**** - The Fate of Africa by Martin Meredith. Trying to write a comprehensive text on the history of post-colonial Africa is definitely an ambitious task. In just under 700 pages, he works to provide a bit of historical context and then study the past 50 years and how they have shaped modern Africa. For a continent of several dozen countries and 880 million people, this task is simply too ambitious. For example, I didn't really learn anything about Niger, Western Sahara, Guinea-Bissau and Benin, while the treatment of countries like Djibouti, Mauritania, Namibia, Burundi and several others was fairly bare. However, the main reason that this was so disappointing was that the story was so well told for some of the other countries on the continent.
Meredith does a great job providing anecdotes and compelling details that really add texture to the picture. He does a good job of reminding us that many of the cruelest dictators had broad support at one point or another, while remaining unsympathetic to their authoritarian practices and the powers that treated them as pawns in their diplomatic aims (not just Cold War battles, but also African leaders vying to strengthen their own diplomatic clout). Although the narration becomes a bit disjointed at times, jumping between countries and chronologies, but many of the episodes had such regional importance that he can be forgiven for some of the difficulties. Also, the book has a comprehensive bibliography at the back, although an annotated version of the bibliography would probably be much more useful.
The historical perspective also provides some useful insights into other modern debates. Many aid skeptics do not offer enough historical context into their analyses of why aid programs fail and how those programs could be improved. Also understanding why modern structures are in place and how they were developed is a very useful tool for people working to improve those structures and deliver better governance. Most importantly, the book is a catalog of failures of diplomacy that offer useful lessons to people in that line of work.
The book was not without flaws. There are only a few maps at the start of the book, while he regularly refers to places that are not market and paints a difficult geographic picture. The editors seemed a bit lazy at times, letting slip some minor errors, but also offering questionable judgment on chapter titles (a chapter which is 2/3 about the horrors and injustices of South Africa's apartheid regime and only at the end talks about the end of apartheid should really not be titled "A Time of Triumph"). Still, the book is definitely worth reading and the writing makes it easy to absorb the information in there.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
Zambia - First Impressions
While I was waiting for my bus to leave Nakonde (the town on the Zambian side of the border), I decided to walk around a bit. The first buildings past customs were the offices of various customs clearing agencies (I suppose the complexity of the export process could be considered a good way of creating jobs for experts to facilitate). After that, I saw several cafes and general stores, many of which seemed to be catering to the sort of people who could afford passports, rather than the majority of the people who lived in Nakonde. However, after walking down a backstreet, I found the town market. They were selling lots of dried small fish and caterpillars as well as green leafy vegetables, onions and other veggies. I was surprised that there was almost no fruit in the market (though I saw plenty of tomatoes, which are technically a fruit) and tried to recall if I had seen any other market during my travels in Africa that wasn't selling bananas. My favorite part was a company called Power Tools. They were running a bus company, a hotel, a cafe and probably a few other businesses. However, I did not see any power tools connected with them.
I couldn't see much on the road from Nakonde to Lusaka, since the road was dark and there were very few lights along the road. I was impressed with the thick forest cover, but the sparce population made the area seem rather desolate. As the sun came up, we were passing through a few towns outside Lusaka, which seemed nice, but I really only saw the main road, so it's hard to form a real impression. In Lusaka, I admired the smooth transition from large farms on the outskirts to skyscrapers in the downtown area. I noticed that there were very few brands that I recognized from Kenya and Tanzania as we passed the billboards and signs plastered with ads.
When we arrived at the bus station, I hopped out and made my way past the over-eager taxi drivers to walk around a bit. The city seemed really nice, although I could tell I was in an affluent neighborhood and was very curious what some of the poorer areas looked like. I noticed that there were a lot of cartons on the ground for a beverage called Shake-Shake, which I later learned was a dairy product with alcohol. I couldn't actually make up my mind about the architecture in Lusaka, but I guess I don't have anything to complain about.
After setting off from Lusaka toward Chipata (the capital of Zambia's Eastern province) I had a much clearer view of the road (a different road). The villages were pretty well spaced, and even though power lines ran over the villages, most people did not appear to have connections. There were a lot of schools, which seemed to be the only buildings that had an electrical connection. At one point, we stopped at a roadside market to grab some food. I was really surprised by how expensive everything was, and wound up eating a couple of hard-boiled eggs. We arrived in Chipata and I saw a nice bustling medium sized town. A few major stores, and a nice big market, but nothing too distinctive about it. It was really nice to arrive in the middle of mango season, where big, ripe, juicy mangoes are sold for two cents or less.
All the Zambians I met were very friendly (though a few tried to overcharge me). They spoke very good English and were happy to talk and asked lots of questions. I couldn't quantify this, but the people just seemed really happy with their lives, probably more so than in most of the places that I've been in Kenya or Tanzania. My friend Jackie said that Zambia was one of her favorite places from her travels, and I can definitely see why.
I couldn't see much on the road from Nakonde to Lusaka, since the road was dark and there were very few lights along the road. I was impressed with the thick forest cover, but the sparce population made the area seem rather desolate. As the sun came up, we were passing through a few towns outside Lusaka, which seemed nice, but I really only saw the main road, so it's hard to form a real impression. In Lusaka, I admired the smooth transition from large farms on the outskirts to skyscrapers in the downtown area. I noticed that there were very few brands that I recognized from Kenya and Tanzania as we passed the billboards and signs plastered with ads.
When we arrived at the bus station, I hopped out and made my way past the over-eager taxi drivers to walk around a bit. The city seemed really nice, although I could tell I was in an affluent neighborhood and was very curious what some of the poorer areas looked like. I noticed that there were a lot of cartons on the ground for a beverage called Shake-Shake, which I later learned was a dairy product with alcohol. I couldn't actually make up my mind about the architecture in Lusaka, but I guess I don't have anything to complain about.
After setting off from Lusaka toward Chipata (the capital of Zambia's Eastern province) I had a much clearer view of the road (a different road). The villages were pretty well spaced, and even though power lines ran over the villages, most people did not appear to have connections. There were a lot of schools, which seemed to be the only buildings that had an electrical connection. At one point, we stopped at a roadside market to grab some food. I was really surprised by how expensive everything was, and wound up eating a couple of hard-boiled eggs. We arrived in Chipata and I saw a nice bustling medium sized town. A few major stores, and a nice big market, but nothing too distinctive about it. It was really nice to arrive in the middle of mango season, where big, ripe, juicy mangoes are sold for two cents or less.
All the Zambians I met were very friendly (though a few tried to overcharge me). They spoke very good English and were happy to talk and asked lots of questions. I couldn't quantify this, but the people just seemed really happy with their lives, probably more so than in most of the places that I've been in Kenya or Tanzania. My friend Jackie said that Zambia was one of her favorite places from her travels, and I can definitely see why.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Traveling to Zambia
On Friday (the 10th) at 5:30 AM, Jodie dropped me off at the bus stop for my trip to Zambia. In typical fashion, we had to swing by the office on the way to grab a few things before heading to the bus stop. The bus left at 5:50 to begin the interminable journey. I was up until 2 packing and tying up loose ends for work, so I slept a healthy amount on the ride. I also brought a 700 page book and made a healthy dent in that. I grabbed some snacks at some of the stops along the way (it's nice traveling during fruit season so that there's an alternative to the over-priced heavily fried foods on offer) and was surprised to see glass bottles of Mountain Dew (Pepsi is a common sight, but this was the first time I've seen Mountain Dew in glass--it seemed unnaturally classy for Mountain Dew). The bus arrived in Mbeya at 11:45 PM (the first time I've had the trip take less than 18 hours). I found an all night grill and grabbed a bite before walking around town (down some dark abandoned roads) to find a hotel.
I slept wonderfully and struggled to pull myself out of bed for an early start. I decided that since I was slow, it made sense to wait for the shops to open at 9 AM so that I could exchange my Tanzanian shillings for Zambian kwacha before the border (where the hawkers offer egregiously unfair prices). Then I hopped on a small bus headed to the border (the Tanzanian border town is Tunduma). After 2 hours, we hit a huge traffic build up about 2 km from the border, so I just decided to get out and walk to the border (I wasn't carrying a sheller in my luggage this time around, so it was much easier to move around). It was a pretty uneventful border crossing, though I have to say that the Zambian entry form was one of my favorites. The top asked for Date d'Entree which it translated as Date of Exit. Also, in filling out the year, it prompted you with 19__. But it was a refreshingly easy crossing.
Across in Zambia, I was in a town called Nakonde. I bought a bus ticket and walked around a bit. I bought a sim card and walked around a bit to survey. The market was nice, though I was surprised to see almost no fruit on offer (so there were plenty of tomatoes, but that's only technically a fruit--I'm not sure I can recall any markets I've visited where I didn't see any bananas). I decided to wait on the bus. I attempted to learn a little Nyanja (one of the main languages of Zambia), tried to nap, read more of my book and paced quite a bit. After 5 hours, the bus finally set off (it was 4:30 PM at this point because of the time change when I entered Zambia).
As I quickly discovered, the seats on this bus were about two inches narrower than the width of my shoulders. And to compound matters, there were people standing in the aisles, which meant that as they leaned into the rows, we were all squished even more (though next to their plight, I certainly can't complain). It became dark pretty quickly, so I couldn't read anymore. There were lights for each seat, but they cut the power to them, so I played around with my phone and tried to catch a nap. Unfortunately, my neighbor kept sleeping in the most unneighborly fashion. At times he would put his hands behind his head so that his elbow was resting on my back if I was leaning forward or his elbow was jostling against my temple if I hazarded to lean back. I could feel my stomach revolting against my travel diet and the travel stress, but there wasn't really anything I could do at that point.
We pulled into Lusaka at 7:40 AM and after running to the toilets at the bus stop, I grabbed a taxi and had breakfast with some friends before setting off at 11 AM for Chipata, which was my final destination. This time we were riding in the back of a Peace Corps vehicle with a lot of gear, so it was less comfortable than the two Tanzanian buses, though definitely a huge improvement over my bus into Lusaka. We rolled into the guest house just after 7:30 PM on Sunday and I was thrilled that I had finally arrived.
So, to summarize the 63 hours qualitatively:
5 vehicles and just under 44 hours on the road
49,000 shillings and 145,000 kwacha in bus fare (about $62)
2 stamps and 1 visa in my passport
350 pages and 17 Economist articles read
Way too many calories and way too few vitamins in my meals
About 10 hours of sleep (not much of it was good sleep)
1 realization that my body can't take much more of this kind of travel
Anyway, there's a lot going on here and I'm slightly too busy to write about it, so by the end of the year, I'm probably going to put up a ton of posts (hopefully with lots of pictures).
I slept wonderfully and struggled to pull myself out of bed for an early start. I decided that since I was slow, it made sense to wait for the shops to open at 9 AM so that I could exchange my Tanzanian shillings for Zambian kwacha before the border (where the hawkers offer egregiously unfair prices). Then I hopped on a small bus headed to the border (the Tanzanian border town is Tunduma). After 2 hours, we hit a huge traffic build up about 2 km from the border, so I just decided to get out and walk to the border (I wasn't carrying a sheller in my luggage this time around, so it was much easier to move around). It was a pretty uneventful border crossing, though I have to say that the Zambian entry form was one of my favorites. The top asked for Date d'Entree which it translated as Date of Exit. Also, in filling out the year, it prompted you with 19__. But it was a refreshingly easy crossing.
Across in Zambia, I was in a town called Nakonde. I bought a bus ticket and walked around a bit. I bought a sim card and walked around a bit to survey. The market was nice, though I was surprised to see almost no fruit on offer (so there were plenty of tomatoes, but that's only technically a fruit--I'm not sure I can recall any markets I've visited where I didn't see any bananas). I decided to wait on the bus. I attempted to learn a little Nyanja (one of the main languages of Zambia), tried to nap, read more of my book and paced quite a bit. After 5 hours, the bus finally set off (it was 4:30 PM at this point because of the time change when I entered Zambia).
As I quickly discovered, the seats on this bus were about two inches narrower than the width of my shoulders. And to compound matters, there were people standing in the aisles, which meant that as they leaned into the rows, we were all squished even more (though next to their plight, I certainly can't complain). It became dark pretty quickly, so I couldn't read anymore. There were lights for each seat, but they cut the power to them, so I played around with my phone and tried to catch a nap. Unfortunately, my neighbor kept sleeping in the most unneighborly fashion. At times he would put his hands behind his head so that his elbow was resting on my back if I was leaning forward or his elbow was jostling against my temple if I hazarded to lean back. I could feel my stomach revolting against my travel diet and the travel stress, but there wasn't really anything I could do at that point.
We pulled into Lusaka at 7:40 AM and after running to the toilets at the bus stop, I grabbed a taxi and had breakfast with some friends before setting off at 11 AM for Chipata, which was my final destination. This time we were riding in the back of a Peace Corps vehicle with a lot of gear, so it was less comfortable than the two Tanzanian buses, though definitely a huge improvement over my bus into Lusaka. We rolled into the guest house just after 7:30 PM on Sunday and I was thrilled that I had finally arrived.
So, to summarize the 63 hours qualitatively:
5 vehicles and just under 44 hours on the road
49,000 shillings and 145,000 kwacha in bus fare (about $62)
2 stamps and 1 visa in my passport
350 pages and 17 Economist articles read
Way too many calories and way too few vitamins in my meals
About 10 hours of sleep (not much of it was good sleep)
1 realization that my body can't take much more of this kind of travel
Anyway, there's a lot going on here and I'm slightly too busy to write about it, so by the end of the year, I'm probably going to put up a ton of posts (hopefully with lots of pictures).
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Cool new initiative
I'm working on a new project in Arusha to spur rural innovation. Although Arusha has seen significant growth and prosperity over the last decade or so, the surrounding villages have not really benefited from this growth. The idea is to have the villagers identify the problems that they would like to solve and work with them on developing technology solutions. The villagers would work in teams and the workshop staff would provide mentorship as people worked. The teams would learn about the design process through case studies and their projects would serve as an interactive case study.
The program is called the AISE Initiative for Accelerating Innovations and Social Entrepreneurship (AISE is pronounced "I say!" which is an exclamation of wonder in Kiswahili). Sadly we don't have a website yet, but we're working on that. My friend Bernard and I are laying the groundwork and conducting the research and we are planning to get our pilot program off the ground in January. We've been working with Jodie here in Tanzania, but we're also receiving support from Amy Smith, Kofi Taha and Becca Smith (no relation) at MIT in hashing out the idea and accessing resources. In fact, Bernard and I are about to spend two weeks in Zambia with Amy and Kofi doing some background work and then Becca will be in Tanzania in January to help with our pilot.
This methodology is called Creative Capacity Building (CCB). The staff at the AISE Initiative are not employed to impose solutions onto a community, but rather are facilitators who enhance the expertise of others, and, thereby, view meaningful community participation as necessary to social and economic progress. This has been developed by Amy and Kofi in their work with refugee camps in Uganda and has shown remarkable results.
We've just put up a fundraising page [LINK REMOVED OCTOBER 2011], so if you know anyone looking for worthy causes* this holiday season, I'd really appreciate it if you could spread the word. Also, another cause close to my heart is IDDS, which is another initiative that I am part of. You can support IDDS here.
* We are working with my friend Joe Agoada's NGO, the Two Wheeled Foundation for this campaign. The funding tiers are for both AISE Initiative projects and GCS projects.
This is a super low-cost solar water heater that Bernard developed after his experiences in a CCB program.
The program is called the AISE Initiative for Accelerating Innovations and Social Entrepreneurship (AISE is pronounced "I say!" which is an exclamation of wonder in Kiswahili). Sadly we don't have a website yet, but we're working on that. My friend Bernard and I are laying the groundwork and conducting the research and we are planning to get our pilot program off the ground in January. We've been working with Jodie here in Tanzania, but we're also receiving support from Amy Smith, Kofi Taha and Becca Smith (no relation) at MIT in hashing out the idea and accessing resources. In fact, Bernard and I are about to spend two weeks in Zambia with Amy and Kofi doing some background work and then Becca will be in Tanzania in January to help with our pilot.
