Seasons greetings, readers!
My apologies that I've written nothing about what's been going on in my life the last two months. This month, I fought off a couple of infections and I started sleeping incredibly erratic hours, so I haven't felt a lot like writing. And to be honest, there hasn't been a whole ton of excitement in my life. Still, I am hoping to get two more posts up here before the new year.
Stay tuned :)
Showing posts with label Health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Health. Show all posts
Monday, December 26, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
Roadtrip to Morogoro
We were having a company training in Morogoro last week*, so on Monday morning, we packed up the car and left the house at 6 AM. Well, kinda. Jodie and I spent most of Sunday night packing up the car and preparing things at the office and didn't get home until after 1 AM. All things considered, leaving at 6:20 AM seems on time enough for me.
The first part of the drive was pretty uneventful. Philemon was driving, and I was trying to catch up on sleep a bit. I woke up about 3 hours outside of Arusha and saw that we were stopped and talking to some officials. They were from the department of immigration and were demanding to see our passports and work permits. I happened to be traveling with my passport so I handed it forward. If we were in a hurry (okay, more of a hurry) the proper etiquette would have been to include some cash in there. However, we have our principles, so Jodie also pulled up scanned copies of our permits on her computer. The officer then insisted that my permit was not valid (he tried to tell me it was only valid for missionaries) and suggested that he should take us to the station. Jodie then played the trump card. She called our contact at the department of immigration in Arusha. She started by apologizing for bothering him, and the face of the officer outside our car noticeably fell. He started waving us on and told us that we needed to travel with our permits the next time. As Jodie tried to hand him the phone, he told us to just get moving. I presume he knew that someone was going to give him a nasty reprimand for his coarse shakedown and he wanted us to completely forget about him.**
We also had two more stops on the way where we were told that we were speeding. At the first stop, we had no idea how they measured our speed, while at the second stop they had a radar gun (they clocked us going 50 MPH in what was apparently a 30 MPH zone, not that there were any signs to indicate as much). Anyway, we sorted those out much more easily and were on our way.
After the stop with immigration, I couldn't get back to sleep, so I wound up reading. A lot. I guess you'll see that from the upcoming posts. We made it to Morogoro a bit later than we were hoping and then we had to search a bit to find a hotel with a room where we could hold the training sessions. As we waited, I realized that I hadn't eaten or drank anything all day (well, I had eaten 2 almonds that Jodie brought), so I ran across the street to a shop and bought a Mountain Dew. In a glass bottle (not available in Arusha). Yep, probably about the least healthy thing I could've picked to call breakfast at 3 PM, but then, taking care of my health has never really been a strong point for me.
* On a personal note, I was pretty relieved to be getting out of Arusha, as the weekend did not go very well for me. The details aren't important, but it did lead to me breaking my 2010 New Years resolution and smoking my first cigarette since I left Peace Corps. 17.5 months isn't bad. The countdown has started over and I did learn that Embassy cigarettes are absolutely vile and I plan to never touch those again.
** When I was in Zambia, we were also stopped by an immigration officer. However, that time, we were traveling in a Peace Corps vehicle which is supposed to be protected from those checks. The Peace Corps staff who were traveling with us started yelling at him and threatening to report him. I must admit that I now feel a hint of satisfaction watching those immigration officers who thrive on intimidating people intimated themselves. Okay, probably more than a hint.
The first part of the drive was pretty uneventful. Philemon was driving, and I was trying to catch up on sleep a bit. I woke up about 3 hours outside of Arusha and saw that we were stopped and talking to some officials. They were from the department of immigration and were demanding to see our passports and work permits. I happened to be traveling with my passport so I handed it forward. If we were in a hurry (okay, more of a hurry) the proper etiquette would have been to include some cash in there. However, we have our principles, so Jodie also pulled up scanned copies of our permits on her computer. The officer then insisted that my permit was not valid (he tried to tell me it was only valid for missionaries) and suggested that he should take us to the station. Jodie then played the trump card. She called our contact at the department of immigration in Arusha. She started by apologizing for bothering him, and the face of the officer outside our car noticeably fell. He started waving us on and told us that we needed to travel with our permits the next time. As Jodie tried to hand him the phone, he told us to just get moving. I presume he knew that someone was going to give him a nasty reprimand for his coarse shakedown and he wanted us to completely forget about him.**
We also had two more stops on the way where we were told that we were speeding. At the first stop, we had no idea how they measured our speed, while at the second stop they had a radar gun (they clocked us going 50 MPH in what was apparently a 30 MPH zone, not that there were any signs to indicate as much). Anyway, we sorted those out much more easily and were on our way.
After the stop with immigration, I couldn't get back to sleep, so I wound up reading. A lot. I guess you'll see that from the upcoming posts. We made it to Morogoro a bit later than we were hoping and then we had to search a bit to find a hotel with a room where we could hold the training sessions. As we waited, I realized that I hadn't eaten or drank anything all day (well, I had eaten 2 almonds that Jodie brought), so I ran across the street to a shop and bought a Mountain Dew. In a glass bottle (not available in Arusha). Yep, probably about the least healthy thing I could've picked to call breakfast at 3 PM, but then, taking care of my health has never really been a strong point for me.
* On a personal note, I was pretty relieved to be getting out of Arusha, as the weekend did not go very well for me. The details aren't important, but it did lead to me breaking my 2010 New Years resolution and smoking my first cigarette since I left Peace Corps. 17.5 months isn't bad. The countdown has started over and I did learn that Embassy cigarettes are absolutely vile and I plan to never touch those again.
** When I was in Zambia, we were also stopped by an immigration officer. However, that time, we were traveling in a Peace Corps vehicle which is supposed to be protected from those checks. The Peace Corps staff who were traveling with us started yelling at him and threatening to report him. I must admit that I now feel a hint of satisfaction watching those immigration officers who thrive on intimidating people intimated themselves. Okay, probably more than a hint.
Friday, February 4, 2011
A Bit of a Funk
Sorry that I still haven't written about my January adventures. I do hate falling behind on my blog. However, I've also decided that sometimes it's better for me to keep my reflections private. I had a particularly negative tone in 2009 that I don't really want to bring back.
The past two weeks, I've been a bit down. Low energy. No appetite. Restless sleep (actually, this one has been going on for a while). Limited motivation. Minimal focus. So I decided to let it pass, which it seems to have done--though my appetite isn't actually restored, and the sleep seems to be a persistent condition.
Still today felt really refreshing, even if I didn't have a great Frisbee game, I did manage to check a bunch of nagging tasks off of my to-do list at work (though it persists in a much longer state than I'd like) and cleaned off my desktop so that my computer seems more manageable. So, hopefully I have a quieter February up ahead and you can hear all about my January adventures soon.
The past two weeks, I've been a bit down. Low energy. No appetite. Restless sleep (actually, this one has been going on for a while). Limited motivation. Minimal focus. So I decided to let it pass, which it seems to have done--though my appetite isn't actually restored, and the sleep seems to be a persistent condition.
Still today felt really refreshing, even if I didn't have a great Frisbee game, I did manage to check a bunch of nagging tasks off of my to-do list at work (though it persists in a much longer state than I'd like) and cleaned off my desktop so that my computer seems more manageable. So, hopefully I have a quieter February up ahead and you can hear all about my January adventures soon.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Not Enough Time in Lusaka
After wrapping up the workshop, we all headed back to Lusaka. We packed into the back of the Peace Corps vehicle and set off on our way. David was driving and Kofi was riding up front while I was sitting with Alex, Amy, Bernard, Eric, Henry and Mindy. Amy can always be counted on to bring games for long car rides. There were word games (kinda like Taboo) and Charades (but we used an action figure named Bendy Bob since we couldn't really act things out in the vehicle). Anyway, it was a lot of fun and we even had time to debrief a whole lot of the workshop and talk about things like IDDS.
When we got back to Lusaka we went straight to the Country Director's house for dinner. He has a lovely family and was really welcoming. He wanted to hear all about the workshop and was asking lots of questions about IDDS. Amy and I were sitting next to him during dinner, so I was talking to him for a while. It got me thinking a lot about the contrasts between the Peace Corps Zambia program and the Peace Corps Kenya program and wondering if I would have stayed the full two years with the team in Zambia. In any case, I have to say that the volunteers in Peace Corps Zambia are really lucky to be in a beautiful country with such a supportive staff. On the other hand, I noticed that a lot of the volunteers drink a healthy amount and smoke like I used to when I was in Peace Corps. The volunteers were definitely a lot more positive about everything than I was during most of my service, but there was still something familiar in their outlook that I was glad to have put behind me. As a side note, I emailed the Peace Corps Kenya team since I thought that the workshop was so great and that there were some ideas that they could apply to the program there, and the Country Director for Kenya wrote back a curt response saying that he had seen everything already at a Peace Corps conference where the Zambia team won an award for most innovative post.
After the dinner, we went back to the hotel where we were staying. The promised wireless never materialized, but Eric and I took advantage of the time to have a late night meeting about IDDS and some important steps to take moving forward with Amy and Kofi chiming in sporadically as they worked on a grant proposal. It was really nice to meet face-to-face with the IDDS team and to really discuss the direction moving forward.
The next day we were at the Peace Corps office all morning. I used their internet to catch up on all sorts of things and got to meet a bunch of other volunteers as they set off for different destinations for Christmas. Amy, Kofi and Eric were meeting with some Peace Corps staff for an official debrief and then they brought in some old IDDS Zambia participants. Kenny, the director at DISACARE wheelchairs, was one of my friends at the summit in 2008, but I didn't even recognize him when I first saw him since he looked especially distinguished in his suit and glasses (he was also walking with a cane as opposed to 2008 when he was confined to his wheelchair). I also saw John, the director at Light of Hope (a community health program right outside Lusaka), who was on my team at IDDS in 2008 and we immediately started talking shop about Interlocking Stabilized Soil Block Makers (that's normal, right?) and about all our mutual friends. I was disappointed that I didn't have a chance to see more of my Zambian friends from IDDS, but it was nice to talk with them and to discuss the possibility of what IDDS 2012 in Zambia might look like. Then we took a photo of the IDDS family (Amy, Bernard, Eric, Henry, John, Kenny, Kofi and me), and it was great to have everyone in one place (I need that picture). Then I said good-bye to Amy, Eric and Kofi as they headed to the airport.
After that, I went to the Lusaka Showgrounds where they have an annual agricultural fair in August and is a space with low-rent offices the rest of the year. I was meeting with our Zambian distributor for GCS to sign some paperwork and talk about how to work together moving forward. I was really impressed with his exuberance and wanted to do everything that I could to support him, not as a member of GCS, but just because I could see how excited he was to help people and help the environment.
On my way back to the Peace Corps office, I visited Manda Hill Shopping Centre (a huge mall). It was kinda crazy how fancy it was there (I saw a Subway restaurant), and I strolled through the aisles of a store called Game in awe of how much it felt like being in a Target. But I wasn't there to shop (though I did grab a vuvuzela for my roommate Mic), I just wanted to see the other side of Zambia, so I grabbed a quick burger and headed back to the Peace Corps office to finish everything before I left. It was really hard saying good-bye to Nancy (she's the number two in Peace Corps Zambia) since she was so helpful and kind. I knew that I needed to come back to Zambia and see a lot more of the country.
The Peace Corps driver dropped Bernard and I off at the bus station and helped us find where the buses to Tanzania were parked. John came back to find us before the bus left and gave Bernard and me each a scarf from Light of Hope and we made donations to support the new football program that they're starting over there. But soon, the clock read 4:00, so it was time to begin our interminable journey home.
When we got back to Lusaka we went straight to the Country Director's house for dinner. He has a lovely family and was really welcoming. He wanted to hear all about the workshop and was asking lots of questions about IDDS. Amy and I were sitting next to him during dinner, so I was talking to him for a while. It got me thinking a lot about the contrasts between the Peace Corps Zambia program and the Peace Corps Kenya program and wondering if I would have stayed the full two years with the team in Zambia. In any case, I have to say that the volunteers in Peace Corps Zambia are really lucky to be in a beautiful country with such a supportive staff. On the other hand, I noticed that a lot of the volunteers drink a healthy amount and smoke like I used to when I was in Peace Corps. The volunteers were definitely a lot more positive about everything than I was during most of my service, but there was still something familiar in their outlook that I was glad to have put behind me. As a side note, I emailed the Peace Corps Kenya team since I thought that the workshop was so great and that there were some ideas that they could apply to the program there, and the Country Director for Kenya wrote back a curt response saying that he had seen everything already at a Peace Corps conference where the Zambia team won an award for most innovative post.
After the dinner, we went back to the hotel where we were staying. The promised wireless never materialized, but Eric and I took advantage of the time to have a late night meeting about IDDS and some important steps to take moving forward with Amy and Kofi chiming in sporadically as they worked on a grant proposal. It was really nice to meet face-to-face with the IDDS team and to really discuss the direction moving forward.
The next day we were at the Peace Corps office all morning. I used their internet to catch up on all sorts of things and got to meet a bunch of other volunteers as they set off for different destinations for Christmas. Amy, Kofi and Eric were meeting with some Peace Corps staff for an official debrief and then they brought in some old IDDS Zambia participants. Kenny, the director at DISACARE wheelchairs, was one of my friends at the summit in 2008, but I didn't even recognize him when I first saw him since he looked especially distinguished in his suit and glasses (he was also walking with a cane as opposed to 2008 when he was confined to his wheelchair). I also saw John, the director at Light of Hope (a community health program right outside Lusaka), who was on my team at IDDS in 2008 and we immediately started talking shop about Interlocking Stabilized Soil Block Makers (that's normal, right?) and about all our mutual friends. I was disappointed that I didn't have a chance to see more of my Zambian friends from IDDS, but it was nice to talk with them and to discuss the possibility of what IDDS 2012 in Zambia might look like. Then we took a photo of the IDDS family (Amy, Bernard, Eric, Henry, John, Kenny, Kofi and me), and it was great to have everyone in one place (I need that picture). Then I said good-bye to Amy, Eric and Kofi as they headed to the airport.
After that, I went to the Lusaka Showgrounds where they have an annual agricultural fair in August and is a space with low-rent offices the rest of the year. I was meeting with our Zambian distributor for GCS to sign some paperwork and talk about how to work together moving forward. I was really impressed with his exuberance and wanted to do everything that I could to support him, not as a member of GCS, but just because I could see how excited he was to help people and help the environment.
On my way back to the Peace Corps office, I visited Manda Hill Shopping Centre (a huge mall). It was kinda crazy how fancy it was there (I saw a Subway restaurant), and I strolled through the aisles of a store called Game in awe of how much it felt like being in a Target. But I wasn't there to shop (though I did grab a vuvuzela for my roommate Mic), I just wanted to see the other side of Zambia, so I grabbed a quick burger and headed back to the Peace Corps office to finish everything before I left. It was really hard saying good-bye to Nancy (she's the number two in Peace Corps Zambia) since she was so helpful and kind. I knew that I needed to come back to Zambia and see a lot more of the country.
