Base Camp

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 04:46:05 GMT

Base Camp On The Move...

Base Camp is doing what it does best: packing up and moving into new territory. Get your shots, fill the flask, grab your gear and follow the trail to:

basecampscott.wordpress.com

I'll keep posting here as well until my contract runs out, but Wordpress is just an easier, Mac-friendlier interface. See you there. Let me know what you think of the place.

PS - If anyone knows how to transfer my archives over there, I'd really appreciate the know-how. Surely there must be some kind of e-sherpa...

"Uh, I think the Wordpress URL is over this way..."

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 03:43:07 GMT

Buna & Bread: An Ethiopian Adventure
Chapter 4: The Way to the New Jerusalem

Jerusalem Hotel, Lalibela, Ethiopia...

The Ethiopian word for toilet paper is soft, which is an oxymoron of a much higher plane than jumbo shrimp or Microsoft Works. The paper I used this morning took the polish right off the old bronze eye like it was fiberglass insulation. Not exactly how to jumpstart a day that has a ten-hour drive over rumbling rugged roads for an appetizer.

Jim and I had a quick breakfast of vegetable omelets. The menu also included such culinary mysteries as 'Skrample Egg', 'Corn Felaxes' and the enigmatic 'Have Break Fast'. Even though Dessie was the Administrative Headquarters of the Italian occupation during WW II, it wasn't quite enough to make us linger much longer. Besides, there were far more interesting wartime relics just a few miles out of town: the hulking wrecks of tanks. They had been simply pushed aside and left to rust where they died, like metallic dinosaurs, after the last Ethiopian-Eritrean war.

It was another long day of hard roads and mountain passes that were occasionally punctuated by rolling valleys where the thatched roofs of stick huts were the only things breaking a lush ocean of ripe tef. I had never expected to see so much fertile land in Ethiopia. My impression was minted by the images of the famines of the early '80s. But countless times I was amazed at the stunning beauty of the countryside that surrounded us. Around one turn, we were immediately in front of a huge curved mountain whose outcropped arms embraced a valley of lush greens and shining golden fields. A brow of clouds joined an impossibly blue sky above its summit. Jim actually braked the vehicle so we could stare at it. "I will see this again in heaven." I whispered.

There was no lack of unobstructed views, namely because the narrow roads hugged the sides of mountains without any guardrails. If Jim had opened his door and looked down, his jaw would drop a good 3,000 feet. I would have also slugged Jim for not keeping his eyes on the road. "Don't worry," I nervously joked as we stared at the sheer embankment, "the river down there would break our fall."

As we went deeper and deeper into the middle of nowhere, we seemed to be going further and further back in time. Hunched over women plodded ancient trails, with massive bundles of firewood on their backs. Barefoot kids in paper-towel thin ragged shirts swatted the backsides of disinterested donkeys. Rows of men squatted in fields, using small hand-scythes to gather up their hard earned sustenance. Others tossed flat woven baskets of grain into the air, letting the chaff float away in the wind.

I wondered what they talked about as they worked. Them and the people we saw walking along the side of the road. At best they might have had a radio in their huts or village to keep in touch with the wider world, but there was no YouTube, PlayStations or even an old-fangled newspaper around to provide fodder for small talk. I doubt Netflix delivers this far out either. We passed the miles by providing made-up dialogue, dubbing reviews about Paris Hilton's latest album and Grey's Anatomy plotlines over their moving lips.

By early afternoon we had climbed to the top of a high plateau that, according to our GPS, put us about 11,600 feet. Here, where wood was even harder to come by, the huts were built up of rocks. Of which, there was no shortage. In fact, they could have pulled more of them out of the road. We did encounter a number of delivery trucks and buses that kicked up so much dust, they'd cause a brown out, requiring us to turn on our lights and pull over for safety's sake. I can still smell the dirt in my nostrils.

Around this point the GPS was giving us some bad information. Or perhaps we'd been given some bad coordinates for the village of Dilb. Our endpoint of Lalibela was one way, but our track to Dilb kept saying we were getting farther and farther away. We traced back and forth over some bad stretches of road two or three times wondering if a random donkey trail or dried riverbed was our missing turn-off. We pulled over near a village bus stop and were immediately surrounded by a couple dozen curious locals.

"Dilb?" I asked, pointing ahead.

"Awo. Awo." They said, meaning 'yes' in Amharic.

"Or Dilb?" I asked again, this time pointing to where we now stood.

"Awo. Awo." They said again.

We weeded one teenager from the crowd who seemed to understand a bit of English. He swaggered forward gnawing on a stalk of sugar cane, clearly relishing his role as ferengi translator. It became clear we had not gone far enough up the road to reach the turn off. When we asked how far it was we received a volley of answers ranging from twelve kilometers to one hundred. This caused great disagreement and a lot more pointing and arguing among them in Amharic.

As we pulled away I asked one more time. "Where is Dilb?" Thin brown arms jutted out toward every point on the compass.

"Thanks." I said, rolling up the window against the dust contrails of another passing bus.

We found the turnoff and made it to the airport in time. By airport, I mean a small concrete building, a little two-story tower and a flat piece of land. A trio of National Police lounged in the shade of the entryway, wearing ill-fitting blue uniforms that looked awfully similar to what your high school janitor wore. Except an Uzi lay across the lap of one of them. When we approached we were asked for our passports in thickly-accented English. We were then asked for tickets. When we explained we were here to pick up Jim's wife and kids, a discussion ensued among the guards that started with being told we couldn't go in, but eventually resulted in us being waved inside.

