My "Happy Birthday" Was Very Happy!

            The big 3-0.  I made it through a lot better than I would've thought, to be honest.  Let's not go into all the reasons I should be besieged with torment that, despite my age, I have nothing in the way of functioning adulthood, to show for myself (even my existential angst is seeming a tad dated now-hmph!).  But let's NOT going into details, or I may in fact fall into a delayed pit of despair.  However, this little exchange between an old(er....as in hag-hmph!) neighbor lady and I, that happened on my birthday, pretty much symbolically captures whatever torment I may be carrying:


            Me: Shikamoo. (respectful Swahili greeting towards elders)


            Nice Hag: Marahaba. ( appropriate response) Blahblahblah (more Swahili)


            Me: Uhmmmm......(that's all I got Lady!)


            Nice Hag: Hahaha. How have you been? How was your vacation?


            Me: It was very good. Are you coming or going?


            Nice Hag: Going. I just arrived last night, and now I'm going out of town again.


            Me: Oh, well safe journey then......


            Nice Hag: How is your.....is that your sister or...?


            Me: (thinking she is referring to Ms V) daughter.


            Nice Hag: YOU are that Lady's daughter?!?


            Me: Oh! Uhmmm, yeah.....


            Nice Hag: Oh my Goodness. But she looks SO young! What is she doing with herself? You must be the first born then yes?


            Me: Ha-ah-yes she looks very young. No, not the first.


            Nice Hag: Second?


            Me: Nooooo, I'm the third.


            Incredibly old, surely half-blind, doesn't know how to mind her own business Hag: Wow! She must take very good care of herself!......You know YOU should take care of yourself too.


            Me: Haha. Okay, thanks, safe journey then....(fucked up thing is, I totally saw this coming; I've had this exact conversation several times since moving back to Africa.)




            Other than that lovely reminder that, along with generally sucking at adulthood, apparently I fail to even look like a daughter, my birthday was Momentously Marvelous.  The first one with my daughter, you know.  Ms. V has the endearingly ironic habit (one of many) that instead of saying "Birthday", she says "Happy Birthday" as in, she does not recognize that the former is the noun referring to the anniversay of one's birth, and the latter is merely a suggestion.  So in lamenting not having got me the present she wanted because she'd wanted to get in Uganda where it would be a fifth the price of here, she said, "....but I forgot that it was going to be your Happy Birthday...." In lamenting that I didn't have a cake to cut (which I ended up getting to my surprise) and that it was a boring work Monday, she said, "Ohhhh sorry, you're Happy Birthday is just working, and you are not cutting a cake on your Happy Birthday!" And so forth.  It trips you out to see the "Happy" as a necessary part of the "Birthday"; I like it; I think I shall take up this habit for good.


             Speaking of habits, I'm currently off the sauce. In actuality these extra pounds I've put on are starting to weigh on me (ahahahahaha-whatever! I thought it was funny) I haven't been this big for years and years, since I originally lost a shitload of weight and totally transformed my body/lifestyle.  I'm thick; like high school thick. But as Old Lady Hagsville reminded me, this shit doesn't not hang so well on my tri-decade-been through the ringer-body.  So, though I would love to go all Rocky and shit, hit the gym and run my ass off (literally-hehe-see above) that's just not going to happen.  Firstly, there's too much pressure in trying to be fit again after you've been out of it for awhile. It's like, you can still remember how cool and svelte you felt (and how big your Ego was) but you're also very aware of the specific differences between your body now and then, and the amount of excruciating effort it will take to go back to then.  Secondly, uhmmmm, I don't remember the second part, I'm still distracted by the thought of all that effort (ugh).


              My only alternative, to at least kick start my weight loss, is to cut back on my caloric intake.  Now, back in my most recent old life, I was a swinging (as in hip not kinky) bachelorette living on my own, and as such had no time for eating much more than takeaway chicken, beer, and chocolate.  I would go to my mama's house cause the house girl made some mean greens, so all in all, it was a wonderfully balanced diet for both body and soul.  But in this life, I am a caretaker and cannot very well give my child beer for lunch (I am way to pretentiously pious for that) though I'm sure she'd go in for the chicken and chocolate.  So the booze has got to go on hiatus from my blood stream (however I have now just tripled my chocolate intake so I dunno how well this is working, though I have lost the beer bloat).


