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LESSONS FROM TWO SMALL ISLANDS — 3) Keep calm and eat curry

Leave a comment Posted by on July 18, 2012

Mid-July in Manhattan, and I’m thinking that New York deserves its reputation as The City That Never Sleeps. Not because we’re all out partying — far from it. We’re lying there tossing and turning because we can’t regulate our air-conditioning units.

“High” puts you in Siberia; “Low” sends you down into the Tropics. There are no in-betweens, except for the brief period just after you’ve gotten out of bed to adjust the setting. But by then you’re awake again…

It has always surprised me that New Yorkers are willing to put up with such primitive cooling methods. It’s not like them to suffer silently. My theory is that they simply don’t know any better. As the world begins and ends in New York (isn’t Times Square supposed to be the center of the universe?), this must be the best of all possible air conditioning systems.

Regardless. The point is that I am finding summer a terrible trial now that I’ve repatriated — one that at times requires Olympic strength and endurance.

As summer wears on, I wear out. Not only do I never sleep but I never eat — or eat only minimally. My appetite dwindles at the thought of passing yet another uncomfortable night at the mercy of Simon-Aire products.

All of that changed, however, a few nights ago. Actually, the night had started normally enough: I had gone to bed and was freezing cold so couldn’t sleep. But just as I was lying there thinking about getting up to turn the air con down or else searching the closet for another blanket, I had a sudden, heartwarming thought: “I could kill for a curry!”

How did I go from cursing Dr. Cool, whose workers had installed a supposedly upgraded Simon-Aire unit in the bedroom at considerable cost, to a happy craving for curry? I can only surmise that my subconscious mind was trying to restore my spirits by reminding me of my curry-eating days in the two small islands where I’d lived as an expat, England and Japan. I felt calm again, and my appetite returned…

America — a nation that has deprived itself of a serious curry experience

When I first moved to New York, I was beyond thrilled to discover that the Indian actress and cookbook author Madhur Jaffrey lived here, too. To my utter surprise (and delight) — I had always assumed she lived in London — she has been residing in an apartment on the Upper East Side for the past several decades. (She also has a farmhouse in the Hudson Valley.)

Surprised in a good way, yes — but also somewhat mystified. Why would Jaffrey choose to live in America for so long, given the sorry state of Indian cuisine in this part of the world?

I guess it has to do with husbands — she came to the city with her first husband, the Indian actor, Saeed Jaffrey, and then after their divorce, married an American.

Or perhaps she just likes a challenge? In Jaffrey’s very first cookbook, An Invitation to Indian Cooking, written not long after her arrival on American soil, she says she is writing the book because

there is no place in New York or anywhere in America where top-quality Indian food could be found, except, of course, in private Indian homes.

That was nearly forty years ago, and I have to say, her efforts to improve the situation, beginning with that book, have yet to pay off. Manhattan now has a couple of Indian restaurant neighborhoods, and then there’s Jackson Heights in Queens — but in general curry hasn’t caught on in a big way with Americans. If we want to eat spicy food, we usually turn to Mexican or Thai, not Indian.

As Jaffrey herself put it in an interview with an American reporter last year:

America as a whole has not embraced Indian food like they have with Chinese, or with sushi. It’s beginning to change, but only in big cities. Something is needed, something real. I have waited for this revolution, but it hasn’t happened yet.

This is in stark contrast to England and Japan — both of which embraced the curry cause on first exposure and now behave as though they’d invented certain dishes. Indeed, chicken tikka is considered to be a national dish in the UK, while “curry rice” (pronounced karē raisu) rapidly achieved the status of a national dish in Japan.

Nostalgia: Going out for a curry in England

England, my England — where Madhur Jaffrey is a household name, and curry houses abound!

Britain got the hots for curry during the 19th century, when there was an enthusiasm for all things Indian. And I got the hots for the Brits’ late-20th-century version of curry when living in an English town as an expat. My friends and I would spice up our evenings by going out for curries. We always ordered a biriani, chicken tikka masala, and a couple of vegetable dishes (one was usually sag paneer, which remains a favorite to this day).

Our starters would be onion bhaji and papadums, and drinks would be pints of lager. If we had the space for dessert, it was usually chocolate ice cream — none of us ever acquired the taste for Indian desserts (dessert of course being an area where the British excel!).

But even more special were the times when friends invited me to their homes for meals they’d concocted using Madhur Jaffrey’s recipes. One memory that stands out for me is an occasion when my former husband, a Brit, and I joined four other couples for a friend’s 40th birthday party. The hostess, the birthday-boy’s wife, presented a dazzling array of Madhur Jaffrey dishes that looked like something out of a food magazine. I’ve been to much ritzier birthday parties before and since, but none have struck me as being as elegant as this one — partly because of the splendid display and partly because by then I knew how much chopping and dicing of garlic, ginger and onion, how much grinding of spices must have been involved. What a labor of love!

Yes, by then I’d begun experimenting with Indian cookery myself thanks to the influence of a very good friend, who’d given me the classic Madhur Jaffrey work, Indian Cookery (which had been a BBC series), along with all the spices I would need for making the recipes: nutmeg, cinnamon, cardamon, mustard seeds, coriander, cumin turmeric, cloves… To this day, I always keep an array of Indian spices in my pantry so that I can make my own garam masala at the drop of a hat. Now if only I could find some friends who would drop their hats! (Hey, I even have the old coffee grinder ready for grinding the spices, just as Jaffrey instructs.)

Nostalgia: Curry rice & curry lunches in Japan

Eventually, I moved away from England to another small island, Japan — where I was relieved to discover I would not need to give up my new-found passion for Indian food (though I would be foregoing my beloved basmati rice unless I smuggled it in at customs).

Thankfully, the Brits had gotten there about a hundred years before me and had introduced curry to the Japanese, with great success.

Because of “r” being pronounced like an “l” in the Japanese language, we foreigners couldn’t resist making many tasteless jokes about eating curried lice, but that didn’t stop us from having our fill of the tasty national dish, curry rice.

As in the UK, I found it a nice contrast to the traditional fare, which, though healthy, can be rather bland.

At this point, I’d like to loop back to Madhur Jaffrey and note that she disapproves of the word “curry” being used to describe India’s great cuisine — says it’s as degrading as the term “chop suey” was to Chinese cuisine. But I wonder if she might make an exception to the Japanese usage? Apparently, Indians themselves when speaking in English use “curry” to to distinguish stew-like dishes. And Japanese curry rice is the richest of stews, made from a “roux” that can be bought in a box if you do it yourself.

My first box of curry roux was a gift from a Japanese friend. It was accompanied by her recipe for enriching the stew with fresh shrimp and scallops. Oishii!

Still, the curry I crave most often from Japan isn’t curry rice at all, which I find on the heavy side. No, my deepest nostalgia is reserved for the set lunches in Tokyo’s Indian restaurants, which I used to partake in with office colleagues.

The (mostly Indian) chefs have tweaked the ingredients to appeal to the Japanese palate: little dishes of curry that are artistically arranged on a platter, accompanied by naan. freshly baked (fresh is very important to the Japanese) and a side of Japanese pickles: pickled onions, or rakkyōzuke (a tiny, whole, sweet onion); and pickled vegetables, or fukujinzuke.

(The addition of Japanese pickles, by the way, is genius! Try it — you’ll love it!)

All of this is capped by coffee or masala tea, both of which are so well executed they can fill in as desserts.

My takeaways (I wish!)

I fear there may not be many takeaways for my fellow Americans from Lesson #3. After all, the world’s leading authority on Indian cuisine has tried to convert us and failed.

Nevertheless I’ll suggest a few scenarios, with pointers on how you might attempt to introduce a curry-eating tradition into your circle:

1 — Summer is getting to you, so you suggest to a group of friends that you all go out for a curry. When they stare at you blankly, do a little head bobble, smile charmingly and say: “Why ever not?”

2 — Summer is getting to you, and you decide to build a shrine to Madhur Jaffrey in your home by buying as many of her books as you can — including her children’s book on the Indian elephant, Robi Dobi, and her memoir of her childhood, Climbing Mango Trees. You arrange them around a screen that is playing Shakespeare Wallah, a film she appeared in in the 1960s (directed by James Ivory and starring Felicity Kendal). Invite some friends over and when they ask you about the shrine, start talking about the joys of Indian cookery and see if you can make some converts. Perhaps offer to lend out a book or two. (I might start with her newest work, which emphasizes “quick and easy” methods — bless the 78-year-old Jaffrey, she’s indefatigable!) And you can always dip into the books yourself if the heat is making you sleepless. Jaffrey writes beautifully.

