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nairobi
national park, kenya — Breakfast in the middle of a herd of
eland: coffee and some delicious chocolate-chip cookies baked by my
friend Isaac’s daughters. No lions or rhinos, but plenty of giraffes,
buffaloes, ostriches and gazelles, and a jackal slinking away in the
grass. Back in Nairobi, Isaac and I left the car to wander round a
market. We returned to find a window smashed and the remains of our
breakfast gone. The thief must have known about the cookies.
bergisch gladbach, germany — A ghoul, a clown, or perhaps a headhunter?
Oliver couldn’t decide how to dress. The carnival in the Rhineland is
a Big Thing: a parade with floats, marching bands and dancers – only
the chilly temperatures force the dancers to dress less entertainingly
and more fully than their counterparts in Rio. The crowd of witches, nuns,
pirates and cows cheers each float. In return, they are showered with
sweets, plus less-digestible plastic jewellery, toothbrushes and
sponges. Louder cheers invite a hail of cut flowers and boxes of
chocolates. Small children forage for sweets that haven’t fallen in a
puddle. The highlight comes last: magnificent floats bearing the
year’s Carnival Prince, Virgin and Peasant. These are always older men
(the Virgin wears padding in the right places, plus a blond wig with
pigtails). Germany outside the Rhineland looks on in bemusement.
The carnival always throws up some unintended
entertainment. This year, the Peasant in one Cologne suburb was
discovered to be an arsonist: he was caught setting fire to cars. A
couple of years ago, the visiting Prince from Berlin was hit in the eye
by a flower thrown back from the crowd. And last year, supermodel Heidi
Klum, Bergisch Gladbach’s most famous daughter, wanted to ride in her
own float in the town’s parade. Fearing she would attract too much
attention, the worthies on the carnival committee put her float near the
beginning of the procession, as far away from the Virgin as possible. Ms
Klum and her relatives dressed as bright purple aliens – all so alike
that no one recognized her. She didn’t turn up this year.
Oliver eventually borrowed some of my clothes,
and went as a scarecrow. Is he saying something about my fashion sense?
ahmedabad,
india — “The best news of the year”, wrote one of
Evelyn’s Indian friends when she said she would visit. She took it as
a compliment, although the only other news from the city had been
an earthquake that killed thousands. A month after the disaster, life
was returning to normal, though cracks in the buildings were still being
repaired.
Lying on her bunk in the train and trying to
concentrate on something other than her dysentery-laden stomach, Evelyn
watched three Indian passengers playing cards. On arrival at Ahmedabad,
one of the men smiled and nodded; Evelyn returned the greeting. When she
picked up her bags, she found a label stuck on her suitcase: “Room
102, Hotel Suzy, New Delhi”.
Evelyn couldn’t make this tryst (at least,
that’s what she told me). But I admire the man’s technique. I’ve
printed address labels of my own to stick on the luggage of good-looking
female fellow-travellers.
Back home, Evelyn’s bacteriologist friend
Barbara was delighted. “Dysentery? Wonderful! Send me a stool sample
to look at!” she trilled. I hope she doesn’t identify a Delhi strain
of amoeba.
leatherhead,
uk — Was it the Tower of London? Buckingham Palace? Brighton?
Windsor Castle? No — the highlight of Oliver’s school trip to the UK
was the LaserQuest game. Go into a darkened maze and blast each other
with laser guns. Oliver’s explained it several times, but I still
haven’t worked out how you can tell when you’re dead.
mt everest,
nepal — Bored with the smog in Kathmandu, I shelled out $109
for a “mountain flight”: an hour’s joyride to see the Himalayas in
all their glory. The captain called the passengers into the cockpit one
by one. “That’s Everest over there”, he said, pointing at a dark
mass above a sea of rocks, ice and clouds. I took the opportunity to
steal airsickness bags while the other passengers gawped out of the
windows. I harvested 6 bags from the 19-seater plane: not a bad
percentage.
bergisch
gladbach — It’s been a book-ridden summer. Our manual on
camel medicine is out at last: now you don’t have to find a vet next
time your camel has an itchy hump: you can look it up instead. Check it
out at www.mamud.com/camels.htm.
