I recently found out that Blissmo, an eco-friendly daily deals / flash sale site (off which I recently bought some cozy, organic PACT underwear…that’s particularly awesome because they’re from Berkeley), has launched BlissmoBox. It’s like a CSA box, but instead of fruits and veggies, it’s an assortment of eco-friendly products. And instead of weekly, it’s monthly. And instead of the same types of products every week, they switch up the themes. From a home-and-laundry box to a food-and-beverage box, you get a supply of products—all organic and/or good for you and the environment—for about half-off what you’d normally pay for them.

And what’s one of their three limited-edition boxes for August? The Sex Box. (Or, as Blissmo puts it, the “Night Lovin’” box. But we all know what that means.)

Apparently, Justin Timberlake was onto something back in December of 2006:

But THIS box is full of vegan lube, vegan condoms, vegan candies, and the best (in my opinion, anyway) massage oil candle on the market. Who said being vegan wasn’t sexy?

Being Eco-Sexy

Part of the reason why I am vegan is because of the environmental destruction it takes to get meat from “farms” (in quotes because factory farms are in a class all their own) to our plates. Going vegan is one of the greenest things you can do. (There’s a fun little quote about that here.) But being vegan doesn’t just stop at what you eat. Being vegan is a lifestyle. And intimate moments are (a huge) part of that lifestyle.

While there’s a disconnect between the food we eat and how it got there, there’s also a disconnect between the products we use, what’s actually in them and how they’re so dutifully performing for us. We assume that if it’s on the market, it’s safe. But in reality, a lot of our everyday products, from laundry detergents to lipstick, are rife with chemicals that do more harm than beautifying. And to boot, they go pretty unregulated. (No More Dirty Looks is an awesome resource on this topic.)

For instance, when it comes to sexy time, sex accessories were, for a while, often made with phthalates, a toxic plasticizer. Some still are, but phthalate-free toys are ever increasing on the market. Makes sense, since, according to Stefanie Iris Weiss, who wrote Eco Sex, phthalates “are suspected of having carcinogenic and mutagenic affects on the skin and mucous membranes” (162). Umm, no thanks…especially for anything going near what’s going to help me make babies later.

Speaking of my box, I bet you’re wondering:

What’s going to be in your box?

(If you’ve already ordered it and don’t want to ruin the surprise, DON’T READ BELOW.)

1. Cinnamon Vanilla Lubricant from Good Clean Love (4 oz)
If the lube itself isn’t enough of an aphrodisiac, the cinnamon-vanilla blend certainly will be. Plus, the lube is free from petrochemicals, parabens, animal cruelty and a sticky clean-up. To boot, the company’s founder, Wendy Strgar is the curator of BlissmoBox’s Sex Box.

2. Jimmyjane’s Truffle+Gardenia-Scented Natural Massage Oil Candle
Frankly, I can’t explain it better than this:

Plus, they’re phthalate-, sulfate-, petrochemical-, animal product- and animal testing-FREE.

3. Three-pack of vegan, fair-trade condoms from Glyde
Casein, a milk derivative, is often used to make latex for condoms. Glyde’s condoms are 100% vegan—in place of casein is “a vegetable extract taken from the thistle family.”

4. Raspberry Tart Tin from St. Claire’s Organics
Admittedly, this seems like a weird addition to the box, but St. Claire’s products are free of just about anything you may be allergic to or don’t eat by choice. So, these hit a sweet spot.

Doing the math based on each brand’s ecommerce site, that’s $52.50 worth of sexy. But through BlissmoBox, you pay way less than that. OH YES, it gets better:

If you order by August 31 (yes, that’s this Wednesday! And yes, that’s the last day you can order!), you can get the whole thing for $11. Lucky for you, you have an in. It’s right here.

Going green is more than just taking public transportation or eating less meat. I think there’s a green-or-not-green aspect to most of our daily routines and decisions. And like the CSA box makes getting your hands on good food easy for even the busiest professional, this BlissmoBox is doing the same but for all sorts of everyday products, even our most private ones.