3 — Summer is getting to you, but you decide that when the heat breaks, you will start up a Curry Club with a few of your friends, encouraging everyone to contribute one Madhur Jaffrey dish or a Japanese curry made from roux. Even if most of them drop out and you end up cooking a dish for yourself, perhaps this exercise will satisfy your craving until winter. (I find I get these cravings roughly every six months, usually in summer and winter.)

* * *

Well, I’m off to see if I can resume my sweetly fragrant dreams of my expat culinary adventures — just hope it does the trick of distracting me from my ancient “aircon” (popular Japanese contraction) units!

In the meantime, let me know what you think of this lesson. Are you a curry lover? And if so, could you live in a nation that doesn’t share your craving? How would you put some spice into your life under such sorry circumstances? Do tell!

STAY TUNED for Thursday’s post, another in our “Expat Moments” series, by Anthony Windram.

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to register for The Displaced Dispatch, a round up of weekly posts from The Displaced Nation, with seasonal recipes, book giveaways and other extras. Register for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

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Image: MorgueFile

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We interrupt this Olympic broadcast…with breaking news about a travel book that’s going for free on Amazon!

2 Comments Posted by on July 17, 2012

Now as some of you may know, Displaced Nation contributor Tony James Slater is also an author. What you don’t know (yet) is that for today and tomorrow — 17th & 18th July — his book will be available FREE to download from Amazon! Take it away, Tony! If anyone can sell us something, you can! Except in this case, we don’t even have to pay… 🙂

Hi there, folks! Yes, I’m here today to do a bit of shameless self-promotion. Can you ever forgive me? Listen, my book is called That Bear Ate My Pants. As the title suggests, it’s a ridiculous romp of a travel book, based in an animal refuge in Ecuador where I spent three months volunteering. (Some of you have already had a taste of these adventures from the first post I wrote for the Displaced Nation: “I traveled in search of adventure, and ended up embracing a simpler life.”)

To say that working for an Ecuadorian animal shelter was a struggle is an understatement. To say it was a struggle to stay alive — and avoid being eaten by bears and other exotic animals — well, that’s a little closer to the truth…hence the book’s rather provocative title!

Writing a book has often been likened to a Herculean task (usually by the author responsible, who inevitably believes himself to be unappreciated!)

Well, this one — my first — took me six years to complete. Not because the level of effort needed to write it was greater than for any other book; rather, because  — to continue the Olympic analogy — I’m an exceptionally lazy athlete. I’m pretty much guaranteed to come last, but then, nice guys usually do. 🙂

In fact, the only thing remotely Olympian about this book is the number of free downloads it’s had! In one sense, new authors and budding athletes are exactly alike: we all REALLY care about are our stats! My book has only been available for free on Amazon once before, in February, and there were a staggering (if I say so myself) 22,701 copies downloaded in just two days! Needless to say, this earned the book a place right at the top of the charts, which is exactly here I’m hoping to send it today.

So without further ado, here is a brief excerpt from my adventures, to tempt you, and all of your travel-(and animal-)loving friends, to want to read more.

Excerpt from That Bear Ate My Pants!

“MONKEY!” I shouted, as a brown blur swung out of the cage and onto the path.

The chase was on.

He skipped away with incredible speed, dodging around the corner and heading for freedom as though he’d thought of nothing but this moment for years. I bolted after him, grabbing the edge of a cage to swing me round in hot pursuit. The monkey was a good way ahead of me, and far more maneuverable. But I was faster on the straight. I accelerated down the narrow corridor between enclosures, and was closing the distance between us when he reached the steps down to the main road through the farm. This was my chance — if he paused, if he found the stairs confusing, I’d be on him. But no. Being a monkey, he didn’t have much use for stairs. He just jumped.

He made the ten-foot leap to the ground with ease, landed on all fours, and scurried off down the road. Pounding along behind him I had less than a second to make the choice. If I slowed to negotiate the stairs even part of the way down, it would all be over. Once he reached the trees by the first bend in the road he’d be gone for good.

Time was up. I reached the top of the steps at a dead run and launched myself over the edge.

In the seconds I was airborne my entire life flashed before my eyes. I seemed to have spent a disproportionate amount of it chasing monkeys.

Somehow I landed on my feet, with bone-jarring force. I was only a step behind the monkey — my leap had taken me considerably further than his — but my body was moving too fast for my legs. I managed to push off with my feet at the same moment as I started to fall headlong on the ground. The result: I bounced forwards another metre, sailing high above the form of the fleeing monkey, then crashed to earth and flattened the fella.

The impact knocked the stuffing out of me. It temporarily turned the monkey two-dimensional. Pain shot through me. I felt like I’d fallen ten feet onto a small primate. For the monkey it must have been like being beaten around the head with a banana tree. For a split second neither of us could move.

He recovered quicker than I did. Amazingly he wriggled out from under me and leapt towards freedom, just as I, still lying prone, reached out with both arms and caught him.

Unfortunately I could only catch him around the middle. Which meant that while he wasn’t going anywhere, he wasn’t particularly happy about it.

In far less time than it takes to tell the monkey writhed around in my grasp and sank his fangs into my hand.

“ARGH!”

The monkey switched his attention to my other hand and bit down hard.

“Arrr!” I shrieked. I let go with the recently bitten hand, but I had no other options — I had to grab him again or lose him. As I tried to grab his neck he bit me again, puncturing the thick leather glove easily and scoring my vulnerable flesh. Again and again he bit down, faster than I could even register the damage.

I lay on my belly, flat out on the floor, both arms outstretched in front of me and both hands wrapped around a frantically flailing ball of teeth and rage. There was sod all I could do — without my hands free I couldn’t get to my feet, and without standing up I had no way of controlling the beast. It was not the first time I had the thought; what the hell was I doing in Ecuador?

To Be Continued…

*  *  *

So if you’re a Kindle owner (or want to be), head straight on over to Amazon and grab a copy while it’s free.
If you’d like to read a copy but don’t have a Kindle, here’s a link to the free software that allows you to read Kindle books on any PC or Mac, tablet or smartphone.  (Otherwise, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for the paperback…)

And let me know what you think in the comments!

STAY TUNED for tomorrow’s installment in ML Awanohara’s new series, “Lessons from Two Small Islands.” NOTE: The post by Tony James Slater that was scheduled for today — a Displaced Q on the Olympics and nationalism — has been postponed to early August.

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to register for The Displaced Dispatch, a round up of weekly posts from The Displaced Nation, with seasonal recipes, book giveaways and other extras. Register for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

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Images: Tony James Slater in Ecuador with his simian “friends”; book cover.

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For former expat Matt Krause, a second act as a heathen pilgrim

7 Comments Posted by on July 16, 2012

For some of us, starting a new life overseas is challenge enough. But for others, it represents an opportunity to take things to the next level. It’s fair to say that Matt Krause falls into the latter category. Returning to California after following a Turkish woman back to her native land, he used the material for his first book. And now he’s preparing to set out on a 1,300-mile solo walk across Turkey — a country he still regards as his second home. I caught up with Matt recently to ask about this latest, much more athletic challenge.

Hi again, Matt. Welcome back to The Displaced Nation. It seems like only yesterday that we were reviewing your expat memoir, A Tight Wide-open Space, and now we find you preparing for an epic travel adventure. Can you say a little more about it?
On Saturday, September 1, 2012, I will start an eight-month solo walk across Turkey, from the Aegean to Iran — 1,305 miles (2,100 km) in all. I will carry a backpack, a tent, and a sleeping bag.

Why are you doing this?
To put my life where my mouth is.

In 2003 I met a girl on an airplane to Hong Kong. We ended up going out, then moving together to her hometown of Istanbul and getting married there. We lived in Turkey for six years, but in 2009 things unraveled and I came back home to the US.

When I came back to the US, people kept asking me about the differences I had seen in Turkey. Political differences, religious differences, cultural differences, gender differences, just about every kind of difference you could think of.

