Requisite 100th Posting

Well shit Himelein. Here are you, sitting at the airport in Uganda, after two weeks here and I don’t have anything of interest for a blog post. Usually, you can just phone these in, take a couple cute pictures of kids, re-tell an essentially dull story using fun and creative story telling language. But you don’t even have that this time.

I had this realization yesterday afternoon. I was working in the WB office when we basically had a communications meltdown. No internet at the office, sporadic power at the hotel… which basically caused me to have a meltdown. So I decided instead of throwing my laptop or the local IT consultant out of a window, I would write a blog post. – blink – blink – goes the cursor. Nothing to say. What could I use… Well, there is my 30th birthday that I celebrated two weeks ago with one of my buddies visiting from Nairobi, but there might be children that read this. Part of me things that it might be a useful life lesson for them to know that no matter how many times your teachers tell you that smart kids become doctors or lawyers that it is possible to structure your life in a way such that, at 30, you can be screwing around as much as I am as still be considered a success. The rest of me doesn’t want them to know how much alcohol one can consume in one evening and live. So scratch that. Oh wait! I could use that bit about the field visit I did to the district at the headwaters of the Nile where I got that beautiful hotel room on the lake only to discover that a Joba-like cloud of lake gnats descended on every lit surface as soon as the sun set – leaving me to spend the evening hiding under a blanket under the mosquito net reading by the light on my cell phone… Huh, that is only a sentence long…

You see the quandary I was in yesterday afternoon. So I busted out the “what to do in Kampala” brochure that was slowly mildewing to dust on the bulletin board of the Visiting Mission Room at the Bank. Done it… done it… done it… done it… Oh wait, here is one: the Baha’i Temple. It is one of only 8 in the world (one on each continent) and the only one in Africa. It is a nine sided building (one for each of the major religions of the world) on a hill outside the city with extensive gardens. Less than 20 minutes on a motorbike. Perfect. I will run up there, take a look at the view, snap a quick shot of the building, and bust it back down to hit the gym in time to see the Phillies-Dodgers replay at 5 pm.

So I choose a bike and driver from the mass of them hanging outside the hotel. I had had a rough trip on the way home the day before (with a burned out clutch (?) almost spilling me and my takeout off the back and into the middle of Buganda Avenue). The problem with picking a good looking bike is that it came with a good looking young man to drive it – and it is a tried and true fact that good looking young men with nice bikes drive *way* too fast. And a-way we go.
It becomes very apparent very quickly that this kid knows where the temple is from seeing it in the distance, not how to navigate Kampala’s twisting hills to actually get there. He sets off in a straight line towards it – cutting across main highways, through narrow neighborhood back alleys, and, at one point, what I am pretty sure was someone’s courtyard. Finally, we could see the road to the temple but there was a deep open drainage ditch between us and the four lane highway that we needed to cut across to get to it. No no no NO! Yes. Across we go. I had to grab this poor guy’s waist to avoid getting spilled. But we lived and made it to the temple.
And, as promised, it was nice. I don’t know if I would hire a Baha’i accountant (really, you count 8 continents huh?) but they do a nice house of worship. And the basic tenants of their faith seem pretty logical. Men and women are equal, allowing extreme poverty is a sin, be nice to each other, and the way to salvation is through scientific study and personal reflection. (Of course we relegate it to crazy fringe as we much prefer something with a good old testament stoning now and then…) Then I hopped back on the moto to get back to the hotel – realizing quickly that the only thing more frightening than the trip up was going to be the trip down as we had run out of gas and had to coast to the bottom and back across the highway to get to a gas station.

So there you go. The things I have to do for you people. And I hope you enjoy the requisite temple picture and this, the 100th blog posting.

Big Fish

So this is over a week late. I have been back in the US since Sunday. I have been sick and was going to skip this last post, but then I felt a little obligated to post a few more pictures and let you know how the vacation all turned out. Mozambique really is a beautiful country. I spent a week there kickin’ it Peace Corps style, making my way up the coast in a chapa (aka taxi brousse). Though we didn’t actually break my standing record of 25 adults, 5 children and assorted animals slammed into the back of a minivan (set going to LaTodin during the Burkina 2003 hot season), we came damned close. And this trip was seven hours long. At some point the woman next to me had enough of the screaming infant on her lap (ownership of which I was never actually able to determine) and began passing him around the bus. I set a hard act to follow by shutting him up for 10 entire minutes (with the help of a touch screen iPod) before sending him on down the line. On a separate chapa trip (I took several on my journey up the coast), the driver drove directly into a telephone pole. Fortunately he was going fairly slowly and the pole had some give to it. His defense? “Since when did they get electricity out here?”
This all had such a profound effect of bringing me back to my Peace Corps days, that after I got off the chapa, and before I really knew what was going on, I had gone into the market and bought a sachet of tomatoes and a pagne.* I had to spend a good two days staring out at the turquoise water before I was completely myself again.

