Eid Mubarak!

It was just Eid. Not Eid ul-Fitr, Eid ul-Adha. The one with the slaughter.

Days before Eid, there were suddenly thousands of cows on the road. Pulling eight-year old boys into traffic, bucking against the stick used to herd them, tied to trees, looking mournful and muddy. And sometimes, once in a great while, there would be a sparkly cow, doused in glitter, adorned with tinsel, sashaying up and down the dusty avenues. As a fan of general livestock, I was in two minds about these processions of fancified bovines (and the occasionally herd of eight or nine goats on a string). On the one hand, how exciting! Pretty cows! On the other hand, I knew what awaited them come Eid. A slit throat and an undignified disembowelment, followed by apportionment to hordes of impoverished women with trick-or-treat satchels, gathering their meat where they may.

Modern tradition states that the families that can afford a cow will have it slaughtered on Eid: 1/3 goes to the family (the best bits), 1/3 goes to distant relations, and 1/3 goes to the poor. In the villages, it's pretty clear who gets the last third ad which families are responsible for giving it, but in the disparate life in the city, there are so many poor people unaffiliated with richer families, so they go around and collect their share from whomever they can. The slaughter happens in the street, followed by immediately skinning and disembowelment.

I wandered around Old Dhaka on Eid, responding to the million "How are you?!"s and "Your country?!"s, my eyes firmly to the ground which was, literally, awash with blood. The gutters ran red, the cobbles directed blood spills in rivulets across the narrow alley paths. I saw cows in various stages of slaughter: sparkly and fighting against the harness as it was led to the imam, hooves bound, frantic as the large knife approached, just after, as the imam gave way to the butcher, and in various bits along the road. Skins were piled fifty deep along the road; hooves reached from the laps of the passengers in rickshaws, the ankle bones still swiveling with the motion of the bicycle on cobbles; carts of collected jaw bones brandished not quite clean skulls, and beggars tugged at the last bits of intestines, floating down the bloody gullies at the edge of the street.

Interestingly, I didn't find myself overly disturbed by any of the process other than the danger of getting blood on the hem of my jeans or smacked in the head by a passing joint of beef.

Related Links:
What up with the two Eids?

Indicators, Frü, and Americans

A little bit of patience is paying off in the employment department. Though I'm still in my same role as Personal Assistant to someone who does cool things (case in point, she's currently in Tanzania and I'm planning her trip to Nigeria in December), I've managed (with a leg up from a number of folk) to be allowed to participate in some work for the Disaster Risk Reduction team. So this week I'm furiously scrabbling away at producing a synthesis on the work that's been done on DRR indicators. It's not a difficult task, but I'm a bit stressed about it if only because if it's something they find useful, I might get a few more interesting bits of work.

Onto a much more tasty topic: Frü, closely related to Gü. Lemon cheesecakes... flirty little puds... Sinéad and I just got back from Tescos where we couldn't decide if we wanted plum and pear crumble or apple ginger crumble or zesty lemon cheesecakes... so we got all of them...

This week brings many Americans (none of whom can have my Frü). Michelle is here from Canada via Dubai and Ruth and Josh are honeymooning in Kent (in Britain?! in November?!). And all are attending what will be the Halloween Bash of the year- hurrah!

That's the long and short of it for the moment... trees are changing, the weather's frigid, I have crumble in my belly, and the laundry's done - life's not too bad.

Related Links:
Characteristics of a Disaster-Resilient Community
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm....

Blackberry Crisp and Driving Lessons and Marge's Replacement

My arms are a scritched and scratched and covered in nettle rash... all for the want of blackberry crumble. Being from a city in the States, I'm unfamiliar with the concept of being able to walk around and randomly eat fruit that grows on public foliage. It's really just not a done thing. So, in the excitement that is blackberry (bramble) season in the UK, I've thrown myself wholeheartedly into a tradition which most British people have got their fill of before their teenage years. Sinéad, loving partner that she is, has encouraged me in this pursuit and accompanies me around footpaths whilst I fling myself into bramble bushes and emerge with a grand total of three blackberries and stinging arms. Having returned home slightly scathed, there's now a blackberry crisp bubbling away in the oven which will taste all the more exciting because the berries were were there to be plucked by anyone... but it was me who got them.

When I'm not pursuing the joys of fresh roadside fruit (mmmm, taste the exhaust), I'm zipping around British roads in a snappy orange car with a big Learner pyramid on the top. For those Americans who wonder why I'm doing this despite the fact that I've been driving since the age of 15, it's because the UK, despite recognizing the driver's licenses from a gajillion countries but (I think for political reasons) not the US. So I have to start from scratch. I've passed my theory test and I have to pass my practical. In order to do this, I need to be affiliated with a school because I need a car to take the test in and I can't be insured on Sinéad's car because she's had her license for less than three years. It's all very complicated, very expensive, and a right pain in the butt. There are some interesting differences in how they teach you to take the test. For example, you can't sit at an intersection with your brake lights on because of the fear that you will dazzle other drivers. What?!?!?! Try sitting in rush hour traffic in DC and see how dazzled you get by the brake lights. Whatever.

