February...check! The Bluest Eye

February's book in the Reading Dangerously Challenge, was The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. Saturday morning I finished Anna Karenina - the behemoth - and started The Bluest Eye. I finished it Saturday night. It was such a quick and gripping read.

I'm not sure how I feel about it though. The book is about young Pecola Breedlove, a very poor, young black girl living in Ohio in the '40s. Although she is the central character, you only meet her from everyone else's point of view: her parents, her classmates, her neighbors. Morrison gives each a chapter or so and we are allowed to see their painful lives in intimate detail. And even though Pecola is the connection between all these people, the author purposely keeps her from being the focus of everyone's attention. Because that's who Pecola is. She lives on the fringe. The book is about her and yet it doesn't feel like it. She's the result. Not the intent.

It's dark. Very dark. The ever-present racism and discrimination of that time pulls all the characters into this mire that they can never escape. There is no hope.

And this is where I'm stuck. I don't know how to respond to this book. On the surface, it is a fictional piece about the truth of racism. But what is its purpose? Why tell me this dark story including everything from death, rape and incest (Think "the dad is his grandchild's father" kind of stuff.) when there is nothing I can do about it? Why craft a story that leaves me feeling that I'm impotent to reverse anything, especially considering that this is all taking place sixty years in the past?

Anyway, that's where I am. Morrison is a very talented author and her writing is incredible. The Bluest Eye was superbly written and almost impossible for me to put down (I think I only did twice.), although saying I enjoyed it wouldn't be entirely accurate. I just wish I knew what to do with these thoughts and these feelings she left me with.

Any ideas?

It's something about the word "challenge"

I can't help myself. I love books and I love the world. I'm taking on one more challenge and then I'm done. Two challenges plus a book club is pushing the envelope of available reading time. My buddy, Bethany, over at B&B ex libris is hosting the Orbis Terrarum Challenge. Nine books by nine authors from nine different countries in nine months. It took me a little longer than I'm willing to admit to find my choices, but it was a ton of fun looking for them. This is what I found:

The Dubliners by James Joyce (Ireland)
The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom (Holland)
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (Australia)
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (Russia)
A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oe (Japan)
The Secret Lives of People in Love by Simon Van Booy (UK)
Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood (Canada)
The Old Gringo by Carlos Fuentes (Mexico)
If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino (Italy)

January...check! Great Expectations

In February I signed up for "The Year of Reading Dangerously" Challenge. Unfortunately the challenge had started in January so I was already behind a month and a half. The good news was that my trip to Africa included about 40 hours of flying. During the trip I was able to finish January's book, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I'm just now able to get my review in.

What did I think of it? If you have not read it before, you must! Dickens was amazing. I love his characters. I had watched the movie years before(you know, the one with Gwyneth) and knew some of the storyline, but I was so unimpressed (and subsequently forgot a lot) with the movie, and the book was so much more complete in its story, that I enjoyed and was surprised by most of the plot twists.(I just reread that sentence and I'm not sure it's intelligible, sorry.)

I've read quite a few of Mr. Dickens' novels and I don't know if I just missed it before or if Great Expectations just had an extra handful, but it is so sarcastic. I found myself laughing out loud on the plane in a few parts.

I'm not going to critique the book or offer any sort of literary discussion. If you want a literary study, google "great expectations analysis" and you'll get 1.8 million hits.

I'm just going to say that I loved the story. I loved the quirky specifics he gave to the characters. I closely followed the choices of the hero, Pip, finding myself smiling at times, wincing at others and even wanting to smack him in the head with one of Joe's blacksmithing tools (or at least wishing Joe would). I even loved the ambiguity of the ending.

With Great Expectations, you can read one of literature's classics and thoroughly enjoy it. You don't have to "power through" or skulk in the knowledge that you just couldn't finish. It's an enjoyable read and I hope you give it a try!

Factoid Friday!

It would take 1,200,000 mosquitoes, each sucking once, to completely drain the average human of blood.

At least, so I've heard...

Dug and Tricia vs The World, part 4 - No, This Isn't a Zoo!

One of the highlights of our trip was our safari in Kruger Park.

[Insert History Lesson] Because of rumors of gold and subsequent destruction of wildlife due to skins and ivory trades, Paul Kruger, president of the Dutch East India Company, persuaded the Transvaal parliament to establish a reserve in 1898. This was Sabie Game Park, which is the southern part of today's Kruger Park. Subsequent efforts at increasing the protected area resulted in a grand total of over 2 million hectares. (That's over 7700 square miles.) After World War I, the government of South Africa took over responsibility for the park. [History Lesson Over]

We spent three days in Kruger. It was amazing. (I've noticed that I use that word a lot in my posts.) We would get up at 430 am, get ready for the day and hop into my parents' Pajero to be at the gates when they opened at 530. It wasn't that difficult since the sun would be up with us. Then we would literally drive all day until the park gates closed at 630pm. We would stop for food and walk breaks, but in general we were driving along, staring into the bush. The anticipation of seeing any wild animal was what kept us going. The longest we would go without seeing anything wasn't more than ten minutes. I had to keep reminding myself that these animals weren't in a zoo. This was "the Wild." It was awesome.

