The Latest Diet Trend

Since we moved here, I’ve lost a lot of weight. It’s weight I gained while pregnant with Gertrude Bell and then with Arthur Dent and just hung on to. Most of you mommies can relate, right? Well, it turns out my days of wearing those pre-kid clothes in the closet aren’t so far off. Jealous? Don’t be. You can do it too. I’m thinking of turning my success into a series of sure to be bestselling books and dvd’s. Working title: The Third World Developing Nation Diet. Lucky for you, Fellow Adventurers, I’m going to let you in on the basics. Ready?

1.Cut back on dining out.

Most restaurants here don’t open until 7 or 8 pm and that includes delivery and takeout. Since The Little Explorers go to bed at 7ish, the last time we loaded the family up and went out to dinner was…oh…never.

There’s not really any fast food here, either. No mouth watering Chipotle, no controversial Chik-Fil-A, no cool In-N-Out Burger. There is McDonalds. I find it very meh, though, so there is no temptation whatsoever there. As a matter of fact, on more than one occasion The International Man of Intrigue has offered to go pick it up and I’ve said, “Nah, I’d rather cook dinner in our unairconditioned kitchen. How do tacos sound?”

Speaking of our unairconditioned kitchen, that is my next secret:

2.No evening snacking (or not much).

See, that hot kitchen does, in fact, cool down once it gets dark outside, but it’s s-c-c-aaarry! I’m not much of a fraidy cat. I actually feel quite comfortable in our house alone, except for the kitchen, and especially that kitchen after dark. The kitchen is connected to the rest of the house, but it’s really more or less a separate building. I’m sure it was open at one time. There are still a lot of spots where I can see daylight coming in and the windows really don’t keep much out. I’m not entirely sure the roof does, either. Before we knew we were infested with squirrels, squirrels, and more squirrels I’d hear scratching up on the roof, like zombies trying to get in. Then there was the first visiting squirrel—he came in through the kitchen. There are also at least four different species of ants living there. I know there are roaches and spiders too. When I slam that door between the kitchen and the rest of the house after dinner, it stays closed until morning. I’m still kind of scared of what I’ll find in the morning, but at least it’s light outside and the monsters (or ninja monkeys) have probably clocked out for the day. Even going through the dining room to get water is scary. There are these huge reddish brown ants that only come out at night. When you turn on the light, there are always one or two walking across the table. I don’t see them do it during the day. Are they vampire ants? I can’t be sure. So, every evening after dinner, I load up my arms with a pitcher of water, a clean glass, a sippy cup for Arthur Dent, and anything else I think I might need. Once I balance a beer or a Pimm’s Cup on that, there isn’t much room for snacks.

3. I work out, kind of.

If there is one thing I hate more than working out, it’s working out while Jillian Michaels tells me what to do. I don’t like her one bit, but girlfriend knows how to get results fast. I love/hate the 30 Day Shred
because I saw results almost immediately, although I had to look at Jillian Michaels to see them. Granted, yelling at Ms. Michaels from the other side of the TV probably ramps up the cardio of the workout a bit.

When I can’t be at home to shout at my television in the evening, I find other, more insane ways to burn calories. One time I strapped 30 lb Arthur Dent to my back and climbed up around 1,000 steps to the top of the ancient ruins of Sigiriyia, mostly without the assistance of handrails, because there weren’t any. Unfortunately, I didn’t think through the part where I had to climb back down 1,000 stairs with almost no handrails and a 30 lb Little Explorer strapped to my back. It all worked out in the end, but my legs were sore for days afterward.

I admit, that is not the first or last time I’ve used Arthur Dent as a workout. He helped me sweat off several inches at the ridiculously hot Taj Mahal and was more scared than I was climbing the eighty or so stairs and in and out of passages of the Bara Imambara labrynth in India. Even here at home, I often jog up and down the stairs with him more often than I’d like, but my arm muscles do look seriously fine. Too bad no one sees them since it's considered improper in this country to show one's shoulders in public, but not to show one's midriff. True (but another) story.