But I really wanted to tell them about how people are so much the same. Living in Turkey had reminded me that most of what we are as human beings, and how we act in any given situation, is pretty much the same. Human nature being what it is, though, we can’t take our eyes off our differences, and I think that this focus makes us more afraid of each other than we need to be.

I don’t want to talk about this in theory. If these similarities are so profound, I should be able to walk, alone and unprotected, across the country I still think of as my second home.

Going to the dogs

What have you done to prepare for this odyssey?
I walked 1,200 miles (almost 2,000 km), 700 of them with a fully loaded backpack. That’s four hours a day, five days a week, for five months.

I walked the same four 12-mile routes about 25 times each — those were 1,200 very repetitive and boring miles.

However, I love dogs, and the dogs added some flavor to the walks. The first few times I walked those routes, the dogs all acted ferocious, but week by week they warmed up to me. The Labs were the first, of course — I only had to walk past them once or twice before they’d run out to me wagging their behinds like I was an old friend.

The last to go was one particular Doberman Pinscher. He spent about four months acting like he was going to rip my head off each time I passed by, and then one day when I walked by he was busy talking to another dog. He looked over at me like, “Are you serious, are you going to make me interrupt this perfectly good conversation in order to come chase you?” He broke down quickly after that, and now when I walk past his house he just playfully runs alongside me, glancing back at the house every few seconds to make sure nobody’s watching. He’s got a reputation to think about, after all.

How will you finance the trip?
I have savings, which I’ve supplemented by working in the peach and plum orchards near my hometown of Reedley, California. I was grafting, which is basically cutting off the top of an old tree and sticking a new kind of wood into it. The new wood takes over, and within a couple years the tree is producing a new variety of fruit.

I will also be raising some money on Kickstarter in a few weeks.

Will you be grafting any electronic devices onto yourself while you walk?
I’ll have a pocket camera and a cell phone connection so that I can post daily updates (people photos, landscape photos, short written updates, etc) on my Web site, Heathen Pilgrim. Most of the time, of course, I’ll be out in the middle of nowhere. It’s not like I’ll be able to run into the nearest Starbucks and connect over wifi, so I had to figure some things out. I’ve been doing a lot of equipment testing.

An oxymoronic concept?

“Heathen Pilgrim” — that’s a curious name for a project.
I picked that name for a couple of reasons. The main reason is that a heathen is a person who does not share one’s religion. Christians see non-believers as pagan; Muslims see them as infidels; and as far as Jews are concerned, gentiles can never be members of God’s chosen people.

One thing we all have in common is that someone, somewhere considers us heathen. And if you want to travel outside of your own circle, you must be willing to be considered a heathen by someone else. If the people around you are not considering you heathen yet, you have not traveled far enough from home.

I also have a tongue-in-cheek reason. A secondary definition of “heathen” is “a rude or uncivilized person.” I’m a fairly polite and well-mannered person. So calling myself a heathen pilgrim is a bit of an attempt at self-deprecating humor.

Well, particularly when you juxtapose it with a word like “pilgrim,” since pilgrims are supposed to be on a journey to a holy place. Your itinerary is pretty ambitious. Do you identify at all with the athletes who are now preparing for the Olympics?
No, not at all. Those guys train all their lives. I’m just a guy who likes to eat donuts and walk — although I did have to turn a lot of things upside down in my life in order to do this.

On the subject of ways of looking at this project, there’s a relevant saying I like, that we are not entitled to the fruits of our labors, only to the labors themselves.

In this case, I have no control over the meanings people might assign to my walk. I only have a say in whether or not I do it.

A few last-minute jitters

What’s left by way of preparation for this unholy journey of yours?
Not much. At some point you’ve just got to take the leap of faith (no pun intended!), and that time has arrived for me. Right now I’m preparing for the Kickstarter campaign in a few weeks, and there are still a few things I still need to get, like a sleeping pad and a small whiteboard. But I’m as prepared as I’ll ever be without actually doing it. It’s time to go.

But what about psychological preparation? Are you nervous? Despite your affection for Turkey, do you worry about feeling out of your element, displaced in ways you’ve never been before?
You bet I’m nervous. I’ve never walked across a country before. I’ll be displaced and out of my element 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for the entire trip.

What makes me most nervous is that I don’t know where I’ll be sleeping at night. I don’t want to stay in hotels, because then I’d just be doing the tourist thing. So I’ll be taking people up on their offers to pitch my tent in their front yard, or let me sleep on their living room floors, or even sleep on their roofs (many of the roofs in that part of the world are flat, and people use them like a front porch).

For a while, I was really worried about approaching all these strangers and asking for help. In fact, until a few months ago I would wake up in the middle of the night worrying about how that was going to pan out. But then I talked to a young woman who had backpacked through that part of the world many times. She said don’t worry about them, they’ll be fine with it. The worry is in you. Get over it quickly by knocking on a stranger’s door the very first night.

How to follow Matt’s progress

If people want to follow your progress, what should they do?
I’ve put out an open invitation to anyone who wants to come walk part of the route with me. So if you can, get yourself a backpack and a sleeping bag, and join me on the road somewhere.

However, if you can’t join me in person, follow the trip vicariously. There’s the aforementioned Heathen Pilgrim site, a weekly email newsletter, a Facebook page, and my Twitter account (@mattkrause). Use whichever of those you prefer — they’ll be showing pretty much the same content.

I assume you’ll also be getting some books out of this?
I’ll also be writing four books at the end of the trip: two books tentatively titled “Turkey on 12 Miles a Day” and “Walking Turkey”; and two photo essays, tentatively titled “Walk Turkey: The Landscape” and “Walk Turkey: The People.”

Those books will be available later on Amazon, but you can sign up for them early, and get some other trip-related goodies, by backing the trip on Kickstarter. The Kickstarter campaign isn’t live yet, but if you keep an eye on my cyber-coordinates, in early August you’ll hear about it when it starts.

Thanks, Matt. You may not think of yourself as an Olympic athlete, but I’m impressed by your determination and all the meticulous preparations. Readers, make sure you follow Matt’s journey in one of the ways he suggests and spread the word about his Kickstarter campaign. You can also support him by downloading his memoir on his expat life in Turkey — as Kate Allison said in her review, “For all that this is a love story, Matt pulls no punches in the telling of it.” He’s honest, as well as humble. Two great qualities for a pilgrim, even if he is a bit of a heathen! 🙂

STAY TUNED for tomorrow’s Displaced Q on the Olympic Games and the sometimes awkward issues they raise for us displaced types about national loyalties, by Tony James Slater.

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LIBBY’S LIFE: Oliver’s side of the story

1 Comment Posted by on July 12, 2012

A note from Kate: After the last episode, I thought Oliver should be given a chance to explain things, so this episode is told by the man himself. 

In the last episode, Libby waited up for Oliver, wanting to confront him about her recent discovery. Before she could make her presence known in the darkened house, she heard him on the phone making murmured plans with someone she could only assume was another woman. 

Here he is, at the other woman’s house.

*  *  *

I ring the doorbell, and after a couple of seconds the door opens.

“You took your time,” she says. “It doesn’t take fifteen minutes to get here.”

“Diversion to the liquor store.” I hold out a bottle of Pinot Grigio. “For you.”

I know how to get round women. A good bottle of white never fails.

She takes it from me. “We’ll open that later.”

I follow her along the hall and into the kitchen.

“And Libby doesn’t know you’re here?” she asks. She opens the fridge and puts the wine inside.

“She was asleep. The house was dark. She doesn’t even know I came home.”

“That makes things easier.”

She reaches into a cabinet and gets out two wine glasses, ready for later in the evening.

“Have you eaten tonight?” she asks.

I try to think. To be honest, I’m not sure when I last ate. I tell her this.

She shoots me a disapproving look. “You need to look after yourself, a young strapping man like you. I was about to have a tuna sandwich. Care to join me?”

I hate fish.

“Perfect,” I say.

She starts rattling baking trays and tin openers around, and I lean against the doorjamb, watching her.

“How long have you lived here?” I ask.

She stops banging stuff around long enough to think about the question. “In this house? A couple of years. In Woodhaven? Pretty much since 1976, give or take.”

She opens a tin of tuna and mashes it with mayonnaise. When she finishes with it, it looks like cat food.

