New Year, Familiar Resolve

This is the blog post where I again vow to post once per week. So here I go!  This, if successful, will be one of at least 52 posts in 2016.

Things are settling back in to normal after the holiday weeks.  I had a really good time with my parents in town.  I liked having them around for 10 days because it left room for them to see different parts of what we all do here in DC.  They got to spend more time with Lee's parents, and it was so nice to get that opportunity.  They got to meet some of my brother's friends, we did touristy things and we all got to spend time together.  Much of it was low key, and low stress.  Some of the more touristy activities were crowded over the holidays, but even those were great.  My parents, my brother, Lee and I attended mass (candle light carol service) at the National Cathedral, we went to a few of the Smithsonian museums, they saw the constitution and the declaration of independence at the National Archives, and we all went to the top of the Washington Monument.

I feel so lucky that I can now have my family spend time with Lee's family.  I feel grateful that I could go to Lee's family's Christmas celebrations.  For the last two years we tried to distill so many significant holidays, traditions, feelings, and moments into high pressure, high activity periods of time.  This year was special for just being able to be together for the holidays.  We decorated our first Christmas tree, decorated the apartment together, we made Christmas cookies for our super and our apartment manager, we went to holiday parties together and were able to enjoy so many facets (and so many stresses) that we had not been able to before.  It felt like we were constructing something of our own, and that felt great.

The new year is starting, and is bound to be a busy time.  I think that both Lee and I are traveling a lot for work this spring.  We are both headed to Mexico City next week for a few days of vacation (we didn't take any time at Christmas).  We will be there for 5 days to eat, drink, shop, and see art.  We found very cheap non-stop flights from DC, and very reasonable prices for a place to stay.  It will be a sunny, warm escape just as DC is really becoming gravely cold.  I hope to post from there.

I am excited to see what the new year holds.  I am excited for new adventures, more travels, more life lived with Lee, and new resolve for getting fit, cooking more, spending less, and reading more.  2016 promises to be a great year.  More soon.

Keep Traveling.

Flying Out: Lima

I am at DCA waiting for my flight to Houston.  In Houston I will connect to my flight to Lima.  It is pretty simple; I fly 3 hours to Houston, then 7 to Lima.  All told, it is a pretty easy flight route.  It certainly beats the 24 hour slog to East Africa, though I do miss the the frequent flier miles from those trips to Uganda and Kenya.  I also miss the chance to pop out of the airport in interesting and new places like Doha, Dubai, Amsterdam, among others.

I am headed to Lima for a week for work.  It is definitely going to be a busy trip.  There are a lot of important meetings, looking to move work forward for the next few years.  I am hopeful that my contributions this trip will amount to more than smiling and nodding.  I mean, I was brand new for the last trip, and would not have had much to add, but still.  I would like to speak.  Speaking is an attainable goal.

This morning I woke up at 7 to work out.  It was cold, grey and raining outside, but I did it anyway.  I felt like I was achieving something laudable by exercising this morning.  Just by getting out of bed I had basically patted myself on the back just for being awake.  I jogged a couple of miles in the rain, irritated that it was raining.  I came back and made a breakfast of toast and yogurt, then got ready.  Naturally, since it was 48 degrees outside, the heat in our apartment was auto-turned up to 80.  So I was sweating in the apartment after showering--probably more than when I was running in the cold rain.

I have come to accept that I will sweat when I get ready.  Even if I give myself 4 hours of leeway for getting to my destination, I will still sweat because I am alive and thinking.  That means that I just know I will sweat to the airport.  Every trip, pretty much ever.  So you are welcome future seatmates, I will be sweating next to you for a least the first 30 minutes of the flight.

Now I am here and I can hear the United staff trying to lure 11 people off this flight with $500 vouchers and a promise of a later flight out.  This always seems to happen when I cannot change my flight at all.  It is a total bummer.  But I am going to go see if there is anything they can do to still get me to Lima tonight and change my flight.  If they can guarantee that, I would for sure take $500.  We shall see!

Keep traveling!

Nashville

I am in the Nashville airport after 4 days of great food, good exploring, lovely weather, and some quality music.  I came down from DC with Evan for a couple of days.  I work remotely right now, and I can just as easily work from Nashville as I can from DC, so I figured I would try to see something new.

