Picture Me Walkin'

Greatest Hitz

2010-09-20T21:05:00.001+03:00

For better or worse, this little corner of the internets has been sitting on ice cubes for awhile now. I no longer write on it because I no longer feel like I have anything exciting and noteworthy to say, and I'm not really dedicated or skilled enough to try and write interesting thoughts about mundane topics. I'm back home doing normal home things, which is kind of a let down after my life of fighting murderous baboons and drinking lumpy beer from gas cans. In the process of trying to find a company willing to give me money on a regular basis for use of my skill(z), it came to my attention that in this modern world of ours people really do Google your name to find out if you're some kind of weirdo. Such that this is the cornerstone of my web presence, I figure I should probably give my little soapbox one last lick of paint.

So without further ado: Picture Me Walkin's Greatest Hits, as determined by a committee of one and in no particular order.

5 Sweeping Generalizations about Africa
Forget what you heard, I'm here to reaffirm your stereoypes.
Uganda 1, Me 0
In which Luke narrowly escapes a gruesome death.
Night Terrors
In which Patrick has his first encounter with the fabled beasts of Africa.
Yummers
In which Patrick tempts fate (again).
A Gypsy in Rasta's Clothing
A merry jaunt through the countryside with a new "friend," with predictable results.
Bigups 2 da Selektaman, Bumbaclot 4 da Haters
A hard hitting journalistic piece on the Ugandan pop music scene.
R.I.P. Tin Can Tony I
A loving tribute to our dear indomitable cloven-hooved friend Tony.
It's not all Mangoes and Zebras
Luke gets spooked by an unexpected visit to the hospital, and briefly becomes serious.
Reflections for a Bulgarian Socialist
Patrick makes use of his fancy "college education" and shares some "thoughts" on the state of the microfinance industry.
The End of Africa
Fin.

The End of Africa

2010-04-28T11:07:00.009+03:00

(The end of Africa. Indian Ocean on the right, Atlantic on the left.)

Cape Town, the end of the journey. I'm here. Forgive me if I get a bit nostalgic.
I retired from my illustrious career in aid work on January 1 with the goal of traveling until I either reached Cape Town or ran out of money. On Monday, April 19th I pulled into the city limits of the southernmost city of note on the continent. Three and a half months, nine sovereign nations and roughly 11 thousand kilometers over the road. I spent most of this time not really thinking about the bigger picture of where I'm going or doing any significant planning. The map in head rarely extended much past the next town, and decisions were pretty exclusively made on a day to day basis.

(Cape Town and Table Mountain as seen from the V&A waterfront.)

The one constant, however detached, has been the symbolic destination of Cape Town. It's been my Mecca and I haven't turned away from it many times since I left Uganda. Having made it, I've kind of been at a loss with what to do. I guess I'm done now, whether I really want to be or not. I suppose I could just turn around and go back up to Namibia- like Forrest Gump when he walks across the country, reaches the Pacific and just turns around for the Atlantic because he doesn't know what else to do. As much as I try to live a life in emulation of mentally retarded shrimp boat captains, it just doesn't seem like the right move this time.

So having reached the end of the road and finding that I don't really have much else to do, I booked a ticket back home. So that's it, I set a date and the clock on my life has resumed ticking. Everyone asks me if I'm sad to be leaving and the funny thing is that honestly I'm not. As distasteful as the idea of getting a real job and reentering productive society is, I'm not really scared of it anymore. It's time to be an adult and do adult things.

I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to take a year plus off and take a good look at what kind of life I want to live and what I'm willing to do in order to get it.

(The Cape of Good Hope, so called southernmost point in Africa)

I stepped off a plane over a year ago with my brother in a very third world country in Africa with little more than a couple phone numbers and an expense account. No lifeline, safety catch or do-overs, we had to either build a life and company or fail. It was trial by fire in the best and scariest sense. I was homeless for a day in a town that was basically one big refugee camp not five years earlier. I learned to bargain my ass off for everything from a tomato to rent. I got hoodwinked by a no-good Rasta, and I made some amazing friends that changed my entire perspective on Africa. Just when we established some order and I thought I had things straight, everything got turned upside down.

From the sky fell a staff of volunteers who were eager, hard working, and just as clueless as me. Over the next several months all the things I thought I had figured out were tested as new sets of eyes saw every problem in a new way. I was now a manager attempting to direct a group of coworkers with a combined zero days of relevant experience (myself definitely included) in an organization with few rules, structure or vision. I also became Mr. Police Man- at least on paper- and as the only person who knew my way around had to keep a bunch of party-hungry college students alive in a region of Africa blacklisted by the US State Dept for insecurity. If that weren't hard enough, I had to do this while spending 24 hours a day living with that group of people I was supposed to be bossing around. I was not much of a manager, probably not even for a day, and I lost my grip on things pretty immediately.

Over the next few months as everything spiraled out of my control I became stressed, then depressed and finally completely disillusioned. I gave up trying to control the organization that had done more or less exactly what I wanted for the entire two years of its history and allowed things to just happen. In short I stopped caring and decided to just live my life for me. I ditched out and started wandering. Completing the descent into gypsyhood I pulled up my roots and set off for whatever the world had in store for me. Hitchhiking, buses, whatever; the only constant has been the hot sun and the pack on my back. Since then my life has been one long recess: scrabbling around in the sand with dirt on my knees and chasing girls; I just substituted kickball for drinking.

A few months later it's all coming to an end, it's time for me to get back to the world. I've been thinking of taking it full circle by visiting the University of Pretoria Center for Microfinance and giving them the same silly pitch I made at Makerere University Business School over a year ago. Part of me really wants to, but I just can't seem to get my fingers to write the email. It just seems dangerously close to working, and truth be told I still just don't really care. Luckily, I'm in Cape Town and there's plenty to distract me.

(Africa. Atlantic on the left, Indian on the right.)

Oh Cape Town

2010-04-26T12:49:00.000+03:00

It's all but obligatory to rant and rave about Cape Town. It's one of those cities that everyone who visits loves. It's beautiful, laid-back, warm (so I've been told, I'm freezing) and definitely happening. The clichés come pretty fast around here, the biggest being "it's not Africa, it's Cape Town." I hate to buy into it, but it's the truth. Cape Town is a world apart from Africa, even more so than the rest of SA is. It's full of beautiful architecture and parks, classy bars and restaurants and tourists galore.

( The Company's Gardens, basically the Central Park of Cape Town. The white building is the National Art Galleries.)

In short, Cape Town is great, with a surprising amount of things to do in close proximity of such a big city.

(More Company's Gardens, museum of natural history in the background)

The other day I took the opportunity for a visit to the cape of Good Hope and it's resident penguins. Visiting the penguins is pretty much exactly what you would expect, but for some reason infinitely better and lamer than that. More than a couple times I've heard a girl squeal when they hear about the penguins: "They're so cute in their little suit and tie!" "Have you ever seen March of the Penguins, they're so cuuute!" and of course, "Did you know that they mate for life? They're like little people; so cuuute!" A stationary penguin, I'm sorry to say, is not a great draw. A penguin sitting on the beach is basically just a black and white duck, all dressed up with nowhere to go. After a few minutes I was about ready to mark off the penguins as "just another bird" like the ostriches and go away disillusioned and sad when a group of penguins got up and walked to the beach. That changed everything.

(Three Little Birds)

A walking penguin is awesome, I don't know why it just is. Trundling around like a baby in a suitcoat, wonking their flippers around and everything. I didn't squeal or anything, but I can't say there wasn't a little voice in my head saying "aww." In short, penguins rock. If you get the chance to see them and they aren't doing anything, throw a stone or a fish or something at them so they get up and walk around.

(Quack quack)

Also on the peninsula is the Cape of Good Hope, incorrectly billed as the Southernmost tip of the African continent and the spot where the icy waters of the Atlantic coming straight up from Antarctica mixes with the bathwater warm Indian Ocean which followed me down from Kenya. Actually the southernmost tip is several hours east, but "the most southwesterly point in Africa" just sounds desperate. I hiked around on the point for a few hours and checked out the lighthouse, all in all a great time. We decided to have a little picnic and strayed off onto a side road to find a nice spot, little knowing we were about to be accosted by a pack of ferocious wild ostriches roaming around looking for a fight. Although I ain't afraid of no damn buzzard and would fight one of those buggers in a second, my companions weren't so brave and we took off. All for the best since I have heard told that ostriches will attack anything that glitters and my shine blocks out the sun.

I also climbed Table Mountain of course, it was a great hike with beautiful views of the city and ocean. A few museums and a nice park, pretty much it was like being home. I'm glad I did this trip in this order and not the other way around, I think I'm pretty much readjusted to the developed world now.

(The Bay as seen from Table Mountain. Note the World Cup stadium on the top left)

Just call me Feather Baron

2010-04-23T13:14:00.001+03:00

I seem to constantly flip flop back and forth between whether I want to on the beach or in the mountains. Honestly it's probably the enduring struggle of my life right now, which is a crystal clear indication of just how lucky I am. It's a clear cut case of the grass is greener: the beach is too easy and homogeneously beachy, everywhere else things just seem to go awry. After leaving the Drakensburgs after a great and very fun- if slightly ill fated- hike, we decided to stick to the beach for awhile and tour along the Wild Coast and Garden Route. The garden route and Wild coast are classic tourist brochure material, as the names would indicate. Perfect beaches, beautiful indigenous forests, amazing flora and fauna resulting from unique ecosystems created by the meeting of the icy Atlantic and balmy Indian oceans. On the beach is world class surfing, just back from the beach world class hiking. It is as great a travel destination for all ages as you're likely to find anywhere.

After a few days though, it was just boring. I have spent the better part of three months on the beach, virtually all of them much warmer than these. The beach is great, but a beach without blasting sun and warm water just doesn't do much for me these days. I'm used to swimming in bathwater-warm ocean and spending 48 hours at a time in no more than shorts and flips, so anything less just isn't quite it. We decided to venture once again into Africa, and take the old highway through the Little Karoo desert rather than the old coastal highway the rest of the way to Cape Town (I would never disgrace myself to take the new unscenic highway).

First stop of real note was Oudtshoorn, ostrich capital of the world. The story on this little town is an odd one. In the 1930's or so when ostrich feathers were the fashion, Oudtshoorn capitalized. South Africa became the world's biggest exporter of ostrich feathers, with Oudshoorn in the center of the action. Peppered around town are numerous serious mansions and estates of the former "feather barons." Then, predictably, the bubble burst and a town on the fringes of some serious desert was left with like a 2:1 ratio of ostriches to people and not much else for opportunities. The town rebooked itself as a tourist destination, with big birds at the center of the action. Touch an ostrich, kiss an ostrich, ride an ostrich. Fun for the whole family! But, as my friend Tomas put it, "an ostrich is really just a big bird. I'm not going to pay 60 rands just to see a big bird." So instead we checked out the Cango caves. The caves were just some pretty big caves, with some Khoisan bushman artifacts thrown into the bargain. As we are quite adventurous, we chose the "adventure route" so we had to squeeze into some tiiiight little spaces. There's not a lot to say about the cave tour. It was fun and interesting, but it was kind of exactly what you'd expect.

After Oudshoorn we took route 62, the old highway through the desert and mountains. Again, cool and gorgeous scenery but nothing particularly exciting. We arrived in Stellenbosh, wine capital of Africa, ready to do some tasting and class the joint up a little.

T.I.A.?

2010-04-19T09:03:00.005+03:00

South Africa never ceases to surprise me with random reminders that I'm in a different world than I started in. Not to be a broken record, but South Africa really is not your grandfather's Africa of bumpy buses and mzungu mzungu. Yesterday I was driving down the silky smooth highway at the speed limit of like 90 mph, in itself a pretty huge contrast to East Africa. Then cars started whooshing by one after another. I took a closer look at what kind of machine could possibly be that much faster than the wicked matchbox car we had rented: 16 Ferraris, one after the other. I guess they were going for a little Sunday morning cruise session. Don't you fellas know that if you rounded a corner and found a herd of goats in the road at those speeds, eh!

To continue with the theme of where the hell am I: On Saturday, seeing as I was in Stellenbosh, the wine heartland of Africa, I went on a bicycle wine tour with a couple friends. It was a nice day (which around here means a nice cloud cover and not deadly sunny) so we ate our delicious porridge, rented some bikes and set out for a sophisticated jaunt in the countryside. South Africa wine country is ridiculous, it's like a shopping mall of wineries packed one after the other. Turn down a country lane and you'll find easily 3 or 4 beautiful wineries, all eager to pour alchol down your face no matter how wobbly your bike is. South African wine is also pretty cheap, though not Africa cheap. It depends on where and when, but it seems to be about $3-4 for a series of generous tastings and $10-15 for a pretty good bottle of wine. Not bad. Aside from one small skinned elbow obtained under semi-mysterious circumstances, adequate dignity was maintained and we had a blast. Unfortunately I scuffed my top hat, but hey, TIA.

Man vs Mountain (who do you think will win?)

2010-04-12T23:38:00.008+03:00

The journey continues, the clock ticks on. I woke up yesterday and realized that I only have two or three weeks left in Africa. After being here for so long and having no real timetable for most of the time, the return of a sense of time is not altogether welcome addition to my life. This is the first time in which time has had a significant effect on my life in quite some time. I've developed a disdain for doing anything that could be considered racing against the clock, anytime I hear anyone say the words "hurry" or "schedule" I kind of go glassy eyed. But on the other hand I have finally stopped wasting time. Not having anything to do other than exactly what I want to when I want to, I have no need for "killing time". I'm doing my best to live every moment, and since there's no one but me to judge me for the ways in which I choose to do it, I spend virtually every moment doing what I want. I have finally gotten over the idea of doing what I think I ought to be doing and instead just dong what makes me happy- namely hammocks and gummy worms. In other words, not having a job is nice.

The last week or so has been pretty whirlwind actually, fit in around my busy schedule of wall staring. I rented a car with a couple Danes I met in Mozambique, and it has opened up possibilities like only having a car can. After Durban we went to Saint Lucia National park for Easter weekend. It was advertised as a place where you'll bump into hippos on the street at night if you aren't careful, so it seemed like a pretty kickass place for an Easter-egg hunt. Alas we saw no hippos up close, though we saw plenty out in the river. It was in any event an incredibly beautiful place with great beaches and great hikes. The hiking in South Africa is a reality check, it makes you reassess just how rugged you want to be. It would be similar to hiking elsewhere- beautiful scenery, solitude, hills big and small- except that there are also big scary animals roaming the parks. Before setting off I would have said that this makes it way better because you have the possibility of seeing leopards and elephants around every corner. But, as anyone could have predicted, big animals are scary. As soon as we stumbled upon our first beast, a ferocious wildebeest to be exact, we were so terrified that we turned back. I'd like to say I would have continued on if the girl in the group didn't chicken out, but truth be told I only had probably one encounter left myself before I'd run away shrieking. Being spooked away from hiking we decided to instead chill by the river and drink a few grown-ups' sodas. It was all well and good until a crocodile came out of nowhere and damn near bit my nose off. Jesus, this Africa is no joke. So we retired to the couch where nothing could harm us. I think it was then that I protracted fleas.

After a brief tour of Shaka Zulu's stomping grounds and a canopy tour/ birdwalk on an elevated board walk 20 meters high, we set off for the Drakensburg mountains, and Lesotho.

The word on Lesotho is it is amazingly beautiful but equally impressive in its difficulty to access. Without a car, I had heard, it is not really even worth doing. We had a car, so I was ready to tackle Lesotho. Now would be a good time to mention that Lesotho is at very high altitude- I think like 15,000 feet, and therefore it is very very cold. Did I also mention that our rental car was a hummingbird with wheels? The plan was therefore to take a .8 liter engine matchbox car fully loaded with clueless people and gear designed for tropic heat into possibly snowy mountain passes. How could we possibly fail?

The entire mountain experience proved to be a pretty exhaustive exercise in failure and unpreparedness. We set off for an overnight hike in the Southern Drakensburg mountains to see the Giant's Castle. The brochure mentioned «hike-in sleeping huts ». Given that I now have a sleeping bag but no tent after the Malawi disaster, a hut sounded perfect. I had my hiking boots- a little loose in the sole area after a run in with concrete in the Dominican Republic but repaired with the assistance of my ever crafty Mother, my sleeping bag and Masai blanket and a backpack full of random food- mostly bread and peanut butter. It seemed like enough to survive a night. How hard could it be? I'm from Oregon, home of the hiking people for God's sake. I could have rethought things when they told me the huts were nothing more than a roof and four walls with boards to put your camping mattress on, seeing as I own no camping mattress. I should have rethought things when I had to sign a waiver at the gate attesting to my mountaineering prowess and possession of snow gear and emergency rations. Instead I plowed ahead. Things went great on day one. It took about 3 hours to hike 10 km up to the hut at 2500 meters elevation, beautiful views the whole way. We got up to the hut in time to eat some rations before nightfall. Then things took a turn for the should-have-known-better.

1. It was really really cold, I could just almost see my breath. Keeping in mind I've been in effing Africa for the last year, this felt like the rough equivalent of the inside of a freezer in the Arctic tundra during a blizzard. I swear I saw a polar bear rifling through my flip flops. I was quite literally wearing every piece of fabric I brought up the hill, and just barely not shivering.

2. After getting soaked in Malawi and -in hindsight- clearly not drying properly, my sleeping bag was covered in a fine layer of mildew. Nothing to do but power through it.

3. I forgot to bring both flashlights.

4. I guess I got a little overzealous in packing light and didn't think to bring a book or ipod or anything. Night fell at about 6pm and I had nothing to do but literally stare at the wall. Except it was so dark because the hut had no electricity that I couldn't even see the wall, so I just stared into nothingness for a few hours.

5. With nothing to do and freezing my matookes off, I decided to just go to sleep. I had no mattress, so that meant curling up in a ball on a wooden plank, arms sucked into my sleeves and breathing toxic mildew fumes all night. A new low for me.

6. I woke up with the sun the next morning ready to put as much distance as possible between me and my complete and utter failure at "roughing it," so I set off to hike down the hill asap. No breakfast no nothing. Things were going wonderful for about the first 200 meters, then the problems started. As it would seem, the glue used to repair my boots wasn't as waterproof as advertised. In fact, when exposed to the morning dew, and perhaps as a result of being in extreme humidity for a year, the glue all but melted. The soles of my shoes literally fell off 1% of the way into my treacherous descent. Great. I'm nothing if not just clever enough to delay the inevitable briefly, so using some rope- the only smart packing decision I made- I tied my shoes back together and continued down the mountain. In the end I made it, shambling into the campsite like some kind of Hooverville Sherpa with one shoe tied together and the other a sad little soleless moccasin.

After giving my complete submission to the mountains we decided to scrap Lesotho and head back to the beach where things are easy. And there I shall remain for awhile.

Cash or card?

2010-04-06T13:55:00.003+03:00

I am in South Africa. I have made it, more or less, to the end of my journey. I never really thought I would make it this far, not at the beginning nor in any place along the way. Certainly when I booked a ticket to Uganda I didn't think that I'd by flying home from the other side of the continent, and I had a plan for how to fly home from every country I've stopped at. It's been a long and interesting trip, and luckily it's not over yet. Next up for me is lots of hiking in the Drakensburg mountains and possibly Lesotho, depending on whether our little car can handle it.

So I'm in South Africa, obviously. At the moment in Pietermaritzburg, a medium side city in the middle of I'm not sure where. I spent a few days in Durban, a big city (4 million or something) on the coast. No qualifiers about it, I am squarely back in the developed world. No more Japanese- Tourist pictures of the tall buildings or street-scapes, it looks like any other city you've been too. Creepily so, actually. So far, South Africa is a weird approximation of home. Decomposing inner cities where all the action is and soulless suburbs where the white people hang out. The main difference is that there is a second set of poor-poor suburbs called townships (the whole Apartheid thing) that are full of black people, I imagine that is where the Africa I remember lives. But yes, I said "full of white people." This country is full to overflowing with white people: old ones, young ones, rich ones, homeless ones. It took much less time than I expected, but I'm reasonably reacclimated to the world of freeways, traffic and credit cards. I can't say I didn't go a little bit cross-eyed the first time someone asked me "cash or card."

There's not much more to it really. Durban is a lot like Portland actually, and the suburbs of the two are basically indistinguishable based on my memory of home. Now is not the time for me to make my assessment of White South Africans, though I really want to. I'm going to be slightly responsible and refrain from judging an entire nation based on one fairly backwaters region. I'll just leave it at this: 1. the uniform seems to be board shorts, crocs and cammo hats, 2. beef jerky and obesity are both incredibly popular, and 3. I read this described as the most violent and dangerous society in the world- including most current war zones. In a bizarre twist from my post last week about hanging out with locals, I've found that I have no real desire to fraternize with the locals- the white ones at least. If I wanted to spend an evening chewin terbakky and making racist jokes, Oregon holds plenty of opportunities. Probably Cape Town will prove to be entirely different. I sure hope so.

South Africa is beautiful though, very much so. It's as beautiful a country as I've been to, and unlike the other countries I've been to it has the developed infrastrure to fully enjoy it. It's not so damn hot now that I'm no longer in the tropics, are there are gorgeous beaches and mountains. I will spend the next couple days hiking way way up, there may even be some snow. When I get back, I'll post some pictures from the last week or so.

Zombies, man sized fishes and surfing- all in the same breath

2010-03-29T10:00:00.000+03:00

I finally managed to get myself away from the beach, but it wasn't easy. This makes, I think the fifth time I've been on the beach since I got to Africa (Kenya, Tanzania twice, Malawi, Mozambique), and it's hard to beat. I just find myself here over and over. The interior of the continent is much more interesting and exciting, but it's hard to argue with the beach. It's not hard to see why the interior of the continent remained relatively untouched for so long while the colonists flooded the coastline; the beach is just easy. Where ever you are whether it's Africa or Florida, the beach is the beach and predictable and manageable.

When people ask about the beaches in Oregon, I generally respond that we don't have beach so much as coast. Yes there are miles upon miles of pristine stretches of sand and ocean and the Dungeoness crab is as fresh and cheap as I imagine you'll find anywhere (hollaback Moe's), but the thing is it's just so windy and the water is so damn cold that "beach" just doesn't conjure up accurate images. The beach is for swimming and sunburns, in Oregon we wear heavy sweatshirts and watch rain hitting waves. So, needless to say this whole tropical beach thing is kind of alluring for me.

Every time I come back from the beach I realize that I didn't really take any pictures or amass any interesting stories. It's like I get to the beach and the world just slows down to slow motion. Wake up, swim in the ocean, lunch, swim in the ocean, dinner, beers, sleep, start over again. Two weeks (or has it been three?) has slipped by and I've hardly noticed the time pass, but at the same time any other time and place seemed like another planet. It's a hard life I'm sure.

I've been sending gloating emails all week, so I imagine I've made it to the top of a few enemies lists of people working in offices right now. In case anyone out there is planning any witchcraft vengeance spells, I suggest you think twice. I have it under authority from a source here that all I need is some certain special herbs and a dash of chicken guts and I can counterspell that ish right back in your face.

Seriously though, on the subject of witchcraft: I hear whispers that if one asks the right person in the Mozambique street markets one can find the so-called Zombie Cucumber. The story goes that if you feed a person a drug potion made from some local herbs, they go into a coma whereby the give the appearance of death, while maintaining full consciousness. After witnessing their own funeral and burial, you go dig them back up and feed them a different potion made from this cucumber. It wakes them up and tweaks their brain all out so they become a Zombie-like, living dead slave doing all your bidding for the rest of their days. No joke. I saw something about this happening in Haiti on the discovery channel once: it was saying that people zombie-fie tourists, take them to the ATM to drain their account, then sell them into sex slavery. I am waay to scared to to further investigations to validate this. There's a book I can't find here called Kalashnikovs and Zombie Cucumbers, about Mozambique in the mid-90s. I've heard strong praise about it and it's at the top of my list for when I get home (some other time I'll share my reading list).

