Sunday, July 11, 2010
Howdy Doo Nalerigu!
After 4 hours flight delay in domestic airport, made it to Tamale (and wouldn't one of those taste divine?) and then by Land Rover over mostly paved but some dirt road to Nalerigu...had to go immediately and do a C section--did not even unpack. A little hairy since I have not done a csection alone ever and the last time I did one was in 1987 when I had this big crush on the OB resident Barry Landreaux... I did lots of them for about three months in Lafayette, La. Barry noticed that I was very good at closing incisions. He didn't notice anything else AT ALL about me. Anyway, I think the scrub tech didn't really need me here that much and we made our way through without any problem with C section techniques. The baby, however, was BLUE and not breathing...probably should have been done earlier but no one to do it. Baby was swimming in sea of meconium. Doug, a peds guys from Arizona and Cindy, the FP came running and saved this baby. First APGAR was ONE. Let's just say that sphincter tone alteration occurred. I thought, geez my first C sect and the baby is gonna die...but they resuscitated it. I was so upset that the baby looked like death on a biscuit, I did not even notice till I saw it later in the incubator that it was a boy. What a day! Real grindstone starts manana. Wish me luck, say prayers,or do your juju. ALl positive karma accepted.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
FLY THE FRIENDLYSKIES: TOO MUCH TOGETHERNESS!
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
It’’s Wednesday, July 15th and the sun is shiny brightly over the pure white field that is the polar ice cap. There are breaks running through in vein-like patterns that look like a minimalist version of Jackson Pollack. The Artic Ocean peeks shyly out from underneath in thin linear fashion. There is nothing visible on top of the floes and from 34,000 feet it could literally be the sea of Tranquility.
And then there’s what is going on up here on this Boeing 777. Ever been to China? Don’t want to leave the US and fly for 12 hours cramped up in a little airplane seat? Well, I know a way you can do it. It does involve buying a plane ticket unfortunately, but hey. I never said it would be cheap. And you have to go through airport security. Yeah, I know. What a drag. But if you are wllling to indulge me here, I can get you pretty close to the same experience sans Beijing traffic, air pollution and a bad smell or two and some, but not all of the volume. Book your seat toward the back of the economy cabin and Tah Dah. You have arrived. Better than one of the Chinatowns in New York, Chicago, or San Francisco. You will find yourself amidst a workd of Chinese men and women, none of whom look like they could be a star in their own reality series about how they conquered morbid obesity. Everyone’s hair and skin is very similar in color. And don’t let the Western clothes fool you. NO ONE speaks English after about row 17. Everone is happily yapping…about what? I have no idea. Probably “How did this big white girl get back here.?” The reading material is all Chinese and of course, since they only speak Mandarin, no one is sitting in the right seat. Yep, you are back at Southwest Airlines and when you enquire about why the person might be sitting in your seatn, you are met by a host of vacuous stares with broad smiles beneath them. “Sank you. Sank you,” the middle aged woman with the book of Chinese characters says to me. I go to the flight attendant for assistance. She says, “Don’t look at me. I’m Japanese. I don’t speak Mandarin.” Later on, this same flight attendant will come by with the euphemistically named “:in flight meal service” and ask the lady I sit next to if she wants the chicken or the beef, leaving me to sit next to this very quiet tiny Asian female clucking and mooing until she gets the picture. And making me wish to say, “Hey United. Beijing is NOT in Japan. And where’s the noodles?” The lady looks at her plate as though she has been offered a cow paddy from a not overly healthy bovine-- the meat swarming in some sort of unappetizing grey gravy. I shrug. I want to say, “Look, lady, this is why you always order the vegetarian meal on line before you board.” SHe looks a bit perplexed and holds the dripping rectangle of meat up with a fork and then dips it back down for a baptism before eating off a small corner.
Across the aisle way are what appear to be Chinese American kids roughly ages eight to thirteen--three of them, earbuds in place, arguing about Nickelback songs and which is the best one while calling each other “asshole’ and dropping the “f” bomb right and left. I know when I get to Beijing, I will encounter more typically appearing American prepubescent humans in the airport dong the same thing. I look at the guardian of these Asian American teens. He is a thin unassuming man of about forty. I figure he either doesn’t speak English or he learned to speak it as a clerk in a convenience store in downtown Dallas or L.A where apparently any word combinations are permissible, no matter how profane ,as long as you have the money for the quart of ;Miller High Life and the rolling papers.
I didn’t tell you how to exit the aircraft before takeoff, therefore eliminating any real need to actually go to China, did I? Well, now the Chinese government will be taking your temperature, so we are prewarned in our seats that if we don’t feel good, let them know and they will “reschedule us.” If I were you, having enjoyed my authentic Chinese experience without ever leaving he runway, I would saunter off to your nearest Chinatown and have some dimsum. The food in the United skies isn’t all that friendly.
And by the way, thanks to the international date line, I just flew into tomorrow. Ni hao.
It’’s Wednesday, July 15th and the sun is shiny brightly over the pure white field that is the polar ice cap. There are breaks running through in vein-like patterns that look like a minimalist version of Jackson Pollack. The Artic Ocean peeks shyly out from underneath in thin linear fashion. There is nothing visible on top of the floes and from 34,000 feet it could literally be the sea of Tranquility.
And then there’s what is going on up here on this Boeing 777. Ever been to China? Don’t want to leave the US and fly for 12 hours cramped up in a little airplane seat? Well, I know a way you can do it. It does involve buying a plane ticket unfortunately, but hey. I never said it would be cheap. And you have to go through airport security. Yeah, I know. What a drag. But if you are wllling to indulge me here, I can get you pretty close to the same experience sans Beijing traffic, air pollution and a bad smell or two and some, but not all of the volume. Book your seat toward the back of the economy cabin and Tah Dah. You have arrived. Better than one of the Chinatowns in New York, Chicago, or San Francisco. You will find yourself amidst a workd of Chinese men and women, none of whom look like they could be a star in their own reality series about how they conquered morbid obesity. Everyone’s hair and skin is very similar in color. And don’t let the Western clothes fool you. NO ONE speaks English after about row 17. Everone is happily yapping…about what? I have no idea. Probably “How did this big white girl get back here.?” The reading material is all Chinese and of course, since they only speak Mandarin, no one is sitting in the right seat. Yep, you are back at Southwest Airlines and when you enquire about why the person might be sitting in your seatn, you are met by a host of vacuous stares with broad smiles beneath them. “Sank you. Sank you,” the middle aged woman with the book of Chinese characters says to me. I go to the flight attendant for assistance. She says, “Don’t look at me. I’m Japanese. I don’t speak Mandarin.” Later on, this same flight attendant will come by with the euphemistically named “:in flight meal service” and ask the lady I sit next to if she wants the chicken or the beef, leaving me to sit next to this very quiet tiny Asian female clucking and mooing until she gets the picture. And making me wish to say, “Hey United. Beijing is NOT in Japan. And where’s the noodles?” The lady looks at her plate as though she has been offered a cow paddy from a not overly healthy bovine-- the meat swarming in some sort of unappetizing grey gravy. I shrug. I want to say, “Look, lady, this is why you always order the vegetarian meal on line before you board.” SHe looks a bit perplexed and holds the dripping rectangle of meat up with a fork and then dips it back down for a baptism before eating off a small corner.
Across the aisle way are what appear to be Chinese American kids roughly ages eight to thirteen--three of them, earbuds in place, arguing about Nickelback songs and which is the best one while calling each other “asshole’ and dropping the “f” bomb right and left. I know when I get to Beijing, I will encounter more typically appearing American prepubescent humans in the airport dong the same thing. I look at the guardian of these Asian American teens. He is a thin unassuming man of about forty. I figure he either doesn’t speak English or he learned to speak it as a clerk in a convenience store in downtown Dallas or L.A where apparently any word combinations are permissible, no matter how profane ,as long as you have the money for the quart of ;Miller High Life and the rolling papers.
