Laughs galore!!!

Last night, three of us went to an onsen about 45 minutes away from our apartment. It was so nice. Inside, there were 6 baths of varied temperatures including one for doing exercise. I decided to be a big dog and get into the hottest one 42 degrees Celcius…like 108 Fahrenheit! Needless to say I didn’t stay in there very long. Then we went outside where there were 3 more baths and big stone buckets to sit it. On the way out I grabbed a Häagen-Dazs Green Tea ice cream from a vending machine in the lobby. Before going home we stopped at a really good restaurant for some yellow curry. D-E-Licious! I wish I could end every night like that!

Today I was at the nearby school where I sit at my desk for 8 hours and do nothing because they don’t have internet. AAAAH!!! Although my nearby school (which I will now refer to as Purgatory, since my far school is Heaven) is the school I don’t really like, it is where I get the most laughs. Here are a few examples:

A few weeks ago I went to a meeting of Japanese English teachers in the area. The principal at Purgatory is really nice and speaks really good English. On the way to the meeting he was explaining to me that the town we were entering was in the process of incorporating with two other towns because the individual towns lacked the facilities and resources that people really need, etc. So he says, “For example this city doesn’t have a Gynecologist.”
1. He pronounced it Jy-no-cologist
2. Wait…of all the facilities he could have used as an example, why on Earth was gynecologist the first thing that came to mind?!?!?! HAHAHA!

Yesterday, I was walking around during cleaning time and I was stopped by a chorus of “HELLO” from a group of my favorite girls and one of my favorite boys in the hall. The boy says, “Oh, it is berry cute!” (You are very cute.) I said, “Thank you. You are very kind.” Then they told me that so-and-so had a boyfriend and so-and-so had 5 and the boy says, “You. Boyfriend?” I said yes and one of the girls pointed to the girl next to her and said, “She is Rez.” So I was like oh okay because I thought she was telling me the girl’s nickname or something. Then I guess another girl didn’t think that my reaction was appropriate so she says, “No, no. She’s rez. Gahl lubu gahl eekohl rez!!!” The girl who she was pointed at started shouting, “No I’m not, no I’m not!” Then it dawned on me what she was saying…”No, No. She’s les. Girl loves girl equals les!” If only they would make that much effort in their English classes!

Right before I went home yesterday, one of the teachers hands me a cd that has “Big Help in the Big Easy” written on it. He told me that an English teacher in Nagasaki gave it to him. I copied it onto my computer and listened to it this morning. Well the first songs are all really nice classic jazz by Louis Armstrong and other artists from that era. Then about halfway through the cd I hear the unedited versions of Bunny Hop, Slow Motion, and some Big Tymers song. Hahahaha! I wonder if he knows what he’s listening to.

It's amazing what an accidental phone call can get you. The leader of the group I call the "Ko Krew" (because all of their names end in -ko) has proclaimed herself my Japanese mother since she and my mom are the same age. Anyway, I was on my bike with my earpieace in and I accidentally somehow ended up calling her but I was on a busy street so I couldn't reach into the basket to end the call. Well she was so glad to hear from me and asked if I wanted to hang out. Long story short, she made dinner and the rest of the Ko Krew came too. It was so nice to just sit around, eat, drink coffee, talk and watch the news like I do with my mom and her friends at home. She even sent me home with eggs. Ikuko said that they were special eggs so I asked her how. She said, "The yolk is more orange. They eat healthy food...um cockroach..." We all burst out laughing because she didn't realize what she said. I hope it was a mistake! Then she was like, "Oh, no sorry. They eat honey and seaweed" and some other healthy stuff that I don't remember. I boiled one to see if it tasted different from other eggs and sure enough it did! I'm still trying to figure out why she said cockroach though. Scary!

So this weekend began on Thursday...

Thursday
A Japanese friend of mine took me and one of my co-workers from the next city to a Salsa lesson...FUN FUN FUN!!! It's one thing to be Black in a salsa class with all Japanese people, but it's a completely different thing to be Black and already know how to salsa in a class with all Japanese people! Instant Stardom! After the class, the three of use headed to a Ramen restaurant and ran into two of the students from the class so we all ate together.

Friday
At my school, a former JET returned to visit. He is now the principal at an international school in Mongolia and before that he taught at an international school in Uganda. Sounded like the ideal job until I thought about the teaching part. Friday night was spent cleaning up and getting ready for all the fun I planned to have on Saturday/Sunday away from home.

