"Give me my name."

Hello, or muli uli, or matandala, or mwauka uli, or whatever, from yours truly in Malawi. Yep, still here and still kicking, though my legs are threatening to fall off from all of the walking I’ve been doing over the past two days. 

You see, there’s a thing called a “petrol shortage” in this lovely country. What that actually translates to is slightly more complicated. As you may know, if you’ve ever once read a piece of news about Malawi, the President here is slightly off his rocker (thanks in part to his close friendship with a certain other African President, name rhyming with Bugabe). He kicked out the British ambassador, lost over 40% of his country’s aid money as well as a new multi-million dollar grant from the US, and raised the taxes on basic food items. Upon the resulting devaluation of the Malawian currency and the screwing of local economies, he began hoarding forex (that’s dollars, mostly). Now, as you may be aware, forex is kinda necessary for cross-border trading (especially when your local currency is the kwacha, a beautiful but rather useless bill), and when the President makes it very, very difficult to purchase anything with said forex, well… cross border trading gets slowwwww. In fact, it gets so slow that things like petrol, available from Tanzania and the southern countries, stops coming. It also means that things like beverages are only available on a week by week rotation – no coke one week, no beer the next, currently no bottled water—that the grocery stores outside of the big cities are running out of basic stock – and that prices on everything keep going up (the US and other countries who rely on petrol to transport goods should take note).     

So, this relates to my legs in the following manner: we don’t have any petrol up here at the Mushroom Farm (as a reminder, located a convenient 10KM uphill from the closest hovel, and 32km from the nearest thing resembling a town with a useful shopping center).  In order to get petrol to go to the big city of Mzuzu for shopping, tax paying, visa extensions, and basically everything you can’t do from a mountain lodge 10km from anything, we have to drive 32KM in the wrong direction, buy it on the “black market” (it’s been smuggled in, or really just driven across the border, from Tze), and then hoard it so we actually have some when we get back from driving 150KM both ways and need to lug all of our goods back up the hill. This takes time, time that Mikael and I have to be away from the camp, time that our staff have to pretend to be responsible managers and look after things while we’re gone.  So, in order to minimize this time, our solution was to send Jess (that’s me) on foot to the bottom of the hill, to have her hitch a ride to Mzuzu, do all of the administrative bullshit necessary to keep a camp running and certain Americans/Swedes legally present in Malawi (on foot), stay a night, hitch a ride back to the bottom of the hill, and start walking back up (hoping to catch a ride part way, and luckily timing said trip for the hottest 3 days Malawi has ever seen). Mikael would drive the car down the hill the next morning, grab some black market petrol, drive to Mzuzu, drive around and complete extensive shopping adventures, sleep, and drive back.  In conclusion, Jess’s legs would nearly fall off.

But enough about that… okay, not quite enough. This all wouldn’t have been nearly so dramatic if, a week before, I had not walked down the hill, hitched to this town 32KM north, purchased 30meters of reinforcement iron, tied it into a heavy 4meter long bundle, waited for a vehicle big enough to take me back to the turnoff to the farm, and then waited 10hours (that’s Ten, with a capital T) for a ride big enough to drive me and my rebar back up the hill. A ride that, of course, broke down, calling for a rescue mission from Mikael at around midnight. A rescue mission that resulted in him starting the broken down ride in under 5 minutes, and then driving me home. Retrospectively, this may not seem very related to the above paragraph, but trust me, it’s all connected.

Anywayyyyy…. Putting aside the petrol shortage and related issues, Malawi continues to be beautiful, and much continues to be done at the Mushroom Farm. People come and people go (mostly neither right now, it being rather slow for tourism in Malawi), and we continue to try to build houses, instill manners into our animals, and try not to fall off the mountain side. Out of the only two downsides that Mikael and I have found here at the farm (Malawian staff not wanting to work and a lack of cheese), the cheese-related one has recently been satiated by a small, rather tasteless (and yet wonderfully delicious) block of mozzarella donated to our cheeseless-cause by a lovely American couple who stopped in for a few days.  Lots of fruit is coming into season, promising some epic fruit salads in our near future; and I met a nice Malawian woman sitting at the turnoff to the farm during that 10hour stretch who actually bought ME a Fanta and chatted about life, rather than asking for money or a pen or anything from me.  Nice lady, I’m hoping to visit her later this year (and to tell her husband to give her money to go back to school – he apparently believes that she’ll get wooed into running away with a fellow student if she returns to school, though she’s had 3 of his children so far. Men.). 

Funny side-story regarding Malawians asking for stuff: every time I’m at the bottom of the hill, it’s an exciting occasion for the Malawian children who live down there. They get to sneak around corners, dare each other to get close to me, and practice their very limited English, primarily “give me money/coke/water/pen/book/insert-newest-English-word-here” . One daring young lad, no more than 6 years of age, was nominated to be the talker in one recent encounter, and in true Malawian style, the following words came out of his mouth: “Give me my…. name”. Rather than attempting to explain to him that I was not keeping his name in my backpack, I called him Theodore and got on with my day. 

Which brings me to another side note, primarily regarding Chinglish – in this case, not the common Chinese-English hybrid, but a Chichewa-English mash up. Some signs/shops/slogans here are very, very funny (and often quite creative). A few for your pleasure:

On the front of a shop in a rural village: “Quality items sold here less”. 

The name of a shop at the bottom of the hill: “No sweets without sweat shop”. (It sells phone credits). 

The slogan on many public service announcement road signs: “Arrive Alive”. Only funny when you know that Malawians constantly (and with great consistency) switch their pronunciation of “l”s and “r”s (like the Asians), resulting in “Arrive Alive” being “Alive Arrive”, which makes me giggle. 

Phew. I’m getting tired, but before I go, there are two items of importance I wish to address, so please continue to give me your full, hopefully divided attention (I can’t entertain more than 2 people at once, and then only if one of them’s asleep). Here they are, in no apparent order:

     I’m taking suggestions on things to do with my future, since I’m rather indecisive and only know what I know. Catagories to consider include sweet jobs (NGOs, or businesses in Africa get higher consideration), finding a way to fund my travels, and going back to school (masters programs, apprenticeships, all other sorts of programs considered). If you’ve got any good ideas…. Write me! 

