Skin Deep

On our trip to the State capital last week we got a phone call from a friend who works in the town we live in but whose family still lives in the "big city." Even though he wasn't around, he wanted us to take the opportunity while we were in town to visit his home and meet his wife and kids. We were worn out from running errands and sitting in government offices at this point so we were happy to have an excuse to relax with friends (even friends we had never met before). On Friday morning our absent host's sister, a stern, well-dressed woman in her fifties, showed up at our hotel and escorted us back to her home in the back of a rickshaw (a three wheeled wonder-taxi). The home was a modest two-room building and a spacious mud kitchen in a small courtyard shaded by guava trees. Though we weren't sure what to expect, or what was expected of us really, the many hours that passed that afternoon were once again marked by sheer North African hospitality.

This day also proved to be a curious reverse of our more typical experiences here as Bryan found himself the only man among a household of well educated sisters, wives, daughters and neighbors. In fact, he spent several hours hanging out with boys in the courtyard while I was ushered inside and treated to something incredibly beautiful, quite literally. Apparently, like everywhere else in the world, when women get together here they like to make each other up and as a guest in this culture I was treated to the works. Our host's wife shooed all peeping eyes away from windows pulled up a stool at my feet and sat down with a porcelain dish in hand. She then folded my skirt up carefully around my shins and proceeded to apply cool red henna to the soles of my feet. She worked patiently for the better part of an hour, shaping the mud in swirls across my arches and heels, working it gently between my toes and across my nails. When she was finished an animated conversation began among the women in the room about who should do my hands. A younger girl was voted as the best artist present and after carefully sewing a torn piece of plastic into a long cone, she filled it with more henna and began tediously turning my hands into works of art. At times I couldn't watch her delicate movements forming petals and leaves, afraid I would wince or start sweating and mess up her hard work. When she finished I was propped up like a broken manikin while we waited for my appendages to dry. During this time our absent host's sister returned from the kitchen with a small makeup bag. She told me that it was now time to do my face. Painting up my face seemed somewhat less charming than decorating my hands and feet and I stammered something along the lines of – no thank you, that's so sweet to offer, but really not necessary at all. She would hear none of it though, and still bound by my wet hands and feet, I had no choice but to sit still and soak up the moment. My worst fears were realized when the first thing that came out of her bag was a razor blade that she swiftly ran across my eyebrows and jaw line. I pushed back all the images of the bearded lady at the circus that came rushing to mind and just closed my eyes in resignation as pencils, creams and powders were all applied in turn. When she was done and a mirror was thrust in front of my face I felt like I was looking at a reflection of someone who had just stepped out of a brothel in Cairo. Bryan's smirk made me suspect he was thinking the same thing. However, my beauticians applauded their efforts and assured me I looked gorgeous (though I can't help but think surely, surely there must have been a hint of "Wow, it doesn't look quite the same on her as it does on us, does it…" behind their smiles somewhere. Somehow the purples and blacks just didn't compliment my skin tones quite the same way.) The finishing touches were oil for my hennaed hands and feet and a brown paste rubbed into my neck and arms that smelled like sandalwood. Later, our absent host's sister slipped me a small vial of the stuff and said a two syllable word I had never heard before. I thought she was telling me the name of the spice but when I asked her to repeat the word she smiled and repeated the word(s) that I understood this time. "For sex." I tried to keep the high notes out of my giggle as I nodded and said thank you and she did what I feel like was the North Africa woman's version of a wink and a "Thank me later" look.

We left that evening with full stomachs and full hearts. I was a little shy to look at people from under my heavily lidded eyes in the rickshaw on the drive home but most people seemed to be more interested in my floral hands and feet than anything else. "Mabruk!" they said and continue to say to me even now as the dark brown swirls are slowly beginning to fade away.

Several people have said - now you are a woman from this country! - and even though we all know that will never be true, I receive those words as a compliment and I think people appreciate that in and of itself. In retrospect, I think my fairy godmothers were very thoughtful in what they gave me last week. They no doubt knew it would make me happy to be treated to something special like henna. But I suspect they also knew that others around me would appreciate it too. In just one very small way, for a while, I look a little more like people's wives or daughters or sisters and I feel people warm to that. In this way, these women's gift was more than just skin deep.

