Lessons from the Bantu lands

Conclusion

2011-12-31T23:59:00.002+03:00

Well, it's been a good run. 358 posts in just over three years. I've enjoyed sharing my experiences, though of late, blogging has begun to feel like more of a chore than a healthy way to express myself. I thought I would migrate over to Facebook or Twitter, but I've found myself spending a lot of time on Quora lately, so that's probably how I'll be expressing myself, at least for a little while now. I will leave the blog up for a while, but I don't expect that I'll come back to posting. Hope you've enjoyed the ride.

-Daniel

Holiday break

2011-12-31T14:33:00.003+03:00

In spite of my rather reclusive tendencies over the past month and a half, last week was a pretty social week. Over the weekend, we had a couple of Americans come stay at our house (we're listed on AirBNB, so tell your friends!) They were really friendly and seemed to really enjoy their time in Arusha. Jodie put in a lot of effort to make sure the house looked beautiful for them and I made sure that they were well fed while they were here (yep, chapati burritos).

After they left, we piled into the car and drove to the beach. We stayed at a gorgeous campsite right on the water for four days. We bought mangoes and a jackfruit on the way and just spent 3 days soaking it all in. The ocean floor was covered with rocks, so it was nice to walk along the beach, but it wasn't great for swimming in the ocean. Instead, they had a nice little pool and we spent our time swimming there and playing with the kids of the other families spending the holidays there. The kids really liked having us throw them in the water (that definitely covered my daily workout) or help them with dives or give them dolphin rides (basically sitting on my back as I swam laps) and even played a game of king of the mountain where they let me be the mountain. Jodie and her friend Steff went out snorkeling and also spent the day on a fishing boat with our friend Jana and some local fishermen bringing back with some pretty impressive catches. I also had plenty of time to read (after seeing how much sun and seasickness they had on the boat rides, I was glad that had passed on it) and they had delicious meals for rather reasonable prices and we even brought Travel Scrabble.

We had to leave at 4:45 AM on Christmas Eve (my deepest apologies to all the neighboring tents for us packing up our tent at that hour) to catch a bus back to Arusha. My housemate Mic had driven us to the campsite, but he only stayed for a day and a half since he had to go back to Arusha for work. The bus ride was a bit uncomfortable since we were in the very back row (where there's no suspension as you travel along the bumpy roads), but we made really good time for the first 80% of the journey. It was really nice to get away from the coast before we had to deal with the sticky, sweaty afternoon weather. Unfortunately, making such good time during that stretch meant that the bus was really struggling the last 20%. We made it back to Arusha and were all relieved to grab a shower as soon as we were home.

The next day was Christmas, and even though we didn't have any festivities in mind, Jodie, Mic and I decided to cook a feast. Jodie baked a chocolate cake and a carrot cake while Mic grilled steak and steamed vegetables for lunch. I made some guacamole to go with lunch and cooked up some falafel for dinner. We also drank sangria all through the day.

All in all, it was a wonderfully relaxing holiday and much needed for all of us.

Local Animals

2011-12-27T16:48:00.000+03:00

This is my dog Mandazi (or Dazi for short), which is like a Tanzanian donut. She's about 6 months old and we've had her for nearly 4.5 months. She wishes she were an inside dog, which is why she is trying to climb in our window here.

Dazi mostly eats fish, bread and milk (as well as leftovers). Sometimes, she takes it upon herself to track down rats from the drainage area and bring them home. It's pretty gross. Also, one time she bit our neighbor's chicken. The neighbor wasn't exactly thrilled.

This dog followed me for about a mile one day. I really liked him, but I knew that our neighborhood wouldn't appreciate me bringing another dog home. Still, I was impressed with how fast he could move on three legs. I even decided that I would call him Lefty. Is that cruel?

This was a massive turtle I saw right near our house. Too bad s/he was super-shy.

Infrequent

2011-12-26T11:44:00.002+03:00

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 :)

Uganda Pedal Power Workshop Photos

2011-11-27T19:15:00.001+03:00

Pader Community Technology Center Workshop

Working on bikes

David from Bikes Not Bombs, Denis and Wokorach from Pader

Bernard and me demonstrating the GCS phone charger

Bernard showing the charcoal crusher

Bernard attaching the charcoal crusher to a bicycle

The charcoal crushing mechanism

Running the charcoal crusher

Bicycle blender

Testing out the bicycle blender

Running the cassava grater

The added safety mechanism for the cassava grater

Cassava grater up close

Sorghum thresher design

Building the bicycle water cart

Testing the bicycle water cart

Bicycle water cart attachment

Pedal-power workshop in Uganda

2011-11-27T14:43:00.007+03:00

See previous posts: Travel to Uganda and Preparing for Workshop

The workshop was a three day event, but I could only stay for the first two since I had to grab a bus to Nairobi to catch a flight. We started off by demonstrating some bicycle repair and maintenance skills. My station was on repairing flat tires. The one time I tried to fix my own flat, I wound up destroying the whole tire (not just the tube, mind you). Fortunately, I was staying in a guest house with Bernard, so the night before, he showed me how to do it and I got to practice. For the demo, four different groups came through and we looked at different types of tires (regular, racing and mountain) and then I used my nail to make a puncture as we all took turns using the tire iron, applying the patch and then checking for additional leaks. The participants also learned how to pack a bearing, how to spoke a tire and how to work on a chain.

After that, there was a session on identifying challenges, but I had to miss that one. After lots of hassle, we got a box of GCS equipment that morning (phone chargers and corn shellers), so I spent my time setting the kit up. By the time I finished setting things up (with some help from Bernard, since I was having an embarrassingly difficult time and for some reason couldn't apply basic problem solving skills), they were just finishing up the discussion.

Then, we demonstrated a few technologies that we had set up for the occasion. There was a charcoal crusher* that Bernard designed and built based off a project that he had worked on at IDDS in 2008. There was a peanut grinder using spare bicycle parts (everyone loved this one since we got to eat a sesame-peanut butter concoction that we prepared to show the machine). There was a blender that ran off the back wheel of a bicycle (people also enjoyed the smoothies that came out of this demo).

In the afternoon, we broke off into teams to work on the design challenges that they had chosen. I was working with a team of Caritas staff members who were looking at designing a sorghum thresher. All of the other participants had previously done a workshop with Amy, so they were familiar with the design process, but the Caritas staff had been a last minute addition. It was really interesting to see what it's like trying to design something with people as they try to decide the order of steps themselves (imagine watching someone build a house starting with the roof). I worked with them to try to guide them down the right path (identifying constraints before selecting design elements) and though it was a bit slower than usual, by the end of the day, we had an idea that we were happy with.

The second day was mostly building and testing ideas. It was a bit difficult with the sorghum threshing team since we didn't have dried sorghum that was ready for threshing, but they still produced a pretty nifty machine. Mid-morning we took a break and Bernard and I demonstrated the GCS technologies for everyone. People were really amazed to see the corn sheller work and were also very excited by the bicycle phone charger. Everyone kept passing up their phone to see if it could be charged by the bicycle (they all could). It was really unfortunate that shipping is such an expense, because it definitely drives the price beyond the means of the communities.

All of the sessions were translated from English into Acholi, the local language, by the Caritas staff. I had to leave after the second day, which was really sad. At dinner that night, the participants gave me an Acholi name. They called me Otam, which means the thinker. I think they just saw me constantly staring at bicycles and could hear the wheels turning in my head. I was really touched by everyone there. I was a little disappointing that the only words that I learned in Acholi were "hello" "thank you" and "good". Still, I managed to get pretty far with those as well as lots of wild gesturing.

I also really enjoyed the food in the community. Every morning, we ate a very hearty cassava stew with very sugary tea. Then lunch and dinner were a mixture of greens (but not kale like I usually eat in Kenya and Tanzania) with posho (the Ugandan term for what we call ugali in Kiswahili), rice with beans, peanut stew (really delicious) and roasted goat. We were definitely full at the end of every meal.

* It was fun that this was included, since it meant that Amy and I got to run a charcoal burn the night before to provide the material for the demonstration.

Preparing for the Pedal Power Workshop

2011-11-22T15:13:00.002+03:00

Amy Smith has made several trips to northern Uganda and run workshops there on Creative Capacity Building and the design process. Her partner on the ground is Caritas, a Catholic organization that runs relief programs across the country. We (Amy, Bernard and I) were traveling north in a Caritas vehicle, which was a welcome change after some long bus rides.

As we traveled, we admired the scenery, and Michael (the driver) talked about the landscape and the history. He reminded us that some people did well during Idi Amin's reign who have now seen their standard of living drop during the presidency of Yoweri Museveni. Amy and I both noted that much of the scenery was much greener than what we're used to seeing (she used to live in Botswana in the Kalahari desert, while my experiences in Kenya saw lots of sparse landscapes). Michael mentioned the dangers of it as we drove through a pine forest and he explained that when the needles fall to the ground and dry out, the fires can be devastating. Then we started talking about pine needle gasification and inevitably to other simple technologies.

We arrived in Gulu and met David from Bikes not Bombs (BNB) who was also running the workshop. He had gone shopping and grabbed a few bikes as well as tons of spare parts for the sessions that we were going to run. David was collecting footage of a health project that BNB is running in another nearby community, so he left us with the supplies and returned to the village. We visited the Caritas office in Gulu and picked up a few more supplies at the market before heading to Pader.

When we reached Pader and were greeted by my friend Denis who was on my team at IDDS in Ghana. He showed us the community technology center that Amy had established there and I recognized several of the machines there from other programs that I've done with Amy. We set to work organizing the space so that it would be ready for the event. We were still missing one box (as stated in the last post, Kampala Coach had left our luggage behind), so we couldn't set up the GCS equipment. Instead, I set to work cleaning out a peanut butter maker which had not been cleaned in several months. After that, I designed a table and took inventory of all the supplies in the workshop. Meanwhile, Bernard set about creating a bicycle powered charcoal crusher to serve as an example.

We had 1.5 days in Pader before the participants arrived, so it was also a good opportunity to learn our way around the town a bit. Wokorach, the other staff member at the workshop, helped me buy some tools at the market and talked about the difficulties of life in the area. We also spent an evening at Denis's house where his wife cooked a delicious supper, and spent the whole time complaining that the large spread wasn't nearly enough food and she didn't like that we were rushing back to the workshop. I also took full advantage of MTN Mobile Money (another phone banking system similar to Safaricom's Mpesa), which has taken the bulk of the mobile banking market in Uganda (although when I was in Kampala, I noticed that there were several agents for Kenya's and Tanzania's mobile money systems in spite of the fact that they don't work with Ugandan sim cards).

I also had the opportunity to meet the local Caritas staff. It was most remarkable to talk with Jennifer, who is a social worker and helped us with the translation during the event. Her stories were terrifying and she told them with such non-chalance that it was difficult to contemplate the horrors that many of these people had lived through. Rather than letting the stories depress us, though, we saw it as a testament to the resilience of the community and saw it as a great motivator for running this workshop.

This is a map of northern Uganda that was painted in the Caritas office in Gulu. I thought it was really nifty.

Traveling to Uganda

2011-11-20T18:13:00.005+03:00

Last month, my friend Bernard and I were working on a pedal-power seminar in Uganda, so we took the bus from Arusha. There are buses that go directly to Uganda, but we needed to run a couple of errands in Nairobi, so we stopped off there for a few hours. I went to a phone store and they were able to program a sim card so that I could have my old phone number (when my sim card was stolen, I lost lots of valuable contacts), and I just have to say that Safaricom really has their act together with that sort of thing*.

We had bought tickets and dropped off our bags with Kampala Coach for the 9:30 PM bus. It's nice, since the seats are comfortable, so it's easy to sleep on the way. Unfortunately, our bus didn't show up until 11 PM, so we were pretty tired by that point and fell asleep as soon as we were in our seats. We made it to the border at 9 AM and it was a pretty easy crossing. The bigger hassle was about 2 hours up the road at a checkpoint for the Ugandan Revenue Authority, where they held our bus and made sure that everyone had paid the necessary taxes on what they had brought into the country (one man had 3 of some kind of electronic device, so they figured he was some kind of smuggler). We were glad when they finally let us keep moving.

We admired the view of the Nile as we passed through Jinja and a fellow passenger told us all about the hydro-power station there. We arrived in Kampala at 3 PM (the bus was supposed to arrive at 10 AM) and we discovered that our bags never made it onto the bus. Always make sure that your bags make it onto the bus! After a lot of arguing with the staff, they said that they would make some phone calls and that it would be there the next morning. We went and found a small guest house nearby and grabbed a room and then found some supper before crashing.

Saturday morning, I went back to the Kampala Coach station to ask about the bags and they hadn't arrived. The man made some more phone calls and said that they would be there the next morning. I had to accept that, since I had to go to a meeting. The city was pretty crazy the whole day (and the night before) in preparation for the big Uganda-Kenya soccer match. If Uganda won, they would receive a spot in the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations. The way that people were blaring their vuvuzelas and running around town hollering and waving flags, you would be forgiven for assuming that they had already won. The match came out as a 0-0 draw, which meant that Uganda will have to try again for the next Africa Cup of Nations in two years. A friend explained that it was because they started their international players who hadn't practiced with the rest of the team, and that they had won the rest of their matches until the last two when those players came back.

I also met with a colleague who attended the Unreasonable Institute in Colorado in 2011 (I attended in 2010) and we talked a lot about his project in Uganda and it was great to sit down with him and talk. He also took me to a small restaurant and introduced me to the rolex, which is a Ugandan food consisting of a scrambled egg rolled up into a chapati (get it? rolled eggs / rolex) and eaten with ketchup and chili sauce. It is delicious.

On Sunday morning, we went back to the Kampala Coach station and waited for the bus to arrive. It was supposed to be there at 10, so we arrived at 9:45. It rained most of the morning, so I got soaked searching the luggage compartment of one of the buses before someone told me that the bus hadn't come from Nairobi. I managed to take my mind off of the situation by watching an episode of a South African soap opera that seemed pretty compelling. We were ready to give up hope on the bus at 2 PM, when it finally rolled up and we managed to grab our bags (well, after waiting another hour for them to process all of the parcels on the bus). We were so excited to have fresh clothes after about 84 hours without a change of clothes.

* Safaricom is owned by the same company as Vodacom, which is my phone provider in Tanzania. However, in spite of how wonderful I've found Safaricom, I'm equally frustrated by the service of Vodacom Tanzania.

Happy Three Year Anniversary

2011-11-13T15:09:00.003+03:00

Well, I've definitely had my ups and downs, as have the other 41 people who landed in Kenya with me three years ago today to serve in the Peace Corps. I definitely would not have guessed that three years on I would be living in Tanzania and would go such a long time without seeing any of those 41 friends (I saw a few folks in June and haven't seen anyone since). Anyway, cheers to my friends! I am thinking about all of you today :)

Day to Day in Arusha

2011-10-06T19:16:00.000+03:00

Well, with my erratic sleep schedule, it's a good thing that I'm not in a 9 to 5 gig anymore. I no longer work for Global Cycle Solutions, although I'm still involved with the company as an investor and a partner organization. I have switched to full-time work on AISE, which is exciting and lots of fun. AISE stands for Accelerating Innovations and Social Entrepreneurship and it is pronounced "I say".

Bernard and I have been working nearly full-time on this, and we now have a website and a logo (and I'm grateful to everyone who gave us feedback on it) and a Twitter handle, which makes it a lot easier to have meetings about our work. That is, it gives us a bit more legitimacy. We spoke with some folks at FoodWaterShelter here in Arusha today, and I rode half an hour outside of Arusha to the beautiful campus of Mt. Meru University in Ngaramtoni to meet with some potential partners. People are already really excited about our design curriculum and are asking when we will be offering sessions.

More often, though, we are in the workshop, working on a few different technologies. Bernard has a really cool pedal-powered drill press, so he's been working on finalizing the design for that. He also has an amazing system for producing drip irrigation kits, so we're going to be ready to test that soon. I've been working on my moringa oil press and also looking at a bicycle powered grain grinder. It's a bit unfocused, but we both work well when there's a lot going on. Also, if you noticed the "Technologies" tab on our website, as soon as all of this is more complete, we'll be putting it up there.

We are now on our way to Uganda for a pedal-power workshop with Amy Smith and David from Bikes not Bombs. We're really excited about the program (and I get to see Denis from IDDS again) and hopefully we'll have more exciting technologies coming out of it. From there, I'll be spending a couple of weeks in the states before coming back to Arusha to start running some outreach programs through AISE.

Heavy Power Rationing

2011-10-05T01:03:00.002+03:00

The whole year, we've had pretty heavy power cuts here in Arusha. Since getting back from Ghana, though, it's been even worse. We've been losing power for 8-16 hours nearly every day. In theory, the power gets cut at 8 AM one day and then comes back at 5 PM, then the next day, the power is off until 8 AM, on until 5 PM, and then cut off again until midnight. In reality, they like to throw the switch on or off at random times throughout the week*. They keep to the schedule just well enough that you expect it to be reliable, and then I get really frustrated as it switches off while I'm in the middle of work. I've been mostly working off a desktop computer, so as soon as the power goes off, so does my work.

In order to be productive when I can, I've spent a lot of nights taking advantage of the electricity while it's there. The power is most predictable during the midnight to 8 AM stretch, so I try to make the most of it. Unfortunately, as someone who is known for erratic sleep patterns, I stay up until about 4 AM on average and was awake to see 4 sunrises last week. I rarely get out of bed before 10 AM and on weekends, I can easily sleep until 2. Well, I never really was a morning person. Today I was out of bed at 8:30 and considered it a huge accomplishment.

I don't really know what the situation is at Tanesco (the Tanzanian Electric Supply Company), but it is really infuriating. There were rumors that they were increasing supply at the start of the month, but that was supposed to be in September. Now that it's the start of October, the situation has been a lot better. We've had power for about 20 hours per day. I remain cautiously optimistic.

* A few times, the electricity has been off for longer than 24 hours, one time it reached 60 hours. There was one really beautiful stretch where it stayed on for 48 hours.

Three puppies

2011-10-04T11:18:00.000+03:00

Well, at the end of my last post, I mentioned that we have a dog who has been staying at our house who we call Reuben. He's definitely fully grown, but he bounds all over the place like a puppy, so I say it still counts. He likes to follow me when I leave the house on foot (which is about 90% of the time). It's usually a minor nuissance when I go to the shop as I often have to break up fights between him and other dogs in the neighborhood. It can be a major nuissance when I am walking to Frisbee, since he always tries to run through our game, which causes fights with the dogs in that neighborhood as well as the other players.

We have a Danish neighbor at our office, who regularly travels to Nairobi, so it's hard for her to keep a dog. She had a brand-new puppy and after seeing how well we got along with her, she decided to give her to us. We named her Mandaazi, which is fried dough Tanzanian style. It's a cute name and it definitely suits her. Since she was so small, we decided it would be okay to let her in the house from time to time, but that made Reuben incredibly jealous, so we just decided to keep her outside (also she seems to consider it her mission to pee on every square inch of floorspace in our house). She is without a doubt the crafty one. She likes to try to squeeze through the grate on our front door, so we can't keep that open to get a breeze, and she now likes to try climbing in through one of our low-level windows, so we have to keep that closed too (though it is really impressive to see how determined she is).

Then, one morning my housemate Mic showed up with another dog even smaller than Mandaazi. I mostly just referred to him as Tatu, meaning "the third". My housemate Joanna started calling him Chubs, since he's a bit pudgy. The kids in the neighborhood* pronounce it more like Chubzy, so that what I've taken to calling him. Apparently Tatu is a girl's name (I don't think I've met anyone named Tatu, yet), so Mic has taken to calling him Three. Anyway Chubz (I'll stick with this name for now) is probably the most persistent, always trying to get into the house (he also enjoys peeing all over the house) or dig under the gate and he's even willing to run through the stream near our house to get to the shop when I'm buying food (Reuben and I can both hop over it, while Mandaazi usually prefers to stay dry).

We had Mandaazi and Chubz vaccinated, so they've been pretty healthy so far. We feed them an odd diet of milk, fried fish**, bread and leftovers. They're growing well, so we'll probably keep at it. We're moving to a new house soon*** and we'll bring Mandaazi and Chubz with us, but Reuben will probably stay behind. He's good at fending for himself, and in theory he has an owner near our house. Well, some guy tried to sell him to us, but that may have been a scam. Someone gave Reuben a collar, though, which is pretty rare for the strays here. Anyway, our puppies are amazing companions and we're working on training them to be well-behaved.

