Frisbee Tournament in Mombasa Day 2

We were woken a bit early by a cold damp feeling. It rained heavily during the night and apparently the water-proofing precautions weren't adequate. As I went to talk with the other captains to prepare for the day, everyone else was working to dry out food, clothes and sleeping bags.

Simeon and I went and met the other captains and the organizers, paid the registration fee and collected our team's shirts. We had a really nice deep red. They told us that there were awards for the winner of the tournament as well as an award for the team with the most spirit. We asked a couple of clarifying questions about rules, then we regrouped with the team to go over some final details (we decided that we were more concerned with winning the spirit award than the tournament) before stretching and warm-ups. There were eight teams in the tournament (two from Kampala, three from Nairobi, one with Peace Corps Kenya volunteers, one from Mwanza and our team) so we were going to create brackets based on the results of a round robin. Kinda. More on that later. Anyway, there were only three fields, so we were sitting out the first game. We took that as a good sign, since we'd be much fresher than the other team.

The games were all played on the sand, which was a big change for all the teams. We were playing 5 on 5 and teams had to have at least 1 woman on the field at all times. Whichever team was receiving the throw-off could put 1-3 women on the field and the other team needed to put at least that many. Most teams had 3 women, while we had 6, so we were glad about that.

As we ran out for our first game, one of the Ugandan teams lined up across from us and the rain started pouring torrentially. We tried to play for a few minutes, but soon there was thunder over the ocean, so we had to clear off the field. We noticed standing on the sidelines that the water dripping off our shirts was Kool-Aid red and laughed at that. After about 15 minutes, the lightning was pretty much gone and the rain was pretty mild, so we resumed play. It was a rather frustrating game. We weren't really bothered by the fact that we lost 11-1. What was more disconcerting was that the team didn't feel cohesive and we didn't have a whole lot of passion.

We picked it up a bit for our second game (playing against the Mwanza team), but we lost 11-1 again. The other teams were definitely incredibly skilled and had a lot of stamina, but our team just didn't have the energy that we normally had during our Thursday games. We weren't supporting each other as much as we usually do and it didn't seem like people were having as much fun.

After that, the organizers provided us with a huge pasta lunch that was really delicious. We talked to all the other players and were all laughing and loosening up. We even took a quick swim and by the time we came back after lunch, we were in much better spirits. We attacked the next game with the fire that had been missing from the first two and definitely came together as a cohesive unit. We were playing one of the Nairobi teams and they wound up beating us 11-5. It was an improvement in our score, it was an improvement in how all of us were playing (half of our team had barely thrown a Frisbee before six months ago and for some it was even less than that), but most importantly, it was an improvement in that we were all having fun. We had the loudest cheering section on the sidelines most of the time and even though we were blown-out, the other team was clearly worn out after the match.

Our next game was against the other Uganda team. We had heard some fearsome reports about this team, so we were braced for the worst. We were really excited as we kept pace with them up to 3-3. Unfortunately, they took the next 7 points and the final score was 11-4. Still, our spirits couldn't be dampened at that point and we were having a great time. Then we had our next game against that first Ugandan team. So it wasn't exactly a round robin. We weren't thrilled about the prospect of playing a team that had so thoroughly mopped the floor with us earlier in the day, but we were excited to play another game, and by that time, the late afternoon weather was pretty much perfect. We lost to them 11-5, but we could tell that we had taken them by surprise this time. We put on a really solid game and made them work much harder for their points.

As we walked off the field, you could have easily mistaken us for a team that had gone 5-0 considering how we were high-fiving and patting one another on the back. Instead we were 0-5 and having a great time. We even found that the teams who weren't playing would come over to give us some scouting reports and seemed to be pulling for us. Our favorite part, however, was admiring the slight pink tint to the shirts of the teams we played against as the rain leached some of our dye onto their shirts.

