The more things change,...

So, there are things that change, there are things that run constant. I have always thought back to the fact that if I have expectations of someone, I have taken away his/her humanity. One cannot expect machine-like behavior from a person.

When I tried to weasel in a place for my wife to accompany me to Burundi, I was told that the policy of it being an unaccompanied post had been reinforced. They (the powers that be, whatever they be) have sound, security-based reasons, I am sure, although when I talk to the person responsible for enforcing the policy, she tells me about the lovely night on the town she just had with her friends, etc. And I was worried about the possibility that I would have a reserved spot on a UN flight, but my wife would be left behind.

In my recently-retired work-or-nothing attitude, that would have been okay. But it was a very difficult decision for me to give up my hedonistic lifestyle. (My mother once labeled one of my undergraduate T-shirts “hedonistic,” and I had lived by it ever since. On the other hand, at 82 years old, she is sending me unsolicited letters on how to get the most out of sex with my wife. Gotta love the spirit!) When I decided to get married, this time, I weighed the potential lifestyle changes, and in the end got married. Oh, we had our fights, and I had physically thrown her out of the house on more than one occasion. But once I decided, there was no temptation that would sway me. It was a tough decision, believe me. Too much fun just inspires more fun. But I like her a lot, that is, beyond loving her.

Way back in 1980, I did an internship at an environmental engineering firm near Yale University. There was a Chinese grad student in the house where I rented a room, and one night he read my palm. He basically predicted my marriage and divorce from my first wife (which happened about ten years later), and that I would spend about ten years searching, then find the happily-ever-after woman for me. I have always considered this in retrospect, rather than as a prediction of what is to come. But I have a good feeling, and a strong commitment, about this.

My wife still suspects every little thing I do. In some ways, she is right to do so, but not from my ‘intentions’ side of things. In our little ville of Antalaha, getting married to a vazaha is a potential goldmine to which no one woman should be privy. The undercutting, nastiness of women is played out in all its splendor. There are several things that must be in the genetic make-up of women (as there are in men, scratch-scratch-spit) that just flabbergasts me to arrive in a new country and to be able to predict certain behaviors. Women the world over do a head-to-toe-to-head check-over of new arrivals. By their own admission. I know, no big news.

I never had any idea about my parents’ sex life, or even their non-parental aspects of life. I am the youngest of four, and my parents were 39 and 36 when I was born. Heh, here I am at 45 intending to have children with my 25 year old wife. I have given up enough sperm in my life to populate a small nation, so let’s hope there’s enough left for our little family niche in the world!

I probably won’t be a good parent. I am a really effective manager, but I have often said that I could never be a Country Director in the organization until I had kids and learned the finer techniques of negotiation. Everything in its time.