Djibouti Jones

New Blog

2012-02-09T12:59:00.000-08:00

New Blog is up: www.djiboutijones.com

Go there. Go there now. Read it. Follow it. Link to it. Go on. Head over there. Now.

Goodbye.

Djibouti Jones

2012-01-17T07:11:00.000-08:00

The new blog is up and it is called Djibouti Jones.

I went back and forth, back and forth, about what to name it. Part of me still thinks I have chosen poorly, but too late. My name is much more generic and would probably serve me better in the long run but for now, I am a nobody trying to get people to read my stuff.

I figured people are a lot more likely to google 'djibouti' than to google 'Rachel Jones' and even if they did, they wouldn't find this Rachel Jones, there are too many of us out there.

Maybe when I have my bestseller on shelves or Kindles or Nooks, I'll hire someone to start up a webpage for me and use my own name. Alas, I have chosen to go with catchy and current.

www.djiboutijones.com

I wish I could say I would keep up both blogs because I hate to lose readers during the move, but I know myself and it just won't happen.

Please come on over to the new blog. Please like or follow or join or whatever it is people are supposed to do. Please bring your friends. Maybe I'll send a free Djiboutilicious cookbook to whoever brings those most traffic! I know you are all positively dying for your own copy (that's why I still have so many sitting in boxes around our house).

New Blog?

2012-01-08T17:11:00.000-08:00

I'm thinking of starting a new blog, or at the very least, changing the address of this one to something more catchy than trjonesfamily. The reasons for this are many, but a major one is that I'm trying to break into the publishing world more and more. Part of that process is 'building my brand' and having a more professional or interesting name is one aspect of it.

So...a question...

Would I be better off using my name or something else?

www.rachelpiehjones.com

OR

www.djiboutijones.com

Maybe I won't use either, maybe I won't start a new blog, but I'm interested in your input.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-29T11:17:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas to everyone, a few days late. I took a few days off blogging so I'd have more time to gorge myself. So much food, so much good food, so many firsts...

Downhill skiing with school.
Maggie said, "There weren't that many hard hills. I went down a black diamond."

Ice-skating and hockey on the lake.
Henry said, "That is way funner than I thought it would be."

Ice-fishing.
Lucy said, "Its cold."

Eating, eating, eating.
I guess that wasn't a first, but we reached new heights of sugar-ball-ness. And I have no quotes about it except, "yum."

See you in 2012.

A Muslim Christmas Carol

2011-12-21T07:38:00.000-08:00

On Sunday we sang the Christmas carol 'What Child is This?' I am writing about Mary in the Quran for a project and have done months of research on the Islamic view of Mary, or Maryam. Something that has come up repeatedly is one of the titles for Jesus as 'Jesus the son of Mary'. Isa ibn Maryam.

I don't hear either Mary or Jesus referred to that way very often among Christians but it occurs thirteen times in the Quran and the phrase 'Jesus, the Messiah, the son of Mary' is used three times.

This is the only song I can think of that sings about Jesus, the son of Mary. Also, Jesus is referred to in both the Quran and the Bible as the Word of God which appears in verse two of this carol.

So when we sang the song on Sunday, I couldn't help but think that it sounded like a Muslim Christmas song. I'm not saying it is one, or that my Muslim friends would necessarily agree with everything in the song, but it made me think about them, made me think about Djibouti.

And, for the first time since being back this year, I felt a pang in my chest because I miss them. I miss the way Djibouti helps me think and live outside the box of shopping malls and inside deeper realities than fast food restaurants. So I'm posting the lyrics as a reminder of the one who also left one world to live in another for a time, in honor of the one who ached for his eternal home.

1. What Child is this who, laid to rest

On Mary's lap is sleeping?

Whom Angels greet with anthems sweet,

While shepherds watch are keeping?

This, this is Christ the King,
Whom shepherds guard and Angels sing;
Haste, haste, to bring Him laud,
The Babe, the Son of Mary.

2. Why lies He in such mean estate,

Where ox and ass are feeding?

Good people, fear, for sinners here

The silent Word is pleading.

Nails, spear shall pierce Him through,
The cross be borne for me, for you.
Hail, hail the Word made flesh,
The Babe, the Son of Mary.

3. So bring Him incense, gold and myrrh,

Come peasant, king to own Him;

The King of kings salvation brings,

Let loving hearts enthrone Him.

Raise, raise a song on high,
The virgin sings her lullaby.
Joy, joy for Christ is born,
The Babe, the Son of Mary.

What I Loved This Morning

2011-12-20T07:59:00.000-08:00

This morning while I was running, I remembered a post from earlier this summer. Tears, how so many little things were moving me to tears. I didn't cry today, but I noticed things and felt the aliveness of living.

a thin layer of frost sparkling in the pink sunrise

my breath in cloudy puffs in front of me and sweat gathering on my back behind me

the smell of croissants and coffee coming from the Finnish Bakery in St. Anthony Park

a father carrying his toddler son on his shoulders

students walking to campus with their shoulders hunched inside thick winter coats

my fingers, warm and sweaty inside fleece mittens

my chin, icy cold

little drips of snot hanging from the tip of my nose, tickling

squirrels chasing each other up and around a tree trunk

the last remaining snow piles and icy patches

the Emily Program buildings, for people with eating disorders

my cold behind, no butt sweat here

My feet are still cold and my nose is still running. But my bottom has warmed up, thankfully. Now I need to go find a fresh croissant from that bakery.

The Manger Scene

2011-12-19T08:30:00.000-08:00

This time of year there are manger scenes everywhere. Images, pictures, statues, figurines, toys...all trying to capture what the first Christmas morning may have looked like. Of course none of them even come close, but looking at the Marys, Josephs, shepherds, animals, the straw and the baby, remind us of what we are celebrating.

And it isn't the shopping mall.

One of the ways life in Djibouti has profoundly changed me is in how I imagine scenes from the Bible. The pictures in my head are not clean, well-groomed, sanitized images.

I bet that the shepherds who came to see Jesus after his birth were missing a lot of teeth. They probably had calloused hands, scrawny bodies and dirty feet.

I imagine swirls of dust and flies swarming the animals and the smell of dung.

I smell the swaddling clothes that Mary wrapped Jesus in and they aren't bleached white, they are torn rags from an old wrap of Mary's.

One winter night a few years ago in Djibouti, we drove by this donkey cart.

I said to Tom, "Minus the modern tires, if you put a pregnant woman in the back of that cart, I would think it was Mary."

The way people live in Djibouti is so much closer to the way people lived in the first century than it is in Minneapolis.

I'm thankful that the manger scene isn't one-dimensional for me anymore. It has smells and tastes and sounds and it feels like scratchy straw and mosquito bites.

The Butterfly Mosque

2011-12-16T09:30:00.000-08:00

More about books...

I'm in the middle of The Butterfly Mosque. It is about an American woman my age, raised by atheists, who converts to Islam and moves to Egypt to teach English. While there, she falls in love with and marries an Egyptian man. The book is about her faith journey and her life as a third-culture person, both in physical location and in her choice of religion, post 9/11.

I find it fascinating.

I always enjoy reading about other expatriates and especially expatriates who live in Muslim countries, because that is my life as well. She has deep insights, I don't agree with them all, but she does have a keen eye for culture. I am encouraged to see that other people have similar experiences to mine. I may feel crazy sometimes in Djibouti, but at least I'm not the only one.

About the difference for men and women in Muslim countries:
"I don't think Omar (her Egyptian fiancé) realized this either. The Middle East is one place for men and an entirely different place for women." Tom and I go back and forth on this one and all I have to say is: Yup.

Some thoughts on the veil from the grand mufti of Egypt, whom she interviewed (around the time France was banning the veil):
"In a non-Islamic culture, you are an ambassador of Islam...Our religion teaches that it is bad to isolate yourself from your community...To push them away. It is important to present Islam in a good way, in a way that those around you can understand. Islam is bigger than the veil...If wearing the veil in a non-Muslim country will only bring hostility toward you, don't wear it." She and her fiancé were stunned and inspired by his words. I think many other people would be as well and this statement is an encouragement to me personally, in how to live out my own faith as an ambassador.

Thoughts on the clash of civilizations (when she and a roommate move into a more conservative neighborhood):
"...in close quarters, we over think, second-guessing our own innate assumption of common humanness, which, I now think, boils down to a common need for kindness. We are cruelest to those who remind us of our capacity for cruelness. It was this that made Jo's and my relationship with our neighbors to bitter: it was clear that they did not like who they became around us."

and the reverse:
"I have seen the reverse as well: westerners...whose beliefs are tolerant and broad-minded, find themselves unable to function in a society that requires them to live so conservatively and in such limited circumstances. They are forced to resort to the ruling-race social tactics they hate in order to get by, and then hate the Egyptians for making them hate themselves. This is the heart of the clash of civilizations: not the hatred of the Other, but the self-hatred produced by the Other."

Like I said, I'm only half-way through and it isn't a great idea to write about a book I haven't finished yet. Maybe the next half will be trash. But somehow I doubt it and I thought these were interesting quotes that help me consider my life in Africa.

Book Loves

2011-12-15T07:16:00.000-08:00

I love talking books. Love, love it.

I have looked at a few self-published books and a variety of traditionally published books and compared them.

How do the covers look? Feel? How is the back designed? What is the font and paragraph structure? How do you tell the difference between books?

According to parapublishing.com, potential buyers spend eight seconds looking at the front cover and fifteen seconds looking at the back cover of a book. That gives twenty-three seconds to convince someone to buy your book.

What draws you in? What makes you put a book back on the shelf?

Later, I got to talk about books with friends and I mentioned goodreads.com, which they hadn't heard of so I figured I'd show you the link. If you love to read, love to write, love to talk about books or see what other people are reading, check it out.

Right now I am reading:

The Butterfly Mosque by G. Willow Wilson

Lord of the Flies (to the kids) by William Golding

Evolving in Monkey Town by Rachel Held Evans

The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan

Runner's World magazine

What are you reading?

Surviving Winter

2011-12-14T10:57:00.000-08:00

Henry, Maggie and Lucy are disappointed that the snow has all melted. Although they cry when their fingers and toes hurt from cold and refuse to get out of the car for the bus in the morning, they love winter. They even forget their coats half the time.

I am also enjoying winter so far and have come up with some survival tips for myself.

1. Candles. We burn candles almost around the clock for the extra light.
2. Long underwear.
3. Three or four long-sleeve shirts or sweaters, plus a fleece.
4. Feather comforter and flannel comforter.
5. Socks, then wool socks, then slippers, then wrapped up in a blanket.
6. Running at noon. I had never considered this before. As a runner who began in the hottest country on earth, the only reasonable time for a run was between 5-7 a.m. Now I can go at noon and sleep in, how novel!
7. The decision to enjoy and not complain about the weather.
8. Lots of hand lotion.

Do you have other tips for the Djibouti Joneses?

Poet Nation

2011-12-12T09:27:00.001-08:00

Read the latest update to my fiction series at The Poet Nation.

There was a hiatus in updating the episodes while some of the people from Poet Nation visited refugee camps in Kenya. They delivered food aid and offered hope and encouragement to the people suffering from famine. Which is, I suppose, a worthy excuse for the delay!

But if you are following the story, there are a few new episodes up, so check them out.

Music to Run By

2011-12-09T05:59:00.001-08:00

I love to run on silent, with audiobooks and with music. In Djibouti, I run with earbuds in but they'll be on silent, I just want people to think I can't hear what they yell. In MN I don't need to do that, so if they're in, they're on.

The best silence to run to is snow-crunching and leaf-crunching.

The best audiobooks to run to are memoirs. If I space out for a few minutes or don't listen for a few days, fiction and non-memoir-type non-fiction are too hard to remember and follow.

The best music to run by is Natalie MacMaster. Well, I have a lot of other faves too, but she is amazing. She's a fiddler from Cape Breton (in Canada, where people say 'house' and 'out' even goofier than Minnesotans). No singing or words dictating what you're supposed to feel or how pumped up you're supposed to get, just pure, unadulterated jig. If my feet could fly as fast as her bow and fingers, I'd be an Olympic gold medalist. I went to her concert last night near St. Cloud and woke up a few times during the night with my toes tapping the multiple layers of blankets on the bed.

What's playing on your iPod, iPhone, MP3 player, radio, pandora, record player(!)?

Free Audiobook

2011-12-09T05:50:00.000-08:00

You know what I just said about not listening to much fiction on audio. Well, I lied. No, I guess didn't lie, I really do prefer nonfiction audio. But I can't resist books, especially free ones and here is a free audiobook. The Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, perfect to listen to on your own or with kids while driving around to holiday parties, to visit the in-laws or between shopping trips.

Contrasts, 2

2011-12-06T10:09:00.000-08:00

I can't get over the two worlds I live in and love.

How did I go from running here (land of sweat, dust and stones thrown at women who run)

to running here (land of ice, snow and people cheering me on?

The first is a place where I sometimes wish I could run naked just to get out of the sopping wet clothes holding me down and splattering me with sweat. The second is a place where four layers doesn't seem enough and I can't work hard enough to break a sweat.

What a world.

Contrasts

2011-12-04T19:02:00.001-08:00

This was normal last year.

And this.

Now this is normal.

And this.

Does anyone else think that is strange? Awesome? Unimaginable? Bizarre?

What a world.

Supersize Christmas

2011-11-30T18:54:00.000-08:00

After shooting the geese for Thanksgiving dinner, we went on our first hay ride of the season which included Chinese fire drills to keep warm and singing by all the six-years old and under children.

The next day we went Christmas tree shopping. Our goal was to find two perfect trees, a normal size tree for our house and a massive, gargantuan, White House sized tree for my parent's house.

My dad said years ago that whenever we were in Minnesota for Christmas, he would get a tree that would reach to the top of their 15-foot living room ceiling.

Finding it, chopping it, transporting it, though challenging, were the easy parts. Getting it into the house and standing it up...not so easy.

Our first try, with my dad and I lifting the tree and Tom positioning it in the stand and my mom taking photographs, ended with the tree back on the ground and the tree stand in shattered pieces and pine needle scratches on my face.

I tried to post a video of us trying, and failing, to get the tree up but it wouldn't post. Any tips on that would be great, but for now, sorry that you are missing out on the hilarity.

Tom and my dad ran out to Menards for a sturdier stand. We tried again. Up and up and grunts and groans and in it went. Then my dad tied it up so it won't fall (like last year) and we used a ladder to decorate.

Giving Thanks, Minnesota Style

2011-11-27T16:29:00.000-08:00

We haven't been in the US for a major holiday since 2002.

On that Thanksgiving, I changed diapers and tried to schedule naps for two-year old twins.

This Thanksgiving, I watched those twins walk around the farm with loaded rifles and gutted geese. (Okay, I didn't really gut them with my own two hands, but I watched.)

How things change.

We were in the yard climbing trees, hauling tiles and admiring the multiplying tree houses on the Jones farm when thousands of geese flew overhead. Their honking filled the air and they came, flock after flock, in swarms, heading for the bird refuge on the other side of the farm.

Sadly (for four), four didn't make it.

Tom and Henry ran for the guns inside the house and chased down those geese. An hour later and three shots later, there were four dead geese and two proud man-boys. Tom shot twice and got two. Henry shot once and got two.

I'll say it again.

