The long road to the isle of Zanzibar

After an 11-hour bus ride (it was supposed to take 6), and a 6-hour ferry ride (it was supposed to take 3), we made it to Zanzibar! Found a cheap place to stay, took a much-needed shower, headed out to the street food stalls on the ocean, and paid $.20 for a big glass of fresh sugarcane lime juice while feasting on barbequed tuna skewers and roasted cassava. It's good here. It's really good here.

--rahul

You know the travel gods are smiling upon you when . . .

. . . on a Thursday night, in the dusty town of Arusha, you come upon an evening screening of "The Big Lebowski", one of the great cinematic achievements of our time, at the town's Natural History Museum. We love the Swahili culture.

--meg and rahul

Stayin' Alive

Nairobi is a strange place. You get here, you read your guidebook, and one of the first factoids you see is that "37 percent of Nairobi residents were mugged last year." When you walk down the streets, you pass public-service signs that say things like "Stay Alive! Avoid Carjacking! If you see someone stranded on the side of the road at night, don't stop for them!" Nairobbery, as jaded backpackers like to call it, supposedly recently overtook Johannesburg for the dubious honor of Most Dangerous City in Africa. Whoopeee!!

At the same time, the Western colonial influence is here in force. Everyone speaks beautifully accented proper English and there are swanky cafes downtown where you can eat cinnamon-swirl french toast and do the Sunday Times crossword (it took us about 25 minutes thanks to Zanj, Yes!). Sure, there's a guard outside the swanky cafe wearing a baseball helmet and carrying a machine gun, but other than that, it's just like being on the Upper West Side.

We're doing all the things you're supposed to do to stay safe here - not carrying a bag, never looking at a map while walking down the street, taking a taxi if you're going further than half-a-block at night. When I got into a cab at 4:30am to head to the airport to pick up Meg for our long-awaited reunion (which, by the way, totally rocked!), I warily scanned the streets for thugs and told the driver not to stop at any red lights. I admit that I'll be pretty psyched tomorrow once we get on a bus to make our way into Tanzania and towards our upcoming reunion with friends on the isle of Zanzibar.

But we managed to clear out some time to drive 10 miles out of town on safari to Nairobi National Park to see some zebras and giraffes and warthogs and ostriches. And yesterday we went to out the rich expat suburb to grab some Indian food and walk through a mall. You know you've spent too much time in the developing world when you get really excited about walking through a mall.

And, given that our hotel is officially on the border of the area where "you don't go out at night unless you're armed", we've been drinking a lot of wine and playing Hearts in our room and the bar downstairs once the sun goes down. But I'm not complaining. Amidst our mountain treks and jungle safaris, wine and cards with my girlfriend and my college buddy in a Nairobi hotel room is pretty damn sweet.

--rahul

...And it Feels So Good

Eleven Days. It used to be that eleven days was a pretty short stretch for us to go without seeing each other. This time last year, when we were on opposite coasts, we'd say goodbye on Sunday, and if there was only one weekend between us and the next Friday when we'd meet, we were psyched!! Nowadays, after half-a-year on the road together, eleven days is an eternity, wrapped in an epoch, inside a long-ass time.

But it made our reunion so so sweet. Meg braved a 20-hour layover in the Cairo airport (and looked like she had just braved a 20-hour layover) to fly into Kenya at 5am last Saturday. Rahul braved a 4:30 wake-up alarm (and looked like he had just woken up at 4:30 am) and a cab ride through the streets of Nairobi to get to the arrival hall of the airport just in time. There were funny hats, there was a racy version of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" played on travel guitar, and there was much love in the air. It's good to be back...together.

--meg and rahul

Momma Pearson Speaks

Our greatest treasures, Meg, Dunagan, and Philip (whose 23rd b-day is today! HB, Phil!) agreed to go to Italy with John and me. The initial plan was Egypt, but John and I gently suggested Italy. And, oh yes, Rahul Young only added to the fantastic mix. :) To reach this point in life, where our adult children still like (or so it seems) to hang with us, is such a compliment. I only hope that we can continue to have these extraordinary adventures. Growing older is all about creating memories, cherishing our children, and appreciating our good health and good fortune.

