africa

Adventurous Women

I recently read ‘Too Close to the Sun’ about Denys Finch Hatton and it reminded me of the amazing women through the ages who chose to spend their lives in foreign lands. Here area few of my favorites.

Karen Blixen and her brother

Karen Blixen was Danish. She married Baron Bror von Blixen and moved to Kenya in 1914. Unfortunately he gave her syphilis and she returned to Denmark after only one year for arsenic treatment. She lived through it, however, and returned to live in Kenya for another 16 years. She ran a coffee farm for a while but always struggled with it and eventually was forced to sell the land. Her lover, Denys Finch Hatton, was a big game hunter who died in a plane crash just as she was dealing with the loss of her farm. She returned to Denmark and lived there for the rest of her life. She wrote under the name Isak Dineson as well as a few others and a couple of her more famous books are:

Out of Africa (1937); Anecdotes of Destiny (1958) – includes Babette’s Feast which was made into a movie; Letters from Africa 1914-1931 (1981 – posthumous)

Beryl Markham

Beryl Markam was English. Her family moved to Kenya when she was 4 years old in 1906. She became friends with Karen Blixen even though there was an 18 year gap in age. Beryl also had an affair with Denys Finch Hatton and was due to fly with him the day he crashed. She had some kind of premonition and did not go. However she did go on to fly extensively in the African bush and was the first women to fly across the Atlantic from East to West. She briefly lived in California married to an avocado farmer but eventually retuned to Kenya and became a well known horse trainer. There is a new book out about her life called “Circling the Sun”.

Her memoir (a very good read) is: West with the Night (1942, re-released in 1983)

Alexandra David Neel

Alexandra David-Neel was French. She became an explorer at a young age running away from home at the age of 18 to ride her bicycle to Spain and back. In 1904 at the age of 36 she was traveling in Tunis and married a railway engineer. That didn’t last long since she immediately had itchy feet and set off for India. She told her husband she would be back in 18 months but did not return for 14 years. Her goal was Sikkim in the northern mountains. She spent years studying with the hermits and monks of the region and eventually, dressed as a man, snuck into the forbidden city of Lhasa.

Her account of her trip to Lhasa is a fascinating read: My Journey to Lhasa (1927)

Gertrude Stein by Picasso

Gertrude Stein was born in Pennsylvania, grew up in California, attended Radcliff and Johns Hopkins University, discovered her sexual awakening while in Baltimore and fell in love with another woman. She moved to Paris in 1904 where she collected art and held “Salons” promoting modern unknown artists such as Picasso, Matisse and Cezanne. During World War I she learned to drive and drove a supply truck for the American Fund for French Wounded. Her writing was revolutionary and influenced many modern writers including Hemmingway. She was a strong, opinionated woman and a copious writer with a great sense of humor. Her lifelong companion, Alice B. Toklas cooked and ran the household. Two of my favorite books by Stein are:

The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas (1933); Ida, A Novel (1941)

James Joyce and Sylvia Beach

Sylvia Beach was a contemporary of Gertrude Stein and also lived in Paris. She was born in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father was a minister and she grew up in Europe. She owned the bookstore Shakespeare and Company and published James Joyce’s Ulysses when nobody else would touch it, even though she had no money herself. She lived in Paris most of her adult life.

Her memoir is: Shakespeare & Company (1959)

Catherine II by Johann Baptist von Lampi

And just for fun… Catherine the Great. She was born in Stettin, Prussia (now Szczecin, Poland), and traveled to Russia in 1744. In 1745, at age 16, she married Grand Duke Peter of Russia and became the Russian empress in 1762. She did not get on well with her husband and managed to “convince” him to abdicate so she could take the throne. Soon afterwards he was mysteriously killed. She continued to rule Russia until her death at age 67. I visited her palace outside St Petersburg a couple of times when I was living in Russia. One room I particularly liked was the Amber Room. The walls are covered in amber and other precious jewels.

A good book about her life is: Catherine the Great by Robert K Massie (2011)

Who are your favorites??

