Monday, February 25, 2008

Muli Bwanji?!

that means how are you in my new language, nyanja. this means i will be based in eastern province. a few of my friends are going there too. I'm off to a site visit tomorrow in central province until saturday to see what the lifestyle is like. I have an internet phone. the number is 0976862401, you will have to dial a country code, and possibly drop the 0. i really dont know. just look it up! but hopefully i will be able to email fairly frequently! it depends on my service though. anyways, all is good. its hot, and beautiful and ive seen hundreds of spiders and some geckos, but no snakes yet.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

peace out!

SO i'm leaving in 1.5 hours. I'll be in DC for 3 days, which I'm really excited for. I haven't really told people about that though. So if you are in DC and reading this, I will be available in the evenings, but I don't really know my schedule.

Also, I'm so nervous and stressed out. and I have a cold. I'm nervous my bags will be overweight or they won't arrive or something bad will happen. I'm nervous that I'm in over my head, or that I'll hate it, or I don't even know. That's the thing, I just don't know. It's impossible to really know what to expect. And I've read some extremely eloquent posts about peoples reasons for leaving, and I'm sorry but I just don't have one right now. I'm nervous. I'm excited too, but due to the thousands of emotions fogging my brain, I can't explain it right now. All I can say is that I'm running late and I'm sure I have more last minute things to do before I leave!

Thursday, February 14, 2008

the end/beginning is near.

so i'm leaving Tuesday afternoon. um yikes. I'm ever-so-slowly chipping away at things I need to do, but it still seems a little overwhelming. One thing that is easing the transition was that I had visitors last weekend! 3 of my future pc coworkers were in town for various reasons and we went to ethiopian, and then to the red door in fremont. aside from the general fun, ridiculousness, and a towing incident, it was just nice to meet people in person and build up a comfort level before we actually leave. We were able to talk about things we are nervous for, things that are frustrating for us in our preparations, etc. There are so many emotions that I switch back and forth between every day that no one can understand unless they are going through the same thing. I just have hundreds of questions that I can't even articulate, but they keep me up at night anyway. My nerves were definately calmed a little simply by knowing that I wasn't alone.

I think I have every meal planned before I leave. Kind of sad, but getting lots of food variety in is important! Justine made me chile rellenos, guacamole and cookies on Tuesday when I went down to visit with her and the kids. Despite the fact that she kept apologizing for sick kids and not much excitement, I enjoyed myself. i probably enjoyed myself even more than when we have wine-induced dance parties, because we got to just hang out, do homework, eat popsicles, go to afterschool activities. It was verey relaxing - except when we visited marina at middle school which was terrifying and crazy! SO many small children running around, calling us "really big 8th graders," grabbing at french fries, trying to flirt with girls twice their size. wow.

Coming up I have a lovely romantic valentine's with julia. first up: MAC makeovers (i'm totally nervous I'll have to spend the day with heinous blue eyeshadow and no eyebrows), then step up 2 the streets (which i'm excited for, give me a break), and then a 5 course moroccan meal, and delivering valentines to our bartenders. Tomorrow is definately errand day for most of the day, then happy hour with dad and cheryl. Saturday more errands with mom, followed by last homecooked meal, and my goodbye ballard bar crawl (look out!). Sunday is last minute things and then family dinner at dahlia lounge because I've been wanting to eat there for years. Monday is up in the air until hopefully a last sushi dinner - I can't go to africa without eating more eel!

Saturday, February 2, 2008

museum anthropology

today i went to the newly remodeled Seattle Art Museum, and I loved it. It's a really great remodel and the exhibits are cool. They've added a lot of new modern art, which is great because that's my favorite. However, the best thing about SAM is how they treat world art. They have always had a great display of pacific northwest indian artifacts but they also have great displays of australian aborigine and african art that is new. They have cut down on their japanese art, but that's ok. Sometimes I get really annoyed at art museums when they treat art from parts of the world that isn't from europe or north america as if it's not art at the same level. They treat it as merely "artifact" instead of as legitimate art that is designed for aesthetics. So many museums treat this kind of artwork as if it's merely designed for purpose, and that it's beautiful by chance, not by design.

My favorite part was that the african section had a very original display of west african masks. Masks in african cultures are used for performance, and the mask generally transforms the actor into a spirit or other important person, and then the actor is subject to new societal rules while wearing that mask. In museums they are always displayed on walls without the action that traditionally accompanies a mask. At SAM they dressed manicans up in modern outfits and put masks on them to show the character, as well as having mask performances playing. They also included modern african art which was great. So often those displays only include "ancient artifacts" as if art has ceased to exist in those parts of the world. There were some absolutely amazing modern paintings by aboriginals that had such detailed stories behind them. I learned a lot.

This contrasted so severely to a couple recent museum experiences I had that were negative. I went to the Louvre in August. It was horrible. Now to be fair, i realize that it's a massive and impressive collection. But i hate renaissance art. it bores me to tears. But we got lost trying to run away from all the tourists at the mona lisa and found ourselves in the very scant african art section. Half of the pieces didn't say where they were from, there was no context to any of it, and it seemed that most of the pieces were there for shock value alone as if they were saying "look at this giant african penis! it's from somewhere in africa! exotic!" ugh. Also in October I went to the fairly new Museum of the American Indian in DC. It was such an overwhelming layout, so many colors, so many videos, a twisty turny path. It was extremely difficult to stop and read anything, without getting bogged down for an hour in one little section. There wasnt a very good spread of tribes and I felt that it was way too hard to get anything out of the experience. I couldn't imagine being a child in that museum! There was so much going on, with a not clear divide between old, new, modern indian practices, conservation, etc, etc. When I see things like that I get really annoyed because museums can be done right. it is possible to stroll through a museum and still read about interesting items. It is possible to treat art from the whole world as actual art and to give context to things people might not be familiar with in the same way that context is given to modern art movements, or renaissance portrait techniques.

anways, the new restaurant at the museum is awesome too! and so is the shop!