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Tuesday, October 31, 2023
Tuesday, July 07, 2015
Heading out again
So, I haven't posted anything in four years. A lot can happen in four years: a new country (Hong Kong), new job (refugee center manager), a new country assignment (Nepal), return back to the US (another new job and language training), and a new language (Nepali, but I have the vocabulary of a toddler). Whew! In three weeks' time we head out to Kathmandu. Keep your eyes on this page.
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| Here's a peak at what we enjoyed in Hong Kong: View from our apartment in HDR by fabulous hubby Laurence Kent Jones |
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Thunder happens when it isn't raining, too...
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| Lazy day on the river outside of Les Cayes |
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| Queuing up in Jeremie to buy celebrated camperrette (yum) |
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| The ruins of the Palais National, modeled after the U.S. White House |
Laurence and I are here for another 2 1/2 weeks. We've spent 4/5ths of our married life in Haiti -- my sense is that the only thing that might drive us apart in the future is we'll get edgy with one another because everywhere and everything else will seem dull in comparison. Really. You get somewhat addicted to the rhythm of life: pulsing compas music; the cycle of disaster, public unrest, and political intrigue; the taste of piklis and banane peze. Uniformed schoolgirls walking to school with ridiculously cute and elaborate socks. The azure expanse of the Caribbean on a hot afternoon. Outrageously colorful and elaborate tap taps and buses.
Thunder is still rolling and rippling in the sky above. Glorious. Rain, please,
Friday, November 05, 2010
How much is too much?
As I sit and write this from a place of extreme comfort, thousands of people are sitting in flimsy tents while Hurricane Tomas dumps rain on this beleaguered island. I wouldn't be surprised if there are reports of frogs falling from the sky -- how much is too much? The earthquake, cholera, Hurricane Tomas, presidential elections -- what's next?
So, like millions of other Haitians and expats living here, I'm waiting for January 1, 2011. It's simply another day on the calendar, but symbolically it moves us away from 2010 and this constant onslaught of disaster. I am focusing on the Haiti that enchants so many: hot nights filled with compas music and drums, cold Prestige beers on the veranda during sunset, stunning mountains that appear to undulate towards the horizon, little girls crowned with hair ribbons walking to school... I'm focusing on beauty and hope.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
And we thought 2010 was going to be a good year!
My husband and I decided to see a late afternoon matinee in Massachusetts on Tuesday, January 12. As we left the theater, I turned on my cell phone to find 6 new messages from family and friends: “Are you okay?” “Are you in Haiti?” “Where are you?”
We should have been in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, but this year we had planned our vacation for January, not December. My husband and I have lived and worked in Haiti since 2007: me with Save the Children and then the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and my husband with the US State Department. I can’t write about the devastation that has forced us from our home, redrawn the city, killed over 200,000 Haitians and displaced even more, but I can write about the Port-au-Prince that has slowly mesmerized us over the past 2 ½ years.
To live in Haiti is to have an affair with the quixotic, dazzling, and befuddling. Haitians often say there are two Haitis: Port-au-Prince and everywhere else. Home to a quarter of the nation’s population, Port-au-Prince looms large on the psyche of the country. On Grand Rue, you can – could – still see the outlines of Haiti’s elegant past; from our balcony we could see the Palais Nationale, which was modeled on the White House, and Notre Dame Cathedral, which was built at the turn of the last century. The city is nestled in deep in the Gulf of Gonave; the month of September is always filled with spectacular thunderstorms that streak across the city, bay and mountainsides.
The city, unable to keep up with the constant influx of people from the countryside looking for better opportunities, is in a constant state of mad disrepair: irregular electricity, sporadic access to city water (we had our own cistern and generator), clogged and congested garbage-filled streets, humanity everywhere. Yet even in the most hopeless slum, there is something to be hopeful about: children’s laughter, the bright painting on a taptap (local transportation) that proclaims “God is good”, or the simple act of neighborliness when strangers help a market woman lift her basket to her head. A friend of mine helped me put the city into perspective by stating that Port-au-Prince was just like being in the countryside, but more crowded. She’s right.
Before returning to Haiti in late February, I had a series of post-apocalyptic dreams: the streets of Port-au-Prince were tunneled to create a series of trash-filled canals (not far from the truth) that were suddenly set on fire – violent infernos streaking across the city. The night before returning I dreamt I was in Middle America, looking at yellow skies filled with tornadoes, at least 7 at one point. I took refuge in a yellow bathtub for the first tornado and then a high school chorus room (oddly filled with members from the cast of “Glee”) during the second storm. Somehow I was preparing myself for the return to Port-au-Prince, where I thought the nightmares would be real.
