December 31, 2010

I just got back from a long, snowy walk in the park near my aunt's house. There were several adorable dogs, some charming children sledding on their wooden toboggan and giant dirty snowballs recently rolled by the locals. 

Since my aunt lives on the seventh floor, we have a great view of the surrounding neighborhood. Her balcony is just at the level where the birds fly and there are a couple of resident flocks of seagulls and pigeons. The other day, I was outside and I heard a sharp birdcall that couldn't have come from either of the above- mentioned species. There was a bright green bird being hotly pursued by a crow. I was pretty sure it was a parrot! I told my cousin about it and he said that indeed, there was a flock of parrots (or parakeets or lorikeets or whatever) living in the park nearby. Apparently there had been an incident in which a truck full of parrots had gotten into an accident and the cargo doors had burst open and all the parrots had escaped. Did you ever see the movie "The Parrots of Telegraph Hill"? It's a documentary about the wild parrots of San Francisco and the man who takes care of them. Anyway, people tell the same origin story for the San Franciscan parrots. I dunno, I mean when do you ever see giant shipments of parrots? Maybe in the olden days people bought parrots in bulk.

Regardless of where they came from, they settled in the park we went for a walk in today. We caught a glimpse of them high up in a tree and heard their birdcalls all over the place. Cute.

It was my last day of class today. I had a lesson with Manu in the morning. We chatted about this and that and hung out in the courtyard drinking more beverages out of those plastic cups. Janice and Po Suan were in fine form today, though they were stumped when it came to conjugating Avoir. Manu tried again, in vain, to explain the pronunciation of e-s-t, by saying, "you know, the way the Italians say it 'eh'!" (he made that universal hand gesture that conveys that you are doing or saying something Italian - you know what I mean?). To no avail.

I said au revoir and happy new year to the crew and went home for lunch. My aunt had prepared the traditional New Year's dish of my kinsman for lunch, Kapustnica. It's a sour cabbage stew with tomato and sausage and paprika. Delicious! It's customary to put in a small object such as a stone or coin and who ever finds it has either good luck or a broken tooth. Just kidding about that last part.

After lunch we sat around a bit and then set off for our walk. We searched in vain for sparklers to sparkle in the New Year, but came home empty handed. I did buy some playing cards though, for hot African nights under the mosquito net.

Things in CI don't seem to be getting any better. Marco has been filing a lot of stories. Here's his latest http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/africa-mideast/ivory-coast-in-a-state-of-civil-war/article1853978/

I've been thinking about New Year's resolutions. Mine are as follows:

1. I resolve to really see the present and live live live now, in the moment

2. I resolve to assume the best 

3. I resolve not to throw stones in my glass house

4. I resolve to not to pave a road to hell

Just kidding about those last two.