 

2.       Many of you wonderful people have asked about sending me care packages, and have asked that I provide a list of desired goods (as well as an address) to this end. In light of a recent mailing success (shout-out to WT, who’s books have arrived in good form), I have taken the time to sit down and compile my mostly (strange) food-related desires. I would recommend, if you’re planning to send along any of the items on this list that look like I only need one of them  (I’ve “*”d them), that you comment on this blog with your intentions in order to let others know that they don’t need to send dog bling too. I would also recommend that you cover any packages with various Christian phrases and stickers, as they are less likely to get stolen if they look God-related. The list, then, is:

-          Some sort of bling’d out dog collar befitting of our new puppy named Mr. T*

-          Any good books you’ve finished reading

-          Candy, including twizzlers or chewing gum or circus peanuts or anything (except chocolate, chocolate has been removed from this list because of melting potential)

-          Random food stuffs that I can’t get here, including but certainly not limited to marshmallow fluff*, chocolate chip (or any) cookies, season salt (the seasoning)*, mac and cheese, bacon bits, blue cheese dressing*, poptarts, homemade jams/marmelades/preserves, mustard (ideally spicy, stone ground, etc), triscuts, olives, olive oil, maple syrup, fruit snacks, koolaid packets, pepperoni/jerky and other similar dry sausages/meats, and any baking recipies/brownie mix that you don’t have to add butter to.

-          A new nose ring(the bent stud kind), preferably with a small sparkle, as my sparkle has fallen out*

-          Duck tape*

-          Chewable pepto and vitamins and any substance than might help heal cracks in feet*

-          Hankerchief/bandana type things

-          And, most importantly, anything cheese related. It’s been suggested that hard, wax wrapped cheeses  such as parmesan will ship well (expect 2 weeks in a box), but if you think this is a bad idea, I will gladly accept that strange parmesan that comes from a jar that you shake onto pasta and pizza at “Italian” restaurants. 

-          Sheepish request: money. If you feel compelled to donate to the “Jess never really works at jobs that pay enough to fund her adventures but goes on them anyway” fund, let me know – I'll come thank you in person when I'm back stateside :)...

-          Finally, anything else that strikes you as something that I’d appreciate. Which, in case you aren’t sure, is anything at all.

The address anything could get sent to is:

Jess Scott

c/o The Mushroom Farm

PO Box 101

Chitimba, Malawi

East Africa

Phone (in case you’re interested): +265999652485   

And now I’m off to bed, it being 6 minutes past my bedtime (that’s 8:06pm, in case you want to make fun of me). I hope you’ve enjoyed this missive as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it – and thanks in advance to anyone who wants to send anything at all along, it will be great fun to get packages all the way here in Malawi. Lots of love to all!

Jess

The First of Many, Malawi Style

Hello world! From Malawi, it is I, World Traveler Jess Scott, writing to give you all a good reason to piss off of work and surf the web. That, and because I thought that maybe a few members of my friends and family would be pleased to hear that I'm alive.

Well, I'm alive! And having a wonderful time. And wanted to write to tell you about it ... after a brief reminder that I've been writing occasional posts for this other awesome website called Pink Pangea. Well, they've decided to publish another of my posts (golly, gee), which, if you're interested, can be found at this link! It'll take you all the way back to my Sweden days, but should extend your web surfing session to at least half an hour. And be mildly interesting, I'm guessing, especially if you've never been to Sweden, or even if you have.

Anyway, on to Malawi! Our arrival in Malawi was no different than any other border crossing I’ve ever made – loud, insistent taxi touts trying to drag you to this car or that, shifty money changers whispering “good rate, fair price” from behind an endless line of lorries waiting to cross this way or that. However, my traveling companion Mikael and I, upon receiving our entry stamps, high-fived and hugged, exuberant at our successful entrance. We then changed money with the shiftiest guy we could find, jumped in the only registered taxi available, and sped off toward our destiny.

Okay, destiny might be a little much, I’ll give you that. But here we are, sitting comfortably at a table in the bar of The Mushroom Farm, and there’s more than just a nice view in front of us (and it is definitely nice). We’ve signed on to spend 9 months as co-managers of this extraordinary eco-backpackers camp, isolated 11km up a hillside in northern Malawi, nearish to both the towns of Karonga and the mission Livingstonia. Owned by Mickie Wild, an adventurous Australian who stumbled upon this perfect piece of hillside 10 years ago, the Mushroom Farm is a destination that requires commitment to visit – you can arrive only on foot (3-4 hours uphill), or if lucky, by hitching an irregular ride with whatever transport will brave the 15 sharp, unmaintained switchbacks to leave you at our doorstep. I like to say that the camp self-selects for cool people (read: people I get along with) – you’ve got to be pretty cool to be willing to hike for 4 hours to reach a pretty nice view and little else.

Well, okay, this time I under exaggerate – we also have cold beer, hot showers, and some of the best food in Malawi. The camp has enough power on sunny days, thanks be to a small collection of solar panels, to run a fridge, charge a few batteries for lights in the evening, and keep our iPod’s happy; our showers and food are all heated by fire, a seemingly endless supply of wood just a forest away; and our local cook, Efreeda, has been here for 5 years – enough time to perfect a menu that makes my mouth water just thinking about it (Banana pancakes! Onion bhajis! Did I mention banana pancakes?) . We have a handy man to help build things, an excentric night watchman who is seriously afraid of snakes, and another lady from the nearby village to help Efreeda with all of the chores that make this place run smoothly. So what is there left for Mikael and I to do but sit back, knock back a few beers, and contemplate life?

