Articles by mgedwards

Featured Blog: Our American Family

I just said goodbye to Matt and Lisa and their children.  Their lives are featured on Our American Family, a blog about their family and life in the Foreign Service.  They most recently served in Manila, Philippines, and they are now headed to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic for two years.  They lived here in Virginia while Matt learned Spanish.  We lived in the same proximity until Matt finished his coursework.  They departed for the DR last week.  
 
Matt is a good guy with a great sense of humor and sharp wit.  Lisa is an amazing mom with boundless energy.  Matt and Lisa do a great job chronicling their lives and depicting life whereever they are at the time.  They have an extensive collection of photos of their family, and they do a masterful job managing four children, which they accomplished in Virginia in a two-bedroom apartment with a couple of pets to boot.  The story of the birth of their youngest child, Atticus, is legendary (don’t try it at home).  Matt told me that people who don’t even know him recognize him from that story.  It’s fortunate that Matt is trained to respond to crisis and stepped in to deliver their child single-handedly when things went awry.
 
In this life, people frequently cross paths.  I may not see them again for a few years, most likely back here in Virginia before we move on to their next assignments.  In the meantime, I will keep up with their lives on their web site.  And who knows, maybe a trip to the DR or Paraguay is in the works!

At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig

Dear Reader, I am still on track to finish one book per month.  I’ve read six so far this year, outpacing my pitiful total in 2007.  Although my three most recent readings focus on Paraguay and have to do with my future assignment there, I am still happy to have had time to read them.  I finished reading "At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig," a travelogue by British writer John Gimlette.  I also read "Paraguay Under Stroessner," a musty book written in the early 1980’s during the Alfredo Stroessner regime, and "Paraguay:  A Personalist Perspective," an overview of Paraguay written in 1990 immediately following the coup d’état that toppled Stroessner.  Both of the latter books provided excellent, if dated, analyses of Paraguayan history, politics, economics, and culture.  These dry texts provided historical antidotes to the massive gaps left by Gimlette’s sharp-witted, train wreck of a novel.
 
"At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig" is a fascinating read written geographically rather than chronologically.  It haphazardly chronicles over 500 years of Paraguayan history, detailing intriguing facts, innuendoes, and falsehoods at each place he encountered on his trip throughout the country.  (Contrary to Gimlete’s contention, a full-grown python cannot consume a full-grown man.  The rumor about the missing doctor from Buenos Aires is an urban legend.)  At each stop on his journey, Gimlette jumps to the events most relevant to each location, from the construction of the massive Itaipu Dam on the Paraná River between Paraguay and Brazil in the 1970’s to the devastation of Humaitá during the War of the Triple Alliance (1865-70).  His book ping-pongs through Paraguayan history, leaving one often confused about the country’s chronological history.  The vignettes that Gimlette weaves into the book are colorful and fascinating, albeit fraught with sarcasm that leaves one wondering why he bothered to visit Paraguay in the first place if he seems to despise it so much.  His perspective fluctuates from empathetic to sarcastic to spiteful, like a sharp pendulum sauntering over a helpless victim. 
 
I was surprised to learn that a native Paraguayan who had read the book was disturbed by what thought felt was a willful misrepresentation of their country.  Granted, Gimlette’s book sheds light on Paraguay in a way akin to the manner in which Sasha Baron Cohen’s fictional reporter "Borat" increased awareness of Kazakhstan–Gimlette’s book attracts attention to Paraguay, although not necessarily in a flattering way.  The Paraguayan I talked to mentioned that Gimlette spent just one month in Paraguay collecting research for his book.  In fact, Gimlette’s biography mentioned that he visited Paraguay in 1982 immediately following the Falklands War.  The book implies that it is a bibliography and that Gimlette had lived for quite some time in Paraguay during the Stroessner years.  Just as Dan Brown weaves facts and fiction into "The Da Vinci Code" to give the fictional novel an air of authenticity, so does Gimlette with his novel.  I was disappointed to find out that for all of its colorful imagery and citations of fact, "At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig" is ultimately fiction.  Given this reality, it is probably best read in conjunction with a truer analysis of the country.
 
I’ve already started reading my next book.  It’s a Spanish version of "The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe" ("El León, la Bruja, y el Ropero").  I already know how the story ends, so that should help me read a Spanish-language book written for children! 

Sea(ttle), it’s not so rainy

At last, the results of a scientific study furnish proof that it doesn’t rain in Seattle as much as you might think.  The honor of the rainiest city in the United States goes to Mobile, Alabama and just about any city along the Gulf Coast and Florida, the so-called "Sunshine State."  Here’s the list of the top ten cities according to WeatherBill, a research firm:
 
  • Mobile, Alabama–67 inches average annual rainfall; 59 average annual rainy days
  • Pensacola, Florida–65 inches average annual rainfall; 56 average annual rainy days
  • New Orleans, Louisiana–64 inches average annual rainfall; 59 average annual rainy days
  • West Palm Beach, Florida–63 inches average annual rainfall; 58 average annual rainy days
  • Lafayette, Louisiana–62 inches average annual rainfall; 55 average annual rainy days
  • Baton Rouge, Louisiana–62 inches average annual rainfall; 56 average annual rainy days
  • Miami, Florida–62 inches average annual rainfall; 57 average annual rainy days
  • Port Arthur, Texas–61 inches average annual rainfall; 51 average annual rainy days
  • Tallahassee, Florida–61 inches average annual rainfall; 56 average annual rainy days
  • Lake Charles, Louisiana–58 inches average annual rainfall; 50 average annual rainy days

Seattle’s neighbor, Olympia, ranked 24th on the list with 59 inches of rain each year.  Seattle is not far behind.  While it may not be haven for sun worshippers, Seattle isn’t as wet as it seems.  It just seems that way.  Reputation means everything.