The Malawian Clown Car

I’ve written a lot about transportation in Malawi. But somehow I’ve managed to skip over the subject’s crowning jewel – the mini bus.

So you’re at the circus, right, and all the cooler main attractions, like the acrobats and the lions, are outside the Big Top setting up or changing costumes. So to distract you, a bunch of painted weirdos cram into a too-small car and drive into the center ring to do stupid things, like fall over. At some point they’ll invariably pull a Chinese fire drill stunt and all get out and swap seats. One will probably be left out or get his foot slammed in the door in the process. These clowns and their clown cars are never funny and always uncomfortable to the observer. It probably isn’t much fun being a clown crammed into a too-small car either. Where are the damn acrobats already?!

I don’t know of any acrobats in Malawi, and I’ve heard tell there are lions, but I’ve yet to see them. Clown cars, however, are plentiful. The mini bus is just a falling-apart van with benches. It is the most reliable form of transportation in this country. Well, reliable isn’t the right word. There are a lot of them and often they’re the only type of transportation running that will actually pick you up and take you at least near where you need to go. But usually they are packed to bursting point. Sometimes they can’t even close the door, it’s so packed. Old ladies have to scramble over humans to squeeze themselves into a seat, often the only spot available is on top of a massive basket of usipa, babies are sitting on babies, three people are squished into the coveted front passenger seat. And there is always room for one more. Once someone gets to their stop, the door opens and the mini bus oozes out passengers to allow that person’s singular ejection. It oozes more people than you thought could possibly be held in one vehicle. It just keeps coming. Like the pus squeezed from a pimple. Until the person, who was undoubtedly sitting in the last possible row, can twist, stretch, and scale over the people, katundu and benches to the exit. Maybe there ARE acrobats in Malawi.

Then it’s onto the Chinese fire drill portion of the act. As the passengers reenter the mini bus they are reallocated to seats to allow as much space as possible to fit in yet more passengers. The front moves to the back and the back squeezes closer to the windows. People use this opportunity to change seating neighbors and reunite families who were split up in the initial cram. Feet are stepped on, heads are elbowed, doors slam, and horns honk. However, no one is left out, that is blasphemy, and a loss of transport fare for the driver. And to complete this circus that is Malawian public transportation, the driver will then drive like a clown.

Malawian Humor

Here’s a joke I heard today in the Teacher’s Office: An African, a European, and an Indian go visit God. The Indian says “I want to be a wealthy man” and God says “Go out and do business and you will become rich”. And it was so. The European says “I want to be an intelligent man” and God says, “Go explore the world and you will become wise”. And it was so. Then God turns to the African and asks him what he wants. The African replies, “Oh, I was just escorting these two”. And the office goes NUTS! It’s the funniest thing they’ve ever heard! “Oh, Madam! Do you understand? It’s the truth! Ha ha ha! We only escort! And then, nothing! All we can do is beg later!” And they laugh and laugh. And I laugh and laugh because they think it’s so funny.

But really, I think the whole situation is sad and pathetic, which I suppose, is the nature of such jokes. The joke is chock full of information about Malawians. Let’s break it down: They are envious of the Indians here in Malawi because they own all the businesses in Town. They view the Indians as very rich and believe they are rich everywhere because they have businesses everywhere, all over Africa. Indians employ the Malawians to run their shops (hence, escorting them) yet Malawians are still the poorest. They completely overlook the fact that India is, also, a third world with more intense, concentrated poverty than Malawi will ever know. Malawian attitude towards Europeans is complex. They love them, they hate them, they’re mostly envious of them, they view them as dollar signs. But Europeans/most all white people have come in here as development workers, trying to educate and modernize. Malawians, as a gross generalization, view them as the smartest, the most advanced. I often, more often than I care to, get people coming up to me asking to be my friend because I’m white (they’re exact words, they will literally say “I want a white friend”). They want the bragging rights of being seen with a white person. It’s one of the things I hate most about Malawi. I mean, I truly hate it. Then there’s the Malawian in the joke, how they see themselves. When you ask Malawians about what the Malawian people are like, they’ll tell you they are lazy. Of course, they’re not lazy, you should see how diligently they work their land. But they are pretty slow to take their country into their own hands and tend to sit by while their government screws everyone over. They have no problem living off the charity of donor countries, asking unabashedly as random white people walk by for their money. It seems that they’d rather not help themselves but let NGOs, missionaries, and foreigners come in and hand them things. Of course there are the notable exceptions, like most of the groups I work with in my village, but the general personality of Malawians is as such and is so well known that the joke is hilariously funny to my Malawian counterparts at school for its apparent truthfulness.