Nashville is a beautiful city.  It is green and lush.  The urban areas to not spoil the beauty of the setting.  That is partly because the urban areas are small, and fairly unobtrusive, and partly because there is a lot of open space around Nashville.  It is an interesting mix of southern hospitality, warm and welcome people, a modern urban food, art, and cocktail scene, honky-tonk and state capital.  It mixes all these things pretty well (I say as 4-day expert).  I enjoyed it very much.

We arrived on Sunday night and took a driving tour of Broadway and the downtown strip.  We went along 2nd street and the bars there, and then back through downtown.  We had dinner at a Tex-Mex place called El Chico.  It was not remarkable, but it was good.  I am not an aficionado of Tex-Mex, given that it is not so popular in the West.  It involves queso which is a definite Mexican tradition.  Check it out.  It is a funny cuisine.  It is like middle America ran headlong into Mexico.  After dinner we went to our hotel and then walked around the Gaylord Opryland Hotel.  We were staying next door to the Grand Old Opry concert hall.  It is an uninteresting brick building that is steeped in music history.  EVERYTHING around it is named Opry something rather.  The Gaylord Opryland Hotel is a massive hotel and conference center that is like Disneyland for southerners.  It is so strange and themed and landscaped and all indoors.  It smells like a casino and Disneyland were blended together with lots of southern accents.  After our walk we went to bed.

During the days we mostly would exercise in the morning, then have a delicious lunch, work more in the afternoons, then go out for excellent dinner food. On Monday we worked from the Dell offices on their sprawling compound by the airport.  We had massive burgers at Gabby's, worked more, then went for another walk prior to dinner at Peg Leg porker.  It was amazing bar-b-que.  The line at peg leg was long, but worth the wait.  We had bar b que nachos, and pulled pork.  The meat was so tender; sweet and savory with a delicious give to it.  It was almost buttery.  No one flavor dominated, not too seasoned or sauced, allowing the meat to speak for itself in concert with the other flavors.  IT was awesome.  I tried some local Yazoo beer, too.  It was crowded the whole time we were there, but there was space for seating and we never felt cramped.  It was in a cool part of town called The Gulch.  It was a great experience eating there.

From Peg Leg we went into downtown so I could see Broadway on foot, drink some beers and listen to music.  We walked out to the midway point of the foot bridge and we took some great photos of downtown.  We wandered into a bar and listen to Garth Brooks covers for a while.  Then we continued on to Mike's Ice Cream for delicious hand-made ice cream.  We walked out to the river and sat on benches along the river and ate our ice cream cones before heading back to the hotel for the night.

Tuesday I was able to hang out in East Nashville and go to Barista Parlor for incredible coffee and workspace.  I went into a shop called Fuselage where everything was expensive and too hip (4 sizes too small) for me.  It was a well-curated store though.  I just didn't need a $98 vintage union jack scarf, or $38 bespoke candles.  We stayed in East Nashville for dinner, drinks and trivia night at the Hop Stop where they had many many beers on tap, and great food.  It was a bar b cue centric menu with nouvelle takes on everything, but the food was still good.  I drank too many beers, but we took 3rd in trivia and had a great time while doing it.  My brother has some great friends and coworkers here.

Wednesday I was working out of the Dell offices all day again.  We took a trip back to East Nashville to eat incredibly delicious tacos at Mas Tacos Por Favor.  They are the best street tacos I have had outside of Mexico or Los Angeles.  I also had a rich and creamy cold-brewed iced coffee with horchata instead of milk.  It was fantastic.  I would say there are a few good cases of great coffee in Nashville, but overall the coffee game is lacking.  That evening I went for a run along the Cumberland river.  It was beautiful and green.  I got almost as many stares as in Africa (fitness must not be as common?  I had something on my face?  I don't know...)  But it was green and beautiful and the river made for a great backdrop.

That night we went to Bricktop's which was only okay.  But the best was having cocktails at Patterson house.  They make hand crafted cocktails that all include many expensive ingredients and liquers, and are generally cocktails dressed to impress.  The setting is a lovely old house with tin tile roofs inside, low dim lamps, ceiling fans, cozy booths, and hip people.  It was a chic spot to get to hang out with Evan and his friends.  We stayed for a couple of cocktails and then left before the place was too packed with well-heeled hipsters and Vanderbilt folks.  We cruised down music row and then headed back out to the hotel.