As I write this, it’s over three and a half months since the earthquake. The nightmare is real for thousands of families, unaccompanied children, and adults living in squalor in camps – planned and unplanned – across the city. My colleagues and friends who have lost loved ones, their homes, their sense of being, tell me that they might be smiling, but there isn’t any smile in their heart. They might say they’re fine, but they’re not, and won’t be for a long time.
Yet there is still reason to hope. Every survey that’s been done in this assessment-riddled environment demonstrates again and again that parents want their children in school. Children want to be in school and learning. With this desire comes change; with this change comes a better future for Haiti.
We should have been in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, but this year we had planned our vacation for January, not December. My husband and I have lived and worked in Haiti since 2007: me with Save the Children and then the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and my husband with the US State Department. I can’t write about the devastation that has forced us from our home, redrawn the city, killed over 200,000 Haitians and displaced even more, but I can write about the Port-au-Prince that has slowly mesmerized us over the past 2 ½ years.
To live in Haiti is to have an affair with the quixotic, dazzling, and befuddling. Haitians often say there are two Haitis: Port-au-Prince and everywhere else. Home to a quarter of the nation’s population, Port-au-Prince looms large on the psyche of the country. On Grand Rue, you can – could – still see the outlines of Haiti’s elegant past; from our balcony we could see the Palais Nationale, which was modeled on the White House, and Notre Dame Cathedral, which was built at the turn of the last century. The city is nestled in deep in the Gulf of Gonave; the month of September is always filled with spectacular thunderstorms that streak across the city, bay and mountainsides.
The city, unable to keep up with the constant influx of people from the countryside looking for better opportunities, is in a constant state of mad disrepair: irregular electricity, sporadic access to city water (we had our own cistern and generator), clogged and congested garbage-filled streets, humanity everywhere. Yet even in the most hopeless slum, there is something to be hopeful about: children’s laughter, the bright painting on a taptap (local transportation) that proclaims “God is good”, or the simple act of neighborliness when strangers help a market woman lift her basket to her head. A friend of mine helped me put the city into perspective by stating that Port-au-Prince was just like being in the countryside, but more crowded. She’s right.
Before returning to Haiti in late February, I had a series of post-apocalyptic dreams: the streets of Port-au-Prince were tunneled to create a series of trash-filled canals (not far from the truth) that were suddenly set on fire – violent infernos streaking across the city. The night before returning I dreamt I was in Middle America, looking at yellow skies filled with tornadoes, at least 7 at one point. I took refuge in a yellow bathtub for the first tornado and then a high school chorus room (oddly filled with members from the cast of “Glee”) during the second storm. Somehow I was preparing myself for the return to Port-au-Prince, where I thought the nightmares would be real.
As I write this, it’s over three and a half months since the earthquake. The nightmare is real for thousands of families, unaccompanied children, and adults living in squalor in camps – planned and unplanned – across the city. My colleagues and friends who have lost loved ones, their homes, their sense of being, tell me that they might be smiling, but there isn’t any smile in their heart. They might say they’re fine, but they’re not, and won’t be for a long time.
Yet there is still reason to hope. Every survey that’s been done in this assessment-riddled environment demonstrates again and again that parents want their children in school. Children want to be in school and learning. With this desire comes change; with this change comes a better future for Haiti.
Monday, February 04, 2008
Calm during Carnaval
I am writing this from our hotel - Hotel Atlantis near Las Terrenas - in the Dominican Republic. We decided our Carnaval experience would be away from Carnaval itself, although we did go to Jacmel last weekend and witnessed a really charming and original Carnaval complete with fire-breathing papier-mache dragons, a tortured Jesus bearing a cross with American, Canadian, and French flags, and these mysterious men - les lancers du cord - who covered themselves in a mixture of cane syrup, soot, and dirt, thus rendering them the blackest black. Actually, here's some more about that from the website of photographer Leah Gordon (http://www.leahgordon.co.uk/), who has been capturing images of Carnaval in Jacmel for 15 years:
Lancers du Cord: We are making a statement about slavery and being freed from slavery. This is a celebration of our independence in 1804. The cords we carry are the cords that were used to bind us. We are always sullen and menacing and we never smile. The blackness of our skin is made with crushed charcoal, pot black, kleren (cane spirit) and cane syrup mixed with a little water in a bucket. Although we know that slaves never wore horns, we wear them to look more menacing as this is about the revolt of the slaves.
