the ugly american

2.26.12  9:30am (Two hours later)

Just encountered the most annoying traveler on our way to Mt. Kilimanjaro: the ugly American.  This diva is clearly headed on a fashion safari, replete with her olive cargo shirt stuffed with her muffin-top into matching olive, skinny cargo pants that are tucked into her shiny, gold platform tennis shoes and accessorized with a dusty pink purse.  But don't worry, lest you think this woman's outfit might be too drab.  She dressed it up with not one, but three rhinestone barrettes.

And wouldn't you guess that after this consummate annoying safari-farer had loaded her six duffle bags on the security conveyor belt, she insisted her floral bag be returned from the other side of the X-ray so she could retrieve her SOCKS.  To put over the socks she was already wearing in order to walk through the metal detector.  Which beeped repeatedly because of those fancy, sparkly additions to her fabulously bad, black dye job (and Mallory, I know you get mad when I call it a dye job, but please trust me, no color specialist had been near her head).  When the security attendant asked her, kindly, to please take out her barrettes, the diva only exclaimed, repeatedly, "IT'S MY WIRE BRA!"

Oh.  God.

Are you serious, lady? In case you haven't noticed, you're in a domestic airport in Africa, and those guys with AK-47s are not a joke.  Meanwhile, the entire line has stalled and the United States of America has just been denigrated by one of its finest citizens.

I bit my tongue for as long as possible.  But the hotel shuttle had dropped us off at the wrong terminal, where we went through that security line before realizing we'd need to leave that building and run the quarter mile to the domestic terminal (which makes total sense since we're flying from Ethiopia to Tanzania) to make our flight and now we're stuck behind this prima donna.  I finally turned to her and said something about the line (I'm sure I was very tactful).  We eventually got around her as she was taking off her second pair of socks.

We made it to the departure area just as the plane was starting to board, and upon sighting the second round of security screening giggled with the relief that we wouldn't have to witness that spectacle again.

addis ababa round one

It's hard to believe that only a week ago we woke up on the beach in Zanzibar and went sailing on a teeny tiny, rickety fishing boat into the Indian Ocean before boarding a plane for dinner in Addis Ababa.  That was our second visit to the Ethiopian capital in two weeks, so I'll start with the first time around.

Saturday night we had an overnight layover in Addis on our way to Tanzania.  I brought a journal with me for this trip, hoping that I'd be able to write more about it along the way, in which I wrote exactly two entries.  Oh well.  It's two more than I managed in Italy...

2.26.12    7:30 am

We woke up this morning in Addis Ababa - so neat.  Our flight from Abuja landed after dark but we had just enough time to make it to the "Cultural Dinner" at Yod Abyssina where we were treated to a feast for all our senses.  

We were seated at the front of a crowded and energetic room full of all different colors of people.  Although there were many beautiful, beautiful, Ethiopian people present (they have the most gorgeous, exotic mixture of perfectly carved features and caramel-colored skin), most of the diners appeared to be tourists.  This was probably the least authentic place we could eat, but as Joey put it, "It's hard to call it a tourist trap when you're in Ethiopia."  Good point.

Inside the large and colorful hut where we sat, we watched a stage full of musicians and dancers in traditional garb - men wearing flowing white tunics and pants and women in billowing skirts - right in front of our table.  As the music pulsed loudly the local members of the crowd joined in, clapping, dancing - a few even climbed on stage to borrow the microphone for a song.

After bringing a silver kettle to wash our hands, the waiter served us the "non-fasting special dinner" and beef tibs, a decadent buffet for our eyes as well as our bellies, with its vibrant color wheel of reds and greens and yellows served alongside spongy injera and cold beer.  We inhaled our meal like starving, well, people, but not without savoring all the textures and flavors of meat and tomato and lentils and spice.  The waiter returned with the kettle, this time with soap and warm towels, and another order of beer.  

Ethiopian coffee rounded off our meal.  It arrived in a beautiful iron pot accompanied by burning incense and freshly popped popcorn.  Then we found our ancient, boxy, royal blue taxi whose driver regaled us with Ethiopian history the whole drive back to the hotel.  We crawled into bed and listened to the sounds carried through the paper-thin walls, breaking into laughter every time we heard a toilet flush.  

The coffee, the beer, the noise and the stuffy room made for fitful sleep, but here we are at the Addis airport anyway, waiting for our flight to Tanzania and Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Click here for all of my pictures from our night in Addis Ababa.

ruminations

Perhaps I may be a little melodramatic at times.  Additionally, I tend to take things personally when my feelings really have nothing to do with the matter.  One of my parents' favorite things to say about me is that I will cut off my nose to spite my face.  Hmm.

