Traffic People

I forge my own path every day. Literally. I commute from the core of "The City" which is the true original city of London and the financial hub into the heart of the city at large in its center, and the area of law firms clustered around the courts and chambers of law. Of course, I make this commute at the busiest times of the day: 8 am and 6 pm. It's like playing frogger, and God forbid I decide to text or look down to change the song on my phone and I've been run into or I have run into someone else. Remarkably though, traffic of people, completely unprotected by the metal of a car, isn't that much different than Atlanta or LA traffic. Everyone sticks to their own bubble and there are certain public transportation rules that everyone observes. Obey the unspoken code, or receive stares and glares galore.

Just like there are rules of the road, the rules of the riders for Transport for London have a code of conduct. 
Escalators: walkers walk on the left side, standers stand on the right. This is taken seriously and you will be run over or pushed if you're doing the wrong action in the wrong 'lane'. Switching lanes is also dangerous and must be done swiftly.

You cannot hug a pole or handrail, you can merely hold onto it. Hugging, or leaning your whole body against such a place for others to put their hands makes everyone sway unsteadily and causes social strife. 

There are no consequences for jay walking. 


No talking. Well, you can talk, of course, but no one else is. And whoever is, is a tourist. This rule is taken less seriously on the overground or bus where there is service but it's still widely observed. 

Speaking of tourists, every pedestrian cross walk has 'LOOK LEFT' or 'LOOK RIGHT' instructions so that pedestrians know which direction to check before they cross the road. I love this because I do actually use it a lot. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall when they decided to paint these instructions on every corner and crosswalk in this massive city. The staffer to the Mayor, "Sir, for the last calendar year, we've had 11,567 accidents on crosswalks where the injured reported that they didn't understand which directions the cars were coming." "Bloody hell, do we need to put instructions to all the tourists on every corner?!!" Yes, apparently so. (If you don't get this joke, you're forgetting that they drive on the wrong side of the road in this country)

On the note of crossing the street, this is a good place to mention that no matter how confused you are on which direction to look... If you wait for the light to completely change and don't start darting across the road in between cars, you're a tourist. 

Food and drink rules are interesting. Drinks are forbidden on the buses to the point where a bus driver will not let you on the bus if you have one in your hand. Drinks are cool on the tube, but food is not. You are welcome to bring it of course, but no one eats on the tube. Especially if you have something like chips, I mean, crisps, and you're just there crunching away, you'll catch all the stares of that entire cart. 

To finish this post about rules of the London commute, I will say, if you ever happen to drop your phone on the tube tracks, its best not to panic. It's NO BIG DEAL. You'll just use the emergency button/"help pointe" to call a member of staff. They will determine, depending on where your phone has landed on the tracks if they will be allowed to retrieve it. Then, they will stop the tube cart completely, make the driver get out of the cart, and then other members of staff will use this little stick thingy to retrieve your phone from the track. If the stick thingy doesn't work, they will do the entire charade over again and use the same stick thing a second time. I wouldn't know or anything.... ;)

I'm no psychologist but, pardon me while I step on my soap box

What phase of culture shock is being sick of everything where you are?
Unlike many of my colleagues who are tempted to spiral into conversations about what we miss from home. I miss the beach. I miss my car. I miss my dog. I miss Mexican food. I am dying for Taco Bell.
Fine, I miss all those things.

But really, what I am is sick of the nonsense of London.
I'm over the food here. Eating is a chore, its something that is simply done because it's the time of the day to eat and you should eat something because humans eat three times a day. There is no joy in the food, no enJOYment of the food. No good sushi, no fresh salads or vegetables. No real kitchen or oven to make healthy or delicious food.
I'm OVER the prices. Everything is SO expensive. $6 for a coffee? Is that serious? An extra 20% charge if I want to eat it here instead of carrying it out of the restaurant for it to get luke warm and then taste even more mediocre? Um, no thank you.
The rain? Over it.
The puddles that get splashed all over you by the cars whizzing by when it rains? YUCK.
Doing laundry in the worst dryer in the history of mankind- over it.
All of the clothes that I brought here? I hate 'em all.
Watching the football games on my computer with interrupted internet connections at 3 in the morning? Yep, ready to be back on a US time zone.
Requiring I dress modestly at all hours of the day because I have two roommates and no actual doors in my loft flat? Nope.
Saying, "Can you hear me?" "helloooo" about 30 times a day trying to get a decent connection on the phone with my boyfriend? No patience for that.
Falling asleep to a symphony of sirens? I've had enough of that.
Twin size bed? Obviously not my preference.
Going to church and only recognizing one song that we sing? Na, I'm longing for the oldies but goodies that I love.
The plastic chair that sits at my desk in my apartment? Ready to throw it out the window.