The parade was marvelous, but even more marvelous in the staging area where most of the Jacmelian Haitians seemed to be hanging out. Quite frankly, where we were it was a bit of a drunken mosh pit: vendors had been selling pints of rum since the early morning and by mid-afternoon the carnaval spirit was well mixed with other spirits. Sitting up in the balcony overlooking the crowd, we could see the people on the other side of the crash barrier beginning to get crushed by the crowds: at one point, two merging and opposing flows of people began to punch each other in the head. Carnaval spirit? Supposedly in Haiti Carnaval allows an opportunity to become unrestrainedly violent, instead of unrestrainedly bacchanalian, but I guess violence is a part of bacchanalia... Anyways, having been in a similar crowd in Vietnam but on a much larger scale, Carnaval's spirit changed once witnessing the crowds struggling and we wandered back to our hotel.
For Carnaval photos from my Facebook site, visit: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=26752&l=382c7&id=613156291
For the "big" Carnaval -- a 5-day weekend in Haiti -- we decided to go away to the Dominican Republic to rejuvenate and experience something different. We'll stay in PauP next year for the parades, but this year we needed to drive and be free! So, we got into our car way too late Friday afternoon and arrived at the Haitian/Dominican border around 6:45 PM. The road to the border skirted a rather vast and smelly lake, which I can only assume was flood water, that flowed openly into the road at times. We could see lights in the distance and knew we were seeing the DR -- Haiti! Far away, so close! Being here in the DR is maddening because we know we are on the same island, but the realities are so different.
The border was surreal. We were there too late...
More anon.
Lancers du Cord: We are making a statement about slavery and being freed from slavery. This is a celebration of our independence in 1804. The cords we carry are the cords that were used to bind us. We are always sullen and menacing and we never smile. The blackness of our skin is made with crushed charcoal, pot black, kleren (cane spirit) and cane syrup mixed with a little water in a bucket. Although we know that slaves never wore horns, we wear them to look more menacing as this is about the revolt of the slaves.
The parade was marvelous, but even more marvelous in the staging area where most of the Jacmelian Haitians seemed to be hanging out. Quite frankly, where we were it was a bit of a drunken mosh pit: vendors had been selling pints of rum since the early morning and by mid-afternoon the carnaval spirit was well mixed with other spirits. Sitting up in the balcony overlooking the crowd, we could see the people on the other side of the crash barrier beginning to get crushed by the crowds: at one point, two merging and opposing flows of people began to punch each other in the head. Carnaval spirit? Supposedly in Haiti Carnaval allows an opportunity to become unrestrainedly violent, instead of unrestrainedly bacchanalian, but I guess violence is a part of bacchanalia... Anyways, having been in a similar crowd in Vietnam but on a much larger scale, Carnaval's spirit changed once witnessing the crowds struggling and we wandered back to our hotel.
For Carnaval photos from my Facebook site, visit: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=26752&l=382c7&id=613156291
For the "big" Carnaval -- a 5-day weekend in Haiti -- we decided to go away to the Dominican Republic to rejuvenate and experience something different. We'll stay in PauP next year for the parades, but this year we needed to drive and be free! So, we got into our car way too late Friday afternoon and arrived at the Haitian/Dominican border around 6:45 PM. The road to the border skirted a rather vast and smelly lake, which I can only assume was flood water, that flowed openly into the road at times. We could see lights in the distance and knew we were seeing the DR -- Haiti! Far away, so close! Being here in the DR is maddening because we know we are on the same island, but the realities are so different.
The border was surreal. We were there too late...
More anon.
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Escape from the tropics
What better to do when needing to escape the winter blues than go to New Hampshire for one of the heaviest snowfall on record Decembers ever??? (Does that make sense?) Anyways, we did not have a Haitian holiday and instead went for typical New England Christmas: bucolic, snowy, lovely. And now we're back in Port au Prince with intentions to write often and well, but we'll see how long that lasts!
Happy New Year!
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Haitian haze
I haven't written in weeks. Not that anything hasn't happened, it's just that it's a bit of a blur and not so quick to process! I think about my past international experiences and note that "haze" seems to be a fitting description of my status within that experience: it all seems normal, but the lines are faintly blurry. Regardless, my Haitian haze cannot be confused with my Bangla daze, so let me begin.
Life in Pacot, Haiti, is quite pampered for someone who was living on an uninsulated steel tugboat. We have 3 bathrooms - 3! - and a generator that kicks in when the power goes out, which is often and for long periods of time. Our lovely plot of land is covered by mango trees and other lush tropical plants. My desk faces the front of the house, where I can spy the passing feet of the scores of women and children trudging up the steep hill carrying water from the polluted stream at the base of the hill as there is no city water. Never have I lived anywhere where there wasn't any sort of infrastructure for water in the capital city -- and Pacot is a pampered neighborhood where the elite of Haiti lived in the 1930s - 60s. Something fundamental is simply not working.