Back to the subject at hand, this time around I dedicated myself to doing more than just laying on the beach. I went scuba diving, got certified for deep water diving (100 feet down in the drink) and took it upon myself to learn to surf. Generally speaking, the results were not encouraging.

The Norwegians were serious about their water-sports. There is Alf the kiteboarder, Anders the windsurfer, and for the last few days Lars the surfer showed up. I think all three had been instructors in their respective sport in the last few years, so I was in good hands. Unfortunately there was never enough wind for either of the first two, so it was wave surfing the whole way.

Two weeks of nothing but surfing and I figured I'd have it down. I guess I assumed that any sport invented in Southern California couldn't be that hard. I mean I know plenty of southern Cali folks, and let's just say I've never exactly been blown away (full disclosure: my family on both sides is from Southern California, so I guess I should keep my big trap shut). I figured with my critical thinking skills and solid grasp of English grammar I couldn't help but revolutionize the sport. But man I was wrong. Surfing is HAAARD. I swallowed half the ocean and after a week could barely barely manage to stand up occasionally.

The stereotype is that Surfers are kind of lazy and not necessarily that bright. I'm not going to argue with that, but I will say this: If you spent all day futilely paddling into the mouth of the mighty ocean, you'd probably want to sleep all day too. As far as the latter generalization, I can't really speak to that one; maybe it's all the sun or spending their lives swimming in California Raisin pesticide runoff.

Diving was a different story, though not much more successful than the surfing. I did my deep diving, technically it went off without a hitch. The issue was in what I saw. I was promised megafauna. Whale Sharks, the biggest fish on the planet, frequent these waters as do 10 foot Giant Manta Rays. The day before, people saw the sharks. The day after, sharks and mantas. But for me: nothing, nada, hakuna samaki. I know there's no guarantees with wild animals, but throw some catfood or something out there for god's sake.

Aside from the letdown, the diving was amazing. It was like Finding Nemo meets Godzilla. There were tons and tons of amazing colorful and crazy little fishies, as well as some huge cool stuff. I swam with a sea turtle for a good long while, at one point he was following me around in circles. That is probably more rare than seeing the damn manta rays, so I guess that's a feather in my proverbial swimming cap. I saw many smaller rays, and lots of eels. The highlight, other than the turtle, would be seeing a serious Godzilla eel. I poked my head into a cave and was face to face with an eel that was -no exaggeration- bigger than me. I'd put him at two feet in diameter and God only knows how long, with a head the size of mine. Needless the say I did the only manly thing, and swam away as fast as my little flippers could carry me.

So there we are, That's my latest beach vacation. I can now officially claim to be a surfer, although not within 100 miles of any beach where I could be forced to prove it. I'm sort of closer to being a semi-legitimate diver and my tan is a shade or two more melanomic. Wicked brah!

Playing with the locals

2010-03-26T21:26:00.004+03:00

First the story:
I'm in Maputo, the Capital of Mozambique. I know not a soul and nobody at my hostel speaks English. So I was really and truly on my own to see the city. I walked around and saw the sights of town a bit, but wanted something different. So I decided to do something I've wanted to do since I got to Africa: I picked a bus and got on it. I laugh when I think about doing that at home, that's what crazy people do. Whatever, I guess I'm that guy now.

I picked Costa du Sol, because Spanish tells me that probably means Sun Coast. If ever there was an inviting sounding place this was it, so I got on and rode the bus for a while. Then when the time felt right, I got off. I found myself on the coast, and since it's Africa the sun was there in abundance. I wasn't quite sure what to do from there, I didn't exactly have any clue where I was or what one should do an unknown portion of the way to the Sun Coast. A group of kids my age had gotten off on the same stop; part of the reason I decided this was a good place was that so many good looking young people seemed to think so too. A mixed group of college age people came up and started talking to me, asking where I was going and what I was doing. I admitted that the answer to both was negative, so they invited me to come to the beach with them. I had nothing else to do so I decided sure, why not. Generally speaking anyone who approaches you out of the blue often wants something, but I chose to ignore that voice in my head.

We went down to the beach, whiskey came out and clothes came off. We swam, we laughed, we played, everything was cool. Only one of them really spoke basic English and my Portuguese is all but nonexistent, so I kind of just had to go with it. At one point the girl who had attached herself to me started telling me about how she was hungry. I wasn't quite sure what to make of that, sometimes idiomatic things don't translate well (before that she asked about my son, which meant something along the lines of "Do you have a girlfriend"). So I just kind of laughed and played dumb, but of course it didn't go away. She got the translator involved, and it became clear that this was a Buy Everyone Lunch kind of deal. I'm not sure whether I should have ditched right then or not, since the cards were now on the table. 9 times out of 10 I would probably have bounced, but I decided to just go with it this time. They shared their whiskey with me first, it was only like $1 for all 6 of us, and bottom line if I left I had nothing better to do. So I did, I swallowed my reservations and just went for it. But then, predictably, it didn't end there. Like always, once the gate was opened the requests kept coming. In short order I was asked if I'd pay for 1/2 of another bottle to be split between 6 people, and for airtime. One hard and fast rule I have is that anytime someone who is not your girlfriend or child asks for you to pay their phone bill, it's over. That was the final straw with the "tour guide" in Kampala, that ended our flirtation with the Realtor in Mbale, and that has been the end of countless people met at bars. Don't ask, I'm not your daddy.

So there it was, I got back on the bus and went home. I will probably never see them again, who knows what could have been. Sorry guys, peace. I don't regret the experience, and would probably do the same thing again. Nothing lost, and it was a fun afternoon. To quote Forrest Gump: "and that's all I have to say about that."

And now the boring commentary:
Traveling alone is a funny thing. When I signed up for it I was extremely hesitant. It wasn't so much that I was scared to travel solo, as that I was worried about having to spend that much time with myself. Spending that much time in isolation leads to a lot of questioning yourself and getting to know yourself better; and quite honestly that was my main hesitation. Having to ask "who am I really," just sounded like one challenge I wasn't really ready for. I swallowed my qualms and went for it, and I have never regretted it since. I still haven't had one of those dark and stormy night moments of clarity or anything, and I still see pretty much the same person in the mirror. So I guess that's a good thing. As much as everything seems the same, I'm sure I have changed though. I think it's like one of those things where you can't tell how fast you're moving until you look out the window. I've glanced out of the looking glass from time to time, but never really deep enough to gauge where I am. One thing I have seen however is that I seem to do Africa a bit different than most of the other travelers I meet along the way.

Most people I meet don't associate with the local people beyond the basics. They are polite and distant, but ultimately uninterested. On a certain level I hold that over them, and gloat on how much better I am for giving everyone the time of day. The thing about it though, is I understand why most people don't venture out of the bubble. Interactions with local people usually don't turn out well, I hate to be the one to say it but it's true. When you take two very different groups of people, one group rich and one group poor, the result is predictable. At one point or another 9 times out of 10, the poor person is going to ask the rich person for money. I could claim cultural sensitivity and deny it all day, but the bottom line is I have seen or been a part of this hundreds of times, and the result is usually always the same. Whether it's seconds or weeks, eventually it will usually come.

My philosophy has always to give people a chance and basically give everyone the same chance and expectations as I would at home. Just like at home I talk to strangers, but like at home I'm immediately skeptical of anyone who crosses the street to approach me. Like at home I allow hawkers to make their pitch, then politely say I'm not interested and apologize for some odd reason for not wanting their crappy product. Just like at home I avoid the eyes of beggars then spend the next five minutes beating myself up about it.

The other side of the equation though, is that I don't accept nonsense from people that I wouldn't at home. I have no problem with buying a friend lunch or giving a friend business to help him out, but I will not buy a friend. If you don't know me, you're not going to get anything out of me. If I find out you are exploiting me, then I am not going to call you back anymore. I guess it's just the safety net. This is a long way of saying that in order to have real interactions with locals, you have to keep your guard up and have a set of rules. If you get uncomfortable then ditch it and go back to the hotel. Take a chance, as long as you're smart about it you have nothing to lose. I understand why most people choose to avoid the situation entirely. It's uncomfortable to realize again and again that most people look at you and only see dollar signs. It's a harder thing to admit again and again that you would rather walk away than give someone a dollar.

The way I see it at the end of the day, there are three choices:
1. Don't play with the locals, stay in the Mzungu bubble. It's easier, it's more comfortable and it's more pleasant. You won't be alone, 90% of people take this route.
2. Go with the flow, and play Mr. Rich Man. As long as you're paying the bill at the end, everything will be fun and fine and your new friends will take good care of you. It's only when you say no that things get awkward.
or 3. Try and fail again and again. If your new friend asks for something in the first few minutes, oh well just another day. Maybe it will take a few hours though, in which case it's a few hours of good fun. Sometimes they don't want anything, and that will probably be the story you'll tell all your friends back home forever about how great you are. "And then my boyfriend Antonio took me to a local bar... Yah, he's a local... and I was the only white person in the whole bar..."

So that's the rant. It sucks, but it's the truth. The important thing to keep in mind is that this mostly happens to people travelling or new to the game. If you are a tourist spending your time in tourist places, you're mostly only going to meet tourist oriented people. If you look like you don't know what's going on, someone will appear to help you out of your money. Just like at home, no one in their right mind would choose to hang out with clueless tourists day after day unless there's a financial incentive. That's the most important part though: When I wasn't a tourist I made very real friends who shocked me over and over with their caring and generosity.

I am closer with my Ugandan friends I've known for less than a year than with many of my American friends I've known since middle school. Partly that's because of the cultural difference in relationships: it's been said over and over and over that in the West wealth is measured by possessions, while in African it's measured by friends. But it's also because I have actually asked things of my friends here. At home asking for something as small as a bite of a sandwich was impossibly hard. Because I am such a fish out of water here, I have no choice but to ask for help from people. Admitting that you need someone else and allowing them to help just brings different kind of closeness that I have always been squeamish of. It's because I gave them the chance to put me in my place, that people like Eddie, JB, Rodney, Fred, James and Veronica changed my life and my view of what a friend should be.

In the end, to me it's worth it. It's worth it to me to get knocked down time after time with uncomfortable situations. I could take another 10,000 fake friends and still, the thing I'll treasure most about Africa is the summer when I was introduced to what my life might be like if I were an African and treated like a brother by Eddie and JB.

Most people didn't have my experience, so I understand why they don't see the point of trying. I won't hold it against you anymore, I get it.

The best things in life are free

2010-03-22T09:42:00.000+03:00

I didn't get a chance to throw up a proper post about this at the time, and I'd hate for this to get lost in the mists like my stories from Karamoja.

A couple days after I went to Victoria Falls Tommy, Olivia, Izzy and I went beck to the falls for one last look. After trying unsuccessfully to sneak into the national park we decided to just go hang out at the bridge between Zam and Zim (-bia and –babwe, as they’re known). If you ask the border control nicely, they’ll let you out onto the bridge without a passport or even paying a dime. Maybe its not as good, but at least it’s free.

Me being me, I saw a sneaky little path by the bridge and wandered off the road. Bad idea; I forgot I was in an international border crossing. Sneaky little paths on borders are for illegal immigrants. The soldiers were not pleased by my impetuousness. Strike that, I think they were quite pleased to find an opportunity to demand a bribe. “This is very bad, now we must lock you in a cell. Maybe you have just five dollars and we can pretend we didn’t see…” No I will not pay you and no I will not accompany you to the jailhouse. Nice try though.

We spent the afternoon hanging around on the bridge looking for trouble and playing “look I’m standing in two different countries,” waiting for the sunset. For some mysterious reason low evening light + 1000 meter high wall of mist = a full 360 degree rainbow 100 meters in diameter.

I'm no physicist, I know I had no idea it was even possible, but I saw it with my own eyes. I've seen a lot of natural splendour in my life, but this was in a class of its own. I imagine I'll probably go the rest of my life without seeing anything like it again, but it was quite possibly the most amazing sight I have ever laid my eyes on.

Great Zcott!

2010-03-19T09:19:00.000+03:00

(the Great Enclosure on the left, home to only the most favored wives of the king)

While in Zimbabwe we decided to check out Great Zimbabwe, the largest pre-colonial structure in sub-Saharan Africa. There's not a lot to say about it really, the pictures really tell the story.

(The king and his buddies live on the top of the hill. Sorry, no girls allowed)

I don't really remember the facts unfortunately. It is dated to around the 15th (or was it 12th?) century. It is now accepted that it was built by bantu speaking peoples, despite the best efforts of white historians to ascribe it to just about anyone other than the Natives- Egyptians, Chinese, Indians, whoever.

(Scholars postulate that this structure could possibly be phallic in nature. Hard to imagine)

It was thought that about 2000 people resided there in its heyday, with status determining who makes it inside the walls. It was abandoned well before the colonists arrived, for unknown reasons.

(The walls appear to be built haphhazardy, the builders learning as they went along. Note the difference in craftsmanship between the inside wall- done first, and the outside which was finished long afterwards)

It was an amazing place, dwarfing and timeless. It really makes me want to see the pyramids and other great ancient structures, but that will have to be another trip. I really wish I knew more about it. Luckily the only person I know for sure is still reading this blog, my Mom, studies African history. Maybe you can shed some light on the subject?

(Great Zimbabwe is unique in that the inhatants incorporated their structure into the natural world in harmony with the surrounding landscape, rather than blasting their way through.)

Forget what you heard about Zimbabwe

2010-03-16T09:12:00.005+03:00

(Beautiful central Harare)

Zimbabwe has a reputation that precedes it. Tell someone you're going to Malawi or Zambia and more times than not they'll just stare blankly with an obligatory "Is that in Africa?" Zimbabwe however, people know. Zimbabwe carries a specific set of images to most Westerners with a solid grasp of current events (I think). Think about the word Zimbabwe, what comes to mind? For me it was three things. Robert Mugabe: governmental mismanagement at the most unimaginable scale. Trillion dollar bills: The utter failure of an economy and the highest inflation rate in the world outside of a war zone. White farmers getting their land stolen: official government policy placed any land owned by whites up for grabs to any squatter with a gun and started a land rush to the bottom. Zimbabwe in the Western media is a Bad Place whose president is leading them to their own destruction as fast as his old legs can carry them. I was under the impression that white people should not visit Zimbabwe, that my kind is not welcome there. Having been around the block in Africa a little bit, I knew better than to take all this at face value; however I had no idea just how off it was. Zimbabwe is not the country it was a few years ago.

Zimbabwe was, in a word, spectacular. I felt like I could really live there, which I haven't said about many places. Not just spend a few months working but actually start a life there, make a home there. As someone who spends a lot of my life on the move these days, of course the first thing I noticed was the roads. The infrastructure in Zimbabwe is unbelievable (for Africa). The roads were great, though in need of some touch up after a few years of neglect. Even way outside of cities, the main roads were fully paved, lined and signposted. "Speed limit 80 km," "sharp curve ahead," "No parking." Even before I got to the city, I had the impression of a place where order had edged out chaos. I was pleasantly impressed and excited for the capital Harare, which I had heard described as "the nicest city north of South Africa." I arrived in Harare not really knowing what to expect. I was blown away.

(Looks like a real city, right?)

Harare was a real city. Not a beautiful, but suspicious facsimile of a city like Kigali, where you spend your whole time looking for the catch. It was also not like Dar es Salaam, really nice if you look past all the things that are awful (unspeakably terrible traffic, absolutely zero nightlife because it's a Muslim city, oppressive heat and humidity). Harare was a big, modern, functioning city. Skyscrapers, tree-lined streets, well maintained parks, walk signs, malls and cafes. I'm sure it's the biggest cliché in Southern Africa, but Harare felt like I was back in the Western world. If Uganda is the Pearl of Africa, Zimbabwe is the Diamond.

This is not to say the stories you hear about Zimbabwe aren't true. Zimbabwe is without question a case study in failure. The economy was so mismanaged that the official currency in Zimbabwe is now the US dollar. I heard a story from a guy who said inflation was so bad that he'd get paid his salary, and by the time he could get to the bank the currency had been devalued so many times that his pay check wouldn't even cover the gas to get from the office to the bank. People say you can't buy anything for a dollar anymore. I can say for a fact that's not really true. At least In Zimbabwe, 1 USD gets you a nice big plate of sadza and meat. As nice as the USD is, Zimbabwe doesn't have any US coins. A soda everywhere else in Africa generally costs between 25 and 50 cents, in Zimbabwe there's no real choice but to charge a dollar.

The best thing about Zimbabwe, like everywhere else, was the people. I found Zimbabweans to be friendly on a level I haven't experienced anywhere else in Africa. Even in the big city, people were incredibly helpful and nice. Everyone I met went out of their way to make sure that if they were the only person I talked to, I would have the right impression of their country. I got the distinct feeling that Zimbabweans were proud to be Zimbabwean, and deeply hurt and offended by all the negative press surrounding their country. Several times I had strangers stop me in the street just to make sure I was ok. At almost every interaction from taxi drivers to police to total randoms in the street, people thanked me for visiting their country and were adamant that I spread the word that Zimbabwe isn't a bad place anymore. This is me doing my piece.

We planned on spending just a day in Harare, but ended up staying an extra night. I would have preferred to spend a lot longer, but the guys I'm hitching a ride with were in a hurry to get to the beach. We were taking a walk around town and a random guy sidled up next to us to talk, just like always. We assumed eventually he would ask for something or try to sell us something, but he never did. He asked if we were tourists and what we had seen and where we were going and all that. When he heard we hadn't seen much and planned to leave soon, he was appalled. He insisted that we let him guide us around the city a bit. He was on his way to his office for a meeting, but said it was more important to him that he make sure we get "the right impression" of Zimbabwe. That, my friends, is the definition of African time. Josh showed us around the city, focusing on the mall and nice cars. At every turn it was "See, Zimbabwe is a nice place. We have the newest cars, we aren't eating each other." When he finally showed his cards, it was only to tell us that he works with foreign investors and needed us to spread the word that Zimbabwe was safe again.

Or there was the desk clerk of the hotel that was clearly out of our price range. He saw our hesitation so he butted in with "but you're locals right? I can give you the local rate of half price." I had to write what city I lived in on the form, but for the life of me I couldn't think of any other places in Zimbabwe. Again he saw my hesitation, "Maybe you live in Mutare or Chinohyi..."

(Heroes' Park)

Or Madeline, the owner of the tiny local restaurant in a nowhere town on the highway. She was delighted when we came in for her freshly prepared sadza (shima, ugali, posho, whatever you want to call it) and beef. She brought our food then sat down with us to chat while we ate. Again, just trying to make sure we got the right impression.

Or the taxi driver, Ivan. The original plan was for a quick ride to Indian food, but we found the restaurant to be closed. So he asked around and found us a different restaurant in our price range. Then he came in and had a beer with us while we ate. Then he took us to a bar, and came in to watch the music with us. We ended up spending the whole night hanging out with him seeing the sights of the night. At the end of the evening we asked him how much we owed him and he responded with "how much do you want to pay?" No bargaining, no haggling, nothing. As we were on our way back to the hotel he asked if we wanted to go on a "night safari." Of course we said yes, expecting who knows what. He proceeded to take us to the prostitute district and amuse himself by shining his lights on hookers and watching them scatter.

(I have turned into a stereotypical Japanese tourist; look someone crossing the street!)

Oh and did I mention live music? We went to a bar with GOOD live jazz from a local band, full of local people enjoying themselves. Electric guitars, drum kit, a proper band. After that ended we went to a different bar with a local mbira band straight from the village. It had been so long since I'd seen real live music, I forgot how great a mellow night out can be.

Zimbabwe is not without it's problems. All I know is I had a great time there and can't wait to go back. Zimbabwe is an example of a trend in Africa: The places you hear the worst things about are the nicest. I guess it's about having a place worth fighting for.

(Some mall Josh insisted we visit. Apparently it won an international design award because it's so breezy and cool without using A/C)

One for the Record Books

2010-03-09T10:39:00.013+03:00

(The Zambia-Zimbabwe bridge over the Lower Zambezi river)

(Tower of mist from Victoria Falls, "The Smoke that Thunders")

Saturday was definitely a day like no other. I had been complaining about things being too slow and uneventful for the last week or so, but when it rains it pours. Highlights of my day include:

1: Spending the day hiking and chilling around at Victoria falls, which does justice to the title of one of the 7 Wonders of the World*
2: A standoff with a troop of baboons whereby an unwitting AZN tourist nearly had her purse snatched.
3: A sunset booze cruise on the Mighty Zambezi where we saw hippos and crocodiles, in between drinking our faces off of course.
4: Getting a phone call from my family- post booze cruise, and wishing my Dad a happy Father's Day (It was his birthday, so an honest though not particularly impressive mistake)
5-6: More or less unknown
7: Waking up in a hammock at the wrong gueshouse, conversations with an unknown +44 phone number (England) in my SMS history
8: Later finding out I met some Norwegians with a Land Rover with whom I made an elaborate plan to roadtrip to Mozambique leaving tomorrow.

Well done Luke. Without further ado, some explanations:

1.

(Eastern Cataract of Victoria Falls)

Victoria Falls was amazing, awe inspiring really. I waited and waited for a sunny day not sure if I'd ever get one. Finally Friday rolled around perfect and beautiful, but unfortunately I as a little under the weather from too many gentleman's sodas the night before. Bogus. Saturday, was just as perfect. So together with my new friends Tommy, Olivia and Isabella, all from Exeter, England we set off for the falls. Being the wet season, we spent most of the day soaked from the 100 foot tower of mist rising from the waterfall. There was just such a massive amount of water, really unbelievable and indescribable. My pictures don't really do it justice, so I'll also include one from a helicopter I found on the internets to show the full scale. Looking for pictures I just learned that the falls are over a mile wide and the mist rises 1000 feet into the air and can be seen from 30 miles away. Big.

(Victoria Falls, Zambia/ Zimbabwe border)

We spent the day chilling around, dipping our feet into the river like 20 feet from the lip of the falls. During dry season you can actually swim right here in the Devil's pool, right on the edge of the falls. It's not possible at this time of year though, as you'd get carried like a twig to certain doom.

(The Devil's Pool- indent between the two bits of brush on the left)

2.
Towards the end of the day the girls got tired and went to the Bar that Thunders for some sodas. Tommy and I took this opportunity to take the 580 step walk (they were labeled) down to the Boiling Pot. It was a really nice swimming spot right beneath the bridge where you really got a feelnig for the scale and volume of water. It was a good little hike with some nice rocks to chill on, nothing life changing. We set off for the walk back up the path and about halfway up, we rounded a bend and found ourselves face to face with a full grown male baboon. "Uhh, what do we do? Do we scare him off, wait for him to leave?" As we were pondering it, Tommy went for his camera. Instantly the baboon was on him, all up in his face. I guess he thought that it was food. After we finished defecating ourselves in terror, we decided it was probably better to just wait it out. So we waited: 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 25 minutes. He wasn't going anywhere. The stone steps are a good place to crack tasty nuts by the look of things. We started to think that this must not be the way to go, so started to skirt around him on the path. We took a couple steps into the bushes and found it impassable. Just then, two more baboons showed up right behind us, a female and a baby. We were surrounded. Over the next few minutes like 10 more baboons and an Asian showed up, just kind of hanging around. The Asian woman pulled a Tommy and went for her camera but she wasn't so slick as him. The baboon went for her purse and got a handful, she ended up playing tug-of-war with a baboon over her purse. We eventually had to just walk past the baboons, like passing street toughs in a bus station hallway, certainly close enough to touch if one (or they) were so inclined. I don't know if we were actually in any danger, maybe they're as harmless as park squirrels. But I'm telling you, it was scary. If it's any consolation, the Zambians who showed up were as scared and clueless as we were, so I feel slightly less emasculated.

(Murderous Apes)

We were talking to one of the soldiers afterward and telling him our harrowing tale. He was nonplussed. "You should have been here yesterday," he said. "There was a baby with some biscuits and the baboon, he snatched the baby and ran off into the bush." I imagine there was a slight miscommunication, or maybe that's no big deal? We said he should be down there with his gun. He laughed and pulled out a slingshot. "This is a national park, we can't shoot the animals. We use catapult instead."