“I’m going to make tea,” she says. “Could you get me one of those teapots from that shelf?”

I cross the kitchen and reach up to the high shelf above the window over the sink. “Any particular one?”

“The ginger tabby.”

The shelf is crammed with teapots shaped like cats. I’ve never seen anything so hideous.

“What’s the story with the cats?” I ask. “That’s quite an impressive collection you’ve got there. You must have an eye for antiques.”

Wrong thing to say. She’s not fooled for a minute.

“You’re so full of it,” she says. “They’re awful and you know it.”

She gives me a stern look that makes me feel as if I’m back in my junior school headmistress’s office, hauled onto the carpet for dipping Cheryl Atwood’s ponytail in red paint during art class.

“You’re not going to charm your way into my good books that easily,” Maggie says.

* * *

Oh, come on. Give me some credit. You didn’t think I was going out to meet some fancy woman tonight, did you? I saw Maggie this morning while I was out early walking the dog, and she asked me to come here tonight. Said she had something to tell me, but not to say anything to Libby.

If it was any other old biddy, I’d have told her to keep her nose out, but this is Maggie, and she’s not someone you can just say No to like that. Besides, she’s been good to Libs, so I supposed I owed her this much. And I thought I might get some decent food. Wrong again.

Now I wish I’d gone with my first instincts and told her to mind her own business. I’ve got a feeling that all she wants to do is give me a bollocking.

Can’t blame her, either, to be quite honest. If I’d been a fly on the wall of this house these last couple of months, I’d be thinking, “Oliver, you bastard” too. Any reasonable bloke would just sit down with the wife and try to sort things out, right?

But it’s not as simple as that.

Things never are.

* * *

“About this morning, when I saw you walking Fergus,” Maggie says, when we sit down in her living room, a plate of tuna sandwiches between us on the coffee table.

“What about it?” I ask. The smell of the fish makes me want to throw up.

“I asked you to come round here tonight because Libby told me something that I think you should know.”

I wonder what it could be. Perhaps Libby’s arranged an entire family reunion party at the Holiday Inn.

“And the thing is,” Maggie says, “it’s difficult for me to tell you because I promised her mother I wouldn’t interfere.”

I can’t help it. I snort, although I manage to turn it into a kind of sneeze. Again, Maggie isn’t fooled, and she fixes me with another of her headmistressy stares.

I straighten my face.

“As I was saying,” she continues after a pause, “I did promise her mother I wouldn’t interfere. But it seems that her mother, by not interfering herself, is just as much to blame for the circumstances you and Libby are currently in.”

She puts down her old-lady china plate decorated with gaudy red and orange roses, and starts to pour two cups of tea.

My headmistress never gave me tea after I’d dyed Cheryl’s ponytail.

Maggie passes a cup to me. “More sugar?” she asks.

I sip, then shake my head. This situation is bizarre. I wonder when she’s going to get the cane out. If Maggie ever needs a bit of extra income, she could always go in for private S&M sessions. She’s one scary lady.

She smiles at me. “Good.”

Sips her tea.

“She knows all about it, Oliver.”

The room, still warm from the heat of the day, suddenly feels icy cold.

“Knows what?” I ask, although it’s a rhetorical question. I’m only playing for time, putting off the moment.

“You know what,” Maggie says.

* * *

“I wanted to tell her,” I say after a few minutes have passed. Maggie’s a master in the art of silence, and eventually I had to break it. “But you see…that would have meant breaking a promise to my mother.”

“Tell me.”

“She made me promise I would never tell anyone about what really happened to my father. As far as anyone else was concerned, he ran off with a librarian when I was five.”

“Is your wife ‘anyone else’?”

I open my mouth to answer, “Of course she isn’t” and then stop.

Because if I haven’t told her what really happened to her father-in-law, then that’s what she is, right?

* * *

Most married men have two women in their lives. A wife and a mother. Some manage the two together without any problem.

The others have to make a choice. I thought I’d made my choice the first time I met Libs. She literally took my breath away. Every time I saw her, I had difficulty breathing. She’s the one, I thought.

Now, as Maggie tells me every last thing that Libby has found out from our hitherto unplayed wedding video, I realise I’ve been fooling myself for the last ten years.

More to the point, I’ve been fooling Libby.

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This was originally published on July 8 at the Woodhaven Happenings site, a blog where you can find extra posts by other Libby’s Life characters. Need reminding of the characters? Check out the Who’s Who.

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Next post: LIBBY’S LIFE #56 – Falling up

Previous post: LIBBY’S LIFE #55 – Dark Secrets

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Stay tuned Monday’s guest post by Matt Krause, author of “A Tight Wide-open Space”!

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to subscribe for email delivery of The Displaced Dispatch, a round up of the week’s posts from The Displaced Nation. Sign up for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

Img: Map of the World – Salvatore Vuono

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RANDOM NOMAD: Antrese Wood, American Expat in Argentina and Artist on an Epic Expedition

12 Comments Posted by on July 11, 2012

Place of birth: Pomona Valley Hospital. I grew up in Claremont, California — in fact, my mother still lives in the house she brought me home to.
Passport: USA
Overseas history: Honduras (San Pedro Sula): 1986; Argentina (San Antonio de Arredondo + Villa Carlos Paz), 2010-11 + 2011 – present.
Occupation: Artist (painter).
Cyberspace coordinates: Antrese.com (art site + blog); @antresewood (Twitter handle);  Antrese Wood Artist Page (Facebook); and Antrese Wood (Pinterest) — see “A Portrait of Argentina” board.

What made you leave your homeland in the first place?
A friend of mine in high school asked me to go with her to an American Field Service (AFS) meeting. I went because she didn’t want to go alone. I had no idea what it was, but after the meeting I thought, “Awesome! I’m in!!” I ended up going to San Pedro Sula, Honduras, for six months. I didn’t speak a word of Spanish when I left. I memorized the three questions I thought I would get asked most: What is your name, where are you from & how old are you? Unfortunately, I got them mixed up. When someone asked “What is your name?,” with a huge smile I would answer: “I’m 15 years old!” By the time I left, my Spanish was pretty good.

I didn’t travel much until after college, and I didn’t practice my Spanish, so I lost most of it. After college, I got bit by the travel bug again. I would go anywhere if I had the chance. I worked in the video game department at Disney for years, and got to travel a lot with them — all over the US, Vancouver, Montreal, London, Paris, even to the South of France. On my own, I went to South Korea. I also lived in Alaska for a short while (not a foreign country but compared to the Los Angeles culture, it might as well be). At one point I decided I wanted to do a semester with NOLS (the National Outdoor Leadership School). I choose their semester in Patagonia, and thinking this was my last chance to see South America, I spent a few months exploring Chile, Argentina, Peru, and Ecuador.

Indirectly, that is how I met my husband. A friend was worried about my traveling alone, so she introduced me to her friend from Argentina (“even though she doesn’t live there, she can at least give you a few phone numbers just in case…”). Years later, my new Argentine friend introduced me to my future husband.

Which brings me to why I left Los Angeles to live in Argentina: I fell in love.

Wow — that’s some wanderlust! So is anyone else in your immediate family “displaced”?
No one else in my family is displaced. My mother and I both travel as much as possible, but my brothers and sisters are happy where they are.

Can you describe the moment in your Argentinian life when you felt the most displaced?
My husband and I first lived in a tiny town called San Antonio de Arredondo. It’s in el campo — literally, the countryside. But when you move from Los Angeles to a town of barely 5,000…you call it the boondocks. Some friends rented us their quincho (guest house) while they were out of the country. It was in a new neighborhood with few other houses and lots of empty lots. Green and beautiful, but no natural gas, no phone lines…and worst of all, no Internet!

I was used to 24-hour access to everything. The Internet, grocery stores, restaurants…everything. Another thing: San Antonio and Carlos Paz (where we currently live), both honor the siesta. Everything closes between 1:30 and 5:00 p.m.

It was quaint and beautiful at first, but I got tired of riding my bike to the next town to check my email. I’m completely dependent on the Internet. It was in those moments when I admittedly thought “Oh my god, what have I done!?” When we moved to Carlos Paz, the first question I had about the apartment was: “Does it have high-speed Internet?”