We headed into the water to swim a bit and felt the day melt away. After we dried off, we raided our groceries and realized just how much we'd been running around the whole day. In the evening, some people grabbed a bite at the restaurant attached to the campsite. It wasn't the high prices for mediocre food that bothered me so much as the rudeness and difficultness of the waiters on staff. I was paying for a drink and handed him 200 shillings for a soda that costs 60 shillings (of course, most shops sell it for 25). After 30 minutes, he brought me 100 shillings and told me that he would bring me the remaining 40 shortly. Later that night, after the kitchen closed, I realized that he had given himself a bit of a tip that he certainly hadn't earned.

I was partially distracted by our poker game at the table. We used peanuts as our poker chips and had to work really hard not to eat our money. We assigned each peanut a value of 5 shillings and all put in 100 shillings (about $1.25--what can I say, we like our high stakes). We all had a great time and really enjoyed ourselves. After that, I sat with one of my Peace Corps friends and had a long conversation about water pumps. We visited the beach house where the organizers were staying to see if there was a party going on. There was definitely a party, but I decided I'd rather do a low-key night on the beach, so I found some of my teammates and we sat under the stars and drank more wine straight from the box and had deep philosophical discussions including a conversation about the death penalty and Guantanamo Bay.

Around 1:30 we headed back toward the tent and feasted on some chips before crawling into our damp sleeping bags.

Frisbee Tournament in Mombasa (Day 1)

Well, our weekly Frisbee matches were all building up to the event (we're trying to do Sunday games as well, but those haven't quite taken off yet). We sent a bunch of our players to Mombasa for an Ultimate Frisbee tournament last weekend. We heard about the tournament 3 months ago and decided to rustle up a team. The games were Saturday and Sunday on the beach south of Mombasa, so we traveled down there on Friday. We traveled as a team of 13 (Jodie, Mic, Simeon, Malachi, Janelle, Shannon, Tara, Angela, Barb, Claire, Rose, Karina and me), though only 10 of us played (Malachi is Simeon's 11 month old son, so he stayed on the sidelines with his mom, Janelle, and Barb had recently broken her wrist, so she filled the role of team manager).

We were on the Raqib bus (15,000 Tanzanian shillings or about $10 for a trip from Arusha to Mombasa), which I had taken many times when I lived in Kenya. We got there at 6:45 AM (well, everyone else followed my directions and got there at 6:30 and then had to wait for me to show up with the tickets). The bus left at 6:50 and the first song that came on the radio was Holiday by Madonna. We all took that as a good omen. The ride was pretty uneventful all the way to the Kenyan border, but the scenery was nice (we couldn't see Mt. Kilimanjaro, though, since it was cloudy). I was rather tired the whole trip, since I had woken up at 1:55 AM and didn't manage to fall asleep again.

At the border, we discovered that they were checking Yellow Fever cards because of an outbreak in Uganda. It was the first time any of us had seen this at this border crossing. Some of my fellow travelers hadn't packed theirs, but they talked to the medical officer and convinced them they were up-to-date and managed to get through. Other than that, it was just a long wait as they prepared visas for everyone, but we made it through without event and were on our way.

I spent a lot of time warning everyone how miserable the road is for the first 120 km once we get into Kenya, so they were braced. It wasn't actually too miserable (which is not to say it was pleasant), and I also told people to keep their eyes open for elephants, giraffes and possibly buffalo. We saw one giraffe near the road and Simeon said that he saw some elephants further out. I pointed out Maktau (the village where I served when I was in Peace Corps) to everyone as we drove past and had to admire it in the greenest condition I had ever seen it. The rains have definitely been helpful this year.

We made it to Voi where the road becomes much smoother and were relieved that we only had to deal with the heat. After another half hour or so, I woke up from a brief nap to discover that we were stopped to repair a flat tire. Apparently, while the conductor was jumping on the makeshift wrench to apply enough torque to loosen the lug-nuts, it bounced up and gave him a nasty cut in the upper-arm. I handed my first aid kit to Mic and he went out to clean up the wound and perform some first-aid. The tire had definitely been shredded, but thankfully, we were up and running again pretty quickly.