Of course all of these thoughts are extreme "First World Problems" and I recognize that. Additionally, each of these can easily be translated into me missing all things home. A few of these things have also carried over because, let me remind you - I have really been away from home since May. I haven't seen the things I left in storage since May. My car, my Keurig, my TV, my beautiful large computer screen. My bed, my clothes, my mother's rings. My stuff that I feel I need.

It also goes without being said that it is November 26, my first final is in less than a week, I am dreaming of law school in the few hours I get to sleep… and it's just a general trend that I currently hate almost everything.

I post this not because I need pity, but to make you laugh and be reminded that the life of a gypsy isn't nearly as glamourous as we'd all like to think. And sure, I'm no psychologist but I just don't believe the stages of culture shock go in some chronological order. They spiral around like a roller coaster. One day you go to bed thinking you're fully integrated and the next day you wake up feeling like everything you thought you'd become acCUSTOMed to, you actually resent. And then the next day you wake up feeling fine. In all moments, attitude and outlook is critical. In these moments, you have to be honest with these thoughts then move onto focusing your mind on something else.
It's not like you pass stage 3 and never look back.
That's just not how it works.
Abroad, or anywhere.
Fellow expats and travel lovers, care to chime in?

I guess I'll know when I get there

Well it's been a full year since I began law school. And oh my what a FULL year it has been. Law school is notorious for throwing you in the deep end and making you learn how to swim. That's a good analogy, but the one I prefer is making you hike up a never ending Mt Everest in a bikini blind (not blindfolded, but actually physically blind). 

It's odd to be sitting in a classroom again, reminded of how little I know and how much I still have ahead of me to learn. This semester I am taking some international law courses that Im really excited about. Last week alone, I was assigned over 200 pages of reading. This isn't exactly study abroad undergrad style, it's still the brutalities that law school has to offer except now the temptations to do anything except law school are 5 times stronger. 

I landed Tuesday morning in London and headed straight to class. It was surreal sitting in that room taking notes. My mental sloth is evident in the abnormal amount of motivation it takes to get through one page of dense textbook reading. It's nothing like devouring a John Grisham in just a few hours. 

In addition to trying to get back into the swing of school, I am starting to get settled in this great international city. Reverse culture shock has hit me pretty hard. It's so strange to see women with painted nails, be surrounded by English speakers that I can understand, read all the street signs and billboards with ease, walk up to anyone and ask a question expecting to be understood, availability of Internet at my fingertips.  The public displays of affection and the liveliness of the Brits chattering away on the tube have also jolted me quite a bit. It feels like living in London can hardly be classified as living abroad. Not to discount the differences between American and British culture, but I can walk into a grocery store and get bagels and Philadelphia lite cream cheese or a dozen Krispy Kreme. 

Then again, compared to East Africa, life almost anywhere else would be easier or at least more Western. I took the weekend to be selfish. I needed to catch up on sleep and spend some time in solitude just reeling from my weeks in Rwanda. In Tom Petty's Learning to Fly he says that "Coming down is the hardest thing." He also sings about a journey that started out on a dirty road, all alone. Then for the end of the journey, he ends the song with "I guess I'll know when I get there." 

I have secured housing, learned how to successfully text on my new phone, navigated around with delightful ease, survived my second week of law school and booked my next flight to new lands not yet explored. This week, I move into my apartment, attempt to get caught up on school and hopefully get to re-explore the city a bit. I will be here until the end of December and travel plans are whirling in my mind. Greatness lies ahead. 

Ladies and gentlemen, beloved readers, welcome to London where this journey continues on. 

That's what you get for waking up in Africa

                       

After being here about three weeks, you wake up with absolutely no expectations.

You wake up not knowing if the water will be turned on, if you will have power, if what you think you are doing all day is what you’re actually going to be doing all day.

You feel dirty all the time, even though Kigali is by far the cleanest city I have ever been in.

You wake up and dive straight into the obstacles to life here, even though you have an impenetrable advantage as a rich Westerner.

And all this got me thinking, “Why should I wake up in the morning and expect the water to run? Why should I wake up without the expectations of encountering anything outside of my own selfish little Stephanie Brown agenda? Should I not instead, wake up hoping that all those things work and be overcome with joy when I am allowed to go about my own plans? Ah, yes, perhaps I should reverse my thinking, and be grateful for absolutely every single thing.