This methodology is called Creative Capacity Building (CCB). The staff at the AISE Initiative are not employed to impose solutions onto a community, but rather are facilitators who enhance the expertise of others, and, thereby, view meaningful community participation as necessary to social and economic progress. This has been developed by Amy and Kofi in their work with refugee camps in Uganda and has shown remarkable results.
We've just put up a fundraising page [LINK REMOVED OCTOBER 2011], so if you know anyone looking for worthy causes* this holiday season, I'd really appreciate it if you could spread the word. Also, another cause close to my heart is IDDS, which is another initiative that I am part of. You can support IDDS here.
* We are working with my friend Joe Agoada's NGO, the Two Wheeled Foundation for this campaign. The funding tiers are for both AISE Initiative projects and GCS projects.
This is a super low-cost solar water heater that Bernard developed after his experiences in a CCB program.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Village Interviews
Yesterday I did field work. It was amazing, since almost all of my work over the past two months has been in the office. Bernard (check out my new Recurring Characters page) was leading the expedition and I was on the back of the motorcycle. We were conducting some village interviews for a project that we're cooking up involving designing a mobile workshop that we could bring to villages (more details and a link coming very soon hopefully).
The first village (called Mkonoo) went really well and everyone was really engaged in the discussion. We had twenty people come to meet with us, from different ages and professions. Unfortunately, every single attendee was male, so we missed out on the perspective for a demographic that makes up half of the community. We talked about some of the issues and challenges they face, and people seemed pretty energetic about our project, though one gentleman in the front left after ten minutes when he realized that the white man hadn't come with money or other handouts (I wish I was joking about this). However, the rest of the session went very well and I met a nice gentleman afterward who started talking about building a rainwater harvesting system and a bio-digester.
After that, Bernard and I headed further afield to the village of Terrat. Unfortunately, most people in the village were at the market (apparently Friday is the wrong day to conduct interviews in Terrat). As we waited, we surveyed the area a bit. One villager pointed out the house of a Dutch man on a hill. Suddenly the rest of the survey made sense. There was an unmaintained pipe from the gutters on school's roof (at this point, only about 50% of the pipe remained, while the rest had been completely corroded). When we followed it down to the underground tank, Bernard and I saw that it had an impressive capacity and was lined with expensive plastic and was filled with garbage. Though there were certainly merits to the project, it was clearly not what the village wanted, so they had no interest in maintaining it or putting it towards its original use. I guess in this case, it's not really the thought that counts.
So yeah, this is my spiel that every jaded volunteer puts up on their blog about the uselessness of people who drop out of the sky and decide that they know what is best for a community that has been carrying on by itself for decades or centuries. Come on out here and you'll encounter plenty of these folks. To be fair, this project wasn't actually counterproductive, unlike some of the other programs I've seen where outsiders decide that they know better than the people on the ground. It's condescending and wasteful.
The first village (called Mkonoo) went really well and everyone was really engaged in the discussion. We had twenty people come to meet with us, from different ages and professions. Unfortunately, every single attendee was male, so we missed out on the perspective for a demographic that makes up half of the community. We talked about some of the issues and challenges they face, and people seemed pretty energetic about our project, though one gentleman in the front left after ten minutes when he realized that the white man hadn't come with money or other handouts (I wish I was joking about this). However, the rest of the session went very well and I met a nice gentleman afterward who started talking about building a rainwater harvesting system and a bio-digester.
After that, Bernard and I headed further afield to the village of Terrat. Unfortunately, most people in the village were at the market (apparently Friday is the wrong day to conduct interviews in Terrat). As we waited, we surveyed the area a bit. One villager pointed out the house of a Dutch man on a hill. Suddenly the rest of the survey made sense. There was an unmaintained pipe from the gutters on school's roof (at this point, only about 50% of the pipe remained, while the rest had been completely corroded). When we followed it down to the underground tank, Bernard and I saw that it had an impressive capacity and was lined with expensive plastic and was filled with garbage. Though there were certainly merits to the project, it was clearly not what the village wanted, so they had no interest in maintaining it or putting it towards its original use. I guess in this case, it's not really the thought that counts.
So yeah, this is my spiel that every jaded volunteer puts up on their blog about the uselessness of people who drop out of the sky and decide that they know what is best for a community that has been carrying on by itself for decades or centuries. Come on out here and you'll encounter plenty of these folks. To be fair, this project wasn't actually counterproductive, unlike some of the other programs I've seen where outsiders decide that they know better than the people on the ground. It's condescending and wasteful.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Two Potlucks and a Christmas Fair
I'd just like to start off by thanking everyone for their kind wishes. I am feeling much better* and I am thankfully off my antibiotics. Now then:
Our Friday night Potluck was a bit thrown together, but in the end, it all worked out. We decided chapati burritos are definitely our signature dish, so Jodie got the chapati and had Glady our office secretary make the beans (I was still pretty useless most of the day). Reuben sent out a bunch of invites and picked up some people since our house is quite a way from the main road. And the two of them did an amazing job cleaning up the house so that we could have people over for the first time. We told people 7, and even though we knew people would come late, we decided we should try to have the food ready by then.
I picked up everything to make the guacamole and I had started just after 6. Jodie was popping lots of popcorn on our stove top as an appetizer. Reuben had brought Angela (she's the president of our Frisbee league) who had chapati and guacamole as well, so we were incredibly relieved when she pulled out hummus and fresh veggies and explained that she had also brought an appetizer. So Angela was chopping carrots and green pepper in the kitchen. And Reuben was putting together a tuna-pasta salad. By that time, I had moved onto the beans, which had been seasoned with a big MSG flavor packet, so I was trying to undo that flavor and restore the normal flavor. For the first time, the kitchen felt cramped.
Starting at 8, the guests began trickling in. Half of them were from my roommate Mic's dance group (they're break-dancers), all Tanzanian men in their 20s. The other half were the girlfriends of the dancers, all white volunteers in their 20s. It was nice talking to everyone, but the demographics are a little odd. When someone asked me about it, I said that it was a case of supply and demand. Not exactly the phrasing I was going for, but I was still a bit loopy from the antibiotics. Basically, the type of volunteers who come to Arusha tend to be a bit different from the type of volunteers who go to a place like Voi. I don't know how they self-select, but it definitely seems to happen.
Anyway, the Potluck went well, although with all the conversations going on around me, I found myself getting a bit lost. Still, I managed to stay up until 11 and when I woke up in the morning, I discovered that Jodie and Reuben had managed all of the clean-up.
Saturday was a typical day at the office, except that we all locked up at 1 to leave. This atypical behavior on our part (leaving on time) caused a bit of confusion over relaying our sets of keys, but it all worked out in the end. After work, there was a Thanksgiving get-together with some friends. Reuben made some macaroni and cheese, while Jodie steamed some carrots and I made garlic mashed potatoes. I'd never made any kind of mashed potatoes before, but I figured that with milk, potatoes, salt, pepper, margarine and garlic (and most importantly, a masher) I couldn't go wrong. The only challenging part was that I added the salt late and it was rather difficult to mix it in evenly. Oh well, practice makes perfect.
We headed over at 4 PM and found a pretty crowded house. There was turkey and stuffing and almost all the fixings. Sadly, cranberry sauce was not to be had (I was shocked, since I knew of two supermarkets in town that sell it). Angela's roommate Jana was hosting everyone (we've met up with Jana a few times). She works at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and aside from Angela and Jodie, Reuben and I, everyone was from the Tribunal (and everyone was from North America or Europe). Everyone was really nice and I had interesting conversations with people, but I was really shocked how little interest they seemed to have in general with Tanzanians, Rwandans or the culture that was all around them. They seemed to work with other Westerners all day and go drink with them in the bars on evenings and weekends. I'm certainly generalizing based on short interactions with a few people, but I will say that almost no one there spoke any Kiswahili (even those who had been in Tanzania for a year) and they didn't seem terribly interested in learning. (I did have a "small world" moment when I was talking to a girl at the party and she mentioned that her cousin Abbie had gone to MIT, and it happened that Abbie had lived in my dorm and been a friend of mine.)
Apparently the party went on until 10 before they continued it at a club. Jodie and I left early since I was still pretty drained from the bug I had all week. However, before leaving, we did agree that we would go to the Christmas Fair in town the next day.
The Christmas Fair** was in a part of town that I'd only passed through when leaving Arusha and never really noticed. Turns out there's an enormous country club-type place there. The fair was on a polo field and there were dozens of tents forming a huge horseshoe. I made a circuit of the tents and realized how uninterested I was in most of the crafts there. I made sure to greet most of the people I knew from frisbee, but other than that, I spent most of the day studying people. I have to say that the experience felt even further removed from my village experiences even than any place I've ever been in Nairobi (and that's saying a lot).
There were plenty of Tanzanians selling crafts and knickknacks and a good number of upper-middle- and upper-class Tanzanians around the grounds shopping, so that was refreshing. But I definitely did not feel like I was in a country where 80% of the population are employed in the agricultural sector. I felt more like I was in a suburb in the US than in Tanzania. Which is not to say that the experience is inauthentic or doesn't reflect the reality on the ground, it's just a stark contrast to the villages where I've worked and much less interesting to me.
I don't want to convey the notion that anything was unpleasant this weekend. I'm mostly trying to convey how I felt moving in a different society this weekend from the one that I'm used to.
* And my total weight-loss throughout this bug was one belt loop. I'm guessing that's 5-7 lbs there. Good thing that I put on some weight while I was in the states.
** I especially like the part where it says that "all funds raised are donated to a charity of good cause." I was hoping that it would go to a charity of nefarious cause! (I had an overwhelming urge to include links on "nefarious" to some charities that I particularly dislike, but I decided to hold my tongue.) Well, in any case, I'd love to hear what their determination of a "good cause" is. I'm always skeptical of the goodness when people don't just say what charity it is outright.
Our Friday night Potluck was a bit thrown together, but in the end, it all worked out. We decided chapati burritos are definitely our signature dish, so Jodie got the chapati and had Glady our office secretary make the beans (I was still pretty useless most of the day). Reuben sent out a bunch of invites and picked up some people since our house is quite a way from the main road. And the two of them did an amazing job cleaning up the house so that we could have people over for the first time. We told people 7, and even though we knew people would come late, we decided we should try to have the food ready by then.
I picked up everything to make the guacamole and I had started just after 6. Jodie was popping lots of popcorn on our stove top as an appetizer. Reuben had brought Angela (she's the president of our Frisbee league) who had chapati and guacamole as well, so we were incredibly relieved when she pulled out hummus and fresh veggies and explained that she had also brought an appetizer. So Angela was chopping carrots and green pepper in the kitchen. And Reuben was putting together a tuna-pasta salad. By that time, I had moved onto the beans, which had been seasoned with a big MSG flavor packet, so I was trying to undo that flavor and restore the normal flavor. For the first time, the kitchen felt cramped.
Starting at 8, the guests began trickling in. Half of them were from my roommate Mic's dance group (they're break-dancers), all Tanzanian men in their 20s. The other half were the girlfriends of the dancers, all white volunteers in their 20s. It was nice talking to everyone, but the demographics are a little odd. When someone asked me about it, I said that it was a case of supply and demand. Not exactly the phrasing I was going for, but I was still a bit loopy from the antibiotics. Basically, the type of volunteers who come to Arusha tend to be a bit different from the type of volunteers who go to a place like Voi. I don't know how they self-select, but it definitely seems to happen.
Anyway, the Potluck went well, although with all the conversations going on around me, I found myself getting a bit lost. Still, I managed to stay up until 11 and when I woke up in the morning, I discovered that Jodie and Reuben had managed all of the clean-up.
Saturday was a typical day at the office, except that we all locked up at 1 to leave. This atypical behavior on our part (leaving on time) caused a bit of confusion over relaying our sets of keys, but it all worked out in the end. After work, there was a Thanksgiving get-together with some friends. Reuben made some macaroni and cheese, while Jodie steamed some carrots and I made garlic mashed potatoes. I'd never made any kind of mashed potatoes before, but I figured that with milk, potatoes, salt, pepper, margarine and garlic (and most importantly, a masher) I couldn't go wrong. The only challenging part was that I added the salt late and it was rather difficult to mix it in evenly. Oh well, practice makes perfect.
We headed over at 4 PM and found a pretty crowded house. There was turkey and stuffing and almost all the fixings. Sadly, cranberry sauce was not to be had (I was shocked, since I knew of two supermarkets in town that sell it). Angela's roommate Jana was hosting everyone (we've met up with Jana a few times). She works at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and aside from Angela and Jodie, Reuben and I, everyone was from the Tribunal (and everyone was from North America or Europe). Everyone was really nice and I had interesting conversations with people, but I was really shocked how little interest they seemed to have in general with Tanzanians, Rwandans or the culture that was all around them. They seemed to work with other Westerners all day and go drink with them in the bars on evenings and weekends. I'm certainly generalizing based on short interactions with a few people, but I will say that almost no one there spoke any Kiswahili (even those who had been in Tanzania for a year) and they didn't seem terribly interested in learning. (I did have a "small world" moment when I was talking to a girl at the party and she mentioned that her cousin Abbie had gone to MIT, and it happened that Abbie had lived in my dorm and been a friend of mine.)
Apparently the party went on until 10 before they continued it at a club. Jodie and I left early since I was still pretty drained from the bug I had all week. However, before leaving, we did agree that we would go to the Christmas Fair in town the next day.
The Christmas Fair** was in a part of town that I'd only passed through when leaving Arusha and never really noticed. Turns out there's an enormous country club-type place there. The fair was on a polo field and there were dozens of tents forming a huge horseshoe. I made a circuit of the tents and realized how uninterested I was in most of the crafts there. I made sure to greet most of the people I knew from frisbee, but other than that, I spent most of the day studying people. I have to say that the experience felt even further removed from my village experiences even than any place I've ever been in Nairobi (and that's saying a lot).
There were plenty of Tanzanians selling crafts and knickknacks and a good number of upper-middle- and upper-class Tanzanians around the grounds shopping, so that was refreshing. But I definitely did not feel like I was in a country where 80% of the population are employed in the agricultural sector. I felt more like I was in a suburb in the US than in Tanzania. Which is not to say that the experience is inauthentic or doesn't reflect the reality on the ground, it's just a stark contrast to the villages where I've worked and much less interesting to me.
I don't want to convey the notion that anything was unpleasant this weekend. I'm mostly trying to convey how I felt moving in a different society this weekend from the one that I'm used to.
* And my total weight-loss throughout this bug was one belt loop. I'm guessing that's 5-7 lbs there. Good thing that I put on some weight while I was in the states.
** I especially like the part where it says that "all funds raised are donated to a charity of good cause." I was hoping that it would go to a charity of nefarious cause! (I had an overwhelming urge to include links on "nefarious" to some charities that I particularly dislike, but I decided to hold my tongue.) Well, in any case, I'd love to hear what their determination of a "good cause" is. I'm always skeptical of the goodness when people don't just say what charity it is outright.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Nasty Infection (Days 3-4)
The best part of day 3 was that I managed to drink enough water that I didn't feel dehydrated at all. I spent a lot less time running to the toilet too (although that doesn't mean that my digestive system is healthy yet). I even felt healthy enough to eat some ugali and sukumawiki for lunch.
Since I was next to the office, I tried to at least avoid falling further behind on work. Bringing my inbox back down to a manageable level took quite some time. After that, work mostly consisted of sending lots of texts in Kiswahili to some of my co-workers who are out in the field. They don't actually know that I'm sick, so they probably wonder why I've been so slow on email the past couple days. Everyone at the office knows, though, and they've mostly been really supportive. Anyway, I managed to sort everything out, although I knew that I wasn't functional enough to work on more complex tasks.