Rightttttt. While we’ve done quite a bit of this in our first 3 weeks here, much encouraged by our fearless leader Mick, we’ve still managed to fall asleep exhausted every night in our home for the next 9 months, a bright yellow tent (with all of the modern conveniences of a mattress and rain fly, and the current inconvenience of a termite invasion). Mick has trusted us with the responsibility of running the camp solo twice in the past 3 weeks – the first time merely 5 days after our arrival, and now again 3 weeks in, for business trips to the “big cities” in the south. I’m impressed every day with what it takes to run this camp, from keeping finances so that we don’t miss the 16.5% VAT or 1% tourism levy payments, to building a second shower and composting toilet with nothing but hand tools and lots of sweat, to keeping a sharp eye on our staff to ensure that more work than gossip happens around here. Oh, not to mention taking care of the guests, helping the ladies in the kitchen (I can cook over fire without burning everything!!), feeding the animals, making sure we’re not dangerously close to running out of tomatoes or water (like we did the other day, thanks a lot dry season), and whatever else crops up. Today’s special projects including finishing fixing the Land Rover and taking it on its maiden voyage to Livingstonia to get vegetables, deposit money, sell eggs (we have 17 rather productive chickens) and buy roof-thatching grass; hanging another triangle canvas over the bar area to shade it from the afternoon sun; and writing this blog to you J. We also had 6 new guests arrive on top of the 4 who were already staying, making it an exciting evening for Mikael and I – this being the high season, we should be this busy (or more) every night, but the pesky Malawian riots in combination with a bad financial year for the majority of tourist countries have caused a decrease in the number of people passing through this beautiful country.

So, perhaps you’re wondering if it’s what I expected so far? That’s an emphatic “definitely”! Maybe I expected to jump right into learning to build new chalets and collect wood on my head – but we have local staff who are much better at the latter, and it turns out you have to first learn to use a saw in order to do the former (I’m getting there, people – just don’t ask Mikael’s opinion). I think that Mikael and I have complementary skill sets, in that I’m good at getting up early and doing the people/paperwork stuff and helping in the kitchen (surprising no-one more than myself), and Mikael is good at staying up late and fixing/building/carrying stuff with often incorrect (or missing entirely) tools and lots of ingenuity. And we don’t hate each other yet, which is always a bonus when you’re planning to spend a bunch of time with the same person. We’ve had our share of “oops” moments so far, like when it turned out I had fed the ducks some version of husk with zero nutritional value for 2 days in a row rather than their actual food; and when we let the water in the tank run out because there were leaks in the pipes and too many showers and too little water flow in general; and when the camp dog ended up following some guests up to the mission (Livingstonia), staying the night, and following totally unrelated white people all the way back down the hill to Chitimba… 10KM past our camp (that one’s not our fault, but it IS funny that we had to make a special trip down the hill to pick up our silly dog). And there have even been unexpected pleasures, like cooking dishes with meat in them (which Mick didn’t do here last year) whenever we go down the hill and can get some (it only lasts for a few days up here without steady refrigeration), and not having to wash our own laundry (a million thanks to Efreeda, who I personally believe could wash the dirt out of the ground), and drinking all of the cocktails off of the new cocktail menu one Sunday afternoon because we had to know what they tasted like according to Mick. But I can honestly say I’m looking forward to everything the Mushroom Farm has in store for my Swedish companion and I – from the quiet moments alone at sunrise to the early-but-rowdy nights of debauchery around the fire, from the driest of dry seasons to the camp trying to wash away during the long rains, and from the furthest shores of lake Malawi to the spot where I now sit, overlooking this place that has so quickly become my home, and signing off.

With love,

Jess (WTS)

P.S. I would love to share pictures, especially depicting my use of power tools and the strange variety of things I have so far carried on my head, but Malawian internet is just not quite good enough to upload photos. So, we'll have to wait until I have enough patience to manage such adventures in interweb data transfer. Sorry, ya'll! 

A quick hello, and an older blog...

Hi Everyone!

A quick hello from Malawi, where Mikael and I have spent the past week learning lots about the running of the Mushroom Farm Campsite, our home for the next 9ish months. We're here alone right now, on a little managing-test run, thinking about all of you wonderful people out there at home.

More will eventually come regarding the Cairo escapade (at least a brief summary of the results, but suffice it to say that we obviously made it here), but until then, here's an old blog post to keep you busy! It goes all the way back to my visit to Rian in Holland, and features dance parties and prostitutes (which may not be surprising at all if any of you have been to Holland). Check out the rest of Pink Pangea while you're at it -- they kinda rock.

Love to all, and a super special shoutout to WTK, whom I miss more with each passing day. Wish you were here, friend! :)

Jess

23-07-2011, 1400 hours to 24-07-2011, 0210 hours

Note: The general content of this blog was originally written by Mikael (the Swede), then translated by Google, then reinterpreted by yours truly. Therefore, the content will be very similar to the next few blogs appearing on Mikael’s website, www.2cape.com.

I consider myself to be equipped with a lot of patience. Probably more patience than the average American, enough patience to deal with multiple-day-long train rides through China or with waiting for hours for the daladalas to leave the African bus stands. But this, well this pretty much killed it. Strap in and enjoy the next few blogs, as I explain exactly what we went through to get to Malawi.

Everything was fine (note the “was”). We were having a wonderful time in Istanbul, after having visited a university I’m interested in attending in Estonia (anyone want to study Semiotics with me?). We were staying with the same CS host that Em and I stayed with last time we were in Istanbul, and visiting places both new and familiar. We went to the Grand Bazaar, full of pushy salespeople and brightly colored things of every variety; walked over, under, and around bridges day after day; drank tea and ate donuts by the sea in the evening sun; visited the magnificent Basilica Cistern under the streets of Istanbul; and even went to Asia on a day (well, night) trip. Time passed quickly in Istanbul, 4 days too short a time to explore this city (even for both Mikael’s and my second time), and we were off to new places – our flight was leaving for Dar es Salaam (via Cairo and Addis) the afternoon of Saturday the 23rd. We bid our host farewell, made it to the airport, and checked in (as you do when you go to the airport). We were informed at the counter that our bags would be checked all the way to Dar, a relief, as everyone likes to avoid having to collect them and recheck-in at each layover destination. We were asked if we had gotten visas to our final destination , Tanzania, but replied that we could purchase them at the airport – once confirmed, the nice lady gave us our boarding passes, sent our bags off down the conveyor belt (why does it feel like you’ll never see them again, no matter how many times you’ve flown?), and we were off on the first leg of our flight – to Cairo.

