  Thankfully he only...