I didn’t tell you how to exit the aircraft before takeoff, therefore eliminating any real need to actually go to China, did I? Well, now the Chinese government will be taking your temperature, so we are prewarned in our seats that if we don’t feel good, let them know and they will “reschedule us.” If I were you, having enjoyed my authentic Chinese experience without ever leaving he runway, I would saunter off to your nearest Chinatown and have some dimsum. The food in the United skies isn’t all that friendly.
And by the way, thanks to the international date line, I just flew into tomorrow. Ni hao.
NICARAGUA: SUNDAY BEST
Sunday Best
I arrived in Chinandega, Nicaragua yesterday, a hot Thursday in August. For anyone not familiar with the location, go south on the Pan American highway and about a hundred miles north of Managua, hang a left. That is, if you can make it that far without getting robbed or a bad case of Montezuma’s revenge. I’ve skipped the adventure and come in by aircraft. I only had a taxi trek of sixty kilometers with the friendly driver from the mission, Benito, who thankfully managed to stay awake the whole way even though I arrived at 6 AM, long before the average awakening hour of a native Nicaraguan. I’ve found it is much better for my cardiovascular system and mental health if I just don’t bother to keep my eyes open while travelling on the Pan Am highway even for short distances, regardless of the manner of conveyance--- be it bus, taxi, ambulance or pickup truck. That is just my personal list. Any jaunt down the famous 16,000 miles of highway travelled by the likes of Che Guevara and Jack Kerouac, would also note the modes of walking, motorcycle, moped, bicycle, horse cart, wheelbarrow, scooter, lawnmower, tractor, and a variety of transportation trucks varying in wheel numbers from four to eighteen. Which is also the number of people you might see on one bicycle. A single rider is an obvious waste of potential locomotive capacity. And I consider Nicaragua the land of the original triple bypass as well—you know, a car passing a truck passing a motorcycle, all at the same time on the same side of the road at speeds that might make Dale Earnhardt, Jr. jealous. And if it is in August, as it is now, driving these breakneck speeds during a monsoon. My personal favorite Pan Am sight ever was a twelve year old boy driving a team of skinny horses, one set of wagon wheels on the road and the other riding the steeply sloping shoulder. There was no seat for him. He stood straight up, the reins in his left hand and in his right, a machete cutting down the tree limbs as he travelled along at a gallop. In our culture, this might be seen as child abuse. But in Nicaragua, this young man is merely a brilliant multi-tasker, and the pride of his father. Life is plainly different here.
I spend Thursday unpacking my suitcase and supplies for the operating room at the Saint Martin de Porres Hospital where I will be working for the next ten days. I am part of a mission team who provides surgical services free of charge to the many indigent people in the area, which is at least half the population. The only poorer country in Latin America is Haiti. The average Nicaraguan makes less than a dollar a day, and there isn’t much in the way of socialized medicine. When you see the folks walking down the PanAm highway in their bare feet and ragged clothes, it does something to your heart. It makes it bigger, more open, more accessible to strangers who freely walk through it and some who even take up permanent residence there. Denise, the other surgeon and mission director who comes in from Colorado, and I come a day or two ahead of time to “get things in order.” Part of doing that is the pre-operative screening clinic which is always on Friday.
I wake up Friday morning to the sound of disagreeing geckos that populate our ceiling. “Ack. Ack. Ack. Ack.” It is more pleasant than an alarm clock, but also less predictable. The little creatures summon me out of sleep at 8 am Eastern time, but to my surprise and dismay, 6 AM in Nicaragua. And don’t think one can go back to sleep once the geckos are at it. This argument goes on for hours, sort of like a row in certain parts of the Bronx. The windows of the house are open to keep the breeze going in the late summer heat, and I hear the rain clanking on the metal roof above my head. It will be a quest getting to the Fey Y Alegria Clinic where the patients will be assembled, because the ambulance will have to maneuver the muddy, rutted backstreets.
When we arrive, there are about a hundred people, standing under sheets of plastic or sharing an umbrella with a friend, lined up into the sodden, puddled lane, all smiling at us as we get out of the back of the ambulance, “Buenos dias, doctorras.” They curtsy slightly, as though we are queens, then the mass of humanity shuffles aside, allowing us through the gates of clinic building.
It’s Friday—not really the day for your Sunday best, but here in Chinandega, they are making an exception. Everyone is freshly cleaned—no small feat when you have no shower or bathtub and, in some cases, not even running water. And each person is freshly pressed despite the fact that their clothes must be washed by hand in a river or pounded out with hauled water on a rock and hung indoors during the monsoon season to dry. They heat heavy metal irons which would be museum pieces in this country, on a fire of wood or charcoals. Even though they are poor, they dress proudly. And regardless of inferior quality or faded color or mended tears in their clothing, to me, they are all beautiful.
I know they do it for me—all this effort. Not that I have done anything to deserve it, but because the people, even in their poverty and suffering, are polite, respectful. They are giving me what little they can, even if that is collecting rain water from their roof and buying a ten cent bar of laundry soap from the market—a purchase which might comprise twenty percent of their daily earnings. Denise and I see patients all morning. We talk to dozens of longsuffering ladies with gallbladder disease, their eyes pleading with us to help them out so that they can continue to work on their small farms, cook in their outdoor kitchens, and launder clothes at the local creek. Housekeeping is an all day affair without modern conveniences. Their tasks are made unbearable at times by the nagging pain under their right rib cage that gets worse every time they eat. Then there are the working men with hernias, some of them quite large and painful, hidden away by their oversized trousers. We see an ancient grandmother with weathered nutmeg colored skin being led in by a dutiful teenage grandson in a blue school uniform. Can I help her? She has cataracts and cannot see. No, I say, but an eye team in coming in two months. I take her name and give them the location of that clinic. At noon, the ladies of the local Catholic Church appear with a lunch of chicken, rice and black beans. Denise and I look at each other. First of all, we know they cannot really afford this gift, Secondly, at home, we would never stop the clinic to get lunch while fifty or sixty patients wait, especially if some were still standing outside in spitting rain. “Por favor, doctorras,” say the church contingent, motioning toward a table in a private room across the courtyard. We do not insult their noble kindness which continues as some of the patients say in English and Spanish, “Please, eat,” or “Enjoy your meal, doctor.”
After lunch, my first patient is a thin seven year old girl with dark hair braided into long pigtails. She has a welcoming smile and a worried mother. The girl is dressed like a little ballerina, her costume a pink taffeta, ironed and even starched. She picks up her tiny skirt, twirls around with a giggle and then shows me a hernia protruding from her navel like a golf ball. The mother looks at me the way that a mom in the U.S. would peer into a pediatrician’s eyes when her child has a high fever, expecting the worse. I nod at the mom. “Si, senora, we can fix this.” Six small words, but to the mother, it is all she came here in a cloudburst to hear. She smiles broadly, tears forming in the corner of her eyes. The little girl releases her cotton candy skirt and spins around in dizzying circles. Their bill is paid in full.
The day flows on and as the last patient is ushered out the gates of the clinic, Denise and I look at the surgery schedule for the next week. Eighty cases. We rejoice, because we didn’t have to say “No” to very many people. As we pack up into the ambulance to ride back to the hospital and the mission house, suddenly, the rain stops. When we turn off the mucky side road, the sun appears along with steamy mist rising off the hot asphalt of the Pan American highway.
