Life Abroad

Shopping in an African market: It’s not your American mall, but you can get your hair done, and where better to find dried shrimp by the kilo?

To smile or not to smile? The world over, smiling is nice, right? It’s cheap. It’s easy. People like it. Well, no, sometimes they don’t.

Jet-lagged, I’m in a restaurant on another continent, sipping wine. No sleep in two days, a woozy vision of a semi-naked nymph . . . where am I?

Our phone number was very popular. Strangers called us all the time, but were irate when I answered. They didn’t want a peppy foreigner on the line. They wanted somebody else.

Cooking disasters, anyone? I was once faced with a culinary fiasco of mystifying proportions while living in an African village.