top ten

salaam

recently my mom just celebrated a birthday, which now puts her less then 1 year away from retirement...hooray!!! after 40 plus years as a medical technologist (microbiology, mycology, phlebotomy, etc.) my mom is finally approaching her glory...getting the hell out of the proverbial "9 to 5", and finally being able to do what she wants with her time...and i for one couldn't be more happy and proud!!!

so with that, i thought that i would offer everyone a few travel suggestions on how to spend your retirement, honeymoon, vacation etc. in a lettermen-esque "top ten" style.

be forewarned...the following is all true and uncensored


Mateo's Top Ten Experiences That Are Not To Be Missed By The Microbiologist In You.


10. being on a train somewhere in china and watching passenger after passenger plug a nostril and forcefully expel the others snotty contents into the air, and onto the floor, walls, tables, chairs, sleeping bunks, and bodies of anybody that happens to be near.

9. being on the same train and hearing the gutteral orchestra of numerous people pulling mucous from every part of their body into their throats and spitting the thick nasty blob directly on the carpet and floors of the cabin...then having to wade through the spit to get to the toilet, water heater, etc.

8. passing through a vietnamese kitchen to use the toilet and witnessing your meal being prepared directly on the floor with cockroaches, flies, and dogs all trying to sneak a taste.

7. being anywhere (in any of the countries that we've visited) and watching people jam no less than 2 knuckles worth of finger into each nostril, dig for gold, find it, roll it into a ball, and then flick it with no concern as to where it may land...then having the same people shake your hand, pat you on the back, or make your breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack or whatever with the same hand they just used to clear their nasal passages.

6. just arriving in your shaolin dormitory, looking at your bed and noticing that your sheet, blanket, pillow, and headrest are all stained with dirt, body oil, urine, and blood...then checking all the other beds in the room and realizing that they are exactly the same.

5. passing back through the same vietnamese kitchen with dirt and urine on the bottom of your sandals...stepping over vegetables and around meats and realizing that, not only is there no soap for washing hands, but you've just dripped dirt, urine, and whatever else is on the bottom of your sandals, directly onto the vegetables that are going into your spring roll....mmmmm.

4. precariously squatting over a loose pit latrine in a mud hut with a roof that is exactly 5'6" from the ground and inhaling the maggot infested scent of everyone elses bowel movements during the course of the year. listening to the fighter plane like sequences of the flies and mosquitos as they dart at your bare ass, and feeling many of them land on you back and crawl down the crack of your ass trying to get to the source of the liquidy shit that hasn't been solid since you left home. watching the biggest cockroaches you've ever seen crawl 6 inches away from your face, arms, legs, and over your exposed toes. and finally, watching the dust particles circle your exposed flesh and wondering if your inability to pee the previous day and night was the direct result of dirt lodged in your urethra, and whether or not you were on your way to a uti.

3. catching and weighing chickens, some with congestion, diarrhea, and rectal boils, and then being covered (hands, barefeet, pants, shirt) in their shit, feed, vomit, and blood, and slaughtering some 200+ of them at your compound in kisumu, kenya...then coming back and finding one of them dead in the same coop that you've been in for the past week.

2. going to the food prep area in your kisumu compound and seeing that same dead chicken lying in the "kitchen" next to a pot of boiling water and knowing that it is almost dinner time...then hearing on the news that a case of the bird flu has been found in nigeria.


and the number one experience that is not to be missed by the microbiologist in you...


going to use the squat toilets in your shaolin dormitory and finding that all of them are filled with stale urine and mounds of shit...then having no choice but to piss directly on someone elses shit and feeling their shit and your piss splash back up onto your shoes, pants, bare legs, and bare ass...and knowing that you have no running water or soap.


so who's ready to travel? :)


happy birthday mom!


salaam
mateo

p.s. i don't have a uti.

p.p.s. we never ate the dead chicken, instead it was thrown into the trash pit and burned...but its cause of death is still a mystery.