I headed for the first bathroom I saw--which was the first bathroom I had seen at all that day--only to discover the paperwork required for the incoming shipment was nowhere to be found, if you catch my drift.

I got the car keys from Jim and ran out to the vehicle in search of some toilet paper. Given that the interior was crammed with all sorts of gear, I was having a hard time finding it. Jim came out to see what the delay was right about the time I completed my quest. We headed back to the airport and were stopped by the same three guards. Despite showing them our passports again, we were denied entry. Even though we had both been there under three minutes ago and were in their sight the entire time. Repeated attempts to get any kind of explanation from them resulted in the equivalent of a grunted "Because those are the rules." Even our incredulous looks and exaggerated shrugs weren't going to make them budge.

At this point all we could hope to do was annoy them into submission. I slipped off behind one of the guards and stared directly at the other without blinking for as long as I could. Jim's tactic was to stand between the two guards on either side of the entryway and slowly shuffle forward until he was right between them.

He was asked to step away several times. "Am I doing anything wrong? Then, no, I am not moving. Not moving." he repeated with a sweep of his arms that indicated he was magically rooted into place. So they let him stay. At one point Jim even showed them his diplomatic passport to prove his non-terrorist status. This didn't work, but their mumbled excuses were said in a tone that was internationally understood as "Hey, I'm only following rules and I make like $20 a month." The guy with the Uzi conveniently got up and walked away to check the security fence or something pressing like that.

This continued for about twenty minutes with me visually boring holes in the one guard's forehead and Jim placing himself between the two remaining guards like an annoyed oak. I also pretended I understood their Amharic; laughing or shaking my head whenever they did. I'm not sure if it worked, but their conversation noticeably dropped off. While it didn't result in us being let inside, their discomfort was at least moderately satisfying.

At last the buzz of an incoming plane was heard and we saw a small twin prop swoop into the valley in the distance. You have to remember this airport is so small that we could see all the way through the narrow building clear out to the tarmac and watch the plane pulling up a mere thirty yards away. Melissa got off the plane with two kids, an infant and a bunch of luggage. Still the guards would not let us in to help. Mercedes and Reeve saw Jim and began running at him yelling "Daddy! Daddy!!" Jim reached out to gather them up saying "Daddy can't come any closer or he might cause an international incident."

From there it was a blessedly short haul into Lalibela over mostly paved roads. As we turned into the village we were immediately in the middle of hundreds of students letting out from classes. Their sea of light blue school uniforms parted around us and we were surrounded by waving and welcoming kids. "'Allo! Welcome to Lalibela!"they said with such sincere grins that I wondered if the embassy had told local authorities to prepare a reception for us. It was a redeeming pleasantness after our aggravating afternoon with the airport guards.

The Jerusalem Hotel was across a dirt soccer field at the end of sandy road. Staff members immediately appeared from shaded doors and overhangs to help us with our luggage and pat the kids on their heads. We seemed to gain a degree of respect as they saw the days of road grime coating the vehicle.

My room has a little patio that I'm sitting on right now, watching the last heat of the sun melt the clouds into gold. Below my perch, at the bottom of a small hill, I can catch a glimpse of a narrow road lined with a few mud huts. I see people who have so little and work so hard to make a living in the strictest sense of the word. Yet I still hear the sounds of pleasant chatter and unmistakable laughter floating up to me. I cannot understand the words, but the meaning doesn't escape me.

[Coming up Next (And Soon): Fikaru and the Shoe Tender...]

Sat, 20 Jan 2007 21:07:32 GMT

[Pardon a brief diversion from Africa to back home...]

UNCLE BUD

Last Thursday morning, my grandma's brother died. His name was Jim Tracy, but to us he was known as Uncle Bud. He was 86, so his passing wasn't too much of a surprise, but that doesn't take the edge of the finality of it all. Especially for a family figure like Uncle Bud.

Uncle Bud was, as an English girlfriend of mine said after meeting him, "a true bloke". He was a real Nordeast legend; always in a suit and hat he tipped to the ladies. On holidays, he'd gather us grandkids around and teach us the intricacies of dice and card games, giving us the chance to earn an extra quarter or two from him if we won.

Bud worked for the railroad as a property assessor, so he was all over the Twin Cities. He knew the names of everyone from doormen to presidents and treated them all with equal respect. A firm handshake and a look in the eye sealed the deal upstairs in the offices. A bottle of 'something special' guaranteed front a front row spot for North Star games from the Met Center parking attendants. Even his name was enough to get you VIP status the moment you entered a place. A 14-year old uncle Rick would go into Russel's bar downtown to pick up North Star tickets and the bartender would greet Rick by name and pour him a 7-UP while he searched for the tickets.

After retiring from the railroad, Bud got a job driving major league umpires around town when they came in for games. He got all us cousins an official autographed ball by our favorite Twins player the year they won the '87 World Series. The rest of his time was filled with golf and I remember going to celebrity tournaments and watching him pal around with everyone from Walter Mondale and Chuck Foreman to George Goebel and Loni Anderson. Especially Loni Anderson.

He never found the perfect woman to marry, so he always kept two or three imperfect ones around to make up for it. There were probably moments of embarrassed hi-jinks, but he treated them all like proper ladies should be. So much so that his high school sweetheart from 1939 showed up at his wake.

In short, he was the man.

