There is one thing that is pretty much guaranteed to happen
to me at least once a day here, and that is someone looking at me in utter
confusion – I’m talking deer in the headlights type of blank stare. This is due to various reasons; I talk too
fast, I tend to mumble when I get excited, and I use idioms all the time
(ie: deer in the headlights). When you say things like ‘I got the short end
of the stick’ to folks with English as their second language, more often than
not you can literally see the gears turning in their brains trying to make
sense of what in the world you are talking about – things that they are
thinking include ‘Were we talking about sticks?’ ‘Did I ask her to get me a
stick?’ ‘Did I even say the word stick???’
The answer is obviously NO, and I proceed to spill in to some kind of
pathetic explanation of what I’m trying to say…
With that said, there are also some people who are completely
clued into dumb Americans, their idioms, and subtle little jokes and jabs. It turns out that one of those people is an Angolan
HES rep, Lourenco, that I have on my team.
He has mandated that we run together twice a week, and the thought has
crossed my mind several times to make a self-deprecating comment about how he
must think I’m fat but I've just kept it to myself because I don’t want him to
feel uncomfortable. So last Sunday we
had just finished our afternoon run and we passed a bus stop where an extra-large
lady had stepped off the bus. Lourenco
said ‘Amiga, do you see your future?’ I,
of course, thought he was asking some deep question about my life and started
stumbling over my words. He interrupted
my sputtering and said, no Alli, do you see your future and nodded to the lady who
had just gotten off the bus!! This time,
I was the one who was speechless…
Monday mornings in the office are always a little
sleepy. Everyone is usually coming off
their half-day Sunday high, and require coffee/tea before any conversation
commences. Last Monday, however, was exceptionally
lively. Danny, our logistics coordinator
and ex-military officer from England, was in the kitchen making coffee as
everyone else was hulled up in their offices.
All of the sudden, Danny starts screaming REEENNNNNEEEEEEE, come to the
kitchen, you’ve got to come to the kitchen!!!
(Rene is our construction coordinator, my next door neighbor in the
office, and our resident Mr. Fix-It).
Again, this is about 5:30 in the morning so everyone else would be
moving slowly, but Rene pops up and starts running to the kitchen. Danny is still screaming, and finally blurts
out ‘There’s a mouse in here, a mouse ran behind the refrigerator!!!!’ Needless to say, the whole office found out
that Danny, big, strong, manly Danny, will scream like a girl at the sight of a
teeny little mouse…
Malongo is a very unique place because you are with the same
folks all day every day, so by default your co-workers are your friends, neighbors,
work out partners, lunch dates, you catch my drift. There are obviously some people that I've
gotten very close with, but there are others that I've known for a year and
still don’t really know that much about them aside from where they work and
where they hang out after work. One of
those people is our Contractor QAQC manager.
Unfortunately, in his position he gets a lot of grief from us about how
things are being executed in the field, but he really does take it like a champ
and we work really well together. I am
guilty of getting pretty sassy with him, but after a discussion we always come
to an agreement and get back on the same page – he’s a very patient man. Anyways, I knew that he lived in Lebanon, but
I found out this week that he is from Syria and he, his wife, and two boys have
taken refuge in Lebanon. Last year, his
home and business in Homs, Syria was destroyed and he took his family to safety
in Lebanon to start over. If you read
the news at all, you hear stories like this ALL the time so it’s easy to become
numb to – UNTIL you see the face of one of the innocent people that has had
their life turned upside-down for no reason other than being in the wrong place
at the wrong time.
On a lighter note (kind of), I got CPR and AED trained
yesterday. I am no longer scared to come
across an unconscious person, theoretically.
The most interesting thing that I learned is that the AED (Automated
External Defibrillation) device doesn't give a shock to beat a stopped heart;
it actually stops a heart that is in ventricular fibrillation – a heart that is
quivering rather than beating. So when
someone has a heart attack usually their heart doesn't stop, it just stops
pumping in its normal rhythm, and the AED in conjunction with chest
compressions is what you do to get the heart beating back in a normal rhythm to
get blood circulating and oxygen back to the brain. Basically, I’m pretty much a doctor now….KIDDING.
It’s pretty overcast today, but I’m crossing my fingers that
the sun comes out because I have big plans today – fishing on the beach! I will probably do more spectating/napping than
actually fishing, but you catch my drift.
26 days down, 16 to go! Xoxo…
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| Malongo sunset.... Photo courtesy of Rene |
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