Where and why: Ethiopia
After six weeks in India, we’re heading to Ethiopia. Telling people we’re going to Ethiopia for six weeks is akin to telling them we’re going to Baghdad with a target on our foreheads. Occasionally, we get blank stares, sometimes people yell, “What? Why?!” but usually we get an “Oh, Ethiooooopia.”
Guess what? We know all of the following about Ethiopia, so you don’t need to tell us: Ethiopia is in Africa; Ethiopia is poor; Ethiopians have AIDS.
Those three reasons are actually the three reasons we’re going there. We’ve never been to Africa. We wanted to go somewhere where we could volunteer. We wanted to volunteer with HIV+ kids.
And so, we will be spending six weeks working at AHOPE for Children in Addis Ababa, an orphanage for kids with HIV. Now is when I tell you that you cannot catch HIV just by hanging out with infected kids, so chill out. Unless I decide it’s a great idea to suck their blood (which I only do on a full moon), the chances are practically nil that we’ll catch it.
Why Ethiopia in particular? Well, T had an aunt who went there when he was little, so he’s been interested in it for a while, and when I was a kid, I started a fundraising group for kids there, so I’ve been interested in it for a while. It’s meant to be beautiful, with lovely people and a wicked long history, as we say in Maine. As for AHOPE, I sponsor a little boy there and they need volunteers. Decision made.
A lot of people think we’re crazy for doing volunteer work instead of just traveling for fun. (ALERT: SELF-RIGHTEOUS RANT TO FOLLOW) This is the deal: I had never seen real crushing poverty until I went to Asia. Now that I have, I want to try to do something about it, so that I am not just another rich white westerner going to another poor brown country to stare at them and buy cheap stuff. (RANT ENDS HERE)
And I promise, I won’t come home with 10 babies. (The INS won’t allow it.)
I love the internets
Thank God I’m living here during the digital age. In the past 24 hours, I have spoken to my father and sister in New England, instant messaged my brother and my cousin in Massachusetts, streamed the Red Sox game, and right now, I am listening to London radio as I play online Scrabble with my friend in SF. Any invention that allows me to interact with people without having to actually look at them is okay in my book. It’s just like being in Brooklyn, except the weather’s better.
Four weeks…
Our friends Ian and Cara left Melbourne for Shanghai today. Even though it took us about six months to start seeing them regularly, it’s hard to imagine the city without them, which is a good sign it’s time to go. It hasn’t quite hit me that they’re really gone, possibly because we’ll see them again in China.
Now T and I are left with slightly less than one month in this city and no partners in crime. I think it’s time to make a list of things we want to do before we go. The list includes:
- Taking a long walk down by the water, because we never hang out down there
- Spending an afternoon in town, wandering through the tiny alleys
- Going back to South Yarra, where we stayed in a repulsive hotel our first few days here, so we can come full circle
Hmm, that’s a really short list. Let me justify: I’m not sure we should aim to do too many things. We only have four more weekends including this one and we have to see our remaining friends, as well. It’s also inordinately difficult for me to leave the house and/or get out of my pyjamas under normal circumstances, so this plan shall require extra motivation.
Where and why: India
We’ll be spending most of our time traveling in India, as far as specific countries go. Your response to this will either be ‘Eww, India!’ or ‘Ooh, India!’ As far as I’ve seen, no one is ambivalent about India. You either love it or you hate it, and I’ve never met anyone who said they didn’t care.
I’m simultaneously fascinated and terrified by India. It’s obviously really vibrant and thriving, but at the same time, there are a lot of people (have I mentioned I hate people?) and a lot of poverty.
I’m very worried about the poverty. I am one of those suckers who wants to give money to everyone and I can’t not look people in the eye, especially children. This ends up being a terrible quality when you’re traveling in poor places, because they catch you out immediately. Then I end up being surrounded by a village of barefoot children with their little hands out while T glares at me, muttering about divorce. Between now and then, I am going to try to remember New York and go back to looking no one in the eye. Unfortunately, damned Australia has broken me of this habit, and now I am one of those godforsaken people who looks strangers right in the face in the street and smiles. I am but a shell of my former self.