I'm working full time at my old NGO that has been working in Haiti since 1985. I'm their education manager and busy, busy, busy. Delighted in having work to do but dismayed by the volume of it all, Laurence and I soldier on. He shuttles off to work daily at 6:30 AM; I jump into our old Jeep Cherokee around 7:30 and enjoy my reverse commute up the hill beyond the Hotel Montana whilst listening to Radio France Internationale, pretending that my French is improving. (It is, actually, but not nearly fast enough!)
Weekends are simple: shopping, dinner out, a little adventure. We're going sailing next weekend, which will be delightful, and then we're off to Florida to visit my grandparents on All Soul's Day and All Saint's Day, which are BIG events in Haiti and worthy of a day off!
That is life. It's pretty simple, a little bewildering, and occasionally restless. But then something extraordinary happens: a flight across the mountains into the Central Plateau, a shared smile with a young schoolgirl riding in a taptap on her way to church, or a huge laugh with a delightful colleague. I'm still getting to know this place, but I have a feeling one never really gets to "know" Haiti. You feel it.
Life in Pacot, Haiti, is quite pampered for someone who was living on an uninsulated steel tugboat. We have 3 bathrooms - 3! - and a generator that kicks in when the power goes out, which is often and for long periods of time. Our lovely plot of land is covered by mango trees and other lush tropical plants. My desk faces the front of the house, where I can spy the passing feet of the scores of women and children trudging up the steep hill carrying water from the polluted stream at the base of the hill as there is no city water. Never have I lived anywhere where there wasn't any sort of infrastructure for water in the capital city -- and Pacot is a pampered neighborhood where the elite of Haiti lived in the 1930s - 60s. Something fundamental is simply not working.
I'm working full time at my old NGO that has been working in Haiti since 1985. I'm their education manager and busy, busy, busy. Delighted in having work to do but dismayed by the volume of it all, Laurence and I soldier on. He shuttles off to work daily at 6:30 AM; I jump into our old Jeep Cherokee around 7:30 and enjoy my reverse commute up the hill beyond the Hotel Montana whilst listening to Radio France Internationale, pretending that my French is improving. (It is, actually, but not nearly fast enough!)
Weekends are simple: shopping, dinner out, a little adventure. We're going sailing next weekend, which will be delightful, and then we're off to Florida to visit my grandparents on All Soul's Day and All Saint's Day, which are BIG events in Haiti and worthy of a day off!
That is life. It's pretty simple, a little bewildering, and occasionally restless. But then something extraordinary happens: a flight across the mountains into the Central Plateau, a shared smile with a young schoolgirl riding in a taptap on her way to church, or a huge laugh with a delightful colleague. I'm still getting to know this place, but I have a feeling one never really gets to "know" Haiti. You feel it.
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Labor Day aboard "In God We Trust"
We had an amazing weekend, although when we returned home the cistern was empty, the water pump failed, the air conditioner leaked all over Laurence's bureau, and tonight the generator battery died! Geez, we were only gone for 24 hours... What a weekend! We spent only about 6 hours at sea in the Canal de Saint Marc aboard "In God We Trust", the Haitian sailboat of Laurence's colleague Dennis. The boat was named by his Haitian captain and first mate who just grinned when I asked who named the boat. It's extremely funny... There's even a little #1 on the side.
If you'd like to see more pictures, you can visit http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=13434&l=9beab&id=613156291 and have a look. If not, the narrative is coming! I don't know if words are quite enough to describe how absolutely lovely it was.
More anon.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
jeudi, apres-midi, je suis... choissisez-vous!
Thursday afternoon and I am... you choose! I didn't wash the veggies long enough in the h20/clorox mixture last night, so... We have dinner plans tonight, so suppression through Immodium is the law of the land and then we'll let the dams break through, if needed. Ah, the joy!
So, today is a non-day here in Pacot for me. I visited the US Embassy this morning, stopped by at "Twin Market" to buy things for breakfast, and then came home and waited for the satellite guys to install our new modem! (We've been holed up in the bedroom using some free wireless that's floating in the ether up there... Marvelous, but it means that I'm in the bedroom all day working on my current consultancy, which makes me feel somewhat claustrophobic. Now I'm downstairs in the living area next to the kitchen, facing the window and having the sun pour on me. Lovely.) Dinner later tonight at Coast Guard Jim's, then home for bed at an early hour as it's early to rise here in Haiti.
I found out there is an English lending library called the "Colony Club" (yikes!) that one can pay annual fees to use. There's a Friday book/happy hour, which sounds delightful. We shall see. I found something on the web that's like Netflix for books, but the search engine is difficult and the books seem rather like a bunch of best-sellers. There's something about books: you can buy music on-line easily, or movies, but one -- I -- needs to hold a book, flip through it to make sure the pages yield to your hand, skim a few pages to make sure the potential for escape is real. I am a huge escapist reader: I seldom read non-fiction, but enjoy it when I do. But I like fiction: I love stepping out of my world, even when my world is out of this world.