I’m thankful for the respite and the rays of sunshine. I look out the window of the ambulance at the small shacks that stand on the side of the road, observe the children nearly naked in the yard chasing chickens. Taking it all in, I absently twiddle with the fabric of my skirt. Did I tell you what I am wearing today? A sleeveless black and white floral dress with an empress waistline, the hem ending at midcalf. It’s one of my favorites. It travels well and doesn’t wrinkle, and I know I look good in it.
For I am the student of gracious people, and I have learned my lesson well.
They have taught me to wear my Sunday best.
I arrived in Chinandega, Nicaragua yesterday, a hot Thursday in August. For anyone not familiar with the location, go south on the Pan American highway and about a hundred miles north of Managua, hang a left. That is, if you can make it that far without getting robbed or a bad case of Montezuma’s revenge. I’ve skipped the adventure and come in by aircraft. I only had a taxi trek of sixty kilometers with the friendly driver from the mission, Benito, who thankfully managed to stay awake the whole way even though I arrived at 6 AM, long before the average awakening hour of a native Nicaraguan. I’ve found it is much better for my cardiovascular system and mental health if I just don’t bother to keep my eyes open while travelling on the Pan Am highway even for short distances, regardless of the manner of conveyance--- be it bus, taxi, ambulance or pickup truck. That is just my personal list. Any jaunt down the famous 16,000 miles of highway travelled by the likes of Che Guevara and Jack Kerouac, would also note the modes of walking, motorcycle, moped, bicycle, horse cart, wheelbarrow, scooter, lawnmower, tractor, and a variety of transportation trucks varying in wheel numbers from four to eighteen. Which is also the number of people you might see on one bicycle. A single rider is an obvious waste of potential locomotive capacity. And I consider Nicaragua the land of the original triple bypass as well—you know, a car passing a truck passing a motorcycle, all at the same time on the same side of the road at speeds that might make Dale Earnhardt, Jr. jealous. And if it is in August, as it is now, driving these breakneck speeds during a monsoon. My personal favorite Pan Am sight ever was a twelve year old boy driving a team of skinny horses, one set of wagon wheels on the road and the other riding the steeply sloping shoulder. There was no seat for him. He stood straight up, the reins in his left hand and in his right, a machete cutting down the tree limbs as he travelled along at a gallop. In our culture, this might be seen as child abuse. But in Nicaragua, this young man is merely a brilliant multi-tasker, and the pride of his father. Life is plainly different here.
I spend Thursday unpacking my suitcase and supplies for the operating room at the Saint Martin de Porres Hospital where I will be working for the next ten days. I am part of a mission team who provides surgical services free of charge to the many indigent people in the area, which is at least half the population. The only poorer country in Latin America is Haiti. The average Nicaraguan makes less than a dollar a day, and there isn’t much in the way of socialized medicine. When you see the folks walking down the PanAm highway in their bare feet and ragged clothes, it does something to your heart. It makes it bigger, more open, more accessible to strangers who freely walk through it and some who even take up permanent residence there. Denise, the other surgeon and mission director who comes in from Colorado, and I come a day or two ahead of time to “get things in order.” Part of doing that is the pre-operative screening clinic which is always on Friday.
I wake up Friday morning to the sound of disagreeing geckos that populate our ceiling. “Ack. Ack. Ack. Ack.” It is more pleasant than an alarm clock, but also less predictable. The little creatures summon me out of sleep at 8 am Eastern time, but to my surprise and dismay, 6 AM in Nicaragua. And don’t think one can go back to sleep once the geckos are at it. This argument goes on for hours, sort of like a row in certain parts of the Bronx. The windows of the house are open to keep the breeze going in the late summer heat, and I hear the rain clanking on the metal roof above my head. It will be a quest getting to the Fey Y Alegria Clinic where the patients will be assembled, because the ambulance will have to maneuver the muddy, rutted backstreets.
When we arrive, there are about a hundred people, standing under sheets of plastic or sharing an umbrella with a friend, lined up into the sodden, puddled lane, all smiling at us as we get out of the back of the ambulance, “Buenos dias, doctorras.” They curtsy slightly, as though we are queens, then the mass of humanity shuffles aside, allowing us through the gates of clinic building.
It’s Friday—not really the day for your Sunday best, but here in Chinandega, they are making an exception. Everyone is freshly cleaned—no small feat when you have no shower or bathtub and, in some cases, not even running water. And each person is freshly pressed despite the fact that their clothes must be washed by hand in a river or pounded out with hauled water on a rock and hung indoors during the monsoon season to dry. They heat heavy metal irons which would be museum pieces in this country, on a fire of wood or charcoals. Even though they are poor, they dress proudly. And regardless of inferior quality or faded color or mended tears in their clothing, to me, they are all beautiful.
I know they do it for me—all this effort. Not that I have done anything to deserve it, but because the people, even in their poverty and suffering, are polite, respectful. They are giving me what little they can, even if that is collecting rain water from their roof and buying a ten cent bar of laundry soap from the market—a purchase which might comprise twenty percent of their daily earnings. Denise and I see patients all morning. We talk to dozens of longsuffering ladies with gallbladder disease, their eyes pleading with us to help them out so that they can continue to work on their small farms, cook in their outdoor kitchens, and launder clothes at the local creek. Housekeeping is an all day affair without modern conveniences. Their tasks are made unbearable at times by the nagging pain under their right rib cage that gets worse every time they eat. Then there are the working men with hernias, some of them quite large and painful, hidden away by their oversized trousers. We see an ancient grandmother with weathered nutmeg colored skin being led in by a dutiful teenage grandson in a blue school uniform. Can I help her? She has cataracts and cannot see. No, I say, but an eye team in coming in two months. I take her name and give them the location of that clinic. At noon, the ladies of the local Catholic Church appear with a lunch of chicken, rice and black beans. Denise and I look at each other. First of all, we know they cannot really afford this gift, Secondly, at home, we would never stop the clinic to get lunch while fifty or sixty patients wait, especially if some were still standing outside in spitting rain. “Por favor, doctorras,” say the church contingent, motioning toward a table in a private room across the courtyard. We do not insult their noble kindness which continues as some of the patients say in English and Spanish, “Please, eat,” or “Enjoy your meal, doctor.”
After lunch, my first patient is a thin seven year old girl with dark hair braided into long pigtails. She has a welcoming smile and a worried mother. The girl is dressed like a little ballerina, her costume a pink taffeta, ironed and even starched. She picks up her tiny skirt, twirls around with a giggle and then shows me a hernia protruding from her navel like a golf ball. The mother looks at me the way that a mom in the U.S. would peer into a pediatrician’s eyes when her child has a high fever, expecting the worse. I nod at the mom. “Si, senora, we can fix this.” Six small words, but to the mother, it is all she came here in a cloudburst to hear. She smiles broadly, tears forming in the corner of her eyes. The little girl releases her cotton candy skirt and spins around in dizzying circles. Their bill is paid in full.
The day flows on and as the last patient is ushered out the gates of the clinic, Denise and I look at the surgery schedule for the next week. Eighty cases. We rejoice, because we didn’t have to say “No” to very many people. As we pack up into the ambulance to ride back to the hospital and the mission house, suddenly, the rain stops. When we turn off the mucky side road, the sun appears along with steamy mist rising off the hot asphalt of the Pan American highway.
I’m thankful for the respite and the rays of sunshine. I look out the window of the ambulance at the small shacks that stand on the side of the road, observe the children nearly naked in the yard chasing chickens. Taking it all in, I absently twiddle with the fabric of my skirt. Did I tell you what I am wearing today? A sleeveless black and white floral dress with an empress waistline, the hem ending at midcalf. It’s one of my favorites. It travels well and doesn’t wrinkle, and I know I look good in it.
For I am the student of gracious people, and I have learned my lesson well.
They have taught me to wear my Sunday best.