Christmas In Africa – 1974

My first Christmas vacation in college I had a memorable plane trip on my way to Africa. I was to fly from San Francisco to Minneapolis to Nairobi and meet my parents for a two-week camera safari. I had made my flight arrangements through a travel agent in New York and understood that I would change planes in Geneva.

I arrived in Geneva at seven in the morning and went to the transit desk. They told me that I could go into town or get a room at the airport if I wanted because the flight didn’t leave until midnight that night and then they also mentioned that I was wait-listed anyway. What??? I had not looked closely at the ticket. There I was in Geneva, Switzerland. I had a $20 traveler’s check to my name, and I was wait-listed on a flight that left at midnight. There was nothing I could do but wait and see. I spent all day dozing on airport seats and reading my book. I didn’t eat anything because I figured I should save my money and anyway, I was too nervous. It came time to check in for the flight. I went to the gate and they told me I would have to wait until everybody else had boarded the plane. It was agonizing as I watched hundreds of people boarding.

I kept seeing myself stranded in Geneva, eating out of the vending machines and spending Christmas by myself in the terminal. I would have to spend the night in the airport. How would I let my parents know where I was? Finally the airline called the stand-by passengers to the desk. They told me there was one seat left but I had to go downstairs and get my seat assignment. I raced down the stairs but there was nobody there. I waited a while in a panic and then I ran back up the stairs and told them there was nobody down there. Finally a woman got up and said she would go get it for me while I went through security again. As soon as I had my seat assignment, I ran all the way to the plane. I was scared to death they would take off without me. When I reached my seat, I buckled my seat belt and broke into tears of relief.

I arrived in Nairobi the next morning and there was nobody there to meet me. I went to the bank and changed my $20 traveler’s check and figured I would have to take my chances with a taxi. I went out to the parking lot and there were lots of taxis lined up but no people around at all. While I was standing there trying to figure out what to do an airline steward came walking up and I asked him if he knew how I could get a taxi. He said he didn’t know but it wasn’t safe for me to go anywhere in a taxi. He asked his captain if they could give me a ride.

I arrived at the hotel in an airline minibus and rang my parents’ room. No answer. I rang our friends’ room. No answer. I walked all around the hotel lobby and outdoor area. When I returned to the lobby there was my mother sitting on the couch.

She took one look at me and said “What are you doing here?” At this point, I was exhausted, broke, hungry, confused and frankly, a little pissed off. “Thanks, mom.” I said. She replied calmly, not knowing my state of mind. “Your father is out at the airport looking for you”. Communications got really screwed up somehow and they thought I was coming in on a flight from Rome. I wish I could say this was an unfamiliar scenario, but travelling the million miles that I have, this kind of thing happened all the time.

Kenya was wonderful. We drove around several game parks in Kenya and camped in tents. The tents were fairly large and had cots in them with mosquito nets and a bucket in the back for the toilet. There was a communal dining hall where everybody sat on benches and ate family style.

We were driving through a park just at dusk one day and we came upon a lone baby zebra. The game warden was with us and he seemed upset. We asked him what the problem was and he said the zebra would be dead by dark. He said it must have been separated from the rest of the herd somehow and now it didn’t have a chance. We asked if maybe we could take it with us or help it in some way and of course there was nothing we could do. That was just the way things worked: the world was one big food chain, but it was heartbreaking for me to witness it in person.

We crossed over into Tanzania and went to Ngoro Ngoro, a huge volcanic crater with a large plain inside where wildebeasts, flamingoes, hyenas, lions, rhinos, hippos, and monkeys all co-existed. It had a very prehistoric, eerie feel to it. The only way to get to it was in a four-wheel drive jeep creeping over the edge of the volcanic rock that completely surrounded the area. As we were driving across the middle of the plain we came across a family of rhino. Rhino cannot see very well but they hear well and have a good sense of smell. We were down-wind from them but the noise of the engine must have taken them by surprise because they turned and started to run right at us. The driver immediately turned off the engine. The rhinos froze in their tracks and we did too! Pretty soon the rhinos turned and started to walk away but then changed their minds. We sat perfectly still for about 20 minutes while the mama and papa rhino had a quickie and the baby was the lookout.