Perhaps I shall just give up for today and eat some pineapple and read some more MFK Fisher. Sounds good to me.
So, today is a non-day here in Pacot for me. I visited the US Embassy this morning, stopped by at "Twin Market" to buy things for breakfast, and then came home and waited for the satellite guys to install our new modem! (We've been holed up in the bedroom using some free wireless that's floating in the ether up there... Marvelous, but it means that I'm in the bedroom all day working on my current consultancy, which makes me feel somewhat claustrophobic. Now I'm downstairs in the living area next to the kitchen, facing the window and having the sun pour on me. Lovely.) Dinner later tonight at Coast Guard Jim's, then home for bed at an early hour as it's early to rise here in Haiti.
I found out there is an English lending library called the "Colony Club" (yikes!) that one can pay annual fees to use. There's a Friday book/happy hour, which sounds delightful. We shall see. I found something on the web that's like Netflix for books, but the search engine is difficult and the books seem rather like a bunch of best-sellers. There's something about books: you can buy music on-line easily, or movies, but one -- I -- needs to hold a book, flip through it to make sure the pages yield to your hand, skim a few pages to make sure the potential for escape is real. I am a huge escapist reader: I seldom read non-fiction, but enjoy it when I do. But I like fiction: I love stepping out of my world, even when my world is out of this world.
Perhaps I shall just give up for today and eat some pineapple and read some more MFK Fisher. Sounds good to me.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Je suis ici!
En Haiti!
We landed while Hurricane Dean was lashing other parts of the Caribbean yesterday, but the skies over Port-au-Prince (PaP) were simply heavy -- no rain, no wind, just still. The landing was uneventful, grace a dieu, and we walked down the stairs onto the tarmac and a new life in a new world.
New world indeed! As we entered the building there was a man holding a little sign that read "American Embassy". We followed him up the stairs to the VIP lounge (which is why I had to wear a skirt), handed over our passports and luggage tags, and waited for 30+ minutes while our luggage was located and our passports expedited through immigration. After years of standing in line in places like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Vietnam -- where immigration was an uneventful, interminable nightmare, where I watched expediters pushing other people through the lines ahead of me-- here I am as one of the expedited. Thank God we were hidden from view so sincere NGOers and other folks wouldn't shoot daggers at us through their eyes. (And I'll certainly be standing in line again when I travel off the diplomatic passport!)
So, brave new world... After collecting our passports and luggage, we were loaded into the large, white, armored Suburban and headed off to our new home in Pacot, up the hills overlooking PaP. I have never, never, never been in an armored car before and it felt, well, heavy. Ponderous. Difficult to maneuver. Unyielding. Palpably dangerous. Hmm. But the journey was fascinating: lots of people in the streets, lots of vendors and other sorts of commercial activity, etc. It was a bit of a sensory overload, in fact, heightened by the fact that I was not jet-lagged and extremely aware of our movement. I uploaded some photos on Facebook, but have one here for show. It's the women in the corner that make it so fascinating, thanks to Laurence's fine eye.
Best tap tap I've seen thus far: big picture of Jesus and the lamb on the back, yet the rest of the bus was covered with little soccer balls. Sport is religion for some, no?
Friday, August 17, 2007
10:33 PM, Channel Inn, ready to go!
This has been the LONGEST departure ever -- we've known for months that we're going to Haiti, I quit my job in March to study French, we've been buying bits and pieces since January -- let's leave already! Finally, the date is here: Saturday, August 18. And, as luck would have it, Hurricane Dean is making a bit of a mess in the Caribbean right now. However, as a friend and I discussed at dinner tonight, if the hurricane was named "Delilah" we would be worried, but Dean? Dean's an old friend who comes over for dinner and drinks a few Budweisers and gets all sentimental about old girlfriends. Anyways, American Airlines has a policy of not remaining in situ in Haiti overnight, so if AA can't fly, they won't fly. 'nuff said.
Sleepy. It's been a long week of stowing things on the boat... Now for the next big adventure.
Sleepy. It's been a long week of stowing things on the boat... Now for the next big adventure.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Actually, Sting, stand close to me...
Fan, fan, fan, fan-freakin'-tastic!