At the end of the day, it was time for Frisbee. I desperately wanted to go, but I knew that I wasn't up for it. They dropped me off at home and went off to play Ultimate (but first they had to run back home to collect the office keys that I had held on to--some days I am an absolute kleptomaniac). I ate 5 oranges and sat immobile on the couch (at least we had some old episodes of Family Guy to keep me entertained) until the power went out. I decided I should run and try to find something a little more filling, so I bought some bread and avocado and made avocado sandwiches. Jodie came home shortly after and ate leftovers and when Reuben came home, he made pasta and finished off some tomato sauce in the fridge. It was funny that the three Americans in our office barely batted an eye as Thanksgiving came and went (although there's supposed to be a get-together on Saturday, which is much more convenient, and there may even be turkey).
I took my evening pill and crashed. For a little less than two hours. A bit before midnight, I was awake again. I discovered that I couldn't fall back asleep on my bed, on my floor, or on the couch. I couldn't sleep with the windows closed and a relatively low population of mosquitoes, and I couldn't sleep with a nice breeze coming through the window as I lay under a mosquito net. No matter where I was, I felt both hot and cold, while simultaneously being slightly suffocated. Finally, at 2:30 in the morning, I opted for a desperate solution. I climbed into the back of the car (a small sedan) with my pillow and a sheet and curled up. I soon shifted the driver's seat down to form a sort of L-shaped bed. It wasn't pretty, but I mustered nearly four hours on it.
In the morning we were cleaning the house and yard (Jodie was rather surprised to see me in the back of the car in my pajamas at 7 in the morning) for a potluck that we had discussed but never really planned (mostly a rather delayed housewarming party). We decided that if we kept putting it off, it would never happen. I reminded everyone that I would take a very minor role in putting everything together and after picking up for about ten minutes, I went to lie down again.
We were a little late heading to the office, but I needed to send some messages from my phone first thing, so I put in 30 productive minutes before concluding that my brain had been reduced to soup and retreating back to my room behind the office. I rested there most of the day without doing much at all (there was no internet at the office either, so that didn't help matters). The exception was to go buy some ginger ale and peanuts. We were having rice and beans at the office today, so I asked for rice plain and added my peanuts to it (a trick I learned in India). Unfortunately, the rice was pretty oily (it's steamed rice, but rather than steam it in water alone, many people here add oil to it) so the taste stuck in my mouth most of the day. After that, I went to town to send salaries to our sales staff around the country.
It was nice to go to town. It was not so nice to have a few different people come up to me asking for money and assuring me that I was not in fact, broke like them (you see, as one so candidly explained "White people always have money. Show me your skin. You must have money.") A healthy me would have gone for a humorous deflection (while I certainly have a comfortable salary by Tanzanian standards and likely earn more money than those who were asking, at the end of the day, my pockets are rather light), but in my light-headed state, I just brushed past them and avoided muttering how I really felt. I was just thankful that the worst of the infection was behind me and that it was the end of the day on Friday.
Since I was next to the office, I tried to at least avoid falling further behind on work. Bringing my inbox back down to a manageable level took quite some time. After that, work mostly consisted of sending lots of texts in Kiswahili to some of my co-workers who are out in the field. They don't actually know that I'm sick, so they probably wonder why I've been so slow on email the past couple days. Everyone at the office knows, though, and they've mostly been really supportive. Anyway, I managed to sort everything out, although I knew that I wasn't functional enough to work on more complex tasks.
At the end of the day, it was time for Frisbee. I desperately wanted to go, but I knew that I wasn't up for it. They dropped me off at home and went off to play Ultimate (but first they had to run back home to collect the office keys that I had held on to--some days I am an absolute kleptomaniac). I ate 5 oranges and sat immobile on the couch (at least we had some old episodes of Family Guy to keep me entertained) until the power went out. I decided I should run and try to find something a little more filling, so I bought some bread and avocado and made avocado sandwiches. Jodie came home shortly after and ate leftovers and when Reuben came home, he made pasta and finished off some tomato sauce in the fridge. It was funny that the three Americans in our office barely batted an eye as Thanksgiving came and went (although there's supposed to be a get-together on Saturday, which is much more convenient, and there may even be turkey).
I took my evening pill and crashed. For a little less than two hours. A bit before midnight, I was awake again. I discovered that I couldn't fall back asleep on my bed, on my floor, or on the couch. I couldn't sleep with the windows closed and a relatively low population of mosquitoes, and I couldn't sleep with a nice breeze coming through the window as I lay under a mosquito net. No matter where I was, I felt both hot and cold, while simultaneously being slightly suffocated. Finally, at 2:30 in the morning, I opted for a desperate solution. I climbed into the back of the car (a small sedan) with my pillow and a sheet and curled up. I soon shifted the driver's seat down to form a sort of L-shaped bed. It wasn't pretty, but I mustered nearly four hours on it.
In the morning we were cleaning the house and yard (Jodie was rather surprised to see me in the back of the car in my pajamas at 7 in the morning) for a potluck that we had discussed but never really planned (mostly a rather delayed housewarming party). We decided that if we kept putting it off, it would never happen. I reminded everyone that I would take a very minor role in putting everything together and after picking up for about ten minutes, I went to lie down again.
We were a little late heading to the office, but I needed to send some messages from my phone first thing, so I put in 30 productive minutes before concluding that my brain had been reduced to soup and retreating back to my room behind the office. I rested there most of the day without doing much at all (there was no internet at the office either, so that didn't help matters). The exception was to go buy some ginger ale and peanuts. We were having rice and beans at the office today, so I asked for rice plain and added my peanuts to it (a trick I learned in India). Unfortunately, the rice was pretty oily (it's steamed rice, but rather than steam it in water alone, many people here add oil to it) so the taste stuck in my mouth most of the day. After that, I went to town to send salaries to our sales staff around the country.
It was nice to go to town. It was not so nice to have a few different people come up to me asking for money and assuring me that I was not in fact, broke like them (you see, as one so candidly explained "White people always have money. Show me your skin. You must have money.") A healthy me would have gone for a humorous deflection (while I certainly have a comfortable salary by Tanzanian standards and likely earn more money than those who were asking, at the end of the day, my pockets are rather light), but in my light-headed state, I just brushed past them and avoided muttering how I really felt. I was just thankful that the worst of the infection was behind me and that it was the end of the day on Friday.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Nasty Infection (Day 2)
Well, it wasn't a terribly restful night. I was running to the toilet less often, but still much more than I would have liked. The power was out and my phone battery was dead, so I was seriously hoping that I wouldn't take a turn for the worse. At some unspecified time, I realized that I was low on water, and found the nearby bar closing up for the night. I bought two bottles of water, as the bartender gave me a funny look standing there in my pajamas.
Later on, I woke up and noticed that there was light outside. It took me a minute to realize that it wasn't the sunrise, but rather the return of electricity (and by extension, the internet since I was still at the house near the office). I pulled out my computer and tried to make a dent in my huge email inbox (and put up all the posts I had written without internet). I hadn't been on proper internet since Saturday, so the dent in my inbox was barely noticeable.
I discovered that my legs no longer felt disproportionately weak (they still felt weak, but that was because my whole body was lacking strength) and that the worst of the dehydration had passed. I rewarded myself with a ginger ale as my comfort "food". I wanted to take my medication, but I needed to have actual food in my stomach to do that. I didn't want to put any food in my stomach because I still felt lousy. And I wasn't going to stop feeling lousy until I took the medicine. It was a rather vicious cycle, but finally I forced down a banana and half an orange and took my medicine.
The medicine definitely cut down the pain in my stomach and the frequency of running to the bathroom, but it also made me pretty light-headed. Shortly after that, I needed to walk to a nearby store to send some money to my co-workers. My first attempt resulted in me discovering that I had gone to the store without the money and making my way back to the office to grab the cash. The second time, I discovered that I couldn't remember my own phone number (I usually have a particularly good memory for phone numbers) and I couldn't even bring myself to watch the cashier count the money to make sure I didn't give him too much. After that, I just climbed back into bed to rest.
I tried to move around a few more times in the afternoon, but every time the light-headedness overwhelmed me pretty quickly. Still, considering that most of the other symptoms had gone away, I was pretty relieved. The electricity went out again, so once they closed the office, I had my solitude. In the evening, I went out for some more water (and another ginger ale) and picked up a can of tuna fish. I drained the water and ate the tuna plain. I was excited to have my first protein in 48 hours. Then I read The Economist on my phone until I fell asleep.
Later on, I woke up and noticed that there was light outside. It took me a minute to realize that it wasn't the sunrise, but rather the return of electricity (and by extension, the internet since I was still at the house near the office). I pulled out my computer and tried to make a dent in my huge email inbox (and put up all the posts I had written without internet). I hadn't been on proper internet since Saturday, so the dent in my inbox was barely noticeable.
I discovered that my legs no longer felt disproportionately weak (they still felt weak, but that was because my whole body was lacking strength) and that the worst of the dehydration had passed. I rewarded myself with a ginger ale as my comfort "food". I wanted to take my medication, but I needed to have actual food in my stomach to do that. I didn't want to put any food in my stomach because I still felt lousy. And I wasn't going to stop feeling lousy until I took the medicine. It was a rather vicious cycle, but finally I forced down a banana and half an orange and took my medicine.
The medicine definitely cut down the pain in my stomach and the frequency of running to the bathroom, but it also made me pretty light-headed. Shortly after that, I needed to walk to a nearby store to send some money to my co-workers. My first attempt resulted in me discovering that I had gone to the store without the money and making my way back to the office to grab the cash. The second time, I discovered that I couldn't remember my own phone number (I usually have a particularly good memory for phone numbers) and I couldn't even bring myself to watch the cashier count the money to make sure I didn't give him too much. After that, I just climbed back into bed to rest.
I tried to move around a few more times in the afternoon, but every time the light-headedness overwhelmed me pretty quickly. Still, considering that most of the other symptoms had gone away, I was pretty relieved. The electricity went out again, so once they closed the office, I had my solitude. In the evening, I went out for some more water (and another ginger ale) and picked up a can of tuna fish. I drained the water and ate the tuna plain. I was excited to have my first protein in 48 hours. Then I read The Economist on my phone until I fell asleep.
Nasty Infection (Day 1)
On Monday night as I was writing the series of blog posts that is preceding this, I noticed that I was starting to feel weaker. I put it out of my mind and kept writing. I went to bed at 11:30, but by 1:30 AM, I still hadn't fallen asleep. Also, I was feeling somewhat sore and kinda hot, but also kinda cold (I thought that was a sunburn, but no area of my skin was particularly red). I spent most of the rest of the night running to the toilet, and tossing and turning. Soon, I was feeling somewhat dehydrated, and I noticed that my legs felt incredibly weak.
In the morning, I discovered that standing required an extraordinary amount of effort (although lying down led to slight dizziness). I came to the office and took refuge in our old house behind the office (it's still ours until someone else decides to rent it). There's a mattress in there, and so I curled up and caught quick naps in between my sprints to the toilet. Everyone was checking up on me, but mostly I just wanted to be alone (people are surprisingly open about one another's diarrhea here). After a couple of hours, I went to the store for some water (I brought Gatorade packets to fight the dehydration) and bananas (the normal banana places were closed, and I was moving slowly, so this was a twenty minute excursion). I ate half a banana and crashed again. In the afternoon, my co-worker Philemon drove me to the hospital to get checked out.
I kept losing my spot in the waiting room when I ran to the toilet, but after a while, I was consigned to curling up into a ball on the bench and a nice lady told me when it was my turn. I told the doctor what was going on and he took my blood pressure (slightly above normal) and my temperature (rather high). He sent me to the lab for blood, urine and stool samples. After some waiting the results came back: negative on malaria, but a pretty nasty infection. Recommendation: antibiotics, plenty of rest and lots of fluids (I declined his repeated offers of an IV drip for the dehydration). Philemon helped me fill my prescription while I waited in a hospital bed (my legs were having trouble sustaining me for five minutes at a time by this point).
I took my first dose of the medicine and some Tylenol on the ride home and grabbed some supplies (clean clothes, oranges, more Gatorade, sleeping bag, pillow) and returned to the house behind the office. I had depleted most of our water at the new house last night, so I figured it'd be better to stay somewhere with a reliable supply of water. I also helped Jodie fill some buckets to bring back to the new house (I could feel the medicine starting to take effect by this point). After that the sun had set and there was no electricity in the house, so I climbed into bed to try to sleep it off.
I'm hoping that this will only last a couple of days. The doctor suspects that I ate something bad, although Reuben and I had basically eaten the same things over the previous 72 hours, so I don't know what it could have been. I'm expecting somewhat dramatic weight loss (to be measured in belt loops, since I don't really have access to a scale), but otherwise, a stronger than ever immune system. One of the hardest parts will be missing Frisbee on Thursday :(
In the morning, I discovered that standing required an extraordinary amount of effort (although lying down led to slight dizziness). I came to the office and took refuge in our old house behind the office (it's still ours until someone else decides to rent it). There's a mattress in there, and so I curled up and caught quick naps in between my sprints to the toilet. Everyone was checking up on me, but mostly I just wanted to be alone (people are surprisingly open about one another's diarrhea here). After a couple of hours, I went to the store for some water (I brought Gatorade packets to fight the dehydration) and bananas (the normal banana places were closed, and I was moving slowly, so this was a twenty minute excursion). I ate half a banana and crashed again. In the afternoon, my co-worker Philemon drove me to the hospital to get checked out.
I kept losing my spot in the waiting room when I ran to the toilet, but after a while, I was consigned to curling up into a ball on the bench and a nice lady told me when it was my turn. I told the doctor what was going on and he took my blood pressure (slightly above normal) and my temperature (rather high). He sent me to the lab for blood, urine and stool samples. After some waiting the results came back: negative on malaria, but a pretty nasty infection. Recommendation: antibiotics, plenty of rest and lots of fluids (I declined his repeated offers of an IV drip for the dehydration). Philemon helped me fill my prescription while I waited in a hospital bed (my legs were having trouble sustaining me for five minutes at a time by this point).
I took my first dose of the medicine and some Tylenol on the ride home and grabbed some supplies (clean clothes, oranges, more Gatorade, sleeping bag, pillow) and returned to the house behind the office. I had depleted most of our water at the new house last night, so I figured it'd be better to stay somewhere with a reliable supply of water. I also helped Jodie fill some buckets to bring back to the new house (I could feel the medicine starting to take effect by this point). After that the sun had set and there was no electricity in the house, so I climbed into bed to try to sleep it off.
I'm hoping that this will only last a couple of days. The doctor suspects that I ate something bad, although Reuben and I had basically eaten the same things over the previous 72 hours, so I don't know what it could have been. I'm expecting somewhat dramatic weight loss (to be measured in belt loops, since I don't really have access to a scale), but otherwise, a stronger than ever immune system. One of the hardest parts will be missing Frisbee on Thursday :(
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Farewells in Kenya (Day 2)
I slept pretty well through the night, but I was woken up at one point as the mosquitoes were attacking and then I woke up early to see one person off. After that, I passed out until 11, when I was greeted by someone telling me that my friend Nick (he was the closest volunteer to me for most of my time in Peace Corps) had arrived a while ago and hadn't been able to reach anyone (we both had dead batteries on our phones).
We hurried over to meet Nick and had a bit of brunch. We wound up sitting at the restaurant for a few hours catching up and grading Nick's students' exams. I think Reuben learned a bit about education over here as he joined in the fun (nope, not being sarcastic, marking papers definitely made me a bit nostalgic). I was really impressed with some of Nick's students, and I think that his effort to help them improve really shows. I also had a Coke as we were grading, and as much as everyone says that Coca-Cola tastes the same wherever you buy it (with the exception of high-fructose corn syrup as opposed to sugar), I have to say that Kenyan Coke tastes better than Tanzanian Coke. Maybe it's my imagination? Maybe there's a bad bottler in Arusha?