4.Get sick. Really sick.

I got a touch of a stomach parasite in Dhaka, but recovered easily. Then, there was that trip to Nepal…I loved Nepal. I’d go back in a heartbeat. However, I hope that intestinal parasite that came home with me has been permanently deported from the country. I was pretty close to getting an IV on the floor of an airport in Pokhara at one point. As a testament to just how sick I was, I actually was looking forward to the idea of it. My face was numb and I was giving thoughtful consideration to the idea of just laying face down on the floor of the airport in a third world country. The stream of consciousness in my head went something like, “Oh, God, I am so dehydrated that this water isn’t even helping. I wonder if there is an IV around here? That would really hit the spot. No, probably no IV, but this is a great place for altitude sickness. There has to be an oxygen tank and mask somewhere. Who could I get to give me one of those? Would they make me pass out first? I wonder if I look sick enough. The International Man of Intrigue just looked at me from the ticket desk. Yes, based on his expression I clearly look sick enough for oxygen. My face feels funny. I can’t feel my hands. I really would like some oxygen. If I put my face on the floor would it feel better? Then I wouldn’t have to sit up either. OH, GOD! I MIGHT DIE! I AM SO SICK I’M THINKING ABOUT LAYING ON A 3RD WORLD AIRPORT FLOOR, AND IT SOUNDS GOOD! Somebody just get me a freaking Diet Coke and some oxygen. Why is there no Diet Coke or oxygen in this country?”

Those 6 kilos I lost in two days? I’m not going to lie, while they were totally not worth it, I’m not about to take them back after going through that, either! Oh, and for the record, I did not put my face (or anything other than the soles of my shoes) on the airport floor.

5. My deep, dark secret.

It was bound to come out sooner or later. The fact that I’m telling you makes me a little nervous. Please, don’t hold it against me. Don’t judge me or think crazy things about me. I know where I live. I knew how it was going to be before I moved here.

I hate curry. Not Ann Curry. I actually quite enjoy her (although I gather in my 7 months abroad that she has become as controversial as Chik-fil-a. What is going on over there, you guys?!??). I’m talking about the South Asian diet staple, curry. I hate curry. There. I said it. I am so embarrassed that telling you this is making my stomach hurt. I like naan. Rice is good. Tandoori anything is delicious. I had biryani in the city that claims to make the best biryani in the world, and it was really, really good. I could drink that green chutney stuff out of the dipping dish it’s served in. But curry? Ugh. I’ve tried lamb curry and chicken curry and cashew curry and chickpea curry and fish curry and lentil curry and vegetable curry and potato curry and just about any other kind of curry you can think of. I’ll always try new things. The problem with curry is, even though I’ve tried them all, I dislike them all almost equally. I’m not going to insult this part of the world by telling you all the reasons I don’t care for it, Fellow Adventurers, I’m just going to tell you that I don’t, and that, therefore, anywhere curry is served, I only eat a polite no-thank-you helping and hold out for the next meal, which is usually breakfast.

At breakfast in South Asia, there are donuts. They know how to make some delicious donuts over here, Fellow Adventurers. That’s one little tidbit that won’t be in the dvd or diet book. Now, the real question is, do you think anyone will buy my diet book?

Worst Case Scenario

Remember our not-so-little roof leak? And then the huge waterfall that dumped into our dining room during a dinner party? Well, that’s nothing after last night.

It’s monsoon season in Sri Lanka, which doesn’t mean at all what I thought it would. I thought monsoons would be more, well, monsoon-y. I expected a constant deluge for days on end, the kind of things you see in movies with people sitting and staring out of their thatched roof tropical hut. In reality, it is a total torrential downpour, but it comes and goes, and things return to tropical island sunny in between. Many times, the worst of it seems to come at night, as was the case last night.