I saw the Police last night in Hartford, CT: a feat that was carefully orchestrated by changing my final French exam date and prioritizing a 2-week New England family visit prior to my departure to Haiti! As I drove our little Miata convertible into the parking lot at Rentschler Field, this guy yelled out, "Did you really drive up here from DC?" "Damn straight!" (Okay, a little embellishment on my part, but I did start in DC on Friday...) "Hot damn! I knew this was gonna be a smokin' concert!" He and his family then spent the next hour sitting in their car with the air conditioning on reading books. A strange beginning to an odd night.
First, to begin, I am a fan. A big fan. Admittedly, I was introduced to The Police when I was a very young adolescent and developed IMMEDIATE and HUGE crushes on Andy Summers and Sting. Stewart, don't know what happened there, but I think it was the British accents. Americans are suckers for accents. As it was 1983/84, Every Breath You Take was on MTV all the time and MTV was what you watched, cool or not. (We didn't have MTV -- or cable -- so I would watch MTV while babysitting, sending the kids to bed at abnormally early hours so I could feast on videos. Ah, the American way!) I was obsessed, then became more obsessed with Sting until his career just became a little too soft-rock for my tastes, although I too have Tibetan monks chanting to a subtle pan-Asian beat on many CDs in my record collection.
Anyways, over the years I had a Police thing, a Sting thing, and then the epiphany: the Police songs are the songs I'm going to be humming for decades to come. I had to go to the concert, even though tickets had been sold out for Boston and New York for a couple of months. I checked the schedule and noted a stop in Hartford: who the hell lives in Hartford? Not as many people as in New York and Boston! I bought a relatively cheapish seat at the back of the floor seating and began to manipulate my schedule.
After a long weekend -- Shawn's wedding on Saturday, Grampie's 90th birthday on Sunday, NYC with Amanda Monday and Tuesday morning -- I drove up the Merritt Parkway in the bright late July sun, stopping at a cheap Greek diner off of I-91N for dinner. I drove up to the stadium with relative ease, parked, chatted with the aforementioned guy in the truck who was excited about the "smokin'" concert, went and bought my t-shirt, and then found out I had an hour to kill before they'd let us in the stadium. Hmm.
I walked back the mile -- for real -- to the car and tried to fix my hair, messed up from the convertible ride and the humidity. Meanwhile, a guy in a Ramones t-shirt came over and said, "I gotta ask, did you come up here from Maryland?" Folks, the license plate clearly said "Washington, DC: Taxation without Representation" but over the course of the next 45 minutes he kept getting excited about Maryland, not DC. Bewildering.
We had a couple of Budweisers (hee, hee!) and I chatted with the two Ramones guys, both workers at Yale Hospital, with the first Maryland-obsessed guy working with hazardous waste. They were both convinced that I was some groupie following the band, but I decided to let the real story come out since I sometimes think my reality is just as weird as something I could make up.
The concert. Entered with an hour to spare, sat in my tiny seat at the back of the field, and watched the crowd saunter in: baby boomers, Gen X-ers, children (this was a rich Mom, Dad and the kids kind of show) all wearing comfortable shoes, comfortable clothes, and baseball hats. Disorienting. Police fans, you're getting old! You are old! I was on the younger end of the spectrum at the tender age of 36... Sigh.
Fictionplane, headed by Sting's son Joe Sumner, opened the show to tepid applause. They were good, but it was hot and the sun was right in my face. I realized with some sadness that my idea of a floor seat was actually a very poor choice: Joe and band were very tiny, the equipment for the show was blocking part of the view, the people around me were a wee bit annoying in the sense that they seemed too comfortably middle-aged! (Agism reared its ugly head at this concert, I fear. Perhaps it was more my reaction against me being a part of this age bracket... Argh!)
Finally, people began to flood into the stadium. Minutes before the concert began, one of the burly security managers looked at me and said, "How many people in your party?" "Just me!" "Here, take this ticket and go up to Section 3. They don't want any empty seats." We exchanged tickets and I moved like the wind: up, up, up closer to the stage. I stopped at one guard and checked that I was moving in the right direction... Yes. A little more.
One minute before the concert began, I was in my new seat: dead center, front section, 22 rows away from the stage. Sting on my left, Andy Summers on my right, Stewart Copeland dead center. No squinting, no pushing to see better: I was right there. I screamed, I sang, I danced my sweaty ass off. I also realized that I am a bit of an insane fan: I sang every song so loudly I sounded like Marge Simpson the next day. And no one around me knew as much as I did! What a bunch of lame-Os! I was very proud of my freaky fan prowess, but then realized that everyone behind me must have thought I was totally insane. I've been on the other side before, particularly at a Peter Gabriel concert in the early 1990s. Peter inspires true fanaticism and there were certainly some fans in full flower in Osaka in 1994; I remember giggling wildly whilst observing one fan who looked like he was having a seizure. (It was a joy attack, friends, not a seizure.)
