Elephants/Eccezionale

E was a hard letter to tackle, I admit it. I'm glad I've got a few weeks before "X" comes up.

When I tried to thing of interesting blog fodder that begins with E I thought of two things, an animal and a word. Random, but here goes.

Elephants are probably what every kid thinks of when you say 'name something that begins with E,' but it's fresh in my mind today. We went to a candle party on Friday (they really are fun, I have to admit) and PartyLite has this elephant votive holder that I was going to get. I decided on a set of mini-elephants, as the big elephant was too pricey and I was trying to be a good girl for a change. The hostess brought her friend to take orders for her, and as she was cashing me out she asked me where I was going to put the votives. "Well," I said, "I have sort of this Africa table in my room. I've been there twice and once was for four months, so I have quite a collection and I think the elephants will go well with my giraffe family and carved frame and little boma I have on the table." Right away, the woman, whose name was Cecile, exclaimed "You've been to Africa? Twice? What was it like?" I told her that I'd been to Kenya, once for a semester, once on a reunion trip and couldn't wait to get back there. Normally when I am the slightest bit intoxicated I ramble on and on, and in this case I was trying to hold back and not bore this poor woman, but she kept asking question after question. I finally said to her "If you ever get the chance to go, you must. Seeing an elephant in the wild is out of this world. It will literally blow your mind." Which I think is true. I saw hundreds of elephants during my semester there, but even upon my return in '06 they still filled me with the greatest sense of wonder. You look at them and think of the things they have seen - you can tell they are incredibly intelligent, and that they're looking right back at you, trying to decide what to make of you. Seeing an elephant face to face (ok within reasonable distance, they are quite dangerous at times) is magic. I recommend the experience to everyone.

Eccezionale is far more random than elephants. It means something like "extraordinary" or "exceptional" in Italian, and is actually the name of an Irene Grandi song we had to sing in class. Unlike most of the Italian songs we were forced to sing in classe d'italiano this one was singable (try getting 20 girls to sing Con Te Partiro or O Mio Babbino Caro. Not good.). It's kind of a rock song with a great chorus, though I find the music video somewhat ODD



Anyways, I love the song and still listen to it as well as another track, Verde Rosso e Blu. As I was thinking about how I love listening to these songs despite the fact that I can only get a basic idea of what they're about, given my poor italian skills, I realized that there a lot of foreign language songs on my iPod, and I don't know what the HELL a lot of them are about, yet I still enjoy the songs. Here they are: Corcovado (which is Portuguese and English, but so lovely) by Astrud and Joao Gilberto, Kothbiro by Ayub Ogado, Fanta by Baaba Maal, Tabu Wote Changu Sasa, Shosholosa, Any Ladysmith Black Mambazo (hhahhhhaa YES), A La Claire Fontaine by Laure Shang, Szerelem Szerelem by Marta Sebestyen, Malaika and Holili by Miriam Makeba, Soweto Daal by Wasis Diop, Mos Mos by E-Sir, Baba Yetu from Civilization IV, and Choli Ke Peeche from the movie Khalnayak, though I have some remix rap version. These are just a few favorites anyways, the ones I badly attempt to belt out while driving in my car. It's kind of fun to branch out and listen to stuff you don't understand - though I did just find out that some people think Choli is a little crude meaning something to the effect of "what's under you blouse?" I'll be careful where I blast that one, LOL.