The Peace Corps driver dropped Bernard and I off at the bus station and helped us find where the buses to Tanzania were parked. John came back to find us before the bus left and gave Bernard and me each a scarf from Light of Hope and we made donations to support the new football program that they're starting over there. But soon, the clock read 4:00, so it was time to begin our interminable journey home.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Appropriate Technology Workshop Part 4
Well, I just want to say that there are fantastic pictures related to this post, but I don't have them. I'm hoping to get some copies of them in the coming weeks, so I'll be sure to share them as soon as I do. Also, I want to apologize for the fact that I'm still posting stories from December. I have a few more before I move on to my adventures from January (I've got a bunch of those as well). Hopefully I can start telling stories as they happen again soon-ish.
Anyway, the weather had been mostly co-operative during our time in Zambia, but we knew that we were there at the start of the rainy season (which was fortunate in that it provided us with an ample bounty of mangoes) and had to be ready in case the skies opened up and deluged the town as they are wont to do in that part of Zambia. Sure enough, starting with the second day, we had a lot of moving around as we tried to work in spite of the rain. It was mostly successful, but definitely complicated things a bit.
Day 2 had one of my favorite presentations where Amy was showing how a design for a honey press might evolve and Bernard just put together a few cardboard contraptions to show people how to do very simple designs to evaluate concepts. We were having more discussions on the second day and although half the participants were Peace Corps Volunteers while the other half were counterparts from the villages where the volunteers were stationed, much more than half of the substance was coming from the volunteers. I even led a session that went much better than my previous one (still with a few fits and starts, but barely noticeable to the audience) and felt a lot better about that.
The really interesting part of day 2 was during the end of the lunch break when Amy wanted to test out a well-digging method that only uses metal pipes and water. Kofi suggested that we should probably wait, but Amy went ahead with it. Step 1 was learning how to draw water up a pipe using your hand using a basin (you bring the pipe up and down with your hand over the top with a suction grip allowing air out slowly, which draws water in from the basin). We all really enjoyed this and set up two adjacent basins so that people could have water fights as the water sprayed all over once it reached the top. After that, we moved on to step 2, which consisted of doing the process in the same way, but instead of a basin filled with water, it was a small hole. In this sense, we were using a lot more force to draw water up the pipe and bring mud with it. However, we were all taking turns and spraying and the mud was flying everywhere. In order to create enough force on the pipe, we needed to have 3 people helping lift it and the person whose hand was acting as a seal got some pretty nasty blisters on their palm. As we got deeper, we attached more pipes (the pipes were threaded so that we could put more on) and had more people helping with it. At the 7 meter depth, we had 5 people working on the pipe and with all the mud spraying, we were all indistinguishable mud monsters. Everyone took lots of pictures. I offered hugs to several people who opted to stand a safe distance away and watch, but they all declined. I felt bad for some of the Zambians who had coated some of their best clothes in mud, but they didn't seem to regret it at all. Everyone who had participated just had the biggest smiles on their faces and probably would have dug all afternoon if we didn't have several other projects to work on. One man named Martin showed particular enthusiasm for the method and we were all predicting that if we visited his village after one month, we would find dozens of new wells dug everywhere. (I promise to post the pictures up here as soon as I get them.)
We also had some technology demonstrations in the afternoon. I was showing the oil presses, so the wonderful housekeeper Esther roasted some peanuts and sunflower seeds for me (I had gone to the market with David and gotten much better prices the 2nd time around) so that we could extract peanut and sunflower oil. One of the people who was hosting us had assured us that he could get all the supplies we needed like peanuts and sunflower seeds and kept assuring us that it would be just one more day. When it came down to the wire we finally just bought our supplies, but it meant that we hadn't tested the machines before using them. I had used similar ones three years before, so I was hoping it was like riding a bicycle. Turns out that it wasn't. Neither press really worked (the yenga press and screw press from this post) and were pretty underwhelming for the participants. It was nice that everyone started trying to tinker with it to make it work, which really drove home to me the importance of a good oil press, but mostly it served to highlight some of the flaws in the design and to chastise me again for not practicing before presenting.
Still, it was nice to see all the technologies coming along nicely. After we cleaned up for the day, the volunteers cooked vegetarian stir-fry for us, which was delicious, and it was fun to hang out and talk about experiences in Peace Corps and life in general. It was also nice to be eating multiple complete meals in a day again. Sadly, it also made me realize how much I miss cooking as a way to unwind.
Anyway, the weather had been mostly co-operative during our time in Zambia, but we knew that we were there at the start of the rainy season (which was fortunate in that it provided us with an ample bounty of mangoes) and had to be ready in case the skies opened up and deluged the town as they are wont to do in that part of Zambia. Sure enough, starting with the second day, we had a lot of moving around as we tried to work in spite of the rain. It was mostly successful, but definitely complicated things a bit.
Day 2 had one of my favorite presentations where Amy was showing how a design for a honey press might evolve and Bernard just put together a few cardboard contraptions to show people how to do very simple designs to evaluate concepts. We were having more discussions on the second day and although half the participants were Peace Corps Volunteers while the other half were counterparts from the villages where the volunteers were stationed, much more than half of the substance was coming from the volunteers. I even led a session that went much better than my previous one (still with a few fits and starts, but barely noticeable to the audience) and felt a lot better about that.
The really interesting part of day 2 was during the end of the lunch break when Amy wanted to test out a well-digging method that only uses metal pipes and water. Kofi suggested that we should probably wait, but Amy went ahead with it. Step 1 was learning how to draw water up a pipe using your hand using a basin (you bring the pipe up and down with your hand over the top with a suction grip allowing air out slowly, which draws water in from the basin). We all really enjoyed this and set up two adjacent basins so that people could have water fights as the water sprayed all over once it reached the top. After that, we moved on to step 2, which consisted of doing the process in the same way, but instead of a basin filled with water, it was a small hole. In this sense, we were using a lot more force to draw water up the pipe and bring mud with it. However, we were all taking turns and spraying and the mud was flying everywhere. In order to create enough force on the pipe, we needed to have 3 people helping lift it and the person whose hand was acting as a seal got some pretty nasty blisters on their palm. As we got deeper, we attached more pipes (the pipes were threaded so that we could put more on) and had more people helping with it. At the 7 meter depth, we had 5 people working on the pipe and with all the mud spraying, we were all indistinguishable mud monsters. Everyone took lots of pictures. I offered hugs to several people who opted to stand a safe distance away and watch, but they all declined. I felt bad for some of the Zambians who had coated some of their best clothes in mud, but they didn't seem to regret it at all. Everyone who had participated just had the biggest smiles on their faces and probably would have dug all afternoon if we didn't have several other projects to work on. One man named Martin showed particular enthusiasm for the method and we were all predicting that if we visited his village after one month, we would find dozens of new wells dug everywhere. (I promise to post the pictures up here as soon as I get them.)
We also had some technology demonstrations in the afternoon. I was showing the oil presses, so the wonderful housekeeper Esther roasted some peanuts and sunflower seeds for me (I had gone to the market with David and gotten much better prices the 2nd time around) so that we could extract peanut and sunflower oil. One of the people who was hosting us had assured us that he could get all the supplies we needed like peanuts and sunflower seeds and kept assuring us that it would be just one more day. When it came down to the wire we finally just bought our supplies, but it meant that we hadn't tested the machines before using them. I had used similar ones three years before, so I was hoping it was like riding a bicycle. Turns out that it wasn't. Neither press really worked (the yenga press and screw press from this post) and were pretty underwhelming for the participants. It was nice that everyone started trying to tinker with it to make it work, which really drove home to me the importance of a good oil press, but mostly it served to highlight some of the flaws in the design and to chastise me again for not practicing before presenting.
Still, it was nice to see all the technologies coming along nicely. After we cleaned up for the day, the volunteers cooked vegetarian stir-fry for us, which was delicious, and it was fun to hang out and talk about experiences in Peace Corps and life in general. It was also nice to be eating multiple complete meals in a day again. Sadly, it also made me realize how much I miss cooking as a way to unwind.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
My Exhausting Christmas
Sorry to be skipping around a lot with content. I'm hoping to put up most of my Zambia posts later this week. And there's a lot going on right now, so hopefully I can put that up soon too!
Anyway, when I got home at 5:30 in the morning on Christmas, I found the front door locked. The gate was open, so I sat on the front porch and played with my puppy (I need to write a post about him too!) for a while. He's in that biting phase, so after I got tired of being a chew-toy, I plugged in my computer to our outlet on the porch so that I could watch a movie. At about 7:30, Jodie woke up and saw me through the window and told me that I was ridiculous for not knocking. I told her a bit about my journey and then decided that I smelled so terrible that I should just jump straight in the shower.
When I was out of the shower, I realized that I was actually pretty alert in spite of the fact that I was coming off of three straight nights of very little sleep. I saw that there was already quite a bit of food that was ready and I hadn't done anything. Most of the food was prepared by my new housemate Joanna and her sister Becky (Joanna moved in to our extra room while I was in Zambia and her sister Becky apparently stays over sometimes). I had met them both a few times before, but we took some time to get to know each other (I was not exactly in my best form in my sleep-deprived state) and bond over pop culture.
I headed to the fruit stand near our house and was surprised that most of the shops and businesses were open. I bought some unripe mangoes (the seller thought my request was a bit weird, but he was happy to help out). Back home, as I started peeling the mangoes, our first guests arrived (guys from Mic's dance crew and their girlfriends, who are mostly white volunteers). They were excited for breakfast, so they helped me peel and slice the mangoes. Once they were ready, I boiled them and made some mangosauce (it's like applesauce with a substitution) to go with the pancakes that Joanna and Becky were making. The mangosauce had to be hurried, but we were happy with the result and we had a gorgeous breakfast spread of fruit salad, pancakes, yogurt and mangosauce.
After filling up a bit, we cleaned everything. Actually, the cooks skipped the clean-up, so it was mostly Tanzanians taking care of that (though I should be clear that Mic probably makes the best pancakes of anyone there, but he was busy hosting). After that we got everything ready to lay out some snacks for the afternoon. We put some episodes of Glee on the TV and most people seemed to enjoy watching it. After that we switched to Lion King, which was really popular and all of us were shouting out lines and singing along. We also had some veggies and hummus and cheese and crackers for snacking.
I asked how I could help and was offered the job of making the stuffing. I've never actually made stuffing before, but since none of the other people had used our "oven" (pot inside pots) I got the job. They handed me the recipe and it was a nice guide, but I added a few creative touches and set it in the oven. I was a bit skeptical, but my track record of beginner's luck with recipes seemed to carry over, and aside from being slightly burnt, it was pretty delicious. I was also sharing the kitchen with people making chicken (deep-fried), mashed potatoes, candied carrots and green beans, so it was pretty busy. I had to drink plenty of Pepsi just to keep up with everything. After the stuffing was finished, we went outside and played monkey-in-the-middle and keep-away. It was actually a lot of fun, but after that I decided that I needed a break, so I grabbed an hour and a half nap in my room.
I was still exhausted after waking up, but the house was buzzing, so I went and ate dinner, which was delicious. I tried the sangria, but realized that I was going to crash if I had any more alcohol, so I stuck with my Pepsi. After that, we had dessert, which was amazing. There was cheesecake with a caramel sauce (some people also opted to put mangosauce on theirs) and an apple-mango crisp. I thought I would go into a food coma, but with a heroic regimen of Pepsi and some scintillating conversation, I wound up staying up until 2 AM. I didn't break my personal record, but 7 sodas (at 350 mL apiece) is probably not terribly healthy. At that point, I crashed and had a phenomenally restful night of sleep :)
Anyway, when I got home at 5:30 in the morning on Christmas, I found the front door locked. The gate was open, so I sat on the front porch and played with my puppy (I need to write a post about him too!) for a while. He's in that biting phase, so after I got tired of being a chew-toy, I plugged in my computer to our outlet on the porch so that I could watch a movie. At about 7:30, Jodie woke up and saw me through the window and told me that I was ridiculous for not knocking. I told her a bit about my journey and then decided that I smelled so terrible that I should just jump straight in the shower.
When I was out of the shower, I realized that I was actually pretty alert in spite of the fact that I was coming off of three straight nights of very little sleep. I saw that there was already quite a bit of food that was ready and I hadn't done anything. Most of the food was prepared by my new housemate Joanna and her sister Becky (Joanna moved in to our extra room while I was in Zambia and her sister Becky apparently stays over sometimes). I had met them both a few times before, but we took some time to get to know each other (I was not exactly in my best form in my sleep-deprived state) and bond over pop culture.
I headed to the fruit stand near our house and was surprised that most of the shops and businesses were open. I bought some unripe mangoes (the seller thought my request was a bit weird, but he was happy to help out). Back home, as I started peeling the mangoes, our first guests arrived (guys from Mic's dance crew and their girlfriends, who are mostly white volunteers). They were excited for breakfast, so they helped me peel and slice the mangoes. Once they were ready, I boiled them and made some mangosauce (it's like applesauce with a substitution) to go with the pancakes that Joanna and Becky were making. The mangosauce had to be hurried, but we were happy with the result and we had a gorgeous breakfast spread of fruit salad, pancakes, yogurt and mangosauce.
After filling up a bit, we cleaned everything. Actually, the cooks skipped the clean-up, so it was mostly Tanzanians taking care of that (though I should be clear that Mic probably makes the best pancakes of anyone there, but he was busy hosting). After that we got everything ready to lay out some snacks for the afternoon. We put some episodes of Glee on the TV and most people seemed to enjoy watching it. After that we switched to Lion King, which was really popular and all of us were shouting out lines and singing along. We also had some veggies and hummus and cheese and crackers for snacking.
I asked how I could help and was offered the job of making the stuffing. I've never actually made stuffing before, but since none of the other people had used our "oven" (pot inside pots) I got the job. They handed me the recipe and it was a nice guide, but I added a few creative touches and set it in the oven. I was a bit skeptical, but my track record of beginner's luck with recipes seemed to carry over, and aside from being slightly burnt, it was pretty delicious. I was also sharing the kitchen with people making chicken (deep-fried), mashed potatoes, candied carrots and green beans, so it was pretty busy. I had to drink plenty of Pepsi just to keep up with everything. After the stuffing was finished, we went outside and played monkey-in-the-middle and keep-away. It was actually a lot of fun, but after that I decided that I needed a break, so I grabbed an hour and a half nap in my room.
I was still exhausted after waking up, but the house was buzzing, so I went and ate dinner, which was delicious. I tried the sangria, but realized that I was going to crash if I had any more alcohol, so I stuck with my Pepsi. After that, we had dessert, which was amazing. There was cheesecake with a caramel sauce (some people also opted to put mangosauce on theirs) and an apple-mango crisp. I thought I would go into a food coma, but with a heroic regimen of Pepsi and some scintillating conversation, I wound up staying up until 2 AM. I didn't break my personal record, but 7 sodas (at 350 mL apiece) is probably not terribly healthy. At that point, I crashed and had a phenomenally restful night of sleep :)
Sunday, January 2, 2011
2010 in Hindsight
2010 was a big improvement on 2009. I was a lot happier and I felt like I recovered from some of the stresses I experienced during my Peace Corps service. I completely gave up cigarettes (I wasn't smoking heavily in Peace Corps, but there were some days where one or two cigarettes was the only thing that would help me maintain balance) and I cut back significantly on alcohol (a few drinks every few months, as opposed to several drinks a couple times every few months). On the other hand, I read a small fraction of the number of books that I read in 2009 (though that was a pretty high baseline). I also had more positive interactions when I would meet up with people.