After that, we decided to spend the afternoon at the pool, so we put on our shorts (close enough to swimsuits) and headed to the pool. It was really perfect weather, and the pool was a little small, but just big enough for diving. We swapped more stories, and I felt really happy when Nick told me that there was another volunteer who had raised similar issues to what I raised to Peace Corps Kenya about his work and they had given him permission to decrease his teaching load significantly and work on more secondary projects. I don't know all the details, but it's nice to know that the staff is trying to accommodate volunteers these days. It made me wonder how many more volunteers from my group would have stayed around had they been more supportive back then. Still, the important part is that attitudes have definitely changed.
After that, Nick had to get back to his site, so we tried to hurry back to the bus stand, but we couldn't find any vehicles heading that way, so we wound up walking most of the two kilometers (it was nice to talk more, but Nick was becoming more anxious about missing the last bus back to his site). We made it in time and Nick got home safely, which was nice. Then we ate a quick dinner and played more cards. Once again, it was after midnight and I decided to crash. Reuben headed out to the club and later reported that it had a decent scene for a Sunday night.
Reuben and I woke up the next morning, packed and hopped on the bus back to Arusha. The ride was pretty uneventful. I mostly read The Economist on my phone. As we passed through Maktau, I saw my old landlord Mr. Kori and noted that he was looking well. Then, we saw six elephants further down the road. At immigration, I was trying to get my permit stamped, but they told me that I will need to go to the immigration office in Arusha (a place where I don't have happy memories) to get it stamped and attached to my passport. However, above the stamp in my passport, they wrote "RR" for Returning Resident. Reuben and I made it back to Arusha without further event (although 17 hours on buses in less than 60 hours is making my spine increasingly unhappy) and then hopped on some motorcycle taxis and headed to the office to put in the last two hours of the workday.
We hurried over to meet Nick and had a bit of brunch. We wound up sitting at the restaurant for a few hours catching up and grading Nick's students' exams. I think Reuben learned a bit about education over here as he joined in the fun (nope, not being sarcastic, marking papers definitely made me a bit nostalgic). I was really impressed with some of Nick's students, and I think that his effort to help them improve really shows. I also had a Coke as we were grading, and as much as everyone says that Coca-Cola tastes the same wherever you buy it (with the exception of high-fructose corn syrup as opposed to sugar), I have to say that Kenyan Coke tastes better than Tanzanian Coke. Maybe it's my imagination? Maybe there's a bad bottler in Arusha?
After that, we decided to spend the afternoon at the pool, so we put on our shorts (close enough to swimsuits) and headed to the pool. It was really perfect weather, and the pool was a little small, but just big enough for diving. We swapped more stories, and I felt really happy when Nick told me that there was another volunteer who had raised similar issues to what I raised to Peace Corps Kenya about his work and they had given him permission to decrease his teaching load significantly and work on more secondary projects. I don't know all the details, but it's nice to know that the staff is trying to accommodate volunteers these days. It made me wonder how many more volunteers from my group would have stayed around had they been more supportive back then. Still, the important part is that attitudes have definitely changed.
After that, Nick had to get back to his site, so we tried to hurry back to the bus stand, but we couldn't find any vehicles heading that way, so we wound up walking most of the two kilometers (it was nice to talk more, but Nick was becoming more anxious about missing the last bus back to his site). We made it in time and Nick got home safely, which was nice. Then we ate a quick dinner and played more cards. Once again, it was after midnight and I decided to crash. Reuben headed out to the club and later reported that it had a decent scene for a Sunday night.
Reuben and I woke up the next morning, packed and hopped on the bus back to Arusha. The ride was pretty uneventful. I mostly read The Economist on my phone. As we passed through Maktau, I saw my old landlord Mr. Kori and noted that he was looking well. Then, we saw six elephants further down the road. At immigration, I was trying to get my permit stamped, but they told me that I will need to go to the immigration office in Arusha (a place where I don't have happy memories) to get it stamped and attached to my passport. However, above the stamp in my passport, they wrote "RR" for Returning Resident. Reuben and I made it back to Arusha without further event (although 17 hours on buses in less than 60 hours is making my spine increasingly unhappy) and then hopped on some motorcycle taxis and headed to the office to put in the last two hours of the workday.
Farewells in Kenya (Day 1)
Well, were I still a Peace Corps volunteer, I would be finishing up my service now and getting ready to complete my service (one of the volunteers from my group flew home yesterday, I believe). I took a different path, but I have a lot of friends who are in the wrap-up phase, so I wanted to go and say some farewells.
As usual, I had a few more loose ends than anticipated, and went back to the office after the Potluck on Saturday. I got back a little after 11 so that I could make sure to finish some work before leaving the country. I was working a bit slow, since I had gotten less than 4 hours of sleep the night before (IDDS meeting coupled with insomnia) and didn't finish until after 2. Even packing up was a slow process, so I didn't get home until 3.
At home I had to pack, which took longer than it should have, but then it's a rare trip where I leave with everything that I need. This time, I managed to leave with everything (most importantly, my new work permit, which I needed to get stamped at the border for it to take effect), and by the time I was all ready, I realized that if I went to sleep, I wouldn't wake up for the bus. So I took in a nice sunrise and Jodie drove Reuben and I to the bus station at 6:30. I also found out at that point that one of our friends in town had just died. He was young and full of life, and we will all miss him (and I think that's all that I'm going to say about that on here).
The bus ride was even less pleasant than I remembered. I slept on the Tanzanian side, but the road in Kenya (it's the one that passes through Maktau) was even more painful than I remembered. Reuben and I did see a giraffe at one point and a family of elephants. Maktau was pretty green, so I was happy that the rains have been better this year than they had been last year.
There were no problems leaving Tanzania, but entering Kenya*, the immigration officials did not want to make things easy for us. They tried to tell Reuben that his single entry visa did not allow him readmission (FALSE: Kenya no longer has multiple entry visas, but the visa is valid for re-entry so long as the visa holder has not left the East African Community, which Reuben had not), which meant that he would have to pay for another one. We convinced them that his visa was in fact valid, and as the official stamped the document, he looked up and asked "How are you going to compliment me?" I pushed Reuben out of the way before he could respond to this thinly veiled code for a bribe. I started by telling the official that I needed a visa, at which point he flipped through my passport and explained to me that my last visa was expired. I requested a transit visa, which is intended for people passing through Kenya for less than 72 hours (I was looking to stay under 48 hours) and costs $10 as opposed to $25 for the visa that allows you to stay for three months. The official explained to me that they don't have transit visas at that border crossing (a rather odd situation). He then reassured me that I would only need to pay $25, and pointed out to me that it is much harder for a Kenyan to obtain an American visa (I wholeheartedly agree with the statement, however, I'm pretty sure that that isn't actually my fault). Then his supervisor came over and asked what was going on. I once again requested a transit visa, and he told me that I was not eligible for one if I would be sleeping in the Kenya (this is certainly not the case, since you can get transit visas at the airport as long as you are planning to leave the country in the next 72 hours). I decided not to point out the inconsistency between their points and paid the $25 since the bus was waiting on me at that point. And in an act of ultimate pettiness, I stole their pen and I have decided to treasure this pen that I paid $15 for.
Anyway, the jostling all the way to Voi made me forget about all that and I was glad to see two volunteers when I arrived. Reuben and I dropped off our bags in the hotel and went to grab a bite to eat (we hadn't eaten anything all day, and it was 3 PM). After that, we caught up on everything a bit (I found out that the planned party was canceled because our host had recently had a family misfortune, and the attendance would have been dismal anyway) and discussed secondary projects (including charcoal, of course). At that point, one of the volunteers left, and another one showed up, so we were still four.
As the volunteer was leaving, I was giving him some GCS products (yep, making sales on vacation) and in the process, I managed to leave my key in the door. About half an hour later, I realized I didn't have my key and asked at the reception. They told me that someone was using my room and he (I think they meant he and his ladyfriend) would be done shortly. I was rather ambivalent, but the volunteer raised serious issue with the fact that they were renting the same room both by the night and by the hour (to be fair, I was an idiot for leaving my key in the door). As the time dragged on (it had been at least 45 minutes), the management agreed to give me a new room, and since they were low, they put me in a bigger room for the same price (the justification they gave when pressed was that they "thought he wouldn't take long in there"). I guess that worked out as win-win for everyone. The management was even considerate enough to remove my bags from the room and store them at the front desk (I was rather grateful for that, since nothing was stolen).
After that, we went to Fine Breeze, which is where we always used to go for some grilled meat in Voi. The wait is always unbearably long, so we wound up playing two hours of cards before the food came. The chicken was good, but the beef was pretty tough and fatty. I mostly ate the kamchumbari (think pico de gallo, but in this case, without hot pepper). Then we went and passed the time with more cards (cards were more in the background to the conversations) before we decided it was late enough to head out to a club. One person and I decided we were exhausted and opted to head back and crash (it was just after midnight, and I had gotten less than 7 hours of sleep over the past two nights). Reuben went out for some Saturday night clubbing and had a pretty late night.
* This is a great link for explaining how visa policy is supposed to be. However, that does not always match up with reality.
As usual, I had a few more loose ends than anticipated, and went back to the office after the Potluck on Saturday. I got back a little after 11 so that I could make sure to finish some work before leaving the country. I was working a bit slow, since I had gotten less than 4 hours of sleep the night before (IDDS meeting coupled with insomnia) and didn't finish until after 2. Even packing up was a slow process, so I didn't get home until 3.
At home I had to pack, which took longer than it should have, but then it's a rare trip where I leave with everything that I need. This time, I managed to leave with everything (most importantly, my new work permit, which I needed to get stamped at the border for it to take effect), and by the time I was all ready, I realized that if I went to sleep, I wouldn't wake up for the bus. So I took in a nice sunrise and Jodie drove Reuben and I to the bus station at 6:30. I also found out at that point that one of our friends in town had just died. He was young and full of life, and we will all miss him (and I think that's all that I'm going to say about that on here).
The bus ride was even less pleasant than I remembered. I slept on the Tanzanian side, but the road in Kenya (it's the one that passes through Maktau) was even more painful than I remembered. Reuben and I did see a giraffe at one point and a family of elephants. Maktau was pretty green, so I was happy that the rains have been better this year than they had been last year.
There were no problems leaving Tanzania, but entering Kenya*, the immigration officials did not want to make things easy for us. They tried to tell Reuben that his single entry visa did not allow him readmission (FALSE: Kenya no longer has multiple entry visas, but the visa is valid for re-entry so long as the visa holder has not left the East African Community, which Reuben had not), which meant that he would have to pay for another one. We convinced them that his visa was in fact valid, and as the official stamped the document, he looked up and asked "How are you going to compliment me?" I pushed Reuben out of the way before he could respond to this thinly veiled code for a bribe. I started by telling the official that I needed a visa, at which point he flipped through my passport and explained to me that my last visa was expired. I requested a transit visa, which is intended for people passing through Kenya for less than 72 hours (I was looking to stay under 48 hours) and costs $10 as opposed to $25 for the visa that allows you to stay for three months. The official explained to me that they don't have transit visas at that border crossing (a rather odd situation). He then reassured me that I would only need to pay $25, and pointed out to me that it is much harder for a Kenyan to obtain an American visa (I wholeheartedly agree with the statement, however, I'm pretty sure that that isn't actually my fault). Then his supervisor came over and asked what was going on. I once again requested a transit visa, and he told me that I was not eligible for one if I would be sleeping in the Kenya (this is certainly not the case, since you can get transit visas at the airport as long as you are planning to leave the country in the next 72 hours). I decided not to point out the inconsistency between their points and paid the $25 since the bus was waiting on me at that point. And in an act of ultimate pettiness, I stole their pen and I have decided to treasure this pen that I paid $15 for.
Anyway, the jostling all the way to Voi made me forget about all that and I was glad to see two volunteers when I arrived. Reuben and I dropped off our bags in the hotel and went to grab a bite to eat (we hadn't eaten anything all day, and it was 3 PM). After that, we caught up on everything a bit (I found out that the planned party was canceled because our host had recently had a family misfortune, and the attendance would have been dismal anyway) and discussed secondary projects (including charcoal, of course). At that point, one of the volunteers left, and another one showed up, so we were still four.
As the volunteer was leaving, I was giving him some GCS products (yep, making sales on vacation) and in the process, I managed to leave my key in the door. About half an hour later, I realized I didn't have my key and asked at the reception. They told me that someone was using my room and he (I think they meant he and his ladyfriend) would be done shortly. I was rather ambivalent, but the volunteer raised serious issue with the fact that they were renting the same room both by the night and by the hour (to be fair, I was an idiot for leaving my key in the door). As the time dragged on (it had been at least 45 minutes), the management agreed to give me a new room, and since they were low, they put me in a bigger room for the same price (the justification they gave when pressed was that they "thought he wouldn't take long in there"). I guess that worked out as win-win for everyone. The management was even considerate enough to remove my bags from the room and store them at the front desk (I was rather grateful for that, since nothing was stolen).
After that, we went to Fine Breeze, which is where we always used to go for some grilled meat in Voi. The wait is always unbearably long, so we wound up playing two hours of cards before the food came. The chicken was good, but the beef was pretty tough and fatty. I mostly ate the kamchumbari (think pico de gallo, but in this case, without hot pepper). Then we went and passed the time with more cards (cards were more in the background to the conversations) before we decided it was late enough to head out to a club. One person and I decided we were exhausted and opted to head back and crash (it was just after midnight, and I had gotten less than 7 hours of sleep over the past two nights). Reuben went out for some Saturday night clubbing and had a pretty late night.
* This is a great link for explaining how visa policy is supposed to be. However, that does not always match up with reality.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Potluck
Just a heads-up, I haven't been online in the past 5 days, so this next succession of blog posts will be pretty rapid-fire.
We decided to have a potluck on Friday to send off an Aussie named Shannon who has been here for a year (Shannon is a friend from Frisbee). They told us (Jodie, Reuben and I) to arrive at 7, so we arrived fashionably late at 8:30.
I decided to make chana masala, so I started soaking the chickpeas in the morning. We had had a phone meeting at 5 at the office, so I offered my input, while I was boiling the chickpeas and cutting up vegetables (we keep a gas cooker in the back room of the office and our secretary cooks lunch for everyone Monday-Friday). The power went out soon after that, so Jodie was sorting through the rice to pull out the rocks in the dark (we just bought a generator for the office, but there's not a good way to hook the lights up to it). The chickpeas were ready at 6:30 (the sauce wasn't as thick as I would have liked, and I ran out of curry powder, so I didn't have the spicing quite right, but I think that my modified ratios did the trick). The rice was ready just after 7, but then the electricity (and by extension the internet) came back, so we all spent another hour on our computers.
Still, several people (including most of the cooks) arrived just after us, so it wasn't that bad. The food was delicious (I ate way too much peanut butter fudge and although there were no Indians there, I wasn't the only one cooking Indian food), and we tossed a Frisbee around for a while. There were three Spaniards there, and I kept trying to join their conversation so I could keep up my Spanish, but I always got pulled back to the English/Kiswahili side. It was a lot of fun, and I'm hoping that this will become a regular tradition (with Thanksgiving coming up, I'm hoping that we can pull off a potluck to get all the dishes there for that).
We decided to have a potluck on Friday to send off an Aussie named Shannon who has been here for a year (Shannon is a friend from Frisbee). They told us (Jodie, Reuben and I) to arrive at 7, so we arrived fashionably late at 8:30.
