Nora McNamara, Author at Nora McNamara

66 hours

July 18, 2007Nora McNamara

I shouldn’t have done the math. I have spent 66 hours in public transportation since June 7th. It has been a long 66 hours. But, the end is in sight. July 4th will be forever known to me also as Independence from Public Transportation Day, since that’s when my vehicle arrived at the port. Sadly, the paperwork didn’t get there until July 11th, causing all sorts of difficulties. Because of this, I’m not going to get my hands on the car for another month, and all the money saved importing it is down the drain in fees and storage costs. Phooey.

But, public transportation has been interesting. This morning, I had an hour before my bus left, so I decided to do a little cultural observation. Not a bad thing, huh? So, here’s what I observed:
There were women selling things from trays or boxes that they carried on top of their heads. Two of them had morning toiletry things-Q-tips, toothpaste, some kind of pill, and toothbrushes. The toothbrush is not what you would think, but rather the little sticks of wood in the picture. I’ll take a better picture tomorrow…

The other 3 ladies had food-one with bread, one with pastries, and one with hard boiled eggs. I was hungry, but none of this was going to definitely be safe for me to eat, so I didn’t get any. Just as we were boarding the bus, I heard someone yelling "bananas," but I couldn’t get to them before we pulled out. Bananas are perfect-wrapped up and perfectly hygienic just the way they grow! I found some later on in the trip, so I didn’t starve. Looks like I have a few more bus trips to experience before I get my truck. Stay tuned…

Goodbyes

July 17, 2007Nora McNamara

For people that serve overseas like me, goodbyes happen all of the time. My visitor just left today-right now I’m too tired to miss her, but that will come as soon as I get some sleep. Goodbyes get old, you know?

There’s a children’s book that explains really well how it is for me-not just the goodbyes, but having my home and my heart on two continents. There’s a line towards the end that has it just right-I don’t have the book here, but it’s something like, "When I’m here I wish I were there, and when I’m there I wish I were here." I don’t have that right, though, because that makes it sound like I’m unhappy and not content wherever I am, which is not the case at all. But, no matter where I am, there is a piece of me that wants to be somewhere else. Ugh-I am not a wordsmith! Can someone help me with how the award winning author put it in his book?

Crossings

July 17, 2007Nora McNamara

Today I felt like I’m learning how to live here, a little, at least. My visitor and I traveled back across three (skinny) countries so that I could get her to the airport. There were tons of border crossings. At the last one, there was a very insistent guy who wanted to "help" us with all the formalities. First he wanted $10 to give to the border police for our luggage. I smiled, said no, walked over, shook the policemen’s hands, and they let me through-there is no luggage fee. Our helper tried the same thing with the customs lady-$4 this time. I didn’t get mad, just laughed and said "good try" to our helper. He laughed too, and walked away happy with his tiny tip.

That’s a good ending to an interaction-nobody mad, everyone laughing, a story to tell. All in all, a good day.

Fine, thanks.

July 16, 2007Nora McNamara

I must confess, when I first got here, I cheated. I cheated for a whole year. You see, greeting is really important. How are you? How did you sleep? How is your health? How is yesterday’s fatigue? How is your house? How is your wife? A normal interaction has about 6 of these exchanges. My friends know that I don’t have family here, so they ask about my dog.

Here’s the cheat: all of these questions can be answered with the same phrase, which literally means "it is sweet." So, even though most of the time I didn’t know what people were saying, I would just answer "it is sweet," and they’d go on and on about how well I knew their language. Lately, though, I’ve been trying to understand more, and give the right answers.

The other day I was sitting with a friend, and a guy who’d been drinking a little too much of the local beer came up and greeted me. It was hot, so I stopped trying to understand and just kept saying how sweet everything was. But, since he was a bit tipsy, when that was the wrong answer, he let me know! He repeated himself 3 times, then someone else told me that he had said "Give me something." I happened to have a piece of candy in my pocket, which I promptly gave him. Everybody cracked up. It was sweet.

Some things are universal…

July 16, 2007Nora McNamara

Last week I watched a baby have an absolute blast for a half hour shredding a piece of kleenex. I was on a long bus trip-it gave me something to do. It reminded me of my niece doing the same thing. Watching that made being here seemed a little less strange – kids everywhere like to tear tissue! It also made me a little homesick…I never did get to see my niece unroll a whole thing of toilet paper, and she’ll be far beyond that the next time I get home. This is making me sniffle a little bit, guess I’d better go find my own kleenex to shred.

How’s the weather?

July 15, 2007Nora McNamara

There are four seasons here: dry, Harmattan, wretched, and rainy.
September-November is dry season. No rain, temps always in the upper 90s. But, it’s a dry heat. Really!
December-January is Harmattan, a dry wind from the Sahara. That’s the coolest time of year. Instead of snow, there’s dust everywhere. When I got back here, I was really bothered by all the dust, so I put everything I could in any plastic I could find. Love those huge ziplocs!
February-April I call wretched season. It’s really humid and over 100 almost every day. No one does much during this season, so it was a good time for me to learn language-people had time to talk.
May-September is the rainy season. Normally it rains almost every day, and sometimes gets down into the 70s. This year, though, the rains have been strange, which could be a big problem for the farmers that I live among. I hope not.