I got lots of stamps in my passport in 2009 as I spent time in 5 countries (including the US, where I spent time in 5 states). I made lots of new friends and started work on a few new exciting projects (and I was really happy to rejoin the IDDS team). My work at GCS has been really rewarding and its nice to be part of a team where people communicate with one another and change can happen. Don't get me wrong, I missed the network that I left when I ended my Peace Corps service, but there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that it was the right decision for me to leave and I'm glad that I was able to work with the program after leaving.
2010 put me on a really positive track and I'm hoping to carry that over into 2011. Still trying to figure out my resolutions for 2011 (I succeeded in my goal of giving up cigarettes last year), and I'm open to suggestions...
I got lots of stamps in my passport in 2009 as I spent time in 5 countries (including the US, where I spent time in 5 states). I made lots of new friends and started work on a few new exciting projects (and I was really happy to rejoin the IDDS team). My work at GCS has been really rewarding and its nice to be part of a team where people communicate with one another and change can happen. Don't get me wrong, I missed the network that I left when I ended my Peace Corps service, but there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that it was the right decision for me to leave and I'm glad that I was able to work with the program after leaving.
2010 put me on a really positive track and I'm hoping to carry that over into 2011. Still trying to figure out my resolutions for 2011 (I succeeded in my goal of giving up cigarettes last year), and I'm open to suggestions...
Saturday, January 1, 2011
The Interminable Journey Home
Well, I wanted to hold off on posting this until I had all my Zambia posts up (I'm waiting on some pictures so that I can put them up in the posts), but I am going to fall way behind, so I might as well put this one up since it's ready.
On December 22nd, Bernard and I bought tickets from a bus company called Germins Motorways. I sincerely hope that I never have the misfortune to ride with them again.
Our bus was supposed to leave Lusaka at 4 PM, which puts us in line for a 7 AM arrival at the border. The bus hung around until 5, and then we began our journey. Then we drove for about an hour and a half. There was some commotion and some of the passengers forced the bus to stop at a police checkpoint. It turns out that there were some concerns about whether the bus was fit for the journey. We all climbed off the bus and they looked at the bus and decided that it wouldn't be able to make it to the border (the roads get much worse as we go on). At first, the driver told us that he was arranging for another bus from the company to come and collect us for the rest of the journey. Then after half an hour, he told us that we needed to go back to Lusaka.
We filed back into the bus and some of the passengers were getting ready to demand refunds and file complaints. One passenger became our leader and assured us that we would get to the border in a timely fashion or else we could take them to court. It seemed drastic, but it settled people down. When we got back to Lusaka, the bus left us at a gas station (presumably to prevent us from demanding refunds and buying tickets on other bus lines) and we waited for the replacement bus. There were a few seats, but most of us spread out on the concrete pavement to try to get a bit of sleep. It was more than 3 hours before the replacement bus arrived. I think most people were too exhausted to be belligerent at that point (it was midnight at that point, 8 hours after we were originally supposed to leave Lusaka).
The bus ride was pretty uneventful from that point on. I had some orange juice and then bought some bananas and a packet of lemon cookies and grabbed a Sprite at our first stop (10:30 AM). I read a lot and fired off a few emails from my phone, but I couldn't sleep much on the journey. I was starting to get anxious as we approached the border, since I wasn't sure what time they closed the crossing point. Bernard and I arrived at 5:15 PM on the Zambian side and hurried through the border (10 hours later than we should have arrived). There's a one hour time difference, so it was 6:30 when we reached the Tanzania counter. The official told us that they closed at 7 PM, so we heaved a sigh of relief.
From there, we grabbed a bus to Mbeya. It was a little rainy, but we covered the 120 km in 2 hours, which is about average. The bus left us near the market, but we wanted to be at the bus stand, so we walked to a taxi stand (it was the first time I realized how heavy my bag was with all the equipment in there) and grabbed a tuk-tuk to the bus stand. We confirmed that we were all set for the 5:45 AM bus the next morning and went to find the closest guest house. They wound up having a room with a king-sized bed, so we decided to share the bed, but before we could crash, we needed to grab some dinner. I was supposed to meet someone in Mbeya, but that was out the window by that hour.
It was already 10 PM at this point, but I usually arrive in Mbeya later than that, so I knew where to look for food. We found a nearby bar and grabbed some sodas and some chicken. As we walked in a drunk came up to me and hugged me and then while Bernard and I were sitting at our table talking, the drunk came and started talking to us (though I think there was more saliva coming out of his mouth than words) and Bernard was very helpful in sending him off. As we ate our dinner, Bernard and I carried on talking and the gentleman at the next table (also drunk, but much less of a spitter) was impressed by my Kiswahili and wanted to know my whole story. I wound up giving him my phone number so that we could talk some time and then Bernard and I headed back to wash up and get some sleep. It was just after midnight when we climbed into bed.
We were up at 5 AM and arrived at the bus stop by 5:30. Our bus left at 6:20, but we knew it was Christmas Eve, so we were just hoping to get home quickly (Bernard has a wife and daughter who hadn't seen him for two weeks). At about 9 AM, we had to stop for about 40 minutes because the bus had run out of gas. After that, the ride was pretty smooth, though a bit behind schedule. I grabbed some crackers and orange juice at the first rest stop. Then, at the second rest stop, I ran to the toilet and in the time that it took for most of what I'd eaten over the past two days to escape my system, the bus left without me. Fortunately, there was a bus stop just one kilometer down the road, so I had one of the staff call the bus and had it wait there while I grabbed a lift on a motorcycle. My phone wasn't working, so Bernard had been unable to reach me, but he did grab my luggage to make sure no one looted my things. When I got back on the bus, everyone cheered for me. I sunk into my seat to avoid further attention.
An hour later, we came to a dead stop. There was a long row of cars as far as the eye could see (and the road was winding at this point, so that was quite a distance). Every 20 minutes we were moving about two car lengths. I asked Bernard and he said it was probably an accident ahead. It was super-humid in that area, so we kept hopping off the bus and walking around to cool off. A German guy on the bus told me not to wander too far. Yep, I was basically a celebrity at that point.
The big problem is that there are a lot of free-riders on the road in Tanzania (I've noticed it much more than I saw it anywhere else I've traveled), people who will drive in the lane for oncoming traffic while cars aren't moving and then cut people off to get back into the correct lane. In this case, they turned a small patch of dirt into a shoulder and were driving on that as well. Unfortunately, the path cleared for oncoming traffic to pass first, so we spent quite a while clearing a path for them to pass through so that we could move (there was only one lane to pass the accident, so we couldn't move both lanes at the same time). I was particularly impressed by the fact that I saw fewer than ten police officers helping to direct the traffic, but there were dozens of passengers and truckers who had hopped out of their vehicles and were helping the cars move along safely. Fortunately, from there, the ride was pretty smooth.
We rolled into Arusha at 5 in the morning and I grabbed a taxi back to the house. I got in at 5:30, which means that after 60.5 hours (50 hours on buses) I was finally home for Christmas morning.
On December 22nd, Bernard and I bought tickets from a bus company called Germins Motorways. I sincerely hope that I never have the misfortune to ride with them again.
Our bus was supposed to leave Lusaka at 4 PM, which puts us in line for a 7 AM arrival at the border. The bus hung around until 5, and then we began our journey. Then we drove for about an hour and a half. There was some commotion and some of the passengers forced the bus to stop at a police checkpoint. It turns out that there were some concerns about whether the bus was fit for the journey. We all climbed off the bus and they looked at the bus and decided that it wouldn't be able to make it to the border (the roads get much worse as we go on). At first, the driver told us that he was arranging for another bus from the company to come and collect us for the rest of the journey. Then after half an hour, he told us that we needed to go back to Lusaka.
We filed back into the bus and some of the passengers were getting ready to demand refunds and file complaints. One passenger became our leader and assured us that we would get to the border in a timely fashion or else we could take them to court. It seemed drastic, but it settled people down. When we got back to Lusaka, the bus left us at a gas station (presumably to prevent us from demanding refunds and buying tickets on other bus lines) and we waited for the replacement bus. There were a few seats, but most of us spread out on the concrete pavement to try to get a bit of sleep. It was more than 3 hours before the replacement bus arrived. I think most people were too exhausted to be belligerent at that point (it was midnight at that point, 8 hours after we were originally supposed to leave Lusaka).
The bus ride was pretty uneventful from that point on. I had some orange juice and then bought some bananas and a packet of lemon cookies and grabbed a Sprite at our first stop (10:30 AM). I read a lot and fired off a few emails from my phone, but I couldn't sleep much on the journey. I was starting to get anxious as we approached the border, since I wasn't sure what time they closed the crossing point. Bernard and I arrived at 5:15 PM on the Zambian side and hurried through the border (10 hours later than we should have arrived). There's a one hour time difference, so it was 6:30 when we reached the Tanzania counter. The official told us that they closed at 7 PM, so we heaved a sigh of relief.
From there, we grabbed a bus to Mbeya. It was a little rainy, but we covered the 120 km in 2 hours, which is about average. The bus left us near the market, but we wanted to be at the bus stand, so we walked to a taxi stand (it was the first time I realized how heavy my bag was with all the equipment in there) and grabbed a tuk-tuk to the bus stand. We confirmed that we were all set for the 5:45 AM bus the next morning and went to find the closest guest house. They wound up having a room with a king-sized bed, so we decided to share the bed, but before we could crash, we needed to grab some dinner. I was supposed to meet someone in Mbeya, but that was out the window by that hour.
It was already 10 PM at this point, but I usually arrive in Mbeya later than that, so I knew where to look for food. We found a nearby bar and grabbed some sodas and some chicken. As we walked in a drunk came up to me and hugged me and then while Bernard and I were sitting at our table talking, the drunk came and started talking to us (though I think there was more saliva coming out of his mouth than words) and Bernard was very helpful in sending him off. As we ate our dinner, Bernard and I carried on talking and the gentleman at the next table (also drunk, but much less of a spitter) was impressed by my Kiswahili and wanted to know my whole story. I wound up giving him my phone number so that we could talk some time and then Bernard and I headed back to wash up and get some sleep. It was just after midnight when we climbed into bed.
We were up at 5 AM and arrived at the bus stop by 5:30. Our bus left at 6:20, but we knew it was Christmas Eve, so we were just hoping to get home quickly (Bernard has a wife and daughter who hadn't seen him for two weeks). At about 9 AM, we had to stop for about 40 minutes because the bus had run out of gas. After that, the ride was pretty smooth, though a bit behind schedule. I grabbed some crackers and orange juice at the first rest stop. Then, at the second rest stop, I ran to the toilet and in the time that it took for most of what I'd eaten over the past two days to escape my system, the bus left without me. Fortunately, there was a bus stop just one kilometer down the road, so I had one of the staff call the bus and had it wait there while I grabbed a lift on a motorcycle. My phone wasn't working, so Bernard had been unable to reach me, but he did grab my luggage to make sure no one looted my things. When I got back on the bus, everyone cheered for me. I sunk into my seat to avoid further attention.
An hour later, we came to a dead stop. There was a long row of cars as far as the eye could see (and the road was winding at this point, so that was quite a distance). Every 20 minutes we were moving about two car lengths. I asked Bernard and he said it was probably an accident ahead. It was super-humid in that area, so we kept hopping off the bus and walking around to cool off. A German guy on the bus told me not to wander too far. Yep, I was basically a celebrity at that point.
The big problem is that there are a lot of free-riders on the road in Tanzania (I've noticed it much more than I saw it anywhere else I've traveled), people who will drive in the lane for oncoming traffic while cars aren't moving and then cut people off to get back into the correct lane. In this case, they turned a small patch of dirt into a shoulder and were driving on that as well. Unfortunately, the path cleared for oncoming traffic to pass first, so we spent quite a while clearing a path for them to pass through so that we could move (there was only one lane to pass the accident, so we couldn't move both lanes at the same time). I was particularly impressed by the fact that I saw fewer than ten police officers helping to direct the traffic, but there were dozens of passengers and truckers who had hopped out of their vehicles and were helping the cars move along safely. Fortunately, from there, the ride was pretty smooth.
We rolled into Arusha at 5 in the morning and I grabbed a taxi back to the house. I got in at 5:30, which means that after 60.5 hours (50 hours on buses) I was finally home for Christmas morning.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Traveling to Zambia
On Friday (the 10th) at 5:30 AM, Jodie dropped me off at the bus stop for my trip to Zambia. In typical fashion, we had to swing by the office on the way to grab a few things before heading to the bus stop. The bus left at 5:50 to begin the interminable journey. I was up until 2 packing and tying up loose ends for work, so I slept a healthy amount on the ride. I also brought a 700 page book and made a healthy dent in that. I grabbed some snacks at some of the stops along the way (it's nice traveling during fruit season so that there's an alternative to the over-priced heavily fried foods on offer) and was surprised to see glass bottles of Mountain Dew (Pepsi is a common sight, but this was the first time I've seen Mountain Dew in glass--it seemed unnaturally classy for Mountain Dew). The bus arrived in Mbeya at 11:45 PM (the first time I've had the trip take less than 18 hours). I found an all night grill and grabbed a bite before walking around town (down some dark abandoned roads) to find a hotel.
I slept wonderfully and struggled to pull myself out of bed for an early start. I decided that since I was slow, it made sense to wait for the shops to open at 9 AM so that I could exchange my Tanzanian shillings for Zambian kwacha before the border (where the hawkers offer egregiously unfair prices). Then I hopped on a small bus headed to the border (the Tanzanian border town is Tunduma). After 2 hours, we hit a huge traffic build up about 2 km from the border, so I just decided to get out and walk to the border (I wasn't carrying a sheller in my luggage this time around, so it was much easier to move around). It was a pretty uneventful border crossing, though I have to say that the Zambian entry form was one of my favorites. The top asked for Date d'Entree which it translated as Date of Exit. Also, in filling out the year, it prompted you with 19__. But it was a refreshingly easy crossing.
Across in Zambia, I was in a town called Nakonde. I bought a bus ticket and walked around a bit. I bought a sim card and walked around a bit to survey. The market was nice, though I was surprised to see almost no fruit on offer (so there were plenty of tomatoes, but that's only technically a fruit--I'm not sure I can recall any markets I've visited where I didn't see any bananas). I decided to wait on the bus. I attempted to learn a little Nyanja (one of the main languages of Zambia), tried to nap, read more of my book and paced quite a bit. After 5 hours, the bus finally set off (it was 4:30 PM at this point because of the time change when I entered Zambia).
