Well, I kinda left my blog blank for most of the summer while I was in the states. However, I finally sat down and wrote about my experiences after the fact (but posted them with the relevant dates). It's only three posts, but they're super long (I tried to break down the first two into more manageable segments, while the third, is not much worse than a lot of my other posts). Anyway, it's a healthy dose of reading (sorry Kate, sorry Button, and sorry anyone else who feels that my posts take way too long to read), so I hope that you'll take your time.
Enjoy!
Unreasonable Reflections
IDDS 2010
An interlude with my family
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Monday, November 8, 2010
Expiration Dates
When you buy a soda here, the bottle tells you the date that the bottle was filled and the date that the contents will expire. I just drank a Pepsi that was bottled on November 30, 2010 (maybe I should have said will be bottled). It's not the first time I've seen Pepsi connected with time travel..
Photo: Lucknow, India 2007
Photo: Lucknow, India 2007
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Election Day
Well, Sunday was election day here in Tanzania (Halloween is not really a big deal here). Although a lot of outsiders wrote off the result as a foregone conclusion, there was definitely a lot of excitement on the ground, as the opposition parties seemed to stand a better chance than usual to unseat the Party of the Revolution (CCM), which has basically been in power since independence almost 50 years ago.
The Economist had a rather shoddy effort in reporting on this one, which was a big disappointment for me (they looked at one particular village and seemed to extrapolate the conditions to the whole country) and even more infuriatingly, I couldn't comment on the article (the CAPTCHA that they had told me I was wrong 30 times, which leads me to believe that it's bad software). One of the most striking features in Arusha (I want to offer the disclaimer that my election analysis certainly is not valid beyond Arusha and even here is a tiny snap-shot) was that many of the supporters of the Party for Democracy and Development (ChaDeMa) featured a lot of people who had supported CCM at the last election in 2005 when Benjamin Mkapa was leading the party and had great things to say about him. They had become rather jaded in the last 5 years under the leadership of Jakaya Kikwete and were eager for change.
Yesterday was a bit hectic in town, and I couldn't fully understand what was going on, but it seemed like they were delaying release of the results and finally released a tally showing that ChaDeMa had won by a healthy margin. After that, vehicles were driving up and down the road honking in celebration and shouting slogans. They are still awaiting results in several other major areas, and it seems like the uncertainty may continue for a few more days. I don't have a sense whether the outcome is in question, or if it's simply a question of how big CCM's majority is (they seemed to have the tables tilted in their favor throughout the election), but it will be interesting to see how everything plays out.
Oh, and I mailed in my absentee ballot today (the last day I could postmark it). For any of you who were eligible to vote and couldn't, I submit that you should put a higher value on your role in democracy. I admit that I'm pretty lucky to be registered in a county that agreed to email me my ballot (I still had to send it via the postal system) but that luck is balanced out by the poor quality of candidates on that ballot.
The Economist had a rather shoddy effort in reporting on this one, which was a big disappointment for me (they looked at one particular village and seemed to extrapolate the conditions to the whole country) and even more infuriatingly, I couldn't comment on the article (the CAPTCHA that they had told me I was wrong 30 times, which leads me to believe that it's bad software). One of the most striking features in Arusha (I want to offer the disclaimer that my election analysis certainly is not valid beyond Arusha and even here is a tiny snap-shot) was that many of the supporters of the Party for Democracy and Development (ChaDeMa) featured a lot of people who had supported CCM at the last election in 2005 when Benjamin Mkapa was leading the party and had great things to say about him. They had become rather jaded in the last 5 years under the leadership of Jakaya Kikwete and were eager for change.
Yesterday was a bit hectic in town, and I couldn't fully understand what was going on, but it seemed like they were delaying release of the results and finally released a tally showing that ChaDeMa had won by a healthy margin. After that, vehicles were driving up and down the road honking in celebration and shouting slogans. They are still awaiting results in several other major areas, and it seems like the uncertainty may continue for a few more days. I don't have a sense whether the outcome is in question, or if it's simply a question of how big CCM's majority is (they seemed to have the tables tilted in their favor throughout the election), but it will be interesting to see how everything plays out.
Oh, and I mailed in my absentee ballot today (the last day I could postmark it). For any of you who were eligible to vote and couldn't, I submit that you should put a higher value on your role in democracy. I admit that I'm pretty lucky to be registered in a county that agreed to email me my ballot (I still had to send it via the postal system) but that luck is balanced out by the poor quality of candidates on that ballot.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
I'm an uncle (or an aunt)
Back when I was a sophomore in high school, I was having a conversation with my sister. She's nine years older than me, and just has a special way with words. We were discussing the fact that I had the same chemistry teacher she had had when she was a student, and the exchange went something like this:
Adrienne: Oh, you have Mr. Hunt, did you mention that you're my sister?
Me: Ummmmm, no.
Adrienne: Really? ...Why not?
Me: Well, I don't actually tell anyone that I'm your sister?
Adrienne: You--you don't???
Me: You see, Adrienne, I'm a boy...