Road Trip

We got in late last night from a five day trip to the State Capital. We left by bus early Tuesday morning, an experience I will add to my New-Year's-Eve-In-Time-Square-List (otherwise known as "The things I am so glad I have done but never want to do again"). Public transport in this area is limited to "buses" that only run in the dry season when the roads are actually passable. Due to a lot of work on the road and light rains this year (previous blog posts notwithstanding) we had heard that "buses" were running daily, though the trip was six hours long and people were sometimes being asked to get out and walk across the river crossings. Nonetheless, government paperwork and low oatmeal supplies beckoned, and owning only a vehicle without doors or a windshield, we decided that "buses" were the way to go. Besides, we are always up for a little locally flavored adventure. I say "bus" of course because somehow I fear that just bus does not conjure up the right image. Think more along the lines of metal seats, metal windowless window frames and a metal roof all welded into or over the cargo bed of a beat up old lorry. Slap on a coat of bright blue paint, peeling campaign posters, ostrich feather hood ornaments, 30 sweaty people inside and five sun scorched guys on the roof-rack outside and you have our "bus". Really once we started lumbering down the mud-contorted dirt road I felt like we were in the belly of a massive blue army tank being slowly beaten to death on our way to war.

Our fellow travelers were varied. They mostly seemed to be men travelling alone – a soldier in uniform, a young man in a t-shirt and sunglasses, an older man in a jalabiya with a cane. But there were a few women too – a pretty one in a bright yellow tobe, a young mother miraculously nursing her baby as we hurtled down the road, an old woman who looked like she was probably travelling with her granddaughter. The most interesting traveler to me was a large dark skinned women dressed in folds of green tie-dye. She had on gold rings and a silky looking shower cap. From the way the bus driver waited without complaint while she held up the bus to buy some bottled water before we left, I guessed she was someone important. Her three sons travelling with her confirmed that they were probably a part of a military commander's family being educated at some English school outside of the country by the way they obliviously sang along with pop music pounding from their ear buds and loudly muttered "Whatever!" every time we had to pile off the bus for soldiers to rummage through bags and travel papers at check-points along the way. We later found out they had lived outside of this country all of their lives and were just coming back for a quick visit. At one point one of the boys sighed wearily, "Man, it sure is hot in this area," which made Bryan and I smile for some reason.

We stopped for lunch at a small village at crossroads nearly half of the way there. We piled off to throw back a cold soda and pita bread stuffed with grilled meat and some lime. The road was lined with mud and thatch shops selling food and drink to hundreds of people passing through. Besides those of us travelling by bus, there were many Fulata, a nomadic people group that stretch all the way from here to West Africa. I have had a week to think of how I could possibly describe how colorful, exotic, beautiful and thoroughly unfamiliar the Fulata look to me, (and honestly even to most other people around here), and I am still at a loss for words. Though I have seen them often now, they never fail to completely amaze me. The men wear tunics and flared pants of black or green with colorful fringe and embroidery. Their hair is usually shaved high off the brow but combed tall and flat, like a pharaoh's crown. They carry long wooden sticks whether they are with their herds or not, and it is not uncommon to see them with swords. The women are dressed in black cloth with brilliant embroidery. Their hair is also long but elaborately braided and clasped with bronze or silver hoops and combs. Their ears and wrists are absolutely drizzled with beads and metal. Sometimes they have dark tattoos on their cheeks. Every time I see a group of Fulata women I feel exactly the same way I do stepping into some upscale department store in an American mall and running into a group of stylish women out shopping together: out of place, out of style, out of my element. Their pride and beauty is intimidating and completely mesmerizing all at once.
Once we were all back in the bus I quickly came to regret not sucking it up and just hiking up my skirt to pee behind a scraggly bush at the edge of the market like everyone else. Thankfully, the road got better the closer we got to the state capital and we eventually hit tarmac. We arrived at the "bus station" in the late afternoon, retrieved our dusty bags and headed off to "The Friendship Hotel" where we usually stay. The bright pink satin bedcover (we forgot that hotels here don't come with actual sheets) and water squirter on a hose by the toilet (we remembered that one and came armed with toilet paper) were easily overlooked in light of the amazing air conditioner that blasted away the dust of the road and the TV that had two English channels. It felt good to be in the big city.