Now here I am at the airport, ready to fly back out.  It was a great trip!  I want to come back and dig in a little more.  I still can't get my head around the accents.  The southern drawl adds 3-7 extra syllables into everything and ranges from quaint to unintelligible.  I want to see more music and understand that scene a little better.   I would like to have hot chicken, which I missed this time.  I want to do a little more shopping and eating and drinking.  So, I am starting my next trip list now.  Hopefully Lee can be with me on the next one, too.

A Wonderful Winter Wedding

My wonderful older brother Evan got married to Rebecca on December 31st, 2014.  That was the main impetus for going back to the US from Uganda this Christmas.  It was a wonderful wedding, a fantastic ceremony, and such a great opportunity to see so much family, and so many friends.

First, I feel like usually, no one really likes planning New Years Eve.  So thanks to Evan and Rebecca for taking care of that for all of us.  Second, everyone tries to make epic, fantastic plans for New Year's Eve, and they are often not as great as expected.  Notable exceptions are now 1. a wedding 2. mistakenly ending up at a very local bar in Diani, Kenya.  In both cases I did no planning.  Third, it is great to get both friends and family on New Year's eve.  Usually I have had to decide, but this year, this awesome wedding brought together both worlds.  It was wonderful!

Let me start from the beginning of the vacation.  I went back to the US on the 19th.  I got to see Lee briefly in DC when I dropped off Theo the dog.  Unfortunately, I spent most of the 36 hours I was there pretty ill, and trying not to fall asleep at 7:00 pm, thanks to jet lag, and flying back to the cold and dark of mid-winter in the northern hemisphere.  After flying to DC and resting for 36 hours I went out to California.

I got to see my very close friend Bethany, who I have known since middle school.  Beth has been there through a lot, and it was so cool to get to see her in San Francisco.  I finally got to meet Joel in person, and we all ate some terrific Mexican food in the Mission district in San Francisco.  My parents were with us and we all walked around the mission, and went to Mission Dolores Park.  It was a great afternoon.

I spent the next few days in Merced for Christmas.  I felt warm, carefree, and so at ease seeing my family and spending the holidays with them.  Evan and Rebecca flew in very late on the 23rd.  We went to a very funny, homemade church service on the 24th.  We upheld the Doty traditions of Christmas cookie frosting, and getting to hang a few ornaments.  It was made even better having my sister and nieces there, too.  I was so happy to see Julian and meet his lady Sibel as well.  Christmas is just made better with more people.  On Christmas day we ate, played games, went walking, and went to the movies.  It was so satisfying.

We went up for the bachelor party on the 26th.  We spent two nights at the stunning Ahwahnee Lodge in Yosemite.  We had a great time doing man things.  We went for a 10 mile hike and drank scotch and had a wonderful dinner at the lodge.  The rest is top secret.

From there we headed down to Los Angeles at 5:30 in the morning.  I picked up Lee at the airport and we drove straight to Disneyland.  My brother and Rebecca were having a pre-wedding fun day there.  Lee and I met Evan and Rebecca at the park along with my sister and nieces, my mom and dad, my cousin Harvey and his wife Lis, and their son Levi, Evan and Rebecca's friends Carlos and Pamela.  We all had lunch at a great Mexican restaurant in Downtown Disney.  Lee got to meet a lot of people right away, and was really thrown into the mix doing it all at Disney.  I am so impressed by her aplomb.

I was thrilled to see Harvey, Lis, and Levi.  It was great to get too see them relatively soon after the summer.  They are so much fun, and some of my favorite relatives.  It was a blast to sit with them at lunch and catch up.  I always feel like I can get right back into step with them, and we've never missed a beat.

We all went into the park and all of us rode Soarin' Over California.  A giant theater ride with seats that are elevated and move as though you are flying in a hang glider.  The seats hang from long mechanical arms, and the effect is very real.  My parents, Evan and Rebecca split off to go to bed, get coffee respectively.  But Lee, sis, the girls and I continued to ride some fast rides.  I tested Lee's aplomb by dragging her on the big roller coaster in California Adventure, as well as the tower of terror.  There may have been some genuine anger at moments, but we made it, and are stronger for it.  That night we crashed into bed at our hotel in Hollywood around 10:30.

In the morning, Lee, my parents and I had a really nice quiet breakfast.  We were able to talk and catch up without lots of other people around.  I am so glad that they got to see each other, and that we could all be together without too much else going on.