As I quickly discovered, the seats on this bus were about two inches narrower than the width of my shoulders. And to compound matters, there were people standing in the aisles, which meant that as they leaned into the rows, we were all squished even more (though next to their plight, I certainly can't complain). It became dark pretty quickly, so I couldn't read anymore. There were lights for each seat, but they cut the power to them, so I played around with my phone and tried to catch a nap. Unfortunately, my neighbor kept sleeping in the most unneighborly fashion. At times he would put his hands behind his head so that his elbow was resting on my back if I was leaning forward or his elbow was jostling against my temple if I hazarded to lean back. I could feel my stomach revolting against my travel diet and the travel stress, but there wasn't really anything I could do at that point.
We pulled into Lusaka at 7:40 AM and after running to the toilets at the bus stop, I grabbed a taxi and had breakfast with some friends before setting off at 11 AM for Chipata, which was my final destination. This time we were riding in the back of a Peace Corps vehicle with a lot of gear, so it was less comfortable than the two Tanzanian buses, though definitely a huge improvement over my bus into Lusaka. We rolled into the guest house just after 7:30 PM on Sunday and I was thrilled that I had finally arrived.
So, to summarize the 63 hours qualitatively:
5 vehicles and just under 44 hours on the road
49,000 shillings and 145,000 kwacha in bus fare (about $62)
2 stamps and 1 visa in my passport
350 pages and 17 Economist articles read
Way too many calories and way too few vitamins in my meals
About 10 hours of sleep (not much of it was good sleep)
1 realization that my body can't take much more of this kind of travel
Anyway, there's a lot going on here and I'm slightly too busy to write about it, so by the end of the year, I'm probably going to put up a ton of posts (hopefully with lots of pictures).
I slept wonderfully and struggled to pull myself out of bed for an early start. I decided that since I was slow, it made sense to wait for the shops to open at 9 AM so that I could exchange my Tanzanian shillings for Zambian kwacha before the border (where the hawkers offer egregiously unfair prices). Then I hopped on a small bus headed to the border (the Tanzanian border town is Tunduma). After 2 hours, we hit a huge traffic build up about 2 km from the border, so I just decided to get out and walk to the border (I wasn't carrying a sheller in my luggage this time around, so it was much easier to move around). It was a pretty uneventful border crossing, though I have to say that the Zambian entry form was one of my favorites. The top asked for Date d'Entree which it translated as Date of Exit. Also, in filling out the year, it prompted you with 19__. But it was a refreshingly easy crossing.
Across in Zambia, I was in a town called Nakonde. I bought a bus ticket and walked around a bit. I bought a sim card and walked around a bit to survey. The market was nice, though I was surprised to see almost no fruit on offer (so there were plenty of tomatoes, but that's only technically a fruit--I'm not sure I can recall any markets I've visited where I didn't see any bananas). I decided to wait on the bus. I attempted to learn a little Nyanja (one of the main languages of Zambia), tried to nap, read more of my book and paced quite a bit. After 5 hours, the bus finally set off (it was 4:30 PM at this point because of the time change when I entered Zambia).
As I quickly discovered, the seats on this bus were about two inches narrower than the width of my shoulders. And to compound matters, there were people standing in the aisles, which meant that as they leaned into the rows, we were all squished even more (though next to their plight, I certainly can't complain). It became dark pretty quickly, so I couldn't read anymore. There were lights for each seat, but they cut the power to them, so I played around with my phone and tried to catch a nap. Unfortunately, my neighbor kept sleeping in the most unneighborly fashion. At times he would put his hands behind his head so that his elbow was resting on my back if I was leaning forward or his elbow was jostling against my temple if I hazarded to lean back. I could feel my stomach revolting against my travel diet and the travel stress, but there wasn't really anything I could do at that point.
We pulled into Lusaka at 7:40 AM and after running to the toilets at the bus stop, I grabbed a taxi and had breakfast with some friends before setting off at 11 AM for Chipata, which was my final destination. This time we were riding in the back of a Peace Corps vehicle with a lot of gear, so it was less comfortable than the two Tanzanian buses, though definitely a huge improvement over my bus into Lusaka. We rolled into the guest house just after 7:30 PM on Sunday and I was thrilled that I had finally arrived.
So, to summarize the 63 hours qualitatively:
5 vehicles and just under 44 hours on the road
49,000 shillings and 145,000 kwacha in bus fare (about $62)
2 stamps and 1 visa in my passport
350 pages and 17 Economist articles read
Way too many calories and way too few vitamins in my meals
About 10 hours of sleep (not much of it was good sleep)
1 realization that my body can't take much more of this kind of travel
Anyway, there's a lot going on here and I'm slightly too busy to write about it, so by the end of the year, I'm probably going to put up a ton of posts (hopefully with lots of pictures).
Monday, November 29, 2010
Two Potlucks and a Christmas Fair
I'd just like to start off by thanking everyone for their kind wishes. I am feeling much better* and I am thankfully off my antibiotics. Now then:
Our Friday night Potluck was a bit thrown together, but in the end, it all worked out. We decided chapati burritos are definitely our signature dish, so Jodie got the chapati and had Glady our office secretary make the beans (I was still pretty useless most of the day). Reuben sent out a bunch of invites and picked up some people since our house is quite a way from the main road. And the two of them did an amazing job cleaning up the house so that we could have people over for the first time. We told people 7, and even though we knew people would come late, we decided we should try to have the food ready by then.
I picked up everything to make the guacamole and I had started just after 6. Jodie was popping lots of popcorn on our stove top as an appetizer. Reuben had brought Angela (she's the president of our Frisbee league) who had chapati and guacamole as well, so we were incredibly relieved when she pulled out hummus and fresh veggies and explained that she had also brought an appetizer. So Angela was chopping carrots and green pepper in the kitchen. And Reuben was putting together a tuna-pasta salad. By that time, I had moved onto the beans, which had been seasoned with a big MSG flavor packet, so I was trying to undo that flavor and restore the normal flavor. For the first time, the kitchen felt cramped.
Starting at 8, the guests began trickling in. Half of them were from my roommate Mic's dance group (they're break-dancers), all Tanzanian men in their 20s. The other half were the girlfriends of the dancers, all white volunteers in their 20s. It was nice talking to everyone, but the demographics are a little odd. When someone asked me about it, I said that it was a case of supply and demand. Not exactly the phrasing I was going for, but I was still a bit loopy from the antibiotics. Basically, the type of volunteers who come to Arusha tend to be a bit different from the type of volunteers who go to a place like Voi. I don't know how they self-select, but it definitely seems to happen.
Anyway, the Potluck went well, although with all the conversations going on around me, I found myself getting a bit lost. Still, I managed to stay up until 11 and when I woke up in the morning, I discovered that Jodie and Reuben had managed all of the clean-up.
Saturday was a typical day at the office, except that we all locked up at 1 to leave. This atypical behavior on our part (leaving on time) caused a bit of confusion over relaying our sets of keys, but it all worked out in the end. After work, there was a Thanksgiving get-together with some friends. Reuben made some macaroni and cheese, while Jodie steamed some carrots and I made garlic mashed potatoes. I'd never made any kind of mashed potatoes before, but I figured that with milk, potatoes, salt, pepper, margarine and garlic (and most importantly, a masher) I couldn't go wrong. The only challenging part was that I added the salt late and it was rather difficult to mix it in evenly. Oh well, practice makes perfect.
We headed over at 4 PM and found a pretty crowded house. There was turkey and stuffing and almost all the fixings. Sadly, cranberry sauce was not to be had (I was shocked, since I knew of two supermarkets in town that sell it). Angela's roommate Jana was hosting everyone (we've met up with Jana a few times). She works at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and aside from Angela and Jodie, Reuben and I, everyone was from the Tribunal (and everyone was from North America or Europe). Everyone was really nice and I had interesting conversations with people, but I was really shocked how little interest they seemed to have in general with Tanzanians, Rwandans or the culture that was all around them. They seemed to work with other Westerners all day and go drink with them in the bars on evenings and weekends. I'm certainly generalizing based on short interactions with a few people, but I will say that almost no one there spoke any Kiswahili (even those who had been in Tanzania for a year) and they didn't seem terribly interested in learning. (I did have a "small world" moment when I was talking to a girl at the party and she mentioned that her cousin Abbie had gone to MIT, and it happened that Abbie had lived in my dorm and been a friend of mine.)
Apparently the party went on until 10 before they continued it at a club. Jodie and I left early since I was still pretty drained from the bug I had all week. However, before leaving, we did agree that we would go to the Christmas Fair in town the next day.
The Christmas Fair** was in a part of town that I'd only passed through when leaving Arusha and never really noticed. Turns out there's an enormous country club-type place there. The fair was on a polo field and there were dozens of tents forming a huge horseshoe. I made a circuit of the tents and realized how uninterested I was in most of the crafts there. I made sure to greet most of the people I knew from frisbee, but other than that, I spent most of the day studying people. I have to say that the experience felt even further removed from my village experiences even than any place I've ever been in Nairobi (and that's saying a lot).
There were plenty of Tanzanians selling crafts and knickknacks and a good number of upper-middle- and upper-class Tanzanians around the grounds shopping, so that was refreshing. But I definitely did not feel like I was in a country where 80% of the population are employed in the agricultural sector. I felt more like I was in a suburb in the US than in Tanzania. Which is not to say that the experience is inauthentic or doesn't reflect the reality on the ground, it's just a stark contrast to the villages where I've worked and much less interesting to me.
I don't want to convey the notion that anything was unpleasant this weekend. I'm mostly trying to convey how I felt moving in a different society this weekend from the one that I'm used to.
* And my total weight-loss throughout this bug was one belt loop. I'm guessing that's 5-7 lbs there. Good thing that I put on some weight while I was in the states.
** I especially like the part where it says that "all funds raised are donated to a charity of good cause." I was hoping that it would go to a charity of nefarious cause! (I had an overwhelming urge to include links on "nefarious" to some charities that I particularly dislike, but I decided to hold my tongue.) Well, in any case, I'd love to hear what their determination of a "good cause" is. I'm always skeptical of the goodness when people don't just say what charity it is outright.
Our Friday night Potluck was a bit thrown together, but in the end, it all worked out. We decided chapati burritos are definitely our signature dish, so Jodie got the chapati and had Glady our office secretary make the beans (I was still pretty useless most of the day). Reuben sent out a bunch of invites and picked up some people since our house is quite a way from the main road. And the two of them did an amazing job cleaning up the house so that we could have people over for the first time. We told people 7, and even though we knew people would come late, we decided we should try to have the food ready by then.
I picked up everything to make the guacamole and I had started just after 6. Jodie was popping lots of popcorn on our stove top as an appetizer. Reuben had brought Angela (she's the president of our Frisbee league) who had chapati and guacamole as well, so we were incredibly relieved when she pulled out hummus and fresh veggies and explained that she had also brought an appetizer. So Angela was chopping carrots and green pepper in the kitchen. And Reuben was putting together a tuna-pasta salad. By that time, I had moved onto the beans, which had been seasoned with a big MSG flavor packet, so I was trying to undo that flavor and restore the normal flavor. For the first time, the kitchen felt cramped.
Starting at 8, the guests began trickling in. Half of them were from my roommate Mic's dance group (they're break-dancers), all Tanzanian men in their 20s. The other half were the girlfriends of the dancers, all white volunteers in their 20s. It was nice talking to everyone, but the demographics are a little odd. When someone asked me about it, I said that it was a case of supply and demand. Not exactly the phrasing I was going for, but I was still a bit loopy from the antibiotics. Basically, the type of volunteers who come to Arusha tend to be a bit different from the type of volunteers who go to a place like Voi. I don't know how they self-select, but it definitely seems to happen.
Anyway, the Potluck went well, although with all the conversations going on around me, I found myself getting a bit lost. Still, I managed to stay up until 11 and when I woke up in the morning, I discovered that Jodie and Reuben had managed all of the clean-up.
Saturday was a typical day at the office, except that we all locked up at 1 to leave. This atypical behavior on our part (leaving on time) caused a bit of confusion over relaying our sets of keys, but it all worked out in the end. After work, there was a Thanksgiving get-together with some friends. Reuben made some macaroni and cheese, while Jodie steamed some carrots and I made garlic mashed potatoes. I'd never made any kind of mashed potatoes before, but I figured that with milk, potatoes, salt, pepper, margarine and garlic (and most importantly, a masher) I couldn't go wrong. The only challenging part was that I added the salt late and it was rather difficult to mix it in evenly. Oh well, practice makes perfect.
We headed over at 4 PM and found a pretty crowded house. There was turkey and stuffing and almost all the fixings. Sadly, cranberry sauce was not to be had (I was shocked, since I knew of two supermarkets in town that sell it). Angela's roommate Jana was hosting everyone (we've met up with Jana a few times). She works at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and aside from Angela and Jodie, Reuben and I, everyone was from the Tribunal (and everyone was from North America or Europe). Everyone was really nice and I had interesting conversations with people, but I was really shocked how little interest they seemed to have in general with Tanzanians, Rwandans or the culture that was all around them. They seemed to work with other Westerners all day and go drink with them in the bars on evenings and weekends. I'm certainly generalizing based on short interactions with a few people, but I will say that almost no one there spoke any Kiswahili (even those who had been in Tanzania for a year) and they didn't seem terribly interested in learning. (I did have a "small world" moment when I was talking to a girl at the party and she mentioned that her cousin Abbie had gone to MIT, and it happened that Abbie had lived in my dorm and been a friend of mine.)
Apparently the party went on until 10 before they continued it at a club. Jodie and I left early since I was still pretty drained from the bug I had all week. However, before leaving, we did agree that we would go to the Christmas Fair in town the next day.
The Christmas Fair** was in a part of town that I'd only passed through when leaving Arusha and never really noticed. Turns out there's an enormous country club-type place there. The fair was on a polo field and there were dozens of tents forming a huge horseshoe. I made a circuit of the tents and realized how uninterested I was in most of the crafts there. I made sure to greet most of the people I knew from frisbee, but other than that, I spent most of the day studying people. I have to say that the experience felt even further removed from my village experiences even than any place I've ever been in Nairobi (and that's saying a lot).
There were plenty of Tanzanians selling crafts and knickknacks and a good number of upper-middle- and upper-class Tanzanians around the grounds shopping, so that was refreshing. But I definitely did not feel like I was in a country where 80% of the population are employed in the agricultural sector. I felt more like I was in a suburb in the US than in Tanzania. Which is not to say that the experience is inauthentic or doesn't reflect the reality on the ground, it's just a stark contrast to the villages where I've worked and much less interesting to me.
I don't want to convey the notion that anything was unpleasant this weekend. I'm mostly trying to convey how I felt moving in a different society this weekend from the one that I'm used to.
* And my total weight-loss throughout this bug was one belt loop. I'm guessing that's 5-7 lbs there. Good thing that I put on some weight while I was in the states.