NORTHERN IRAQ: THE SCARF
THE SCARF
They were an extended family crowded across from me around a small table in the roadside café beside the edge of a river—a dark-haired mustached father, two thin twenty something women with short hair, an elderly lady wearing a red and white scarf typical of the region on her head. There was also a man with a craggy face and white hair and several adolescent males. And then there was the four year old girl, frilled up in pink dragging her stuffed dog around the table, seeking entertainment. She was just as restless in this dining establishment as any small child in the US forced to behave in the presence of older relatives. But this was not the US. If you paid attention to the enticing aromas of grilled lamb and chicken and saw the fresh baked pita bread on the table, you might eventually guess the location or get close. Say Turkey or Egypt. But only US military personnel would identify the locale by having actually been near there. My table for two was in Northern Iraq.
I was on the road between Sulaymaniya, a dusty metropolis of 2 million people near the Iran border, and Erbil, the capital of Northern Iraq—also known by its fiercely patriotic inhabitants as Khurdistan. My driver, Farouk, borrowed from the Kurdish Ministry of Health, had strict instructions not to go through Kirkuk, a city I knew from CNN broadcasts, but not from personal experience. There had been a bombing that killed 75 people and injured four times that many three nights prior. I had been in Iraq for about ten days now, and was used to seeing an AKA-47 laid carefully across the backseat of the vehicles in which I travelled. I wasn’t too upset anymore by the Glock pistol the driver carried—except the time he left it in my seat and I sat on it briefly. You would not imagine such weapons were needed to provide mental health as we wound through the Iraqi countryside which is hilly and green and absolutely beautiful. We had past a mountain lake about an hour before and stopped by the shores to watch sunlight glisten on the small whitecaps formed by the wind. In many ways, the verdant mountainsides in this part of the country reminded me of my home in East Tennessee, but with more sheep than cows or horse and many fewer interspersed vacation houses. Looking from the valleys though, you could sight on all the peaks small square encasements just big enough to hold one or two people. I knew from going through some of the passes that those were guard posts. Places where a man can see far in the distance. A place a man scans for the enemy.
I got an uninvited glimpse at why a nation would be so wary when I visited the city of Amadiyah a few days earlier. It is a proverbial city set on a hill with streets that wind up from the plain looking like something right out of the Old Testament. Of course, the cell phones and satellite dishes ended that delusion as soon as we walked down its streets which were few, crunched together, and lined with houses, small businesses, and children playing stickball. We were in Amadiyah that day to visit the 20 bed hospital and fix a couple of hernias pretty much as a gesture of good will. When we got there, we learned a local official would like us to come by his house for “something to eat” afterward. Frankly, we had been taught well before the end of our first week in Iraq that this seemingly innocuous plan meant there would be enough delicious food to feed an army and accompanied by some sort of apology for not knowing we were coming and providing us with “inferior” fare cooked by the person’s wife instead of restaurant catered food. We were continuously bombarded by dolma, hummus, bread, fruits, kabobs and sweets of better quality than we get in restaurants at home. I rarely saw the orchestrator of the meal, but I imagined she had retired to her bed from sheer exhaustion of producing such a feast on short notice.
The Kurdish dignitary who issued the invitation was joined by a band of musicians with their interesting Iraqi stringed instruments and drums, a host of men dressed in their tribal keffiyeh head scarves and Peshmerga uniforms, and a group of confused and amused Americans in their travel clothes. After dinner, he asked if we would be willing to watch a video he had made of life in this village during Saddam’s reign. We sat down and saw the videographer close in on the face of General David Petraeus sitting in a folding chair watching a drama be re-enacted. From his serious expression, it panned out to the flat rocky plain at the foot of the village of Amadiyah. A wedding party marched down the winding mountain path. The women were gathered along the road in their beautiful ankle length dresses with scarves of gold braid. The men were dancing toward them and onlookers had gathered for the occasion. As the Muslim imam approached the crowd, an explosion was heard and then the crowd began to fall to the ground—at first trying to get up and help one another, and finally, unable to struggle any more. The re-enactment commemorates the gassing of the village and the deaths of 3000 people in one day in 1988. That’s about the same number who died in the 9/11 attacks. And this is just one village in Northern Iraq. There were 39 suspected gassings –some leading to over 7000 simultaneous deaths and wiping out entire families. One man who survived told us he had been out of town visiting relatives. On his return, he saw the bodies of his fellow villagers and ran away, hiding in the nearby caves. He escaped to Iran. He had only been back in Khurdistan for two years, but he is happy to be home. I heard a hundred stories like this while I was in Northern Iraq—stories of mothers and children fleeing to the borders of Turkey and Iran at night in snowfall, stories of loved ones who stayed behind to join the Pegmersha and fight for freedom, stories of loved ones who did not escape. As the film ended and the lights came back on, I saw most of the men holding the ends of their red and white scarves to their eyes, wiping away tears they made no effort to hide. Minutes later, the band members got up and played lively tunes and these men were up dancing about the room arm and arm and grabbing us to join in their levity. They taught us this lesson: You honor the dead by remembering and then living life to the fullest.
Just like the family in the roadside café. They were carrying on with their daily existence. And I was out of my element.
When the pretty little Kurdish girl came over to stare at my blonde hair, I showed her my camera. Like any kid, a big smile came across her face. She held her toy dog tight in an adorable pose, becoming a miniature fashion model for my clicking Nikon. The dad came over after a few minutes and caught her up in his arms.
“Are you from Sweden?” he asked in British-accented English.
A small laugh escaped me. “No.”
“Australia?” He conjectured.
“No,” I said, putting my kabob down on the table. “The United States.”
He raised a brow. “U.S.?” He looked a bit disbelieving. Not many US citizens prowl in that pastoral region of Iraq, away from cities and the conflict.
I nodded my head. I wasn’t sure how to gauge his reaction. He began to talk to the people with him at the table. He handed the little girl to one of the younger women and gesticulated with his hands, pointing at me. I started to feel just a little concerned. I look at Farouk, the driver. He was still chewing with the placidity of a dairy cow. I saw the elderly matron in a red and white keffiyeh head covering push herself slowly up from the table and totter arthritically toward me. Her headscarf was the same style the men at Amadiyah wore. I thought back to the tears that soaked into the fabric. When the old woman reached me, I noticed she had a cataract in one eye. She leaned down close to peruse my face—perhaps to make sure the younger gentleman hasn’t made a mistake about my nation of origin. Before I realized it was happening, she touched my cheek and kissed me, as though she were my own mother. Then she reached up to her head, took her scarf off and laid it on my lap.
I looked to the driver for help. “What does she want?”
Farouk didn’t even stop chewing and addressed me as though I am incapable of seeing the obvious. “She wants to give you her keffiyeh.” I will learn later that it is a symbol of her tribe and her allegiance to the Barzani clan who were and are leaders in Khurdistan—an item that is both personal and nationalistic.
I glanced at her clothes. They looked typical of the women in the region—nothing fancy. Her appearance is one of neither wealth nor abject poverty, but still, I didn’t feel it would be fair to accept her clothing. “Tell her it’s very nice of her to offer, but I can’t take it.” I handed it back to her gently as Farouk uttered a few words in Kurdish.
She looked a bit disappointed, but she took it back and replaced it on her head. Then she smiled and chanted over and over, “Ez te hezdikhem.” She patted my arm and smiled. Then she turned and slowly made her way back to her place amongst her family. I looked toward them. They nodded their assent to her, continuing with their meal.
Farouk looked at his watch. “We need to go. It will be close to dark when we reach Erbil. I was told not to drive with you in the dark. Dangerous in the dark.”