And from that moment on, the entire family has refused to let that episode. For a minute, she seemed genuinely hurt. And I have to be honest, I have a pretty distinctive hyphenated last name. There aren't many people who miss that connection.
In any case, Adrienne just had a baby on Thursday October 28 (although on Tanzanian time, the baby was born after midnight, so I'm starting a campaign to celebrate her birthday on the 29th). A beautiful girl named Charlotte Abigail. And now, I'm going to have to fight to be called Uncle Daniel. Still, I'm thrilled to be an uncle and it was nice to talk to my niece over the phone the other day. I need to plan a trip home and see her. Check her out below!
Oh, and once again, Reuben's technical prowess saves the day. I've just learned how to link my posts as status updates on Facebook. Look at me joining the 21st century!
Adrienne: Oh, you have Mr. Hunt, did you mention that you're my sister?
Me: Ummmmm, no.
Adrienne: Really? ...Why not?
Me: Well, I don't actually tell anyone that I'm your sister?
Adrienne: You--you don't???
Me: You see, Adrienne, I'm a boy...
And from that moment on, the entire family has refused to let that episode. For a minute, she seemed genuinely hurt. And I have to be honest, I have a pretty distinctive hyphenated last name. There aren't many people who miss that connection.
In any case, Adrienne just had a baby on Thursday October 28 (although on Tanzanian time, the baby was born after midnight, so I'm starting a campaign to celebrate her birthday on the 29th). A beautiful girl named Charlotte Abigail. And now, I'm going to have to fight to be called Uncle Daniel. Still, I'm thrilled to be an uncle and it was nice to talk to my niece over the phone the other day. I need to plan a trip home and see her. Check her out below!
Oh, and once again, Reuben's technical prowess saves the day. I've just learned how to link my posts as status updates on Facebook. Look at me joining the 21st century!
Work Permit!
I now have permission to stay in Tanzania for two years. It took a lot of paperwork and then waiting and also some "hidden costs". But it finally arrived.
In general, it's required for people on my class of permit to be focusing on skills-training, so I figured I'd attach a picture of me training our new sales staff on our sales entry system. It was a bit exhausting to do a 40 minute speech in Kiswahili, but I think it worked better that way. This week was pretty hectic with all the interviewing and logistics of people coming in and out of the office, but it looks like we have a good team moving forward.
Also, I hear that the camera adds ten years to the bald spot.
Oh, and in case you couldn't tell, my computer is working again! Reuben deserves most of the credit (he had a program that allowed me to boot so that I could run a file system check). It's nice to have him back (he got back on Sunday, right when my computer died) and living with us and joining our adventures. Of course, it also means that we're doing all the paperwork again to get his work permit...
In general, it's required for people on my class of permit to be focusing on skills-training, so I figured I'd attach a picture of me training our new sales staff on our sales entry system. It was a bit exhausting to do a 40 minute speech in Kiswahili, but I think it worked better that way. This week was pretty hectic with all the interviewing and logistics of people coming in and out of the office, but it looks like we have a good team moving forward.
Also, I hear that the camera adds ten years to the bald spot.
Oh, and in case you couldn't tell, my computer is working again! Reuben deserves most of the credit (he had a program that allowed me to boot so that I could run a file system check). It's nice to have him back (he got back on Sunday, right when my computer died) and living with us and joining our adventures. Of course, it also means that we're doing all the paperwork again to get his work permit...
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
New House
Well, my computer still isn't working. Apparently I just need to boot it from a Live CD and run a file system check. Too bad the Live CD isn't booting (I had this problem when I first installed the operating system). So, instead, I'm hanging out at the office for this update.
So we just moved to a new house. And when I say house, I actually mean house this time. My room is no longer a storage space for company equipment (so there might be a few boxes in my room, but nothing like before) and it's big enough that I can move around (and I can actually keep all my things in there instead of using Jodie's room for storage). Also, as an improvement over our previous place, the kitchen, sitting room and workshop are now three separate rooms as opposed to the previous multi-purpose room. And each of those rooms is bigger than the one that we were using before for all three (the workshop is supposed to be a garage, but that didn't seem like the best use of space). The rooms also come with cabinets, drawers and mirrors (which means I no longer have an excuse for my wrinkled clothes and ragged appearance--also means that it is much easier to put food and dishes away in the kitchen) and the house has 3 bathrooms (there are only four of us living there, but we're hoping for visitors, HINT HINT).
We moved to a new location called Banana (still in Arusha, though). We're a little further from town and the office (which is probably healthy) and we have a spectacular view of Mt. Meru. Jodie is thrilled to be free of the dust that we dealt with at our old place. I'm less excited about the mosquito insurgency. You see, mosquitoes commonly live around banana trees and I'll just let you guess how the location got its name. Also, as we're further from town, we're much more prone to water shortages. We have two huge water tanks to keep full so that we won't be caught without water. Unfortunately, we haven't managed to fill them yet, so we have to transport our water from town everyday. And as a major tragedy, we don't have internet at the house currently. It's been rough on all of us, since we are pretty dependent on it, but hopefully we'll learn some healthier habits in the meantime.