* They've taken to coming into our yard whenever they feel like it, which can be a bit overwhelming. Some of the kids like to play games like Spit on the Dog or Kick the Ball Against the Garage Door. We usually have to chase them away at that point.
** They sell these really small fried fish along the road. They're about 3 inches long and pretty flat and bony. I've had a few dishes made with them, and I think they are much better for dogs than people.
*** Our lease runs out on our current place in about two weeks, and even though we'd love to extend, the landlord wants the house for his son.

Hiking with Friends

2011-09-30T18:02:00.005+03:00

Shortly after getting back to Arusha, my friend Alistair came to visit for a few days. Alistair was at IDDS in Ghana with me and was in the region to do some work in Malawi, which was canceled due to the political situation there. He was traveling with his friend John and they spent a few days in Ngorongoro and the Serengeti on a safari.

Since they're both Scottish, I also figured I'd take them on a hike through the hills of Arusha. Man, it's really unfortunate that I don't have pictures right now, since they're amazing. We walked through the foothills of Mt. Meru to a waterfall. This was my third time going on this hike, but it was my first time leading it. As many people have learned over the years, it's a really bad idea to rely on my sense of direction. However, in this case, one of the Tanzanians along the way told us that we couldn't go along the path, so it's not entirely my fault. In any case, we discovered a cool, new route that was a bit more scenic and in spite of my worries that the waterfall would be a mere trickle due to the lack of rains, it was probably the most powerful that I've ever seen it. The water was rushing down from about 150 feet and there was a little spot a quarter of the way up where we could stand right behind the waterfall (it's really cold water, so it's usually better not to run through the waterfall). After almost 3 hours to get there, it's a truly wondrous sight.

We had a picnic of PB&J, and some Tanzanians came over to ask if they could also make some sandwiches. I agreed, and we were mobbed. The peanut butter disappeared and I later saw someone with a handful of it, just slowly eating it like an ice cream cone. A few people criticized us for not bringing enough bread. We directed them to their friends who had snatched it and run off with it.

We then took the proper path to get back to town. As we were walking, some children were asking for candy or money or food or books (in that order), and since we didn't have any at that point, we just kept walking. Then, suddenly a rock whizzed past about an inch from my ear. I was furious, but decided to keep walking (the last time I did the hike, a different group of kids was throwing rocks at us--I don't want to give the impression that the kids in the area are ill-tempered, but there are some pockets where people can be slightly hostile to visitors). Since we were so high up at that point, we could see all of Arusha and it made me realize that Arusha is a lot more beautiful from above. Also, on the way down, my navigation took us in a bit of a circle. Oops. Like I said, I really shouldn't be a navigator.

Of course, the worst part of the hike is always the following laundry day when I spend an eternity scrubbing the dirt and dust out of my trousers. It's a good thing that the view is so breathtaking.

The other cool part of their visit was that Alistair left me his copy of Aid and Other Dirty Business by Giles Bolton, which I really enjoyed. I didn't agree with the author on a few points, but mostly, I really liked his writing and would definitely recommend it. He does a better job than most authors in the genre of proposing solutions and analyzing their practicality. He could have done a better job explaining some of the numbers that he was using in his book, but otherwise, a very worthwhile read.

Returning to Tanzania

2011-09-28T16:34:00.002+03:00

It was nice to make it back to Arusha after two months of traveling. I have to say, when you come back after being away for a while, you always notice everything that has changed.

First, when I got home, we were having a good-bye party for my roommate Rose, which was really sad (glad I made it back in time to see her off). I was still kinda dazed from the traveling, and I realized that I only knew about a quarter of the people there. I definitely enjoyed myself at the party. But probably not as much as the Tanzanians who built a little grill in our yard and roasted some goat. They were incredibly triumphant about the whole experience.

That night I also discovered that we had acquired a new dog. My housemate Reuben had petted him once, and I suppose that act of kindness was so refreshing for the dog that he decided to take up a post as our guard. Unfortunately, he's a bit too aggressive and kinda rubs us all the wrong way, but he hasn't figured out that we'd prefer if he didn't spend time at our house. We call him Reuben, since we've had dogs named after most of the other occupants of the house.

I also noticed some changes in town. Gas prices have gone up about 10% and it's now over 2000 shillings per liter (about $1.25). Also, the exchange rate is going up again, and it's now over 1600 shillings to the dollar (it was just over 1500 when I left). Food prices are rising a bit more slowly (though some products have risen much more quickly).

It was also nice to see that the bridge near our office that they've been rebuilding for most of the year was finally finished. Some of the big construction projects in town have really come together quickly and are starting to look pretty impressive. But all in all, two months is a pretty short time, and things mostly stayed the same while I was gone.

Visiting the Embassy

2011-09-25T01:22:00.002+03:00

When I arrived in Nairobi, the entry visa* took up the last page in my passport. I knew this was coming, so I planned to spend an extra day in Nairobi before returning to Arusha, since there wouldn't have been any space to stamp my passport at the border.

We had arrived in the morning (I didn't even know they had red-eye flights across Africa) and I hadn't slept on the flight, though I managed to grab a 2 hour nap on the taxi ride in from the airport (traffic in Nairobi is ridiculous these days, that used to be a 40 minute drive). After dropping my bags at Upper Hill, I headed straight to the embassy, though the only thing on my mind at that point was a nap.

I found the embassy pretty easily (it's rather well-fortified after the bombing in 1998) and went to the security line, only to be informed that I couldn't enter without an appointment. She gave me a sheet to set an appointment. I was too tired to read the whole page, so I just called the number she had circled only to discover that it was the "emergency services" line. The person on the line was friendly and told me that I needed to go online to make an appointment. So I found an internet cafe and scheduled an appointment for the next day.

When I arrived the next day, I made it through the security line easily and found a long line in the embassy for services. Really defeats the purpose of the appointment if they have you schedule it just to wait around for an hour. While I was there, I had plenty of time to kill, and I noted the outdated posting reminding me that replacement passport pages were recently a free service. When it was finally my turn, I had to pay my $82 so that they could stitch 6 pieces of paper into my passport. That price still baffles me and seems nearly extortionate. If they're taking that much money off of me, I'm pretty sure that they should offer that service whenever I feel like showing up. I will say that at least they handled the job fairly quickly.

In conclusion, getting new passport pages was an all-around unpleasant experience. I have seven years left on this passport, which probably means I'll get to do it at least once more. I'll do everything I can to keep my scowling to a minimum.

*Also, they just doubled all of their prices for entering Kenya. A transit visa is now $20 and the 3 month single entry visa is now $50.

IDDS 2011 - Accra

2011-09-24T18:52:00.003+03:00

At the end of IDDS, we were flying out of Accra, which meant there was a six hour bus ride down. It was sad because there were a lot of good-byes on the bus. I was part of the group that was flying out the next day, so there were about 20 of us staying in a guest house on the other side of town. When we got there, Habib was sorting out the price with the bus driver (he was a lot better at driving the price than he was at driving a bus) while Amit was arranging everything with the receptionist at the guest house. I got to help the porters move the bags to people's rooms and then make sure that the food was all sorted out.

After that, a few of us opted to go out to get a few drinks. I was ready to sleep, but I was coaxed into going out and I wound up napping in the taxi on the way over. It was difficult to find a place that was open on a Sunday night, but we found a spot and all had a beer. It turns out that 650 mL bottles are plenty filling (I had only drank two other times in Ghana, so I didn't want to overdo), so we spent a while there reflecting on the whole summer and thinking about what IDDS will look like in 2012.

The next day, I slept in pretty late, which was much needed after those 5 weeks in Kumasi. I woke up in time for lunch, and even though I wasn't hungry, I headed down to the cafe at the hotel and discovered that they weren't serving lunch to anyone, even though some people needed to head to the airport shortly. After a bit of arguing they put some food out for people. I tried to meet with my friend Frances who I hadn't seen since I was in Ghana in 2008, but things were a bit disorganized and we didn't get to meet up (it didn't help that she works just outside of Accra and we were staying at the opposite end of the city).

Instead, I had to take care of some stuff for GCS. We had a customer in Togo, so we thought we could reduce his shipping fee by having me get it to him in Accra. Unfortunately, I didn't know what I would need to take care of on arrival, so I didn't have much time to organize things. He said that he could drive in the next day, but since my flight was later that evening, he wound up arranging for me to bring it to a friend of his in Accra (our conversation was an interesting bit of French and English, and it turns out my French is pretty rusty these days). I was supposed to get lunch before heading out, but since they had delayed in preparing it, I wound up leaving before I had any food.

The taxi ride wound up taking the better part of an hour, but it was nice to see lots of Accra. I made it to the area that the man had told me, but I couldn't find the restaurant that he said was next to this office. I was walking around with 2 GCS maize shellers on my back (46 lbs) getting impatient. Most of the shopkeepers on the road didn't know the restaurant, but fortunately, I found a minister who was able to point me in the right direction and we had a nice five minute conversation about trees since he was heading the same way. I made it to the office and unpacked the bag for the man there. We had very quick explanations of what we both do, and then I realized that I needed to get to the airport, so he gave me his business card so that I could follow up.

I grabbed a taxi to the airport fearing that it would take an eternity with the distance and the rush hour traffic jam (and it would feel even longer since I still hadn't eaten anything the whole day). It turned out that we were actually only a couple of miles from the airport, so I got there with plenty of time to spare. I didn't have much to do as I waited for the rest of my group to arrive (there were 7 other people from IDDS on my flight and they were bringing my suitcase from the guest house). I decided to explore the airport a bit, which was interesting, but nothing too exciting to report. The rest of my group arrived after an hour and a half.

They had brought my reimbursement, which was great because it meant that I could finally grab some food (good thing Ramadan had prepared me for long days without food). I also had to run to the currency exchange shop, which was closed by that time, but I found a man in the airport flower shop who arranged to convert my Ghanaian cedis into dollars. I was in such a rush, I didn't even notice that the $10 that he gave me was counterfeit. After that, I tried to find food at the airport that wasn't horrendously overpriced, but was completely unsuccessful, so I grabbed something small before they hurried us to our gate so that we could wait for our plane. As we went to the gate, we said our last good-byes to folks flying to Brazil and I couldn't help thinking about how amazing IDDS was this year.

Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra

IDDS 2011 - Transportation

2011-09-23T21:44:00.003+03:00

There were lots of misadventures with transportation in Ghana. One morning, a driver just decided not to show up and tried to use that as a bargaining chip to extort a higher price. Another driver saw nothing wrong with driving through Kumasi's busy streets without brakes. And some of the drivers felt that Ghana's lax enforcement of speed limits was an all-clear to drive like a maniac. Fortunately, most of the time I was traveling with Frank and Gideon who drove a tro-tro (the Ghanaian term for a minibus, the same as a Tanzanian daladala or a Kenyan matatu) with our safety in mind and for a reasonable price. But I had one particular misadventure that I'm just grateful didn't end up worse.

At the end of Maker Faire, Tish (the other American on my team) and I were exhausted and decided to leave a little early to find some energy for the final events. We grabbed a taxi right outside Suame and began the 45 minute drive back to the hostel. About ten minutes up the road, our lane was ending so we had to merge. Since it was around rush hour, traffic was moving pretty slowly and people were reluctant to let us in. As we sat there, we heard a loud crash behind us and a split second later felt something smash into us. We looked behind and saw that a huge truck crashed into the car behind us, knocking it into our taxi. Fortunately, we were all unhurt, just a bit rattled.

The driver hopped out and pulled off the last bit of his rear bumper which was still attached and threw it into the trunk. Then he found an opening in the other lane and started moving. Tish and I were a bit surprised that he didn't want to stop and exchange information with the other drivers since he probably could get compensated for the damage. And just ahead, a man came up to the window and said something (in a mixture of Twi and English) and all I could pick up was "wrong lane" and "pull over here". The driver made to pull over just ahead and then just kept going as we came to the roundabout.

At this point, Tish and I were concerned, but it didn't seem like we could do much and we didn't really know what was going on. Also, we were a bit out of it. I actually found myself nodding off a bit. Then all of a sudden, I was awakened by someone opening my door (this was about fifteen minutes later) and trying to climb in. Our driver was pretty jammed into traffic and couldn't really weave anywhere. A second man appeared and climbed in the front seat and struggled with the driver to pull the keys out of the ignition. I'm not really sure what happened next, but Tish and I climbed out and just started walking. This was clearly something that we did not want to be involved with. When we were talking with Joseph (from Tanzania) later he explained that the driver was probably in some kind of trouble before that accident which is why he was trying to clear out so quickly and the people who climbed into our cab had probably followed us that whole time trying to find a time to settle the score. So much for unwinding.

Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra

IDDS 2011 - Ramadan

2011-09-22T21:25:00.001+03:00

The last week of IDDS also marked the beginning of Ramadan, a month-long fast in the Islamic calendar where they do not eat or drink anything from sunrise to sunset. Since IDDS is a great place to learn about other cultures, several of us decided to experience Ramadan first hand. Each night at our Iftar (the first meal after sunset where people break their fast together), there were three Muslims and four or more non-Muslims (at one point, there were ten of us fasting together). During the day, we would support one another as we counted down the hours until we could rehydrate since the heat in Ghana makes it especially challenging (and in my case, until I could recaffeinate, since the huge drop in caffeine intake gave my system a bit of a shock). The 4 AM breakfasts were not as well attended, since most people just opted for a midnight snack and uninterrupted sleep, though I did go one morning when Mustafa and Saba (both Pakistani) made some delicious French toast.

Fasting was rather challenging for me as I had lots going on (well, we all did). I had that one day where I was helping to run three sessions and most of the other days we were in the machine shop or running around Suame the whole day. I was pretty much running on fumes at the end of the day and often found myself just trying to lie down in the late afternoon. At one point, two of my teammates were having a protracted discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of male circumcision (using a marker with and without its cap to avoid being too explicit) and I just didn't have the energy to steer the conversation back to oil-related topics. All in all, though, it was really rewarding and those of us who were fasting felt a very strong bond through our shared experience. And best of all, Habib from India would bring huge quantities of delicious mango and watermelons for us every evening. I miss those dinners a lot.

Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra

IDDS 2011 - Potluck

2011-09-21T21:20:00.001+03:00

My favorite IDDS event every year is the potluck where people make different dishes to showcase all of the different nations at the event. I upheld my tradition of not cooking with the USA team, and instead Amy Smith and I formed the Charcoal Nation. We prepared C-turtles (get it? like sea turtles) where all of the ingredients started with C. We used caramel, cashews, charcoal and chocolate. By mixing in some finely ground charcoal powder with the caramel, the result had a nice turtly color with the chocolate making the shell and the cashews acting as the legs and the tail. I spent a lot of time arranging the nicely, only to discover that they weren't staying together as they hardened, so it just made more sense to do them as clusters. Still, at the end of the day, they were delicious and we received lots of compliments at the event.

Amy and I also wore black clothing and smeared some charcoal on our faces so that we would look the part of the president and vice president of the charcoal nation. However, the best dressed person of the night was definitely Rose, whose dress had the pattern of the Tanzanian flag. All the food was delicious, and it was wonderful to eat food from Brazil and Zambia (thankfully they didn't bring any caterpillars this year) and South Asia (India and Pakistan cooked together and made quite a feast) and the US (which featured some delicious chocolate banana pancakes) and every other corner of the world all in one meal.

Then, in an effort to speed up some of the metabolism after such a huge meal, some drummers showed up and we danced the night away. Abby (the Ghanaian from my team) led us for some time and we were all impressed with her seemingly endless supply of energy as she called out every person to come and dance with her while she kept the beat on her calabash. At the end of the night, I think we all slept very well.

Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra

IDDS 2011 - Food

2011-09-21T00:03:00.001+03:00

The Ghanaian diet is very different from what I am used to in East Africa. Although both rely heavily on starches alongside vegetables cooked in oil, the food in Ghana wound up being much heavier. Part of it is that cassava and yams are pretty dense, and part of it is that I think we were eating a lot more palm oil in Ghana, while in East Africa, the concentration of soybean oil tends to be somewhat lower.

Now, if it were up to me, we would eat nothing but fruit the whole time we were there, since the mangoes and pineapples and avocadoes and watermelons were absolutely divine (bananas, oranges and papaya were more hit or miss). However, we did have quite an assortment of foods. My favorite meal is red-red, which is cowpeas in tomato sauce (and lots of palm oil) served alongside fried plantains. There weren't a whole lot of pulses (as in peas and beans) on offer, so I was definitely excited when we had red-red. Another favorite was palava, usually served alongside boiled yams. Palava (apparently also called green-green) uses a specific leaf (maybe pumpkin) and its fried with some mashed up agouti seeds (kinda like pumpkin seeds) which always gave the appearance of having scrambled egg in the dish, even though it was in fact vegan-safe.

One of the more difficult meals was groundnut stew, which was served with fufu (mashed cassava) and was just not as good as I remembered it being on previous meals. I generally stayed away from banku, which is similar to ugali that I often eat in East Africa, only this is fermented (there was also something called nsiho which was almost the same as ugali, except it was salted). I also struggled a bit with some of the vegetarian meals, which were mostly tomato sauce with palm oil and a small amount of onions and green peppers. I ate the vegetarian meals quite a bit of the time, though I did make sure to grab fish meals when I could while we were on the Volta river. There was one day where we ordered shrimp, which were rather small and one of the Ghanaians yelled at someone for trying to remove the shell and the legs "If you do that, there won't be anything left!" Oh, and I was also persuaded to try "coat". It's basically cooked leather. And unsurprisingly, it's about as pleasant as you would expect eating leather to be. We also ate lots and lots of rice, much of the time it was prepared as jollof rice, which involves cooking it in oil, spices and tomato sauce. Some days I was thrilled to have jollof rice, while other days I was not so enthusiastic.

We had a lot of prepared meals on campus at the cafeteria. After a couple of days, I was really excited every time that I wasn't eating the cafeteria food. They were very receptive to our requests, but in general, it was just so much oil. There was also a woman who would bring scones or meat/veggie pies for breakfast, and those were always a treat. When we were working in Suame, we would order lunches from a nearby cafe most days, which I preferred to the cafeteria (though I think there were several people who preferred the cafeteria food). In the village, our hosts cooked most of our meals for us (absolutely delicious), and we would make sure to grab some kosi (a delicious cowpea batter deep fried and served with spices) and ballfloat (large spherical pieces of dough, fried up like doughnuts), which always gave us all the energy that we needed for the day. Rose from Tanzania commented that if Tanzanians ate these kinds of foods, maybe they'd be as strong as the Ghanaians. The Ghanaians all laughed at that.

My diet actually consisted of quite a lot of yogurt, which we could buy from the shop in the dorm. It was thin enough to drink and much sweeter than any non-frozen yogurt I've ever had. I also drank an unhealthy amount of soda (as usual), and Coke had a much stronger market presence than Pepsi. The interesting part was that the three flavors of Fanta that they had in Ghana were orange (I assume everywhere they make Fanta includes orange), fruit cocktail which was in fact the exact same color and flavor as the variety they call passion fruit in Tanzania and lemon, which was similar to the citrus flavor (my all-time favorite, which I've only found in some parts of Kenya), but not quite as good. I also periodically bought baked beans, small packets of cookies, ramen noodles or just opted for a peanut butter sandwich.

I cooked only a few times, and usually when other people proposed that we cook for a larger group. One time, I helped make tostones, which come from Guatemala (I think) and are kinda like refried plantains. I also made some masala french fries at 1 AM one time for people who were working that late. I teamed up with Amy a few times and helped make a delightful tomato soup and some pineapple fried rice. And when we had a large barbecue, I was manning the grill for quite a while, and even managed not to burn a few of the ears of corn that I was responsible for.

There were several people who cooked pretty much every night including my suitemate Sanjeev. He complained that most cooking besides his own did not have enough spices (fortunately he brought his own from India) and generally cooked for at least five people. Jessica and Amit (both from California) were really good at accusing me of not eating and then sharing their delicious cooking with me as well. I felt bad that I never really returned the favor.

Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra

IDDS 2011 - Maker Faire

2011-09-15T02:09:00.001+03:00

For final presentations we set up tables at ITTU in Suame Magazine and brought people from the communities where we worked (there were three village clusters--mine was New Longoro) as well as local artisans and technicians. Each team had their prototype as well as some posters explaining the technology and the venture. It was amazing that in spite of our proximity, I still didn't know the direction that some of the teams had taken with their projects.

At the start of the event, all the teams had the opportunity to present about our projects. My team nominated me to do our talking and then I was told that we would be the first team presenting. As the moment approached I could feel the dread setting in. And then the opening started an hour and a half late because a certain attendee decided to show up at his own convenience and our hosts insisted that we couldn't start before he arrived. I gritted my teeth as I had to thank him during my speech for attending.

