Why is the Chocolate Always Gone

This day marks the beginning of the end of my chocolate stash. 

Very well - the end of the end of my chocolate stash.  Three months was a good run, and it will be cheap Nutella and natural peanut butter from here on out. 

This, my friends, is what we in the bush call ‘roughing it.’

Just Say No

Do you know your basic rights as a human?  I’ve never had to because the governments of the countries I’ve lived in have usually handled that sort of thing well.  I’ve never had to because my background is such that I’ve accepted these rights in the same way that I’ve accepted oxygen.  But there are millions of children born in developing countries who need to fight their families, their governments, and their cultures for them.  And the Charter doesn’t mean anything to them either.

In Translation

Swahili is going about as well as you’d expect, really.  I’d jokingly recruited the Maman who guards the hallowed gates to our office to teach me Swahili.  The best way to do this, she feels, is to bombard me with it until I somehow understand and begin to respond.  The fact that I usually stare at her in frozen terror doesn’t seem to faze her in the slightest.  For example, here is my perception of our conversation to share that she was about to shut off the generator (power is usually out in the morning - slash most of the day - and in order to conserve power, she usually turns out the generator by noon):

“Somethingsomethingsomethingsomethingsomethingsomethingsomething.”

“Timmy’s in the well again!”

No, Copernicus

I have read that shyness is a form of narcissism – the idea that everyone is as interested in your foibles as you happen to be, that everyone must notice everything about you. 

Here, it’s not just a feeling.