Here's a little glimpse into what we saw. And yes, we took all the pictures in this post! Incredible, no? You've got to click on the pictures to really appreciate them. (especially those hidden little guinea fowl)

Babboons weren't everywhere. But they were common enough that by the end of the three days, we wouldn't stop unless they were doing something real picture-worthy. This mom and babe were just off the road. They were fun to watch since the young ones would chase each other and the older ones would watch us watching them as they cleaned each other. And boy are they big, with huge teeth. They were right outside our windows and we had to keep the windows up. They can be agressive if they think you have food.

These are helmeted guinea fowl. They are my favorite bird. I love their polka-dot feathers and blue heads. It was actually very difficult to get this picture since they are so skittish. We saw them at three different times, but they would always scatter before I could get a good picture.

The elephants were breath-taking. The males were all musking, which means they were all ready for some feminine attention. That also means that they were much more volatile and easily upset. This huuuuuuge bull was on the road as we turned a corner. My dad stopped, backed up and pulled over to the side. Even inside the car, we had to move really slowly when taking pictures and keep quite still so as not to startle or upset him. He walked towards us, checked us out a little, and then walked to the opposite side of road from our vehicle. Then he proceeded to rip a tree out by its roots, eat a few bites, then turned and stared us down. We were stricken dumb. Deciding we weren't interesting enough, he continued to saunter down the road. Later I found out that my dad had his foot poised right over the gas pedal and the car in gear just in case the elephant decided to charge. It was totally scary, but afterwards, completely exhilirating.


We saw so many hippo ears and eyes in the water, but never out. I was losing heart that we would get to see one and finally, on the last day, we saw, across a river, two hippos having a snack. I was so happy!

You've all seen giraffes before, so I hope you'll forgive me for not showing you his face. This picture is just to give you an idea how big they are. They were just incredible. We saw everything from babies to grand-daddies. This one was a big one. It was so close and so big, this was the most I could fit in my viewfinder.


My only shot at a hyena was when this one decided to walk across the bridge we were driving on. He never made it across. About half way something in the grass caught his eye and he was off to investigate. But not before I snapped his picture.


When we first came into Kruger, we saw Impala. We stopped and took a million pictures. They were right on the road. By the third day, we had grown so used to these numerous little deer-like guys that whenever anyone saw one, they would just say, "Impala." and we would all just nod our heads. They were everywhere. But gosh darn it, they were cute little guys.

This large girl is a Kudu. They have beautiful white stripes on their backs and the males grow these gorgeous spiral shaped horns. Their silhouette is the emblem of South African National Parks. (Go to the website link and look to the top left corner.) On her back is an Oxpecker. You see the oxpecker on all sorts of animals, eating ticks and bugs.

On the last night we were there, we went on a night drive. Since the camps/gates close at 630pm, the only way you can see animals at dark is during a guided tour. This is because some of the more dangerous animals become hunters at night. For instance, a lion will more than likely leave you alone in the heat of the day, but if you stumbled up on one at night, it would attack. Our sole purpose, besides seeing animals that you usually don't see in the daytime, was to spot the elusive Leopard. During the day, he usually sleeps and really only likes to hunt at night. Our tour guide made sure that we understood there were no guarantees. We understood. But about halfway through the drive, we saw him! It was only for about thirty seconds, but we saw him! I managed to get three pictures before my camera battery died, but it was okay. I got the mighty leopard! There are only about 200 in the entire 7700 square miles of park, so this really was a big deal. Some friends of my parents have lived in Swaziland their entire life and have never seen one!

That's all for now. I'll give you the other half later. We've only made it to L and in Africa, the alphabet doesn't end until Zebra!

Choice Goods Wednesday!

This choice goods story starts with our dishwasher. Our house originally had no dishwasher. We found someone willing to give us a free one and so we managed to squeeze it in our existing kitchen footprint. This freebie had only one problem. It leaked. Just a little bit, but you couldn't run a load without first putting a towel under the door. We didn't have high expectations. That little guy did his job and that's all we asked of him. As time went on, though, I noticed he wasn't doing his job as well. And pretty soon he wasn't doing it at all. The dishes as a whole were emerging just as dirty as they went in. It was time to fork out some actual moolah.