Thursday, the power was out at the office literally about 95% of the working day. I did not hear a single complaint of any kind. I don’t know what other staff did, but Carmen and I sat at our desks for a while reading our books, talking with the other staff sitting at their dead desks nearby. I sat outside and read my Bible for about an hour. I’m not sure what this scenario would have looked like in LA, but I know it would have involved complaining, panic, chaos, laptops alive until their battery juice was gone, phone calls to complain to those in the position to bring back the power, and likely more panic. I didn’t see any of these things. Because this is a common occurrence, it’s simply part of life – the unexpected is expected. It is to be embraced. We were told we could go home, but we didn’t. We didn’t feel productive at all, but we were. Just not in the way we had anticipated.

Friday, again, there was about a two-hour stint without power. But that morning, when my computer was lit and buzzing, my fingers typed away, and I realized, this was likely the first time I’ve ever gone to turn on the computer and whispered “Oh, thank you!” that I could turn it on.

Let me tell you, what its like to live in Africa and appreciate the smallest, tiniest things.

I miss my microwave. Yes, you read that line correctly: I miss my microwave. I’ve never lived without a microwave, heated up food on a stove or in an oven every single time I want something warmed.

Killing any mosquito is a victory of epic proportions, worthy of at least 30 seconds of celebration. Killing the mosquito that magically entered the mosquito net as you climbed into bed, before actually beginning to fall asleep to her buzzing noise in your ear- now, this is the National Championship of victories.

All of the children on the street yell out, “Umuzungu!” as we walk by. This simply means, “white person.” And I’ve gotten use to it. What I haven’t gotten use to is the staring, the gawking, their eyes so interested in me and what I am doing as a muzungu in their country. Everywhere we go we hear the whispers, speculations, and comments in the groups nearby: “asdfksdflkjasdfj muzungu aslkdfjasldfjsf” is becoming a hum that I hear at all times. Many of the children will come up and say, “give me money.” I miss blending in. I miss being lost in a crowd. I miss no one caring who I am, wondering why I am walking where I am walking. I miss everyone around me too self-absorbed to notice me, much less call me out and talk about me three inches from my nose. Mototaxis honk as we walk by, and will even screech up an inch or two away and make a “tssss” sound to see if we want to hop on. This irks me to no end. I’m just walking along, minding my business, what makes them think that if I didn’t call them over in the first place, that I would suddenly think, “Oh yes! I suddenly really want to hop on your moto!” To put this awkward muzungu-status into perspective, at an ENGLISH-speaking church this morning of about 1,000 people, I counted six white people. SIX.

I miss water pressure. The water here trickles out at about the speed of the tap that you would get if you barely turned the handle at all. I have just learned how to effectively wash my hair in the most finite of streams of water. Standing in the plaster plate on the ground with a skimpy shower curtain circling on only one side opposite the faucet, this is showering, and it due to a solar-power water heater is certainly always one of the highlights of my day (a hot shower and communicating with my favorite people as the internet counts away, we pay per megabyte for internet usage).

Maybe the store a few blocks away will be open, maybe it won’t. Maybe it will have the milk that you just ran out of, maybe it won’t. Maybe the road you always walk on will be open, but maybe it will be closed and you’ll have to walk an entirely new route. Maybe the most reliable coffee shop for internet will have coffee, maybe it won’t, maybe the internet will never connect and maybe you have walked a mile there in the afternoon heat for absolutely no reason that you intended to justify such a hot, grueling walk. Maybe after playing charades with one our workers for about 15 minutes, they will have understood what we intended and maybe we will walk away not having communicated anything that we anticipated at all.

A box of cereal costs about $10. Cheese is also around $10. Bread is made without any preservatives and so it gets moldy in about three days. 

In all my travels, I’ve never had so many problems with my phone working. I’ve never encountered such a barrier to getting cash out of an ATM. I’ve never been somewhere for three weeks without seeing a single clothing store. This is the first country I’ve been to without any fast food chain.

That’s what you get for waking up in Africa (intended to be read in the tune of Katy Perry’s song).

And, I get to dust the glitter off my clothes and do it all over again tomorrow. The intensity of gratification I have for the smallest of these things will fade, it always does. But it’s going to last longer this time. I am determined to sustain the gratitude.

Three weeks down, six weeks to go.