The Driver is a Good Driver

Another terrible, horrible, no good, very bad transport night in Chikwina. For some reason the car that goes from Chikwina to Mzuzu didn’t run today, so that meant holding my breath for the infamous Mpamba transport. If you recall, the last time I mentioned the Mpamba transport was when we broke down half way and I hiked 10km up a mountain in the mud and rain in the middle of the night with all my katundu. But that time had a happy ending, as does this one.

This time, I waited three hours in the crummy little village of Mpamba on the side of the tarmac being stared at. The little-matola-that-could was there but missing its driver, a driver that never showed, by the way. It was coming on 6:30pm, dark already for an hour and a half and freezing. I’m way past impatient and into worried. If this guy doesn’t come, and quick, I’ll have to find transport in the dark to Nkhata Bay, get my ass there with my 50+kg backpack, and deal with finding a room and blah blah. Kitty is home alone and unfed and I have school in the morning. Not up for it. Luckily, there was another guy waiting for the same transport in an equally impatient/worried position. He finds another truck to hire, but since petrol is still a problem, no go. Then he finds yet another truck for us to hire, which is packed to bursting point of 35+ of my male students coming back from a football game and still pumped with game time adrenaline. It’s dark, but I’m Azungu, so I pretty much glow.

My students spot me and instantly begin a cheer which translates into something like “if we lose next match our opponents can keep Madam!!!”. One of their favorites, demonstrating their affection for me. P.S. When I say the car is packed to bursting point, I mean they are all standing in the bed of this little pick up holding on to each other, sitting on top of the cab, and standing in the open windows gripping onto whatever they can. But, like the gentlemen that they are, they give me the front seat. It’s late and all the villages are asleep by now (its 8pm at this point and like I said, the sun’s been down awhile) but that doesn’t stop them from letting everyone know their team spirit. Also, they’re all teenagers, and you know what teenagers are like on a field trip. They yell and sing and argue the whole way, full throttle, doesn’t matter who falls off the truck. I’m squeezed next to their team captain, a guy named Steven who lives in the same village as me, plays mid field, and graduated three years ago, among other little nuggets of info I gathered from him. He a very nice guy who politely translated the guys’ excited chants for me as the truck crawled up the mountain.

Me: “What are they singing about now?”

Steven: “They are saying that the driver is a good driver.”

Driver: “He he he! It is true!”

Me: “And now?”

Steven: “They are saying that we are coming home victorious, even though that’s bodza (a lie).” Me: “And now?”

Steven: “Now they are just yelling.”

Praying on a Bus

Often busses don’t leave when they are scheduled to. They will sit around for hours until the bus fills up. I have sat on the Mzuzu-Lilongwe bus waiting for hours longer than the bus ride itself. Transports a b*tch in Africa. But it’s always a good sign after an obscenely long wait when one of the many Reverend passengers stands up and bows his head in prayer. The engine turns off, the whole bus quiets down, everyone bows their head. The Reverend will go on and on, a Jesus here, an Ufumu, or Lord, there. Everyone’s praying for a safe journey, which is sweet, and a nice practice, and would only happen in public transport in a missionary-ized place like Malawi. They can ask Jesus for a safe trip and all, but I’m bowing my head in thanks that we’re about to leave the bus depot, f’ing finally.

Bingo! I mean Bingu.

Upon our return to Malawi from Mozambique on April 5th, 2012, we heard a rumor that Malawi’s president, Bingu Muntharika (a democratic president turned corrupt dictator when he realized how much power he had), had died of a heart attack. I shrugged it off as a too-good-to-be-true rumor, an act of sensationalist false reporting.

But no, he died. He had a heart attack doing something somewhere. He was an old man with a lot of health issues. But if you ask a Malawian, they’ll tell you the reason he died was that God looked down and said “time to throw Malawi a freakin’ bone” (at least, that’s what they mean, I’m paraphrasing). It wasn’t until days later, on the 9th, that his death was announced publically. During this time, Malawi was eerily quiet. I don’t know what I was expecting, maybe rejoicing and a flood of political opinions being spewed loudly. But I certainly wasn’t expecting Malawians sweeping their dirt front yards as usual. It was like they were all holding their breath to see what was going to happen. One of my buddies had a theory that people were scared to speak their minds, remembering the days of Mubarak’s (the first president) reign of terror and mysterious disappearings.