Saturday
I took some documents that a friend of Justin's family gave me to the International Exchange Association in the next city to be translated. Then, I walked up and down the main street to look for some boots. The one pair that I liked there were only in small sizes...like a 6 1/2 or something. A man at the train station offered to be my boyfriend because he "loves Americans!" No Thanks! I ran into a couple Black men who work at the urban wear stores. I stopped to find out where one of them was from and he said, "New York City, but really London." So I asked where his New York or London accent was. He said, "I don't have an accent?" He's clearly African but I guess you can't force people to tell you the truth about themselves if they don't want to. So when I got to the second store, I just said hello to the guy outside and kept walking.

That evening, a group of us went to the Kirin Beer Farm for dinner and bottomless mugs of beer. So needless to say I enjoyed my bottomless glass of orange juice. In Japan, Rock Paper Scissors is the official national way of settling confusion among kids. Well apparently the same goes for adults. Two men did Rock Paper Scissors on the train to decide who got to sit. Complete strangers are so nice and diplomatic around here. At home it would have only taken a one round of "You sit. No you sit, I insist" before someone took the seat. I've even seen a seat remain empty here because the people wanted to be polite. I call that silly. I got to the Beer Farm super early (3pm) because the person I was meeting said get on the 14:45 train when her really meant the 4:35 train in a text he sent me. It was ok though because I was able to see what should have been called the dog fashion show (yes that dog is wearing a dress) and frolic in the sea of Cosmos (flowers) across the street. Stunning! I learned that day that I do indeed have super powers, namely the power to stop fleeing babies in their tracks. A little girl was running full speed ahead from her parents until she saw me. She stopped instantly and froze. By the time her parents caught up and realized what she was looking at I was laughing hysterically and so did they. Those of you who are familiar with Dave Chappelle's "James The N!@@^ Hatin' Dolphin" will be delighted to hear that I encountered "Chen the Black Folk Hatin' Dog"...A woman was trying to take a picture of herself and her dog with her camera phone so I offered to take the photo for her. When I went to reach for the phone Chen (her dog) started barking like a maniac! She clenched him in her arms and said "I'm sorry" over and over (in English). That dog barked long after I was out of site. CRAZY! By the time folks started coming, the sun was setting so they missed the flowers. We went inside at about 6 for dinner once everyone got there. I think I make people feel bad when they ask if I drink and I say no. Oh, well they'll get over it or just forget after the 4th beer anyway. The dinner was good. There was a set meal of cheese and crackers, sausage with sauerkraut and mustard, salad, ribs and fries, chicken, pizza, and seafood pasta in marinara sauce. Sounds like a really odd combination not that I'm typing it but everything was good.

That night a group of us headed to Fukuoka City. Well a group of them and me. They live in the northern part of the prefecture and I don't know any of them. So, on the train ride to the city, they talked to each other and I sat in a different section. They went to karaoke and I went to salsa. Salsa was great. I was introduced to everyone in the place including the owner, Sonia from El Salvador. I've been invited to dance with a team in January. So, we'll see. I'm wondering if dancing with a team with take the fun out of it. Two of the people from the Thursday class were there. A guy wanted me to "wait here, dance with my friend!" I saw his friend earlier...short stature, small frame, short hair cut, glasses, round face, striped oxford shirt, black slacks, casual shoes. But even when I say "friend" earlier, I wasn't 100% sure that friend was a man. Now, young men around here don't really look all that "masculine" in the Western sense. The perfectly styled, dyed, and tapered hair...tapered blazers...tapered pants...jewelry...floral prints...shaped eyebrows...quieter voices...maybe it's just me. So you can't really say until you've gotten a close look sometimes. One thing I can say though is that "friend" surely could lead like any male I had ever danced salsa with. However, as an owner of..."the girls"...I know how people with them look and I swear that "friend" had some!!! Talk about confusing, but whatever. After salsa, I headed to Cybac (Internet cafe) to take a nap in my cubicle in the lady's section.

Sunday
I continued my quest for boots. I searched three shopping districts in Fukuoka city and another two malls in Kurume only to find that the one pair I liked was...what? You guessed it, TOO SMALL! It's so strange that a lot of shoes here come in small, medium, and large. So when I asked for my number size (which happens to also be L-size I guess) the sales ladies responded, "We only have M-size and smaller." So no boots for me, not yet anyway. To take my mind off of my less than fruitful search for boots, I stopped for a little taste of home...Starbucks, Grande Soy Chai and cheesecake. I did get a new tall ironing board. It was a little pricey but I'm sick of going to bed with a backache after being slouched over the small, short one. On the train ride home, I got a text from one of my co-workers so we met at the ramen shop for dinner and we went grocery shopping afterwards.