3.

We made a quick stopover at our backpackers guesthouse to change and eat a quick bite, where I had to switch hotels because I didn't book ahead of time and they gave my bed away. Then it was off to sail the mighty rio; Heart of Darkness with an open bar. Much beer was drunk, many chickens were eaten, a few hippos were laughed at. In all a great time was had by all. It's a good thing we made the most of it, because we probably aren't exactly welcome back on the SMS Matooke any time soon- there was a slight issue with a missing bottle of rum. From there things get a little hazy. From what I gathered ex post facto, I apparently convinced myself I was about to travel to Madagascar and was telling everyone all about it. I don't really know where I came up with that or how I got so gung ho, but it's not exactly the itinerary at this point. So, sorry if I made travel plans with anyone to go there. Probably it's not happening.

Which brings me to now. I did in fact make travel plans that night with Alf and Anders, two Norwegians with a Land Rover. I learned the next morning that we had mapped out a whole plans for Northern Mozambique. I met these guys Three Sheets, and yet they still wanted to spend the next few weeks travelling with me. Either I was quite charming and witty (doubtful), or it's going to be an interesting few weeks. We are on the road now, we stopped for the night in Lusaka, couching it at Tommy and the girls' place. By nightfall I should be either in Mozambique or Zimbabwe, we have quite ascertained which road we will take. From there it's maybe another day or two then I'll be back on the beach. Try as I might I can't escape the pull of laying on the beach eating $5 plates of fresh from the sea prawns. Not a bad way to live really.

Like always, things just keep coming up roses. Not two weeks ago I had marked off North Mozambique as impossible because I was told it's all but impassable in anything short of a Land Rover. Here I am today, in a Land Rover with mostly broken A/C and a slightly broken ipod dock- that is to say amazing luxury. Ready to make Mozambique cry. I would mark off Zimbabwe as not going to happen since it will be a lot of extra expense to go through there rather than go straight from Mozambique, but I think I've learned my lesson. Every time I mark something off as not going to happen, I do it anyway. So we'll see, maybe in a couple weeks or a month. Maybe I will make it to Namibia after all. Also, the diving with whale sharks I decided wasn't going to happen; I will be in the right place at the right time, so I think it's back on the menu. Life is good, the sun is back out. To top it off, these Norwegians are serious kite surfers. I told them I had windsurfed a little bit and they are stoked to teach me how to do it properly. I told them I was a snowboarder from Oregon and I think they assume it must be in my blood- the Columbia Gorge in Portland is like a Mecca for windsports. It looks like I might stay in Africa till May afterall.

(Sunset over the Zambezi)

N.B: The 7 Wonders of the Natural World, according to CNN (via Wikipedia of course):

Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA
Great Barrier Reef, Australia
Harbor of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Mount Everest, Nepal
Aurora Borealis and Auroa Australis
Parícutin volcano, Michocán, Mexico
Victoria Falls, Zambezi River, Africa

Livingstoned- UPDATED

2010-03-08T14:23:00.003+03:00

(Mango Drift on Likoma Island, Malawi)

I am now in Livingstone, Zambia, on the border with Zimbabwe. Livingstone is a very cool city; mellow, clean, with a lot of food and things to do. It's roughly the size of Mbale, which makes it very comfortable for me. It was the nation's capitol pre-independence, so it has a lot of nice older buildings and a good layout. It would be a nice place to spend a few days even if it had no tourist attractions at all. But Livingstone does, have a little toursit attraction of its own to offer. In the local language it's called "the smoke that thunders," and though I haven't been to see it yet I have seen the mist hovering about 10 kilometers outside of town. It is also often refered to as The 7th Wonder of the World, Victoria Falls. I don't really know the specifics, and I know there's a lot of wiggleroom about "biggest" when you talk about lakes and waterfalls. Whatever the case, I think they say this is the biggest waterfall in the world.

I have been marooned here for a few days now, waiting for the rains to slow down and give me a good sunny day to see the falls. It's been nice and chill, but more or less boring and uneventful. The backpackers spot I'm staying at is full of other people who are also here for extended stays- maybe 20 of us, so there's a nice sense of community. Some, like me, are waiting out the weather, a few are waiting for Botswana visas, and then there is a good handful that are doing community development projects and staying here for weeks. The last few days it's been raining so hard and so unceasingly that there’s really been nothing to do but hang out and hit the sauce. In an effort to save some money, and to show some of these soft travelers a taste of real life, I together with a Brit named Tommy have been hitting sachets and Shake-shake .

(Mayoka Village in Nkhata Bay, Malawi)

I imagine I've mentioned the magic of sachets before, but they are essentially ketchup packets of liquor. 10 cents for a shot of 100 proof fire. They taste somewhere between gasoline and nail polish remover, and have amusing names like Double Punch, Tyson, Knockout (sense a pattern?) and Superman. Continuing the trend of inventing amusing new drink recipes, we now have the Matooke Sunrise- waragi and Fanta passion- and Septic Nightmare- cane spirit and some strange Schweppes green apple soda with a sour gummy worm lurking near the bottom like in tequila.

Chibuku Shake-shake is a new arrival to my life, something I never saw in East Africa. For starters, it comes in a litre carton and is incredibly cheap. It is like the local millet brew in Uganda, except commercially produced. That is to say it tastes sour/ vaguely rotten, is opaque, and chunky. It's called shake-shake because you shake it before you drink it because it separates when it sits. It is, in a word, horrendous. It smells like death and tastes like vom, so needless to say I psu hit on every new arrival to Africa that I meet. There are few better ways to finish a night out than to pass around the ol' shake-shake carton, grimacing and choking down the awful witches brew and pretending to enjoy it while laughing at people who gag (which happens disturbingly often). Bright, a PeaceCorps volunteer in Malawi told me she likes to mix it with milk and pina colada juice. She swears by it and says it tastes kind of like a rotten alcoholic milkshake. Delicious.

I've just been hanging around in this waiting purgatory, I am like 10 km from one of the most amazing sights in the world but haven't yet made it there to catch a glimpse because of the park entrance fee. I'm currently reading The Grapes of Wrath, which Africa has given me a totally different perspective on. In a lot of ways, Africa outside the big cities is just like America 75 years ago. I've met a lot of interesting people from all over Europe. The backpacker places are certainly not the best way to meet Africans, but you do meet a lot of cool White people. I spent my first week in Malawi with Brigid and Brady, a couple from New Zealand who taught me all about their fascinating island nation. For example, did you know that the flip-flop was invented in New Zealand. Since then I have been moving with Dave from England and Marid from Holland for several weeks now, both very cool people. I've met countless other Brits, quite a few South Africans and oddly enough, tons of Norwegians. Not a lot of Americans, and the ones I have met, I'm sorry to report, have kind of been obnoxious tools. Americans, to generalize, seem to think they are the coolest thing since eggs on toast, and are not hesitant to sing their own praises- repeatedly and at top volume. "Didn't you hear me?! I said I'm an IT specialist! I work on computers so I can do it from anywhere! Isn't that cool!?"

Things are good if a little mundane. Matooke Weatherman says tomorrow is supposed to be sunny, so hopefully it's for real. I'll think I'll check out the falls tomorrow one way or the other as long as it isn't a monsoon, because this is getting ridiculous. After this I go to Zimbabwe to see the falls from the other side (below rather than above) then go see what kind of trouble I can find over the next week or so in Zimbabwe.

P.S. My new phone number for the next bit while I'm in Zambia is +260 96 951 8289. I would like to assume it will work in Zimbabwe too, but we'll see. I think this is the easiest way to get my number to the few random people who may want it. If anyone else has a few spare pennies bouncing around and wants to hear interesting tales of lion wrestling that are too PG-13 for this blog, send me a text or give me a call or something. I really like hearing from people from home (or getting replies when I send them texts, you know who you are), and the 30 cents or whatever that it costs to send a text is very worth it to me.

My life as I see it

2010-03-05T14:16:00.000+03:00

Another day, another town, another country. I've been zooming around from place to place for a while now and sometimes it feels like it's hard to straight just where I am. I guess it's the nature of backpacking and trying to cover a vast distance in a limited amount of time, but I spend a lot of time feeling pretty untethered. I've been in Africa for close to a year now, and travelling/ homeless for about 2 months since leaving Mbale for Southwest Uganda. In that time I have been through countless towns and villages, 5 capital cities (Kampala, Uganda; Nairobi, Kenya; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; Lilongwe, Malawi; Lusaka, Zambia), and covered a distance of I don't know how many thousand kilometers.

I've travelled by bus- both what Paul Theroux refers to as "chicken buses" and more Western luxury ones, car, truck, ferry, motorboat, sailboat, rowboat, canoe, motorcycle, bicycle, and of course on foot. I've crammed into taxis, matatus, dalla-dallas, matolyas, and minibuses; different names depending on the country for the omnipresent 15 seater Chinese minibuses (In reality more like 20+) Generally, no matter where I've been things are pretty much the same. The languages and currencies change, but the villages all look pretty much the same- albeit through a bus window. There have of course been many differences, both big and small. It has been interesting and fun to compare the different places, which I guess is the whole point.

My favorite country so far has been Uganda, no surprise considering I spent so much longer there than anywhere else and that I had a reasonably established and normal life there. In Uganda I had my town, my friends and my spots to grab a beer or dinner. It was a real life. Beyond that though, I feel like Ugandans have overall been the most friendly and welcoming. In Uganda more so than anywhere else I felt as though people accepted me me as a normal person and not just an income source. Again, this is also probably because I spent most of my time in Uganda outside tourist areas and have been pretty much exclusively on the travelers' circuit everywhere else. Talking to other people along the way, I have heard the same thing though, so it must have some truth to it. My least favorite country has probably been Kenya. To stereotype, it was a bit rough and lawless and too openly corrupt. It was the only place I've had anything stolen, it was the only place we were openly solicited for bribes by law enforcement (Kenyan soldiers at the border took our passports). I did really enjoy Kenya though; I had a great time visiting Erin at her PeaceCorps site and the Kenya coast was great. Rwanda was the most unlike everywhere else. Rwanda, more so than anywhere else, exceeded my expectations. I came expecting genocide and wreckage and found the most beautiful and functioning city and stunning countryside I've seen in Africa.

Tanzania- Zanzibar and the Serengeti had the biggest reputation to live up to, both blew me away and were better than I expected. Really, there have been very few times where I left a place unimpressed. Queen Elizabeth National park in Uganda comes to mind, though you get what you pay for with a free safari (thanks Drake University). The snorkeling in Zanzibar wasn't that great either, but talking with other people I think we just got a bad day. Tanzanians have been the least friendly and the most exploitative, though this is not to say they were necessarily unfriendly. In Tanzania I sometimes felt like whites are merely tolerated because of their wallets, but that we're still seen as the oppressors. Malawi had the most irritating and insistent touts and street vendors, Uganda or Zambia the least.

Then of course there's the food. In my experience so far, African food in general is not great. I haven't ever eaten West African food, and I've heard it's better, though kind of more of the same. The exception that proves the rule is Ethiopian food which is amazing (delicious, different and fun, I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't ever tried it). I don't think there will be an African restaurants craze in the West any time soon, the food is generally pretty utilitarian. Everywhere all the time there is the cornmeal staple, whether called posho, ugali, nsima, shima, or whatever it will be called in the next place. I've heard it described as many things, but for me the closest comparison in texture and flavor is cold Cream of Wheat- except steaming hot. You eat it with your hands, rolling it only little balls in your palm then dipping it in sauce- beans or broth or whatever it may be. Uganda truly is the land of matooke, it is the only place where it has been the major staple (I have heard this is the case in a lot of West Africa). I can't say I don't miss matooke quite a lot, though if I were in Uganda I'd still probably pick rice over matooke.
The best food has been without a doubt Swahili food in Zanzibar and along the Indian Coast. It was about the same as everywhere else, but with the addition of copious spices of every shade and flavor. Really genuinely delicious.

No food I've had has been "bad," just often bland and boring. Living in Uganda I never thought I would have said this, but Ugandan food is not the worst I've had. That prize has to go to Zambia. Malawi isn't far behind except that there's cheap fish everywhere since nowhere in the country is more than like 100 miles from the coast. The food is about the same as Ugandan food minus the hint of Swahili influence you get in Uganda and minus matooke. Plus there's often not a lot of meat at localfood spots. Just lots and lots of posho and beans, Yumm! My favorite African dish is pilau, which is spiced rice with meat. I learned to cook it in Kenya and Uganda, and I brought some pilau masala seasoning home, so I will be able to shock and awe my friends and loved ones with basically the one good African cuisine I have found.

East Africa in general had much much worse transportation infrastructure. All the roads within and between cities in Malawi and Zambia have been immaculate. It has been possible, dare I say easy, to read while in transit- something unheard of in Uganda or Kenya. The streets of downtown Kampala are significantly more potholed and decrepit than anything I've encountered since I left Tanzania. Southern Africa seems easier, with a greater separation between rich and poor. I get the impression that it is easier here to live an insulated life of relative ease without seeing poverty or suffering. There are luxury buses everywhere that are quiet, smooth and livestock free. There is often wi-fi, though never free. The cities are nice little enclaves of order, shady promenades and manicured lawns, the poor people live in ghettos outside of town. In east Africa things seemed more jumbled with rich neighborhoods and poor ones interspersed around the city. Of course I don't really know any of this, it's all just conjecture based on the snippets I see here and there. I'm probably playing a dangerous game by pretending like I know what I'm talking about, so don't go basing any term papers on my expert analysis.

And of course there are hundreds of cool, quirky and interesting backpackers hostels in Southern Africa, which cater specifically and exactly to the needs and desires of people just like me. There is literally one in every single town of consequence along the sightseeing circuit, whereas in Uganda there are like 10 or 20 comparable places, total. It's great because there are hot showers, food at all hours of the day (rather than 8-10am, and 1-2pm like real Africa) and other travelers to talk to. It's not so great because it's a bizarre artificial mzungu bubble and it is entirely cut off from the real culture. That plus they're often about twice as expensive as local places, (as in like $10 a night vs $5) though they are usually about twice as comfortable.

So that's it. Africa in a nutshell. I have had a great time, both while living a pretty normal life in a normal house in Uganda and being part of a great community and while vagranting around from country to country. I haven't bought my ticket home yet. It's no more expensive (sometimes cheaper even) to book a flight for the next morning then months in advance because TIA and flights are never full. I have up to about 3 months left if I stay as long as possible, but I may go home before then. Pretty much day to day I change my mind from wanting to leave in about a month to wanting to stay as long as possible to wanting to get the eff out of here tomorrow. I'm just kind of figuring it out as I go along, so we'll see. If I wait through another couple months of rainy season, I'll be able to catch some last minute beach time in Mozambique before I go home, which is hard to pass up.

It's a funny thing. I decided to stay here through the winter, in large part to miss the overcast rainy season in Oregon. Instead I caught the rainy season in the tropics which is probably 10x wetter and without the infrastructure to handle the water. It is nice to see the full cycle of seasons to get a handle on what live is really like here. Every sunny day while I hope the rains are over for good and lay out on a rock absorbing the UV like a lizard, the farmers on the next block are rain-dancing with all their might to ensure their crops won't die in the ground. I guess I should have known better, but then again I guess that's just the way life is. You can't live your life running from the unpleasant parts, because it'll catch you one way or the other. There wouldn't be good without bad, and my afternoon inside is another person being able to feed their children.

That said, I still don't want to get a real job and I will continue to run from that particular unpleasant reality.

Matooke Time

2010-03-03T16:28:00.004+03:00

Just a quick thought that I've been laughing about for while now. When I was in Zanzibar arranging a snorkeling trip I got to talking to the guy as always happens. We told him we were from Uganda and he thought that was great because his brother in law or something is from there. We then of course started trying to bargain him down in the price (unsuccessfully) at one point sending matooke internationally was brought up because the Tanzanian matooke is just quite as tasty. So anyway, we had it all set up and asked him what time to show up in the morning. He said 8:00 or something and we asked him if we had to show up on time. He responded with:

8:00 means 8:00, not 8:05 or 8:30. 8:00 White time, I know you two are from Uganda but not Matooke Time. If you are late we will leave without you.

I think he was probably serious, because over the course of the trip there were probably no less than 3 times where we showed up too late and missed out on something.

Then he proceeded to refer to Caitlin as "Madame Matooke" for the rest of the week.

Not that I'm complaining

2010-02-25T21:09:00.007+03:00

First things first, I went back and added pictures to the last few posts, so check those out.

It's been a busy few weeks of lounging on the beach and I wish I could say it's all been perfect. It takes a lot to shake me these days, most anything I can just laugh off. I had been thinking lately that I don't seem to have interesting "overcoming adversity" travel stories anymore, and that everything just goes ok all the time. Then I thought about it and it's not that I'm not having issues, it's just that I'm not really impressed by them anymore.

If anything I just expect them. There is one thing however that still gives me problems, and being a child of the rains of Oregon it is embarrassing to admit. I am getting my ass kicked by the rains. At every turn I just get completely slapped in the face and kicked when I'm down by this damn weather. There are two important considerations to keep in mind:

1) this is no normal everyday drizzle. Rain in Africa is serious business. A number of times I've had the odd experience asking how long it will continue to rain only to be told that in fact it's not raining at all- "this is just a little precipitation." "Rain" means buckets of water per minute and drops the size of marbles, rains must be hid from. Rains change your day. As far as I can tell, only white people are stupid enough to try and tough it out.

and 2) I undertook an ill-fated experiment to try and camp. I bought my tent and sleeping bag and acquired a scratch yoga mat to sleep on, so I thought I had the perfect plan to save money and really take in the great outdoors (plus maybe have a lion story or two). Unfortunately, to my ultimate undoing, I discovered that "waterproof" is a subjective term. Maybe I'm an idiot for not doing more research before I bought the thing (bingo), or maybe I got conned by crappy Chinese goods. Either way, I spent several nights marking the hours by the rise in water level inside my tent. Webaale Nakumatt. I tried various ingenious schemes to soak up and prevent the drips, but ultimately gave up the morning I woke up in 3 inches of water with virtually everything I own soaked.

All my clothes have been wet for the last week or so. Try as I might, everytime I hang clothes on the line they just end up wetter than they started. It's a bit of a pickle. So if you're reading this from somewhere in Southern Africa and smell something like a mix between a Frat house basement and pet shop, it's probably me. In perhaps a related story, I've also been sick for the last couple weeks. Maybe it's due to the fact that I'm never really dry, or maybe to the fact that in an effort to save money I'm switched to the once a day meal plan. Whatever, I quit. I'm through sleeping in tents, dorm beds from here on out. I'm through starving myslef to save money, from now on I'll just shell out the $5 for a mediocre dinner- consequneces be damned. I may be coming home sooner than I had thought. Aside from this little rain issue, everything is hunky-dory though.

Anyway, back to the point. Since I last posted I have been on a series of islands in lake Malawi, reachable only by a once a week ferry or wind powered dhows (or in one lucky case a motor boat belonging to resort owner who took pity on us). I spent 3 nights on Chizimulu island, which was nice. It's a little island with a population of a few hundred with literally nothing that isn't brought in on the ferry. Basically options outside of the backpackers campsite were fish, nsima, and of course Coca-Cola. I have yet to go to any far strung corner of this continent where there wasn't coca-cola, much more so than potable water.

From there we took a boat to the bigger brother island, Likoma. Likoma is a booming metropolus with a restaurant or two, a post office, and (they say) the only hand-crank telephone left in the world. Likoma was also amazing, though the rains put a damper on things. When it wasn't raining, maybe 50% of the time, it was as close to paradise as you can get. I wish I had more to say about it, but I basically sat in a hammock all day reading with the occasional dip into the warm, crystal clear water to snorkel and observe the "greatest freshwater species diversity in the world." Not too shabby really.

So to bring it all back around to "overcoming adversity" stories. The islands were reachable only by Ferry, so I was fortunate enough to be a guest on the SS Ilala, quite possibly the oldest running boat on the planet (I heard told 1920's era, though more likely it's WWII). Just to make things interesting, there aren't any docks. To get on and off the boat requires a little Titanic lifeboat to the shore, and wading up to the beach with a 50 pound backpack. No big deal. My first day back on mainland, I got off the ferry at like 11pm and waded up the shore then hiked like a half mile to the first outcropping of village in Nkhota-kota. From there I found a little rat's nest local guesthouse. $3 for my own room. I was getting ready to go to bed and the desk guy who spoke no English came to my room with a little packet of powder and started gesturing wildly. After a few misunderstandings (is he selling me cocaine?), it became clear it was cockroach powder. Thanks man, good looking out. Cockroach free, no extra charge.

From there the plan was to take a minibus AKA matatu, AKA, dalla-dalla to Lilongwe via Salima. We made it about an hour or two down the road only to find out...

It's not there. Road's finished. Washed out. Thank you rainy season. So thanks to some quick decision making by Bright the Peace Corps, we hitched a ride in the back of a 4x4 pickup going back the other way and taking the other road, the "bad road." Aside from some slipping around and a little crick in the neck from sitting in the back of a truck for 4 hours, we made it with no probalems to Lilongwe, capital of Malawi.

So there we have it, that's all she wrote. After spending like a month without internet I'd been having some serious withdrawals, so I needed a fix. I've been in a cafe for a good 4 hours, so it's probably time to get on with my day. Next stop, Zambia.

Periodic Updates from the Lost One

2010-02-25T04:16:00.001+03:00

(Actually Lake Kivu, stolen from the facebook page of a certain tall German)

Let's see, I got this one Sunday morning not too long ago:

Sitting in a bar on the beach drinking kuche kuche beer and listening to a rasta with a fiddle sing sweet songs about fishing and hiv.

And a few days later, right as I was getting home from work:

Camping on the beach, sunrise over the water. Would be perfect except there's a damn monsoon and my tent is about as 'waterproof' as a silk hankie.

It reminds me of when I was in college in Vermont and my other brother would call me in February to tell me that he was biking to work because it was supposed to hit seventy that day in Santa Barbara.

Dispatch from nowhere

2010-02-15T16:27:00.001+03:00

Posting is becoming a bit of a struggle these days, though I'm doing my best to outfox this Malawian infrastructure. I won't be able to post any pictures for a while unfortunately, but as soon as I can I will.

I am still working my way down the lake one beach at a time, living the dream to the best of my abilities. This country is kind of a strange can of worms so far. It's incredibly poor, noticeably much more so than Uganda or anywhere else I've been- I think I heard that it's the 8th poorest country in Africa (so one would assume it must be up there on the list worldwide). There is almost no infrastructure, towns are tiny collections of shops with little inside, and people are just kind of ragged. On the other hand, it is somehow incredibly touristy and expensive. Mzungu price is in full force here and people seem offended when I try and tell them I won't pay 4x the real price. Everywhere I go there are a hundred local kids and men chasing me to try and sell bracelets and ganja (allegedly some of the best/cheapest in the world is in Malawi, although I of course wouldn't know anything about that). The roads along the tourist strip are great and there's delicious western food everywhere. It's a land of contradictions and I can't figure it out. That plus it costs $2 a mintue to call Tanzania 100 miles away.

Anyway, I'm in Nkhata Bay chilling out. It's a little village in the middle of nowhere turned cheap toursit destination. I'm pretty sure it's Valentines day, the place I'm staying had a big party with free watermelon/waragi jungle juice. A good time was had by all. I've been doing a little snorkeling and saw some fishes and crabs and such. I guess that's about it. I leave tomorrow on a ferry to Likoma island in the middle of lake Malawi, where I will have to stay for a week until the next ferry comes. From there I may go to Mozambique if I can get a visa, because the word is that due to 25 years of civil war, bridge bombing and landmines it is a relatively untouched corner of the planet- inaccessible by road from the populations center and capital of its own country. I'm just kind of moving with the winds, so I may or may not end up there or somewhere else.

