shokufeh is…home

Today is the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.  I know there are some in this city who say they’re ready to move on, that they’re tired of measuring time since the storm.  And maybe we do, as a whole, blame the storm for more than we should.  But we also can’t say it’s time to move on until more people in this city are able to.  Until rental housing is more available and more affordable.  Until crazy people stop buying damaged houses, putting a few dollars of work into them, and then putting them on the market in a price range that most locals can’t afford.  Until insurance becomes a reality - both in terms of current and future coverage, and paying out what is still owed from three years ago.  Until our governments get their act together and stop squandering our money without progress to report.  Yes, it’s true, we have street and traffic lights, we have electricity without interruption, we have water pressure.  We even have a fully-functioning streetcar line and new buses.  But what about places to live?  And grocery stores? And blocks where more than one house has its lights on?  And businesses that aren’t boarded up?  Until more of those things change, we cannot pretend that life is normal.  Even a “new normal.”  Yes, we can and should continue to live life to the best we can, but when we start to forget about Katrina, we start to forget about all of the people whose lives are still so severely affected.

Yesterday, this was reinforced for me.  In preparation for the possibility of Gustav, I went shopping.  As I waited in line, I noticed the man in front of me buying a suitcase. And thought back to three years ago, when, on the news, I saw images of people carrying their belongings in plastic garbage bags.  I also realized that the Wal-Mart I was in was heavily featured as a site of intense looting.  And thought about how far it’s come, how in the early days of my living here, it wasn’t open yet, and that for a long time after it opened, half the store was devoted to aid supplies for organizations.  How, slowly, more and more of the store was converted to regular shopping, more shelves were filled, and now it’s a fully-functioning store.  But it’s just a place, so it’s easier to fix.  It’s our hearts and minds and feelings of safety that are a bigger challenge.  The cashier mentioned what a hard time she’s having dealing with this approaching storm, that she was in the Superdome last time, and she can’t handle this stress.  The woman in front of me seemed like she’d come to busy some things in preparation, but ended up leaving a lot of the stuff in the cart, likely because she couldn’t afford them.

Growing up here, I gave nary a thought to hurricanes.  They were an opportunity for time off from school.  It actually made me happy that my birthday was during hurricane season.  My family never evacuated until Katrina, and even that was a hard decision to make.  But this time around, I’m definitely more nervous.  I’ve seen what can happen.  Last time around, as I saw on TV the waters rising and the people struggling, I wondered if we would see a day when New Orleans is more like a wild west ghost town attraction.  That idea had moved farther from my mind.  But as I see the city’s people in a frenzy over something that, four years ago, would have resulted in very little reaction, I wonder if we’ve lost our fortitude.  Some might say we’ve just gained some sensibility.

I’ve never experienced a day like today - joining with others to remember someone several years younger than me.  As I sat in the church, wiping away my tears, I realized that some of those tears were for me - missing out on seeing Jeff grow old.  And some were for all these 31-year-olds, including my brother, saying goodbye to someone they’d loved.  At the same time, it was so moving that so many family members and friends had come from near and far to share in the remembering.  That people who’d graduated together from high school thirteen years had gotten on planes and taken time off from work, and had the chance to cry together and catch up over lunch.

After lunch, we headed to Thrift City, a favorite haunt of Jeff’s.  Some bought things to wear in honor of him tonight, others (like me) bought things that were more normal and could be worn on a daily basis.  And then two carloads of us went to Terrytown Donuts, another favorite stop of his, to eat apple fritters “as big as your face.”  After a brief bit of downtime, it was on to dinner, and then Rock n’ Bowl (with a brass band).  Throughout the day and evening, there was connecting with people not seen in many years, connecting with people never met before.

