Weekend List!

Sarah's List:

My husband is the type of person who invests time in getting 30 eight-year-olds to sort their school supplies by color. I'm the type of wife who sneaks in his classroom and does this:

Heh, heh, take that 8-year-olds. Nobody's growing up organized on my watch!
(There are 6 more baskets just like this one. That's 48 perfectly sorted cups.)

After seeing this, he immediately turns a color that would send him straight to the red cup. So I sent him this link, 30 Infuriating Images That Will Trigger Your OCD. He had a hard time recovering.

I imagine these organization/order folks would enjoy searching the Smithsonian's National Design Museum by color.

How does this guy get cataloged?

  by  Brett Jordan 

Want to have an adventure? Join the Peace Corps. The deadline to sign-up is quickly approaching. Want to get married? Join the Peace Corps. Did you know over 75% of Peace Corps folks return home in love? I believe it. The majority of couples we meet abroad fell in love in the Peace Corps, no exaggeration. Go dopamine!

New Peace Corps volunteers waiting for their flight to Chad. Can you spot our neighbor-friends James and Becca falling in love? They had just met 2 days before this photo. I'm not going to lie, I teared up a little when Becca sent me this pic. Good work Peace Corps, good work.

This Painting of the Danish Royal Family Will Steal Your Soul. Yep.

Condolence telegrams for Jackie Kennedy from MLK, Duke Ellington and more. 

Happy Thanksgiving from Congo! Where we now have Martian pineapples to add to our cornucopia. Seriously, what is this thing? Oh wait, just Googled it. It's a real plant.

Ananas bracteatus.

Be sure to stay tuned next week for more posts about making that Moving Abroad leap. And a very special guest post.

Jill's List:

It's that time of year when I start to fake shop.  (Remember?)  Currently open in my browser is this, this, and this.  Stay tuned for an excellent fluff post about my newest found-in-Kinshasa beauty obsession.

An image from the spanish subvertising group ConsumeHastaMorir, www.consumehastamorir.org

Ordering ten pounds of these.  We really like them "dark, oily, and swarthy."  Oh, and one of these so my parents can transport the precious cargo when they come for their Christmas visit.  Best "suitcase" ever.

"Suitcase" that doubles as closet storage.

Speaking of caffeine...are my years in Seattle to blame for my tendency towards maybespeak?  Hmm.  Maybe.  That sounds interesting.  I'll have to check.

This girl has inherited none of my wishy washy-ness.
Here she is telling me in no uncertain terms that she does not want her picture taken.

Looking forward to seeing my kid play a very white, very blond version of a Siamese prince.  A full community orchestra, featuring these folks among others, will be providing the soundtrack.  (Kinshasa readers: the show runs December 5-7 at 6:30pm at TASOK.  Tickets are $10 in advance/$15 at the door!)  Such an interesting musical for this post-colonial setting.  Apparently, the Brits hashed this issue out way back in 2001.  Thoughts?

Two exciting food finds yesterday:  gelatin sheets (planning to try some of this), and "Magic Time", dinosaur-themed, boxed macaroni and cheese.  Gelatin sheets = success.  Macaroni and cheese = full of bugs.  Damn, I hate that.

Trying to figure out a way to get a pair of Kenyan Bata desert boots in size 11/46 to Kinshasa for Christmas.  Any ideas?  I can't even seem to find them on eBay...

Two recent examples of fabulous grocery graphic design.

Thinking that the peppermint flavor should go into some sort of festive baked good, like these.  But, the bottle seems to scream heavy metals! or something else similarly un-festive.

As Kony "considers" surrender, the guy who has been analyzing China's role in Africa writes about Congo's ghosts.

Chinese site manager.  Kinshasa 2012.

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Friday List!

Sarah's List:

Mama Congo Success! Remember when we started an all-out campaign to get Anthony Bourdain to come to Congo (Tony, COME TO MAMA)? Well it worked! Okay, who are we kidding? It was a total coincidence that he came, but still...