“Maybe you had to leave in order to really miss a place;

maybe you had to travel to figure out

how beloved your starting point was.” –Jodi Picoult, Handle With Care

You can catch me on the 5:00 news

It’s indescribable, the Rwandan history and its ink-stain on the lives of these people. At the Rwandan’s core, they are survivors. They are battlers. The Spanish verb for “to survive” sort of means literally “live OVER” and that’s what they have done is live OVER years of pain and suffering and live THROUGH. It’s only mentioned briefly when it’s absolutely necessary, and no muzungu (white person) is stupid enough to be the one to bring it up. But it’s still very much so here, and it’s still very much a part of every day life. As, it should be.

Every day I stare into the obstacles preventing our office from securing perpetrator convictions and get so frustrated by the poorly written laws, the loopholes the perpetrators take advantage of, the lack of resources of the doctors who write the medical reports, etc. But, in fact, all things considered, it is simply miraculous that the country has anything organized, much less written laws or functioning courts, or a community spirit.

This morning, Carmen and I woke up at 6:30 am and walked along the deep red Earth (as Ann Voskamp called it) to the office. We were expected to participate in building a house as part of Rwanda’s Umanganda.

The last Saturday of every month, every single Rwandan is required to participate in community service. From 8 am until noon, no store or business is open, the roads are closed, cars must have an official government permit to be on the road and is required to explain to officers where the car is headed and why. If you do not come out from your house to participate in Umanganda, you risk getting fined. You’re required to work in your own neighborhood where you live doing something toward the development of the country- planting, watering, cleaning trash, sweeping, etc. Isn’t this the most incredible thing you’ve ever heard?

So IJM partners with other non-profits to do work outside of Kigali city in the poorer communities. I read that IJM was planning to send the director of administration for the day, and I invited myself. Jean Pierre was like, “you want to… go?” Carmen and I were like, “YES! Absolutely!” Shocked, as a grin started to grow on his face, he said, “Okay, be here at 7:15.”

In a typical itinerary in Africa, we didn’t build a house. We didn’t even almost maybe build a house. But we did do umanganda.

We joined about 1,000-1,500 Rwandans in what was chosen to be the “national project” for the day. The President attended, worked a bit and then gave a speech followed by singing of some Rwandan national songs. We first arrived to a huge mass of people, each carrying a tool of some sort. From IJM, each of us had a hoe. And not like a wimpy garden hoe you’d see in the US, a hoe that is serious.

We were corralled over to the women’s line where we were patted down, our bags inspected and then we were motioned over to a long line about 5 or 5 football fields long of people hacking away at the earth with whatever tool they brought. Along this dirt road of deep red, Rwandans were standing hacking away at an edge of dirt about 3 feet tall to a line floating above the ground pulled with string. We joined at the end of the line and were expected to begin. For the first minute or so, I just watched the man next to me. He lifted the hoe high in the air with both hands, and bring it down into the dirt and then just rip back as huge chunks collapsed and fell onto the lower section of dirt. Okay, I got this. So I did what I thought was the exact same thing, and not the smallest pebble of dirt even thought about moving. Hmph. So I did it again. Naturally, the guy next to me started laughing. He tried to teach me how, but I was simply incapable of investing 1/8 of the strength that he had. So I raked the dirt with the hoe instead. This, I could handle. About ten minutes later, but what felt like thirty, my hands were beginning to hurt, it suddenly felt like 100 degrees outside and it was time to do that whole hacking-away-at-the-rock-hard-dirt routine again. Not five minutes later did Carmen and I have an enormous crowd of onlookers, laughing, whispering about how pathetic muzungus are at doing absolutely any hard work. It was a scene.

The crowd of interested parties was boldly talking about us. Carmen and I were laughing at our own inability and pathetic-ness right along with them. I know how ridiculous we must have looked. It is worth mentioning that in five hours we maybe saw ten other white people, amongst a crowd of over one thousand. Because this was the national service project for the day, the mayors of each district of Kigali, members of Parliament, city officials, etc were there working too. Jean Pierre is the one who attends all the government meetings and deals with those sorts of things, so he introduced us to Mayors, members of Parliament all day. The Vice Mayor of Kigali, a very nice woman, came over to “teach us” how to do it properly. Five minutes later, JP was informing us that we were on camera. Sure enough, there was a huge camera held by a man with his “PRESS” tag and the Kigali major news network. They asked JP some questions about who we were and why we attended Umuganda. There we are, learning how to hack away at the Earth with the Vice Mayor of KIgali, barely managing to move any dirt at all, next to people on both sides just destroying it, with a HUGE laughing crowd behind us and a headline along the lines of “Expats join in at Umuganda.”