And does it?
YES IT DOES!!!….yay!

Now that you have Internet access and are feeling more at home, is there any particular moment that stands out as your least displaced?
As I contemplate this question, a series of images and moments flashes through my head: our house filled with friends for an impromptu dinner; the huge smile on my husband’s face when he cooks for a crowd (he loves it!); looking at the clock and being surprised that it’s already 4:00 a.m…. A big cultural difference is that you can call friends for a dinner, and within an hour or two, your house is filled with all your friends and all their kids. There is always room for just one more.

If I had to pick one event where I didn’t feel displaced, it would definitely be our wedding. It was the best of both worlds. Friends and family from the US, along with about 200 of our “closest” friends from Argentina, came to celebrate. We had a huge asado (barbecue), lots of wine, dancing until 6:30 a.m.

Sounds amazing. And now you may bring one curiosity you’ve collected from your adopted country into The Displaced Nation. What’s in your suitcase?
Really? only one!?

I’m tempted to pack some fernet, but I’ll bring my mate instead.

Drinking mate is a national pastime in Argentina. The mate is a hollowed out gourd that you fill with tea leaves called yerba. You add hot water and drink the tea from a bombilla (a kind of straw with a filter at the bottom). Typically, it’s shared with other people — one person serves the mate to the circle. Drinking mate plays an important social role; it’s the preferred excuse to get together and hang out. “Let’s have a mate” really means “Let’s hang out and chat for a while.” Most gas stations have a hot water dispenser at exactly the right temperature, and almost any restaurant will fill your thermos regardless of whether you eat there. They understand the importance.

There are various subtleties to preparing mate (sugar, no sugar, with mint, water temperature, etc.), and the opinions on how to properly prepare mate are strong and sometimes fiercely debated. When a person drinks mate alone for the first time, its like a right of passage into adulthood. When my husband came home and found me drinking mate by myself, he said: “AHA!! now you are an Argentine!!”

Let’s move on to food. You are invited to prepare one meal based on your travels for other members of The Displaced Nation. What’s on your menu?

Now we’re talking! This one is pretty easy:

Appetizer: Empanadas — dough filled with just about anything and then baked or fried. They’re a staple here. A common filling is ground beef, olives, hard boiled egg, paprika, cumin and salt. My favorite is the árabes, which is ground beef “cooked” with lemon and aromatic spices.

Main: Definitely an asado: various cuts of Argentine beef, and lamb. The meat here is so good, people are surprised how much flavor it has. Typically the only condiment used is salt. (Argentina would be a difficult place for vegetarians!)

Dessert: We could have ice cream — call and have it delivered (yes, they do!!); but I think I’d prefer to introduce you to alfajores from Las delicias de Mamushka. An alfajor is like a cookie sandwich: two cookies made from cornmeal, filled with dulce de leche. I never liked them until I tried Mamushka’s. Now I’m addicted.

Wine & after-dinner drinks: A nice Malbec wine. I like Trapiche. A few hours later, after dessert and coffee, an ice-cold Fernet con Coka.

And now you may add a word or expression from the country you live in to The Displaced Nation argot. What will you loan us?
There are so many — again, hard to choose.

Che and “más vale!” are among my favorites.

Che is used all the time here, especially in the province of Córdoba. Depending on the context, it means “hey…” or “umm…” Sometimes, it seems to be used in the same way we Californians use the word “like.” Che Guevara is from this area. He is actually called Che because when he went to Cuba, he used the word so frequently, people just started calling him “Che.”

Más vale is equivalent to “Hell, yeah!!” — and also has a bit of “Let’s do this!!”

This summer we’ve been doing some posts with an Olympics theme. Are you planning to watch the Summer Olympics in London? If so, who will you be rooting for: Americans, Argentines, both, or neither?
I’ll be rooting for them both. In the event that the U.S. squares off against Argentina in a soccer match, I will be wearing a helmet and full body armor — and cheering for the US!

Are Agentines excited about the Games?
In general, Argentines are fanatical about sports. Especially soccer. Messi is a God. During the World Cup, It seemed like every man, woman and child in this country was wearing a blue-and-white striped #10 jersey. We went to a  friend’s house to watch a game. Normally busy streets were completely deserted. The city had literally shut down. There was an eerie silence occasionally broken by simultaneous cheers erupting from the houses and (closed) shops. During national playoffs, you see grown men sobbing uncontrollably after their local team has lost. The first time I saw this, I was flipping channels on TV. As the camera switched from one sobbing man to another, I thought there had been a national disaster. So, yes, I think it’s safe to say that there will be plenty of excitement about the Games!

The Olympics gives me a segue way into your 8-month project to paint Argentina. That strikes me as being an Olympian feat. Can you say a little bit more about it?
Now that you mention it, it is an Olympian feat! The project is called “A Portrait of Argentina.” I will spend eight months visiting the country’s 23 provinces, traversing something like 15,600 miles, painting portraits of the people I meet. I’ll listen to their stories and then paint en plein-aire, the scenes from their daily life. I’m hoping to deliver a cultural portrait of my adopted home.

When did you first conceive of the project?
The idea came out of a period of misery after I left Los Angeles to live in Argentina. The first year I lived here, I saw everything from a touristic point of view. It was quaint, beautiful and…a little quirky. But the second year was more difficult. It was no longer cute and quirky; the honeymoon was over. I made unfair comparisons and was judging everything. My normally optimistic and upbeat attitude shifted to “This sucks.”

I had two obvious choices: go back to California — or change my outlook, appreciate all that is good, and stay. My husband (fiancé at the time) left it up to me (no pressure, eh?). We could pack everything up and head back to Los Angeles, or I could give Argentina another try.

I realized that much of my misery was self imposed. It came from the fact that I had not integrated and was spending the majority of my time alone, working out of the house. You can’t love anything until you take the time to develop a relationship with, and really get to know, it. Here I was, on an adventure of living in another country, and I wasn’t even willing to give it the time of day. What a wasted opportunity!

As I integrated myself more and became determined to learn as much as I could about Argentina, I started taking classes at the university and began developing this idea about painting my way across the country. Painting has always been my way of making sense out of the world. It forces me to pause and really look at my subject.

Is the project having the effect that you’d hoped — is it improving your attitude?
Just by researching the project, looking for “known” and “unknown” people and places, I have a new-found appreciation for this country. I’m realizing how easy it would be to say I know Argentina because I’ve lived here for two years. The fact is, I know a lot about one region in one province of a very large country, and a little bit about a dozen other places. A native New Yorker and a native Alaskan may live in the same country, but they are culturally worlds apart. The same can be said for a Porteño (a person from Buenos Aires) and a person from La Quiaca near the Bolivian border. Same country, worlds apart.

I’m also overjoyed that so many people here seem excited about my project. Obviously, I’m super excited about it (it’s my baby, after all), but when I share my vision with Argentines and their response is equally enthusiastic, it’s just amazing.

I’ve barely started, and already my outlook has changed. I’m owning the project in a way I didn’t at the start.

What do you hope the project will ultimately accomplish?
“A Portrait of Argentina” is both a personal and a professional journey. I expect to be surprised, challenged, and profoundly affected by it. I’ll be seeking out people from diverse backgrounds, looking to honor those who have dedicated their lives to their passion and whose work positively impacts others: scientists, athletes, artists, musicians, teachers, even the abuelita (little old lady) on the street corner. It’s a collaborative project, and I hope to involve as many people as possible. Luckily, the people I’m meeting are quick to offer help and introduce me to others who might want to participate.

Do you ever feel daunted by the scale of the project?
Argentina is a huge country so I’ve set myself a very ambitious goal to cover this much ground in just eight months. When I break it down into small chunks, it feels manageable. When I think about its entirety, it’s overwhelming.

Finance was another daunting prospect. When I first thought about the funds it would take to get me to and from so many places, it seemed completely insane and impossible. I decided to launch a Kickstarter campaign with a $25k goal. Kickstarter is all or nothing, so if I didn’t hit the goal, my five-week campaign would end with $0.

There were days when I did let the campaign get to me and was sure it would fail. To keep going, I would sometimes just think, okay, how can I raise just $100?

In addition to a herculean effort by family and friends, I was fortunate to have some key influencers get excited about the project and promote it. In the end, with just 17 hours to spare, I made my goal!