Things progressed in this way, an extraordinary stream of people and visits until the wedding rehearsal that afternoon.  It was quick and well orchestrated.  That night was the grooms dinner, which was a real highlight.  So many friends and family came.  I was SO happy to meet more of Rebecca's family and to finally introduce Lee to all of my family.  It felt like the pieces were coming together into a lovely, family puzzle.  It was so special to have all of these good people in one place.

The next day was the actual wedding.  I don't know that I have ever had so much fun at a wedding.  Even the pictures were fun!  It was a cold day for LA on the 31st.  It was clear and crisp and sunny in the high 50s.  We took photos at UCLA.  Lee of course looked stunning.  Evan and Rebecca were glowing, and their photos show it.  UCLA was a stunning, austere, and lush backdrop for winter wedding photos in LA.  It was a great choice.

There were family photos at the synagogue leading up to the ceremony.  Then the men split and we toasted Evan, enjoyed scotch, and had some time to just bullshit before we danced and sang him into the sanctuary to sign the kituba with Rebecca.  There they signed their documents, and by that time it was about time to get set for the ceremony.  I was compulsively feeling for the ring box this whole time in my pocket.  At one point the photographer came and asked for the rings to take some photos with the documents.  I followed her into the room and watched the whole time. She said "wow you take your job seriously." I said nothing.  I wanted to intimate my seriousness.

The ceremony was beautiful. It was in an outdoor courtyard full of olive trees.  The olive trees were draped with lights.  The Chuppa was lovely, and in part knitted by my aunties Beryl and Lindy.  It looked amazing.  I realize how many superlatives I am using, but the whole event just inspired superlatives.  I had a blast.  During the ceremony the Rabbi did a wonderful job.  The blessings were beautiful, and I was happy that my dad and Michael both got to read blessings.  It was great.  I cried, though I tried to look tough while doing it.  My mom cried, but I had to avoid looking, otherwise it would have been real waterworks!  Then we walked out and Lee asked me if I was crying, which made me cry more.  I have a lot of feelings, ok!?  My big brother got married!  But I was so happy she was asking me, and she was the one on my arm.  I am so thankful Evan and Rebecca asked her to join the celebration in that way.

The reception was beautiful.  It was like a California princess ball.  The decorations were great.  I also got to sit with my cousins Brook and Cassy and Harvey and Lis.  It was cool to have them all meet.  I could hardly eat the fabulous dinner.  I was nervous about my best man's toast (which went off very well, and I didn't even cry) and I was on a lot of adrenaline just excited to be there.  The we danced the horah and lifted Evan and Rebecca and danced them in their chairs.  Let me just say that I think Rebecca's side lucked out getting the daintier of the two of them.  Evan was not so...dainty.  But it was so great.  I loved dancing in a ciricle with my dad and brother and the groomsmen and the Waterman men.  It was such a nice melding of family and culture.  I was honored and thrilled to be there.

I was continuously swept off my feet by how beautiful Lee was, and how special it was to spend New Years together two years in a row.  Especially having her at this event it was amazing to see how it can be when we are together all the time.  We danced all night to a live band.  We took breaks for desserts, drinks (many with Harvey and Lis), shots (thanks Abby and Cooper...) Water, spending tie with family, dancing with mom and neices, too.  All the dancing at least kept me warm (I was cold ALL THE TIME) so that was wonderful inspiration, too.  Turns out dancing in a crowded room in a tux is similar to African weather.  We counted down midnight all together and rang in the New Year in wonderful fashion.  It was one of the most wonderful New Year's Eves I have had.  I will always remember it.

Eventually we left the synagogue around 2:30, and made it back to Hollywood at 4:00 and again crashed into bed.  It was such a terrific night, and I was amazed, honored, and proud to be a part of it all!  Mazel Tov!

Bride and Groom

Home Leave III: Puerto Lopez, Ecuador

In the pre-dawn morning we rolled into the bus station in Puerto Lopez, Ecuador.  The bus terminal was empty, devoid of life except for a few tuktuk (yes they have them there, too! They are just called moto-taxis.) drivers out front waiting to scoop up arriving tourists and take them to the handful of hotels in the town.  The air was salty, cool and damp, redolent with the scent of the ocean.  There was a slight breeze, and it was actually quite chilly.  Previously, my experiences from mountains to coast in Latin America were in Costa Rica, where you start chilly, and wake up in cloying heat.  It was not the case here.  I needed my sweater and jacket.