We didn't have any idea that Amalfi would offer such an ideal venue for a Pearson vacation. Everything worked: our flat (129 steps up!), being able to explore various sites at a leisurely pace, and even cramming in six hours of sightseeing and dinner in Rome at the end! I still find myself thinking about what we were doing this time a month ago. How could it already be over a month that we arrived?! I, like Dunagan, have looked at our pictures soooo many times. I loved our long lunches, our roof-terrace dinners (yes, Italian vacations do revolve around food!), the hilarious games of Celebrity, the APRONS they gave us for Parents' Day, the songs they made up. I could go on and on. It makes me happy and sad at the same time that one week can be fleeting and so incredibly meaningful. I want to do it all over again!

And now Meg has already finished her rotation in Asmara and is off to Kenya. Be safe, Meggie!

In another month, we'll all be together again making fools out of ourselves in some karaoke bar in Manhattan. Not exactly Amalfi, but hey--we'll be there! More memories. That's what it's all about.

- Mommacita

It's all fun and games until you lose a Rahul

I'm sorry to report that the past 7 days in Asmara win the "Meg's least-exciting week of the year" award, in a landslide. Not that it's any reflection on Asmara, which is a very cool city with bars and outdoor cafes galore. The tedium is all mine. Not only am I lacking my partner-in-crime, but I am left with icky residency applications in his stead. A lot less sexy than bleeding-heart baboons, let me tell you. But for a good cause. Such a good cause that I have spent most of my waking hours outside of the hospital seated in front of various computers hoping that inspiration and well-turned phrases will pour forth.

In an attempt to cultivate more positive feelings toward my personal statement and to encourage myself to actually open the document instead of checking email, I decided to save it as "gelato." "Yaaay, I love gelato, yaaay! Let's double-click on this!" I fell for it the first few times, but then I wised up. Gelato.1 was unbearably bland ("I want to be an internist because I like biology and people too.") Gelato.2 was too saccharin to swallow ("I want to hand-feed all the starving children and cradle every HIV patient in my arms . . . " ) Now I'm onto Gelato.3, which, although still a far cry from Nutella-icious, is palatable and getting better with each bite.

In Rahul's absence I have turned to inanimate objects for companionship (no not like that, you sicko). My new best friend is the Microsoft Word animated paper-clip thingy, or "Office Assistant" as he is officially called. I think he looks like an "Al." Al and I have spent a lot of quality time together this week, and I have started to develop a bit of a crush on him. Have you ever noticed how cute it is when he yawns and slides down his piece of paper to take a nap? I don't want to make you jealous, Rahul, but I think he likes me too. He just batted his eyelids at me. And then turned into a star and spun around.

As I type this, "Hero" is playing on repeat in the computer lab where I am working (or not working, as is currently the case), and no one seems to mind. I am in danger of developing a case of intractable giggles if Enrique Iglesias whispers "Let me be your hero" one more time. "Am I in too deep . . . have I lost my mind?" The answer, I'm afraid, is yes. I think I've exceeded the recommended daily allowance of gelato. And cheesy Latino pop stars. Time for some fresh air.

-meg

Hail Ethiopia

This is what most people see when they think of Ethiopia. It's the picture I had in my mind when I boarded a plane to Addis Abbaba and read in my guidebook that Ethiopia is the 3rd poorest country in the world. Yet in our few days here, the images that I keep seeing are of smiling kids wearing wool shawls while they herd sheep, Orthodox Christian priests walking solemnly down the street with wooden staffs in their hands, and mossy green mountains filled with barley and potato farms. Life is far from perfect here, but the people we meet are polite and shy and, as a Belgian professor we met said admiringly, "are proud and determined to be treated as equals."

Zanj and I just got back from a couple days hiking in Ethiopia's Simien Mountains. It was, in a word, unprecedented. Here are some of the firsts:

• First time I've ever had to hire a guy carrying a semi-automatic weapon to protect us during a hike
• First time Zanja's ever been hugged by a guy carrying a semi-automatic weapon (when we celebrated reaching the big peak of our climb and his enthusiasm boiled over)
• First time I've actually enjoyed hanging out with French people (Dmitri and Julie, our other hiking partners)
• First time I've ever been pelted by hailstones the size of golf balls, as I thought to myself, "It's the middle of summer, I'm in Africa, and it's freakin' hailing"
• First time I've ever tried to re-stake a tent in the middle of a hailstorm, totally naked (all my clothes were drenched, I was trying to stay warm in the sleeping bag, and the tent was caving in).