I’m sure I will have some of these same feelings on the road, but I’ve developed a number of tactics to deal with it. I don’t give up easily. Besides, there are too many people supporting me and cheering me on. I know it will be hard, but am I ready for it? Más vale!!

Readers — yay or nay for letting Antrese Wood into The Displaced Nation once she’s finished her travels for her project? Tell us your reasons. (Note: It’s fine to vote “nay” as long as you couch your reasoning in terms we all — including Antrese — find amusing!)

STAY TUNED for tomorrow’s episode in Libby’s Life, our fictional expat series set in small town New England. (What, not keeping up with Libby? Read the first three episodes of her expat adventures and/or check out “Who’s Who in Libby’s Life.”)

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to register for The Displaced Dispatch, a round up of weekly posts from The Displaced Nation, with seasonal recipes, book giveaways and other extras. Register for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

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img: Antrese Wood displaying her intrepid travel skills on the Machu Picchu trail in Peru. Her comment: “I thought the Follow the Arrow sign was hilarious because 1) the trail is so well marked I cant imagine anyone getting lost; and 2) this was the one and only sign on the trail and it was near the end of the four-day hike. The other hilarious thing about the photo, at least to me, is that if you look closely, you can see my knee is bleeding. I had just spent 80 days carrying a backpack two-three times as heavy in seriously remote back country, no trails, no markers, nothing. We had to sign a waiver acknowledging the understanding that if something should happen, it could take a helicopter up to a week to arrive. I made it through without a scratch. Here, on this comparative cake-walk, on a perfectly even trail, I fell for no apparent reason and totally skinned up my knee.”

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Dear Mary-Sue: Should expatriates do patriotism, even if it is July?

Leave a comment Posted by on July 10, 2012

Mary-Sue Wallace, The Displaced Nation’s agony aunt, is back. Her thoughtful advice eases and soothes any cross-cultural quandary or travel-related confusion you may have. Submit your questions and comments here, or else by emailing her at thedisplacednation@gmail.com.

I hope you’re having a better July than I am, Mary-Suers. Ol’ Mary-Sue is not a happy bunny, let me tell you that, NOT A HAPPY BUNNY AT ALL. Some neighbor of mine — let’s for the sake of argument call him Gary Geshke, and while we’re at, let’s assume that this Gary Geshke was the most incompetent realtor in town, and let’s also assume that most of the women in the neighborhood wonder how Linda Geshke can stomach staying with him.

Whoops, I never finished my sentence. Anyway, this “Gary Geshke”  was struggling — as usual — to do the most basic tasks with just the tiniest of competency. This is the sort of guy you worry is going to chop off a toe when mowing his lawn. Well, he was having a fireworks party for the 4th and instead of blowing an arm off, as would be more in line with his reputation, he managed to have one of his fireworks land on my roof nearly causing the whole thing to burn down. Thankfully hubby Jake was quick on the scene before we nearly had a disaster on our hands the likes of which we haven’t seen since The Towering Inferno.

Gee, I could skin that guy alive. I know his wife sometimes visits The Displaced Nation, so if you have are reading this post, Linda, Gary is an ingrate.

Anyhow, I’m in a FOUL mood so let’s get the July questions over with quickly so I can get back to watching some soap operas as well as the marvelous summer barbecue that I am going to organize and pointedly not invite Gary and Linda to.

Yeah, you read that right, Linda!

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Dear Mary-Sue,

I grew up Catholic in Northern Ireland, I was only too happy to get out of Belfast when the opportunity arose to take off for Canada came along.  I’d never have to deal with nonsense like The Glorious Twelfth.

That was before I realized Canadians are mad about Canada Day on July 1.

I know, I know, it could be worse. I could be in the heartland of American watching people wave flags on July 4, or in Paris on July 14, not able to cross the streets because of the Bastille Day pomp and circumstance. But what is it about July that makes people embrace their motherlands? I just don’t get it…

Brendan, Nova Scotia

Dear Brendan,

April is the wettest month. July is the most patriotic. November is the most miserable, but June is the sexiest. March is chaste while September is outrageous. May oftentimes pretends to be coy, while October smells like an old man’s pipe. January is nice-looking, but her acting in Mad Men was wooden.

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Dear Mary-Sue,

As an Englishman in the United States on July 4th, I thought I should hide my accent. I made a few jokes about this to my American friends, but they didn’t seem to get it. They told me July 4 was for barbecues, so just have a hamburger and enjoy myself.

I ask you, did we fight a war or didn’t we?

Henry, Houston, Texas

Henry,

I normally have time for Limeys, but I’m not in a great mood at the moment. Who does an agony aunt write to? That’s what I really want to know.

Anyway, on your minor case, I would say, “let it go.” People invited you into their homes. They were nice to you. They watered and fed you. Yes, they didn’t laugh at your jokes. Do people often laugh at your jokes? Seems like you were going for a way-too-obvious topic, so I would wager no. Hubby Jake makes me laugh because he does an amazing John McCain impression that’s always a hit at parties. Perhaps you could work on something similar. Or you could just be really clumsy and knock over a jug of Sangria — as seems to be Gary Geshke’s party trick.

Also, if you want everyone to start bringing up that time their country had a war with England, pretty soon the only people you’ll be able to speak to will be the Portuguese.

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Dear Mary-Sue,

I’ve heard it said that you make the best 4th of July potato salad in the world. What is the recipe and method? Would love to try it. *hint,  hint, hint.*

Susie-May, Arizona

Aw shoot!

Susie-May!

And you were doing so well in following the restraining order in not making any contact with me. First, there was the incident in Krogers on Tuesday — and now this! Also, don’t think I don’t know it wasn’t you who sent me some hair clippings in the post. That’s just weird Susie-May. Get a grip!

Anyhoo, it is true that my potato salad is the best. Secret is never use mayo. Mayo is the devil’s work. Or Paula Deen’s — one of the two.

Also don’t parboil the potatoes — that’s a rookie’s mistake. You just want to steam them. After steaming, crush them a bit, not too much. Then season them with salt and pepper. To that, add a dash of olive oil, a dash of cider vinegar, and a tablespoon of Dijon mustard. Then throw chopped up green onions and some fresh cilantro. Mix it all together and then squeeze some lemon juice over it before serving. (Gary and Linda Geshke wish they could have some of that!)
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Anyhoo, that’s all from me readers. I’m so keen to hear about your cultural issues and all your juicy problems. Do drop me a line with any problems you have, or if you want to talk smack about Delilah Rene.

Mary-Sue is a retired travel agent who lives in Tulsa with her husband Jake. She is the best-selling author of Traveling Made Easy, Low-Fat Chicken Soup for the Traveler’s Soul, The Art of War: The Authorized Biography of Samantha Brown, and William Shatner’s TekWar: An Unofficial Guide. If you have any questions that you would like Mary-Sue to answer, you can contact her at thedisplacednation@gmail.com, or by adding to the comments below.

STAY TUNED for tomorrow’s Random Nomad, who is attempting an epic expedition…

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to register for The Displaced Dispatch, a round up of weekly posts from The Displaced Nation, with seasonal recipes, book giveaways and other extras. Register for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

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THE DISPLACED Q: How many of these Olympic travelers do you recognize?

2 Comments Posted by on July 9, 2012

It’s a strange thing about high-profile sporting events. They bring out the athlete in even the most unathletic of us. During Wimbledon fortnight, the normally deserted tennis courts in the local park are packed with Federer wannabes; driving back from a Grand Prix, drivers of Ford Fiestas morph into Jenson Button; and while the World Cup is on, everyone kicks random household objects around the kitchen and becomes temporarily expert on the offside rule.

During the Olympics, of course, there’s a much bigger menu of sports to choose from, and during those 16 days, not to mention the previous 70 days of torch relay, it becomes impossible not to see everybody in an Olympic (torch)light.

Especially — since this is our particular mindset– travelers.

So, how many of these Olympic travelers do you recognize?

The Greco-Roman Wrestler

Greco-Roman Wrestling — so-called because of its purported similarity to the wrestling at the ancient Greek Olympics, which lends dignity to an otherwise extremely undignified sport.