The Details: Summarized
One Night Lovin’ BlissmoBox
The last day to order is Wednesday, August 31. And if you use this special link, it’s only $11 (for $52+ worth of stuff)!

Images via Smithsonian on Flickr, Eric Hews on Flickr, goodcleanlove.com, glyde-condoms.com and stclaires.com

Lucky for me, my step dad, Jer, is incredibly handy. After months of keeping an eye out for scrap wood on the street and at nearby home remodeling sites, and trying to block out enough time to actually build it (the ski season made this particularly difficult), he and I finally made it all come together this weekend.

Finding scrap wood out and about was a total bust, but Jer found something even better: Whole House Building Supply in San Mateo, a warehouse full of wood and other salvaged materials from deconstructed homes around the Bay Area. We had shelf after shelf of wood planks from which to choose, and settled on five weathered Redwood fencing boards.

We brought them back to my house in the city to turn $10 and 27 feet of wood into the most prominent design element in my bedroom.

We brushed them down, dust and splinters flying everywhere. We tried every-which-way, deciding on each board’s ideal placement. We sealed the front sides in a clear, polyurethane gloss. We measured extensively, triple-checking as we went. We screwed on the vertical support beams, and in the process, used a T-square Jer has had for 10 years but had yet to use. (The guys’ equivalent of a woman having a dress hanging in her closet with the price tag still attached?) We sweat in the sun, went through a few pitchers of ice water and slipped in a couple trips to the hardware store.

In a pinch, I asked my neighbors, who have two kids under the age of three, if I could borrow a piece of sidewalk chalk (thankfully, they obliged!), and I used it to mark the lettering—trying a few different ways before settling on one.

I painted over the chalk in primary-yellow paint. And once it was dry, up she went!

Two people. Two days. Eight hours. One headboard success!

For more photos of our headboard-making adventures, check out this Flickr set.

After years of fascination with the topic of food and where ours comes from, and having read several books and numerous articles on the topic, I’ve finally reached the book that tipped me over the edge of vegetarianism into veganism.

I’m reading, and have nearly finished, Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals. Rather than preaching a no-meat lifestyle, Foer simply embarks on his own quest to analyze the stories we tell ourselves about the food we eat (and thus the stories that guide our food-related decisions), the important roles food plays in our lives (social, familial), and most notably, to learn what’s really going on before eggs are so neatly packaged in cartons, meat wrapped in plastic and fish sliced into pristine filets. I’ve read about factory farms before. (Thank you, Michael Pollan.) But something about Foer’s book drove it all home for me.

I think it was when he made it clear that “free range” and “cage free” are meaningless terms, and that more than 99 percent of animal products are produced under factory farm conditions—including laying hens and the cows used for milk. It was learning that just about all animals involved in the production of animal products, even if it’s not meat, suffer. And suffer dramatically. It was seeing the statistics about our public health—from diabetes and cancer to H1N1 and whatever outbreak is next—and how clearly the diseases stems from our food and how its produced. It was learning that the industry is more or less self-regulating. So basically, it’s not regulated at all. For instance:

Common Farming Exemptions make legal any method of raising farmed animals so long as it is commonly practiced within the industry. In other words, farmers—corporations is the right word—have the power to define cruelty. (Foer 51)

It was re-learning that not eating meat is one of the most impactful things we can be doing to fight global warming.

According to the UN, the livestock sector is responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions, around 40% more than the entire transport sector—cars, trucks, planes, trains, and ships—combined. Animal agriculture is responsible for 37% of anthropogenic methane, which offers 23 times the global warming potential of CO2, as well as 65% of anthropogenic nitrous oxide, which provides a staggering 296 times the global warming potential of CO2. The most current data even quantifies the role of diet: omnivores contribute seven times the volume of greenhouse gasses that vegans do. (Foer 58)

I can no longer rationalize my support of this industry and these choices being made for me. This is something I can proactively choose not to support, the first step of which is choosing my food differently.

