AfricanKelli

We met up with some friends last night for dinner. I brought dessert.  

Here is the recipe I used. I’d recommend doubling the crust ingredients if you want a top, which I did, but didn’t have enough time to pull everything back out once I realized this wasn’t going to be enough. (Another baking tip I recently read in MSL is to put all of your crust ingredients in the fridge with your rolling pin for 30 minutes before rolling it out. A cold crust is a much easier one to work with. She was right!)

Also, I’d only use 6 apples. I used the recommended 9 and had a casserole dish of cinnamon and sugar apples left over. I stuck these in the oven for 30 minutes and my roommate was happy about the overage nonetheless

~AfricanKelli

I forgot I needed a visa to enter Mozambique next week. I’ve been running around trying to get my paperwork squared away last minute and have my fingers crossed my passport is back in time for me to board the plane Tuesday. Nothing like adding a monkey wrench last minute to get the stomach rumbling.

In contrast, I remembered to ask for scarves. And am so thankful I did. I attended a knitting circle (coven, one might say) last night and the ladies were fantastic. Here we are in action. They gave me two bags of beautiful scarves, hats and baby booties. I can just imagine the children who will receive these. Thank you Phoenix SNB members! You are wonderful. (Check out Pam’s creations here.)

I was doing a bit of browsing on the BackTack site today during my lunch hour and imagine my surprise when I came upon this link. Ari, you rock! Thanks so much for helping out. What wonderful knitters there are in this world.

I’m currently working on a birthday surprise for Shayla and a farewell poncho for Kacey. And I’m dreaming about Tie One On aprons for Christmas gifts for the Ya Yas. Everyone needs an apron, right? It’s a bit pathetic I’m going to miss my sewing machine when I’m gone for the next couple of weeks, but I’m excited to browse at the fabric market. Rows and rows of the most outrageous wax dyed prints. Here is a photo I took my last time in Mozambique of a baby napping with a piece of Britney Spears/Pepsi fabric. I wish I was kidding.

He’s thinking, “Why is there a half-dressed floozy on my blankie?”

And while I’m at it, here are few more good shots from the last trip. I’m getting a bit excited to go!

Gives new meaning to poor housing.

Cool tree.

Sleeping babes. (And future recipients of African Knits scarves!)

One of these days I’m going to pull and Angelia Jolie and come home with one of these sweet babies. Be forewarned. No, seriously.

Back to work, with just one more kind thank you. Atpanda took a day off next week from her busy UK schedule to meet me during a layover in London. I’ve never been out of Heathrow and am really looking forward to seeing a bit of the town, even if it is just a cafe. Thank you again Panda!

Cheers,

AfricanKelli

When I was 14, I moved to
Mexico to live for a year. I spent my sophomore year studying here and ended up being shuffled between three families. The Rocas, Mijares and Garzas treated me like one of their own, sending me off with their children to school in the morning and including me in the afternoon prayers before la comida and more importantly la siesta.

When I was 15, I moved home. But I couldn’t quite shake talking about my year in Torreón. To say I loved it wouldn’t be enough. I begged to stay. I wanted desperately to remain with my new friends and pseudo family in the comforts of Mexican suburbia. I knew jumping back into American suburbia would be difficult. It isn’t as though teenage years are free of awkwardness as is. Lucky me, I got cultural angst on top of the growth spurt and attitude problem.

My mother tried to be patient, but nearly killed me when we went to register for my junior year at the high school in our neighborhood.

“I do not want to go here.” I stood stubbornly, turning my ever so fine-tuned nose up at the rows of pedestrian lockers, the library with dusty books, the gum stains on the fading orange 1970s carpet.

“Tough.”

“No, really. I can’t believe you are sending me to public school.”

She stopped and stared at me in disbelief. Her sweet child had morphed into a snobby bitch in one year flat. There was no yellow light. I’d sped into awkward adolescence at 100 mph, hesitating only at the Mexican border. To add injury to insult, I’d begged to turn around and go the other way in lieu of returning to the American life (family) I’d left behind.

“You will go here and you will stop acting that way.”

