Tips For Traveling With a Toddler

When my husband I decided to go back East for a vacation, my first thought was how we were going to take a mid-day five hour flight with a 25 pound toddler on our lap that couldn’t sit still for more than eight minutes. My second thought was how I would do the entire trip by myself on the return. So overwhelmed with fear, I turned to my Facebook community for advice from friends and family and guidance to careful pre-planning. Here is the best of what I solicited:

PRE-FLIGHT ADVICE

• When booking tickets, select non-stop flights only. The extra cost is well worth not having to lug baby on and off an airplane or deal with more than one take-off or landing.
  
  
• If traveling with a partner, book a window and aisle seat towards the back of the plane. If your child is under 2 then you are well within your rights to travel with the baby on your lap. Airline policy is that if there is an empty seat on the plane you can take an FAA approved car seat onto the flight and place your child in the empty seat. Not buying a seat for baby is a risk you may not be willing to take. We are cheap, so we risked it, and it paid off. But had we been forced to experience a five hour flight with baby actually on our laps, I'm certain it would have been the last time we didn't spring for the empty seat. We booked an aisle and a window towards the back since middle seats towards the back are the last to go. When we arrived at the gate, I explained to a member of the flight crew that we were traveling with a baby and wanted to be certain that someone wasn’t sitting in the middle seat between us. The crew member was able to put a hold on that seat. Turns out the flight crew prefers babies in car seats too!
  
  
• Don’t travel on busy days and avoid the mid-day crowds, leave early on a Saturday morning or later at night on a weekday – but don’t do a red-eye. That’s just mean to you. Our flight flew from Los Angeles to Philadelphia, one way, leaving at 7:30 AM PST on a Saturday. This was risky because it meant waking baby to depart and then being idle for one of her most active periods of the day. But when flying west to east, you want to arrive with enough time to enjoy the destination – so we risked it. Turns out that waking baby early meant she was tired earlier as well and we managed to get a solid nap out of her towards the end of the flight. On the way back, I flew out at 8:45 PM EST on a Tuesday night. Our flight wasn’t full going over or coming back – so we had no trouble bringing the baby seat on board. And being able to have baby in her car seat meant she was way more likely to sleep.


• Make a trip to the dollar store and present new toys on the flight. I spent $12 on toys for the flight. I bought stickers and coloring books, crayons, a barrel of monkeys, a few race cars, a magnet game and couple of plastic fish. Story had never seen or played with any of these things before, so it was a total novelty and kept her entirely entertained for many legs of the journey. I waited until after take-off to present one toy at a time. She wasn’t sure what to do with the crayons – except nibble the tips. But stickers entertained for over an hour. We put them in our dollar store books, on the back of the seat in front of us, on Daddy’s face while he slept for five hours straight, on Mommy’s arms, and a few even made it into the coloring books.
  
  
• Get a NEW movie on the iPad. I downloaded three new movies before we departed and Story watched them with no sound on the iPad much to my delight. She is a pro with technology, she can unlock the screen, pause the film, adjust the volume and switch between applications. Plus, when she finally fell asleep I was able to play solitaire. Having new movies held her attention for much longer.

DAY OF TRAVEL ADVICE

• Bring an FAA approved car-seat. Gabe and I arrived at the airport two hours early with two carry on pieces of luggage, a baby bed, and an FAA approved car-seat. For 14.99, we bought this Traveling Toddler Car Seat Travel Accessory and hooked it to our carry-on luggage. When you travel with a child on your lap, they make you do the check-in in-person. They also scrutinize your carry-on luggage, so I just had Gabe stand off to the side with our carry-on bags while I checked through with baby on my back in the ERGO. They let me check one baby item for free on the way over, but they made me pay for it on the way back. Fuckers.
  
  
• Avoid the clunky pack’n’play and buy a BABYBJÖRN Travel Crib. This sucker is light weight and has a little room on the sides to pack extra diapers and load in any heavy baby books. This bed sets up in two minutes and fits everywhere, even in our tent. Story loves sleeping in it and that matters even more. I highly recommend it if you travel often.
  
  
• Don’t bring a stroller. Buy or borrow an umbrella stroller when you arrive. There is nothing more awkward then a stroller at the airport. Story rode in the back pack of the ERGO and I liked having her as close as possible when we went through security. I was able to get a friend in Philly to loan us an umbrella stroller that served all our east coast cruising needs.
  
  
• Use the family security line. LAX has a special lane for people traveling with kids and it was much faster than the others. It also allowed me to bring on 4 oz. juice boxes and 4 oz. milks. Milk is very important because they don’t have it on most planes. If you can’t get it through security, be sure to buy it before you board the flight. And pack lots and lots and lots of snacks to serve as you begin take-off. I bought breakfast and lunch for everyone in the food court before we boarded, and thank goodness because there were no in-flight meals provided or available for the flight. I could have sold my french fries for $1 each :-)
  
  
• Use your early arrival time to let baby run silly. We made it through check-in and security in about twenty minutes. For the next ninety minutes I chased Story through the airport, around sleeping passengers, down corridors, through food courts and crowded bathrooms. I made her walk from security to the departure gate and did all I could to exhaust her by the time the flight attendants called for people traveling with kids. We boarded early and secured the baby seat on the window seat of our row. Of course I still feared an unexpected passenger showing up to sit in Story’s seat, and I didn’t breathe until they closed the doors. Luckily, we were able to get an empty seat going both ways, letting the flight attendants know the deal before they start boarding is key.
  