Flood

Yesterday after we came home from church and the market, I laid down on our sisal rope couch and fell into the kind of sleep that, in my experience, is only brought on by heavy (legal) drug use or intensely oppressive heat. The kind that paralyses your body no matter how badly it wants to move but magnifies your simmering dream-thoughts into swollen, completely incoherent dialogues that leave you confused and feeling anything but rested. Since I hadn't taken anything other than a prenatal vitamin that day I managed to pull one eyelid open and focus all my energy on reading the numbers on our digital thermometer. It read one 120. (Granted, it was in sun-lit window but still…) Satisfied that my coma was simply heat induced I drifted off for a good 45 minutes and had nightmares of the rapidly approaching dry season.

When I woke up the sky was a weird shade of yellow-gray, like an old bruise that was just beginning to heal. I stumbled to the kitchen and put two oranges in the freezer, hoping they might revive us a little. When I came back into the living room a breeze suddenly blustered in the front door without warning, sending papers flying and shaking a plastic chair threateningly. Bryan and I exchanged groggily hopeful glances. Just then a sharp slice of light made us wince in the broad daylight giving us a heartbeat of warning before the ensuing crash of thunder shattered the mountain behind us. The storm that hit was one of the biggest ones we have had this year. As the rain started pelted our tin roof Bryan ran outside to zip up all the canvas windows in our tent-bedroom while I started closing our wooden windows in the house. I bolted the door behind Bryan when he came back dripping wet and like good sailors on an only partially sea-worthy vessel, we began battening down the hatches. The wind was blowing the rain horizontally from the South-east meaning water was soon pouring under our front door. I rushed to stop the water with towels but it eagerly made its way around forming a seasonally river flowing through the middle of our house. The river was fed by tributaries from the water falls under our windows and soon we stopped fighting and just resorted to moving furniture and books out of its way. When shouting over the roar of rain and wind around us was no longer helpful for actual communication we were reduced to simply laughing and taking a few pictures of what honestly felt like Poe's maelstrom. Off of the back porch our rain gutters gushed foamy white water into barrels that simply overflowed into the rushing brown water on the ground. Our tent valiantly withstood the wind put looked dejectedly wet in the storm and I dreaded finding out what all was lying ruined on the floor (it turns out, not too much). After about twenty minutes the storm turned and the rain came pouring in from the North-west. Thankfully, our back porch shields that side of the house and not as much water found its way in this time.

This morning when Aisha came to work and saw us laying wet clothes and towels out in the sun she laughed and said that everything in her house got wet too (though I suspect her "everything" really means everything and not just a lot like it means for us). She then shook her head and said, "That was a lot of rain yesterday. It's leaving now though. The dry season is very close." I thought it was interesting that a monster thunder storm seems to mean that the rain is on its way out. Apparently it wants to be remembered. I try to assure it that it will be. As much as I like keeping my rug dry, there is nothing quite like a good storm out here.

Ultrasound

Saturdays are ultrasound days at the local hospital.

I am still amazed that this establishment, hardly more than a rural clinic servicing hundreds of kilometers in every direction, has an ultrasound machine at all. It has no running water. Its electricity is pumped in from a generator out back. The toilets are moderately clean pit latrines. But it has an ultrasound machine. And on Saturdays women with various sized bellies politely hidden under colorful tobes line the breezy corridors waiting for their chance to glimpse that grainy image of their baby. This Saturday, I was one of those women.

Bryan and I went in at ten in the morning. We parked under a flame tree in full bloom near to the store room where boxes of medical supplies were still being unloaded from the recent DC-3 flight. We walked into the building which has whitewashed walls, green shuttered windows and a broad tin roof. Everything smelled mildly of antiseptic which reminded me of the Dettol we used to wash out newborn puppies in as kids. People sat in small clusters in the courtyard or waited on benches in the hallways. Hospital staff in blue uniforms passed by carrying buckets or slips of paper. Two doctors care for the hundreds of patients in this hospital, but I didn’t see either one of them.

