Smile!

When traveling I am always super hesitant to take photographs of people. Maybe they think I'm stealing their soul, maybe they are undercover police who will destroy my camera, maybe they just got their picture taken by 50 other white people and I add to their growing resentment of these strange outsiders, maybe someday they sue me for posting it to a weird blog. Anyway, I typically do not take any photos of people (unless they're friends or performers).

Now I get a somewhat easy out because I generally don't take many pictures at all and mostly mooch off of other people that do...

But that doesn't mean people don't take pictures of me. In Ghana a whole group of dudes took a picture with me and my friends, presumably to use on a visa application. At pretty much every conference I attend, the organizers take pictures with me, sometimes so that they can bring the photo to a tailor and get by clothes copied. Yesterday two people I have never seen, in matching pink outfits, interrupted my business meeting in the lobby of my hotel to ask if they could take a picture with me. Maybe they mistook me for someone else? Today, there was a canoodling couple on the boardwalk by the lake who stopped their snuggling to ask if the could take a picture with me. "This is my girlfriend!" is the only explanation I got as the dude shoved us together and snapped three pictures.

I can't wait for one of these weird pictures to surface somewhere 20 years from now. For all I know I'm on the Burmese version of Perez Hilton.

QC

Whoa- major quality control issues on the blog. The nature of my blogging is that I'm either trying to rush to upload something with a precarious internet connection, or I've written something ages ago in one of the 40 docs named "blog" on my laptop desktop and then frantically upload them all in one swoop.  Anyway, no excuses (except those above). Public apology for my typos and weird formatting.

Taxi Mustapha

So remember how I love taxi drivers? And also how I love Arabs? (I know that’s a weird generalization to make, but it’s true).  And how the best thing ever is an Arab Taxi Driver? The love continues.

 I met Mustapha at the airport in Seattle and he drove me to all my destinations during my very brief trip. He used to be a flight attendant on Jordanian Airlines and has been to every country in the world except for three. We did a fair amount of talking about religious tolerance and American foreign policy and there was a smattering of “how do you say this in your Arabic, how do you say this in YOUR Arabic”. You know, the usual.

Anyway, I have very little else to share other than I had several delightful taxi rides and my company will never convince me to rent a car when it could mean not having these interactions. Also I’m reasonably sure after 5 years in New York I’ve basically forgotten how to drive.

Auntie

One thing I love about Indian and African culture is that little children call people they meet “Auntie” or “Uncle”. You don’t have to be related, just older and of the associated gender. Kids don’t have to remember everyone’s names, just a term of endearment. This strikes me as lovely- I feel instantly connected to a little kid when he calls me Auntie.

Another thing that I’ve noticed kids do in Morocco and Uganda is to present themselves and greet a whole room. They enter, start working clockwise and handshake or kiss every person in the room. Hello Auntie. Hello Uncle. My colleague’s son who was 4 already had it down. Love it.

Be a marine!

I spent one afternoon with my colleague and his friend and 1.5 year old son. We did some fun budget review while playing with the child which I of course loved even if it mostly involved the kid in my lap briefly chewing on my food before returning it to my plate and strangling me while grasping my shiny necklace.  Small prices to pay for some toddler time. I’d venture to say that all mundane business tasks should be livened up with a little child.

Anyway, the point of this story is that the kid’s Dad kept saying he wants his kid to grow up to be a Marine. I assumed there was some Ugandan Marine Corps or something but actually, he aspires to have a son who joins the American Marine Corps. This struck me as odd- it’s rare that you hear about people wanting their progeny to grow up to fight for another country. Most of all, my inner liberal-arts-free-spirit wanted to be sure that the child wasn’t stifled by his father’s vicarious aspirations. Don’t you think we should rule out that he’s not the next Mozart, Gandhi, Monet, Dalai Lama, Mandela, Einstein, or Pasteur before we ship him right into the Marine Corps?

What do you want to serve me?

I’m not a ‘super-taster’ (if that’s actually a thing and not something the Food Network invented). I don’t actually care what I eat as long as it isn’t still alive or involving mushrooms. So I’m perfectly happy deferring to the powers-that-be to make my food selection.

During my West Africa business travel, the ‘powers-that-be’ come in two forms. The first and by far the most dominant is availability. Most stuff just isn’t available, and don’t be fooled by a silly listing in a menu. First you get brought a massive menu, then you pick something, then you’re told it’s not available, then you pick something else, then the waiter disappears for an hour, and then you’re brought something totally different.  I try to start with “what is your plate of the day” and if I’m lucky, they just tell me what they do have.

But then, once in a while there actually are multiple things to choose from. In that case, the second ‘power-that-is’ enters, and that’s what the waiter really wants you to eat. This was my first lunch at the hotel restaurant in Niger. Supposedly everything on the menu was to be had. So I picked something at random and then the waiter came back a few moments later to say “well next time you really should try this”. And then he hovered a lot. He then described to me how it’s really their best dish and then lingered some more. Alright- bring me that then! A giant smile spread across his face and when he actually brought me the meal you could see how happy he was to give me the specialty. Fine by me.

So new strategy is “what do you have” and then “what do you want me to eat”. 

I am the weird one

At 8am I got a phone call from the hotel receptionist who wanted to know whether or not I was planning on going to breakfast this morning. I declined and then at 10am housekeeping came to clean my room which necessitated me getting dressed rapidly in order to shoo them away. For a few moments, I got really annoyed. My flight arrived at 3am and I was exhausted. However, I was operating on US hospitality rules that dictate that you can do whatever you want in the space you are ‘renting’ which includes sleeping past 8am if you so choose. However, here I’m just throwing off the whole system. There are only 10 rooms in this small Niger hotel and there isn’t an endless staff to feed me or clean up after me at whatever weird hour I decide to start my day.  I am the weird one in this situation.