Another difficulty was that they set up speakers and had a DJ. We used them to make announcements and the music helped attract some passers-by to see what we were doing. Unfortunately, the speakers were pointed right at our table, so it was sometimes difficult to explain our technology to the attendees. We kept asking the DJ to turn the music down, but as soon as we walked away, they would turn it up again. Finally, I thought back to my days as a sound technician and found the perfect situation. There is nothing more offensive than tinkering with someone else's controls, so I slid a couple of faders before turning down the master volume. The DJ was fuming and unplugged his CD player. All of a sudden it was a lot easier to explain our project.

We were a bit frantic at times during our demonstration as we collected moringa seeds from the team next to us after they had removed the shells (their project was a machine that did just that). Then we winnowed the shells away (okay, so about 95% of the winnowing was done by Rose from Tanzania) and tried to put them into our machine as fast as the passers by could turn the handcrank. People were generally impressed with our machine and some wanted to know when and where they might be able to buy one*.

There was also a fair bit of down time (it seemed like we had either 20 people at the booth or no people) so I was able to wander around and see what everyone else had been working on. I enjoyed trying out other people's technologies and asking all sorts of questions (often in the direction of whether we could try it out in Tanzania). I will say that having the exhibition run for two days was probably longer than necessary, but otherwise, it was a great way to get lots of feedback. I have to give kudos to Nathan who organized the event for doing an outstanding job.

* That was a pretty good compliment for our design, but there were some teams where people were offering to buy their prototype.

Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra

IDDS 2011 - New Longoro

2011-09-11T02:10:00.002+03:00

Most of our fieldwork was done in the village of New Longoro about 5 hours north of Kumasi. When we first arrived, we attended a community meeting under a huge mango tree. It was a great way to meet the community and explain what we were hoping to accomplish with the visit (and mercifully, no one commented on the fact that I had spilled water down the front of my trousers--I always have a way with first impressions).

Our host was named Pastor George and he managed to accommodate all of us (about thirty people) and provide food for us. We had most of our meals in a little gazebo in front of his house which was a great place to interact as a smaller group and we would often stay there late into the night singing* and having a wonderful time. We also enjoyed walking to the river** on the other side of town (about 2 kilometers) and grab some kosi (deep fried batter made with cowpeas and some spices) and ballfloat (huge spherical fried dough) for breakfast. Since we were quite a strain on the house, we tried to help out by carrying some water from the pump a kilometer up the road (though we certainly brought much less water than we ended up using).

I was pretty good at carrying the water without spilling much. However, pouring it into the tank was an area where I needed more practice. Photo credit: Ben Chapman

We met lots of interesting people walking around the village and just asking questions. They gave us lots of information about all sorts of oilseeds available in their community. Most of the villagers are farmers, so they were really excited about our project and had lots of input. The women were interested in the possibility of a new way of earning some extra income. The men took one look at our machine and asked us why it wasn't hooked up to a motor. The women were eager to show that they could crank the machine themselves.

We also visited the nearby communities of Bamboi, Gomboi and Dwere (dw makes a j sound) to collect more information. Bamboi is a larger village on the other side of the river which provided some useful information on markets, but we didn't spend much time there. Gomboi and Dwere are much smaller and quite a way from the road. We would cram seven people into a taxi which was tiny and practically dragging on the ground with all of us as it wended its way down nearly washed away roads (at one point we had to reassemble a mini-bridge and guide the wheels onto the planks so it wouldn't tip over--we contemplated carrying the taxi, which probably would have been easier). The people of Gomboi and Dwere were very friendly and really helped us gain perspective of the challenges in more remote settings. I have to say that one of my favorite experiences during IDDS was riding bikes back about 20 km to New Longoro.

Photo Credit: Ben Chapman

There was one weekend during IDDS where we didn't have anything scheduled, so a few of us drove up to New Longoro and went canoeing on the river. It was a really great group and we had an amazing time on the water. Several of us were a bit the workaholic type so New Longoro proved an invaluable escape. It really is breathtaking.

Photo credit: Joseph Kisyoky

* Amy brought her guitar and we sang lots of folk music. Also, there was a keyboard there and Sophia from Ghana was very eager to set us up as a gospel choir.
** This is the Volta river, which is absolutely beautiful.

Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra

IDDS 2011 - Suame Magazine

2011-09-08T17:31:00.001+03:00

The main reason for working in Kumasi is Suame Magazine, a massive industrial area where thousands of technicians work on all sorts of projects. The mass of workshops and spare part retailers is only interrupted by the occasional food stand or drinks shop. The bulk of the workshops do some kind of metalworking from blacksmithing to welding to metal salvaging. It's a wonder to behold.

We spent a lot of our time at the Intermediate Technology Transfer Unit, which was allowing us to use their workspace and the staff was very helpful all throughout. The workshop had a welding kit, a lathe, a grinder and most of the tools we needed for what we were building. It was a bit overwhelming with all the teams there some days, but they always managed to take care of everything and nothing ever phased them.

It was always an adventure to go searching for a part since there were hundreds of plots where they just had heaps of scrap metal. I learned my way around a bit and could generally find what I needed. You always had to have your wits about you as you wove your way down the roads where people were moving all sorts of heavy machinery and cars drove down nearly impassable roads inches away from you. Most of the shopkeepers were friendly and helpful and it was an uphill battle to bargain for a fair price, but that's all part of the experience.

We were regular customers for this guy

One thing that surprised me was how many people were upset by smoking. I realize that there is plenty of flammable material all around, but there are also forges and people burning trash and sparks flying everywhere, so I hope it's not a safety issue. It is a rather crowded area, so people may have been concerned about breathing in hazardous fumes, but I worry that they were already ingesting a fair bit of hazardous compounds anyway in that environment. Whatever the cause, I respected their eagerness to speak their mind about it.

Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra

IDDS 2011 - Where we stayed

2011-09-07T00:27:00.005+03:00

Most of our work was in Kumasi, so we stayed on the campus of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). We had a whole dorm to ourselves and we took up three floors leaving the top floor for project work and the ground floor for the guests we had coming through. The dorm had 4 suites per floor (picture an X and the suites are each of the legs, while there is a hallway in the middle where they all meet) and each suite had 3 double rooms plus 2 bathrooms, a kitchen and a common room.

My suitemates were pretty awesome guys, but I didn't spend nearly as much time in my suite as I would have liked. My roommate was a Ghanaian named Mensah, but we always seemed to be on different schedules, so we didn't end up seeing much of one another. The one thing that I could count on was that whenever I walked through in the evening, Sanjeev from India would be cooking an elaborate dish (he complained that all the Ghanaian food didn't have enough spices) for everyone who was around.

I spent a good amount of time on the top floor. Each team took the beds out of one of the rooms and filled it with flip charts and assorted project materials. We also took over the kitchen in our suite to use as our testing space. There was even an area in the hallway with workbenches and tools where people would work until all hours of the night and then pull out the guitar for a quick jam session. There was also one suite for the organizers where we stored extra supplies and took care of things like evaluations and accounting.

The top floor shared work area

Testing out prototypes in the kitchen

The hostel even had a little shop that was stocked with yogurt and soda and other things that people might consume. The selection wasn't great, especially in terms of fresh fruit and vegetables, but you couldn't beat the convenience. The hostel also had pretty good wireless coverage (well, some people from the US might have found it more frustrating) and a back-up generator for the few times that power was cut. The staff in the dorm was generally helpful (though very reluctant to distribute toilet paper for some inexplicable reason) and made our stay really wonderful. There was even a nice patch of grass out front where we had lots of meetings and events. The only real difficulty was when it rained, the hallways were all soaked through.

The building was on the far side of campus, but it was right near a classroom and cafeteria that we used most days. It was also within walking distance of the campus pool and a commercial area off campus where we could get more variety in our provisions. It was somewhat quiet since not many people were on campus for the summer, but the lack of distractions made it much easier to focus on our projects.

The living space is probably one of the most important parts of the IDDS experience and I was really happy with my experience at the hostel. It was nice being able to wander around almost any time of day and find people to work with or talk to and even people who insisted that I eat some of what they were cooking. It made it much easier to build the kind of strong community that we needed for working together during the summit and moving forward.

Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra

IDDS 2011 - Language

2011-09-03T17:31:00.001+03:00

My friend Mustafa from Pakistan made it his mission to learn ten new things everyday. I thought that was a pretty cool goal. In that vein, I decided that I would try to speak ten languages everyday. I made sure to greet the Ghanaians everyday in Twi (the national language) and Mo (a local language in the communities where we were working) and I greeted the Zambians everyday in Nyanja. I took every opportunity that I could to brush up my Spanish with the Guatemalans and Mexican. I used the scattered Hindi phrases that I knew with the Indians and Pakistanis. I worked on my German and tried to pick up some Danish with the participant from Denmark. I attempted to speak Portuguese with the Brazilians. I butchered French when speaking to the Cambodians (and one of the Ghanaians who had picked up a bit of French). English was the main language of the event and I tried to use bits of it's Sierra Leonian Krio cousin. And I was speaking quite a bit of Kiswahili as well.

Rose (the Tanzanian on my team) doesn't speak much English, so I was doing quite a bit of translation. There were four other Kiswahili speakers at the event, so we shared the task as much as possible. Denis (the Ugandan on my team) and I each did it about 40 percent of the time at team meetings, and unfortunately, there were some that we just had to recap later since after a while, my brain needed a break from translating. I definitely couldn't convey all of the meaning as we went along since there are a lot of subtleties in English that get lost in translation and also, my vocabulary has some gaps in it. During a lot of sessions, I would frantically signal to speakers to talk more slowly (and one at a time) so that I could translate (and periodically I would have to lean over to Rose and say "I don't understand him/her at all"). It was pretty difficult to both translate and share ideas during team meetings, but Dennis, Rose and I all seemed to manage, and our teammates were very patient with us most of the time. At the end of the summit, people voted for Rose to speak at our closing ceremony, which made me really happy. She delivered part of her speech in English, which was wonderful, but for the bulk of it, she spoke much to fast in Kiswahili and Joseph from Tanzania was struggling to keep up.

I also signed up to compile the language sheets for people to learn some useful phrases in Twi and Mo. It was a good way to pick up some additional phrases. The languages have a few letters and sounds that we don't really have in English, but I was pretty proud when I managed to pronounce the word "kpegri" to the satisfaction of some of our Mo speakers. You pronounce it just like it's spelled.

I have to admit that I'm a bit disappointed with myself that I didn't have the opportunity to learn more languages while I was there. I know it would have meant a lot to the Zambians if I had picked up some Bemba and similarly I would have loved to learn some Khmer from the Cambodians. Still, the language center of my brain definitely got a healthy workout and I am glad that everyone was so patient as I struggled with their languages and made tols of nistakes.

Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra

IDDS 2011 - My Team

2011-09-02T14:40:00.002+03:00

I was really lucky to have such an amazing team. Of course, all the people at IDDS are wonderful, but that doesn't always ensure that people will work well together. In our case, I was blown away with how much we were able to accomplish and by everyone's energy in carrying the project forward. My team was one of the least geographically diverse with everyone coming from East Africa, West Africa or the US (all the other teams had at least one member from Latin America or Asia), but we still had a wide variety of perspectives. We were also one of the older teams with three team members around 40 years old (for several teams everyone was under 30) which did mean that unlike many other teams we were not working past 11 pm, but the richness of their experiences proved invaluable for our project.

Abby is a schoolteacher in central Ghana and her father has a large plot of moringa trees, so she was able to provide a lot of context and ensure continuity for our project. She was our youngest team member at 21, but she was always eager for us to learn some of the language and she was regularly checking on what other people were working on in case she could bring a sample back to her community. The other participants really appreciated her energy and they voted for her to give a speech at the final ceremony, which was really nice.

Denis came from Uganda and does a lot of work up there with people who have lived in refugee camps their whole lives. He brought an incredibly positive attitude and good sense of humor to our sessions everyday. He was incredibly handy in the workshop and was always thinking about what we could do to make the design better. He also brought a lot of national pride and made sure that we all knew how beautiful Uganda was everyday (there was only one time where he talked about what he had lived through under the reign of Idi Amin).

Rose came from Tanzania and spoke very little English (she could often understand the general concepts that people were saying, but was a bit shy about speaking English). During a lot of our team meetings and class sessions, Dennis and I would be sure to sit close to her to translate (there were a few times where we were doing community interviews where the speaker would say something in Twi, which Abby would translate into English, which I would translate into Kiswahili). She was very thoughtful and always made sure that she had something to keep her busy. Rose also had a difficult time convincing people that she was 39--in fact, at one point, she showed us a picture of her wearing her son's school uniform and we all would have sworn she was about 16.

Sylvester came from Sierra Leone where he teaches workshop skills near the capital. He had a certain impatience which really helped to propel us forward. He brought a very interesting sense of humor and liked to take lots of pictures. Once we started building in the workshop, he was a constant fountain of ideas and we all had to struggle to keep up with him.

Tish came from the US and is about to start working at MIT (she graduated two years after me, but we knew each other when we were there). She had also spent a lot of time in Kenya and Tanzania working on mechanical engineering projects while she was there, so she and I made the East African bent of our team even stronger (also meant that two-thirds of our team could speak some Kiswahili, so by the end Sylvester and Abby were picking up some of the words). She was by far the most organized person on the team and was good at helping us plan so that we could get everything done.

Amy Smith was our mentor, which was really amazing. Even though she had a million things going on the whole summer, she always made herself available to us and was able to provide guidance without steering the project in a particular direction. She also has spent a lot of time in Ghana and provided additional perspective on the communities where we were working.

Our team had a really strong bond, and whenever there were tasks where the team was supposed to split up and divide the labor, we found ourselves doing everything together until later in the summit where we were building prototypes and it was impossible to all work on one thing. In one of our first activities, we used colored pieces of rubber to make mini-Ghanaian flags for other participants as souvenirs, which we received lots of compliments for. We definitely had a few rough patches and at times, we spent too much time thinking and not enough time doing, but in the end, we had a wonderful balance.

Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra

IDDS 2011 - Delivering Content

2011-08-30T17:58:00.003+03:00

One of the most exciting opportunities I had this summer was to stand up in front of everyone and lead some sessions. It feels weird to think of the participants as students, which is why we euphemistically referred to it as "delivering content". The curriculum team does an amazing job of balancing the amount of time spent in the classroom with hands-on learning experiences and I worked on both (I hope to do that more in future IDDSes).

On the third day of the summit, we had a series of Build-It activities where participants built different simple technologies to learn how to use various tools. There were six different areas (metal-working, sheet metal fabrication, wood carving, electronics circuitry, plastics-working and metal casting) and I was on the metal-working team. We were building charcoal presses (link to pdf), so I signed up since I figured I could be pretty useful in explaining the context and why the tool was useful. But as the session went on, I realized that we were a bit short-handed, so my friend Joseph from Tanzania and I taught people how to use the hacksaw, the shear and files to make clean cuts. Then we teamed up with some of the technicians at the Intermediate Technology Transfer Unit where we were working in order to teach welding and especially welding safety. By the end of the session we had three welding stations and I was supervising one of them. It was interesting to be teaching and supervising stick-welding since I have never done it in my life and and I haven't even welded anything in three years. Still, we didn't break anything and no one got hurt and all in all, the charcoal presses came out really well. I was impressed with everyone in the session, but especially with a Zambian woman named Mainess who picked up all the techniques so quickly and was super-eager to try everything. (There's even a picture of me helping her on the IDDS blog (about two-thirds of the way down the page).)

For one of the sessions on venture design, they asked me to present some slides with Ben Linder and Bob Nanes (both much, much bigger names than mine). They prepared most of the slides, but I offered input on some of the topics and they took some of my suggestions. I also put together a slide on my work with GCS and presented a few of the slides during the session. I wish that I had practiced a bit more since I was having a bit of trouble hitting all the points that I wanted to make, but all in all I was really excited about how the session went.

Later that morning we had a panel on water treatment ventures* and my friends Mustafa from Pakistan and John from Zambia and I were up in front to moderate. There were some logistical headaches (the hall where we originally planned to have the event cut off their power and then demanded that we pay them exorbitant rates to switch on the generator--we just changed the venue in the end), but once we got started, it went off really well. Running the event took very little effort and every time I was about to say "Let's have a question for our first panelist" or "Are there any questions from some of the women in the audience?" the audience came through without me having to say a word. I was really happy with the event and very grateful to the panelists who shared lots of interesting experiences.

And that afternoon we had an activity where participants took apart different technologies to consider the manufacturing techniques involved. I was working with Mustafa again and Suprio from India with help from a few of the other organizers to make sure that we knew what we were talking apart. Our project was those cheap flashlights, and our main goal was to make sure that we didn't just sound like we were quoting Wikipedia. In the end, the flashlight had lots of different parts and a short time to talk about injection molding, electro-plating plastics, spring steel, stamping and drawing, circuit board design and some of the other subtle intricacies. It was a really fun session and it was great to have a hands-on activity to wrap up the day, but at the end of the session, I was downright exhausted and ready to collapse. I actually did end up skipping out on the next session to get a nap, which was unfortunate since I really wanted to catch that session, but I figured it was less rude to fall asleep elsewhere than to fall asleep in the classroom.

* Water technologies tends to be a popular sector and none of the projects this year involved water, so we decided it would be good to bring in some speakers to talk about water issues. Since the panel on solar issues was called the Solar Panel, we debated calling this event either the Water Table or the Water Board.

Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra

IDDS 2011 - Other Work

2011-08-29T18:46:00.001+03:00

On my team I was a partinizer (participating organizer), which meant that I was in charge of making sure my team had all the resources we needed. From tracking down a high-precision scale so that we could measure how efficient our machine was to keeping tabs on what other teams were working on in case there was scope for collaboration*. I also made sure that all of our documentation was taken care of so that we can continue work after IDDS. And partinizers are supposed to make sure that the team is working together well, but that was the easiest task for me.

I was also on the evaluations committee which meant that I wrote up the weekly evaluations and then helped to compile the data after the fact. The evaluations committee is my favorite part of IDDS since it's a great way to identify areas where we can improve and act on it right away. I also love the people on the committee and it was a great way to get a lot closer to them (a lot of our work seemed to happen in the 1 AM to 3 AM timeframe). Of course, it's not all about filling in surveys--a big part of what we do is just talking to everyone and finding out what they're enjoying and what they'd like to see change. At times it was a bit overwhelming and it made me realize that as much as I love working on a team, I can probably accomplish more if I work as an organizer and put more time in as a problem solver, so I expect that next year I will do just that.

Then there's all the random odd-jobs that come up during the summit. I was on photocopy duty once, which involved a 45 minute search for a shop that was open. I was helping with some of the IT tasks, which mostly meant configuring people's computers to the hostel's internet settings--I felt sympathy for the IT team that spent a lot more time with random computer issues. I was also a back-up for the health committee which meant checking in on some of the malaria cases (there were a few fierce cases and Amit spent a lot of time making sure everyone received the care they needed) and cleaning a few wounds.

All in all, I felt like I was doing less than usual and it felt like we were a bit short-handed on the organizing team. But still, I was pretty impressed with everything that we pulled together this summer.

* In this case, there was one team that was working on a moringa sheller and another team that was using neem oil to help reduce the spread of malaria. We were able to help one another a lot with our projects.

Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra

IDDS 2011 - My Project (Part 2)

2011-08-28T20:43:00.003+03:00

After figuring out what kind of oil we were looking at, the next challenge was figuring out how we would actually extract the oil.

It seems that the most common method for extracting the oil currently involves grinding the seeds into powder and then putting it in boiling water. The oil can be skimmed off the top. Unfortunately, we were not able to observe this process firsthand or find accurate data on the yield through this process. Still, we wanted to explore other methods to see if they would improve on this process.

I was really excited about the prospect of solvent extraction--that is, using chemicals that can separate the oil from the seedcake. I was interested since it seemed like there was a lot of scope for designing a low-cost system that could use solvents to produce oil. The advantage is that once the oil has been separated from the solvent (usually hexane, but there are other compounds that can be used), the solvent can be reused over and over, while the oil that comes out is very high quality. Unfortunately, the solvents tend to be fairly expensive (it's not a recurring expense, but it still was going to set the price of our system higher than we wanted) and also somewhat dangerous (part of the process requires heating the system, and if that isn't done carefully, the solvents are highly flammable and can cause a lot of damage) and it is also one of the slowest methods for extracting oil. I was pretty disappointed when I had to concede that the system just wasn't viable.

We also built a hydraulic jack press, which used a car jack and a plunger to apply pressure to a chamber filled with moringa seeds. The system had a lot of advantages in that it was safe, easy to use and understand, produced very clean oil and could be built easily in most major towns. We played with a few different designs based on what we had seen with screw presses (very useful for palm and coconut since the oil flows out so well) and ram presses (uses a massive piston to deliver the huge amounts of force necessary to extract the oil from the seeds), but ultimately the press was leaving too much oil behind in the seeds, so we knew we would need a more efficient press.