The delay in announcing Bingu’s death was due to the corrupt political powers scratching their heads about what to do and then clawing at each other’s throats and eyes for control, and when that didn’t work, throwing corrupt political temper tantrums. The Malawian constitution says that if anything happen to the president, the vice president takes over automatically. The vice president was Joyce Banda, whom Bingu and the ruling party, the DPP (Democratic People’s Party) had essentially thrown out because she was against a lot of the stuff Bingu was doing. She left the party but was never removed from her position as the VP. So when Bingu died, the DPP tried to go behind the government’s back, break the constitution, and swear in Peter Muntharika, Bingu’s brother, as the new president. The #1 and #2 police people were both DPP and so, backed this move. But #3 in the police department, who actually had direct control over the police force, backed the constitution, which put the DPP conspirators in a bad position. This, compounded by the fact that their evil plan got out and back to Joyce Banda, pretty much insured they’d be screwed. Somehow, despite people’s high anxiety of protests and quiet questionings if Malawi would accept a female leader, the most peaceful hand over imaginable occurred. Banda was sworn in officially, members of the DPP quickly asked Banda for mercy and switched parties, many of the DPP members behind the evil plan are now on trial for treason, and #1 and #2 police men were removed or something.

A ten day mourning period commenced for Bingu. During this time, if you asked a Malwaian what they thought of the whole ordeal they would say they are sad and mourning the loss of Bingu, because that is respectful. But as they shake their heads and say this they will also smile and say they are very happy, in the same breath. They can’t really keep their happiness about the whole situation hidden. The death of Bingu is one of the most important milestones in Malawi’s recent history. Not only are they now rid of his insanity and corruption but also they now have a female president, the first female president in sub-Saharan Africa. It’s a really cool time to be in Malawi. It seems that Joyce Banda is a legit person, not corrupt, and might actually be able to put Malawi back on track. She’s already repairing relationships with neighboring countries and the World Bank and the West (all of which had left Malawi to rot in the last year because Bingu went nuts). Foreign donors are returning (which I’m not too psyched about because I think Malawi needs to end its dependence on aid money) and there’s some amount of petrol in the country again. The kwacha was devalued again but inflation has stabilized. Laws on foreign money have been changed and lifted, essentially squashing the black market exchange. People are hopeful about the future and they should be.

South of the Border

This post is loooong overdue. Robert and I took our first vaca out of the country in March to Mozambique. If you’ve never been to Mozambique, which is a likelihood, I would highly recommend it! It was just like Malawi, in terms of Africa and transport, but everything was simply better times a hundred million gagillion. I never wanted to leave! If it ever came up, I would strongly consider moving there (at least to the south coast) as an ex-pat for a good number of years.

So Rob and I crossed the border into a place called Tete, which everyone said was an ugly city with nothing in it, but let me assure you, it was no less than 5 times bigger and better and more interesting than Malawi’s capitol. Then we took a plane from Tete down to the capitol, Maputo. Maputo is like, a real city. Blew my mind! Keep in mind, this is the first time out of Malawi in over a year, standards were low. But there were huge buildings and culture and restaurants and jazz bars and street art fairs. Did I mention that I never wanted to leave? After Maputo we hitched up to Paria de Tofu and Barra for some of the best diving in the world, and I didn’t make that up. It’s a fact. More on that below.

List of the top ten things in need of mentioning about the trip:

1. The food was unbelievable! Everything was delicious! Mozambique was colonized by the Portuguese, which automatically makes their food way more legit. I think I’ve mentioned before that every former British colony was unfortunately forced to inherit the British miserably bland taste in food (except for India). Hence, Malawian food blows. But Mozambiquan food! They know how to use spices, and in fact everything was spicy to the max! Everything had seafood in it! And the bread! Holy gods, the bread! They have this roll, called pao, that they sell everywhere and eat with everything. Essentially, it’s just like a French roll, but c’mon! A French roll! As street food in Africa! It was unbelievable after the BS we get here. Once Robert and I got up to the touristy coastal areas, we made it a point to eat seafood at least once a day. Prawns the size of my hand, lobster, calamari steaks as big as the plate, fish, clams, crawfish, everything! With butter! I’m near tears just thinking about it. Damn, we gotta get back there.