Bad decision #1: We arrived in Cairo pretty much on schedule, at 1730 hours. It wasn’t a bad decision that we arrived (thank goodness, even Egypt Air’s pilots can land an airplane), but a bad decision that we arrived on time, because frankly it extended the rest of the scenario I’m about to begin describing. We had our hand luggage (consisting in total of a sweater, iPad, phone charger, USD, visa cards, laptop, laptop charger, and some pens), the clothing we were wearing, and our passports. Upon arrival, we were referred to the “transfer desk”, to be sure we’d get to the appropriate gate for our next flight to Addis. We also needed our boarding passes for this next leg – but, seeing as that we had an 11 hour layover in this airport (oh, cheap flight tickets), we were not concerned about the timeliness of any of this happening. At the transfer desk, our passports were taken, and we were told to wait in some chairs for further instruction. Well we waited, and waited, and got hungry, and waited some more, and finally found the guy who had originally taken our passports and enquired about our ability to get them back, and to move to another terminal that perhaps had some dinner in it (this terminal was, apparently, not the terminal with food). The guy seemed rather confused by this question, as if people wanting dinner and their passports back was something he had never, ever encountered before in his life. He seemed, as Mikael put it, to be facing some unprecedented challenge that his office had never before encountered – and so we agreed to wait just a little while longer while he worked it out. By now, it was probably around 1900 or 1930.

Well, we waited. The folks on our plane left, and we waited. New planes arrived, and we waited. Finally, fortuitously, something happened. We were bundled with the other white people who had magically appeared (4 Germans, I think), loaded into a van, and transported to the magical other terminal. Satisfied with our new location, we ordered a beer, Mikael spilled most of it on my laptop, we ordered another beer, met some Americans, ate hamburgers, and prepared ourselves for our next stop: Africa. Point to note: our passports, during this entire encounter, had been kept by a nice airport employee who told us we could have them back, along with our boarding passes, at midnight (3 hours before we were supposed to leave).

When the clock approached midnight, we found the nice guy who had had our passports, and asked about their whereabouts and our boarding passes. Seeming unclear, he made plans to meet us at the McDonalds in half an hour to straighten things out. He met us, eventually, and told us our passports were actually at our gate, waiting for the departure of the plane. We could collect them there, though to be honest, we were still unsure as to why they had been taken in the first place. I assume it was to keep us from running off into Cairo, as if we had any intention of exploring that city ever again (sorry, once in that chaotic mess is enough for me for a decade or two).

So, we continued to do nothing, though we moved toward our gate to wait for departure. We figured bureaucracy would run its course, as it often needs to in Egypt, and though we hadn’t been in possession of our passports for nearly 12 hours, we were content to let things work themselves out. When a guy arrived with a big bunch of passports with papers and tickets sticking out of them, we thought we were free and clear. However, he tossed the passports into a big plastic box (no security, no locks, no lids); started shrieking at the other staff members in a way very typical to the country, until the shrieking turned into a quarrel, and the highest ranking staff member had to get involved. How did he solve the problem quarrel? By lighting a cigarette, on the spot, inside the airport (a non-smoking area), totally unperturbed that there were 50 people clustered around him waiting for their passports, while another 50 sat nearby waiting for something to happen. Including us…

0210, 24th of July… plane scheduled to take off at 0250…

To be continued ...

p.s. Friends, we are on our way to Malawi tomorrow! We will keep you abreast of any political developments in our once peaceful, now-less-peaceful-but-probably-still-okay country. And in the coming days, I will be posting various blogs that I wrote earlier in these travels that will be posted on Pink Pangea, that travel website for women that I've been writing for, in the coming weeks -- so don't get confused as I mess up the timeline a little bit!

The ARC, Part 2

...(If you haven’t read part 1, I highly suggest starting there, if only to become familiar with the characters involved, read the disclaimer, and see some epic photos).

(This photo does not factor into the story, however, it does warn you to beware of Extreme Dancers. I think it means Ricky Martin.)

(Oh, this is what it warns you not to throw your children into. Though the tiger also does not factor into the story below, I betcha didn't know there were tigers in Sweden, didya? Didya didya?)

Now, it’s time to tell you all about Midsummer’s Eve! Waking up particularly hungover the morning (okay, it may have been early afternoon) of the festivities, we tucked into a giant breakfast and wandered down to the center of the village, less than 5 minutes away. There, we discovered the most interesting sight – a giant, naked maypole laying on the ground; a huge pile of young birch trees, recently cut down; and a ton of villagers, busily stripping small branches adorned by pretty green leaves off of the trees, making neat piles which other villagers were attaching to the maypole using metal wire. We immediately joined in, the Aussies adapting their method to allow for simultaneous beer drinking, Bjorn stripping entire trees with his Swedish efficiency (and tree clippers) at the same rate that it took the team of 3 foreigners to strip half a tree, and Mikael decorating the pole in very questionable positions. We returned home once we got bored to drink more beer and eat more food and shower and take part in a fun Swedish game we had learned called Kubb, whose basic rules were to toss round sticks at square sticks and knock them over. Our own private festivities lasted until we heard music from far off, and Lena (Mikael’s sister) ran off down the lane in a traditional Swedish dress, disappearing around the corner carrying a violin. We assembled on the edge of the road, when around the corner appeared… a tractor, pulling a platform, on which a minimum of 20 villagers sat playing instruments, while hundreds of villagers paraded behind them. They passed us and called out various Swedish greetings, cousins we had met waving and shouting “edge”, some in Swedish garb and some in jeans, everyone heading to the center of town. We joined the end of the procession, and found our previously-spacious center square packed with the entire village come to view the raising of the maypole, socialize, and listen to music. Beers in hand, we watched as the men of the village employed long sticks in an ingenious method to raise the even longer maypole; and when raised, a call went out for dancers to complete the festivities. Sara and I joined the children and other grown-ups holding hands around the maypole, and I followed clumsily along to 10 or 12 dances that everyone in the village had been doing since childhood (my favorite one required us to act like tadpoles and frogs and skip about). The entire village then dispersed, heading to set up big house parties all over the village that would go on all night, the old and young alike drinking, dancing, and generally celebrating the summer’s arrival!