I became that man at the concert. Joy attack. Flailing limbs. Bellower of "The Bed's Too Big Without You" and other catchy tunes. Sweaty siren of Synchronicity. Snobbish enough not to sing "Every Breath You Take" because that was the only song everyone else sang. In fact, I think I drank some water during that one.
Anyways, it was fabulous. Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous. Thank you o gods of stadium concerts for recognizing this mad wild fan astray in the back of the stadium... Next time I sacrifice a goat, I'll do it in your names.
Baaah!
I saw the Police last night in Hartford, CT: a feat that was carefully orchestrated by changing my final French exam date and prioritizing a 2-week New England family visit prior to my departure to Haiti! As I drove our little Miata convertible into the parking lot at Rentschler Field, this guy yelled out, "Did you really drive up here from DC?" "Damn straight!" (Okay, a little embellishment on my part, but I did start in DC on Friday...) "Hot damn! I knew this was gonna be a smokin' concert!" He and his family then spent the next hour sitting in their car with the air conditioning on reading books. A strange beginning to an odd night.
First, to begin, I am a fan. A big fan. Admittedly, I was introduced to The Police when I was a very young adolescent and developed IMMEDIATE and HUGE crushes on Andy Summers and Sting. Stewart, don't know what happened there, but I think it was the British accents. Americans are suckers for accents. As it was 1983/84, Every Breath You Take was on MTV all the time and MTV was what you watched, cool or not. (We didn't have MTV -- or cable -- so I would watch MTV while babysitting, sending the kids to bed at abnormally early hours so I could feast on videos. Ah, the American way!) I was obsessed, then became more obsessed with Sting until his career just became a little too soft-rock for my tastes, although I too have Tibetan monks chanting to a subtle pan-Asian beat on many CDs in my record collection.
Anyways, over the years I had a Police thing, a Sting thing, and then the epiphany: the Police songs are the songs I'm going to be humming for decades to come. I had to go to the concert, even though tickets had been sold out for Boston and New York for a couple of months. I checked the schedule and noted a stop in Hartford: who the hell lives in Hartford? Not as many people as in New York and Boston! I bought a relatively cheapish seat at the back of the floor seating and began to manipulate my schedule.
After a long weekend -- Shawn's wedding on Saturday, Grampie's 90th birthday on Sunday, NYC with Amanda Monday and Tuesday morning -- I drove up the Merritt Parkway in the bright late July sun, stopping at a cheap Greek diner off of I-91N for dinner. I drove up to the stadium with relative ease, parked, chatted with the aforementioned guy in the truck who was excited about the "smokin'" concert, went and bought my t-shirt, and then found out I had an hour to kill before they'd let us in the stadium. Hmm.
I walked back the mile -- for real -- to the car and tried to fix my hair, messed up from the convertible ride and the humidity. Meanwhile, a guy in a Ramones t-shirt came over and said, "I gotta ask, did you come up here from Maryland?" Folks, the license plate clearly said "Washington, DC: Taxation without Representation" but over the course of the next 45 minutes he kept getting excited about Maryland, not DC. Bewildering.
We had a couple of Budweisers (hee, hee!) and I chatted with the two Ramones guys, both workers at Yale Hospital, with the first Maryland-obsessed guy working with hazardous waste. They were both convinced that I was some groupie following the band, but I decided to let the real story come out since I sometimes think my reality is just as weird as something I could make up.
The concert. Entered with an hour to spare, sat in my tiny seat at the back of the field, and watched the crowd saunter in: baby boomers, Gen X-ers, children (this was a rich Mom, Dad and the kids kind of show) all wearing comfortable shoes, comfortable clothes, and baseball hats. Disorienting. Police fans, you're getting old! You are old! I was on the younger end of the spectrum at the tender age of 36... Sigh.
Fictionplane, headed by Sting's son Joe Sumner, opened the show to tepid applause. They were good, but it was hot and the sun was right in my face. I realized with some sadness that my idea of a floor seat was actually a very poor choice: Joe and band were very tiny, the equipment for the show was blocking part of the view, the people around me were a wee bit annoying in the sense that they seemed too comfortably middle-aged! (Agism reared its ugly head at this concert, I fear. Perhaps it was more my reaction against me being a part of this age bracket... Argh!)
Finally, people began to flood into the stadium. Minutes before the concert began, one of the burly security managers looked at me and said, "How many people in your party?" "Just me!" "Here, take this ticket and go up to Section 3. They don't want any empty seats." We exchanged tickets and I moved like the wind: up, up, up closer to the stage. I stopped at one guard and checked that I was moving in the right direction... Yes. A little more.