As I said my goodbyes to people tonight, I was struck not only by what a good day of honoring Jeff it had been, but also by love of this place I call home.  That many of us there today and tonight call home.  No matter how far flung we are, or may become.  At lunch today, there was discussion of the strong pull of New Orleans.  A part of it is the city itself, and its unique characteristics.  A part of it is the connections among its people.  That I could see my high school counselor, seventeen years later.  And the two sisters who went to our elementary school and later lived around the corner from us, and finding out tonight that one of them works in the same building I do. That I could know that someone there today once excelled in condiment concoction.  And to see another person whose name in our family is always followed by, “You know, she’s really cute.”  To be flanked by not only my husband, and my brother, but my mother, and my father.  Because we all cared for Jeff.

Jeff, I think you would have had a great time with us today.  I’m sorry it happened this way, but thank you for bringing us together.

Written last night:

Tomorrow night, all of the New Orleans Mojganis will be together.  Sadly, part of what makes this possible, what brings Anis home, is the loss of my friend’s brother.  Anis’ brother, his best friend in their younger years.  Someone I held dear.

For two years, I wondered about Jeff.  Mistook others for him.  Wanted to write about him, to him, but feared doing so at the same time.  I googled him from time to time, hoping he’d chosen to hide in plain sight.  I dreamed about his showing up at my door.  Almost called out to him across a parking lot.

It turns out he’d already moved on.  He is so clear in my mind’s eye - his face, his voice (with its particular twang).  Picking him up at the hearing aid factory where he worked.  Eating dinner together at a restaurant in Evanston.  Pretending to live with him for the purposes of applying for a job.  (”My sister?  My best friend? Together? This is great!” Not the response my mom expected to hear when she called Anis, thinking to fool him with the idea of our having the same address.)

Since I got the news last month, I’ve tried to rationalize the sadness away - that it’s better knowing than always wondering and hoping when and if he’d appear again.  But those thoughts don’t keep my tears from flowing. Or remove the regret that it’s been so many years since I last saw him. Or from wishing MrMan hadn’t missed out on such a cool honorary uncle.  I think they would have really liked each other.

And through it all, I recognize that my sorrow cannot compare to that of his family’s.  I feel an overwhelming sadness for my friend, that she no longer has a brother in this world.  And for her parents, whom we’ve become closer to over these past two years, that their only son is gone.

Sometimes I’m overwhelmed by the goodness of people in the world, and the innovative uses of all the tools and resources we have available to us. I just came across a program that teaches English as a Second Language using the internet. Sure, I’ve come across this concept before, and thought it was cool. But what set this one apart was its overall mission: Opening the World to Central Asian Women.

And how cool is it that it’s called armchair volunteering? Talk about appealing to our desire for convenience.

Today is the tenth anniversary of my paternal grandmother’s passing.  It’s hard to believe it’s been so long since I saw her, since I got the news that she had died.  I think part of that surprise on my part, that so much time has passed, is that I think of her so often.  Just the other day, I thought, “Oh, I should tell Maman that I friended [a girl who lived across the street from them and that I would always play with when I was in Baton Rouge] on Facebook.” Only to realize that she probably already knows and it’s not something I can do by phone.

How much I loved her and how thankful I am that she was so much a part of my life.  And, down the road, as our parents get older and it’s time to take care of them, if I’m complaining about it, or MrMan is complaining about it (Sam won’t complain about it, because he’s more generous a soul and takes everything in stride), I will strive to remember that I envy Meisa for having had more time with Maman because she was in the same house.

Originally posted June 30, 2003 (how is possible I’ve been blogging for more than five years?):

Today marks five years since I hugged my grandmother. Even though it’s been that long, tears well up in my eyes whenever I think about Maman, and our parting. I was leaving for the Gambia, for what was supposed to be a two-year stint in the Peace Corps. And she was dying. We all knew that to be the case, though, being my grandmother and loving me to pieces (as grandparents are prone to do), Maman talked about seeing me in a couple of years. Our tears revealed the truth - that we both knew that this would be the last time we’d see one another.