Greco-Roman Wrestling Travelers, while not engaging in unseemly public bear hugs and takedowns, are often found at locations of ancient ruins, fighting to hold down folding maps, and heaving around 30-pound guide books. Instead of wrestling headgear and ear guards, they wear sets of headphones, plugged into their audio tour devices.

Matches with other GRWTs are strictly intellectual, based on the Intellectual One-Upmanship system, and wins are determined only by Technical Superiority.

The Synchro Swimmer

Synchro swimming is the only sport where it’s obligatory to wear quantities of makeup that make Dame Edna Everage‘s layers of face paint seem subtle. While regular makeup is dubiously acceptable in  figure skating, this caked-on paint job is ridiculous in an aquatic sport.

The Synchro Traveler is invariably female, and insists on dressing up to the nines no matter how unsuitable for the circumstances.

Hiking boots and backpack for an all-day trek along the Great Wall of China?

No thank you, darling. Louboutins and this divine little Prada clutch will be just fine.

The Rugby Player

Rugby needs no introduction, unless it’s to spout that old joke about it being a game played by men with funny-shaped…but never mind.

The Rugby Traveler — actually, what am I talking about? There is no such thing as a Rugby Traveler Singular. They travel in packs. They also drink lots of beer, sing patriotic songs (out of tune, at 1 a.m.) and do manly guy-things together.

Usually found in their natural habitats of Ibiza and Cancun, hunting for females.

The Pentathlete

The Modern Pentathlon is a series of five events: pistol shooting, fencing, freestyle swimming, show jumping, and cross-country running. It’s athletics for the overachiever.

In traveling terms, the Pentathlete Traveler is the vacationer who will bore you for hours with their elaborate plans to see everything in Fodor’s Guide to Europe in ten days, traveling variously by airplane, train, helicopter, ferry, and pack mule.

Upon their return from said vacation, be prepared to sit through interminable soirees of home videos, accompanied by some marvelous duty-free Chianti Riserva all the way from Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport.

Don’t spoil their fun by telling them the same stuff was on special offer at the local wine shop while they were away.

The Archer

Archery: the art of firing arrows from a bow. Requires great concentration and accuracy if you don’t want to poke someone’s eye out (see: King Harold, Hastings, 14th October 1066.)

As far as traveling goes, The Archer knows what he wants, where he wants to go, and how to get there. Easily spotted in airports, Archers are the ones pushing past you on the moving walkway so they get to the end before anyone else does.

They are expert, seasoned travelers and know the layout of every major international airport. Because of this, they are blasé about the arrive-two-hours-before-flight-time rule.

When the flight attendant at the boarding gate pages them by name — that’s more than time enough for The Archer.

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Image: “Athletics On The Line” by hin255/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

STAY TUNED for Tuesday’s Question and Answer session with Mary-Sue!

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to subscribe for email delivery of The Displaced Dispatch, a round up of the week’s posts from The Displaced Nation. Sign up for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

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Culture collision: How American is England?

29 Comments Posted by on July 5, 2012

Last week’s Random Nomad interview with Melissa Stoey spawned a lively discussion on the subject of loving the romantic image of a country — namely England — rather than loving that country “as it is.”

However,  the definition of “as it is” deserves its own debate. During the comments discussion, Melissa pointed us toward two posts on her site, Smitten By Britain: the first, “England Would Not Be England” by British gardening celebrity Alan Titchmarsh, and the second, “What England Is Really Like” by guest poster Tim Gillett, founder of Tourist Tracks.

They make interesting reading. Both are lists of items which in the authors’ opinions are representative of England, and yet, comparing the two lists, you could be forgiven for thinking they referred to different countries on opposite sides of the globe.

Titchmarsh’s version conjured up a gentle, genteel picture of eating cucumber sandwiches by a croquet lawn; indeed, his list included cucumber sandwiches (although not croquet.)  Gillett’s list brought to mind a less poetic image of England: a picture of stuffing your face with doner kebabs in the High Street on Saturday nights, while stepping over puddles of lager-infused vomit.

Perception — or memory — of a country?

The thing is, though, there’s little I’d disagree with on either list. Maybe the “knotted hankies” on Titchmarsh’s list belong to the seaside excursions of fifty years ago, when Titchmarsh himself was a youngster. Then again — how many Ford Cortinas, an item on Gillett’s list, are still driving around in the UK? 1,317, according to the data on howmanyleft.co.uk., so they’re not such an everyday sight as they were twenty years ago.

No doubt age plays a part. I don’t know how old Mr Gillett is, but I’m hazarding a wild guess that he’s younger than Alan Titchmarsh, who turned 63 in May. From my own experience of reverse culture shock, I know that current perception is often confused by past recollection — my fond imaginings of England are rooted somewhere around the time when people wore Walkmans and acid-wash jeans.

But what really is “Typically English”?

What really struck me about the list by Tim Gillett, however, was the number of items that, while English, could also typify other countries. Titchmarsh’s list, for the main part, was stoically English, with the inclusion of Jane Austen, The National Trust, The Beano, Chatsworth, and Blackpool rock. Whether or not you agree that they are important or representative of England, they are nevertheless unique to that country.

Gillett’s list, on the other hand, had items such as “Misogyny”, “Reality TV”,  and “Appalling public transport” — all of which could be placed on a list to typify America, when you consider the current abortion rights battles, the Kardashians, and the lack of buses everywhere. “‘Baby on Board‘ and other pointless car stickers”? Yes; and try the little stick figure families stuck on the rear window of every soccer mom’s SUV. “Almost everyone believing what they read in the papers”? Fox News. “Visible thongs”? OK, you’ve got me there — I’m hoping they will soon be a thing of the American past thanks to this tasteful little invention being sold on TV.

Coloring outside the cultural lines

What I’m saying here is not that Tim Gillett, in his funny, wry list, has come up with suggestions that are too general to be exclusively English (he also includes “EastEnders“, “Local pubs and real ale”, “Wayne Rooney“, and something so obviously English and cringeworthy I can’t believe I’ve never thought about it: “Ill-fitting brassieres”) but that cultural borders are gradually smudging.

I would love to know what a similar list would look like in another twenty years — so, please, let’s have your suggestions for how the American and English cultures will differ or be the same when the 2032 Olympics roll around!

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STAY TUNED for Monday’s Displaced Q!

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EXPAT MOMENTS: What to wear for an Independence Day Party

2 Comments Posted by on July 4, 2012

Another in our series focusing on little moments of expat experience — moments that at the time seemed pifflingly insignificant.

As far as I can gather, the main advantage of Independence Day for many people seems to be the opportunity to dust off and wear that stars-and-stripes leather jacket that they bought back in 1979.

Wishing to get into the Independence Day spirit, it was clear that I also needing something “appropriate” to wear if I wanted to blend in successfully so I headed over to Target, a fine American corporation that would hopefully have even finer American clothing for me to purchase.

Finding the Target employee that looked the most patriotic — the telltale signs are a sensible haircut, good posture, and a strong jaw line — I asked where I might find the most patriotic T-shirts in store. Leading me to a selection of T-shirts featuring the stars and stripes, it was difficult for me to contain my disappointment with this somewhat anemic selection.

“Hmmm, do you have anything more patriotic?” I asked.

The patriotic youth seemed a little confused, a look that made him seem increasingly un-American.

“I was,” I said, “looking for something with a little more pizzazz. Something more OTT. I was kinda hoping you’d have one where Jesus is cradling the liberty bell while a bald eagle looks down approvingly?”

He just stared back at me. I’d been wrong about him. His jaw line was not as strong as I’d thought, his posture a little crooked, and his hair-style now I was closer was greasy and ostentatious.

“Why would we have that?” he sneered.

“Because you love this country — that’s why!”Though difficult, I tried to calm myself down and keep my temper in check. “Okay, have you got anything with a bald eagle in full flight in front of the stars and stripes, but, and this is the important bit, with a kick-ass explosion going on behind the flag? No? Nothing?”

“Have you tried Wal-Mart?”

I wandered off disappointed. This must have been how Benedict Arnold felt. You try and give this American lark a try, but you just end up getting kicked in the teeth. And that was when I saw the above little number, which I decided would from now on be my Independence Day T-shirt.

A version of this post first appeared on Culturally Discombobulated

STAY TUNED for Thursday’s post, in which Kate Allison debunks some common myths about the UK vs the USA.