So that was my fun filled loner weekend. Here's the photo of the weekend: You don't need to read Japanese to know what this one's about!

No point in giving this post a real title...

Well world I had a pretty good weekend full of things to kinda' take my mind off of work...Saturday we had a cookout in a park at a nearby river...Thanx to the NEX in Yokosuka, I had real BBQ sauce. So, I seasoned up some chicken the night before, pre-cooked it, loaded my supplies in the basket on my bike, and pedaled hungrily to the park. I thought this picture looked like a sunglasses ad...Later that day I found out that the event at the restaurant was not a Salsa party so I was plenty disappointed. There was a house DJ and everyone was like, "Uh?" So we went upstairs to a darts bar called The Cool and sat around, snacked, and played darts. Look at the bootleg (but oh so cute) menu. Then the English (Japanese) teacher from one of my schools who had invited me came up. I'm assuming the people at the door told here where we were. So we made our way back to the original venue kinda' out of obligation. I think she thought we didn't go inside the first time because she wasn't there. Ha! Well it ended up being alright. Head bobbing on the dance floor and chatting it up with the other foreigners who also teach English in the area. After things died down we went to Karaoke. So now, the teacher seems to think it would be a good idea for me to sing for her students. I THINK NOT! I hope she knew I was serious when I said no. It's so strange to me that there are so many single middle-aged women here who have never been married and don't have any kids. Hmmmm...

Sunday, three of us headed out to the Premium Outlet mall. Since when did it become okay to put random English (American) words on stuff? i.e. Atlanta Crazy Crepes...No, no, no! Crepes are from France...not Atlanta!!! There's also a restaurant a couple of towns over called Atlanta Diner or something like that...weird. As you've probably heard me say many times before, I really want a dog when I get back. However, the debate now is whether I will be the sickening type of dog owner who does things like dressing the dog up in Halloween costumes and taking it to the mall...hmmm...Probably! On the way back home we stopped for Korean food at a hot pot restaurant the specialized in SPICY Korean fare. It was good but not very filling so I ended up making some tea and eating some snacks when I got home.

Quote/Thought of the Day:
"Ew, this ham tastes like shrimp!"

Photo of the Day:


I presume it's safe to say that none of these weird little anatomically correct doll things are female...?

Crunky Biscuits Don't Work!

And even more hilarious is the fact that the phonetic pronunciation of the Japanese writing is KU-RA-N-KI BI-SU-KE-TO. Sounds like Cranky Biscuit to me!!!

Have you ever been so sleepy that your eyes started to cross or only one eye would blink? Do both at the same time and you’ve got me at my desk at work doing NOTHING ALL DAY!!! With no Internet at that. I finished reading Memoirs of a Geisha today and, although it’s a good book, I nodded off every 5 seconds. A few times this week I just put my head on my desk and took 5-10 minute naps here and there. One of today's classes was the worst yet. Maybe because it's Friday or something (the 13th for those of you who are superstitious). The kids weren't listening at all and their teacher didn't do anything...not like she ever does when I'm in the classroom. Even had she said something I'm sure no one would have heard it because she never speaks above a whisper. I'm surprised the kids haven't tied her up and locked her in the boy's bathroom. After class she apologized for the way the class went and told me that she "was feeling sorry for [me] in the class."

I think that this week I experienced the decline after the euphoria of…cultural acclimation. I won’t call it culture shock because I was never shocked. It kind of feels like school again. Except, this time it only took 3 months and not 3 years. My junior year in college (after I got back from Senegal) I began to feel antsy, like it was time for a change which worked out because graduation was around the corner. Well, it feels like that time has come again. I’m no longer in the “honey moon” phase. Nothing makes me say “Wow!” any more. Unlike school, there’s no new semester in the real world. You’ve just got to deal with it. I’m sure the changing of the weather isn’t helping either. 3 down…months that is. I’m not homesick, just getting a little bored...Payday can't come soon enough...hehehe

So in an effort to combat these feelings of listlessness, I started taking Taiko drum lessons and I will be dropping in on a few salsa classes on the weeks that my Taiko classes don’t conflict. Aside from my “extracurricular activities” I have also been searching for what to do next, after Japan. Although it’s easy, I really don’t want to teach after this. What to do, what to do? Hmmmmm...