I slipped five dice in his casket so he could play '6-5-4' with Saint Pete at the gates. My younger cousins each put a popsicle stick and a dollar in with him. Whenever Uncle Bud came around, he'd take them for ice cream. If they couldn't go, he'd give them a dollar so they could get one later. That inspired a story from my mom, who remembered Uncle Bud taking her and my aunts up to the corner soda fountain; his ulterior motive being that he needed a bromo fizz to take care of last night's hangover.

As a WWII vet in the Pacific, Uncle Bud got a full honor guard and rifle salute at Fort Snelling cemetery. My uncle Larry, who was Bud's guardian during his last years, and the eldest son in the family, was given the flag from his casket.

We adjourned to Manning's bar in Southeast Minneapolis afterwards. It was a little neighborhood joint with wood paneling that welcomed gray-haired regulars and eager-eyed college kids with equal openness. Trains ran by an elevated trestle just outside. It was a hangout of Bud's for a long time. A waitress who had worked there for forty years remembered him. And his girlfriend Ginger. I pictured the Ginger of Gilligan's Island and smiled, imaging Bud walking into this very place with her on his arm, taking her fur coat she as slid into a seat at the bar.

Uncle Bud made the request that some of his money be used to buy us all a couple rounds of drinks. While they didn't have the crème de menthe needed to make us a Stinger--Bud's drink of choice--we raised our pints, hi-balls and sodas in a toast to the man, in a place his spirit still seemed to pervade.

Or perhaps it was in us; intensified by our gathering together, the commonality of our shared experiences and genetics. Maybe together, all of us, could make up one Uncle Bud. I looked at our family and saw cousins sitting with grandparents, aunts and uncles intermingled with my sisters and significant others. 'Immediate family' seemed like such a silly phrase with generations flowing freely together, history and future mixing without interruption.

The prevailing feeling wasn't one of sadness, but an appreciation of how Uncle Bud lived the hell out of his time here. How he moved through the decades with nary an enemy, how he genuinely changed the mood of a room when he entered it. And how he earned everyone's respect, not because he was rich or powerful, but because he gave you that respect first and put forth that little bit of effort to remember a name or show his simple appreciation for the smallest act of kindness.

No, we weren't feeling sad. It was more like a comforting reminiscence. Like the lingering of a fine single malt. The fire is gone, but the warmth remains.

Mon, 08 Jan 2007 22:09:50 GMT

Buna & Bread: An Ethiopian Adventure
Chapter 3: On and Off the Road

Ghion Abassel Hotel, Dessie, Ethiopia...

Did you know that behind Washington and London, Addis Ababa has the largest number of ambassadors of any city in the world? It's true. On any given trip around town, you'll see more signs pointing the way to embassies than you will street signs. Benin. Finland. Canada. Jamaica!

Speaking of trivia, last night Jim hosted his bi-monthly trivia game at the U.S. Embassy. Unlike the other embassies with their signs directing you to their front gate, the U.S. instead subtly disguises itself behind a block square compound surrounded by two-story razor wire-topped walls and massive yellow concrete barricades.

I'd never been to an embassy before, so I was excited to see what it was like and meet some of the people who worked in such an important place. The embassy compound was much huger than I expected. Behind the layers of barriers and security checks were grounds shaded with groves of trees and its own parks, tennis courts, pool, housing, garage and general store.

I was worried about playing trivia with a group of highly-educated people who have lived all over the world and who's job it is to keep up on current events. But after a couple of Bati beers it sounded just like any other after work happy hour: complaints about crazy schedules, dumb managers, discussion of practical jokes played on co-workers and plans for the coming weekend. And I think I held my own on the trivia questions. At least I was the only one to know that the Zombies performed "Time of the Season".

But that was last night. Right now, Jim and I had the Nissan Patrol loaded up and were trying to find our way out of Addis Ababa to officially begin our road trip. Immediately, we hit a snag because Kofi Annan was in town and they simply shut down several major roads completely. We followed some Blue Donkeys and soon were back climbing the hills on the outskirts of the capital. Our destination was the town of Dessie, some four hundred miles to the north.

Before we left, Melissa reminded us that some of the rural people believe if you jump out in front of a car right before it passes, the vehicle will kill any evil spirits that may be following you. Plus, when you put a road through a village where, at most, a few people own vehicles, the road becomes a nice sidewalk. And a convenient place to herd your donkeys, sheep, cattle or camels. All of which we spent most of the day dodging on the roads.

"Road", we were soon to discover, was a loosely defined term. Sure, we were usually driving on relatively flattish surfaces devoid of trees that, possibly, at some distant time, had been covered with asphalt in sporadic places. The quality of roadway varied from decent to what could have been dried up riverbed. At some points, we were bounced around so much I was afraid my airbag was going to go off. This is while managing hairpin turns on a mountainside with some insane Al Qaeda truck held together with chewing gum and duct tape coming around the bend the other way.

At one point we came upon a tunnel through a mountain. And it was literally a tunnel. No lights or pavement. Just a big hole with a faint circle of light at the other end. "Is this the darkest tunnel you have ever been in or what?" said Jim squinting into the headlights. "Take off your sunglasses." I suggested.

The imminent and constant fear of vehicular demise still didn[base ']t detract from the scenery. I wouldn't say the villages we went through were attractive in any sense of the word, but they were certainly interesting. All the Amharic lettering, the wooden donkey cart taxis built on old truck axels, new foods, new people. Scenes that were simultaneously foreign and familiar blurred by the window. Friends smiled and shook hands. Kids chased each other home from school shielding their eyes from the sun with notebooks. Grocery shopping for the evening meal was done (Although the butcher shops with huge shanks of meat hanging out with only shade for refrigeration almost made me go vegan). You could buy lumber or bundles of charcoal. A wedding party danced its way across an open field, brightly pimped out parasols happily bobbing above the heads of the couple and priests. Life goes on.