Henry shot once and got two.

There's a story that will never die, and it is true.

So that evening the basement was a slaughterhouse and the next day we feasted on fresh turkey and fresh goose.

Delicious.

Winter Survival Tips

2011-11-20T08:29:00.000-08:00

What do African-raised Ameri-Kids need to know about Minnesota winters?

1. Just because it is 32 degrees doesn't mean it will snow.
2. Don't lick the flag pole.
3. Mittens are for wearing, not for losing.
4. There are different kinds of ice and different kinds of steps need to be taken when walking on each one.
5. Two inches of snow isn't enough to build a snow fort, even if you gather all the snow from the yard.
6. The reason people are driving slow is because it is slippery.
7. Daddy loves to pull doughnuts at every possible opportunity.
8. Doughnuts on ice are way more fun than doughnuts on sand.
9. Wet snow clothes need to be hung up. Not over the wooden chairs in the living room.
10. Just because there is snow doesn't mean you have to wear snow pants everywhere. Unless you want to.

and my favorite:

11. Don't eat yellow snow. I don't care how pretty it is.

I'm sure this is just the beginning.

The Cemetery

2011-11-17T04:59:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I ran through Sunset Cemetery.

I have never been inside the cemetery in Djibouti. It is behind a high cement brick wall topped with broken glass, barbed wire and shredded plastic bags. Only men accompany bodies to the burial site so I don't know what the graves look like. Friends have told me there aren't usually gravestones or markers.

But outside the cemetery, I have seen that Djiboutians and Americans are the same. Kids on school buses in Djibouti and kids on school buses in America hold their breath when driving by graveyards.

This is a bad picture and not of the Sunset Cemetery, but it is the Bohemian Cemetery in Alexandria, Minnesota where many of Tom's relatives are buried.

Running through the cemetery was sobering. There were headstones from as early as 1888. Some people had lived more than ninety years. Others less than one. There were war veterans and entire families buried together. There was a special section for infants and it had more bouquets and the freshest flowers of any section.

I thought about those people who had lived. I thought about their bodies in the earth. I thought about how their lives were a flash, the briefest moment. And I thought about how much they mattered. I felt sorrow about death and endings. I felt joy about possibility and continuity.

I felt thankful. Not for my own life, which I am thankful for, but for theirs. These mysterious people who have lived and died and gone before me. I was thankful they lived. Thankful they were a part of the human experience and had the opportunity to breathe and eat and laugh and walk and love and cry and die. Thankful that they were part of creating the world the way it is, for me, now.

I tried to imagine all the stories represented in that cemetery. All the hopes and dreams, victories and failures. And I felt little and insignificant and thankful for being little and insignificant. Djiboutian, American, we all are plummeting toward the finish line and I want to finish strong.

Most of all, I was challenged to live life well. To make it count, this short gift of living. To breathe in and breathe out and not forget about weighty things like death and endings. Someday the physical part of me will be a body in the earth or ashes, a name on a stone.

I want to make it count.

We Have a Cat. Again.

2011-11-15T17:33:00.000-08:00

The Jones family has another cat.

Griffin, the Brave.

Based on our track record, she should be dead by now.

She's alive.

The day after we brought her home from the farm, I was summoned to the 6th grade classroom to remove the snakes Henry and Maggie had brought in six weeks ago. The snakes hadn't eaten a thing since then and the teacher was afraid they would die and stink up the classroom. Not an unreasonable fear considering the history of animals and Joneses. I released the snakes in our backyard. They survived the Jones family but only barely.

We have now had Griffin for one week. She hasn't eaten our dinner from the table or vomited on the carpet. She hasn't pooped on our clothes or wiped her bottom on the couch. She hasn't scratched any of the kids. She hasn't given birth in the kitchen.

We are highly impressed and I actually call her by her name and pet her, no more 'that stupid cat'. There is a strong possibility that she will survive, that she won't be dropped off the second story balcony or dunked in a bucket of water, that she won't be run over by a car, that she won't be dropped off in the middle of nowhere, that she won't be attacked by vicious neighbor cats or eaten by wild dogs, that she won't die of mysterious diseases but we do have eight months to go, so you can never know for sure.

Hunting

2011-11-07T07:07:00.001-08:00

This is what you wear when you go running on the opening weekend of deer hunting season in rural Minnesota.

Because this is what hunters are looking to do.

Lucy prayed the night before Tom and Henry went out that they would "shoot a goat" and her little cousin tooted a birthday horn as an 'amen'. They didn't get any goats, but they did get two deer.

I felt really, and I mean really, Minnesotan this weekend. I let my 11-year old carry, aim and shoot a 12-guage shotgun with his dad, uncle and grandpa. They strung up the deer for the night and then turned the basement of Tom's parent's home into a butcher's shop. There were people in McDonalds wearing orange hunting gear, people talking about hunting at church, women crowded into Herbergers for the 'widow's weekend' boot sale and trucks hauling deer carcasses all along the freeway coming home.

I ran by six men stalking deer in a plowed field. The earth was turned up, rich black and in soft clumps. The men wore bright orange body-suits about six layers deep making them look like the Pillsbury dough boy and they carried guns. Big, powerful guns. I waved at them and kept running. I don't think I would wave at men with guns, stalking a live being less than ten feet from me in Africa.

Forgetful

2011-11-04T05:57:00.000-07:00

At least one and sometimes two days every week Henry comes home without his lunch box. He forgot it. So goes to school the next day with his lunch in a bread bag and nothing to drink.

Yesterday Henry didn't even eat lunch because he took his lunch box out to recess, went in for lunch and left his lunch outside at recess. Lucy found it when her class went out and she brought it home.

Henry wore a coat to school on Monday and no one has seen it since.

He is on his third water bottle of the year, which actually isn't so bad. In Djibouti I started sending him with plastic ones (and was thoroughly rebuked by teachers because they don't keep water cold) that he could lose at will rather than purchasing a new one every week. Even though I label them all.

Last night he forgot to finish his math homework. He started it, got distracted and then...forgot.

Last night I told him to put all his papers into his backpack. He forgot.

So this morning as we are leaving for school, he realizes he has misplaced his book report and almost misses the bus before I found it, upside down behind the guitar that he forgot to practice last night (even though I reminded him). He ran off to the bus with the lunch from yesterday in his box.

How, oh how, does a mother help an 11-year old boy, with a wild imagination and more things on the brain than mere homework and lunches winter coats, remember things?

Rest

2011-11-03T15:06:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I look at my kids and I want to cry.

Just from looking.

Maggie has the slender, narrow calves of Ethiopian distance runners and freckles and one of her front teeth is longer than the other and she looks exactly the way I would have created her if I could have.

Henry's hair sticks out straight at all angles. He has even more freckles than Maggie and a birthmark the shape of Madagascar on his left shin. He looks exactly the way I would have created him if I could have.

Lucy's lips are red and soft, her belly has almost but not entirely lost all of that roundy baby fat. When she smiles just so a dimple appears on her left cheek. She looks exactly the way I would have created her if I could have.

Sometimes I think, what have we done to them by being their parents? What were we thinking in taking these amazing creatures to Africa?

And then Lucy says, "I know why you and daddy decided to live in Djibouti. Because it is so much prettier than Minnesota."

And then Henry and Maggie fight over who loves Djibouti more and both declare emphatically that Djibouti is their favorite country, city and state (if it were a state).

And I realize that part of what makes me want to cry when I look at them is that they are content and exactly the way I would have wanted them to be if I could have chosen and it feels like resting.

American Halloween

2011-11-01T14:27:00.001-07:00

My children used to be satisfied with getting five mini peanut buttery, grainy Chinese candy bars and a few melted taffies that got stuck on sleeves and seat belts and carpet. I'm afraid American Halloween ruined them for future trick-or-treating through the halls of the US embassy.

At least they never realized that the possibility exists for purchased costumes here. I read that over 12,000 tons of waste is generated on Halloween, primarily by discarded store-bought costumes. Henry went as a Nerf gun toting gun slinger, Maggie was an orphaned princess who got in a fight and Lucy was a princess.

Two things surprised me this year about Halloween. First - kids walk around dressed in costumes and people hand them candy. For free. Second - people take entire edible pumpkins and don't eat a bite (except the seeds) and carve them into goofy faces. Just for fun.

These are frivolous things of an affluent culture. Free candy and decorative food. I'm not complaining, I scarfed a butterfinger and a tootsie roll and a handful of candy corn. I'm just saying I was amazed, even as four potential meals-turned-pumpkin-faces grin candle-lit smiles from our front steps.

Oh and Tom and I also dressed up in full disguise.

We masqueraded as Americans.

Cool People

2011-10-28T19:44:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the amazing people I get to call family.

My sister. A lobbyist.

Her husband. Helping to fight human trafficking.

Awesome.

Procrastination

2011-10-26T09:38:00.001-07:00

I am supposed to be working on a project for a writing class I'm taking at the Loft Literary Center downtown. Trouble is, I lost two weeks of work on it when the computer was stolen. Thankfully I didn't lose more than that.

But...

I can't get back into it. At first, I didn't even want to open the document. I didn't want to know what was missing. But today I did. Then I closed it. Then reopened it and stared at it for a while.

Then I made a salad.

Looked at the story again. Tried to remember what I had written and drew a blank.

Ate some string cheese.

Thought, 'I need to take advantage of this hour I have right now to get some work done' so I looked at it again.

And decided to blog instead.

I'll get to work eventually but my heart squeezes every time I think about the missing pages.

Okay, back to work.

Or maybe I should make brownies.

Naked and Thankful

2011-10-24T14:39:00.000-07:00

Last Friday night I felt naked and thankful.

We spent the afternoon with good friends at a park and then had dinner with my parents. We came home around 9:30 p.m. and I tried to check email.

I felt instantly sick.

"Where's my computer?" I said to Tom. I looked at his desk. "Where's your computer?"

"Okay kiddos," Tom said, "time for bed. Right now."

He got the kids in bed while I stood frozen in the middle of the office with my stomach somewhere around my knees. There was no mistaking it, the computers were gone. We walked around the house trying to figure out how someone had gotten in with the doors all locked.

Maggie is doing a science experiment and had six red plastic cups filled with black walnut tree leaves and oak tree leaves balanced on a window sill in the kitchen. The cups weren't on the sill. They were in neat little stacks of two, balanced on the radiator.

What a careful, polite thief.

The screen also had a rip in it and the back door was unlocked even though I clearly remember latching the deadbolt and locking it with a key. So the thief had come in through the window and left out the back door.

We called the police, they came and took pictures, dusted for fingerprints and talked with our neighbors. We had our own CSI team in the house for an hour or so. They weren't as sexy as the CSI television people. And they left a big mess that we had to clean up. But it was still interesting, or would have been if I wasn't trying to hold back tears and if I wasn't trying to stop running through lists in my head of all that was now gone.

I thought about how much of my life I process on the computer through words. It might seem like I write a lot on this blog but you have no idea how much more there is, in files not to be seen by anyone, ever, on that computer. There are also pictures, memories, private things that belong to my family. Knowing those were all in someone else's hands made me feel naked, stripped bare and shivering.

Apparently there have been a few other break-ins in this neighborhood, sometimes while the home owners are still home. I started thinking about that. And I started thinking about all kinds of other terrible things that could happen to our house, the kids, our stuff, our health, our faith.

While we vacillate between anger, fear and sadness and frustration, there is also thankfulness. I'm thankful we have home owner's insurance that doesn't totally take care of things, but sure helps a lot. I'm thankful I could communicate with the police in English. I'm thankful we weren't home, that I wasn't home alone or that the kids weren't home by themselves. I'm thankful for the reminder of how much more valuable people are than things. I'm even thankful for the reminder that all is not paradise, even in Minnesota.

It is a choice to be thankful. It would be easy to dwell on dark things, images of a man in our house, pictures of what might have been. But I'm trying not to go down that road.

I'll stay on this one; naked and thankful.

Are They All Like This?

2011-10-18T17:24:00.000-07:00

My mother-in-law is amazing. So today I am asking the question, are all mother-in-laws like this?

Or maybe I just lucked out.

Last Friday Tom's mom, Meg, threw us a Halloween party. It was unlike any Halloween party my kids have ever been to.

Some years we skip Halloween. Some years we are invited to a party at the US embassy where the kids go trick-or-treating around the offices. Then there was the year I dressed them up in costumes, asked a few Djiboutian friends to sit in the rooms of our house and had them go trick-or-treating through the house. It wasn't that I needed to celebrate Halloween, it was more a case of boredom and 'what do you do with toddler twins when there are no parks, libraries or grandparents?'

They thought I was nuts.

So last Friday Tom's parents decorated our house for Halloween. We have a glow in the dark full-size skeleton, a Lucy-sized glowing pumpkin and a sensor under the welcome mat that does a wicked Halloween laugh whenever you step on the mat, all on the front porch. Poor mailman.

Inside there are spiderwebs everywhere, spiders, silhouettes of mice running into holes along the wall, a motion-sensor spider that drops when you walk by, orange lights, a glowing spider the size of a large cat, an owl table cloth.

When the kids got home from school, she sent us on a scavenger hunt. First we found costumes. The whole family turned into the Pirate Joneses. We decided if anyone heard us speak Somali we might get arrested for being the real thing.

Then we had to solve a series of clues that led us first to our friend's home, then my brother's home, then McDonalds, then the playground and finally home. The kids were mortified to be seen in public in their costumes, until they overheard a girl at McDonald's say, "Wow, cool Mom! When do we get to do that?"

At home we were greeted by two more pirates - Tom's parents - and a full dinner of blood-juice, brain noodles, finger biscuits and more delicious grossness. After dinner there was bobbing for apples and the game where you stick your hand into a covered bowl to guess what disgusting body part is in there.

We had a blast and were fully initiated into the American Halloween tradition. The day seems much more celebrated than I remember it being but I'm guessing that is how I will react to every holiday or American tradition that comes up.

So I am wondering, has your mother-in-law ever spider-webbed your house, dressed you in a wig and eye patch and sent you around the city to take photos with your half-mortified/half-thrilled children?

Shredded

2011-10-16T14:06:00.000-07:00

"Mom, the teachers in America don't rip up your homework," Henry said.

I didn't know teachers in Djibouti did that.

"Oh yes, if they aren't satisfied (which is most of the time), they yell and scream and hold the paper up and shred it right down the middle, rip it into little pieces and toss it in the trash." Henry mimed the action.

Did that happen to Henry or Maggie?

"All the time." He shrugged.

I guess they got used to it.

"But in America, teachers say, 'you need to try harder next time' and give the homework back. Its amazing."

What a country.

Saturday we went to the grocery store. In the parking lot there was a fire engine kids could explore around in, a pumpkin decorating stand, bean bag toss with candy prizes, bird-house building stations and flashlights. All for free. Our kids walked away from the pumpkins they had decorated because they couldn't believe that they could really just take them home. They had to run back and scoop up their free pumpkins.

Then I found a coupon for a thrift store on my grocery receipt. A coupon for a thrift store. Is that weird to anyone else?

What a country.

The free stuff is great and the shredding of homework is borderline deplorable but I'm thankful my kids haven't developed the attitude that everything should be handed to them, not even good grades.

Tomato Drills

2011-10-13T07:06:00.000-07:00

Another first for my non-American/American kids at school.

