Showing posts with label rain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rain. Show all posts
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Rain Adventures
Coming home through the rain is a marvelous adventure. It may be as close as I ever come to living within a video game; making my way through an obstacle course of reflective surfaces, my lunges and impeccably timed twists and turns make me a Mario in my own right. And then I’m one of the Tap Dogs, performing a spectacular routine as I dance my way down the clippety-clap pavement. The intersections bring out the primadona in me and I make a majestic ballet leap across the breadth of the rain-filled gutter. I’m a child, playing connect the dots with all the dry patches and then even more of a child, playing connect the dots with the wet spots. And finally, I am a salmon, swimming my way up the mighty waterfall that whishes down our driveway, finally embracing the warmth of our home after the many feats that brought me here. Yes, coming home through the rain is a marvelous adventure; you just have to know how to create it!
Friday, June 18, 2010
Raindrop relaxation meditation
I call it raindrop relaxation meditation. You should try it sometime! Just turn your face up to the sky and feel your breathing deepen as the droplets kiss your skin. Let each drop draw your attention to the muscles it touches, relaxing them. As those ripples of relaxation smooth your face, your mind clears and your face shines. Therein lies the brightness of a rainy day.
It occurs to me that all of you won’t necessarily have the chance to try this out in the next few days. But come October or November, let that umbrella swing from your arm unopened and meditate to the open skies!
It occurs to me that all of you won’t necessarily have the chance to try this out in the next few days. But come October or November, let that umbrella swing from your arm unopened and meditate to the open skies!
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Everything! (And Maids)
ONE HECK OF A WEEK: Lets hear about tea, turtles, and parties!
I sit scrubbing two rainbow colored socks between by hands over a bucket of soapy water and think back over the week; it has certainly been eventful...
On Monday I split a cab with Andy and Lauren to go visit an English learning center downtown where we spoke with various classes about anything and everything and helped them with their English.
Tuesday we celebrated Junior’s birthday, even though the little two-year-old was asleep for the last half of his own get-together. This event, I was assured later, was in no way an actual party, seeing as how that would have involved music and dozens of guests, rather than the ten or so friends who spontaneously stopped by.
Wednesday brought mine and Andy’s roadside tea date with local vendor and informal Wolof professor Sadio. It is an art to correctly steep, sugarize, and mix the ataya tea that people love ever-so-much here, but Andy and I are learning. However, next time I’m going to sanitize the cups myself because the residual stomach ache from our last rendezvous is not to be repeated.
Thursday was an epic day because I managed to flood both mine and my cousin Assane’s rooms. Let me just say that if I’d known that I’d be spending two hours sopping up water and wringing it out of a towel into a bucket that night, I wouldn’t have gone to the gym in the morning! Whewee! A full body workout for sure! Note to self: never turn the tap on in the bathroom and then leave to unlock your door with the intention of returning and turning it off when the bucket is full. Bad, bad, bad idea. Once again, maids to the rescue! After nearly two hours of work and seven buckets of water, our maid Mare took pity on me and helped me finish the second room. I swear, she did what had taken me two hours in twenty minutes. This is something to be admired: the work ethic of the gods.
But onwards to Friday –and let us not dwell on the soreness that persisted throughout thanks to the hardcore workout class combined with the even more hardcore towel-wringing from the night before- when we ventured to the fabric market HLM to purchase some gorgeous materials to have a tailor form into outfits for the end of Ramadan festivities coming up this weekend.
Saturday was the day we made our way out into the boondocks to check out the turtle refuge and that night was the Catholic Choir Soiree where only we Americans showed up at the appointed starting hour -9:00pm. Everyone else filtered in over the following two hours and the music didn’t even start until 11pm. Apparently we forwent the whole party because we left at 1am when the music ended and the dancing was only just getting started. My host mom didn’t get home until, get this, 8:30am!!! ---This is not at all unusual. ---I think the next time I plan to go out to a party or dance venue, I’ll have to prepare myself for a few days by sleeping in. Otherwise, I’ll be asleep before anyone even arrives!
You can imagine that, after this zany week packed with adventures, my Sunday would be a day of repose, and you’d be right; I did virtually nothing on Sunday and stayed at home in bliss.
Fun plans for the rest of this week: check out a documentary at the cultural center, have a climbing play date at a park jungle gym with my fellow climber-in-withdrawal Megan, go surfing, and enjoy the end-of-Ramadan festivities. :-) You just can’t complain when life is good!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GRATITUDE
Sweat intermingles with rain as I make my way back home from the gym, thinking how ironic it is that I just finished taking a shower and am already drenched once more. Entering my home, our maid Mare is in the courtyard putting out buckets to catch the rainwater that pours down from the terrace rainspouts. These hefty washtubs are full within a minute, spattering water across the tan cement and down a drain; we now have all we need for doing laundry over the next few days. Laundry is a full day’s worth of scrubbing and a second day of drying and ironing, which turns into a third day of drying if it rains. Never am I more grateful for our maids than when they return that pristine stack of clothing to my door and I think of how long I toiled just to wash out some measly socks and bras. They are, indeed, amazing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hugs and love to everyone -especially Oma, Mom, and Uncle Mike. Thank you so much for sharing my blog with GG Jerry before he passed away. That means a lot to me.
Love,
Jocelyn
I sit scrubbing two rainbow colored socks between by hands over a bucket of soapy water and think back over the week; it has certainly been eventful...
On Monday I split a cab with Andy and Lauren to go visit an English learning center downtown where we spoke with various classes about anything and everything and helped them with their English.