I’m not sure I was able to accurately describe this scene for you, but I hope you got a good laugh out of it. When we finally accepted that we were being of absolute no use to the project, our hoes got traded to others to work while we were allowed to rest. About every ten minutes, a member of the Rwandan national police or military official would corral those not working and move them to an area where they could be working. Military men and police had tools and spent their own share of time at work, too.

Apparently, the were pushing back the dirt and leveling more space for the road in order to build a gutter so that during rainy season, the water would drain appropriately. This will make a huge difference in that community for the road, but also because the rain water will drain into a well that can be used for drinking water in the well. I thought about all the non-profits boasting bringing water to African villages and laughed out loud and me, shamefully attempting to BE the person helping bring water to an African village, so unsuccessfully.

After about two hours of this nonsense, we all walked over to a large field and gathered to hear the President’s speech and his gratitude for Kigali’s people helping to develop the country. On our way back to the car, we encountered another news crew, a Japanese network. This time JP took over the interview and I’m just standing next to him, covered in dirt and awkward. So in theory, I will also be on Japanese news tonight!  

It’s pure genius, if you really think about it. Bring everyone together, do something good for your country, renew your spirit of patriotism, improve the place where you live. Free labor! And the irony of this monthly event—the community’s eagerness to dig this gutter for strangers in juxtaposition with such brutality against humanity just ten years ago—was puzzling to me. Perhaps this is how they’ve rebuilt, how they’ve found reconciliation. This is a quandary I cannot answer, but I was thrilled to participate and observe something so remarkable.

So, Los Angeles, all 4 million of ya, Umuganda?

Atlanta, umuganda?

I’m thinking, Saturday, July 27.

You will have to close your business for those four hours, no cars allowed to go anywhere. Let’s start small, nothing intense like forming a gutter by manual labor, you can just start by picking up trash in your neighborhood.

Oh, and you’ll be fined if you don’t attend.

See you there!

i may sound like a mother... but EW....

to enlighten you on some facets of my culture shock that still SHOCK me daily.

i absolutely cannot stop myself from cringing when i see one of the following things:
-dredlocks
-facial piercings

-a single dredlock or long braid protruding from semi-normal hair

-jeans sagging so low they may fall off at any given second
-conversely, jeans so tight that i am wondering how the person vacuumed into them is breathing
THESE ARE NORMAL THINGS IN THIS COUNTRY AND ITS DISGUSTING.

i cannot grasp the lack of respect, sense of time and schedule, disorder and complete ignorance of any normal behavior in these schools. i cannot believe there is no dress code. its remarkable i dont have nightmares about what these kids will be wearing in the summer! if i see cleavage and its 10 degrees outside, seriously, i am terrified about summer!

one of my kids came to school wearing this tshirt and i remember getting DETENTION for having a white undershirt on under my navy blue polo. on "college tshirt day" someone got saturday school for wearing the alabama tshirt with "rammer jammer yellow hammer give em hell alabama" on the back because it said "hell." i know i went to private school and all... but seriously. i asked him what his mother says when he wears that shirt and he said, "she doesn't care, profe!" oh, really??!! unbelievable.

because there is no time between classes on the schedule, everyone is always late somewhere. it blows my mind. every day its like i have to relearn how abnormal it is not just to be on time, but to think anyone else would be on time. and by "not on time" i'm talking what stephanie would call "late." which is OVER ten minutes LATER than i'm suppose to be there.
the concept of a syllabus could really go a long way over here. and by that i mean, every student would be failing and/or expelled by week two.

"public displays of affection" does not quite accurately describe the PDA that occurs in every corner of public spaces, on the metro, on the streets, and worse of all, on the escalators. while you are just trying to stand there on the temporary step, the couple in front of you is exchanging saliva and attempting to eat eachother's tongues as if this is the LAST chance they will ever have to do so in their ENTIRE LIFE! as if, when the escalator ends, they will no longer be allowed to touch. instead, there is usually another escalator, where they continue their touching, again, centimeters from your face. its torture. really. the PDA is just as bad at the schools. there is hand holding in class, lap-sitting, petting during recess and all i can think is, "EWW" the entire time! ES UN HORROR!

you can gamble at any and every restaurant here. there are slot machines in every restaurant/bar. yes. yes. and its quite disruptive when youre trying to read the newspaper and enjoy a nice meal.

of course for as many things that i think are totally crazy and ridiculous, there are just as many things i absolutely love. but, just to give you an idea of what i get to stare at on a regular basis, i hope you enjoyed the images provided. i really do obviously CRINGE every time. ew, who knew facial piercings had so many names.