Safety

There was a lot of concern from my friends and family regarding my safety on this trip to Niger. However, I have a new philosophy which is that my safety is directly proportional to how many people love me where I am. I’m two for two so far- met one taxi driver and one hotel receptionist, and they both love me. So I’m feeling pretty safe. I’m not saying they’d take a bullet for me if we were under attack, but I feel pretty sure they aren’t dialing 1800-alqaeda to report an easy target for the taking. Anyway, this is why I sleep soundly.

New Delta

It's been a long, lovely while since I've flown Delta. But here we go again. 

 I just did a ridiculously fast West Coast run for a study training. I left at 7:40am from New York, arrived in Seattle 11am had a meeting, wandered around, slept, and was back at the airport for a 7am flight back to New York. Quick trip with as many hours spent flying as being awake in my destination.  Anyway, I actually had the same flight crew on both flights (and oddly they didn't recognize me...). Not sure why this struck me as weird- but apparently I’m on the same schedule as Delta employees. It makes me feel like I should be able to monetize this somehow. Be a freelance flight attendant or something.

Whoa- new domestic safety video on Delta (or new to me). Lots of trying to be funny which I’m not sure I’m super into in a safety video (see TAP). Also, the real nerd in me recognizes the creepy red-headed woman from the old video in her cameo in the new one when she does the weird finger wagging about smoking (to a man who is smoking a comically large pipe). Put away your typewriter? Look at exits behind you, except man in neck brace? Triplets at the emergency exit row? I prefer my comedy after we are safely in flight.

Also why is turbulence now called “rough air”?

Breaking Dawn 2 in Myanmar

Extra day in Myanmar with nothing to do? Obvious choice is to see a teen vampire movie (or more accurately, the fourth in a series of teen vampire movies) in a grand theater. I love movie-going in different places!  Noah and I saw SkyFall in India and were struck by:

1.       The rigidly enforced assigned seating, despite being 2 of 10 people in a 200 person theater
2. The national anthem movie that played before the show- it took us a really long time to figure out that it was supposed to be a touching scene of deaf and mentally retarded kids at a school singing the national anthem.
3.   During every scene in which a character had a cigarette, a big warning on the bottom of the screen appeared, -- the hazards of tobacco.
4.  People not only do not silence their phones, they answer their phones and hold entire conversations on their phones during the movie.

In Myanmar the theater was this grand building with a heavy golden curtain that dramatically parted right before the projection. When everyone rose to sing the national anthem, several people rose right in front of the projection so you got to see the national flag as well as the silhouettes of several people’s heads.

The advertisements before the previews were literally on a Powerpoint presentation, complete with swipes in between each one. They were mostly written in Burmese which is a language that looks like curls going in many different directions. However, occasionally, they must have run into a word that doesn’t translate well so the ad looked like this “Curly curly curly vibration mode curly curly curly “ (guessing this was the ‘silence your phone’ message which was of course, totally disregarded). Another one read “curly curly curly, personal responsibility, curly curly curly”.

Can’t this place get a break?

I’m beginning to think there is a direct link between when I am supposed to go to Mali and when major conflict occurs. If you remember, I was holding a ticket to fly to Mali in March and 2 days before my flight, there was a coup d’etat and the government was overthrown.  We were doing the whole “watchful waiting” thing and were feeling pretty good about Mali so we bought tickets to go in January and low and behold, two days before I’m supposed to leave the Islamists advance and France starts to bomb. 

Poor Poor Mali. 

CDG Chairs

Why don’t airports want you to sleep? Charles du Gaulle has really outdone itself with designing the least comfortable chains in the world for sleeping in. I don’t understand the angle or the shape but it is not based on the human body. They are also super rigid with stiff armrests. Maybe they look “modern” but after a long flight and before another one, I can barely see let alone appreciate style.

I wonder if they think comfortable chairs to sleep in will cause people to miss their flights? If so, do they care if people miss their flights? They could make money overbooking, right?

Maybe they think if people are too comfortable they will start booking longer layovers to bask in the delight of sleeping in airport chairs? Not totally sure why this would be bad for them again…

The why is suspect but the effect is certain- the person who purchased these chairs did not want sleepers.

Talking to coseaters

I just don’t do it. Unless I’m on a flight to West Africa and want to practice my French, I’m a live and let live sort of person on a plane. I think it’s sort of weird to establish a bond with someone and then fall asleep right next to them. I’m also usually in the closest socially acceptable thing to pajamas while on a plane- it feels too intimate to make friends while in pajamas. I also don't want to be judged by someone I sort of know for the terrible movies I watch or for the way I explode the creamer all over myself multiple times in a flight. Anonymity is key.

Cameras on planes

I guess this is sort of nifty but it also frankly terrifies me. I like to put on my headphones and watch movies and pretend I’m NOT flying. Take off and landing are the worst parts- why would I want to see them?

Korean Air has mounted the camera below the plane and has some sort of zoom lens that makes everything below you as you land seem much closer than it is (hopefully). It felt like we were grazing the top of the cars on the highway in Long Island when we landed at JFK.

Air France has mounted the camera way up on the top of the tail so you can see the whole plane plus what is below. This was pretty disconcerting when we landed in Paris in a snowstorm and all that was visible was whiteness. If it weren’t for the camera I could have pretended that our captain could actually see what he was doing as he landed us.