I left for my new adventure with fear in my heart, knowing that I would have to deal with the news of Maman’s passing in the near future, and that I would have to deal with it alone. Early on in my Peace Corps training, I asked what the procedure would be. How would I, living in a mud hut in a village a few hours from Banjul, find out that my grandmother had passed to the next world? I was told that Peace Corps personnel would drive to the village and tell me. And so, I became attuned to the sound of cars. Not those running along the south bank road, which cut through our village. But the ones that left the road for the dirt paths of the village.

Any time I heard a car in close proximity, my heart plummeted to my stomach. But the fear was soon allayed by the sound of the car’s occupants getting out and speaking in Mandinka to others in my compound, or continuing their drive to the main road. Then, one day in August, as I was cleaning my hut, a car stopped right outside. And I knew. The Peace Corps person didn’t even have to open his mouth before I burst into tears.

I left the Gambia in September 1998, less than three months after arriving. In that time, my world changed. I came back to a place where people seemed whiter and fatter than when I’d left. That was, of course, just my perception. I also came back to a family that had lost its matriarch, its center. That was more than perception.

For a long time, I told myself that Maman’s passing had nothing to do with my leaving the Gambia. But it’s hard to know if that’s the truth. If not for my worries, maybe I would have been more willing to stay there, despite my misgivings about my role. I’ve also said, for the past 4.5 years, that I’m glad that I went to the Gambia and I’m glad I came back. While I’m sad that I wasn’t able to be with Maman in the last days of her life, I ultimately see it as a good thing that I went to the Gambia. For even that short experience helped shape what came next, including becoming friends with the man I eventually married.

When I think of my grandmother, I think of a strong, selfless, spiritual woman. When I spent the night in my grandparents’ room, I would see her praying, early in the morning, late at night. I remember once, being at the airport with her, and she asked me to hold her purse while she went to the restroom, because she didn’t want to expose the prayer book in her purse to the dirtiness of the public restroom. It was something I thought strange at the time, but came to respect, the more I thought about it. She was the provider of unconditional love, and fruit peeled just-for-you. She proved me wrong when she outlived my grandfather by five years, reminding me of the stories I heard of her climbing over the garden wall while pregnant, to escape people on the hunt for Baha’is. She wanted us to achieve our wildest dreams.

The summer I got married, I feared that, in the weeks leading up to the wedding, I was going to get a flat tire.  Of the dramatic blow-out variety.  I wondered where this idea came from, why I felt so certain that this would happen.  Did a part of me hear something irregular about the way my car rolled?  Was I subscribing to a notion that something good would be accompanied by something bad?  Was I just thinking that when it rained, it poured: that something inconvenient and possibly dangerous would happen in these weeks so busy on a professional and personal level?  In the anticipated version of the event, I was driving at a fast speed, on Lake Shore Drive or the expressway, when the blow-out occurred and would have to struggle to maintain control of the wheel.  In the real-life version (yes, there was a real-life version), I was driving on a surface street, at a reasonable speed, when my tire blew out, a week or so before the wedding.  With little hassle, I pulled over to the side of the road, and a kind stranger promptly stopped and changed my tire for nothing but a profuse thank you.  I had a sense of relief that the anticipated and dreaded event had come and gone, with little fanfare or trouble.

For the past couple of months, I’ve had a similar anticipation and dread in relation to our house being broken into. Again, I didn’t have a clear reason for anticipating such an occurrence.  I could point to our easy access from two streets.  The relative isolation of our front door, especially with the occupation patterns of the neighboring homes. The recent increase in robberies in our neighborhood….  Maybe what it boils down to is plain fear - fear of losing material possessions, fear of having my home violated, fear of the loss of a semblance of security.  Fear that it was time for something bad to happen in what seems to the be the year of a string of inconveniences.  It wasn’t something I dwelt upon incessantly.  But I thought about it enough that there were times I came home and summarily inspected the door to make sure it was intact before sticking my key in the lock.  Enough that earlier this week, when we were leaving home for the day and I noticed an unfamiliar man sitting in a car in the next block, I had Sam circle back after we’d gone a few blocks.  (He was gone by then.)