And, as per usual when I get close to said turquoise water, the first thing I want to do is get under it. Usually I spare you the details of my diving conquests but there was one day of diving that was really rockstar. First of all, because of the nature of the heavy current in the area, diving was faux-Navy Seal: fighting the heavy waves to launch the zodiac from the beach, riding out bouncing over the surf, negative entry for the dives… so you already feel like kind of a bad ass. On the way out, as expected, there were the usual dolphins a-jumpin’ which at this point you almost barely take notice of. Particularly as you are trying to concentrate on keeping your fillings from popping out as the zodiac with more horsepower than your car slams across the waves. At some point though, I looked up and thought, man, that is a really ugly dolphin that just did that flip. That was also a really big dolphin. Ah. That’s a humpback whale. Between us and the dive site was the annual migration. Humpbacks humpbacks everywhere. And while it was cool to see them jumping and fin slapping while on the boat, the best part of it was that you could hear the whale-song while you were diving. At one point one of the whales got curious about the buoy line (carried by the dive guide to mark our progress to the boat on the surface). He swam directly over top of us. Water amplifies sound waves so even a small outboard engine passing 100 feet above can sound like it is right on top of you. In this case the whale song was like a freight train.

But the humpbacks aren’t the reason that people come diving on the Mozambiquean coast. People dive here because of the giant mantas. Which are incredible. The visibility was poor – you could only see maybe 15 or 20 feet in front of you. Then all of a sudden these massive things swoop out of the murk right on top of you. It is a little disconcerting the first time they do it, but then really really cool. I tried to take a couple pictures, but it is really hard to do them justice. They can be up to 25 feet across. That’s bigger than my first apartment.

So after the dive, we are all on the boat, contentedly slamming back across the waves. Suddenly the captain stops and yells something excitedly in Portuguese. Boat stops, mad scramble to don snorkel mask and fins, everyone into the water. Whale sharks. I have been chasing these bastards all over the world. It has always been the wrong time/day/season. And here it was. The world’s largest fish. And it was a big fish. Even in a day filled with humpbacks and giant mantas, this puppy was big. And it swam close enough next to me that I could have reached out and touched it. Cherry on the hot fudge sundae.

The rest of the week was spent sitting on the beach, drinking Mozambiquan beer, taking sailing trips out to tropical paradises (note the use of the plural), eating seafood (the phrase “does anyone want my last lobster tail I’m stuffed” actually came out of my mouth at a meal where the bill was less than a salad at a standard downtown DC lunch restaurant), taking pictures of the local dhows (note the sails are made out of UNICEF refugee tents) and just generally being a laze-about. Then it was back to Maputo for a week of work and karmic retribution for having such a great vacation. With all my travels around the country on the local transport, I managed to get the flu. And I discovered that no one really even cares about whether it was swine flu or not. Suck it up and get back to work. So I did and now I am.

*pagna is the colorful cloth worn as skirts by West African women and Peace Corps volunteers of all genders

Reed Dance Festival

Greetings from Mozambique, a country with a AK47 on its flag and a hostel inexplicably full of sharpay dogs (seriously, there must be 8 or 9 of them wandering about). I just arrived here this afternoon after a really cool weekend in the Kingdom of Swaziland (of all places).

Swazi is a tiny little country of about a million people sandwiched in between South Africa and Mozambique. It is very similar to South Africa (at least in that it was a former British colony) but a little more prosperous and way more chilled out. (It was the place to go to get up to shenanigans during apartheid era South Africa.)

I was there to see the annual Reed Dance Festival, at which thousand of Swazi girls pledge their allegiance to the queen by going out and cutting a bunch of reeds, then dancing, parading and just generally carrying on with said bunch of reeds. I will be honest with you and tell you that I don’t really understand exactly all the symbolism of the things going on, but it was an incredible thing just to be witness to. The girls had these exotic costumes of varying degrees of traditionalness (I am guessing the Ray Bans were a relatively recent addition), and were just so happy. And in general no one really made a big deal about the fact that there were whities floating around with cameras. We just sat on a rock in the shade and watch the girls go by… People didn’t even seem to be that interested in hustling us, they honestly just wanted to know what country we were from and if we were enjoying their festival. And the President of Zambia was hanging out in the crowd sans entourage. Can’t argue with that kind of company.