Our Lost Little Lamb

2010-02-13T20:27:00.000+03:00

in zanzibar kickin around eating coconuts and lobster claws on the beach. tell mom and dad i'm ok. if not back soon avenge death

Since I now live vicariously through Luke's posts as much as any one else, if not more, I have been taking the lack of updates pretty hard. Well, lucky for you, me and the whole wide internets, I'm gonna step in and help the little fella, who's having some internet connection issues. Don't get confused though, people. I am not back in Afrika, however much I would rather to be.

The internet in Malawi is awful. This is the third town I've stopped at and the first with any internet at all. No cell reception outside of towns either. This country is the VILLAGE. Lake Malawi is amazing though, bathwater with waves and golden beaches.

That's about all he gave me to work with. So to round this thing out, I'll just include a hil-arious joke that some mysterious person forwarded me about the pending/considered/whatever homosexuality law in Uganda.

Pablo: Yah! I met an old friend who almost shocked me to death. He told me that he was in the gay choir.
Bahati: Jesus Christ of Nazareth! What kind of songs do they sing?
Pablo: No, he meant GAY for Gayaza Archdiocese Youth choir.
Bahati: Eeeh! You almost shocked me too.

HAHAHA. Wait, what?

Inland beach bumming

2010-02-10T18:39:00.003+03:00

I am now in Malawi, the train in Tanzania was utterly problem free (unfortunately?). Malawi is a nice place, pretty similar to Uganda really. It's very green like Uganda with subsistence crops everywhere, everyone speaks at least basic English like in Uganda, and most importantly people are unbelievably friendly like in Uganda. Had I only been to these two places I'd probably generalize that Africa is just like this, but it's not always the case. Kenya was surprisingly devoid of subsistence farming, and Tanzanians neither spoke much English or were overly interested in me. Not that it's a bad place, but it just didn't have the same welcoming feeling.

Malawi so far is an interesting place. It's really undeveloped, no Internet cafes or even cell phone reception outside of reasonable sized towns- at least in the north where I am so far. On the other hand there are amazing backpackers campsites everywhere, much nicer and more common than in most of East Africa. This is cool because they are fun and full of other travelers to meet, but for whatever reason the people running them seem to invariably be unhelpful, uninterested and borderline hostile. I don't know whether they're used to whiny overland-truck tourists or racist South Africans or something, but they just kind of treat you like you don't matter, whereas everywhere else people treat you like a potential long lost cousin or something. I'm having a blast, I've been traveling for the last few days with a couple Kiwis and camping every night.

Things are good, I'm working my way down the Lake Malawi coastline. Lake Malawi is big, clean, and very beautiful. It's warm like bathwater with beautiful beaches, so it would be hard not to be having a great time.

(My good buddy the security guard, Boss Xosa)

Another week, another amazing trip.

2010-02-03T14:40:00.005+03:00

I just arrived back on the mainland from a week or so beach getaway in Zanzibar with Caitlin. It was amazing: turquoise water, white sand, deadly hot African sun. It was everything a beach vacation is supposed to be, and not much else- which obviously is a great thing. We sat on the beach, we snorkeled a bit and we ate a lot of very fresh very cheap seafood. Anytime you can buy lobster claws from street vendors, you know you're doing something right. Aside from a brief bout with as sick-as-I've-ever-been food poisoning (Streetfood Special), it was perfect. That only lasted about 8 hours, so it was fine. Very ok.

It has been strange to be in such extreme tourist central areas, very very unlike being in "real" Africa. It's odd because everyone is so used to crappy, rude white tourists that everyone who deals with tourists just kind of ignores or preys on you and it becomes kind of just like every other tourist place. It's unfortunate because the majority of people who visit Africa never see the best part about Africa- the kindness of strangers. Oddly enough though, a funny thing has started happening to me. Caitlin and I will be dealing with some street tout trying to sell us something or bargaining with some vendor for a coconut, and at least once a day in Zanzibar get "It's clear you have lived in Africa for awhile. Where have you been living here?" I don't know whether it's my wicked tan (I'm convinced some Italian tourist asked if I was a White Kenyan), or my Pidgin English ("My dear, 3,000 Shillings, it just can't be. You must reduce a bit"), but something somewhere has flipped and everything seems to be cheaper.

(Sunday is apparently Locals Day at the beach)

I'm in Dar es Salaam for the next two days then I hop Ye Olde Timey colonial train back into the heart of Africa. I got my Safari mustache and my tan shirt all packed, so I'm ready for anything. Two days over the mountians to Mbeya and the Malawian border if nothing goes wrong. We'll just see.

Safari!

2010-01-24T11:03:00.007+03:00

I am still alive and kicking around. I have been in Arusha, Tanzania for the last week visiting a friend and shedding the last vestiges of semi-employment. Life is great. It's warm and sunny, I have no worldly responsibilities anymore, and I'm meeting a ton of great new people. I couldn't really be any happier right now.

Out of nowhere, I kind of fell into the opportunity to go on a safari in the Serengetti and Ngorogoro Crater, two of the absolute best spots on the planet to see amazing animals. I came to Arusha to see Mary and Shannon, two friends of Caitlin who came to Mbale for Thanksgiving. I found out when I arrived that they were about to leave for a Safari with Shannon's stepmom that they'd been planning for months and months. In the kind of stroke of luck that seems to characterize my life these days, they had one extra spot. Hells Ya! In a further stroke of luck, apparently mid January is like the best time to see lots of animals in the Serengeti because it's the Great Migration and several million wildebeest, buffaloes and zebras are on their way through the park. What better way to break in my new camera.

I learned that Zebras and wildebeests are apparently very good friends. Zebras see really well and wildebeests have a great sense of smell so they always hang out. Who knew?

Zebras, I learned, like grass.

We saw maybe 15-20 lions, and like 5 lion cubs. No kills though.

We were told there was a 50% chance of seeing a rhino. We saw 12 of the park's 20.

I learned that rhinos like to hang out in pairs.

Tree fulla monkeys.

More lions. Things got a little PG-13 just after this. I learned that when I female lion is in heat, her and her man-friend will do nothing but have sex approximately once every 5 minutes for like a week. You can tell she's almost done because they're so skinny- they've been too busy getting busy to stop for a snack for the entire week. Jebaale Mr. Lion!

More lions. This one stood there like a statue watching the sun go down for easily 20 minutes without moving.

Hippos. One thing I will give to the Uganda National Parks, is that they delivered better hippos. In every other way, this was incomparably better.

Giraffes are funny. Did you know that their front legs are longer than their back ones?

Ngorogoro crater was a huge bowl with an area of 250 square miles or something. Full of animals. Zebras and wildebeests in the foreground, the pink in the back is a few of the approximately 50,000 resident flamingos.

We saw a couple hundred elephants, always moving in big groups. It is very difficult to express just how much better seeing elephants in the wild is than the zoo. The elephants were so happy and content going about their lives and hanging out with their buddies, whereas the zoo elephants look depressed and lonely.

Elephant breakfast.

A dung beetle going about his business.

This leopard walked alongside our car for like five minutes, maybe ten feet away. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

Sunrise over Ngorogoro Crater.

Remembering the Sun

2010-01-20T09:31:00.000+03:00

...on a rainy winter afternoon. Anyone else interested in a little roasted goat? Maybe watch the sun set with a refreshing beverage?

(Yes please)

Monkey Tricks

2010-01-18T14:56:00.000+03:00

(View from my bed, no elephants for us this time unfortunately)

After a night in Fort Portal we set off for Kibale. This one is really not a popular route, so the matatus in this case were normal sedans rather than vans. In typical fashion they crammed as many people in as humanly possible, so we were flying around on dirt roads in the mountains with 9 people in a Corola- including 2 in the driver's seat. We got to Kibale and checked into our guesthouse. We had reserved the"the tree house," sight unseen so we didn't really have any clue what to expect.

As we were checking in, the woman explained that "you might want to eat and shower before we show you to your room, because it's a kilometer away in the forest." Wow. The tree house was quite possibly the coolest place I have ever slept. It was nothing more than a simple hut perched on top of a tree, in the middle of the national park. No electricity, no water, no window panes, no problem. Did I mention it was in the middle of a wildlife preserve overlooking an elephant wallow in the Equatorial African jungle?

(Don't trip)

As we were being shown to our room, the guy kept stopping along the way to tell us where we might find different types of wildlife if we are lucky- monkeys, chimpanzees, elephants, and birds. Then he stops dead in his tracks and tells us to listen to the crashing in the bushes ahead. We crept around the corner and found ourselves face to face with two chimps, I guess they too use these jungle paths. Caitlin is Junior Miss Jane Goodall, having studied primatoloy and spent months tracking monkeys in South America, so needless to say she just about lost her mind. The guide wouldn't let us stop for very long to watch the chimps, because it's supposed to cost $100 per person to see the chimps. Later in the day we were talking to some other people who were talking about having to hike for like 8 hours with a guide to see chimps, they were a little annoyed to hear that we found them on accident- for free.

The night was great, though I have never in my life been so thankful for a ~~mosquito~~ sechurity net. We woke up with the sun to watch for elephants, but no luck. For some odd reason the park/hotel staff either assumed that a) we knew how to take care of ourselves or b) we weren't dumb enough to set off without an armed guide. Whatever the case, we set off on our own to do some illicit chimp tracking. I don't really know where wandering unaccompanied in a forest full of fresh tracks of elephants and large primates falls on the scale of ill advised decisions, but I think somewhere between "drinking the water" and "pulling a tiger's tail." We were wandering down the path and I caught the apparently unmistakable odor of elephants. I didn't know I knew what elephants smell like, but I instantly knew without a doubt that I smelled elephants- I don't know whether it's from the zoo or 10,000 years of swinging through the jungle. Unfortunately no pachyderm sightings, but we did see baboons, Colubus monkeys and some certain birds.

(Monkey in the middle)

In other news, I decided to stay in Africa. My plane leaves the day after tomorrow and I will not be on it. Instead I bought a tent and sleeping bag and gave away everything I can't carry on my back. I am leaving this week to go wherever I go until I run out of money or decide its time to go home.

Good Bye Uganda

2010-01-16T12:51:00.007+03:00

Today is my last full day in Uganda. It's really a trip to be leaving after spending the last almost-year of my life here, and sad to say goodbye to all the great friends I've made. My flight home left this morning, and I couldn't be happier with my decision not to be on it. It's a perfect day in Kampala, 90 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. I'm staying with my good friend Justus and we're going to go spend a few hours at the pool this afternoon before going out to dinner with some friends for my last night.

I leave on a 22 hour bus ride Sunday afternoon for Nairobi, then Arusha, Tanzania to see a friend of Caitlin and Kilimanjaro. I just found out that my Tanzanian visa was stamped wrong and is good for a year rather than another week like I thought. I got a letter stating so from the Tanzanian High Commision, so I should be able to just stroll across the border without paying anything with some luck. Now that I have all this time to spend in Tanzania, I think I'm going to take a week or so detour and go back to Zanzibar because it's the coolest place I've ever been. Not a bad way to live really.

Good bye Uganda, It's been good.

Southwest Uganda Ho!

2010-01-14T14:04:00.004+03:00

(Not a bad place to spend a few days)

I visited Western Uganda this past week to kick off my traveling. We first went to Lake Bunyonyi, which is said to be the 2nd deepest lake in Africa (after Lake Tanganyika). It was very beautiful, but a little cold. We stayed at a really cool guesthouse on an island in the middle of the lake. Once we got the island it was all about relaxing, swimming in the reputedly bilharzia-free water and canoeing in local style canoes. Relaxing went off without a hitch, swimming went well too. The canoeing on the other hand was a bit of a challenge. They have a saying on this lake about the "mzungu corkscrew" because white people don't really know how to do it properly and just spin in circles. Suffice it to say that they know what they are talking about. It took about 45 minutes, but we got it down and eventually were shushing around the lake like pros. No skinny dipping this time, as there is a rumor that "if you swim naked at night the local otters will mistake your testicles for food and bite them off." No thanks

(Nightfall over Lake Bunyonyi, southwestern Uganda)

After a few days there, Caitlin and I split off from our friends and went to Kibale National Forest for a little side trip. Coincidentally, to get from Lake Bunyonyi to Kibale one has to drive through Queen Elizabeth Game Park. Because we're poor we of course took public transportation, because it's not a popular route that meant matatus. As we were driving through the park there were animals visible here and there out the windows, we saw elephants, buffaloes and antelope-y things. The best part was Caitlin got all excited the first time we saw something, so for the next two hours the other 25 people in the taxi (14 seats, excluding driver) took it upon themselves to scout for animals to show us. Some people pay thousands of dollars for a safari, we got ours for about $5- with 25 personal tour guides. No pictures unfortunately, I couldn't bring myself to be the idiotic white guy with a camera poking out the window.

It was a great week with my roommates, and an amazing finish to my time in Uganda. Kibale was even better, so stay tuned...

Anyone remember how the game ended?

2010-01-12T06:31:00.001+03:00

Me neither.

I be this badman

2010-01-11T15:15:00.000+03:00

I'm back in Mbale from my initial stretch of traveling, it has been a great week or so. I went to Kampala to ring in the New Year in style with my roommates. We made some fresh off the tree sangria and pregamed in the hotel before going out to an outdoor concert at the Sheraton hotel. We had a great time, we saw all the usual Ugandan pop stars, including one His Excellency the Ghetto President Bobi Wine who was the one musician I really wanted to see before I left Uganda.

(I gotta plug this video every chance I get, for some reason Pat and I absolutely love it.)

We showed up to the concert fashionably late of course, and by the time we arrived the line at the door stretched for easily a quarter mile around the block- probably thousands of people. For your average crew this may have derailed the night, but luckily we had my roommate, the resourceful Young Caitlin in our midst. She strolls right up to the front of line line- sporting towering heels and a saucy party dress of course- and smooth as you like convinces the bouncer to let her and her 7 friends just skip the line and come right in, no bribe necessary. Being White in Africa is a funny thing, some days it really works in your favor. I guess we should have been a little ashamed of ourselves for exploiting the situation, but the way I see it this is the reward we get for being charged double for everything because of our skin color. As we were being whisked through the line we walked past two random white girls who I overheard talking as we passed. They were like "How come they get to go straight to the front of the line? We've been waiting here for over an hour! They must be important. C'mon let's squeeze in behind them." Haha, score one for us. Turns out these girls were PeaceCorps, from Washington and living in Mbale. Small world. It was a fun night, they even had fireworks at midnight.

Also while I was in Kampala I went to the US Embassy because I had to get additional pages added to my passport, a fact which I take no small amount of pride in. The embassy was odd, kind of the perfect storm of American bureaucracy and apathetic African service. I half expected to be served budweiser and bbq at the door, but I was a little off. Keep in mind I was one of like four people in this office.

9:45- Arrive for my 10:00 appopintment (I was scared that I'd be late to the Mzungu time) 10:00-10:45- wait to see the big man, only to be told to fill out form 1045A (on the internet it said I didn't need to)
10:50- 11:30- wait to hand in form 1045A
11:30-1:30- wait here, it should be 15-20 minutes.

In the end, I was succesful and met some interesting people along the wayincluding a Ugandan dance troupe that will be touring the US for the next couple months, check out EmpowerAfricanChildren.org to see tour dates if anyone is interested.

That plus...

(Matooke Joe Camel going for a little stroll, taken from my bus window)

I bought a new camera!

Sunday Morning Americana

2010-01-10T23:25:00.000+03:00

(San Luis Valley in southern Colorado)

What passes for excitement these days

2010-01-07T06:31:00.000+03:00

Looks like another holiday season has come and gone. What makes a successful family vacation where I come from? Just follow these simple steps:

1. Eat some weird hippie goodness, preferably purchased from a weird hippie at a weird hippie market.

(if it looks like that, it's either poisonous or good for you)

2. Get way too competitive playing kiddie games

(WHICH I WON BY THE WAY SO STICK THAT IN YOUR PHD PIPE AND SMOKE IT)

3. Encourage idiotic behavior by otherwise sensible people

(done and done)

Best Laid Plans

2010-01-06T10:35:00.005+03:00

Like all my well designed plans, everything I thought I had all figured out for the next couple months is totally out the window. It turns out the partially-inept travel agency I was forced to use to book my tickets had one last trick up their sleeve. I guess my ticket can't be extended past early Feb, some sort of one year maximum. So, now I have to decide to either cut my travels to less than a month or just let my return ticket expire and figure it out later. A responsible person, obviously, would pick the former. But for me, I like cowpeas.

I have some big-boy decisions needing to be made in a hurry. It's unfortunate that I just so happen to be the most chronically indecisive person on the planet. I'll have to figure it out in the next week, so soon enough life will go on as normal.

Picture me Bussin'

2010-01-01T10:30:00.000+03:00

(It's a celebration Bitches!)

I need to start writing my travel plans down, and I figure this is as good a place as any. So here goes: if anybody out there sees something they want to blow the bank and be a part of, come join me- I'd love the company.

I'm leaving for Kampala in the morning to do New Years in the city with my roommates. I've heard New Years isn't as much of a huge thing in Uganda as in the US, but any random night in Kampala is usually a blast if you know where to go. I was in Jinja a couple weeks ago and met these cool Indians and an Italian who all work for the multinational building the new dam. We had a great night out in Jinja and they said they have a suite at the Serena or the Sheraton. When I told them about my roommate who just loves Indian guys (in other news my roommate is probably going to be pretty pissed at me for spreading blatantly false rumors about her predilections), they insisted that we join them. I think the plan is to start things out a little classyish, then probably head to the club and dance the night away. Then maybe after-party in a hotel suite.

New Years day is of course the Rose Bowl. For those of you that don't know about what's hot these days, that's an American Football game- arguably the biggest of the year. My Alma Mater and lifelong favorite team, the Oregon Ducks, just so happen to be playing in the Rose Bowl for the first time since I was a kid, and it just so happens that it will be showing live on satellite tv in Uganda. The plan for New Years day is to nurse the hangover and go shopping for some provisions in Kampala (Lonely Planet Southern Africa, new camera?, fresh threads) since we're 11 hours ahead of PST. Then we don the ol' green and yellow, hit an expat sportsbar (assuming one exists) and Duck out all night. GO DUCKS!

Then the morning of the 2nd, we're hopping on a bus for Kabale town in southwest Uganda to spend a few nights on Lake Bunyoni. I stopped there several months ago and it was in the running for the most beautiful places I've been in my life. I was told its the deepest lake in Africa, and that it's one of the few lakes in Uganda that you can swim in without risking bilharzia. After a few days of relaxation lakeside, we head north for Fort Portal and Kibale national forest, home of the greatest concentration of primate species diversity in Africa. My roommate studied primatology in school, so I'm going to get the opportunity for the inside info on all the monkey business. After a night or two there, it's back to Mbale to say a few last goodbyes and one final serving of that tasty Ugandan matooke and then I ditch my current life and forge ahead solo for Tanzania and the unknown.

Wish me luck, the rest of my life starts tomorrow.

Matooke Christmas

2009-12-29T18:53:00.007+03:00

(Not our tree, but you get the idea)

Christmas is now past and New Year’s is right around the corner. When I decided to stay in Uganda for Christmas I knew that it would be nothing if not memorable. I wasn’t sure what would happen, but a wanted to take the chance to experience as close as I could to a traditional Ugandan Christmas. I don’t know whether I got that or not, but it was definitely a Christmas I’ll remember for a long time.

The lead up to Christmas I covered in the last couple posts, the important part is basically that the week leading up to Christmas was awesome and the week before that was pretty awful. I woke up on the 23rd to an email in my inbox from my Dad, which is always great. He was letting me know that I got a little visit from Santa (luckily my Pops had my forwarding address), and my family decided to all chip in and finance me to screw around in Africa for a few more months. How could the day get any better? Candy, that’s how. An hour or so later my roommates came home from the post office with a package from my Mom. Packages from Mom = American candy, American candy makes my week/month/year.

My friend Eddie and then hopped in a matatu to head out to the village to see his Mom and wish her a Happy Christmas, and meet with some village community groups we may start working with soon. The village is always really interesting and fun, and Eddie’s village always means eating his Mom’s amazing cooking until I’m way beyond stuffed. The village meetings went great; hanging out with Eddie’s family was great. Up to this point, it was a really really great day. But as is often the case around here, just when things seemed like they couldn’t get any better, they got a lot worse.

On the matatu ride home, Eddie took a dramatic turn and became really sick. He was shivering and had a fever and was passing out all over the place. It was really shocking, within maybe 30 minutes he went from normal and playing around to too weak to even take a shower. We canceled our plan for the night, which was to go to a Christmas benefit concert to support my roommates’ young women’s empowerment project. I took him to the hospital, where we were told he needed to be admitted and put on an IV immediately. So, we spent the next two nights in the hospital. It was pretty scary, both his condition and the hospital itself. There is something tragically ironic about sitting on the mosquito net-less hospital bed next to your friend who’s being treated for malaria and watching a steady stream of bugs pour in through the open window. Although it was kind of cool to lay in bed and watch the fireflies circle over my head. Four IVs later, he was released in time for Christmas breakfast.

(I reallly need a camera)

From there things got more normal. My roommate Rachel took it upon herself to bring an American Christmas to Africa, so we had reasonably close approximations of all the necessities. We had a nice little tree, stockings, and some decorations, very homey. We then all exchanged little gifts we bought at the local market, I bought gifts for my 5 roommates at a total cost of like $10. I myself hauled in a sweet secondhand Mauritius t-shirt, some cheap Chinese sunglasses, whiskey, rockin’ local sandals, and a nice collection of candy. Plus, during the course of my shopping I found a season of The Simpsons on dvd after nine months of looking. The Simpsons for me is like home in a box, I probably watched it at least a few times a week my entire life from when I graduated from Disney movies until I left for Africa. It is really extremely comforting and utterly utterly awesome to sit together with my roommates in a rain storm and watch these old episodes that we all know line for line. Oh plus Rachel brought Champagne home from Kampala, so we day-faded with Mimosas. Not too bad.

Christmas lunch is the big thing around here, and we got a zillion invitations to go have dinner with people we barely knew. I don’t know what memo we missed, but we definitely didn’t grasp the cultural nuances of what a Ugandan Christmas entails. Over the course of the morning we got like three random people telling us that they had thought we would be coming to their house for Christmas and had already gone to all these lengths to prepare it just for us, even though they apparently forgot to extend the invitation or something. Our neighbor who I had never even met told us they had bought a turkey just for us and invited their entire family. It was kind of hectic (the mimosas certainly didn’t help), but we made it through. We had lunch with the family who we share our compound with, which I think was the right thing to do because our lives are very interwoven and they are like family at this point. The food was bomb, the company was great, and we learned that Paul (the very unassuming Dad of the family) has a very surprising life story that I never would have pegged him for. I’m not going to blast his private life over the internet, but suffice it to say witchcraft, religious moments of clarity and multiple wives were involved. Wow.

Merry Christmas everyone.

My life such as it is

2009-12-26T22:41:00.002+03:00

It's been a busy couple weeks with very little time around the ol' computer, so I've kind of continued the downward spiral on blogging. Beyond simply being busy, I have noticed that lately my mental capacities seem to be in decline, and I seem to spend a disproportionate amount of my time staring at walls. I had heard that this is normal (not the wall staring but the mental decline), considering this is the first time I've spent a full year away from structured learning since I learned to count. My experience may be a bit exacerbated by the fact that at the same time I have been forced to go cold turkey on a pretty crippling case of Internet Inspired ADD. When I arrived here, it took the epitome of effort to do only 2 or 3 things at once. Thankfully, with a lot of dedicated noneffort and hard nonwork, I made it to the other side.

I can now comfortably say that I could hold my own with the best of them in a do-nothing contest. Sit in the shade and eat sweet fruits? Done. Stare at a wall pondering the best way to fry an egg for 45 minutes? Way ahead of you. Trace little circles on the desktop with the cursor? Cancel all my appointments for the afternoon. In short, its basically my Dad's worst nightmare and I'm unlearning 18 years of indoctrination to "go out there and be somebody." Instead I think I'd rather just take it slow and lazy. If anybody hears of a job opening for a surf instructor or tiki-bar manager (it would have to be no experience necessary) send it my way. Graduate school, probably someday. For now I'm cool to just be.