  
• Use the aisles and let passengers and flight crew entertain your toddler. Once the plane was in the air, I let Story walk up and down the aisles a few times and visit with any other babies or children. This helped her feel comfortable and independent. Mommy bought a few extra gossip mags for the flight crew and sent baby back with the bag of goodies. Of course the crew just loved Ms. Story and went out of their way to make our trip comfortable. Story made it both ways without a tantrum or restless moment. We flew back on our own and while I was scared, we made it with no trouble. Helpful crew and passengers were key to our success.

It’s always a gamble when you fly with a child – sometimes you win and sometimes you lose your shit completely. We got off easy this time, but following the tips really helped and I hope it helps you too. I thought the trip would have its struggles, but Story was a champ for the entire experience. She waited until we got home to torture us, and boy did she make me suffer upon return. But that’s another story for another time.

Happy Travels!

Tampon Parachutes

So I am back from a two week mission observing parliamentary elections in Albania. While watching European TV, I discovered a host of interesting news sources (my favorite is France 24) and came across the below gem. A brilliant display of guerrilla marketing, Euro style.

Look out Albania! Here I come!

I'm headed to Albania for a ten day contract! I leave next Tuesday and am starting to get anxious. Excited and anxious. I remember when I averaged a new stamp in my passport every month. But that was over five years ago when I was cashing in on my Masters in International Relations and taking any contract that offered the chance to live abroad. That was over five years ago when I wasn't juggling a career and a relationship.

In February of this year, I had a small window of reprieve from both career and relationships. So I dug out my old passport and realized it was officially full. Within a week of my new passport arriving I received this offer, and I renewed my relationship. Serendipitous? or just plain awesome? Let's find out!

I promise to blog daily, and post it all when I get back. Wish me safe travels!

Mother Knows Best

When my firm called to tell me they were sending me to Philadelphia, I cried. I was on vacation with my mother at the Jersey Shore. She came out East after her double mastectomy to attend her brother’s wedding. It was a windy day, she clutched a straw hat over her freshly bald head and I huddled under the beach umbrella, cupping the receiver of my cell phone with my right hand. When I hung up, I did something I hadn’t done since I was a child. I placed my head in my mother’s lap and cried.

My sobs emoted frustration that I was leaving New York and anger that someone else got to make that decision for me. It wasn’t just that Manhattan moved at the pace of lightning, was a copious smorgasbord of options, limitlessly exciting and offered a never-ending supply of eclectic and interesting people. It was that after ten years roaming the world for a place to grow up, I thought I had finally found it and had already begun to plant the seeds of my future. And now I was being asked to uproot this foundation for a city I had never even wanted to visit.

“I hear it’s nice there,” My mother said, running her hands through my hair as if she were recalling what it felt like to have it.

“I don’t care if it’s nice. It’s not New York.”

“You could quit.” She suggested. And I considered it. In fact, for the next week I looked at job postings, updated my resume, and went on interviews.

When the move seemed inevitable, I recruited my glamorous New York model friend Janice to accompany me down on the Amtrak for a 4th of July scouting mission. We stepped off the train with our Lonely Planet guide, took in the Philly humidity, walked over the Schuylkill, down Market Street, past a sleazy strip club, past The Salvation Army and past the industrial high-rises. We turned right on 17th and stepped over a variety of homeless people laid out along our path like dead bodies on a battle field. The streets looked barren, entire blocks without people bustling by on their way to somewhere important. Stores were closed for the weekend. When we arrived in a vacant Rittenhouse Square, I was aghast at its small size. One quarter the size of Bryant park, 1/8th the size of Union Square where I lived in Manhattan. Janice tried to be positive.

“ Look at all the cute little shops,” she said.

“What? H&M? Zara? Anthro? Yipee. I pass two of each when I bring my laundry to the dry cleaners on 5th avenue,” I told her.

We went to Continental on Chestnut and all I could think about was how much fun we could be having in New York instead of swinging in these campy chairs at a TGIF knock-off. We tried to walk to Old City but eventually believed the locals claim that it was “too far to walk”. We went to get a room at the Raddison along Chestnut and there was an intoxicated shoeless woman arguing with the front desk staff through a bullet proof glass divider. As the confrontation escalated I let out the breath I had been holding in since the train station and asked Janice if we could just get the last train back to New York.

“Think we could make it back in time for Pomme Frites at Pastis?” she said.

I called my company the next day to tell them I couldn’t do it. They convinced me it would only be for three months. I convinced myself that it would pass quickly. I had been assigned an amazing client and would be promoted to running an entire campaign. This would be good for my career, and I could do anything for three months. Right?

It was a sweltering hot day in Philly when I unpacked my bags into a monthly rental house on Meredith Street in Fairmount. Coming from my tinsy NYC apartment, the idea of an entire house to myself was just decadent. I was amazed that for half the price of my NYC apartment, I was living in a furnished three story row house with original wood floors and beamed ceilings. Outside was a narrow cobblestone street carrying along the occasional dog walker. After I moved in all my bags and unpacked, I sat outside on a real Philly stoop like they did in all the movies I liked to watch when I was a kid growing up in Seattle. They don’t have stoops in Seattle.

I wandered down to Fairmount and found a place that sold hoagies like they ate on the Cosby Show. I devoured it, savoring the doughy bread. I wandered down a little further to an ice cream shop where I watched the girl in front of my order a water ice. I gleefully ate my first water ice while I walked back to the house. I can do anything for three months, right?