With all of the delays, we didn't roll into Mombasa until about 5:15 PM (8 hours is pretty good time, but over 10 isn't a big surprise). We put Simeon, Janelle, Malachi, Barb and Angela into a taxi and the rest of us took a matatu to Nakumatt to pick up some provisions for the weekend. The campsite didn't have cooking facilities, so our shopping bags were mostly filled with sandwich supplies, snacks and (for some of us) alcohol.

We made it out of Nakumatt and were right at the Likoni Ferry to take us to south Coast. A few people in the group commented that they felt like cattle. We stayed close and managed to avoid the pickpockets (always an accomplishment on the Likoni Ferry) and admired a nice sunset as the ferry struggled across. We hopped off the ferry and commandeered a matatu to take us directly to our campsite on Tiwi Beach (for price comparison, the taxi was 2,500 Kenyan Shillings--just over $30--split among 4 people, while the matatus and the ferry was 1,500 Kenyan Shillings split among 8 people).

We were all a bit wiped, but the first thing to do was to set up tents in the dark. Actually, I found some of my Peace Corps friends there, and caught up with them briefly and came back to discover that I had skipped out on the entirety of assembling the tent. Oops. Anyway, everyone else from the team went to grab dinner, but I spent more time hanging out with Peace Corps folks and playing Bananagrams (it was surprisingly addictive).

I sat down with the team after dinner and we talked a bit about rules, strategy and organization of the tournament. We typically play rather lax rules in our pick-up games, so I wanted to make sure that everyone understood what we would need to do the next day. After that, a group of us drank some wine straight from the box (classy, as they say in French) and ran out for a quick late-night dip in the Indian Ocean (the campsite was right on the beach). The tide was pretty far out and it was a bit rocky, so we didn't stay out too long and then decided to walk along the beach. We talked to some people from other teams as we walked and were feeling pretty psyched about the tournament.

We climbed into the tent (Shannon had a large tent, so he was sharing it with Tara, Rose, Claire, Karina and me) and were all asleep pretty instantaneously.

Walking at night

Arusha definitely has a decent crime rate, which means that a lot of people are pretty anxious about going out at night. In some cases, people will insist on traveling only by taxi, while other people on a tighter budget opt for motorcycles to travel safely. Personally, I love night time and find walking incredibly relaxing. This tends to make several of my friends anxious, so I try to avoid the subject in certain audiences.

Tonight after Frisbee, it was a particularly beautiful night, so I decided to walk about 1.5 miles back to the office from town. It was moonless, and only about 10% of the street lights installed in Arusha actually work, so I had to rely on headlights to light the way. There are plenty of stretches where I was on my own with the stars, which is gorgeous since I can see so many.

As it happens, there are some well-known segments where thieves are known to hide, so I made sure to keep a brisk pace as I was going through these areas. (Unfortunately, I had forgotten my sneakers, so I was somewhat handicapped in my sandals.) The first one is a bridge near town, where there is a lot of trees before and after where people could (and do) hide. As I jogged along, there were no headlights to light the way, but I wasn't going to slow down until I was safely past the area. My eyes and ears were on full alert for movement of any kind, but then I felt my foot hit nothingness where the pavement should have been.

I discovered that there was a hole in the pavement about 18 inches deep, and I felt my shin hit the edge of the hole and I was on the ground. It knocked the wind out of me, but quickly I realized where I was and spun around to make sure no one was trying to approach. I realized that my anxious reaction was proof that I know how unsafe I was being. I quickly scrambled to my feet and moved forward to where there was some lighting. I saw that I had some nasty scrapes on my shin, knee and forearm but made myself keep moving normally, since I didn't want to attract any attention.

On my way back to the office, I stopped at one of the safari hotels in town to clean myself up a bit and made it back the last mile to the office without further event, but I was a little sore by the end. I realized that I wasn't paying much attention to the stars by that point, which was a bit of a disappointment, so before I went in, I shifted a long gaze at the stars and let my thoughts gather themselves.