Another day at another park we came up behind a herd of elephants that was just crossing the road. There was an auntie at the end and she turned and started running towards us, ears flapping and trunk trumpeting. She took our driver by surprise. He shoved the car in reverse going full speed backwards in retreat. When we were a safe distance away, and the elephants had moved on a little we approached them again. This time when they charged us, the driver just gunned his engine. The elephants were afraid of the noise and backed off. When we returned to camp that day, we were told that it was becoming rarer and rarer to be charged by animals because they were becoming too accustomed to people. That was somewhat good news but really bad news in the larger sense of things.

On the way back to Nairobi we camped at the foot of Kilimanjaro. None of us were adventurous enough to climb it but we enjoyed having it as our backdrop.

On my way to Treetops

We spent New Year’s Eve at the Outspan Hotel. From there we took a bus to Treetops, a famous salt lick with a hotel originally built in a tree. It burned down and has been rebuilt, but as you walked along the corridors you could still see branches coming through the walls. We arrived in the afternoon and had to trek in from the bus. Everybody had tea up on the roof. The baboons were really gutsy and came up and tried to steal women’s handbags. We had been warned about them. At night, animals came for the salt and so there was lots of activity. My friends stayed in the Queen Elizabeth suite. Elizabeth was staying there when her father, George the VI died, in 1952.

Trailing: A Memoir

There has been much discussion lately about the term “trailing spouse” and whether it is appropriate or even polite. It projects a sense of “other” rather than something that makes up a whole. I usually conger up a vision of a dog’s tail. Other terms being used are “accompanying partner”, “expat wife”, “support partner”. Expat Lingo says she had been called a ‘stakeholder at home’. I have used the term ‘world juggler’ before.

But in the end, whatever you call it, the trailing spouse is usually the support system, the glue that holds it all together. Sometimes the glue falls apart and life can be rough.

In Trailing: A Memoir by Kristin Louise Duncombe, things fall apart. Kristin grew up all over the world so when she met her Argentine husband, the thought of moving overseas didn’t seem so strange. Although she did have her reservations about putting her career on hold, she didn’t have a passion about what she did and had not clearly defined what she wanted to do. Her husband, a doctor with Doctors Without Borders was passionate about what he did and had no questions about what he was going to do. She was in love. She married him and went to Kenya.

Being a TCK (Third Culture Kid) myself, I also thought following my husband overseas would be no problem. Even though you have lived in many places around the world, the child TCK and the Adult TCK have different experiences and challenges. I had no support system behind me as we just up and moved. Kristin had a small “family” of doctors but it did not help much since most of them were single and always on the road. Her husband was gone much of the time.

On the other hand, I think she showed remarkable resilience. She found herself some work at a Nairobi hospital helping teens and eventually found a position with USAID at the US Embassy. Unfortunately the Embassy was bombed and she lost her job but by that time her husband had taken a position in Uganda. After having a baby, she finds a job in a small village outside Kampala. She never sees her husband and the marriage starts to unravel.

I found myself identifying with this book on several levels. I had a difficult adjustment when I moved to Russia. My husband was a freelancer. There were no benefits or perks. As soon as I landed I was expected to find a job and help with financial support. If found jobs mainly doing clerical administrative work but I also fell into a writing position for the American Women’s Club and was able to improve my writing skills and help other expat women at the same time. I edited and produced a newsletter that helped to build a community.

Everybody has a different experience when they live overseas. I knew couples who were both professionals in their own right. I knew women who moved around the globe on their own and met their husband along the way. One woman was a very successful diplomat and her husband did his own thing in another country but was able to work remotely. Some people take the time to write books. There is always something to do. I found my way and started writing and wrote a memoir.

The current challenge for international organizations is to find the balance and provide options for accompanying partners. With today’s technology, there are much more possibilities available.

Kristin’s happy ending was her husband accepted a position in Paris and she managed to set up a successful counseling practice working with expat families who are trying to cope with life overseas. After having gone through the worst of it, she now had all the tools necessary to help others in similar situations.Trailing: A Memoir is well written and engaging. It makes me want to know more about her. It is available on Amazon.com.