A three ton car jack brings the plunger down to crush the seeds. There are small slits in the cup so that oil can flow out and collect in the plastic container.

We finally built a small screw expeller, which I was very skeptical about from the start. I had worked with a screw expeller called the Piteba in 2008 and found the machine frustrating to use and too inconsistent in its performance. Other people had reported more satisfactory experiences than mine, but I decided to spend more time building the jack press above. However, I had to say that it was highly impressive that they were able to produce a screw auger with variable pitch without computerized machinery. The auger was also slightly bigger than the Piteba design and much less expensive. We were able to tweak some elements in the design to improve the performance and by final presentations we were pretty proud of our final prototype.

Our locally produced auger. The diameter is 1.5 inches. You can see how the seeds are compressed as it moves down the channel in order to make it easier to extract the oil. Photo credit - Ben Chapman

As the user turns the crank, the seedcake comes out the end, while the oil comes out the slit and can be collected in the cup. It is necessary to heat the chamber to improve the yield. In our final design, we had a better looking funnel, heater and oil collection tray. Photo credit - Dennis Obwona

Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra

IDDS 2011 - My Project (Part 1)

2011-08-27T20:08:00.004+03:00

Our challenge was to find a way for people in local communities in central Ghana to extract oil from local crops (edible and/or medicinal oils, not the black stuff) so that they could generate income. We looked at all sorts of local crops, and I learned a lot about different oilseeds.

Peanut (usually called groundnuts in Ghana) oil seemed like it would have lots of potential, since so many families have a peanut farm and there are so many peanuts in the community. Additionally, peanuts are typically cultivated by the women where we were working (the main men's crop in that area is yams) so it seemed like a good opportunity to develop a venture with the local women. Unfortunately, after talking to shopkeepers, we found out that even if peanut oil were selling at 50 percent more* than the cost of the imported cooking oil (predominantly palm oil from southeast Asia) that most people in the community were already using, the cost of the seeds would be right at that level, meaning that there is not currently much money to be earned by the processors. That's not to say that a peanut oil venture in that area couldn't be profitable (there is also value in the high protein seedcake that remains after pressing the oil) only that the venture was probably beyond the scope of what we could accomplish in five weeks.

Neem oil seemed really exciting since there is some research to suggest that consuming neem oil can make people less desirable to mosquitoes and hence less prone to malaria. It also tends to sell for a price on international markets. And the trees grow abundantly in central Ghana. Unfortunately, other research was talking about possible side effects including reduced fertility. It's hard to know what to believe, but we figured it was better to focus on a seed that might not have so much bad press surrounding it.

Palm oil was an obvious candidate since people already cook with so much and even produce it locally for soap production. The palm fruit has lots of oil and the kernel inside has some oil of its own. Unfortunately, palm isn't grown in central Ghana and most of the palm that they process is bought from markets closer to the coast. The hardest part is that many people are so used to the shear quantity of oil that comes from palm that it is easy to be disappointed by other seeds with their lower yields.

We looked at essential oils from oranges and lemons. The sky-high price of the oils was very attractive, but the incredibly low yields and complexity of the process was somewhat off-putting. It was hard to nix the idea, but in the end, we felt that it was for the best.

Shea butter was a strong contender, but it is already extensively processed in the community and previous projects to find better technologies, teams have struggled in the past (I was a member of one of those teams). Kapok seed oil and cottonseed oil were both interesting candidates, but the current processing methods seemed rather efficient, so we figured it was better not to mess with a good thing. There was an interesting plant that they called a kei apple tree (however, it does not resemble the kei apple tree that is grown in East Africa) which was an interesting candidate, but it seemed like there would need to be quite a bit of work in market development, so we left it alone for the time being (it could be an interesting project down the line).

In the end, we opted to focus on moringa** oil. Lots of people in the area have started planting moringa trees since it restores health to the soil and the leaves are sold as a high value nutritional supplement. The oil is very valuable for cosmetics as it is capable of holding even the most volatile scents. And it is used in some Ayurvedic treatments and it is currently being branded in some circles as an aphrodisiac (I'm happy to support those rumors if it will help the market grow, but I have to admit that I had a bit of the oil and did not notice any change). Demand for the oil is pretty high, though it is not always easy for Ghanaians to reach those markets. Also, the seeds are incredibly light (we found an average of 0.3 grams per seed), and contain about 40 percent oil by weight, so it takes over 8000 seeds to produce one kg of oil if you have 100 percent efficiency (a fairly unrealistic assumption), though with proper care, research suggests that trees can produce 15,000 to 25,000 seeds, but the trees that we saw weren't producing anywhere near that level. But all in all, there was a lot of enthusiasm from the community (when we talked about the low yield, one person responded by suggesting that they plant lots of moringa trees as soon as possible) and clearly a market opportunity.

* Customers will pay that premium because peanut oil is easier to cook with and usually goes a bit further.
** The autocorrect feature has suggested that I look at enema oil and mooring oil. Dear me.

Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra

IDDS 2011 - Introduction

2011-08-26T19:08:00.005+03:00

I was in Kumasi, Ghana from July 2nd until August 9th for the 5th annual International Development Design Summit (IDDS). This was my third time on the organizing team and it was a really wonderful experience. I'm going to write up some of my experiences and put them up in installments. Check out the IDDS blog here This is going to be a rather long series of posts. Sorry that I don't have pictures to include.

Introduction
My Project (Part 1)
My Project (Part 2)
Other Work
Delivering Content
My Team
Language
Where We Stayed
Suame Magazine
New Longoro
Maker Faire
Food
Potluck
Ramadan
Transportation
Accra

My Visit to the Police Station

2011-08-26T03:51:00.002+03:00

Kenya ratified a new constitution last year that among other things brought in some much needed reforms to their judicial system. When I was in the police station, I saw that they may still have a little ways to go.

A man comes in and hands the officer a piece of paper. The officer opens the cell and lets a prisoner out. The first man explains that he is the lawyer and that the case will be happening in the afternoon and he wants to make sure that his client is ready. Then the lawyer tells the client that he doesn't want any surprises in the courtroom, so he asks the client point blank if he had any drugs with him when he was arrested. The client who was been staring at his shoes the whole time glances up at me and all the officers within earshot and asks if they can have the conversation some place private. And the lawyer takes this as a ridiculous request and demands that he just answer the question. The client sheepishly mumbles something and the lawyer thanks him and says that they will meet one another in the courtroom that afternoon.

The Wrong Move

2011-08-21T22:17:00.000+03:00

I'm not very good at chess. I always end up making a move with some brilliant plan in mind. And right at that instant when it's too late, I see that I've just given up my queen for nothing. I had one of those moments in Nairobi.

I was walking down the road at 8 PM, which is a pretty unsafe thing to do. I figured it was just 15 minutes to the spot where I could pick up my matatu and I've walked that road dozens of times (in daylight hours). I was being especially vigilant and walking rather briskly, even trying to stay close to traffic so that no one would have the opportunity to jump out of the bushes and grab me. I really pride myself on being able to judge situations.

Being vigilant is a bit tiring. After 12 minutes of my walk, I started thinking about the fact that when I got back to Upper Hill I was going to talk with my niece on Skype video. I've never had the bandwidth for a good conversation and I haven't met her in person (she was 8 months old at that time and she is so adorable) so I was really excited about being able to call her.

Just before I was about to turn the corner for my matatu stop, I hopped over a ditch and I realized that I had given away my queen. There were two men who had come out of nowhere and they shoved me right into the ditch I had hopped over.

One man took my bag.

Then he went through my pockets.

He took my wallet.

He took my phone.

The other man stood over us.

The piece of wood he was wielding as a weapon didn't seem too intimidating.

But if I had tried to move they could have kicked the s*** out of me then and there.

It was miserable.

Absolutely miserable.

All I could think was:

Can't people see what's happening?

Why isn't anyone doing anything to stop this?

It was over in less than a minute. I had the presence of mind to ask them for matatu fare so that I could get back to Upper Hill, and they left me with 50 shillings. I thought about the one holding the piece of wood. It was probably the size of a doorstop. I was pretty sure that he was on miraa or something stronger based on how erratic he seemed. So at least the proceeds of my belongings are in part supporting Nairobi's drug industry. I thought about the fact that the terrain was pretty slippery and I could have probably taken away the one man's footing really easily, but my prospects for escape weren't too good, so it was probably good that I didn't make things worse for myself.

I took stock of things and noticed that my keys were still in my pocket, so I was really glad that I hadn't lost that (my keychain flash drive is a handy gadget and I also have an IDDS logo on there that has a lot of sentimental value). I also still had my passport in my passport carrier hidden safely in my trousers. I mean, they were good at what they were doing, but they could only be so thorough if they were going to keep moving. Besides, they got my wallet*, my smartphone, my old phone, my iPod, my Kindle, my netbook**, my backpack*** and a few other random effects that I was carrying with me. Now, I never carry that much with me, and it was just a fluke that I needed to bring so much with me that day. Had I some shred of common sense, I certainly would have taken a taxi.

Physically I was fine. My back was a bit sore from where I had landed and I was really uncomfortable in my damp jeans since the ground was moist. In terms of value, I lost a lot. But that wasn't really what bothered me. I was concerned about all of the little things. I couldn't call my friends in Kenya to say good-bye to them before flying to Ghana. They got my driver's license which is certainly useless to them and which I regularly use and do not look forward to replacing. They took away my ability to check email, and I had lots of work to get done (and also a few blog posts that I had wanted to put online). They took away my pictures. I had a lot of books on my Kindle and I wasn't traveling with any physical books. And I wasn't going to have that video call with my niece.

I was really glad that I was staying at Upper Hill. Rich and Jessie take really good care of people in those situations and they helped me get everything sorted out. I went to the police station and filled out a report. They were pretty confused when I tried to explain to them that I had an electronic book. I don't expect they'll catch the thieves. I mean, they didn't even ask me for any kind of physical description, just the most basic notes on what, where and when. At the end, they told me that I should really be more safe in Nairobi and that I was lucky that I didn't get worse. I had to agree with them there.

* I had about $350 in cash in USD and Kenyan Shillings since I had the money that I needed for while I was in Ghana as well.
**Although with the damage to the screen, that one was probably worth about as much as the computer case I had.
***Joke is on them with that one too. The zipper was broken and I never could get rid of the smell of sunscreen inside of there.

The Last of My Vacation (Part 1 - Western Kenya)

2011-08-21T13:55:00.000+03:00

I had continued my intensive blogging about my adventures in Kenya and then Uganda, but unfortunately those posts were lost as well as the pictures. Now then, I left Nairobi and spent a few days out west with my friends Daniel and Jeff in Kisumu (they were in Peace Corps with me and have extended so that they are serving for a third year). They were wonderful hosts and hopefully I introduced them to some new exciting recipes in exchange for their hospitality. I was impressed with the amount and variety of fruits and vegetables in the market in Kisumu, but not much else about the city. Maybe I spent too much time in areas with open sewers or had too many arguments with matatu conductors, but I was pretty relieved when I hopped on the matatu out of Kisumu. I don't really know why, but I was having trouble falling asleep before 4 in the morning and was a bit groggy because of that. I probably should have made an effort to visit Lake Victoria, but I decided it was just easier to get out of town.

My next stop was Kakamega, which is famous for the massive forest outside of town. Arriving in town was a refreshing experience after my time in Kisumu. The air has such a fresh feel (probably due to the nearby forest--I grew up just a couple of miles from a wonderful forest preserve) and I was greeted by my friend Elizabeth (name changed as a precautionary measure). We had a few classes together back in high school and now she's a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kenya. Small world, eh? Anyway, I spent two days in her village which is a few kilometers outside of Kakamega and it was really nice. We spent a lot of time catching up on life back home and life in East Africa. She even baked cookies during one of the brief spells when there was electricity in the community. It was really amazing since I haven't had fresh cookies in a really long time.

It was sad leaving Kakamega, and I was planning on heading back to Bungoma to visit some folks there. Unfortunately, when I left Kisumu, I had forgotten my passport there, so I went back to see Jeff and Daniel again. I was also glad to see my friend Jessica who was in the Peace Corps group before me and is now in a nifty MBA program at Colorado State. We caught up for a bit before she had to run and catch a bus. Then Daniel and I made some quesadillas and the next day I was on a bus to Uganda.

The trip to Uganda was pretty uneventful (those are the best kind of journeys) and I arrived in Jinja late in the evening to meet with a donor who has been supporting my work in Tanzania. The organization brought together several of the groups they have been working with in East Africa to brainstorm some solutions to the problems that we've been dealing with and to find opportunities to collaborate moving forward. It was a crazy productive 24 hours and it was great to meet a lot of really cool people. I'm really excited about everyone who I met and definitely have some ideas for working with some groups in Kenya and Uganda.

During lunch the following day, a random person at the restaurant came up to me and asked me if I knew Amy Smith. He added that my IDDS shirt made me a bit conspicuous. Turns out he used to work with an organization that has collaborated a bit with D-Lab in the past. He was telling me some pretty horrific things about that organization, which were pretty depressing. Still, accountability is pretty low in this line of work, so stories like his are tragically common.

In the evening we went swimming in the Nile. It was pretty amazing. The current was super-strong and pulling us out, so we actually had a bit of a struggle to get back to land. Then a short time later, we saw some other tourists hop in the water nonchalantly and just start floating. We were a bit concerned, but we watched as the current took them in a nice circle around where we were and left them right back where they started. We ran back to the water and floated around the circuit twice. It was incredible.

After that, I headed down to Kampala to learn a bit more about a couple of the organizations that I had met there. I was pretty impressed with the massiveness of Kampala and the gaudiness of some parts of the city (outside the main mall and casino, there was a statue with some dinosaurs chasing a group of cavemen and cavewomen--I'm so bummed that I lost that picture). It was beautiful in some places, but there were an uncomfortable number of billboards with the Ugandan president looking at you. The most alarming one that I saw was the one that promised tolerance of most religions. I wonder which ones aren't tolerated.

I visited a group called Educate in Kampala and was pretty impressed with what they were working on there. I was talking a bunch with their technology manager about their work with cookstoves and making charcoal from agricultural waste. We were going on for 20 minutes before I asked him where he had learned so much about charcoal and he answered that he had found a bunch of pdfs online by someone named Amy Smith from MIT. Small world again. Well, we talked a bit more and after that I met some of the trainers who they've been working with in their program. All in all, it was a pretty enjoyable day.

After that, I hopped on a bus back to Nairobi. I opted for Easy Coach, which turned out to be anything but easy. (I've ridden with Easy Coach twice and they are 2 for 2 in disappointing me.) It was an overnight bus, and at 7 in the morning, our bus broke down and we stood in the frigid morning air (I haven't seen winter since 2008, so anything in the 40s is now frigid to me). So yeah, don't travel with Easy Coach.

I made it back to Nairobi to see my friend Jessica again and talk a lot more and then celebrate my friend Maria's birthday. I had a few more things to do in Nairobi before flying to Ghana, but I was pretty much ready to be done with adventure at that point, so I was looking forward to a laid-back 48 hours after that before flying out. Unfortunately, things didn't quite work out that way.

The End of the Hiatus

2011-08-19T11:53:00.001+03:00

Welcome back to my adventure tales. It's been a pretty crazy month and a half. I was doing so much crazy stuff and I hate to consolidate it so much, but I wanted to take a bit more time to reflect before I wrote about the end of June. You'll understand shortly. In any case, I'm grateful for the messages that I got from people while I was traveling. I'm back in Arusha and settling back into my groove* (cooking chana masala and my Thai peanut sauce with veggies and lots of Ultimate Frisbee), so fasten your seatbelts and get ready for the ride.

* Slightly complicated by the heavy power rationing going on. Power was out for about 22 hours on Monday and Tuesday, for 12 hours on Wednesday and for 16 hours on Thursday. Might also make posting a bit more erratic as I work to find an internet connection and the like.

Old pictures

2011-06-29T20:10:00.002+03:00

Sorry about this. I'm working through a backlog of posts and should be caught up to the present soon. In the meantime, enjoy some posts with pictures that I should have put up ages ago.

American Football

Sunday Frisbee in Arusha

Puppy 2.0

I spent a lot of time trying to get the pictures from the Frisbee tournament up here, but to no avail. Soon, hopefully

Vacation in Kenya, Day 5

2011-06-27T13:41:00.002+03:00

I set an alarm for the first time all week and woke up at 6:45. I gathered my things and left my duffle bag at the front desk at Upper Hill, while lugging a tote bag filled with charcoal briquetters to the matatu stage just up the road. I had an argument with a conductor who insisted on charging me 30 shillings for a 20 shilling ride, which put me in a bad mood. But then I hopped out and found Ben's apartment. I admired the view and it felt nice to feel the crisp morning air on his balcony. He was nice enough to let me store my briquetters under his bed* for two weeks until I get back to Nairobi.

We set off to the office. Ben works at iHub, so I was really excited to see this place after everything that I've heard about it. My favorite description is that it is Silicon Valley in a building (there are other spaces in the building besides iHub that enable it to serve a wide range of tech companies). As we walked in, I admired the decor of the room (chalkboards with notes scribbled, a huge wall map of Nairobi, a balcony with views in all directions and so on) and Ben bought me a chai from the coffeehouse there. I met some of his employees and got to see how things work at iHub. There was just so much energy in the atmosphere.

My phone had been giving me lots of trouble in Kenya, and so after 2 years of faithful service, I decided it was time to retire my trusty mobile phone and upgrade to a smartphone. I visited a phone store at the Yaya Centre, which had a wide selection and made it hard to choose . I'm excited about Android and the best part is that the phone has a camera, so it should be much easier for me to include pictures in my posts. I tried to learn as much as I possibly could about it, but unfortunately, the battery was pretty low in the phone so that had to be put off until later.

After that, I set off for City Centre and went over to the area where buses going to western Kenya leave from. I picked a company that seemed like it would be a good choice**, and they told me that they had a 1 PM shuttle*** heading to Kisumu. By the time the bus arrived at 2:15, most of us were a bit upset that they kept insisting that the bus would arrive on time (even after it was already late). So next time you're traveling to Kisumu, avoid Blueline Shuttles.

The ride was pretty low-key and I had plenty of time to admire the scenery. It was nearly 9 when we finally pulled into Kisumu and my phone battery was nearly dead (you would think I would know better by now, but then, there was a reason that I had bought a new phone). I called Jeff and Daniel (two friends from Peace Corps who have extended and are serving for their 3rd year in Kisumu) to get directions to their apartment. I couldn't quite get the whole idea (there aren't a lot of signs in their area, so they use abstract landmarks like "a shop that is made of those bags they sell charcoal in"), so I just had to take it on faith. I made it most of the way there and then hopped out of the tuk-tuk to roam around and ask people on the street if they knew where "the two white guys" lived. Everyone was very helpful and soon I found them waving to me.

I hadn't seen either of them in over a year, so we had a lot to catch up on. I wound up eating a bar of Weetabix for dinner (my stomach always feels a bit choppy after traveling, so this was actually a really clever solution) and we hung out until 2 in the morning.

* It's actually either a couch or a bench with a lot of cushions depending on who you ask. It's pretty amusing.
** There were a row of booking offices, and I wanted one with some people so that I wouldn't have to wait an eternity for the vehicle to fill, but few enough people that I wouldn't find myself crammed in somewhere.
*** A shuttle is a matatu with one less row of seats so that everyone gets a bit more legroom. It also usually doesn't have any goats or chickens on the floor. Probably my favorite mode of public transport.

Vacation in Kenya, Day 4

2011-06-23T17:52:00.001+03:00

I slept in once again, and decided to shift from the dorm to the tents at Upper Hill. Then I headed back to the Ghanaian High Commission one last time to collect my visa. I grabbed lunch at Java House and sat there reading my book for a while. I nearly left my passport, but a very friendly waiter grabbed me before I could abandon it.

I left myself a free afternoon to get caught up on internet tasks (including getting some fresh posts up here), and as I was looking for a cyber cafe, I ran into my friend Baraka (a breakdancer who used to hang out at our house all the time, but has been in Nairobi for the last 7 months) on the street. He was rushing off somewhere, but hopefully I'll see him in Arusha soon enough.