More hoorays. Seems like Evelyn and her
co-authors have been working on it for the last quarter-century, but
their book on ethnoveterinary medicine is also out. Now you can find out
how the Amazonian Indians would have treated sick camels if they had had
any. Propaganda at www.ethnovetweb.com.
paris,
france — The only French Oliver spoke on his class trip to
Paris? At MacDonald’s: “Un hamburger,
s’il vous plaît.”
bergisch
gladbach — Don’t all rush to the shop at once. My book on
development communication is also published. See www.mamud.com/information_revolutions.htm
for details. Now we’ll have to think of something else to write about.
sentani,
indonesia — The locals here in the Indonesian half of New
Guinea live on sago. Chop down a tree, split open the trunk, hack out
the starchy pulp, wash out the fibre, and you can feed a family for two
months. Cooked sago is a white, rubbery goo that looks and tastes
suspiciously like wallpaper paste. No need to chew. It sits in your
stomach like, er, wallpaper paste.
For dessert, try betel. Pop a walnut-sized areca
nut in your mouth and start chewing. Dip a piece of betel in powdered
chalk and place in mouth too. “Don’t swallow the juice! Spit it
out!” they said. I pretended I hadn’t just swallowed some. My saliva
turned dark red: the result of a chemical reaction among the areca,
betel and chalk. The ground here is splattered with bloodlike spittle
stains. “Are you dizzy yet?” they asked. No, but I had a huge lump
at the back of my throat and could scarcely breathe. “That’s normal
for the first time, especially if you swallow”, they said.
Particularly when combined with wallpaper paste?
hirtshals, denmark–kristiansund, norway —
Disappointment at first, when we discovered that the ferry offered only
plain white seasickness bags. We stole some anyway, and began to
decorate them with coloured markers. Lucky we were early: it was a rough
crossing, and groggy passengers quickly depleted the stock of bags.
Oliver suddenly looked green himself, but he managed to throw up onto
the floor rather than into his newly decorated bag. Good lad.
bonn, germany — Evelyn booked a bus for 30
conference participants, arranged pick-up points, confirmed and
rechecked everything. The bus duly arrived, and the driver got out…
locking his keys inside. How do you open a bus door without the keys?
Answer: kneel on ground next to front wheel, lean inside wheel arch, and
release pressure in air hose. Leap up and pull on door handle (the door
is kept closed by air pressure). Repeat until door opens.
After 30 minutes, the door still was not open, so
we arranged alternative transportation. Fortunately so few participants
had shown up that we all were able to squeeze in two taxis.
rome, italy — No problem with my Swiss Army penknife on the flight here
from Frankfurt. But on the way back, the scanning machine at the airport
detected it in my cabin bag. I had to go all the way back to the
check-in counter, where the clerk made a little white cardboard
suitcase, popped the knife inside, festooned it with stickers, and
checked it as luggage. On arrival at Frankfurt, I had to wait for the
white suitcase to appear on the carrousel, so missed my train. The only
reason I carried my penknife was for its toothpick. From now on, I’ll
rely on the free one that comes with the airline meal.
bogor, indonesia
—The newspapers have been full of exaggerated stories about threats to
Europeans and Americans by radical Indonesian Muslims. No problems in
Bogor though: it buckets down with rain every afternoon, and rioting
isn’t much fun if you’re wet. I reckon all the radicals here go down
to (drier) Jakarta to cause mayhem there.
bogor — Slaughtering the goat was the last straw. The hotel’s other guests
complained that the Turkish family partied noisily and late into the
night. The staff said that the partygoers had consumed tomorrow’s
breakfast. When one evening’s celebrations featured a goat,
slaughtered and roasted in the hotel garden, the manager decided to
throw the family out.
They
came back a week later. They had bought a new laptop computer in
Malaysia: could I help load a game onto it? I quickly discovered there
wasn’t enough hard disk space to install Microsoft Flight Simulator.
Checking the machine out, I discovered a bunch of emails and documents
that had nothing to do with either Turkey or goats. Suspicious, I jotted
down the email address and sent a message off. Next day, I got a reply.
The computer had been stolen the previous week from an Australian in New
Zealand, taken to Malaysia and sold to the Turks, who had brought it to
Indonesia. That’s what I call globalization.
bergisch
gladbach — Evelyn has spent 11 months this year pregnant.
She’s just given birth to a website. Pretty gruesome it is too: skin
diseases, internal parasites, traditional livestock surgery, indigenous
castration techniques. Beats me why anyone should be interested in this
stuff. Check it out at www.ethnovetweb.com.
 bergisch
gladbach — We
gave Oliver a set of weights for his birthday. Barbara has added a chest
expander. Big mistake. My office is now a gymnasium. No space in his own
bedroom because of the mess on the floor.
I’m glad to report that my airsicknessbags
website (now 729 bags, www.mamud.com/airsicknessbags)
has received more visitors than Evelyn’s ethnovet site. Ha!
A very happy Christmas, Idul Fitri, Hanukkah and
New Year!
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