Eww

Today I left work early for an appointment, so ended up back at my regular Metro station mid-day. I walked to the parking garage, and as I was rounding the corner to enter the stairwell, I heard the sound of water clattering to the concrete. My immediate thought: Uh oh, a water pipe must be leaking! But when I got to the doorway, it wasn't a pipe leaking--it was a person! Some dude with long blond hair and a US flag bandanna was standing at the landing (with his back to me, thankfully) peeing onto the stairs below. At 12:30PM! Who does that?!?! A crazy person, perhaps, so instead of calling him out, I just turned around and walked into the elevator instead. How I would have hated to be coming up the stairs from below! Gross! I had always assumed this stairwell got its perpetual urine smell from someone's late-night bladder urges...guess I was wrong!

Speaking of eww, when I was in N'Djamena the other week, I took a picture of a really awful public art/public service announcement painted on a wall. It warns one to be sanitary, because the Cholera is a killer! Also on the ewww front, we ate lunch at some fairly good places while in N'Djamena, but two of my colleagues got pretty sick after eating lunch at a middle eastern place. The dishes were served with diced tomatoes, onions, and lettuce on top. I scraped the veggies off my falafel, but these two guys didn't. I asked one if the tomatoes were worth it, and his answer was an emphatic "no"! I ended up giving him my last round of Cipro. Which reminds me, I need to get more, but I don't have time to go before I leave for Freetown this weekend. But one of my friends has some slightly-expired Cipro she's offered me. How proud my mom must be--here I am considering taking someone else's expired prescription medication! Haha!

I'd say it was a good trip overall, but I didn't get the impression there was a lot to do there. We stayed at the Meridien, which was alright (not the best place I've stayed, nor the worst). We ate dinner one night at the Kempinski, which seemed realllly nice (for Africa anyway), but is Libyan-owned and possibly for that reason we weren't allowed to stay there. I practiced my French with our drivers and also during meetings. It was great! I understood about 90% of what was said. Our locally-employed colleague didn't interpret everything, but I think that might be because our team leader and I both understood what was going on without it (or, he's crappy at interpreting). But even if that's true, I don't hold it against him, because he was a pretty cool dude. He and his wife are Canadians who have lived in N'Djamena since the late 70s and over the years have adopted 16 children (in addition to their biological children). They're very well-known and popular in the City, because they run a private school. It started out as a tutor for their youngest child, and other people they knew asked if they could have the tutor teach their kids too; now, their enrollment is 600 students at 3 campuses!! Several of the government officials we met with were taught by his wife.

It was really hot there (around 100 F). At one meeting, the building's power had gone out, so we met in a kinda dark and stiflingly hot office. In the middle of our meeting, the power came back on, and the people interrupted the conversation to bring in a fan and get the AC unit started. After the meeting, when we were saying our goodbyes, one guy explained that we had looked so hot, they were trying to cool us down. He pointed to me and said that "la blanche" (the white girl) had become very red! I had honestly tried really hard to make it look like the heat didn't bother me, but I guess I didn't succeed!

Pictures here.

Dragging Pants Solution!

Finally, something for the girl who walks/takes public transportation to work! I saw these in Shape magazine. They keep your hems rolled up so they don't drag the ground while wearing your walk-to-work flats! I usually need to re-roll my hems multiple times during my commute, and often my pants still end up dragging the ground, so I'm really excited about these! I'm ordering a set in black now, but after I get a good look at their construction, I may try to make my own.

Googling

Is it embarrassing to admit I Google myself every once in a while? Well, I do. And this time I actually found something cool: I made it onto "Eye of Dubai"! They mistook me for a "Mr." unforunately (I was trying to dress conservatively, but really??); at least they spelled my name right! They misspelled Mona's name and left Suzanne and Alene out entirely.

Damn Terrorists Ruining My Day Off

I'm working from home today. Except for the part where I'm going to go in and work from work later in the afternoon. It's hard to get done with everything that needs doing before I'm going to be out of the office for a week (I leave tomorrow). Sigh. Part of it is directly related to the fact that terrorists blew up a Marriott last week. Because of them, I'm working on what was supposed to be my day off. Damn terrorists. Okay, don't think I'm insensitive, complaining about how I have to work on my day off when a lot of people were killed or injured. But perhaps my reader(s) will realize how important the war on terror is when they recognize that a world where terrorism exists also directly impacts my leisure time. Although, perhaps my leisure time would be less impacted if I stopped procrastinating on my blog and started actually working....