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.
Monday, November 29, 2010
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.
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