A Few Things that Remind Me Where I Am

1.  People who speak English always say the same few phrases:  "Hu-lo-o!!" (Hello), "They are very lovely" (in reference to children) and "My play-her" (My pleasure).  Everyone wants to practice their hellos (and every parent wants to make her child practice), and the others must be the standard first phrases in the English manual.

2.  Roads are not primarily for cars.  They are for bicycles, electric scooter, wheelchairs, trikes with wagon trailers (Yesterday we saw an entire entertainment center on the back of one!  They're like 2.5 by 3 feet!), horses, dogs, tractors (I use the term loosely -- they are more like a tiller with a seat in the back!), children playing, and people walking their pigs to market.

Sidewalks ARE for cars.  And welding.  And bathing, brushing your teeth, and washing your dishes.

3.  A restaurant is not just a restaurant.  It is usually a home, a daycare center, and an overall hangout.  And also the place where the employees,  during slow times, take care of general hygiene.  (re: the sidewalk activities above... plus cleaning their ears with sharp sticks and then breaking them to double as toothpicks.)  Also the place for afternoon rest.  One man down the street has a leather recliner at the front of his mud brick establishment.  Every afternoon we see him recovering from the mid day rush :)  The rest seems counter productive, but it is a time to sit and talk with your friends.  Or just sit.  Together.  If you think about it, we have come full circle to devoting at least that much time to MySpace and email.

4.  The old people watch the children.  Always.  And they are always strapped on their backs until about the age of 8.  When I see a hunched over little old lady carry a sleeping kid three quarters her size, I am always amazed!  If kids completely exhaust us when we are 20-40, how is it that they have decided to delegate this job to the people whose strength is waning?  Then again, they never seem to mind or be exasperated.  Maybe the reasoning for it is that they have lived enough life to take joy in what's really important.

5.  If you hear "Happy Birthday" playing, it is not a celebration.  It is the garbage truck!  No kidding.  It takes about an hour for it to get far enough that you don't hear it any longer.  In another city we visited recently, it was a Christmas medley.  I don't know if they just ripped off the most readily available snow globe music, or if it's an attempt to make the masses "cultured" with Western music.

6.  Toilet paper is not for the toilet.  And this is not just because there aren't many toilets.  TP is readily available, but not for its intended purpose.  You will find it on the tables of fancy restaurants.  What do they use in the bathroom?  Um, most use NOTHING.  Maybe that is why they don't shake hands.

One of the many downsides to having white skin is inevitably being the "revered guest" for whom the animals are slain. The food often tastes great if you can look past all the parts, but after a few days of eating the same meat in an area with absolutely no refridgerators anywhere in sight, I start to get a bit leary. The people are so poor, but they nearly always insist on slaughtering and cooking for us no matter how much we protest.

This little boy was playing by the river, head messily shaven (undoubtedly due to lice) and snot running down his face. He was probably 10, but tiny and malnourished. (And probably freezing! It was about 34* and raining!

Another mountain pass. There are concrete barriers on the very steepest, curviest stretches. Here the road is very good, but still treacherous!

Hiking in a new area always draws a crowd :)

I am always amazed that we don't see more accidents than we do. We sometimes see big trucks that have rolled down the ravine and scarred or knocked down concrete barriers and trees. Often the road is a dirt/gravel/old pavement/ broken, fallen chunks of mountain combination. Huge trucks and buses barrel through, passing each other with a honking system that I haven't quite figured out. Even the best stretches of road are covered with debris, a dangerous element on a path carved into the side of a very steep, very curvy side of the mountain!

So every chance we get we go traveling & camp or visit areas around us. This provides some interesting adventures and some great chances to meet, learn about, and share with others.

Sometimes the "fancy" bathrooms are the scariest. And there are always other travelers or residents very interested in watching us squat!
We meet some beautiful and fascinating people, almost all of whom are in great need.

The drive is sketchy at times. Like any time the bus is moving, and much of the time it is parked!

It's gorgeous, too. I always say it's breathtaking in more ways than one :)

Another bathroom :)
It's a relative oddity in the villages, but this was an affluent peron's abode... split logs balanced on top of a shallow mud pit. The stick "walls" were only about a meter high!

This little boy hugging his Coke made me smile.

Chips Ahoy!!!! ... Orange flavor!

The Infomercial stand at the market :) A peeler, shredder, corer slicer something gadget...

Like goldfish... only seaweed and tomatoe flavored!

The Budweiser "truck." Universal, I guess.

The only sign in English around -- it says "Only pee, no poo!"

But it's really fancy. It's a squatty, but they have soap!

The fire truck. Notice the phone number on the side? 119!

So close, yet so far away :)

These "recycling" cans seemed a bit out of place next to kids pooping and piles of trash on the streets. As far as I can tell, "recycle" means "put all your trash in the can so the old ladies whose sons drive Lexuses can pick through it for whatever they think might be useful." No kidding, sometimes when I take out the trash from our apartment (primarily produce scraps and toilet paper!) the ladies don't even wait for me to finish dumping it, let alone close the lid or leave, before they start foraging. Now, I'm resourceful and I believe in taking care of our environment... but it still shocks me that a plastic bottle or ripped bag would be so useful that it warrants digging through someone else's toilet paper.

Out of all the Western goodies I would wish for, soda is definitely not one of them. But I used to say that about the McDonald's in our provincial capitol, too! (We've excitedly rushed there both times we've visited!!) It hasn't caught on for me yet, but it's still comforting to see Coke or the local fave, "Future," which looks just like it. There are also dead ringer imitation Oreos (not at ALL the same flavor, though!) and teddy grahams (also nothing close in actual taste or content...)

The girl in the Nashville jacket next to the lady in native dress (which, if you're a grandma, almost always includes a baby strapped on your back!) Kinda sorta made me feel at home :)

Potato chips on the street!

(Haven't tried them yet; they smell like rancid pork fat, but they look normal!)

I've seen Nikf, Mike, Nikke,

As well as abibas, ailadas... it goes on and on!