Knitting sweaters for dead squirrels

Advent coffee days five to ten

juggzy — Sat, 10 Dec 2016 13:29:44 GMT

Day five: La Secreta

Taste notes: Peach and green apple
From: Norte de Santander, Colombia
Grown at: 1860 m
Type: Castillo

This is nice. It has a good balance of sour and bitter and creamy. It is also slightly sweet.

Day six: El Talapo

Tasting notes: Date and Caramel
From: El Salvador
Grown at: 1430
Type: Bourbon

This is lovely. I don't have enough taste buds to say why it is, but it isn't bitter at all. It is sweet and a very little bit sour. I think it made me think of bananas but then, I often think of bananas.

Day seven: Filadelfia washed

Tasting notes: Dark cholate and orange
From: Guatemala
Grown at: 1600
Type: Bourbon, Caturra

This is pleasant enough, but nothing special. It seems to lack body, somehow; maybe a tad watery. This seems to be associated with tasting notes indicating orange, for me, incidentally. The strongest chocolatey flavour is when you smell it just after opening the packet. This is reminiscent of the sort of coffee you get when somewhere advertises themself as selling 'Illy' coffee, only a little less bitter. It's a sort of afternoon coffee.

Day eight: El Sapote

Taste: Cherry and Blackberry
Grown: Honduras
Grown at: 1700 m
Type: Red Catui, Pacas

I *think* I could smell the cherry in this when I opened the pack - a sour, astringent, fruity note like a dialled-down haribo sweet - but I am not sure that I can taste it in the coffee itself.

This is a very bitter coffee (it might be the way I made it today; perhaps the water was too hot) but it's growing on me as I drink it and the sourness starts to balance the bitterness.

I have no idea where they get the blackberry part from, though.

Day nine: la Girita

Taste notes: Brown Sugar and Lime
From: Columbia
Type: Tipica
Grown at: 1630 m

Honestly, I don't know where the taster gets his fertile imagination from. This tastes like coffee. Coffee, dammit.

I have a slight cold (again, world?) and so I am either hyper sensitive to taste or I'm the opposite. The bitterness is there but not as acrid as bitterness can be, and it's all fine. It's not got the full-on creamy mouth feel of my favourite coffees, but it's still damn fine coffee.

Day ten: Sertao natural

Tasting notes: Dark chocolate, cherry and almond
Origin: Brazil
Type: Yellow bourbon
Grown at: 1400 m

This actually smells of dark chocolate, cherry and almond. I opened the packet and had a good sniff before looking it up on the tasting notes, and I did actually think dark chocolate, cherry and almond. I would like to note that this is one of the coffees that Pact carries more often than not, and I may have grown to register this as dark chocolate, cherry and almond by repeated exposure.

Anyway, it's one of my favourite coffees, with a full mouth feel. I think it tastes like coffee.

Advent coffee Days two - four

juggzy — Sun, 04 Dec 2016 12:49:45 GMT

Coffee Advent day two
Fahem Lima Washed
Tasting Notes: Cherry and Blossom
Grown at: 1855 - 1958 m
From: Ethiopia
This is noticeably less bitter and more astringent than yesterday - the aftertaste is sour, rather than bitter. I think it's typical of the East African coffees I remember from when I was young. I do like this a lot

Coffee Advent day three (even though it is really day four).
Villaure
Tasting notes: Plum Tart
From: Guatemala
Grown at 1415 - 1850
Type: Bourbon, Caturra, Pacamara (mix)
This is actually very pleasant. It doesn't have the astringent edge of yesterday, but neither is it as bitter as the first coffee. It's sort of ... biscuity.

Coffee Advent day four
El Aguacate
Tasting notes: Grapefruit and Black cherry
From: Honduras
Grown at: 1700 m
Type: Red Catuai, caturra
This looked much lighter in the bag and is much lighter in the pot (I should probably take pictures). I can actually taste the grapefruit - it has a bitterness extremely analogous to that. It also has an astringency a little bit like day two; I guess that that must be what is meant by 'black cherry'. It also has a watery or 'juicy' mouth feel. I'm not so fond of this; I don't like the grapefruit bitterness without any compensatory creaminess. It's still very good coffee.

Advent coffee Day One:

juggzy — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 21:27:21 GMT

El Cabildo

From Norte de Santander, Colombia, grown at 1460 m, it's supposed to taste of Orange blossom.