1. Get a B.A. in International Relations. Then, get an advanced degree in the same.

2. Get a B.S. in Chemistry and possibly explore the perfume world.

3. Research potential entrepreneurial ventures and start by own business.

4. Be a bum.

My problem is that I lack focus and I have no idea what I want to be when I “grow up.” My other problem is that lunch has been borderline yucky all this week! And this one (above) was the worst! The only thing that tasted good, aside from the rice (can't go wrong with rice...ask the RiCe BoOtY), was the egg.

On a lighter note...We're having a BBQ tomorrow afternoon and the English teacher from the other school (that I commonly refer to as "Heaven") invited me to an event at a Spanish/Italian restaurant...SALSA! I told one of my Japanese friends about it and later found out that they know each other! SMALL WORLD! They both attend English conversation classes at NOVA, which coincidentally is the company I started the application process with before I decided to do this! Anyway I'm off to bed. 10:25 pm on a Friday night and I'm going to bed (sigh) with a headache I've had all week. I'm sure tomorrow will be a better day...

Sunday Dinner...Baked Chicken without an Oven!

How's it possible? Pure science (and a little bit of hunger)! Put your chicken (in this case drumettes because apparently full sized drumsticks don't exist at the grocery store!) into a pouch made of aluminum foil. Put about 1/2 inch of water in a skillet and turn up the heat. When the water is boiling, put in your chicken pouch, pop the lid on the pan, and do something else. Voila! No-Bake Baked Chicken!!! Thanks to the NEX in Yokosuka, I had Kraft BBQ sauce to drown it in and thanks to my parents, I had some Bush's baked beans to accompany my gourmet dinner...YUM!

So you wanna know what my place looks like? The building is OLD! So I've got a traditional style Japanese apartment. Foyer, shower room, WC, three rooms, and a kitchen.
Here's my extra room that started off as an "office" but I never go in there so my school supplies are in the closet, there's a bunch of papers on the table (which are sorted by the way), and it's also my "dryer" since people have the tendency to burn stuff outside and I prefer not smelling like charred wood and outdoors.

And here's the "living room" that I don't live in but my clothes do (in the closet of course). Yes, that's a TV etc. in the window sill. I didn't want a TV in my bedroom. Then I realized that I wasn't going to watch it in the living room either, so I stuck it there and I keep the curtains closed so you can't see it. The other things next to it are chairs that sit directly on the floor. They're ugly too so i put them up there out of sight. I pushed the couch and armchair over there so that they're not as much of an eyesore from my bedroom when I have the doors slid open (like this picture). In case you haven't noticed, I prefer that my living space not be aesthetically displeasing...though it's still not aesthetically pleasing. Oh well.

And here's the kitchen. Aside from the shower room and the WC, it's hands down the ugliest room in the house. My predecessor or (maybe hers) thought it was a good idea to paint and as you can see everything is a bunch of different colors. I was going to just repaint the room but I'm still debating. Anyway, that balcony runs the length of the apartment and can be accessed from every room on that side (office, kitchen, and bedroom). I have a gas 2-eye range with a fish roaster slot in the middle. Sinks here don't have garbage disposals and ours don't have hot water. The gas water heater is over the stove.

And finally my bedroom. See my lime green swatter? A reminder to and ready for any unsuspecting mosquitoes who think they're going to pull a fast one on me and bite me while I sleep! I chose this room to be my bedroom because it has the air/heat unit up there above the window/balcony door. I finally tried the heat today because I took a nap and woke up freezing. Thank God it works. I should have tested it when I first got here but the heat outside was so oppressive that creating new heat in my apartment was the farthest from my mind. Central air and heat? HA! I think this room was intended to be a living room because it's next to the kitchen, has no closets, has the air/heat unit, and it's the largest room. Well, it's the same size as my "living room" but it has the big window so it looks bigger.

So that's my place. I was going to put money into improving it but I'd be broke before I ever finished. I might paint my bedroom now that it's cooler outside and I can stand to have the windows open. That's probably all I'm going to do though.

Folks over there look crazier from over here...

You know how people say that things always look clearer from the outside...well from this bubble that I'm living in, seemingly far away from the West (thanks to never watching TV), the outside world looks extra crazy...

A friend of mine emailed this article to me the other day. Since the New York Times gives you a window during which you can access its articles, I decided to just post the article.


nytimes.com
October 2, 2006
Global Sludge Ends in Tragedy for Ivory Coast
By LYDIA POLGREEN and MARLISE SIMONS

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast, Sept. 28 — It was his infant son’s cries, gasping and insistent, that first woke Salif Oudrawogol one night last month. The smell hit him moments later, wafting into the family’s hut, a noxious mélange reminiscent of rotten eggs, garlic and petroleum.