I’m vegan, not a crazy hippie

I think the term “vegan” comes off as radical. Dramatic, even. In telling people, recently, about this change, I get a lot of taken-aback, slightly startled reactions. And I often find myself explaining, and on occasion defending, why. (Hence, this post.) It’s as if in saying “I’m vegan,” people think I’ve said “I’m joining PETA.” (Which I haven’t.) Though, anytime I told people I was vegetarian, it didn’t come as such a surprise. And surprising enough to me, going vegan isn’t as huge of a change as I expected. I already rarely make eggs, let alone have any. I’d already meandered from milk-milk to almond milk. And I’m the queen of tofu stir fry with quinoa.

It’s being more conscious about snacking and meals out that’s providing the greatest challenge.

Are Peeps vegan?

No. They are not. But my office manager and I got a tear-induced laugh about it around Easter (long story), and it perfectly exemplifies my new thought process: the need to stop and think first. I can no longer break off a piece of a Specialty’s cookie tempting me in the break room, and I can’t dip my hand into the bowl of foil-wrapped (milk) chocolates. It’s probably a good thing, seeing as the culprit is so often something packed with sugar, which is, evidently, killing us, too. I have to research restaurants’ menu options more than before. And while at first it just seems like more trouble than it’s worth, the more I read and learn, the more I feel motivated to stay committed to my choice.

Just say no to Tofurky

If you have a food allergy, or decide to eat alternatively, it’s the perfect time for it. The specialty food industry is booming now more than ever before, offering a slew of products for non-meat eaters, gluten-free eaters and the like. (Like the Nooodle and Sophie’s Vegan Seafood.) But there are whole foods, and then there are replacement foods. I didn’t go vegan so I could stock my fridge with fake meats and other sodium-packed, processed junk.

Where does it end?

The research cycle seems never-ending, that I can’t just stop here (and I won’t). That there’s still so much to learn about, say, where the almonds in my almond milk come from and how that is made; learning if buying organic really matters or if local is good enough; keeping up with what fruits and veggies are in season and where and how they were grown, etc. Must I stop buying leather products, too?

At heart of it, I’m simply doing the best I can. However it works for me may not be how it works best for other people. I still eat honey. I’m not the perfect vegan, if there even is such a thing. But for right now, with the information I have, this is what I’m deciding to do. And it makes me ever more thankful to have a best friend who’s vegan (and gluten-free), a sister who’s dedicated to doing it (in her own way) along with me, and thanks to a progressive city, a slew of vegan-friendly establishments at which to dine.

Photos courtesy of Flickr and Creative Commons (Main photo from incurable_hippie. Peeps photo from arimoore.)

Last week, a good friend of mine–and fellow dating blogger–got to talking about this. About what kind of advice we give friends, readers, and in his case clients, about how to get through those getting-to-you-know chats without losing your date’s interest, or losing interest yourself.

He said, “Guys should talk about themselves.” I insisted, “Men should ask more questions and avoid their narcissistic rants.”

Lo and behold, a chat over coffee turned into a He Said/She Said article over on his blog, GKDating.com. So what’s better in date conversation: statements that reveal your personality and awesomeness? Or questions asked of your date to show you’re listening and interested? Here’s what we deduced.

I grew up choreographing dances (and cartwheel and backflip-heavy gymnastics routines) at gym practice, at school (to the chagrin of the yard duty ladies), on my mom’s front and back lawns, in her living room and my friends’ parents’ living rooms. (Luckily, those home videos have yet to become digital.)

Then, enter pop music. My world opened up. I could do this…FOR A LIVING.

When I was 12, I desperately wanted to be one of Britney’s back-up dancers, or tour with the heartbreakingly adorable Backstreet Boys. The little girl inside of me squealed with excitement and watched an excessive amount of dance movies (read: Save the Last Dance, Center Stage, and later, Step-Up), cheer competitions (hello, tumbling + dance = coolest thing ever! …remember, I was 12) and learn-how-to-dance-like-pop-stars DVD tutorials.