Just so nobody gets the wrong idea, I'll also stand by my skills on the open market at plopping down in a random 3rd world country with a few thousand dollars and a small handful of phone numbers and setting-up a functioning NGO in several months. I came here to nothing with very moderate prospects, by the time of my departure we will have had 14 employees from 6 universities and 3 countries through the project, conducted innumerable trainings and one day seminars, and obtained a solid inside-out understanding of development and microfinance in practice in Africa.

*By the way, the conversation I just had at this moment:*
My roommate: Have you written a resume with your Uganda work on it yet?
Me: Nope. That's what I'm supposed to be doing right now.
Roommate: But instead you're sitting on the couch with a tshirt-turban on your head writing a blogpost about how lazy you are?
Me: Yup.

I guess a quick update on my situation is in order. On the 31st of this month my term as Field Director of this organization comes to an end. After the initial 6 month stint that ended in September, I signed on for another stretch which was great. Despite a heap of reservations, I won't be accepting the offer for another 3-6 months on the job. This is not because I don't like the work or the organization, but because I think it's just time for me to move on to a new challenge. Part of me knew it was time to leave Uganda the first time I successfully took a matatu from one place I'd never been to another place I'd never been for the proper price without any significant disasters. So come January first I'm out of here and going to hit the road. The plan is to essentially go the next few months with as little planning as possible. I'm still piecing together my travel plans, but right now I'm thinking I'll head mostly South. First on the list is Malawi because I've heard its really cheap- even by Africa standards. I have this little idea bouncing around in my head of walking/canoeing across a significant portion of the country, since its 1) really small and 2) bordered along one full side by a tropical Lake. And they say Malawi has some of the best freshwater scuba diving in the world. To get to Malawi I'll have to go south through Tanzania, maybe stopping in Zambia for a bit. Then on to Mozambique to hit the pristine beaches and switch my mango eating to coconuts. Finally, since I'm going to be in Southern Africa I'm going to do my best to cash in on the lifelong dream of sharkdiving (You here me calling Noah?). Other than those, I'm just going to be taking it as it comes. If anybody wants to quit whatever they're doing and join me for a week or whatever, I love travel buddies.

So that's my life in a nutshell. It's Christmas, it's easily 80 degrees in the shade, and I have not a care in the world (aside from feeding myself) (and the hiv). I hope everyone at home wherever they are is having a great holiday with the people they care about. And lastly, finally, of course, Happy Hanukkah Dad (and anyone else of the Jewish persuasion).

Kampala at its Best and Rafting the Nile

2009-12-25T09:11:00.002+03:00

The last week has been nice and busy and really fun, one of the best I've had here. My friend from college Erin has been doing PeaceCorps in Kenya for the last year or so and came to visit last week. Before this organization was anything, it was me and Erin and a few others sitting around in coffee shops and talking about microfinance, so it was cool to have her here to see what she contributed to creating. We then went to Kampala for a meeting with the business school to talk about getting interns, which was very successful and promising. It was a good meeting, one of the great (though somewhat rare) instances where I feel like a real adult who is actually accomplishing something of note and not just eating mangoes in the shade. We made our pitch, they seemed to buy into it, everyone was happy.

Since we had the whole team together in Kampala for the first time, I took them for a night out in Kampala to meet The Doctor. We are lucky any time we are fortunate enough to get some of his time, because he's quite the Big Fish around the Kampala scene. We are relying on him to get our paperwork through the wheels of bureaucracy to become a recognized NGO because as you may have heard it can be a bit tricky to get the government in developing countries to do anything other than stare at the walls. It is invaluable to have someone who knows how to expedite things and talk to the right people, so it's always good to catch up with our main man and advisor when we're in Kampala. We went for a nice little night out in the casino, as always. And as always it was a lot of fun and we gladhanded with some good contacts. I don't know that everyone was ready for the experience that is a night out with him, but it was a ton of fun. Of course we had to hit the club after, cause what else do you do on a Wednesday night when you have an important meeting early the next morning. Afterward we went and saw some movie about the apocalypse and destruction of the major cities of the earth by every natural disaster possible. It was pretty much the most surreal experience of my life. Then we went and hung out at the mall. It was just like America! All in all, a successful Kampala trip.

But that's the boring part. We went to Jinja for a weekend of whitewater rafting on the headwaters of the mighty Nile river. It was absolutely amazing. I have been rafting on a number of different rivers in the US, and in the Dominican Republic, but this was by far the coolest. First of all it was really warm, so getting flipped was no big deal (I guess bilharzia is still there so maybe it was. On the plus side, I guess now I probably have it so I can swim wherever I want from here on out). Secondly it is enormous, really hard to fathom just how big it is in comparison to your average river. Because of this it had huge huge rapids that made it really wild, at one point we went perpendicular over this rapid easily like 8 feet high. Then we flipped. But the best part is that its uncommonly deep, so it's actually pretty safe despite all the power because there aren't really any rocks to hit. Hells Ya. The rafting companies on the Nile are very professional and legit, with a team of kayakers circling around to pick us up out of the water every time we flipped because the water was moving so fast it would probably take you to Egypt by the time you can blink. We also hit the club in Jinja (so I'm told). Awesome weekend. Thanks for visiting us Erin.

The nice thing about San Francisco...

2009-12-21T00:20:00.001+03:00

is that it's pretty close to Santa Barbara.

And Santa Barbara, my friends, is very nice. Especially when my former home is getting buried in snow.

(A few years old, but you get the idea)

Enjoy the winter, suckers. I'm gonna go fly a kite with my big bro.

This whole gay thing

2009-12-11T13:00:00.002+03:00

I've been getting all kinds of articles emailed to me about the anti-gay bill Uganda is talking about. Obviously it's extreme and obviously I think it's wrong. I'm not going to make some political statement, because I think it's kind of a trite argument to make- We're good and right, they're wrong and backwards I think is the basic premise. Maybe Pat will write about it since he needs something other than watching the Pacific Northwest rain to fill his time, and talking politics is probably more up his alley anyway. Anyway, to kind of understand where this thing is coming from you have to understand that society as a whole takes a different stance on homosexuality. The following is taken from the 3rd most read daily newspaper in Uganda, the Red Pepper:

"We have Homos in Cabinet"
-Top Bumshafter Ssebagala Reveals Who Plays Side B

The homos in Uganda have gone on rampage and are now making daring claims that some of their members are cabinet ministers. Ssebagala a top self confessed homo leader who stays in Uganda and in America called Sunday Pepper last night with hair-raising claims that at least four members of the current cabinet are homos.
He sounded furious and abused editors of the Red Pepper for publishing names of homosexuals in Uganda.

He said that the tabloid should stop tampering with the bum shafters because some of them are highly placed in government and have capacity to hit back. “You see, you are not really dealing with people that you can pillory and harass at will and they go away. We are not going anywhere!

“But if your research were as good as you would have Ugandans believe, then you would know that there are many more male and female gays in positions of responsibility in Uganda, and yes, some have served in government and cabinet over the years. Many are married to women and have children so we have to respect their privacy since we understand that they marry to keep their true feelings secret,” he said
Later when Ssebaggala was pressed, he in his fury gave out several names of people in cabinet and parliament whom he claims are homos.

For legal considerations we have decided to withhold the names of these ‘honourable’ members.
Our independent investigations had also zeroed on some members of the August house who are believed to be top homos.“I know some of these people even got money for campaigns from gay organizations abroad,” our source told us last night.
--

Just another daily reminder that Africa is not California.

African time is there

2009-12-09T12:01:00.002+03:00

I am beginning to worry about my employability when I get back home. It's possible that I may have picked up some habits that won't transfer well to the corporate world. A little window into my life these days:

My phone clock is the only watch I own. The other night one of my roommates picked up my phone to check the time. He was a little perturbed to find that apparently my watch is 45 minutes slow. "How do you function and do things on time," he asked. I guess I just hadn't noticed.

Apparently he thought this issue warranted further consideration because the next morning we had the following conversation:

Brad: "Remember a few days ago when we both set our alarms for like 5am for that basketball game, but I ended up having to wake you up?"
Me: "Yea, I set my alarm for the same time as yours but it didn't go off for some reason..."
Brad: "That's because your clock is 45 minutes slow you idiot."
Me: " I don't know, I guess these things happen."
Brad: "That was two weeks ago."

Ooops. Pole sana brotha.

Home again, home again

2009-12-07T02:50:00.002+03:00

I always thought this might be true, but it's a tough statement to back up.

(The Sisters, as seen from Mt. Bachelor)

And yet, having had the good fortune of being able to travel a bit in my young life, I'm starting to get more and more confident in my suspicions.

(The Woods, outside my Parents' Front Door)

So I'm just gonna go right out there and say it.

(Some certain Lake, in some certain Crater)

If you wanted to make a list of the best places in the world, Oregon has to be near the top. Call me a homer if you want to, but it's true.

(The Coast, south of Lincoln City)

Luke, I'm not telling you to hurry back. Stay as long as you can, I'll take good care of your car while you're gone. But when you do decide it's time to come back, and you're sitting in the airport reminiscing about all the great times you had in Africa, barGAINing, handling human waste and eating any little creature that crawls within your grasp, just remember this:

(20% chance of rain)

There are worse places you could be coming back to.

Malaria Dreams, Come to Life

2009-12-01T23:04:00.000+03:00

Why yes, that is a 40-foot statue of Babe the Blue Ox. I'm sorry if you've been driving for hours and thought that you might be having a malaria-flashback hallucination, but that's how we get the tourists to stop.

(Notice the little boy appreciating Babe's "virility")

Anyhoo, now that we've got you here, wouldn't you like to buy some Authentic Redwood Carvings(c), made from local, sustainably-harvested cedar? No? You're sure? Well you go ahead and have yourself a nice day. Drive safe now.

(Already can't decide if the Ox was real, or was a result of all the acid he took in the 60s)

What a strange country.

That's Dooty Baby

2009-11-30T08:41:00.010+03:00

We did our second big trash cleanup in town on Saturday. It was pretty awesome really. It got off to a rocky start, and looked like the 10 of us might be cleaning up trash on our own. By like 9am we were sitting in the shade in the center of town plotting our excuses to ditch out. I've gotten pretty extreme double takes before, but the 10 of us sitting in the shade of the clock tower at the town center in matching t-shirts got something on a different level entirely. I think the rough equivalent at home would be if you saw a fleet of porpoises in matching funny hats juggling flaming chainsaws in Times Square. It might attract a little crowd.

At the 11th hour, my bulletproof excuse proved unnecessary, Brad called with good news. He was at CRO- Child Restoration Outreach, the organization for streetkids. He says he wrangled some manpower, so we should head over there. Manpower wasn't quite the right term I guess, probably kidpower would have been better. I walked into the compound and was instantly swarmed by zillions of kids. Within fifteen whirlwind minutes I had a sweet CRO tshirt on my back, some latex gloves on my fingers, and some tasty gruel in my stomach ("If you love us you'll taste it"). An hour later the Islamic University Students Union showed up with wheel barrows. Away we went.

The trash pick up was cool I guess, as much as I hate picking up after myself, much less others. Cruising the streets in a huge pack, well, picking up trash was pretty fun. There was something kind of satisfying about getting homeless kids that live on the streets to take ownership and help us clean up those very streets. On the other hand, it's hard to love a society in which children and foreigners come in to pick up the piles and piles of garbage on the streets while grown men sit on the stoops to watch and laugh. Frustration is spending hours cleaning up other people's candy wrappers then turning around to survey the 6 square foot stretch of sidewalk you just finished cleaning, only to see someone dropping a wrapper on it. That would have been bad enough, but he also felt the need to point to it and tell me to pick it up in case I hadn't seen it. Thanks dude, maybe if you understood the concept of sanitation you wouldn't need to worry about cholera in your food.

Everything was moving along nicely, I was on enormous bag number two and had a fleet of kids swarming around doing my bidding. Everything was going well, so I let my mind slip and started to switch to autopilot a little bit. Big mistake.

Bam! Human feces! I don't know how I knew it, but it was just kind of one of those snap to reality instantaneous things. Uh oh, I have anonymous doodiebutter on my hand, that's bad. Hopefully the study I just saw on the news about a 100% failure rate for latex condoms in Kenya doesn't extend to latex gloves in Uganda. Peace out trash cleanup, I got a hot date with some Clorox.

So all in all it was a pretty solid microcosm for my entire life here:

1. We almost failed from the get-go despite good planning, but then everything fell into place at the last second and went great.

2. It was energizing and rewarding to help the community, but 75% of the people we were trying to help didn't actually care.

3. Fine as a whole, but the shitty parts really suck.

Karamojourney- part 2

2009-11-29T09:24:00.005+03:00

So after the buildup I pretty much was ready for anything when I got to Karomoja. It's probably the only time where a monkey riding an elephant wouldn't have caused me to significantly reassess my situation.

We stayed two nights in Moroto, the major "town" in the region. It had the feeling of being basically the last outcropping of civilization on the edge of the earth. The only cars were military or NGO, and all looked like they could survive a bomb blast- to be accurate, most looked like they just had survived a bomb blast. It was the kind of place that makes you realize what SUV's were invented for, since the main road into town had a mile or two long stretch of "bumps" easily the size of volkswagons.

On the way up there, we arranged for a friend of a friend of a friend to meet us at the buspark. It was a complete shot in the dark affair, we had no idea if this person was going to rob us, take us to his own or just flat our not exist. It was pretty much an exact repeat of the Rasta affair- if it was bad we could always just get out of dodge, it it was cool it would amazing. We get out of the bus, and shock of shocks- no on there. I had pretty much already marked him off in my head when who should show up, but some dude. "You must be the new friends, I'm Wilbert." (Somehow he spotted 4 whites guys in a crowd). Turns out Wilbert was amazing and the best host anyone could want.

Moroto was a funny place. It was the driest, most inhospitable place I've ever seen. It was the only place I've been that the local children said cute little things like "F*@k your mother. You give me money." I've been to a few other NGO hotspots, and they all sort of feel the same- which is to say not very pleasant. They don't really have the feel of real places where people live. The economy is warped because everything on the market gets baught up by aid workers on USAID dollars, and the locals get like millions of tons of relief food a year. The people are weird because they are subject to an ever changing parade of NGO's trying to fix them without adressing the fundamental problems in their lives. And of course, it is by nature a hostile, inhospitable envirnoment, since you must keep in mind that somtime in the recent past something horrible enough has hapenned to draw the attention of the international community to this previously forgotten corner of the earth.

The comparison between Lira, Gulu and here was very interesting. Lira kind of has the feeling of a shell of a place. It used to be the place to be for NGOs, everyone and their mother in international development had a Lira office up until a couple years ago when they all moved to Gulu. Walk around Lira now and one is struck by the number of nice Mzungu style houses that are sitting empty and for rent. They are too expensive for the vast majority of locals, and owned by rich absentee landlords who'd rather they stay empty than be dwelled in by the unwashed masses. There are broken down signs everywhere annoucing that and this and that project has been generaously provided by the good people of some silly country. Unfortunately, judging by the haggard upkeep of the signs, the generous people of Salt Lake City, Utah may have forgotten that there are real people whose problems never got solved by all the promises and good intentions. When all the NGOs left Lira, they headed for Gulu.

Gulu is a bloated bizzaro-world place if ever there was one. Walking down the streets, there are white people everywhere. The shops are full of weird comfort items for internationals that have no place in Gulu. $5 can of Pringles anyone? Gulu is on the gateway to Darfur, so it feels kind of like human suffering Disneyland. Everyone is there transiently, looking to have their life affirming help-experience. The money comes in bizzare waves because every time your Aunt Sally from Grand Rapids, Michegan hears about Darfur on the news, her $20 filters through here. The classic Gulu story is this: It's harvest season, but there is no corn to be found in Gulu. Corn field after corn field and no corn. The people are hungry, and have money to buy corn. But, the corn is not there. It turns out NGOs had swooped in and bought up all the corn in town, entire fields, to ship to the Sudan where the price of corn was much much higher. So, the locals were relying on food aid because there was no corn to be had because all the corn was being shipped to the Sudan as food aid. Hmmm...

In Moroto I had the feeling that I was a little early to the party. The NGOs were there, but it still felt very lonely compared to Lira and Gulu. I have no evidence to base this on, but somehow feel that 3 years from now when Gulu is Lira, Moroto will be the new place to be. Kind of like LA nightclubs, everyone has to be at the new hottest place. The dark little question no one wants to ask of course, is: did the NGOs leave the people of Lira any better off than the people of Moroto are now?

On Sunday we set off for the village. One car, one driver, one guide, 4 silly white dudes. Ready to hit it.

The rest of the story will follow hopefully soonish. I'm having trouble securing computer time to write these days, because we currently have 7 people in an office trying to share 3 computers and 1 internet connection. For some reason people seem to think that work should take precedence over me writing stories about poop. I'm doing my best, bear with me.

Basin and Range

2009-11-27T04:44:00.003+03:00

For all you non-geologists out there, that means that crossing Nevada is a whole lot of boring flat stretches, maybe 20-30 miles wide, broken up by some pretty steep hills. On the whole, that is less boring than just the flat (here's looking at you kansas), but possibly more annoying.

And here's the reason why. Not only did the mountains severely impact my ability to learn about the horrors of Obamacare ("git your guvment paws off my medicare." confusing, I know. That's why I wanted to listen), but I guess that Thursday also happened to be the trip to the last big rodeo in the sky for all the cows in Eastern Nevada.

I figured this out, based on three clues and my excellent skills of deduction:

(1) There was a mysterious wet, brown streak down the right hand side of my lane, even though I was driving through a desert.

(2) When we went through the mountains, the massive trucks slowed to maybe 20 mph, much slower than would have been necessary for most cargo.

(3) When I eventually had the chance to pass the trucks, I saw cows inside. Over and over again.

The third clue really gives it away, I know. But it also explains the mystery of the first two. You see, at the crest of each pass, these trucks would start leaking what I will delicately describe as a runny, foul smelling and mud-like substance. Except, in the immortal words of Paul Barish "that doesn't smell like mud." The dripping would continue for miles and miles.

And here's the clincher. Not only did the narrow desert lanes leave no choice but to drive in the mud streak for hundreds of miles. Not to mention these yahoo truckers did like 90 in the flats (which the Jimmy really can't abide) and 30 in the hills. With the added bonus that my only company was very intermittent sermons on the radio, a dead iPod and a murderous drifter with a lazy eye who kept telling me I had "purty skin." As if all that weren't enough, there was a big storm coming into Tahoe that night, so I had to push straight to the Bay. 600-something miles.

(Made it, though)

Happy Thanksgiving Y'all

2009-11-25T22:03:00.004+03:00

How big is our thanksgiving turkey?

Big enough to ride.

Karamojourney up North

2009-11-25T13:13:00.008+03:00

This was definitely a weekend to remember. I heard some crazy mind blowing stories, I reevaluated my perspective on life a little bit, and I spent seven hours staring out the window of a bus debating whether to quit my job. Needless to say, I did more than just sit by the pool and drink margaritas. It was basically a “go to the hardest, scariest place you can think of” type weekend.

Together with two of my roommates I trekked up to Karamoja, a region in rural northeast Uganda. Talk to any Ugandan and they’ll give you their assessment of Karamoja, generally it falls under the category of super unsafe and crazy to even think about going up there. On the other hand, almost no one has been up there, and those who have say that it gets a bad rap. Upon leaving I assumed it would be something in between, particularly since they said something similar (though much less emphatically) about Lira. A few tidbits, mostly if not exclusively hearsay, to get to know to get a basic idea of where our heads were at upon leaving for the trip:

My friend read a book which described it as: “where the Karamajongs all wear traditional clothing and assault rifles are as common as walking sticks and blankets.” (Traditional clothes are primarily blanket based, so basically that’s a lot of guns).

A person in Northern Uganda, whose current address was within an IDP camp when I was in highschool, told us “Watch out for those people, they’re uncivilized. They walk around naked and shit in the streets.”

The Karamajongs are said to be one of not too many cultures left that are resisting the influence of the “modern world.” They live basically the same life they’ve been living for countless generations, keeping cattle and hunter gatherer ing. The karamajongs believe that all cows on earth were ordained to them and them specifically by god. It is their divine right and duty to take by force all the cows they see. They have been raiding villages back and forth with the neighboring tribes for a zillion years, and until recently it wasn’t such a huge problem. Trouble came with the influx of cheap guns from Southern Sudan and the Congo, and it came in a big way. I was told that the average Karamajong adult male has more guns than changes of clothes.

We asked someone what the traditional Karamajong foods were, the answer: “UN relief.”

I was told by a Rasta that “Karamoja is fine, as long as you bring plenty of cigarettes, soap and salt. Kids will come up to your car with guns and demand you give them something, if it’s not one of those they’ll probably kill you. But other than that it’s just fine.”

I called the US embassy before leaving (in itself noteworthy) they connected me to “Ranger Station B.” The guy there gave me some helpful info: “don’t ever ever go outside of the town centers after dark,” “if you get ambushed, give away anything you have to to get out alive,” and “there is daily gunfire between the army and gunfire, so keep your eyes open.” He gave me the cellphone number of the UN security chief and told me to check in with him periodically. You know just to be on the safe side.

The stage was set for a notable weekend.

Arches National Park

2009-11-22T04:37:00.004+03:00

I think it's official, the coldest night of the trip was in Arches. Despite waking up to a massive blizzard in Colorado, somehow I was much colder here. I think it was related to my choice of campsite. I had the option of "protected site" or "spectacular view;" I went for the latter. I'm pretty sure the ground was frozen beneath my tent, which would explain the cold, I guess.

Other than that, Arches was pretty nice. Although I have to say, I'm not sure how I feel about being able to tour parks by motorized wheelchair. It's nice that a lot of people can visit the parks, I guess, but it isn't very rugged. And it means that a night of camping will run you $30. That is just outrageous, if you ask me.

Pretty cool scenery though. Pretty cool, indeed.

Kansas (empty silence)

2009-11-17T20:13:00.001+03:00

Really not too much to say about Kansas, so I'll let someone else handle it:

The village of Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call "out there." Some seventy miles east of the Colorado border, the countryside, with its hard blue skies and desert-clear air, has an atmosphere that is rather more Far West than Middle West. The local accent is barbed with a prairie twang, a ranch-hand nasalness, and the men, many of them, wear narrow frontier trousers, Stetsons, and high-heeled boots with pointed toes. The land is flat, and the views are awesomely extensive; horses, herds of cattle, a white cluster of grain elevators rising as gracefully as Greek temples are visible long before a traveler reaches them.

Extra credit if you can ID the passage without Google.

My Punk Ass Landlord

2009-11-17T19:50:00.000+03:00

How about this for a strange little story that kind of changes my perspective on everything:

First the backstory: I don't like my landlord, he's kind of a punkass. Everyone hates their landlord and thinks theirs is the worst ever, but this one is on another level from home. He is allegedly the richest man in the district (vaugely like a state), and allegedly gets personal phone calls from the president. He is very fat, in a country where being fat is a major statement of wealth. Everytime I see him he tries to renegotiate the terms and fanangle us out of more money, contract be damned. The last time I paid rent he said he was tired of dealing with us and that he'd just evict us that night unless I paid him more money on top (I didn't). During the months it took to get him to sign the contract and my organization to clear the funds to pay the rent, he would just randomly show up at our house unannouced at like 7 am ready to do business and demanding money. I had thought he was just generally difficult and kind of an a-hole. Turns out the rabbit hole goes a little deeper.

I was driving up in the village the other day with some of my roommates and our friend Juliet who is super well connected around Mbale. I pointed out the house where I was told our landlord lives. Since Juliet knows virtually everyone and everything in Mbale, she chimed in. "Oh really? Who's your landlord?" I told her his name, and she of course knew who he was.