I decided to make chana masala, so I started soaking the chickpeas in the morning. We had had a phone meeting at 5 at the office, so I offered my input, while I was boiling the chickpeas and cutting up vegetables (we keep a gas cooker in the back room of the office and our secretary cooks lunch for everyone Monday-Friday). The power went out soon after that, so Jodie was sorting through the rice to pull out the rocks in the dark (we just bought a generator for the office, but there's not a good way to hook the lights up to it). The chickpeas were ready at 6:30 (the sauce wasn't as thick as I would have liked, and I ran out of curry powder, so I didn't have the spicing quite right, but I think that my modified ratios did the trick). The rice was ready just after 7, but then the electricity (and by extension the internet) came back, so we all spent another hour on our computers.
Still, several people (including most of the cooks) arrived just after us, so it wasn't that bad. The food was delicious (I ate way too much peanut butter fudge and although there were no Indians there, I wasn't the only one cooking Indian food), and we tossed a Frisbee around for a while. There were three Spaniards there, and I kept trying to join their conversation so I could keep up my Spanish, but I always got pulled back to the English/Kiswahili side. It was a lot of fun, and I'm hoping that this will become a regular tradition (with Thanksgiving coming up, I'm hoping that we can pull off a potluck to get all the dishes there for that).
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
The Challenge for Africa
*** The Challenge for Africa by Wangari Maathai - Well, this was a stark contrast to Dead Aid. This one is definitely written by someone who has spent her life living in Africa and surrounded by poverty. However, the book is much lighter on statistics and economics, which is a fairly essential piece in the challenge for Africa. Maathai's experience is also amazing, having led an organization that planted 30 million tree seedlings in Kenya.
She does an outstanding job of identifying some of the problems on the continent, however, her superficial treatment of economics means that some issues are either glazed over or completely missed. And in general, when she's analyzing the cause of a problem, it always comes back to colonialism. I would have taken this viewpoint a bit more seriously were it not coming from a Kikuyu (the most populous tribe, or micro-nation, to use Wangari Maathai's language, in Kenya). The Kikuyus have supplied two of the three Kenyan presidents post-independence. While the Kikuyus had a rough time during the colonial era, most scholars would argue that at least some of the present problems in Kenya could be traced to the Kikuyu tribe (imagine Napoleon blaming his defeat at Waterloo on Robespierre--well, that might be a bit extreme, but there is at least a parallel). Her habit of tracing everything to the colonial powers rings a tad hollow (she does at times acknowledge that some members of her tribe have made some poor leadership decisions, but even that is the fault of the colonial system). I don't want to belittle the wrongs of the colonial era, since they were egregious and those mistakes have left a tragic legacy, but there were plenty of post-independence mistakes which have led to modern problems.
She also makes pretty outlandish claims at times. One of the ones that irked me was her claim that it is easier to define Indian culture than Kenyan culture. Although both countries are made up of lots of different peoples with different histories, languages and cultures, I would say that the broad spectrum is a bit wider in India. (The bulk of her examples come from Kenya, which is handy, since I have plenty of counter-examples from there).
My conclusion at the end of the book was that Wangari Maathai would be a lot happier if she moved to Tanzania. Some of her top priorities are environmental stewardship and preservation of culture, which Tanzania outscores Kenya on by most measures. Most of the books that focus on economics rank Kenya higher than Tanzania based on statistics, but it always stuck with me how the subtitle of Schumacher's book identified the shortcomings of basing everything on the numbers ("economics as if people mattered"*). It's a stretch say that the book is a treatment of economics, but it is clear that she's studying development as if people mattered.
The book isn't the easiest read, but I wouldn't discourage people from reading it. I wouldn't go so far as to stamp it with a recommendation. I'm mostly hoping that I'll find a more agreeable book that studies development as if people mattered.
As a side note, the book jacket contained reviews of her memoir, Unbowed. Their snippet from The Economist says "Inspirational...Ms. Maathai will not be beaten down." The article in context says "Hers is not a well-written book, but it is inspirational. Ms Maathai will not be beaten down."
*This link takes you to Amazon.com, although I believe you can just search for Small is Beautiful pdf and download the book for free
She does an outstanding job of identifying some of the problems on the continent, however, her superficial treatment of economics means that some issues are either glazed over or completely missed. And in general, when she's analyzing the cause of a problem, it always comes back to colonialism. I would have taken this viewpoint a bit more seriously were it not coming from a Kikuyu (the most populous tribe, or micro-nation, to use Wangari Maathai's language, in Kenya). The Kikuyus have supplied two of the three Kenyan presidents post-independence. While the Kikuyus had a rough time during the colonial era, most scholars would argue that at least some of the present problems in Kenya could be traced to the Kikuyu tribe (imagine Napoleon blaming his defeat at Waterloo on Robespierre--well, that might be a bit extreme, but there is at least a parallel). Her habit of tracing everything to the colonial powers rings a tad hollow (she does at times acknowledge that some members of her tribe have made some poor leadership decisions, but even that is the fault of the colonial system). I don't want to belittle the wrongs of the colonial era, since they were egregious and those mistakes have left a tragic legacy, but there were plenty of post-independence mistakes which have led to modern problems.
She also makes pretty outlandish claims at times. One of the ones that irked me was her claim that it is easier to define Indian culture than Kenyan culture. Although both countries are made up of lots of different peoples with different histories, languages and cultures, I would say that the broad spectrum is a bit wider in India. (The bulk of her examples come from Kenya, which is handy, since I have plenty of counter-examples from there).
My conclusion at the end of the book was that Wangari Maathai would be a lot happier if she moved to Tanzania. Some of her top priorities are environmental stewardship and preservation of culture, which Tanzania outscores Kenya on by most measures. Most of the books that focus on economics rank Kenya higher than Tanzania based on statistics, but it always stuck with me how the subtitle of Schumacher's book identified the shortcomings of basing everything on the numbers ("economics as if people mattered"*). It's a stretch say that the book is a treatment of economics, but it is clear that she's studying development as if people mattered.
The book isn't the easiest read, but I wouldn't discourage people from reading it. I wouldn't go so far as to stamp it with a recommendation. I'm mostly hoping that I'll find a more agreeable book that studies development as if people mattered.
As a side note, the book jacket contained reviews of her memoir, Unbowed. Their snippet from The Economist says "Inspirational...Ms. Maathai will not be beaten down." The article in context says "Hers is not a well-written book, but it is inspirational. Ms Maathai will not be beaten down."
*This link takes you to Amazon.com, although I believe you can just search for Small is Beautiful pdf and download the book for free
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
What's black and slimy?
So this morning I was waking up slowly and all of a sudden, I saw something strange at my feet. Lying flat on the ground was a two inch black frog. Cursory examination revealed that the frog was dead. The most mysterious part was that my room was sealed. The windows were closed tightly and I even put a pair of trousers at the base of my door so mosquitoes couldn't fly in that way. Yet somehow, this not-very-tiny frog found its way in and decided to sprawl out dead at my feet. Well, if they were more effective at catching mosquitoes, I'd keep a few of them on patrol every night.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Two years by the numbers
And just to give you a few numbers: 2 years = 730 days = 17520 hours = 1,051,200 minutes = 63,072,000 seconds = 57,979,678,357,440,000 oscillations of Cesium-133 in the atomic clock. Okay, while that's accurate to the nearest hour as of 9 PM East African Time, I'm probably off by a few thousand seconds and several trillion Cesium oscillations. Alternatively, 2 years = 8.13% of my life. That calculation led me to discover that on the same the day that my sister will be celebrating her birthday next weekend, I will be celebrating my 9th kilo-day (I can't believe there's a link for this, but now you can calculate it for yourself, although I disagree with their counting system of calling your birthday zero, since I would call that the first day, rather than the zero-th).
Two year anniversary
Two years ago today, I arrived at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi with 41 other Peace Corps trainees.
When I started this blog, the plan was that it would last 26 months and then I wasn't sure what would happen after that. I figured that this two year post would be the beginning of the end. Things haven't exactly gone according to plan.
Obviously, leaving Peace Corps after 14 months was a big part of that. But that's actually been a relatively minor change, since most of what I've been doing in 2010 feels like how I would have wanted my Peace Corps service to run. I guess the biggest change has been my expectations. (In case you're wondering about physical changes, I've returned to a healthy weight, so the biggest change there is probably the decrease in how much hair I have on my head.)
A lot of people join Peace Corps and other similar programs expecting to change the world and leave their lasting mark on a community. I wasn't so ambitious, which is not to say that I was hoping for insignificance, but rather, I figured that the biggest changes would be in my personal development and any benefits accrued by the community would be icing on the cake.
In each stage of my life, I feel like I became a wholly new person and I figured that the sequence would continue. And in a way it has. But I am not sure that I would almost call it personal regression, rather than personal development. I've been hardened by a lot of my experiences here. Some have created unhealthy levels of bitterness which I would love to move past. It's also helped me to revert to some of my more introverted tendencies (I have spent a lot of my life alternating between introversion and extroversion). Sure, I have plenty of adventures with my friends, but I spend much more time wanting to be alone than to socialize. I have more difficulty trusting people these days. My math skills (math used to be one of my favorite hobbies. Yep, I'm a big nerd.) have plummeted, and my Spanish and French are pretty weak these days (although on the flip side, my reading, writing and Kiswahili skills are probably at their strongest ever).
Well, I haven't exactly painted a pretty rosy picture so far, but then, many of my other posts are looking through rose-colored glasses, so I tend to use these reflective posts to look at larger trends. I wouldn't trade my experiences and lessons learned over the past two years for anything. It's definitely instilled a bit of patience in me (not much, but at least it's a start). I also worked out most of my argumentative tendencies (though sometimes those bubble just below the surface). And most importantly, I've built some really important friendships, with people who I probably never would have met or become close with were it not for our shared experiences over here.
At this point, I can't really say if I'll be over here for one more year or five more years or longer or shorter. However, I do know that I've barely scratched the surface of what I can learn out here.
When I started this blog, the plan was that it would last 26 months and then I wasn't sure what would happen after that. I figured that this two year post would be the beginning of the end. Things haven't exactly gone according to plan.
Obviously, leaving Peace Corps after 14 months was a big part of that. But that's actually been a relatively minor change, since most of what I've been doing in 2010 feels like how I would have wanted my Peace Corps service to run. I guess the biggest change has been my expectations. (In case you're wondering about physical changes, I've returned to a healthy weight, so the biggest change there is probably the decrease in how much hair I have on my head.)
A lot of people join Peace Corps and other similar programs expecting to change the world and leave their lasting mark on a community. I wasn't so ambitious, which is not to say that I was hoping for insignificance, but rather, I figured that the biggest changes would be in my personal development and any benefits accrued by the community would be icing on the cake.
In each stage of my life, I feel like I became a wholly new person and I figured that the sequence would continue. And in a way it has. But I am not sure that I would almost call it personal regression, rather than personal development. I've been hardened by a lot of my experiences here. Some have created unhealthy levels of bitterness which I would love to move past. It's also helped me to revert to some of my more introverted tendencies (I have spent a lot of my life alternating between introversion and extroversion). Sure, I have plenty of adventures with my friends, but I spend much more time wanting to be alone than to socialize. I have more difficulty trusting people these days. My math skills (math used to be one of my favorite hobbies. Yep, I'm a big nerd.) have plummeted, and my Spanish and French are pretty weak these days (although on the flip side, my reading, writing and Kiswahili skills are probably at their strongest ever).
Well, I haven't exactly painted a pretty rosy picture so far, but then, many of my other posts are looking through rose-colored glasses, so I tend to use these reflective posts to look at larger trends. I wouldn't trade my experiences and lessons learned over the past two years for anything. It's definitely instilled a bit of patience in me (not much, but at least it's a start). I also worked out most of my argumentative tendencies (though sometimes those bubble just below the surface). And most importantly, I've built some really important friendships, with people who I probably never would have met or become close with were it not for our shared experiences over here.
At this point, I can't really say if I'll be over here for one more year or five more years or longer or shorter. However, I do know that I've barely scratched the surface of what I can learn out here.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Pick-up Frisbee
Thursday is now Frisbee Day here in Arusha. It's the only day of the week when I leave the office at 5. I head into town to the field where we play ultimate frisbee. About 2/3 of the players are ex-pats and tourists, but we've gotten a few Tanzanians who are now regulars. Most of the Tanzanians had never thrown a frisbee 5 weeks ago, but had quite a speed advantage. Now, after five matches, they still have quite a speed advantage and they can throw the frisbee pretty well.
It's one of my favorite parts of the week. Frisbee has been my number one sport since high school (we used to play in parking lots when we couldn't find a field). I was a bit out of practice my first week, but since then I've found my throws (though perhaps not my judgment since I still take the ambitious throw over the safe throw nine times out of ten). However, I tend to be one of the slower people on the field, so maybe I should work on that. I like to do my stall-counts alternating English and Kiswahili "One! Mbili! Three! Nne! ..."
I've only been going for three weeks (the weather has been mostly cooperative so far ::knock on wood:: ), but it's been a good chance for me to make friends outside of work. The sun sets after a little over an hour and then we usually go out and grab a quick drink afterward and hang out for a bit before I head back to the office for my weekly IDDS meeting.
If you ever want to join us, we play on the field next to the Sikh Temple near Friends' Corner :)
It's one of my favorite parts of the week. Frisbee has been my number one sport since high school (we used to play in parking lots when we couldn't find a field). I was a bit out of practice my first week, but since then I've found my throws (though perhaps not my judgment since I still take the ambitious throw over the safe throw nine times out of ten). However, I tend to be one of the slower people on the field, so maybe I should work on that. I like to do my stall-counts alternating English and Kiswahili "One! Mbili! Three! Nne! ..."
I've only been going for three weeks (the weather has been mostly cooperative so far ::knock on wood:: ), but it's been a good chance for me to make friends outside of work. The sun sets after a little over an hour and then we usually go out and grab a quick drink afterward and hang out for a bit before I head back to the office for my weekly IDDS meeting.
If you ever want to join us, we play on the field next to the Sikh Temple near Friends' Corner :)
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
What I did this summer
Well, I kinda left my blog blank for most of the summer while I was in the states. However, I finally sat down and wrote about my experiences after the fact (but posted them with the relevant dates). It's only three posts, but they're super long (I tried to break down the first two into more manageable segments, while the third, is not much worse than a lot of my other posts). Anyway, it's a healthy dose of reading (sorry Kate, sorry Button, and sorry anyone else who feels that my posts take way too long to read), so I hope that you'll take your time.
Enjoy!
Unreasonable Reflections
IDDS 2010
An interlude with my family
Enjoy!
Unreasonable Reflections
IDDS 2010
An interlude with my family
Monday, November 8, 2010
Expiration Dates
When you buy a soda here, the bottle tells you the date that the bottle was filled and the date that the contents will expire. I just drank a Pepsi that was bottled on November 30, 2010 (maybe I should have said will be bottled). It's not the first time I've seen Pepsi connected with time travel..
Photo: Lucknow, India 2007
Photo: Lucknow, India 2007
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Election Day
Well, Sunday was election day here in Tanzania (Halloween is not really a big deal here). Although a lot of outsiders wrote off the result as a foregone conclusion, there was definitely a lot of excitement on the ground, as the opposition parties seemed to stand a better chance than usual to unseat the Party of the Revolution (CCM), which has basically been in power since independence almost 50 years ago.
The Economist had a rather shoddy effort in reporting on this one, which was a big disappointment for me (they looked at one particular village and seemed to extrapolate the conditions to the whole country) and even more infuriatingly, I couldn't comment on the article (the CAPTCHA that they had told me I was wrong 30 times, which leads me to believe that it's bad software). One of the most striking features in Arusha (I want to offer the disclaimer that my election analysis certainly is not valid beyond Arusha and even here is a tiny snap-shot) was that many of the supporters of the Party for Democracy and Development (ChaDeMa) featured a lot of people who had supported CCM at the last election in 2005 when Benjamin Mkapa was leading the party and had great things to say about him. They had become rather jaded in the last 5 years under the leadership of Jakaya Kikwete and were eager for change.