An expensive dent

Sigh. So I never claimed to be a great driver. I'm not a bad driver, but things always just seem to happen.

Like Friday. I was still at the office at 7 PM. Jodie had left already and had left the car so that Reuben and I could get home. The power had just cut out, so I just wanted to head home. I had to back the car down the driveway that leads to our office, which is a difficult task even when there are lights in the area, with people darting back and forth on the path behind the car (and I don't know why our car has tinted windows or why we haven't replaced the rear-lights, all I can say is that we clearly like a challenge--fortunately, we did replace the passenger-side side-view mirror that I took off in January).

I was moving the car as carefully as possible (staying at the 5 MPH mark) and saw that there were no people or headlights/taillights in my path, so I wanted to make as wide of a turn as possible to make this a 2 point turn rather than 4 or more (it's a rather narrow street as well). Then all of a sudden I heard that painful noise of metal against metal. If you want to know the definition of invisible, it is a black car parked on a dark street viewed through a tinted window.

I parked the car and went to survey the damage. Fortunately, my friend Phamy (a motorcycle driver who hangs out at our house a lot) happened to be right there. He brought over his motorcycle and shone the headlight onto the car. The good news was that it was a tiny dent near the driver side tire and a tiny scratch. The bad news was the Lexus logo that I saw in the hubcaps. I knew right then that this wasn't going to be cheap. We exchanged contact info and I agreed to pay for the repair. The defensive side of me was about to point out that he was the idiot who parked on a through-way when there were plenty of actual spots where he could have parked his car. I'm glad Phamy was there, since he brought out the conciliatory side of me. After all, the way it seems to me is that you can kinda park your car wherever if the road isn't paved, it's really just a question of how courteous you feel.

Anyway, the driver came back yesterday with a quote from a shop. They want 236,000 (about $160, but that still translates to a few weeks salary for me) to fix the damage. I am glad that my co-worker Philemon knows lots of people, so he's working on finding a better deal for this. I'm sure that he'll work something out. In the meantime, I'll eat more carrots and see about improving my night-vision.

Where I live aka Symphony in orange

Sorry, I know this post is long overdue seeing as we've lived in our current house for over 5 months, but better late than never, right?

When I titled this picture Our House, I had the song by Madness stuck in my head for the rest of the day.

And this is what I see when I look out the front door.

Well, we finally live in a house with a gate and we also have a beautiful view of Mt. Meru, some days complete with majestic clouds above. We have a garden, though we have yet to plant anything. We have been burying our compost, however to increase soil fertility. Our house has 2 1000 liter water tanks that fill whenever there is water.

This is what our house looks like to our neighbors. The vacant lot next to us is pretty lush.

This is the view outside of our gate looking to the left

And the view to the right

The house has four bedrooms and three bathrooms (the master bathroom is the size of my bedroom at the old house) as well as a spacious kitchen (my concept of spaciousness has probably changed a bit during my time here) with lots of cabinets. We have a furnished living room and we've had 20 people in there without feeling cramped and one or two people in there without feeling like it's too sparse. We have a computer with a large monitor in there that we sometimes use to watch movies. We also have an attached garage which we converted to a workshop for the company, so our house is actually buzzing most of the day.

My room is pretty empty, but I like it better that way. I have a mattress on the floor and a basket for my laundry (and typically assorted belongings strewn about on the floor). Other than that, I just have my fan, which I use every night since it gets pretty hot. I did have a bed (sorta) at the start, but it just got to be such a nuisance to sweep under there that I decided it was easier this way.

Our house is about a kilometer away from Masai Camp (one of the more popular clubs in Arusha), so on Friday and Saturday nights, we can hear the music going well into dawn whether or not we head to the club. We also don't have a lot of lights in the area, so we can see stars incredibly clearly. We're the only non-Tanzanian house in the area and most of our neighbors are very friendly to us.

Our lease goes until October and then we'll decide if we want to stick around. We're all pretty comfortable and have a good dynamic, so if possible, I think we'll try to avoid moving again.