We’re planning to fly into Delhi, do the tourist triangle to Agra and Jaipur, then go up, up, up to Rishikesh, Shimla, Dharamsala and Amritsar. That’s one month. Then we go waaaaaaaay down south to Kerala for two weeks. In Kerala, I will get ayurvedic treatments and T shall hide from the sun under the nearest tree.
Since coming to Australia, I have become fascinated by spirituality. So, I’m hoping we can hear the Dalai Lama speak in Dharamsala, at the very least. Also, India has good food. As long as I don’t find any maggots the way I did in an Indian food stall here, I’ll be pretty happy. I am also completely in love with the colors I always see in pictures. So there you have it. Religion, food and colors. Our trip to India in a nutshell.
This is where we eat the gelato
The park two blocks from our house is named Carlton Gardens. We spend a fair bit of time here–sometimes running but mostly walking.
And another thing…
It occurs to me that I should add that John Howard only called the election last week. That means he and Rudd only have 6 weeks to campaign before the election. SIX WEEKS, PEOPLE!
People here keep asking me who will win the American election. It’s very hard to explain to people who have a simple 6-week election that anything could happen in the upcoming 13 months of campaigning for the American presidency. Our primaries are more than SIX MONTHS before the election, for God’s sake!
As weird as I find it that the prime minister can call an election at his whim, consider it: only six weeks of serious campaigning. I’m already sick of the American election and I’m halfway across the world.
The worm
T and I are watching the political debate between John Howard and Kevin Rudd for the upcoming election on Nov. 24. At the bottom of the screen, there is a line they call a ‘worm’ that moves up or down based on what the candidate says. Apparently, there are a bunch of Aussies watching the debate and judging the candidates’ responses, thereby controlling the worm.
Every time Rudd speaks, the worm goes way up. Every time Howard speaks, it tanks. Why don’t we have this in America? Something tells me that if we did, someone might not have been elected president as easily.
Postscript: Apparently the worm is so important that when Howard was debating and doing really badly, the channel’s news feed was suddenly cut. Suspicious!
Me + sports + Australia = bruised love
As I write this, I am watching England play South Africa in the Rugby World Cup (they lost). Last week at this time, I was watching them play France (they won), and before that, Australia (they won again).
I have developed a strange illness since being in this country–a love of unamerican sports. I have always been interested in rugby, but it has now developed a kind of twisted, dirty, back-alley love. Any sport that combines giant thighs with copious amounts of blood and gore is a sport I can get behind.
I have also become a devoted cricket fan. Given that it has taken me more than 30 years to still not understand American football, I’m pretty pleased that it only took a few months of constant cricket immersion to pick up the rules and even choose favorite players. Also, it must be said that I am a masterful cricket player, and were I not born in America, I would have made millions off this incredible sporting ability.
That said, I am not a fan of the Australian teams, mostly because most Australian sports fans are cockier than A-Rod in April. It’s understandable, of course, since there are only 3 people in this entire country and two have Olympic gold medals, yet I find it unnerving to have that much faith in your team–even if your team wins as often as the Aussies do.
Thus, I follow the NZ All Blacks in rugby, mostly because they do the haka (I wish there was professional haka), but also because I met them 100 years ago in England and they were most charming. In cricket, I have broken a longstanding vow never to support English teams. England never seems to win in cricket, and for some reason that really appeals to me. I blame my father for this because he is a lifelong Red Sox fan and it’s clearly scarred me for life, causing me to support teams that will only tear out your heart and stomp on it before setting it on fire.
Last week, I found myself begging T to get the international sports channel when we move back to America, so I can watch cricket and rugby. Wives should never beg their husbands for sports channels. Now, I must be voluntarily committed.
Me + wine + Australia = drunken love
I should have started this list with something a little less sinful, but screw it. I will miss wine. Australian wine is good, yo. T and I went to Margaret River for New Year’s this year, where we took turns tasting and driving (I did a little more tasting than driving), and staggered our way around dozens of lovely vineyards in WA.
We’ve made a couple of trips to the Yarra Valley, where we did more driving than tasting, because it’s only a day trip from Melbourne. Those trips were still fun, but there was decidedly less tasting, and thus, less staggering.
The best thing about living here is that we can walk 100 feet in either direction from our house and buy a bottle of ‘cooking wine’ for $7, which T gleefully finishes, because we don’t want to be wasteful. And the scary thing? It’s not so bad.