All day yesterday, the wind kept picking up. When I was out running errands, I could see the choppy waves and the storm over the ocean. The International Man of Intrigue was scheduled to return from a business trip in the Maldives last night, and I was starting to get a sinking feeling the weather may not hold out for his flight. Luckily, his flight took off only 15 minutes behind schedule, but as the evening wore on, the wind worsened. Our plexiglass skylight, which was the source of our leaks, started banging up and down whenever the wind gusted. I started getting really nervous about it. After all, the two overlapping pieces of plexiglass had never seemed that secure in the first place. And our dining room waterfall? After four visits from the landlady’s henchmen, we’d given up. They kept insisting it was just the gutters needing to be cleaned, even though the embassy’s maintenance man kept telling them there were more problems. In the end, The International Man of Intrigue and I had resigned ourselves to some leaking whenever it rained, as long as it could be caught by a single bucket. By the time I put The Little Explorers to bed, the banging was worsening, and the water was gushing in. I sighed and pulled the dining room table and chairs out of the way and battened down the hatches as best I could.

The International Man of Intrigue finally arrived home from the airport and was also sufficiently impressed and concerned with the banging plexiglass to make me feel like I wasn’t a complete crazy person. He even took a short video to show to facilities maintenance so they could get an idea of the problem. Then, we retired to the family room to relax and catch up on the excitement of the week. He told me about taking water taxis and meeting interesting people. I filled him in on which Little Explorers had snot noses and fevers, leaky bathtubs, and what kind of pizza we ordered for dinner. Oh, yes, it was obvious who’d had the more exciting few days! What happened next was inevitable, I suppose. A particularly loud series of bangs caught our attention. We grabbed a flashlight to check it out, even though we were pretty sure that a large chunk of plexiglass had just ripped off and disappeared into the night. Sure enough. We now had an open air skylight. After a quick call to the embassy maintenance staff to let them know the situation, we turned in for the night. It wasn’t like anyone could show up and replace a giant piece of plexiglass in a windstorm, anyway.

You know how, when you are lying in bed, worst case scenarios and monsters start popping up in your imagination? (Please, Fellow Adventurers, tell me it’s not just me!)Well, as I let my imagination do the thinking, my biggest concern, aside from water damage, flooding, squirrels, mosquitoes, birds, structural damage, or the roof actually collapsing, was the huge breach in security from the hole in the roof. There are monkeys on this island, people. What if monkeys came into the roof? Or ninjas? Ninjas could repel into the hole in the skylight! Or ninja monkeys? Aaaaaaaaagh!

And then I fell asleep. Apparently skylights ripping off and rain coming in sound nothing like children crying, so I had an excellent night’s sleep.

Bright and early this morning, the sun was shining down through the hole in the skylight and everything looked fine. There was surprisingly little water on the floor. A lot of leaves, but surprisingly little water. The best part? No ninja monkeys! The embassy maintenance staff arrived first thing and the henchmen shortly after. The head henchman walked in to assess the damage. He looked up at the skylight and, for the first time ever, was speechless. No blaming it on leaf filled gutters or trying to find a way to pin a leaky roof on the inhabitants (because, yes, I climb up and poke holes in the roof when you’re not around). He simply blinked a few times, muttered two words in Sinhala and walked out. I have been smiling about that every since. The Intrigues: 1, Henchmen: 0! (Okay, really, the current tally is probably The Intrigues: 3, Henchmen: 47, but we won this round, and I think we get extra points for Head Henchman Dude being rendered speechless.)

It’s mid afternoon as I write this, and the skylight is currently being replaced. It looks like I can go to bed free of worry of invading ninjas. I’m not holding out much hope on this keeping the water out, though. I’ll keep you posted, Fellow Adventurers.

