E.S.L.

I am a native English speaker. Some places I've been, it has been difficult to know if the person was speaking English or some other local language. Other places, however, I know it's English, it's just a different version of English. And others just have a telltale accent for some words. For example, take Boston: They don't know how to pronounce 'r'. They've got Hah-vahd University and they eat clam chowdah. Or how many of you have ever ordered fried rice at a restaurant and when they bring it, they say 'flied lice' because the 'r' turns into an 'l' for some reason. Yeah, there's a population in Kenya who do the same, but they also pronounce the 'l' as an 'r', so when the Elections took place in Sudan, the people who work for the Carter Center were described as the ones who were responsible for the ... well, you can figure that out on your own.

Where I am now, 'b' and 'p' are commonly confused. Somalis are known for fighting, but I didn't know how much they prized it until recently. There's been enough fighting going on here for the last several decades to keep things from developing too much, but when I received the above recommendation as we were looking to hire for a new position, I was a little surprised. Seriously, maybe being aggressive is a positive trait here, but I really wouldn't think to find it in a reference letter. How many people do you know who want an employee who is 'combatant' (see the highlight in yellow above)? After I realized that the person meant 'competent' and not 'combatant', I had a little laugh about the difference in language, and added it to the list of interesting application letters we have received.

Anyway, thought I'd share a little bit of comedy that we experience here. It's one of the little things that help to bring a smile and remind me that there's so many things about life that I'd never get to experience were I not here.

End of the Road

Chicago traffic is terrible. Miserable. There is no way to avoid the gridlock. I assumed that heading into the city at around 6:15pm I’d meet backed up traffic coming towards me but I’d be ok enough going downtown away from the rush. Yeah, I was wrong. Lake Michigan makes a natural barrier forcing way too much traffic into Chicago. So I became that guy who weaves in and out of parked and slow moving traffic on his motorcycle. This is perfectly acceptable in most of the places in the world where I’d ridden before. In the US, however, motorists I passed were no doubt cursing me and secretly hoping that I’d get pulled over by a cop or maybe even that I’d get in an accident and become maimed in order to learn my lesson that the lines dividing the road into lanes are there for a reason. After an hour of stopping and going, bobbing and weaving I was slowly working my way through the traffic when the prayers of others were answered and the temperature light turned on as my motorcycle began to overheat when passing one of the toll booths. Argh! I pulled over to the side of the road in humiliation as cars slowly rolled past which I had just been recklessly (in their view, not my own) weaving through coming inches from their vehicles. Yes, several of them I could see laughing at me. Since I didn’t really know where I was going, I took this small chance to call Fletcher and find out if there was any advice he had on how to avoid the congestion and see just how much farther he thought I still had to go in this mess. Of course there are no roads without traffic in Chicago at this time of day, so after a couple minutes to stretch and let the engine cool down, I continued on my way.

I hate traffic!!!

It wasn’t too much longer till the traffic eased a little and I reached the exit. It was a great relief to be off the highway although trying to see the building numbers and road names while not hitting any pedestrians or cars on the narrow streets around UIC proved a different challenge. I only went past the building where Fletcher and Rachel live once before realizing it, and around 8pm I finally had a chance to allow my body to adjust to a more comfortable position than it had experienced most of the day.

It had been over a year since Fletcher and I had last met in Sudan and two years since our epic R&R on Zanzibar. We reconnected over a couple fine cigars on his back porch where they have a beautiful little garden to relax and soak in life. We really pondered existence that evening, and shared the joys and frustrations of the life we’d left in Sudan, Church, faith, and other deep things that make for good conversation while appreciating a nice cigar. While Fletcher had to be at work early the next morning, I had a chance to catch up with Rachel (they had just gotten married a few weeks before my visit). After a nice relaxing morning and a nice late breakfast, I headed east to the section of the journey which I’ve travelled far too many times already.

I started out in the late morning and avoided the worst of the traffic, though the construction just outside the city center was not so fun. My second home is in Northeast Indiana. Roughly 150 miles from Chicago, I always enjoy my visits to Bear Lake Camp and seeing all my friends/my second family there. It would have been easy to stay longer, but I did have an interview I was trying to get back east for, so I only stayed one night, attended Brad’s birthday party, and headed to Ft Wayne for the last night of the expedition. Chad, Ethan and Zeeb had plenty to say about my crazy trip and were pretty surprised I’d actually made it so far without having killed myself. Of course, if I had another month to start on another similar journey right then, I think in 5 minutes I’d have talked all three of them into getting motorcycles right then and there and joining me.