Fire drills.

I guess if school catches fire in Djibouti the kids just burn.

That sounds much worse in print than it sounded in my head.

They also had shooter drills. Well, I don't know what they were actually called, but they learned how to hide under their desks with the doors and windows pulled shut and their chairs blocking as much of their bodies as possible for if someone is wandering the halls firing a gun.

I never practiced that in elementary school. It makes me sad.

Djibouti should have flood drills, sand storm drills, riot drills, political unrest drills and crazy men climbing the fence drills.

Then Lucy said, "Later we will have tomato drills."

Is that when you hide under your desk after telling a bad joke so the rotten tomatoes don't explode on your school clothes?

I think she meant tornado drills but it is good to know she will be safe in either case.

25,000

2011-10-11T18:47:00.000-07:00

Djibouti Jones reached 25,000 hits today.

I took it real slow and steady like.

I thought 25,000 is a pretty major mile marker in my blogging life so I googled "25,000 blog hits" and found out that many other no-name blogs reach that many hits in less than six months. So reaching 25,000 after 3 1/2 years isn't much to write home about. But I'd still like to take the chance to thank everyone who follows Djibouti Jones, who reads it, who comments on it.

I enjoy documenting our journey this way, the act of writing helps me process and remember, honor and laugh about our life. And I appreciate your feedback more than any of you can know.

So thanks for making it happen, here's to another 25,000 (maybe in less than 3 years?).

Tears

2011-10-10T18:57:00.001-07:00

I cry all the time lately.

Surprisingly, I haven't cried at the grocery store yet.

But I cry in the shower. There's water! With strong pressure! Its hot!

I cry when I run. No one is yelling at me! There are no pebbles landing around my feet! I'm not even sweating! People think I'm strong!

I cried at my friend's baby dedication ceremony. I cried when I saw a bunch of pregnant women in a room. I also giggled at the pregnant women. They look so goofy with their distended bellies, outie belly buttons and skin tight shirts. Cute, undeniably cute, but you have to admit, a little goofy. I cry at every other song on the radio because it reminds me of high school or its a song I've never heard before that everyone else knows or it is beautiful music.

I cried yesterday at my friend's wedding in Virginia. I cried when she hugged her parents, when she said her vows, when I prayed for her. But perhaps the strangest time I cried was during the dance at the reception.

The wedding was co-ed and multigenerational. Men and women, infants and the elderly, a blind man who shouted out compliments to the DJ and sang along at the top of his lungs. People of every color. Dads dancing hip-hop with their toddler daughters in polka-dot sundresses. Married couples holding hands. Celebrating the longest married couple, 45 years.

It was breath-taking.

Everyone was laughing and dancing and talking and praising God for bringing this amazing couple together and I wiped my face and found tears streaming down my cheeks.

There are things I can't take for granted anymore. Things I appreciate on deep, soul-shaking levels. Things I marinate in.

Hot water. Proud pregnant bellies. Running free. Parenting with purpose. Friendship. Beauty. Music. Unity. Diversity.

Family.

Joy.

Tears.

Snakes

2011-10-06T06:51:00.000-07:00

I am turning into an all-American mom.

There are the obvious things, those that seem clearly American: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in lunch boxes for school, soccer games, Boy Scout meetings and book reports.

There are the less obvious things, those that most Americans aren't aware are American: hand-me down clothes, coupon-clipping, wearing shorts, removing clothes from the dryer and dishes from the dishwasher, staying between the lines while driving car pool.

Then there was the snakes.

On Monday morning I found myself carrying an aquarium filled with two live garter snakes up two flights of stairs on weary post-marathon legs. I delivered them to the sixth grade classroom along with a bucket of worms and slugs and promises of crickets and maybe a mouse or frog in a few days.

I left thinking, "Never in Djibouti."

Pets in the classroom would be a distraction, they would lead children to get out of their seats and perhaps talk during class. It might be fun or encourage creativity. It might be more interesting to learn about animals by looking at live ones. Never in a million years.

But now, I am the coolest mom of the sixth grade.

Just don't make me chase them down if they escape.

Marathon

2011-10-03T09:02:00.000-07:00

I did it.

I finished.

I can still walk.

Barely.

Interesting statistic:
I have birthed three children in less time than it took me to finish 26.2 miles.

Apparently my pushing muscles are stronger than my running muscles. Alternatively, apparently there is more motivation to get a seven-pound baby OUT than to keep putting one foot in front of the other. There is really no comparison between childbirth and running a marathon but for some reason, that's what I thought as I crossed the finish line.

The night before the race I dreamed that I decided to run in wrestling shoes and the surface of the race was material like a slip 'n slide and I was like a cartoon character - spinning, spinning, spinning my legs but going nowhere. It was a nightmare.

But I woke up, put on my Asics and ran the course on pavement. Thank goodness!

The race was beautiful, the crowds fantastic. Especially my fans - thanks for the water, the signs, the running alongside me, the cheers, the motivation, the congratulations, the chocolate covered strawberries. I felt quite emotional and teary whenever I saw faces I knew, heard voices cheering for me, read support messages. This is my cousin Daniel who kept me going when I could barely think straight at mile 24.

It was so cold in the beginning my teeth chattered the first two miles and so hot in the end that I quit sweating the last two miles.

Tom asked if I ran through any crowds saying, "Someone already won, you should just quit" or "you look so tired and your face is red, stop running" or "women can't run."

No, I didn't run through any groups of Djiboutian-trained cheerers.

What an amazing thing, that people would host block parties to watch the race, cheering on no one in particular. Or that they hold signs "Complete Stranger, I am proud of you!" Or to see 85-year old men running and 65-year old women cruising by me. Experiencing that was significant culture shock.

I didn't make my time goal but my primary goals were to finish and to not be injured, both of which were accomplished. I guess it is true what people say - don't have a time goal for your first marathon, just finish and learn from it. I didn't know I would need more water and sodium than I was getting and that I would stop sweating and that would make my feet cramp. I had to stop twice to stretch out my toes for a few seconds or I would have been limping along, which would have led to an injury. I also wasn't prepared for how crowded and hectic the water stops would be.

Now I know better for next time. This morning I looked up the dates for Grandma's Marathon in Duluth. Crazy? Probably. But I know I could do better.

Writing Leave

2011-09-25T19:14:00.000-07:00

I am taking a writing leave from writing. It will be short and while on leave from writing this blog, I will be writing other things. So my break from writing will be spent writing.

One of my goals for this year in the US is to improve my writing and to learn from other writers in workshops, classes and by being part of a writing community. Minneapolis is a fabulous city to do this in. The Loft Literary Center is less than two miles from our house.

I was accepted into the advanced fiction course which meets once/week until December. After the first two classes, it is pretty clear that I am in over my head, that I am a shrimp among whale sharks but I am excited about what I've already learned and humbled by my bumblings, both of which are good for me. I also am a firm believer in the fact that the smallest can become a mighty nation, the least can become a thousand, that the weak things of the world are used to shame the wise, so being small and weak isn't so bad.

This coming week I am taking a 5-day intensive course on writing creative nonfiction (I vacillate between fiction and non, thus the two different, though complementary courses). This course meets all day long, all week long. So my writing leave will only be for this week and maybe I'll be a better blogger when I return.

I will be celebrating the end of the nonfiction course by running the Twin Cities Marathon on Sunday. Wish me luck and see you later (I'll be the one walking down the stairs backwards, limping, complaining about my toenails falling off and shaking off writer's cramps in my fingers).

From Dragon to Boy

2011-09-21T07:36:00.000-07:00

A friend recently wrote about culture shock and adaptation in a new country. It hurts. It is like shedding old skin and walking around in bare naked, baby-fresh, new skin that is super-sensitive. People often ask about culture shock and yes, partly it is shocking. But also it is painful. Since it isn't called Culture Pain, the hurting of it, the dying of it, isn't often recognized and appreciated.

While the analogy isn't perfect, thinking about culture shock makes me think of a scene in C.S. Lewis's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Eustace has been turned into a dragon and tries to get rid of the scales on his own, but fails. Aslan comes to him.

“Then the lion said — but I don’t know if it spoke — “You will have to let me undress you.” I was afraid of his claws, but I can tell you, I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it…. That very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’d ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off.”

That very first tear, that deep, digging tear hurts so bad you can't imagine anything good will come of it. You can't believe there will be an end to it or a purpose behind it.

and then...

"Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off -- just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt -- and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. There he caught hold of me -- I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on -- and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again. You'd think me simply phony if I told you how I felt about my own arms. I know they're no muscle and are pretty mouldy compared with Caspian's, but I was so glad to see them."

And the arms look different, not perfect, not like anyone else's and still sensitive, but different than before because the stripping, the pain, the culture shock, has changed you and you are glad to see it.

-90 Degrees

2011-09-15T07:01:00.001-07:00

Today it is ninety degrees cooler than some of our summer days in Djibouti. And winter isn't even upon us yet. I am loving it, at least for now. Curling up with slippers, socks, two long-sleeve shirts, a blanket and a mug of coffee feels delicious. Not Djiboutilicious, just delicious.

This morning I realized how much I have to teach my children about winter. Things like dry and cracked lips, why windows fog up and eventually ice over, the conditions that cause snow, why we can see our breath, how to stay warm at the bus stop, how to wear a backpack on top of (in Henry's case, three long-sleeve shirts, a t-shirt, a fleece and a puffy winter coat), eventually how to walk on ice and make snowballs and snowmen and snowangels, how to let marshmellows melt into hot chocolate until they are all gooey and stuck together (we had hot chocolate milk at dinner last night and the kids thanked me profusely).

As they got dressed for school, every single one of them put their mittens on first then tried to pull on their winter coats. I just laughed. Henry couldn't figure out how to get his second mitten on after pulling on the first. I laughed again. Henry also didn't think he would need a hat, he figured his hair was long enough to keep his ears warm. Again, I laughed.

We live outside St. Paul but the French Immersion school is in St. Paul so I drive the kids a mile down the road, across the city line, to catch the bus. We blasted the heater and when we got to the stop I turned around and all three kids had shrugged out of their coats and mittens and before I could argue with them, leaped from the car to the bus.

"We don't need our coats anymore!" they called back to me and waved.

They have a lot to learn.

All Growed Up

2011-09-13T17:51:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I moved out of my parent's house.

Didn't I already do that? I mean, I am thirty-three years old. Oh yeah, I did move out.

In 1996, to the U of MN.

And in 2003, to Somalia.

And in 2004, to Djibouti.

And in 2006, again to Djibouti.

And in 2007, to Djibouti.

And in 2009, to Djibouti yet again.

And now, in 2011, to Minneapolis.

We spend roughly every other summer invading my parent's house but this time, since we are in the US for an entire year, we thought we would give them (and us) some breathing room. We moved into a house near the University campus.

Yesterday while running errands I realized, 'hey, I am in Minnesota but no one knows where I am' and more to the point, 'my parents don't know where I am.'

Then I came home and did laundry. I did not use a laundromat or a clothesline for drying. I used the washer and drying in the basement of the house I now live in. I wiped up a spill on the floor. I took out the trash. I fixed a broken part on the sink. I organized a linen closet. I registered our house for garbage and water. I did it all in American: English and blue jeans.

I feel like such a grown-up.

Potatoes

2011-09-08T08:20:00.001-07:00

This is a slightly self-indulgent post. This morning my dad brought me a box of "Rachel" papers from my childhood that they have kept and since I enjoyed looking through it, I am sharing some highlights with you, reader. At the very least, it gives us both a break from writing/reading about American schools and culture shock.

Here is a taste of my original writing talent, from first grade:

"Potatoes are best then thay (they) are crispy becuse I like them like that. And when thay are in the goud (ground) becuse I sometime bo (do) not like them. But evredody (everybody) else like them in my house. I like when thay are gon (gone) becuse I do not like them."

I still don't like potatoes.

There was a note my parent's wrote to my older sister:

"Kelly, we are at the hospital with Rachel. She may have broken her nose."

I did break it. It was the summer before my senior year and I ended up with surgery, two black eyes and a nose cast. Yes, I said a nose cast. Yes, it was mortifying.

There was a card from Tom to my dad and brother after a wedding shower:

"Ken and Kevin (aka pre-dad and pre-bro), Thanks for the First Aid kit. Rachel will need it. That would sound bad to most dads and brothers but I think you know that I would never intentionally body slam her."

Well...maybe he has only body slammed me intentionally a few times in the last twelve years.

Who knew?

2011-09-06T10:59:00.000-07:00

I have sent my kids off to school in Somalia, France and DJibouti. They have been dipped from their toenails to the tops of their hairs in immersion-style language learning. They have worn hijab uniforms and regular school clothes. But somehow, this morning, sending them to American school was the hardest of all.

A few things came up. Maggie wanted to know how American kids raise their hands in class. In Djibouti, they only use their index finger. I told her that here, they use the whole hand, fingers pointing up, palm forward. Who knew this was something a person could not know?

Henry wanted to know who Martin Luther King was, he had seen a poster of him in the boy's bathroom. Who knew an American kid could not know who Dr. King was?

Lucy's main concern was that she not do anything bad during school hours. Who knew she was so tempted to be bad?

What do we do with our leftover lunch food and plastic baggies? Can you go to the bathroom during class? Is the water in the drinking fountain clean water? Why is there a bell ringing? Where do I put my backpack? What do the kids play at recess? Where does a kid go when he is punished? (in Djibouti it is a severe punishment - the kid is forced out of the air conditioned classroom to sit in the sun).

Who knew that a mother's 'normal' childhood experience could be so completely foreign to her own children?

American School, pt 2

2011-09-04T18:56:00.000-07:00

We were late arriving to our first American school open house and I was stressing out in bumper to bumper traffic. Turns out, it didn't matter at all. In Djibouti each teacher has a meeting with the parents and describes what they will study, field trips planned for the year, behavioral expectations. The meeting is organized, detailed and on time. Not so at our new school. Chaos. It was chaos.

People were throwing school supplies into boxes, kids were running down the halls (which were enclosed and felt claustrophobic), parents and teachers were greeting each other like long-lost relatives. Everyone spoke loudly and laughed loudly. There were signs everywhere and announcements coming over the PA speaker. And it was all in English so I could understand it and had trouble sifting through what I needed to hear and didn't need to hear.

Perhaps one of the most bizarre things was that adults were talking to children. Including teachers. They ignored the parents and addressed the students directly. Henry noticed this too and said, "In Djibouti, teachers only talk to a student if the kid has a question or is in trouble."

My kids look and sound American, but really, they aren’t. They should be treated like foreign students. Everything is different from the supplies to the schedule to the working drinking fountains and meals at school (free breakfast for all?! And free buses?! This really is an amazing place)

There was a conspicuous absence of anorexic-shaped women, cigarette smoke, tattoos and cleavage. Apparently American elementary school mothers don't step straight out of magazine pages and try to keep their skin more covered than not, even on a steamy evening. And no one, except me, dresses up for a school open house. Boy, Americans are casual!

With everything in English, I struggled more than I thought I would. I go into situations like this, things I have dealt with exclusively in foreign languages, and expect to not understand. So I respond as if I don't understand. I need questions repeated, I answer incorrectly, I fill out the wrong parts of forms, I read every single word to make sure I'm not confused. Because I expect to be confused. And I end up being…confused.

