lumière des étoiles

...and right in the middle of a good dream...
2004-07-13 6:10 p.m.

LBI was much fun; I recall it as the place all the rich kids went to when I was in High School. Oh sure, my family went to the beach too, but we certainly didn't have our own "shore house down in LBI", and didn't return neatly tanned, hair sunstreaked, with t-shirts, hats, bumper stickers, etc. that said I HEART LBI when school started up again in the fall. No, we'd pile up in the VW MICROBUS and wander around like vagrants. We visited the state park beaches that were $5/car-load, and then got corn on the cob from some boardwalk stand. Until, of course, our Aunt moved to a shore town - then we were less migratory about the whole thing.

I was a bit skeptical about the population in LBI because of my preconceived notions, you see, but this weekend showed me that I had nothing to worry about. No one snooty and eating Haagen-Dazs while driving a car that costs more than mine and Steve's put together gave me nasty looks or anything.

In fact, we were relaxed and mellow all weekend, and everyone was groovy. We did, you know, the usual stuff - played Bocce Ball in Nicole's backyard from midnight Saturday until 3 am or so, played cribbage on Friday night, ate paella and London Broil off the grill along with the usual hotdogs and whatnot, and were treated to Thomas' and Ken's 2 am bagpiping extravaganza on the back deck. Now that must have been as funny for the neighbors as the Ghana-"Partridge Family" thing was for me and Steve. (In Hohoe, Ghana, Steve and I were woken around 2 am one night because we heard "I Think I Love You" BLASTING from somewhere outside the hotel. And not the chorus part, the creepy, minor key "baaaaa-ba-ba-ba" thing in the beginning of the song. Over and over again. In a city, in a backpacker hostel, I might have just rolled over and gone back to sleep, but we were the only obrunis (whiteys!) there that night, and that was a pretty remote location that hardly gets any TV. heee!). I can just imagine a neighbor from two streets over: "Honey! Wake up! Do you hear...bagpipes?"

We also played "poke Brian to see if he's breathing" all day and night, since he passed out around 3 pm and woke up 12 hours later. I think his extended nap may have something to do with the fact that when I woke up around 9 am on Saturday and emerged from the guest room to see who'd arrived, I found Brian drinking G&Ts out of a MASON JAR. What ever floats your boat.

And lest you think these are the antics of teens, I assure you that at 26, I was the youngest there by at LEAST four years.

That's always the way - I get along best with people who have a few years on me. I attribute it to constantly trying to keep up with much older siblings in my youth. If I could act as they did, then maybe they'd let me hang out with them, I'd thought as a child. I guess I'm keeping up with them still. So am I 26/36? That's one to think about.

We got the much needed rest, relaxation and social interaction that's important before our departure this weekend. I still have many things to do. Steve still has many things to do. One of which, actually, is to recover from the STREP THROAT that he was diagnosed with on Monday morning. Yes, that slight fever turned out to be not a reaction to the Typhoid shot, not a slight cold, and not something he could shake off over the weekend. He still had a great time, and I don't know how. He must have a lot of endurance. Well, he does have...oh, never mind.

He's on zythromax today and has to take it until Friday, so he's feeling medicine-headish and sleepy. I will tie up all the loose ends that need tying up for us both, though I think everything is under control and we really can just rest this week.

I got a super new sleeping bag despite Tom's and Brian's repeated offers to lend me their high-tech, super-traveler eco-tuned mummy bags. I'd feel just awful if something happened to theirs, and besides, the NorthFace, on-sale one I got at Campmor last week will suit me just fine.

The nice thing this time is that I will not have to take our tent and mosquito netting. Tents will be provided for us by the drivers we hired to take us through the various game parks in SA, Zam, and Botswana. It's winter in the southern hemisphere, and hence not mosquito season. Additionally, the "Malaria Belt" in Africa technically runs through the center - West and East - where we were two years ago. We are traveling through the Delta in Botswana, and along the Zambizi river in Zambia, however, so there is a small risk that we will be exposed to Malaria. For this reason, we are taking Malarone again, and bringing some Deet-based products (and long sleeves and pants, yo!) to keep mosquitoes, tsetse flies, and other little creatures we never have to worry about here away from us.

My doc was trying to sell me on Larium again, but I told him nosiree bob. Especially not after that otherwise nice girl turned to me on the bus one day in central Ghana and said "You ever have day dreams that aren't really day dreams, where you have really bad thoughts of things you know you'd never do at home? But then you wonder how to stop yourself from doing them since you don't really know what's a dream and what isn't" and then turned back to the window as I slowly edged away from her. I saw her taking her larium later on, and said to myself, "Aha!".

There's none of that with Malarone, just a frequent need to pee for three hours after you've taken it. This can cause its own problems and meant that I had to see the most vile, disgusting bathrooms IN THE WORLD, sometimes, but taking the pill at night before bed-time can mean less stops at the bus-station woman-urinals. That's right, I said woman-urinals. As in no toilet, just a troth type thing that the women were straddling. And of course, since not too many obrunis get out to North Eastern Ghana, everyone wants to watch one pee. But they'll smile at you while they watch, of course. They're Ghanaian after all.

I'm looking forward to the fact that Southern Africa is a bit more developed when it comes to tourism. This ironically also makes me a bit disappointed. But we'll just see, won't we?

My Hungarian is just awful. I thank my husband and his family for all of their efforts. I'm thinking if I start today, speaking nothing but it til we leave in a few days, I might be able to tell Steve's grandmother that I just love her curtains or something. But I don't know if I can - that might make saying good-bye to my friends kind of hard. I'll try it out on Andrew tonight, I guess, I'm meeting him for dinner at a new burger place that just opened in Montclair. I'll see how long I can keep it up before he reaches across the table and slaps me.

xox,