I spent a while in the internet cafe checking tasks off of my to do list. After that, I hopped a bus back to Upper Hill and waited for my friend Ben (also from the Unreasonable Institute) to give me a call. He was going to an Ethiopian restaurant called Smart Village, which was near Upper Hill, so I met him there. I shared a table with Ben and three girls who had gone to Brown who I didn't know. Our conversations wandered from place to place until we realized that we had been there for 4 hours. I was ready to walk back to Upper Hill (about 20 minutes), but they refused to let me. I was reluctant to take a taxi (I enjoy nighttime walks and hate feeling like living in fear only perpetuates Nairobi's reputation as a dangerous city*), but I ended up relenting. I also had to take a taxi that they knew, so rather than making a big deal over the fact that he was ripping me off ($5 for less than 2 km is rather absurd here), I had to pay what he asked. I was just glad to be in a tent and not faced with the noise in the dorm of people shuffling their bags starting at 5 in the morning.

* Not to say that the city isn't dangerous, but I feel like people try to make you feel unsafe, which really doesn't do anything for the reputation.

Vacation in Kenya, Day 3

2011-06-22T18:09:00.001+03:00

I slept in a bit and was glad for the extra sleep. I took the morning to take care of some work at Upper Hill. It was relaxing to be able to work with a puppy seated next to me.

Then I headed to town and got some passport photos and photocopies and printing done so that I could submit everything for my Ghanaian visa. I was rather frustrated as I tried to find a place where I could buy an overpriced tea and use free wireless to get some attachments from my email, but was unsuccessful*. I finally opted to use one of the pay per minute cyber cafes, which always makes me anxious as I watch the money tick with the clock (it'd be less stressful if the meter weren't on the screen the whole time). Then I went to the embassy and paid $110 and was told that it would be ready the next day and valid for 5 years. I better make it count, I guess.

After that, I took the matatu further up Limuru Road to the Village Market. This was my first time there, but it's strategic location near several embassies (including the US embassy) and UN buildings attracts a certain clientele. It had the only bowling alley I've seen so far in Africa (well, I've only been to 6 countries so far) and many other exotic shops. I wanted to take advantage of the free wireless internet in the food court, but I didn't realize that my battery was nearly dead and I couldn't find an outlet. I had already ordered some food from an Indian restaurant (it was delicious), so I read while I ate before heading back to Upper Hill (a very long process, as it was the start of rush hour traffic).

I dropped off my computer and went out to meet my friend Ari (he finished his Peace Corps service and now works in Nairobi). I walked about 10 minutes from the matatu stop to his house, which shocked him, since apparently one of his roommates had recently been robbed in that area. Well, I was fine at any rate. We talked for a bit before we went to a restaurant called Hashmi. There were lots of meat options on the menu (I would call it halal barbecue, but I don't think that's actually what people call it) and I wound up getting the mixed grill (a sort of meat sampler). I hadn't seen Ari in a year and a half, so we had plenty to catch up on. I learned lots about work in the refugee sector and had a delicious meal. Then we went outside to see if we could see the eclipse (we couldn't). He had just returned from a trip, so he went home to crash. I walked to my friend Maria's house.

It was already after 9, so walking was probably a bad decision once again, but I made it without event. We (Maria, Aisha and I) grabbed a taxi to a place called Brew Bistro and philosophized until 1 in the morning. It was amazing to drink different beer (I had a rich amber called Oktoberfest--a very nice change from Tusker). Then, I grabbed a taxi to Upper Hill and crashed.

* If you have suggestions in Nairobi, I'd be glad to hear them. I didn't find anything at Yaya, I know that Java House in Sarit has been out of late, though I didn't check at Dorman's.

Vacation in Kenya, Day 2

2011-06-21T17:40:00.001+03:00

I didn't have the most restful sleep, but I felt pretty energetic as I set out to tackle the day. I started at the University of Nairobi again and found the director there. I asked for five minutes of his time, which he said was the exact amount that he could spare (at one point he asked if I had made an appointment, to which I probably could have told him yes, but I admitted that I figured it would just be easier this way).

After that, I picked up a 107 matatu (which is apparently the same as 11B) and rode down Limuru Road. As we drove, I listened to a radio ad that told me that if I wanted better eyesight and stronger bones, I should eat more sugar--now fortified with vitamin A. I wasn't sure whether I should be impressed or worried about this nutrition strategy.

I hopped out where I saw the sign for the Ghanaian High Commission. I met a nice woman named Kate who was very helpful. She told me that the letter that I had received in Dar es Salaam was probably not going to help me to get into the country, but that it would suffice for the Tanzanians and Brit for whom I had obtained similar letters. I was relieved that it had worked out this way (I was dreading having to have them send their passports and find time to do all the processing) and felt once again how special being American can be. Sighhh.

I walked to a nearby supermarket where they had peach yogurt (how luxurious!) and made that my breakfast. I also discovered that my sunscreen had leaked all over my bag. Fortunately, it mostly just got on my laptop cord and a folder that I had and everything seems to be all right. I hopped on a matatu and after about two minutes, the rear tire blew out completely. The conductor changed it rather quickly and I was glad that the tire had blown in a nice scenic part of Nairobi instead of one of the many areas filled with dust, exhaust and other unpleasantness.

After that, I walked to Sarit Centre and decided to take advantage of their Tuesday movie deal*: 1 ticket + 1 hot dog + 1 popcorn + 1 soda for 450 shillings (just under $6). As it happens, Pirates of the Caribbean 4 was playing, so I got my first experience seeing a 3D movie. While I was very entertained by the movie, I found myself nearly as entertained by the 3D glasses and spent a lot of the movie playing with them to see what happens if you close one eye, or have one eye looking through the glasses and one without the glasses, or holding the glasses at different angles. The whole experience was a lot of fun.

After that, I ran across the street to Pizza Inn, which has a buy-one-get-one-free deal on pizzas every Tuesday. An important part of being a Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya is knowing the deals in Nairobi so that you make the most of your time there. (Also, there are tons of radio ads everyday in case you somehow forget about "Teriffic Tuesdays"). I felt more of my exhaustion melting away with the day and I was happy to head back to Upper Hill and have an easy evening.

I mostly sat and wrote a lot. My friend Sarah showed up later and we talked for a while. My sign language is pretty dismal these days (as my grandmother would say "you rest, you rust"), but I didn't let myself speak at all and she was patient as I misspelled most of what I was trying to finger-spell and then she would show me the word for what I was trying to say and she signed slow enough for me to get most of her meaning. We caught up for a bit and it was nice to talk to a Peace Corps volunteer who has readjusted to life in the states.

* This was my third trip to the movie theater since 2008. My last two trips were to see Inception and Harry Potter 7 Part 1.

Vacation in Kenya, Day 1

2011-06-20T17:28:00.004+03:00

Well, I'm here for relaxation, but of course I brought a bit of work with me. I did make sure to sleep in a bit before heading to town. I grabbed a yogurt at the supermarket and had a nice exotic breakfast (I don't know why there is so little yogurt in Arusha, but I'm going to eat lots of it while I'm here).

I first stopped by a shop where we have some of our GCS stock and found out that the dealer hadn't been able to sell a single product. Then again, it's hard to sell products that are completely hidden in some storage room. From there, I went to the University of Nairobi to visit the director of the FabLab. I wanted to talk with him about IDDS, and though he had told me he was pretty busy, I figured that I could grab him for five minutes since I've always found it best to communicate with him in person. Unfortunately, after waiting there for 2 hours, I decided I would try my luck a different day.

I grabbed a fruit salad from a street vendor which was delicious and then grabbed a matatu to go to the Ghanaian High Commission in Nairobi on Limuru Road. I had seen on the map that I wanted the 106, 107 or 108, but since I wasn't in City Centre, I figured that a 105 that said Limuru would probably get me pretty close. An hour later, I was well on my way out of Nairobi in an area called Limuru which is nowhere near Limuru Road. Oops. I wish there were some culprit for that besides my own stupidity.

Well, I was a bit frustrated at this point, so I decided to head to the Sarit Centre to grab a snack and use some wireless internet. Once I got there, I discovered that the internet was down (though it was nice to have a bagel for the first time in nearly a year) and was about to give up on everything when my friend Maria saw me there and made it her mission to get me out of my funk.

Maria was one of the fellows at the Unreasonable Institute with me last summer, so we had lots to catch up on. I met her intern Aisha (sp?) and saw her apartment. We sat down for tea and swapped stories from the past year and hen we got into a long talk about business models and by the end I was feeling a lot better. She even let me use her internet to send off some emails (I'm going to be pretty far behind on those for most of this vacation). After that, I grabbed a matatu back to Upper Hill feeling a bit worn out, but generally positive about everything.

To Kenya Once Again

2011-06-19T18:00:00.001+03:00

Leaving Arusha was quite a process as I tried to get all of my tasks done (I didn't) before I take a 2 week vacation (well, I brought work with me, but I'm definitely in my vacation mindset). I finished my work at the office at 2:30 AM on Sunday morning, and Jodie convinced me that I would be better off taking the afternoon shuttle. Definitely good advice, considering I was already sleep-deprived and hadn't packed yet.

So I slept in on Sunday morning, packed everything that I'll need over the next two months (hopefully*) including some rather unwieldy charcoal briquetters. When I get on my flight, I'm a little worried I will have to wear 5 or 6 layers so that I can carry everything. Oh well, at least I won't be carrying everything around Kenya while I'm here.

I said my good-byes and hopped on the 2 PM shuttle (brilliant advice, Jodie). I napped, but we made it to the border right at 4, so I was pretty impressed with the pace that we kept. I had no problem with the Tanzanian side of the border, but when I got to the Kenyan side of the border, they told me that my 3 month Kenyan visa that I had purchased 1.5 months ago was not valid. They explained that since I have a Tanzanian residence permit in my passport, any time that I cross the border (even if I go to Uganda), my Kenyan visa becomes invalidated. It sounded like a pretty made-up rule to me, so I intend to research that a bit. Either way, it seems like some pretty bizarre fine print. And a good way to discourage people like me** from coming to Kenya.

Well, I was a bit irritated by that rule, but it did feel really good to finally arrive back in Nairobi. I headed to Upper Hill Campsite where I ran into one of my friends who served in Peace Corps with me and we caught up a bit when we saw another familiar face. It turns out my friend Sarah (one of the Deaf Education volunteers who is herself deaf) is also back in Kenya and traveling around a bit, so we all caught up and I expect I'll see Sarah a few more times on the trip.

* Actually, I already know that I forgot my dress shoes. Well, I can always make presentations in sneakers, right?
** And by that, I mean expatriates who have lots of friends in Kenya but are working in Tanzania.

Kisumu pictures

2011-06-19T15:02:00.004+03:00

Welcome to Kisumu

My hosts, Jeff and Daniel

If I were spending more time in Kisumu, I'd definitely hang out in this park.

Leaving Arusha

2011-06-18T17:59:00.000+03:00

So my last week in Arusha was a bit crazy. I had a lot to finish up, and a lot of people to say good-bye to before I left, so I was definitely running around a bit.

On Thursday at Frisbee, I said my first round of good-byes, though since most of the players are Tanzanian, it was just a good-bye-for-two-months. Then on Friday, I played poker at my friend Shannon's house, which was a good way to wind-down after everything I was trying to wrap-up at the office. Saturday we cooked chapati burritos (I don't think we'd had them since January), which was delicious and a good final meal in Arusha.

After that, we went to a show at Via-Via to raise money for the Umoja Centre. My friends Rose and Claire work at the Umoja Center teaching youths who have dropped out of high school skills like English, performing arts, self-defense (actually, that's our friend Tara who isn't officially affiliated there), and a wide range of other programs. The past two years, some students from Juilliard have come to support the performing arts program, so the show was a nice fusion of Tanzanian and American performances. I was a bit mortified by the lighting situation*, but other than that, it was a wonderful performance. Then they opened up the dance floor and we all went crazy for about an hour before I had to run around and say good-bye to everyone before heading out. It was nice that so many people were all together in the same place so that I could say it all at once.

I will say that I'm really excited to be out of Arusha. Although I have lots of friends there, I felt more and more stressed in recent weeks and knew that a break was the healthiest option. I feel a little bad leaving some of my friends who are going through hard times right now, but I had reached the point where I couldn't offer much support.

Anyway, I'll be back in Arusha some time in August, but in the meantime, I expect to have lots of travel adventures to put up here.

* There was virtually no front lighting or side lighting, and in the back, there were 4 lights that change colors according to the levels of the music. Makes sense when you're playing techno. Not so much for opera...

Adventure in Dar, Part 2

2011-06-17T17:43:00.001+03:00

I took my day a bit more slowly. I woke up without an alarm (so refreshing to do that every once in a while) and set out back to the Ghanaian consulate. I was there in just over half an hour this time (or 1/8 the time it took the day before) and collected everything. As it happens, the consulate cannot issue visas (I knew this in advance), but instead issues a letter that allows you to get your visa when you enter in Accra (in most circumstances, you cannot get your Ghanaian visa in Accra). As I read the letter, I wasn't entirely assured that it would take care of everything. It was signed and stamped by the Ghanaian consul, which is a good sign (I think, anyway, the man in the office when I was there was definitely Tanzanian, so I am taking it on faith that this is all above board with the folks in Ghana). But really, all it said was that he had read all of my documentation and believed that I was going to Ghana for my stated purpose.

I couldn't really do anything about it at that point, so I shifted my attention ot my next objective which was visiting some shops in Dar to get price quotes for GCS. Jodie told me that I was looking for Jamhuri Street, which I had walked past several times the day before, so it was pretty easy to walk down the road until I saw the shops. I was grateful after my adventure from the day before to find my target so easily. Then I was waiting for a phone call (I wasn't positive that my phone would ring, I had tried to contact him for several months over phone and email and only got one or two responses, but this time, he had said he would call, and I even contacted his assistant and a co-worker to make sure that he would in fact call), so I went back to the shawarma place that I had discovered the day before and grabbed some lunch while I waited.

Right as I was finishing, I got the phone call and he told me to come to Oyster Bay and meet him at his office. I figured that since I was near the post office, I could get a bus there that would go in the right direction. Unfortunately, a few different people told me that I wanted different buses, but finally, the conductor of a purple bus told me that he could drop me at the Oyster Bay police station. I stood in a cramped aisle on the bus for some distance, and when I finally made it into a seat, I asked the gentleman next to me if we had nearly arrived at the Oyster Bay police station, and he told me that we had passed it quite a while back. I asked the conductor and he sheepishly admitted that he had forgotten about me. He was nice enough to only charge me for as far as I had wanted to go instead of how far I had gone. It didn't make me any less upset with him.

Then, I got on a bus heading back toward the Oyster Bay police station. My contact called me and asked what was taking so long and then asked to speak to my driver. I explained that I wasn't in a taxi (another luxury item that is generally not part of my travel budget) and asked the man next to me where we were. My contact said that I was really far from him and that he had to leave and wouldn't be able to meet with me. Then he told me that he was really disappointed, since he had really wanted to meet with me. I was really mad at that, since I might have actually paid for a taxi if he had ever given me the sense that he did in fact want to talk to make sure this meeting happened. In this case, it felt like he was trying to put the blame on me, and I really didn't need that.

Anyway, I headed back to my hotel. I decided to walk most of the way, since it was rush hour at that point. I picked a bus and discovered that I was keeping pace with it for the better part of an hour. When it finally started moving, I decided to hop on a bus to get back to my guest house. I wanted to treat myself to a nice dinner, but my options were pretty limited, so I just grabbed a snack from one of the street vendors and called that dinner.

The next morning I was on the 8 AM bus back to Arusha. It was a pretty easy trip, though we had to deal with a lot of traffic in Dar and didn't get in until just before 7 PM. Mic told me that was a ridiculously slow pace and almost as if to prove his point, he drove to Dar a few days later and on his return trip, he left at 6 AM and made it home by 12:30 PM.

Adventure in Dar, Part 1

2011-06-16T15:31:00.003+03:00

This story takes place at the end of May right after this. Just pretend I posted it in a timely manner.

My entire purpose in Dar was to visit the Ghanaian consulate--located in the NSSF building--to submit visa applications for myself and four colleagues in Arusha (1 Brit and 3 Tanzanians) to go to Ghana this summer for IDDS. My first morning in Dar, I decided to walk to an NSSF building near my hotel to see if I could get more information on finding the one with the Ghanaian consulate. Unfortunately, the woman behind the help counter looked at me like I had 3 1/2 heads, so I was about to head out when I saw that one of the occupants of the building was an NGO that had visited us in Arusha. I paid the Tanzanian Renewable Energy Association (TAREA*) a visit and talked a lot about the rather severe power rationing we had been experiencing the past few weeks (definitely makes a case for some of the renewables that they have).

After that, I walked out and found a motorcycle driver and told him that I was looking for the NSSF Building on Sokoine Road, near the airport (that was the full extent of instructions that I had for my destination). He asked some of the guys near the stand for directions and when he felt like he knew where we were going, we set off. I discovered that traffic in Dar is pretty miserable, even at 9:30 in the morning. Fortunately, my driver was an expert in weaving through the traffic and we made pretty good time. As we broke through the traffic, the clouds also broke and we found ourselves getting rather wet. We found the airport, but no NSSF building. A man on the road pointed us in the other direction and we soon found a nice NSSF building, and felt we were in the right place. I paid the driver 7000 shillings (about $4.50) for all his trouble (probably a bit generous, but I clearly had no idea where I was going and I was grateful that he didn't try to take advantage of me or anything)**. It had stopped raining at this point, but it rained on and off through the afternoon.

The NSSF office was very helpful and told me that I was in the wrong area. They tried to give me directions, but their landmarks weren't very helpful, so finally they told me to go to the Central Post Office and go to the big NSSF building near there. I thanked them and was relieved that I finally knew where I was going (mostly). I walked down the street trying to hop on one of the city buses (so much nicer than the daladalas in Arusha) to get to the post office. It took a bit of patience, but I got to walk around and see that part of the city a bit before I finally found a bus that had space and embarked on my journey to the post office.

When I got there, I asked the bus driver to point me toward the NSSF building and I thanked him. I hopped off and started walking down the street that he indicated. I asked someone for directions there, who pointed me in the opposite direction. This set in motion a chain of events where I asked probably 30 people for directions to the NSSF building (I was really specific and told them that I was trying to find "the big one").

I got a bit mad at one point when I was trying to walk down the street and a gentleman coming in the opposite direction blocked my path. I tried to go my left and he tried to go to his right. Then I tried to go to my right and he tried to go to his left. Only, he did this each time about 2 seconds after me and was clearly trying to block my path. I have to assume that this was partially related to the second gentleman who was reaching into my pocket at the time. Fortunately, I had nothing in that pocket and felt mostly pity that these two men had chosen a line of work where neither one of them was particularly adept.

After nearly 2 hours of this madness, I found myself back at the start and I asked a security guard for directions and he said "oh, near the police station?" and I remembered that as one of the landmarks that they had offered me when I was at the NSSF building near the airport. I thanked him and hurried down a road that I had already walked down three times. I made a turn that I had walked past and found the police station and clearly saw a building that said NSSF Waterfront House. Turns out that if I had said Waterfront, pretty much anyone would have known what i was talking about, but NSSF was lost on at least half of them (actually, that's not true--there were at least 3 NSSF offices in the area, so I'm pretty sure that people could have pointed me in any direction and I would have found an NSSF building pretty quickly). I was so overjoyed at finding it that I found a nice local restaurant and had some chicken and fries for lunch (a good way to replenish some energy).

I submitted all the paperwork and the officer told me to come back the next day to collect everything. After the four hour ordeal of trying to find the consulate, I knew that the best thing to do was to head back to my guest house and crash. I walked a little way and was clearly lost again when a friendly gentleman pointed me toward a bus that would get me back there. As I walked, I saw a place that was advertising shawarma, so I knew I had to stop in and take advantage. The chicken shawarma was amazing and I felt a lot better about everything that I had seen over the course of the day. It was good that I was feeling so positive, since the traffic to get back to my guest house was a nightmare.

I stopped at a huge hotel*** to use some internet and get caught up on emails. I also took advantage of the setting to get some fresh juice. Then I wandered back to my guest house and had a nice greasy dinner before crawling back to my room. I was pretty impressed with all that I had seen over the day and was ready for the pace to slow down.

* I'm assuming that there weren't any Spanish speakers in the room when they chose that acronym.
** To put it in perspective, while we were riding, his chain was rattling, so we stopped at a mechanic's shop for 5-10 minutes to have everything tightened, and the driver paid 1000 shillings for that.
*** Hotel is code for nice place. Guest house usually means really crappy place. Since I'm a budget traveler, I almost never stay in hotels.

Update from Kenya

2011-06-15T23:59:00.000+03:00

I am safely in Kenya and enjoying myself. I am seeing lots of friends and having lots of adventures that I'll put up here soon. The main challenge has been internet, so I'm going to try to schedule a series of posts to fill you in on everything that's been going on.