We hefted our bags onto a tuk tuk that took us to our hotel about 1 kilometer north of the downtown malecon (boardwalk).  We had to yell for some time to wake up the night guard, as it was still only 5:30 in the morning.  We even shook a rain stick, and tried thumping the gate.  Eventually he awoke and let us in.  We sat outside on the deck of the hotel with our bags as none of the staff were there to open the main building, and the room had not been cleaned because the previous guests had not left.  So we sat in roughly-hewn wooden chairs. As the day became grey, then light out, we could see the waves breaking just past a line of palm trees.  The ocean was in sight, not only just in sound!  By about 7:15 the staff showed up and let us into the main lobby/restaurant/public area of the hotel and showed us to an area full of wicker couches with pads where we could sleep until our room was ready.  We took full advantage, sleeping until nearly 11:00.  We had some breakfast, then went to our room which was finally ready.  We had a lovely little cottage with a giant porch, complete with hammock.  The room was open and airy, with only screens and glass doors.  It was set back in a lush jungle-y garden.  We had a private bathroom, and plenty of space, and it was only $30/night!

We put on swimsuits (covered by shirts and shorts-it was still chilly, only 70 degrees!) and we walked the distance to town to find some lunch on the malecon.  We sat at a restaurant on the beach, our chairs sinking slightly into the sand.  We had a view of the ocean and the pier.  We ate fresh ceviche, plantain chips, and drank fresh fruit smoothies, all for about $3 each.  Apparently this was steep for Ecuador prices, but we were in a touristy little town.

We walked around town, browsing the eclectic jumble of small artisan shops, clothing sellers, and jewelry-makers along the malecon.  We crossed over onto the beach and we walked back our hotel following the shoreline.  We put our feet in the water, and it was not cold, but not warm.  The day was still too overcast to swim, and a slight breeze was picking up again.  For quite some time we watched gulls fly over the water.  We slowly ambled back towards the hotel where there was a sign with hundreds of capital cities painted on wooden signs pointed in the direction of those cities, with the distance in kilometers from Puerto Lopez indicated on them.  Lee and I counted the places we had been separately and together.

We had a pretty lazy day overall, but traveling overnight, and sleeping/waking at odd hours had taken it out of us.  Later we went back into town for dinner, appreciating the glow of the street lamps, the sound of the waves, and the fine mist that made everything shimmer.  We ate wonderfully fresh fish with rice and limes, and enjoyed crisp local beers.  Then a random French girl and a Colombian came and played the guitar and violin very badly and sang in Spanish.  She did all the talking, though her accent was very heavy and she wasn't a native speaker.  The Colombian boy said nothing.  It was weird to see the two of the playing the instruments and asking for money together.  Why a French girl?  We wandered around a bit more in town, bought tickets to go on a tour boat to Isla de la Plata the next day, then eventually made our way back to our hotel for drinks on the porch before calling it a night.

In the morning we woke up hoping for sun, but it was still overcast and cool.  We ate a cheap breakfast ($3.00 each) and then we were picked up by the tour company and driven down to the pier for our adventure out to Isla de la Plata.  Isla de la Plata is known as the Poor Man's Galapagos, given that it has giant tortoises, blue-footed boobies, birds with big red neck balloons, lizards, fish, and all that other Darwin-esque stuff.  We got on a boat that sat 16 of us.  It was spacious and comfortable.  We headed out to sea into some pretty big waves for a boat ride that took about an hour and a half.  The farther out to see we cruised, the clearer the sky became until it was hot and sunny.  On the way we stopped to watch hump-backed whales hump out of the water and play only 50 feet from the boat.  They are so big and bulky and graceful.  Their movement was fantastic.

We arrived at the Island, and only one side has calm enough water to disembark.  We got out with our guides into crystal clear water, and trudged up to a reception hall with nice bathrooms and shady sitting areas.  We were then taken on a 5 kilometer hike along the cliffs of the island.  We did a fair amount of hiking up to the top of the island, then generally circumnavigated it along the cliffs.  It was beautiful.  Apparently it is called Isla de la Plata (Silver Island) due to how the cliffs are covered in bat poop and shimmer in the moonlight.  Simultaneously romantic/terribly unromantic.  We saw many birds, many boobies, beautiful vistas, and got some good hiking in.  It was sunny and spectacular on the Island.  It was incredibly dry, in the lee of the mainland, and so all the foliage except for the cacti was brown and crunchy.  It made all the blue feet seem extra vibrant.