** I especially like the part where it says that "all funds raised are donated to a charity of good cause." I was hoping that it would go to a charity of nefarious cause! (I had an overwhelming urge to include links on "nefarious" to some charities that I particularly dislike, but I decided to hold my tongue.) Well, in any case, I'd love to hear what their determination of a "good cause" is. I'm always skeptical of the goodness when people don't just say what charity it is outright.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Nasty Infection (Days 3-4)
The best part of day 3 was that I managed to drink enough water that I didn't feel dehydrated at all. I spent a lot less time running to the toilet too (although that doesn't mean that my digestive system is healthy yet). I even felt healthy enough to eat some ugali and sukumawiki for lunch.
Since I was next to the office, I tried to at least avoid falling further behind on work. Bringing my inbox back down to a manageable level took quite some time. After that, work mostly consisted of sending lots of texts in Kiswahili to some of my co-workers who are out in the field. They don't actually know that I'm sick, so they probably wonder why I've been so slow on email the past couple days. Everyone at the office knows, though, and they've mostly been really supportive. Anyway, I managed to sort everything out, although I knew that I wasn't functional enough to work on more complex tasks.
At the end of the day, it was time for Frisbee. I desperately wanted to go, but I knew that I wasn't up for it. They dropped me off at home and went off to play Ultimate (but first they had to run back home to collect the office keys that I had held on to--some days I am an absolute kleptomaniac). I ate 5 oranges and sat immobile on the couch (at least we had some old episodes of Family Guy to keep me entertained) until the power went out. I decided I should run and try to find something a little more filling, so I bought some bread and avocado and made avocado sandwiches. Jodie came home shortly after and ate leftovers and when Reuben came home, he made pasta and finished off some tomato sauce in the fridge. It was funny that the three Americans in our office barely batted an eye as Thanksgiving came and went (although there's supposed to be a get-together on Saturday, which is much more convenient, and there may even be turkey).
I took my evening pill and crashed. For a little less than two hours. A bit before midnight, I was awake again. I discovered that I couldn't fall back asleep on my bed, on my floor, or on the couch. I couldn't sleep with the windows closed and a relatively low population of mosquitoes, and I couldn't sleep with a nice breeze coming through the window as I lay under a mosquito net. No matter where I was, I felt both hot and cold, while simultaneously being slightly suffocated. Finally, at 2:30 in the morning, I opted for a desperate solution. I climbed into the back of the car (a small sedan) with my pillow and a sheet and curled up. I soon shifted the driver's seat down to form a sort of L-shaped bed. It wasn't pretty, but I mustered nearly four hours on it.
In the morning we were cleaning the house and yard (Jodie was rather surprised to see me in the back of the car in my pajamas at 7 in the morning) for a potluck that we had discussed but never really planned (mostly a rather delayed housewarming party). We decided that if we kept putting it off, it would never happen. I reminded everyone that I would take a very minor role in putting everything together and after picking up for about ten minutes, I went to lie down again.
We were a little late heading to the office, but I needed to send some messages from my phone first thing, so I put in 30 productive minutes before concluding that my brain had been reduced to soup and retreating back to my room behind the office. I rested there most of the day without doing much at all (there was no internet at the office either, so that didn't help matters). The exception was to go buy some ginger ale and peanuts. We were having rice and beans at the office today, so I asked for rice plain and added my peanuts to it (a trick I learned in India). Unfortunately, the rice was pretty oily (it's steamed rice, but rather than steam it in water alone, many people here add oil to it) so the taste stuck in my mouth most of the day. After that, I went to town to send salaries to our sales staff around the country.
It was nice to go to town. It was not so nice to have a few different people come up to me asking for money and assuring me that I was not in fact, broke like them (you see, as one so candidly explained "White people always have money. Show me your skin. You must have money.") A healthy me would have gone for a humorous deflection (while I certainly have a comfortable salary by Tanzanian standards and likely earn more money than those who were asking, at the end of the day, my pockets are rather light), but in my light-headed state, I just brushed past them and avoided muttering how I really felt. I was just thankful that the worst of the infection was behind me and that it was the end of the day on Friday.
Since I was next to the office, I tried to at least avoid falling further behind on work. Bringing my inbox back down to a manageable level took quite some time. After that, work mostly consisted of sending lots of texts in Kiswahili to some of my co-workers who are out in the field. They don't actually know that I'm sick, so they probably wonder why I've been so slow on email the past couple days. Everyone at the office knows, though, and they've mostly been really supportive. Anyway, I managed to sort everything out, although I knew that I wasn't functional enough to work on more complex tasks.
At the end of the day, it was time for Frisbee. I desperately wanted to go, but I knew that I wasn't up for it. They dropped me off at home and went off to play Ultimate (but first they had to run back home to collect the office keys that I had held on to--some days I am an absolute kleptomaniac). I ate 5 oranges and sat immobile on the couch (at least we had some old episodes of Family Guy to keep me entertained) until the power went out. I decided I should run and try to find something a little more filling, so I bought some bread and avocado and made avocado sandwiches. Jodie came home shortly after and ate leftovers and when Reuben came home, he made pasta and finished off some tomato sauce in the fridge. It was funny that the three Americans in our office barely batted an eye as Thanksgiving came and went (although there's supposed to be a get-together on Saturday, which is much more convenient, and there may even be turkey).
I took my evening pill and crashed. For a little less than two hours. A bit before midnight, I was awake again. I discovered that I couldn't fall back asleep on my bed, on my floor, or on the couch. I couldn't sleep with the windows closed and a relatively low population of mosquitoes, and I couldn't sleep with a nice breeze coming through the window as I lay under a mosquito net. No matter where I was, I felt both hot and cold, while simultaneously being slightly suffocated. Finally, at 2:30 in the morning, I opted for a desperate solution. I climbed into the back of the car (a small sedan) with my pillow and a sheet and curled up. I soon shifted the driver's seat down to form a sort of L-shaped bed. It wasn't pretty, but I mustered nearly four hours on it.
In the morning we were cleaning the house and yard (Jodie was rather surprised to see me in the back of the car in my pajamas at 7 in the morning) for a potluck that we had discussed but never really planned (mostly a rather delayed housewarming party). We decided that if we kept putting it off, it would never happen. I reminded everyone that I would take a very minor role in putting everything together and after picking up for about ten minutes, I went to lie down again.
We were a little late heading to the office, but I needed to send some messages from my phone first thing, so I put in 30 productive minutes before concluding that my brain had been reduced to soup and retreating back to my room behind the office. I rested there most of the day without doing much at all (there was no internet at the office either, so that didn't help matters). The exception was to go buy some ginger ale and peanuts. We were having rice and beans at the office today, so I asked for rice plain and added my peanuts to it (a trick I learned in India). Unfortunately, the rice was pretty oily (it's steamed rice, but rather than steam it in water alone, many people here add oil to it) so the taste stuck in my mouth most of the day. After that, I went to town to send salaries to our sales staff around the country.
It was nice to go to town. It was not so nice to have a few different people come up to me asking for money and assuring me that I was not in fact, broke like them (you see, as one so candidly explained "White people always have money. Show me your skin. You must have money.") A healthy me would have gone for a humorous deflection (while I certainly have a comfortable salary by Tanzanian standards and likely earn more money than those who were asking, at the end of the day, my pockets are rather light), but in my light-headed state, I just brushed past them and avoided muttering how I really felt. I was just thankful that the worst of the infection was behind me and that it was the end of the day on Friday.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Nasty Infection (Day 2)
Well, it wasn't a terribly restful night. I was running to the toilet less often, but still much more than I would have liked. The power was out and my phone battery was dead, so I was seriously hoping that I wouldn't take a turn for the worse. At some unspecified time, I realized that I was low on water, and found the nearby bar closing up for the night. I bought two bottles of water, as the bartender gave me a funny look standing there in my pajamas.
Later on, I woke up and noticed that there was light outside. It took me a minute to realize that it wasn't the sunrise, but rather the return of electricity (and by extension, the internet since I was still at the house near the office). I pulled out my computer and tried to make a dent in my huge email inbox (and put up all the posts I had written without internet). I hadn't been on proper internet since Saturday, so the dent in my inbox was barely noticeable.
I discovered that my legs no longer felt disproportionately weak (they still felt weak, but that was because my whole body was lacking strength) and that the worst of the dehydration had passed. I rewarded myself with a ginger ale as my comfort "food". I wanted to take my medication, but I needed to have actual food in my stomach to do that. I didn't want to put any food in my stomach because I still felt lousy. And I wasn't going to stop feeling lousy until I took the medicine. It was a rather vicious cycle, but finally I forced down a banana and half an orange and took my medicine.
The medicine definitely cut down the pain in my stomach and the frequency of running to the bathroom, but it also made me pretty light-headed. Shortly after that, I needed to walk to a nearby store to send some money to my co-workers. My first attempt resulted in me discovering that I had gone to the store without the money and making my way back to the office to grab the cash. The second time, I discovered that I couldn't remember my own phone number (I usually have a particularly good memory for phone numbers) and I couldn't even bring myself to watch the cashier count the money to make sure I didn't give him too much. After that, I just climbed back into bed to rest.
I tried to move around a few more times in the afternoon, but every time the light-headedness overwhelmed me pretty quickly. Still, considering that most of the other symptoms had gone away, I was pretty relieved. The electricity went out again, so once they closed the office, I had my solitude. In the evening, I went out for some more water (and another ginger ale) and picked up a can of tuna fish. I drained the water and ate the tuna plain. I was excited to have my first protein in 48 hours. Then I read The Economist on my phone until I fell asleep.
Later on, I woke up and noticed that there was light outside. It took me a minute to realize that it wasn't the sunrise, but rather the return of electricity (and by extension, the internet since I was still at the house near the office). I pulled out my computer and tried to make a dent in my huge email inbox (and put up all the posts I had written without internet). I hadn't been on proper internet since Saturday, so the dent in my inbox was barely noticeable.
I discovered that my legs no longer felt disproportionately weak (they still felt weak, but that was because my whole body was lacking strength) and that the worst of the dehydration had passed. I rewarded myself with a ginger ale as my comfort "food". I wanted to take my medication, but I needed to have actual food in my stomach to do that. I didn't want to put any food in my stomach because I still felt lousy. And I wasn't going to stop feeling lousy until I took the medicine. It was a rather vicious cycle, but finally I forced down a banana and half an orange and took my medicine.
The medicine definitely cut down the pain in my stomach and the frequency of running to the bathroom, but it also made me pretty light-headed. Shortly after that, I needed to walk to a nearby store to send some money to my co-workers. My first attempt resulted in me discovering that I had gone to the store without the money and making my way back to the office to grab the cash. The second time, I discovered that I couldn't remember my own phone number (I usually have a particularly good memory for phone numbers) and I couldn't even bring myself to watch the cashier count the money to make sure I didn't give him too much. After that, I just climbed back into bed to rest.
I tried to move around a few more times in the afternoon, but every time the light-headedness overwhelmed me pretty quickly. Still, considering that most of the other symptoms had gone away, I was pretty relieved. The electricity went out again, so once they closed the office, I had my solitude. In the evening, I went out for some more water (and another ginger ale) and picked up a can of tuna fish. I drained the water and ate the tuna plain. I was excited to have my first protein in 48 hours. Then I read The Economist on my phone until I fell asleep.
Nasty Infection (Day 1)
On Monday night as I was writing the series of blog posts that is preceding this, I noticed that I was starting to feel weaker. I put it out of my mind and kept writing. I went to bed at 11:30, but by 1:30 AM, I still hadn't fallen asleep. Also, I was feeling somewhat sore and kinda hot, but also kinda cold (I thought that was a sunburn, but no area of my skin was particularly red). I spent most of the rest of the night running to the toilet, and tossing and turning. Soon, I was feeling somewhat dehydrated, and I noticed that my legs felt incredibly weak.
In the morning, I discovered that standing required an extraordinary amount of effort (although lying down led to slight dizziness). I came to the office and took refuge in our old house behind the office (it's still ours until someone else decides to rent it). There's a mattress in there, and so I curled up and caught quick naps in between my sprints to the toilet. Everyone was checking up on me, but mostly I just wanted to be alone (people are surprisingly open about one another's diarrhea here). After a couple of hours, I went to the store for some water (I brought Gatorade packets to fight the dehydration) and bananas (the normal banana places were closed, and I was moving slowly, so this was a twenty minute excursion). I ate half a banana and crashed again. In the afternoon, my co-worker Philemon drove me to the hospital to get checked out.
I kept losing my spot in the waiting room when I ran to the toilet, but after a while, I was consigned to curling up into a ball on the bench and a nice lady told me when it was my turn. I told the doctor what was going on and he took my blood pressure (slightly above normal) and my temperature (rather high). He sent me to the lab for blood, urine and stool samples. After some waiting the results came back: negative on malaria, but a pretty nasty infection. Recommendation: antibiotics, plenty of rest and lots of fluids (I declined his repeated offers of an IV drip for the dehydration). Philemon helped me fill my prescription while I waited in a hospital bed (my legs were having trouble sustaining me for five minutes at a time by this point).
I took my first dose of the medicine and some Tylenol on the ride home and grabbed some supplies (clean clothes, oranges, more Gatorade, sleeping bag, pillow) and returned to the house behind the office. I had depleted most of our water at the new house last night, so I figured it'd be better to stay somewhere with a reliable supply of water. I also helped Jodie fill some buckets to bring back to the new house (I could feel the medicine starting to take effect by this point). After that the sun had set and there was no electricity in the house, so I climbed into bed to try to sleep it off.
I'm hoping that this will only last a couple of days. The doctor suspects that I ate something bad, although Reuben and I had basically eaten the same things over the previous 72 hours, so I don't know what it could have been. I'm expecting somewhat dramatic weight loss (to be measured in belt loops, since I don't really have access to a scale), but otherwise, a stronger than ever immune system. One of the hardest parts will be missing Frisbee on Thursday :(
In the morning, I discovered that standing required an extraordinary amount of effort (although lying down led to slight dizziness). I came to the office and took refuge in our old house behind the office (it's still ours until someone else decides to rent it). There's a mattress in there, and so I curled up and caught quick naps in between my sprints to the toilet. Everyone was checking up on me, but mostly I just wanted to be alone (people are surprisingly open about one another's diarrhea here). After a couple of hours, I went to the store for some water (I brought Gatorade packets to fight the dehydration) and bananas (the normal banana places were closed, and I was moving slowly, so this was a twenty minute excursion). I ate half a banana and crashed again. In the afternoon, my co-worker Philemon drove me to the hospital to get checked out.
I kept losing my spot in the waiting room when I ran to the toilet, but after a while, I was consigned to curling up into a ball on the bench and a nice lady told me when it was my turn. I told the doctor what was going on and he took my blood pressure (slightly above normal) and my temperature (rather high). He sent me to the lab for blood, urine and stool samples. After some waiting the results came back: negative on malaria, but a pretty nasty infection. Recommendation: antibiotics, plenty of rest and lots of fluids (I declined his repeated offers of an IV drip for the dehydration). Philemon helped me fill my prescription while I waited in a hospital bed (my legs were having trouble sustaining me for five minutes at a time by this point).