I began as a tourist. I started with the double-decker hop-on/hop-off bus. I went to the Philly Zoo, I ran up the Rocky steps, I attended First Friday’s, and bowled in Northern Liberties. I joined match.com, took service commitments at the local AA meetings, and had stuffed French Toast at Sabrina’s. I moved into a furnished room on 10th and Clinton. I participated in the Pat or Geno’s cheese steak debate, I went three months drinking only Fantes coffee. I bought t-shirts for my girlfriends on South Street, I took the ferry to Camden to see John Mayer, I attended a Teamster picnic at Penn’s landing. I went to the Philly Flower Show and attended The Franklin Institute Awards.I moved into a garden townhouse in Old City. I made friends with every shopkeeper on 3rd street. I did the Wednesday night dinner at Fork with Ellen. I began dating the bartender at Positano. I took a writing class at The University of the Arts and threw barbecues in my back yard. I ate at Franklin Fountain every night.

Around 10:00 PM, I would roll into the Franklin Fountain and chat it up with my favorite soda jerk. A few friends would meet me at the end of the counter and we would pull back the hidden seats, and dip pretzels in our ice cream while we laughed and traded stories.

Three months came and went and I stayed in Philadelphia. The job went, and I stayed in Philadelphia. Philadelphia had something New York would never be able to give me. Time. Time to get to know the people in my life. Time to enjoy and appreciate every moment. Time to develop the sort of relationships that are helping me to grow up.

I think of my mother, holding my head in her lap and scratching my back softly, saying, “Oh honey, it will be okay. It will work out. Everything happens for a reason.”

Revolution

I wish I could tell you that I went to the former Soviet Republic of Georgia in that winter of 2003 because I wanted to help make the world safe for democracy, but that would have only been one third of the story. I went to escape the boredom of a serious relationship, and I went because I needed to be bad. I managed to accomplish all three.

That winter, I wanted to be Laura Croft, Tomb Raider. I wanted to leap out of buildings and shoot automatic weapons. I wanted to smoke cigarettes one right after the other, lighting one with the next. I wanted to have an excuse to not shower, stay up late, curse and be politically incorrect. In a boring existence where I was always striving to be good and do the right thing, I wanted-no needed-an excuse to feel naughty. And naughty I was.

This is the BBC and these are today's top headlines... polling stations open today in Georgia... could this be the end for Shevarnaze?

The vintage car radio carried the broken British accent of a BBC reporter through the one functioning speaker of a rusty red Peugeot speeding East through the snow dusted hills of Turkey towards Adjara. I focused on the crackle of the voice to deter the vomit rising in the back of my throat caused by the sort of driving one would experience on a Disneyland attraction. But at Disneyland, because of an ever rising litigious nation I can pretty much assume I wont die. But there is no such knowledge of safety on the backroads of a nation fighting for their freedom and poised on the edge of revolution. Little Ms. Adventurous gripped the door and prayed.

I wanted to save my accidental over seas death for something exciting, like being shot admidst a rush on Parliament. I would rather not die lying in a ditch, gripping my recently amputated left leg, waiting for another driver to happen by and stop to help. My efforts to slow the driver resulted in a 30 second reprieve of the foot against the gas. But as soon as my grip on the car door loosened and the blood returned to my fingers, the assault on the gas continued. I closed my eyes. I could hear my driver change the radio station and I could make out the local dialect reporting on the election.

Polling station number 168 has been.... masked gunmen…. Ballot Boxes have been removed….

Without turning my head, I addressed Henrik in the seat next to me.

“Did you hear that?”

The aging Austrian diplomat was silent. I risked an eye and looked over to see Henrik’s head dipping into his chest and then bolting upright with every turn of the cars wheel.

How the hell could Henrik sleep with this driving? He was pretty old, perhaps he was closing his eyes to concentrate on maintaining his breath. A retired member of the Austrian Parliament, Henrik had signed on to this mission to do some Baltic sightseeing. He preferred lunches and tours of the botanical gardens to primary school buildings filled with smoke, turned into make shift local polling stations.

This sucks! While the other observers are getting action, all we get is closed polling stations and people voting twice. The others are being overtaken by masked gunmen and my greatest thrill is watching Henrik try not to fall asleep in a position undignified to a National Diplomat.

I sulked in the back of the car.

But before long, I had a plan. I pushed myself up into the front seat, between my driver and my translator and used a little broken Georgian.

“Any suspect polling stations where we might find a little corruption?”

My driver looked sideways at the pretty young translator and then back at me through the rearview mirror. He turned down the radio.

"We are instructed to take you to station no. 34."

"Where would you like to take me?"

He paused and continued to stare at the road.

"Down in no.13 they stuff the ballot box. You can find a staff in the back office just checking off names and stamping ballots valid.”

“Ooh, that’s good. Let’s go there.”

My driver snuck a smile and traded a look with the translator. She flashed a grin back and our driver pressed his foot down on the gas sending me abruptly back into my seat, jostling the arm of poor Henrik and causing him to wake from his peaceful slumber.

"Is it time to eat? Or is it the faster we drive, the faster we arrive in the next town, and the faster our driver gets to smoke another cigarette?"

Henrik wrinkles his brow. "Please Tell him that I would rather he break the rules and smoke a cigarette in the front seat then kill us en route to his certain lung cancer."

But instead, I used my limited grasp of the Georgian language to ask the driver who sings the song playing on the radio.