Of course, she won. But not after I complained to everyone within earshot that my parents wouldn’t pay for the Catholic private school I wanted to attend. You see, I’d become accustomed. Oh, and by the way, had I shown off my new Spanish skills to you yet?

I don’t know how we survived that year, but it wasn’t pretty. My brother suffered the most. Our relationship had never been so strained. I hadn’t lived with a boy in a year and didn’t want to share a bathroom (gasp!) and curfew? Are you kidding me? I used to leave the house in Mexico at 11:30, not return. He would watch me argue endlessly with my parents and add fuel to the fire.

My parents gained the upper hand when my 16th birthday crept near and my grandparents parked a 1977 Hornet in the driveway. It wasn’t cool, but it was mine.

“Not so fast,” my mother said, recalling the countless stories I’d told her of the chauffeurs in Mexico and how they didn’t give me a hard time when they drove me around. “You’ll get your car when you get a better attitude. Or one of your fancy chauffeurs. Until then, you walk.”

And so sat the Hornet for four months until I “sweetened up.” I remember the social agony well. I was uncomfortable in my body, seemingly always angry with my parents and hungry for attention. Who wouldn’t want to love this? (especially when this oaf was piled into that sexy Hornet?)

By the end of the summer, I was driving to my new job, spending time with the Ya Yas and planning my future at a university.  By the time I left that “public” school, I’d fallen in love with the bricks and mortar. I threatened to fail the only class I needed (physics) to graduate so I could stay another year. Thankfully Mr. Barrett was a pain in the ass and made it easy to not want to repeat his course.

By the end of the next summer, I was moving again, crying when my mom didn’t want to spend time with me in the freshman dorm. She was crying too, but I think it was more for the money they was paying so I could live in that shit box. (or over the dent I’d put in her garage freezer that morning during a attempt at driving the moving truck)

I was sad to be leaving home – and to think, for a public university no less.

Perspective 1

Snobbiness 0

~AfricanKelli

                                                              The kitchen garden

I had a dream last night I woke up at
7 am, far oversleeping my alarm, and found myself in my childhood bedroom. Startled, I pulled myself out of the cushy folds of the waterbed (don’t ask) and plopped in over-sized cotton socks down the hallway, through the living room and the tile kitchen (careful not to lose my balance by skidding) into the living room where my father sat in his gray Lazy-Boy. I smiled at him and suddenly my brother was there too. Actually, there were two of my brother. Finally I looked at my father and said, “I’m dreaming, aren’t I?” And he smiled back and said, “Of course.”

It was Six Feet Under eerie.

I loved that house. For more reasons than I can list, but essentially because it was where I had the perfect childhood. It’s where the Easter bunny hid jelly beans, the tooth fairy hid nickels and Santa hid half-eaten cookies on the mantle. At the other baloney too. Prom dates, broken arms, swimming pool races won and lost. That home holds a million of my memories. It was a good childhood I find myself missing occasionally.

If I could have one wish it would be to turn back the clock just for a day. To have my family on the patio of the Kilarea house, eating barbeque chicken and fruit salad and arguing over something trivial. To recognize that adolescence isn’t something to run away from.

My friends find it peculiar I’ve tucked these memories so close to my heart. I wept when my parents sold the house and moved to something newer. I still get choked up when I drive by and see the landscaping has changed and the neighborhood is ailing.

Life moves by faster the older I get. I need to work on enjoying today before it all passes me by.

I finished my first sewing Back-Tack project this weekend. I’m pretty damn excited to mail it off. I picked up several of the knitting roll notions at a new knitting shop I visited Saturday. I can’t speak highly enough of the store or the owner. Jessica has every type of yarn you can imagine, in a rainbow of colors, textures and weights. There are racks of needles and jars of notions and T-shirts and purses and all things knitting! IT WAS WONDERFUL!

I promised my companion I would take no more than 15 minutes. An hour later he was drooling into a Sports Illustrated, politely begging to leave. Fair enough.

Photos of le Back-Tack roll:

Who doesn’t want knitting music and a new Vogue Knitting to go with their roll?

My first attempt at a lined zippered pocket. Not to shabby, if I may say so myself.

Ready to go.

