last month. eight months. notables.

Last year.

Managed to dissuade a stranger at staging by saying “I hope he writes good letters.”

I assume he was illiterate, as she disappeared a half hour later. Hope he was worth it.

Aided and abetted by a silk dress in a stolen moment in a stable.

Thank you, M—, I would have never paid that much for a dress shopping on my own.

Later, finding out dress was inside out... Thank you S—, I may never have noticed.

Survived a venomous snake in my bedroom.

Best friend fell in love. Finally.

Last month.

Recognizing enough Rukwangali to know someone was suggesting tutoring via pillow talk.

Finding someone who shares my circle of friends from Chicago living in Namibia?!

Hoba meteorite thanks to P— L—.

Last week.

A conversation, aided by Goats Do Roam

H: Oh, my god. I forgot to do my taxes. Shit, do you still have to file yours?

E: Hmm?

H: Did you have a job before Peace Corps?

E: Hey, I have experience, Hope.

H: That’s not what I’m asking E—. Did you file your taxes?

E: I have experience!

H: You’re drunk aren’t you?!

Saw a hippo in the wild for the first time.

Saw a hippo defecate for the first time.

Walked seven miles.

Sang I’m Gonna Be (500 miles) while doing it.

Da da lat da Da da lat da Da da lat da Da da lat da

Today.

Witnessed a giant armored cricket brave a nest of fire ants.

Watched him shake ‘em loose like a dog trying to shake rain off its fur.

Its the small things, really.
Eighteen months ahead to go.

opposing lit heroines..

I'll take this on a t-shirt, please..

god&^%$#@!dammit

Yesterday I ran into the biggest, most award-winningly massive cricket I've seen in my life.

And, of course, I did not have my camera.

But he was trudging… so I could head back to my house and catch him on the move with my camera if I ran, right?

Wrong.

The armored ground cricket, acanthoplus discoidalis, is common in Namibia…

(Or so they tell me)..

In the local language, they are called kuta kuta.

According to local lore, if you see one, you will soon be full.

I took this to mean sated or satisfied, but I have been assured that they (my colleagues) literally mean overstuffed from a big meal.

Perhaps, though, they’re thinking the kuta kuta, itself, will be full soon…

They’re cannibalistic.

From the archives…

Check out this Slate article.

Or this one from BBC.

Also, two inches, my foot.

This bugger was over 3 inches in length and fat as hell..

Maybe that’s why he was sauntering off on his own…

He’d just eaten his compatriots.

So, anyway, I’m chugging back to where I spotted the sucker and am cursing myself for not just following it to wherever it was heading to get out of the rain, and then getting the camera…

And it’s vanished.

It has no wings.

I’m in a relatively open field.

And it’s gone.

Feeling (more than) a little bereft, I hoist my camera, determined to scout it out.

No luck…

Except for spotting possibly the strangest grasshopper(?) I have ever seen.

This little guy is called efingwe in Rukwangali.

No idea about its English moniker, nor scientific name..

According to my friends, coming across this pretty little insect means something dire will happen to me in short order – most likely death.

At least I’ll die with a full stomach?

hoba hoba..

Though I was a bit under-dressed for the occasion (in my pajamas)…

I had the pleasure of viewing/scrambling atop the Hoba Meteorite – the largest known single mass meteorite in the world.

In truth, I only live couple hundred kilometres away from the site – which is outside Grootfontein, but as we PCVs do not have access to cars, I would have likely never seen it, had we not had the luck of a hike from a gentleman whose grandfather once owned the land the sixty ton meteorite sits upon.

Hoba is not only significant for its cuboid shape and mass – when it was found it weighed over 66 tons, but also the fact there is no visible impact crater from its fall over 80,000 years ago.

That last bit baffled me for a minute… But then I found this.. 

Thanks, Canada, for clearing that up... 

a quick sidebar.

This month the Atlantic featured an article by Claire Dederer on the difficulties women face when writing sexual memoirs. Dederer, herself, in the process of writing a memoir, suggests that the complex ‘interior whirring’ is key to expressing female desire honestly. I agreed with her thesis, and article, in general. Sex can be difficult to write about truthfully, and it is easier to titillate and shock, particularly when written from a female voice. But something has brought me back repeatedly to the piece for the past few weeks. At first I thought it was the references of Anaїs Nin’s relationship to Henry Miller; I had just read Tropic of Cancer for the first time, and still was having trouble reconciling my relative appreciation for his stream of consciousness writing to his prolific use of the word ‘cunt’ to refer to women in general, versus female genitalia specifically.

It occurs to me now, though, that it also was the article’s graphic that I was trying to reconcile.  How ironic that an article that centers on the ‘double– and triple–think thrumming in female desire’ features a graphic of headless pale pink female anatomy.

The image was designed by the talented graphic artist Noma Bar. 

I’m a fan of his bold graphics and use of negative space.
The image in question is the clever marriage of fountain pen and the female form.

That said, I take two issues with the graphic. 

One. The image of the headless female.

The sexualized body devoid of a head, and for that matter, a brain.

I and you and everyone else we know is familiar with numerous reincarnations of this image.

But to go into it would remind me of a discussion with an ex-boyfriend who once attempted to goad me into proving that sexism existed. This was our final argument before I booted him out the door for the last time. That I managed to resist the tempting desire to toss him bodily down the stairs speaks to my restraint.

But I digress.

The second issue is the pink form. Are all the female memoirists who focus on female lust (among other things) – and the women reading their books – identifiable as white? Taking another look at Dederer’s article, one might think so. She considers a number of female memoirists in her article.

Sofie Fontanel

Nicole Hardy

Katherine Angel

Lidia Yukanavitch

Anaїs Nin

Erica Jong

Mary Karr

Kerry Cohen

Toni Bentley

Melissa Febos

Lena Dunham

Chelsea Handler

All are decidedly pink. (I include the Spanish-Cuban Nin in this lump).

Are there no female memoirists of color to be considered in Dederer’s research as she explores her own writing and those in her genre?

As I am currently ensconced in a village in rural Africa with no access to an extensive library, book store, nor a reliable internet connection, I suppose I’ll have to keep on wondering as to their omission. 

Please do send reading suggestions, I welcome them.

Adaption of the Noma Bar/Dutch Uncle piece for the Atlantic.

the grading scale.

I discovered this concoction of tunes during an obsessive bout of playing Face to Face over and over and over again this past weekend. It makes sense to me. But I enjoy organic OCD serendipity. So go figure.

17 songs | 1 hour, 12 minutes

Atomic Dog | George Clinton

Bring it on Home to Me | Sam Cooke

Bye Bye Blackbird | Joe Cocker

Carried Away | Passion Pit

Chain Gang | Sam Cooke

Constant Conversations | Passion Pit

Cry Like A Ghost | Passion Pit

(Don’t Worry) If There’s a Hell Below, We’re All Going to Go | Curtis Mayfield

Drop | Pharcyde

Erotic City | George Clinton & The Parliament Funkadelic

Edge of Seventeen | Stevie Nicks

Face to Face | Daft Punk

Face to Face / Short Circuit (Alive 2007)| Daft Punk

Feel Good Inc. | Gorillaz

Find My Baby | Moby

Forrest Gump | Frank Ocean

Fuck You | Cee Lo Green