Our House is a Zoo

I don’t think it’s come up in conversation with you, but I am not what you'd call an “outdoorsy type.” I would rather hike through the pages of a good book than along a trail. I grew up in the country, practically the middle of nowhere, so you’d think I’d have an appreciation for the great outdoors. Nope. When my mom would force me outside, I would often take a book and sit and read on the front step, when I wasn’t convincing my little brother that it would be epic if he’d take his Big Wheel and do a Dukes of Hazard style jump off of our 6 foot tall front porch railing. Since that story has lasted well over 25 years, I’d say it was epic, indeed!

All of this hasn’t changed much as I’ve gotten older. I do have an appreciation for nature, but hiking and bird watching aren’t my thing. That being said, we have gotten to live in some amazing places when it comes to nature. Our last home was in Monterey Bay, California. We saw whales, otters, sea stars, and more in the wild. Sri Lanka is really determined to one up that. We have seen monkeys and monitor lizards in the wild. My kids have held newly hatched sea turtles. Gertrude Bell even got to take one fresh from the sand to the tank. The International Man of Intrigue and I saw a giant saltwater crocodile swimming down a river once when we were driving. It still makes my stomach turn, as I’m not entirely sure it wasn’t this guy, although I do think the one we saw was bigger.

So now we’ve established that Sri Lanka is an amazingly biodiverse ecosystem. The really interesting part is that our house is as well. Just before I sat down to type this, I was rocking Arthur Dent to sleep before his nap and I could see a parrot out in the tree. Unfortunately, most of the rest of the really interesting biodiverse ecosystem lives inside of our house. There are all kinds of bugs, including mosquitos, ants, and, most disgustingly, roaches. Once, I ran downstairs to let our gardener in to sweep the balcony. When I ran back up the stairs to our family room about forty seconds later, Arthur Dent had a tropical roach clutched in his little hand. I screamed and grabbed him, but I couldn’t bring myself to pry his fingers open and touch the roach. I shook his arm at the elbow and shrieked . The gardener looked at me like he wasn’t sure whether to offer assistance or go sweep. He finally raised one eyebrow and headed out to the patio. I’m sure he was thinking, “There’s a whole lot of crazy in this house.” Eventually, after a grueling 10 seconds or so, Arthur Dent dropped the roach and I took him to the bathroom to scrub his little hand until it was pink and germ free.

We also have little geckos that live all over the house. Arthur Dent delights in them and points and babbles every time he spots one. The rest of us enjoy them as well. I say, as long as they promise to enjoy the all-you-can-eat mosquito buffet our house offers, they are more than welcome to stay.

As I type this, the landlady’s henchmen are on the roof and the wraparound balcony trying to seal up the holes that are allowing tropical squirrels (which look a little like chipmunks) to nest in our attic and family room. Yes, adorable little tropical squirrels have taken up residence in our house. One day one was running industriously back and forth from a little hole high up the wall in our family room, along the rafters, through our bedroom and into our bathroom and presumably up to the attic. Gertrude Bell exclaimed, “Get me a ladder and I will climb up and catch it!” I sighed and hoped the thing wasn’t about to have babies in the wall. Last night after The International Man of Intrigue and I went to bed, we could hear the squirrel chirping in the attic. My big fear today is that the landlady’s henchmen have sealed up the openings to the outside without driving out our little friend. The last thing I need is a dead squirrel in the attic. I much prefer my attic squirrels alive, thank you.

The final animal I want to tell you about doesn’t live in the house. She’s my favorite, though. She’s some sort of tropical bird whose loud call is pretty distinctive. She must be semi-nocturnal, as I sometimes hear her during the night when I’m awake with Arthur Dent, and she used to wake me up every morning at the crack of dawn, rooster style. Since she has such a distinctive call, and try as I might, I’ve never seen her, I named her Kevin. The International Man of Intrigue finds my naming of Kevin alternately amusing and crazy. (Luckily, he also finds my particular brand of amusing and crazy to be irresistible.) I’m thinking of trying to catch a glimpse of Kevin by baiting her with chocolate. I’ll keep you posted.