Here he talks about the: "Most terrifying, stressful, physically difficult shoot of his life."

Speaking of terrifying things in Congo, could the Lord's Resistance Army get any worse? I guess so, it turns out they're funded by elephant poaching. That's real classy, Kony.

Is specialization the secret to a happy marriage, home and children? Maybe so. Read all about: The Retro Housewife: Feminists who say they're having it all--by choosing to stay at home. And The Gay Guide to Wedded Bliss.

“In the morning, I’ve got kid duty; Amy doesn’t even see the kids,” says Isabelle Dikland. “She does pickup and makes dinner every night.” (Gail Albert Halaban). Image from TheAtlantic here.

If you're reading this, there's a good chance we're somewhere over the Atlantic struggling with two little children. Remember Whac-a-Mole with Wings? One strategy we'll be using is car seats. Moms have tipped us off to taking your kid's car seat on the plane and it's kind of amazing. Your kids can't move and they're safe. The Car Seat Lady agrees.

You'll wish you were flying with an infant once you start flying with toddlers.

It only took 5 years, but we finally saw President Kabila. In our backyard. (Okay, he was here for an event, but it was basically our yard.) Jill and I really wished we had our Mama Congo business cards so we could slip him one. Whatever Joseph, we know you're already a fan.

And you go girls. TheGirlEffect.org.

Jill's List:

Spending today Googling "best pro-biotics for babies and their fathers" after Johan and Loulou both were told by our Belgian doc to get some to "restore stomach health."  (It's so funny how it's totally normal to get a script for Arnica, pro-biotics, or St. John's Wort from this doctor - he's not exactly crunchy.  Turns out it just more the Euro-norm.  Unfortunately, he hasn't quite realized that the pharmacies in Congo don't carry many of these lovely things.)  At least they've been thoroughly checked out by a guy who knows his way around a parasite or amoeba infestation.  I had nightmares that after returning to the States next week and saying, "Yeah, my kid's been vomiting off and on for a week...and we live in the Congo," the CDC Special Investigation Team would be called in for a simple virus.

Image from BioGaia website.  Anyone every tried these?  The packaging sure is cute!

Okay.  I also somehow managed to find this incredible bag during my exhaustive search in the name of my family's health:

Beautiful Besace bag "for the well-traveled woman" from Clair Vivier.

Four or so years ago, we hosted a dinner party at our home in Harrisonburg to spread the word and garner support for an idea.  That idea has been up and going strong for two years now.  Congrats, Friendly City Food Co-op!

Image from here.

This has been making the rounds like crazy - but it is so interesting.  (I say "Crawdad" - why?!  It doesn't match!)





Extremely excited for Istanbul this weekend.  What a week to visit!  The most interesting thing for us?  Everyone we've chatted with in Istanbul says that this is an "unprecedented" time in Turkish history and our family is super lucky to get a glimpse.  Absolutely no one has acted worried or concerned that we would be planning a little family va-cay in the middle of a monumental demonstration.  We are hoping to meet up with a friend of a friend (for coffee, of course) on Tuesday so that she can fill us in on everything.

Image from BBC.

Craving Paneer Saag by John and Rama.  Hopefully, I will have eaten at least 5 servings before the next Friday List.

Image from our friends at I Love My Burg.

Babies in boxes = public health is awesome. (Imagine the possibilities...)

Image from BBC.com

And.  A sweet blog I've been looking through this week.

Finally, we know some weirdos who do this here in Kinshasa...

The oddball club got its start 75 years ago in prewar Malaysia and now has nearly 2,000 chapters spanning all seven continents. It began with a group of British colonial officers and expats looking for ways to ease their weekend hangovers. The name came from their billet, often referred to as the Hash House, where they'd eat their monotonous corned-beef dinners, and the pastime they came up with was a wilder version of a British paper chase.

Kinshasa Hash House Harriers picture from here.

***many apologies for the lack of a pink arrow this week...we're between computers***

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