I had a question for the main office staff who were helpful, timely and friendly and I understood every single thing about the entire interaction. However, right in front of me was a Spanish-speaking mother who was struggling valiently to ask her question and understand the reply. I wanted to hug her and say, “I feel your pain!”

I was also (secretly) glad that I wasn’t her, not this year anyway.

American School

2011-09-01T18:10:00.000-07:00

There will be a longer post in the next day or so, but for starters, here is our first reaction to the American school our kids will attend this year, a French Immersion school in St. Paul.

(in the car on the way home from the open house)
Me: Wow. That is an American school.
Henry: Why do you say it is American?
Me: Well, tell me your first impressions.
Maggie: The rooms are big and messy. Everything is big. There's a ton of stuff.
Henry: Wild. It was super loud.
Me: Yup, an American school.

Much like everything else American. Big. Lots of stuff. Loud.

The Other Side of Leaving

2011-08-30T18:44:00.000-07:00

Today I said goodbye to one of my dearest friends in the world. I have said goodbye to her many, many times in the past but I realized something funny as I drove away from the airport. When we say goodbye, it is always me who is leaving. She is the one who drives back home and erases my phone number from her phone because I'm off to a different country.

I am the one ripped from one culture and time zone and unceremoniously dropped off in a completely different one. She is the one who goes back to her normal life of Target, violin lessons and carpools.

I am the one who walks through the security gate while my parents stand staring, like the empty-armed grandparents that they are, from the other side of a red barrier. She is the one wonders how to send me a package and has to figure out the international postage.

I am the one with the butterflies in my stomach, the stress headache and the constant concern with numbers - how many suitcases? How many children? How many passports? How long is the layover? How long is the flight? How many movies do they have that are appropriate for children? How many trips to the bathroom can one five-year old seriously need? She is the one who can just whip out her credit card to pay for airport parking and zoom off on her way in a country where one of the most serious numbers is the speed limit.

But today we changed places and I stood where I have left so many behind in the past. I was the stay-er. The send-er. I was on the other side of leaving.

For a brief moment, for the next 12 months, for all the future years our friendships deepens, things have changed. I am no longer the only one leaving. She is leaving too. Off for her own adventures and pains and thrills.

Even though I stayed behind today, I can still say, "Welcome, dear friend, to the roller-coaster of living overseas."

I am honored to be part of your ride.

Why Run?

2011-08-28T14:12:00.000-07:00

Ran twenty miles this morning and felt like I could have kept right on going. The weather was cool, the roads quiet and tree-lined.

I've seen beautiful things while running, even in Djibouti when I don't look at the naked men or rotting goat remains there are sunrises and flamingos and beautiful people. But nothing has touched the sunrises I saw on my last two long runs in Alexandria, Minnesota. Farmland covered in fog so thick I couldn't see more than four feet in front of my feet so I didn't know if I was running up or down hill or how long the hills went on. Above the fog the sun rose and turned the gray sky florescent pink which turned the fog a fainter shade of red. Above the tops of silos and farm houses peeking through the fog were two brilliant rainbows running straight up and down and I couldn't breathe. Not from running but from joy.

Then, this morning, I saw leaves the color of blood on the ground and I was struck, all over again, by the reality that we are staying in Minnesota through the fall. That we will see the leaves change color and fall to the ground. That we will stomp on them and hear them crunch and rake them into piles and throw the kids into those piles. And I couldn't breathe. Because I was crying.

I felt a little crazy. Is it crazy to cry while running? When I see those sunrises or come over a hill and a flowing river fills the landscape, tears spring to my eyes. I don't know why I was crying. I was happy, I felt strong and free. I love Minnesota. I get to stay here for another whole year. I miss the place that has been our home for nine years. I feel strong there too, but not as free. Not free, but it is my place, my space. So for now I live in an in-between place. I didn't dwell too long on it and got a grip on myself and kept running. Tears look like sweat, so there is no shame.

I've heard about the illusive runner's high and when I caught myself air-guitaring to Rodrigo y Gabriela, I realized I was riding that high.

Going from tears to laughter while pushing my body to its current physical limits and witnessing beauty.

That's why I run.

No More Tonsils

2011-08-24T10:21:00.000-07:00

Maggie had gigantic tonsils. Huge. Gargantuan. Superduper big. They were blocking over 50% of her throat. And then there were her adenoids which were also taking up more than their fair share of space in there. So yesterday we said 'adieu' to these superfluous body parts.

The doc said she wouldn't have to get them removed now because they haven't been causing her any pain or trouble. But when faced with the options A) have surgery in Minnesota and B) have unplanned surgery in Djibouti when they do start causing her pain, trouble, maybe even breathing difficulties...the decision was a no-brainer.

Maggie did wonderfully well and is now recovering while watching endless episodes of the Pink Panther and eating thin chocolate pudding. Lucy gave her a sympathy quarter and Henry pestered her with questions about how the surgery was done and how big her tonsils were (we asked the doc to show them to us before taking them away).

It felt so easy, calm and not mentally taxing to be in the hospital in one's native language. I understood every word on the paperwork they gave me and filled it out without a dictionary. I was able to ask questions and have them answered without excessive hand gestures. I wasn't stared at by anyone. I knew instinctively where to go to check in. I could advocate for Maggie with confidence.

Tom says that America provides the "Cadillac" version of health care. I am fully aware of the health care debate raging and am not blind to the weaknesses in our system. But I have to say that after experiencing medical issues in Djibouti, Somali, Kenya and even France, no place compares to America and today I am deciding to be thankful for it. (I reserve the right to complain tomorrow.)

I told Maggie that the best thing about the whole surgery is that we can finally tell our twins apart. If we get confused, we can just ask them to open their mouths. One will have tonsils, the other won't. Its about time.

Don't Forget Djibouti

2011-08-22T15:17:00.000-07:00

When I look at my blog posts, I feel slightly schizophrenic. One day I post about a Minnesota refrigerator. The next day I post about famine.

These are powerful, sad articles about the country my family calls home. Yesterday Henry heard more about the famine and became very concerned. When he finally started asking questions, I realized he was worried about his friends. How is Heegani? How is Mustafa? What about Daniel? and my heart broke for his tender concern and for our friends. Seeing this kind of crisis through the eyes of a child who calls the place home and the people family brings a deeper level of grief at the things we hear and see.

How do I help my children understand what is happening? How can we be here, in a land of such luxurious, extravegant plenty while this happens?

Henry's close friends, all of the kids' close friends, are doing fine. Their families are paying more for food and maybe rationing water, but they will survive. But there are others we know, families whose children already didn't have enough to eat or clean drinking water.

Djibouti: the forgotten country

Drought exacerbates chronic malnutrition

Drought killing children

Don't forget Djibouti.

The Mysterious Minnesota Refrigerator

2011-08-18T09:06:00.001-07:00

The refrigerator in summertime Minnesota is a mysterious and sometimes frightening place.

I reach into the fridge and pull out a tub of sour cream but upon opening it, I discover...leeches. I shove the tub back in, carefully because I do not want loose leeches inside the fridge or on my fingers, and grab a bucket of cream cheese instead. I open it and discover...earthworms. They wiggle and squirm and try to escape while I snap the lid back on.

Next, I go for the jar of what is labeled as homemade salad dressing but alas, it is...minnows.

Those flakes I thought were dried bread crumbs were actually flaky fish food. The tupperware I thought was leftovers is in fact a baby frog. Beside the fridge in an ice cream bucket are the frog's siblings, in various stages of tadpole-ness. Outside, emptied popcorn buckets and peanut butter jars now house turtles and salamanders.

I anticipate no improvement on the state of the Minnesota refrigerator as we move into hunting season.

At least those slabs of opaque, jiggling meat beside the strawberries are freshly caught fish fillets and I can look forward to a fish fry. Just so long as no one confuses the tartar sauce with the jug of fish guts by accident.

Who Died?

2011-08-16T20:07:00.000-07:00

I bought the kids school clothes at the thrift store last week.

Djibouti has a thrift store of sorts. In the market there are large heaps of clothing on top of plastic sheets. Sometimes the clothes are organized by gender and adult/child but not always. The piles include clothing of all sorts, from 1980's prom dresses to polyester suit coats to trendy Levi's skinny jeans. The clothes come from the West and often, a few months after Halloween, the streets suddenly fill with kids wearing spiderman or batman costumes to school because they were cheap in the market.

Djiboutians don't do hand-me-downs the way Americans do. As Americans, we adore the concept. It is never shameful to offer hand-me-downs or to accept them. We boast (at least in my circles) about the great deals we find on used clothes, toys, books, furniture and household goods. This isn't very Djiboutian and I've learned that instead of offering Lucy's old clothes to an employed neighbor with a younger daughter, that the appropriate thing to do is to offer the clothes to a homeless woman or refugee.

But, there is the Djiboutian thrift store and my favorite thing about it is the Somali word for it, pronounced like this: the who dieds. They don't know where the clothes came from or who last wore them and it is hard to imagine, in a country as poor as Djibouti, the extravegant excesses of America. People don't get rid of clothes until they are worn to shreds and it is the rare family who can afford new clothes each season. So, since no one who was alive would just get rid of perfectly good clothing, all the clothing donors must be dead.

Thus the name "Who died."

As in, "who died and sent us all these clothes?"

Henry still needs blue jeans so next week I will have to take him to Savers, aka, the Who Dieds.

School Supplies

2011-08-15T14:43:00.000-07:00

I think I was the slowest shopper ever in the Alexandria Target and I know I am the slowest school supply buyer in the entire state of Minnesota and quite possibly, the nation.

I was slow for a number of reasons.

1. This was my first time buying American supplies and buying them in English. School supplies have a particular language to them. The lists say things like: Blue plastic folder w/pkts, w/o prgs. Translation: Blue plastic folder with pockets and without prongs. Unfortunately Target didn't have any.

2. I don't have the innate sense for price, product placement and practical usage that a typical American mother would have gained after the eight years of practice we put in by the time sixth grade rolls around.

3. I don't know what kids are using these days. Which school lunch bag will humiliate Maggie and which one will she tote with pride? Or should I get her a bag at all? Should Henry do paper bags? Or hot lunch? Do they still call it hot lunch? So I stand in front of the entire aisle, overwhelmed by the choices and watch what other children of similar ages are choosing and how their mothers are reacting.

4. I am overwhelmed by the choices. Different brand names, different amounts of pencils or crayons, different colors, different prices, different shapes and sizes and weights. I have to examine each item carefully and compare it to the other options while other moms and moving past in a tornado of movement, confidently tossing things into their carts without a second glance.

5. I am amazed by the prices. Fifteen cents for a folder?! I was in such shock that I actually stopped and stared at the sign for a while. I pay at least $3-4.00 for a folder in Djibouti.

6. I have to buy every single thing on the darn list. I don't have scissors from last year, or leftover pens and glue sticks and rulers and calculators and lunch bags and Ziplock bags in storage.

I just spent more time (and money) in Target than should be legal but I think I got everything the kids needed. Except watercolor pencils. I couldn't find them anywhere, even after reading every single box of pencils, colored pencils and watercolor paint boxes. I gave myself a headache, annoyed other mothers who knew what they wanted and were blocked by my heaping cart and still failed. In truth, I don't even know what watercolor pencils are, which makes them doubly hard to find.

Oh well, at least I didn't have to stop any mothers and ask them to translate my list for me the way I stop helpful-looking French women in Djibouti and I didn't yell at my kids (because they weren't with me) like every other mom was doing. I rather enjoyed it, thinking about tape that will stick, pens that will work, colored paper cheaper than $24.99 for twelve sheets.

I shopped all by my self and I think that was the first of many school-related cultural experiences we are going to encounter over the next few months. We may be slow, we may get in the way, but we will get the job done and do our best to remain cheerful about it.

Traffic Lights

2011-08-14T11:04:00.000-07:00

This is almost too funny even to comment on.

Traffic lights in Djibouti.

I seriously doubt it will work. Wonder what happens when the power goes off? Or traffic picks up after Ramadan? I wonder if people will get tickets for running the light.

I think I will more scared driving than ever.

Americanisms

2011-08-12T05:55:00.000-07:00

Ice. There is so much ice in America. It comes out of refrigerators that make it themselves, in cubes or crushed. There is so much ice in cups that there isn't any room for liquid and I have to ask for refill after refill, or ask for no ice and get that strange, 'you aren't from around here' look. It doesn't melt very quickly so the ice stays in cup and the liquid stays cold for long periods of time. Even more amazing, I know that in just a few months ice will fall from the sky and we will walk on ice and the lake will turn to ice.

Rules. There are also a lot of rules in America. 'Please Wait to be Seated' and if that sign is missing, customers don't quite know what to do with themselves, like my family and I earlier this week. Drive on your own side of the road, don't cross the yellow line, no U-turns in the middle of the street, wear your seat belt, children under the age of 8 should be in a booster, no wake on the lake until after noon, drive your boat in counter-clockwise circles around the lake. Even more amazing, most of the rules are followed most of the time.

Customer service. My new iphone froze up after about three weeks of using it. I didn't drop it or abuse it but it didn't work. I made an appointment at the Apple store. When I got there I felt like I was at the phone hospital, talking with a caring and concerned doctor. Within three minutes he said, "Well, why don't I just go get you a new phone?" and returned with a new phone filled with my old information. I didn't show a receipt, didn't have to cry and even more amazing, he didn't ask if I had dropped or abused it and told me to have a nice day.

The Library. What's not to love about row after row of books? The library is clean and quiet and helpful. My kids read 20 hours this summer and earned a water bottle, Culver's coupons, Mall of America water park tickets and State Fair tickets from the library. Getting a library card is free, even more amazing, using it is free.

Free Stuff. Americans love free stuff and there is a lot of it here. There is official free stuff like the prizes my kids earned at the library but there is also random free stuff. Couches left by the garbage can for anyone to take, movie night for kids with the local VFW, parades to watch, free samples in magazines. Even more amazing, there are coupons or sales for just about anything that isn't free. Buy 1, get 1. 10% off. Save $2.00 on a purchase over $5.00. Earn points for every dollar spent. Even more amazing, even the thrift store has discounts.

Plastic Cards. To get most of that free or discounted stuff, you need a plastic card. A credit card, library card, Panera bread points card, a Caribou card, a Gap Visa, a Kohl's charge card, a Target card, a grocery store card, a Savers Thrift Store card, a Dick's Sporting card. My wallet could be stuffed to overflowing with little plastic cards. Even more amazing, every single time I purchase something, I am asked for my card or whether I would like to save 10% and sign up for one.

Famine

2011-08-10T07:01:00.000-07:00

I have avoided writing about this because I can barely bring myself to read the articles and look at the photos and I didn't want to shove grief and horror into anyone else's life. I try to keep these posts generally upbeat because that is how I need to view my world or I would collapse beneath the weight of it all. But, I also need to pay and draw attention to an area of the world that has been my world for almost a decade.

I don't have suggestions for how you can help but I want you to know, to care. When people can't tell the difference between Africa and Australia, I have little confidence that they are aware of things like famine and drought. It was easier for me a decade ago, to view pictures and read stories about suffering in the Somali region. But that was before I knew the names and histories of friends, before I could match a picture in my mind of my daily life with a picture on the news of a starving child. That was before the victims of drought and disease and war and starvation showed up at my front door. Literally.