Remember what she used to be able to pull off … literally?

And now, a record-breaking single release that makes me hopeful the queen of pop is back as a breath of fresh air from the overplayed Gaga, not-actually-a-California-girl Katy Perry and apparently sex-obsessed Rhianna. (Too bad Britney’s single release completely outshone Avril Lavigne’s…):

On top of that, BSB is pairing up with New Kids for a summer tour. So it’s like one big middle-school flashback. Britney, more or less, looks and sounds the same (all dolled up and produced, anyway). But the boys? Their hairlines now recede; they’re one man short, less agile and even more off-key than before.

I guess no one really remembers singles off the FIVE albums they released since the chart-topping, Grammy-nominated Millenium that had us all singing “Larger Than Life” and “I Want It That Way” whether we wanted to or not. (This BSB/Snow Patrol mash-up also kind of rocks my world.) So they’re sticking to the classics to rope in the fans they had 12 years ago. If the cheapest tickets available weren’t $171, and I didn’t already spend a couple hundred on their concerts back in the day…you know, I might consider going. You know, for good ole times.

It took a couple weeks, but I eventually found it.

My haven in a land that’s so foreign yet so simple.
My way in.
My key to a unique taste of Gambian culture.

A place where some of the walls starkly dividing rich from poor, white from black, foreign from local come down.

…At least for those 2 hours just before dusk when I concede to getting sweaty, sandy and bug-bitten playing volleyball.

In a place where I’m an obvious foreigner, where I’m never quite sure if I’ve said too much, too little, too slowly or too quickly, sports are building a bridge across the cultural gap I’ve been wanting to cross since I arrived.

And then I fell into one of the volleyball crowds here.

The catalyst? One of Jen’s friends asked if I’d coach a small group of young female Gambians with whom she worked. And they’ve never played before.

Turns out, it’s not that easy to translate the lessons I’ve learned over the last 14 years — patterns, (bad) habits, movements, actions that are intuitive — into broken down, easy to digest, simply (and slowly) described pieces. Combine that challenge with the imposed cultural and language barriers, playing during the hottest part of the day, the girls’ headdresses, jeans, dresses and other apparel not particularly suited for the sport, my lack of equipment (with 8 girls, we only have one ball — one I bought myself), and the lack of consistency in attendance.

It’s more of a class than a team. And at each meeting, I feel like I sort of have to start over, because there’s someone new. I feel like I’m running out of ideas for how to make learning how to pass interesting, fun and fast-paced. I feel frustrated that they don’t seem to digest what I say, even when we go over things repeatedly. And when I give into the part of me that thinks “Screw all the drills. Just let them scrimmage each other to see what happens,” they can hardly get in a pass or two before someone’s running after a shanked ball.

Have I failed? Or is it just the circumstances, the lack of time I have and commitment I’m given?

It tests my patience. But it also challenges me to think and communicate differently.

And beyond teaching, isn’t part of my role to diffuse my energy and enthusiasm for the sport into their lives?

While part of it is about the volleyball, I think there’s a part of it that’s just about doing something different. About stepping outside of the norm, of all of our routines, our comfort zones. For both myself and for the girls.

***

It was Jen’s friend who told me that he’d heard that pick-up volleyball was starting up again. And as it turns out, they play right after my coaching sessions with the girls.

After I coach the girls for an hour, I join a group of young male Gambians who can hit in front of the 10-foot line without even jumping, whose kills have actually made me duck and screech (proceeded by laughs, and maybe a few scoffs) when I’ve been faced with digging them.

(It’s too bad they spend so much of the game disputing the score, the other team’s rotation errors and net violations that we only get in about two-thirds of the playing time we actually could. And though I occasionally pipe in when, from their hand gestures and the context, I can tell what they’re yelling about, my voice isn’t heard. Or perhaps simply ignored.