There were stretches where you could stare at the rolling fields and gentle hills full of golden wheat (tef, actually) and imagine you were somewhere in the Midwest. Then you'd pass a farmer herding a cow in a tight circle to thresh the grain outside his mud and stick hut. Just as his ancestors did a thousand years ago. Except there might be an electric line running by it. Not to it, just right on by. It was made even more surreal by the fact we were blasting Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar on Me" from Jim's iPod inside our SUV.

We only saw one or two other ferengi the entire day, so when we rounded a sharp bend and found ourselves on Dessie's main street, it felt like there was a needle-across-the-record moment. The curious and close stares we got from everybody made us seem like the town's entertainment.

Dessie means "my joy" in Amharinga. But I think it translates to "armpit" in English. Maybe "armpit" is too harsh a word, but it would be a synonym for sure. I know. I know. This is the Third World. But Dessie had an obvious grunginess about it that even the residents of Deadwood would call cocksuckingly dingy. The government-run Ghion Ambassel Hotel was a little walled haven from the dusty fevered throngs on the street, but it still left much to be desired: tissue thin walls, a medieval toilet and a mattress that folded in half like a lumpy taco. The art nailed upon the wall appeared to be a photo of two pit bulls with huge horns fighting in a jungle. But for $15 a night, you can't raise your expectations much above sea level.

The dinner menu from the hotel restaurant is deserving of its own photo:

Rather than risk feasting on 'Risted Lamp', we went for beef tibbes with injera. This national staple--which means it's likely that the chef has actually made it before--is beef tips cooked in a spicy sauce that you scoop up with a chunk of the spongy injera bread. It was filling, but the beef was so chewy I had to check the menu to see if I had ordered belt by mistake.

The hotel had a ping-pong table in a little shed that Jim and I checked it out after dinner. "There's bird crap all over it." he noticed, walking around the white-splotched table.

"How the hell did that happen?" I wondered.

"It's from that bird up there." Jim pointed to a huge pigeon sitting in the rafters just a few feet above us. "The one that just crapped on me." Sure enough, the avian had bullseyed Jim's head and shoulder with a fresh load of pigeon pudding. We beat a hasty retreat to our room, laughing the entire way. At least I was.

"This'll kill the germs." I said handing Jim the bottle of Johnny Walker Black we had brought for just such occasions. I also opened a pack of Finger brand cookies from Turkey. I bought them in Addis simply because I wanted to make a joke about giving somebody the Finger. It certainly wasn't for the taste, which was akin to cinnamon ground into a piece of cardboard by a dirty boot.

Jim was unzipping a small pouch holding six shiny spheres. "Is that a mini-bocce ball set?" I joked.

"It is." He held them aloft for effect.

"Soooooo, I'm in an Ethiopian hotel eating Turkish cookies, drinking Scottish whiskey about to play a game of miniature Italian lawn bowling..."

"It's a small world after all."

"Thanks. Now I've got that damn song in my head."

Up on the wall, the two horned pit bulls grinned at us.

[In Our Next Installment: "My eyes are more powerful than your Uzi..."]

Mon, 18 Dec 2006 15:09:23 GMT

Buna & Bread: An Ethiopian Adventure
Chapter 2: Madness in Addis

I was awoken this morning by a mélange of natural alarm clocks that included the pre-dawn call to prayer from a local mosque, followed by the just-after-dawn moaning from a nearby Orthodox Christian church--imagine an old man with a smoker's cough sobbing over the body of a dead dog while other dogs howl from nearby yards and you've got it. This was followed by the pitter-patter and chitter-chatter of excited kids being bundled off to school. And just to make sure I was awake, a flock of enormous vultures began some kind of battle royale on the corrugated metal of a nearby roof.

The first thing my eyes saw was the bright new African sun shinning over a poster of Angel's Landing in Zion National Park. It was the first trip I had ever taken with Jim and Melissa. The Zion camping trip was a prelude to their wedding and, while they didn't know me real well at the time, they decided to roll the dice and invite me along. The rest is history written in the pages of well-stamped passports.

There wasn't much to see of the city last night as Jim drove me home from the airport. He said Ethiopians were of the early-to-bed-early-to-rise good Christian ethic. By the light of the occasional fluorescent street lamp or random shop window I could make out the dingy stores and ramshackle sheds I'd seen on previous trips to Africa.

We turned off the Chinese-built Friendship Road--the only decent road in all of Addis, according to Jim--and took the back way to their house. Which apparently meant a lightless washboard road with no markings. It was hemmed in on either side by high metal walls topped with with vicious afros of barbed wire.

"Here we are." said Jim pulling up to a large iron gate with an array of artfully splayed spikes on it. A man with the word 'Security' on the back of his jacket swung open the doors for us.

Melissa had waited up for our return. Or maybe she just wanted the Aveda products and Frontera salsa she had asked me to bring. Either way, we enjoyed a St. George beer and worked out some details for our upcoming ten-day road trip to the north.

But we had a few days in Addis before then. I was disappointed to hear that it wasn't much of a friendly walking town. First off, it was tough to walk anywhere because of beggars and bad traffic. And secondly, there wasn't really any thing to walk to. Never the less, I tagged along with Jim as he ran some errands, taking wide-eyed delight in the littlest of details in common objects. The way ads looked on billboards. What was being displayed outside storefronts. What the vehicles looked like. That we were the only white dudes in sight.