I'm not asking you to move to Djibouti or Somalia. I'm not asking you to even meet someone from the region and hear their story or to send money to an aid organization. I'm just asking that you pay attention. Maybe even that small step will be enough to affect the way you see the world, the choices you make, the way you feel toward the immigrant on your block, the depth of your heart and your compassion. And maybe that will be enough to change the way you treat that immigrant neighbor. And maybe that will be enough to change the world.

A Vision of Hell
Hunger in a War Zone
Survival of the Fittest

There are many other articles out there, I just chose randomly to link to these.

Is it Africa? Or Australia?

2011-08-08T12:48:00.000-07:00

One scary thing about our Minnesota summer so far is the number of brats I have consumed. I think Tom buys a jumbo-sized box every week. I don't like brats. I can't run 15 or more miles on brat-inspired energy. They're greasy. They look lumpy and fleshy on the inside.

Here is another scary thing that happened during our Minnesota summer.

This conversation was overheard by my mom at Como Zoo this morning:

There is a map of Africa near one of the monkey cages. A girl points to a green spot on the map. The green spot is in the middle. Of Africa. A continent. The spot is not on the water. Landlocked.
Girl: Where is that?
Girl's Mother: I don't know.
(so far, so good. I don't expect everyone to know the names of all African nations)
Girl: I think its Australia.
Girl's Mother: Could be. Yeah, I'm not really sure. Could be.

Australia, the size of Burundi and landlocked and in the middle of the African continent. Knowing that little about the world? Not even able to tell a country from a continent? That's scary.

Scarier than grilling brats five days out of seven.

Me and My Boys

2011-08-04T19:52:00.000-07:00

One husband, one son, one brother and three nephews. Here are the boys in my life on boards and on boats, enjoying the lake on a perfect Minnesota summer evening.

Yellow

2011-08-03T09:01:00.000-07:00

Bikinis. Beer-battered hotdogs on sticks. Fried bread smothered in powdered sugar and dipped in chocolate sauce. Skimpy bikinis. Fried bread rolled into circles and dunked in cinnamon and sugar. Short shorts. Roasted nuts dipped in buttery cinnamon and sugar. Short shorts rolled up to be even shorter and left unbuttoned to reveal whatever lies beneath. Plastic soda cups almost as tall as Lucy. Stuffed bananas three times bigger than Lucy. Ice cream in miniature balls so cold your mouth burns.

Towering metal structures so high your neck aches from looking. Wobbling wooden structures that rattle and shake. Little cars with people strapped inside, zooming at impossible speeds. Upside down. Forward. Backward. Upside down again. Spinning in circles. To the side. To the other side. Hundreds of feet into the air and then plunging down, down, down so fast the scream is sucked away and all you can do is hope your lunch stays put.

And the screaming. Always, the screaming. Then the laughter and the discussions of how far light-weight bottoms flew off the seats and how bad that whiplash will feel tomorrow morning for the older ones in the group.

Yesterday we indulged in all the American culture that the Valley Fair amusement park has to offer.

America has gotten quite good at entertainment and it amazed me that we have so much time, energy and money to spend on things that are, in and of themselves, unpleasant, yet keep us coming back again and again for more.

If asked who wants to plunge to their near death, no one would answer in the affirmative. Or to eat something with questionable origins? Or to expose their near-naked body to the world? But if given the opportunity to pay for such experiences, Americans come flocking.

Just like we, among with thousands of others, did. We paid a lot of money yesterday to do those very things (although there were no bikinis or scrawny shorts in our group).

We loved it and fully plan on getting more of the same at the Minnesota State Fair in a few weeks. Part of me wants to juxtapose this fun-filled day against things like the economic debate in the US, or against the famine in Somalia, but most of me doesn't want to go there. Combining things like economic crisis, famine and Valley Fair seems too weighty of a thing for me this morning and I don't want to take a great family day and paint it gray, because it wasn't. It was yellow and light and fun.

And while my life and heart are often full of heavy things, sometimes I just want to feel yellow and have that be enough.

A Life Well-Lived, a Life Well-Loved

2011-08-01T11:40:00.000-07:00

I haven't been to a funeral in twelve years. The last one was for a college friend.

Tom's grandfather died while we were in Somaliland. My grandfather died while we were in Djibouti. We missed both funerals. I watched a DVD of my grandfather's ceremony but that was a terrible substitute for being at the actual funeral. I sat, alone, in our living room thousands of miles from my family, months after he died. I couldn't hold anyone's hand or catch my cousins' eyes and laugh at a unique family memory. I couldn't touch the wood of the casket or smell the flowers or eat the reception cake. It felt very flat. And our television isn't even a flat screen.

Last Tuesday one of my mom's close friends passed away from a sudden heart attack. She was forty-six years old. I went to her funeral this morning and sat between my parents, in front of my old church choir director and two rows in front of my first ever best friend.

The church was packed, fuller than I have ever seen it. It was one of the hottest days of the summer (which meant while I finally took off my sweater, everyone else was fanning themselves and soaking through their shirts) and the church is not air conditioned. People sang and hugged and cried and talked about the woman.

Her family sat in the front row with family, neighbors, coworkers and friends surrounding them on all sides. They were a tender image of a fragile grief, their faces a mixture of joy at the precious memories and sorrow at the sudden loss.

People spoke about the life that had been lived, about the way this woman had loved everyone she interacted with, of the legacy she was leaving behind, a world changed and made better because she took a few breaths for a few years here. She lived life well because she loved life and people well.

It is all so fleeting, the things I imagine are important, the thoughts I think are so deep, the feelings that seem so powerful. Will the world end if I don't hit my splits in the Twin Cities marathon? Or if I feel overwhelmed by the grocery store aisles? Or if I struggle with bizarre cultural readjustments like driving between the lines?

In a flash it will all be over and what will my family be left holding?

This morning was a vivid, fresh reminder to live life well, to live life loved and to live life loving.

Cost of Living

2011-07-29T07:21:00.000-07:00

We always knew it was expensive to live in Djibouti. Half a loaf of sliced bread costs $8.00. Electricity sucks up more than rent some months. While people in the US get upset over high gas prices, we don't blink at $3.75/gallon because that is still dollars less than back home.

This recent article confirms my suspicions. Djibouti was ranked as the most expensive Arab city, above Beirut, Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

Overall, Djibouti came in at #39 for highest cost of living according to the survey by Mercer.

If we got what we paid for, it wouldn't be so bad but paying so much for electricity and then sitting through hours of power cuts is more than a little frustrating.

Flying Man

2011-07-27T19:07:00.001-07:00

In Colorado the kids played on a slip and slide. Tom is more kid than some kids, so he joined them.

(to the tune of the song of the beautiful acrobatic circus performer)
"He swings through the air with the greatest of ease,
the hose gives the impression that when he flies, he pees."

Happy 11

2011-07-26T06:29:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Magdalene and Henry!

Eleven years ago I had outgrown extra-large maternity clothes, added 45% to my body weight, was called a 'manatee' by my loving husband and had absolutely no belly button - it had been stretched flat almost to the point of bursting.

On July 26, 2000 I was 38 weeks pregnant and the doctor had scheduled an induction for that afternoon. The elevator was broken in our apartment building so I walked down 22 flights of stairs and put myself into labor on the way to the hospital.

I wanted to deliver without using pain medication but Tom had eaten at Burger King and was all up in my face saying, "breathe! breathe!" and blowing burger-breath at me. I told the nurse that if she could find him a piece of gum or a mint, I would make it without the meds. For better or worse, she went out into the waiting room and found some.

Four hours later, Magdalene Blessing was born.

Henry was supposed to follow right after Maggie but he changed his mind and wanted to try coming out arm first. When he wouldn't switch positions and his heart rate started dropping, the doctor called for an emergency c-section and I wound up getting the spinal I had avoided with Maggie.

Forty-seven minutes later, Henry Justice was born.

Here they are, eleven years later.

Marathon or Bust

2011-07-25T05:47:00.001-07:00

Have I mentioned I am training for a marathon? I signed up for the Twin Cities Marathon on October 2.

While writing for I wrote an article called Marathon or Bust, Busted. It was published, then magazine was hit by the economic troubles and my column was cut. Busted.

Two years ago I planned on running Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota when we came back to the US in June. About five weeks into the training in Djibouti I realized I wasn't going to make it. It was impossible for me to eat enough, drink enough and consume enough salt to make up for what poured out of my body in the heat. I quit training. Busted.

So now we are in the US for a long time, long enough to train for a marathon and I am in week 9 of 18 on my Hal Higdon training plan. In the beginning, I was worried about my attempt getting busted before I had a chance to get far because my hip was bothering me but with new shoes and good stretching, it is holding up.

Last week we were in Colorado so I needed to run at altitude and in the mountains. I was two minutes per mile slower than my goal time and my quads and calves were on fire from pounding up steep, rocky inclines and then stumbling down them concentrating on not getting a toe caught on a boulder and busting my face. This is what some of the paths looked like.

See the previous post for an idea of the views from Pike's Peak and the Garden of the Gods.

So while the views were incredible, my lungs and legs paid a heavy price but I cannot complain. Halfway to my goal and higher mileage weeks than I have ever run, the longest long run I have completed...and I still feel strong.

Many elite runners suggest having a mantra you can repeat to yourself when you start to feel tired and weak. I've never used one, nothing came to mind and instead I tend to count when I get tired, which I guess is also acceptable since Paula Radcliffe, female world record holder in the marathon, also counts. But if I had a mantra, I think it might be:

Please don't bust. Please don't bust.

America the Beautiful

2011-07-21T18:03:00.000-07:00

We spent last week in Colorado Springs at a family camp. The first day we toured Garden of the Gods.

The family tried, and failed, to tip over the balancing rock. I guess if thousands of years can't do it, the Jones clan probably can't.

Tom, Henry and Maggie like to hike as far and high as possible while I hang with Lucy down low. She sang about the rocks and mimicked bird calls until the others returned.

We took another hike on Pike's Peak, to a place called The Crags. This is the view from the top where we had our picnic lunch. The air smelled like Christmas trees and felt clean and crisp to breathe. Over and over I kept thinking, I can't believe places like this exist, for free. It seems like we should have to pay for viewing and experiencing so much beauty and fresh air and happiness, whether it is swimming with whale sharks or sitting on the top of the world.

The Grocery Store

2011-07-12T15:46:00.000-07:00

Tom and I went to a grocery store together this afternoon. We've both been to one in the last few weeks, but we just went in and out, grabbed one or two particular things and fled.

Today we went specifically for dried black beans and black-eyed peas for my good friend in Djibouti. First we went to the grocery store at Target and found the rice/beans aisle. There was one kind of rice and hundreds of beans in cans. No dried beans.

So we went to Cub Foods. We wandered around and around the store and couldn't find the dried beans. Finally I asked an employee, probably the first time I have ever asked an American grocery store employee for assistance. He looked at us kind of funny.

As a side note, I have lost all shame in asking for help. I also asked the cashier at Herberger's for help figuring out how to turn my new phone from 'vibrate' to 'ring'. She thought I was goofy and loved it. I asked the Gap employee for fashion advice. I asked the Caribou employee for coffee counsel. Someone once told me to treat America like a new, foreign country as if I had just moved here from abroad. Good advice, and it makes most of the Americans I ask for help giggle.

Anyway, after receiving directions (we could have used a map), we found the dried beans in the Asian Food section. Apparently Americans eat beans in cans, pasta in pre-mixed boxes and food that doesn't really look like food (pink, orange, blue and all in just-add-water mixes) while Asians still eat pasta, rice and beans.

Then we wanted carrots and Tom wanted carrots that looked like carrots, not like thumbs. So we found some long carrots, not called babies. Tom held them in his fist and said, "Now what do we do?"

"I think we put them in a bag," I said. He pulled something down from a container but it turned out to be a paper towel. Then we found the bags. We looked around for the place to weigh the carrots but there wasn't any such place so we put them in the cart. Turns out you can weigh them at the register here.

I have since received more good advice from seasoned American shoppers: stick to Farmer's Markets, Health Food Stores and the outer aisles of the grocery stores.

From the Mouths of Children

2011-07-10T09:35:00.001-07:00

Lucy: In America all the guys run and most of the girls. In Djibouti a few French guys run and mom runs.

Henry: I'd like to go back to the market and get that game I saw.

Me: What market are you talking about?

Henry: You know, the big one with all the stuff. I think it is also called Target.

Maggie: Well, I can't think of anything funny she has said, but she is having a fantastic time swimming, biking and playing with friends. Plus, she did, say, "Mom, are you telling people the funny things we say?" with a condescending look on her face so I should probably stop doing that. Eventually.

Other fun things my kids notice:

They love, love, love the library. They really are my children!

Milk tastes good.

So many varieties of cereal, not just corn flakes and chocolate krispies.

Minnesotans like to talk about how hot it is. My kids are still wearing sweatshirts.

There are no stray cats and dogs.

Families actually do things together like picnics, fireworks and drive-in movies.

Making friends is different in America.

There are a lot of rules like speed limits and seat belt laws.

There are a lot of stoplights.

Mom and dad like to listen to talk radio and they fight over which station to listen to.

And one that I have noticed:

I don't have much time or thought-space for blogging, but I'll keep trying!

Glo Amis

2011-07-07T20:11:00.000-07:00

I have the complete set of Glo Friend toys. They were my absolute fave when I was a kid. My mom pulls them out when we come in the summer for my kids to play with.

This morning Lucy started playing with the glowing bugs but then she crawled into my lap and said, "I miss Djibouti. I miss our house. I miss my friends."

I am not ready to agree with her yet so I could empathize but not commiserate. I hugged her instead of echoing her sentiments. There are people I miss, and a few things, but I haven't been gone long enough to say, "I miss Djibouti." By August, I will be able to say it. Probably by February I'll be screaming it. For now, I'm not even thinking it.

Then Lucy said, "You know what would be perfect?"

"What?" I asked.

"If we always stayed in Djibouti and Grandma and Grandpa lived there too."

I hugged her again. "Its hard to have our hearts attached to two places, isn't it?" I said.

She nodded and sucked on her fingers awhile then she ran back to play with my old Glo Friends, who now speak French, live in Djibouti, take long plane rides and live far away from Glo GrannyBug.

I guess in the hands of third culture kids, my Glo Friends are now Glo Amis.

Pets

2011-07-05T14:09:00.000-07:00

Don't worry, this post is not going to recount the miserable life and death of an animal in the Jones' home.

Last week we spent time with two delightful dogs, Mabel and Ginger. They were soft, clean, free of disease and not viciously aggressive. They made me reconsider my previous harsh statements to my family that fly from my mouth. That we will never have a dog, that cats are the worst thing ever created, that I wouldn't be ashamed of admitting to kicking an animal, that I'm not against animal testing. None of these things are true, they stem from the anger and frustration inspired by incidents such as:

A cat wiping her feces on my couch

Goats eating our lunch at the beach

A pack of dogs, foaming at the mouth, barking at my heels on a run

A rooster waking me up at 3:45 a.m. for two months in a row

A rat chewing through my blender cord

A cat being treated to more food than the beggars outside our front gate

Sheep eating my garden

Here are some photos. Perhaps they will help you understand why I feel the way I do about animals in Djibouti. I don't have pictures of Ginger, but picture a dog that is clean, cuddly and has fur as soft as feathers.