Hope you're all enjoying yourselves as well :)

Puppy 2.0

2011-06-12T20:03:00.000+03:00

We found a tiny puppy at the bar and decided to take her home with us. We named her Tumaini (or Tuma for short), which is a common Kiswahili name meaning Hope. She was probably 2 weeks old when we brought her home.

Here she is with my roommate Rose stealing Tuma's bed.

Tuma really liked climbing all over people. I always let her climb all over me.

I think my housemate Mic actually pulled off looking cuter than the puppy in this picture.

She also liked gnawing on fingers.

Sadly, Tuma got really sick and we had to put her to sleep on June 19 at the age of about 1 month old.

RIP Tuma.

2 more days in Arusha

2011-06-10T05:31:00.003+03:00

Don't worry, I'll be back here in August. On Sunday, I'm heading up to Kenya where I'll spend two weeks (with a sidetrip to Uganda in there) before heading to Ghana for IDDS. I'm going to do my best to get the rest of my Dar adventure up here as well as some pictures of various adventures soon, when the blog may fall into hibernation.

However, the fact that I have stayed up past 5:30 and not bothered to get medicine for the worms that are likely living in my intestinal tract right now should probably indicate how crazy things have been as I try to get everything wrapped up. Just bear with me here. But first I'm going to grab a nap before people arrive at the office.

Morogoro to Dar

2011-06-04T13:50:00.003+03:00

After my eventful trip, my time to Morogoro was pretty uneventful. Company training took up most of my time. We had to spend a while searching for a hotel with a room that could hold all of us for the training. Finally we settled on a place that was still under construction and had the training there. It was nice checking out the half finished upper floors and admiring the view of the gorgeous hills outside Morogoro. It was not as nice breathing in the paint fumes every day.

Anyway, after the training finished, I walked through Morogoro with our Sales Manager, Wema, for a meeting and then I walked to the other side of town to grab a bus to Dar es Salaam (or Dar for short). I enjoyed walking the town to get a sense of it and I was surprised how big it felt there. I got to the bus station and found a bus that was about to pull out, so I hopped right on. Morogoro is pretty hot this time of year, so even the five minutes sitting in the parking lot before we set out was enough for most of us on the bus to break a sweat.

The bus ride was uneventful and I was relieved to get in a little before 5. This was my first trip to Dar and I didn't know my way around. I picked the direction where the big hotels were and figured there would also be some smaller (read cheaper) guest houses in the area as well. I zigzagged for a little over 2 hours and the only guest house that I found was booked up. As darkness set in, my luck changed and I found a bar that had a dozen rooms in the back. It was 10,000 Tanzanian shillings (about $6.50) per night and was self-contained (the Tanzanian way of saying "en suite"). It didn't have things like toilet paper, towels or soap, but I've learned by now to travel with them.

I found a little restaurant down the road that was a nice local joint. I figured that since I was finally on the coast, I had better order some fish. Unfortunately, it was the same type and freshness of fish that I get in Arusha, but it didn't taste nearly as good. Then I walked back to my guest house and discovered that the bar stayed open until 1 with music playing. Once they closed down I drifted into a nice deep sleep to get ready for my upcoming adventure in Dar.

Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman

2011-06-02T17:34:00.000+03:00

**** Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman by Richard Feynman - This is just an all around fun read. Richard Feynman's memoirs tell the story of a man who has had lots of crazy adventures throughout his life. I especially liked the part where he was talking about his adventures picking locks and cracking safes.

He is best known for his successes in physics (he even talks about how burdensome his Nobel prize was in that field), but it was pretty interesting to learn about his exploits in biology, drawing, drumming and apparently lots of different stories about picking up women. I remember talking about him in college in one of my history classes (well, we talked about him in several of my physics classes as well) because of his interest in the culture of Tuva and especially the throat singers* in that region (they can produce two notes at one time, which is interesting from a physics perspective and also produces a remarkable sound). Unfortunately, that area of interest for him was not even mentioned in the book.

In any case, the writing is better than the writing of most physicists I've read, but it's not great writing. Still, it's definitely an easy and worthwhile read.

* I've only heard proper throat singing in a live setting once, and that was when Nripal demonstrated for us at the IDDS talent show last year. It truly is amazing.

Tanzanian shipping

2011-06-01T22:29:00.001+03:00

My friend Liz just sent me a message saying that a friend of hers had mailed a box from Zambia that finally arrived in the US today, only six months later. I laughed at her. Then shortly after, I got an email from a customer who had ordered a product from us last autumn. She said that it arrived today. I remember putting the box in the mail on October 4. So that's 240 days to ship a box from Tanzania to the US. That means that during that whole time, the package was moving at an average of 1.37 miles per hour. Yikes.

Freakonomics

2011-06-01T17:33:00.002+03:00

***** Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner - I am so glad that I picked this book up. I have been struggling to get through The Tipping Point and now I feel that I don't have to. I'm not really sure why people think that Malcolm Gladwell is so great. I was kinda bothered by the way that he tried to tie together so many things that seemed pretty unrelated into a narrative. It felt so forced. But even more so, I didn't like the way that he used data and found some of his arguments unconvincing*. Mercifully, Levitt and Dubner explicitly state that they aren't going to try to tie their topics together (it makes for a much more pleasant read that way) and at one point, they even tear to shreds one of Gladwell's chapters in The Tipping Point (they don't mention him, but they debunk his whole argument on the reduction of crime in New York City in the mid-90s, although they make a highly controversial argument).

Anyway, the book is an easy read and although they dwell a bit too long on one point, too much information is much better than too little. The cases that they study are interesting and they try to take a new perspective from the "conventional wisdom" (an expression that they attack as well). My favorite segment of the book involved identifying which teachers were changing students' standardized test answers to give themselves better marks for performance. It was a great case study and had tons of data (as all their cases did) and clearly showed that many present incentives are perverse. The book's greatest shortcoming is that they don't talk enough about solutions to the problems that they identify throughout. I understand that they are in the trade of looking at data and trying to turn them into usable conclusions. Still, they leave the reader hanging a bit when they don't talk about solutions to problems that they have analyzed in such depth.

All in all, it is a very interesting read and I definitely recommend it to people who haven't read it yet. And I am so glad that I no longer have any reason to finish The Tipping Point.

* One of my math professors used to refer to a method called "proof by intimidation" where you argue very forcefully on the basis that "it is because it is!" It generally shows that there is little substance and that the arguer is not willing to do the legwork to convince you using facts (in many cases, the proposition may be true, but that doesn't mean that the argument is valid).

The Omnivore's Dilemma

2011-05-31T17:45:00.001+03:00

**** The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan - If I had to describe Michael Pollan's writing in one word, it would have to be rambling. There were several points in the book where I just wished he would shut up and move on. Still, the content in the book is pretty interesting. He spends a lot of time looking at modern food processing in the United States* and studies a lot of different cases (both mainstream and alternative).

The book is definitely unappetizing at times and raises a lot of questions about the food that we eat (well, not me actually, since most of what he's talking about doesn't happen in Tanzania). He clearly admires the work at Polyface Farm and talks extensively about his experiences there contrasted against his experience on the corn farm and the beef-fattening plant he visits to see some of what happens before you get your takeout bag at the McDonald's drive-thru. It's really interesting to learn how many food additives are made by processing corn one way or another and a bit disturbing.

His comments about the failings of many regulations put in place by the government is perhaps the greatest thing to take away from the book. The Economist has been talking a lot a bit in some of their recent issues and it is definitely a system full of wasteful bureaucracy with a lot of room for improvement. If he could just cut about 100 pages of his inane commentary out of the book, it would be really great.

* He does refer to habits of people in other countries periodically, but does not get into much depth and takes a very grass-is-always-greener perspective.

Roadtrip to Morogoro

2011-05-30T17:20:00.001+03:00

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.

Sunday Frisbee in Arusha

2011-05-23T19:37:00.000+03:00

A typical Sunday frisbee match in Arusha. I just love how majestic it all looks with the mountain in the background.

Photo Credit: Angela Duquette

American Football

2011-05-22T19:42:00.001+03:00

There was a football game in Arusha. Not soccer, but American football. The team from Drake University in Iowa played against a team from Mexico. The New York Times wrote up an article on it.

I was at the game, but it wasn't too thrilling, until the 4th quarter where all kinds of crazy plays went down (including one of the teams clearing the bench). There was an announcer who explained what was happening and helped the first time watchers in the audience to understand the rules. All the explanations were in English (and using specialized vocabulary at that), so it wasn't entirely accessible to a lot of the locals.

My favorite part of the game was the halftime show, which featured a whole bunch of Masai tribal dancing. It was a really fun program. Then they gave American footballs to a bunch of orphans from Arusha. I'll let you know if the game catches on over here.

All photos credited to Tara Mastracchio. Really amazing pictures, Tara.

Word puzzle

2011-05-14T15:32:00.003+03:00

See if you can figure out what the following words have in common:
BEAUTIFUL
BRUTISH
CAUTIOUS
DEPUTIES
FLAUTIST
FUTILITY
MUTILATED
NAUTICAL
SOLUTION
UTILITARIAN

Last Friday I realized that I was dealing with some pretty serious fever and chills. My first thought was malaria, so I went to the clinic to get tested. The good news is that the malaria test came back negative. The bad news was that I did test positive for an infection. So I could add myself to that list above, since the answer to the puzzle above is that they all contain UTI. Get it? Since they all contain those three letters in the word and I have a urinary tract infection (UTI).

Okay, sorry for that. It turns out that men get UTIs as well. I have no idea how I got it (believe me, I wish that there was an interesting story), but I was peeing about 8 times a day in the middle of the week. At the clinic, they gave me two medicines and instructed me to take them twice daily for five days. I figured I was just on a pair of antibiotics. Well, I was half-right. Norfloxacin is an antibiotic that is commonly used in this situation. Diclofenac is typically used for pain relief. I had discovered last week that Diclofenac slows my brain down to a crawl, but didn't realize that I was taking it again (the pills were the same size, but slightly different color and had a different label) until a friend pointed out to me what they were (I told you they slow my brain down). Oops.

Anyway, the antibiotics worked and I'm feeling much better. Now I'm just buried in work since I didn't get much done this week in my delirious state.

Another visit to the doctor

2011-05-07T08:54:00.002+03:00

On Saturday night, we had friends over to observe Queen's Day, the wedding and anything else that people wanted to celebrate. We made a lot of falafel for the occasion. I didn't count how many pieces there were, but considering that we used 2 kg of dry chickpeas at the start (and 500 grams of shortening for the frying), I'm sure that there were more than 50.

After the party, Jodie and Joanna did most of the cleanup, but the next morning, as I was bringing the last couple of glasses* to the sink, I felt one slipping out of my hand. Since I was almost to the counter, I tried to lean forward and land it there. Unfortunately, I was just barely too far and instead effectively smashed it straight into the counter.

I looked down at my left hand and saw a small but deep cut where my middle finger meets the palm. I called out to Joanna since my other housemates were out and applied direct pressure. She brought me some sandals to walk out of the kitchen and helped me wash off the cut. She even sacrificed a kanga of hers to act as a temporary dressing since the cut was in an awkward place for a proper bandage.

My friend Phamy happened to be nearby, so he gave me a lift to the health to get it looked at. The nurse recognized me immediately and she picked up as though we had seen one another the day before (it had been nearly two months). She has a good sense of humor, so I was glad to see her. There was no line, so the doctor looked at me straight away and told me that it was a small cut and didn't need stitches, only dressing. The nurse immediately added that if I wanted stitches, she could stretch the cut a bit wider. The doctor came back and wrote me a prescription for an antibiotic and a painkiller and asked me if my tetanus shots were up to date. The nurse then explained that I shouldn't get any water in the wound and suggested that I should find a girl to bathe me for the next week and added that I should also look for one to bathe me following this week. I thanked her for her advice and went to have my prescriptions filled. My hand is still pretty uncomfortable (the bandage is pretty bulky), but I definitely left the clinic feeling much better than when I went in.

* We've had a bad track record with glasses at our house, so Jodie opted to buy some more robust glasses that are a bit more durable. They're definitely nice, but it turns out that when they do break, they're a bit more dangerous.

Frisbee Tournament in Mombasa - Pictures

2011-05-06T18:05:00.001+03:00

Here are the pictures from our trip to Mombasa for the frisbee tournament (see the story h e r e):

The most awesome team ever!
Back row from left: Rose, Angela, Tara, Claire, Jodie, Simeon, me
Front row from left: Shannon, Karina (aka Dutchy Dutch), Mic

This is the first picture that does justice to the crowding on the Likoni Ferry.

Morning warm-ups

All girls line-up

Our team with the other Tanzanian team (they came from Mwanza)

I gave a lot of pep talks throughout the tournament

Team dinner

Our trophies

Team pyramid photo (a couple of Ugandans found our spirit downright infectious)

Frisbee Tournament in Mombasa Day 4+5

2011-05-03T17:01:00.004+03:00

Monday was a nice relaxing day for all of us. We had a slow morning and tried to get all the moisture out of the tent and our sleeping bags before packing up. The remainder of the team was heading down to Diani Beach for a bit more relaxation, while I traveled with some of my Peace Corps friends back to Mombasa. Mercifully, they helped me get back across the ferry since I was hauling the tent and an extra sleeping bag. They also told me about some administrative changes that sounds exciting and of course, the conversation then devolved into politics as it always does.

Back in Mombasa, I ran to the supermarket for some snacks and then went to the bus station and booked a seat on the bus. Not a moment too soon, since I grabbed the last seat on the bus. Then I went and booked a room in a nearby guest house and just slept away the afternoon in front of the fan. Turns out going to bed late, sleeping in damp bedding and waking up early every day had caught up with me. I woke up at 8 PM and realized that I needed to grab a bite.

I walked down the street and noticed that I had tons of options. I couldn't help thinking that if I were back in Arusha at this hour, I would have trouble finding places that were open aside from the bars and they're usually out of food by then. I chose a nice outdoor grill and had a Swahili pizza (ground beef and egg wrapped in chapati and fried--in Arusha they call them Zanzibar pizzas) and discovered that they had Fanta citrus, which is my favorite flavor. I hadn't had any in ages, so I drained three sodas with my meal and struggled to push away the stray cat who wanted to share my meal.

I headed back to my room and climbed into bed. I was on the bus by 6:30, and I was glad I had a window seat, but I was in the very back row which I knew was going to make for a very long ride. I read for most of the journey, and during the stretch from Voi to Taveta, I felt every single bump and nearly knocked my head against the ceiling a few times. Otherwise, the journey was pretty uneventful and I was happy to be heading home.

Sadly, during our photo exchange over the weekend, I didn't end up getting the pictures of our team, so I'll have to put them up in a separate post.

Frisbee Tournament in Mombasa Day 3

2011-05-02T08:29:00.001+03:00

We weren't playing in the first game of the day, so we took plenty of time to warm up and decided that we would start our next game with representatives from five different countries on the line. At this point, our main ambition was to win the spirit award, so we were just going out there to have a great time. So as we lined up against Peace Corps, we had Mic (Tanzania), Karina (Netherlands), Rose (UK), Angela (Canada) and Simeon (USA) out there.

I was psyched for the game, since I knew most of the players on the team. We went into the half trailing 6-4, and to start the second half, we put 5 girls on the line. They reminded us that we only needed one on the field to match them. We replied with a friendly smile that we would try not to embarrass them. We kept the girls out there for two points and they scored one and yielded one, before we subbed some fresh players in (and provided a bit more of a gender balance). We lost the game 11-7, but we all had big grins on our face.

After that, they took the results from the 6 games that everyone had played and seeded the teams for a single elimination bracket. We were the 8th seed, so we were playing the 1st seed. As it turns out, that meant the Ugandan team that we had played once the previous day. We were a little tired following our game with Peace Corps, but we lined up against Uganda with five girls on the team. We had to assure this team as well that we were confident in our strategy and that this was a perfectly sane strategy.

We stayed with them all the way to the half, with the score seesawing back and forth reaching 6-5 their lead going into the break. Several of the spectators as well as the other team seemed to be wondering if we were really the 8th seed. Unfortunately, for the second half, they seemed to draw on infinite reserves of energy, and we couldn't keep up. They pulled away and won 11-6, eliminating us from the tournament. They joined us on the field as we made a pyramid and congratulated us on some really solid play before we took a bunch of pictures together.

We ate a big lunch and reflected on our stats for the tournament. We finished 0-7, but we had also played five of our games against the top 3 seeds (Uganda, Mwanza and Uganda) and we played each of the two teams in the final twice. There was another team that finished 0-7 and we never got to play them, and they were only seeded ahead of us since they scored more points. We talked about scheduling a friendly match, but we were all a bit tired, so we just shook hands.

We swam in the pool and enjoyed the perfect coastal weather. Unfortunately, I forgot to put sunscreen on my legs (they almost never burn) and in my 20 minute swim, I picked up a pretty nasty sunburn. I spent most of the rest of the day hiding in the shade. We did go to watch the final match (Uganda vs. Uganda) and we were happy that the team that we found more sportsmanlike ultimately prevailed. After that, there were a few more random Frisbee related activities.

Jodie, Mic, Shannon and Karina all left early, so we said good-bye to them. We grabbed dinner at Twiga, where they further disappointed us by charging us 200 shillings for an avocado salad (three of us ordered it) that was listed on the menu for 150. They assured us that the menu was wrong and that we should have asked them the price beforehand. This seems like a good place to reiterate my comment that the service at Twiga Lodge was really disappointing and I hope that people traveling to the coast find more pleasant accommodations for their stay.

At night, there was a big party where they awarded prizes, and we were really excited to receive the spirit award (combined with a frisbee and a carved keychain for each of our players). We were really thrilled and everyone seemed really happy for us. There were some games at the party, but I mostly found quiet places to talk to some of my friends from Peace Corps about how their projects were going. Then I started hanging out with the remainder of my team at the party and we didn't crash until after 1.

Frisbee Tournament in Mombasa Day 2

2011-04-30T14:25:00.000+03:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Frisbee Tournament in Mombasa (Day 1)

2011-04-29T17:27:00.000+03:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Walking at night

2011-04-29T02:25:00.003+03:00

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

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

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

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

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

The Millenium Trilogy

2011-04-27T17:17:00.000+03:00

**** The Girl Who Played with Fire & The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest by Stieg Larsson - Well, I finally got my hands on the next two books in the series and I absolutely devoured them. I have to say that I didn't enjoy them quite as much as the first book, (my review) though I'm not sure why. It was a compelling narrative with interesting characters, but it did feel like he was standing on his soapbox from time to time.

In any case, it's an interesting story and it definitely keeps you guessing. There are lots of characters to keep track of by the end of the series, so I had to slow down a bit to remember who everyone was and what they were supposed to be doing. But early on when we're only following a few characters, it's really exciting and a lot of fun to read. I was a bit perplexed by the proceedings in the section with the court case where they had a witness on the stand and called several other people to testify in the middle of the cross-examination. There were a few other parts that didn't make sense to me, but in general, the author was able to touch on a wide range of topics in the book without seeming out of his depth at any point (the computer experts may beg to differ, but I can say that his treatment of theoretical math was fairly well done).

So, if you have the chance, I definitely encourage you to pick up the books and give them a read. I wish that the series ended as well as it started and was not entirely satisfied at the end, but I don't want to spoil it.

An expensive dent

2011-04-20T16:48:00.005+03:00

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

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

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

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

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

Where I live aka Symphony in orange

2011-04-15T12:27:00.003+03:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

And the view to the right

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why our neighborhood is called "Banana"

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

Sisal charcoal

2011-04-08T17:31:00.001+03:00

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

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

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

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

Utilities and traffic

2011-04-07T17:52:00.000+03:00

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

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

This is why I can't have nice things

2011-04-06T17:44:00.001+03:00

Last week, my computer had an accident. Involving gravity

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

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

Two Ears of Corn

2011-04-05T18:08:00.001+03:00

***** Two Ears of Corn by Roland Bunch - I really enjoyed reading this book*. It is clearly written by someone who has spent a lot of time in the field and has seen a lot of failures in his work. The wisdom comes off without being preachy or condescending. I would strongly recommend the book to anyone who is about to go abroad for Peace Corps or any similar sort of development program.

The title comes from the argument that in order to feed the world as we move into the future, it will be necessary to grow two ears of corn in places where currently only one ear grows (although they also suggest that it may need to be three or more). The book offers plenty of grassroots strategies for increasing efficiency on small farms in the developing world in ways that are more likely to encourage uptake (for all the people who argue that people just need improved seeds, better fertilizer and improved tools, they are drastically oversimplifying the problem) and plenty of examples of failed programs that made foolish or arrogant (they use the word paternalistic a lot) mistakes and set their own work back by years, if not decades.