We were met by our good friend James, a Kenyan nurse who works at the hospital training traditional birth attendants in this area. He has birthed hundreds of babies in at least three different countries that I know of, and if given the chance, I would let him help me birth mine in a heartbeat. He is a gifted nurse and very good friend to Bryan and me. James showed us into his office, a dim room with a desk, metal cabinet and small hospital bed with a blue mattress. Behind him a door opened into one of the wards and I could see a line of beds, mosquito nets and a tall woman empting bedpans. In the bed closest to us, just beyond the wall, I could see two bare feet with their soles facing back towards us.

I told James about our first visit with the doctor in East Africa and that she had asked to be sent e-mails about our monthly checkups out here. I had assured her that we would have access to good prenatal care and James assured me that I had not in fact lied to her. We went through the basics quickly: blood pressure, good; urine sample, good; weight, good; uterine height, good. And then James asked us the question I had been waiting for, “Would you like to see your baby?”

On the creaky hospital bed I was actually a little shy to pull up my shirt so the woman in the headscarf could squeeze the cold clear gel onto my bare skin. In a world where I never show my shoulders much less my belly button it felt odd to be lying there so exposed, but no one else really seemed to notice so I let it go. James ran the ultrasound wand over my stomach and I craned my neck around to look at the tiny gray monitor. Bryan leaned in closer and two more women appeared from nowhere and stepped in curiously too. I guess it’s not every day you get to see a Khawaja’s baby. It’s not every day for me either so I didn’t mind the company.
The first thing we saw was what looked like an orange seed in a cashew nut. The image was fuzzy and honestly, I am still quite new at recognizing my own uterus. The grey and black and white static was bleary and confused. But then James settled on a place and our baby jumped to life. Even with my neck twisted back awkwardly to look at that tiny screen, I felt like I would recognize that unrecognizable seed anywhere. He was jumping and waving like he knew we were watching. She was dancing and moving like she knew she had an audience. Spastic, uncontrolled brand new muscle spasms have never been so lovely to behold. “Your baby is very energetic!” James said. “He or she is already taking after their father.” I replied. James took his time and let us take in our fill of newly un-flippered arm and leg buds, the broad curve of a little-less alien head and the breathless flutter of a heartbeat. The women around us tittered at our excitement and when I told them it’s the first time I’ve ever been pregnant they smiled happily and shook my hand.

We left the hospital only thirty minutes after we had arrived and without having paid a cent. (The hospital is run solely by a relief organization in the area.) As we drove home I couldn’t help but be so happy. I know that in a few months when it is 114 degrees outside and I feel like a beached whale, I am going to be thinking of all the other places in the world I would rather be pregnant. And the next time that craving for a Reeses Pieces Dairy Queen Blizzard hits, I might be a little pouty for a while. And if I go into labor early and have a baby in a hospital with no running water, I might freak out a little bit at some point along the way. But on Saturday, being told my baby was perfectly healthy by a good friend I trust implicitly, in a place that feels more like home every day, (and without having paid a fortune!) I was overcome with just feeling very, very blessed.

A Sunday in the Life

Because it’s a weekend and the dishes can wait one more day, breakfast is usually just bread from yesterday’s market dipped in honey, and maybe some bananas. The honey is thick and amber colored and tastes as wild as the weather it is made in. It’s sold in old water bottles and the first inch is usually crusted over with honey comb and dead bees.

We leave for church shortly after nine. We drive past people streaming into town balancing rope beds on their heads, swinging chickens by their feet or leading donkeys with full sacks of sorghum on their backs. Everyone is heading to town for market day. Even as we drive in we see the lorries with ostrich feather hood ornaments and outrageous paint jobs barely disguising metastasized rust loaded down with gunny sacks full of onions and limes. Men with scarves tied around their heads toss the sacks off of the vehicles to other men who carry them on their backs up stairs and into shops. They whistle and shout at each other while they work.

At the city square we turn down an alley and leave the simmering energy of town behind us. We park in the shade of a neem tree and walk into the courtyard of the dilapidated stone building. I can’t remember if the structure was originally built as a church or not, but during the war it passed hands several times and was even used as a goat pen once. Now, despite the fact that it is usually full to overflowing, it still brings the word “crumbling” to mind. The energy inside, however, speaks of anything but decay. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust. The room is long and narrow and the only light filters in weakly from the windows along the walls. A group of nearly thirty is singing loudly over the pulse of a drum and I suspect I am taking one of the singer’s seats as I squeeze into a school bench next to three other girls. When the song ends and people shuffle to wedge themselves back into the crowd, another language group is called and a dozen more men, women and children make their way to the front to sing in their mother tongue. On and on the musical chairs goes until every language represented has been given the chance to sing. When we all stand to sing together, in Arabic, English or even Kiswahili, we must overlap our shoulders like a handful of cards to make room for each other.

