Watch the Walk

  A pen is the international travel equivalent of the Hitchhiker's Guide saying to always have a towel. I mean, having a towel is great, but a pen is even more important. You never know when you'll need to write something down, and opening random pockets in your bags, struggling to locate a pen is just... not ideal. But beyond that, here are a few tips I've acquired in my years of traveling internationally, especially in Africa. 1) Always verify verbally, with a person, what you see with your eyes. If it says "Paris" above the gate, walk up to the person at the gate and ask, "Where's this gate going?"  2) Avoid yes or no questions, because you might get an accidental yes. Don't ask, "Is this going to Paris?" because they might just say yes. Did they hear you properly? Did they understand you? Who knows. Ask a question that requires an answer that demonstrates understanding and accuracy. 3) When in doubt, find other people traveling on y...

Our friend was bringing food to a new mother who was recovering in the hospital after a c-section.  The new mother happened to be an illegal, from another country, under guard by the gendarmerie. Our friend was from the same country, but here legally. Upon trying to enter the room, our friend found it locked. She asked the guards what happened to the new mother in the room. "Oh, you know her?" And suddenly she found herself under arrest. The guards hadn't known that the woman escaped. Or so they say. And obviously someone who would bring food to a new foreign mother must have been complicit in her escape. So our friend was arrested. Questioned. Kept overnight. The next day, after intervention, she was released, but forced to pay a fine. 200 euros for what? For being at the wrong place, at the wrong time, without the right people to plead her cause. "That's just the way it is for people from that country who live here." Was a comment I heard from another frie...

 In the previous installment, we talked about those with mental illness who are distanced from acceptable society. But there's a contingent of people on this island who aren't mentally ill, but still aren't accepted by their families or welcome to participate normally in island functions. This contingent consists of those who have broken relationships with their family for some reason.  There was a man whose death awhile back caused quite the stir in town. Why? Because he died alone, and was dead long enough before being discovered that his body had started to decompose. In island culture, this is abhorrent. The man had children -- why weren't they making sure he had food? He had siblings -- why weren't they checking on him? The broken relationship with his family seemed more a topic of conversation than his actual death or its cause. Then there's a woman who came to our island to give birth. She seemed pretty young, but said her husband was on the island that ...

"I'm not saying this to scare you," my friend started in, but the way she continued seemed like her intention really was to make me afraid of walking home. She told about the "crazy person" who's got a problem with white people and has bothered another friend who lives here. Sometimes he carries a knife. And he's big. And he's not reasonable. This was a bit of a new type of situation to be concerned about. The streets are normally pretty safe for me here. I have to be smart about traffic, and I don't generally go out by myself after 10 PM, but the chances of running into an actual problem have been low. I might be harassed verbally, but I never worry about my physical safety. But men who are mentally ill are a different class of problem. And how did they get that way? "That person stole from his family, his father didn't know he was the thief, so he put a curse on him. And then the guy went crazy." "They used to mix battery aci...

"My sister, I hear that you've changed. Is it true? You're not one of us any more?"   A friend of mine got this call from her brother recently, the call that many people here worry about. Belonging is an important concern here. Each person belongs to a family, to a neighborhood, to a town, and then to different associations or schools or jobs, or whatever. But family comes first. And rejecting family, or being rejected by family, can carry significant consequences for all areas of a person's life. Now, it's been a few years since this friend changed. Her family's known for awhile about it, but in typical island conflict style, they've not raised the issue and she's not addressed it either. This has given her time to learn and grow, to show her new life in the community, and to bond with others who have made the same change in their lives. But now her family is making moves to have a confrontation.  When her brother called, she invited him to come...

The "stop and go" class "Getting started is the hard bit. Once you get going, it gets easier." That's what they say, right? So we put a lot of effort into starting things, anticipating that, once truly begun, they'll carry on easily. But sometimes things that have been going consistently still die easily. The English class that has two holidays in a row-- two days of missed class might mean that it takes two weeks for all the students to show up for class again. Or the work schedule that is consistently going well, and then someone is sick. And then another person is sick. And next thing you know it's been three weeks since everyone was at work on the same day. Or maybe a goal that you set forth: good habits you want to adopt or bad habits you want to drop. A couple of failures can stop the momentum and then... you're fighting inertia instead of just riding the wave of your success. As Simon Mignolet said, "Momentum is an amazing thing when it i...

  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...