1. Oni-yome -an obsessively clean RN- once asked me to give a ride to her and one of her colleagues. Both jumped in the car with me. I immediately noticed that Oni-yome's colleague stank horribly, a mixture of malodorous cheese and spoiled seafood. I rolled down my window and stuck mi head out of the window, hoping that it will be over soon because it was a very short ride. When we arrived to the hospital Oni-yome stepped down from the car and asked me to continue for half a mile and drop her stinky friend closer to her final destination!
2. Both Oni-yome and I got bonuses, about $3K each. We agreed I would spend mine in finishing hardwood carpentry for our kitchen, which I did. Oni-yome promised to repair our Honda that was about to die. When reminded of her part, Oni-yome said she had given her $3K to her brother, to pay late school fees for their kids attending a private school beyond his means. I doubt she ever got her money back. I parked our only car on blocks and ended up hurting myself because while I rode buses since then, Oni-yome took a taxi whenever she needed transportation.
3. We lived across a private hospital taking care of imported cases of malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases. I put screen on our windows to prevent entry of mosquitoes and other pests. While I was traveling Oni-yome removed the screens, she perceived the screen accumulated dust. She installed electric devices in every bedroom to repel mosquitoes. In comparison with screens, a passive system and one-time cost, we had to pay for relatively expensive insecticide pads to put every night in those devices. While we could certainly afford them, the new system was not certainly cost-effective,
4. I gave diamonds, almost $5K -before discounts- to Oni-yome for our Silver Wedding anniversary. She certainly deserved them, she said that the ring cost me just $100 per year of marriage, and her engagement ring had a diamond so tiny you needed an amplifying glass to watch it. She bought me 5 pairs of pants from the thrift store, at $1 each. While I certainly did not want a diamond or expensive outfits, I was somewhat baffled for the lack of symmetry.
5. I bought Oni-yome a second hand Mitsubishi Montero truck, that cost me $6K. She NEVER rode it. I bought her diamond earrings in Antwerpen, she did not put them on for 5 years because she thought the diamonds were too small.
6. Without checking with me first, Oni-yome asked one of her sisters -my less favourite one- to come and live with us for up to 6 months. Sister did not get a visa, though, what possibly saved our marriage.
7. Oni-yome made me wait 2+ hours outside of her job to pick her up so often that I had to tell her I would drop her but not pick her up anymore, which I did.
8. Oni-yome mutilated a tree in our front yard during one of my trips. She bought a dog during another of my trips abroad. She does not like the dog anymore and I spend some time with the poor dog in the laundry room where the dog is confined, because I think dogs are social animals and as a dog person, don't care spending time at the doghouse.
9. Oni-yome removed from my luggage gifts I was taking to my relatives in a trip I did to our home country, replacing them with gifts for her family instead (4 suitcases full of them) alleaguing her relatives are poorer than mine.
10. When we were engaged Oni-yome worked at a health center in a poor neighborhood. The health center had a large, dusty and arid internal patio. I worked very hard during several Saturdays to plant mulberry trees and flowers there. She later told me she thought I wanted TB patients to have a nicer place to be treated, which was true in part. I found intriguing Oni-yome had not realized I was doing that hard work to impress her. Perhaps it was not impressive at all, particularly because some health workers laughed at my efforts and forecasted all plants would die, which fortunately did not happen.
11. While in Marrakhech, I saved almost all my per diem eating at street vendors to buy Oni-yome a long silver necklace. She never wore it, saying it looked like a dog's chain.
12. Oni-yome arrived 2 hs late to a dinner with my relatives, making them wait hungry.
13. Oni-yome pressed me to have sex with her while I was very ill with typhoid fever, when we still were young lovers.
14. Oni-yome discarded my silly hats, and everything else I wore and she did not like. I must admit I have discarded some of her stuff too.
15. Oni-yome complained loudly whenever I wore a pink polo shirt, just because it make me look gay.
16. Oni-yome slept at the movies we went together. Therefore I stopped taking her to the movies. I think the last movie we went together was ET, or perhaps Indiana Jones I.
17. If Oni-yome cooks a large pot of beans, she expects me to eat beans lunch and dinner for several days in a row. I do not regard myself as a beaner.