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5 reasons why American aviatrix Amelia Earhart could be an expat heroine

Leave a comment Posted by on July 3, 2012

The American aviatrix Amelia Earhart has been propelling her way into the news headlines this week. Yesterday marked the 75th anniversary of her Lockheed Electra disappearing over the Pacific Ocean.

And today marked the beginning of an expedition, led by an American nonprofit group, to locate the wreckage from her plane. The group plans to scan the depths of the Pacific Ocean near a remote island where they believe Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, died as castaways.

With America’s most famous aviatrix back on our horizons, it seems a timely moment to nominate her for our Displaced Hall of Fame, where we put all of our expat heroes and heroines.

What, was she an expat, too? I can hear you asking. In fact, she was an expat briefly — during World War I, when she went to visit her sister in Toronto and ended up staying on as a nurse’s aide in a military hospital.

But I’ll admit that Earhart seems more of a domestic heroine — as American as apple pie, you might say. Born in Atchison, Kansas, in America’s heartland, Amelia grew up tall and willowy like the corn in the fields. As the Reigning Queen of the Air, she became the nation’s sweetheart and to this day retains a special place in the hearts of young American women.

What’s more, recruiting her to serve as a heroine for global nomads, many of whom have hybrid nationalities, might not fly with my fellow Americans. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has endorsed the expedition to hunt for Earhart’s plane, saying that Earhart embodies the “spirit of America coming of age and increasingly confident, ready to lead in a quite uncertain and dangerous world…”

But in reviewing the main facts of Earhart’s life, I have found plenty of aspects that show how “displaced” she actually was — “displaced” in the sense of being “removed from the usual or proper place” (see definition on our About page) — and hence belongs in our orbit. Here are five of my top reasons:

1) She was born with wings.

Veteran expats and long-term travelers cannot afford to have fear, or dislike of, flying. Should we incline at all in this direction, it may help to lie back in your airplane seat (or pretend you have a seat where it’s possible to lie back) and think of Earhart, who took to the skies without hesitation, as though the airplane wings were her own. Legend has it that she first caught the aviation bug while an expat in Canada. She went to see an exhibition of stunt flying at a fair in Toronto and later wrote about the sensation she’d felt as a pilot began diving at her and her friend:

I remember the mingled fear and pleasure which surged over me as I watched that small plane at the top of its earthward swoop. I did not understand it at the time, but I believe that little red airplane said something to me as it swished by.

From then on, it was all she could do to keep her feet on the earth. Of her first airplane flight she said: “As soon as we left the ground, I knew I had to fly.” In 1921 she took her first flying lesson, and soon saved enough money to buy a second-hand plane.

Of course it helped that in the early days, flying was a romantic sport for the lucky few, not a form of transport where everyone from pilot to passenger feels as though they’re herding or being treated like cattle. Earhart named her first plane “Canary” because of its bright yellow color. Perhaps she felt like a canary when setting her first women’s record: rising to an altitude of 14,000 feet.

By the time she became the first female pilot to cross the Atlantic solo (Charles Lindbergh was first to do so), she had her own little red airplane — a cherry-colored Lockheed Vega, reputed to be the world’s fastest aircraft and therefore favored by pioneering aviators. Hmmm… Did it make her feel like a cardinal?

2) Always restless with the status quo, she let it drive her adventures.

What’s the litmus test for being a travel or expat type? A person who is always upping the ante. We’re a gang of permanent malcontents!

No sooner had Earhart become the first woman to cross the Atlantic (as a passenger) — a flight that made headlines because three women had died within the same year in trying to achieve it — but she sought to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic (1932) and the first person to fly solo across the Pacific, from Honolulu to Oakland (1935), among other achievements.

At that point, there was nothing for it but to make a bid to become the first person to fly around the world (1937).

One wonders what Earhart might have done next, had she not gone down in her plane on the very last leg of the journey. Perhaps she would she have concluded that she’d peaked out too early? (No doubt many of you serial expats and repats can relate…)

3) She had no qualms whatsoever about the risks involved in an adventuresome life.

In the lore surrounding Earhart, great emphasis is placed on her early feminism. Much of it is said to be due to her mother, who had very little interest in bringing up Amelia and her younger sister as “nice little girls” — she even allowed them to wear bloomers!

Clad in this comfortable attire (Amelia would later design a clothing line for women who wanted comfort), the Earhart sisters climbed trees, hunted rats with a rifle, and “belly-slammed” their sleds downhill.

The young Amelia also kept a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about successful women in predominantly male fields, including film direction and production, law, advertising, management, and mechanical engineering.

Although she did marry eventually — to the publisher George Putnam — she always referred to the marriage as a “partnership” with “dual control,” and did not change her last name.

When she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, Earhart said it proved that men and women were equal in “jobs requiring intelligence, coordination, speed, coolness and willpower.”

(No doubt she would be knocked out to learn that women’s boxing will be included in the London 2012 Olympics for the very first time.)

But to me, what’s even more impressive about Earhart’s life is that she knew about the risks involved in her chosen occupation — but decided not to let them hold her back. That same kind of risk-taking is at the heart of the overseas travel enterprise, which goes against the grain of most people’s common sense. (“You want to go THERE? And FOR HOW LONG?” Expats and global nomads know the drill of fielding constant questions and doubts from the people back home.)

When Earhart set out on her second attempt to circumnavigate the world (the first had ended in a crash when a tire blew out on take-off), she wrote to her husband: “Please know I am quite aware of the hazards.” And then she went ahead and packed a jar of freckle cream. (I say that because a jar of freckle cream was found on the Pacific Island that’s now being searched.)

4) She was never more in her element than when out of her element (quite literally).

There is something that draws all of us to the displaced life. Since it’s a life of challenges, I have to assume that for most of us, it’s that feeling of being a pioneer, of going the way no one else in our circles has gone before…

In Earhart’s case, the displacement was quite literal: she loved being in the empty sky and facing the unknown. In that sense she was like a character out of Greek myth — a female Icarus. As she once said of an early flight:

The stars seemed near enough to touch and never before have I seen so many. I always believed the lure of flying is the lure of beauty…

Jane Mendelsohn was inspired to write her first novel, I Was Amelia Earhart, after reading that a piece of what may have been Earhart’s plane had been recovered on an atoll in the Pacific. Imagining the life that Earhart and Noonan might have led as castaways, Mendelsohn shows Earhart coming into her own in the desert-island setting, and finding peace of mind.

Random House editor Kristin Fritz commends Mendelsohn for creating a whole new iteration of Earhart as

a woman who had perhaps “taken this journey in order to escape the madness of the world,” a woman who “didn’t give a damn if she was alone” and finally a woman who would “live the rest of her long and brilliant life on this wild and desolate island.”

Now that’s displaced! And if Fritz is right and Medelsohn captured the essence of Earhart in her novel, then we should not feel too bad that she perished on an island out in the middle of nowhere. That’s how she would have wanted it…

5) Last but not least, she appears to have known the value of chocolate.

Here we come to the true test of an expat or international traveler: do they like chocolate? Are they addicted to that sudden charge of energy, the little lift, one gets from the sugar and the caffeine? Most seasoned expats and international travelers know that we could never have prevailed during the inevitable moments of loneliness and displacement the life entails without a chocolate supply of some sort.

When Earhart embarked on her 2,408-mile solo flight across the Pacific in 1935, she packed a thermos of hot chocolate in case she felt chilled. As she later observed:

Indeed, that was the most interesting cup of chocolate I have ever had sitting up eight thousand feet over the middle of the Pacific Ocean, quite alone.

* * *

Now that we’re touching down, I feel the need to quote from Mendelsohn’s recent op-ed for the New York Times:

We still wonder what happened to Amelia Earhart — perhaps soon we may even find out — but do we know what to do with her? Do we know how to make not just her mysterious disappearance but also her miraculous life relevant and inspiring to our global society? And could she matter across the globe, that ball around which she tried to fly that feels so much smaller today but is in fact exactly the same size as it was then?

For me there’s an easy answer to all three of Mendelsohn’s questions: YESSSSSSS!!! It’s time Amelia Earhart went global, and not just literally…don’t you agree?

STAY TUNED for Wednesday’s post, another in our Expat Moments series by Anthony Windram — and yes, it does have to do with the 4th of July!

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