“Okay,” I said and got up to leave. The family waved at me, all smiles. I waved back. I pointed the camera one last time at the little girl who giggled and nuzzled her stuffed animal into her neck.
As we got in the car and I heard the engine turn, I asked my driver, “What was that lady saying back there?”
He turned the steering wheel and repeated, “Ez te hezdikhem.”
“Yes!” I recognized the words. “What does it mean?”
A grin spread across his well-fed face, “It means in Kurdish, ‘I love you.’”
I turned my head back toward the restaurant and saw the family through the glass of the windows breaking their pita bread, rolling it around a kebab and sipping hot tea. The old Kurdish woman was talking, laughing, sharing the moment—her keffiyeh resting carefully atop her graying hair.
They were an extended family crowded across from me around a small table in the roadside café beside the edge of a river—a dark-haired mustached father, two thin twenty something women with short hair, an elderly lady wearing a red and white scarf typical of the region on her head. There was also a man with a craggy face and white hair and several adolescent males. And then there was the four year old girl, frilled up in pink dragging her stuffed dog around the table, seeking entertainment. She was just as restless in this dining establishment as any small child in the US forced to behave in the presence of older relatives. But this was not the US. If you paid attention to the enticing aromas of grilled lamb and chicken and saw the fresh baked pita bread on the table, you might eventually guess the location or get close. Say Turkey or Egypt. But only US military personnel would identify the locale by having actually been near there. My table for two was in Northern Iraq.
I was on the road between Sulaymaniya, a dusty metropolis of 2 million people near the Iran border, and Erbil, the capital of Northern Iraq—also known by its fiercely patriotic inhabitants as Khurdistan. My driver, Farouk, borrowed from the Kurdish Ministry of Health, had strict instructions not to go through Kirkuk, a city I knew from CNN broadcasts, but not from personal experience. There had been a bombing that killed 75 people and injured four times that many three nights prior. I had been in Iraq for about ten days now, and was used to seeing an AKA-47 laid carefully across the backseat of the vehicles in which I travelled. I wasn’t too upset anymore by the Glock pistol the driver carried—except the time he left it in my seat and I sat on it briefly. You would not imagine such weapons were needed to provide mental health as we wound through the Iraqi countryside which is hilly and green and absolutely beautiful. We had past a mountain lake about an hour before and stopped by the shores to watch sunlight glisten on the small whitecaps formed by the wind. In many ways, the verdant mountainsides in this part of the country reminded me of my home in East Tennessee, but with more sheep than cows or horse and many fewer interspersed vacation houses. Looking from the valleys though, you could sight on all the peaks small square encasements just big enough to hold one or two people. I knew from going through some of the passes that those were guard posts. Places where a man can see far in the distance. A place a man scans for the enemy.
I got an uninvited glimpse at why a nation would be so wary when I visited the city of Amadiyah a few days earlier. It is a proverbial city set on a hill with streets that wind up from the plain looking like something right out of the Old Testament. Of course, the cell phones and satellite dishes ended that delusion as soon as we walked down its streets which were few, crunched together, and lined with houses, small businesses, and children playing stickball. We were in Amadiyah that day to visit the 20 bed hospital and fix a couple of hernias pretty much as a gesture of good will. When we got there, we learned a local official would like us to come by his house for “something to eat” afterward. Frankly, we had been taught well before the end of our first week in Iraq that this seemingly innocuous plan meant there would be enough delicious food to feed an army and accompanied by some sort of apology for not knowing we were coming and providing us with “inferior” fare cooked by the person’s wife instead of restaurant catered food. We were continuously bombarded by dolma, hummus, bread, fruits, kabobs and sweets of better quality than we get in restaurants at home. I rarely saw the orchestrator of the meal, but I imagined she had retired to her bed from sheer exhaustion of producing such a feast on short notice.
The Kurdish dignitary who issued the invitation was joined by a band of musicians with their interesting Iraqi stringed instruments and drums, a host of men dressed in their tribal keffiyeh head scarves and Peshmerga uniforms, and a group of confused and amused Americans in their travel clothes. After dinner, he asked if we would be willing to watch a video he had made of life in this village during Saddam’s reign. We sat down and saw the videographer close in on the face of General David Petraeus sitting in a folding chair watching a drama be re-enacted. From his serious expression, it panned out to the flat rocky plain at the foot of the village of Amadiyah. A wedding party marched down the winding mountain path. The women were gathered along the road in their beautiful ankle length dresses with scarves of gold braid. The men were dancing toward them and onlookers had gathered for the occasion. As the Muslim imam approached the crowd, an explosion was heard and then the crowd began to fall to the ground—at first trying to get up and help one another, and finally, unable to struggle any more. The re-enactment commemorates the gassing of the village and the deaths of 3000 people in one day in 1988. That’s about the same number who died in the 9/11 attacks. And this is just one village in Northern Iraq. There were 39 suspected gassings –some leading to over 7000 simultaneous deaths and wiping out entire families. One man who survived told us he had been out of town visiting relatives. On his return, he saw the bodies of his fellow villagers and ran away, hiding in the nearby caves. He escaped to Iran. He had only been back in Khurdistan for two years, but he is happy to be home. I heard a hundred stories like this while I was in Northern Iraq—stories of mothers and children fleeing to the borders of Turkey and Iran at night in snowfall, stories of loved ones who stayed behind to join the Pegmersha and fight for freedom, stories of loved ones who did not escape. As the film ended and the lights came back on, I saw most of the men holding the ends of their red and white scarves to their eyes, wiping away tears they made no effort to hide. Minutes later, the band members got up and played lively tunes and these men were up dancing about the room arm and arm and grabbing us to join in their levity. They taught us this lesson: You honor the dead by remembering and then living life to the fullest.
Just like the family in the roadside café. They were carrying on with their daily existence. And I was out of my element.
When the pretty little Kurdish girl came over to stare at my blonde hair, I showed her my camera. Like any kid, a big smile came across her face. She held her toy dog tight in an adorable pose, becoming a miniature fashion model for my clicking Nikon. The dad came over after a few minutes and caught her up in his arms.
“Are you from Sweden?” he asked in British-accented English.
A small laugh escaped me. “No.”
“Australia?” He conjectured.
“No,” I said, putting my kabob down on the table. “The United States.”
He raised a brow. “U.S.?” He looked a bit disbelieving. Not many US citizens prowl in that pastoral region of Iraq, away from cities and the conflict.
I nodded my head. I wasn’t sure how to gauge his reaction. He began to talk to the people with him at the table. He handed the little girl to one of the younger women and gesticulated with his hands, pointing at me. I started to feel just a little concerned. I look at Farouk, the driver. He was still chewing with the placidity of a dairy cow. I saw the elderly matron in a red and white keffiyeh head covering push herself slowly up from the table and totter arthritically toward me. Her headscarf was the same style the men at Amadiyah wore. I thought back to the tears that soaked into the fabric. When the old woman reached me, I noticed she had a cataract in one eye. She leaned down close to peruse my face—perhaps to make sure the younger gentleman hasn’t made a mistake about my nation of origin. Before I realized it was happening, she touched my cheek and kissed me, as though she were my own mother. Then she reached up to her head, took her scarf off and laid it on my lap.
I looked to the driver for help. “What does she want?”
Farouk didn’t even stop chewing and addressed me as though I am incapable of seeing the obvious. “She wants to give you her keffiyeh.” I will learn later that it is a symbol of her tribe and her allegiance to the Barzani clan who were and are leaders in Khurdistan—an item that is both personal and nationalistic.
I glanced at her clothes. They looked typical of the women in the region—nothing fancy. Her appearance is one of neither wealth nor abject poverty, but still, I didn’t feel it would be fair to accept her clothing. “Tell her it’s very nice of her to offer, but I can’t take it.” I handed it back to her gently as Farouk uttered a few words in Kurdish.