But their arguing in Mandinka is just one more part of the experience I’ll always keep with me.)

The first time I joined the court with them, I felt the need to prove myself. To prove that I could keep up. That I knew what I was doing. That I wasn’t just a foreigner walking onto the sand about to ruin their game.

But also that I wasn’t going to put up with them shutting me out of the game and into the deep back corners — just like they do to the other (local) girls who occasionally show up, girls whose passes often require chasing and whose serves barely make it to their own 10-foot line.

I felt the need to prove that I wasn’t afraid of the ball, or of calling them off from passing the ball right in front of my face — and calling them off loudly.

I think it was when I showed up for the fourth time that I made the statement that I wasn’t going anywhere. Plus, I felt more comfortable showing up alone and initiating small talk until the games started.

Even though by now, several weeks in, I’ve blocked a few of their best hitters, gotten kills against their best blockers, and managed to even SET a few balls off which we’ve gotten kills, the sensation of needing to prove my worthiness still hasn’t gone away.

I’m still the outsider.
I feel this desire to be included. To be welcome. To be valuable to my teammates and to the game I’m playing.

…to be accepted.

I don’t think I’ll quite have enough time to figure out where I stand with them exactly.

But now, they all know my name. (And I know, well, most of theirs.) And tonight, we even had a small audience.

Each day is slightly different. Some are quieter than others. Sometimes, everyone is on — both their positive attitudes and their plays. Other nights, every one just seems lazy, stuck in the sand and often unforgiving.

I can, however, always count on sweating out any last ounce of salt and hydration my body has, the 4×4-worthy sand dunes that form in my shoes after two hours, the group preferring my ball to their own, a growing sense of connection and a big smile on my face.

Because here I am, halfway across the world, sharing smiles, high-fives and camaraderie with a group of 14 or so people I didn’t even know 3 weeks ago.

At the market, I hardly notice people staring, because I’m too busy watching where I put my feet.

I don’t want to trip over a curb, or slip into one.
I don’t want to step in a huge puddle.
Or stumble into a pothole.
Or slip on a pile of muddy trash with flies swarming over it and a stench wafting above it.
Or worse, nearly fall into an uncovered part of the sewer.

But I know they’re staring. They stare when I’m in the car. Or in a taxi. Or whenever I take my eyes off my feet.

Not seeing it doesn’t mean it’s not there. As much as you look elsewhere, you can still hear it — the sounds of an outsider making her way through the streets, the alleys.

“Boss lady! Boss lady!”
“Lemme talk to you — just for one minute.”
“Do you need a taxi?”
“My wife!”
“Hello! HELLO! Hello?”
“I love you!”
“Pssst. Psssst. PSSSSTT!”
“I love pretty, sexy ladies!”
“Sister! Sister! Sister!”
“Tubaab! Tubaab!” (What the kids call a white person, usually accompanied by excessive pointing.)

They yell from across the street. From across traffic. From their cars. From their fruit stands. From the post they’ve taken up sitting at the base of a tree, or in the shadow of a small billboard, soaking up one of life’s little luxuries here: shade, a welcome refuge from the day’s unrelenting heat.

At the market and on the street, I’m learning to tune people out. It feels unnatural not to politely say hello (or smile, or wave) back, or to answer their simple questions and engage in a little chitchat.

But responding only invites them to get closer — to get all up in your face wanting to know why you’re here, for how long, what your name is and if you’re married.

And the Gambians — they won’t forget a name or a face. If you tell it to them, they’ll use it next time they see you. And if you tell one person your name, another might overhear, and use it to pretend they know you, that you’ve met before.

***

After a few weeks of observing and trying to learn an everyday engagement strategy, I’ve experimented with different levels of response.

The markets are where you have to be the toughest, have the straightest face, be on a mission. You have to know what you want (and for how much), where it is, never waver and not let any distractions get in your way.

The merchants see you’re a foreigner, assume you’re on holiday and think they can lure you in, even charge you three times what they’d charge a local. Giving them a second of your attention (simply acknowledging their shouts) is all the opening they need to ramp up and really turn on their game.