After some discussion, we decided to buy a top of the line dishwasher. (Ours looks like the one at right but has the features of the linked one.) We have a large enough family that we run up to three loads a day. We didn't want to waste money on something that couldn't hack that kind of abuse. So what does that mean? Well, my dishes can not get cleaner with another dishwasher. We bought the best so the only variable that can increase the cleanliness of our dishes is the dishwasher detergent.

And that is my choice good for today: Trader Joe's ...Next to Godliness Environmentally Sound Automatic Dishwashing Detergent For Sparking Clean Dishes. Whew! That's beyond a mouthful.

I had read a Consumer Report's article on dishwasher detergent and found that dry detergent works better than liquid. This is because the enzymes that eat away the food are activated by water. They are in suspended animation in the dry powders. The liquid detergents just can't keep the enzymes from releasing their mighty powers before they are in the dishwasher.

Trader Joe's was ranked excellent in cleaning power and at only 19 cents a load, was only slightly more expensive than Costco's Kirkland Signature. But Kirkland Signature doesn't have the environmentally friendly aspects like being phosphate- and chlorine-free, no added fragrances or dyes and having biodegradable surfactants.

Before I used Trader Joe's I had been using Kirkland Signature's Liquid and when that was gone I had splurged on the Cascade Complete Gel. They both worked fine, but nothing spectacular. Finally, I finished the Cascade Complete bottle and got to try my new Trader Joe's. It was amazing! I could immediately tell a difference. The dishes were cleaner, especially the glasses. Even the copper bottoms of my pots are getting more copper-y again. They used to be really darkened but Trader Joe's detergent is reviving the copper a little more with every wash.

For me, the cleaning power, the lesser environmental impact and the relative inexpensiveness are a perfect combination for me.

Trader Joe's Automatic Dishwashing Detergent...it's choice!

Dug and Tricia vs The World, part 3 - What to Expect When You're Expecting (to travel to Southern Africa)

I thought it would be fun to do a "what to expect" about South Africa and Swaziland. Granted, both are independent countries, but due to their close proximity and shared tribal peoples, there are a lot of similarities. Also keep in mind, these observations are made by people who grew up in the United States. So without further ado...

TIPS/OBSERVATIONS/STUFF TO KNOW WHEN TRAVELING IN SOUTH AFRICA AND SWAZILAND

1. Don't drive after dark. I have no statistics on it, but it is obvious that many, if not most, people do not have a vehicle. They walk everywhere. Busy highways have people walking right along the fog line. And in the dark, you don't see them until you are right on top of them. Cows, too, are a hazard, as they are allowed to roam wherever they please. Guess how easy it is to see a black cow on a dark road. There are also some safety issues, concerning carjackings. Especially if you are white. Because as we all know, the whiter you are, the more money you have. (Yes, that was a teeny-tiny bit sarcastic.)
   
2. Be careful when you drive in the daytime. Same things apply as above but now we add kids to the mix. The kids in Swaziland walked to their schools right on the road. The roads were in pretty bad shape and the pavement ended right at the fog line. Tall, two- to four-foot grass grew right up to the road. So the kids would walk in the lane until a car came and then move into the grass. It was pretty scary. Some of these kids were little. I'm talking three year-olds right on the highway. Not a rural road, but the highway. I held my breath every time we went by a group of them; I was so afraid they would not pay attention and jump out in front of the car. And the kombis! (pronounced comb-bees) They are van-taxis. They are crazy! They race each other to get the fares and...let's just say that they didn't pay attention during the Defensive Driving section of Driver's Ed. (That's assuming they even went, which I don't think they did.)
3. When you use your credit card they will ask you, "Straight or budget?" Your answer should be, "Straight." Budget is some sort of payment plan option, but straight is the "normal" way. Trust me, just say, "Straight."
   
4. People do not say, "Excuse me." They say, "Sorry." A tour guide trying to get everyone's attention will shout, "Sorry! Sorry!" If someone doesn't understand what you just said (which is really, really often), they ask, "Sorry?" When you want to squeeze by someone in the grocery aisle you say, "Sorry." I always would say, "Excuse me. Dang it! I mean, 'Sorry.'" Luckily, they would just ignore me and pretend I didn't say anything. Whether they meant to do the nice thing or didn't know how to react to me, I appreciated that lack of response.
5. Everything is To The Left. Cars drive on the left side of the road. (Although the drivers sit on the right.) The up escalator is to the left, down is to the right. The general movement of the people in the mall is to the left, while people are moving toward you on your right. You know in movies where the person is trying to get through a mob of people and everyone seems to be running into them? That was me until I realized that everyone moving in my direction were where? To the left! It's hard to remember, but once you get it, suddenly life is much smoother.