(The Village. Looks like a horror movie mixed with halloween mixed with a ren fair.)

(The Aussie method. Hold the tree between your legs. Help a friend out. Done and done.)

(Bjorn, a picture of Swedish Efficiency.)

(Mikael, decorating. Good Swede.)

(The village, raising the maypole. Cool.)

On to Peace and Love, then – sadly, Bjorn and Sara and Dannyboy had to leave us prior the festival, jobs and a very pregnant wife requiring the ARC to break up. However, Sperm and Mikael and I pulled ourselves together, and after a day of rest (and watching “How To Train Your Dragon”, a particularly cute movie) headed to the city of Borlange, each year home to the Peace and Love Festival, Sweden’s biggest musical event. The festival took over the main streets of the city – 7 music stages were arrayed all over town, food trucks of every variety were everywhere, and a rather sparse array of beer tents were accompanied by tons of porter potties and 50,000 scantily clad youth, this year’s festival bringing with it the most amazing weather. Sperm was around for the first 2 days of the 5 day festival, and seeing Kings of Leon play was the highlight of his festival experience. Mikael and I stayed on, and over the course of 5 days saw Volbeat, MIA, 30 Seconds to Mars, Deadmau5, The Ark, Kings of Leon, Jimmy Eat World, Ziggy Marley, All Time Low, Social Distortion, The Strokes, Soilwork (ick), Petter, Looptroop, Architects, Bob Dylan, Foreigner, Journey, TwinFlower Band, Engel (bah), Mimickry, Bad Religion, and The Haunted (ew). We were both super excited to see one of our musical idols, Bob Dylan, but as my sister correctly pointed out a few days before he played: “Bob Dylan sounds and looks like he’s going to die. You’re better off taking some ‘shrooms and hallucinating that you’re back in the day when he was good.” His performance was disappointing, but hey, we saw Bob Dylan in Sweden, so I’m not complaining.

(Crowd at Kings of Leon.)

(Volbeat. Isn't the stage sweet? We're in the front.)

(MIA, on video screen, because we were NOT right up front. She's crazy, you know.)

(Deadmau5. He's not dead, but he is a mouse DJ.)

(THE STROKES. Single coolest stage set-up at entire festival. Yummy.)

So, that brings me to somewhere around the past week or so. We’ve been using Garsas as a homebase to drive all over Sweden with Mikael’s trucking job (and to spend a very boring day in an office, which reminded me why I’ll never have an office job). The most interesting trip was this past weekend, where we drove a truck a million hours down to the south of the country, but got to stay 2 days and visit before returning. I even managed to get a sunburn during the picnic we had on the coast, which probably doesn’t bode well for my time in Africa, if I sunburn in Scandinavia. And now I’ve spent a quiet two days in Garsas, typing this blog (4 pages takes a long time to write, you know) and waiting… waiting… waiting… until Thursday (that’s tomorrow), when we’ll start our travels down to Malawi!! That’s right – by 9am tomorrow morning, Mikael and I will bid this lovely village adieu, and head back to Stockholm where we will catch “the party boat”, an overnight cruise-ship-turned-ferry destined for Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia. We will visit Tartu, a city about 270km south of Tallinn, where I’ll meet with members of the Semiotics Department at the University of Tartu to learn more about their international masters program (and specifically the ecosemiotics research currently underway – I’ll let you look that one up yourself). We’ll then spend 3 days couchsurfing and exploring Tallinn, which I’m happy to say is about a million times cheaper than Sweden. We fly to Istanbul on the 19th, to reconnect with some couchsurfers Em and I stayed with at the end of 2009 and spend 4 days sightseeing and eating mountains of baklava. And on the 23rd, we leave for Africa – flying to Dar Es Salaam in my most-favorite Tanzania, spending anywhere between 2 and 5 days there trying to catch the train to Mbeya, a small town in the south of the country located conveniently near the Malawian border. A few busses later, and we’ll be at our home for the next 9 months – The Mushroom Farm! Am I excited? You bet your a** I am! 

Well, that pretty much does it for now folks – if you made it to the end, I’m proud of you, and if you just skimmed the photos, that’s cool too! You’re all welcome in Malawi anytime before April – if you’re considering making the trip, let me know and I’ll advise you on travel details (and be super, super excited to hear from you). There IS a mailing address in Malawi, which I will post once I learn the details, in case anyone wishes to send us anything J. And, as always, I appreciate reading your comments, answering your questions, and am happy to dedicate an entire blog to anything ya’ll request – so please, please, pretty please let me know what YOU want to know more about!

Until next time, your faithful servant,

Jess Face (WTS)

A few more photos that haven't yet made the cut...

(This family sized kebab pizza was meant to feed 3 of us. We ate it for 3 meals.)

(Awww. I made all of the headgear with Sara's help decorating. We're a cute gang.)

(In the words of Dannyboy: "Nice scenery much, Sweden?")

(Rock. On.)

The African Reunion Crew (ARC), part 1

Disclaimer: The story that is about to follow will probably contain mild amounts of profanity, debauchery, and some potentially poor decision making. In other words, it should be entertaining :).

(The crew, minus me, in front of a giant dala horse, which does not feature in this story. Can you see Cory?)

(Sara and I -- and a crazy Mikael -- holding two freshly carved dala horses, mine named "Hippity Skippity Dalahest", who also does not feature in this story.)