The most impressive part is that for a technical manual, it is incredibly easy to read. The book has a tone of cautious optimism (with plenty of weariness toward people who call themselves development workers, but tend to exacerbate the problems**) and makes sure to justify all of its arguments. However, the book is thirty years old, and the development field has evolved considerably since then. There are plenty of sections of the book that it is important to read critically. But overall, I think it's a very worthwhile read.

* I found the book for free here (pdf), but it was a bit difficult to read in this format.
* I also want to note that this book was recommended to me by one of the most unimpressive development workers whom I have met in my travels. When I started reading it, I fully expected to dislike the book, so the writing was a pleasant surprise. It also underscores the point that plenty of people can enjoy a book without taking in any of the lessons that it has to offer.

Quarter century

2011-04-03T15:32:00.002+03:00

Sorry I've been posting so infrequently. I actually have a ton of half finished posts right now, so look for a lot more activity on the blog this month.

Anyway, I just turned 25 and I had a wonderful birthday. I'm grateful to all of my friends and family who were with me (physically or in spirit). And a huge thanks to my friends Liz and Shannon who hosted a Game Night and baked a delicious chocolate cake.

Danny

2011-03-21T20:02:00.001+03:00

So back in October there was a cute puppy outside our office. Probably born in late September. I played with him so much that Glady started calling him Danny. Then, one day, the owner let us have him, so we took him home.

Danny can be a bit of a handful. He's supposed to be an outside dog, but he would run in every opportunity he got. And this kinda happened (okay, so we weren't that bad, but we definitely let him fend for himself some nights since there are some nearby restaurants where they leave meat scraps for the local dogs).

Anyway, three weeks ago, he tried to follow me to town, but discovered that he's not allowed to ride daladalas. I'm pretty sure that someone picked him up and sold him (there are tons of people selling puppies on the street in Arusha). I'm a little sad, but I'm sure he found a good home (he's clever enough to run away if he's not happy). And I'm hoping that I'll get to see him sometime. He could be a handful, but he definitely grew on us. Oh well, Juju still visits us from time to time, so we still have puppies around.

My New Project

2011-03-11T03:58:00.000+03:00

I have a new project that I've been working on for a little over a month now. My colleague Bernard and I have been working in villages outside of Arusha on a technology design program*. We are working with villagers to empower them to create their own technologies. We have now made five trips out to the villages and seen some pretty impressive results. We've been supported by some students and staff from MIT's D-Lab (including Becca, an MIT alum who has been helping us develop this program) and GCS.

Terrat Ward Office in the village of Mkonoo

On our first trip in November, we went to Mkonoo (see above picture) and met with community members as well as some guests from the next village (called Nadosoito) to explain our idea and gauge whether there was interest. A few people were clearly excited, a few were intrigued, and several people in the room were definitely not interested. So we made a return trip in January with plenty of fanfare. We had Becca, four MIT students, a Wellesley student and a camerawoman. The session focused on identifying problems and brainstorming possible solutions as well as an introduction to the design process. Since the focus was on local problems, we were able to break into teams and investigate the issues that people had identified and gain a fuller picture of the problem before tackling it. The language barriers were a bit tough, but there was plenty of excitement both from the villagers and from the students, which made it clear that we were definitely doing something right.

One interesting thing that we noticed after the first session was that nearly half of the 14 participants came from Nadosoito and they were some of the most active participants, so we decided to conduct the future sessions in Nadosoito. When Bernard and I made the return trip, the university students had already returned to Boston, but Becca was still there to help us with implementation and we brought with us four mechanics from the GCS workshop. This time we had sixteen people come, which seemed to be a good testament to word-of-mouth marketing. We looked at how ideas evolve and how to evaluate different designs. Then everyone broke out into teams to try to develop a plan for what they wanted to build.

The fourth session happened to conflict with another event in the village, so attendance dropped below ten (I also missed the event since I was feeling rather under the weather). The fifth session had to be postponed because the weather meant that most people had lots of work out in the fields (definitely par for the course). However, rescheduling worked out really well, because when we went back to Nadosoito, we had twenty people show up. This time, Becca had gone back to the US and Bernard was nursing an injury, so it was just the four mechanics and myself. The session focused on using tools, and since my vocabulary is particularly limited in that area of Kiswahili**, I let the four mechanics run the session. I was really impressed with how well they were able to present the content. I was jumping in a fair bit with suggestions ("make sure you're explaining what you're doing as you do it", "why don't you ask someone to help you show how it's done", "maybe you can help them see how to read the numbers on the tape measure"), but I was really impressed with their ability to run the session on the fly.

Still, the best part of the session was when we asked the participants to show what they had learned the previous time on making a corn sheller out of sheet metal. We stayed silent in the back (though some of the participants were pretty vocal in offering suggestions) as the brave participant showed how to make a corn sheller. The only time I piped up was to ask for more participation from the female participants, who after a bit of coaxing outshone the men in their capacity. Then, one of the new participants showed what he had learned and made a beautiful corn sheller of his own. The whole session was punctuated by one of the previous participants talking endlessly about how well the corn sheller had worked when he tried it.

We're following up this coming week to see what sorts of solutions they've come up with to the problems that they identified. I have no idea what to expect, but as they said at the end of the last session "we have understood how to think about the problem, we have understood how to use the tools to build, now all that is left is to build our solution." I'm really excited to see what comes out of this.

Group discussion of one of our activities the first day

Bernard assists one of the participants to explain his team's ideas for a cookstove

Photo*** credits: Mario Bollini

* We're still looking for funding to continue this work and would really appreciate your support in this campaign (link to support page).
** All the sessions have been conducted in Kiswahili, which has been slightly more advanced than my ability several times, but people have been very helpful. I was mortified at one point when I looked at a room full of blank stares and realized that I was speaking English without even meaning to.
*** I'm really grateful to Mario for taking these pictures and sending them to me. He really is an outstanding photographer

More Adventures in Tanzanian Health Care

2011-03-04T19:43:00.002+03:00

Sorry for the long lull, as the title implies, I think I have a pretty good excuse.

On Sunday, I realized that I was feeling really lousy and had been low energy for several days. I rested the whole day and didn't feel any better, so I decided that I should go to the clinic. Monday morning I decided to go to a new clinic that Joanna had recommended. I wasn't sure what to get tested for since my symptoms were all very vague.

The waiting room was empty when I arrived, so they created a folder for me quickly and then I waited for the doctor to arrive. He asked me a few questions and then sent me to the lab for some tests. The lab technician was a very friendly lady named Innocence who took some of my blood and ran other tests. The power was out, so even though I was the only person there, they were on very low capacity (they were using a back-up generator--the power has consistently been out 8 hours per day and there are rumors of increased rationing) and I had a lot of time to sit and wait. After nearly 3 hours (a good amount of time to get caught up on The Economist, which I've been behind on since December), they told me that two of my tests were complete, but it would still be a while before the third one was finished.

The doctor explained to me that I had a high white blood count, which meant that I was fighting an infection. He said that further tests had shown that I had worms and heliobacteria (apparently they can cause ulcers) in my digestive system. He prescribed me some antibiotics, anti-helminthic (worm-icide) and an anti-ulcer medicine and told me to come back the following day for my remaining result.

Since then, it's been a busy week. I've been frantically working at the office to meet some deadlines and I had a very long day in the field on Tuesday. When I went back to the doctor on Wednesday, the receptionist gave me the wrong file (if I'd wanted to, I could've read the file on one of my friends--although to be fair, I had that opportunity as well on Monday when the doctor left me alone in his office with that same file), then she left me out of the queue (there were four people there that day), so I had to wait almost two hours for my five minute consult (although I did enjoy joking with Innocence again and I had plenty of time to read The Economist). Turns out the long-awaited test results didn't really provide any new information, although the doctor did congratulate me on "having a lot of blood" and even shook my hand when he told me the news (I have no idea what it means). At first, the antibiotics were making me fuzzy-headed, but now they're making me a bit nauseous.

Needless to say, I can't wait until next week when this is hopefully all behind me. I mean, I still need to go for follow-up tests, but I can bring a book or something.

Sacrilege in the Kitchen

2011-02-23T19:40:00.000+03:00

I've got a long streak of good luck in trying new recipes. I decided to try a new Indian recipe. Since saag (a spinach dish) is one of my favorite foods, I was really excited to give it a whirl. Now, most people know saag from Indian restaurants as saag paneer, where paneer is an Indian cheese. I realized that I was probably not going to take the effort to make the cheese and didn't have the money to buy some cheese, so I decided to buy some meat from the local butcher. Most butchers just sell beef, so I bought a half kilo and cooked up the sacred animal of the vast majority of India to put into an Indian dish. Also, I rarely cook meat these days, but we just got a new cleaver, so I was really happy to put that to use. (Thanks Becca, Mario, Arfa, Bina, Colin, David, Fareeha, Shavi and Vanessa!)

So, the recipe called for a lot of butter, for which I substituted a healthy amount of oil, a bit of margarine and some coconut milk. It actually worked out really well. I mean, not for our arteries, of course. But the coconut milk gave it a nice creamy quality and mixed really well with the spices. Mixing some kale with the spinach also worked out nicely. And the tomato, onion and carrot gave it some nice color.

Oh, and after attempt #2 and #3 to make falafel were rather unsuccessful, I am proud to report that Jodie and I made some delicious falafel on Monday night as we watched Mean Girls.

Electrical Adventures

2011-02-21T19:18:00.000+03:00

There's a technical theater joke that goes:

Q: What do you call an electrician who is trying to do carpentry work?

A: A bad carpenter

---

Q: What do you call it when a carpenter who is trying to do electrical work?

A: A dead carpenter

Though I haven't done much carpentry or electrical work in a long time, this weekend made me think of the latter half of the joke.

Our power was out most of the day Saturday. It came back for the rest of town, except for our house and the ten or so immediately surrounding us. In the past, we've had problems with the wind knocking loose the wire that connects to our house. To make sure that wasn't the problem, I climbed on the wall that surrounds our compound and inched along the top surface to the offending wire (the wall is made of concrete blocks and is 2 meters high and the part I was standing on was about one foot wide). I used a broom (isn't that always the tool electricians use? -- I would've used a fork but they just weren't long enough) to try to knock the wire back into place. It didn't accomplish anything, but at one point, I fell and just managed to stay on the narrow platform I was on (probably would've broken something if I'd fallen to the ground). Turns out it was a different problem (never actually explained to us) and finally at 9:15 pm (13 hours after power was cut and 3 hours after it returned to everyone else) our lights came on.

On Sunday, the situation was different. Power went out at 9 AM, and we could hear radios and welding kit in the neighborhood, so we knew everyone else had power. I was in town most of the day, but when I got home, I felt more confident. I climbed the wall with the broomstick and poked at the wire again until I saw an enormous spark and our lights came on. I was a little startled, but after my stumble on Saturday, I kept my feet firmly planted.

We're still losing power for an average of 8 hours a day due to rationing (including today). Kinda makes me miss my Kenyan village where power was much, much more reliable than the third biggest town in Tanzania...

The Mang'ati

2011-02-18T17:47:00.001+03:00

I live in Arusha, which is home to the Masai, one of the most well-known tribes on the continent. Many tourists consider learning about the Masais to be an essential part of a trip to the area. There are plenty of Masai markets selling both authentic and mass-produced goods for the tourists (lots of tourists wind up buying Masai goods made in China). Arusha also has many members of the Meru tribe* and the Chagga tribe which are less well-known, but still somewhat popular with the more hard-core tourists.

Throughout the country, Tanzania has more than 120 tribes** and to be honest, I'm not sure I can name more than 10 of them (I only know that many because as the company's HR guy, I have to ask all my co-workers about their tribe for reporting). My friend Phillipo is a member of the Mang'ati tribe (that's what he calls it, although it is also called Datooga by some people). He's tried to teach me some Kimang'ati (the language of his tribe) and tell us about some of the cultural rules (they sound like they have very interesting dress and live by a rather conservative set of rules). I promised that I would head down to his homeland with him the next time he travels that way to see everything first hand and, of course, tell everyone how interesting the Mang'ati are.

Philipo runs a barber shop five minutes from my office and I went there a couple times before I saw him at Frisbee (he was actually a Frisbee regular before I started going). We've walked back from Frisbee a few times and had plenty of time to talk. One of his aspirations is to bring more Mang'ati products to Arusha and set up a stall where people can buy products from his tribe and learn more about their traditions. As Philipo pointed out, there are definitely more white people in Arusha than members of his tribe (an accident of geography, I suppose). I'm really looking forward to seeing his community in a couple of months and I'll be sure to bring lots of tales of adventures back with me.

* Unrelated to the Meru tribe from Kenya, which is much better documented on wikipedia.
** I've seen a few different numbers for the total. I'm sure the government has a list of recognized tribes, but I'm not sure where to find that. Also, some people prefer to call them "ethnic groups" instead of "tribes", but overwhelmingly the Tanzanians I've encountered say "tribe", so I'll stick with that.
*** The "ng' " sound does not exactly exist in English, and I would have a hard time describing it on the blog.

Return to sender

2011-02-18T04:39:00.001+03:00

Just received the following email from my uncle. Definitely made my day :)

Hi Daniel:

Amazingly, I sent you a holiday card in December 2009 addressed to your Peace Corps address and after only 13+ months, they returned it to me...but not to worry, it was "Screened and Cleared by Embassy Security."

Keep Smiling :-)

Frisbee in 2011

2011-02-17T07:36:00.000+03:00

Well, what started out as a small game has become the high point of the week for a whole bunch of us here. There are nearly always a few new people (the expatriate population seems to be growing slightly faster than the Tanzanian population) as well as a growing band of regulars. Last week we had 24 people and had to break up into two games.

The games sometimes get a little competitive but it seems like everyone has a good time. The teams are always a good mix of beginners and veterans and expatriates and locals. I try to make sure that everyone is getting the Frisbee and I sometimes offer coaching tips (it seems like it's appreciated, I hope people will tell me if it bothers them) and try to be encouraging. It's nice that we're all trying to help one another improve--another regular named Shannon has started offering skills training before the games on Thursdays.

We typically grab drinks after the game and hang out. We're also hanging out a bit more outside of Frisbee. One of the Tanzanians just invited me to go to his village (about 4 hours away) when he goes back there in a couple of months (more on that soon). Other people who are new to the area have talked about going on hikes or meeting up for potlucks. All in all, it's a really great group.

Arusha Nights

2011-02-15T18:15:00.001+03:00

So I have been avoiding my blog a bit, but I feel like I'm back on track. I need to consolidate a bit or else I'll never actually catch up. And since I can tie in the old stuff with the present this way, it seems like it's the best place to start.

Masai Camp is listed in a lot of the guidebooks as a nice campsite. I'm sure that 5-10 years ago it was. Now it's one of the most popular clubs in Arusha and trying to get a good night's sleep there is nearly impossible (on Saturday night/Sunday morning, the music usually cuts out a little after 6 and you can hear it at our house, which is over 1 kilometer away). In 2010 I went there a grand total of 3 times, which was a reflection of how anti-social I was for the bulk of 2010. Anyway, within the first 10 days of 2011, I had already matched that record.

For New Years, my friend Nick was just finishing up his Peace Corps service (he was my closest volunteer in Kenya) and so we went out to Masai Camp. We got there right before midnight (it's nearly empty until 11 PM) and were just in time to countdown to the new year. It was a fun crowd that night, but since they were charging 10,000 shillings (about $6.70) cover charge (usually it's 5,000) so the floor had more expatriates than normal (and I was getting a surprising amount of attention from strange Indian men). Nick and I were out there until 2 before coming home. We went back the next night since it was Saturday and it was a much more Tanzanian crowd. I was glad to see a bunch of people who I knew and was really bummed that I couldn't enjoy the night more since I had a headache.

The next weekend, we had a group of MIT students staying with us (I'll have a few more posts on this, don't worry), so we took them to Masai Camp. It was a lot of fun and we enjoyed being such a large group on the dance floor. My favorite part was being with people who weren't used to all of the typical East African club music (plenty of it comes from America, but there's a good bit of Nigerian Pop and Bongo Flava). Anyway, there were some pretty intense Masai guys there that night, which made it even more fun. Since we were a big enough group, some of us walked home afterward and could hear the music the whole way.

After keeping up that pace, I needed some time to rest and to let my wallet recover. But this weekend my friend Pat (a fantastic Frisbee player from Australia) was having his good-bye party, so I grabbed some Japanese food with a bunch of the Frisbee crew and then they said that they were going to Empire Sports Bar and after some cajoling, they convinced me to come along. It was really exciting. We arrived at 8:30 and there was a live band playing and pretty much no one watching the soccer match on the TV (seemed weird that no one at this sports bar was interested in sports). We split into two tables (one inside where it was pretty much impossible to talk over the music and one outside where people were sharing their travel stories). I moved a bit back and forth between the two. Mostly I was reverting back to my anti-social tendencies (as people were talking about life in Korea and Japan, I was reading The Economist on my phone) and I was ready to head out of there around 11:15 since some of my friends were driving back down to my side of Arusha and I was kinda tired.

One friend brought me out onto the dance floor as I was saying my good-byes and I wound up staying another two hours. The band was a group called Warriors of the East and most of their set seemed to be Bob Marley's greatest hits. The energy was really great and most of the Tanzanians came over to dance with us. There was one huge guy wearing a Boy Scouts shirt he had bought in the market. He kept lifting up Claire and Rose (a couple of our Frisbee players who work at the same organization as Pat) sometimes at the same time, which was kinda cool at first, but probably got a little old after the third time. The only Tanzanian in our group (Jerry works with Pat as well and is crazy good at Frisbee) was an absolute riot out there and kept it crazy. It's been a long time since I've had that much fun on the dance floor.

There is another major club in Arusha called Via-Via, which is typically packed on Thursday nights. Now that IDDS meetings have been moved to 3 AM, I may go every once in a while. I haven't been there yet this year, but I'm trying to be more social.

The Ugly American

2011-02-07T19:41:00.002+03:00

***** The Ugly American by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer - Wow. The last time I enjoyed reading a book this much was when I read The Arrow of the Blue-Skinned God by Jonah Blank back in 2003. Burdick and Lederer write a biting account of American diplomatic policy in Southeast Asia in the 1950s. Even though the characters and some of the places are fictional, as I read, I could tell that real people had done nearly exactly what was being described.

At times, the tales were mortifying; at times, they were inspirational. The book had its funny moments and its instances of sadness. The characters were a bit black and white, either terribly likable or just generally disgusting, but then, the authors had their agenda. They were definitely picking apart a deeply flawed system and trying to bring recognition to some unsung heroes. As they acknowledge in the epilogue, the heroes are based on actual people, and I think it would be really interesting to unearth their accounts. Of course, the buffoons who are documented as well are based on actual officials and sadly, I had no problem envisioning these figures in the time the book was written and even drawing parallels to people in my own experiences.

As someone living overseas, the book made me reflect a lot. The authors set a high bar for expatriates and I know that I don't live up to their standards, but it does give me something to aspire to. I haven't met anyone quite as despicable as Louis Seals or some of the other high-ranking characters, but the stories of buffoonery in the book definitely made me recall people who I have come across here. This book should be required reading for people going to live in the developing world (I would recommend it to all Peace Corps volunteers before they leave the US).

Corn Shelling Emergency

2011-02-07T10:29:00.001+03:00

Last night at 10:15 PM my phone rang. I didn't recognize the number. Turns out it was a prospective customer. I don't have any sense why he thought that 10:15 PM was a good time to call and ask the price of our machines. After he hung up, my brain started constructing scenarios involving situations where the fate of the country depended on this man removing kernels of corn from the cob before midnight and other such melodrama. That's normal, right?

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

2011-02-06T14:10:00.002+03:00

***** The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson - I am proud to say that I missed the big craze around The da Vinci Code and other bouts of popular fiction. But I saw this book for $10 at a used book stand in Arusha (less than I would've paid on Amazon) and decided it would be a good investment. Just under 72 hours after starting it, I found myself on page 570, finishing it up. If nothing else, the book is a page turner. The characters are interesting, the story is compelling and I'm a sucker for a good mystery. It found a nice balance where it was neither obvious or far-fetched and had just the right amount of action.

A friend warned me that the book was a great exercise in product placement. It was a little tedious when they offered links to download software that the characters were using, but I felt like in the author's eye, it was important to specify whether a character was using an iBook or a PC just as other authors feel compelled to specify whether a character is driving a Ford or a Toyota (he did that a few times as well). I was curious if the author was referring to the products to add detail or out of personal preference or possibly because companies had paid him for mentions.