Henrik turned his body and tried to rest his head against the window. And I got ready to uncover a little corruption. But had I known what I know now, about the sort of corruption I would discover at polling station 13, I would have asked the driver to keep on going until we got to Adjara.

To be continued...

White

It is the summer of 2001 and I am somewhere in the Sahara dessert in the back of an old jeep with four men named Mohammed and an Egyptian bodyguard named Hosnik. Hosnik was assigned to watch over me by a government, ever protective of their tourism industry. I’m not sure how much money the government charged my friends for my protective custody. But judging by Hosnik’s 1945 British uniform and 1920’s rusty pistol, I am guessing that they are not paying him much.

When I met the four Mohammeds in Karnak I was assigned a security force of eight. Three rode in an open jeep behind me, three in a van in front and two in the car with me, one on either side. Those guards wore bullet proof vests and carried semi-automatics. But their uniforms still fell off their bodies like tissue in some spots. And their boots were covered in tiny holes.

It all looked very official from afar. But we all knew it was a big show.

When I had to stop the caravan for a bathroom break, four guards entered the restroom before me, came out and signaled I could enter. I entered a room with three inches of standing water, rolled up the bottom of my jeans and waded into the room to hover ridiculously over the spot where the Turkish toilet was buried under brackish water in the back corner.

This was Egypt. I had learned to expect challenged plumbing.

Whilst pulling my drawstring pants back up over my falafel filled ass, I turned back to see two distinct holes that had been punched in the wall behind my Turkish toilet. Three men stood on the other side giggling at the full viewing access of my western sized ass.

Cursing at my useless security guards I shook my Tevas out onto the sand, got back in the car and continued in silence until the lunch camp. It was here that we left the six guards with their fancy guns and chest plates. Apparently terrorists don’t venture this far into the dessert.

But we did.

The next leg of our journey is by jeep. So here I am bouncing around in the back of the car and trying not to bump into Hosnik for fear his ancient pistol will shoot my knee cap off and we will be 100 miles from the nearest hospital. I had been suckered into buying the travelers insurance from STA, but I don’t recall it covering air lift.

Hosnik is happy. He smiles a lot and chat’s easily with the four Mohammeds. Two of the Mohameds never look at me, Grumpy Mohammed doesn't look at me or speak with me, but Friendly Mohammed is patient with my broken Arabic. He seems to mildly enjoy my company. Or at least he doesn’t carry the same bitterness for my whiteness, typical of so many of those we meet along our journey.

Last night, before we left the city, he watched me struggling with my Hejab. For as hard as I tried to cover my white blonde hair and farmer bronzed fingers, I couldn’t cover my Western origins. In this crowd, I would always be white. I would always be a foreigner. And I wanted nothing more than to blend.

When I walked into a room, the mood shifted, the conversation lowered to slow whispers, people left.

It was as if Friendly Mohammed knew that I so desperately wanted to assimilate. To be one of them. When the waitress approached my table with a $30 Shisha, Friendly Mohammed shooed her away. I didn’t dare smoke in front of the others. Even if we were in a tourist joint where all the women dressed in vintage belly dancing gear because that's what the Westerners wanted to see. I am a woman, and that would be inappropriate. Because I am white, they would probably let it go. But then I would be drawing attention to my differences. So I declined. Friendly Mohammed darted his eyes to the back door, inviting me to meet him out back.

I did.

Out back were the waiters, their ties loosened, hookahs dangling off their lips. He sat me down and paid one of the waiters a few coins from his change purse. One waiter moved aside and let me sit and Friendly Mohammed placed the hookah in my hand. Because he knew I wanted to experience something that was typical of the Egyptian life. But there was nothing typical about me sitting in my Hejab, surrounded by unamused waiters, smoking apple tobacco in a cloud of dust rising up behind a touristed shanty.

"Shukran." Thank you. And I shot Friendly Mohamed a thankful smile.

Now today, we arrive at an oasis as the sun is beginning to set a yellow glow over the horizon. Desert sunsets are like that. Yellow. The oasis is a small but thriving town and I immediately notice the warmth of the people. It is a warmth I didn’t feel in the city.

I notice wealth, clean buildings, streets without garbage, and clear water running into basins in the center of town. The children here smile wide, they wear crisp white shirts over burgundy school uniforms. The girls sport headbands and knee high socks. I wander down where all the children are gathering after school and one of the girls pulls off my head scarf. Someone squeals and they fall into little girl giggles, swarming to touch my white hair. I ask them if I can take a photo.

"Minfadlik." Please. But I don't have to ask again because most of the girls aren’t shy.

“Hello…What is your name…How old you are…Thank you.”

They ramble off every English word they know. The girl with the ponytail is shy and she doesn’t want her photo taken. But the other girls convince her I am harmless. They touch my hand to show her that I don’t bite.

"Ma ismok?" What is your name.

"Fajr." She smiles and let's me take the photo.

"Ma'assalama." Goodbye. And she turns to join the others

"Fi aman allah." And I wave at them as they throw dust behind their thin legs, running back to their homes for dinner.

I explore the city, happy to escape the chaos of Luxor and Cairo. The oasis is clean, people are nice, they have proper toilets. I can walk the market without developing a crowd of salesman following behind.

"You are American? Follow me. I have an Uncle who sells carpets. I can make you a great deal. Come with me."