18. If I find Oni-yome preparing my favorite dessert -a sort of creme brulee- almost always is being made for someone else, typically a female friend of hers.
19. Oni-yome forced me to donate a large part of my books because they took space she wanted for something else.
20. In spite of scientific evidence of beneficial effects of red wine consumed in moderate amounts, Oni-yome complained most of the times I poured myself a glass.
Grace, my secretary, greeted me a morning with a report that a female voice had called saying that "the tin can sunk" before the communication was cut. What could it be? Grace assumed she was one of the nurses working for a Child Survival project in the Amazon Basin of Peru I directed. Later, we learned that a boat -with the pet name "tin can"- transporting the nurses had sunk in shallow water. Nobody was hurt and everything that was on the boat was recovered. However, the portable photometer used to monitor hemoglobin concentrations had also been submerged under water. The nurses put photometer, wet clothes and backpacks to dry under the sun. To their surprise, when everything had dried and they turned the photometer on, it ran like new. This Hemocue photometer continued operating without trouble up to the end of the project. [this blogger does not have any financial relationship with the Hemocue company, nor recommends cleaning photometers of any kind by throwing them into the washing machine]
We paid a fix fee at the cooperative running the transportation business. An informal boater that approached us was quickly shooed away by formal boaters. Once it was our turn we boarded the small (<12') boat equipped with an Arab sail and departed. After 1h or so we arrived to Ouidah (Benin), a community established in the marshes, completely surrounded by water. We stopped for drinks at a bar servicing tourists, I bought a quilt featuring the map of Africa. We toured Ouidah, it reminded me of Belen, in the shores of the Amazon river. Instead of walkways a few planks connected homes, and most people moved around in canoes. There was a floating market where you could buy vegetables or fruit. This is a fishing village and early in the morning the market is busting with fish catches.
Arrived this place in Marrakesh, Morocco, at dusk. The place was already full with water and tea sellers, dressed in colorful stripes, veiled fortune tellers, snake charmers, sellers of traditional drugs and herbs, story tellers, juggernauts and magicians. It looked like an exotic open-air circus.
1. Oni-yome -an obsessively clean RN- once asked me to give a ride to her and one of her colleagues. Both jumped in the car with me. I immediately noticed that Oni-yome's colleague stank horribly, a mixture of malodorous cheese and spoiled seafood. I rolled down my window and stuck mi head out of the window, hoping that it will be over soon because it was a very short ride. When we arrived to the hospital Oni-yome stepped down from the car and asked me to continue for half a mile and drop her stinky friend closer to her final destination!
Loxosceles sp.'s venom can be "milked" (extracted) in more than a way:
When mom arrived home about 9pm from her work, she found me in my bedroom printing flyers against the dictator ruling our home country. Our student group had been forbidden from printing any material that could be perceived as offensive by the government. I knew she was a corageous democrat and hoped mom would not mind if I printed them in my room. She calmly asked how many flyers I had planned to print and how fast they could be cranked in that old mimeographer. I estimated I would take almost all night. After confirming I had class early in the next morning, she sent me to bed and started printing herself. The next morning the job was done, a quality control I dared to make proved that she was capable to add ink when the type became lighter. My estimate was correct, she had not slept a second on that night. After fixing my breakfast she was again off to work.
You don't have to frown or show repulse. After all, where did these eggs you ate at breakfast came through? Answer: the distal portion of the hen's digestive and genital tract, the cloaca where egg shells were in close contact with fecal material, loaded with salmonella, campylobacter and other pathogens.
lic, cummin, salt and pepper. Fry, turning and making sure both sides are brown. Serve with boiled potatoes and onion rings marinated in oil and vinegar.
When does a bunny or guinea pig constitute a pet and when they are food? It depends on where you are living, your cultural background, and if the critter is hopping on your carpet or defrosting in the kitchen.
"Tribe" is often used as a derogatory term for preliterate, indigenous, non-Western societies, before the development of, or outside of, states. In this blog I am using "tribe" in its ethnographic meaning: a group organized largely on the basis of kinship, sharing common values and way of life, with a strong sense of identity.