After church we make our way back to town for lunch. Under the green awning of our favorite restaurant we greet the smiley cook who is partially hidden behind a veil of smoke and steam bubbling from metal pots and clay incense holders in front of him. We place our order and step inside, crossing a greasy floor to the nearest free table. On the table is a red plastic bowl full of salt and a pitcher of water. We sip our cold Fantas and casually greet the men sitting at neighboring tables. We watch piglets and goats root at rotting tomatoes in the square outside. In an unlit room behind us a man rolls out sheets of filodough on a rack, preparing the sticky sweet basta for the evening crowd. Our food is brought on an aluminum tray as wide as our table by a boy in a well worn apron. Beans topped with jibna (a cheese much like feta) and diced onions are surrounded by an assortment of round bread and folds of sorghum kisra. There is a dish of vegetable soup and another of grilled meat. We tear off pieces of the bread and kisra and dip them into communal bowls of beans and greens. The food is good. Better than I ever imagined it could be the first time I tried it. We eat together, occasionally bumping knuckles over the hot peppers or limes and I think that whoever said food eaten by hand tastes better because it involves one more sense was probably right. After we eat we wash out hands from a tap in a barrel outside and carry on to the market.

Selling kisra

As is often the case, things have slowed by the time we get there, though dozens more mats than usual dot the ground of the market like a melted checkerboard. On the mats in the sun are piles of onions, tomatoes, limes, garlic, potatoes, eggplant, peppers, watermelons, soap, and clay coffee pots. Some men sit under umbrellas but most simply squat in the heat shouting out the price of each precarious mound in front of them. We pick our way through the maze, asking prices of some things, the names of others, slowly filling our guffa with groceries for the week. I am delighted to see a woman with a basket of eggs for sale, and even happier when she says they are not yet boiled. I am already thinking of the banana bread and pancakes we will have this week as she picks them out of their grassy bed and places them carefully in a sack for me. Women in gaudy tobes make the rounds too, scoffing at unacceptable prices and bargaining loudly. Small boys weave their way through the crowd with wide trays of roasted peanuts. Donkeys nibble at purple onion skins while their owners pile rope beds or sacks of flour onto the cart at their backs.

As we finish up our shopping and head back towards the ATV I feel a hard slap on my back which makes my stomach drop for a moment. But even before I turn I know who it is. Jema is standing there smiling broadly in his dirty white jallabiya and holding out his hand for a warm hello. I don’t know Jema’s story but I suspect either autism or something darker from the large round scar on the side of his head. I continue to be amazed by people’s gentle incorporation of him into daily life, and have watched him deliver tea to shop keeper’s porches or help the man at the “gas station” pump fuel out of large barrels. Today he answers my simple questions with silted grunts and dramatic gestures, a part of some story I can’t hear but wish I could understand. Eventually he ushers us on our way and we continue towards home.

At home we play a round or two of “Settlers of Catan” with Dan and Laura, and Dan wins again. We later try to skype family but the internet is moody and we can’t get through tonight. The day ends much as it began, with a light supper of fruit and maybe popcorn. The sun sets and the mosquitoes come out so we retire to the safety of our tent. We read in bed but after a while we begin to doze so we turn off the inverter for the night. Everything then is dark and quiet except for the drone of a neighbor’s generator. We drift off to sleep and wait for Monday.

Lemon Drops and Limes

Yesterday morning as I leaned off the edge of our back porch and stared at the contents of my dinner, lunch and mid-day snack from the day before splattered on the ground in front of me, I realized that the convenience of always being about five steps from "outside" just might balance out the inconvenience of having one toilet on the far end of the compound over the course of the next seven months.