It was so fun to see all of these beautiful creatures I had read about for the first time, and to do it with lee!  We walked holding hands, took romantic pictures with dramatic views to the ocean behind us, shared zone bars, and just enjoyed the simple things one cannot do when separated by two continents and an ocean. After a few hours we headed back to the boat where we got to go snorkeling just off the shore of the island.  We swam next to turtles and enjoyed the cool but pleasant water.  They gave us some small lunch, and then we headed back to the mainland over massive rolling waves.

We were tired when we got back so we napped in the cool of our room, then went out for dinner in the evening.  The street was packed as it might have been a Friday.  There were many young European tourists out to listen to live music and eat, and we struggled to find a free table on the malecon.  Again we ate delicious, incredibly fresh seafood, and we chatted up some locals who owned the restaurant.  We drank a few beers, then walked back to the hotel in the moonlight.  We were in bed early because in the morning we were setting off at 7:00 am for a bus back up to the Andes.

The next installment will be about Cuenca!

Home Leave. (Where is home, exactly?) Part 1. The US Section

I don't think I realized that I had left Uganda until I was coming back into the country.  I was waiting in line at immigration after 5 weeks away, explaining to some other tourists how to get a taxi and what to pay.  I recognized the immigration official (the airport is not big at Entebbe) and joked with him about how he was the one who gave me my exit visa, too.  I pushed through the crowds with a stack of luggage that had multiplied over my journey.  I left with 1 bag to check, and came back with three massive bags. A driver from our favorite Kampala hotel, Red Chilli, was there to pick me up.  The night was warm and damp, it had clearly begun raining in Kampala.  I was back on the left as a passenger, and on the left side of the road.  Suddenly it hit me that I had actually been away.  This realization, about 5 weeks too late, sent a dizzying flood of emotion into my small brain, and I promptly shut off and slept until arriving at Red Chilli 45 minutes later.

My trip started with a terrorist threat that was confirmed to be real and potentially very violent against Entebbe airport at the exact time I was supposed to fly out.  We had the veracity of this published threat confirmed by a colleague who is a Member of Parliament, and head of the defense committee in parliament here in Uganda.  He advised me, "fly out as soon as you can, or wait two days."  Well.  I wasn't going to wait two days, so I jumped in a taxi with a friend who was flying out that afternoon, rather than late at night.  We arrived to the airport, bought a one-way ticket on Qatar airways from Entebbe to Washington DC (I was supposed to go to Seattle) and thought, well, I can figure the rest out in Doha.  I just need to get clear of Entebbe.  We spent a tense few hours waiting in the airport for either our plane to arrive, or the apocalypse.  Fortunately the plane landed first.  We boarded and were soon in the air on the way to Doha.

We landed in Doha, and after some finagling at the transfers desk, I had a flight to Chicago in the morning, a hotel for the night, and meal vouchers.  So my friend and I proceeded down to immigration and passed the droves of officials in traditional Emirati clothes, jelaaba and head scarf.  We cleared immigration and set off into a 100 degree night at 1:00 am to our hotel.  We arrived at the hotel at 2:30, decided to take our meal right then (meals were still going on for Ramadhan, so people could eat before fasting at dawn).  We ate around 3:00, and at 4:00 we went outside to listen to the call to prayer echo around the canyons of dazzlingly elctrified sky scrapers.

I caught about two and a half hours of sleep before getting a wake up call to come down for our transfer back to the airport.  I took a quick cold shower, put my clothes back on and headed back to the glitzy, commercial chaos of Doha International airport.  There was a ferrari for purchase in the duty free shops.  I bought some chocolates and a coconut water (I was excited by these developed world choices) and then boarded my 14.5 hour flight to Chicago.

Upon landing in Chicago, I knew I would miss my flight.  The flight was already 35 minutes late, on top of a 1.5 hour layover to clear immigration, pick up my bags from customs, re-check them, and get to my gate.  No chance.  I still ran all through O'hare trying to do my best to make it, but I couldn't.  I ran to the wrong gate, then had to retrace my steps, and just sit with the knowledge that I wouldn't get to Seattle before 10:00 pm.  I Was sweating, tired, had been wearing the same clothes for 30 hours, and needed a shower, so I bought a clean shirt and undies at Brooks Brothers, and bought a day pass to the United Admiral's club.  I got a nice long shower, and clean clothes.  I had three beers in the club for free, then a bourbon, and then headed down for my flight to Seattle.