I think it's good coffee, but then I would say that. It does have a juicy feel to it (some might say 'watery') and there is a bitter aftertaste. It smells slightly of caramel. Maybe it's a tad too bitter.

"We're getting our tax back"

juggzy — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 20:27:23 GMT

I really do think that too much has been written about the cause of the riots, and I am absolutely sure that, living in a city that hasn't had any riots, bar a drunken gathering on a green space by the canal and a couple of pubs on one of the nights, not having rioted myself, being far older than most of those who appear to be 'rioting', and not particularly interested in engaging in rioting myself, I am not a spokesperson who could explain with any degree of authority, pretendy or not, why 'the yoof' is rioting, or 'opportunistically looting with violence while the police are otherwise engaged' (which is a better description of what's been happening for the last few nights).

There are a number of middle class, middle aged people on various blog forums and in the press who have decided that they'll explain to the rest of us (who are, apparently, less enlightened) as to why the 'riots' happened.

Yeah. You go, you middle class people who make a living, or at least, get attention, out of "shock! horror!" column inches.

Me, I'm more convinced by listening to those who have rioted. Phrases like "We're getting our tax back", while on the surface fairly incoherent sound bites, are actually really pretty enlightening.

It seems to me to be a pretty reasonable assumption that if a whole bunch of people who don't have very much are told that the little access they have to money will be questioned, and probably removed, and they then see that a second bunch of people, the people who are telling them that they will have this money removed give a third bunch of people, all people who resemble the second bunch of people in appearance and social background, the opportunities to take as much money as they want from the system that was originally paying the first bunch of people the little money that they have, then the first bunch of people might just decide to take for themselves what they want, and that this is especially likely to be the course of action that the first bunch of people take if the second bunch of people have decided also to remove money from a fourth bunch of people who were previously paid to impose the rules and conventions needed to keep society functioning.

I mean, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that that's what's going on, especially when the first bunch of people tell you that that's what's happening, albeit in an incoherent way.

A lot of commentators have asked why the first bunch of people don't have any morals or commitment to society; why they can so easily attack the infrastructure of the community they live in. These commentators could as easily ask the same of the third bunch of people, the money and tax stealing friends of the second bunch of people.

If the first bunch of people see the third bunch of people getting away with stealing money from their communities and countries with the help of the second bunch of people, then right there, they're getting the message that it's OK to steal things; that it's OK to put your wants first and not think about the community, or the country. Phrases like "We're all in this together" aren't really going to work when all of the bunches of people palpably aren't in this together.

I'm not a rioter, though, so I wouldn't know what's really going on except by listening to those who are rioting. When somebody who doesn't even pay any tax, probably, says "We're getting our tax back," where do you think he's getting the impression that that's a reasonable justification for his actions? All I'm doing is listening.

Here's another point that somebody entirely different made on one of the many social forums where people are trying to figure this out: The people who are 'selfishly' rioting weren't born 'selfish' rioters. Somewhere they got taught that it's OK to think of their own consumer needs above the needs of the community that they live in. How did they get taught that?

Harrumph.

The Three Stags

juggzy — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:53:09 GMT

After nja left me I went back to the pub. The night was dark and stormy and flashes illuminated the three heads of class cervidae thrown high on the rough hewn wall:

Later, much later, I was to find out that many people consider this pub the best pub in the Peak district. I would have liked to have gone back to have checked the next day, or the day after, but it was closed, both times. Close, desolate and deserted. Did we really see it? Did I really have a pint of Absolution there? I cannot tell.

I knocked on the door, and the red-head, slightly drunk, opened it again.

"Can I have a drink?" I asked.

"Come in, come in," she said, waving her arm over half the room. Literally, half the room. There were five people seated and a spare space in the corner and two pumps, one serving Absolution and the other labelled "House own - Black Lurcher." I went for Absolution, as I always do, and sat in the spare space.

The two small grey lurchers in the room jumped on the table, which was made out of planks, and sniffed at my drink. "Good Doggies," I said, nervously. They looked at each other and then jumped down to the floor to reset their rest against the landlady's legs, staring at the punters sat drinking. Two more strangers walked in. No room to sit; they stood at the bar.

"We'll have the house beer," they said.

"It's off," said the Landlord, rising from the seat by his wife by the door.