Other than the Reed Dancing, Swaziland was a blur of hiking, shopping, drinking and a brief ill-fated stop in a Christian revivalist ceremony (not much going on in Mbabane on a Sunday afternoon). Sorry this is a little short but I think the pictures are much cooler than anything I might actually have to say on the subject.

Kruger National Park

So, after complaining for months about how I am constantly back and forth across to Africa and I never get any time off and how much of a pain in the ass it is to always be away, I finally get a vacation. At which time I, logically, promptly board a plane and voluntarily fly 15 straight hours to Africa.

In any case, I am sitting in an internet café in Nelspruit, South Africa, getting myself together after an incredible safari in Kruger National Park. I arrived in South Africa on Sunday morning, after a brutally long flight made more brutal by having to fly around that stupid hurricane. I then spent nearly 24 hours in Johannesburg without being the victim of a violent crime. (Here’s to beating the odds!) I actually even enjoyed myself, walking down to the neighborhood flee market in the suburb where I was staying to pick up some warmer clothing (it is bloody *cold* here) and a set of Mobuto sunglasses (when in Rome…) and visiting the apartheid museum. The museum was incredibly interesting in that it managed to, tastefully, commemorate hundreds of years of repression and brutality without demonizing the white minority. Though in the same way that it seems difficult to imagine that the American civil rights movement took place during my parent’s lifetime, it is nigh on impossible to believe that apartheid took place during my own. I can still remember class being cancelled in fifth grade so that we could all watch the release of Nelson Mandela from prison.Next morning, bright and early (as before sunrise), I was up and out to head east to the national park (though slightly delayed by the fact that the idiot stoners running my hostel got too f’ed up the night before to remember to unlock the gate for me - leaving me to climb the 10 foot fence in order to get out - which was fortunately the only one in all of Jo’burg not topped with concertina wire. On the way we (that merry band of characters that would be spending every walking hour together for the next three days) broke up the journey by stopping at some of the natural wonders along the way. I remember being fairly impressed with them at the time, but those memories have been completely obliterated by the wonders of the safari that followed, so I will drop the obligatory picture and move on.And we stopped to pick up booze - in the form of a five liter box of cheap but tooth-achingly sweet “dry” South African red, most notable for the warning on the side of the box: “Don’t drink and walk on the road, you may be killed.” (Here’s to knowing your demographic.)Then it was safari time. Our guide was a Afrikaner South Africa who was, like all the world’s safari guides, a crazy bastard. He took personal exception to the fact that I was a vegetarian. (He was the type of guy that didn’t eat any kind of vegetable - ever.) First of all, it was as unnatural as if I proposed sexual congress with a springbok (perhaps even more so). Second of all, I was the only one so cooking a completely separate meal for one person was a total pain in the ass. Therefore he decided to make it his personal mission to badger, bargain and straight up just starve me out until I agreed to eat meat. It actually didn’t take that long. He made a deal with me that if he could find the Big 5 (lion, buffalo, rhino, elephant and leopard) before lunch, that I would eat a ham sandwich. I agreed because, really, I have been on quite a few safaris at this point and the chances of this actually happening were nearly statistically impossible. Yeah. I had a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch - albeit a late lunch.
I will spare you the blow-by-blow of the safari itself, but over two days, notable sightings include: a close encounter with a lioness, multiple leopard sightings including one in a tree with a freshly killed impala, a tiny baby elephant that I went a little crazy taking pictures of, a buffalo during the night game drive, plus the usual assortment of hippos, giraffes, zebras, rhinos, baboons, warthogs, crocodiles, all things hoofed and birds that I could give a damn about. (I have attached a sizable lot of pictures for you to catch the highlights if so interested.It was actually, though, we weren’t even on a game drive for the most memorable moment. We were grilling steaks (as the guides vegetarian meal plan for the evening was “steak or starve” - I had squash for dinner), hanging out by the fire, drinking, when this massive hyena walked by the fence maybe 10 feet behind us. He was attracted by the smell of the grilling meat and came by a few times to see if he could get a taste, fortunately not coming to the conclusion that he could easily hop the 8 foot chain link fence. Which was good because it was massive. I can’t even compare it to the size of a large dog. Think more along the lines of small pony. And, hands down, the world’s ugliest creature.
Other than that, it was all tents, campfire, pre-sunrise risings, sweet wine, and swapping tales, which were probably most accurately summed up by the Irish kid as “no need of the truth getting in the way of a good story.” (He had the hyena nine foot tale and breathing sulfur fire by the 10 pm telling.) Now I am spending the night at another hostel run by stoners (though these seem older and more responsible - this is what happens when you live in an African country where things *grow*) and tomorrow, off to Kingdom of Swaziland.