Mr. Oudrawogol went outside to investigate. Beside the family’s compound, near his manioc and corn fields, he saw a stinking slick of black sludge.

“The smell was so bad we were afraid,” Mr. Oudrawogol said. “It burned our noses and eyes.”

Over the next few days, the skin of his 6-month-old son, Salam, bloomed with blisters, which burst into weeping sores all over his body. The whole family suffered headaches, nosebleeds and stomach aches.

How that slick, a highly toxic cocktail of petrochemical waste and caustic soda, ended up in Mr. Oudrawogol’s backyard in a suburb north of Abidjan is a dark tale of globalization. It came from a Greek-owned tanker flying a Panamanian flag and leased by the London branch of a Swiss trading corporation whose fiscal headquarters are in the Netherlands. Safe disposal in Europe would have cost about $300,000, or perhaps twice that, counting the cost of delays. But because of decisions and actions made not only here but also in Europe, it was dumped on the doorstep of some of the world’s poorest people.

So far eight people have died, dozens have been hospitalized and 85,000 have sought medical attention, paralyzing the fragile health care system in a country divided and impoverished by civil war, and the crisis has forced a government shakeup.

“In 30 years of doing this kind of work I have never seen anything like this,” said Jean-Loup Quéru, an engineer with a French cleanup company brought in by the Ivorian government to remove the waste. “This kind of industrial waste, dumped in this urban setting, in the middle of the city, never.”

The tale of the sludge can be traced to July 2, when a rust-streaked tanker, the Probo Koala, arrived in Amsterdam after a lengthy stay in the Mediterranean. Leased by Trafigura, a global oil and metals trading company, it was pausing on its way to Estonia to unload what the company said was 250 tons of “marslops” or “regular slops.” That is the wash water from cleaning a ship’s holds, which would normally be laced with oil, gasoline, caustic soda or other chemicals.

Amsterdam Port Services, a waste processing company, took the job, for about $15,000. But as workers unloaded the waste, they found problems, the company said. For one, the volume was much higher, more like 400 tons. For another, the seeping fumes of the waste sickened some of the Dutch workers.

“It was pitch black and had a heavy stench,” said Luut Planting, a spokesman for Amsterdam Port Services. “No one had ever seen similar waste.”

The company stopped unloading the sludge, ordered analyses and then informed the Amsterdam city authorities of the presence of hazardous waste, Mr. Planting said. The material and test results are currently under seal in the office of the Dutch public prosecutor, which has opened a criminal investigation.

A statement posted on Trafigura’s Web site says that tests performed on material discharged by the Probo Koala in Abidjan by a laboratory in Rotterdam showed that the material was not toxic. “Contrary to speculation in the media and the activist communities about residue washings in a recent shipment to Côte d’Ivoire, tests conducted by the company and others show the washings themselves to have little or no toxicity,” the statement says.

As to the deaths and illness, the statement says, “It is still unclear exactly what caused the tragedy.”

But the Rotterdam laboratory, Saybolt, has told Dutch news media that it was asked only for a limited analysis and that the samples were not sealed, not properly marked and not wholly reliable.

Lucas Reijnders, a chemist and professor of environmental science at the University of Amsterdam, said he had seen the results of an analysis done in Ivory Coast by a lab there, Ciapol, on samples taken from the Probo Koala before the dumping.

The analysis showed extremely high levels of caustic soda; mercaptans, a kind of sulfur compound; and hydrogen sulfide, he said. The last, he said, is a volatile compound that “smells of rotten eggs, but at high concentrations you can no longer smell it because it paralyzes your nervous system.”

“It’s very lethal and acts very rapidly,” he added. The mix, he said, was suggestive of oil refining.

Exactly where the waste originated remains unclear. A spokesman for Trafigura, Jan Maat, said the Probo Koala had served in the Mediterranean “as a floating storage tank” and had taken on loads from several different ships, but he declined to give details.

Reports in the Dutch press said the Probo Koala had been secretly used as a floating refinery during the summer, when selling gasoline had become unusually profitable.

Mr. Maat denied that. “This is absolutely untrue,” he said.

After analyzing the waste, Amsterdam Port Services told Trafigura’s London office that the price to treat and dispose of it would now be much more expensive, close to $300,000. Trafigura, which in 2005 had revenue of $28 billion dollars, balked at the cost.