In the oasis, no one seems to look at me with pained glances. Out here I am not someone to resent. I am just a friendly visitor with funny skin, light eyes and white hair. I am only one tourist, not part of a pack of hungry, greedy tourists trying to rob them of their culture and poison them with my Capitalism.

I wander back to the jeep and find Hosnik and the Mohammeds behind the local restaurant smoking Shisha. They stand up when I come around the corner and I realize that I have not rewrapped my hair since the playground. But at this point it feels useless. No matter how much I try to cover my hair, bleached white after a month at the Red sea, I can never cover up that I am a Westerner. I will never be able to assimilate; I can never slump down in a corner and observe the culture playing out before me like a local. I will always be a white foreigner and my physicality will always deny me from the Arab privilege.

The next morning, we take jeeps into the White Desert. I try to contain my amazement at the world transforming outside my window. The lonely desert is turning into the moon. Once the bottom of the ocean about a million years ago, the White Desert is miles of limestone formations sprouting up from the earth like life size mushrooms down Alice and Wonderlands Rabbit Hole. Everything is White. Some stone formations are the size of buildings. One looks like the profile of George Washington in one of those shadow etchings you get at Disneyland.

I am at home in the whiteness and it makes me giddy.

We light a fire. Grumpy Mohammed lays out our sleeping bags. Hosnik and I go into our nightly ritual of charades. This is how he plans to increase my Arabic vocabulary. But so far, we just act out funny sounding animals. And at this point, I figure I know the arabic word for 50 or so Northern African creatures. Tonight, his 6'3" lanky body is framed by the light of the campfire as he slumps over and morphs into the form of a camel.

“Yella, Yella,” I sqeal. And we all laugh because this is what they told me to say to the camels when we were trekking into the Valley of the Kings.

“Yella, Yella.”

The four Mohammeds repeat with chuckles.

Maybe it was the Shisha, or maybe the long day, but Hosnik is laughing so hard now that he is falling over. And now all the Mohameds are laughing at Hosnik. And now I am laughing at the four Mohammeds. And I fall backward onto the white rock behind me.

That’s when I hear it.

The sound of air coming out of a tire. A slow, smooth, hiss.

“Hissssss.”

And I look to my left. There it is. Staring me cold in the eye. A hands length from my nose.

A snake. A white snake. A hooded white viper snake.

No larger than the garden variety we would find when weeding the yard back home. But a snake in the desert is never a good thing. She is in strike mode, her body raised up about a foot from the coil of her tail. And we are miles away from a venom. I don’t recall seeing a kit in the back of the car.

I slowly begin to move my body to the left. I don’t break my stare. I speak quietly in a whisper that only Friendly Mohamed could hear over the raucous laughter.

“Snake.”

It comes out like a prayer.

And then everything happens fast. I have pulled away a few more feet from the snake and the snake strikes. Friendly Mohammed is on his feet and has somewhere found a large rock. Hosnik pulls out his rusty gun. Friendly Mohammed brings down the rock on the snakes head in a swift blow that instantly decapitates. Hosnik begins shooting at the sand around the headless body. The other Mohammeds scramble to avoid the bullets ricocheting off the rock. And I am still half laughing at ‘Yella,Yella’, trying not to wet myself with confused delayed emotional response.

But no one else laughs. They are all cautiously staring down at the sand.

“Pack up. White Vipers travel with mates. Where there is one, you will always find another.”

I get it. Every word. Everyone snaps into motion. I help Grumpy Mohammed pack up the sleeping bags and we move to the top of one of the white rocks. As we lay out the bags on the stoney surface of the white mountain, the mood begins to lighten. The Mohammeds are alive with chatter about the scene around the fire. They are re-enacting my fall against the rock and my cool response. I zip myself into my bag as Grumpy Mohammed shoots me an amused look. In the eye. He says something in Arabic, very quickly and all the Mohammeds laugh.

"Lil'asaf, anaa ataHaddathfaqaT qaliil min aläarabiyya." Unfortunately, I only speak a little Arabic.

"Haadhaa Hasan," That's all right, "Anaa afhamuk." I understand you.

And I feel like I’m sleeping on the surface of the moon.

When we wake up, we travel back to the base camp. When the jeep stops in front of the oasis, the Mohammeds all scatter and I am left alone in the big tent with all of the Bedouin. I try to tell them the story of the snake which makes them begin hooting and hollering and laughing and slapping their knees. And then one asks me what kind of snake. I shrug my shoulders because I don't know. There is no google in the desert.

So I put my index fingers up over my head and flare out my other fingers to show the hood and they laugh some more.

“It was white.”

And the room goes silent. And no one laughs.

“Very dangerous. Not many out this way. I’ve never heard of one in this part of the desert. You are very lucky. Those are the bad ones.”

Balkan Wars

My first memory of Sarajevo was the drive between the airport and the hotel. The airport is surrounded by bombed buildings, separate entrances that divide the city between Serb and Bosniak, piles of rubble and a smattering of bullet holes in places you find your eye being led.

The center of a billboard with a half naked woman straddling a chair and advertising panty hose

My stay in Sarajevo was short. A driver picked me up and we drove five hours to Bijeljina, a small Serb town along the border. Sometime in September, I was chosen to monitor an election in Tuzla.

My first memory of Tuzla was Sherazada.

“My full name is Sherazada, but you can just call me Sher.”

She thrust her bony and thin hand across the table to meet mine half way. She looked 30 years old. But in the last few months, I had learned to take the age of a someone living in this region and subtract at least five years for the war. She was likely 25.