She looked a bit disappointed, but she took it back and replaced it on her head. Then she smiled and chanted over and over, “Ez te hezdikhem.” She patted my arm and smiled. Then she turned and slowly made her way back to her place amongst her family. I looked toward them. They nodded their assent to her, continuing with their meal.
Farouk looked at his watch. “We need to go. It will be close to dark when we reach Erbil. I was told not to drive with you in the dark. Dangerous in the dark.”
“Okay,” I said and got up to leave. The family waved at me, all smiles. I waved back. I pointed the camera one last time at the little girl who giggled and nuzzled her stuffed animal into her neck.
As we got in the car and I heard the engine turn, I asked my driver, “What was that lady saying back there?”
He turned the steering wheel and repeated, “Ez te hezdikhem.”
“Yes!” I recognized the words. “What does it mean?”
A grin spread across his well-fed face, “It means in Kurdish, ‘I love you.’”
I turned my head back toward the restaurant and saw the family through the glass of the windows breaking their pita bread, rolling it around a kebab and sipping hot tea. The old Kurdish woman was talking, laughing, sharing the moment—her keffiyeh resting carefully atop her graying hair.
WAYSIDE KOREA: THIS AIRPORT'S GOT SEOUL!
26 July 08
4:54 AM
Inchon Airport, Seoul, Korea
Welly’s Food Court
Is this a decent hour for a beer? It’s 4 am here, 4 pm at home, but I think it is actually 5 pm in the Caribbean… and they don’t care when you drink beer there, so here’s to Aruba, Jamaica and all the Kokomos worldwide.
The local brew is called Cass—spelled differently, but pronounced precisely like the Dutch word for cheese. In hopes for international symmetry, I can only hope the cheese here is called Heineken. Cass tastes…like beer. Which is so much better than beer that tastes like chicken. Or even cheese.
It has been a 27 hour journey from the quiet, rolling hillsides of Knoxville, Tennessee through the hustle, bustle, and crowds of Atlanta airport and on to the hubbub of Los Angeles International, LAX. I didn’t really feel like I was going to Asia until I got in line to check in at Asiana Airlines at Tom Bradley terminal. I was standing there minding my own business when I felt someone pressing into my backpack. As I was checking my bags and my instinct to turn around and see if they had fallen forward during a faint or seizure, I remembered my destination—places where both outer space and personal space have very little meaningful application in daily life. Crowded locales where the biggest, most aggressive guy gets the attention of the office clerk. Either that, or they have to be very slippery, because when you are just another face in the crowd, you have to be either a huge face, a really important face, or someone small and sly enough to weave your way at the level of waistlines and knees to get yourself to the front. This probably explains why none of our Asian friends go home and write us letter—aside from the fact that much of the mail never leaves the country. Unless your buddy or mine is a gargantuan oily bohunk, they don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of ever being able to purchase a postage stamp.
Which brings me to another quite tangential comment about the LA airport, just in case you are traveling there and make an unwise decision such as I did to pay all your bills en route and then just mail them at the terminal. This ends up being a very imprudent indeed plan. Why? Not entirely because, like nearly everyone else, I haven’t graduated into the 21st century of paying all my bills on-line. No, it’s a much simpler reason. There are no post boxes at the LA airport. A Latin-appearing security guard explained, “They took them all out, because of the terrorists.” I suppose in some manner this makes a modicum of sense, but what about all those USA stamped post cards that foreign travelers are disappointedly carrying back home in their carryon without a US stamp or postmark? There’s a world of discontent there. So give us a break. Put back the mailboxes. Make them plexiglass so everyone can see the contents. That way, no business traveler cheating on his/her spouse can mail a clandestine post to their illicit lover without at least fearing getting caught. And the postman never has to worry about a surprise encounter with a snake or some international traveller’s inadvertently discarded open yogurt container. And may I point out to the authorities that the name of the airport is, after all, “lax.” (And will someone please forward this blog to my mortgage company? Preferably before July 31st. I could try to mail it from Korea, but I am afraid I’d never get a stamp.)
Which brings me to the next tangential point… Sleeping on airplanes. Something I am really, really good at. I slept about 10 hours straight on the way here. Didn’t even hear the plane take off. So many of my friends say, “I can’t sleep on planes.” I have had a number of people ask me if I could prescribe them sleeping pills so they can snooze across the Pacific. I always tell them, “Heck, they named it the Pacific, because it puts people to sleep. Just look down at it for about 20 minutes and you’ll be out like a light.”
So for all you sheep counters out there, let me give you a great formula for falling to sleep on airlines. (1) Stay up all night the night before. Yeah, you can do it. Just think of all the things you are leaving undone and that you will actually worry about when you are away. The neighbors will forgive you for mowing the lawn at 3 AM, as long as it is just once a year. If they act persnickety, mosey over and get their lawn, too. After all, you’ve got all night, right? Or give your koi some quality time. They deserve it. (2) The morning and afternoon before your departure, relocate. That’s what I did. Sure it took some help from some friends (Thanks Jane and Paige), but all those trips down a third story walkup really wore me out. Slept like a baby and didn’t need any other pacifier over the Pacific Ocean. If I ever attempt to fly to Mars, you can apply now to get your lawn mowed and your furniture moved. First come, first serve.
But all that sleeping does make you groggy when the flight attendants shake you awake to ask you to return your seat to its full and upright position in the anticipation of serving the pre-landing breakfast. I awoke to a lovely dark-eyed Asian face saying in mildly accented English, “Please to put your seat up.” Blinking and bleary-eyed, I tried to get a bearing on where I was. The little Korean couple next to me digging forks into an unidentifiable and fragrant cuisine helped me remember that I was on a flight. The stewardess then leaned in closer and queried, “Octopus or omelet?” carefully enunciating every syllable and making them sound like “OCT OH PUSS or OM EL ET?” I was a bit confused. It took me back for just a second to the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral where the usher is trying to escort an elderly guest to his seat and asks, “Bride or groom?” and the grumpy,confused old guy says, “It should be perfectly obvious that I am neither.” Then it hit me that she was asking for my breakfast order. Admittedly, during the twenty-three years I have spent working with surgical interns, I have occasionally wished that I were an octopus-- an amorphous, malleable living creature with eight available arms to assist them. Nonethelss, I knew instinctively that despite efforts to remain culturally sensitive, I would not eat an octopus for breakfast. Ever. “Omelet,” I croaked. She smiled as she delivered a cutesy airline tray filled with eggs, hash browns, ham, a croissant, strawberry yogurt. She filled my cup with steaming tea. John and Teresa Kerry will be very ecstatic to know that the catsup served was Heinz. It was the only item on the tray whose labels were not in Korean, a language that, unfortunately, I have not even a rudimentary familiarity with. And that probably explains the unsweetened, heavily salted tea.
Yep, from now on, I am sticking with the beer. After all, it’s not just for breakfast anymore.
4:54 AM
Inchon Airport, Seoul, Korea
Welly’s Food Court
Is this a decent hour for a beer? It’s 4 am here, 4 pm at home, but I think it is actually 5 pm in the Caribbean… and they don’t care when you drink beer there, so here’s to Aruba, Jamaica and all the Kokomos worldwide.
The local brew is called Cass—spelled differently, but pronounced precisely like the Dutch word for cheese. In hopes for international symmetry, I can only hope the cheese here is called Heineken. Cass tastes…like beer. Which is so much better than beer that tastes like chicken. Or even cheese.
