random thoughts

I remember meeting my first host family and wanting to simultaneously puke, cry and pee from nerves.  Meeting my 2^nd host family, I was a little more adjusted and knew how to communicate beyond just stating my name and love of tomatoes.  It was still a bit of a rough ride though.  I share my new ‘pad’ with chickens and various older woman, who are all called ‘Ana’ and who all have a distracting amount of facial hair.  For the moment chickens that squirt everywhere and hair is OK, b/c ISM does not have its own pollution cloud (like SMQ does), is not miserably hot, and my bed (queen size by AZ standards) has a faux gold satin spread that makes me feel like I’m in an adult movie.  (Sorry if that is offensive, it was the only way I could think to describe it.)  3 hours into introductions and answering questions (yes, I have a family, yes, I love AZ, in particular ISM, No I’m not married, I don’t know why I’m not married, yes, I love tomatoes, no, I don’t eat meat, yes it makes me puke, yes I actually have had 2 months of Azri language lessons, yes I suck at speaking Azri. no, I don’t speak Russian) I had to use the bathroom.  25 min. later I actually used the facilities.  Due to my complete incapacity to remember anything useful in Azri, I resorted to hand gestures and Azri/English to explain the idea/use of toilet paper.  I received 3 napkins from the performance, made my host sister laugh, caused most of AZ5 to snort milk/water/chy when I texted them with the story and once again guaranteed that I will be unforgettable in the AZ.

            The next few days blurred together.  Matt, Rachel and I met everyone who was anything in ISM.  At the meetings we mostly just sat and smiled while the Important Person(s) talked to our counterparts and someone translated (filtered)  You develop thick skin/coping strategies when you have to sit in a room with Important Person(s), and everyone is talking about you/looking at you, and you really only understand bits, and try to smile/nod at the correct time; then you’re fixated by Important Person’s unibrow, and try to stop looking because women aren’t supposed to make eye contact/stare, but its so fascinating you cant look away and wonder if your mates notice you noticing, then you have to itch your foot b/c of firkin mosquitoes (or nasties from the street) but cant figure if its appropriate to itch your foot and about that time Important Person looks at you saying something that you cant understand (not even bits); since you don’t know if you are supposed to nod yes or just smile, you go halves, looking interested and adjusting the half grin that’s been stuck on your face since you walked through the double oak doors 30 min ago, and finally you realize that the camera that was in the waiting room was a fake b/c the wires stop in the wall and there is nowhere else for them to go, then you wonder how much manet they’d pay the guys if there actually were cameras to monitor, this makes you think of security cameras (all 500+) of them on the U of M Campus, how you successfully avoided every single one; yet still became infamous in U of M lore because of your antics in the steam tunnels and contribution to campus ghost legends; suddenly you are tying to remember if you ever flashed the cameras and cant remember but you do remember that time (almost 1 year ago) when you were in the WaterFall Drain with the crew of ninjas and the water was really warm, and didn’t some girl that you met a few days ago say there was a waterfall nearby ISM (?), then everyone is standing and saying thank you and your trying to remember if its OK to shake Important Person(s) hand and decide not to shake because you are wearing a blinging ring, but lack hand sanitizer and get grossed out by shaking hands with out proper post hand sanitization; suddenly you are outside and very tired and desperately want a black as death cup of coffee, but slamming a coke might do the trick; your mates turn to you and ask if you are awake, you mumble something about security cameras and the Waterfall Drain; they give you strange looks that you cant understand, so you just shrug your shoulders and once again smile; there is sunlight and it feels delicious.