"No, that's not his house. His one is that one there, with the really high wall and big gate. He has to have a house with very high security." Ok, fair enough, he is pretty rich. Had the conversation ended there, it wouldn't have been anything worth writing about. But then:

"I don't know if you know this, but your landlord is one of the 'wanted men of Uganda'. He's known to be a very bad man and is very dangerous. It's common knowlege that people who cross him get killed or die mysteriously, but you know how Uganda is- people with money never go to jail."

This is the same Punk Ass Landlord that I hate with a passion and have habitually been crossing for the last 6 months. Maybe next time I'll just fix the sink myself.

Bourbon, Tent, Snow

2009-11-15T19:30:00.008+03:00

Given Luke's latest post, I thought it would be fun to contrast his camping experience with mine last night. Yesterday I finally left the plains behind, and crossed into the Rockies. First stop was Great Sand Dunes National Park, which for those who don't know, consists of an expanse of sand dunes, tucked away against the Sangre de Cristo mountains in southern Colorado. Pretty striking landscape, given that I'm used to seeing dunes on the Oregon Coast.

(Not much sign of ocean around here though)

I got here in the early afternoon, wandered around on the dunes for a bit, and couldn't help but notice some ominous looking clouds on the horizon. Sure enough, I found out that there might be some snow headed my way overnight. Nothing too serious though, or at least that was the story. I took a big nip of an Extra Special Super Select Bourbon I picked up in Kentucky to give me strength for what would inevitably be a cold, windy night at around 8,000 ft, and tucked myself in to bed.

(Goodnight Colorado)

I wake up this morning to that pervading, numbing silence that can only mean one thing. I was hoping that maybe the wind had just stopped because it was another, cold, clear and beautiful day up in the mountains, but no such luck.

(Just like camping in Uganda, except not at all)

Given the overnight low of -1, plus expected accumulation of I-don't-know-how-many inches of additional snow, I'll be spending the night in a hotel in lovely Alamosa, Colorado. For the record, that means sleeping in a bed, a shower, a proper meal, etc. It's hard to be too upset about that.

(Lucky for these guys nobody taught me how to slaughter deer in Africa)

Waragi, tent, stars

2009-11-15T18:25:00.000+03:00

(What a view, huh?)

We went for a quick work/camping trip last night, Africa style. We cruised to Tororo, the next town over to talk to an organization doing basically the same thing as us. It was kind of a uniquely African thing all around, to start with we drove 2 hours to pop in at their office because despite two weeks of looking we couldn't find any way to get in contact with them. No phone number, no website, nothing.

We hopped in a matatu and set off. A little cramped, a little slow, but business as usual. After a brief stint of wandering around lost in an unknown town, we found our bearings and strolled into the office. "Hi! Remember us? We're white, can we have a minute of your time?" Done and done.

We had a nice little meeting in the morning, and set an appointment next week to trek out into the sticks in the village and visit a bunch of their projects and clients. We had an afternoon to kill, so we decided to check out Tororo Rock, a volcanic formation looming above the town. We set out about an hour before sunset so unfortunately we had to adjust our plans and settle for sitting on top of a reservoir.

(Mighty Tororo Rock)

(Brad, Me and Nasser taking in the sights)

The following is a brief budget of everything involved:

Matatu fare (public transportation): $1.50
Boda-boda motorcycles taxis: $2
5th of Waragi gin: $7.50 between 3 people
2L water: $1 between 3 people
tent rental: $2 between 3 people
camping fee: $2.50, and few slugs of waragi and a cigarette for the night watchman
lunch: $1
dinner: $6- all you can eat
breakfast: $.75
Sketchy Mexican blanket borrowed from roommate: free

Total: about $15 for two days.

(Goodnight Uganda)

As I think will become a common thing here, thanks to Joel for hooking up the great pictures.

Redneck Fish Fry

2009-11-14T19:14:00.009+03:00

If those words don't get you just a little bit excited, then you and I have have very different priorities in this life. Picture the scene. I pulled into a campsite in western Kentucky as the sun was going down, and see a few RVs huddled together. In the middle was a circle of rednecks, complete with camouflage hunting jackets, bud heavies in koozies and a seriously large campfire. As I pitched my tent, listening to the guttural, hacking hoohaw laughter, I started to wonder if I hadn't made a mistake.

Then one of the guys came over. He wanted to invite me to sit around the campfire once I finished setting up camp. "Come and be neighborly," he said with a laugh, "if'n you don't mind a bunch 'er fellers settin' aroun' and gittin' lit."

Cue one of the more entertaining nights in a while, and definitely the most culturally foreign experience I've had since getting back from Africa. It started innocently enough, just beer and chatter, about how they'd been fishing all day, and I'd been in Africa, and such. Then the guys started getting a little more drunk (because they had all been drunk since noon).

"Ya know, we're all kin aroun this here fire," one guy told me. I didn't know, but I guess it makes sense. It was the day before Veteran's Day. "Yessir. One big, happy inbred family. Family tree looks like a telephone pole." (laughter) "Did you know, I once went to a fambly reunion to find me a date? It worked too. That's where I met my wife, only problem is, she's ugly like me." (more laughter) "So, is you inbred?" I told him I didn't think so, but how can you be sure. "Well, we'll take care of that before the night is over." Not sure how that would work, but funny, in a creepy sort of way.

Then someone gave the call that the food was ready. I played it cool, not wanting to move too quick, when the guy sitting next to me slapped me on the shoulder, yelling "this ain boston, now, go and hep yoursef to some food." Don't need to tell me twice. I filled my plate with fried fish, fried potatoes, hushpuppies (that's fried cornbread) and hashbrown casserole, which upon further inspection appeared to be more fried potatoes, swimming in cream cheese. Light fare, but so delicious.

("Eat Beef - The West wasn't won on salad")

Now, during this whole time, there was a rotating cast of guys in cut-off tee shirts and jeans, playing guitars and singing hilarious old cowboy songs. The fact that I'd never heard any of these songs made me really reconsider my life decisions, but they told me not to worry, since they were all "purty old."

As the night goes on, beers keep appearing in my hand and the songs keep coming, punctuated by stories of various uncles getting thrown in jail for drunken misdeeds. Then, from across the fire, the head chef, patriarch and big bull moose points at me. What followed was a monologue I can't hope to recreate, but I'll give you the gist. Picture a big, drunk good ol' boy, splashing beer all over everyone around him as he gestures with his two enormous hands:

"Listen here, fella. I been watchin you since you set down therr, and you aint hardly took your eyes off'n them git-fiddle players the whole dang night. The way I figure it, you prolly dyin to play us a lil tune. Well, have at it now, give them boys a rest."

I tried to beg off, saying that they were doing fine, I just wanted to listen, that I didn't know any songs, but he would have any of it. "You better play fer all that fish you jus ate," he told me laughing. "Play fer ya supper."

So what the hell. I grabbed the happiest, drunkest, most story-telling of the rednecks, and asked him if he wanted to sing a little blues. What followed was a hilarious, long and utterly filthy story about a young cowboy, out trying to make a name for himself in the world and looking for a pretty, young Holstein with big udders. I'm can't be sure, but I don't think he was really singing about a cow.

After we finished, while everybody was laughing and clapping, the big bull moose was still sitting back in his chair with his beer perched on his belly and his hands behind his head. Once things quieted down he bit, he looked at me, nodding with a big grin, " I knew you could play, boy. I knew from the second you set down here. Nicely done."

The next day, I was going to go out fishing with them, but it turned out to be too windy. So, after some coffee, I had to say goodbye. Big Bull Moose grabbed my hand, put one of those enormous paws on my shoulder and told me that when that I get tired of eating all that salmon out in Oregon, "come on back to Marshall County. Us boys'll be here, drinkin and singin and eatin all the fried crappie we can find. You're always welcome."

(Somewhere in Missouri)

Another day in the Village

2009-11-13T17:02:00.000+03:00

As I think I mentioned, we went back to Veronica's village the other day. Since I no longer have a camera of my own (thanks Kenya), here are a few pictures my roommate Joel took. His blog is The White Nile, and its on the Our Peeps list on the far right. Give his blog a look, it's pretty hilarious.

Not a lot to say, I think the pictures speak for themselves in this instance.

Look at me, I am Good! (Part 2)

2009-11-12T09:36:00.003+03:00

In the past few months several new people have joined the team living in the house here in Mbale. Among them, Joel and Brad really hit the ground running. Before they arrived, I had spent months talking about how we should organize a neighborhood trash pickup. Within a week, they had taken on the project and developed a far reaching framework bringing in the local government and community groups for a monthly neighborhood trash cleanup.

They worked through countless ludicrus frustrations, for example one meeting with the Mbale Industrial Division Municipal Council: They waited an hour before a single councilman showed up. After an hour and a half of waiting, they finally managed to get the meeting underway. Ten minutes later the group had reached a consensus: another planning meeting with the same group of people in 3 weeks- the day of the proposed trash cleanup they were meeting to plan. It took them weeks of no-show meetings and gallons of waragi, but eventually they got the project rolling with the personal backing of the Mayor, the Minister of Health, and the Chairman of the East Africa Corporate Club.

The big day rolled around; another cloudless, sunny day in Africa. Perfect for rooting around in other people’s refuse. The speaker truck with music and a PA showed up, so we were all set to get noticed. The neighborhood secondary school showed up in full force, so we had man power. The Rotarian doctor showed up, so we had surgical gloves. The mayor didn’t show up unfortunately, so we had a keynote timeslot with no key note speaker. MAPLE dance-off anyone? All in all it was a smashing success, and we are excited for next month when we will have a Coca-Cola sponsorship and TV/radio advertisements. Mwebaale nyo (thank you so much) Brad and Joel! Mujebaale (well done)!

(Trash is bad)

Building on the huge success of Brad and Joel, the rest of us are currently developing their own community projects:

Tree Farm
Our MUBS intern Denis and I have begun rallying the populace to start a community tree farm. So far, we have secured 7 acres of land in the village from our surrogate Father and MUWA member Mr. Mungoma. Recently we spent a day slogging through the mud and beating back bushes to check out the land. We verified that the land in fact does exist and is most definitely fertile.

(Trees are good)

We have grassroots support and a pool of free labor in the kids of MUWA members who will be home from boarding school for the holidays with nothing to do and a semester worth of chores to make up for. Next week we will be meeting with Denis’ dad who owns a commercial tree farm to absorb some knowledge. Soon we will begin talks with the powers-that-be in local and regional government and academia to get buy in from the top. The plan is to combine this program with a series of small trainings focusing on environmentally friendly entrepreneurship and sustainable cooking methods. With a little grit and determination, and a lot of the Ol’ Marple luck, hopefully we can build on the success of the trash cleanup.

The women of our house aren’t slacking either. They are hard at work organizing a Girls’ Empowerment Slumber Party. They have a date set with the lovely ladies of University Link Highschool, and are getting their nail polish all organized. Jokes aside, they are going to start a weekly session giving the girls some sort of “You are beautiful, you have a future” talks or something. I’m not really sure what they're actually doing, but I’m sure it will be cool.

(Hooray for feminism!)

Two Things:

2009-11-11T21:16:00.000+03:00

1. I like listening to country music when I'm driving. Without even considering the just awful alternative on the radio (except for you, NPR, and your cousin, the local-affiliate music show), Country and/or Western is storytelling music and, because of that, it helps to pass the time. Plus, driving along these back roads, slapping the steering wheel and singing along about beer drinking, sexy tractors and wrong-doing women, it just feels right (my mustache is coming in quite nicely, by the way. I'll fit in in no time).

(near London, KY)

2. On a related note, I had figured that my favorite little country sweetheart came out with a new album while I was in Africa, because of all that trouble with Kanye. That's about all I knew though. Then the other day, while I'm driving through Coal Country, West Virginia, home of all your favorite mountaintop-removing, stream-poisoning, State-Supreme-Court-Seat-Buying coal executives, this song comes on. The thing is, even though it was the first time I heard it, even though I didn't even know she had "new" music out, I knew it had to be my girl. Nobody else writes lyrics quite like this:

She wears short skits, I wear tee shirts,
She's cheer captain and I'm in the bleachers.

That's solid gold. I should probably be embarrassed for being such a fan of teenage girl music. I should probably be more embarrassed for recognizing her song-writing. I should definitely be too embarrassed to admit all this publicly. But you know what? Whatever. She can write a mean song. Ask any teenage girl.

(Cumberland Falls, KY)

Day of Rest

2009-11-10T21:49:00.007+03:00

Russellville, KY- I decided yesterday was as good a day as any to lay off the driving for a bit, and explore. I woke up in the Daniel Boone National Forest, whipped up a delicious breakfast of instant oatmeal and bananas, then went for a nice little hike. All in all, not a bad way to start the day.

(Just missed me...)

Then I drove to various streams, waterfalls, natural arches and lookouts within a thirty mile radius of where I slept. All told, maybe one hour of driving time. A nice little break.

And because I got to my campsite early enough, I had time to gather wood for my first campfire of the trip. Nature's TV, as some grizzly through-hiker on the Long Trail once told me, laughing as I tried not to breath through my nose. He's right though, it does pass the time.

(Look Ma, no paper)

Since I just crossed into the Central Time Zone and gained an hour, I'm rewarding myself by sitting on a couch, charging my various electronic devices and enjoying some speedy, free wireless at the local public library. As I plot out my next few days of travel, I just have to say, these libraries are an underappreciated resource. Other than a shower, I can't think of one thing that they don't have here.

(Still in one piece, though getting a bit ripe)

Look at me, I am Good! (Part 1)

2009-11-10T20:13:00.002+03:00

I have at all costs resisted talking about my work here in Africa in any way shape or form. I guess one could take this as an admission that I don't actually do any work at all. The truth is that I actually work reasonably hard- certainly not as hard as if I were in the US getting paid, but harder than my neighbors or any of the government people we interact with. There are a couple reasons I don't talk much about the work: (1) I think it's unprofessional (and I'm nothing if not a consummate professional and model worker bee at all times) and (2) the nature of community work and working in Africa in general is that its incredibly frustrating and seemingly pointless on a day to day basis. Nothing works as planned and everything reverts to chaos, especially when working with the community. I could easily fill pages and pages with bitching about broken appointments and the minutia of my day, but that would be neither fun to read nor to write- so what's the point.

Lately though, We're finally seeing the results of the months and months of work. Partly its a change in gears from me and the people around me, and partly its just success begets effort. So without further ado: a kind of ingenuous, sort of unforced account of how successful and awesome my organization is. It's super long, so I broke it into two parts.

As some know, in May Pat and I cut the stakes on Lira where our project was originally based and showed up on the doorstep of Mbale with absolutely nothing of value and no clue. Our good friend and associate Fred at MUBS business school in Kampala, recommended that we meet his mother in law, who runs a community savings group called a SACCO right in town. We looked her up in late May and found that she lived not two blocks from our house. When we arrived, Mbale United Women’s Association (MUWA) had fallen into dormancy. The accounting was in a state of disrepair and the books hadn’t been updated in several months. The chairwoman Veronica had lost the motivation to continue on and was planning her resignation. The members saved sporadically at best, and meetings were few and far between. In a word, MUWA was broken.

Veronica was overjoyed at the prospect of working with two silly looking white dudes in golf pants, and Patrick and myself were lucky enough to meet with her daily for months building a personal relationship and organizational partnership. A normal day was sitting down with her in her workspace and just talking while helping with whatever tasks she thought were idiot proof enough for us not to mess up. We ground g-nuts, we washed simsim, we pounded millet. But mostly we just talked and plotted and schemed about how to fix MUWA. We interviewed the members as often as we could to develop an idea for how we could actually make a difference and help these women in ways that they themselves value. As the weeks past Veronica became energized by our presence and started to clear the cobwebs from MUWA and bring it back into operation.

(Mommy Veroinca in pink with her stepmother)

We decided that the best way to provide something of value to these women was through training. That's another long story for another day, but in short we got disallusioned with the microfinance model and it became clear to us that in Uganda, people need education more than they need loans. So we set out to start teaching business skills education. Today was the 10th week of the 12 week training program we developed for MUWA using materials from the Freedom from Hunger Project, a bussiness skills training organization out of UC Davis. During the first month we covered “Planning a Better Business,” which focused on planning skills and the fundamentals of business. Next, we jumped into “Manage your Business Money,” where we really dug into separating business and personal money, calculating profits, and tracking expenditures and income. Currently we are covering “Increase your Sales,” focusing on customer care, marketing, and pricing. Outside of the trainings, my roommate Jaime spends her week visiting the women at their businesses and working one-on-one to help them use a basic cashbook and develop business plans.

Many of the members have found our training to be extremely valuable, and there is always a small crowd packed in the little space in Veronica’s house where we hold the trainings. From the beginning, several of the women have been taking our training to heart and really making an all out effort to implement their new knowledge and skills. One of the biggest and yet easiest things we provide for our clients is the sense of empowerment and efficacy they get from knowing they have a team of the brightest minds from Kampala and American expatriates at their back.

(A little customer care role play)

One member, Gertrude, is one of our brightest success stories. In the short time since we began trainings, Gertrude has given her stationary shop a facelift and revamped her whole business. In just two months, Gertrude has increased her MUWA savings deposits by over ten times. Another member, Veronica, has taken to heart our lessons on planning for unexpected events and capital budgeting, and increased her purchases of raw materials from 10 kg per harvest to over 300 kgs. Veronica has been steadily putting money into her MUWA savings account each and every week, and is well on her way to her goal of owning her own factory producing her porridge flour, groundnut butter (like peanut butter) and other dried goods. Josephine is another member that deserves recognition. Like Gertrude and Veronica, Josephine has really taken our training to heart and pledged herself to improving her business practices. Josephine has been a model for the other members of the benefits of saving and reinvesting profits into her small drugshop. Small entrepreneurs everywhere can learn from Josephine's example showing that it doesn’t take a rich woman to save and use financial services.

Hijack that Wireless

2009-11-08T21:33:00.004+03:00

Williamson, WV- I'm parked real sketchy-like on Main Street, stealing wireless from might be a "Mountaineer" shop, but is more likely just a proud fella from the Mountaineer State.

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who sent me birthday wishes. There isn't much signal where I've been, but every now and then I get a bunch of messages through on my cellie. So thanks everyone. I feel very loved, even though I spent my birthday freezing in a tent, thanks to unseasonably cold weather (overnight low of 20 degrees, or -7 for those of you on the other system). So cold in fact, that I had to get into my sleeping bag at 7pm.

First time in what, 25 years that I was in bed by 7 on my birthday. Oh well. I'm still having a great time. Jumping the border into Kentucky in a view minutes...

For those that are interested, my progress so far is below:

View East Coast Exodus in a larger map

That Pretty Much Sums it Up

2009-11-07T19:04:00.001+03:00

There is what's outside:

(Berkshires, looking north)

And the boundary of my personal bubble:

(Noble Steed)

And the contents of said bubble:

(Already starting to smell like feet)

For to where is de grave Jim Morrison?

2009-11-06T20:35:00.000+03:00

I was talking with Former Field Director Filips the other day and an interesting story came up that I had forgot about from Paris:

I was on my last day in town, my travel companion / older brother has already flown out. It's my first full day alone in 8 months, and my first time doing anything without Pat right by my side. I hadn't really been in a real city for more than a few weeks in months. And of course I speak maybe four words of French- if you count menu items. Needless to say I was a little out of my element.

I was staying in a backpackers hostel in Paris, hanging around and generally impressing people with my Africa stories. At some point this weird, sketchy long greasy hair skeetchball Euro finds his way into the conversation. He says some generally unintelligible things, and one by one people make their excuses and go to bed. Fast forward to the next day and I'm out and about in a botanical garden zen-ing out and absorbing my last dose of order beating out chaos. Who should show up, but the sketchy skeetchball Euro.

I was bored and killing time till my flight, and he was is very insistent in a little-language-incommon sort of way. I wasn't quite sure, but I think he told me he was on a mission to find Jim Morrison's grave and needed a wingman. Why the hell not?

We proceeded to wander around Paris for the next several hours, both completely lost and clueless, asking for directions to a grave yard. At some point we found a graveyard, and asked Monsiour Creepy caretaker where we could find the dead rockstars section. Apparently we wandered our way into the wrong graveyard. At that point I decided to ditch out, because 1) I don't really care about The Doors at all, 2) I still wasn't quite sure whether this guy was a graverobber or what, and 3) I think he may have wanted to eat my skin.

Busy Day.

Overheard in (Upstate) New York

2009-11-05T19:38:00.006+03:00

(Why taking the Interstate is overrated)

Grizzled Old Guy #1: You know how God created all men differently? Well, there's something I've noticed.

Grizzled Old Guy #2: Oh yeah? What's that?

Grizzled Old Guy #1: Well, he made some of us good-lookin ... and he gave the rest of you hair. Haw Haw Haw. (Removes hat to rub his shiny head). See that? That's a bald guy joke.

--Griff's Southside Deli

Pre-Departure Checklist

2009-11-03T17:06:00.001+03:00

Maybe it's just because of the season, but all the dislike I used to have for Boston has been replaced by fond memories of fallen leaves and pumpkin coffee. Fall in New England really is a special time.

(near Inman Square, Cambridge)

I have spent the last six weeks trying to see this place with a fresh pair of eyes, which I think has been reasonably successful. Actually, I think Boston overall isn't a bad place, except during the winter. Then it really is just not for me. In fact, I'm gonna let you all in on a little secret, and if you New Englanders want to call me weak, first think about this: God taught me how to sweat so I could keep cool in tropical climates (that's science). Not to mention, by living in the frigid North, you are effectively questioning God's plan. And questioning the Big Man like that just isn't smart, people. Not smart.

(God also gave me these two opposable thumbs so I can draw faces in gourds)

Theology aside, it has been a fun six weeks in Boston, consisting of: harrowing (read: exaggerated and mostly untrue) barroom tales of my heroics in Africa, moaning about the Red Sox, sleeping on couches and in the occasional alley, but mostly trying to be as bad an influence as possible on all my friends unfortunate enough to have a job. Even with one unexpected trip to the ICU, it's a little hard to drive away from Boston knowing that I probably won't ever live here again without getting a little reflective.

(Goodbye scarved statue)

But that's what I did. Day one of the Great American Road Trip went off with only minor surprises, in the form of an unbelievable amount of garbage that I somehow thought was worth putting into boxes and keeping for a later date. Day two consisted of getting rid of approximately half of said garbage, then a little real life tetris fitting everything into the car.

With that finished, I'm off to Appalachia and the Ozarks to try to find a few toothless rednecks to teach me how to make the harmonica really sing. From there, I will speed through the Great Plains, stopping for only the largest balls of twine and fried peanut butter & bacon sandwiches. Then the Rockies, where I will be finding myself, exploring the meaning of life and developing a world view based on freezing in a tent at 10,000 feet.

Destination is Eugene in time for Thanksgiving and the Civil War.

Coconuts and Palm Trees Baby

2009-11-03T00:48:00.004+03:00

I am back in scenic Kampala after a little impromptu holiday in Zanzibar. I’m not quite sure how it happened, but I must have prayed to the right false idol or something because my stars aligned and I got the amazing opportunity to tag along with one of my roommates and her mom on their beach vacation. The whole thing was pretty whirlwind actually, within a day I went from petty jealousy to self loathing guilt for falling into such a crazy princess vacation. No crazy tales of misfortune and mistaken identity really (although the passport control lady called me a terrorist and threatened to put me back on the plane I came from), it was pretty much an effortless and disaster free vacation. A welcome change, I suppose.

I flew out from Entebbe in Uganda on Thursday for my first intra-Africa flight. I’m not sure if I’m glad or kind of bummed but it was pretty normal. I can’t say I wasn’t halfway expecting chickens in the aisle, I certainly fully expected it to leave two hours late. But, it was pretty much just like any other flight. One wrinkle though, I guess the intracontinent flights leave as soon as everyone has checked in, schedules be damned. My flight was normal, but I guess my friend’s flight from Rwanda to Nairobi left 45 minutes early. Which I guess is kinda cool, but still. The way back to Uganda though was on a rinky dink little airline and it was more what I was expecting. The plane had probably 20 seats, propellers and once we were airborne, a healthy dose of thick, white mystery gas pouring in around my knees. I figured it was probably ok, which in retrospect was probably a bit too nonchalant for Africa. The guy next to me decided that its better safe than sorry, so he investigated. There were no flight attendants, because it was a bathtub with wings (and by the way no safety information card, much less monologue about what to do in case of emergency). My guy gets up and hunches his way up to the cockpit and polite as you like knocks on the pilot’s door. The copilot came out and took a look (we are rapidly gaining altitude at this point mind you), and I guess it was fine because he gave us the thumbs up and went back behind the wheel.