They’ll shout louder, faster. They’ll run out of their shop stalls to follow you and try to get you to come back, or in Jen and my case, take us on a goose chase to his friend’s stall who “has what we’re looking for.” ANYTHING to make a few extra dalasis. Or maybe it’s anything to talk to you. But that sounds so narcissistic. A part of me feels like it’s true, though.

Thanks to Jen’s guidance, and experience buying and haggling, I know how to both walk past the calls as if I don’t hear them and recognize what prices are just about right and what’s outright absurd. But you still have to fight for them, not back down and in some cases, be willing to walk away.

If I’m walking around town on one of the main roads running some errands (picking up groceries, meeting Jen for lunch, stopping at a cafe for a cold drink and their air-conditioning, popping in the sports store to re-inflate my volleyball, which frequently deflates thanks to the heat), I’ll keep my head up and take things in. The roadsides feel different than the market streets and alleys. Much less abrasive and invasive. More room to breathe.

I got my first “Hey, Tall Lady!” comment a few days ago from an admittedly really good looking tall guy walking past with a friend. I’d noticed his height, too. I couldn’t help but smile and say hello back. Something about it reminded me of home. I’m used to having my height called out. And it was this fleeting moment of solidarity. A tall person’s moment, if you will.

Just yesterday, a man sitting on the curb called out, “Sportif lady!” At least this one got creative with his observations.

I was on my way to coach my volleyball girls — my sport capris, razorback tank, headband and running shoes on, my skin blindingly glowing in the sun from a layer of sunscreen topped by a layer of bug spray, my backpack bulging from the roundness of the volleyball and two liter-sized water bottles inside of it. I turned around, flashed him a big smile said, “Yep! I am!” and continued walking to find a taxi that’d take me to where I needed to go.

I smile to myself at these calls instead of letting them irritate me. Sometimes it makes me laugh on the inside. Because here I am with sweat dripping from every pore in my body, my hair a rat’s nest atop my head, a backpack for a purse and a walking ad for an REI clearance sale — and they’re calling out “I love you, pretty lady!”

It’s all just part of the experience.

Not every strike dances. At the least, each strike is a backlight to the clouds above, a flash of God’s camera capturing that moment in time. But it’s a series of photos so sporadic you couldn’t pose, or predict the next angle, even if you wanted to.

To be lucky and catch the sky in the moment — exposing its network of connections, its charge — it’s a secret worth remembering. I don’t know if I’ll ever see anything like it again. (I even tried — watching a storm from Jen and Doug’s roof tonight. But it wasn’t anything quite like the first time. Perhaps it’s not something that can be sought after.)

Jen and I were driving home late Saturday night in the worst storm I’ve seen yet. On a straight away flanked by lush, tropical, green roadsides — nothing in sight to obstruct our view — I saw it.

Electricity scattered through the atmosphere, from one edge of my vision’s periphery to the other. A web of current, of energy, of power, thin like threads weaving across the sky. Perhaps even a hint of color, and most definitely a flash of light — the kind that lasts beyond its moment, that you can see on the back of your eyelids even after you’ve closed your eyes.

The kind of lightning you only ever see in nature documentaries and on screen savers.

***

I never quite know which comes first: the thunder or the lightning. The two seem to stray from one another here.

We’ll be back at the house. A slow strobe will pulse in the distance, lighting up the scene just outside the windows.

Just as you get back to keeping calm and carrying on, a deep rumbling rattles the windows and vibrates underneath your feet, the concrete floor.

Imagine someone shaking out a malleable sheet of metal like a beach towel while simultaneously throwing rubbish bins off your roof onto your porch.

Storms are fully present here. They commit. While they often lose fights with their sisters — humidity, heat and sun — storms come around enough to shake things up then cool them off.

It can go from merely cloudy to torrential downpour in a matter of seconds, then typically settles in somewhere in between for a while.