2. So, as previously stated, Moz was colonized by the Portuguese, so everyone spoke Portuguese. The tourist places spoke enough English that we were understood, but it was necessary to supplement it with a little Portuguese tongue twisting of our own. I’d gotten a Teach Yourself Portuguese book on my kindle, and learned the very basics. Everyone said that if you knew Spanish you could get by pretty easily in Moz, but Portuguese felt more like French to me. The only French I know is what Christina Aguliera taught me in the Moulin Rouge song… But it was actually really fun, trying to wade through an entirely different language out of necessity. I actually don’t think I’ve ever really been in that position before, where the principle languages everyone knows don’t include English. Everyone in Europe knows English, Israelis speak better English that I do, India does its business in English. Mozambique was definitely new linguistic territory.

3. The Indian Ocean blew my mind. I’ve never been in the Indian Ocean before. It was beautiful! Pristine beaches, clear aqua water, warm temperature, and a sunrise! And it had seafood in it!

4. Talking about the Indian Ocean, the diving was unbelievable!!! Mozambique is one of the best places in the world for diving, known for its manta rays and whale sharks, neither of which we were lucky enough to spot (another reason I gotta get back there!). We missed the beginning of the whale shark migration by about two weeks. And unfortunately, the day after we got to the beaches a huge storm hit and the water was too rough to go out for about three days. But we did go on two incredible dives, one shallow (about 12-14 meters) and our first deep dive (33 meters). It was also my first real life salt water dive. Salt water marine life is insane!!! Everything was spikey and huge and poisonous. The coral was bright and bizarre. On the shallow dive I think Rob and I racked up 3 sting ray sightings and on the deep dive the fish were as big as my kitchen (yes, I thought about taking one home to fry it up). There was one potato fish as big as a boulder that I had an intense urge to try and hug, to see just how big and cushy it was. We saw a few angel fish on the shallow dive, but the ones we saw on the deep dive were almost three times as big. The schools of sail fish were frightening, each fish as long as a car. We saw those puffy fish that, unpuffed, look spikey and mean, and we also saw those crazy fish featured on Planet Earth that change color and texture to blend into wherever they are.

5. The return of the autorickshaw!!! I thought I’d never see an autorickshaw again, at least not outside of India. I was so pleasantly surprised to see them zipping around the capitol with their green cabs and happy yellow burlap covers. They were my transportation of choice in India, where they are driven as daredevil death machines. They don’t call them autorickshaws in Mozambique though, they call them tuk tuks. But for some reason I couldn’t get that to stick in my head and instead kept calling them things like vroom vrooms and tic tacs.

6. I was blown away with how expensive everything was. I’ve heard that Malawi is one of the most expensive places for a tourist, but things were almost five times as expensive in Moz. 1000 Malawi kwacha, which is a good chunk of money, something like a decent lunch in a Malawian city, translates to 100 Mozambiquan meticais (pronounced met-i-ca-ish, and mets for short), which will buy about half a breakfast, or a tuk tuk ride down the street. Rob and I took to buying their amazing pao and slapping some peanut butter on it for meals not reserved for seafood.

7. Maputo has markets for everything. The markets didn’t look any different than the markets we have here in Malawi, ya know, half wood half cardboard shacks, but each market was specialized and wonderful! They have the vegetable market, the fish market, the bread market, the art market, and, my favorite, the alcohol market, where you can by name brand alcohol at bargain prices. And I love me a bargain!!! And good alcohol! Also at this alcohol market, they have little stands and shops set up like mini outdoor bars, where people can come up, sit on a stool, and order a shot or drink of any type of non-fraternity-like alcohol they wanted served in a Dixie cup, for pennies! Rob and I taste tested pretty much everything, different scotches and tequilas mostly. We had the most pleasant afternoon chatting up men in suits getting off work and marveled at how impossible this would be in Malawi. People in Malawi take shots of crap alcohol, which tastes more like molten lava, which they suck out of plastic baggies. The point of which is to get so disgustingly drunk that they forget they live in Malawi. PC Moz volunteers have it made!

8. The expat and tourist populations have a huge presence in Mozambique, which means we were invisible!! Well, almost invisible. We were still white foreigners carrying huge trekking backpacks. But no “azungu!” or “give me money” following us everywhere. It was a much needed breather.

9. I was gonna write 9 and 10, but this post is getting way too long. But just so you know, 9 was gonna be about our new South African friends we met on a hitch and stayed with for a night and 10 was going to be about the jazz scene and gelato in Maputo. Go to Moz! You won’t regret it!

A Vestigial Tale

I hear myself saying to a classroom full of devout Christians who were force fed Creationism since the womb, “…the tailbone is mostly useless. It is left over from when we were monkeys.” Blank stares. I could practically see thought bubbles coming up from each of their heads, what??