She quickly pulled her hand away and stuck it back into the warmth of the down vest that rode up around her ears as she hunched her shoulders and tucked her head into the lining. She fidgeted to stay warm and quell the creeping cold of the cool Tuzla, Bosnia September.

She popped her red nose up to tell me amongst clouds of frozen breath “I’ll be your translator.”

“You speak great English Sher. It’s almost American.”

Her body stopped bobbing for warmth; she looked me in the eye and raised one eyebrow. “I am American.”

I blushed.

“How culturally incorrect of me. I’m so sorry. I just assumed.”

“I was born here. But my father married an American woman during the war and now I have US citizenship. I live in Nebraska. You speak English well too. Where are you from?”

“I see, I’m so sorry.”

“Forget it.” She absolved my embarrassment by returning to her shivering.

“Jane. I’m from Seattle. Nice to meet you.”

I gave her my outstretched hand. And she took it.

There was nothing that physically distinguished Sher from the other local volunteers. She shared large eyes, teeth that needed fixing and a cool stare that hid horror stories. But Sher held her shoulders back more like the men in the group. She walked tall and always jutted out her jaw before she began a sentence. Sher looked people in the eye.

When she spoke, she enunciated all her sentences with careful pauses. Bosnian words flew out of her mouth like a woman scorning her child. I couldn’t understand a word that she spoke, but I felt lucky I wasn’t on the receiving end of what was coming out of her mouth.

When she spoke English she was confident but gentle, like the girl sitting next to me in History class. She understood every cultural pun, witty jab or complicated rambling sentence that I sent her direction.

Standing in the cold Tuzla morning air, I had no idea the adventure this woman's friendship was about to bring me or how she would change my life.

Dayton Agreement

"Do you have AIDS?"

“What?” I spit out an incredulous laugh and half a mouth full of Turkish coffee. I wasn't sure if I had heard him correctly through his thick Bosnian accent.

“Do – you -have, AIDS?”

These were hardly the first words I expected him to speak.

Kasmir carefully rolled his cigarette in the ash tray to bring the cherry tip to a pencil point. He looked up at me from behind a swirl of smoke.

He couldn’t look me in the eye for long. It would have been inappropriate, according to Sher. But according to Sher's rules, it was also inappropriate for him to be sitting alone in a room with me.

Sher had spent the previous evening lecturing me on the customs of rural Muslim farmers in Bosnia. She filled me with small town tales of gossip and girls who’s reputations had been forever tainted by being caught driving in a car alone with a man or speaking to him alone in a large gathering.

Despite his twenty-eight years and his boldness at that moment, Kasmir was still a child. His soft cheeks blushed easily and his chocolate brown eyes seemed only to be stealing glances before they were hidden by the tips of his long dark lashes.

Since most Bosnians look ten years older than their actual age, I attributed Kasmir's youthful glow to the age he was when he stopped growing emotionally.

Sher told me that at sixteen years of age, his home was the front line of the war being waged in the Bosnian country side. Early in the war, his father and many other young husbands left to fight elsewhere. This left Saptna to be defended by teenage boys and aging grandfathers. His mother harbored the neighbor boys who had already lost their families and homes, providing them food and shelter. When the fighting would reach a stretch of cease-fire, Kasmir would count the men returning for his mothers cooking and warm blankets. He would note with innocent disappointment that one of his new friends had not made it back.

“He’s dead.” His mother would tell him.

“Set the table lazy boy.”

Kasmir grew up in a culture of war. His mother wouldn’t allow him to leave the house, for fear he would never return. So his education about foreigners had been painted by coca-cola ads in foreign magazines and MTV videos.

Somewhere amongst this education was the idea that all American girls were running around studio 54 shooting heroin, having casual sex and contracting HIV.

"No Kasmir. I don't have AIDS."

Sher poked her head in from the kitchen. "Do you need me to translate?"

"No thanks Sher. I think I've got this one."

Sher was following me across Bosnia, translating my four hour seminars on 'finding employment in a developing economy'. She was assigned to me when I monitored my first election. But we got along so easily that I requested her again for the seminar series.

She had taken it upon herself to sponsor my arrival into the Saptna social scene.

After an eighteen hour night quarantined to OSCE headquarters because of a terrorist threat, she took me home with her. I met her boyfriend Almir and her cousin Kasmir in a bleary eyed daze. I fell asleep in the back of the car, despite the risky twists and turns of Kasmir's driving.

When I woke up, I was lying on a polyester couch. Sher and her boyfriend were making coffee in the next room and Kasmir was sitting across from me. Watching me sleep.

He got up and returned with a demi cup of Turkish coffee and three sugar cubes.

I picked up the coffee cup with one hand and tried to wipe the sleep out of my eye with the other. As I raised the glass for a giant swig of caffeine, he gently reached across the table that divided us and stopped my hand.

He shook his head, picked up a sugar cube, and placed it between his teeth. Demonstrating the proper way to drink, he slurped the coffee through the sugar cube, just a little, put the cup back down, moved the sugar cube to his cheek and lit a fake Winston cigarette.

I followed.

Nation Building

Somewhere in Sapna, off a dirt road near the Serb border, watching him buy gas that comes in a recycled sprite bottle. I look at him and I know.

I am falling for Kasmir. Even though he speaks not a word of English.

It is the careful way he opens the door for me. It is the willingness he has to wake at 6:00 AM to make me coffee before I go to work. It is the way he bucks Bosnian tradition by insisting upon washing all my dishes.