Welcome to Garsas, a tiny little village near a giant lake in Sweden. It reminds me in one very important way of a very, very pretty version of a town I grew up near in NH, called Winchester. The thing about Winchester was, it had about 400 people in it… and they were all related, earning it the nickname of “Incester” (we’re very creative in NH). Garsas is similar – nearly everyone who walks by the red farmhouse that Mikael’s family owns in is a cousin of some type or another, and Mikael is a local celebrity for being the 2nd tallest person ever produced by Garsas, his 6’ tall frame towering over the rest of the inhabitants (in case you were wondering, no one from Garsas has ever taken up basketball as a career). To remind you, Mikael is one of the Swedes I traveled with from Sudan to Kenya last year (check their trip out at www.2cape.com).

(The crew, again, by the giant lake. I wanted to push them in, but saved that for a warmer day. Smart, considering that they're all bigger than me.)

(Bjorn is a professional stone skipper. He can skip anything. Even Dannyboy.)

(Garsas. Isn't it cute? This picture is particularly important because in the background you see the only yellow house in the entire village. Everything else -- everything -- is red.)

When I last left you, I had spent 5 days in Stockholm, enough time to thoroughly explore, watch TV, and arrange my departure. This included a trip to the airport, though I wouldn’t fly – I was heading there to meet Mikael, who was heading there to meet the rest of the Africa Reunion Crew (the ARC, if you will). You see, not only was this Americanska visiting Sweden, but at the same time (organized on purpose, thank you Swedish Efficiency) two Aussies, also met in Africa on a trip of their own (http://www.bunduwalkabout.com/) , were joining the ARC. Dannyboy had just moved with his very preggers wife to Germany, so it was a short trip for him – but Cory, affectionately nicknamed Sperm (try shouting that one out in a bar without any context for the rest of the customers), was joining us all the way from ‘Down Under’. Bjorn (the 3rd Swede I met) would drive nearly 8 hours with his girlfriend Sara to meet us in Garsas; and the crew would be complimented by occasional visits from Mikael’s sisters (and of course a dozen or two cousins, parents, and a really annoying boy we nicknamed Elvis – what is it with the oil-slick-back hairdo making a comeback? Gross).

When Mikael met us all at the airport and greetings were exchanged, we eagerly asked him what the plans were for the next week – leaving it all up to the Swede, none of us had thought beyond that moment. Looking suspiciously pleased with himself, he responded with “we’ll see”, and we knew an epic reunion week was about to ensue. The drive home only confirmed how epic it would be, as we made two extremely important stops, stops that would inform the entire nature of the reunion. The first stop – to pick up a tour bus from Mikael’s job (he drives this bus, and fixes things, for a racing team in Sweden). He had borrowed the bus for us to live in (it had fridges, bunks, a kitchen, seating areas, etc), and was planning to park it in the driveway of his parent’s house. A bus hostel of our very own? Uh huh, awesome. The second stop was of specific importance to the Aussies, who since arriving at the airport 2-6 hours before, had been without alcohol. I don’t know if you know this about Australians, but in order to remain awake and active, they must maintain a BAC above the legal driving limit of most countries, or they dry up and turn into raisins. This is why stop two, at Mikael’s other job (he drives trucks for DHL), was to pick up ridiculous quantities of bootlegged beer, bought on a recent trip to Germany from a friend and resold at a small profit to our Swede. I’m talking a minimum of 15 cases of Spendrups Gold and Thor (the greatest name for a beer ever) – which the Aussies immediately began consuming, busting out their very own beer cozies (or stubby coolers, as they insisted on calling them). I think the nice people of Garsas think that Aussies are born with beer cozies attached to their bodies, because they never were spotted without them.

(The bus, our home. Clearly, Sperm loves it.)

(The bus, view 2, parked in the driveway. We definitely did NOT manage to get the bus's trailer hitch stuck in the driveway, requiring large amounts of wood and ingenuity to remove it because our faithful leader couldn't figure out the compressed air button. Definitely not.)

(Bussy's interior. That's a large leather couch in the front window. The weird head gear will come into play later.)

So, a few points to note: First, we had all arrived in Garsas at this time of the year for the most famous Midsummer’s celebration in Sweden – the region around Garsas is well know as THE PLACE to be on this, the longest day of the year. While that single day may have been the longest, it’s been light every night since I arrived – the darkest it gets is dusk, and only for about 3 hours each evening (and none on Midsummers) – which makes it really easy to stay up all night. Probably too easy, based on the number of times we did it. Second, Sperm would stay longer than Dannyboy and, together with Mikael and I (and his sisters, we would all attend the biggest music festival in Sweden, the Peace and Love Festival. With a line-up including Jimmy Eat World, Kings of Leon, Volbeat, Bob Dylan, MIA, and a bunch of other bands (including some screaming-yelling-banging stuff I’m not into), as well as 50,000 other attractive people (the females of which Sperm would constantly try to acquire), this festival would occur AFTER the other festivities. Finally, this is just funny – both Bjorn and Sara had recently started this diet whose main rules were this: eat as much fat and protein as possible, and little-to-none of everything else. This lead to moments of hilarity for the rest of us, when Bjorn would spread a ton of butter directly on a piece of sausage and pop it into his mouth (forget those nasty carbs), or would refuse fruit juice on the premise that it was unhealthy while consuming 6 eggs and even more butter. I hope it works out for them!

(Midsummer, a preview. That weird looking guy is one of Mikael's cousins)

(Peace and Love, a preview.)

(Bjorn and Sara, a preview.)