"Oh," said the strangers, and left. The lurchers bared their teeth, risibly. I may have heard a cackle, but I am not sure. Dogs don't cackle, afer all. "This metric stuff is rubbish," said the old man in the corner.

"Aar, it be that" said the young man, dark haird, muscled, wearing a beany.

"You can't do your sums in metric," said the old man.

I cleared my throat. They all looked at me.

"Actually," I said, "You know how all of those robots keep crashing on Mars?" The old man nodded once. The young man looked confused.

"Well," I said. "The American engineers were working in imperial and the European engineers in metric. And they never bothered to check." ²³

"Ar. Hahar!" said the old man. "And it's bloody strange," he said. "Imperial. You'd think they'd have given that up."

"Yeah, well," said another, and they were off.

I finished my pint. "They're clearing Africa in order to grow biodiesel, you know," said the man sat by the bar. I listened intently. He repeated himself. "Of course," I said, "Of course. Yes." I nodded. "Great pub," I said to the landlady. "Can I come back?"

"Of course," she said.

"I went to a brilliant pub last night," I said to Alex and Steve the next day, as we tried to cook bacon and eggs.

"The Three Stags?" asked Steve. "Some people say that's the best pub in the Peaks. If they let you in."

"I certainly think so," I said.

"Let's go tonight," said Alex.

But it was closed that night, and the night after.

²³Yes, I'm sure I've got the details wrong. No need to tell me.

Tidying up

juggzy — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 12:17:38 GMT

About to do a bit of an flist prune, mostly people who haven't posted for ages. If I take you off and you would like to be added back on, please shout underneath.

Crashing cars

juggzy — Tue, 22 Mar 2005 22:36:24 GMT

I was in my first car crash when I was, um, seven.

My family lived in Malawi at the time. There were about thirty cars in the entire country. My father managed to meet one of the other cars, head on, on bonfire night, after two beers. The steering wheel went into his gut. After being checked for injury, and returned home, he woke up screaming, and had to be returned to hospital to have a large proportion of his lower intestine removed. He was in hospital on and off for six months after that.

When I was about twelve, same country, my father rolled the Vauxhall estate on a dirt track somewhere near lake Malawi. Really, really, rolled it. We went over one and a half times. I can still remember the rolling; there are no emotions associated, and the fact that the car ended up on it's side on the side that I was on, meaning that most of my brothers and sisters were on top of me. I have made them suffer for this. A goat (kill all goats) had run into the road, and my father, asleep in the high african afternoon, had swerved to avoid it, and rolled us off the road. He related his experience of the slow motion with which I view the memory: He realised that the car was about to settle on the hand that he habitually kept around the window post, and removed it in time.

The next accident was the one that I spoke of in this post.

I returned to Tanzania and bought half of a Suzuki 410 Jimny jeep. The theory was that I was going to use it to practise, and learn to drive that way. After three months, this wasn't working, for various friendship related issues. So, another friend recommended the Love and Joy driving school, and off I went, downtown. The bevvy of men of all nationalities inside the shaded door of the concrete sixties construction told me that the best way was to book half an hour for two weeks, and then the instructor would see how it was going.

I went the next day after school, and met the instructor, a heavy lidded, good looking man in the Tanzanian urban stylee; a goatee and amiable inscrutability, from up country, who later proved that he was taking the name of his institutiou far too seriously. I can't remember what he was called. We sat in the learner car, a Volkswagon, made in the sixties. The inside had been modified with twine (best in the humidity) and some flattened twin cans to provide dual controls. It worked, as Tiberius (as I shall call him) demonstrated when the first pedestrian walked into the road in front of us.

Dar es Salaam is very, very hot, and even more humid. The roads were paved once, but at this time, the tarmac had largely disintegrated. The ruling party (not Nyere any longer) had let go of African Socialism, to some extent, in order to get the IMF loans that would enable the country to patch its infrastructure together, but the roads in Dar were still mainly a mixture of broken tarmac, stone, and potholes. We drove around for half an hour with Tiberius saying "go right, go left". I avoided several pedestrians with due warning.

I returned the next day; same thing. After about a week of this, Tiberius took to reading some letters while I was driving, remembering to instruct me upon direction every five minutes or so. I took to deciding directions for myself, and also managed to avoid many pedestrians on my own.