You have to admit it would be hard to love this cat.

But I also have to admit that it might be possible to love a pet. A fluffy one that doesn't poop on my furniture, bite my heels or eat the only fresh green bean in an entire country.

Forty Years

2011-07-01T07:32:00.000-07:00

My in-laws have been married forty years.

This weekend everyone is coming to town to celebrate. The last time we were all together was two years ago and all three of my sister-in-laws were pregnant, so this time the family has grown by three. There will be 19 people in the house, seven of them five years old or younger.

This photo is missing one entire family and two babies.

We are looking forward to being together, swimming, barbecuing, playing Wizard, shooting off fireworks, rope-swinging, treehouse-building and probably a lot of pink tutu-dancing (out of the nine grandchildren only two are boys).

Most of all, I am looking forward to following in these footsteps and loving another 28 years with Tom.

Football (or Soccer)

2011-06-29T06:02:00.000-07:00

According to my third culture kids, here are the best things about American soccer:

1. There is a net between the posts. That means the ball doesn't sail away down the field when a goal is scored.

2. There is grass. That means kids can fall down and not get bloody. It also means the ball doesn't roll as fast.

3. It isn't very hot.

4. The other kids are nice. That means they pass the ball and don't shout insults at each other.

5. The coaches are nice. That means they don't shout insults either.

6. Girls play too. That means Maggie is starting to enjoy soccer and even scored a goal, her first.

7. I am not the only mother attending games and cheering. That means my kids aren't the only ones being embarrassed by their parents.

and probably the best one...

8. There are Dairy Queens for after the game (or practice or bike rides or hikes or park play dates or whenever the need arises)

For the Love of Writing

2011-06-26T17:49:00.000-07:00

I spent the last week with about 100 people I have never met before and will never see again. I had no kids with me.

I felt like I could invent myself to be anyone at all. So I went a little crazy.

I drank coffee.
I wore high heels.
I acted like I was the confident, successful writer I dream of being.
I wore dark lipstick and stayed up late.
I ran my fastest 10k ever. You could have mistaken me for Tirunesh. Maybe.

Yup, it was quite the wild week.

Seriously though, it was a fabulous week. There were writer's of all levels of skill and interest. Alvin looked like he was in his 80's or 90's and has successfully self-published a few books and is working on another, about ancient Japanese traditions. There was a senior in high school trying to sell her finished science fiction novel and another high school student who fell asleep in the workshops. There were people still trying to learn how to find the word count on a document and others who are best-selling authors.

The presenters were publishers and multi-published novelists and non-fiction writers and poets.

I got to spend three full days talking about writing, reading other people's work, dreaming about and discussing our passions and being encouraged to press on. Some highlights were the personal encouragements people gave me and the connections I made for future writing relationships with authors, publishers and agents.

Oops, maybe I will see some of them again. Let's hope no one saw me blowing snot and hawking loogies and dry heaving at the end of that speedy 10k.

Writing Weekend

2011-06-21T09:27:00.000-07:00

Wish me luck, I'm off to a writer's conference in Iowa. I'll be driving down, visiting with friends and then attending a flurry of workshops and lunches with other writers, professors, agents and publishers.

Remember the post about the summer after fifth grade? Well that is who I'm visiting, Kathee, my oldest friend. I don't have my BFF piece from our heart necklace any more but this is one of those friends who knows about having a heart divided between Africa and America. I can't wait to see her.

I haven't spent time with an actual writing community since my college days but one of my goals while in the US for this time was to attend at least one writer's conference, so here I go.

I'm looking forward to the calm of driving there on my own (with a bowl of Chex Muddy Buddies at my side, the required road trip food). And of course, I am most looking forward to being with other people who share my love for the written word and to learning from others further along in the biz.

Silence is Golden

2011-06-16T05:08:00.000-07:00

I noticed that in the 30-odd miles I've run so far in Minnesota, I haven't once used, or even wanted to use, my Ipod. I thought about it this morning while I ran a quick three-miler before a conference and I came up with one reason.

I think I used the music or audio books in Djibouti to drown out the honking, shouting, swearing and general spectacle-making sounds people made when I ran by. I got tired of being called a whore and a prostitute and hearing comments about my (fully-covered) legs/arms/butt...and things like, "Madame, stop running, you'll hurt yourself," just weren't that motivating.

So I tuned them out. Sometimes I put in the ear buds with no music so people would think I couldn't hear them and hopefully shut up. I don't think it worked.

But here, I am enjoying the sound of my breathing and my feet swooshing through dewy grass, the robins and early morning loons on Long Lake.

I'm sure I'll turn on the music in a few more weeks, when the newness wears off, but for now I am enjoying the silence.

In a Fog

2011-06-14T15:05:00.000-07:00

I feel a bit like I’ve emerged from…from…from what? From Djibouti, I guess. Or from a space ship. Or from a long movie. You know that feeling you get when you emerge from the movie theater and when you went in the sun was shining and when you come out, it is raining and you wonder, did I really only spent two hours in there? You blink a few times and the world rights itself.

I’ve been trying to blink, but I think it will take more than a few times for the world to right itself.

Everything feels louder, bigger, brighter, faster and there isn’t any afternoon down time to sit and process the things I’m seeing, smelling, tasting and hearing so even though jetlag is gone, I’m exhausted by 9 p.m.

Yesterday I drove for the first time. My right hand floated over where the stick shift should have been and my left foot kept searching for the clutch. The car ran so quietly I forgot I had turned it on and tried again, only to be rewarded by that loud, angry screeching noise from the car. Trying to merge on the freeway or change lanes made my palms break out in sweat (one of the first sweats, by the way, that I've experienced here in the tundra) and I wondered why everyone was in such a hurry, or more specifically, why they were in such a hurry to go around me. Where are the donkey carts, dogs, sheep and young children who slow down traffic?

I drove slower than most grandmothers and swerved more than most drunks. I forgot my turn signal, forgot my seatbelt and forgot how to get on 35W north in south Minneapolis. I got sworn at by a biker, a trucker and a few middle-aged women and when I got lost, I almost stopped in the middle of the street to call out to someone who looked like they might know where I was.

I feel like people are shouting too. I know Somalis shout, so why the loud voices surprise me is a mystery, but Americans have loud voices and loud laughs and every time a salesperson or cashier talks to me, I jump. Maybe it is more the customer service than the loud voices, or maybe because it is in English I feel obligated to pay attention, I don’t know.

I’ll try to keep on blinking and I trust that eventually my world will right itself.

Lucy and Beer

2011-06-12T10:59:00.000-07:00

Today we took the kids to lunch at Perkins. We thought it might be a good introduction to the American world of restaurants where people stay in their seats, use their forks not their fingers and where there are no diseased cats trying to eat off the same plates as the customers.

"What do you want to order?" we asked.

"Pancakes, a cheeseburger, bacon, strawberry pie and grilled cheese," Maggie said.

The amount of choices is as overwhelming for a kid as for the parents. In high school I went to Perkins so often with my friends that the waitress knew what we wanted to order and I never even glanced at a menu. Today I felt like I had to read every word on every page so I wouldn't miss anything and so I could understand what the options were.

While we waited for our food in the chilly air-conditioned, no-smoking restaurant, Henry took a sip of Tom's coffee.

"Yuck!" Lucy said. "Coffee is gross. It tastes like beer."

"Beer?!" Tom asked, surprised for many reasons.

"Coffee tastes like beer," she said.

"How many beers have you tasted?" he asked.

"Coffee tastes like beer," she said.

"How do you know?"

"Beer! Beer! Beer!" Lucy said. Then she pointed at Tom's face and rubbed the little patch of skin under her lower lip where Tom has a tuft of hair. "Beer. Coffee tastes like beer."

"Oh, you mean 'BEARD'!"

"Yes. Beer."

"How do you know coffee tastes like my beard?" Tom asked. "When is the last time you licked my facial hair?"

Lucy crossed her arms across her chest, glared at all of us while we laughed at her and then slid under the table until we calmed down.

Minnesota, Part 2

2011-06-10T08:52:00.000-07:00

In Minnesota people say "Hello" instead of "Bonjour" when they pass each other while running. This continues to surprise me.

Male cashiers let their fingers touch my hand when giving me change, both at the post office and at Caribou (I suspect this is true other places as well). When I told Tom that, he asked if I wanted him to beat them up but we decided to refrain.

You aren't allowed to pull u-turns in the middle of the road right in front of police stations (no ticket, thankfully).

The temperature can fluctuate more than fifty degrees in less than twenty-four hours.

Ordering coffee in English is so complicated that I get tongue-tied and forget that I also wanted to order a muffin but by the time the transaction is finished, I am too mentally exhausted to go back for the muffin.

Coins are small and lightweight and bills are small, not stapled together and in good condition, like play money.

There is no nap time at 1:00 in the afternoon, the action just keeps right on rolling.

The sun stays up until 9:00 and suddenly we realize it is hours past dinner time and no wonder we are hungry.

I can't seem to speak English anymore. Words get jumbled and lost and I struggle to complete sentences in an expected manner and time frame.

Everyone can understand me and I can understand everyone. This makes for a lot of confusing background noise that I could tune out in Djibouti. Perhaps this is why I can't concentrate on completing a sentence.

If I go out in shorts and a tank top I feel naked, risquée and exposed, but no one else thinks I am.

I can ask the male employee at The Gap if these jeans are too tight on my butt and he says, "Girl, they look fantastic" and nobody thinks that is strange (it is so cold - 60's - that I needed to add a pair of jeans to my one-pair of long pants wardrobe).

Surprising my grandmothers, even my grandma who doesn't remember who I am, and getting beaming grins, damp kisses and warm hugs, makes me feel loved and welcomed.

Just a few observations from the first 72 hours.

Minnesota

2011-06-08T06:22:00.000-07:00

Minnesota is green.

It smells good. Like lilacs and pine trees and green grass.

There is grass. It is green and soft.

There are lakes. The water isn't salty. It isn't warm either (we jumped in already).

There are grandparents in Minnesota. Even more importantly, there are grandparents we are related to.

Yesterday was warm. When the pilot announced the temperature was 95 and then when it rose to 102, we laughed and Lucy and Maggie pulled on sweaters. I will admit that it was warm, but to us it felt more like March than what the heat we just left behind.

These are my first impressions. Everything seems a bit surreal and hyper-colored as if God took dumped out a box of Crayola crayons on Minnesota and only used the brown crayon in Djibouti. All the color is like eye candy.

There is tongue candy too, like strawberries and raspberries. The lilacs, grass and pine trees are nose candy. So maybe Minnesota is a candy store.

I don't think I'm making sense. I'm jet-lagged. I flew more than thirty hours. I'm staring a pile of two years worth of mail and messages. I'm trying to find two missing suitcases. So you'll have to excuse the ramblings.

A Man and His Weapon

2011-06-04T10:40:00.000-07:00

This man called my husband on the telephone today.

Is it a Somali pirate? No.

Is it a khat-gardener? Yes.

Is it a khat-gardener who tried to give some to an American toddler? Yes.

Is it a man who should not carry an AK-47? Yes.

Why did he call?

"Just calling from Somaliland to say hello," he said. "Hello."

Actually, he didn't say it, he shouted it.

"Why did he call?" I asked Tom when he got off the phone.

Tom shrugged.

The last time we heard from him was about six years ago. Hard to know why he does a lot of things but it felt good to have a laughing, shouting goodbye in place of the more emotional ones the kids have been enduring these past few days.

Not Home

2011-06-03T10:38:00.000-07:00

We aren't home. We are in someone else's house and ours is now an empty shell probably filling with rats and roaches through open air conditioner holes as I write.

I like this house, it has an automatic generator powerful enough to run the a/c. That makes it feel like paradise to me. It means I know I will get a good night's sleep. That there will be water for a shower after a run in 115 degree heat and dust so thick it gets stuck in my eyelashes and between my teeth. That the laundry will get done (there is also a functioning washing machine).

But it isn't mine.

The other one didn't really feel like mine either. We weren't allowed to paint or change it in any major way. In some ways I always felt like a guest of our landlord's family, who lived downstairs.

We don't have a home in the US. We lived in two apartment buildings and with family before moving to Africa.

We are working on finding housing for our year in the States and that is how I think of it, housing. Not a home. But it will be a place where we make memories and eat meals and wage light saber battles and resolve conflicts and form friendships and laugh until we fall down. Just like we have done in every 'housing' unit we have ever lived in.

People ask how I feel about 'going home' to Minnesota next week. I don't feel like I am going home because Minnesota isn't home anymore, neither is Djibouti. Home isn't a place I can get to with a one-way plane ticket.

So I've decided. Those memories we make in our housing units? The jokes and food and tears and lessons...Those are what I am going to call home. The togetherness, the experiencing of life, the holding onto one another with our hands and our hearts across oceans. For now, until a more eternal solution is realized, those will be home to me.

What Not to Wear

2011-05-31T10:46:00.000-07:00

When packing boxes and moving I don't recommend wearing a long cotton dress that hangs almost a foot past your feet with an unelastic polyester slip underneath.

Here is an old picture from Somaliland of the dress and slip.

This is called a shiid iyo golgorad and is one of the typical Somali outfits. At this time of year, shiids are my go-to clothes. There isn't anything more comfortable than the flowing, mumu-like dress. But while moving, it is no longer my clothing of choice. I'm so thankful I didn't add the shalmad, or headscarf to the ensemble because I probably would have killed myself falling down the stairs or tumbling headfirst into a box, tangled and lost in all that material. I can barely drive a car wearing Somali clothes and am truly impressed by what Djiboutian woman are able to accomplish while managing their dresses and not falling flat on their faces. In high heels.

Packing and moving is hard enough but add 110 degrees, subtract running water (as a bonus, throw in a riot a few neighborhoods over because there has been no water for a week) and the dress I described, and it becomes an almost insurmountable task.

The dress is either tucked up under one armpit so that I can only work with one arm or it is slipped into the waistband of my underwear or slip. This is the fashion here because it gives you wide, bouncing hips and keeps the dress from dragging. But it slips out easily and I have to retuck it every ten steps or I will fall down the stairs or into a box. The slip has no stretch but lots of stick especially when combined with sweat, which if you read my post a few days ago, you know I have and you know where I have it. The slip makes straddling boxes to tape them shut tight and going up and down stairs hauling buckets of sloshiing water since the faucets won't deliver...um...challenging.

Djiboutian women work hard and look fabulous in their clothes. I tried to work hard and probably looked more like a stumbling drunk in their clothes. But hey, we got the job done.

Feeling Small

2011-05-28T10:04:00.000-07:00

I am supposed to be packing but I got distracted.

There are things I hate about this house that I won't miss at all, the way the toilets don’t fully flush so there is a constant underlying smell of urine being a main one. But there are so many more things I am thankful for, the memories and the relationships this house represents being the main ones and I will miss those.

I asked Henry yesterday how he felt about leaving this house where he has grown up with the boy downstairs, as close as brothers. He thought carefully, then said,
“I feel small.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I was three when we moved here and it seems like such a short amount of time but it has been almost eight years. It makes me feel small.”

This morning I finished my run and came through the gate like I have done hundreds of times in the past and I realized this would be the last time I come up the dirt yard feeling grateful for the neem trees and bouganvelia that make our yard seem like a small paradise compared to most Djiboutian yards.