But, Friday afternoon, when I got home, my only thoughts were on getting a sleeping MrMan and all our stuff into the house, and getting some food into my belly.  I lifted my key to the lock, then realized the door was slightly ajar and the door frame splintered.  I stifled my exclamation, hurried back to the car, and made a breathless call to 9-1-1.  “Someone broke into my house.  I don’t know if they’re still in there.”  Concerned about my vantage point, I backed up, so I could easily see anyone leaving the house.  I called Sam.  I called my mom.  I twittered.  All in the less-than-five minutes it took for the police to arrive and enter the house.  I half hoped they would come back out with someone in handcuffs.  I half wondered if I should move further away from the house, in case bullets were involved.  Neither came to pass, and I was soon inside, putting MrMan down in his bed, and surveying the damage.

In some ways, again, the reality was not as bad as the imagined.  It was a tidy thief, disturbing the bare minimum necessary to disconnect the Xbox, to stow my laptop in a pillowcase, to rifle through my jewelry, to pick up my camera.  What I didn’t anticipate, couldn’t fully imagine, was the sick feeling at having lost the photos of the past two years. At worrying about what sensitive information might be on my computer.  Or the sadness of no longer having jewelry of sentimental value.  The thief saw gold.  I saw memories of my grandmother. And evidence of Ruhiyyih Khanum’s love for children, belying her somewhat gruff manner.  I hadn’t taken into account the sadness at hearing my two-and-a-half year old talk about the robbers breaking the door and taking my camera.  The inconvenient spread of the fingerprinting dust, which yielded nothing.  The visual impact of going through the weekend with a splintered front door, barricaded from the inside.  The anger felt toward a property manager who, having five minutes before been informed that we’d been robbed, asks if we’ve been cutting the grass, because it was looking kind of high last weekend.

I keep wondering who this person was.  What did he or she look like? Had they been watching our patterns, planning this for a while, or did they do it on a whim?  Do they feel guilty?  Or do they justify it in their mind, pointing out to themself that they didn’t take everything of value?  Were they in the house the first time I’d come home, half an hour earlier, driving away when I realized that my mother still had my house key?  Would they have  caused me bodily harm if I had encountered them?  Did my driving up that first time scare them away?  Would they have still broken in if my mom and MrMan had been here, as had at one point been the plan, as his school was closed for the day?  Or would they have delayed for another week?  Do they plan to come back, hoping that we’ve replaced the things they took?

I keep trying to tell myself that this is a good exercise in detachment.  That most of the things taken were given to me, not mine to begin with, and maybe it was time for them to move on to someone else.  I know the stuff was just stuff.

But it still doesn’t keep me from feeling sad, and angry, and helpless.

If my little brothers were actually littler than me (which would require our going back in time fifteen to twenty years), I would probably enjoy greeting them with, “What’s the word, turd?” I don’t know why I didn’t come up with that phrase in my younger years, when I could actually make use of it.

Last night, Sam went to see The Dark Knight. While I’m sure it’s a fabulous movie, my tolerance for watching violence and explosions is low. I instead had the rare treat of spending time alone with MrMan. It’s usually Sam that gets to do that, while I run off to book group or LSA or some-other-such. Having eaten dinner early to allow Sam to make it out the door, provided “extra” time in our evening. We eventually met up with my parents for a walk around the neighborhood. Or should I say, a ride-and-walk-and-stop. So many things to explore, requiring MrMan to get off his tricycle (sometimes while it was still in motion), to examine more closely. Not much for getting my parents’ heart rates up, but fun nonetheless.

Phrases I particularly enjoyed hearing come out of MrMan’s mouth:

• John join us - in reference to Sam’s friend having come to the door to get him. “Join?” Where does he get this vocabulary?
• Poor big guy - said over and over again after seeing a smushed dead toad. I think that toad was the highlight of his evening. If he’d had his druthers, we probably would have stood there for 20 minutes, staring at it. (We limited it to about five minutes, I think.) Or, perhaps even better, we would have spotted a dead toad at every corner.