Being dropped at the post today, with three days to spare. Phew.

On a completely different note, this woman is incredible. I’ll be keeping her in my thoughts.

Seven days until Africa,

AfricanKelli

P.S. I received seven scarves in the mail this morning for the Africa Knits project. Fab!

More than a year ago, I awoke to a heavy rain storm. The pitter patter of the raindrops falling on the patio adjoining my bedroom was peaceful and soothing. It wasn’t until I pulled myself out of bed that I noticed the water gushing out of the wall.

The roof was failing, allowing every rain drop it could into the confines of my walls. By the end of an unusually wet Phoenician spring, paint was peeling in three rooms. I was in graduate school and up to my eyeballs in applications for a summer internship. I had no time for home repair, nor the energy to figure out how I would finance it.

Graduation came and went and the roof continued to leak. It became a symbol of my procrastination. Guests would politely try not to stare at the windowsills, with their cracked, yellowing paint hanging by a thread. Friends wouldn’t mention the weather if rain was predicted. They could see how it would put me on edge. Summer monsoons, which I once coveted, became public enemy No. 1.

Finally, a roofer was called, hired and paid. I collected paint samples and hauled brushes, tarps and a borrowed ladder into my living room. It was time to take this beast on.

Several months later, the only remaining scar from the roof failure was the water stains in my bedroom, which were now growing a lovely black mold. After repeated calls that went unreturned to our family handyman, one of my girlfriends volunteered her husband for the job.

“We have sheet rock left over from a project at our house. It won’t take him long and it won’t cost you a thing.”

And so Matt and Rebecca were hired. Matt for the work, Rebecca for the drinking and critique of that silly dance show with the celebrities. We sat on the new couch giggling our asses off until we remembered we hadn’t seen Matt, or half-heartedly volunteered to help with the project, in more than an hour.

He was happily smudging plaster over newly placed drywall attempting to mimic the orange peel finish of my bedroom walls. He did so masterfully.

After a cider and a glass of wine, I began singing my own version of “Holding Out for a Hero.”

I need a hero!
One who comes with his own box of tools.

He’s got to be strong

And he’s got to be kind

And he’s got to work for free…

I need a hero!

(For whatever reason, this was hilarious late last night.)

My forever gratitude to the Walls, who frankly kick butt and can repair just about anything.

Cheers,

AfricanKelli

To live in
San Francisco, where etiquette and dogs in the workplace abound! Okay, well at least they are discussed.

To clarify, I read this manners review this morning about spitting in public (ew), people who talk loudly on their cell phones at all times (grr) and other social behavior snafus. A friend and I were discussing just this weekend the lost art of polite behavior. Such which requires saying “Please” and “Thank you” and “You are welcome.” In the land of the well behaved, people write sincere thank you cards for meals, gifts and favors. They also turn their cell phones to discreet when entering movie theaters or sitting down with a friend for a cup of tea. They do not burp, bite their nails or pick at their clothing. They smile when greeted and use some restraint when using profanity, especially when in proximity to children. (I need to work on this last one, I’d admit.)

I wish correspondence returned as something worthwhile to our culture. We all enjoy receiving mail. Why not write a thank you card? There is a new Kate Spade store in Scottsdale with fabulous stationery on display. Or M & Co Papery in Mesa – my favorite.

And really, wouldn’t it be great to take your dog to work? Leave it to the brainiacs at Noah’s bagels – parent company to good ol’ Einstein’s. This Friday is “Take your Dog to Work Day” in the Bay Area and if you stop by for breakfast first, they’re giving out T-shirts and treats. No fair! Not only do I not have a dog, I do not have such privileges.

I could borrow a pooch, but then again, that would just be rude. A bagel dog will suffice.

~AfricanKelli

I have been overwhelmed by the positive response I’ve received on the African Knits project. Tonight, I will attend a local knitting circle to gather the scarves and hats they’ve created to be distributed to our orphanage in Mozambique.

These are wonderful women. Check out Pam’s creations here.

~AfricanKelli

I like the moniker AfricanKelli because it is so different. Because my mother has always reassured me that there is only one AfricanKelli. Because it symbolizes my love of travel and my American Irish heritage in one.