Now convinced that I could decide to turn right, or left, for myself, Tiberius took to talking to me about his rather complicated life. He had left his wife behind in Dodoma, and she wanted more money. His girlfriend in Dar es Salaam was giving him a hard time, as she also wanted money. I nodded, and concentrated on clutch changes. He offered to take me out. I declined, because it was clear that he couldn't afford me, as well.

After two weeks, Tiberius said that he had something to discuss with me. You really get to know a person if you spend half an hour a day avoiding pedestrians with them. I adopted a listening pose.

"You can take the driving test, now" said Tiberius.

I nodded, and said "When?"

"Give me five thousand shillingi," said Tiberius, "and I shall arrange it for next Monday. Bring a photograph."

I turned up the next Monday, with the five thousand shillingi (about, um, twenty pounds? Maybe five pounds), and the photograph. Tiberius indicated that I should get into the car. He had returned to his earlier authority over directions. I was directed to a government building, sixties concrete, four floors, covered in the mould left behind by water runs.

"Give me the five thousand shillingi," said Tiberius.

"Er," said I

"No," he said. "It's fine. I promise you, I won't run off with it. You can trust me. I have to give the money to the man who will give you your license."

I handed it over, and sat in the Volkswagen, shifting sweatily on the sixties plastic covers. I had a cigarette, and thought a bit. I wondered if a dual control Volkswagon was adequate exchange for five thousand shillingi.

After half an hour, Tiberius returned. "Here is your license," he said.

"Shouldn't I take a test?" I asked.

"No, no," said Tiberius. "The minister trusts me. I say you can drive. You can buy me a beer, now."

I bought him a beer, and rebuffed some more suggestions to meet extra curricularly.

The next accident I had was in the Jimny 410, once it was fully mine. A student in my tutor group had died, rather spectacularly, in a traffic accident. The student in question was an Asian Tanzanian with an African chauffeur. The boy was not a nice lad; I have to record that some people aren't nice, even if they are children. Apparently, The child had habitually bullied the chauffer on the way into school, telling him to drive faster, and threatening to get him sacked if he didn't. The child had boasted about this to his schoolfriends, who came out with the stories after he had died. On one of these drive faster sprees, probably, the chauffeur met a car coming the othe way in the same lane, swerved to avoid it, and rammed a lampost. The chauffeur and the boy died instantly; the boy's sister lived.

I have memories of being ten different people at once, retaining silence, and not knowing which truth was better. The chauffeur had a family; nothing was done for them, publically. A memorial cricket competition was instituted in the memory of the boy.

I was on the way to the funeral of the child, with my boyfriend of the time; and we heard a screeching noise. A Toyota bakkie appeared out of nowhere, skidded across the road, and crashed into the driver's door. I saw him coming about fifteen seconds before the end, tried to accelerate out of it, but crashed into it. I had to pull my hand out carefully - the indented door was putting pressure on my fingers, but nothing was damaged. The bakkie had been reported as having brake problems; and the mechanics driving it, had taken it onto the road, to test out the extent to which the brakes had failed.

Totally, I'd say.

We didn't make the funeral.

The next accident was on holiday, back in Malawi, on holiday, with the boyfriend. I wasn't driving. The boyfriend was. We were on our way up to Lake Malawi, on a newly tarmacked road, when a young girl ran out into the road in front of us. She was killed. I don't visit this memory often, and I want to write more about it some other time. It was not my fault, and, later, the police deemed, not his fault. There's nothing to be done to undo the action.

The last accident was in South Africa. I had been away for a weekend to a game park with some internet friends, and I was taking one of them back to Johannesburg via Mafikeng. I was going to house sit for the holidays in Johannesburg, and had several pet rats that came along with me. I put the rat cages in the back of the Volkswagen Golf to travel,,using the beatselt to trap them in, and usually, transported them trouble free.

The rainy season had started, and, as we drove nearer to Johannesburg, a car ahead of us crashed into another at some traffic lights. I slammed on the brakes, on the greasy new-rain road, and found myself heading for the ditch to the left. There was a lampost ahead, to the right and (and I remember assessing all of this in slow time), and pedestrians in the distance; I wasn't sure of missing them if I tried to turn the car back onto the road. Mmories of crashes previously went through my head. I aimed the car at the ditch. I directed the car towards the ditch.

Leslie, my passenger, raised his head. "What about the rats?" he said. So, he was alive.

The rat cages were open. We found the beasties cowering under the driver's seat. Alive, as well. We put them back into the cages. The cages fastened easily. The car could move, and so, I drove it back to Johannesburg really, really slowly. I spent the holidays getting the car fixed.