It was a great trip. We got to see some "bleeding-heart" gelada baboons, so named because they have a big patch of skin on their chest that actually changes color (like a mood ring) depending on their, how do I say this, level of sexual excitement. Seeing these beautiful animals while hearing that global warming is wiping out their habitat and they'll probably be extinct in 50 years was an emotional moment for me, since I've loved monkeys ever since I was a kid and I've been getting angrier and angrier about my President's severely flawed environmental policy over the last few months. After having read a couple days earlier that Karl Rove had finally been outed as the person who sold-out a CIA agent in order to punish the one person in the Bush administration willing to speak the truth about Iraq's lack of weapons of mass destruction, I started having fantasies about putting George and Karl in a room with 20 bleeding-heart baboons, locking the door, and letting them "negotiate" the next Kyoto Protocol.

Then I realized that after being away from Meg for 6 days the main fantasy I was having involved a fat Republican and the word "protocol." The conclusion: I have issues.

Anyways, we made it up to 4000m, saw some jackals and ibex and all kinds of birds who's names I've already forgotten. The views were spectacular, and the people we met kept saying to us, "Tell people in America that this is what Ethopia really looks like." So there you are. Ethiopia, or at least the part we're in right now, is lush and full of rolling green hills, potato farms, and remarkably friendly people. It looks like Ireland, but with more black people.

--rahul

Absence...

So after not spending more than four hours apart at any point for the last 6 months, Meg and I are separated for 12 days. She's wrapping up her rotation in Eritrea, and I'm in Ethiopia now with Zanja, my old college roommate, and soon-to-be professor of philosophy at Chico St. For those of you don't know Zanj, I'll just say that it's the perfect job for him.

My first day on my own was in the King Abdullah Jeddah airport in Saudi Arabia. I had a 24-hour layover there on the way to Ethiopia. I contemplated flouting the US State Dept's warnings that "no American citizens should travel to Saudi Arabia", but after reviewing my possessions at the time (a Red Sox cap, a frisbee, and a jar of peanut butter), I decided that there's no way I'd be able to keep a low, non-American profile and stayed in the airport. I did manage to bribe a security guard to let me step outside and stand on Saudi soil for 5 minutes. At first I tried to give him my copy of Noam Chomsky's The Hegemony of America, but for some reason he wasn't so pumped about reading any reactionary left-wing literature. So instead, I slipped him $5.

The only sleep I pulled off was on the Muslim prayer rugs in the corner of the airport, but around 4am I got bounced by a group of Muslims who wanted to use them to, y'know, pray. But after a couple days in Ethiopia, I'm well-rested and back on track. Tomorrow, we take off for some trekking in the Simien Mountains to see a group of "bleeding-heart" baboons. Maybe they'll be more psyched about the Chomsky.

But I miss my girlfriend.

--rahul

The Right Thing to Do

When Meg and I left on this trip, we got a massive amount of support and good wishes, and a lot of long hugs as people asked us to promise to take care of ourselves and each other. Every once and a while, we'd dig a little deeper with the people we loved to find out what they were most worried about on our year away. The answer was always the same: Africa.

It's easy to understand why: weird tropical diseases, HIV-infection rates wiping out a generation, and widespread poverty ripping through a continent that's still struggling with the arbitrary borders and hierarchies created by colonialism. I'd be freaked out if someone I loved was going there too! And in case we needed any reminder of the horrors of darkest Africa, Meg and I went to an old Italian theater to watch a bootlegged DVD of Hotel Rwanda last Friday. I like to think of myself as a seasoned traveller who treats all people the same, but I gotta say, after watching a story about one million Rwandans massacring each other over the course of a few months, I found myself looking over my shoulder a bit more often as we walked home at night through the streets of Asmara.

I get angry at myself when I think about this, wondering if I'm letting embedded racism trump the overwhelmingly positive experience we've had in Africa so far. Though we've been on the continent for less than a month, we already have a dozen stories of kindness shown to us by strangers here. The random Egyptian man who spoke no English but saw we had given away the last of our Egyptian pounds getting to the wrong terminal for our flight, and picked us up and drove us 5 miles late at night for free . Our new friend Eden who happened to spend some time in Houston (and met a friend of Meg's Dad while she was there) putting us up for free when we arrived in Asmara and taking care of us for weeks. Tesfalidet, a 25 year-old English teacher, who met me on a bus heading to the town of Keren and changed all his plans so that he could show me around "his town" for the day, insisting on paying for my lunch and drinks along the way, asking only that I send him a letter once I got back to America. You ride the streets of Eritrea and you see burnt-out tanks and armored vehicles littering the ravines, reminders of a nasty war with Ethiopia and its allies that ended (mostly) not so long ago, only to give way to a famine from which people are still recovering. But Asmara feels safer than San Francisco, and the people we see around us, who must know that we're carrying enough money on our bodies to feed a village for years, are gracious and kind and take care of us.