“It was so much higher than the first price,” said Mr. Maat. It would also have meant staying an extra day, costing $45,000 in port fees and a penalty of some $300,000 for arriving late in Estonia, he said.

A brief standoff ensued, but the Probo Koala was able to leave Amsterdam two days later after taking back all of its waste with the permission of the Dutch authorities.

“We have never handed back or refused waste before,” said Mr. Planting. “But the crux was that Trafigura refused to pay. If they had, the material would have been treated and there would have been no problem.”

From Amsterdam, the Probo Koala sailed to Estonia and took on Russian oil products. After delivering them to Nigeria, it continued to Abidjan, where it arrived on Aug. 19.

Mr. Maat said Trafigura’s London office had advised the Ivory Coast port authorities and the Transportation Ministry that it was delivering chemical waste requiring special treatment and close supervision, and hired a local company, Tommy. “We were informed that four companies there could handle it,” said Mr. Maat. “One of them was Tommy. Clearly this has not been a fortunate choice.”

He also said, “We do not acknowledge responsibility for the dumping of the waste without treating it.”

French, Dutch and British toxic-waste experts and oil traders said it can be easily ascertained that Ivory Coast has no facilities capable of handling high-level toxic waste.

Tommy hired more than a dozen tanker trucks, into which it pumped the sludge. The trucks fanned out, at night, to at least 18 sites across the city, according to witnesses in several neighborhoods where the material was dumped, as well as the French cleanup crew.

Several tankerloads went to the Abidjan landfill, in a community called Akouedo. Residents there are accustomed to foul odors, but knew something was particularly bad about the new material. They chased and surrounded one of the tanker trucks, forcing the driver to flee on foot, witnesses said. In other places, some trucks were simply abandoned by drivers fearful of being attacked as word of the illegal dumping crept out and public anger rose.

Efforts to reach Tommy by telephone were unsuccessful, and at least one of its executives has been jailed in Ivory Coast.

Last week Jean-Baptiste Giassey, a 13-year-old schoolboy, rooted through garbage piled at Akouedo, near a team of workers from Tredi, the French environmental cleanup company that is gathering up the polluted trash, which is expected to be sent to France for proper disposal.

Stinking mud oozed from the trash under his flimsy sandals, coating his feet and legs. He was looking for scraps of aluminum, which he would sell to traders for less than 25 cents a pound. He said he had been spending five or six hours a day at the dump, trying to earn enough money for new clothes.

“I don’t know that it is dangerous,” he said. “I come here every day.”

At first the Ivorian government did not acknowledge that something was amiss, even though the rank smell was spreading through the streets of Abidjan. Officials say they suspect they will find more dump sites than the 18 identified so far.

The spreading illnesses sparked violent demonstrations from a population convinced that government corruption was to blame for the dumping, and ultimately the furor forced the prime minister and his government to resign in September, though much of the government was reinstated later. Six Ivorians, one Nigerian and two European officials from Trafigura have been jailed so far in Ivory Coast.

The risk of sickness from the waste has abated with evaporation, experts said. But there may be long-term effects of exposure. In Dgibi, a village on the northern outskirts of Abidjan where some of the waste landed, an impromptu clinic set up to examine people exposed to the waste has been seeing 200 patients a day.

Most complain of nausea, headaches, skin sores and nosebleeds, said Stanislaus Dessi, a doctor at the clinic who works for the Ministry of Health.

“People are scared and confused,” Dr. Dessi said. “We try to calm them and give them medicine to treat whatever symptoms they have.”

The Probo Koala, back in Estonia, has been detained by the government there at the request of Ivory Coast.

Greenpeace has filed criminal complaints in Amsterdam against Trafigura, Amsterdam Port Services and the Dutch environmental authorities. The Dutch government said it could not comment while criminal investigations were under way. There are no fewer than five investigations going on in Ivory Coast.

The city of Amsterdam and the Dutch Parliament have begun their own inquiries.

“The whole procedure was illegal, first allowing the waste in, then pumping it back on board and letting the ship leave without any licenses,” said Eco Matser, a chemist and expert in toxic waste at Greenpeace.

Africa has long been a dumping ground for all sorts of things the developed world has no use for. “This is the underbelly of globalization,” said Jim Puckett, an activist at the Basel Action Network, an environmental group that fights toxic waste dumping. “Environmental regulations in the north have made disposing of waste expensive, so corporations look south.”