And now, I am supposed to be packing. We are supposed to move out of our house today. But I stumbled across a pile of CDs and started going through them. I found a DVD my family made for us the first spring we were in Somaliland, so April 2003. I don’t think we have watched it since then. The family was gathered at my older sister Kelly’s house in northern Wisconsin with her husband and his family. My nephew was 18 months now he is almost 10 years old. Winnie (the dog) was still alive.

They were celebrating Easter and they each sat down with a children’s book. They read it to the video camera, taking time to show the pictures, then sent us a package with the books and the DVD so the kids could read along. After the Easter party they had my Grandpa H, Grandma H and Grandma P read books to the kids too.

That was before Grandpa died. Before Grandma H disappeared into Alzheimer’s. Before Grandma P was confined to a wheelchair and the passage of time sucked my breath away.

Instead of packing, I sat in front of the computer snortling into a kleenex.

Things are supposed to happen this way. Time passes, people change. It isn't a bad thing, simply a feeling thing.

I feel small.

REI Donations

2011-05-25T00:47:00.000-07:00

Here is an article talking about some of the work REI (Resource Exchange International) has done this year.

Here are some photos from when the kids and I participated in a donation in Randa, a small village in the north, while we were there for a family vacation at Christmas time. Tom has also brought the school kits to Somaliland and schools both in town and in outlying districts. Check out Tom's fleece, it was cold!

Butt Sweat

2011-05-24T09:54:00.000-07:00

The last two posts have been a bit serious so on a lighter note, I'm going to talk about butt sweat. My apologies if that is too personal for some readers. The boundaries of what is appropriate change in a country where I see men urinating on walls every day and women have stared to see whether breastmilk from a white woman is the same color as from an African woman.

Apparently I suffer from it.

Every expat I know in Djibouti seems to have different abilities to sweat.

Some don't at all. I run with Lorraine and at the end I will have not one single dry centimeter on my shirt and she won't have a single line of sweat.

Some do in normal amounts and in normal places, which, in Djibouti includes sweating from the eyes, the backs of the knees, behind the ears and between the toes. As well as every other normal place.

K.W. sweat from her wrists, it poured out like water.

R.S. sweats from her face. I also suffer from this and have had to lean back from pots and bowls while cooking or they will be over-salted.

Tom sweats from his back.

I sweat from my butt. I suppose the region could be more accurately referred to as the backs of my thighs, but I prefer 'butt sweat' to 'back of the upper thigh sweat'.

Sitting, standing, walking...it doesn't really matter, I have streams flowing down the backs of my legs. Sitting is, however, the worst because the sweat has nowhere to go and pools on my skirt or pants. It soaks straight through multiple layers and when I stand up people wonder how an adult could pee her pants without flinching while sitting at the dinner table in an air-conditioned Chinese restaurant or during an REI business meeting.

So if you see me with a large damp patch on the back of my clothes, rest assured, it is only sweat, not incontinence.

In the Beginning

2011-05-23T02:31:00.001-07:00

We had a few beginnings in Africa. Officially we started out in Somaliland in 2003 but after a forced evacuation we started over with two suitcases and a backpack (what we were able to carry when we left SL) in Djibouti in 2004. I was trying to find photos of our lives those first six months but taking pictures of nothing isn't very interesting so there aren't many.

We had a floor cushion with none of the matching pillows, a table with three white plastic chairs, maybe four plates and a few cups. I guess we ate with our fingers, I must have blocked out the specifics. We did laundry by hand. We ate rotisserie chicken and baguettes because they were pre-cooked. We borrowed a bed, a fridge and a broken oven. No car, no a/c, not enough books.

That's it.

That's all.

Bis.

See what is behind Maggie? Nothing.

See our coworker sitting on the floor during a work meeting. Yup, that's what our house looked like too.

Now that I am packing and the power is off so it is a bit like working in a sauna and my clothes are suctioned to my body, I realize just how far we've come from those early days.

The Summer After Fifth Grade

2011-05-19T06:32:00.001-07:00

It was the summer after fifth grade. I was 11 years old. I had lived at 49 13th Avenue in a white two-story house with black shutters since I wore diapers. There was a wooden swing in the backyard, a crab apple tree that made the perfect hiding spot, a swingset with rings, a swing that spung in a circle and a plastic Big Bird thing. There was a weeping willow and a small garden. I don’t know what mom grew there but I only remember pumpkins. Dad cut a hole in the fence and all the neighborhood kids came to our yard to escape into the field behind our block.

Kathee and Ericka were my best friends and had been since I wore diapers. I don’t remember a sleepover, a church Sunday School class or a summer camp without them at my side wearing gigantic red and blue plastic glasses, mismatched shoes and frizzy bangs. I knew two phone numbers by heart. Kathee's and Ericka’s. I still know them.

That was the summer my family movved.

That was the summer Kathee left.

My family didn’t move far. Close enough to go to the same high school I would have from 13th Avenue, but far enough to change elementary schools.

Kathee moved far. All the way to what was then Zaire. Ericka, Kathee and I bought a BFF necklace that came in three pieces. We divided it up at the airport and gave Kathee the middle piece. I was crying so hard when their plane took off that I barely made it out of the airport. My heart was breaking and I didn’t think anything could ever hurt worse.

It is the summer after fifth grade for Maggie and Henry. They will be 11 in two months. They have lived at this house since they wore diapers (or at least Maggie still wore them when we moved here). They have played with the same kids since the day we set up with what we had saved from Somaliland which was essentially nothing.

Now Henry and Maggie are saying goodbye to friends and they are the ones leaving. Leaving Africa and going to America. Leaving the house where they learned French and a little Somali, where Lego battles took over the living room, where light saber battles waged, where a punching bag hung from the ceiling in the middle of the sitting room, where we make chocolate chunk cookies and work fast to keep the chocolate squares from melting. Leaving the yard where they rode bikes and hunted Easter eggs and tried to keep cats alive. Leaving the friends they hiked volcanoes with and camped under the stars and swam among whale sharks with.

I survived.

I know they will too.

But things change.

When I last checked, the field where we climbed into holes and discovered the trail of covered wagon trains and hid from imagined homeless men wielding rusty shovels is a complex of corporate offices.

Christian Science Monitor

2011-05-16T21:30:00.001-07:00

Here is my article in the Christian Science Monitor.

Hip Pain

2011-05-15T20:53:00.000-07:00

I'm looking for advice...

I signed up for the Twin Cities Marathon and training should start officially at the end of May. The trouble is that I haven't run now in four weeks because of a mysterious ache in my right hip. No pain, just an ache. And not when I run, just afterwards. So if I run 5k then sit down for a few minutes, when I get up and walk, it aches. I've spent the last four weeks doing nothing but stretching and being bored, bored, bored and frustrated. Yesterday I tried running for one-minute because the hip had felt fine and then had the same symptoms return.

This might be the only chance I'll have this decade to run a marathon in the US and I already paid for it so I really want to do it! But I am feeling out of shape already and not sure whether I'll be well enough to pull off the training that should start in less than three weeks.

I don't log loads of miles, stretch regularly and wear good shoes. The only things I can think of that are causing me so many injuries are the fact that my left leg is shorter than my right leg and always has been, or that something about Djibouti and running aren't compatible and my body is just plain tired of it. Or maybe it is more subtle, something like; I'm actually mentally afraid of running so I conjure up these fake pains. But it sure doesn't feel fake!

Any tips? Marathon tips, hip stretches, hip strengthening exercises...I've googled about every possible thing and haven't found much help. From what I can tell, it is the iliac crest area - the top of my hip. No back or leg pain.

Thanks.

Yoder and Sons in Djibouti

2011-05-14T02:29:00.000-07:00

This father and son are traveling through Africa and this week are in Djibouti. Maybe we'll see them in town.

They decided traveling the world would be a better way to learn about it than by sitting in a classroom (can I get an 'amen!'?) and have been tramping through our world: Somaliland, Kenya, Ethiopia, now Djibouti. I love their stories, it is definitely worth checking out their regular column.

Where is Lucy Going?

2011-05-13T11:06:00.001-07:00

Blogger is having some difficulty, I think. I posted this yesterday but today it has disappeared from the blog. But I know it was posted because it showed up facebook. Go figure. Anyway, here it is again...

Lucy asks me every day, multiple time per day, how to say America in French.

"Etats Unis," I tell her.

She comes back five minutes later, sheepish, and says, "I forgot. Tell me again."

Finally I made up a song about it and sang it all the way to school.

"I don't like your song, mommy," Lucy said. But she hasn't forgotten how to say it yet.

Lucy is practicing saying "I am going to the United States," so she can tell her teacher and her friends at school. She has no idea where she is going. Geography is something none of my kids have figured out until they were around 7 or 8 years old. Last summer when we went to Kenya Lucy cried at the airport.

"I wanted to go to Africa," she said and wept, even after we explained that not only was she in Africa, she had never left. "I don't live in Africa," she said. "I live in Djibouti."

Yesterday Lucy made our co-worker guess where she is going. "Where do you think?" she asked.

"Ummm....China?"

"Nope. It starts with an 'M'."

"Ummm....Mexico?"

"Nope. My grandpas and grandmas live there," Lucy said. "It starts with an 'M' and it is...America!" Apparently she thinks she is going to a Merica.

"You're going to Minnesota," Henry said and Lucy got angry and confused and then ran off to color.

Packing

2011-05-06T02:11:00.000-07:00

Today is May 6. We leave June 6. But we are moving out of our house at the end of May.

Packing, packing, packing...it is always on my mind these days and the house is beginning to look as cluttered and hassled as my brain. There are boxes of give-aways, boxes of sell-aways, boxes of throw-aways, boxes of hide-aways and boxes of take-aways.

I don't throw the throw-aways right into the trash because I know someone will want them. The front of a fan that fell off is now decoration in our guard's hut. The metal dented and rusting Pokemon card holder is a treasure for Henry's best friend. Yesterday after putting a throw-away pile near the garbage I found our househelper digging out toy cars with no wheels and headbands Lucy decorated with misspelled words in permanent marker. One person's junk, another person's treasure. I am humbled to see their creativity in using things I consider garbage and I wish we didn't have so much to toss. What does that say about my resourcefulness?

The hide-aways are things we are storing in a shipping container until we get back. The take-aways are things we are bringing to the US. That is a hard pile to prepare because the kids keep changing their minds. After I pack the stuffed animals, Lucy decided she wanted to bring a different one. Thankfully it was on top of the box. Maggie is convinced she will need her chunk of lava from Ardoukoba volcano and Lucy can't imagine playing at the Jones farm without her black sparkling rock. Henry is a bit easer. He wants to bring his Gameboy and a few playing cards. Maggie has already filled her own suitcase. Lucy, well, Lucy is five. If you have a five-year old you can imagine what kinds of things are going in her pile.

Packing would be a lot easier if I had equipment that was easy to work with. I am relying heavily on the boxes our milk cartons come in. But the boxes don't open all the way on top, they have a perforated edge that opens on the top and down the front side so that the boxes don't stay shut and are impossible to put things into.

I am also relying on tape. French tape or Chinese tape.

It isn't sticky.

The tape runs and comes off in gradually thinning strips and then I lose the end completely. When I manage to get a strip, by the time it moves from tape roll to box, it has lost all stickiness and lays on top of the box like a lazy piece of paper. I try to press it in really hard and it comes off with my fingers rather than staying in place. The few boxes I manage to tape tight at night are popped open in the morning with the tape curling over the top. Sweaty fingers and sweat dripping from my nose don't help either because touching the tape only make it less sticky.

So for now there are ever-growing piles of boxes in every room with their tops open waiting for the last-minute tape job that I have to hope will last for fifteen months.

As of today, we have three weeks in this house.

Power Cuts

2011-05-02T00:25:00.000-07:00

Electricity cuts are back. Saturday the power was on for four hours. I know I've written about power cuts before so I won't drag it out, but when they are this constant, they are all people talk about or think about.

Our generator broke about two hours after the cuts began getting bad. Tom fixed it. It broke again. He fixed it. It broke. He fixed it. Right now its working.

The worst time for the power to go off is when I'm taking a shower and have a head full of shampoo suds because no power means no water. That's a little awkward.

The first thing I think when the fans slow and the a/c hums into silence is, "(*TTIU%&*." Then I think, "okay, okay, I can make it." Then I think, "Please God, please God, please God." Then I turn on my headlamp and read my French novel through sweaty eyelashes and hope the kids don't wake up or that Lucy doesn't pee the bed. That is the second worst time for the power to go off. Try cleaning a urine soaked mattress without lights, fans, water or a washing machine. Ours broke.

I'm trying to be grateful for the times we have electricity. There are squatters in a run-down house behind ours (supposedly where the French colonialists used to torture dissidents so now no one wants to actually rent the place). They never have electricity or running water. Or our neighbors who never have generators, or who might have one but don't have an engineer for a husband so it sits, silent and rusting. I'm trying to be thankful.

I'm trying.

Easter in Djibouti

2011-04-28T06:08:00.000-07:00

Easter could come and go and we would never know. At Christmas there are colored lights on the roundabouts (well, they are there year-round but they are turned on at Christmas) and Santa Clauses in the grocery stores they are skinny, barefoot, wear scraggly beards and pass out school notebooks.

But Easter is marked only by a handful of chocolate Easter chickens in the French-fried grocery store, Casino. I also found some jelly beans. The French make such fabulous chocolate, cheese and pastries. Why does their candy taste so awful? Maybe that is how they stay thin.

We do many of the same things I did as a child. Church, candy hunt, dye eggs, eat lunch with family.

But...

we will go to church at night and it is in French. We hunt for candy outside (too hot inside) and after our first Easter here I outlawed chocolate. That year we had chocolate coins and they turned into liquid and dripped out of their packaging before the kids could find them. This year I did buy a chocolate Easter chicken to put on the table. I put it in my freezer bag (an insulated grocery bag) and came right home but her head melted anyway. By the time we got around to eating her, she was no longer a chicken but more of a drooping chocolate pile. Tasted good though.

We dye eggs but they are teensy-tiny and brown. I have to first wipe off the feathers and chicken poo. Then we make our own dye. We eat lunch, hamburgers, with our ‘family’; co-workers and Djiboutian friends.

We love this holiday.

Happy (late) Easter!

Djibouti Jones is Taking a Trip

2011-04-23T04:48:00.000-07:00

We're leaving.

But we'll be back.

That's the short story. If you want to know more, read on.

In six weeks the Jones family will board an airplane with one-way tickets. We haven't done that in almost nine years, not since we bought one-ways to Somalia. Our hearts and minds are flying with two-way tickets, just not our checkbook.

We'll be in Minnesota until August 2012 so we'll have a grand total of fourteen months in that foreign land known as America. Where snow falls and temperatures are sometimes one hundred degrees colder than Djibouti. Where food comes prepackaged or through a window into a car and drips grease into laps that are actually seat-buckled. Land of washing machines and dryers, microwaves and pizza delivery. Land of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Land of libraries and English schools, writing courses and playgrounds. Land where grocery stores stock frivolous items like oil, flour and eggs.

There are many reasons we decided to take this time off from Djibouti.