Books from Asia, Moscow and Turkey

BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS

I’m always interested in expat stories, expat memoirs, and third culture kid stories. I usually pick them up, get a few chapters in and set them aside. I don’t know what it is about them but they just don’t grab me. Maybe it’s the writing, maybe it’s the focus. Although I usually finish them at some point even if I just scan through them. Here are a few I read recently and liked.

The Sullivan Saga, Memoires of an Overseas Childhood by M.H. Sullivan, was an interesting story about a girl growing up in a Foreign Service family in Asia and Africa. In the TCK stories I can usually find some personal connection that keeps me going. The thing that grabbed me about this book was she started out talking about returning to the US for college and wondering if she was “American” enough. Her family was very different from mine but there were some similarities in the experiences she had. I could totally identify with the story about her father having to go into the bushes and take his pants off because he was being attached by army ants in Africa.

Lenin Lives Next Door, Marriage, Martinis, and Mayhem in Moscow by Jennifer Eremeeva is about a woman married to a Russian and her experiences living in Moscow for twenty years. She fell in love with Russia at 13 when she read “Nicholas and Alexandra” by Robert Massie. She studied Russian history and language and eventually ended up in Moscow running tours and hosting trade show delegations. A fellow tour guide introduced her to her future husband and she has been there ever since. Her book is all about the characters she meets along the way and the challenges of living in Moscow. It is very funny and some things are hard to believe since truth really is stranger than fiction. I could identify with a lot of what she talks about having lived in Moscow for nine years myself. And funnily enough I actually knew Jennifer when I lived there. I recommend it – it’s fun and fast paced.

Yesterday I picked up Perking the Pansies by Jack Scott. Yes, you can read it in a day. It is fast paced and light reading. Two married gay men from Britain decide to chuck everything, quit their jobs, sell their property and all their belongings and move to Turkey. Most people thought they were nuts. It is something many people dream of doing but would never actually do. They did it. The book covers their first year in Turkey. They were not completely prepared for what they were getting into and it seems they should have done some more research on the weather but they manage to keep a positive attitude and stick with it. After making some adjustments, and meeting some unpleasant expats, they eventually find their way and their own group of friends. It is a fun read.

African Marriage Proposals

Ibadan

One summer I was living in Ibadan, Nigeria, working for my father at an agricultural research institute. Ibadan was the largest village in Africa and sprawled across the countryside without any particular order. There were a few hotels and “proper” restaurants but not many and we rarely went to them.

My British and American friends, Simon, Ed, David, Francis, and a couple of others decided to have a night on the town. We went to a rooftop Lebanese restaurant for a filling dinner of kabob and hummus and then on to a proper Nigerian nightclub. It had a fence around it and a large grass roof and a dirt floor but no walls. There was a very loud band playing at one end of the room and an area to dance. We took over a table at the other end of the room and ordered beer all around.

Francis was being very protective of me and it kind of made it look like we were “together”. Francis was married with five children. A Nigerian came over to our table and asked Francis if he could dance with me. Francis, quite embarrassed, told him he would have to ask me himself. Of course he came right over asked me to dance. I had been in Nigeria long enough to know that this could only lead to trouble. I was getting ready to say no, thank you very much, when Simon started kicking me under the table and making gestures like I should really go have a dance. Simon, of course, was a trouble maker himself, but I got up and danced with the guy. Keeping in form with most of my other white American girl/ black African boy experiences, by the end of the dance he had asked me to marry him.

About half way through the evening I really had to go to the toilet. Everybody said I should just forget about it. I said, “no really, I gotta go”. So David escorted me to the ladies’ toilet. We went through a beaded doorway where women were just hanging around and inside there were two stalls with holes in the floor. There were no doors to the stalls. I went in and squatted and David stood guard. It wasn’t that terrible, partly I’m sure because I was a little tipsy by this time, but it was interesting. The women were obviously just waiting for business. I didn’t get a chance to look around but I assume there were other rooms in the back for other activities. David seemed very nervous about the whole thing and said I was not allowed to drink any more beer. I think David might have been back there before.