It has been a 27 hour journey from the quiet, rolling hillsides of Knoxville, Tennessee through the hustle, bustle, and crowds of Atlanta airport and on to the hubbub of Los Angeles International, LAX. I didn’t really feel like I was going to Asia until I got in line to check in at Asiana Airlines at Tom Bradley terminal. I was standing there minding my own business when I felt someone pressing into my backpack. As I was checking my bags and my instinct to turn around and see if they had fallen forward during a faint or seizure, I remembered my destination—places where both outer space and personal space have very little meaningful application in daily life. Crowded locales where the biggest, most aggressive guy gets the attention of the office clerk. Either that, or they have to be very slippery, because when you are just another face in the crowd, you have to be either a huge face, a really important face, or someone small and sly enough to weave your way at the level of waistlines and knees to get yourself to the front. This probably explains why none of our Asian friends go home and write us letter—aside from the fact that much of the mail never leaves the country. Unless your buddy or mine is a gargantuan oily bohunk, they don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of ever being able to purchase a postage stamp.
Which brings me to another quite tangential comment about the LA airport, just in case you are traveling there and make an unwise decision such as I did to pay all your bills en route and then just mail them at the terminal. This ends up being a very imprudent indeed plan. Why? Not entirely because, like nearly everyone else, I haven’t graduated into the 21st century of paying all my bills on-line. No, it’s a much simpler reason. There are no post boxes at the LA airport. A Latin-appearing security guard explained, “They took them all out, because of the terrorists.” I suppose in some manner this makes a modicum of sense, but what about all those USA stamped post cards that foreign travelers are disappointedly carrying back home in their carryon without a US stamp or postmark? There’s a world of discontent there. So give us a break. Put back the mailboxes. Make them plexiglass so everyone can see the contents. That way, no business traveler cheating on his/her spouse can mail a clandestine post to their illicit lover without at least fearing getting caught. And the postman never has to worry about a surprise encounter with a snake or some international traveller’s inadvertently discarded open yogurt container. And may I point out to the authorities that the name of the airport is, after all, “lax.” (And will someone please forward this blog to my mortgage company? Preferably before July 31st. I could try to mail it from Korea, but I am afraid I’d never get a stamp.)
Which brings me to the next tangential point… Sleeping on airplanes. Something I am really, really good at. I slept about 10 hours straight on the way here. Didn’t even hear the plane take off. So many of my friends say, “I can’t sleep on planes.” I have had a number of people ask me if I could prescribe them sleeping pills so they can snooze across the Pacific. I always tell them, “Heck, they named it the Pacific, because it puts people to sleep. Just look down at it for about 20 minutes and you’ll be out like a light.”
So for all you sheep counters out there, let me give you a great formula for falling to sleep on airlines. (1) Stay up all night the night before. Yeah, you can do it. Just think of all the things you are leaving undone and that you will actually worry about when you are away. The neighbors will forgive you for mowing the lawn at 3 AM, as long as it is just once a year. If they act persnickety, mosey over and get their lawn, too. After all, you’ve got all night, right? Or give your koi some quality time. They deserve it. (2) The morning and afternoon before your departure, relocate. That’s what I did. Sure it took some help from some friends (Thanks Jane and Paige), but all those trips down a third story walkup really wore me out. Slept like a baby and didn’t need any other pacifier over the Pacific Ocean. If I ever attempt to fly to Mars, you can apply now to get your lawn mowed and your furniture moved. First come, first serve.
But all that sleeping does make you groggy when the flight attendants shake you awake to ask you to return your seat to its full and upright position in the anticipation of serving the pre-landing breakfast. I awoke to a lovely dark-eyed Asian face saying in mildly accented English, “Please to put your seat up.” Blinking and bleary-eyed, I tried to get a bearing on where I was. The little Korean couple next to me digging forks into an unidentifiable and fragrant cuisine helped me remember that I was on a flight. The stewardess then leaned in closer and queried, “Octopus or omelet?” carefully enunciating every syllable and making them sound like “OCT OH PUSS or OM EL ET?” I was a bit confused. It took me back for just a second to the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral where the usher is trying to escort an elderly guest to his seat and asks, “Bride or groom?” and the grumpy,confused old guy says, “It should be perfectly obvious that I am neither.” Then it hit me that she was asking for my breakfast order. Admittedly, during the twenty-three years I have spent working with surgical interns, I have occasionally wished that I were an octopus-- an amorphous, malleable living creature with eight available arms to assist them. Nonethelss, I knew instinctively that despite efforts to remain culturally sensitive, I would not eat an octopus for breakfast. Ever. “Omelet,” I croaked. She smiled as she delivered a cutesy airline tray filled with eggs, hash browns, ham, a croissant, strawberry yogurt. She filled my cup with steaming tea. John and Teresa Kerry will be very ecstatic to know that the catsup served was Heinz. It was the only item on the tray whose labels were not in Korean, a language that, unfortunately, I have not even a rudimentary familiarity with. And that probably explains the unsweetened, heavily salted tea.
Yep, from now on, I am sticking with the beer. After all, it’s not just for breakfast anymore.
BEIJING: LIKE LAMBS TO THE SLAUGHTER
JULY 27,2009 8:37 am
LIKE LAMBS TO THE SLAUGHTER
Beijing is really keying up for the Olympics. The airport is new and big... and shaped like a dragon...with flowers all over it. I never saw a flowery dragon before, but then, I never saw any dragon. Maybe they are covered in pansies and gladiolus. As we landed at about 10 AM, I didn't recall it being quite so foggy when I was here in 2001. When I reached the hotel at 11 am, the fog still hadn't moved out.
My hotel was the 5 star Oriental Bay Hotel. It is Oriental. It is a hotel. There is no bay, but maybe the not too polluted looking sluice in front counts for something. At noon, I get out of the shower and look out the window. It occurs to me that the fog is probably something else. And who says you can't see air. I inquire with the concierge downstairs, "Do you think this fog will move along later today?" "Oh, no, madam," he shakes his head. "It is air pollution." He goes on to inform me that all the factories within a certain perimeter of Beijing have been shut down for the last 4 weeks and that now, things are much better. And, he adds, ever the optimist, it is still two weeks until the Olympics. I look out at the grey clouds all the way to the ground and a sunless sky and imagine athletes from 44 nations lying on the dirt after their events, gasping for breath and looking like guppies out of water. "Good luck with that," I mumble.
I decide to stay in. I go back upstairs to my room and decide to brush my teeth for entertainment. The sign on the sink says, "Do not drink the water." You gotta be kidding me. Next, I will find out the hotel is built on a Super Fund site.
I re-think the situation. I go to the Chinese restaurant (what other kind would they have?) and they hand me a menu printed in Mandarin. Fortunately, there are photos of the food. I cannot tell what it is, but at least I can order something in a pleasing color combination. And, by the way, may I have some water? Of course, I can. The waitress returns with a beautiful porcelain cup and a pot of steaming hot water. Lovely. I contemplate what is the worse thing that can happen to me if I drink the tap water. I envision myself as a large dragon whose flowers are all wilting. I further entertain the thoughts of Olympic sprinters hurrying themselves to the end of their events and running over to the sidelines and sipping hellishly hot water from porcelain cups with their pinkies held high in the air.
So for anyone headed to the Olympics, don't drink the water. Don't breathe the air. But if you are in the mood for Chinese food...
LIKE LAMBS TO THE SLAUGHTER
Beijing is really keying up for the Olympics. The airport is new and big... and shaped like a dragon...with flowers all over it. I never saw a flowery dragon before, but then, I never saw any dragon. Maybe they are covered in pansies and gladiolus. As we landed at about 10 AM, I didn't recall it being quite so foggy when I was here in 2001. When I reached the hotel at 11 am, the fog still hadn't moved out.