One minute before the concert began, I was in my new seat: dead center, front section, 22 rows away from the stage. Sting on my left, Andy Summers on my right, Stewart Copeland dead center. No squinting, no pushing to see better: I was right there. I screamed, I sang, I danced my sweaty ass off. I also realized that I am a bit of an insane fan: I sang every song so loudly I sounded like Marge Simpson the next day. And no one around me knew as much as I did! What a bunch of lame-Os! I was very proud of my freaky fan prowess, but then realized that everyone behind me must have thought I was totally insane. I've been on the other side before, particularly at a Peter Gabriel concert in the early 1990s. Peter inspires true fanaticism and there were certainly some fans in full flower in Osaka in 1994; I remember giggling wildly whilst observing one fan who looked like he was having a seizure. (It was a joy attack, friends, not a seizure.)
I became that man at the concert. Joy attack. Flailing limbs. Bellower of "The Bed's Too Big Without You" and other catchy tunes. Sweaty siren of Synchronicity. Snobbish enough not to sing "Every Breath You Take" because that was the only song everyone else sang. In fact, I think I drank some water during that one.
Anyways, it was fabulous. Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous. Thank you o gods of stadium concerts for recognizing this mad wild fan astray in the back of the stadium... Next time I sacrifice a goat, I'll do it in your names.
Baaah!
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Mon Dieu!
Man, I've been busy. Laurence is already in Haiti and I'm just about to finish my four months of French with an oral exam tomorrow -- that's vendredi, for those in the know -- and then I'll have a little vacation in New England! Huzzah! I am sure in the three weeks between the end of French classes and our arrival in Haiti that I will forget enormous amounts of the language, but as my French is extremely funky to begin with, who will guess?
Preparing to leave has definitely been a different experience; normally, when I've lived/worked overseas, I could only bring a suitcase, even if it was for 3 years in Japan, 1 1/2 years in Bangladesh, etc. Now we've sent our entire household, with the exception of furniture, to Haiti. We have a consumables shipment, which is utterly new to me too, that we've filled with things like whole grain pasta, Splenda (the decadence!), and Dundee marmalade (the decadence again!). We bought an old Jeep Cherokee, which I'm sure we'll beat up on the Haitian roads, and it's also on its way down south... What will life as a diplomat's wife be like? I must admit I'm a little nervous, but I do have a crystal punch bowl, dammit, and many strings of pearls thanks to my former colleagues, so I should be ready! Right? Ugh.
Anyways, I've had a pretty good job interview and I have a follow-up interview this afternoon, so hopefully I won't be languishing at chez moi for too long. Wish me luck, o few and faithful readers!
Preparing to leave has definitely been a different experience; normally, when I've lived/worked overseas, I could only bring a suitcase, even if it was for 3 years in Japan, 1 1/2 years in Bangladesh, etc. Now we've sent our entire household, with the exception of furniture, to Haiti. We have a consumables shipment, which is utterly new to me too, that we've filled with things like whole grain pasta, Splenda (the decadence!), and Dundee marmalade (the decadence again!). We bought an old Jeep Cherokee, which I'm sure we'll beat up on the Haitian roads, and it's also on its way down south... What will life as a diplomat's wife be like? I must admit I'm a little nervous, but I do have a crystal punch bowl, dammit, and many strings of pearls thanks to my former colleagues, so I should be ready! Right? Ugh.
Anyways, I've had a pretty good job interview and I have a follow-up interview this afternoon, so hopefully I won't be languishing at chez moi for too long. Wish me luck, o few and faithful readers!
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Saturday, April 14, 2007
2 1/2 weeks and I'm a 0+!
Or maybe I'm not...
2 1/2 weeks of French are now nicely tucked under my belt, which is getting a little tighter given my propensity to crave rich and delectable foods -- or any junk -- when I'm a wee bit stressed out. There seems to be a method to the madness, but then there's also just some utter and complete madness. Alliance Francais, what were (and are) you thinking????
There is nothing much to report. I study. I chat in French with Laurence, simple things like, "How are you?" or "What's the weather?" The conversation then abruptly stops as I have nothing else to really follow up with, but it's coming along!
Onwards! Bonne chance a moi!
2 1/2 weeks of French are now nicely tucked under my belt, which is getting a little tighter given my propensity to crave rich and delectable foods -- or any junk -- when I'm a wee bit stressed out. There seems to be a method to the madness, but then there's also just some utter and complete madness. Alliance Francais, what were (and are) you thinking????
There is nothing much to report. I study. I chat in French with Laurence, simple things like, "How are you?" or "What's the weather?" The conversation then abruptly stops as I have nothing else to really follow up with, but it's coming along!
Onwards! Bonne chance a moi!
Thursday, April 12, 2007
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