Last weekend, Kasmir drove five hours from a contract job he had in Sarajevo, just to touch my face, hold my hand, kiss me good night, turn around and drive back.

Kasmir sees me. He can't hear my fancy talk. My witty comebacks. My puns. I can't manipulate him with my words. He can't understand my complaints and mood swings. He just sees my actions.

And I see his.

I see the way he cares for his little brother. I see the way he respects the women in his house. I see the hard work and focus he brings to even the most minuscule of tasks. I realize how much more all his risks mean, considering where we are.

I saw his courage when he arrived in the all Serb City outside his village just to hear me lead an employment seminar.

He sat in the group as we went around introducing ourselves by name.

“My name is Milos, I’m 32 and I live here in Zvornik. I am here to try and learn how to get a job.”

“Thank you Milos. Thank you for coming.”

I saw him squirm as the circle closed in towards him. I didn’t understand. Sher told me later, "A name in Bosnia reveals your religion."

His eyes pleaded with me. But I didn’t know.

“I am Kasmir.”

That was all he could say. He hung his head. The circle moved on.

But now everyone knew he was a Muslim. A Muslim from the one Muslim village that broke the military line during the war. The Muslim village that the army couldn’t take. They held on. They fought back with rusty shotguns and pitchforks.

Kasmir was sixteen, too young too fight. But old enough to run food to the men on the front lines. Old enough to bury the dead. Old enough to recognize some of the faces in the group.

Sher translated the entire seminar. It was the first time he could understand my every word. Kasmir listened to my words flow out of Sher for five hours.

Now, I watch as he pays the man for the gas with a loaf of his mother’s bread, wrapped in a yellow paper napkin. The man places his left hand on Kasmir's shoulder. They exchange words and look back at me in the car. Then they shake hands and Kasmir heads back towards the car smiling.

He get’s in the car, turns to look at me and widens his already contagious grin.

"You!" He annouces to the roof of the car.

We look at each other and start laughing. He touches my hair. I start playing with the radio. Nothing but Bosnian folk music.

He takes my hand off the radio and turns off the music.

He turns his whole body to face me in the car and he takes my hands.

“Oh Lord. We are getting serious.”

He is giddy, he is happy. Like he wants to tell me something exciting, but he can't. He takes my hands in his. He looks down at them and rubs his thumbs over my fingers while he speaks.

“I must tell you… today… amazing… I hear you…” he pauses, “Volim Te.”

“Huh?”

“Volim Te.”

“Whoa cowboy. Did you just say that you love me?”

It’s barely audible through the thick accent, but he says it again. In English this time.

“I love you.”

“You barely know me.”

“I love you."

"Dear God. That's insane.”

“Jane. I love you.”

“I've known you for two months.”

He takes my hand and places it on his heart. I can feel how fast it is beating.

“I know.”

I just stare at him. I don’t know what to say. I know very little. I know that I am leaving this country in one month. I know that this would never work outside of this country. I know that once I am surrounded by people who speak my language I will be caught up in the sarcasm and wordplay and the games and I won't notice the little things anymore. I know that when my feet feel the ground of New York City I will not miss Cevapcici and Turkish coffee. I know that I will forget about Kasmir before the end of the year. I know I will date many more men in my lifetime. I know that none of them will ever try this hard, or be this happy to understand me. I know that none of them will wake up at 6:00 AM to make me coffee.

The Dominican Republic

I placed my overnight bag on the floor next to check-in and wiped the sweat from my forehead. It somehow didn’t feel right to check into a five star hotel wearing sweat pants, a t-shirt with arm pit stains and an Adidas back pack.

I had begun my journey to the Dominican Republic at 6 AM that morning. It was now 4:00 in the afternoon. Trying to make new friends and mix with the locals, I took a ride with a man and his girlfriend from the airport. But they segued to his moms house for lunch. As I nervously chomped down a typical local lunch, I listened to my boyfriend tell me over the cell phone that I was absolutely crazy.

I chalked up my behavior to not being accustomed to having to think of someone else when traveling. But that was crap. I was less than an hour off the plane and already creating a contingency plan in case R decided he no longer wanted me, and kicked me out on the curb. My insecurities were in rare form.

After a fear filled lunch and several refusals for a tour of the city, I convinced my new friends that I really needed to check in to the hotel, so they drove me through the Zona Colonial of Santo Domingo and dropped me at the gorgeous Sofitel.

“I am a guest in room 415.”

The hotel concierge looked me over, grabbed an envelope from under the desk and handed it to me with a smile.

“Welcome Mrs. Mcgloughlin.”

“It’s Ms. Schmo, thank you.”

We both blushed. I shamefully wandered off to let the hotel staff marinate with the idea that room 415 had an unmarried couple shacking up. Any shame I felt was washed away when I arrived in the room. White sheets, wicker furniture, cool tile beneath my toes, a mosquito net floating above the bed, the room was perfect. Tucked in the back corner of the hotel, it overlooked the pool and a slivers view of the DR harbor. It was also next door to my boyfriend's boss.

R had been working for Bob for almost a year. His line of work meant that he had to constantly be available to his boss. No matter what time of night. No matter what state of naked disarray.

I unpacked and waited in the bar next to the pool. I hadn't seen him in a week and I wanted to just grip him when he came around the corner. Something about his stare always made me want to lay him down on the tile floor and show him what I feared would scare him if I ever said out loud. Before long, Bob walked abruptly around the corner to find us wrapped up in conversation, R's hand on the small of my back.