All this brings me to Dunster, Sinéad's new car. A high end Peugeot 106. I say high end because we only paid £250 for Marge and we put £650 into Dunster. Classy chicks that we are. No power steering, though. I shudder to think.

Related Links

Exchanging for a UK Licence (yes, that's how they spell it here...)

Triple Berry Crisp

A Farewell to Marge

Alas, our poor dear Marge, lovely gray Peugeot that we purchased in November, failed her MOT with startling brilliant pizazz and has been sent to a home for the elderly vehicle in the hands of a banger-racer.

A weekend in Cork and a weekend in Glasgow and a weekend in London

Three weekends ago, we were back in Cork for the Month's Mind, essentially this is an Irish Catholic tradition in which the family pays more money to the church who then dedicates a mass to the family member on the month's anniversary of the funeral. Practically everyone who was at the funeral comes back and it's rather of short version of the three-day wake/funeral. We visited Ciaran's grave and mingled with family and ate too much and cried. I think it's good, despite it being another occasion on which the Church takes advantage of its congregation in that it seemed to bring closure to most of the family and friends. The grief was tempered and more heartfelt than that which immediately followed Ciaran's death. I'm glad to have been able to go and to support Sinéad and be there for her family. Even though it's a series of traditions which are alien to me (which I found exhausting simply from the toll of unfamiliarity not to mention everything else), I could understand a bit more the meaning behind them and how they evolved and the purpose that they're meant to serve. I find that to be comforting in some small, overly logical OCD part of myself.

The next weekend, Sinéad and I schlepped up to a well-deserved weekend in Glasgow to pay Helen back for about ten visits that's she made down South (admittedly usually piggy backing on some work jaunt). An eight hour drive after work does not happy bunnies make (particularly since it's Sinéad doing all the driving). Friday, while Helen worked, Sinéad slept until 3:30 (the mind boggles) and I had the first relaxing day in a long time, with not a lot of much to do except read the 7th Harry Potter. Heaven.



On Saturday we faffed about town and on Sunday we went to the Glasgow Show where I developed a passion for rowing, threw a caber (assisted by a very large man in a kilt), and saw Indian running ducks herded around an obstacle course by sheepdogs in training... actually a bit more entertaining than actual sheepdog trials, once you kicked all the kids out of the way so as to get a better view.



The weekend after Glasgow (no rest for the wicked) was Jim's big THREE OH fancy dress pah-tay in London. Pretty swish, fablus cake, and I combined the whole affair with dragging Sinéad to an exhibit at the Tate Modern on Global Cities which she found wanky and I found interesting. But I think I avoided the wanky looking aspects of the exhibit and focused on what I found interesting. It's all what you go in looking for, I imagine.







Related Links:


Month's Mind

The Glasgow Show

Indian Running Ducks

Tossing the Caber

SIMS 2 and Festivals and Ryan Scair Strikes Again

On a recommendation from Mr. Peter Vigors, we brought SIMS2 into our lives. For those of you who are not familiar with with world of simulated living, SIMs 2 (distantly related to that ol' favourite SimCity) allows you to create neighborhoods and people to live in them (with an amazing amount of detail). What do these people do? They make friends, find jobs, and cook dinner. Why it's so addictive, I'm not sure, but my wife and I have found ourselves sat in front of the computer for hours a day, watching little virtual people go to the bathroom.


Yesterday I came home to find a distraught wife because Social Services had come to take the virtual babies away. And she needed comforting after the virtual Sinéad through a party and no one had fun... I believe her exact words were "I spent 400 pounds on a buffet, why didn't anybody have fun!", accompanied by small sniffles. What's even more ironic is the fact that we now consistently argue over who gets control of the computer and, in general, Sinéad will spend her hard-earned computer time making our SIMs get together with some virtual cuddles...
something is well out of kilter...

General commentary on the UK
Something I find insane about the UK is that, despite the predictably awful weather, there is a continuous series of music festivals throughout the summer known for big crowds, pouring rain, floating tents, and slodging through mud, generally accompanied by sleepless nights, over-consumption of alcohol, and the occasional drug use. What's even more insane is that in general, if one is a festival go-er, one goes to all of them, weekend after weekend after weekend. In addition to this, they think that the rest of the world is like them and admires them for their festivals. The looks I got when I acknowledged that I had never heard of the mud fest know as Glastonbury are indescribable. My thirty-year-old mind does not compute.

