There be pirates

Have you ever been to one of those murder mystery dinners?

This weekend found me in Rochester, MN, eating a Castaway Island Cheese Ball at such a dinner. My character was Quintus Swelter, the "sinister and vain" cook on the pirate ship Scurvy Knave. My role in the game was to insult the other ship's cook, make the cabin boy's life miserable, and poison people willy-nilly as the urge struck.

Dave's character was Salamanca, the easily-amused valet of a wealthy Spanish don. I believe Dave's role in the game was to make people wonder whether he shaves his chest or not.

As a bonus, I ran back into a really cool girl I knew back in medical school. (Sarah, in the middle of the group here.) She was playing Saucy Nancy, Captain of the pirate ship Fury. Her apparent assignment in the game was to say "Yarrrrgh" a lot, try to lure the crew away from the other ship, and to make faces in pictures that would make people wonder if she'd had a brainstem stroke.

The only trouble with spending an evening in a house full of people pretending to be someone they're not is that at the end of the night you feel like you know everyone but actually don't know them at all. It's a strange feeling.

Entombed in a Cathedral

Emperor Haile Selassie was a beloved leader of Ethiopia from 1930-1974, before and after the Italian occupation. His body is entombed in the Holy Trinity Cathedral of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, which is why I ended up there on a Tuesday evening with 4 other ORBIS volunteers.

 

 

 

 We got there at dusk, but our cab driver persuaded the gate-keepers to let us into the grounds even though it was getting late. Then the gate-keepers persuaded the priest to take us into the cathedral itself. He silently unlocked the massive hardwood doors and let us in.

 

 

We then had a rather creepy, silent, dark, after-hours-esque tour led by the priest, who only turned on a single lightbulb in the entire cavernous chapel, and led us to the tomb without saying a word. 

 

But that wasn't the truly strange part of the experience.

 

At the end, the priest personally walked us to the exit then broke his silence by frankly telling us that he would need a generous tip before he would unlock the doors to release us from the church.

 

Ultimately, we had to give him about $100 to get him to let us out of there.

 

In the future, I'd love to be able to refer to this story as the time I was held hostage in an African cathedral by a sinister clergyman. 



 

All kidding aside, I'm sure there must have been some sort of fundamental misunderstanding on our part. I'm sure he'll put the money toward a good cause.

One miracle at a time

The pictures never do it justice. The words never make it real enough.

During the past two weeks in Ethiopia, I've seen some wonderful life-changing stories play out. I was lucky to work with the pediatric ophthalmologists, so all of the patients were young children with their whole lives ahead of them. It's really gratifying to think how the difference they made for our little patients will carry forward as those children grow up.

The first Monday, I met Zeineb*. She's ridiculously cute. Her mother is a widow who thought that there would never be help available for Zeineb's eyes, and even if it were, she wouldn't be able to afford it.

By the end of the week, Zeineb had eye-muscle surgery to straighten her eyes, and a pair of glasses to help her focus better so that her alignment can stay straight.

On Wednesday, there was Mubarek, the bravest kid I've ever met. Just to come to the ORBIS screening, he and his dad had to walk 2 hours from their village to a neighboring town, then spend a week's wages to ride a bus for 8 hours into Addis Ababa. He has Duane's Syndrome Type 3, which prevents his left eye from moving properly when he tries to look from side-to-side.

We made sure they had a place to stay in the local hospital, and by the next afternoon he had eye-muscle surgery to help both of his eyes line up straight in primary gaze.

The next Monday, I met Fetya, a 2 year old boy who was born with a cataract in the left eye. If congenital cataracts aren't removed in time, the brain never learns to process the visual signals that the eye sends it. Fety had his surgery the next day. I hope the surgery came in time for him to get some of his sight back.

I also met Atiya, who is 6 months old and blind from congenital cataracts in both eyes. The local surgeon plans to use the new methods he learned through ORBIS to help this little guy.

 

The whole thing really makes you realize how lucky we are, doesn't it? I wish there were a way to make things right for every kid in the world.

 

 

(*Pictures and names used with permission)

You'll be glad to know...

You'll be glad to know that it only took a mere 52 hours of air and land travel to finally make it back from Ethiopia! Six hours of that were spent standing in line to re-book a canceled flight out of Germany. An unknown number of hours were spent sleeping on airport benches, like this dude:

 

You'll be glad to know that at a certain airport restaurant, if you want a Ciabatta Bread Ham and Swiss Sandwich it will cost you $7.99, but for some reason if you just order ham and swiss on ciabatta bread it's only $3.99

 

You'll be glad to know that never-before-seen artistic renderings of Mr T's early childhood are for sale in the outdoor markets of Ethiopia.



 

 

You'll be glad to know that the pay-phones in Ethiopia...

 

...are actually time machines.

 You'll be glad to know that if you go to the right bakery in Addis Ababa, you can easily get a cake for your Pirate-themed house party!  Or a cake shaped like a furnace boiler... for your, um, furnace boiler-themed party.