“You know, because millions of years ago we used to be monkeys…”

Nothing. Madam is going to Hell.

Right now in Form 3 Biology we’re learning about coordination. Ya know, like bones and muscles and movement and blah blah. Today, whilst talking about the different types of vertebra I found myself going off on a rare but highly entertaining and educational biology-related rant. We’d finished discussing the cervical and thoracic and lumbar and sacral vertebra and we were to the coccyx, or the vestigial tail, better known as the tailbone. (And I pretty much quote exactly, skip ahead if you don’t care to read my high school Biology English-as-a-second-language rendition of evolution, but if you do choose to read it, imagine me in class acting out every few sentences), “Alright, so millions of years ago we were monkeys, but then over time we evolved into humans. During that time, other monkeys and apes split off from the line and formed their own species, that’s why we have different species of monkeys. But our specific line learned how to walk on our hind legs and grow bigger brains and form thumbs and voice boxes. There’s tons of evidence for this. If you line up all the fossils from all over the world that come from our line of ancient monkey to human, you can see the gradual changes taking place every few thousand years. The proof is unmistakable. Back when we were monkeys we needed tails, but after a while we decided we no longer needed tails so we evolved without them. But the bone where the tail used to attach, for some reason, didn’t go away. It’s a vestigial trait, meaning it’s left over from a more ancient time and no longer has any function. We have many vestigial traits. Have you ever let a baby grab your finger and they have a really strong grip? They can pretty much rip your finger off. That is also left over from when we were monkeys, when the baby had to hold on to the mother while she climbed a tree to escape lions and whatever. Now that we’re humans, a baby has no need to hang onto its mother because what mother would climb a tree with her newborn baby? That’s stupid. Also, some whales have hipbones but no hips! You know whales, those really really big mammal fish? Anyway, they used to have a function for their hipbones when they were a more ancient species. But then they evolved into the whale they are now and were never able to get rid of their hipbones…and that’s why we have a useless tailbone. We were monkeys.”

Responses:
“No no, Madam, no no.”
“Madam, do you read the Bible?”
“But where did the first monkey come from?”
“Madam, you are saying we are nyama, animals. This is not true.”
“No no, Madam, no no.”

My counter response:
“Yes, Victor, I’m familiar with the Bible, no I will not get into my opinions on it in Biology class, or ever. There are plenty of good Christians who agree with me that we came from monkeys, because it’s a fact. Kennedy, what makes you think we are not nyama (which also translates to meat)? If a lion came in here, he would eat us the same as a goat because we are also nyama. Delicious nyama. We can think and communicate complexly, but that doesn’t mean we’re not animals. We still make babies and eat food and breathe air and die. Didn’t we learn in Form 1 that Homo sapiens are a part of the kingdom animalia? And Darlington, I know you’re trying to get me to say that Adam was the first monkey, but that would be silly. The first monkey actually came from an even more primitive mammal, which, many millions of years ago, decided to leave the oceans and evolve into a land animal, which later became birds and reptiles and rodents too. I could explain even further but I would have to explain the Big Bang theory and the gasses present in the universe and the primordial soup, which would take a really long time and get Victor even angrier with me. If you really want to know, come see me after class.”

Their counter counter response:
“No no, Madam, no no.”
“Ahhh, I see!” – That’s the suck up in the class.
“No no, Madam, it is not true.”
“Hahahahaha! Monkey tails!”

So I’m pretty sure I’ve convinced them on evolution…

Stones In Cans

You come across a lot of characters in a bus. This is true anywhere in the world, really. There’s the token drunk guy, slurring his yells, the crazy who smells and wants to get you talking. There’s always the crying baby with the mom on the cell phone, shoving candy down her other kids’ throats then getting angry when they don’t sit still. In Malawi we have comparable characters. Drunk guy, check. Smelly talkative crazy, check. Crying baby, not so much, but a lot of babies attached to fully exposed breasts. We got more Bible thumping Reverends in one bus than I’ve ever met in my whole life combined.