Why there are no stinky feet in Addis

We stopped at a local supermarket called Bambis. It seemed to offer enough variety that if one were forced to live here, they could make due without too many adjustments. Due to the Italian occupation back during World War II, there was a startling abundance of Italian products. I wandered off from Jim to take it all in. The smell of fresh roasted coffee beans mingled with fragrant bushels of oranges. I also caught a whiff of the hot blend of chili peppers and other spices called berbere. There were new labels and packaging in every aisle. Like Finger brand biscuits, French Feelings condoms and Hip Hop fasting biscuits. On that note, I also discovered two great rapper names in Ginger Nuts cookies and Hakim Stout beer. They would be a formidable combination on both the palate and the mic.

While the car was being loaded, I looked out over the city from the slight hill that Bambis was on. Early Mad Max seemed to be the prominent architectural style with rusted corrugated metal and blue plastic tarp being the materials of choice. Antennas rose above the smog like dead ferns. Wires and pipes entered and exited buildings at seemingly random places and it was tough to tell which structure of sticks was scaffolding for a building going up or the remnants of a building coming down.

Perhaps what one notices most about Addis is the high level of insanity on the roads. Imagine everyone being a drunk blonde Asian woman on her cellphone eating a burrito and you get the general idea. They seem to think the dotted lines are where you're supposed to center your car. Horns are used as brakes and turn signals are the stuff of fairy tales. Ruless roundabouts abound, the traffic swirling in herky-jerky unpredictable spirals. A bust of Pushkin sits entombed in the center of one such circle, his expression eternally agape at the anarchy around him. Scrawny donkey herds try to pass doweled-legged boys pulling a wooden cart dropping metal scrap on the road behind it. Pedestrians cross the street wherever they want without looking even one direction. They'll eschew sidewalks and walk in the road along medians. Add to this the usual madness caused by road construction and raise it to the power of three. As in Third World. There are ditches being dug with picks and shovels just to seemingly be filled in with the same dirt. Trucks dump their loads of rocks in one lane and then workers scramble to move it by hand. Meanwhile, nearby potholes so big that they show up on topo maps with their own names are left untouched.

The major mechanical inhabitants of the road are what the ferengi (foreigners) have dubbed Blue Donkeys. These are old VW vans whose bottom halves are painted blue. Like their animal counterparts they are slow, ornery, unpredictable and usually loaded down with huge loads of people. Then there are the Al Qaeda (AQ). These are white snub-nosed delivery trucks that careen through the city like the drivers want to be martyred. The only chrome lining is that things are usually so congested that you can't get up enough speed to have too serious an accident.

When traffic does bottle up, (usually when a police officer randomly decides to try to direct traffic), beggars rush to the middle of the street and approach your vehicle. Most seem to be trying to sell lottery tickets or small packets of tissue that have David Beckham's picture on them. But there are also plenty of street urchins, land mine amputees, polio victims and all kinds of other illnesses and deformities. Apparently, there is one beggar who has like eight fingers each of his hands that is known as Wolverine.

Jim said one time he shooed away a woman holding her baby up to the window. The woman then went to the back where she began banging on their four year-old daughter Reeve's window. "No!" replied Reeve, pointing to her younger sister, "We've already got a baby!"

There are a pair of beggars that Jim has kind of adopted because they seem to be in tough physical shape that would make work difficult. They recognize the vehicle and he hands them a few birr out the window. This BYOB policy also keeps the other beggars at bay once they realize you've got your own already.

There are a few moments during the day when my knuckles turn white and instinctively clutch for the overhead OCH (Oh Christ Handle) of their Nissan Patrol. But Jim manages the traffic like a pro, making moves that would garner several tickets back in the States. Here, it's just how things are done.

It all makes me wonder what our 1,500-mile road trip is going to be like. We'll find out in two days from now. Barring him hitting that Blue Donkey trying to pull away from the curb without looking, Oh, Chirst, look out...

[In our next episode: "From the Meat or From the Fish?"]

Sun, 10 Dec 2006 05:51:28 GMT

Buna & Bread: An Ethiopian Adventure
Chapter 1: Getting There Is Half the Fun and 3/4ths the Expense

My middle school Social Studies teacher, Mr. Larson, taught us the countries of Africa using their names to make up a story. I can't remember all of them, but I do remember a friend of Chad who was a boxing fan so she had Somali. And this guy who got angry that he ran out of petrol somehow made me remember Madagascar. I wonder if Mr. Larson could do the same thing nowadays with the Etch-A-Sketch of a map that Africa has become.

Right now I am in flight to visit friends in Ethiopia. To the east is Somalia, which hasn't had a working government since 1991 and just declared a jihad on Ethiopia. To the north is Eritrea which has been warring with Ethiopia over a border dispute since '98. To the west is Sudan where an estimated two million people have been displaced and 200,000 massacred in the Darfur region. To the south is Uganda, where Idi Amin would commonly have his political opponents for dinner. As in 'with fava beans and a nice Chianti'. And to the northeast is Djibouti, which is just fun to say.

Ethiopia has plenty of its own internal troubles. It's one of the three poorest countries in the world. It ranks second in the number of HIV infections and deaths from AIDS. Life expectancy is a scant 49 years. Only 39% of the population is literate. And cyclical droughts make it prone to the massive starvations that killed hundreds of thousands in the early '70s and '80s.

That's the Ethiopia most of us have lodged in our heads.