Ah, yes. The grim stories of morning sickness that have filtered to me across the ocean in recent weeks are now mine to share in. But I take comfort in the fact that I am now a proud participant in the (in)glorious experiences that characterize some part of the lives of so many women throughout the history of the world. I am just doing it with a bad taste in my mouth today.
One of my favorite things about living in a part of the world that I didn't grow up in (or my parents either for that matter) is getting to see firsthand how vastly different people all over the world are from each other. But the one thing I like even more than that is getting to glimpse how shockingly similar people all over the world are to each other. I have a feeling that pregnancy and motherhood will give ample opportunity to witness this over and over again.
Yesterday Aisha, the woman that helps me wash clothes and dishes, let out a little snort of laughter when she saw me feebly nibbling raisins on the couch. "Are you sick?" she asked. "No. The baby is just making my stomach hurt." I then did a probably unnecessary pantomime of vomiting (which turned out to be a new vocab word for the day) and she laughed as I suspect only a mother of three can. She then picked up a wedge of lime from off of the kitchen table. "Suck on this. It will help." She said and set the lime on top of a canister of lemon drops that my mother-in-law swears contributed to her survival twenty-some years ago.
Later in the afternoon two other women, acquaintances from down-the-road, popped in for a visit in their shiny new tobes for the Eid weekend. After some small talk I hesitantly told them our good news, still a little unsure of the most culturally appropriate way to let the cat out of the bag. My bumbling was rewarded with lots of high-pitched and only partially intelligible gabble of congratulations and advice. One of the first things the woman in the yellow tobe said was "Suck on limes if you feel sick. When I had my stomachs I went to bed with a lime in my hand so if I woke up sick I could suck on it right away." "Don't drink coffee!" The other said. "The smell will make you sick." "And don't cut onions or raw meat. That will make you sick too!" "Don't eat hot peppers. They will make your heart hurt." "And don't be afraid to tell your husband no. Just tell him to leave you alone, even if he hits you!" This remark made me first blush and then cringe, though my guests cackled at what seemed to be their own joke, following it up with an assuring, "But he will love the baby so much when it get here. And he will love you for giving it to him." On and on the conversation went like a vibrant de ja vu of e-mails and phone calls from college roommates, aunts and sister-in-laws who have all carried babies very far away from here.
I have been feeling much better today and know that I am richly blessed to be so healthy so far. It was significant to me to hear my friends and neighbors talk yesterday about the babies they have lost along the way. "Just pray a lot. Pray all the way through and Allah will hear you," they say and their voices speak of both peace and loss. I am grateful for all these women in my life, both here and far away. Their strength and senses of humor are endlessly encouraging to me in this new adventure. I may just trying going to bed with a lime tonight…

The first of the obligatory awkward pose picture - 8 weeks and counting...

Having my cake and eating it too

Our final week in East Africa was so good. Though we spent a few days running around working on travel documents and logistics we were able to get away for a couple of days to celebrate our good news together. We jumped on a bus heading out of town and spent a couple of nights at a nice hotel on a nearby lake. Bryan was very excited to see hippos for the first time (outside of the zoo) and we both enjoyed biking through herds of giraffe, zebra, gazelle and warthogs in a neighboring national park.

But perhaps my favorite part of our time out was at a hospital back in the city where we got to hear our baby's heartbeat for the first time. The doctor says "our little orange seed" as we have taken to calling him or her (though apparently he/she is the size of a big raspberry this week) is growing perfectly so far and, with God's grace, will be arriving sometime around April 24th. We are so very thankful and happy.




And now, one hop, skip and several long jumps later we are home again. And as much as I enjoyed the luxuries of East Africa, it is so good to be back. We fell asleep in our own bed last night listening to the whirling, chirping, buzzing cacophany in the moonlight outside our big screen windows. We woke up to our ridiculous rooster and the twanging of stringed instruments floating across the morning from our guard's radio. Eid is just around the corner and town seems bursting at its seams with people buying food and gifts from shops overflowing with nice things.

I like being in a world with indoor plumbing, broccoli, public transport, hospitals and ice cream for a while but I love this world of donkey carts, bucket baths, open air markets and head scarves too. I feel so blessed to occaionally enjoy some of the finer things in life with more appreciation than I might have before, and then return with fresh eyes to simplicity and what often feels to me like a good bit of adventure. Sometimes I think my life is a like helping myself to a huge slice of rich chocolate cake and then looking in the the refridgerator to find the cake still perfectly whole.