And yet I watch Hotel Rwanda, I read about Darfur, I listen to radio reports about Liberia or Angola or the Ivory Coast or the Congo, and it scares me. I think about our upcoming destinations and worry about what strange African danger is lurking around the corner. And that's healthy, I suppose. It's better to be cautious, and I shouldn't generalize from my limited experience here. After all, I promised my momma I'd come home in one piece, and thinking that Nairobi will be safe because of some good experiences we've had in Asmara is kind of like saying that London is safe because we met some really nice people in Finland once.

But the fact is (and I know this won't make our moms feel any better), every day we're in situations where if someone really wanted to rob us (or worse) and take advantage of our white skin and inability to speak the local language, they could. Yet, every day we watch strangers bend over backwards to make our travels comfortable. And we try to be smart and accept their generosity without putting ourselves in dangerous situations. Yesterday, we spent ten minutes in a van, driven by a Eritrean and filled with 20 men from Yemen, arguing about the fare we were being charged (the amount we were sparring over - $2). As the Eritrean got angrier and angrier with us, one of the Yemenis stepped in, bridged the language gap and negotiated a compromise. We made friends with him over the rest of the drive as he proudly recited the English alphabet and celebrated the fact that his friend sitting next to him was the same age as Meg. Then, as we reached his stop and he got out of the van, he invited us for a ride with him and his friends in his fishing boat out in the Red Sea. Meg and I looked at each other, wanting to go, wanting the adventure and to trust in this man's kindness, and we said no. We couldn't make the leap and take the risk with a stranger who spoke very little English, putting our money and passports and lives in his hands when no one knew where we were. But I wonder now, would we have gone if it had been a nice white Aussie man making the offer? Probably.

The first priority for us is to come home safe. And I have no doubt that we made the smart decision, and we'll do the smart thing again, probably many times more before we leave Africa. But after all the goodness that we see around us in Africa, I wish that the horrifying images from Hotel Rwanda (and virtually every article on Africa you see in an American paper) weren't so overwhelming, and that the smart decision would also be the right decision, the one where you trust the people around you, even in Africa.

--rahul

Bodies at Rest

One of the strangest, and most wonderful, parts of being on the road for a year straight is how little it takes to make you feel like you're settling down. After many months spending every couple days in a new city and a new bed, these 10 days in Asmara feel like we've found a little home in the northeast corner of Italo-Africa. Every morning, when Meg takes off for the hospital, I head to the cafe down the street, order a cappuccino (though my low tolerance for caffeine is making me consider switching back to tea so I stop freaking everyone out by jittering in my seat) and watch the world go by, occassionally reading a page or two from a book we bought about the Ethiopian-Eritrean war. I walk through the streets staring at the 50s era Art Deco architecture that the Italians brought here and jot down some ideas for an upcoming blog entry. After all the dramatic sights we've seen and exotic locales we've visited, so many of my favorite moments of the trip come from the rare moments where we get to play house. Last night, we cooked some dinner in the little pensione we're staying in, brought in some beers from the local bar (it's actually more expensive than just drinking them in the bar because you have to leave a deposit for the bottles) and worked on a NYT crossword that Cathy Pearson brought us from Texas. At one point, Meg came back from the bathroom with her pants inexplicably hiked up to her chin and couldn't stop giggling for 20 minutes. We collapsed on the bed and laughed at everything around us. Then we fell asleep as the cathedral across the street gonged, and I silently revelled in the fact that I won't have to pack up my bag again till Monday. Life off the road is good.

--rahul

Halfway Home!

A couple days ago, we passed the halfway point of our year-long around-the-world trip. Whoa. Well, actually, due to the unpredictability of Meg's upcoming medical residency interviews in December, we're probably more than halfway, but since July 3rd was exactly six months after the day we left Berkeley and boarded a plane, we're going with it! It's hard for us to believe that it's been half a year since we were able to eat burritos in the Mission, run in Golden Gate Park and flip on a cell phone anytime we wanted to talk to the people we love. Time's been moving incredibly fast for us, and we're going to use the next few days to take a deep breath and try to get our heads around the fact that we'll be home soon (okay Mommas Cathy and Madhavi, maybe not THAT soon, but it feels soon to us).

