Mousebird TV

A few weeks ago I woke up, looked out the window, and noticed that I could no longer see the top of our largest papaya tree. I went outside onto the terrace for a better look. The tree had fallen down overnight. Even closer inspection showed that the tree had probably been diseased, as the trunk had become soft and spongy.

We weren't that concerned about the papayas, even though it was a pretty cool-looking tree. We have other papaya trees. What we liked best about that specific tree was that it was a popular hangout for a band of speckled mousebirds. These short, fat little birds have a tufted head and a long tail. They are a chatty bunch, chirping and squawking all day long on their branches. The mousebirds like to hang upside down from a papaya, digging in to it to eat the seeds. Since we moved here we've spent a lot of time sitting on the terrace watching the mousebirds in that tree.

But now, with the favored tree gone, we expected to not see much of them anymore. Most of the papaya trees are far from our terrace, except one. We thought that one would be too close to the house for the mousebirds. Low and behold last Sunday afternoon, I looked up from the couch to see five mousebirds sitting in that closest papaya tree, chirping and bouncing and eating seeds. Mousebird viewing from the comfort of my own couch! Of course, I was trying to get some work done and the little buggers were pretty distracting. But I couldn't bring myself to shoo them away.

Because of the proximity to the house, the mousebirds only hang out in that tree on quiet afternoons, usually when I'm being quiet because I'm trying to get work done. 

(Image from E.J. Photo)

New Addition

I have a new addition to my little corner of the blogosphere. Confessions of a Book Addict is where I've started indulging in my book obsession. I love to read and I was inspired by a recent post at The Mummy Chronicles to start writing about my reading. 

Check it out, subscribe, bookmark, comment, enjoy!

Rabies and other diseases -- it's all part of the Africa fun

No, I don’t have rabies and neither does any one I know. A year ago when we were getting our vaccinations in preparation for moving to Burundi, we were strongly advised to get a rabies vaccination because we are outdoorsy types and not only will we be facing feral cats and dogs, but bats and monkeys as well. However, we were also told that the vaccination is extremely difficult to get in the United States but that we’d probably be able to get it in Burundi.

Huh? America doesn’t have it but Burundi will? That didn’t sound right.

Of course, Burundi did not have spare rabies vaccinations. You can get the shots if you get bit by something, but preventative medicine? That’s just crazy talk. It’s only taken a year, but a nurse I work with has gotten her hands on enough stuff to vaccinate us. And it arrived just in time, because a friend of mine was bit by a monkey down south in the Nyanza Lac area and we’ve recently seen monkeys on our street. Monkey invasion!

The vaccination is three shots within a month. We had our first shot on Tuesday. My arm is achy but surprisingly I haven’t had any other side effects. (You may remember that I actually got the mumps and measles for a weekend after my MMR shot; only on one side of my body though.) After this round, I should be vaccinated against nearly every possible microbe, bacteria, germ, virus, parasite…. Except cholera. Apparently cholera vaccines are even harder to come by than rabies vaccines.

Oh and as a bonus, I don’t have H1N1. The nurse doesn’t know exactly what I’ve got but the most likely culprit is irritation from all the smoke and dust in the air, since my symptoms worsen whenever the air quality worsens.

Obama loves our mustard

Obama sightings overseas:

While in Dijon, France, as part of our European tour, we kept seeing signs that said, “Obama aime notre moutarde,” “Obama loves our mustard.” It wasn’t until after the third or fourth sighting of one of these signs that we realized we were in the home of Dijon mustard. And I vaguely remembered something on the news about Obama going out for hamburgers and asking for one with Dijon mustard on it. (I’m sure what was a human interest blip on the international news was all-day coverage on Fox and CNN at home.) Of course! Obama aime notre moutarde!

On a walk last weekend through a rural area just outside of town we saw some chalk drawings on the road. I don’t know why I always find kids’ chalk drawings so charming, especially a hopscotch-like game board that I’ve seen several times here in Bujumbura. One of the drawings was a man in a suit with a hat and high-heeled boots. “Obama” was written in big letters above the hat.

I pulled a pair of wedge sandals from the closet the other day and noticed a scrap of paper stuck to the bottom. Gross. What did I step in to make it stick? It turned out to be a wrapper for Obama Strawberry Bubblegum, a product of Nairobi. And like just about every product coming out of Kenya these days, the wrapper featured a smiling Obama photo.

Sentence of the Day

I was doing some Burundi tourism research and came across this translation: “Plunge in water turquoises of Tanganyika where nest of tasty fish.” Why wouldn’t you want to come here to go swimming in turquoise waters with tasty fish? (And crocodiles that would find you tasty!)

More bloggy goodness to come soon, I promise.

I've also posted at What I Eat recently, with some gluten-free restaurant reviews from Europe.

At least it's the dry season

I don’t have my hairdryer. It’s in the luggage that may still show up tomorrow. (It didn’t show up last Friday, the last “tomorrow” we were hoping it would arrive on.) But at least it’s the dry season, so my hair is less frizzy than it would be in the wet season. Also, with both my trench coat and my rain coat in the luggage, I have plenty of time to order new ones before the next wet season.

 I’ve already loaded my Amazon.com shopping cart with a new hairdryer and a few other items and if tomorrow’s flight comes and goes sans luggage, I’m pressing the “Checkout” button. How long am I supposed to wait for Brussels Air to decide if they have our luggage or not? I’m hoping that if I go ahead and order a bunch of new stuff, the luggage will of course return. 

Some things we won’t be able to replace from here. Mike’s in South Africa this week, where he’ll be able to buy some of the replacement items. (Although I imagine he might be a tad wary about checking his luggage for the trip home.)