He saw Bob and sat up straight. “Bob, this is Jane.”

Bob looked at me and back at R. He offered the tips of his fingers for me to shake and lifted one corner of his mouth. Who the hell is this girl and why are you introducing us? He didn't have to say it. I could feel it.

R and Bob disappeared for about an hour. Upon their return, Bob's expression had softened. Now he looked me in the eye and firmly shook my hand. R had cleared up the mystery for Bob and must have explained that he did not just meet me poolside that afternoon.

I just wish R could clear up the mystery for me.

The DR was a last ditch effort to save our relationship. I had sort of given him an ultimatum. Either he takes some time getting to know me or he let's me go. Neither of us was sure where this thing was going. It had been an intense three months but with all the traveling he had been doing for the film, we rarely saw one another. I had to know if we could co-exist in the same space for longer than five hours.

Later that night, a group of us lounged poolside making jokes. Bob drank a martini while the group tip-toed around him. Cognizant of my boyfriends boss but completely unfamiliar with Hollywood rules or the job related worries of those around me, I spoke with absolute candor. A few times I saw R cringe, felt him squeeze my leg under the table and watched him open one eye to see if I had offended his boss.

Bob just chuckled. And as he got up to leave, he leaned over to R, "Why don't you bring your 'friend' along with us tomorrow night"

Friend?

The next night, R faked displeasure at having to go to dinner with his boss. But I knew this was one of the perks of the job that he secretly loved. R loved his industry and loved his job, but he was affected by the disease of workaholism. He was perpetually stressed out and nervous; paced back and forth on his cell phone and sweat under pressure. I wanted to help him relax but my efforts fell like trees in Thoreau's woods, with no one around to hear them. His mind was elsewhere.

Matt and his wife Luci waited outside the hotel with me while we waited for the car. R looked at his watch and back into the hotel lobby, sighing deeply. I ignored him. Instead I chatted with Matt and Luci and watched as they swayed back and forth into the curves of one another's body. Newlywed bliss.

When the car arrived, we jumped in to the back seat and hollered out the door for R. He shook his head. “There isn’t enough room.”

Matt grabbed Luci and pulled her on his lap. “There is now. Get in!”

I squeezed up close to Matt, Luci wrapped her legs over mine, and R reluctantly moved in after me. He was sweating.

Our Range Rover with the tinted windows, two guards in front and a car of guards behind us, set off to drive the five blocks to Bellini's. A labyrinth of one way streets in the Zona Colonial meant the trip took twenty five minutes. We made the best of the time.

"I'm teaching Matt Spanish." Luci said, pushing Matt's hair to the side of his face and gently holding his gaze.

He looked back at her and squeezed her closer.

“I’m an actor, what do I know?”

Couple talk normally grosses me out. But Luci was pregnant, holding her hand permanently upon her pregnant belly. And how can you be grossed out by a pregnant woman and her doting husband?

Especially if it is Luci. Radiant Luci hid behind her long brown hair when she answered my rapid fire questions. They complimented one another. Matt made jokes. Luci focused him. She didn’t defer to Matt, but she let him direct the conversation. A sharp contrast to my own demeanor. In fact, R rarely got a word in edgewise. He had stopped trying by our second date.

At the restaurant, Matt engaged the right side of the table in political debate. I wanted to chime in but they were a close circle of friends. Regardless of the merit of my two cents, it fell on deaf ears unless I was brought into the conversation by someone on the inside. And my usher sat quietly at the end of the table sipping wine.

I pushed out of the men's political discussion and leaned across the back of Matt's chair to talk to Luci about our previous lives as waitresses. After awhile, Matt leaned back and asked about my past State Department work.

"I want to hear this too." And R scooted his chair a little closer.

Had I never told these stories to R? Had he never asked?

I bored Matt with too many details. His focus made me nervous. R didn't look at me anymore when we talked and I was unaccustomed. Usually, I would speak and R would scroll through his messages. He only fixed me with a stare when we were having sex.

Matt pushed his chair back so his wife could lean on his shoulder and they could both look at me and listen. I choked under the heat of their attention and quickly turned the conversation back to travel and wine. R loved to talk about wine. And apparently, so did Matt.

"I've got a few cases of Barolo at my place in The City. You two should come over after we get back."

He placed his hand in his wife's lap and looked over at me. "We live close to you, actually."

R and I exchanged knowing glances. We were invited to dinner in the DR, but we knew we were never going to dinner at Matt's NYC loft. At least not together.

Matt didn't let go of Luci's hand for the rest of the meal. When he ate, he switched over the fork so the other could caress her fingers. If he had two hands free, he used one to rub her back. When he got up to go to the bathroom, he didn’t leave the table without kissing her forehead. He placed his hands in hers, wherever her hands were resting. It was the small sign of a man willing to bend to make her happy. And I noticed.

As the dinner finished and Bob and Matt fought over the bill, I tried to steal a moment with R outside. But I arrived too late, he had already begun his nervous dance. He juggled two cell phones making logistic arrangements to get everyone back to the hotel. R didn't see Bob approaching from across the courtyard amidst snapping camera flashes.

Bob grabbed the top of my arm and leaned in gently.

“I like you. You have a nice sense of humor.”

He let go of my arm and then sort of pat my hand.

“You’re a good girl.” He said, before the restaurant owner asked him to pose for a few photos.

I smiled. He had noticed.