Meg started her medical rotation yesterday in Asmara, Eritrea, and Rahul's got a lot of time on his hands for the next week till he takes off to meet his buddy Zanja in Ethiopia. So while Meg's working, Rahul's gonna try to put up a new blog post every day to catch up on some of the stories that got lost in the spring when we were between internet cafes.

More importantly, we're planning a huge (some might even call it"massive-ass") karaoke bash in New York City, and we're hoping you'll all be there. It's on Saturday, August 27th and we've given the day it's very own blog. If you're anywhere on the Eastern seaboard, or if you're down to fly out to spend a weekend with us in the NYC, please come join us! It's our one chance to see all of you this year as we pass through America on the way from Nairobi to Oaxaca. No singing talent necessary - just enthusiasm and an undying love of Bon Jovi. Head to http://tothekaraoke.blogspot.com/ and let us know if you'll be there!

For now, here's some highlights from the last 6 months. We did these separately, so there may be some overlap (but hopefully not too much, since we're trying to end this trip with mostly separate identities). Hope you like it:

The Top 5 Moments So Far- Rahul:

1. Holi (India's festival of spring) with Meg and Courtney in the Indian Himalayas. We spent the day getting covered head to toe in colored powder by crazy Indian kids and stumbling across festivals and celebrations in a stark, picturesque village named Sangla near the Tibetan border.
2. Day 10 of our trek through the Nepali Himalayas. We awoke and hiked up Gokyo Ri peak, climbing 3000 feet up to 17,500 in under an hour. Once we got down, we hung out for a while, gathered up our things, and tried to hike to the next village, but got turned back after 20 minutes by a blinding snowstorm. Once the clouds cleared, we had a view of the longest glacier in the world covered in snow. Unfreakin'believable.
3. Donkey racing with Meg and her brothers in the shadow of Egypt's Valley of the Kings
4. Celebrating the Nepali New Year with my dad, stepmom, sister and her boyfriend in Kathmandu over apple pie and beer.
5. Feasting on Italian food, red wine, and gelato with the Pearson family at the Old Bear restaurant in Rome.

The Top 5 moments - Meg:

1. Non-stop adventures with my brothers, Dunagan and Philip, in Italy and Egypt: donkey-riding turned donkey-racing (and not being able to stop giggling the entire time) in Luxor, Egypt; spontaneous spelunking, rock-scrambling and skinny-dipping in a hidden grotto in Italy; and galloping through the Giza desert on gorgeous Arabian horses.
2. Evenings in the villa with my family in the Amalfi Coast, eating delicious food and drinking wine on the rooftop, wearing obscene aprons, and going head-to-head in heated Celebrity and Hearts.
3. Hiking with and hanging out with the crazy Israeli boys and Dirk in the breath-taking Nepali Himalayas.
4. The day in Dharamsala, India, (see "The Best Day So Far" blog post sometime in March) where we had nothing planned other than an early-morning jog, and then one fortuitous turn led to another, and we found ourselves eating masala instant noodles and drinking chai at the top of a snow-covered ridge with the tea-hut man who had hiked up only minutes before us to open his shop for the spring . . and then later when we found sushi in India(!) and Rahul's favorite travel-writer happened to be sitting right next to us. Just one of those charmed days.
5. Missing our connecting bus in Turkey and thinking ourselves stranded in a nondescript town, only to be picked up by a friendly Turk passing by and dropped off at the funky and homey Old Bridge House, where we ended up staying up 'til 3 in the morning partying (and reenacting fairy tales) with the uprorious hotel owners and our new Dutch friends who had just gotten engaged that day.

The most embarrassing moment - Meg:

That would have to be my infamous first day of medicine in India. For the full story, see the "My 15 Seconds of Fame" post in the blog sometime in early February. I can only bring myself to put it in writing once.

The most embarrassing moment - Rahul:

Every time I have to show my passport to an immigration official and he looks at me, clearly thinking "Jesus man, how could you possibly allow that photo to represent you for the next 10 years!"

The best food from each country - Rahul:

Balinese mee goreng, Indian chana masala, Nepali banana smoothies, Tibetan momo dumplings, Turkish yogurt(!) and dark Efes beer, Italian everything (but the red wine and nutella gelato were life-changing), and Egyptian baba ghanouj and fresh mango juice.