This morning I was outside and a familiar, homey feeling came over me. It dawned on me later that it feels like Santa Ana winds blowing through San Diego. I always liked that intense, warm, dry feeling. Last August when we arrived in Bujumbura the dry season had already been going on for a couple months and the weather was oppressive and hazy. Now, early on in the season, the air is warm but light and refreshing, like that first really warm day in June when you’re anxious to get out of school or work for the day. But when I think of those warm June days, I think back to Rhode Island, where of course they are more significant than in San Diego because you’ve slogged through so much snow and rain to finally be rewarded with summer. So I have homey feelings from both coasts working on me today.

A Little Tale of Airline Travel

Obviously we made it back to Bujumbura after the cancelled flight last Friday. We woke up bright and early on Saturday, anxious to get on our flight and get home.

We went to the airport, which was immediately across the street from our hotel. Shortest trip to the airport ever. We had plenty of time to get our new boarding passes and recheck our bags. 

First, someone led us to e-ticket check in. After watching us struggle with the machine for a few minutes, she redirected us to a line of people waiting for a ticketing agent. After standing in that line we were told we were in the wrong line. We went to the line the ticket agent directed us to, and after a few minutes found out that was also the wrong line. 

Third time's a charm, but the line was looooong. Luckily they called people forward for our flight so the wait wasn't much longer. I was checking my watch but I wasn't too anxious about the time yet. But by this time we'd been in the airport for nearly an hour and the time I'd allotted for my last Starbucks before heading back to Africa was starting to be eaten into.

We get to an agent, who is confused as to why we have luggage. We decided to get our luggage after the flight was cancelled and recheck it the next morning. We knew it would take some time, but we really needed and wanted some things in our bags. We had budgeted the time for the check-in lines. Once we explain why we have luggage the agent proceeds to tag it and print out our boarding passes. Yay! We're on our way to security. There's still time for that Starbucks. 

But wait a second. These boarding passes have someone else's names on them and they say "Entebbe," not "Bujumbura." So we push our way back up to the ticket agent. "These aren't your names? Are you sure?" Wait, let me double-check... No! I know my own name. Once we shoved our passports in her face she really couldn't argue about the names anymore. So she printed new boarding passes. We said, "What about the luggage?" 

"Your luggage is fine. It's checked to Bujumbura." 

"No, really. What about the luggage? If the boarding passes were wrong the luggage must be wrong too" 

"Really, the luggage is checked to Bujumbura. But I can't print out new claim checks for you. Here, let me write down the numbers." 

We were incredibly dubious, but time was slipping away and we were starting getting anxious about making it through security.

Secure in the knowledge that we may never see our bags again and with new boarding passes in hand we started walking quickly toward the security area. When we heard a "Hey guys!" we stopped in surprise. One of my coworkers here in Bujumbura, who's been on leave for weeks, was in the airport! He still had one week of vacation left but had missed his flight that morning. We quickly exchanged hugs and hellos and then Mike and I had to get moving toward security. 

The line at security was really more a mass of cattle being herded toward a rabbit hole. We did something we've never done before. We jumped the line. It was now time for our flight to start boarding. (We knew it wouldn't actually start boarding at the time printed on the passes, but we were still cutting it close.) So we pushed our way to the front with our magic passes that said it's boarding time. 

Once we get through security it's clear that I have no time for Starbucks. The gate is still miles of moving walkways away from where the security checkpoint is. So we start jogging.

Finally we can see the gate and we can see a few people still in line to board. We made it! We get onto the plane and start wondering what will really happen with our luggage. And we sit there. And sit there. Apparently other folks on the flight had some of the same problems we did, but didn't muscle their way through the security line. Then there was a bolt loose on the plane or something. It left an hour late.

Nothing to do now but sit for 8 hours.

Of course the bags are not in Bujumbura when we arrive. Fill out papers. Try to explain in broken French and broken English exactly what happened with the incorrect boarding passes. We go home quite sad. Other than a camera of Mike's, the bags themselves are more valuable than the contents in them. But the contents are all the retail therapy I indulged in. It's all stuff I can't easily replace here. It's so frustrating to have spent two weeks shopping for otherwise mundane items like nailpolish and GAP pants and then come back here and not have them.

Yesterday we received word that the bags have been found. If these bags are ours they somehow became classified as "untagged" and never left Brussels. We had to go to the local Brussels Air office and fill out detailed content descriptions. They'll compare our descriptions to the actual contents of the bags and if it all matches up, we'll get the bags back. (Although, the bags have name tags on them, so looking at those really should clear everything up, you'd think.)

I'm not getting too excited until the bags are in my hands.

The mystery of the locked kitchen door

We came home from work this evening to discover that our cook locked the interior kitchen door and left the key in the lock on the kitchen side, rendering the spare key useless for us to use on the non-kitchen side. And of course the exterior door to the kitchen is locked and the spare key to that door is... in the kitchen! 

We can't call our cook to come back with his exterior door key because the roads close every night and he lives so far out of town that he's on the other side of the road block. 

Thanks to Mike's security mindedness, we can't break in through either door without causing mass amounts of damage and we don't want to do that. Mike tried getting through via the crawlspace under the roof but there was no access.

We wanted a quiet night home alone tonight, but we're going to a friend's for dinner. We don't even have drinking water, because we can't drink the tap water and the distiller is, yes, in the kitchen.

This is actually the second time the cook has locked us out of our own kitchen. The first time was a Friday afternoon and we were having a party that night. Luckily he hadn't gone too far when we got home and discovered it, and he was able to come back and unlock the door.

Why would he lock the interior door? We know he keeps it closed to keep the cat out of the kitchen. That makes sense. We had the latch fixed so the cat can't open the door on her own anymore. There's never any need to lock that door. 

I also posted about Paris food at What I Eat today. I guess it's not a totally wasted day in Brussels.