Still, I'm looking forward to finding The Girl who Played with Fire at a used-book stand. I really enjoyed this reading experience and it was nice to read a recently written book. I can definitely understand what the craze around these books is about.

Electricity

2011-02-04T19:24:00.000+03:00

We've had some problems with electricity recently. We pre-pay our electricity bill like we do with phone credit here (I'm a big fan of that), and we thought at first that we were just out of credit. Upon closer inspection, though, we discovered that the wind can actually knock loose one of the wires that runs to our house. The solution is to stand on the roof of a car with a stick and knock the wires until the lights come back on. It's the windy season, so we're doing this quite a bit.

A Bit of a Funk

2011-02-04T03:10:00.001+03:00

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.

Not Enough Time in Lusaka

2011-01-21T17:45:00.001+03:00

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.

Appropriate Technology Workshop Part 5

2011-01-20T17:23:00.000+03:00

On the third day of the workshop, we were doing a lot of work on finishing up projects. But, the workshop wouldn't be complete without a charcoal demonstration, so in the morning, we did side-by-side charcoal burns. We tested out the kiln that they had assembled a few days before as well as an oil drum. As Kofi talked a bit about the kilns, I was running back and forth to the kitchen to make sure that we had materials to demonstrate charcoal binding (the ones I had collected the previous day had been thrown out--understandably so, as few people would assume that someone would want to save those concoctions). Fortunately, that was all set, so as we talked about the process, Amy and I went back and forth explaining. It was slightly difficult, since I hadn't conducted a burn with her in over two years and the process had evolved, but we still had a good time presenting. At one point, I was trying to explain what was going on while I was completely engulfed in smoke as the water vapor burned off. However, all in all, the process went well and people were pretty excited about everything. We had some issues sealing the brick kiln, which led to a good discussion on how to improve the design, but people were excited to be asked for their input on improving the process. And we closed the demo with David and I talking about briquetting, which was a really fun conversation.

Most of the rest of the day was project work. It was nice to see the designs taking shape. One of my favorite contrasts was a Zambian designed hand-washing station that was about the simplest design I've ever seen next to an American designed one with rope following a crazy path and four pulleys that still didn't seem to work quite as well. I was really impressed with the mango picker (and even tried it out a few times to help some of the other teams get mangoes for slicing, peeling and pressing). I enjoyed watching the evaporative cooling team think about the possible uses for their unit. I was blown away by the seed planter (Bernard couldn't conceal his amazement, and it takes a lot to wow him). I enjoyed looking at the corn shelling designs and lots and lots more projects taking shape. Even Bernard was working on a valve for the well-digging tool so that we wouldn't have to get as muddy (after we all took our first crack at laundry, we were definitely grateful for that).

The volunteers cooked for us again, which was wonderful again and after a peaceful night, we were trying to get everything ready to show visitors from the community. Unfortunately, the worst of the rain came that morning, so we decided to cancel the showcase. But as we were canceling it, the weather cleared up significantly and we decided to un-cancel it. I was most excited to redeem myself with the oil presses (we didn't have enough peanuts to fill the screw press, so we were using it as a mango press, which was interesting in its own right). Everyone had a final burst of energy to get things as close to ready as possible.

As people started arriving, we talked a bit with them about what they would be seeing and then let them wander through. I couldn't resist sharing my thoughts on charcoal making and peanut shelling, but I was mostly talking about oil presses. People were impressed this time by how easy it was to use and enjoyed trying it for themselves (I made sure to explain that there are plenty of difficulties with the design as well). There was one visitor who felt compelled to tell all of us that none of these machines would be useful in the villages. All the villagers loudly disagreed with him (he was clearly urban and had spent little or no time in his life in villages) as he went from place to place, but that didn't stop him from offering his "expert" opinion every time. I saw it as a good example that if you just listen to one person who is happy to pretend they know everything, you can get a lot of incorrect information.

Anyway, the showcase was a lot of fun and everyone seemed to really enjoy it. After that, we went back to the hotel for the closing ceremony and when we got to the room that we had reserved for it, we found a church group had also reserved the room. Ummmmm, yeah. The hotel was nice enough to let us take over their dining room and we had a fun time in there. Everyone stood up and said a few words and we all received certificates and none of us could believe everything that we had accomplished over those 4 short days. It was really sad knowing that we were leaving after such a short time, but we were glad that we were able to become close friends so quickly.

The trainers' all went out for a celebratory dinner and final discussion (Amy and Kofi treated us, which was even more amazing). It was a lot of fun and we joked a lot (well, that happened at every meeting) and even found humor in the food that we were eating. My favorite part was learning that some people call traffic lights "robots". I'm not entirely sure what part of the world that comes from, but it was really fun to discuss that and other examples where we're all speaking the same language, but the words are so different. In the morning we had a few housekeeping tasks as we cleaned everything up and packed up the vehicle to head back to Lusaka. My luggage was nearly left behind, but Eric heroically grabbed it and saved the day.

Appropriate Technology Workshop Part 4

2011-01-19T17:23:00.000+03:00

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.

Appropriate Technology Workshop Part 3

2011-01-18T17:51:00.000+03:00

The start of the workshop was delayed by a day because of a scheduling miscommunication. This meant that our already intense five-day curriculum needed to be packed into four days. But then, we wouldn't all be there if we didn't like a challenge. In theory, having an extra day should have made the organizers feel less rushed, but somehow, it seemed to make us all feel like we needed to get more done, so even though it was like gaining a day, we still had a lot to do.

I ran to the market and tried to find some supplies for the event. I bought some peanuts in the shell, which were really hard to find (and which I was actually severely overcharged for since there was only one person in the market who hadn't already taken them out of the shell) and when I got home, I discovered that they were actually immature peanuts and wouldn't work for the sheller we were using. Oh well. It was also at this point that I discovered that they had drinking yogurt (a thin dairy product that tastes like yogurt, but is only slightly thicker than milk) in the supermarket and started trying to down one a day (it was much healthier than my soda habit and much cheaper than living off of juice). I don't know why Tanzania doesn't have much drinking yogurt, but it was big in Kenya and I was thrilled to discover that Zambia had banana flavored yogurt.

I was also avoiding the hotel's kitchen and living mostly off of peanut butter and bread. I decided to try to change things up by buying some potatoes and cooking them (remember, the room had a hotpot). It didn't go so well. I boiled some water. Put some potatoes in a cup and poured the boiling water onto them. Let them sit for five minutes and dumped out the water and poured more boiling water onto them. I repeated this about 4 times before adding a bunch of salt and trying to eat them. Turns out that potatoes prepared this way are borderline edible. I was pretty hungry too, so I'm guessing that under almost any other circumstances, they would have been completely inedible.

In the evening, the participants started to arrive, and I was torn between trying to meet them and trying to plan for the next day. Since I was presenting a session on problem framing and didn't have a whole lot of sense how to do it, I wanted to really work the lesson over in my head since I didn't have a whole lot of time to talk with Amy about what she had in mind. We also needed to do some final prep work to get the spaces ready for the next day, so I was disappointed that I didn't get to spend more time getting to know people before the workshop started.

The next morning we did our welcomes and introductions and everything was going really smoothly (the extra day pretty much guaranteed that). We told everyone how much we planned to accomplish and it sounded pretty daunting, but everyone was really energized about the whole program. During the tea break, Amy came up to me to show me the lesson plan that she had put together for my session so that it would have some continuity. It was a lot better than what I had, so I decided to base my lesson mostly around her idea. She also gave me the assignment to set up some bowls of mangoes with a towel over them (one part of the workshop was to have them work in teams to design mango-processing technologies since they were so abundant during that part of the year, so we wanted to have a dramatic reveal of the theme). Although I never watched cooking shows much, I was trying to use Iron Chef for inspiration. A nice big stack of mangoes (including a few strategically stacked around the bowls) that could be shown with adequate intrigue. In hindsight, I should have spent more time nailing down how I was going to do my session.

The mango reveal went really well and people were definitely entertained. My session did not go well at all. I was jumping back and forth between Amy's lesson plan and my own and presenting it like a high school teacher by providing way too many examples and constantly checking if there were any questions (in some ways that's my natural way of presenting, but it didn't do much to help me connect with my audience). The content did not come across clearly, the follow-up activity was explained poorly and I definitely did not seem like a confident presenter (I kept doubting myself as I tried to pull the bullet points from the lesson plan). The audience was very nice about humoring me and we got through the lesson, but I was mortified by how badly I had botched it. I have to say that Amy did a good job of coaching me through it without shaking me further or letting me get discouraged and without letting the rest of the room know how much I needed coaching.

I felt like I regained some face while I was walking around and talking with teams on a one-on-one basis (well, at least in a small group setting) and I was able to redeem myself by the time everyone was working on their projects in the afternoon. As soon as we had our trainers' meeting, I announced that I wanted to try leading another session because I definitely needed practice. Everyone was supportive and reassuring about how my session had gone, which was a little disappointing since I wanted really blunt feedback, but I was grateful for their kindness. Amy signed me up for another session and I knew I needed to spend a lot of time and really figure out what I needed to do to get it right.

But in the mean time, there were a lot of projects going on. I was talking to one team about what it would take to design a centrifuge for honey extraction (and the possibility of making it pedal-powered), and then another team about the principles of an evaporative cooling system (I wish my physics degree had given me a more practical background in thermodynamics), and then another team about building smokers and solar dryers and then another team about oil extraction and then back to the second team to talk about shelling peanuts and so on. It was a lot of fun and a really great way to get to know everyone. By the end of the first day, we had definitely accomplished a lot, but we could see that we had our work cut out for us.

Appropriate Technology Workshop Part 2 (New Charcoal Project)

2011-01-17T17:19:00.000+03:00

As we were getting everything ready for when all the participants were arriving, we had the opportunity to work a bit on our own projects. I wanted to spend some time doing charcoal work.

One of the big struggles with the charcoal from agricultural waste project is that in order to make the charcoal into briquettes, you need a sticky binding material. Typically, we use a bit of porridge made from cassava (I've also used wheat flour), which is nice and sticky. Many communities, however, have issues with food scarcity, so asking them to divert this precious resource into cooking fuel is rarely worthwhile (the exception being in peri-urban areas, where charcoal usually fetches a rather high price and is a good way to increase income). Items like dung or plant extracts may be sticky, but they often produce some harmful chemicals when burned.

So, during the workshop set-up, while other people were building all sorts of technologies, I was off in the kitchen experimenting. The first day we had some oranges, mangoes and bananas. I made a few different recipes for the experiments: boiled banana with and without peel, mashed uncooked banana, mashed rotten mango, mashed mango peel, orange juice, and orange juice concentrate (as well as cassava porridge as a control). Then, I used the charcoal briquetter and some charcoal powder and made a briquette with each binder and left them out in the sun to dry. Unfortunately, most of the best results were from using valuable products like boiled banana without peel or mango juice (technically, there are surplus mangoes in this area, but that's not common in many of the areas I've tried charcoal projects) or the orange juice.

But I was not about to give up. When I boiled the banana peel, I saw that it had made a somewhat sticky liquid, but by adding the stringy pieces of the peel it had become much weaker. So, in the interests of finding a method that also doesn't require boiling, I used a large mortar and pestle to crush the banana peel and poured water slowly to collect the residue that was coming out. (The process took some practice and there were a few times where I splashed banana peel juice in my face.) When I got rid of the solid part, I found that it was actually a fairly sticky liquid. I tried the same process with mango peel and discovered that it also looked pretty good.

My colleague David (a member of the Peace Corps Zambia staff) helped me out by diligently making lots of briquettes. We were not entirely thrilled by how popular the charcoal was with the flies, but once it dried, we found that it held together really well. We also started joking about charging a higher price for fish grilled over "fruit-infused charcoal". Maybe half-joking. I'm curious about whether the same would work for things like potato peels, but I feel like this is the start to a much more workable solution.

Appropriate Technology Workshop Part 1

2011-01-07T18:13:00.001+03:00

After we arrived in Chipata (December 12th), I met everyone who was working on the workshop. Eric was in the car with me riding up, I met him at IDDS this summer and really enjoy working with him, he's a quiet guy, but everything that he says is incredibly insightful. Then I met Henry, a Peace Corps Zambia staff member who was at IDDS in 2009 and is a hard worker, strong leader and all-around great guy. When I went in, I met Kofi, a grad student at MIT whom I had exchanged lots of emails with and heard great things about, but never actually worked with. I saw my friend Bernard had already arrived and was seated with a man named David. David is another Peace Corps staffer, who is really funny and great to work with. After that, I saw Amy Smith, who is a major inspiration to me and who I am always thrilled to work with.

I was definitely impressed with the quality of the hotel. The room had a king sized bed (it might have been queen, but either way, it was enormous and soft), a TV, a refrigerator (which I immediately unplugged and never used), a fan, a really nice shower and even a coat rack. It was nice to be in a place that was very conducive to sleep.

The first morning we started our Training of Trainers (TOT) at the Peace Corps regional office. I met Mindy and Alex (short for Alexandra) who had been through a previous training that Amy and Kofi had done with Peace Corps Zambia and were helping to lead this program as well as Simon, another Peace Corps staff member who was based in Chipata and was incredibly helpful with everything that we were working on. We started with goals and expectations for the program and then went over our schedule and went over the details of the technologies that we would be working on and the sessions that we were running.

After lunch, we set to work putting together some technologies and setting up some demonstrations. Half the group started working on building a small brick kiln for making charcoal.

David showing off the kiln

I was with the group that was setting up an IDE treadle pump, a TDAU diaphragm pump and an IDE drip irrigation kit. There was a nice deep well on the compound and we were worried that it was too deep, but the treadle pump managed to lift the water (approx 10 meters, though they're typically rated for about 7 meters), but the diaphragm pump couldn't bring it up that far, so we just used a basin of water for that one. It took a while to get the pumps working and to run the hose, but by the end of the day, we felt pretty accomplished.

IDE Treadle Pump

TDAU Diaphragm Pump

IDE Drip Irrigation Kit in Peace Corps garden

I was not impressed with the food at the hotel, and I was a bit anxious about the cost, so I ran out and invested in some bread and peanut butter. I still wanted to be social, so I would go to the dining hall during the meal times and talk with people, but I think they were worried about me and I appreciated their concern. I was also a bit sun-burned, so I was rather low-energy as well.

The next day was more planning and a lot of effort trying to track down the necessary supplies. I worked to set up the Universal Nut Sheller and I found myself defending it to some skeptics who rejected everything about it outright as well as assembling a ram press and a screw press (for oil extraction). Bernard showed off a design that he had made for producing low-cost tubing for drip irrigation kits by sealing small strips of plastic. This provided a nice segway to an activity where we had to design a machine for cutting the plastic into strips of the appropriate size.

Screw Press

Ram Press (also called Yenga Press in Zambia)

We paired off for the activity and I found myself with David. He seemed perplexed at first by the challenge, but as we started working, I could hear his brain firing on all cylinders. We put a groove into a block of wood with a blade at the end so that we could run the plastic through. We didn't have a terribly outside-the-box design, but we were pretty happy with our result and David spent a lot of time talking about how excited he was to be designing a new technology. He spent a lot of time bantering with Henry since they're from rival tribes, and we all jokingly joined in the fun.

After that, we set up the drip irrigation kit and admired the garden out back. It was clear that the whole yard had been a trash heap and one of the Peace Corps Volunteers in the area had led a program to turn it into a demonstration plot for raising crops and controlling erosion. Then we did a bit of show-and-tell. We were impressed by the mud and brick kiln that they had built and were really excited to see it in action.

Photo Credit: All pictures taken by Alexandra Chen using Amy Smith's camera

My Exhausting Christmas

2011-01-04T17:22:00.000+03:00

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 :)

2010 in Hindsight

2011-01-02T22:23:00.000+03:00

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...

The Interminable Journey Home

2011-01-01T18:20:00.002+03:00

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.

The Fate of Africa

2010-12-26T13:09:00.002+03:00

**** - The Fate of Africa by Martin Meredith. Trying to write a comprehensive text on the history of post-colonial Africa is definitely an ambitious task. In just under 700 pages, he works to provide a bit of historical context and then study the past 50 years and how they have shaped modern Africa. For a continent of several dozen countries and 880 million people, this task is simply too ambitious. For example, I didn't really learn anything about Niger, Western Sahara, Guinea-Bissau and Benin, while the treatment of countries like Djibouti, Mauritania, Namibia, Burundi and several others was fairly bare. However, the main reason that this was so disappointing was that the story was so well told for some of the other countries on the continent.

Meredith does a great job providing anecdotes and compelling details that really add texture to the picture. He does a good job of reminding us that many of the cruelest dictators had broad support at one point or another, while remaining unsympathetic to their authoritarian practices and the powers that treated them as pawns in their diplomatic aims (not just Cold War battles, but also African leaders vying to strengthen their own diplomatic clout). Although the narration becomes a bit disjointed at times, jumping between countries and chronologies, but many of the episodes had such regional importance that he can be forgiven for some of the difficulties. Also, the book has a comprehensive bibliography at the back, although an annotated version of the bibliography would probably be much more useful.

The historical perspective also provides some useful insights into other modern debates. Many aid skeptics do not offer enough historical context into their analyses of why aid programs fail and how those programs could be improved. Also understanding why modern structures are in place and how they were developed is a very useful tool for people working to improve those structures and deliver better governance. Most importantly, the book is a catalog of failures of diplomacy that offer useful lessons to people in that line of work.

The book was not without flaws. There are only a few maps at the start of the book, while he regularly refers to places that are not market and paints a difficult geographic picture. The editors seemed a bit lazy at times, letting slip some minor errors, but also offering questionable judgment on chapter titles (a chapter which is 2/3 about the horrors and injustices of South Africa's apartheid regime and only at the end talks about the end of apartheid should really not be titled "A Time of Triumph"). Still, the book is definitely worth reading and the writing makes it easy to absorb the information in there.

Zambia - First Impressions

2010-12-20T17:16:00.000+03:00

While I was waiting for my bus to leave Nakonde (the town on the Zambian side of the border), I decided to walk around a bit. The first buildings past customs were the offices of various customs clearing agencies (I suppose the complexity of the export process could be considered a good way of creating jobs for experts to facilitate). After that, I saw several cafes and general stores, many of which seemed to be catering to the sort of people who could afford passports, rather than the majority of the people who lived in Nakonde. However, after walking down a backstreet, I found the town market. They were selling lots of dried small fish and caterpillars as well as green leafy vegetables, onions and other veggies. I was surprised that there was almost no fruit in the market (though I saw plenty of tomatoes, which are technically a fruit) and tried to recall if I had seen any other market during my travels in Africa that wasn't selling bananas. My favorite part was a company called Power Tools. They were running a bus company, a hotel, a cafe and probably a few other businesses. However, I did not see any power tools connected with them.

I couldn't see much on the road from Nakonde to Lusaka, since the road was dark and there were very few lights along the road. I was impressed with the thick forest cover, but the sparce population made the area seem rather desolate. As the sun came up, we were passing through a few towns outside Lusaka, which seemed nice, but I really only saw the main road, so it's hard to form a real impression. In Lusaka, I admired the smooth transition from large farms on the outskirts to skyscrapers in the downtown area. I noticed that there were very few brands that I recognized from Kenya and Tanzania as we passed the billboards and signs plastered with ads.

When we arrived at the bus station, I hopped out and made my way past the over-eager taxi drivers to walk around a bit. The city seemed really nice, although I could tell I was in an affluent neighborhood and was very curious what some of the poorer areas looked like. I noticed that there were a lot of cartons on the ground for a beverage called Shake-Shake, which I later learned was a dairy product with alcohol. I couldn't actually make up my mind about the architecture in Lusaka, but I guess I don't have anything to complain about.

After setting off from Lusaka toward Chipata (the capital of Zambia's Eastern province) I had a much clearer view of the road (a different road). The villages were pretty well spaced, and even though power lines ran over the villages, most people did not appear to have connections. There were a lot of schools, which seemed to be the only buildings that had an electrical connection. At one point, we stopped at a roadside market to grab some food. I was really surprised by how expensive everything was, and wound up eating a couple of hard-boiled eggs. We arrived in Chipata and I saw a nice bustling medium sized town. A few major stores, and a nice big market, but nothing too distinctive about it. It was really nice to arrive in the middle of mango season, where big, ripe, juicy mangoes are sold for two cents or less.

All the Zambians I met were very friendly (though a few tried to overcharge me). They spoke very good English and were happy to talk and asked lots of questions. I couldn't quantify this, but the people just seemed really happy with their lives, probably more so than in most of the places that I've been in Kenya or Tanzania. My friend Jackie said that Zambia was one of her favorite places from her travels, and I can definitely see why.

Traveling to Zambia

2010-12-18T19:31:00.001+03:00

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).