I took my first dose of the medicine and some Tylenol on the ride home and grabbed some supplies (clean clothes, oranges, more Gatorade, sleeping bag, pillow) and returned to the house behind the office. I had depleted most of our water at the new house last night, so I figured it'd be better to stay somewhere with a reliable supply of water. I also helped Jodie fill some buckets to bring back to the new house (I could feel the medicine starting to take effect by this point). After that the sun had set and there was no electricity in the house, so I climbed into bed to try to sleep it off.
I'm hoping that this will only last a couple of days. The doctor suspects that I ate something bad, although Reuben and I had basically eaten the same things over the previous 72 hours, so I don't know what it could have been. I'm expecting somewhat dramatic weight loss (to be measured in belt loops, since I don't really have access to a scale), but otherwise, a stronger than ever immune system. One of the hardest parts will be missing Frisbee on Thursday :(
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Inroduction to BRAC
On Thursday I had a meeting with BRAC (they are an enormous NGO with a low profile but a stellar track record which originated in Bangladesh, but now has branches in several countries including Tanzania) about working together since they have strong connections in rural communities and a good track record in helping people gain access to credit.
I was supposed to be at their office at noon, but I couldn't actually leave the GCS office until a couple minutes after 12 and I still needed to travel about 2 miles. I took a bike so that I would be less than an hour late (which many Tanzanians would consider to be still on time). Unfortunately, as I quickly discovered, the road to their office is pretty much directly uphill (much of it at a healthy grade) and I am not in great shape. I got rather lost on the way and my whole journey took an hour and I arrived dripping with sweat.
I had to ask a few people for directions. Most people had no idea what I was talking about. The ones who did would ask "Oh, the place with all the Indians?" I would always say yes, even though I suspected that the employees in question were probably Bangladeshi.
Fortunately, they were still at lunch, so I had time to catch my breath. I greeted the secretary in Kiswahili and she told me that everyone was at lunch. I explained why I was there (in Kiswahili) and gave her a general picture of our work at GCS and she asked me to wait until the director arrived. Then she paused and looked at me and apologetically explained (in Kiswahili) "I'm sorry, the director of the office does not speak Kiswahili, he only speaks English." I laughed and assured her that I can in fact speak some English in addition to my Kiswahili. I was rather flattered.
It was a good meeting with the regional director and we discovered that we had a mutual friend in Bangladesh (well, I only know one man in Bangladesh and he works at BRAC, so it wasn't a huge stretch). Then I hopped on my bike and rode back to the office in ten minutes and I barely had to pedal the whole time. That was a fun ride!
I was supposed to be at their office at noon, but I couldn't actually leave the GCS office until a couple minutes after 12 and I still needed to travel about 2 miles. I took a bike so that I would be less than an hour late (which many Tanzanians would consider to be still on time). Unfortunately, as I quickly discovered, the road to their office is pretty much directly uphill (much of it at a healthy grade) and I am not in great shape. I got rather lost on the way and my whole journey took an hour and I arrived dripping with sweat.
I had to ask a few people for directions. Most people had no idea what I was talking about. The ones who did would ask "Oh, the place with all the Indians?" I would always say yes, even though I suspected that the employees in question were probably Bangladeshi.
Fortunately, they were still at lunch, so I had time to catch my breath. I greeted the secretary in Kiswahili and she told me that everyone was at lunch. I explained why I was there (in Kiswahili) and gave her a general picture of our work at GCS and she asked me to wait until the director arrived. Then she paused and looked at me and apologetically explained (in Kiswahili) "I'm sorry, the director of the office does not speak Kiswahili, he only speaks English." I laughed and assured her that I can in fact speak some English in addition to my Kiswahili. I was rather flattered.
It was a good meeting with the regional director and we discovered that we had a mutual friend in Bangladesh (well, I only know one man in Bangladesh and he works at BRAC, so it wasn't a huge stretch). Then I hopped on my bike and rode back to the office in ten minutes and I barely had to pedal the whole time. That was a fun ride!
Intolerable odor
On Wednesday night I decided to make some honey mustard chicken for dinner. I've gotten pretty comfortable with the recipe, so it's generally automatic. This time was the first real hiccup I've had with the dish.
In order to make the sauce, I add one egg. We buy our eggs in sets of 30 and keep them next to our refrigerator. They last for about two weeks, and we typically go through them faster than that. Keeping eggs in the refrigerator seems like such an odd practice to me at this point.
So, back to Wednesday. We were on the last of our eggs and it had only been a week and a half (for those worried about my cholesterol, that's an average of one per person per day). Now, our refrigerator radiates lots of heat, which goes directly to where the eggs are sitting. I went to pick one up and the bottom half stayed in the carton. And the entire kitchen reeked of sulphide from the black spots on the green yolk. It was horrible. And Jodie and I couldn't stop laughing. We put some baking soda down for the smell and I slid the fridge slightly so that the heat would escape in the other direction.
In this case, I'd say our fridge caused the mayai mabovu (rotten eggs), rather than preventing them. Oh well, lesson learned.
In order to make the sauce, I add one egg. We buy our eggs in sets of 30 and keep them next to our refrigerator. They last for about two weeks, and we typically go through them faster than that. Keeping eggs in the refrigerator seems like such an odd practice to me at this point.
So, back to Wednesday. We were on the last of our eggs and it had only been a week and a half (for those worried about my cholesterol, that's an average of one per person per day). Now, our refrigerator radiates lots of heat, which goes directly to where the eggs are sitting. I went to pick one up and the bottom half stayed in the carton. And the entire kitchen reeked of sulphide from the black spots on the green yolk. It was horrible. And Jodie and I couldn't stop laughing. We put some baking soda down for the smell and I slid the fridge slightly so that the heat would escape in the other direction.
In this case, I'd say our fridge caused the mayai mabovu (rotten eggs), rather than preventing them. Oh well, lesson learned.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Good start to October
Well, September did not exactly end on a high note.
Sleep is pretty hit or miss for me. The other night I was woken up by the sound of gunshots. I was anxious at first, but then I remembered that I was in Tanzania (in my six months here I've never heard actual gunfire). I quickly found the source of the noise. One of my co-workers had left his phone in the workshop and for some reason had selected machine-gun fire for his ring-tone. And I have no idea who thought it would be a good idea to call him at 1 AM, but they certainly did not endear themselves to me.
The previous night, I had a customer call me at 11:30 PM. It was pretty garbled call, and he even tried calling me again and asking me to call back. I told him I would talk to him during business hours the next day. I somewhat regret the fact that my phone number is on some of the company's promotional materials, but only because I value my sleep. I also had some issues with sleep because power outages* through off my work schedule and made me miss my last two IDDS meetings :(
Anyway, October has been much better. There was a certain tone of urgency at work to fill a large order, but fortunately some of our long-standing accounting mysteries are sorted out and we've put some simpler systems in place so I will be spending much less time working on that (read: banging my head against the computer monitor). I have some exciting projects in the pipeline which will allow me to interact with people more and my computer less. Tonight I spent a bit of time soldering (more to come tomorrow, likely). Not exactly a typical Saturday night, but I was happy to revisit a skill from much earlier in life.
Also, food has been pretty amazing. So I know most people discourage my lifestyle, but I make do on two larger meals a day (for people with different living situations, I'm sure five or so smaller meals is a much better option). We're two days into the month, so I've had four meals.
#1: Pilau (basically the East African version of pilaf), which is one of Tanzania's richest meals. I kinda wished it was spiced a little more and had a lot less oil, but I'm always grateful for other people's cooking. (NB: If you look at the recipe in the link, I can assure you that the sort I eat is much less fancy).
#2: Quiche. I was reading through the Peace Corps cookbook and realized that the recipe seemed doable. Certainly not as fancy as American quiche (I used day old milk which had already separated instead of cream, for example), but the crust was actually pretty amazing and we were thrilled by the taste. Jodie would probably invest in me if I opened a restaurant here :) , though my failures are often as spectacular as my successes.
#3: Cheeseburger and a milkshake. It was a long week at work, so I decided to treat myself to lunch in town. It wasn't the prettiest burger I've had, but it really hit the spot (especially since I hadn't eaten for 18 hours at that point). I can't say that I would recommend the fries, however. I'm a much bigger fan of African style fries (I suppose I should say chips, as that's how people refer to them here), and they usually have pretty lousy American fast-food style fries.
#4: Steak with steamed broccoli and carrots. My friend Mic is Tanzanian, but is much better at making "American" food than Jodie or me. It was amazing. Steamed vegetables might be the next big thing in our kitchen :)
And I'm on a quest to meet some new people here in Arusha. I figured I would start at the place where all the cool kids are sure to be found: the library. Today I left work a bit too late, but at least I learned the hours that the library is open. I also visited the Alliance Francaise (I don't know where to find the cedille to spell that properly), which was closed as well, but that's a bit closer to my house, and could give me a good opportunity to get some of my French back (July was an unfortunate reminder of how weak my French has become).
Yep, October is shaping up to be a good month (knocking on wood), so stay tuned!
* Power outages are supposed to be rare as an election nears. The ruling party usually tries ensure that the voters have a very positive association with their tenure. It was surprising more for the timing than anything else (I'm fairly accustomed to unreliable power and can usually take it in stride). However, Tanzania draws a large share of its energy from hydropower (I'm a bit too tired to pull up a stat to back this up) and I believe that this is the time of the year when the rivers run the slowest. Here's hoping the rains pick up soon and get us going again!
Sleep is pretty hit or miss for me. The other night I was woken up by the sound of gunshots. I was anxious at first, but then I remembered that I was in Tanzania (in my six months here I've never heard actual gunfire). I quickly found the source of the noise. One of my co-workers had left his phone in the workshop and for some reason had selected machine-gun fire for his ring-tone. And I have no idea who thought it would be a good idea to call him at 1 AM, but they certainly did not endear themselves to me.
The previous night, I had a customer call me at 11:30 PM. It was pretty garbled call, and he even tried calling me again and asking me to call back. I told him I would talk to him during business hours the next day. I somewhat regret the fact that my phone number is on some of the company's promotional materials, but only because I value my sleep. I also had some issues with sleep because power outages* through off my work schedule and made me miss my last two IDDS meetings :(
Anyway, October has been much better. There was a certain tone of urgency at work to fill a large order, but fortunately some of our long-standing accounting mysteries are sorted out and we've put some simpler systems in place so I will be spending much less time working on that (read: banging my head against the computer monitor). I have some exciting projects in the pipeline which will allow me to interact with people more and my computer less. Tonight I spent a bit of time soldering (more to come tomorrow, likely). Not exactly a typical Saturday night, but I was happy to revisit a skill from much earlier in life.
Also, food has been pretty amazing. So I know most people discourage my lifestyle, but I make do on two larger meals a day (for people with different living situations, I'm sure five or so smaller meals is a much better option). We're two days into the month, so I've had four meals.
#1: Pilau (basically the East African version of pilaf), which is one of Tanzania's richest meals. I kinda wished it was spiced a little more and had a lot less oil, but I'm always grateful for other people's cooking. (NB: If you look at the recipe in the link, I can assure you that the sort I eat is much less fancy).
#2: Quiche. I was reading through the Peace Corps cookbook and realized that the recipe seemed doable. Certainly not as fancy as American quiche (I used day old milk which had already separated instead of cream, for example), but the crust was actually pretty amazing and we were thrilled by the taste. Jodie would probably invest in me if I opened a restaurant here :) , though my failures are often as spectacular as my successes.
#3: Cheeseburger and a milkshake. It was a long week at work, so I decided to treat myself to lunch in town. It wasn't the prettiest burger I've had, but it really hit the spot (especially since I hadn't eaten for 18 hours at that point). I can't say that I would recommend the fries, however. I'm a much bigger fan of African style fries (I suppose I should say chips, as that's how people refer to them here), and they usually have pretty lousy American fast-food style fries.
#4: Steak with steamed broccoli and carrots. My friend Mic is Tanzanian, but is much better at making "American" food than Jodie or me. It was amazing. Steamed vegetables might be the next big thing in our kitchen :)
And I'm on a quest to meet some new people here in Arusha. I figured I would start at the place where all the cool kids are sure to be found: the library. Today I left work a bit too late, but at least I learned the hours that the library is open. I also visited the Alliance Francaise (I don't know where to find the cedille to spell that properly), which was closed as well, but that's a bit closer to my house, and could give me a good opportunity to get some of my French back (July was an unfortunate reminder of how weak my French has become).
Yep, October is shaping up to be a good month (knocking on wood), so stay tuned!
* Power outages are supposed to be rare as an election nears. The ruling party usually tries ensure that the voters have a very positive association with their tenure. It was surprising more for the timing than anything else (I'm fairly accustomed to unreliable power and can usually take it in stride). However, Tanzania draws a large share of its energy from hydropower (I'm a bit too tired to pull up a stat to back this up) and I believe that this is the time of the year when the rivers run the slowest. Here's hoping the rains pick up soon and get us going again!
Friday, September 24, 2010
Ghosts at the Prom
Okay, second half of my Nairobi adventure. This one is going to be a long one, I expect.
Tuesday morning, I was a bit slow moving, but it helps to pace myself in Nairobi. I started by heading down to Parklands (an area of Nairobi near City Centre) to try to track down some people. I visited the office that had flooded and saw the damage and the fact that none of the staff was in and quickly moved on. Fortunately, my next meeting was just down the street. Unfortunately, I didn't realize this right away, because the streets often feel like a maze (I lived in Boston for four years, which felt pretty similar), but after asking a half dozen people for directions, I found the building. I had a nice talk with the staff at TechnoServe, and they seem interested in working with us moving forward. Then I headed to Barclays to exchange my Tanzanian shillings for Kenyan shillings. I was waiting in line behind some British gentleman who had been in Nairobi for some time, and felt that he was entitled to lots of special treatment. After twenty minutes of him harassing the teller and trying to draw sympathy from me for his plight (gee whiz, what a poor spoiled ex-pat) I gave up and left the bank with my dwindling supply of Kenyan money. I ran to the store and bought a juice before heading to my next meeting.
I told the matatu conductor to drop me at Afralti and he agreed. I don't remember that part of Nairobi as well, so I got out where he told me to alight. And then I discovered I was about 1 km down the road from where I wanted to be (the matatu was headed in that direction, but apparently the conductors on that route don't know their stops). I walked (with the sheller set on my back) to my destination and showed up sweaty and disheveled. As I walked in, I was greeted by some Peace Corps staff members who asked if I needed anything for my session. I decided that my first priority was to clean myself up a bit and regain my composure. Then I started chatting up a few of the new volunteers and managed to convince one of them to let me use his computer. As I was doing the set-up, he was getting really excited about my talk.
