Nas Ana Madri Lasim Mosada Ana (That's my Arabic for "Relying on the Kindness of Strangers")

I came to Tanzania prepared to make a new friend, but instead I made three. Oddly enough, none of them were who I expected. I expected to become friends with the girl I came to visit. She was a friend of a friend, someone I had never met, but we spent a lot of time talking on the phone arranging for my trip out to visit her. Before I met her in person, I knew a little about her. She was a morbidly obese, heavily tattooed, bald, white girl with explosive diarrhea. Unfortuantely after I arrived, I discovered that her personality was equally charming. We parted ways as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

I spent the remaining week with one friend at a time. The first was an unassuming, sweet, accomplished woman with a bachelor's degree in public health. Although she was only 22, she had a better resume than most 30 year olds! I hung out with her in her village for a couple days and felt like I had a wonderful camping trip. No water, no electricity...no problem! We enjoyed spending time at the orphanage, and she impressed me by teaching a high school lecture in Swahili! She had never known me, but when I asked if I could come live with her, she graciously accepted the offer. What an awesome chick!

The next new friend was my safari tour guide. His English was enough to get his job done, but not on a conversational level. I knew what that felt like, since that's about as good as my Arabic. The dude and I spent many quiet hours together in the Land Rover, and we enjoyed every minute. There were no awkward silences, just silences. He was extremely skilled at finding animals, and that's all I wanted. We ate dinner together both nights and kept conversations to a minimum. I liked it. At the end, he told me I was the best client and wanted me to use him again if I did another tour in Tanzania. I don't know if he says that to everyone, but I was glad he liked me, too.

The third person was my friend for only a day, but it was a good day. He was a 20 yr old student who helped me find a taxi driver, then called me that night to make sure I was enjoying myself. I got a text from him the following day, offering to take me to his house for lunch so I could meet his family. I accepted the offer, and his sweet mother even gave me a kanga (a piece of fabric to tie around your waist like a wrap-around skirt). I held his baby niece, ate their food, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I talked to his girlfriend on the phone and had a great afternoon meeting some of the most important people in his life.

This world is a wonderful place. I feel fortunate to be a part of it and meet so many kind people from such varied walks of life. Someday I might settle down and see only the same faces over and over again. If I ever do, I want them to all be the faces of people who are kind to strangers.

France! (That's my Arabic for "France!")

That's my dad in France. I really can't remember a time when he was ever so happy for so long. He had a few good hours during his Marx Brothers fad. He liked helping his five kids with their math and seeing the moment when the lights would go on. He laughed a lot at The Far Side, Doonesbury, and The Devil's Dictionary, but otherwise I don't remember him as really being very happy. In France, he was happy.



We had a great time together. It was the first time we really spent any long period of time together, just the two of us. We had a bit of a role reversal from when I was a kid. I made the executive decisions, I did most of the required interactions with strangers, I planned most of the itinerary, and he got to be the good sport to go along with everything. He did a great job! The first day he stayed up for over 24 hours and never once complained, even though it was cold and snowy at the Eiffel Tower.




Before we went, I knew there were things he would love, but he surprised me with just how much he loved them! All men love war monuments, so I took him to some great WWII sites. Sure enough, he loved it! Not only did he love the sites, he loved the D-Day Museum enough to take 167 pictures of the inside, capturing possible every piece of history.

He always dreamed of seeing the Chateaux of the Loire. We spent a day checking out the best of. I knew he would love the castles, and I had a sneaky suspicion that he would also enjoy "the dog show," where a ton of dogs chaotically devour a gigantic pile of food in a matter of minutes. We saw a couple beautiful chateaux, then watched the hungry hounds before we went off to the grand finale chateau, Chambord. We walked back to the car after spending the day fulfilling my dad's dream, and I asked him what his favorite part of the day was. He didn't say anything, just opened and closed his mouth like he was eating an entire chicken in four bites. Looks like reality is sometimes even better than dreams.