 

You'll be glad to know there's finally an answer to the age-old question of how many people it takes to screw in a lightbulb. Three.

It's always relief to scan over the drink menu...

 

...and find that the restaurant serves Ho Chocolate.

You'll also be glad to know that the iPod 5...

...is a status symbol clothing brand.

And that Pringles exist in Africa, but they're cleverly renamed as "Mister Potato Crisps," and their logo is the sombrero-wearing three-way-illegitimate stepchild of the original Pringles guy and the Super Mario Brothers.

Speaking of food, you'll be glad to know that I've now eaten spaghetti ungracefully on every continent I've ever visited. In this particular pasta mishap, I was starving when lunch arrived but there were no utensils to eat with, so I was using the cardboard lid from the food box as a noodle-scoopy-shovel-thingy. Innovative. And awkward.

 

Perhaps most importantly of all, you'll be glad to know that if you ever need a guy to run down the street carrying 22 mattresses on his head, it's not an impossible dream.

 

Worth the Effort

 

Where the next two weeks will take me:

http://www.orbis.org/Default.aspx?cid=5712&lang=1

Chronologically Confused Oktoberfest Foodies

One of my friends from med school is now in plastic surgery residency in Cincinnati.

While visiting her there this weekend, I experienced my very first Oktoberfest. I agreed to go along to said fest, politely overlooking the fact that it was occurring in September, figuring that if Oktoberfest is good, then the extra-early Septemberfest version of it is probably even better. (...and also because I had it on good authority that there would be an attempt at setting the world record for largest group performing the Chicken Dance en masse.)

While wandering around September/Oktoberfest, we came across a batter-dipped, deep-fried, powdered-sugar-covered peanut butter and jelly sandwich available from one of the food vendors.

While ogling the sandwich with shock and awe, we met three guys who were on the verge of splitting one such sandwich. They let us take these pictures of their gastronomic moment of glory. They did not die. At least not while we were still there to witness it.

We then stumbled upon the Hudepohl Beer Glockenspiel Clock Tower where a phenomenal British announcer was drumming up crowd excitement for the World Bratwurst Eating Championships, in which last year's winner, Joey "Jaws" Chestnut, was about to defend his title against a dude in a lucha libre Mexican wrestling mask. You can't make this stuff up.

Joey ate 32 bratwurst in 10 minutes. Then he ate another 5 bratwurst in 1 minute to seal the championship. In contrast, I've eaten about 5 bratwurst in 31 years.

To quote the announcer, it was "the greatest event in all of recorded gastric history. The Mount Sinai of mastication."

Here's how Joey Jaws felt about his accomplishment:

Here's how we felt while watching his accomplishment:

If you've never watched a grown man ingest 32 brats in 10 minutes, you simply wouldn't understand the mix of mute horror and admiration.

With that in mind:
The next time you're feeling down, truly low, like you've already given all you have to give, dig deep inside yourself and remember that there's always room for 5 more bratwurst.

Up Past My Bedtime with Elton John

When we were kids, my sisters and I were contentious little goobers who would bicker with each other over inconsequential things (often Barbie-related), then get sent off to time-out in separate rooms until we could be peaceful again. While we were fighting we couldn't stand each other, but the instant we were separated for time-out, an odd thing would happen.

I'll get to the odd thing in a moment. First, a bit of background on the architectural quirks of the house where I spent my early childhood:

It was a squatty adobe built sometime pre-1900's. Up in the attic, two tiny bedrooms with ~4' ceilings had been framed out. Along the lowest wall, there was an unlit, dusty, mousy crawlspace connecting the two bedrooms for anyone brave enough to make the journey across the exposed rafters.

Now back to the odd phenomenon:

As soon as we were separated--Janene or Bonnie to one attic bedroom, and me to the other--we'd suddenly feel like best friends again, and it would seem like a wonderful idea to crawl through that dark, dirty, decrepit attic space in order to secretly hang out with each other during time-out. Under no other circumstances did that crawlspace hold any appeal. Under no other circumstances did we like each other that much.

I wonder why everyday stuff is so much more appealing when it's off limits? Why would a simple change of circumstance make something mundane or frankly unpleasant become fun?

If I knew the answer to that, I'd also know why it was so delightful to get up at midnight to bicycle 18 miles through random parts of St Louis as part of the Moonlight Ramble last night (http://www.moonlightramble.com/).

Biking = Normal activity

Midnight = Rather be sleeping than riding a bike

Soulard district = Yikes! Not exactly safe at night.

But somehow, when you bring all those components together with all the roads closed to car traffic, and 10,000 other people on bicycles, it's a dang good time.

...especially when we found out that Dave's black shirt lights up like an Elton John stage costume whenever a camera flash goes off.

He's a Rocket Man.

...It kind of puts my rumply T-shirt to shame.