We have a garage. We kept a motorcycle in there for a while, but never any cars. But in general, it's company space.

The back of our house isn't so pretty, but it's handy to have the huge clotheslines

Why our neighborhood is called "Banana"

I'll work on getting some pictures of the inside of our house at some point.

Sisal charcoal

Back in Kenya, I lived near an expansive sisal plantation that stretched as far as the eye can see. Sisal (also here) looks like an enormous aloe vera plant only when you crack open the leaves, you find fibers instead of medicine. On large plantations, people harvest these for producing rope and twine. However, in many arid regions, sisal is one of the few plants that can survive, so it is used there as a multi-purpose plant. Its leaves have needles at the end that mean it can effectively be planted as a fence. It also has a nice stalk (I believe it is classified as a tree-like shrub since the stalk is actually rather spongy on the inside) that people use in building structures. And of course, when people are waiting for the rains to come, they may spend their days braiding twine to sell in local shops for a few cents.

A lot of these communities face acute shortages of cooking fuel, so I wanted to work on making sisal charcoal, so on one of my trips to Nadosoito, I grabbed a few leaves to do some experiments. After trying it out, I went back to Nadosoito to work on it with the community. We used old brown leaves, which were incredibly dry as well as a bit of the white spongy material to help get the burn started. I was amazed by how quickly the moisture content vanished, and this wound up being one of the fastest charcoal burns I've ever conducted (I didn't time it, but I think the whole process was over in one hour, compared to the usual 2.5). Still, there's definitely a lot of work still to be done.

1. The charcoal turned out really well, although the starts of the leaves didn't carbonize at all, so I think we just have to cut that part off in the future.
2. Collecting sisal leaves is a rather painful process. You tend to be enmeshed in needles, so my hand started to look rather like a pin cushion. Also, my shin took one more than a quarter inch deep. Next time I'm wearing gardening gloves for this.
3. We couldn't find any useful binding media for producing briquettes. We tried euphorbia milk (euphorbia is also known as the milk tree because when you cut the bark it oozes out a milky liquid), but it didn't stick very well.
4. When we burned the unbriquetted charcoal, it was producing a bit of carbon monoxide. I suspected the clear smoke was dangerous, but without any sort of testing equipment, I opted to breathe in the smoke and when I felt the carbon monoxide effects in my head, I knew we needed a solution to the briquetting issue.

Still, considering how abundant sisal is, this is definitely an exciting development and if we can just find a solution for problem number 3 above, we should have a really cool project.

Utilities and traffic

We received a water bill last week. 837 shillings. That's about 56 cents. When you subtract the 600 shillings in service charges for the man to read our water meter, that should give you an idea of how scarce water has been at our house over the past month or so. The electricity bill tells a pretty similar story. It's really amazing how cheap utilities are when they're switched off most of the time. Fortunately, the rains have been pretty strong the past few weeks, so it seems like the hydropower stations and water supply should be recharged moving forward. There was a deceptive period shortly after the rains began when power was reliable, but it returned to the heavily rationed state shortly after that. The rumor going around is that some important dignitary was in Arusha, so they skipped the rationing plan for that week. I'm confident that the rumor is true because I was also in a daladala last week and the traffic police held up traffic on 3 legs of one of the main roundabouts during rush hour and only let traffic coming through one direction for about 15 minutes.

On an unrelated note, The Economist just had an interesting piece on urban water management in Cambodia.

This is why I can't have nice things

Last week, my computer had an accident. Involving gravity

They told me that it would cost $200 to replace the screen, which isn't much more than what I paid for the computer.  I'm already pretty comfortable with making it work, so I'll probably just leave it as is for a while longer.  I got used to this at university with my previous laptop which also had a screen issue.  That was also an accident involving gravity.  And both of them were on days when I just hadn't had enough caffeine.

Also, I clearly do not clean the dust off often enough.  I liked one suggestion to cover the rightmost portion of my screen with post-it notes.  Any other ideas?