Yesterday was a bit hectic in town, and I couldn't fully understand what was going on, but it seemed like they were delaying release of the results and finally released a tally showing that ChaDeMa had won by a healthy margin. After that, vehicles were driving up and down the road honking in celebration and shouting slogans. They are still awaiting results in several other major areas, and it seems like the uncertainty may continue for a few more days. I don't have a sense whether the outcome is in question, or if it's simply a question of how big CCM's majority is (they seemed to have the tables tilted in their favor throughout the election), but it will be interesting to see how everything plays out.
Oh, and I mailed in my absentee ballot today (the last day I could postmark it). For any of you who were eligible to vote and couldn't, I submit that you should put a higher value on your role in democracy. I admit that I'm pretty lucky to be registered in a county that agreed to email me my ballot (I still had to send it via the postal system) but that luck is balanced out by the poor quality of candidates on that ballot.
The Economist had a rather shoddy effort in reporting on this one, which was a big disappointment for me (they looked at one particular village and seemed to extrapolate the conditions to the whole country) and even more infuriatingly, I couldn't comment on the article (the CAPTCHA that they had told me I was wrong 30 times, which leads me to believe that it's bad software). One of the most striking features in Arusha (I want to offer the disclaimer that my election analysis certainly is not valid beyond Arusha and even here is a tiny snap-shot) was that many of the supporters of the Party for Democracy and Development (ChaDeMa) featured a lot of people who had supported CCM at the last election in 2005 when Benjamin Mkapa was leading the party and had great things to say about him. They had become rather jaded in the last 5 years under the leadership of Jakaya Kikwete and were eager for change.
Yesterday was a bit hectic in town, and I couldn't fully understand what was going on, but it seemed like they were delaying release of the results and finally released a tally showing that ChaDeMa had won by a healthy margin. After that, vehicles were driving up and down the road honking in celebration and shouting slogans. They are still awaiting results in several other major areas, and it seems like the uncertainty may continue for a few more days. I don't have a sense whether the outcome is in question, or if it's simply a question of how big CCM's majority is (they seemed to have the tables tilted in their favor throughout the election), but it will be interesting to see how everything plays out.
Oh, and I mailed in my absentee ballot today (the last day I could postmark it). For any of you who were eligible to vote and couldn't, I submit that you should put a higher value on your role in democracy. I admit that I'm pretty lucky to be registered in a county that agreed to email me my ballot (I still had to send it via the postal system) but that luck is balanced out by the poor quality of candidates on that ballot.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
I'm an uncle (or an aunt)
Back when I was a sophomore in high school, I was having a conversation with my sister. She's nine years older than me, and just has a special way with words. We were discussing the fact that I had the same chemistry teacher she had had when she was a student, and the exchange went something like this:
Adrienne: Oh, you have Mr. Hunt, did you mention that you're my sister?
Me: Ummmmm, no.
Adrienne: Really? ...Why not?
Me: Well, I don't actually tell anyone that I'm your sister?
Adrienne: You--you don't???
Me: You see, Adrienne, I'm a boy...
And from that moment on, the entire family has refused to let that episode. For a minute, she seemed genuinely hurt. And I have to be honest, I have a pretty distinctive hyphenated last name. There aren't many people who miss that connection.
In any case, Adrienne just had a baby on Thursday October 28 (although on Tanzanian time, the baby was born after midnight, so I'm starting a campaign to celebrate her birthday on the 29th). A beautiful girl named Charlotte Abigail. And now, I'm going to have to fight to be called Uncle Daniel. Still, I'm thrilled to be an uncle and it was nice to talk to my niece over the phone the other day. I need to plan a trip home and see her. Check her out below!
Oh, and once again, Reuben's technical prowess saves the day. I've just learned how to link my posts as status updates on Facebook. Look at me joining the 21st century!
Adrienne: Oh, you have Mr. Hunt, did you mention that you're my sister?
Me: Ummmmm, no.
Adrienne: Really? ...Why not?
Me: Well, I don't actually tell anyone that I'm your sister?
Adrienne: You--you don't???
Me: You see, Adrienne, I'm a boy...
And from that moment on, the entire family has refused to let that episode. For a minute, she seemed genuinely hurt. And I have to be honest, I have a pretty distinctive hyphenated last name. There aren't many people who miss that connection.
In any case, Adrienne just had a baby on Thursday October 28 (although on Tanzanian time, the baby was born after midnight, so I'm starting a campaign to celebrate her birthday on the 29th). A beautiful girl named Charlotte Abigail. And now, I'm going to have to fight to be called Uncle Daniel. Still, I'm thrilled to be an uncle and it was nice to talk to my niece over the phone the other day. I need to plan a trip home and see her. Check her out below!
Oh, and once again, Reuben's technical prowess saves the day. I've just learned how to link my posts as status updates on Facebook. Look at me joining the 21st century!
Work Permit!
I now have permission to stay in Tanzania for two years. It took a lot of paperwork and then waiting and also some "hidden costs". But it finally arrived.
In general, it's required for people on my class of permit to be focusing on skills-training, so I figured I'd attach a picture of me training our new sales staff on our sales entry system. It was a bit exhausting to do a 40 minute speech in Kiswahili, but I think it worked better that way. This week was pretty hectic with all the interviewing and logistics of people coming in and out of the office, but it looks like we have a good team moving forward.
Also, I hear that the camera adds ten years to the bald spot.
Oh, and in case you couldn't tell, my computer is working again! Reuben deserves most of the credit (he had a program that allowed me to boot so that I could run a file system check). It's nice to have him back (he got back on Sunday, right when my computer died) and living with us and joining our adventures. Of course, it also means that we're doing all the paperwork again to get his work permit...
In general, it's required for people on my class of permit to be focusing on skills-training, so I figured I'd attach a picture of me training our new sales staff on our sales entry system. It was a bit exhausting to do a 40 minute speech in Kiswahili, but I think it worked better that way. This week was pretty hectic with all the interviewing and logistics of people coming in and out of the office, but it looks like we have a good team moving forward.
Also, I hear that the camera adds ten years to the bald spot.
Oh, and in case you couldn't tell, my computer is working again! Reuben deserves most of the credit (he had a program that allowed me to boot so that I could run a file system check). It's nice to have him back (he got back on Sunday, right when my computer died) and living with us and joining our adventures. Of course, it also means that we're doing all the paperwork again to get his work permit...
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
New House
Well, my computer still isn't working. Apparently I just need to boot it from a Live CD and run a file system check. Too bad the Live CD isn't booting (I had this problem when I first installed the operating system). So, instead, I'm hanging out at the office for this update.
So we just moved to a new house. And when I say house, I actually mean house this time. My room is no longer a storage space for company equipment (so there might be a few boxes in my room, but nothing like before) and it's big enough that I can move around (and I can actually keep all my things in there instead of using Jodie's room for storage). Also, as an improvement over our previous place, the kitchen, sitting room and workshop are now three separate rooms as opposed to the previous multi-purpose room. And each of those rooms is bigger than the one that we were using before for all three (the workshop is supposed to be a garage, but that didn't seem like the best use of space). The rooms also come with cabinets, drawers and mirrors (which means I no longer have an excuse for my wrinkled clothes and ragged appearance--also means that it is much easier to put food and dishes away in the kitchen) and the house has 3 bathrooms (there are only four of us living there, but we're hoping for visitors, HINT HINT).
We moved to a new location called Banana (still in Arusha, though). We're a little further from town and the office (which is probably healthy) and we have a spectacular view of Mt. Meru. Jodie is thrilled to be free of the dust that we dealt with at our old place. I'm less excited about the mosquito insurgency. You see, mosquitoes commonly live around banana trees and I'll just let you guess how the location got its name. Also, as we're further from town, we're much more prone to water shortages. We have two huge water tanks to keep full so that we won't be caught without water. Unfortunately, we haven't managed to fill them yet, so we have to transport our water from town everyday. And as a major tragedy, we don't have internet at the house currently. It's been rough on all of us, since we are pretty dependent on it, but hopefully we'll learn some healthier habits in the meantime.
The moving process was something of a nightmare (though much less hellish than moving out of my Kenyan house or the first place we lived in Tanzania). We wanted to finish in one day, but that made everything completely hectic. I didn't have space to pack up my room, so I was trying to send my stuff in waves (bear in mind I don't have a lot of stuff, I was just in an incredibly confined space). But after the first wave, I discovered that they had thrown all my stuff into whatever they could find and sent it over to the house. This led to a lot of searching and discovering them in the most bizarre locations. Unfortunately, our internet modem has not turned up, and no one has any idea where it might have gotten to. As I mentioned above, this may lead us to reduce our internet dependence.
I've let Jodie take the lead on organizing the common spaces, but I took some ownership over the kitchen (it's amazing how much difference a little space makes) and I'll probably be in charge of creating a garden. I'm glad there's finally space to do that. The soil is pretty lousy, so I might start with potatoes, since I can slowly add healthy soil to that. But I probably need to wait until we have a plan for water.
I can't believe I forgot to mention the craziest part. The key ring is huge! We have two keys for our outer gate (my first time living behind a locked gate since I've been here), a key for the garage padlock, one for the front door, a room key, backdoor key and I think I'm forgetting one. Hopefully we'll make copies soon so that we don't have to figure out key choreography for too long.
Anyway, I'm sure we'll have lots more adventures to share in this place, so stay tuned and if you know any chants or runes that might be able to help my computer, that would be much appreciated.
So we just moved to a new house. And when I say house, I actually mean house this time. My room is no longer a storage space for company equipment (so there might be a few boxes in my room, but nothing like before) and it's big enough that I can move around (and I can actually keep all my things in there instead of using Jodie's room for storage). Also, as an improvement over our previous place, the kitchen, sitting room and workshop are now three separate rooms as opposed to the previous multi-purpose room. And each of those rooms is bigger than the one that we were using before for all three (the workshop is supposed to be a garage, but that didn't seem like the best use of space). The rooms also come with cabinets, drawers and mirrors (which means I no longer have an excuse for my wrinkled clothes and ragged appearance--also means that it is much easier to put food and dishes away in the kitchen) and the house has 3 bathrooms (there are only four of us living there, but we're hoping for visitors, HINT HINT).
We moved to a new location called Banana (still in Arusha, though). We're a little further from town and the office (which is probably healthy) and we have a spectacular view of Mt. Meru. Jodie is thrilled to be free of the dust that we dealt with at our old place. I'm less excited about the mosquito insurgency. You see, mosquitoes commonly live around banana trees and I'll just let you guess how the location got its name. Also, as we're further from town, we're much more prone to water shortages. We have two huge water tanks to keep full so that we won't be caught without water. Unfortunately, we haven't managed to fill them yet, so we have to transport our water from town everyday. And as a major tragedy, we don't have internet at the house currently. It's been rough on all of us, since we are pretty dependent on it, but hopefully we'll learn some healthier habits in the meantime.
The moving process was something of a nightmare (though much less hellish than moving out of my Kenyan house or the first place we lived in Tanzania). We wanted to finish in one day, but that made everything completely hectic. I didn't have space to pack up my room, so I was trying to send my stuff in waves (bear in mind I don't have a lot of stuff, I was just in an incredibly confined space). But after the first wave, I discovered that they had thrown all my stuff into whatever they could find and sent it over to the house. This led to a lot of searching and discovering them in the most bizarre locations. Unfortunately, our internet modem has not turned up, and no one has any idea where it might have gotten to. As I mentioned above, this may lead us to reduce our internet dependence.
I've let Jodie take the lead on organizing the common spaces, but I took some ownership over the kitchen (it's amazing how much difference a little space makes) and I'll probably be in charge of creating a garden. I'm glad there's finally space to do that. The soil is pretty lousy, so I might start with potatoes, since I can slowly add healthy soil to that. But I probably need to wait until we have a plan for water.
I can't believe I forgot to mention the craziest part. The key ring is huge! We have two keys for our outer gate (my first time living behind a locked gate since I've been here), a key for the garage padlock, one for the front door, a room key, backdoor key and I think I'm forgetting one. Hopefully we'll make copies soon so that we don't have to figure out key choreography for too long.
Anyway, I'm sure we'll have lots more adventures to share in this place, so stay tuned and if you know any chants or runes that might be able to help my computer, that would be much appreciated.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Be Patient
Sigh, there's a lot of exciting stuff going on that I'd love to write about. However, I learned a valuable lesson this weekend:
If your computer works, maybe you should just skip the system update.
Unfortunately, I updated the system and now my computer won't boot. Apparently several people have had the same issue with this update. :(
Hopefully I'll be writing about everything again soon!
If your computer works, maybe you should just skip the system update.
Unfortunately, I updated the system and now my computer won't boot. Apparently several people have had the same issue with this update. :(
Hopefully I'll be writing about everything again soon!
Friday, October 22, 2010
Car trouble times four
Last night, Jodie got a phone call saying that a friend was stranded a little way outside of Arusha. It was 9 PM, but we both immediately got in the car to help out. We left another friend alone at our house and told him we'd try to be back shortly.
We grabbed some diesel for the friend in case that was the problem and set out towards Maji ya Chai (literally "tea water", which I believe is a reference to the brown river nearby). Unfortunately, Jodie and I weren't actually sure how far it was to Maji ya Chai. And the road is not well lit at that hour. Also, our friend was out of phone credit, so we kept calling him to make sure we hadn't passed him yet. We took turns trying to keep each other calm about the whole situation. Our big concern was that the gas light kept going on and off (especially when we were on a hill) and the gauge was right at E. We passed a few gas stations, but we really wanted to get to Maji ya Chai first because we weren't sure what kind of situation our friend was in.
Finally, the gas light started staying on consistently, however, the gas gauge started rising. It jumped to a quarter tank and then slowly climbed to the halfway mark. At this point, Jodie and I had no idea what was going on, so we finally just decided to stop for gas at the first station we passed (the car took petrol so we couldn't use the gas can we had picked up for the other vehicle). The gas station was slightly more expensive than some of the others that we passed, but there was an attendant to wash the windows (there's always an attendant who puts the gas in the car, which makes me feel like I'm in New Jersey or something). The window-washing actually made a huge difference, as the glare through the windshield was almost gone and it was a lot easier to see speed-bumps as we drove on. However, we started laughing when we realized that adding gas (we weren't traveling with much money, so we only put in 1.5 gallons) had actually lowered the gas gauge.
At 9:40, we found our friends and discovered that there was a ton of liquid on the road next to their Land Cruiser and vapor coming out of the radiator. We learned that there was a problem with one of the belts and that they were waiting for the engine to cool down (they had been there for an hour). We also saw that there was a completely broken down car in tow that looked like it might get turned away at most junkyards. I asked one of the passengers and she said that they had had quite an adventure. They were towing the car from Dar es Salaam (which is over 500 km away) and had initially chained it badly, so that the beat up car got a dent in the fender when it slammed into the Land Cruiser. She further explained that the car had managed to turn on a few times and even drive a few feet while they were in Dar, but that it was definitely far from being drive-able.
About ten minutes later, the engine had cooled down and we were back on the road, feeling like we had come all that way and done nothing. After about 10 km, the Land Cruiser pulled over and they explained that the vehicle didn't have any more strength to pull the car, so we had a rather complicated Chinese fire drill where we all switched cars and attached the beat-up car to the one with the funny gas gauge. They explained that the problematic belt was the one that connected to the alternator, which is why the battery wasn't charging. Then Jodie and I hopped in the tired Land Cruiser and started driving. We just hoped for the best.