Anyway, we flew into Zanzibar, which is an island off the coast of Tanzania. It’s basically equal measures beach paradise and cultural/ historical wonderland. The beach part is pretty self explanatory, white sand, palm trees, pina coladas, bathwater-warm Indian Ocean. It was certainly a welcome retreat from landlocked Uganda and the questionable beaches of buggy unswimable Lake Victoria. Just like the guidebooks said though, the history and culture was the real attraction. Zanzibar was the main, if not only, trading port in East and central Africa for like 500 years or something. All the slaves, ivory and spices passed through the Zanzibar markets, so there was a ton to see even for someone as disinterested in history as me. Unfortunately, since some Kenyan rascal absconded with my camera, I don’t have any pictures of my own.

We spent the first few days in stonetown, which is the original city from since forever. It’s very Indiana Jones, with narrow, narrow winding streets and mysterious goods being sold around every corner. We stayed at this amazing little hotel that was managed by a “European top chef.” It was like a Sultan palace a different design in every room and super Zanzibari-style (google it if you’re interested in all that architecture) high beds and doors and hookahs. In preparation for dinner, we placed our orders with the manager/chef in midafternoon so that he would have time to go down to the fish market and buy our little friends. Of course my roomie ordered the lobster stuffed with guazamole, because who wouldn’t on their Mom’s tab. I got the most hostile looking prawns this side of that South African alien movie that came out over the summer. No joke they were the size of bananas, and still had everything but their hats and shoes.

We checked out the site of the former slave market, which was cool although not a lot to see. It’s the site of a big church now, so most of the artifacts were gone. We checked out a spice farm which was pretty cool. We sampled a bunch of everyday spices fresh off the branch and played name that spice with our tourguide. Cinnamon, cloves, chocolate, curry, pepper, etc. All in all pretty cool, though not too exciting to write about.

We then spent like 4 four nights on the beach at a resort, which was beautiful and relaxing. We did the standard Hawaii routine of swimming in the ocean, reading on the beach and getting our day-fade on with colorful fruity grownup’s sodas. Again, there aren’t really any misadventures. We did however rent a little mini-catamarand. After a 20 minute lesson from Cap’n Max, I was ready to conquer the high seas. It was a nice reminder for how well things function in the Western world. It was absolutely the most relaxing and easygoing vacation from Africa I could ask for. It was perfect and I would tell anyone if they ever get the chance to see Zanzibar to drop everything and do it (like I did with work, unfortunately for everyone but me). Unlike Europe I wasn’t a tragically uncultured villager in the big city and was able to utilize my bargaining and demolishing food with my bare hands skills I’ve spent so long honing while here.

As great as the trip was, it is so nice to be home. I finally managed to get reenergized for work, and we’re actually seeing some amazing results from all the hard work over the last 8 months. In a couple days I think I’m going to write a totally unsolicited little update about some of the cool projects we have going on right now. Today I saw empirical evidence for the first time that our program is actually making a difference in the behavior and lives of our clients.

So basically life is awesome.

Reports of Reverse Culture Shock are Greatly Exaggerated

2009-10-28T16:39:00.001+03:00

I think I can officially say it. The readjustment really wasn't that bad. I was expecting it to be hard, but really, coming back was just not that big of an issue. Things were about the same as when I left. People don't seem to love Obama quite as much, but on the whole, not a lot has changed.

(Somehow, my being 1/2 of the Obama Brothers didn't get me through the White House gate)

People have been asking me a lot about what the best and worst parts about being back are. Honestly, I think the answer to both is just how easy things are here. If you need to do laundry, or replace a broken light bulb, or buy produce, you just do it. No brazenly disinterested shopkeepers, no obstacles, no bargaining. Just exchange money for goods and/or services, and be on your way, credit cards accepted.

(Farmers Market in Copley Square)

But that's also the problem. Living here, there's not that much mystery. That great feeling of waking up and having no idea what kind of trouble you'll get into that day is, sadly, pretty far gone from my life these days. Maybe there is a way to find it again, and believe me I'm looking, but so far, no luck. Just organization beating out chaos, every step of the way.

("A little road just for bikes.")

It's been a bit more than a month now that I've been back. I just took the last of my malaria meds, which means so long LSD dreams (which I'll miss, even though they really got less intense right around the time we made the switch to the Made-in-India variety). I'm looking for a job and plotting my move out west. A few other thoughts:

I'm missing all the fresh food and floored by the cost of mangoes at the grocery store.

I'm loving having microbrews back in my life, except when the bill comes.

The rude, ignorant people at Best Buy made me nostalgic for the cheerful, goodhearted incompetence of their Ugandan counterparts.

Blue Highways

2009-10-19T23:59:00.015+03:00

Some few weeks ago, I got an unusual phone call. Without getting into too many details, a friend needed a car driven from Florida to Connecticut, about 1,400 miles. It sounded fun enough, a good chance to see some other parts of the country, and it's not like I don't have the time, so a few days later, I got off a plane in Tampa.

(Not Florida, but very patriotic)

Now, I've gone down that way a few times in recent years to escape the awful, terrible, miserable, soul-sucking New England winter, so just seeing that airport brought back fond memories of Crabby Bill's, pirate festivals and severe dehydration. Driving back from the airport with the top down, enjoying the warm night air and gladly stuffing my jacket into my bag, I couldn't help but wonder why I decided to come back to the North.

Then the sun came up. I guess it was about three months early for my Florida trip, because it was like 90+ degrees and sticky, nasty humid. I thought I was down with the heat since I'd been in Africa, but no, not really. Of course, I left my wife beaters and golf pants with Luke, so maybe the real problem was the lack of polyester paisleys and plaid on my thighs. Actually, that's probably true as a general rule in life.

(Luke looks much more comfortable with the heat)

Either way, I raided my friend's closet, and one salmon polo shirt and a pair of blue shorts later, I was wandering around Ybor looking for a place to grab some lunch. I'll say this about Florida. I've never been to a place that hates pedestrians more. Some people call it over-roaded, others just settle for Concrete Hell. Either way, with all the humidity, my old standby of hiding in the shade really didn't work that well. Long story short, I wasn't too sad to leave Florida behind.

In some ways, this trip was a sort of trial run on solo road tripping, given that I'm hoping to drive out to California in the next month or so. On that level, it was a roaring success. I remembered how to drive without too many surprises, except for the pockets of swamp gas in northern Florida that would fog up the inside of the car without warning. Actually, that was pretty disorienting and terrifying the first time it happened.

(Northern Georgia, I think.)

I had a nice chat with a redneck mechanic about why someone might want to visit “a country as messed-up as Africa,” though I think we ended up talking past each other most of the time. I ventured off the interstate to get semi-lost in rural Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia without really losing the general northeasterly trajectory that would get me to my next waypoint without wasting too much time. Really, the only unpleasant time was getting stuck in traffic going over the GW bridge in New York City, but that was at the very end of the trip, so it didn't matter.

View roos special delivery in a larger map

I could really get used to this whole “not having a job” thing though. It's just nice to be able to float around without much schedule and meet up with friends from college who are apparently all in grad school now. If only there was some way to get paid doing it.

(Tasty...)

I'm still in Africa

2009-10-18T17:28:00.006+03:00

I have been talking to some people and there seems to be some confusion. There are two authors of this blog, myself and Patrick. Patrick is now back home in the US and writing gripping transcripts of conversations with the elderly. I, however am still here in Africa scratching around in the dirt and eating bugs.

I went back to Sipi Falls (the place we went for my birthday / 4th of July) with my new roommates for a little team building retreat. We had a good time, and saw our guy Juma the mountain guide again. We placed some flowers on the grave of the dearly departed Tin Can Tony I, and did our best to honor his memory with some quality Waragi soaked campfiring. Of course no Marple reatreat would be complete without Mr. Eddie.com debating a white girl about the relative merits of caning women and how best to treat a beezy like she aint shit. To that end he did his best to enlighten Rachel as to the fair 60/50 breakdown of rights in a relationship. As in women and men are equal, men are just more equal.

We went for a nice little monsoon dayhike Saturday afternoon. The first hour was really nice, not too hot not too cold. Then the sky just opened up and poured cats and frogs for the next 6 hours. All these crazy Oregonians refused to hide from the rain, so we got completely soaked- as wet as if I had gone swimming in my clothes. Luckily, since it's Africa, it was still pretty warm so it was fun. Hiking through streams above our ankles on like a 30 degree incline above a 200 foot cliff. All in all, a good time.

Oh, and finally. This doesn't really seem like that big a deal to me, but little tidbits like this tend to interest some people the most for some reason. The guys from the campsite where we were staying said that their cousin brother ran a matatu up there so we could get a ride back into town from him. I figured ok, one random 15 passenger van is as good as any other. The van shows up, its an 8 passenger van. There were 11 of us, plus the driver and conductor. It turns out 13 people in an 8 passenger van < 23 people in a 15 passenger van.

Since we were so overloaded, the driver decided to put more air in the rear tire. Cue the leaky bycicle pump with a plastic bag o-ring. At one point I told the amusing anecdote about the first time I came up to Sipi and our tire fell off and we had to lift the van oursleves because there wasn't a jack. The logical the question was raised as to why we didn't just "use the spare tire" right now. Since, upon closer inspection, we were currently sitting on 3 spare tires, that was out. Finally air having been taken care of it was time to fuel up, as we were currently past E. Cue soda bottle full of fuel. Somehow I don't think getting the car serviced entails quite the same things on Pat's road trips. Africa.

(Historic) New York Baseball

2009-10-13T05:24:00.009+03:00

I'm spending a few days in New York City, which wouldn't be complete without at least one night of martinis and storytelling on the upper East Side. For those of you who may not know, the Yankees just finished off the Twins to advance to the ALCS, right around the same time that the Red Sox wrapped up the season by coughing up a lead in the ninth. Whatever. Go Angels, I guess.

Given all this, though, Raymond and I got to chatting about baseball. As it happens, he has only recently, like in the last 5-8 years, become a baseball fan again. Why, you ask? Well...

* * * * *

"What you have to understand is this: As a boy, I loved the Giants. Loved them. The first game I went to was a World Series game, the Subway Series in 1936, between the Yankees and the Giants. You remember that series I'm sure? There I was, an eleven year old boy, watching Bill Terry playing first and managing the Giants. And of course, there was [I don't remember the names, but he proceeded to name the entire infield for the Giants]. But of course, the Yankees eventually won that series. In those days, we feared the Yankees. We feared the Yankees, but we hated the Dodgers.

"And you must remember in '51, when the Giants and the Dodgers finished the season tied and had to play a three game playoff. I went to the second game with my father, with all those guys who were absolute heroes to boys like me, guys like [again, he names the infield, the managers, the pitchers, of both sides]. Naturally, we didn't even know whether there would be a third game until the Giants won the second. But afterwards, my father asked me if I'd like to go to the third game. So we waited in that line, which I remember was quite long, until we got the tickets.

"I think he bought 12 tickets, because my father was quite a successful businessman. He had planned to give the tickets to his favorite clients at the lumberyard, but would you believe it? Nobody could go on such short notice. It turned to my advantage, because I was sitting in the stands with my father and cousins when he hit That Home Run. But I don't need to tell you about that. It is probably the greatest in the history of baseball.

"And then fast-forward to The Catch in '54. Willie Mays. Of course, they won the series that year. And I was just a young man then. So after the Giants left, it was hard for me to really follow a team for quite some time. Of course, the Mets eventually became the spiritual successors to the Dodgers, but I never liked the Dodgers to begin with.

"Plus, as you probably know, my father was quite a baseball player in his youth. Of course, in those days, baseball wasn't nearly as glamorous as it is today, at least not for the rest of the population. Young boys being then as they still are today, it had the allure. But it certainly wasn't a respected occupation by any means.

"Now my father, Lefty Shapiro, was quite a player. In those days, there were no scouts, and naturally, there weren't any farm teams. Men from the big leagues would go around the city watching the afternoon games in the parks, looking for players, and offering them contracts.

"One day, my father was playing with his friends over in Prospect Park when a man from the Dodgers came by. Of course, in those days, they weren't called the Dodgers. They were the Brooklyn Superbas, but that's not the point of the story. Anyway, this man watched my father pitch for a while (he normally played first base, you see, but he also pitched from time to time), and eventually came over and told him that they wanted to bring him to play for the Superbas. Of course, my father had enough sense not to accept on the spot. Instead, he asked his girlfriend at the time.

"Now, I'll say this again: in those days, being a baseball player wasn't a glamorous occupation. Keep in mind, we're talking about the first decades of the twentieth century. For starters, the pay was lousy. You were constantly traveling on rickety overnight buses. Then you'd arrive in some dusty town in the middle of the night, to sleep for a few hours in a fleabag of a hotel before playing a game or two the next day. Then you'd get back on that bus and do it all over again. And the pay really was lousy.

"Anyway, his girlfriend told him he had to choose, either baseball or her. So he married my mother and left baseball in the past. But he was always a big baseball fan. All his life, he loved the Yankees and the Dodgers. So I was brought up listening to baseball. Not watching it, mind you, because this was before the days of television, but listening to baseball on the radio and pouring over box scores in the morning papers.

"It was hard for me when the Giants left. Baseball wasn't the same. So even though I follow the Yankees now, I eventually had to come back. It's just too good a game to stay away forever."

Know what I'm hungry for?

2009-10-10T13:49:00.005+03:00

Mysterious orange tropical fruit, that's what.

For some reason, these pictures never got posted. In the first, you will see Luke enjoying a "coconut," a robust, mid-bodied fruit that is best enjoyed after first beating it against a log for 10-20 minutes. Doing so softens the indigestible flesh, unlocking the crisp, floral flavors. Just remember to spit it out when you're done.

(don't lose a tooth)

This next is me, punishing a mango. What's important to appreciate in this picture is that there was a mango tree in our backyard in Lira, meaning every morning, we'd head out to the mango tree, grab the mango stick and knock down a delicious, ripe mango. Luke was much better at picking ripe mangos, while my specialty was finding hard, sour or rotten ones.

(for example, that mango looks pretty sour)

This was supposed to be a series, but through a combination of laziness, seasonality and camera theft, I can't seem to find any pictures of us eating jackfruit, which looks (and presumably tastes) like some kind of creepy pod of slimy alien eggs. Maybe if we all pray really hard, Luke will post a picture of the people selling jackfruit in Mbale...

(In case he doesn't, this one is ~~stolen~~ used legitimately from Sironko DV)

Next in our educational serious, Luke will cover mysterious tropical fruits starting with the letter "P."

Boston Boda Boda

2009-10-06T15:10:00.006+03:00

Just cause I'm back doesn't mean I have to stop having fun, right? I've decided the secret is just to keep living like I'm in Uganda. In the sense that even if something is not strictly "safe" or "wise" or "practical," if it sounds fun or convenient, hop on board.

The other night, I got a call from some friends a little after midnight. One of the guys had just moved into a new place downtown, complete with a roof deck with sweet views of the Boston skyline. Since it is still relatively warm here (according to them. I'm freezing, all the time), they figured what better way to pass the night than with a few drinks under the night sky. Honestly, I can't say they were wrong.

But there's a little problem with Boston, a problem that is as inexplicable as anything I had to deal with in Uganda. Namely, in a city with more college students than street lights, the subway shuts down at midnight, leaving you to rely on Boston's grossly overpriced cabs. I swear, they must be funding Menino's reelection campaign or something, because otherwise this just doesn't make sense. Sorta like Nairobi outlawing spitting on the street while doing nothing about the rampant violent crime.

But I digress. After we had appreciated the roof deck in all its splendor and sufficiently rehydrated, the non-retired members of the group (aka the working stiffs) decided it was probably time to call it a night. And then things got interesting. Including myself, there were four guys left. One lived in the apartment. The other two came on bikes. Leaving me just a bit out of luck.

Unless. Wait a minute guys, lemme run something by you... in Uganda, there's this thing called a boda boda. No, not burger burger, though I agree that sounds delicious. Boda. Shutup. Listen, I'm gonna ride back on your handlebars. All you have to do is pedal. Sound good? Sweet.

I really wish we could have gotten a picture. Picture the empty streets of Boston at around four in the morning. By the light of a full moon, you see two bikes roll by. The first has the standard crew of one, but the second is carrying a bonus passenger, perched on the handlebars with his hands in his lap and legs dangling ahead, perfectly content with the world as he talks over his shoulder to his friend the conductor. It must be said that the conductor may be having a bit less fun, huffing and puffing and trying for all the world to keep this bike balanced and moving. But they're both clearly enjoying the moment. Yes conductor, are you fine? How is your good life?

(Looks like fun right?)

I'm proud to say, as the one who did none of the work, that the whole thing went off without a hitch. In fact, I'd happily do it again. The highlight was without question going over the Longfellow bridge, and seeing all of Back Bay reflected in the Charles. The Pru and the full moon, the serenity of a puritanical city sleeping soundly, having the streets as your playground without any of Boston's notoriously charming drivers to disturb you. Just you, your driver and the hum of nubbed tires on the pavement. It was all so very pleasant.

By: Pear Biter / www.flickr.com

Then, the low point had to be coming back down that very same bridge, realizing as we picked up speed that, from a momentum perspective, I'm probably not in the best place. I'm no scientist, but I seem to remember something about bodies in motion wanting to stay in motion. The thing I remember thinking most was that if we crash, I probably won't die, or even break my bones. But at this speed, I'm definitely going to get run over. And considering that I'm currently straddling the front tire, that is going to be a bit unpleasant.

Foggy Lundun Town

2009-10-05T11:47:00.002+03:00

We went to Europe for a little family holiday last week. I was in London for about a week, then in Paris with my oldest brother for 3 days. By coincidence my entire family was all in England at the same time, and since I'm going to be in Africa for Christmas I decided to go up there and relax for a few days in the civilized world (thanks Dad). We did most of the pretty standard sightseeing: the Eye, some castle, Roman baths, Eiffel tower, Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, Napoleon’s tomb, parks, etc. For me that isn't even really the interesting part. After 6 months in semi-rural Africa, just being back in a big city and being nothing more than another white person in a sea of white people was just mind blowing.

The biggest things that I really just had trouble wrapping my mind around were probably traffic and transportation related. The fact that there were traffic lights everywhere was just too weird for me. It took me close to a week to be able to just cross the street and trust that I wouldn't get plastered onto the front of a boda boda. The walk signal was just hilarious to me, a little traffic light just for pedestrians.

Bikes kind of tripped me out. Everyone on bikes was either meandering along or racing about, as if they were on bikes just for recreation- rather than as a mode of transportation. I didn't see a single person in a suit on a bike or anyone on a bike holding a baby, it was shocking. Despite the striking obsolescence of bikes there, bikes had their own special roads. A little road just for bikes. Too weird.

Or how about little rickshaws just for babies. You will never see as many babies as you do in East Africa, but I have never ever seen a stroller. Everywhere up there you see little people just chillin’ and enjoying the scenery while their elder slaves away at the back of a little cart- for free.

And don't even get me started on mass transport. Mass transport in Uganda consists of cramming into an already full 1982 Chinese minibus. It's going somewhere, and if you're lucky that’s the direction you're trying to get. They don't necessarily have routes per se, but there is a guy leaning out the window shouting where the bus is headed. So needless to say the London Underground was the coolest thing ever. An underground city, just for trains. And if you get caught up talking to someone for even just 5 minutes, that thing will leave without you. A bus scheduled to leave at 4:47 won't even wait till 4:50. How rude.

And really, time is an entirely separate thing worth talking about. We have mentioned African Time extensively. Experiencing African Time as a white person in Africa is one thing, it's annoying, it's baffling, it's kind of quaint. It took a while but I adjusted, I even internalized it and learned to operate on it. I am now pretty fully on African time- which became a problem when I left Africa.

It turns out White Time (as it's called) is kind of stressful. Everyday all day its like be here, do this, go there, do that. I don't know how many times I said “wherever we have to be, it will still be there in an hour. Let’s take a break and chill out.” I think I was “late” to each and every engagement I had for the full week. Each time some series of small things came up, which to me felt unavoidable, but it was just normal daily life things that certainly didn’t stop me from being on time six months ago. It really makes it a lot harder to be mad at clients and friends here when they’re 45 minutes late for a 30 minute meeting, it’s just a different way of living. The enduring feeling from it was I really felt like I was being pushed around by time, like as a “white” we are really subordinate to time. In Africa on the other hand, time lives to serve you. This all came to a head when I was in Paris taking the subway to the airport. I was so stressed out by the whole thing that I gave myself like a 4 hour window, and was still panicked the whole way. I was sure I would meet some small obstacle and miss my flight. Time was a hostile force trying its hardest to ruin my day. No thanks.

Oddly enough when I got into a huge crisis and actually did run the risk of failing to make it (or so it seemed), the only person who had the time to stop and help me was… Not even joking, an African. All the Whites (or French as they’re also known) in the train station couldn’t be bothered to give 5 minutes to help their poor lost brother. I’m on the edge of losing it, and up walks this black dude with an African accent: “You look lost, do you need some help?” He literally led me to my train and sat with me to make sure I ended up ok. It was the same experience I’ve had before a zillion times here in Africa, people doing nice things because it’s the nice thing to do. Maybe it was just a coincidence; probably I’m making revisionist history, but whatever it’s my story I’ll tell it how I want. African Time may have significant downsides, but we really do lose something by valuing a clock over another human being.

And finally, I couldn’t fail to mention the mini panic attack the first time I sat down to a nice meal. I looked at the menu and saw so many things I wanted so badly, things I have literally had dreams about for six months. And it was too much, I had to close the menu and take a minute to relax and chill out. I finally settled on a nice steak and a green salad with prawns plus some fancy red wine (among several other things). No exaggeration, I think it was the most I have enjoyed a meal in my entire life.

Home is where the heat is

2009-10-01T18:57:00.003+03:00

I haven't totally given up on blogging from Africa yet. Pat has been really the driving force behind getting content up on a reasonably often basis. Now that he's gone I'm going to have to step my game up. To this end I'm semi-resolving to stop procrastinating and start posting regularly no excuses. But umm I'm actually not going to start till tomorrow (or the next couple days or something) when I get back home to Mbale. Right now this is more of a 'look I'm still alive, don't give up on me yet' kind of deal.

Anyway, I'm back in Uganda. Pat is home but I decided to stay longer. Soon when I actaully start writing again I'll explain why. I also have a little post brewing about the future shock of reentering a culture not my own from a different culture not my own, and the normal things that strike me as weird and vice versa.

I went to the bus park today to put my new roommates on a bus back to mbale. It's hard to convey the experince acurately. Four white people weighed down with bags in a sea of men all stopping at nothing to get you on their bus. I was grabbed and forcibly pushed toward the wrong bus, I was phisically detained and told the bus I take several times a month doesnt exist. I was hit by a truck and nearly run over, I nearly got pulled into a fight between two ransoms when the crowd swallowed me up. I bargained my ass off and bribed a busdriver to watch my friends' bags. But we got them onto a bus home with no blood and maybe just a few tears. How and when did this become home to me?

It's 80 degrees like always, the beer is cheap like always, the matooke is green like always. Everything as it should be and in abundance.

Where's the Adventure?

2009-09-30T22:01:00.007+03:00

I am really missing this type of thing right now. Three guys, two chickens, two bodas and one winding, dusty mountain road. Just a little bit of the ol' fear of God, what with the lack of helmets, the poorly maintained motorcycles and the hundred foot drop over the edge of the cliff.