The moving process was something of a nightmare (though much less hellish than moving out of my Kenyan house or the first place we lived in Tanzania). We wanted to finish in one day, but that made everything completely hectic. I didn't have space to pack up my room, so I was trying to send my stuff in waves (bear in mind I don't have a lot of stuff, I was just in an incredibly confined space). But after the first wave, I discovered that they had thrown all my stuff into whatever they could find and sent it over to the house. This led to a lot of searching and discovering them in the most bizarre locations. Unfortunately, our internet modem has not turned up, and no one has any idea where it might have gotten to. As I mentioned above, this may lead us to reduce our internet dependence.
I've let Jodie take the lead on organizing the common spaces, but I took some ownership over the kitchen (it's amazing how much difference a little space makes) and I'll probably be in charge of creating a garden. I'm glad there's finally space to do that. The soil is pretty lousy, so I might start with potatoes, since I can slowly add healthy soil to that. But I probably need to wait until we have a plan for water.
I can't believe I forgot to mention the craziest part. The key ring is huge! We have two keys for our outer gate (my first time living behind a locked gate since I've been here), a key for the garage padlock, one for the front door, a room key, backdoor key and I think I'm forgetting one. Hopefully we'll make copies soon so that we don't have to figure out key choreography for too long.
Anyway, I'm sure we'll have lots more adventures to share in this place, so stay tuned and if you know any chants or runes that might be able to help my computer, that would be much appreciated.
So we just moved to a new house. And when I say house, I actually mean house this time. My room is no longer a storage space for company equipment (so there might be a few boxes in my room, but nothing like before) and it's big enough that I can move around (and I can actually keep all my things in there instead of using Jodie's room for storage). Also, as an improvement over our previous place, the kitchen, sitting room and workshop are now three separate rooms as opposed to the previous multi-purpose room. And each of those rooms is bigger than the one that we were using before for all three (the workshop is supposed to be a garage, but that didn't seem like the best use of space). The rooms also come with cabinets, drawers and mirrors (which means I no longer have an excuse for my wrinkled clothes and ragged appearance--also means that it is much easier to put food and dishes away in the kitchen) and the house has 3 bathrooms (there are only four of us living there, but we're hoping for visitors, HINT HINT).
We moved to a new location called Banana (still in Arusha, though). We're a little further from town and the office (which is probably healthy) and we have a spectacular view of Mt. Meru. Jodie is thrilled to be free of the dust that we dealt with at our old place. I'm less excited about the mosquito insurgency. You see, mosquitoes commonly live around banana trees and I'll just let you guess how the location got its name. Also, as we're further from town, we're much more prone to water shortages. We have two huge water tanks to keep full so that we won't be caught without water. Unfortunately, we haven't managed to fill them yet, so we have to transport our water from town everyday. And as a major tragedy, we don't have internet at the house currently. It's been rough on all of us, since we are pretty dependent on it, but hopefully we'll learn some healthier habits in the meantime.
The moving process was something of a nightmare (though much less hellish than moving out of my Kenyan house or the first place we lived in Tanzania). We wanted to finish in one day, but that made everything completely hectic. I didn't have space to pack up my room, so I was trying to send my stuff in waves (bear in mind I don't have a lot of stuff, I was just in an incredibly confined space). But after the first wave, I discovered that they had thrown all my stuff into whatever they could find and sent it over to the house. This led to a lot of searching and discovering them in the most bizarre locations. Unfortunately, our internet modem has not turned up, and no one has any idea where it might have gotten to. As I mentioned above, this may lead us to reduce our internet dependence.
I've let Jodie take the lead on organizing the common spaces, but I took some ownership over the kitchen (it's amazing how much difference a little space makes) and I'll probably be in charge of creating a garden. I'm glad there's finally space to do that. The soil is pretty lousy, so I might start with potatoes, since I can slowly add healthy soil to that. But I probably need to wait until we have a plan for water.
I can't believe I forgot to mention the craziest part. The key ring is huge! We have two keys for our outer gate (my first time living behind a locked gate since I've been here), a key for the garage padlock, one for the front door, a room key, backdoor key and I think I'm forgetting one. Hopefully we'll make copies soon so that we don't have to figure out key choreography for too long.
Anyway, I'm sure we'll have lots more adventures to share in this place, so stay tuned and if you know any chants or runes that might be able to help my computer, that would be much appreciated.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Be Patient
Sigh, there's a lot of exciting stuff going on that I'd love to write about. However, I learned a valuable lesson this weekend:
If your computer works, maybe you should just skip the system update.
Unfortunately, I updated the system and now my computer won't boot. Apparently several people have had the same issue with this update. :(
Hopefully I'll be writing about everything again soon!
If your computer works, maybe you should just skip the system update.
Unfortunately, I updated the system and now my computer won't boot. Apparently several people have had the same issue with this update. :(
Hopefully I'll be writing about everything again soon!
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