Now, I think it’s time for a SwedLish lesson, necessary to explain the two words heard most often from the mouths of the ARC – “Edge” (a variation of which was “wedge”), and “Sold-Out” (you may wish to tune out if you are one of my grandparents, or really anyone who has grown out of the capacity to understand humor of the 14-18yr old male variety). First, we non-Swedish speakers found it simply hilarious to listen to Mikael on the phone, chatting with his family, or cursing at us in Swedish. Reminded of the most-famous Swedish Chef (a la The Muppets), we would constantly translate what we heard into our version of Swedish: “goo-ba-de goo-ba-de herb-a-de herb-a-de goo”. However, one word kept catching our attention – Kant, the Swedish word for “edge”. Here’s where that humor comes in. You see, the reason this word kept catching our attention is because it is pronounced just like an inappropriate English word used to describe a certain part of the female anatomy (usually in negative terms, unless you’re a feminist familiar with the Vagina Monologues); or, as the Australians informed us, used to describe practically everything in their homeland (as in “you’re a good ____”, “Did you see that ____ on TV last week? Hilarious.”, and of course the more traditional “Get me a beer, be a good ____”). Now, after receiving explanation that Mikael was not calling his mother/sister/father/cousin this word’s English equivalent, we adopted the English word “edge” as the nickname we would now use to refer to each other (or Elvis)(I’ll let you figure out the “wedge” variety for yourself, it’s not hard). It was a feat of Swedish – English transliteration that we were confident no one would ever understand (until Mikael’s sister began taking pleasure in explaining it to Swedish speakers, including her mother). In similar vein was the term “sold-out” (or “sell-out”). One day, as we left a store, Dannyboy started laughing and pointed at a picture of children playing in a swimming pool, next to which, in big red letters, was the word slut. Again, with Mikael’s intervention, we learned that the children in the pool were not considered negatively sexually promiscuous, but that the Swedish word for “sold-out” was this rather hilarious (if you’re a 14-18 year old boy) English word. It takes no great leap of imagination to guess that we began to refer to each other as “sell-outs” as well, or the combination reserved for especially grand proclamations – “you sold-out (w)edge”....

...For the rest of the story and more photos, see "The ARC, part 2" (my most recent post)!

Holland, Belgium, and Sweden begins...

Hey there, people I know! Totally awesome of you to keep checking in, when I’ve been so remiss in posting blog updates. Not as remiss as I could have been, of course – I’ve been posting links to my “real real blogs” (as I call them) whenever they go up on Pink Pangea, this ultra-sweet women’s-traveling website I’ve been writing for.  Those blogs, you’ll probably notice, are from my travels earlier on this trip – I’ve been waiting until they get posted on Pink to link them here, and Pink is a little slow, as it turns out. However, I assume you’ve been enjoying them as you’ve so patiently waited for me to get around to sending you a real real update (I respectfully recommend reading them if you haven’t, if only because you might find it interesting to see how my writing “voice” changes depending on who my audience is). So here it is, complete with pictures – see, I DO love you!

 (Me, loving you guys, Amsterdam)

Um… brief pause while I scroll back and see when I last wrote an update for you kids, and how much I have to cover in this one… maybe you should listen to a little music and grab a snack, I recommend a cheese-on-cheese sandwich…ok, there we go. 

So, last time I wrote I was hanging out with my amazingly cool friend Rian in Holland! Spoiler alert – when my next blog gets posted on Pink, you’ll find out that I attended a big gay festival which involved dancing on a canal – and I actually mean on a canal, because they built a platform spanning the canal to dance on, and put the DJ on a floating platform of his own. It was epic – pink boas were obtained, beautiful men and women were all around (did you know that the Dutch, after the Maasai in E Africa, are the tallest people in the world?), and it was all organized by one of Rian’s good friends! We also attended this great musical event called Student Fest in the university town of Leiden. 3 musical performances occurred in the gardens of student houses, the outdoor version of an event that occurs in student dorm rooms during the winter. Hundreds of people mill about drinking beer, dancing, and watching small musical groups perform in intimate spaces. It was good fun, hanging out with more of Rian’s friends currently attending university in this town.  We visited Rian’s family in a small village in the north of Holland called “Hair” in Dutch; and went to Den Haag and Amsterdam, a trip which included a rather exciting boat ride courtesy of her uncle, a grey-haired retired dancer who has a penchant for speeding through the “lake” in the center of Amsterdam, a penchant that got us stopped once by a police boat… and nearly a second time less than 10 minutes later. We ended up really wet and a little cold, but with happy spirits as we wandered around Amsterdam a little more, finding free raspberries to spice up our next few breakfasts and having a warm dinner in a delicious Turkish-ish restaurant.  The day I left, Rian was also leaving, heading to a music festival on a small island with her best friend. Well, she was supposed to anyway… but due to my leaving, we got a little intoxicated the evening before, and she didn’t quite make it to the island that day, hangover be damned J. It was amazing to spend so much time with my most-favorite Dutchie, and with a little luck and a lot of planning, she’ll be visiting Malawi before I leave next year! 

 (Rian and I, being cool, in a shoe, Amsterdam)

 (Cute boat, Amsterdam. I want one.)

 (People. Gay festival. On water.)

Moving on… was hard. Not because I minded leaving Rian (which I did, but we both had our own adventures to pursue, and being seasoned travelers we toughed it out), but because I’m cheap.  Yep, friends, I don’t like spending money, especially when I’m not making any. So, I spent a few horribly unproductive hours trying to organize the cheapest possible combination of flights, trains, and busses to get to some country whereupon my departure to Sweden a few days later would also be the cheapest possible.  It got to be 11pm the night before I left, and I hadn’t yet booked anything – so I closed my eyes and pushed a button that resulted in my visiting Belgium! Seeing as that I hadn’t ever been to Belgium, this turned out to be a good decision – and I only had 3 days to kill, so seeing as that Belgium was right next door it also proved to be a rather practical decision. 