Last night, I asked MrMan how his lunchtime lentil cheese casserole was. He told me that he didn’t like it and that he spit it out. His teacher confirmed that for me this morning. I am having the same casserole for lunch today, cold and sliced on bread. It’s okay - no strong feelings in either direction. No strong taste. We still have more, so I’ll likely try it in one of the ways the cookbook author suggested - with tomato sauce.

The banana wrapped curry tofu? Whole ‘nother story. Very tasty, and liked by all. So much so that Sam didn’t feel that lunch was worthy enough a time to eat it again, so we’ll be eating the leftovers for dinner. And it’s something I’ll make again. I’m going to post what I made here, as I changed Scribbit’s recipe a bit. I was going to keep track of the differences below, but it’s kind of cumbersome, so check hers out for another version, and for the more detailed cooking directions. Next time I make this, I’ll assemble the day before and then just bake when we’re ready to eat it, as there isn’t the same over-marination issue one has with fish. I made only four packets, as the amount of tofu I had lent itself to that many. We ate it with jasmine rice and Gailan.  Plenty of sauce is leftover. Slurp!

12 green onions
1.5 heads of garlic, minced
1/2 c fresh cilantro
1 - 2 tablespoons minced lemongrass, from freezer section (grocery was out of kaffir lime leaves)
A bit of lime zest
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
Packet of Indonesian White curry - Bamboe brand (I wanted to make a less spicy version, so that MrMan wouldn’t suffer)
1 tablespoon paprika
1 13 1/2 ounce can of coconut milk - I used one labeled “for cooking”
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
Squirt of Sriracha
2 trays of fried tofu - one plain, one with black fungus
Juice from one lime (plus another lime for the table)
4 sections of banana leaves big enough to wrap your fillets (you’ll find them on your neighbor’s tree, or in the frozen food section of the Asian market)
aluminum foil

Put first three ingredients in food processor. Saute in oil, along with already minced lemongrass and lime zest. Add curry and paprika. Saute more. Add coconut milk, squirt of Sriracha, and soy sauce. Bring to boil, then simmer to let thicken.

Place sheet of aluminum foil on counter, then a section of banana leaf. Place tofu in center, squeeze lime juice onto it, then spoon sauce to cover. Fold up banana leaf, then fold up aluminum foil. Do this four times.

Bake at 400 F for 15 minutes. Serve with rice and another squirt of lime juice.

So, I don’t know if it’s exactly called menu planning if I don’t assign specific days for specific meals. There was a time I used to just go to the store and buy whatever looked good and then throw together meals. Then, when time became more of a premium and money became more tight, I started planning meals, with particular meals planned for particular days. But, more often than not, the week’s plans would get changed a bit (or a recipe would make more food than anticipated and last several meals), and that would result in my stress over not having followed the schedule and usually a meal or two unmade and the food not being used.

So, my more recent technique, which seems to be working for me is to plan four to five meals for the week, buy for those meals, and then decide from day to day what to make. For this week:

• The aforementioned lentil cheese casserole - not my usual style, but the cookbook author claims it to be tasty. I figured it was worth a whirl.
• Smokey Miso Tofu
• Banana wrapped curry tofu - a variation on this, using fried tofu. (We do eat fish, but I couldn’t bear to part with the money required to buy halibut - frozen, at that - and figured it was worth trying with tofu.)
• Sushi rice bowls

It would seem I’m feeling Asian this week. Sides will include:

• Beet, feta, and mint salad
• Gailan (Chinese broccoli)
• Bok choy

Given how many (read: all) of the above recipes are new and unused to me, I suspect there will also be a night of banana pancakes and scrambled eggs.

For more menu plan ideas, go here.

Also, in the interest of full disclosure and my bragging of last week, I do feel compelled to share that, yesterday, in addition to my weekly trip to Whole Foods, I visited the Asian grocery.  Between the two, I spent $100 on groceries.