6. The plugs for electrical stuff are much different and way bigger than we are used to. Also, remember that they run on 240v where we are on 110v. So even if you get an adapter for your hair dryer, just because you can plug it in, doesn't mean you should. You most likely need a transformer as well, unless your power cord has one built in. If you think they get hot normally, run them on twice the juice! One more quirk. The outlets have their own switches. It's right above the plug-in. Kind of a pain in the butt as far as I was concerned. Great! One more thing to remember!
7. The soda cans are weighted on the bottom. I don't know if it's to prevent spilled sodas (you know, like those punching clowns that keep coming back up no matter how hard you hit them) or a dishonest let's-make-them-think-that-they-are-getting-more feature. Either way, I felt like I was part of some cruel practical joke. I always thought I had one last drink and when I brought the can to my lips...nothing! This would happen over and over until I removed the can from my presence. Beware the empty can!
8. One more thing about soda. There are very few fountain machines. I only saw one the entire two weeks we were there. When you order a soda, it comes in cans. When you drink it all, you have to buy another one. They have never heard of the term "bottomless." Much to my camel-like husband's chagrin. Pepsi-lovers be warned, we only saw Coke products.
   
9. Little vocab lesson. There's a huge British influence because of colonization and it shows up in their vernacular. Some common words that we might not recognize: bakkie (pr. bucky) = pickup (small truck); lorrie = large, usually commercial truck; traffic robot = traffic light; pudding = dessert; biscuit = cookie. If you run into a situation where they don't understand you, try speaking with an British accent. Many times, they will then understand you.
10. Languages to expect: The whites are Afrikaners and speak Afrikaans, a language with Dutch roots. The blacks are from different tribes and have nine different languages, with the largest number speaking isiZulu and isiXhosa. Due to this amazing diversity, English is the business language that most people of any native tongue speak. The funny thing is when we would go to restaurants in South Africa, they would initially speak to us in Afrikaans and when we would answer, "Table for four." they would instantly switch to English. It was really nice that we could travel extensively and have at least a common language, even though our vastly different accent posed some problems.
    
11. Now that you understand that pudding means dessert, know that unless you ask for it, coffee and tea will not be offered until after pudding. In restaurants, you eat your meal, have your pudding, then finish off with coffee or tea. (The brand of tea is Five Roses. You can just ask for Five Roses and they will bring you your tea.)



12. If you like cheesecake, don't order it in South Africa or Swaziland. The don't use cream cheese to make it, they use creamed cottage cheese. It tastes like spoiled American cheese cake. It's not spoiled, but compared to what we're used to...blech! Poor Duggy. I ordered the Malva Pudding (oh my goodness! delicious!) and he ordered the cheesecake. Poor, poor guy. Luckily, I was stuffed and it wasn't too much of a sacrifice to share my deliciousness with him. Just remember: No cheesecake!
13. I am conducting this ongoing social experiment that I started when I walked to my classes in college. I purposely try to make eye contact with people and smile. It's interesting who smiles back. I took this experiment overseas with me and found that the Swazis are some of the friendliest people I've met. Almost everyone would not only smile at me, they would wave as well. I talked to one of the ladies I met and she says it is because I'm a smiler and if I frowned, they would frown back. I didn't believe her but I didn't have the heart to test her theory. I didn't want to frown at people. What if I was the only American they met and I was frowning at them? So I smiled. What can I say? That's who I am.
14. The last thing I can think of to mention...handshakes. In Swaziland, when you shake someone's hand there are two things to notice. First off, the actual handshake. It's pretty cool. First you grab hands in the normal way, then both of you rotate your hands so your fingers are now on top surrounding their thumb, then you go back to the normal way. It's a three-parter and I thought it was fun. The second part is your left hand. In order to show that you are in a friendly way and not holding a weapon, you put your left hand on your right forearm. This is respectful and shows that both hands are empty. This goes for handing items as well. Whenever you get change from someone, like at a gas station and such, they will hand you your money with their left hand on their right forearm.
15. Okay, I said the handshakes was last, but I just thought of this, truly, last one. This is a broad generalization and not true of every Afrikaner (white South African) child, but Afrikaner children don't wear shoes. Often times in stores, restaurants, on sidewalks, in malls, anywhere, you'll see a little Afrikaner kid with no shoes. It was the darndest thing. I made it a sort of game to find the shoe-less children. The adults wear them, and to be honest, most kids did too. But there was definitely a noticeable number that didn't. It wasn't that they didn't have shoes, it was that they chose not to wear them. Different cultures have different ways.

There was a ton more, but these were the big ones. Now, when you travel to South Africa or Swaziland, you'll be more prepared, right?