I visited Brussels and Ghent in Belgium, but we’re going to skip any boring details because of a much more interesting story (in my opinion).  It began one evening as I sipped my first coffee of the day at a café in Brussels and wrote some of you postcards. Sitting alone at a table in a courtyard adjacent to the main mussel-selling district of Brussels (my plan for dinner), I was looking around aimlessly when an extremely tall man came up and asked, in French, if he could sit at my table. Agreeing, I continued to write postcards, assuming that since I was one at a table for four, it was only polite to share my table. However, as happens, we started chatting, and it was then that I met Jeroen de Ridder, floral-artist extraordinaire, member of a random Belgian band, inhabitant of a town with two (no three, no four) castles, friends with Two Many DJs, and owner of 8 cases of a very exclusive Belgian trappist beer called Westvleteren. Interesting side story -- the monastery that brews this beer only sells 30 cases of it a day, and to get a case you have to call (like a thousand times), and if you happen to get through, can only order one case, the make-up of which is determined by the monastery (there are 3 different types of beer), as is the day and time you must arrive to collect your case (if you’re not there next Thursday at 3pm, too bad). Additionally, you must provide your license plate number to the monastery, in order to ensure that you don’t get more than one case per month.  A side story to a side story – just the evening before, while Rian and I drank copiously at the café she works at, her coworker Paul had expounded the qualities of this rare and delicious brew to great length – so funny that I was now hearing about it for a second time in 2 days. Anyway, back to the facts, Jereon clearly had been working on his collection for a while -- but this was all a side note as we chatted about Belgian food and beers and such. I learned he was a Couchsurfing host, and was rather bummed I hadn’t been able to stay in his small village and see the castles – I love castles --but seeing as I didn’t know I was coming to Brussels prior to 11pm the night before, it had been impossible to organize a hosting situation. Anyhow, we decided to have dinner together and keep chatting, as he knew the best place for mussels on the nearby street. Due to my luck (I’m like a rabbit’s foot, but you don’t have to keep me in your pocket or rub me, both of which would be weird), we managed to get the last table in the place without waiting, which was awesome because these mussels were out of this world. A few beers at a few sweet local bars later and I had made a new best friend and plans to visit his village the next day so that I wouldn’t have to miss the castles after all!

Now, let’s be honest – Jereon was full of stories chock-full of outrageous facts and experiences, and I’m quite sure they weren’t all true (if they were, he’s probably the coolest person I’ve ever met). However, I have pretty good sketchy-dar (that’s like radar for sketchiness), and he didn’t set mine off at all. So the next evening I arrived by train in his village, and we spent a few fun-packed hours exploring the gorgeous countryside, listening to music, and partaking in this most-exclusive and extremely delicious beer. We laughed at each other’s traveling stories, and on the way back to the train station Jereon gave me a bottle of Westvleteren as a gift from one traveller to another. It was a wonderful chance encounter, which happen quite frequently as I travel. All you need is a smile and an empty chair at your table, and who knows who you could meet?

 (Sweet Graffiti in Brussels, for WTK)

(Castle, because I love castles, in Ghent)

 (Seriously gigantic church)

Onward, to page 3 of blogging, we arrive in my potentially favorite country ever – Sweden! After a night of no sleep (I had chosen to spend the evening in the train station rather than getting a hostel, because my flight left at 7am and I had to be at the airport early anyway – remember, cheap), I flew Ryanair to Sweden (an experience I don’t necessarily suggest), and arrived in Stockholm to be greeted by one of the 3 Swedes I traveled with last year through Africa! Per, the Swede who lost his passport in Egypt and had to return home for a while, spent 5 days showing me around his city and guaranteeing that I had a good time doing traditionally Swedish things. Things like eating meatballs for dinner at Ikea, where, to my amazement, they employ people to lounge in bedroom gear on Ikea beds or in outdoor attire on Ikea patio furniture – YES, you get PAID to relax all day in a bathrobe and sunglasses.  (Side note – I think Ikea in foreign countries should rent Swedes to others to complete tasks with Swedish efficiency – tasks like assembling your Ikea furniture – and then to stand around and look pretty. They would call it Rent-a-Svensk. It would be a hit). Where was I… oh right, things like eating meatballs and watching a season and a half of the American TV series the Big Bang Theory and attending a Flogging Molly concert at an amusement park and taking a boat to a small island (the archipelago of which Stockholm is part contains upwards of 3000 islands) and, of course, exploring Stockholm.  My departure came too soon, but I was off to a town further north, Garsas, for an Africa reunion of epic proportions…

(Changing of the guards at the Palace in Stockholm)

 (Church-type thing on one of Stockholm's tiny islands)

(This rabbit looks innocent. Sure it does...)

 (Really, really nice district in Stockholm)

Whew. I need to stop there. I’m going to write another blog, maybe tomorrow, about the party that has since ensued in Garsas, so do check it out. But this post is definitely long enough.  Take it easy, and as they say in Sweden: "Denn här skottkärra är skit."

‘Til 5 minutes from now, and/or next time, this is 

W(orld) T(raveler) S(cott)

signing off

Sweden, in brief

Hey friends! I write from the beautiful country of Sweden, but only to say hello and pass on another semi-professional blog post! This one dates back from Australia, and you can find it on Pink Pangea's website, here! I'm sure it will keep you amused until I get back from the Peace and Love festival, happening right now in Borlange, Sweden!!

Lots of loves,
Jess Face

My first real real blog :)

Hi loyal blog followers,

Agai, I write from a random foreign country, this time Sweden! I'm pretty excited about being here -- it's been amazing so far, and I'm pretty sure it's well on it's way to being my favorite country (due to Socialism, and Swedes). But more about that later...

My first real real blog has been posted! I might have mentioned in my last blog post that I'm writing for a women's travel website called Pink Pangea, submitting blogs every couple of weeks about my travels. Well, a few weeks late, my first blog that I wrote for them has been posted! If you happen to be interested in reading aforementioned first real real blog,  you can find it HERE, which is very exciting for me. Please --go, read, explore, and pass it on -- I think this site is pretty cool, and they obviously have good taste in foreign correspondants :).

Finally, as promised, a few pictures from my trip are included below for your perusing pleasure. 



Beautiful New Zealand Lake



Vineyard in Hawkes Bay, NZ

Coastal NZ Photo

"Mount Doom" in the Tongariro Alpine Crossing



View from Tongariro Alpine Crossing

 

A real live glacier



Pretty, greenness.





Yours truly,

Jess Face