I realize that Panama is considered a great post.  We would have happily served in Panama the first time around.  We bid it high last time.  I've been there - it's nice.  Especially compared to where we are placed now.  It has beautiful beaches, great restaurants and lots of old people from the US.  Kind of like Florida.

But it's not Europe.  And frankly, I had my heart set there.  So I'm not disappointed so much that they assigned us to Panama, but that they didn't assign us to Europe.

I don't think that my expectations were unrealistic.  One great colleague of Joey's whom we met here in Abuja is in a fabulous European capital now.  Another colleague will leave Abuja and head to the same fabulous European capital in a few months.  Another colleague of his from Abuja is headed shortly to my favorite city in the world.  Every person we know who has served in Abuja received one of their top five bids.  Our top seven bids were in Europe, five of them with perfect timing.  Yet we were assigned number nine, which was imperfect timing.  Frankly, I find it insulting.

I'm sure this seems petty.  I know.  It is.  But serving here has been freaking hard.  And we were told that serving here would virtually guarantee our pick of anywhere in the world for our second post.  Which seems to me like a pretty blatant lie.  Joey's CDO (career development officer) told him that all posts above us went to people with higher differentials.  I don't see how the smaller winter bidding cycle had eight other people with higher differentials (considering ELOs (entry-level officers) aren't allowed to serve in Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan), while Joey's colleague who heads to the fabulous European capital in a few months bid in the huge summer cycle.  Where were all the people with higher differentials then?

Oh, and the same day we got our bids was the same day that they finally approved an additional 10% differential for Abuja.  Seven months later.  It really just makes me want to scream.

So while there are some amazing benefits to Joey's career, this is also something that we (okay, me.  Joey, ever the laid-back, nonchalant man that he is, could really give a shit.  He's amazing at accepting the hand he's dealt and making the best of it.  Maybe that's one of the reasons I love him so much: his "that's the way the cookie crumbles" attitude really complements my "oh really?  Well GFY!"-ness.  (I know, I know, I'm so eloquent)) have to very carefully weigh: are the benefits worth feeling like someone's pawn for "the needs of the service?"  We certainly haven't been singled out - this shit happens all the time - but I just don't know if I can handle being tossed around to places where I'm meh at best and horrified and bawling under the covers at worst.  Also, as calm and collected as Joey is, I'm not sure how many more we-got-our-post-Melissa-is-having-a-meltdown he can handle.  

Anyway, that's where we are now.  We'll have to truly consider all of the costs and benefits (which will certainly involve more than one Excel spreadsheet).  Right now the plan is there is no plan.

and our next post is...

The United States of America.

Actually we got assigned to Panama, and since I can't handle two more years of not being able to drink the water, two more years of living somewhere that needs the Peace Corps, two more years of cockroaches and being afraid to run by myself, that means we will be moving back to the USA.  Seriously.

I will leave it that I am exceptionally disappointed.  I really thought after living in an exceptionally difficult and dangerous third-world country for the last two years we would have earned our way past that.  Apparently it doesn't work that way.

I will write more when I'm better able to mince words.  In the meantime, feel free to shoot me an email and I'll tell you how I really feel.

we got our next assignment!

But neither one of us has looked yet - I made Joey promise to wait until he got home from work so we could find out together.

There's a bottle of champagne in the freezer just in case - one way or another!

Only 30 more minutes...

i'll catch up eventually

Joey and I just got back yesterday from a two week trip to Tanzania with his cousin and her husband.  Only a few weeks before that, we were lucky enough to spend 11 days in Italy with my family.  This should equate to something like 25 blog posts if I were to do each day of our travels justice, but that might take a while.  Oh, and I still have never blogged about my amazingly brave sister's visit to Nigeria.  Last May.  So I'm a little behind...

Right now, though, I'm squinting to see the computer screen from beside the pool.  I got a pretty good tan in Zanzibar and I'm trying to keep it up.  We'll see.

However, lest anyone think Joey and I are living too much a charmed life, I direct them to my sister, my last post, or to the owner of the desk next to mine, who discovered rat shit all over her workspace this morning (that creature was last spotted Thursday in the bathroom.  Remind me to never drink or eat before work again.  It's probably not healthy to hold it for five hours, but it's probably healthier than being bitten by a rat.  Or cobra.).  Maybe my office should put up a sign like this one erected outside the Abuja airport.

work hazards

I got an unexpected email at work a few weeks ago:

Subject: Security Alert ****Cobra



Hello 


Please it was reported this morning that a cobra was located at the pent house of this building.  I am working with the Post Occupational Safety and Health Officer on the best way to resolve this.


Please keep all windows locked; please ensure as you enter the office that the main entry door is locked and nothing is following you behind!


Please be vigilant until this serpent is captured or killed.


Regards


Isn't that fabulous?  The best part: we never got a follow-up.  For all I know, the serpent is still at large.  Lovely.