But did you know Ethiopia is also the native land of the coffee plant and the birthplace of the Rastafarian religion? It has more unique species of flora than any other African country and a capital city of over 5 million. It was only the second country in the west to adopt Christianity and one of the few countries on the continent to escape European colonialism. It has over 20 peaks above 4000m and one of the earth's lowest points (the Danakil Depression is over 120m below sea level). There are 17th century castles that were larger than their European counterparts. One of the three wise men who visited the newborn Jesus was Ethiopian. Mohammed was nursed by an Ethiopian woman. A place named 'Land of Burnt Faces' by the Greeks that even Homer writes about. And despite all its troubles and strife--both natural and manmade--it is called the "Cradle of Humanity" because that is likely where one of our oldest relatives (the Australopithecus afarensis Lucy) changed the fate of an entire planet by standing up and looking at the world from a whole new perspective.

This is also Ethiopia. And it's where I'm headed for Thanksgiving. No, the irony of spending our national day of glorified gluttony in a country that was so starved for food it actually brought together Bruce Springsteen and Cyndi Lauper in song has not escaped me.

While my flight plan consists of an eight hour jaunt to Amsterdam, followed by a nine hour leg to Addis Ababa, I am convinced that international travel is the only way to go. Free booze and each seat comes with its own video screen that lets you play video games, build a custom-made music playlist and watch a huge selection of movies whenever you damn well feel like it. Although the list includes The Lake House, Dude, Where's My Car? And the Dolly Parton/Sly Stallone magnum opus Rhinestone. Well, at least you get to choose the type of tripe you want shoveled between your ears. And when it also needs to fill eight hours, you[base ']re looking for plenty. You can watch First Daughter in Dutch and pretend it[base ']s educational I guess.

If I had the dosh, I'd fly first class without a doubt. I could care less about the gourmet meals, the karaoke stage and bathroom attendants. Just let me able to stretch out and sleep at a vaguely reclined angle and I'll be happy. The wings on this A330 have got several feet of flex in them and I can't get more than an ant's pubic hair arc of comfort in my rack.

You try, but rarely ever sleep. You just close your eyes and toss around in your head, swinging in a hammock of thought, hoping you drift into actual dreaming. At best, you try to distract your subconscious enough so it doesn't notice you crossing all the time zones over the Atlantic.

Amsterdam in the dark. I wander around the deserted airport city of Schipol in the rainy predawn looking at my dazed and glazed expression reflected over dozing jets as I slide by a horizon of windows on a moving walkway.

I find an upstairs lounge area with recliners and flop into one with eyes closed. For a brief moment I chase a worry around my mind about what would happen if I overslept. It was needless, because sleep was just a dream. What with the moving walkway downstairs chirpily reminding you to "Watch your step!" whenever anyone breached its perimeter. And the continuous overhead announcements! There seems to be two women doing them. I picture them in a control room somewhere, reading off scraps of paper that shoot up in pneumatic tubes surrounding them. One sounds like a French woman with a sinus infection and a mouthful of peanut butter. Even her O's sound like Ng's. The other I imagine is some kind of Paxil-fueled pixie, flitting about the booth with stardust sifting from her cosmic rainbow wings. She is sugar-coated saccharin who pronounces every letter with the precision of a German engineer.

The passenger names they announce are clichéd stereotypes. I believe I can pick the nationality of each of them without even seeing a passport. "Mr. Lopez, Mr. Hackenschmidt, Mr. Bindi and Mr. Wang, you are delaying your flight. Please report to the gate immediately or your baggage will be off-loaded."

No, there is no sleep to be had here. So I pace each terminal to its terminus, haunt the duty-free shops, play an extra in the background of so many other people's epic adventures as they are in mine. Our paths crossing here, but never touching.

At last it's boarding time. The home away from home stretch. The KLM flight seems to have wider seats, better food, cuter stewardess and goes by much quicker. The only snag was the fact that all flights going into Africa seem required to make at least one stop somewhere. This flight stopped in Khartoum. While I was on my layover in Khartoum nothing really happened. Which sucks because I'd love to be able to start some conversation with the phrase "While I was on a layover in Khartoum..."

From there it was just a short parabola into Addis. In just under a day, this Midwest boy had kissed his girlfriend good-bye in the chill air of the Land of 10,000 Lakes. And now I was getting my passport stamped in the lingering warm dark on the Horn of Africa.

The customs line was blissfully blessedly short and just on the other side was Jim. A familiar face in a very distant place.

"Hey, bud." I said, giving him a big yeti hug. "I just happened to be in the neighborhood."

[Our Next Episode: Malice in the Palace by the Badass of Addis]

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 21:48:24 GMT

E is for Ethiopia

I grew up in the swamps of East Bethel, Minnesota. It was easy to find. Just head north from Minneapolis and take a right at the last stop light before Cambridge. Right by the sod fields. Dirt road on the plot next to the collapsed barn. Most of our family vacations were spent exploring the shores of Lake Superior or, if we wanted to get exotic, a trip to Disneyworld.

Now I'm poised to make a trip to my third African country. It still totally blows my mind and I am unendingly grateful to be able to take advantage of the opportunity. After voyages through Zambia and Tanzania, the next -ia is Ethiopia. Shown here:

There will be visits to ancient Christian churches hewn from living rock, climbs up sheer cliffs to lonely monasteries, the Great Ethiopian Run, a visit to the town where Menelik, the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba purportedly brought the Ark of the Covenant. There will be loads of injera. There will be a road trip with loud music by day and lots of beer by night with very good friends. There will be much that is unknown too. But that is why we explore. That is why we learn. Why we peek around corners and overturn stones. It's why we stare at that point on the horizon where heaven and earth meet. And it's why we keep walking towards it.