But
Africa is a giant continent and the truth is, there is very little I know about the black beauty. I enjoy reading the memoirs of those who grew up there, but they are the stories of the privileged. The white settler’s whose children eventually left to study at Oxford and Cambridge and wrote novels in their 40s to understand the violence and poverty of their African youth. They are not the stories of black Africans, I would imagine in part because school systems in Africa are so incredibly poor, literacy is a luxury. But they give a different view — one with lions outside bedroom windows and milkmaids who taught Zulu nursery rhymes. A good recommendation, if you are so inclined, is “Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight.” Brilliant story writing, heart felt and heart breaking. (Four out of five bananas.)

This much I know from my own brief experiences in Africa:

When I see the ebony dark skin of tall men wandering Sky Harbor airport, offering to cart your bags to your car or pour a latte at Starbucks, they are undoubtedly one of the 5,000 Sudanese lost boys who’ve settled in our arid desert. The women working with them at the airport Starbucks are Ethiopian. Their long African Arabic faces and creamy brown skin are give-aways.

When I read about the homes being razed in Zimbabwe, I wonder who will replace Robert Mugabe when he dies? He is old old, like Fidel old. And I’m not too sure who will take over his reign of terror. He’s been in power since the 1980s and this once flourishing nation has suffered ever since. This week, he’s sent millions out of their homes by sending tractors in to knock them down. He enjoys picking on the poor. I would enjoy bending his ear.

I have a friend in Botswana who tells stories of water. The country’s economy and way of life is focused on water. During the rainy season, the river beds fill, the plains come to life with vegetation and the animals return to the savannahs. When the water dries up, the people, just like the animals, come together in clumps to survive, clogging the streets of Gabarone. Bots use flowery English, peppering their sentences with adjectives only seen in Rudyard Kipling stories. From his accounts, they are some of the sweetest, most polite people in the world.

Johannesburg is the most frightening place I’ve ever been. Everyone lives on edge. I hope to never return.

Mozambique is a combination of Africa and Europe – with dark, beautiful people and aging Portuguese architecture. Mozambicans are troubled people. They rarely live past 40 and have a hard time remember life before slavery, communist rule and AIDS. They live in absolute poverty.

Cameroon is emerald green in a thousand shades. Low-lying clouds shroud indigo blue mountains in a web like haze. The air is so humid and cool plants grow everywhere. If you leave wet shoes sitting in the shade, mold will sprout within a few days in the soles. The people cut the faces of their babies to mark tribal affiliations. They are kind and hardworking. Cameroon is the bread basket of West Africa.

Someday, I will visit Madagascar, Zanzibar and Egypt. I will see the giraffes on the plains of Kenya and the snow on the peaks of Mount Kilimanjaro. I will examine the towers of books in the oldest library in the world – Alexandria. I will see the silver back gorillas of Uganda.

Some days, it is easier to overlook the politics and disease that keep Africa a scary, haunted place and instead think of the potential and how it has always found a way to survive.

~AfricanKelli

I had a wonderful weekend. Jess made it into town, and we had 10 women (or so) come over for a knitting circle. Thankfully, my mother packed her patience and whipped out her amazing teaching skills. After several hours, there were a handful of new knitters, including two in elementary school. One of these lovely girls quietly told her mom she was working on a project for “the children in Iraq.” Oy. It made my heart melt. Philanthropy and knitting collide. Photos posted here.

This week should be a bit more relaxed. I’ve relatively little on my calendar until I leave for Mozambique in 15 days. (Well, there is a fabulous trip to LA to see Wicked and the new King Tut exhibit the weekend before.) I’m happy to have extra time to work with my swim team kids and to sew this week. I’ve got to get my BackTack project going — and teach myself how to sew a zipper in the process. I may just have to get my mother to come back.

Per Monday morning tradition, I am whole heartedly enjoying the NYT magazine. This woman is great, minus the smoking. I’m tempted to try her pie recipe, even though it calls for lard. Lard is against my every principle as a public health worker, and yet, makes crust so yummy…

A happy Monday to all,

~AK

Super Mom.