One of my favorite memories took place on the day we planned on going to Versailles. We didn't make it to Louis XIV's hang out spot. We went with something less refined instead. We spent the day at the French equivalent of Super Target and might have enjoyed ourselves even more. In retrospect, we really should have brought a camera into the grocery store. If I could have captured the look on my dad's face when he saw all the cheese, I would have won a photography award. He saw the deli case filled with cheese and couldn't believe how many different kinds they had. "Wow!" Then his eyes wandered beyond the edges of the deli case to the refrigerated aisle filled with an even larger selection of cheeses. "WOW!!!" Then he looked across that aisle to the other refrigerated aisle also filled with cheese. "WOW! WOW! WOW!!!" I just stood there beaming, knowing I showed him something that no one else ever had. While we wandered through the store, we saw something unusual in the meat department: a wild boar that had been to the taxidermist. The next couple days my dad regretted not taking a picture of the wild boar at the grocery store. Instead, we took one of him standing next to one at the Louvre.

I knew we would love seeing the beauty of Paris, wandering through museums and daydreaming in castles. We did! We saw a lot of really cool stuff, but the best thing I saw was ten consecutive days of my dad being unquestionably happy.

Ah-hee-yaw-nin, anna ma heb hena (That's my Arabic for Sometimes I Don't Like it Here)

There's no crazy like Middle Eastern crazy. Yesterday sucked for so many reasons, but we'll just stick to Saudi medicine.

I'm sick. Last week I went to the travel health clinic to get pumped full of poison before going to Tanzania. I felt the way you would expect for a few days, then started feeling super crappy two days ago. I was a good nurse and took excellent care of my favorite patient (me), then went to bed earlier than usual. I slept really well for the first three hours, then woke up feeling like my throat was on fire! A big glass of water and a couple tylenol later, and I was back in bed tossing and turning. Finally at 3:30 I decided that I wasn't going to work. I was going to the ER instead. My chest started feeling the way it always feels right before my asthma dominates my life.

I refilled my empty 1.5 liter water bottle and drank almost all of it on the way over. My throat still hurt, but not as badly as when I woke up. The told the triage nurse taking my vitals that we take my axillary temp because I had been drinking cold water, but what do I know? She sent me into the deserted waiting room, where I waited alone for two and a half hours before the doctor saw me. I told the doctor about my injections, about going home from work with a fever the day before, about my swollen glands, my white speckled tonsils and painful throat despite drinking three liters of water while waiting to see her, about having strep throat a few times in the past and this feels exactly like it, and about my upcoming asthma attacks. She looked at my vitals, and noted that my temperature was low, felt one side of my neck, and had me open my mouth. She said that she didn't see any whiteness, but she would get a throat culture. I asked her for a refill on some asthma medicine then she went away for awhile to... I don't know... chart, pray, see another patient, drink Arabic coffee with her friends, or whatever it is that prevents doctors from accomplishing a simple task in less than an hour's time.

When she came back, she handed me a few prescriptions. I asked her about the throat culture, and she told me that the throat lozenges would be enough.

Aaaaaaggggggghhhhhh!!!! I hate this place sometimes! I hate working with health care workers who suck!!! She sees me drinking incessantly from a water bottle, but doesn't think it will affect my temperature even after I tell her it will. She hears that I've had a fever for four days and it spiked the day before I came in. She doesn't check for symmetry in my neck so she has no idea how swollen glands are, and she either needs new glasses prescription or a new burqa that doesn't get in the way because those white spots were pretty obvious!

I left the ER feeling like I got ripped off, even though it was free. I feel like she was so bent on me only having a reaction to the vaccines that she didn't want to rule out strep. I'm going to do what I know you're not supposed to do. I'm going to self-prescribe some antibiotics, and I'll take them whether I have strep throat or not! Since I'll never find out otherwise, I'll just go ahead and say I've got strep.