Six out of nine lives, then.

On edit: Erk. I've been told that this reads rather heavily; sorry. It is not significant in any way at all; nothng I write ever is. I started writing about the Love and Joy driving school, and then remembered the crashes. That is all.

Kiswahili and motorbikes

juggzy — Sun, 30 Jan 2005 01:09:23 GMT

Of all the languages I've almost learnt, Kiswahili remains my favourite. Kiswahili, as it properly should be named.

Once, when I was living in Mafikeng, in South Africa, I wrote to the Times of London, complaining about their spelling of the town I inhabited (there was a conference of some African Importance taking place there concurrently). They spelt it Mafeking. It's just a transposition of two vowels, but in not doing that, a continents worth of respect is denied. Mafeking is the colonial spelling. Mafikeng is the name that the people there gave it. Mafeking remained the 'official' spelling until the South African elections of 1994, when TPTB reverted to the Tswana spelling of Mafikeng. The 'eng' ending is a feature of Tswana.

I recieved a shitty reply from the Times of London, stating that they had a policy of referring to the names of towns in Foreign, according to the English spelling. I feel that they they have dropped this policy recently, with respect to the growing economic power of China, with Chinese names. If Mafikeng should ever be in the papers again, check it out. And if it's not right, please complain. This is a matter of principle. Mafikeng is the primordial hellmouth, but still deserves the name that the people living there give it.

So, Kiswahili it should be, to give the language its proper prefix according to the noun class that the name of language should be placed within.

For online Kiswahili references, please visit The Kamusi project. It had appeared to be terminally broken a few seasons ago, but looking at it tonight, it may be up and running again.

I had an affinity with Kiswahili, relatively, that I had with no other language. I apologize if the story I am relate has already appeared on LJ, but it's a fairly stock story, and I have no idea how often I've used it.

I had been drinking the previous night, with my HofD in Dar es Salaam, and, as I remember, the rest of the Science department on campus. The imported teachers lived in separate appartments on a closed campus which led to much spontaneous partying. I can't even remember how this came about; one person was at my house, and then HofD's bestest mate turned up, and we decided to go around to his, and the last thing I remember really clearly was the fried gammon steaks with fresh pineapple at three in the morning. It's the tropics, so you process the alcohol out of your body quicker, so, under other circumstances, there would have been no problem. My memory loss is due to something else, though.

I went to drive my motorbike into the high school campus the next morning at 7.00 am. When I say 'motorbike', I mean a Honda C90, which was perfectly adequate, normally, for the 3 Km between the place of living and the place of work. I was probably a bit hungover, and I chose to take the coastal route; by the white sand beaches and the mangrove swamps. As I went around the bend in the road, I found myself heading directly towards a white combi van, on the wrong side of the road. Trying to avoid it (I remember this much), I went to the inner side of the road, away from the small cliffs down to the mangroves. There was a pothole in the side of the road, and I hit at a big enough speed to bend the front wheel and lose control of the bike (I deduced the bending afterwards). I then ended up heading across the road towards the cliffs, and, strangely, a lampost. The last thing I remember (and this has taken some years to return) is thinking that I had to drop the bike before I went over the cliff. So, I deduce, again, I did.

The rest has been pieced together from what other people told me. I did manage to drop the bike, on top of me, with the hot exhaust on my foot, and the stand piercing my leg. I gave my head enough of a bang to knock me out, and I hit the ground with my left elbow, which was smashed to bits. While I was unconscious, someone came along and stole my shoes. This kills me. I loved those shoes. Someone else noticed the body under the bike, and stopped - I have never met this person, although other people I know at the time knew him. He stopped other traffic, and one Asian family recognized me from the school.

I have vague memories of being loaded into the back of a pick up truck, then taken out, and put into a car, and somebody saying "She works at the International School." I have a memory of pulling into the Doctor's house, and him running out, looking panicked, saying "take her to the school clinic." I have memories of not knowing who I was or where I was. My memory is still dodgy today - I use strategies other than straight remembrance to get through life. I remember being amnesiac, though. As we drove through the school gates, I saw one of my tutees, a particularly troubled girl by the name of Khatra (meaning Fifth - she was the fifth child to a Somalian family) who was worried enough to ask me what was wrong. The feeling of memories returning is like balls clicking into holes in those little balls into holes games you get in Christmas Crackers; the memory tumbles into place. I remember getting my memory back. I had to get enough memory back to reassure Khatra. That's the strangest thing. Always a teacher.