Lydia Polgreen reported from Abidjan, and Marlise Simons from Paris.


It’s really sad that:
1. It happened in a part of the world that lacks the resources to take care of the problem.
2. It, more specifically, happened in Africa. Europe should be breaking its neck to find new ways to apologize for the way it’s done to Africa (yes the whole continent) for hundreds of years.
3. There is already civil strife to which there seems to be no end in sight.
4. A place so beautiful has been labeled as the world’s dumping grounds.
5. No one wants to take responsibility. Unlike Sudan, where the argument was that the African Union didn’t want outsiders stepping in, this is obviously a catastrophe directly linked to the negligence of outsiders and they are the ones who need to rectify the situation.

Chocolate Bunny anyone?

It's amazing what you can stumble upon when you have nothing to do and a computer is your only real entertainment...

For example, I found this interesting article about an African pop star in Russia..http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/01/9343b35a-a42f-4f18-9428-43354eec0ed4.html

One more reason they should never leave me alone in the teacher's room!!! Cuz I'll inevitably watch stuff like this...

Little Superstarhttp://us.video.aol.com/video.index.adp?mode=2&pmmsid=1726852

It’s super interesting what you hear on the radio here. In stores, they play some of the most explicit gangsta’ rap ever. N-word flying everywhere!!! In restaurants, songs full of all kinds of innuendos blast over my food!  This morning, however, my heart leapt when I turned on the radio and heard, “Coupé décalé…il faut travailler!” It was an Ivorian song that I had heard about a long time ago from an Ivorian French friend I met in Senegal. I had only heard the song once at a party thrown by the African Students Association at Clark Atlanta. Here I am, all the way in Japan, and it’s the first thing I heard this morning. Way to set the mood for the rest of the day.

WOO HOO Office Trips!!!

People in America wear t-shirts with Chinese or Japanese words whose meanings they don't know on them. So what do Japanese people do? They wear stuff with English and French gibberish on them. i.e. One of the teachers at my new JHS wore a polo style shirt with "Elle Homme" on the collar and pocket. What is "Elle Homme" you ask? Directly translated from French to English it's "She Man"...Enough said. And then there are the food labels. Vanilla Cream Sand Cookies??? I'm sure they meant Sandwich Cookies, but Sand Cookies just makes them ten times less appealing!
Thursday night, I went to my first taiko (Japanese drumming) lesson. It's so funny how people make things look easy! That stuff is HARD WORK! The form is very precise. I really enjoyed myself. Sore arms, throbbing quads, and three blisters later I knew that it's what I want to get good at while in Japan. All the students kept coming by to compliment me and tell me to repeat a drum pattern after them. Even the little ones! I seriously doubt that my attempt at drumming was really all that good.
Friday evening, everyone who works at the board of education (including us, the foreigners) loaded up on a chartered bus for our "Friendship Trip" to Asakura City. What a great way to keep morale high in the office. They really rolled out the red carpet. When we arrived at the hotel, we promptly hit the onsen, hot spring bath. We went to the one outside. I think it was really an ofuro because the water source is a tap and not a hot spring but onsen is the general name. I LOVE ONSENS! The office party was really nice. Everyone wore the yukata that the hotel provided for post-onsen lounging. So it was something between a traditional Japanese meal and a pajama party! We all looked so cute in our matching digs! The meal was a sight to behold. So, behold. Here's a test of how keen your eyes are. Can you figure out what's what? I'll help you out. From the bottom right to the bottom left there are a bunch of small bowls. R to L: water/iced tea/beer glass, really small glass for hot sake (turned upside down), soy sauce, grape sake (I think...it smelled like grape soda but didn't taste like it), menu, thinly sliced seasoned sheets of tofu, king crab legs and dipping sauce, and a warm cloth for cleaning my hands. On the big plate that's kinda in the middle there was Basashi, sashimi-ed (RAW and thinly sliced) horse meat on raw onions. Yes, HORSE MEAT! It was good and surprisingly soft like raw fish. At the top R to L: steak sauce, personal griddle, raw steak and veggies to be cooked on the griddle, raw squid, a personal shabu shabu (boiling broth into which meat and veggies are put, you swish them around until their done) hot pot for cooking the squid, and dipping sauce. Here's a picture of the horse meat. There were a number of other dishes. Roasted salt cured fish, some little omelet thingy, assorted sashimi (raw fish), rice porridge, and fruit for dessert.