Back at the table my dance partner had re-appeared, apparently not finding any other takers for his marriage proposal. I was the only white girl in the place. He insisted that he would be a good husband and would have no problem accompanying me back to the United States. When we got up to go home, he said he could come with us. He had no plans for the night and was happy to stay with us. He followed us all the way out to the car and the guys acted like they were going to let him in. I was totally appalled. How could they be so mean? Finally they got tired of him and kicked him out.

Friendly me

Later that summer I had a stalker show up at my office. He knew who I was and all about me and said he worked in the building. I asked around but nobody seemed to know him. For a couple of weeks he was standing at my door at the end of the day and wanted to walk me home. I never led him on or agreed to anything. He kept asking to take me for a drink or to walk me home. Finally I said I would have a drink with him.

He said he wanted to marry me and he had it all planned out. We would be married and he would return to the United States with me and he would go to school with me and we would always be together. I told him politely all the reasons why it was just not possible, the least of which was that we did not know each other at all and I was leaving the country shortly. And he had a counter proposal for every one of my reasons. Finally I just became quite rude and told him to leave me alone.

I was sad to see the summer end but I was very happy to leave that situation behind when I returned to college in the fall. Nigerian women were very blunt and straight forward. They didn’t care if they hurt men’s feelings, they gave it to them like it was. I think Western women had difficulty being so cold about it and in turn perhaps were more approachable. On my next trip to Africa, I was much more Nigerian than Western when dealing with African men. Its all about adapting to new cultures.

TCK Resilience

Resilience is defined as the ability to bounce back quickly, to cope with stress and adversity. According to some people Third Culture Kids are very resilient. I never thought of myself that way. I just dealt with things as they came up and moved on. It was like being on auto pilot.

When I landed in a country I had never been to before and there was nobody to meet me at the airport, I didn’t hesitate at all. I changed money and went looking for some kind of transportation. I wasn’t going to sit around worrying about it. Although, had I sat around for a while, I might have seen my father come looking for me instead of missing him as we crossed paths.

When I went to boarding school at 13 and people thought I was weird I did whine about it a little. But I moved on. I slowly figured out that I needed to adapt and try to fit in. I was young for my age and had lived overseas all my life. I landed in the USA in the middle of a cultural revolution I knew very little about. I absorbed all the information I could and not only did I adapt to it all but I embraced it.

When we moved to Africa a few years later and I went off to boarding school in Switzerland, I was prepared to live away from home and up on world topics. I was ahead of the curve.

Once again it all broke down when I went to college in the USA. I was too international now. I had to rein it in and become more local. I had to adapt to another culture. I was so used to discussing travel, European art, and world politics with my peers that I didn’t think before I opened my mouth and blabbed about my high school experiences. My new peers could not relate and thought I was bragging.

My new persona emerged and I was quiet inside my shell for a long time. No more story telling here. But I managed to eventually adapt to that as well. I made friends and existed on a different level. I became one of them.

So who was I? How could I find myself and figure out what I should be doing? All I wanted to do was get out of town. To move on. That’s what I had always done, wasn’t it? Just dealt with the immediate problem and moved on. I didn’t know why. I never really thought about it that much. I just knew I was not comfortable. I was searching for something but didn’t know what it was. I was living between cultures. I didn’t feel American but I didn’t feel Mexican or Colombian or Nigerian, or Swiss. I was unique, I was different.

Years later I learned I was a Third Culture Kid – somebody who grew up in a culture not their own. I discovered I was not the only one who felt this way. Norma McCaig of Global Nomads wrote:

The benefits of this upbringing need to be underscored: In an era when global vision is an imperative, when skills in intercultural communication, linguistic ability, mediation, diplomacy, and the management of diversity are critical, global nomads are better equipped in these areas by the age of eighteen than are many adults… These intercultural and linguistic skills are the markings of the cultural chameleon — the young participant-observer who takes note of verbal and nonverbal cues and readjusts accordingly, taking enough of the coloration of the social surroundings to gain acceptance while maintaining some vestige of identity as a different animal, an “other.”

I wish I had read that when I was eighteen! 🙂

Does knowing all of this solve my restlessness, make me more comfortable? No, it doesn’t solve it but it helps me understand it. I know what it is and why I am the way I am. It isn’t a bad thing. But as I grow older, I think I have become less tolerant of ignorant people. If somebody doesn’t know where France is or hates Muslims, or thinks Berlusconi is a type of pasta, I just don’t really bother to put any effort out. I let it go. When I was younger, I would try to educate or sometimes I would just brush it aside and try to make myself acceptable to them. I don’t do that anymore. I move on.