The doctor strapped my arm to a log, and sent me down to the Aga Khan hospital for an X-ray. Although they weren't saying, they had already decided to send me back to the UK. Two reasons: Firstly, I needed blood, and there was no guarantee about the non contamination of blood in Tanzania. Secondly, the doctor had assessed the state of my elbow as needing surgery beyond that which could be done in sterile conditions to match western standards, in Tanzania. The headmaster at the time, Bill Powell, former anarchist activist turned harsh headmaster, questioned me as to my mother's phone number. I swore at him. Swearing was to be a feature of this accident and recovery, but Bill took it personally. Our relationship never recovered. Bill was a political animal, as was I, although I didn't realise it at the time, and I was manoevered out of the school a few years later, after he had left and returned. He didn't like me. I think he's a bastard, but then, I would.

After the X-ray, I was shot through with Happy Drugs, and booked on a KLM flight out that night, with a nurse, all courtesy of the medical insurance. The nurse had not been back to the UK for several years (having married a Tanzanian and having no money), so there was a silver lining to all of this for her.

I was given a front seat, with space available for drip and a nurse, or nun, with or without singing guitar, alongside. It was totally Airplane. I really don't remember much. Drugged, remember. When we got to Schipol, the bruises and swellings had kicked in - I think I had a hairline fracture on the left side of my face, and there were certainly dead nerve endings there for a number of years. Although capable of walking, I was loaded into a wheelchair and transported across Schipol to the City Hopper that would take me to Cardiff airport.

On which plane, several concerned stewardesses came up to me to check that I was OK. I pointed out that I would continue to be OK, so long as my nurse kept giving me the drugs she had in her handbag. I may have used the phrase "illegal drugs," ironically. Drugged, remember. They nodded, looked concerned, and went away.

At Cardiff airport, no such consideration. I was allowed to limp onto the tarmac myself, dressed in black flowing skirts and flip flops. In December. We had to go through customs. They searched my bags, the bastards, asking pertinent questions, and ignoring the log strapped to my left arm. The jokes I made about illegal drugs? Unwise commentary. Don't make jokes about illegal drugs to people who are paid to report them to customs.

My elder sister had recently broken both of her wrists in a motorbike accident, so my mother was becoming inured to this. She met me off the tarmac, and drove me into Cardiff Royal Infirmary. I limped in. "Goodness," they said, "what's happened? Get a wheelchair!" I sat in the wheelchair and was not allowed to get up for six weeks. "I've had an accident," I said, and gave them the X-rays. "The Aga Khan?" they said. "Where's that." "In Tanzania," I said.

Turned out that the worst was not the elbow, but rather the toe. The burn from the exhaust necssitated skin grafts, and, due to the delay, I was pre-gangrenous, where the stand had pierced the muscles of my left leg. It all got fixed, or as fixed as it can be. It involved mutliple drips and several operations.

One of which I woke up in, swearing about not being back in Tanzania, in some kind of symmetry. I was a horrible patient. People came and visited. John Stapleton and his new girlfriend came and brought me the first Pratchett book I was to read. The Lockerbie bombing happened, and people looked embarassed when I ranted about the safety of Boeing (I was later to be proved right, although I can't be arsed to link). I was allowed out for Christmas: I think they thought that that would be easier on the nurses, although I got on very well with the nurses. My mother had just acquired a puppy, and we spent most of the time curled up on the sofa, watching television. My mother drafted in mick_the_moon to look after me at some point, when she went gallivanting. The puppy ate all of the calendula ointment he'd brought to help with the bruising.

I went back to Tanzania after three months. I learnt Kiswahili faster and quicker than I've ever learnt a language, in the six months that followed. I have a memory of instinctive understanding of a language's structure. The facility with Kiswahili is gone now, but again, I have the memory of being able to learn a language. So, there's a memory of two things; being able to understand a language, and the language itself. Weird.

If I were to return to Tanzania, I'd get the Kiswahili back. I am not a linguist, and my access to words and vocabulary is totally dependent on context. But this memory of being able to learn language has helped me a bit in recent years, with, say, French, when I've needed it.

So, I can't really rant about Kiswahili. I can rant about why I was, once, able to learn language, though. And I have.