Bear Lake Camp in winter

The following morning I headed east where I intended to stop by and visit my Aunt and Uncle and a long time friend in Findlay Ohio. So, after 7000 miles of smooth sailing and no trouble with the police, I had my first encounter. It happened in Ottawa Ohio, with a population of maybe 5,000. I’m driving down the little 2 lane road towards the town with cornfields on both sides of me and a 55mph limit. I was maybe at 66 or 67 when the police car was coming towards me. Motorcycles don’t have cruise control, and I was a bit eager to reach the end as I expected to be home that night. It just had to be a woman cop. And by the looks of it, her husband was going through a mid-life crisis, had bought a motorcycle, and she wanted nothing to do with it or anyone else who might encourage him in the venture. I’ve gotten three speeding tickets in my life, 2 of them have been given by women police officers. Both of those were in Ohio. But, as far as problems that I could have encountered on the way, a speeding ticket is a minor one. And after a nice visit with Dave, Linda and Lance over lunch, I continued the remaining 350 miles from Findlay making only one stop and getting back at dusk 28 days after I’d left. I considered going the extra couple hundred miles to reach the Atlantic so that it could truly have been a coast to coast journey, but I was tired and satisfied enough with the road I’d travelled that I had no need to prove anything. And with that, the Blue Mamba Trail was complete. Good times, Good times indeed!

O Canada!

Hey ya hoser. In Tribute to Bob and Doug Mackenzie, and in honour (do they use the British spelling of honor with the u in there up in Canada?) of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics proving to be a huge success, I wanted to give some credit to the neighbor to the North of the US. And, with one of the best things to come from the country being a movie called 'Strange Brew', is it any wonder the women's hockey team celebrated the way they did? And is it really that big an issue that they did?

Like Dunkin Donuts only better

Congratulations to all you Canadians out there. You've got something to celebrate for quite a while. As the winter olympics finish at the end of February, you're able to hold the spotlight for awhile as there's not much else to do in February and early March but watch TV and read the news. And the World Cup isn't for another couple of months. So revel in the glory as long as you can, because we all know that while Canada may be good in the snow, they're not so well known for things which take place on grass.

Both very much Canadian




Near, Far, Wherever You Are!

Rain!!!

Today was the first time I saw rain here in Somaliland since early October. It was wonderful!! A whole 15 minutes of rain!! Sure, it didn’t last long, but it doesn’t take much to bring joy to everyone. And the way it looks, it might even just pick back up again and add a little more excitement to things around here. I was at the gate with our security guards when it started. It had been cloudy all day – this has only happened a few times in the past 5 months – and they’d become a darker shade all around. Consequently, all we were talking about was rain. (I had my English-Somali dictionary with me, otherwise we wouldn’t have even been talking but rather grunting, gesturing and trying to communicate using a conglomeration of my poor attempts at Juba Arabic, their poor attempts at English, and the 15 or 20 Somali words that I know).

Before the rain started, we could see several miles away that it was already raining. There was all kinds of dust in the horizon which they were saying (I only understood because of the sign language, though I’m sure they were saying it with their words also) is a sign of rain. Sure enough, about 20 minutes later, the wind picked up and sand was blowing everywhere. It wasn’t a sandstorm, and I don’t really know if they have those here or not, but the sand was blowing at least a hundred feet in the air in a not too thick cloud, and so came the rain. No one was concerned to retreat under cover at first. We were all relishing the liquid falling from the sky as it brought at least a temporary relief to the dry, parched earth. But, wetness does result in discomfort, and especially as the sun was low on the horizon, no one really wanted to get soaked. So, we did hide under a small shelter with big smiles and a light-hearted atmosphere that persisted.

Praise the Lord for the rain! I welcome it as a break from the monotony, a relief to the heat, and a hope that it will ease suffering of all around me who struggle to survive with its absence. It has been 5 months without rain in Somaliland, but I got completely drenched in a downpour in Nairobi only 3 weeks ago. For those I interact with daily, it has been a lifetime of going months without seeing a drop of rain. No escape to a foreign land where it is common. Nothing but brown, sandy earth with little thorny plants here and there that spring to life for a short time whenever the few drops of rain do come. I know that tomorrow I’ll begin to see a little bit of growth and maybe even a little bit of green will spring forth in the next day or two. The roots are shallow, and things will inevitably be scorched and die again. But, these are the things that are just beyond my and anyone else’s control. People grow up in different areas and have different experiences. It’s not for me to determine what takes root and what doesn’t. I can do no more than trust that the Author has a purpose for creating things the way they are. I rejoice in my experiences. I rejoice with my neighbours today for the little rain that fell. And I rejoice that life is not in the big things, but in the small things to be enjoyed moment by moment.