Meanwhile, I was frantically editing my presentation on Appropriate Technology (Jackie and I had written it together in April 2009--with a heavy dose of inspiration from Amy Smith--but I hadn't looked at it since then) as the room was filling up. I didn't feel like it was my best presentation (I don't think I fully regained my composure), but there was some definite interest from the audience and I had a nice Q&A session before handing it over to the next presenter. I stuck around a bit longer and added some files to one volunteer's computer of various manuals I have accumulated over time (these will likely be quickly spread around the Peace Corps Kenya network). I had a few volunteers come up to me afterwards and tell me that I had given the best session in their week and a half of training (one volunteer used the phrase "only good session"), and they were pretty excited about GCS's work, and several volunteers were wondering where they could order a machine.
Then I chatted with a high school friend who is in the new group of volunteers and we bonded about the Peace Corps experience. As we were talking, one of the other volunteers invited me to the prom-themed party that they were having on Wednesday night. I told them that I would do my best to make an appearance. I also spent a while talking to a Peace Corps staff member about how much staff has improved what they're doing since the debacle with my group (currently, 24 of the original 42 volunteers are still in the program, compared to the group that came a year after us, which has not lost a single volunteer). Then I realized that it was getting late, so I hurried back to Upper Hill (with a stop at a currency exchange that gave me a much lousier rate). At that point, I realized that I had forgotten to eat the entire day (I had a tiny muffin for breakfast and 2 liters of juice the rest of the day). I wolfed down two meals in quick succession and crashed by 10 PM.
Then, I was awake again at midnight. My brain wasn't feeling sharp enough for much reading, so I sent a few emails from my phone. Then I went to spend some time with the puppies. Mostly, I spent my time tossing and turning. It was 4 AM before I fell back asleep (I also abandoned hope of sleeping in the bed, and opted to curl up on the floor in the corner). Wednesday morning wound up being rather slow moving.
I took care of a couple of personal errands in the morning before setting off in the afternoon for Kariobangi, on the eastern extremity of Nairobi. The trip wound up taking an hour and a half. Part of the issue was that the matatu conductor wouldn't let me out where I asked (he alleged he was concerned about my safety) and then drove around making fifteen more minutes of stops before heading back and leaving me off 100 meters closer than where I had previously asked and demanding a tip for "helping" me out. I gave him 15 shillings, which was all the change I had on hand (also half the cost of the ride) and then he pocketed it and told the driver that I hadn't given him any kind of tip.
I walked through a small market to the KickStart technology facility (my previous visit is documented here). I really enjoyed my meeting this time. I talked with Alan, who runs the technology work and led development of the small-scale pump they have (much more affordable than their medium-scale pumps). We talked a lot about manufacturing and design and he was terribly sympathetic to the fact that I was showing up 45 minutes late. Then he dropped me a bit closer to town as he went home for the day.
I had to take two matatus (and walk through a moderately sketchy part of town) to make it back to where the volunteers were having their prom. When I arrived (completely underdressed), I found that the volunteers were on a field trip, but one of them had stayed behind, so we talked for a while about business and development (he had joined a very large company in its start-up phase, and was apparently neighbors with a prominent CEO before coming to Kenya). He seemed to be impressed with our work at GCS and I was blown away by his background and all the work he is already accomplishing in Kenya.
As I walked around Afralti, I thought back to my previous trip to the compound back in January of 2009 for swearing in. There were two locations in the dorm where I had physical reactions as the past came back to me and I was haunted by some of the volunteers who were administratively separated (the Peace Corps equivalent of getting fired) from my group right before swearing in. I thought back to packing up a friend's room faster than I've ever packed in my life because it was apparently imperative that she leave the country in the blink of an eye. I remembered talking to another friend and coaching her on a conversation that she was supposed to have with the country director, only to find out that the "conversation" was another staff member handing her a letter saying that she was being sent home, no questions asked. I've always had trouble letting things go, I guess.
Fortunately, the prom was a wonderful affair. I was amazed by how well-dressed everyone else was, though plenty of people were sporting flip-flops. They were mostly playing American music from the last 15 years, but I kept sneaking in and putting on Swahili music (and P-Square)It was really nice to socialize with old friends (some older volunteers who were around from my time in the program) and new friends. And by the time 3:30 AM rolled around, I was sitting with some Kenyans and a couple of the older volunteers and discussing regional geo-politics.
I made sure to thank the prom organizers for a wonderful time. I can now say that I have happy memories at Afralti, which was certainly not the case before.
Tuesday morning, I was a bit slow moving, but it helps to pace myself in Nairobi. I started by heading down to Parklands (an area of Nairobi near City Centre) to try to track down some people. I visited the office that had flooded and saw the damage and the fact that none of the staff was in and quickly moved on. Fortunately, my next meeting was just down the street. Unfortunately, I didn't realize this right away, because the streets often feel like a maze (I lived in Boston for four years, which felt pretty similar), but after asking a half dozen people for directions, I found the building. I had a nice talk with the staff at TechnoServe, and they seem interested in working with us moving forward. Then I headed to Barclays to exchange my Tanzanian shillings for Kenyan shillings. I was waiting in line behind some British gentleman who had been in Nairobi for some time, and felt that he was entitled to lots of special treatment. After twenty minutes of him harassing the teller and trying to draw sympathy from me for his plight (gee whiz, what a poor spoiled ex-pat) I gave up and left the bank with my dwindling supply of Kenyan money. I ran to the store and bought a juice before heading to my next meeting.
I told the matatu conductor to drop me at Afralti and he agreed. I don't remember that part of Nairobi as well, so I got out where he told me to alight. And then I discovered I was about 1 km down the road from where I wanted to be (the matatu was headed in that direction, but apparently the conductors on that route don't know their stops). I walked (with the sheller set on my back) to my destination and showed up sweaty and disheveled. As I walked in, I was greeted by some Peace Corps staff members who asked if I needed anything for my session. I decided that my first priority was to clean myself up a bit and regain my composure. Then I started chatting up a few of the new volunteers and managed to convince one of them to let me use his computer. As I was doing the set-up, he was getting really excited about my talk.
Meanwhile, I was frantically editing my presentation on Appropriate Technology (Jackie and I had written it together in April 2009--with a heavy dose of inspiration from Amy Smith--but I hadn't looked at it since then) as the room was filling up. I didn't feel like it was my best presentation (I don't think I fully regained my composure), but there was some definite interest from the audience and I had a nice Q&A session before handing it over to the next presenter. I stuck around a bit longer and added some files to one volunteer's computer of various manuals I have accumulated over time (these will likely be quickly spread around the Peace Corps Kenya network). I had a few volunteers come up to me afterwards and tell me that I had given the best session in their week and a half of training (one volunteer used the phrase "only good session"), and they were pretty excited about GCS's work, and several volunteers were wondering where they could order a machine.
Then I chatted with a high school friend who is in the new group of volunteers and we bonded about the Peace Corps experience. As we were talking, one of the other volunteers invited me to the prom-themed party that they were having on Wednesday night. I told them that I would do my best to make an appearance. I also spent a while talking to a Peace Corps staff member about how much staff has improved what they're doing since the debacle with my group (currently, 24 of the original 42 volunteers are still in the program, compared to the group that came a year after us, which has not lost a single volunteer). Then I realized that it was getting late, so I hurried back to Upper Hill (with a stop at a currency exchange that gave me a much lousier rate). At that point, I realized that I had forgotten to eat the entire day (I had a tiny muffin for breakfast and 2 liters of juice the rest of the day). I wolfed down two meals in quick succession and crashed by 10 PM.
Then, I was awake again at midnight. My brain wasn't feeling sharp enough for much reading, so I sent a few emails from my phone. Then I went to spend some time with the puppies. Mostly, I spent my time tossing and turning. It was 4 AM before I fell back asleep (I also abandoned hope of sleeping in the bed, and opted to curl up on the floor in the corner). Wednesday morning wound up being rather slow moving.
I took care of a couple of personal errands in the morning before setting off in the afternoon for Kariobangi, on the eastern extremity of Nairobi. The trip wound up taking an hour and a half. Part of the issue was that the matatu conductor wouldn't let me out where I asked (he alleged he was concerned about my safety) and then drove around making fifteen more minutes of stops before heading back and leaving me off 100 meters closer than where I had previously asked and demanding a tip for "helping" me out. I gave him 15 shillings, which was all the change I had on hand (also half the cost of the ride) and then he pocketed it and told the driver that I hadn't given him any kind of tip.
I walked through a small market to the KickStart technology facility (my previous visit is documented here). I really enjoyed my meeting this time. I talked with Alan, who runs the technology work and led development of the small-scale pump they have (much more affordable than their medium-scale pumps). We talked a lot about manufacturing and design and he was terribly sympathetic to the fact that I was showing up 45 minutes late. Then he dropped me a bit closer to town as he went home for the day.
I had to take two matatus (and walk through a moderately sketchy part of town) to make it back to where the volunteers were having their prom. When I arrived (completely underdressed), I found that the volunteers were on a field trip, but one of them had stayed behind, so we talked for a while about business and development (he had joined a very large company in its start-up phase, and was apparently neighbors with a prominent CEO before coming to Kenya). He seemed to be impressed with our work at GCS and I was blown away by his background and all the work he is already accomplishing in Kenya.
As I walked around Afralti, I thought back to my previous trip to the compound back in January of 2009 for swearing in. There were two locations in the dorm where I had physical reactions as the past came back to me and I was haunted by some of the volunteers who were administratively separated (the Peace Corps equivalent of getting fired) from my group right before swearing in. I thought back to packing up a friend's room faster than I've ever packed in my life because it was apparently imperative that she leave the country in the blink of an eye. I remembered talking to another friend and coaching her on a conversation that she was supposed to have with the country director, only to find out that the "conversation" was another staff member handing her a letter saying that she was being sent home, no questions asked. I've always had trouble letting things go, I guess.
Fortunately, the prom was a wonderful affair. I was amazed by how well-dressed everyone else was, though plenty of people were sporting flip-flops. They were mostly playing American music from the last 15 years, but I kept sneaking in and putting on Swahili music (and P-Square)It was really nice to socialize with old friends (some older volunteers who were around from my time in the program) and new friends. And by the time 3:30 AM rolled around, I was sitting with some Kenyans and a couple of the older volunteers and discussing regional geo-politics.
I made sure to thank the prom organizers for a wonderful time. I can now say that I have happy memories at Afralti, which was certainly not the case before.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
My Sleeping Arrangement
Last night, Jodie realized that my "bed" for the past two nights is a foam mattress (about 5 inches thick) placed on top of a random pile of spare metal parts that the company is storing in my room. The pile is a bit uneven, so the shape of the mattress is about the same as an upside Nike logo. Jodie looks at me and says "Well, you're definitely not the princess and the pea." Still, this is a huge improvement over my bed where I lived in Kenya.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Maker Faire Africa and other Nairobi Adventures
On Wednesday, I traveled to Nairobi for Maker Faire Africa. Jodie had only arrived on Monday night, and we barely scratched the surface of catching up on everything (in spite of the mountains of emails we exchanged while we were traveling) before I had to leave again.
I arrived in Nairobi in the afternoon and had a quick meeting with a prospective customer in City Centre before scurrying off to the Industrial Area. I wanted to check one or two more things off my to-do list, but I was pretty exhausted from 7 hours on the bus (I think they made the road bumpier in the past week) so I just grabbed a quick bite and was asleep by 8 PM.
On Thursday, I headed to the Peace Corps office to check in with a couple of people. I had a nice conversation with Serah, who was always incredibly helpful during my Peace Corps service before going to say hi to Mary in the Medical office. She was also friendly and we struck up a conversation about maize grinders (a topic I'm researching for GCS), and she had some useful insights. Then I ran over to the motor-pool and talked to GG (I can't remember his real name anymore, since everyone just refers to him by his initials), who gave me directions to navigate the maze that is Nairobi and was entertaining, as always.
My first stop was the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute or KARI. I was on the matatu, and I saw the building, and I was surprised that GG had given me wrong directions. But I hopped out and went to the main building (there were several on the campus) and asked for the maize specialist. They asked me to sit and wait for the director to help me. After 40 minutes, the director came and told me that I was in the wrong building. Apparently, GG's directions were completely accurate, and I had simply gone to the wrong building (a soil institute--though I'm not sure why the first three people I spoke to couldn't have mentioned that they don't do any crop work there). So I hopped on another matatu and got to the right building. Unfortunately, the director wasn't there, but I had an in depth conversation with one of his research assistants on seed varieties and farm sizes around Kenya. He also directed me to a rice specialist so that I could learn about a bicycle powered rice thresher being developed by some Korean development workers. Definitely an interesting project.
After that, I traveled to CNFA, which is one of our partners in Tanzania to meet with their Kenyan administration. He mentioned that he had just been working on the intractable problem of maize shelling and was trying to figure out what sort of technology was available for farmers. Talk about fortunate timing. He helped me understand the system for working with agro-dealers in Kenya (it requires coordinating with CNFA, AGMARK and KENADA, for a start) and gave me some contact information for some interesting groups. He made a good point about thinking about COMESA (the COmmon Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, but it's an economic confederation in eastern and southern Africa; East Africa=Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi while COMESA=East Africa + Ethiopia, Zambia, Malawi and other nations), which makes sense for scale.
At that point, I wanted to meet with a few more people, but Nairobi rush hour had other ideas. It took me about an hour to travel the 4 miles back to City Centre, so I opted to get myself sorted for Maker Faire. I checked into the hotel and wrote a bunch of emails on my phone (I really missed my phone while I was in the states) before crashing.
I woke up early the next morning to finish up everything before the Faire. I ran to the bus station to pick up the GCS machines that had been sent for the occasion, only to be told that they hadn't arrived. It was only after arguing with several employees there who were trying to eat their breakfast that they found the machines. The driver couldn't find the bike shop (it probably would have helped if I had given him the correct street), so I had him drop me back at the hotel. I grabbed two machines and began asking around for the shop (which was a much better landmark than the non-existent street I had written down) and found that it was only five minutes walk to get there. The first trip I was hauling 50 pounds and wishing that I had the arm-strength that I used to have. Then came the 70 pound load. I was pretty sore, and it was only 9 AM. Then I had to wait around at the bike shop so that they could fix up a bike (they were supposed to have that ready when I came), which was another 20 minutes of them tightening bolts that I would soon be loosening to assemble the machine. Finally, the bike was ready, but as I started riding, I realized that I didn't have rope to secure the cargo to the back rack, so I had to walk it to the University for Maker Faire.
I arrived slightly late, but found that I was just in time for the event's beginning. I spent the first hour of the Faire assembling the sheller and bike before I was ready to start presenting at my booth. Fortunately, the weather was unpleasant, so there wasn't much traffic at the start. As the day wore on, though, more and more people were coming, and I was having trouble talking to everyone. I had to switch back and forth between Kiswahili and English while talking to different customers (which led to a slight problem when I was talking to one of the event organizers, and he just looked blankly at me and said "I'm sorry, I don't understand Kiswahili"--I hadn't even realized that I wasn't speaking English until he told me). Fortunately, Bernard arrived at 3 PM and tweaked the set-up a bit so that it ran better (we didn't have maize anyway, so we relied on video, which actually made a really compelling case--a few people weren't convinced when I assured them that we hadn't doctored the footage) and he helped me with talking to customers. We actually got lots of positive feedback, which was nice. Most people just wanted to know when they would be able to buy one (definitely excited about GCS selling them in Kenya!) and how much the cost would be (their jaws always dropped when I told them that it would be under 5000 Kenyan shillings or about $60).