But come on. The closest thing to adventure I've seen in the last week was a train-full of drunken Sox fans, but considering they'd just clinched the wildcard, I don't even think anybody was looking for somebody to stab.

But I don't know, let's wait and see how the weekend comes together. I have faith.

Just trying to keep (a) my silverware in my hands and (b) my fingers out of my nose

2009-09-26T20:22:00.003+03:00

So that's that. I'm back in the US, sleeping on a couch in Cambridge and trying to figure out my life. As it turns out, I'm staying about a block away from the first apartment I lived in here after leaving Middlebury, so it's been a pretty fitting reintroduction to life in the developed world.

I don't even know where to start. The last two weeks have been pretty wild, between the mysterious Kenyan Bus Robbery, a final Restville blowout and one last Dr. James kidnapping, I was just glad to make it on the plane and through immigration without having my passport confiscated. Thanks for the memories Uganda.

And of course, three totally bizarre days in London. Looking back, I think we really just ate. I honestly don't remember much else. I think there were some castles and English gardens. I definitely remember some kind of huge ferris wheel right downtown. But it was mostly food. And beer. Delicious beer. Hopefully Luke can go back to Uganda nice and fat.

After one day back in the US, I'll say this. Cambridge is possibly the cutest place in the world. Almost sickeningly so. Perfect sidewalks, lots of perfectly contained and manicured plants and perfect couples pushing perfect little babies in strollers. Except that apparently when I greet random children here, people think I'm trying to go Michael Jackson on their kiddies. Settle down yuppies, nobody wants to steal your babies.

And another thing. Not that there was any shortage of cell phones in Uganda, but people didn't just sit there yacking away for hours at a time. Based on my scientific observation skills, everybody loves talking, just not to people they can touch. As long as you're not in the same physical area as someone, it's ok. This developed world can be a cold, lonely place.

And now, it's Saturday afternoon, which means it's time to drink and watch football. And not any of that nancy european football. I'm talking about good old fashioned American Football, in all its brief-moments-of-action-followed-by-lots-of-standing-around glory... Good luck Oregon, pray for no lightning yellow.

"Sometimes the bar, well ... he eats you"

2009-09-16T16:05:00.014+03:00

I'm not sure where we went wrong. Maybe it was overconfidence. Maybe it was just bad luck. Either way, Nairobi, you got the best of us.

It started out well enough. We decided that we would try to just cover the 500 miles between Mombasa and Mbale in one day. It would be a long day, but with not too many days left, we figured there was no sense in wasting two days on super long bus rides.

These were deluxe buses, too. I mean, given the typical local conditions. We left Mombasa at 8am, were supposed to arrive in Nairobi "no later than" 5pm, well in time for the 8:30pm bus to Mbale. About halfway between Mombasa and Nairobi, we took a mysterious detour into the mountains. No problem, we got time. Then we took another, even more mysterious, detour to pick up the passengers on a broken down bus. Again, no biggie.

But we dawdle in the mountains for a while. Sun goes down. Dawdle a bit more. We're really getting "down to the wire," which wouldn't be a big deal except that every now and then, these international buses really keep to the schedule. But we're doing ok. We get to the outskirts of Nairobi around 8pm. "Just enough" time, except that the bus breaks down. As in, it really just dies, right in the middle of the street.

We piece together that they are sending another bus to pick us up, because even though it's not too far from the bus station, apparently walking at night in Nairobi = trouble. We get to the bus station around 9, and miracle of miracles, the Mbale bus is still there. We buy tickets, we get on and all is well.

I guess someone up there heard my pleas from the first bus, because not only did the second bus not leave on time, it left like two hours late. Thank you, Africa Time. Not that I'm complaining. That would get us into Mbale at a much more reasonable hour. Plus, the bus didn't leave without us, that was all I asked.

Well, I forgot to ask one thing. We got to the border around 5am. Luke goes digging around for the passports. Check. Good. Then he goes looking for the money to pay the border guy with. Not there. Strange. But things have been disappearing lately, most likely because Luke insulted the evil jaja spirits playing Ouija with a Turkish dinner guest. So we figured the money had escaped to another pocket, or my pack, or his sock. Seriously, don't anger the jajas.

Then we realize, not only is that money missing... so is Luke's wallet. And his camera. So I look and sure enough, so is my camera. Crap. After the initial rage, we realize that either way we are going to need to pay for these visas, or we'll get stuck in some scruffy, shady transit town on the wrong side of the border while it's still dark.

We wheel and deal. Exchange various weak currencies with the border hooligans for various other stronger currencies. We flat out refuse to pay any bribes to the Kenyan soldiers, who were clearly angling for one ("for chai. promote me"), because we didn't have any shillings to spare (plus, the dude had a weak hustle. he tried to tell us our visas were only good for air travel, not ground. cmon, you need to do better than that, even if you're carrying an automatic weapon. where is your passion for excellence?). We bargained with the Ugandan border guy, who was either (a) sympathetic or (b) too bored/tired to care. And with a combination of Ugandan Shillings, Australian Dollars, US Dollars and Euros, we got through.

Thieves in Nairobi... who knew? On top of all this, Luke's phone "escaped" from his pocket the first night we were in Nairobi, and they even got the GPS toy that doesn't recognize African roads. Enjoy that, I hope it navigates you right into a lake.

And the worst thing is that, despite losing a pretty solid amount of stuff, we don't even have a good story. At some point during a 24 hour bus marathon, some sneak rooted around in our packs and stole some stuff. That's it. He didn't get caught red-handed and try to jump out the bus window, or run up and down the aisles half-naked chewing on raw chicken, or just get some good kiboko from an angry mob.

Oh well. It could have been a lot worse. I'm really just bummed to lose those pictures of the Kenyan coast.

* * * * *

Just to be clear, though. Though the timing couldn't be worse as far as leaving Africa with a sour taste, no thieving Kenyan gypsy is gonna wreck my memories. As far as I'm concerned, this is the take-away from the last six months:

("Thanks for coming up and talking with us about starting businesses. Even though we fed you an outrageous spread of fresh, delicious food, take these chickens. It's our culture to honor guests.")

Unrest

2009-09-13T10:43:00.004+03:00

In case any of you hear it on the news, yes there has been some rioting in Kampala. By all (credible) accounts, though, it should end up not being such a big deal. Of course you never know around here, but things are supposed to settle down, and may already have.

In any case, Mbale is a long way away from Kampala. And since the fighting is about a disagreement between the Buganda King and the President, that's mostly central Uganda. Out in Bugisu country (where Mbale is), there's no trouble.

At least that's what we've been able to piece together. We're traveling on the Kenyan coast, "researching" the operations of successful NGOs here. So what if they work in ecotourism. Non-profit management is non-profit management. It's amazing out here, by the way. Some serious pictures are in the pipeline. As a taste of what's to come, we went for a ride on a catamaran made of driftwood and held together with maybe three feet of fraying rope (as rinkydink as it sounds), then stopped in the Kilifi Yacht Club ("the only decent place to stop North of Dar") for a drink. Listen and repeat: opposite ends of the spectrum.

Anyway, Mom, if you're out there worrying, please stop. It's ok. We're safe. Uganda probably still is too.

Western Region

2009-09-08T13:13:00.001+03:00

I’m at that point where I have to accept that I will be really, actually be leaving soon. That means, among other things, tying to fit in a bunch of traveling into a quickly dwindling amount of time. Something about satisfying unlimited desires in a world of limited means.

Fort Portal is a scenic little town in Western Uganda, conveniently located within striking distance of a huge national forest populated by chimps (expensive), another full of gorillas (seriously expensive), a swamp full of birds (birds? Eh. Plus don’t swamps smell bad?) and some crater lakes (wait a tick, we have one of those in Oregon).

(Can you make out the Nancy Drew Jersey?)

(One of those scenic lakes)

Seriously though, you could spend weeks there. With only a few days, we opted for the lakes. As cool as seeing chimps and gorillas would have been, I can’t complain. We camped on a hill overlooking one of these bizarre crater lakers, hiked around, swam in a waterfall and saw one of the more incredible nighttime star displays in a long time.

(Cozy, huh?)

Getting to the lakes was a bit of an adventure. Fort Portal is clearly on the whirlwind mzungu safari circuit, meaning a lot of things were geared towards fat wallets. For example, everyone expected us to just hire a private car to get places, which is just too expensive. Way too expensive. OK, not that expensive, but not that exciting either. Where is the adventure, people? So we relied on public means.

We’ve talked about public transportation in the past, but this time was a little different. I guess there weren’t enough people traveling on those routes to support the typical “14” passenger matatu taxi van, so the taxis were corolla-type cars. Typical capacity for a sedan-taxi? Seven passengers, which naturally only includes full-sized people. Kiddies go on someone’s lap, so they’re bonus and don’t count towards the total. Neither does the driver. In case you’re wondering, that’s four in the back, two in the front and one squeezed in with the driver.

(I bet this guy doesn't mind public means...)

But you know, just when you think you’ve gotten the hang of something around here, they go and change it on you. On our way back out of the lakes, we got dropped at this tiny little village/trading center by some retired British schoolteachers who rescued us from a hot, dusty walk. We talked to the taxi guys, bargained for a while and agreed on terms. Then he said “get in, we’re ready.” I only counted four passengers, but whatever. I guess we’ll just pick someone up along the way.

Sure enough, we stopped a ways up the road at a big crowd of people. They were all mobbed around something, so figured we were going to pick up a big bunch of matooke or some other delicious starchy food. As it turned out, our taxi was doubling as an ambulance. They brought over a guy on a mattress, who they proceeded to stuff into the back seat. Next stop, Fort Portal General Hospital.

Yikes. And the guy was in serious pain.

Check Out my Shine

2009-09-05T17:09:00.006+03:00

"Be fully prepared to drink hella haterade, cause ya'll about to see how good it is to be me and how bad it is to be you."

-Thugnificent

Pretty good lookin' kicks, huh? Yeah, I know. Expensive too, cause them is real hundred dollar bills on the outside. At least that's what the guy that sold them to me said.

Hard to Believe...

2009-09-02T23:24:00.006+03:00

But I'm down to my last few weeks here. It really seems like just yesterday that we were sitting in a hostel, discussing how utterly charmless Kampala was and wondering how in the hell we would (a) survive being here for six months and (b) create an NGO out of six phone numbers (of which, probably half were disconnected) and a general interest in microfinance.

And now here we are. Luke has officially signed on for another four months. I'm trying to find a way to continue doing this stuff for real (i.e., get paid) back in the Land of the Morbidly Obese. As for MAPLE, the group has a house/office, clients and a product to offer, not to mention a pretty solid niche to work within, focusing on a real need that people here have and that we as a group can reasonably expect to address. All in all, not a bad use of the last six months. Not bad at all.

(Personalized Business Skills Training Seminar? Yeah, why not)

It's really gonna be tough to leave. People always talk about how we [fill in the blank] love our personal space, but I'd always thought of it more in terms of physical space. Really though, it's emotional space as much as anything else. You see someone, you greet that person and shake that hand. Maybe you don't let go of that hand until you've talked about family, religion and marital status. These days, I find myself thinking less about the casual hand-holding and more about the intimacy of the conversation you can have with a total stranger without feeling uncomfortable.

Or, and this is really my absolute favorite, you see some cute little kid just gaping at you, so you stop to greet that wide-eyed kid. Get yourself a sticky, sweaty mini-handshake. If you're lucky and the kid isn't too shy, maybe make both of your days by sticking around and playing for a few minutes.

(If only I had a mini-American flag to give him... or not)

And of course, I'll miss the adventures. Being fully unprepared to deal with the daily problems of Africa is just non-stop entertainment. For example, we've developed a bit of a mouse issue over the last few months. It had been ok, but lately, the critters have just gotten a bit too cavalier about running around in the daytime and eating our delicious White People Food. So we have a kitten on order, but in the meantime, we have been trying to bring the wrath of God to these cute, pink-footed cookie thieves.

The other day, I came into the kitchen to find the trashcan squeaking and rustling. I did what any quick-thinking Field Director would do in that situation, and threw the lit on, trapping the mouse inside. Immediately, though, I found myself faced with a new problem: What am I going to do with this mouse?

Obviously, I can't just throw it outside, because it would just run back in through the three inch "ventilation gap" at the bottom of our kitchen door. I'm not cold enough to just reach in and snap its little neck. Plus, this wasn't some clean and hairless American Lab Mouse. I don't even think we have names for all the diseases this guy was carrying around. In any case, you can bet I wasn't going to touch it. I've even heard that putting a mouse in the freezer is a humane way of killing it, but with our intermittent power, it would probably end up being more like an air-conditioned movie theater than an icy grave.

So I did what I usually do in these situations. I consulted with Eddie. The Solution? Shake that trashcan. Vigorously. Repeat as necessary.

(Rest in Peace, Mouse. The rest of your Family will be joining you shortly.)

Let there be no doubt, Eddie is one hard dude.

Well Done Paul

2009-08-24T10:56:00.004+03:00

You ever have the experience where you think you know someone pretty well and get floored with some new information? I had that the other day with the guy we share a compound with, the father of the kids we spend all our time chasing around. I already knew he was a really pious guy and all around good citizen, but I guess I didn't know the extent. I ran into him in town on Sunday, got to talking a little bit. Then he's like "I have to go, I have an appointment to read to bible to the invalids in the hospital."

This guy works 10 hours a day 6 days a week, Sundays are his only day off. His chosen way to spend his day off is 4 hours of church, then spending his afternoon reading and praying with dying people in the hospital. I guess I already knew he was a good guy, but I had no idea. It's a good feeling to learn that guy who's like our last line of defense against intruders in our home is even more stand-up than we gave him credit for. Well done Paul.

Gutter meat makes my tummy hurt

2009-08-21T15:56:00.001+03:00

On Sunday we decided it was time to do an American style barbeque to celebrate our close friend and confidant Mr. John Baptist leaving for college in the morning. Chicken is boring, so we decided to mix it up and go for pork. At home this wouldn't be much of a story, but since we're in Africa... Wow, not going to make that mistake twice.

First of all pork is kind of hard to get your hands on in this town. As I write this I am hearing the Muslim call to prayer from somewhere (yep, must be 4:00), and Muslims don't dig swine in case you haven't heard. So to even get some pork you have to go to some certain neighborhood that only JB knows about.

Me: "Why only this neighborhood Beezy?"
JB: "This where all the Karamajongs live. The people down here are so hostile that the Muslims are afraid to come in and try and tell them what to do."
Me: "Is it safe for me?"
JB: "As long as you don't try and tell them what to do and never ever go here by yourself, yea for sure it's fine."

We got to the Karamajongs' hood and by no small coincidence it was the same place we went for locaal brrew a few months ago. JB takes a quick look around finds a guy swinging a machete wildly at a hunk of raw meat and we have our target. After some expert barGAINing, we have meat. Splat! Dude moves a fat handful of pig from the filthy tabletop to the filthy scale. But we need to package it, so he goes and gets a kaveera (black plastic bag) and fills it with pig bits. Of course I don't need to wash my hands between handling raw meat and money- and even if I did, do you see any water? I didn't bring my camera and it's really hard to do justice to just how filthy the whole experience was. We literally broke every single rule in Food Handlers 101. At one point in my life (say six months ago) I would have said this meat is guaranteed to kill you.

Next step was to transform this meat into something resembling edible. As Pat was making from scratch something that resembled barbeque sauce (tomato paste, glucose syrup, vinegar, onions & peppers, and some certain secret marple spices) JB and I proceeded to wage war on Porky's Karmajong cousin. Since the meat as purchased contained both skin and fur, it was no small task. Basically it was you hold one end I'll hold the other then I'll hack at it with a kitchen knife.

(Get in there)

The intersection of my and JB's culture reached its apex at precisely this moment:

Me: Jim Bob, wash your hands after handling raw meat. Particularly if you're going to pick up and play with every little thing on the coffee table.
JB: (puts hands to mouth, smells them) Nah, don't worry about it. It's cool.

(Just havin' a snack, while I handle this raw meat)

Or maybe it was here:

Me: JB are we going to get sick from eating meat that has sat unrefrigerated in the sun for 10 hours?
JB: It hasn't been 10 hours. What time is it, 8pm? It's probably only been out in the sun for 3 hours. Don't worry about it. It's cool.

I don't really know who won this one ultimately. We really punished that pig. Seriously. And it was delicious and went down smooth like butter. On the other hand, he hasn't exactly processed through yet. The odds that Ol' Porky has some nasty surprises waiting in the wings? Pretty high.

The African A+

2009-08-17T15:22:00.001+03:00

Finally. Luke's birthday care package finally arrived. For those of you keeping score at home, Luke turned 23 on June 30. Seeing as how our mother sent this package about two weeks before his birthday, and it just arrived today, some might wonder what took so long. Furthermore, since one of the girls who got here in July has already gotten a package and several letters, some might even be irritated and bitter. Not us though. Because the package actually arrived without being torn open, soaked through or crawling with rats and roaches, we will happily award the Ugandan Postal Service what we like to call the "African A+."

(America in a box. Real America, that is.)

The African A+ is a funny, funny thing. Like any A+, it is awarded only when someone or something really exceeds your expectations. On the other hand, though, it is definitely a qualified A+, along the lines of, "that overhead shower you installed today is everything I asked for and I love that you did it quickly, but now there isn't any water pressure. Oh well, job well done."

Another example? Sure why not. The other day we were taking a taxi back from Gulu. Amazingly (if somewhat forebodingly), the taxi left when it was still basically empty, so we had all kinds of space to stretch out in without fear of being attached by chickens, pawed by curious children, puked on/near, etc. This was a nice surprise, but all in all, simply not exceptional enough to warrant the coveted A+.

(Sweet there's a dumpster right in our neighborhood. No more trash fires. African A+)

Then the taxi pulled to the side of the road and told us to get out. Apparently, something got lost in translation and because there weren't enough passengers, they decided to head for Kampala instead of Lira. No worries, the driver assured us, laughing as he pulled away, lots of cars heading to Lira will pass. Good thing we didn't award that A+, by the way. I'm not sure if it can be retracted retroactively.

Before long, a pickup pulled up next to us with a few people in the back. After it became clear that we were heading in the same direction, we jumped on board and took off. Because the guy insisted we ride up in the cab with him ("this african sun is too strong for you. you whites are so fragile"), we decided to award the whole trip home an African A+. It exceeded all our expectations by being comfortable and relatively fast, yet it has to be a qualified A+ because (1) we had to hitchhike and (2) the cab was really only built for two people, meaning Luke was basically sitting in the driver's lap while I was pressed against a door that was too dented and bent to close properly. Sans seatbelt, naturally, on a seriously bumpy road, so there was a real risk of falling out and getting run over. Plus I got a sweet sunburn on one side of my face.

(Do you think this is going to peel?)

You've exceeded all my expectations. You've thought about what I might like, and went out of your way to be helpful. All the elements of exceptional service are there, so even though there are a few things I wasn't expecting, I really can't hold it against you. African A+.

("Nope, the room looks great. Thanks.")

This taxi aint full yet

2009-08-15T16:08:00.016+03:00

(Lira: approximately this fun)

[Part Two of the epic tale of our triumphant return to Lira- for part one see "Gyspy in Rasta's clothing"]

So we last left off in the middle of nowhere in Gulu just stranded, lost and hopeless. That being said, it was a huge relief to be out of that situation- constantly waiting for the next thing to go down. The problem wasn't so much that he was being a gypsy. Rather, given that he had shown himself to be a card-carrying gypsy, all bets for proper behavior were out the window and we decided its better to be stranded, lost and hopeless in NGO-town Gulu than on a rutted dirt road halfway between Gulu and nowhere. Because the last thing we'd want is to be in some 3 shop village between two places no one has ever heard of with no cellphone reception and like $20 between the two of us. Oh yea, and we don't speak Acholi. Because no one would want that.

To my knowledge we had one piece of useful information about Gulu: We had overheard someone say that there's a good coffee shop with White People Food in Gulu called something Cafe- Coco, Caca, Khaki, something. So we found our nearest friendly bodaboda driver and proceeded to attempt communication. "Excuse me dude who doesn't really speak much English, we're looking for a place we don't really know the name of, any help? They serve coffee there, coffee- its a drink like tea, it comes from beans, it's very dark, it makes you (pantomime wide open eyes and spastic behavior)." Believe it or not this eventually worked. Kope Cafe (like when you greet someone in Acholi: "Kopango" then he responds "Kope") , it's just around the corner that way- branch by the petrol station, slope down. 1 steak sandwich and tasty cup of joe later, time to uhh figure out how to get home.

Intermission #1

(Young Aga, grandson of Veronica, nephew of JB)

In a rational world this would have been a good time to hit an ATM, since we spent most of our collective scratch on accommodation (I know someone in Gulu, we can stay there for free), food (you buy lunch, I'll buy dinner), and beer (you're charging $1 for a beer? I refuse to pay). Unfortunately, there are certain days in Uganda when there are lines stretching around the block at every single ATM. Intuition tells me that these days should roughly correspond with the 1st and 15th. It's not exactly the case, but I think it has something to do with the salaries. Anyway, so due to the fact that every ATM had a line like effing Space Mountain we decided to just take our chances and just head since we had to get to Lira before dark lest we get abducted by witchdoctors. I had received a call that morning that on a friend's bus ride to Gulu, they got a bit delayed when they hit a guinea fowl which blew up the windshield of their bus. The first 3 rows got covered in feathers and blood. So probably we we shouldn't push the envelope, because things tend to happen around here.

The next part the story Pat already told, so I'll kind of gloss through it.

We arrived in an oddly abandoned taxi park to find out that the Lira bus already left and we'd have to take a taxi. We get in a taxi which then immediately leaves, like a quarter full. This never ever ever happens, so I was 5% sure that by the end of the day a witchdoctor would be in possession of my internal organs. Shockingly enough, everything went ok- sort of. We're on the road in total comfort, a whole seat to ourselves. Then the taxi stops. "Ok, guys you get out here, we're going to Kampala." Umm ok? If it's gonna be like that I'm only going to pay half because you only took me halfway. Fair's fair. So there we were stranded, lost and hopeless in some 3 shop village on a rutted dirt road between two places no one has ever heard of with no cellphone reception and like $20 between the two of us. Oh yea, and we don't speak Acholi.

Intermission #2

(Eddie, Pat, Luke, JB)

We hitch a ride on a truck for a while, all's cool. Back in Lira. Good old Lira, just as we left it. Hot? Check. Dusty? Check. Preschool with picture of dog-attack on the front? Check (top of the page). Good, everything's as it should be. Speaking of Lira, I think we talked about the pool that was supposed to open "next week" the entire time we lived in Lira. No surprises, next week is the big day. Allegedly, the reason for the holdup was National Water and Sewerage. They had a fully built pool the whole time and were waiting for the water company to bring up their water, but they were slacking. Sounds about like the status quo as far as Ugandan governance is concerned.

Since Lira was so awesome, we decided to hop the night's last taxi to Mbale and take our chances getting in before dark. This taxi was decidedly full by the time it left, the 14 persons limit on the side must have some kind of rounding error. Including children, I think I counted 35 at one point. I had two grown men sitting on my lap a la a certain bearded mze in red pajamas.

At this point things get a little fuzzy because the taxi stopped probably every 2 miles to either let out or more often add on people. Oh plus I forgot to mention that we were pretty thouroughly hung over from "trading off buying rounds" (AKA I'll buy one beer then make a huge scene about the nicest hotel in the state overcharging by roughly 15 cents per beer) with this Rasta all night. I remember at one point a chicken attaching Pat's foot, and him being so smashed in with people that he couldn't summon enough footroom to kick the little devil and teach him a lesson. I remember the dude next to me eating chicken then wiping his hands on the back of the shirt of the guy in front of him. I remember getting to Soroti and the taxi that told us it was going to Mbale I guess decided that the trip was over. Ok, but I'll only pay you half since you only took us halfway. Fair's fair, next please.

We got into Mbale by maybe 10pm. We left gulu at like 11am. Long day. Luckily the wellbe back committee was ready for us.

(Musa, you got a little something on your face there champ)