I recently published a book about all my trials and tribulations, joys and challenges and adventures growing up all over the world. But it was not easy. I spent a lot of time writing with tears streaming down my face. I suppose I need deep psycho therapy to figure that out. But when it was all done. I felt better. Something had been resolved. I had accomplished what I set out to do and I felt positive. I still do. Although I am now facing another hurdle. Being single for the first time in many years. Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad one. Oh, well. I guess I will just have to deal with it and move on….

I’m feeling resilient.

Look See

“The idea of the game is to locate the word ‘look’ in whatever manuscript you have lying around, then post a few previous and following paragraphs around it. Afterwards, invite other authors to do the same.”

Maggie over at Fly Away Home tagged me in new challenge. Thank god for the digital age! Not only do we have blog games but we can search manuscripts for words! Or is that cheating?

Anyway, I’m going to do what she did…. use my own book – Part Five: Africa.

Lagos was about as far from El Lago as you could get and was quite an education. The whole city had a stench about it of unwashed people who were hot and sweaty all the time. Piled up garbage rotted by the side of the road and mingled with the overwhelming smell of open sewers and dead fish. My first week in Lagos we went to the airport to see some people off at night. As we were driving through the dark streets, I made out a figure of a naked man with matted hair, hopping along from garbage pile to garbage pile with a crazed look in his eyes. He would pick things out of the garbage and eat it and hop to the next pile with no cares about being naked. I had seen poverty and dirty living conditions in Latin America, but they didn’t approach Lagos. I had culture shock. My first summer in Lagos, I dreaded leaving the house.

Lagos is 4 degrees north of the equator and the climate is tropical, hot and humid. People slept outside by the side of the road. Children ran naked, and played in the open sewers beside the busy and dusty roads. There were signs all over the city that said “no urinating here” but people paid little attention. Since most people did not have any plumbing or toilets in their homes, they used either pay public toilets or a ditch for free. Often the public pay toilet was just an empty lot that somebody patrolled, selling a piece of old newspaper and a spot to relieve yourself.

The heat was a stifling, humid kind that takes your breath away. The sun rose at 6:30 am and set at 6:30 pm every single day of the year. There were beautiful flowers and vegetation that seemed to grow before your very eyes. People wore vibrant colored cloth and head wraps and laughed and danced to the ever present loud and monotonous music in the streets.

Lagos was a big business center in those days and an important place to be on the West African coast. People were packed into every available space and the traffic was not to be believed. It could take three hours just to go from our house to the airport, which was about fifteen miles away.

The city itself was built on three islands and a strip of mainland. The islands were mainly occupied by government and ex-pat residences, museums, and hotels. The mainland was the business center with offices and shops and suburbia spread out from there. This played havoc with the traffic because if one of the bridges was clogged (daily!) cars would sit for hours waiting to move. Everybody made a habit of carrying a book with them whenever they went anywhere by car in preparation for a “go slow”.

We lived in a big house on Ikoyi Island right on the bay (the bay no longer exists because they filled it in to build a highway). It was a perfect tropical house because three sides were windows which, when opened, would catch all the breezes. The front and back section was all screened in but the side panel was not. We rarely opened it because of the mosquitoes but one night it was so hot we decided to chance it. We were gazing out and admiring the tree that ran along the side of the house when we saw a huge rat crawling along toward the opened window. It was time to suffer the heat after that.

We had rats inside the house too. The cook was always putting traps out for them and he often caught them. Once, when we knew there was one around and traps had been set, I got up in the morning and went to put my leather sandals on. Somebody or something had taken a huge bite out of one of the leather straps – it had teeth marks on it! I took it down to the cook and showed it to him. I was freaked out; it not only meant that my sandals were ruined, but a rat (and they were always giant rats in Lagos) had actually been in my room upstairs. Yuk!!! The cook, Philip, laughed and laughed. It was the funniest thing he had seen in a long time.

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