              And though alcohol is not the problem.....per se (What are you, a lie detector?? Pffft) it won't hurt to keep away until I can really sink my mental health roots back into fertile ground.  However, it surely won't last (the sobriety, not the good mental health) cause frankly, I'm way to humbly harebrained for that (Teetotalism, like Veganism, takes SO much dogmatic Ego to maintain IMHO).  And here are two articles that say I'm right.


               Okay, okay, those articles said no such thing, but definitely interesting reads re: a different perspective. And how cool is psychology for affirming even the worst behaviors as being understandable vis a vis "human nature".


               Speaking of which, I gotta go stuff a chocolate Easter egg into a shot glass for my mid-morning fix.

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Your Mother Has Been Caught (3)

 [Update]  I really freaking love this memory. It still teaches me everyday, though it happened years ago.  Unfortunately, my computer recently crashed (hence my absence) taking away many of my posts and, most tragically, the pictures I have to post for the grand finale of this story.  So, even with prayer and Divine Intervention, it may be awhile for part 4. But for now you can click here for part 1 and here for part 2 if you want to get caught up on a simple tale of Magic. A Village Babies Fairytale. 


Once Upon a Time....(time, time, time)


          I have seen people light fires since I was a little girl, "How hard can it be?" I thought, "I'm pretty sure I caught all the pertinent details from the lighting of yesterdays fire out of the corner of my eye; I got this."  This is all despite the fact that I've seen "Cast Away" several times and should know better.  It isn't as easy as you'd think, I believe, was the motto of the moment. However, all I could recall from the movie, was Hanks' final triumph. 

theboxset.com

           This was my guiding image as I squatted down towards the logs, lighting match after match and failing miserably to do what I had assumed would happen naturally (Tom didn't even have matches!). I had began with some prep work.  The logs were actually still smouldering underneath from this mornings breakfast fire, but I did recall the need for dry grass, to......well, I wasn't sure for what, but I remembered it being a vital ingredient. Dry grass, check; matches, check.  

bunchesofjoy.com

Little woodland animals who will come and do all the work for me while I tralala for their benefit.....not so much. But evening was fast approaching, the troop would be home any minute, I would have to proceed without the animal minions.







            After several attempts at lighting the grass bundle, I realized it was best to hold the brush (ahem) on a downwards tilt so the flames reach upwards (yeah, I was thoroughly breastfed as a child).  Despite this significant discovery I could get no more than a minuscule brush flame going no matter how much I tried to tuck it into the logs and sticks.  Clearly there was a piece of this formula that I was overlooking.  The last light had seeped out of the twilight evening; I could barely make out the shape of the hut in the near distance.


            Suddenly the scampering of little feet filled the air behind me, and the children appeared out of nowhere to swarm around me.  The messenger service had sent me a rescue team.  At first they sat around me shy and giggling, simply watching, but the moment the surmised my objective as I continued to try and get the fire going, they jumped into action.  Their tiny little faces, the youngest must have been four at the most, bowed down, deep into the logs and began blowing, in unison: "Wheewwwww, wheeewwww".  Before I could finish my arrogantly naive thought, "silly little chil-" the flames responded in earnest and caught on, growing quickly and fiercely.  My initial exclamations and huzzahs turned into concerned scolding because they refused to abate their huffing and puffing and were now dangerously hovering over a growing, barely contained camp fire.  I tried to pull them away, only to have them giggle, shrug me off and continue their exhausting stunt.  There was nothing for me to do, but sit back and watch the process with apprehension and marvel in equal weight.


            One by one they finally bowed off the flames and sat triumphantly down on the logs by some unspoken signal.  I looked at the fire and saw that a few of the bigger branches had now caught that deep, hot coal look, whereas before, when I was giving it my best effort all I had ever seen were those light yellow, superficial flames.  And then I understood what I had been missing and why my fire would never have been successful.  These children had used team work and persistence to achieve this long lasting blaze; I had neither the common sense to ask for help nor the were withal to understand a flame does not equal a fire; I had rewarded myself too quickly, sought the end result too impatiently; my huffing and puffing was but a fraction of what was needed for the flames to take root in the logs.  I'd needed the children; they knew it; I didn't. And this realization filled me with awe.  I was nothing but a Visitor, age and privilege had no influence on that fact.