Why you need to boycott Ryan Air, an essay in two words:
They Suck.

Oh my gawd. Besides all the basic reasons that we hate Ryan Air: cavalier attitude towards customer service, scalping passengers with carry on luggage fees, complete lack of any sort of empathy in any sort of situation for any reason whatsoever, leaving out of such sh*t airports as Stansted and Prestwick, they are also scary as f*ck in terms of safety. I will never ever take a Ryan Air flight again, I don't care if it is £1.99 before the £75.00 in taxes and fees.

This morning the flight attendant didn't shut the door properly. The big door. The door that looks like an eggs and makes a seal with the exterior of the aircraft when it shuts. She didn't shut the door and she had no idea and the plane started to back away from the gate and someone from OUTSIDE noticed and she had to open it and shut it and it took two flight attendants to shut it properly. Their main role is to make sure that passengers are safe and they did not know their asses from their elbows.

I'm not saying that every employee of Ryan Air is that incompetent but I am so never taking the risk again because if they will hire someone so obviously unsuitable for job in terms of a) common sense and b) physical ability to do the job, I'm sure that there are others. And next time, someone might not notice that they didn't shut the bloody door. [*end rant]

Related Links:
Ryan Air: Caught Napping

Glastonbury Official Site

Glastonbury MUD FOR SALE (what is wrong with these people?)
SIMs2 Support Group (see what I mean?!)

Weddings and Gendarmes and Waterfalls

After an exhausting week in Ireland, complete with Satan's new design for an emotional roller coaster, I had two days at home and one day at work before heading out for a week in the South of France to have a mini-reunion with my friends from Nice and to be a witness for Jo at her and Laurent's wedding in Beaulieu. The wedding itself was held in the mairie of the town where the mayor himself performed the ceremony on his day off bc he knows Laurent from "way back". He mentioned, during the ceremony, that he wanted to see Laurent in a suit because he didn't believe it would happen... well... it didn't really.

From Beaulieu we headed up to Aups and from there it was a coffee in the morning at the Cafe du Grands Cours, next to the "place ombragée", then a day by the lake and exploring wee villages, followed by aperos by the pool, and then a big fat dinner which we should never have been able to eat after all our aperos, but which we stuffed in our gobs anyway.

The reception was held up in Aups on the Saturday and, oh, what a reception. The bride and groom were led into the bar area by the pool (of the villa that they rented on the top of a mountain) by a djembe band. *swish! Laurent, whose job is to be the monkey that shimmies all those big catwalks at musical events to put up lighting and sound, called on his connections and decked out the villa something proper: smoke machine, lighting, speakers in every corner all focused on an outdoor dance floor.

All of this leads us to the fact that solid music blasting at from the top of a mountain until 7:30 in the morning, does not the valley inhabitants happy make. Hence the arrival of the gendarmes, to whom, despite the fact that they arrived in a car up a sinewy mountain dirt path, I was apparently supposed to offer champagne when they came to tell us about the complaints. Personally, coming from the US where that would have been a) a stupid thing to do and 2) a really stupid thing to do, it didn't occur to me to offer the coppers an alcoholic bribe.

At any rate, after having informed the police that a wedding party was the cause of the noise and after them expressing an interest in how many anglophones were present in the middle of nowhere on top of a hill, they backed their way back down the twisty road calling out the general message," Oh, well if it's a wedding... we wouldn't want to interrupt that. Just maybe try to keep it down a little bit. But, you know.... if it's a wedding...".

The response to this by the French DJ en charge... crank it up.

Gotta love France.

Aups is a little village that I've been visiting for the past seven or so years with Jo, who spent summers there as a teenager (lucky bint). We tend to do the same things when we go, paddleboating in the Gorges du Verdon, picnicing by the Lac St. Croix, and stopping for glaces in Moustiers. As you do. This time, with a bit of an itch for exploration, we ventured forth to a new village and new excitement: Sillons-la-Cascade. Chosen specifically because the word cascade was in the name of the village.

Despite the initial terror that the town we were driving into was little more than an épicerie and a tired dog out front, we soon saw a little panneau for the cascade... oh the tremors of excitement that shivered through us as we followed the windy path through olive orchards and past hay bales only to arrive, quite unexpectedly given the fact that we couldn't hear the running water, at a big phat waterfall and an accompanying swimming hole. [photo to come]

Oh hurrah! In my life, so many quests for waterfalls have gone unfulfilled that to arrive at one so bedecked in green splendour of foliage falling from such a height that to see the top one has to tilt one's head back so far that it can't be taken it without the influence of sun shining through spume... truly a moment of unadulterated pleasure. That and I didn't get my a** kicked for leading my friends on a two hour wild goose chase.

Related Links:
Beaulieu - sur- Mer
Aups
Moustiers