Rarely in the world of public bus transport is there the overly obnoxious, insanely loud and inconsiderate loony sitting right behind you. I mean, it happens, but usually in short intervals and usually the loony is verifiably loony. Those crazies are usually asked to leave or eventually subdued or you can move away from them. But not in Malawi, and not on a night bus. Once on the night bus, there’s no getting off, and there’s no moving around for as long as the bus is en route. Unless you want to lose your seat and stand in the isle for the next four hours. When we happen to be traveling together from Lilongwe to Mzuzu or vice versa and don’t have the patience to hitchhike, Robert and I like to take the night bus. It gives us a full day to spend in whatever city we happen to be in without the stress of daytime travel. Also, the night bus is faster than the regular bus because there are fewer stops and we’re passed out half the time. It’s actually a really pleasant way to go, if you’ve got a seat and managed to avoid sitting too close to Mr. Chatty Stinkypits.

On one such an evening, Robert and I found ourselves sitting in front of what I can only describe as the loudest, dumbest, most insanely obnoxious young women in Africa. I don’t know if they were actually dumb, because I don’t speak Chichewa, but I’m pretty sure they were really dumb. And had I known what dumb stuff they were saying, violence may have ensued. I honestly don’t know what had made them so oblivious that they insisted on talking to each other and on the phone all night, screaming. Just screaming everything they said. It wasn’t even very loud in the bus. Apparently, everything they had to say was of vital importance that even the driver, half a mile away in the driver’s seat, had to know. I really didn’t get it. After a while of shooting death glares at them, telling them to be quiet, and then to PLEASE be quiet in a rude way, Rob and I just ended up staring straight ahead in bewilderment. Exhausted, sleep deprived bewilderment. Eventually, the whole bus turned against them and started yelling back, very un-Malawian. When a bus full of Malawians lose their smiley composure and start yelling in anger, you know it’s bad. The point at which Malawians start yelling in anger is equivalent to when American’s start setting police cars on fire. Or camping out on Wall Street.

Needless to say, the dummies didn’t get the picture. They yelled right back, probably defending their right to free speech at 2am on a bus of a million tired not amused people, but I don’t really know because again, I don’t speak Chichewa. Alright, enough complaining, I’ll get to the point. Rob brought up an interesting saying he’d heard about stones in cans and dumb people that I thought worth repeating in Cyberspace. He said that the more stones a person has in their can, the less the stones rattle around. The fewer stones a person has, the louder and more abhorrent is the rattle. Thank you, Master Robert, for your stones of wisdom. Wish I could translate that into Chichewa. Not that the dummies would get it.

Book of the Week

For this glorious month of June, I have decided to try and stay at site alone for the whole month because, somehow, in the entire year that has past, it has never happened. I’ve always come up with a reason to leave or I’ll have a visitor. I also feel like I ought to put in a little time after abandoning Africa for a European respite last month. Turns out, there’s not so much to do at site after school is over for the day. It’s winter here, so the day is super short anyway. I’ve been reading a lot. Like more than I’ve ever read ever. I’m averaging a book a day. I’m reading some really good stuff, and some real crap. Like I recently finished an absolutely abominable Nora Roberts book I inherited on my mom’s kindle (which she generously swapped for my touch screen kindle, which I hated, because the cat could turn the pages whenever she wanted attention). The horribly grotesque book was something about childhood friends running a wedding venue together and finding husbands themselves and blah blah. I wanted to puke the whole day I read it. Also reread Michael Crichton’s Timeline, which was enjoyable, and John Grisham’s The Confession, which was tolerable, and the final installment of that horribly written Eragon series, which I can’t believe was even published. Who told that kid, Christopher Paolini, that he could write? He shouldn’t even be allowed to compose emails. Almost had to put that one down, which I’ve done almost never. Right now I’m in the middle of Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen, which is a breath of literary fresh air. Depressing, but really well written. But hands down, the best book I’ve read this week, is Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern. I’m sure it’s not for everybody, but it had me laughing like a crazy person. I’ve never laughed like that for a book. It’s just this guy telling stories about his dad and the crazy stuff he says, plain and simple. Added bonus, the family is from San Diego, which makes multiple appearances throughout the book. Some quotable gems: “On Table Manners: ‘Jesus Christ, can we have one dinner where you don’t spill something?...No, Joni, he does do it on purpose, because if he doesn’t, that means he’s just mentally handicapped, and none of the tests showed that.’” “On Chivalry: ‘Give your mother the front seat…I don’t give a shit if she said you could have it that’s what she’s supposed to do, and you’re supposed to say ‘No, I insist.’ You think I’m gonna drive around with my wife in the backseat and my nine-year-old in the front? You’re a crazy son of a bitch.’” “On Packing My Own Lunch: ‘You have to pack a sandwich. It can’t just be cookies and bullshit…No, I said if you packed it yourself, you could pack it how you want it, not pack it like a moron.’”