            So, I did what any Visitor would do in this situation: the ritual of thanks-giving.  I dashed off to the hut and returned with a large sized bar of Cadburys chocolate.  This is a bar of chocolate I can, and do, easily consume in a casual 20 minute sitting between classes, waiting for a subway, walking home from the gym...you get? Consuming this treat, for me, is a non-event.

treehugger.com

        I looked around at the sincere, little faces with firelight dancing on their dark skin, and their large eyes warmed from within. I opened the package and slowly broke the chocolate down into small pieces, thinking this would be a pathetic gift indeed, as there was barely a mouthful for each. The Leader watched me with a quiet fierceness; the others murmured amongst each other, chatting about the fire flames and making a distinct effort to ignore the site and smell of chocolate, as if not to embarrass me into sharing what they assumed was just for me.


          They oohed and ahhed as I began handing each their share. I just assumed they would swallow down the quickly melting bits as fast as I handed them out, but as the last piece was parceled off, I was nonplussed to see each had waited until the others had.  The pieces had turned to liquid in their palms, but they still took patient, small licks with many murmurs of appreciation in between. This was a life-event, for me most of all.  Then it took another turn; my previous awe was nothing compared to the deep feeling of wonderment that hit me next.


         The Leader had not sampled her chocolate yet. Instead she had noted that I had not broken off a piece for myself.  That sweet, stern, powerful little girl scooped up half of the gooey mess in her palms and dutifully handed it to me.


          I, the Visitor, was so thoroughly naive, bumbling about with a contrived comprehension of local custom. I had finally realized that my privilege had only born ignorance and the absence of want, born from the surety of nothingness had given these village babies a wisdom I have only read of in scared texts.  Above all, I knew, I was in safe hands...


         
          It was after this moment, with our mouths filled with sweetness, our bodies warm, our hearts a bit of both, that the children began to tell me the reason behind their visit. It had never occurred to me that there might have been a purpose, besides Divine Angelic intervention.  They chittered and chattered in native tongue, like birds returning home at sunset.  I am terrible with languages; my mind seems only capable of retaining English, French, and Other, but for some reason my mother's tongue (ironically not my mother tongue which would be my father's language-ha!) has always hit a soft spot of familiarity in me.  I think I understand it through my heart, not my mind.  And of course, it is always, always the babies I understand and converse with best.


         But the speed with which they spoke and the content of their tale, only gave me a few phrases to catch upon that left me more confused than if I hadn't understood at all.  Translated, it went something like this:


      children:   .......Your mother's is not coming back......so sorry for you.....poor you........
      me: No, she is coming. She will come.
      children: ..........?
      me: I don't know. I don't understand. I don't....I don't know.
      children: your mother is caught!.....She will not come back. (they point to the Leader).........?
      me: I don't understand. My mother is coming.
      children (to each other): She says she is not understanding.
      me: Yes!
      children: You are not understanding??
      me: Yes! I do not understand.
      children (to each other): But poor her, she is alone, her mother has gone.
      me: No, my mother is coming.
      children: You understood?! Oh! You understand some but you do not understand everything?
      me: Yes!
      children (to each other): Ohhh, she understands some but she doesn't understand everything.


             At this point the conversation came to a standstill, as there was no way either they or I could miraculously cross this chasm in communication.  To their credit, I have had many an awkward silence far more uncomfortable than this one with adults who had a perfect grasp of English.  They understood the issue, but it did not offend them (nor should it).  That, perhaps, is the very key to why communicating with children in a foreign land is ALWAYS more satisfying than communicating with adults: those cultural differences are never offensive to children; they rightly see them as superficial and therefore amusing, but innately insignificant.


             However, the babies soon grew weary by simple fact that it was getting late, and they had surely not had dinner yet.  They gathered the young ones up and without affectation slipped off into the night.  I stood and looked around.  "I, myself, could use some dinner", I thought.  It was, after all, getting rather late. They had after all only gone to the market.


             "Where were they?" I wondered, as the children's words echoed in my head, "Where IS my mother?".......