My hotel was the 5 star Oriental Bay Hotel. It is Oriental. It is a hotel. There is no bay, but maybe the not too polluted looking sluice in front counts for something. At noon, I get out of the shower and look out the window. It occurs to me that the fog is probably something else. And who says you can't see air. I inquire with the concierge downstairs, "Do you think this fog will move along later today?" "Oh, no, madam," he shakes his head. "It is air pollution." He goes on to inform me that all the factories within a certain perimeter of Beijing have been shut down for the last 4 weeks and that now, things are much better. And, he adds, ever the optimist, it is still two weeks until the Olympics. I look out at the grey clouds all the way to the ground and a sunless sky and imagine athletes from 44 nations lying on the dirt after their events, gasping for breath and looking like guppies out of water. "Good luck with that," I mumble.
I decide to stay in. I go back upstairs to my room and decide to brush my teeth for entertainment. The sign on the sink says, "Do not drink the water." You gotta be kidding me. Next, I will find out the hotel is built on a Super Fund site.
I re-think the situation. I go to the Chinese restaurant (what other kind would they have?) and they hand me a menu printed in Mandarin. Fortunately, there are photos of the food. I cannot tell what it is, but at least I can order something in a pleasing color combination. And, by the way, may I have some water? Of course, I can. The waitress returns with a beautiful porcelain cup and a pot of steaming hot water. Lovely. I contemplate what is the worse thing that can happen to me if I drink the tap water. I envision myself as a large dragon whose flowers are all wilting. I further entertain the thoughts of Olympic sprinters hurrying themselves to the end of their events and running over to the sidelines and sipping hellishly hot water from porcelain cups with their pinkies held high in the air.
So for anyone headed to the Olympics, don't drink the water. Don't breathe the air. But if you are in the mood for Chinese food...
WELCOME TO DENMARK: WE HAVE AN EEL OF A MEAL FOR YOU!
Thursday, April 9, 2009 at 4:21pm
As many of you are unfortunately aware, I am fascinated by the toilets of the world. Unlike the geniuses of the Blue Collar Comedy tour (yes, I WOULD have Jeff Foxworthy's baby--if I actually had an ovary), I don't have any real interest in what goes on in there. I'm a sucker for the HGTV version--What's it really like inside "the space." A intergalactic potty propensity. And in Copenhagen, the toilet is a nice gig--if you can get it. It's clean. The door goes all the way to the floor--something I can tell you on excellent authority makes Jerry Seinfield a very happy crappy kind-a-guy. And it makes teenagers and young children more creative, because that prank is totally gone. Except for Norway, the Danes seem to know how to go better than anyone on this planet. And I can state accurately, that this toilet stands alone as a nicer place than many of my past (and possibly current) domiciles. Okay, admittedly, a collapsing outhouse outside a rundown duct-taped trailerin the worst foothill of Appalachia is nicer than many places I have lived. But overall, I give these bathrooms four big shiny stars.
This airport also ranks highly for providing beer--the good Danish kind and the questionable quality Budweiser-- readily available at the 7/11 (yeah, that's really the name, too) in the airport reception area at 6:30AM. And I really wanted one, too. Not only is it five o'clock somewhere, but it is midnight where I live. Close enough to last call for me to here the call of the wild. But the peer pressure is too great. Lotsa beautiful towheaded children scurrying about behind tall, fair-haired parents. Who amazingly, despite generations of Scandanavian heritage, do NOT appear to be drunk at 6:30 in the morning. What is this country coming to? No drinking? Responsible parenting behaviors? Obviously, I could be at home in Knoxville right now and something is rotten in Denmark.
So I will take a look around for that all important "first meal of the day." There seems to be a surplus of candy. Wine gummies? Hmmm. That's actually a nice toought. Kids acting crazy? Ply them with alcohol laden images of their favorite animal or cartoon. (Maybe things haven't changed all that much after all?) And my favorite- A candy named FIRKLOVER. I don't know what it means, but frankly, don't we all prefer to just make that up? And there is so much licorice in the airport in such a variety of sizes and shapes that it surprises me anyone has white teeth. This stuff looks like an industrial strength petroleum byproduct. Yummy. Folks from Louisiana should feel right at home eating that.
But what about the more substantial offerings in the protein group? A bowl full of something grey and squashy. Or perhaps the buffet of various oceanic flesh of unidentifiable origin topped in cream and some kind of green plant salvaged from a weedeater? No wonder the Vikings conquered Northern Europe. They hadn't actually deviated from eating primordial ooze. Call me unadventurous, but preferably, call me after breakfast is over. I don't mean to be so ethnocentric really. Why shouldn't I want a yard long freshly smoked eel that resembles donkey anatomy within thirty minutes of rising from bed in the morning. And yes, thank you, I will also take that piece of chocolate the size of my head.
Perusing the offering here in Copenhagen in the early dawn, I realize the only thing I DO actually want to eat is glaringly absent:
A Danish.
As many of you are unfortunately aware, I am fascinated by the toilets of the world. Unlike the geniuses of the Blue Collar Comedy tour (yes, I WOULD have Jeff Foxworthy's baby--if I actually had an ovary), I don't have any real interest in what goes on in there. I'm a sucker for the HGTV version--What's it really like inside "the space." A intergalactic potty propensity. And in Copenhagen, the toilet is a nice gig--if you can get it. It's clean. The door goes all the way to the floor--something I can tell you on excellent authority makes Jerry Seinfield a very happy crappy kind-a-guy. And it makes teenagers and young children more creative, because that prank is totally gone. Except for Norway, the Danes seem to know how to go better than anyone on this planet. And I can state accurately, that this toilet stands alone as a nicer place than many of my past (and possibly current) domiciles. Okay, admittedly, a collapsing outhouse outside a rundown duct-taped trailerin the worst foothill of Appalachia is nicer than many places I have lived. But overall, I give these bathrooms four big shiny stars.
This airport also ranks highly for providing beer--the good Danish kind and the questionable quality Budweiser-- readily available at the 7/11 (yeah, that's really the name, too) in the airport reception area at 6:30AM. And I really wanted one, too. Not only is it five o'clock somewhere, but it is midnight where I live. Close enough to last call for me to here the call of the wild. But the peer pressure is too great. Lotsa beautiful towheaded children scurrying about behind tall, fair-haired parents. Who amazingly, despite generations of Scandanavian heritage, do NOT appear to be drunk at 6:30 in the morning. What is this country coming to? No drinking? Responsible parenting behaviors? Obviously, I could be at home in Knoxville right now and something is rotten in Denmark.
So I will take a look around for that all important "first meal of the day." There seems to be a surplus of candy. Wine gummies? Hmmm. That's actually a nice toought. Kids acting crazy? Ply them with alcohol laden images of their favorite animal or cartoon. (Maybe things haven't changed all that much after all?) And my favorite- A candy named FIRKLOVER. I don't know what it means, but frankly, don't we all prefer to just make that up? And there is so much licorice in the airport in such a variety of sizes and shapes that it surprises me anyone has white teeth. This stuff looks like an industrial strength petroleum byproduct. Yummy. Folks from Louisiana should feel right at home eating that.
But what about the more substantial offerings in the protein group? A bowl full of something grey and squashy. Or perhaps the buffet of various oceanic flesh of unidentifiable origin topped in cream and some kind of green plant salvaged from a weedeater? No wonder the Vikings conquered Northern Europe. They hadn't actually deviated from eating primordial ooze. Call me unadventurous, but preferably, call me after breakfast is over. I don't mean to be so ethnocentric really. Why shouldn't I want a yard long freshly smoked eel that resembles donkey anatomy within thirty minutes of rising from bed in the morning. And yes, thank you, I will also take that piece of chocolate the size of my head.
Perusing the offering here in Copenhagen in the early dawn, I realize the only thing I DO actually want to eat is glaringly absent:
A Danish.
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