There's no law against drinking outside on the street (unless you're on a bike or in a car) and surprise surprise there's no law against drinking in a chartered bus either! The beer was flowing before the bus door even closed! And the they hit the off button on their restraint mechanism once again. By the time we got to the hotel (1 hr 30 min later), they were already on the road to being gone. So, it didn't help that the office party/dinner and the Karaoke session that followed was all-you-can-drink...FOR FREE!!! I did try some hot sake (a cup that held about 2 tablespoons, see picture on the right), but man they were throwing them back! As a result, one of the guys in my program disappeared in the middle of Karaoke (he probably bowing to his porcelain alter) and I'm not sure what the whole rest of the office thinks the other woman in my program responding to the advances of one of the younger MARRIED teachers who works at the board of education!!! He had the nerve to stop by the room after everything was over so she decided to ask our other roommates if it was ok for them to come in. DUH, NO!!! There were 3 or 4 to a room with 3 beds and a futon. One of our roommates is around 30/35 and the other is around 40/50. So the older woman was like, "No, sleeping." So I ran over and gave her the thumbs up. Later on, my fellow program member went out into the hallway with him and one of the males in my program. UMM! Come to find out, she went to a room of about 10 drunk/still drinking men from the office. They gave her a drink and one of the men from our program made some reference to how she should forget about her boyfriend. WHAT?! The next morning she had the nerve to say, "Oh, he gets like that when he's drunk. He'll probably just come and apologize later today." I said, "OH, UH UH!" So she asked what should she do. WHAT?! I told her that I would give him a piece of my mind so he'd know not to let it happen again and that I would avoid situations like that. I don't know if that's what she did but she and the guy from our program were cool again by the end of the day.
All of the people who didn't go to play golf came back to the bus hung over. I can only imagine how badly the golf folks were playing with all that alcohol still in their systems. So, on the bus I took pictures hahaha! And guess where we went sightseeing... an old city, a beer brewery, and a shochu distillery!!! You can only imagine how bored I was. If you can't, then see the picture to the left. It sums up how I felt about the entire day's "sightseeing"...Aside from not understanding the tours, I don't drink, plus beer and shochu are the WORST! So, during the beer tasting/drinking (it was unlimited) session I sipped my iced tea and looked at my co-workers like "Y'all are some alcoholics!" That's my cup in the foreground (this camera is the greatest!!!) I wonder if they serve this particular kind of tea to keep the prudes (like me) from looking like wimps. Minus the head and the tall glass, it looks exactly like the beer...hmmm.

Dave Chapelle was right in "Killing Them Softly" when he said that sometimes racist stuff happens to you and you don't even get mad because it's like you're in a movie and all you can say is, "Wow, that was racist." Remember the guy who asked me if I was looking at my family when I was watching the Outkast video? Well he struck again! At the office party in one of the grand tatami rooms of the hotel we all kinda congregated in groups after the main courses were served. After a few minutes everyone would rotate groups. When I made my way around to his group, he asked me if I ran fast. I tilted my head to the side and made a puzzled face. Then, I said in Japanese, "No, I hate running!" And guess what his ignorant tail said! "Oh, can't Black people run fast?" I said, "No." So he asks, "Slow?" And I said no again and explained that some Japanese people run fast and some don't so the same goes for Black people. With a look of surprise on his face he said, "Really? The Japanese image of Blacks is that they run fast. So, what do you like doing?" Well y'all I never thought I would have to refrain from telling someone about my love for dance, but I couldn't bring myself to say it because I didn't want to say anything that could possibly feed his ignorance. So, I said "Swimming. I like swimming." Then he says, "Oh, and?" So, I replied with, "That's all." Once again either he's ignorant as they come or he's mean and a good actor! I couldn't believe that he would say something like that. Ok, yes I could but who'da thunk??? It's one of those things that doesn't surprise you, but you still don't expect it!

I almost forgot to mention that apparently it's a national law that only old men are allowed to hit on Tiffany! First the man in the hardware store, another old man kept raising his eyebrows at me in the train like "hey", and yesterday the man who delivered my new modem asked me if I had a boyfriend!!! Not normal like most people ask, but with a tone suggesting that he had more questions whose answers would require me to yell all kinds of bad words in English! I told him that I do have a boyfriend and he lives in Tokyo. When he started asking me questions, like how old I am, I acted like I didn't understand and started putting stuff away in the box that he was supposed to take with him. When I closed my front door, I was extra forceful with the lock so that he could undoubtedly hear me locking the door. YUCK!!!