It was another 20 km to get home, and we realized that we couldn't actually stop or the Land Cruiser would probably stall again. Pretty soon, the truck was barely crawling along. We were amazed how much more juice it had after switching off the hazard flashers and headlights. Of course, that also meant that it was even more difficult for people to see us and realize how slow we were driving. But at least we were moving. I was watching the front window for speedbumps and the rear window for oncoming traffic to tell Jodie when to brake and when to flicker her lights, while she was concentrating on just keeping moving.
Mercifully, the Land Cruiser didn't die until we were going downhill towards our house. We managed to roll all the way to the entrance to our driveway, but that was uphill. I had advised Jodie not to park at the nearby gas station, since I wasn't sure it was a good idea to leave the Land Cruiser there over night. Unfortunately, as I soon discovered, even with four people, we couldn't push the Land Cruiser into the driveway (it was partially blocking the street). Our friend who was still at the house had been there for two hours at this point. So much for a quick trip.
The other cars arrived shortly after us and we opened up the hood and started cooling the engine again and trying to let the heat out of the radiator. We realized that the battery was dead and the old pick-up was blocked in so we wouldn't be able to jump it. So, in the end, we took the battery out of the pick-up and put it into the Land Cruiser. Once the Land Cruiser had cooled down sufficiently (another 30 minutes or so), we drove it the last twenty feet and parked it.
Jodie was pretty tired at this point (it was after 11:30 and she had done all the driving), so I volunteered to drop the passengers who had switched to the car with the bad gas gauge back to their house and bring the car back home. It was nice to be behind the wheel at this point, although once I started going up the hill, the gas light started up again. I made it home with the tank on E. And I was just in time for my weekly IDDS meeting, which mercifully ended after only 40 minutes.
Phew. Hopefully tonight is going to be an early night.
We grabbed some diesel for the friend in case that was the problem and set out towards Maji ya Chai (literally "tea water", which I believe is a reference to the brown river nearby). Unfortunately, Jodie and I weren't actually sure how far it was to Maji ya Chai. And the road is not well lit at that hour. Also, our friend was out of phone credit, so we kept calling him to make sure we hadn't passed him yet. We took turns trying to keep each other calm about the whole situation. Our big concern was that the gas light kept going on and off (especially when we were on a hill) and the gauge was right at E. We passed a few gas stations, but we really wanted to get to Maji ya Chai first because we weren't sure what kind of situation our friend was in.
Finally, the gas light started staying on consistently, however, the gas gauge started rising. It jumped to a quarter tank and then slowly climbed to the halfway mark. At this point, Jodie and I had no idea what was going on, so we finally just decided to stop for gas at the first station we passed (the car took petrol so we couldn't use the gas can we had picked up for the other vehicle). The gas station was slightly more expensive than some of the others that we passed, but there was an attendant to wash the windows (there's always an attendant who puts the gas in the car, which makes me feel like I'm in New Jersey or something). The window-washing actually made a huge difference, as the glare through the windshield was almost gone and it was a lot easier to see speed-bumps as we drove on. However, we started laughing when we realized that adding gas (we weren't traveling with much money, so we only put in 1.5 gallons) had actually lowered the gas gauge.
At 9:40, we found our friends and discovered that there was a ton of liquid on the road next to their Land Cruiser and vapor coming out of the radiator. We learned that there was a problem with one of the belts and that they were waiting for the engine to cool down (they had been there for an hour). We also saw that there was a completely broken down car in tow that looked like it might get turned away at most junkyards. I asked one of the passengers and she said that they had had quite an adventure. They were towing the car from Dar es Salaam (which is over 500 km away) and had initially chained it badly, so that the beat up car got a dent in the fender when it slammed into the Land Cruiser. She further explained that the car had managed to turn on a few times and even drive a few feet while they were in Dar, but that it was definitely far from being drive-able.
About ten minutes later, the engine had cooled down and we were back on the road, feeling like we had come all that way and done nothing. After about 10 km, the Land Cruiser pulled over and they explained that the vehicle didn't have any more strength to pull the car, so we had a rather complicated Chinese fire drill where we all switched cars and attached the beat-up car to the one with the funny gas gauge. They explained that the problematic belt was the one that connected to the alternator, which is why the battery wasn't charging. Then Jodie and I hopped in the tired Land Cruiser and started driving. We just hoped for the best.
It was another 20 km to get home, and we realized that we couldn't actually stop or the Land Cruiser would probably stall again. Pretty soon, the truck was barely crawling along. We were amazed how much more juice it had after switching off the hazard flashers and headlights. Of course, that also meant that it was even more difficult for people to see us and realize how slow we were driving. But at least we were moving. I was watching the front window for speedbumps and the rear window for oncoming traffic to tell Jodie when to brake and when to flicker her lights, while she was concentrating on just keeping moving.
Mercifully, the Land Cruiser didn't die until we were going downhill towards our house. We managed to roll all the way to the entrance to our driveway, but that was uphill. I had advised Jodie not to park at the nearby gas station, since I wasn't sure it was a good idea to leave the Land Cruiser there over night. Unfortunately, as I soon discovered, even with four people, we couldn't push the Land Cruiser into the driveway (it was partially blocking the street). Our friend who was still at the house had been there for two hours at this point. So much for a quick trip.
The other cars arrived shortly after us and we opened up the hood and started cooling the engine again and trying to let the heat out of the radiator. We realized that the battery was dead and the old pick-up was blocked in so we wouldn't be able to jump it. So, in the end, we took the battery out of the pick-up and put it into the Land Cruiser. Once the Land Cruiser had cooled down sufficiently (another 30 minutes or so), we drove it the last twenty feet and parked it.
Jodie was pretty tired at this point (it was after 11:30 and she had done all the driving), so I volunteered to drop the passengers who had switched to the car with the bad gas gauge back to their house and bring the car back home. It was nice to be behind the wheel at this point, although once I started going up the hill, the gas light started up again. I made it home with the tank on E. And I was just in time for my weekly IDDS meeting, which mercifully ended after only 40 minutes.
Phew. Hopefully tonight is going to be an early night.
Election songs
This is one of my favorite Tanzanian songs. It's just super-catchy. Not actually great lyrics.
Unfortunately, it's not nearly as much fun when they change the lyrics to be the campaign song for CCM. There was a truck just now parked 50 feet from the office blasting the election version. Nine more days until this election happens. It can't come soon enough...
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Dead Aid
Well, Jodie is out of town for a few days, so I did the first thing that most normal people would do with a house all themselves. I broke into Jodie's room and raided her library (okay, so I had the key to her room, but I could have also picked up one of the books I brought that I still haven't read). I haven't been reading many books for a while (I still devour The Economist), but I polished off a book in less than 48 hours (and I'm trying to decide what I'll read next). So, reverting to my old book review style, here goes.
*** Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo - I'm pretty sure that this was the big development-book-worth-reading of 2009. It was written by a Zambian woman who has spent most of her professional career in Western financial institutions. Her central thesis is that foreign aid has pushed the African continent backward economically, and the only way for it to develop to its full potential is to bring aid flows down to zero. It's probably worth noting that when Moyo says "Africa" she is referring to sub-Saharan Africa. She never mentions this or explains her choice, and although I can understand why it makes sense in the context of the book, incorrect use of geographic terms bothers me a bit.
I guess it's pretty easy to get through a book that quickly when it's only 154 pages (plus foreword, intro and a rather brief set of citations). 154 pages means that the author is either very good at arguing her points, or puts forward some rather flimsy arguments. Unfortunately, in this case, I feel that it was the latter. Although I agreed with some of her major arguments, I disagreed with a healthy share as well, and the weakness of her arguments only served to make me feel more confident about my stances.
Many of the data she presented were put up without any citation. I suppose I could make some pretty compelling arguments if I didn't have to cite my data. She wrote a long section on how the Chinese are much more popular in Africa than Americans especially in terms of commerce. I can only draw my experience in three countries, but I've seen a lot of skepticism toward Asians (especially in rural settings, all people of Asian descent including Asian-Americans are assumed to be Chinese) where people will blindly follow the advice of someone who is American (which is usually a risky strategy). She even cites the example of Chinese built roads across the region and says that they are as smooth as the ones in California. At one point, I asked a Kenyan friend why one particular stretch of road was in such good shape. He explained that it had been built by the Japanese, so it was much stronger, while the Chinese-built roads are filled with potholes (and worse) before the next stretch of road can be completed. Regardless of whether his account was true (and I heard similar tales from many others), it hardly supports her statement that the Chinese are liked by most and much more popular than Americans.
She also condemned virtually all forms of foreign assistance, with only a slight mention of possible benefits that could arise from humanitarian relief (of course, the horror stories from humanitarian relief tend to be rather terrifying). In some cases, people arguing for modest budget cuts put forth the argument that it should be done with a scalpel, not with an axe. I feel that aid budgets should be cut with an axe, not with a guillotine. She acknowledges that there have been some effective campaigns, but feels that the abundance of overwhelming failures means that it should be foregone in all cases as the market offers more effective tools. I agree with most of it, except that I think that there are lessons from the success stories and the failures and a much leaner program with highly accountable officials could deliver some effective results. Moyo dismisses PEPFAR outright, while I feel that it has been one of the most effective campaigns to deliver anti-retroviral drugs to people living with HIV/AIDS (ARVs to PLWHAs for those who love acronyms), which offers tremendous benefit to both the donor and recipient countries (although the program certainly could be made more efficient).
I had to cede the point on trade and agricultural subsidies, since I know very little on those subjects. Still, I worry that her desire to end all US agricultural subsidies would be just as disastrous, and it comes down to finding the ones that offer a good return for the spending and cut the ones that don't. On the other hand, she picked a fight with Paul Collier on a point (I read The Bottom Billion two years ago and liked it much better) where it seemed like she was misrepresenting his argument. In fact, she brought in arguments from a lot of the major thinkers in this field and explained why they were all wrong and occasionally cited them when their arguments meshed with hers (and sometimes took jabs at them even as she was agreeing with them). As much as I love picking on certain people who she was picking on, I found myself mentally defending them as she tore them down.
Still, she writes with a voice that is easy to listen to. And she raises some very serious issues that warrant addressing. So while I would recommend picking up this book, I definitely advise doing it with a critical eye. Although she is Zambian (most of the other popular aid books are written by white males who have spent a lot of time in the system), at times, she seems a bit removed from the context that she is writing about. Her stronger credentials more likely come from her experience in finance and markets and lead to a book that focuses on markets as the solution to all woes.
*** Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo - I'm pretty sure that this was the big development-book-worth-reading of 2009. It was written by a Zambian woman who has spent most of her professional career in Western financial institutions. Her central thesis is that foreign aid has pushed the African continent backward economically, and the only way for it to develop to its full potential is to bring aid flows down to zero. It's probably worth noting that when Moyo says "Africa" she is referring to sub-Saharan Africa. She never mentions this or explains her choice, and although I can understand why it makes sense in the context of the book, incorrect use of geographic terms bothers me a bit.
I guess it's pretty easy to get through a book that quickly when it's only 154 pages (plus foreword, intro and a rather brief set of citations). 154 pages means that the author is either very good at arguing her points, or puts forward some rather flimsy arguments. Unfortunately, in this case, I feel that it was the latter. Although I agreed with some of her major arguments, I disagreed with a healthy share as well, and the weakness of her arguments only served to make me feel more confident about my stances.
Many of the data she presented were put up without any citation. I suppose I could make some pretty compelling arguments if I didn't have to cite my data. She wrote a long section on how the Chinese are much more popular in Africa than Americans especially in terms of commerce. I can only draw my experience in three countries, but I've seen a lot of skepticism toward Asians (especially in rural settings, all people of Asian descent including Asian-Americans are assumed to be Chinese) where people will blindly follow the advice of someone who is American (which is usually a risky strategy). She even cites the example of Chinese built roads across the region and says that they are as smooth as the ones in California. At one point, I asked a Kenyan friend why one particular stretch of road was in such good shape. He explained that it had been built by the Japanese, so it was much stronger, while the Chinese-built roads are filled with potholes (and worse) before the next stretch of road can be completed. Regardless of whether his account was true (and I heard similar tales from many others), it hardly supports her statement that the Chinese are liked by most and much more popular than Americans.
She also condemned virtually all forms of foreign assistance, with only a slight mention of possible benefits that could arise from humanitarian relief (of course, the horror stories from humanitarian relief tend to be rather terrifying). In some cases, people arguing for modest budget cuts put forth the argument that it should be done with a scalpel, not with an axe. I feel that aid budgets should be cut with an axe, not with a guillotine. She acknowledges that there have been some effective campaigns, but feels that the abundance of overwhelming failures means that it should be foregone in all cases as the market offers more effective tools. I agree with most of it, except that I think that there are lessons from the success stories and the failures and a much leaner program with highly accountable officials could deliver some effective results. Moyo dismisses PEPFAR outright, while I feel that it has been one of the most effective campaigns to deliver anti-retroviral drugs to people living with HIV/AIDS (ARVs to PLWHAs for those who love acronyms), which offers tremendous benefit to both the donor and recipient countries (although the program certainly could be made more efficient).
I had to cede the point on trade and agricultural subsidies, since I know very little on those subjects. Still, I worry that her desire to end all US agricultural subsidies would be just as disastrous, and it comes down to finding the ones that offer a good return for the spending and cut the ones that don't. On the other hand, she picked a fight with Paul Collier on a point (I read The Bottom Billion two years ago and liked it much better) where it seemed like she was misrepresenting his argument. In fact, she brought in arguments from a lot of the major thinkers in this field and explained why they were all wrong and occasionally cited them when their arguments meshed with hers (and sometimes took jabs at them even as she was agreeing with them). As much as I love picking on certain people who she was picking on, I found myself mentally defending them as she tore them down.
Still, she writes with a voice that is easy to listen to. And she raises some very serious issues that warrant addressing. So while I would recommend picking up this book, I definitely advise doing it with a critical eye. Although she is Zambian (most of the other popular aid books are written by white males who have spent a lot of time in the system), at times, she seems a bit removed from the context that she is writing about. Her stronger credentials more likely come from her experience in finance and markets and lead to a book that focuses on markets as the solution to all woes.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
A few overdue pictures
One of my friends from Unreasonable Institute does henna. She does it amazingly well. This picture is from June in Colorado. I might need to visit her in Pakistan.
Look at this! I finally posted a picture of Juju. I don't see him much these days, but when I used to see him every night, he definitely thought he was a lap dog. I miss the playful guy. Photo credit: Jodie
And will you look at that? It's a picture of me at work. I'm putting corn into our maize sheller (you can see videos of it in action on our youtube channel). This was taken in Mbeya back in May. Photo credit: Reuben
I feel so accomplished now that I can put up pictures. I wouldn't expect them too often, but I'll try to include them 2-3 times each month.
I don't understand ants
So I've had problems with ants my whole time here. I have to give them credit for their persistence. It seems like any food that contains sugar is not safe from their clever ways. However, imagine my surprise when I opened the salt container (probably the least sweet thing in the kitchen) and found it crawling with hundreds of tiny ants. I can't even imagine how they got in, since the container was tightly closed.
NB: I think this is the first photo I'm posting on here. Isn't it lovely? Well, I've tried a few times before, but with no success (just wanna throw it out there that I never had problems uploading pictures using wordpress, only blogger). My new recipe will be whatever pictures I can capture on my netbook's little webcam, will go up here.
NB: I think this is the first photo I'm posting on here. Isn't it lovely? Well, I've tried a few times before, but with no success (just wanna throw it out there that I never had problems uploading pictures using wordpress, only blogger). My new recipe will be whatever pictures I can capture on my netbook's little webcam, will go up here.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Pay it forward
So I was never a big fan of Polonius. But his "neither a borrower nor a lender be" tidbit was some pretty good advice. In fact, that's one of the main things that stops me from supporting some worthy causes is that I don't want people to strain themselves to pay me back (which most of the people who ask me will inevitably do).