The other wrinkle in the day was that it was the signing of the new Kenyan constitution (sorry, no link--that's a pretty hefty document, and I'm not sure they've moved it online yet). Most of the government and a large group of foreign dignitaries were just a few miles away, along with an enormous crowd. It was definitely an exciting day, since the old constitution had been to the detriment of many citizens and the new one looks to create a better system of government for the wananchi (people of the country). I was actually super-excited to be so close to the momentous event and was glad that it had all turned out so well (though, of course, with a few unsavory characters in attendance). However, the parades and honking horns weren't the most conducive to my sleep, but in this case, I was happy for the lost sleep.
I was so worn out by the first day of Maker Faire, that after moving into a double (rooming with Bernard), we both fell asleep by 9 PM. Day 2 (of 2) of Maker Faire was pretty similar to the first, but without the complications of the constitution. Bernard and I were both fighting upset stomachs (we're pretty sure that it was the food at the hotel where we were staying) and needed a few bathroom breaks. We also took more time to tour other exhibits and see what else people had brought. I really liked the guy with the sisal twiner (sisal is a fibrous plant that grows in arid climates and is typically made into rope or twine), but I really wanted to replace his motor with a bicycle (don't laugh, this would be a really good project). I visited a couple of bio-gas projects where I felt that they had a different definition of "affordable" from me. Oh well, I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for bio-gas. I spent a bunch of time with the guy at the adjacent booth who had a really cool rural toilet design and who really wanted to get some GCS shellers down to South Africa. I also talked to a lot of people working on "trash rehablitation" (e.g. crocheting old plastic bags into shoulder bags, or crafting old flip-flops into beads and necklaces), which is always fun to see. I even saw a few people from MIT and talked a bit with them. I even saw a book on development in Kenya that had a picture of Stupin and Suprio (friends from IDDS) in there. All in all, it was a good day. A bunch of people went out to a club for the after-party, but my stomach had other plans, so Bernard and I crashed early again.
I really liked rooming with Bernard, since he's such an entertaining guy (very subtle humor) and we get along really well. I was also really impressed with the organizers at Maker Faire and how on-the-ball they were. The event ran really smoothly (except for the tainted hotel food) and was a lot of fun (it definitely helps that they attracted some great Makers). Oh, and they brought fast internet, so I downloaded some development manuals from here (also added to the Linkes page on the blog) which I'm super-excited about.
I am just taking it easy in Nairobi today (trying to pace myself a bit) before having a few meetings tomorrow and hopping on the bus back to Arusha. All in all, this has probably been my favorite trip to Nairobi.
I arrived in Nairobi in the afternoon and had a quick meeting with a prospective customer in City Centre before scurrying off to the Industrial Area. I wanted to check one or two more things off my to-do list, but I was pretty exhausted from 7 hours on the bus (I think they made the road bumpier in the past week) so I just grabbed a quick bite and was asleep by 8 PM.
On Thursday, I headed to the Peace Corps office to check in with a couple of people. I had a nice conversation with Serah, who was always incredibly helpful during my Peace Corps service before going to say hi to Mary in the Medical office. She was also friendly and we struck up a conversation about maize grinders (a topic I'm researching for GCS), and she had some useful insights. Then I ran over to the motor-pool and talked to GG (I can't remember his real name anymore, since everyone just refers to him by his initials), who gave me directions to navigate the maze that is Nairobi and was entertaining, as always.
My first stop was the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute or KARI. I was on the matatu, and I saw the building, and I was surprised that GG had given me wrong directions. But I hopped out and went to the main building (there were several on the campus) and asked for the maize specialist. They asked me to sit and wait for the director to help me. After 40 minutes, the director came and told me that I was in the wrong building. Apparently, GG's directions were completely accurate, and I had simply gone to the wrong building (a soil institute--though I'm not sure why the first three people I spoke to couldn't have mentioned that they don't do any crop work there). So I hopped on another matatu and got to the right building. Unfortunately, the director wasn't there, but I had an in depth conversation with one of his research assistants on seed varieties and farm sizes around Kenya. He also directed me to a rice specialist so that I could learn about a bicycle powered rice thresher being developed by some Korean development workers. Definitely an interesting project.
After that, I traveled to CNFA, which is one of our partners in Tanzania to meet with their Kenyan administration. He mentioned that he had just been working on the intractable problem of maize shelling and was trying to figure out what sort of technology was available for farmers. Talk about fortunate timing. He helped me understand the system for working with agro-dealers in Kenya (it requires coordinating with CNFA, AGMARK and KENADA, for a start) and gave me some contact information for some interesting groups. He made a good point about thinking about COMESA (the COmmon Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, but it's an economic confederation in eastern and southern Africa; East Africa=Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi while COMESA=East Africa + Ethiopia, Zambia, Malawi and other nations), which makes sense for scale.
At that point, I wanted to meet with a few more people, but Nairobi rush hour had other ideas. It took me about an hour to travel the 4 miles back to City Centre, so I opted to get myself sorted for Maker Faire. I checked into the hotel and wrote a bunch of emails on my phone (I really missed my phone while I was in the states) before crashing.
I woke up early the next morning to finish up everything before the Faire. I ran to the bus station to pick up the GCS machines that had been sent for the occasion, only to be told that they hadn't arrived. It was only after arguing with several employees there who were trying to eat their breakfast that they found the machines. The driver couldn't find the bike shop (it probably would have helped if I had given him the correct street), so I had him drop me back at the hotel. I grabbed two machines and began asking around for the shop (which was a much better landmark than the non-existent street I had written down) and found that it was only five minutes walk to get there. The first trip I was hauling 50 pounds and wishing that I had the arm-strength that I used to have. Then came the 70 pound load. I was pretty sore, and it was only 9 AM. Then I had to wait around at the bike shop so that they could fix up a bike (they were supposed to have that ready when I came), which was another 20 minutes of them tightening bolts that I would soon be loosening to assemble the machine. Finally, the bike was ready, but as I started riding, I realized that I didn't have rope to secure the cargo to the back rack, so I had to walk it to the University for Maker Faire.
I arrived slightly late, but found that I was just in time for the event's beginning. I spent the first hour of the Faire assembling the sheller and bike before I was ready to start presenting at my booth. Fortunately, the weather was unpleasant, so there wasn't much traffic at the start. As the day wore on, though, more and more people were coming, and I was having trouble talking to everyone. I had to switch back and forth between Kiswahili and English while talking to different customers (which led to a slight problem when I was talking to one of the event organizers, and he just looked blankly at me and said "I'm sorry, I don't understand Kiswahili"--I hadn't even realized that I wasn't speaking English until he told me). Fortunately, Bernard arrived at 3 PM and tweaked the set-up a bit so that it ran better (we didn't have maize anyway, so we relied on video, which actually made a really compelling case--a few people weren't convinced when I assured them that we hadn't doctored the footage) and he helped me with talking to customers. We actually got lots of positive feedback, which was nice. Most people just wanted to know when they would be able to buy one (definitely excited about GCS selling them in Kenya!) and how much the cost would be (their jaws always dropped when I told them that it would be under 5000 Kenyan shillings or about $60).
The other wrinkle in the day was that it was the signing of the new Kenyan constitution (sorry, no link--that's a pretty hefty document, and I'm not sure they've moved it online yet). Most of the government and a large group of foreign dignitaries were just a few miles away, along with an enormous crowd. It was definitely an exciting day, since the old constitution had been to the detriment of many citizens and the new one looks to create a better system of government for the wananchi (people of the country). I was actually super-excited to be so close to the momentous event and was glad that it had all turned out so well (though, of course, with a few unsavory characters in attendance). However, the parades and honking horns weren't the most conducive to my sleep, but in this case, I was happy for the lost sleep.
I was so worn out by the first day of Maker Faire, that after moving into a double (rooming with Bernard), we both fell asleep by 9 PM. Day 2 (of 2) of Maker Faire was pretty similar to the first, but without the complications of the constitution. Bernard and I were both fighting upset stomachs (we're pretty sure that it was the food at the hotel where we were staying) and needed a few bathroom breaks. We also took more time to tour other exhibits and see what else people had brought. I really liked the guy with the sisal twiner (sisal is a fibrous plant that grows in arid climates and is typically made into rope or twine), but I really wanted to replace his motor with a bicycle (don't laugh, this would be a really good project). I visited a couple of bio-gas projects where I felt that they had a different definition of "affordable" from me. Oh well, I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for bio-gas. I spent a bunch of time with the guy at the adjacent booth who had a really cool rural toilet design and who really wanted to get some GCS shellers down to South Africa. I also talked to a lot of people working on "trash rehablitation" (e.g. crocheting old plastic bags into shoulder bags, or crafting old flip-flops into beads and necklaces), which is always fun to see. I even saw a few people from MIT and talked a bit with them. I even saw a book on development in Kenya that had a picture of Stupin and Suprio (friends from IDDS) in there. All in all, it was a good day. A bunch of people went out to a club for the after-party, but my stomach had other plans, so Bernard and I crashed early again.
I really liked rooming with Bernard, since he's such an entertaining guy (very subtle humor) and we get along really well. I was also really impressed with the organizers at Maker Faire and how on-the-ball they were. The event ran really smoothly (except for the tainted hotel food) and was a lot of fun (it definitely helps that they attracted some great Makers). Oh, and they brought fast internet, so I downloaded some development manuals from here (also added to the Linkes page on the blog) which I'm super-excited about.
I am just taking it easy in Nairobi today (trying to pace myself a bit) before having a few meetings tomorrow and hopping on the bus back to Arusha. All in all, this has probably been my favorite trip to Nairobi.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
An interlude with my family
After IDDS I had two weeks with my family. To be honest, it was an absolute blur. I was so drained from everything (on my way out of Colorado, I stopped by to see a terminally ill relative before going to one last networking event at the Unreasonable Institute and saying lots of good-byes to my friends at IDDS and the Unreasonable Institute) that I basically collapsed. It's too late to do anything now, but I had $10 stolen from me by the Denver-area public transit system and had a frustrating encounter with an incredibly unfriendly driver.
Anyway, I took a red-eye to North Carolina and saw my mother and my sister Claire (I hadn't seen her in 21 months at that point). As we waited for my luggage, Claire snapped several pictures of me in a state that I would prefer not to remember. It was raining torrentially as we stepped out into the parking lot, but I was glad to feel the cool refreshing raindrops. We drove up to Ocean Isle, where the extended family has done vacation since 1992 (other relatives have been doing it much longer, but that was my first trip). It was nice to see cousins, but I was pretty out of it the whole trip. I was having a terrible time sleeping and didn't feel entirely "with it" most of the time. Still, it was nice being around family and friends and not feeling any sort of pressure (actually, that's not true, since I still had a few lingering GCS tasks that I was trying to work on in my sporadic moments of lucidity). I definitely did not contribute my fair share to the housework, but I tried my best to be outgoing and participate in the activities (corn-holing was the popular game this year).
I was trying to update from Jaunty Jackalope (Ubuntu version 9.04) to Lucid Lynx (Ubuntu version 10.04), but my computer was having a lot of trouble with the change. It finally acquiesced, but only after Daryl (my new brother-in-law) coaxed it to accept (he did a ctrl+alt+delete, which worked with his magic fingers after my 30 failed attempts at restarting the computer). It was nice to have my computer back, though it didn't return to 100% until I was back in Tanzania.
After that, we drove back to Chicago. I don't remember most of the trip, but I was very coherent while we visited my cousin Dave in Raleigh and saw his brand new daughter (she is lovely). I really enjoyed my time in Raleigh, and spending time with more friends and family.
I remember very little of my week at home. I saw family on most of those days (and I think I tried to do some GCS work on other days), but I was typically incoherent for most of the day, and only truly present from about 1 AM to 4 AM. I usually spent that time with some of my friends from high school. (I learned a new game called Killer Bunnies, which I am now a big fan of.) Unfortunately, they were usually getting pretty tired right around the time that I was starting to wake up. Still, it was nice to have some night-owls. And they got me hooked on a British show called Sherlock.
I had incredibly vivid dreams during that time, to the point where I wasn't sure what I had or hadn't done. I discovered in Tanzania that some of the things that I was absolutely certain that I had packed were still at home. I haven't had dreams that vivid since I was on Mefloquine during my Peace Corps service. It was incredibly unpleasant, and while it has mostly subsided, it hasn't gone away completely. I feel like I need another round with my family, since both of us were short-changed by this trip :-/
Anyway, I took a red-eye to North Carolina and saw my mother and my sister Claire (I hadn't seen her in 21 months at that point). As we waited for my luggage, Claire snapped several pictures of me in a state that I would prefer not to remember. It was raining torrentially as we stepped out into the parking lot, but I was glad to feel the cool refreshing raindrops. We drove up to Ocean Isle, where the extended family has done vacation since 1992 (other relatives have been doing it much longer, but that was my first trip). It was nice to see cousins, but I was pretty out of it the whole trip. I was having a terrible time sleeping and didn't feel entirely "with it" most of the time. Still, it was nice being around family and friends and not feeling any sort of pressure (actually, that's not true, since I still had a few lingering GCS tasks that I was trying to work on in my sporadic moments of lucidity). I definitely did not contribute my fair share to the housework, but I tried my best to be outgoing and participate in the activities (corn-holing was the popular game this year).
I was trying to update from Jaunty Jackalope (Ubuntu version 9.04) to Lucid Lynx (Ubuntu version 10.04), but my computer was having a lot of trouble with the change. It finally acquiesced, but only after Daryl (my new brother-in-law) coaxed it to accept (he did a ctrl+alt+delete, which worked with his magic fingers after my 30 failed attempts at restarting the computer). It was nice to have my computer back, though it didn't return to 100% until I was back in Tanzania.
After that, we drove back to Chicago. I don't remember most of the trip, but I was very coherent while we visited my cousin Dave in Raleigh and saw his brand new daughter (she is lovely). I really enjoyed my time in Raleigh, and spending time with more friends and family.
I remember very little of my week at home. I saw family on most of those days (and I think I tried to do some GCS work on other days), but I was typically incoherent for most of the day, and only truly present from about 1 AM to 4 AM. I usually spent that time with some of my friends from high school. (I learned a new game called Killer Bunnies, which I am now a big fan of.) Unfortunately, they were usually getting pretty tired right around the time that I was starting to wake up. Still, it was nice to have some night-owls. And they got me hooked on a British show called Sherlock.
I had incredibly vivid dreams during that time, to the point where I wasn't sure what I had or hadn't done. I discovered in Tanzania that some of the things that I was absolutely certain that I had packed were still at home. I haven't had dreams that vivid since I was on Mefloquine during my Peace Corps service. It was incredibly unpleasant, and while it has mostly subsided, it hasn't gone away completely. I feel like I need another round with my family, since both of us were short-changed by this trip :-/
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