Tuesday we celebrated Junior’s birthday, even though the little two-year-old was asleep for the last half of his own get-together. This event, I was assured later, was in no way an actual party, seeing as how that would have involved music and dozens of guests, rather than the ten or so friends who spontaneously stopped by.
Wednesday brought mine and Andy’s roadside tea date with local vendor and informal Wolof professor Sadio. It is an art to correctly steep, sugarize, and mix the ataya tea that people love ever-so-much here, but Andy and I are learning. However, next time I’m going to sanitize the cups myself because the residual stomach ache from our last rendezvous is not to be repeated.
Thursday was an epic day because I managed to flood both mine and my cousin Assane’s rooms. Let me just say that if I’d known that I’d be spending two hours sopping up water and wringing it out of a towel into a bucket that night, I wouldn’t have gone to the gym in the morning! Whewee! A full body workout for sure! Note to self: never turn the tap on in the bathroom and then leave to unlock your door with the intention of returning and turning it off when the bucket is full. Bad, bad, bad idea. Once again, maids to the rescue! After nearly two hours of work and seven buckets of water, our maid Mare took pity on me and helped me finish the second room. I swear, she did what had taken me two hours in twenty minutes. This is something to be admired: the work ethic of the gods.
But onwards to Friday –and let us not dwell on the soreness that persisted throughout thanks to the hardcore workout class combined with the even more hardcore towel-wringing from the night before- when we ventured to the fabric market HLM to purchase some gorgeous materials to have a tailor form into outfits for the end of Ramadan festivities coming up this weekend.
Saturday was the day we made our way out into the boondocks to check out the turtle refuge and that night was the Catholic Choir Soiree where only we Americans showed up at the appointed starting hour -9:00pm. Everyone else filtered in over the following two hours and the music didn’t even start until 11pm. Apparently we forwent the whole party because we left at 1am when the music ended and the dancing was only just getting started. My host mom didn’t get home until, get this, 8:30am!!! ---This is not at all unusual. ---I think the next time I plan to go out to a party or dance venue, I’ll have to prepare myself for a few days by sleeping in. Otherwise, I’ll be asleep before anyone even arrives!
You can imagine that, after this zany week packed with adventures, my Sunday would be a day of repose, and you’d be right; I did virtually nothing on Sunday and stayed at home in bliss.
Fun plans for the rest of this week: check out a documentary at the cultural center, have a climbing play date at a park jungle gym with my fellow climber-in-withdrawal Megan, go surfing, and enjoy the end-of-Ramadan festivities. :-) You just can’t complain when life is good!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GRATITUDE
Sweat intermingles with rain as I make my way back home from the gym, thinking how ironic it is that I just finished taking a shower and am already drenched once more. Entering my home, our maid Mare is in the courtyard putting out buckets to catch the rainwater that pours down from the terrace rainspouts. These hefty washtubs are full within a minute, spattering water across the tan cement and down a drain; we now have all we need for doing laundry over the next few days. Laundry is a full day’s worth of scrubbing and a second day of drying and ironing, which turns into a third day of drying if it rains. Never am I more grateful for our maids than when they return that pristine stack of clothing to my door and I think of how long I toiled just to wash out some measly socks and bras. They are, indeed, amazing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hugs and love to everyone -especially Oma, Mom, and Uncle Mike. Thank you so much for sharing my blog with GG Jerry before he passed away. That means a lot to me.
Love,
Jocelyn
Monday, August 31, 2009
A little about my host family and the learning experience.
There is much that I have learned here in the last week and a half, not the least of which was figuring out how to lock and unlock my bedroom door with this old-fashioned key. It took me about five minutes each try for the first several days. Assane, my host cousin, kindly taught me today how to flush the toilet; this involves pouring a
bucket of water into the toilet. I was overjoyed at the revelation! Basically, I'm back to being 2 again, which makes three of us in this household! Junior and Noh-Noh are two fabulous little tykes who keep our home lively, to say the least. You may note them in my new profile picture that I absolutely adore! Junior is the son of Jou-Jou, my adult host brother, and his wife whose name I'm having difficulty remembering. My host sister Melanie is mother to Noh-Noh, but her husband is currently working in Italy. I believe that I have another host sibling who is currently living in London. My cousins Assane -the toilet teacher- and Chantalle both live with us as well as the two bonnes, or maids, who go back to their homes on Sundays. One of them is called Mare but the other has a name that I have difficulty pronouncing. She's the one depicted in the photo with Noh-Noh on the upper left corner of this post. The matriarch of this whole household is my maman (host mom) Elizabethe. This is a catholic household residing in a house of two stories plus a terrace in the midst of the neighborhood of Mermoz -only a 15 minute walk from the seaside campus of Suffolk University where I take my classes. The photo above and to the right is the view from my second story room into the central courtyard. I hope to post more photos of my family as the opportunity arises. I'm still hesitant to impose myself
upon them, particularly since the "inside" dress is very different from how one dresses "outside."A view over the terrace.
This picture is from the off campus
dorms that I resided in last week. It is the first rain, and we're taking full advantage of the fact that we're not visible from this balcony. Others may have been enjoying a nice run through the rain, but I doubt they were able
to enjoy it in a sports bra!
This is Annie, my rain buddy.
This is a car rapide -a sort of public transit- that involves a guy hanging off the back and shouting the bus destination to passerbys. You knock a coin on the ceiling or side or the vehicle to signal the driver that you want to get off.
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