However, this week, my Tanzanian friend Baraka asked me for money so that he could buy a passport. I would not consider his one of the neediest cases that I've been faced with, but he had a few things to recommend him. First, I know how fortunate I am to have traveled as widely as I have and I am grateful for the perspective it has given me, so in that sense, I see a passport as a valuable educational tool.
Second, I know that Baraka understands my living conditions and can distinguish the fact that I live the life of a middle class Tanzanian, which is very different from the lifestyle of a middle class American of the sort who he likely sees hopping on safari buses in town or eating at the restaurants that most Tanzanian customers can't afford. And third, I knew that he understood what I meant when I told him that I didn't want him to pay me back. I don't want favors or repayment (I gave him 1/6 of my monthly salary, which covers only 1/3 of his cost anyway), I'd rather that he take the opportunity when he finds it to help someone to attain their own goal.
In any case, I consider this an investment. Baraka is a really enthusiastic break dancer, and I could see him packing up and starting a break dancing school in some new location. But in any case, the first time that he crosses an international border and enters a new country, that will be payment enough for me.
However, this week, my Tanzanian friend Baraka asked me for money so that he could buy a passport. I would not consider his one of the neediest cases that I've been faced with, but he had a few things to recommend him. First, I know how fortunate I am to have traveled as widely as I have and I am grateful for the perspective it has given me, so in that sense, I see a passport as a valuable educational tool.
Second, I know that Baraka understands my living conditions and can distinguish the fact that I live the life of a middle class Tanzanian, which is very different from the lifestyle of a middle class American of the sort who he likely sees hopping on safari buses in town or eating at the restaurants that most Tanzanian customers can't afford. And third, I knew that he understood what I meant when I told him that I didn't want him to pay me back. I don't want favors or repayment (I gave him 1/6 of my monthly salary, which covers only 1/3 of his cost anyway), I'd rather that he take the opportunity when he finds it to help someone to attain their own goal.
In any case, I consider this an investment. Baraka is a really enthusiastic break dancer, and I could see him packing up and starting a break dancing school in some new location. But in any case, the first time that he crosses an international border and enters a new country, that will be payment enough for me.
Other People's Homework
I was one of those kids in school who used to have lots of people asking for help with their homework. Sometimes, they were asking me about classes that I hadn't actually taken yet, but in almost all cases, I tried to help them however I could.
These days, I am usually the one who replies to emails with general queries for GCS. This week, I received an email from a university student asking some questions for an assignment from a class. If you ever find yourself in this position, I have a few pieces of advice for people who may need to ask for homework help in the future:
1. Don't just copy-paste your homework assignment onto the email. Scheduling an interview is better than a numbered list of 19 questions that look like they came right off of a worksheet. Also, looking at some of the questions, I have some doubts about the professor teaching the class
2. Make sure you know the name of the company you're writing to. I do not work at GSC. There is a company called GSC here in Arusha. Maybe I should direct future queries to them instead.
3. Most university students use their school email. It lends credibility. Emails from a Yahoo account trip some red flags.
4. Just wanna go back to the first point. I don't know if there's a rule for something like no more than 7 questions requiring a substantial answer in an email (especially an email to a stranger). Does anyone have a better rule? If not, let's make this 7 Questions rule official. Tell your friends about it. Extra points if you come up with a good name for this rule.
These days, I am usually the one who replies to emails with general queries for GCS. This week, I received an email from a university student asking some questions for an assignment from a class. If you ever find yourself in this position, I have a few pieces of advice for people who may need to ask for homework help in the future:
1. Don't just copy-paste your homework assignment onto the email. Scheduling an interview is better than a numbered list of 19 questions that look like they came right off of a worksheet. Also, looking at some of the questions, I have some doubts about the professor teaching the class
2. Make sure you know the name of the company you're writing to. I do not work at GSC. There is a company called GSC here in Arusha. Maybe I should direct future queries to them instead.
3. Most university students use their school email. It lends credibility. Emails from a Yahoo account trip some red flags.
4. Just wanna go back to the first point. I don't know if there's a rule for something like no more than 7 questions requiring a substantial answer in an email (especially an email to a stranger). Does anyone have a better rule? If not, let's make this 7 Questions rule official. Tell your friends about it. Extra points if you come up with a good name for this rule.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
This is why I don't get invited places
So today I went to Belinda's send off party. Belinda is the sister of Oscar, who is one of my co-workers. A send off party seems like a wedding, though the actual ceremony is on Saturday. I guess I would describe it as a cross between giving the bride away and the bridal shower, but it felt like a wedding at several points. When Jodie and I first got the invitation (which looked like a wedding invitation), we actually thought it was a wedding seeing as it invited us to the ceremony at the church followed by a short reception.
Basically, we all went to the church as the priest blessed the bride (she had her bridesmaids and maid of honor there as well as friends and family, but the groom was not part of it) and conducted a fairly standard Catholic mass. And as Jodie and I were the only non-Tanzanians there, the priest made sure to announce to the congregation that Belinda had guests from America and Japan (actually Jodie is of Chinese descent and was born and raised in the US).
After this, we went to a big hall where the groom and his friends and family joined the group. There was music and dancing and speeches (a lot of speeches) and food and champagne and a roaring good time. I was a little out of it for the first bit of this. It was 9 PM before they served food, and I hadn't eaten much of anything all day (we expected a 2-4 hour event and getting home by 7) and the people at my table were starting to worry as I looked more ragged. But all of this is just setting the stage. The important part of this story is the gift giving ceremony.
Just before the wedding, Jodie and I bought a set of three metal racks that were hung in tiers by a chain with a hook at the top so that you could hang it from the ceiling (a handy way to keep pests out of your food). And then we went to the market and bought fruit to put into the basket. The selection of coconuts, avocados, oranges and bananas seemed like a really delightful arrangement.
Anyway, at the reception hall, the emcee was calling out guests by name and they danced down the center aisle holding their gift to present to the bride. There were cameras and a huge spotlight and it was a huge spectacle. One group danced down carrying a gas grill and burners, and another needed 12 people to carry a mattress, bed slats and the whole frame (that was pretty amazing). I've always preferred a lower profile, but I knew that we needed to participate in the tradition, so they called out Jodie's name and we went up with our gift. Our faces were already beet red as we reached the start of the aisle, and then after about three steps, the chain snapped and the gift was lying at my feet. I felt like I was simultaneously blushing while the blood rushed out of my face. We hastily picked everything up and danced our way to the bride and sheepishly presented the gift as she smiled at us.
Now, we can flash back a bit. The chain actually snapped in the car when we were trying to find our way to the church in the first place. Jodie thought she had it fixed, but when we got to the church, I discovered that it snapped again. I figured it was a weight issue, so I took out some fruit. This kept up until I had removed about 70% of the fruit. I walked around with it a bit to make sure that it wouldn't break again. I was so hopeful that I could just give them the gift without embarrassing myself. So much for that.
My friend Bernard had come to dance down the aisle with us, so I was glad to have a Tanzanian at my side when this happened. He pointed out that they'll all enjoy having a funny story to tell about the reception. And I think I learned that from now on, when I bring a gift to a wedding, it's just going to be an envelope with cash. Actually, it was really funny when they called for "everyone else" and a huge column formed of people carrying pots and towels and basins and lots of kitchen/cleaning related supplies (I'll stay away from commenting on gender roles for now). But I was just glad to make a quiet exit after the gift debacle (and the 7.5 hour event that we had expected to last 2-4 hours).
Basically, we all went to the church as the priest blessed the bride (she had her bridesmaids and maid of honor there as well as friends and family, but the groom was not part of it) and conducted a fairly standard Catholic mass. And as Jodie and I were the only non-Tanzanians there, the priest made sure to announce to the congregation that Belinda had guests from America and Japan (actually Jodie is of Chinese descent and was born and raised in the US).
After this, we went to a big hall where the groom and his friends and family joined the group. There was music and dancing and speeches (a lot of speeches) and food and champagne and a roaring good time. I was a little out of it for the first bit of this. It was 9 PM before they served food, and I hadn't eaten much of anything all day (we expected a 2-4 hour event and getting home by 7) and the people at my table were starting to worry as I looked more ragged. But all of this is just setting the stage. The important part of this story is the gift giving ceremony.
Just before the wedding, Jodie and I bought a set of three metal racks that were hung in tiers by a chain with a hook at the top so that you could hang it from the ceiling (a handy way to keep pests out of your food). And then we went to the market and bought fruit to put into the basket. The selection of coconuts, avocados, oranges and bananas seemed like a really delightful arrangement.
Anyway, at the reception hall, the emcee was calling out guests by name and they danced down the center aisle holding their gift to present to the bride. There were cameras and a huge spotlight and it was a huge spectacle. One group danced down carrying a gas grill and burners, and another needed 12 people to carry a mattress, bed slats and the whole frame (that was pretty amazing). I've always preferred a lower profile, but I knew that we needed to participate in the tradition, so they called out Jodie's name and we went up with our gift. Our faces were already beet red as we reached the start of the aisle, and then after about three steps, the chain snapped and the gift was lying at my feet. I felt like I was simultaneously blushing while the blood rushed out of my face. We hastily picked everything up and danced our way to the bride and sheepishly presented the gift as she smiled at us.
Now, we can flash back a bit. The chain actually snapped in the car when we were trying to find our way to the church in the first place. Jodie thought she had it fixed, but when we got to the church, I discovered that it snapped again. I figured it was a weight issue, so I took out some fruit. This kept up until I had removed about 70% of the fruit. I walked around with it a bit to make sure that it wouldn't break again. I was so hopeful that I could just give them the gift without embarrassing myself. So much for that.
My friend Bernard had come to dance down the aisle with us, so I was glad to have a Tanzanian at my side when this happened. He pointed out that they'll all enjoy having a funny story to tell about the reception. And I think I learned that from now on, when I bring a gift to a wedding, it's just going to be an envelope with cash. Actually, it was really funny when they called for "everyone else" and a huge column formed of people carrying pots and towels and basins and lots of kitchen/cleaning related supplies (I'll stay away from commenting on gender roles for now). But I was just glad to make a quiet exit after the gift debacle (and the 7.5 hour event that we had expected to last 2-4 hours).
Monday, October 11, 2010
Lessons in Shipping
I went to the Post Office on Friday to ship two packages for GCS. It was quite an ordeal, and in spite of the fact that there was no line, it wound up taking over an hour. I arrived with open boxes for the Customs inspection (since the boxes were being shipped internationally), which was actually really easy. Then I pulled out my roll of tape to close up the boxes, but the lady on the counter told me that I needed to wrap the box in brown paper because it was so heavy (23 lbs). So I went over and bought a sheet of paper for each package. While I was buying the paper, another customer grabbed my roll of tape and applied it liberally to close her package. Then the Customs woman told me that I needed another to close it properly (effectively, I had to wrap it like a gift). As I tried to do this, I ran out of tape, so I had to go to the stationery store (which instead markets itself as a stationary store--lest one confuse that building with one of those stores that moves around) nearby and bought some tape. Then I returned, and the woman at the counter told me that my wrapping was inadequate and took the tape and applied it liberally to the package. After that, it was just a matter of addressing the boxes, filling out the customs forms, putting the box on the scale, and waiting as she counted at all the money in the payment (the cost of shipping was around $130, which required 39 bills).
After that adventure, I went to the bus station to ask about the cost of shipping a box to Mombasa on the bus. I described the size and weight of the box in question, and they said that it would cost 30,000 shillings ($20). An interesting price considering that if I were traveling as a passenger, I would pay 22,000 shillings for the seat and a spot for the same package. I don't think that the price was on account of my skin color. Rather, I think it was a testament to the fees that have to be paid to the officials at the border. Of course, on paper, it's free to move goods across the border. Someone should pass that information on to the border officials.
After that adventure, I went to the bus station to ask about the cost of shipping a box to Mombasa on the bus. I described the size and weight of the box in question, and they said that it would cost 30,000 shillings ($20). An interesting price considering that if I were traveling as a passenger, I would pay 22,000 shillings for the seat and a spot for the same package. I don't think that the price was on account of my skin color. Rather, I think it was a testament to the fees that have to be paid to the officials at the border. Of course, on paper, it's free to move goods across the border. Someone should pass that information on to the border officials.
Locked In
It's nice to have an indoor bathroom with a wooden door. Definitely a big step up over my house in Kenya. However, wooden doors run their own risks here. Like when the handle stops working (my corrugated iron door just had a sliding latch, so I never had this problem). I felt pretty ridiculous in there and I asked Jodie to try using a credit card on the door. She couldn't get it to work (I probably should have coached her better) so she slid it under the door. I gotta say, it definitely doesn't work from the inside.
After a few minutes, the boys from the workshop unscrewed the handle and I was free once again. I think this is just more evidence of what I've argued for years. Showers are dangerous and should be avoided at all costs.
After a few minutes, the boys from the workshop unscrewed the handle and I was free once again. I think this is just more evidence of what I've argued for years. Showers are dangerous and should be avoided at all costs.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Rush Hour Ugliness
On Wednesday afternoon, I was heading to town in a dala-dala. Heading uphill toward town, there was a tractor parked on the (non-existent) shoulder blocking most of the lane for oncoming traffic, which made the road rather dangerous as impatient drivers tried to get past. The driver of the tractor was sitting there smiling and even turned the key to show everyone that the vehicle was dead. The driver of the dala-dala shouted at the tractor driver "Move your truck!" and added for good measure "Then go and take a bath!" The other passengers laughed at this, but I was not amused.
Then, just when it seemed like traffic was getting better after we passed the tractor, a column of young men with rifles started moving through the street. The common outfit revealed them to be soldiers, but few of them could be considered marching, more like trying to keep up (to be fair, I would probably be a lousy marcher as well, but I don't think that narrow city streets at rush hour are the best place to practice). At first glance, it looked like most of them were in their early teens, but I was relieved when we moved closer and I saw that most of them were probably around 20. Unfortunately, there was no way to pass them, so we had to follow them at a slow jogging pace until they turned onto another street.
But as we were tail-gaiting them (yep, the vehicle felt compelled to drive right behind them) a bicycle was riding alongside us on the (still non-existent) shoulder. I'm not sure if it was boredom or something else, but the driver decided to steer the vehicle (remember, this is a full mini-bus) right at the cyclist. He tried this twice and the passengers just laughed as he did it. The cyclist struggled to keep his balance while avoiding getting hit and shouted at the driver "I hope your car breaks!" The passengers just laughed harder.
I thought about getting out right there and finding another vehicle, but I knew it was a bad idea to engage with this driver. It's a shame that the other passengers encouraged him. In some ways, I was even angrier with them. I was glad that the last five minutes of the ride were uneventful, but I was disgusted by the whole scene.
Then, just when it seemed like traffic was getting better after we passed the tractor, a column of young men with rifles started moving through the street. The common outfit revealed them to be soldiers, but few of them could be considered marching, more like trying to keep up (to be fair, I would probably be a lousy marcher as well, but I don't think that narrow city streets at rush hour are the best place to practice). At first glance, it looked like most of them were in their early teens, but I was relieved when we moved closer and I saw that most of them were probably around 20. Unfortunately, there was no way to pass them, so we had to follow them at a slow jogging pace until they turned onto another street.
But as we were tail-gaiting them (yep, the vehicle felt compelled to drive right behind them) a bicycle was riding alongside us on the (still non-existent) shoulder. I'm not sure if it was boredom or something else, but the driver decided to steer the vehicle (remember, this is a full mini-bus) right at the cyclist. He tried this twice and the passengers just laughed as he did it. The cyclist struggled to keep his balance while avoiding getting hit and shouted at the driver "I hope your car breaks!" The passengers just laughed harder.
I thought about getting out right there and finding another vehicle, but I knew it was a bad idea to engage with this driver. It's a shame that the other passengers encouraged him. In some ways, I was even angrier with them. I was glad that the last five minutes of the ride were uneventful, but I was disgusted by the whole scene.
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