Tom is working on his PhD in Education and International Development. He has been taking courses on-line but also needs to be in class. We sense the need for further training in order to do our jobs here with on-going excellence and purpose. We want to reconnect with our family in the US, which has grown by sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law and eight nieces and nephews since we left. We want the kids to develop some roots on that side of the ocean as well. We want to see how they do in an American educational system.

For all the good times and laughs we have, Djibouti is a hard place to live and we feel tired. But Tom's research is on Djibouti and the region, so we will be back.

I needed to post about leaving because so much of my life these days revolves around it - selling furniture, packing up our house, preparing the kids to say goodbye to one world and hello to another.

I plan to continue blogging, even under the same name. You could say that one can take the Jones out of Djibouti but you can't take Djibouti out of the Jones. So Djibouti Jones is still who I will be, probably forever, for better or for worse.

Basil or Sweat?

2011-04-19T08:47:00.000-07:00

My good friend brought me bunches of beautiful, fresh basil this morning. A few weeks ago she found a miraculous place, a flourishing garden less than a kilometer from my house. I had no idea it was there and intend to explore and find it later this week. Behind our house is the dried wadi and it is on the other side of this dried up river bed. I don't go back there, on orders from our landlord who is always on the lookout for us.

Anyway, this post is not about the garden, it is about the produce, specifically the basil. She also brought me delicious lemon grass, onions and parsley.

Today we had chicken parmigiana for lunch. I handed a bunch of basil to Aisha and asked her to chop it up and add it to the tomatoes and garlic she was sauteeing. She stared at me, smelled the basil and then glared at me.

"You eat this?" she asked.

"Yes."

"We don't eat this."

"Why not?"

"Do you know what it is?"

"I don't know the Somali word for it, but we call it basil."

She said a word which I promptly forgot. "But we don't eat it," she repeated. "It is the Prophet's sweat." She meant the Prophet Muhammed.

I was confused. "It isn't sweat," I said. "Its a plant."

"No, this is what his sweat smelled like." She buried her nose in the herb. "It smells so good. We put it in our hair or pass it around at funerals to remember him." She glared at me again. "We don't eat it."

"A Somali friend gave it to me," I said. "And she is a really good Muslim who loves Allah."

"Did you ask her what you are supposed to do with it?"

"Yes and she described a fabulous-sounding pesto recipe she has made with basil she grows herself."

We didn't finish the conversation because an American friend arrived. While we were talking another Djiboutian, my friend Zaynab, arrived. Aisha called her into the kitchen and I knew she was telling her about the basil and how we were going to eat it. Sure enough, Zaynab came into the living room with a bunch of basil in her hand and asked if we were going to eat it.

I felt a little bad for Aisha, chopping up food she thought was haram (islamically forbidden) for us to eat, believing we were eating judgment upon ourselves. I don't know if it was as bad in her mind as if we had pork chops and red wine, which we never do, but I still felt a bit guilty. On the other hand, I had beautiful, fresh basil, given to me by a wonderful, practicing Muslim and I wanted to enjoy it.

Enjoy it, we did. It was the best chicken parmigiana I've made yet and it didn't taste one bit like sweat.

Funny Quote

2011-04-17T03:52:00.001-07:00

While working on a writing assignment for a bookstore in town, I stumbled upon this quote:

"Red River Hog is one of the animals found in Djibouti. It mainly lives in the rain forests."

Apparently its' 'mode of nutrition is omnivorous.'

What can I say about this? Simply that I wonder where those rain forests are.

I also discovered that there are "African asses in Djibouti." Also known as wild donkeys. Also known as...well, I won't go there.

More Lessons from Lucy

2011-04-15T08:48:00.001-07:00

"Why do Grandma and Grandpa Pieh live in America?" Lucy asked me today.

"Because that is where they were born, where their jobs, home and family are," I answered but I was really thinking, 'great question.'

When the power is off and I'm awake at 3 a.m., sweating or when the water pump is broken and I'm hauling buckets up the steps or when I can't find flour or oil in grocery stores or when human saliva lands on my windshield...I find myself asking, "Why do we live in this *#&(# country?"

But then I think about my house helper who has moved from poverty to successful business owner and about the students Tom has taught, the men employed in small businesses he initiated, the kids who can go to school because of school kits REI has provided, the runners who received job skills-training and internships. I thought about the ways I have grown and changed. I thought about the whale sharks we swim with, the island paradise we spent the day at today and all the experiences and lessons my children are exposed to.

And I think Lucy asked the wiser question. I love that it showed her perspective of home. Djibouti is home to her, grandparents in the US are the oddballs. But I also think she was teaching me something, albeit without knowing.

I shouldn't be asking, 'why do we live in Djibouti?' I should be asking, 'why would we live in America?'

For many people there are good answers to that question, I'm not saying everyone should pick up and move to third world African countries. But for my family, that was the question we asked almost nine years ago and we didn't have an answer.

So we moved.

Why you live where you do?

Rice Sack Races

2011-04-11T02:39:00.000-07:00

Last Wednesday was the school carnival. Because the children are going to spend their afternoon consuming 'barbe a papa' (Papa's beard, otherwise known in English as cotton candy) and running around the school tossing bean bags, racing cars, sticking tails on donkeys or camels...school was cancelled. I don't remember getting a day off school because of our carnivals but you have to appreciate the French value of leisure.

Henry and Maggie vanished seconds after I bought them their game tickets, Tom was still in Somalia, so Lucy and I began the rounds together. She jumped like a bunny and flapped her arms while waiting in line, when it was her turn, when she won a game and while she picked her prize. I couldn't keep her down. She was on a cotton candy/free toy high.

She noticed the potato sack race, in Djibouti a rice sack race, and squealed and jumped up and down.

“That one!” she said. “That one.”

We got in line with mostly junior and high school aged kids. She wasn't intimidated by the fifteen year old girl in front of us with sagging jeans, a baseball cap on sideways, hoop earrings larger than oranges or the girl’s scrawny, mustached boyfriend. She jumped up and down, practicing, I suppose, and clapped when people fell, when they got up, when they started and when they finished.

A Djiboutian friend joined us in line. Her son was eight years old. Smaller than the other kids, but bigger than Lucy.

She looked at Lucy and looked at the sacks and the big kids. Then she bent down and said, “You can’t do this Lucy. You are too little. Look at all the big kids. It is too hard for you.”

I knew she was little and it would be hard. I was prepared to pick her up from the dirt or to jump down the course with her, holding her hand or holding her plus rice sack in my arms. I knew she would be the last one to finish. But she wanted to try it and I was going to let her.

As the woman talked, Lucy’s shoulders started to round over. Her head drooped. Her lower lip protruded and her hands fell to her side, almost losing the ticket she had gripped with thrilled anticipation only seconds before. She turned to me and buried her head in my side. “I don’t want to do it, mommy,” she said, crying.

“But we waited in line this long,” I said.

“I don’t want to.”

Amina stood up and took her own son out of the line.

“You won all those other prizes,” I said to Lucy, pointing to her full plastic bag. “The teachers didn’t know you could throw balls that good or balance that long. I know you can do this, you are strong and a good jumper.”

She was such a good jumper that she had decided a month earlier to be a bunny when she grew up.

“No.” Lucy walked away.

“She should not have said that to you,” I said.

For the next thirty minutes, Lucy wandered around the Kermesse, refusing to play any other game. Finally she sat down by a tree and cried from exhaustion and wanted to find Henry and Maggie to go home.

There was no line anymore at the rice sack race.

“Look,” I said. “No is there. While we wait for Henry and Maggie, why don’t you try it.”

She perked up. “Okay!”

She joined four other girls, 8 and 9 years old. She pulled on the sack with a little help and they were off. Lucy jumped more up and down than forward and she was the last one by a couple of minutes, falling across the line into my arms as I swung her across. Every jump, her mouth flopped open and she grinned and hopped and ran into people and fell down and collapsed at the end, exhausted and laughing.

I understood the Djiboutian value – don’t try if you can’t win. Succeed but not at the risk of failure. Don’t shame yourself or your mom watching in line. Do what you know you are good at to build confidence.

But I am still an American, no matter how long I live here. We value the experience, the effort, the lessons learned, the courage.

I was proud of my bouncing bunny.

Jeopardy

2011-04-08T06:03:00.000-07:00

Play Djibouti Jeopardy at Djibouti Dan's blog. Questionable answers, I don't believe half of them but it is funny.

P.S. Today is Djibouti's Presidential Election.

Fighting for Milk

2011-04-07T01:31:00.001-07:00

This morning the things I failed to find or accomplish while grocery shopping and running errands out-numbered the things I did find or accomplish. Here is what I did not find (after seven stops and with one left):

Milk
Oil
Popcorn
Vegetables (other than radishes, yellow moldy broccoli and shriveled carrots for $6.00/pound)
Cheddar
Yogurt
Margarine
Butter
Chicken
Frozen peas
Flour

Those seem like fairly staple items to me. Not sure what kind of grocery stores don't stock them, oh wait, I am sure...Djiboutian grocery stores!

Finally, I went to stop number 8 and lo and behold, they had milk! Even skim milk! I haven't seen skim in the country in over a month and the only other options are creme and super creme, which is like 3% and ultra whole milk. The one liter UHT skim milk in the green Bridel cartons lined up nicely on the shelf. I usually buy an entire box of twelve at one time but these weren't in boxes so I took down 12 bottles.

I rounded the corner and there came an employee with two boxes of whole milk and two boxes of skim in his cart to stock on the shelf.

"Can I have the skim milk carton?" I asked.

"There isn't any," he said.

"In your cart there are two boxes," I said. "I'll trade you my twelve bottles for the twelve bottles in that box." It is easier to carry, buy and store when they come in the box. Plus I could use the box afterwards.

"No, there isn't any skim milk in boxes," he said.

"I see two right there."

"You can't have them."

"What are you going to do with them?" I asked.

"Put them on the shelf so people can buy them," he said.

"I will make it easy for you, I will buy them right now, then you don't have to stock them."

"No."

"Why not?"

"You can't have them."

"Why not?"

"There aren't any."

"Yes there are, right there."

"I can't just open the box."

"But when you go around the end of this aisle, you will open the box."

"Wait." The man went to find another, higher-up employee. "She wants to buy the skim box," he explained.

"There aren't any," the second employee said.

"There are two!" I said. "Right there in the cart, look, I'm touching one of them right now." I patted the box top.

The two men argued in Somali about whether or not there were any boxes of skim milk and whether or not I could take the box or should wait until they unloaded all the cartons and then load them from the shelf back into my cart and push them to the cashier at which point the cashier would call to the back for a box and they would arrive on the scene with this very box, now empty, and would re-fill it.

"Brothers," I said, interrupting in Somali," I want all those cartons and I want the ease of carrying one box instead of twelve cartons."

"Oh, look," the second man said, "there is a carton right here, of skim milk. Why don't you take that one."

"Thank you," I said and we exchanged my bottles for his box.

I could cross one more item off my 'failed to find, add to next week's list' list. Success.

One of Those Days

2011-04-04T03:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was one of those days.

I was driving on Rue de Venice which is as close to a highway as Djibouti comes, talking with my friend. We were finished grocery shopping, or as finished as were going to get this week. We failed, through four stores, outdoor stalls and the butchers and water store to find butter, cheddar cheese, margarine, yogurt or chicken and I scooped up the last two trays of miniature brown eggs.

Something splat on the windshield and we were silent. We stared at the splat trying to figure out what it was while trying not to think about what it was. Finally my friend said, "I think that's spit."

It was totally spit. A big, juicy, warm, fresh loogy (or however you spell that, it is such a gross word I don't mind doing it the disservice of spelling it wrong) was slowly dripping down the center of the window. I half groaned/half yelped and flipped on the wipers and tried to squirt wiper fluid on the window. The wipers flapped but no liquid came out and before I could stop them, the saliva was smeared all across the window in gelatinous, bubbly streaks. No matter where I looked, I was seeing the curling dust, meandering goats and sweaty pedestrians of Djibouti through human saliva. I'd take crow poop over spit any day.

When I got home, I started putting the groceries I had been able to find into the cupboard. The power was off and I was sweating through my shirt from the exertion of unloading groceries, not normally thought to be an aerobic activity. Some people do hot yoga, we do hot everything. I had to move a bag of crackers and a plastic bag with goodies for friends in Somaliland (the term 'goodies' is relative depending on where you live). There was something unusual about the cracker bag and the goody bag.

The bags were shredded at the ends and there was something small, black and shaped like a skinny bean on top of the Wasa crackers.

"Aaaaarrrrgggghhh!" I said and picked it up. Only one thing does that kind of shredding and that kind of pooing. Rats.

Tom thought we were rat free after he hunted them with traps, poison, sticky paper and BB guns. He caught two on sticky paper and stomped on them outside. Apparently we weren't.

“Aaaarggghhh!” I said again.

“What’s the problem?” Tom called from the bathroom.

He and Dan were lifting our broken washing machine to carry outside where it would join the appliance graveyard in our front yard. Last night when the power was out and then came back on, the machine started to smoke and burn. It hadn’t worked for two months anyway and we’d been toting our laundry to a coworker’s house.

I shook the Wasa crackers at Tom, the poop sliding around on top of the green and white paper.

“What?”

“Rats,” I said.

“Why are you pointing that in my face like a dagger?” Tom asked. “I can’t do anything about it, we’re a team.”

“No, we’re not,” I said. “It is your job to get rid of rats.” This should be obvious to every husband. When it comes to rats, you are not a team.

Eventually the power came back on, in a week or a month or a year I might find cheddar and chicken in the stores again, the car window got cleaned. But I have a bad feeling about the rats.

Mogadishu Tours

2011-03-31T08:14:00.000-07:00

The tourism office in Mogadishu! This article is along the lines of the piracy cruises in this post.

Some people really do try to tour Mogadishu. A friend described the arrival last year of a Western man at the airport. The people tried to turn him back but he insisted he was on vacation and wanted to tour southern Somalia. He wasn't a journalist or a photographer or a government official, just a man with a death wish apparently. He argued so long with the airport officials that the airplane left without him and they were forced to escort him to a hotel in town. They forced him to leave the next day.

Let me humbly suggest to anyone dying to visit southern Somali for fun: try Djibouti instead. You won't get shot, you'll experience a free, outdoor sauna thanks to Mother Nature, you can still get Somali food and cultural souvenirs and you'll be able to say "Djibouti" over and over to friends in the US, making them laugh at the ridiculous places you find to visit.

Rock Jumping

2011-03-29T02:49:00.001-07:00

I'm pumped about being able to load videos but we don't have very many that are short enough. I have to keep it ten seconds or less and I can't let the computer go into sleep mode. It takes about twenty minutes per video and I have to do each one two to three times before it actually loads. Here are a few more from the beach.

Here is Henry almost jumping.

And Lucy

And Maggie

My Fabio

2011-03-27T01:27:00.000-07:00

We go rock jumping at the beach. Last week my cousin took some great slow motion footage of Tom and the kids. They didn't jump off the highest rocks because the tide wasn't high enough and the kids didn't want to slice their hands up on the jagged rocks. Can't say I blame them. But even Lucy joined in this time, jumping from about fifteen feet up. I'll try to put up the kids' videos another day.

I loaded video! How about that? It only took f..o...r...e...v...e....r and multiple attempts. Watch to the very end to see the fabulous hair swinging.