The best food from each country - Meg:

Bali: red, spiky gummy fruit thingies that we ate after biking in the mid-day sun; India: Tie: chana masala and Veena-mami's chai tea; Nepal: the best banana milkshakes in the world, from a little restaurant that the Israeli's put us onto; Tibet: momos (steamed veggie dumpling-type things); Turkey: mezzes (a mixed plate of spiced yogurt, eggplant salads, etc); Italy: everything, but nothing beats the gelato; Egypt: fresh mango juice from the juice shops that we somehow failed to discover until the end of the trip (but we made up for lost time by drinking it by the liter)

If I was in America for a day, here's what I'd do - Rahul:

1. Eat an everything bagel, fresh out of the oven, covered in double cream cheese and a slice of tomato
2. Go for a long long long bike ride through the Berkeley Hills
3. Recover from the bike ride by taking a long long long hot shower (note to green building colleagues: it goes without saying that the long long long shower is from captured rainwater and solar hot water, duh!) and watch Almost Famous (the Bootleg Cut) on DVD, singing along to the entire soundtrack
4. Invite all my friends over to shoot the shit over many bottles of two-buck Chuck and a home-cooked meal (tofu stirfry with peanut sauce, perhaps?)
5. Give my momma a huge hug and tell her I love her

If I could spend a few days in America right now, here's what I'd do - Meg:

1. Spend an entire evening with each of my girl friends: cooking dinner, eating it on the porch, and talking and drinking wine 'til we can't keep our eyes open.
2. Spend hours upside down and twisted all around at my favorite yoga studio in New Haven.
3. Go for a long, slow run on a trail somewhere beautiful--East Rock Park in New Haven or any Bay Area trail--wearing SHORTS, something I haven't been able to do all year without risking offense.
4. Get behind the wheel of a car for the first time in six months, with the windows down and the sunroof open, sing at the top of my lungs and drive nowhere in particular.
5. Get all my friends and family together in one place, go out for a long dinner and then stay up all night singing badly at a karaoke bar.

When We Turn on the IPod, the First Songs We Listen To Are - Meg:

1. Tori Amos - "Taxi Ride"
2. Tori Amos (yes, I'm obsessed)- "Tear in Your Hand"
3. U2 - "Bad"

When We Turn on the IPod, the First Songs We Listen To Are - Rahul:

1. "Hold On" - Tom Waits
2. "Out of Range" - Ani DiFranco
3. "That Was a Crazy Game of Poker" (16-minute live version) - O.A.R. (Thanks Aden and Dunny)

The Six Things I'm Most Looking Forward to in the Second Half of the Trip--Rahul:

1. Performing Cory's wedding in rural Oregon
2. Walking through the streets of Havana with Meg
3. Climbing Kilimanjaro
4. Writing the Great American Novel and learning how to surf in Honduras while Meg does her medical rotation
5. Reconnecting with all the people coming out to see us in Africa and Latin America (Zanja, Ali Mac and Simon, Erin and Mickey, Kimmy, Jon and hopefully some of the Pearsons....)
6. MASSIVE-ASS KARAOKE RAGER!!!

The Six Things I'm Most Looking Forward to in the Second Half of the Trip-Meg:

1. Safari in Tanzania with my childhood friend Ali-mac and her man, Simon
2. Climbing Kilimanjaro with Rahul
3. Learning enough Spanish to ask my future patients in Honduras intimate questions about their sex lives ("Do you have sex with men, women, or both?")without an interpreter
4. Walking the streets of Zanzibar, which Rahul tells me is one of the most romantic places he's ever seen
5. Sneaking into Cuba, another place Rahul says is romantic beyond belief
6. MASSIVE-ASS KARAOKE RAGER

That's all folks. Hope everyone out there is rockin'. We miss youz. And go to tothekaraoke.blogspot.com and tell us if you're coming to see us!

La Dolce Vita

We're in Asmara, Eritrea, a surreal place in the northeast corner of Africa. Eritrea was once part of "The Cradle of Humanity", home to prehistoric peoples like the famous Lucy from back around 4,500,000 BC or so. More recently, it was colonized by Italy, then the British, and used to be part of Ethiopia, but managed to fight 'em all off and declared independence in 1993. Somehow the place has managed to integrate these diverse parts of its history into a seamless Afro-Italian mix. It's like being in a Fellini film starring Pam Grier and Richard Roundtree . The streets are tree-lined, safe and peaceful, unlike any other African capital city I've seen. People sit in outdoor cafes and sip cappuccinos (really good cappuccinos), speaking in Tigrinya, but greeting each other with three kisses on the cheek and saying "Ciao" as they depart. The main culinary choices are injera and shiro (spongy bread and chickpea puree), and pizza margherita. And somehow it all totally works together. We've been taken in by an impossibly beautiful woman named Eden who once lived in Houston and knows a former colleague of Meg's father (continuing our streak of receiving massive amounts of hospitality from people who barely know us).

