recommended listening:2+2=5 by radiohead
Then it comes. Lauren, the queen of euphemisms, calls it, “Intestinal Distress.” I’ve only eaten one piece of bread and half a banana since Tuesday night, and hadn’t ventured more than two minutes from the bathroom for almost a week. But word came that our other luggage had arrived, so I’ve already spent three hours this morning running between customs offices, one mile by foot each way, getting stamps for the documents necessary to pick up the baggage. There are no public bathrooms.
“What are the packages? There are too many. That’s why they don’t want to give them to you. They say it’s too much for one family. You need to have lean boxes. Lean? Is that the right word? “Lean” like that meat in your bowl? You should eat. Americans need to eat a lot to stay so big, right?”
“’Lean’ is right. There’s seven hundred pounds of books for the school library. Another couple hundred pounds of medical equipment. A laptop computer and components to build a couple more computers for the school. And then a couple boxes clothes, toys, kids’ books. Stuff like that.”
Woody, the translator and guide through the customs process, is the English school’s tech guy. In addition to maintaining the school’s six Pentium II’s, he works as translator and liaison for new staff.
Just before lunch, I actually had my hands on the boxes. The inspector looked at the stack and slowly shook his head. “Anything that could threaten the morals of the society is prohibited and could be confiscated,” he said. Twenty five boxes. One book at a time. The forklift driver was playing Eminem and had a naked Barbie taped to the center of the steering wheel. The inspector jogged back to his office when he heard the new Brittney Spears video come on. Rule of thumb: Don’t appreciate the irony if your translator doesn’t laugh.
“Do you like your food? Is it good for your stomach?”
“Yes, it’s doing all right.”
“Do you have food like this in Wisconsin?”
Oily fried rice with carrots, raisins, meat, raw onions, and half a hard-boiled egg. A cucumber, onion, and tomato salad with vinegar; and the daily the bread: round, two inches or so thick at the edges, pressed down in the middle, usually with charred sesame seeds. Tea. Always tea.
“We eat many of these things. The bread is better here. We don’t eat much mutton.”
“Mutton?”
“Sheep.”
“No, not mutton. Horse. This is horse for you. It is healthiest. Here, you can have some of mine, too.”
If you can’t say something nice, non-sequiteur: “Tell me about the things you’ve been studying.”
I ate while Woody told of his fiancée and how friends in different underground churches had arranged their marriage. He talked openly, confident that the other two people in the 35-cent-a-bowl café don’t speak English.
Five hours later, we drove out of the customs lot. 37 offices visited. Nineteen stamps received. Stamps number five, eight, and nineteen were from the same man.
Twelve days in country, and all baggage has been accounted for, and I’ve made contact with the underground. I spend the night happily vomiting.
Thirteen days in country, and we’ve lost electricity completely in three rooms. The radiators produce extreme heat or no heat, depending on the end of the house. The main furnace is directly in front of the bathroom door, in a three-foot hole, and is hot enough to boil water on contact. This complicates our son’s toilet training. The bedrooms are bright but cold. In the warm end of the house, it’s so dark that we’re constantly sitting on cats.
We sit in the dark, watching the kids use baggage as a fortress.
“Didn’t we pack some brownie mix?”
“It’s in a box in the kitchen.”
“What time is it? The slugs won’t be out in the kitchen yet, will they?”
“I don’t think so.”
“It’s dark. Watch your step.”
We start unpacking.
Sunday mornings in a restaurant where vodka bottles sit next to the communion wine is the only time and place foreigners can congregate without a government invitation. The big topic this week is the latest threat that we’ll all be thrown out within the month. We bow our heads: Lord, if possible let us not be thrown out this week. It’s a land flowing with pickled vegetables, horse meat, and exploding light bulbs, but we don’t want to leave yet.
We shop often, partly because we have to carry everything we buy, and partly because every purchase is a chance to practice language. I’m feeling pretty good about my ability to understand the sellers until a man starts pulling at my elbow and talking quickly. I don’t understand, so the man talks louder and faster. Then the violet-selling lady starts yelling, too. And the one next to her. They move in closer. More and more. Within seconds, the swarm is yelling and touching me.
Then an ancient-looking woman, bent almost double, elbows her way through, waves her finger in my face, silently shakes her head, stoops to the ground, and picks up a bill I dropped.
I take it and try to pronounce, “Thank you,” correctly, not knowing which of the local languages she speaks. The crowd smiles and dissolves.
The bill is about 50 cents, or two hours’ wages, depending on how you look at it.
The old woman, gone now, is the beggar I gave ten cents earlier that morning.
I find the phone office and pay our bill. Then I find the Internet office and sign up for service. Then I go home and try it out. Connect. Disconnect. Connect. Disconnect. Connect…
