American Television

Before I left the US of A, I had never watched MTV. I'd never seen America's Got Talent. In fact, the only talent show I'd seen was the first season of American Idol. I'm pretty proud about that fact. And did you know? They made at least four Prince & Me movies? I only thought there were two before I left America.

And now that I'm in Ethiopia? I have watched all those things mentioned above with my brand new 13 year old sister in our living room in Butajira, Ethiopia.

. . . I'm learning so much about American culture.

Also, crappy Telenovelas dubbed in English on ETV (Ethiopian Television). It's like a train wreck – I can't look away.

My English Il-breeding

Dear friends and family,

Soo . . . Pooping.

Apparently, it's a problem here. The hot, liquidy, brown water that has no faucet control, often, magically, appears in your pants.

Yay, Giardia. Dun Dundadudun.
Giardia. Bum bada bum. (If you can get what song I'm referencing, props to you)

Well, I'm having the opposite problem. And that's because I have to shit in this!

And I never feel empty afterwards . . . and I never feel clean.

I have no shame. You all can know this.

Today I got some interesting news that might change my little constipation problem if not the clean problem. The wonderful, amazing, and perfect water filter Peace Corps provided me doesn't actually do what they say it does. The "chemical component" that is supposed to murder the icky germs in my water is actually the component that filters out the bleach I haven't yet added to the water I have, yes, consumed.

And. So. Now. I'm banking on my ill-breeding to save me. I'm depending on the good, strong English farmer stock that is related to absolutely no royalty. The blood that puts me behind the Irish for ascension to the throne. I'm banking on that blood to protect me from whatever nasty I may or may not have consumed since Saturday.

Sincerely, me

P.S. They say it takes a week for the brown water to come to you. Basically, what I'm saying is look forward to more pooping posts. 

"lay"over = sleep deprevation

Dear Friends and Family,

I am in Frankfurt right now. I love Germany. In one of the many and ubiquitous small markets one finds in an airport there was a wall of shelves, ceiling to floor, filled with cigarette packs and cartons. On all of these cartons were large black and white labels. These labels took up about half of the packaging surface and read things like, "Cigarettes kill!" "Cigarettes are harmful for your health," "you should quit smoking. Visit a clinic or consult a pharmacist for help quitting." It's one thing hearing about Germany's country wide push to improve the health of their nation, it's another to actually see it in action. These labels made me smile.

Anyway

The point of this blog, friends and family, is to tell you about the long, arduous journey it took to get to Frankfurt. Please note that "arduous" is used here for hyperbolic effect and know I am actually enjoying myself.

There is about an hour until my plane leaves. We landed in Frankfurt at 5ish? in the morning. As if I was actually paying attention to the time. And we are leaving at 10:30. Before arriving, we had a 10ish hour flight from JFK International to here, Frankfurt. Before that we had a two hour bus ride from Philadelphia to JFK. The day before that I had a two hour plane ride from Denver to Philadelphia. We still have another 10ish hour flight ahead of us.

I haven't slept since the 2nd. That is, today. That is, today being yesterday. Because it's the third today, the 2nd. And even then it was only a few hours and let us not forget the 2 hours I got on Sunday night before my 7 am DIA flight.

Anyway,

We've played Phase 10. I've watched Beautiful Creatures (enjoying it ironically), written a blog post  and gotten to know (and probably annoyed) quite a few of equally tired Peace Corps Volunteers.

I'm ready to nap – or sleep on the plane. Because I feel like I could go back to bed even after a 10 hour plane-nap.

Before I close this "letter" I would like to reiterate that this is not a list of grievances. As tired as I am, I am thoroughly enjoying the intensity and intelligence of the conversations around me, the musing an funny (who cares about redundancy) people I'll be serving with and the friendly airport staff I have encountered at the 4 airports I've been in in the last 2 days (does it count as a day if time zones shifted several hours at once and you didn't sleep?) I've even enjoyed the random bad things, like the unnecessarily angry bald man on our trans-Atlantic flight.

And now I should stop because, even though I am in a solidly constructed building, I'm starting to feel like I am back on a plane and it's headed to the runway. Hoo, dizzy.

Sincerly and sincerely (spelled right) and love

Julia

P.S. I'm no longer dizzy and it took me about 30 minutes to actually get the internet working long enough to load this so you better appreciate what I am doing for you.