It has been raining non-stop for over 4 hours just now, with intermittent thundering, lightning. The rain still falls incessantly.

But the thunder and lightning — they’ve stopped. Maybe they felt their ears tingling.

The heaviest jacket I brought is a lightweight cotton cover-up I bought at Top Shop in London a few years back. A little top layer I brought only with mosquito attacks at outdoor restaurants in mind.

Yesterday morning, I woke up to the wind and rain pounding against all three of my bedroom windows.

We didn’t leave the house the day before because of the rain. While it gave us a chance to practice our Scrabble skills and do some power yoga in the living room, we decided not to let the rain keep us inside again.

After a short jaunt outside to pick up some tofu (from the Chinese man who makes it down the street!) and produce, we nestled back into the house for the rest of the afternoon for a bake- and Scrabble-a-thon as the rain continued non-stop.

Cozying up on a wet day and baking cookies sounds delightful if we’re talking about a chilly San Francisco afternoon.

But with total humidity and a broken gas oven that was heating up beyond 500 degrees F, the kitchen quickly became a sauna. With a broken temperature control knob, the only way we could cool things down before it hit 600 degrees was to open up the oven and let out the heat.

With a batch of apple-carrot-raisin muffins and peanut butter chocolate chip cookies down (plus another couple games of Scrabble), and dreading the idea of spending even more time in the kitchen, we ventured out for a walk down to the beach, around town, and eventually out to dinner.

The beach, flooded.

Kevin Costner's Juice Bar! haha.

The beach at dusk.

We grabbed vegetarian pizza and walked down the “strip” (just a short block!) to a nearby bar frequented by ex-pats. We chatted with the owner — half Gambian, half Swedish — the entire time, and for the first time, I didn’t feel completely out of place.

I felt welcome.

Drinks at the Green Mamba

Despite my doubts, my bag actually made it all the way through 3 stops and 2 different airlines. Impressive, given the horror stories I’d heard about U.S. Airways.

A man with no legs, a wheelchair and a huge smile on his face followed Jen and me to her early-90s BMW 5-series in the parking lot. I wonder how much of his smile was genuine and how much was just for show.

Windows down, we drove back home, passing donkey-drawn carts, roadside everything: shanties, food stands, even hair salons. We passed a cow standing in the right lane of opposing traffic, stray dogs, a herd of virtually wool-less sheep and the completely unmarked spot on the side of the road where everyone knows where to catch a taxi. Locals walked all around — some nearest the seam where the pavement stopped and the sand started held up their hands as we passed, as if we might pick them up for a ride.

Gambian driving seems like a state of organized chaos … easy on the organized. There are no street signs. Lane markers are mere suggestions. People pass when- and wherever they want. Pedestrians have the same mentality. I’m impressed Jen has not only learned how to navigate the craziness but has done so after just learning how to drive a stick.

We pulled up and stopped in front of a blue gate and surrounding walls so tall it made the house feel like a fortress. Or like one of those enormous homes along Lake Tahoe’s lakeshore, or the Los Gatos hills, where a very important (i.e. rich) person has purposely hidden their home with trees, shrubbery and gates through which only other very important people can enter.

This very important person was my sister. So not only do I have permission to pass, but I even have a key.

Once I took a moment to breathe, to realize that I’d finally made it all in one piece without any hiccups, the exhaustion set in.

I’d been awake for about 37 hours, having only slept in 10-20 minute spurts on the airplane and uncomfortably curled up in the Brussels airport. So, after dinner and making of the best chocolate chip cookie dough ever (Jen’s solution to help me stay awake until a decent hour), I proceeded to sleep for 13 hours.

I think that put me onto Gambian time all in one fell swoop. I’ve hardly felt jet lag since!

Raspberry Hoegaarden at the Brussels airport! At 3% alcohol content, it practically tastes like soda.

From a pre-sunrise San Francisco, to a sunny Philadelphia to an overcast and chilly Brussels.

Cappuccino and snack in Brussels