Africa's tractor beam got me again

We can all breathe a sigh of relief because I am finally going to have something interesting to write about. Apparently I am at my best when I am anti-social and in a conflict-affected third world country. If Hemmingway only knew the creativity this brings on, he would have opted to move to one. So....drumroll please...I am going to Burundi in two days. I just decided that, hey, I really need to get on the ball about posting more to this blog. If it takes a 38-hour plane journey passing through Amersterdam, Frankfurt, Addis Ababa, and Entebbe (raise your hand if you even heard of that last one), then I do what must be done. Because that's the kind of person I am.

Stop giggling. I'd be lying if I didn't get completely panicked about my Burundi gig, which is a six week job. I've got an eensy, weensy bit of post traumatic stress disorder. Just a dash, really, enough to make me an interesting date ("so, there I was, knowing that shots had been fired and that they were getting closer to us...man, whatever that table ordered looks great! Think those are crab cakes?"). Also enough to make me weary of leaving the comforts of home. But, if it boils down to productive work in conflict-recovering country the size of Maryland or sending faxes in Marlyland, what choice does a girl really have?

Random Thoughts

I know. A terrible blogger I am for not posting. I've been jotting down random thoughts, because I'm now officially a writer (or officially gainfully unemployed, or officially a temp, it's all about spin), and writers do clever things like jot down random thoughts. That's why we look intellectual and carry note pads. My current job-hunting forays are apparently not lost on the British. I'm 2 for 2 with applications and interviews. You know you're hardcore when a hiring manager asks you, "how would you deal with a kidnapping threat to your staff?" He had such a lovely British accent. It was very tempting to say, "What, you guys aren't packing heat in the field?" That would have been very American. And if he said "no," I could have a great follow-up comment ("And that's the kind of innovation I can bring to your organization").

So here are some of those random thoughts, most of them incomplete:

In Georgia, people assume that I am a missionary. In New York they think I do Peace Corps.

The first question any woman in the development assistance profession asks when proposed an assignment is, what is the shopping like? (Development? Developing my wardrobe).

A conversation I had in French in Kindu, when I realized that no one would ever "get" me:
“You don’t seem very American.”
“No, I’m quite American. As American as apple pie.” There is no word in French to differentiate a pie from a tart. So I say that I am as American as a tarte de pomme.
“I thought tartes de pomme were French.”
“Well, our apple tarts are different and we eat them with ice cream. They are very American.”

The two burning questions face every American aid worker: Why has Bono never visited me? Why had the CIA never tried recruitment?

On why American cleaning products would not be able to take on Congo: Scrubbing Bubbles would probably trapped and eaten. Mr. Clean would get taken down by malaria as soon as mosquitoes zeroed in on his shiny head.