Seattle was wonderful.  It was so nice to spend time with my family.  We went boating, saw art, ate at the top of the Space Needle, went to Pike Place Market, went walking around Green Lake, went on several nice jogs, grilled delicious burgers, caught up with dear friends (@maurawatts) and just generally soaked up my family.  We even got to see the whole extended family and drive to the cascade mountains to our Cabin in the woods.  It is a hodge podge place, a little bit of family chaos in the woods, but it has so many great memories attached to it.

From there we drove down the West Coast to Merced.  I spent a very quick three nights in Merced.  This whole time I was sort of a zombie.  Up until midnight with work activities to stay connected to East Africa, and up early to check in before their work day ended.

From Merced I went to San Francisco where I stayed with Genny, one of my besties, for a week while working out of the US Office of Village Enterprise.  It was a wonderful opportunity to get in touch with the home base and refresh my perspective on Village Enterprise from that side of the operations.  It is so crucial, and all my meetings with the Staff there gave me a renewed appreciation for how our field work can inform our US work and vice versa.  In the evenings I went to lovely dinners, cooked with Genny and John, saw wonderful friends from Pitzer and AU, and was genuinely honored to be in the presence of such good people.

From San Francisco I flew down to LA and spent an amazing weekend with Harrison Weinfeld, another one of my best friends.  We ate amazing food, went to the beach, drank delicious scotch, stayed up far too late talking and catching up.  He took me on tours of his neighborhood, and I was so happy to see how established he was in LA.  It was such a pleasure.  I also got to see Geraldine and we all went out for a night, and I met Harris' writing partner Danny at a nice little gathering in Hollywood.  It was fun to be back in Los Angeles, and a good reminder of why I really wouldn't mind ending up there with Lee.  Thank you Harris for a wonderful time.  I spent an afternoon with my grandmother.  It was so good to see her, as I am not sure if I will again.  Then I had dinner with my aunt and uncle who shuttled me to the airport after great conversation and good food.

While in the car on the way to the airport, I got my last call before shutting off.  I was on the phone as I checked in for my flight to Panama City, and up to going through Security.  The phone call ended and I went straight through the security line to my gate.  I boarded an overnight flight to Panama City.

I woke up in Panama City, breezed groggily through the airport to the gate for my flight to Quito.  I barely had enough time to snag a water and a coffee before I got on my flight to Quito.  I slept again until we were landing in Quito.  The turbulence was such that we were dropping steeply, and sharply.  People were screaming.  Then we landed to a burst of applause and I had made it to Ecuador.

The Wings

The wings are everywhere.  They are piled in corners like silvery grey snow drifts.  They have accumulated in the dishes that are drying.  They have plugged the drains and they have filled the sink.  They are floating in the toilets and they have dusted the tops of tables.  I tried in vain to sweep them outside, but they stuck to my ankles and filled my shoes. I made an effort in vain to wash them out of the shower, but they swirled around my feet.  Pairs of wings, single wings, broken wings, wings with veins of silver thread, all as long as a ring finger have filled the house.  The swirl in clouds when the doors are opened and shut, and the flit gracefully out of drawers.  The wings.

Last night it rained epically hard.  It was like being on the set of a movie where they are using a rain machine.  Except there was nothing contrived about this rain.  It rained biblically, and in turn, there was an exodus of white ants (termites) that flowed forth from the earth.  It sounds dramatic, but at times last night it was hard to hear the roar of the rain over the pounding flutter of wings.  The White ants were drawn magnetically to our lights in the house.  They were pulled towards our safety lights outside as if by gravity.  They seeped through the cracks in the doors and windows like water and many made it inside.  They made it inside and rushed chaotically, like a flooding river around the lights, and they lost their wings and began to die.

I eventually shut myself in my room in the dark to avoid the incessant flurry of insects and I fell asleep to the sound of wind, wings, and rain.  In the morning I came out to survey the damage.  The blizzard of wings had settled.  I began the process of sweeping them up and moving them back to the outdoors.  I tried to eradicate the house but the wings were to feathery to sweep, so I just pushed clouds of them as well as I could.  Once they were outside (with the white ants they had been attached to) I poured insecticide on them.

Then our colleagues arrived and lambasted  me for killing and wasting a delicacy.  Then I ate a handful.