Keep the fires at Base Camp going for the next month and when I return, we'll uncork a bottle of something special, share tales of our time apart and relish the bonds that keep up together. In the days betwixt, please raise a pint and a dram to my well-being and know that it's being returned just one ocean over, next continent down.

Ter oo betam!

Mon, 06 Nov 2006 05:38:55 GMT

My Green Meadows River Home

Our departure gate at Minneapolis/St. Paul airport is C4. Not a good omen to have your gate named after plastique explosives two days after a terrorist plot to blow up planes is uncovered. And because of said plot, it wasn't a good omen to be caught trying to bring any form of water, creams, toothpaste, lotions, gel bras, Go'gurt or insulin on a plane either. But I wasn't about to let any weapons of moist destruction keep me from flying into D.C. for a visit with Jim and Melissa (Of Jim & Melissa fame). Several other friends, including my ex-wife, Heather, were also flying out to see them. Their stay stateside was so short we figured we'd rent a house in the Virginia countryside and all congregate there. We had found a place called Green Meadows River Home located near the lazy town of Luray, Virginia. From the online pictures and descriptions it looked like Huck Finn would walk by trying to catch fireflies in a mason jar while Norman Rockwell humped a pie cooling on the windowsill.

But first we had to endure the War on Moisture while getting through security. There was minor grumbling over the inconvenience, including an overheard discussion on how much TNT a determined terrorist would be able to cram up their rectum and the belief that Halliburton must have just landed the beverage concession contract at America's airports. The lines moved swiftly for the most part, but it was worrisome to see all the confiscated liquids--which were being taken from us because they might be combined to form a bomb mind you--all being emptied together in one big metal bin right in the middle of hundreds of people. While there may have been a real threat from several individuals somewhere, this was pure TSA Security Theater and nothing more.

Heather and I sat next to each other on the flight and I was reminded of the opposite images we'd be leaving for work together in the morning. I'd be all scruffy and unshaven in jeans and a T-shirt, while she was a fashion art director and looked the part in a totally put together look from 'do to shoes. With matching skin tone and red hair, we were more likely to be mistaken for brother and sister than husband and wife. An assumption we'd play up at various parties to get horrified looks from just-met guests when they later saw us making out in a corner.

After an uneventful flight we quickly left DC behind and headed south into Virginia and the gentle curves of the Blue Ridge Mountains. We passed through several small towns, each having a statue of Stonewall Jackson looming in its town square, musket raised, his permanent scowl seeming to indicate he was about to let loose with a "Y'all damn kids git out of my yard!"

We stopped at the supermarket in Luray for provisions. The first thing we noticed was a tractor driving down Main Street. Okay, let me take a paragraph here and say that I could care less about the Civil War, but lets face it, whenever someone wants to imitate a total moron, it's usually in a southern accent. And I'll admit I had my Yankee radar up for any indication of redneck activity for the sole purpose of providing me with easy punchlines for the weekend. I could have been playing a chess match with a local while discussing cost push inflation in haikus and still be hearing banjo music. Stereotypes are just a great time-saving device.

We didn't have to wait long. While parking the car at the supermarket we got our first taste of southern culture when a woman set a ratty-dressed snot-crusted kid on the roof of the car so she could light her cigarette. She grabbed her uncle-daddy's-baby, resting him on the bulge of her newly pregnant belly and kicked close the door of a late model Chevy that had been assembled from at least four other cars with enough force to knock a significant amount of the rust off. I think it had a 2x4 bolted to the back for a bumper too. Granted, I've seen similar people at my own local store back in the Union States, but, wow, this was just making it too easy.

While the market was lacking in some products, it made up for it in others. Who knew there were that many edible parts of a pig? Who knew you could buy crosses already pre-soaked in kerosene? Okay, I'm joking about the last one, but two things did worry me, apart from the fact that the freezers were broken down and had this sign on them...

One was the bargain bin of meat; an overflowing freezer section crammed with various unidentifiable animal tissues for 'sale in a hurry'. The other worry was wondering if they'd sell us alcohol on a Sunday. This is an act that adults in Minnesota are not deemed responsible enough to handle. When I started stacking the booze on the check-out counter, the woman in front of us gave us a stare that said we'd be asked to put it back and say half a dozen Hail Marys. I was still unloading groceries when the clerk reached for a twelver of Killian's Red. The successful 'boop' of it clearing the scanner made me turn to Heather will a silent "Yessssssssss!"

"Melissa said this place was 14 miles past where the road ends. Or until we can only pick up far right wing Christian radio stations" I said as our tires left asphalt and began kicking up a cloud of gravel dust that would have done the General Lee proud. High grasses pressed in on either side, being urged forward by tall pines behind them that reached over the road to shake hands with their counterparts on the other side. Out here, rivers were called 'runs', but only meandered. Settin' on the porch seemed to be more popular than cable and we were treated to street signs bearing names like Mountainview, Lost Corner, Paddlers' Retreat, Fodder Notch, Bovine Drive and the inexplicable Little Egypt.

We missed the narrow driveway on the first pass, but backed up and left the road. The woods seemed to press uncomfortably close on either side as the sunlight was being strangled into shadows by the branches. Which is why we thought we saw a human skin hanging from the gate in the road. It turned out to be a pale yellow Tibetan prayer flag (stupid Nepalese king). The house was just up around the bend on a big plot of land that had been carved from the forest. It had a huge porch with plenty of tables and benches in the back and a screened in porch up front.