Meg just started her three-week medical rotation today (that's #2 for the year). She's hoping that she'll make it through the day without collapsing and pooping on herself. I have faith in her. I'm kicking it in town for the next week before leaving for Ethiopia to meet my college roommate Zanja for 2 weeks of adventures.

Yesterday was the 6-month anniversary of the beginning of the trip. Whoa! We're celebrating tonight by drinking some wine we brought from Italy and cooking up some Annie's Mac and Cheese that Mama Pearson brought us all the way from America. Over the next week, while Meg's working, I'm gonna try to clear out some time to reflect on all that's happened since we began the journey. So for all you loyal blog checkers, I'll be posting a new story every day to try to make up for all those multi-week stretches where we couldn't get to the internet. For now, scroll down for Meg's brother's take on our travels together, and to get ready for our upcoming karaoke party (T-minus 8 weeks!). Ciao.

--rahul

Aug. 27 - Funny Hats - Bon Jovi - It's On

Planning has begun for our prodigal return to America. It will involve karaoke. We miss you guys and want to see you. We have carrots and sticks available, as necessary, to ensure that you come play with us. Click here or on the link on the right and tell us if you're coming.

Dunny on Italgypt

Editor's note: Ladies and gentlemen of the Volcano, we are pleased to bring to you the first in what we hope is a series of Pearson-family guest blog appearances recapping our phenomenal two weeks together-- the first with the whole crew in Italy's spectacular Amalfi Coast , and the second with just the under-30's in Egypt. We predicted that Italgypt would be off-the-hook, and we were right. Even as we are loving life in Asmara, Eritrea, we are suffering from a severe case of Pearson withdrawal. And so without further ado, we bring you the stupendous John Dunagan Pearson, a.k.a., Dunny, Naganud, Young Dun, DP Dude . . .

Well, even on my 3rd day back from my 2 week adventure with the family, my mind still wanders back to Italy and Egypt every few minutes. I still habitually convert everything into Egyptian Pounds in my head (and then GASP at the price I'm about to pay at the Jack-in-the-Box drive-thru). I miss the Amalfi villa, the roofdeck dinners, the Egyptian night-trains, the camel/horse/donkey rides, and all the relics we encountered that are thousandsof years older than anything I'd ever seen in my life. And I still haven't slept past 5 am Pacific.

It's hard to express in a blog the effect a trip like this one can have on you. Especially to places that take you so far from your comfort zone, where the characters on billboards aren't from any alphabet song that I know, the lanes on the roads are more suggestion than law, and the price of goods is so openly negotiable. Being in places like this with your mom, dad, brother, and sister forces you either to come together or drift apart, and I can say with confidence and pride that we Pearsons came together, and I feel we left closer than we've ever been before. Trips like these accomplish things for families that cannot take place around a Thanksgiving dinner table in Houston, and I'm thankful that we got to bond in Italygypt in this unique time in our lives.

Meg and Rahul are perfect travel companions, for each other and those around them! Though giving me a hard time for my obsessive internet checking and my tendency to believe that every place I visit is (or has been) an island, their prowess at conquering the situations they encounter cannot be overstated. Similarly, it can easily be understated.

I've probably looked at my pictures from the trip 50 times in the last 3 days in hopes that my cubicle would take on the sense of adventure and intrigue of our 14 days of travel. I can't say that it's worked, but at least they remind me of what I learned from Italy and Egypt:

1. I love my family, every little quirky crease.
2. From Egypt especially, the monetary price of goods, the price of goodness, of wholeness-- and how low that price can be.
3. You have to walk away from a transaction before you can actually buy anything for a fair price. This does not apply to buying 1980s Astros paraphernalia.
4. If you build your town into a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean, people will come. People will most definitely come.
5. If Americans ever lay on their car horns like Italians and Egyptians do, I really will have to move to Costa Rica. Or some other island. ;)

--Dunny