Green Meadows River Home by day...

Heather and I brought in one load of groceries and set about exploring it right away. It was a tiny place seemingly made up of Escheresque room after room with no apparent order or reason on why they connected or where they led to. There were plenty of little discoveries, however, like antique crumb brooms in the heavy dark wooded china hutch, a Tibetan temple bell in the kitchen and a diary from 1947 nestled on a bookshelf upstairs. This olde school blog revealed that most of people's time back then was spent eating and going to church.

We readied the house for the arrival of the rest of the group. Heather was impressed that some of the bed-making lessons she had taught me while married had apparently stuck. We grilled up some pork chops and had dinner by firefly light on the front porch. A large possum waddled its way along the front hedge just ahead of the dusk, but didn't stay long, choosing to seek its dinner elsewhere.

Jim and Melissa showed up a few hours later. In tow, they had their three young daughters--Mercedes, Reeve and Cian--as well as our friend Katie. The house immediately filled with energy, laughter, music and mayhem. The kids most urgent mission was to set up a minefield of Leggos dispersed over the entire wooden floor of the dining room. Various plastic dinosaurs and African wildlife was set up to patrol its borders. It was unbelievable to think the last time we had all been together was long ago and far away in the warm sands of Dubai. Hugs and food and drinks were passed around as we re-explored the house and divvied up the bedrooms.

Melissa said when they drove up the darkened driveway and came to the gate, Reeve had said "I scared a little." At that point we all admitted our festering belief that this was the perfect setting for any type of slasher/ghost/horror movie. Your towering sharp angle of your first view of the house through the low-hanging branches along the driveway was almost cliché. Only a pipe organ soundtrack and flash of lightning would have made it more so. The house was full of creaking stairs and doors and other sounds that went unidentified. There were mysteriously locked doors. A soulless black pond with a cracked statue of an angel gazing mournfully into its depths was positioned at the edge of the looming Blair Witch Woods. So were several shacks and sheds with dusty cobwebbed windows you couldn't quite see through. The breezy curtains of the bedrooms danced in the wind, creating various specters from shrubs and a laundry pole in the yard. Or was that an ancient cross used for ritual sacrifices?

...and by night.

"Come on, now." I said. "Just because that gypsy woman Heather hit with the car said this place was built on an ancient temple before she died doesn't mean anything is going to happen. Besides those graves in the basement look really old, so they can't be where the insane woman who used to live here buried her family. The asylum staff has probably recaptured her by now anyways." We laughed. Then laughed nervously.

The basement was Horror Flick 101 whose walls and floors were just packed dirt. The air was musty and corpse cool with nothing more than a dim bare light bulb to bring the shadows to life. There were strange gouges in the wall and part of the floor was damp with a thick reddish liquid. I giggled at my tingling spine as I walked back up the groaning wooden steps. But I did check the latch on the door (twice) before hurrying back to rejoin our group.

To guarantee everyone's safety, Jim, Katie and I stayed up far too late. And drank far too much. And had far too many entrants in our 'Most Embarrassing Song on Your iPod' contest. But we were far too tired to care.

"You want another Dogfish Ale?" asked Jim from behind the open fridge door.

"Of course." I yawned. "If we're attacked by zombies they won't want to eat our brains if we kill off enough cells with alcohol."

Even Jim, a former national debate champion, could not argue with that logic and joined me for one more on the front porch.

Wed, 18 Oct 2006 05:15:04 GMT

Take Me Out to the Branded Ball Game

Next season, the Chicago White Sox will start their weeknight home games at 7:11pm as part of a sponsorship deal with 7-Eleven convenience stores.

Allow me to cut-and-paste from the October 11th StarTribune:

"It's great to be part of a winning team," 7-Eleven spokeswoman Margaret Chabris said of the Sox, who failed to make this year's playoffs after winning the World Series last year.

"It's not gimmicky," she said. "We're adding value to fans' time."

Sorry, Margie, but you put the 'not' in the wrong place. It's a figure 1A gimmick. And you are not adding any sort of value to the fans' time. But as a fellow advertising executive, er, I mean, Value Adder and Purveyor of Consumer Information, I will have to admit it is clever.

So clever that there are a number of other companies giving MLB teams the high and inside sales pitch. Such as:

Kool-Aid: Whenever a relief pitcher is called in, they're required to burst through the outfield fence and shout "Ohhh yeaaahhhh!"

Trojan: Condoms will be provided to players reaching third base. And the pitcher's rubber will now be ribbed for mutual pleasure.

Schwab Investments: The return on T-Bills will be determined by Barry Bonds batting average.

20th Century Real Estate: Home plate will be shaped like a 4BR/3BA rambler with 2 fplcs, breakfast nook and big backyard.

CBS: Any team in a city that has a CSI spin-off set there will require the ump to dust home plate for fingerprints.

PepsiCo: Pop flies will now be called 'Mountain Dew Baja Blast Xtreme flies'.

Milton Bradley: A's outfielder Milton Bradley will receive $200 every time he passes home plate.

Burger King: The King will bat clean-up for the Kansas City Royals.

My guess is your first reaction is to laugh at how ridiculous these ideas sound and then immediately go "Hmmm...". If you've been surprised that ballparks are starting to look more and more like NASCAR drivers' jumpsuits, don't be. After all, our national pasttime's anthem has been giving a plug for 'peanuts and Cracker Jacks' for decades now.