Going Bananas

So tomorrow is my last full day on the road. After almost two months and 28000+ frequently flyer miles, I am headed home - provided that I make the three connections between Uganda and Washington and manage not to get quarantined in Europe. I have to say, it’s about time.

I don’t have much to report, but I wanted to post a couple of photos from the field work I did this week, so I am going to ramble on for a few paragraphs anyway. I went with the teams out to Bushenyi in western Uganda, near the Rwandan and Congolese borders. It is a beautiful part of both Uganda (and Africa in general), where dawn breaks over mist shrouded banana plantations stretching across the hills. That’s right – miles and miles of banana plantations. They sure do like bananas out in Bushenyi. For example, a typical culinary day in the life of my field work goes something like this:

Breakfast – eggs, toast and bananas
Mid morning snack – banana
Lunch – two bananas
Dinner – Steamed mashed bananas with beans and peanut sauce

That last one is not anywhere near as gross as it sounds, but after a few days, you really don’t look forward to meal times much anymore.

The other remarkable thing about this area is how unbelievably poor parts of it are. Not in the sense of the West African nothing-grows-and-then-we-starve model, but government service delivery is horrific. Because of the rain and the hills, the roads are total crap, and nothing and no one gets to these areas. The primary school was mostly thatch (swarmed over by hundreds of children in truly tragic hot pink uniforms) and the health clinic was the most depressing I have ever seen. It was a two room cement box, staffed by one (a nurse’s assistant that didn’t look old enough to shave), no electricity, no water (it was hauled up from a stream 3 miles downhill), no beds, almost no drugs, just nothing. There are so few supplies, women who give birth are required to bring their own cotton gauze and razor blades. And in a country where more than 5 percent of the adult population is HIV+ (as opposed to 0.006 percent in the US), the clinic has been out of gloves for over six months.

Escape to Chimp Island

So I didn’t exactly make it home to the United States last week. I even had plane tickets, and then at the last minute the boss sends me to Uganda. For three weeks. And now here I am, hanging out in Kampala, which is okay because I kinda like Kampala. I was an intern here and returned to do research for my master’s thesis, so I know the city a little. It is very different from laid-back coastal Dar es Salaam. Kampala is decidedly Central Africa, with its accompanying leafy hills, Congolese music, beans and bananas, and the sheer crush of humanity. I took a couple of pictures around the main bus station on a Friday afternoon. You can sort of tell how crowded it is, but it doesn’t do it true justice because it is impossible to stop and breathe, much less snap a photo, in the middle of it.

Kampala had changed a little since I was last here in 2007. There are more cars, cell server providers, laptop computers, ATMs and people. They have renamed all commercial establishments after the new American president. And the storks are gone.

I always liked the storks. They are maribu storks, over five feet tall and hideously ugly. They are born a mangy lot, but as a result of some unfathomable genetic compulsion, they pull out the feathers on their heads and necks. This doesn’t do much for them aesthetically. They used to everywhere in the capital, as ubiquitous as pigeons, but in the lead up to the Commonwealth meetings with Kampala hosted in last 2007, the government poisoned them all. Now there are only small packs of them remaining, which strut around with a slightly disconcerting post-apocalyptic menace about them. I take it as a great opportunity to practice with the new zoom lens.

I will spare you the details of the day-to-day work. I basically fill the days with trainings and meetings and revisions, punctuated with terror inducing rides sitting sidesaddle on the back of a motorbike taxi in a skirt and heels with my computer balanced on my lap. And eating beans and bananas. The staple starch here is mashed green bananas, which are usually served with some protein sauce, and a yellow banana for dessert. Since I don’t eat chicken or beef anymore, my life is filled with beans and bananas. Lots and lots of beans and bananas.

With the work load here being a little more manageable than in some places, I decided to take some time off on Saturday afternoon and Sunday to explore the city a bit. On Saturday I took in the downtown sites, including the Kasubi Tombs, where the bodies and/or jawbones of the local tribal kings are buried. And, notably, has the largest thatched structure in the world. I also saw the national museum, which included the requisite poorly taxidermed local wildlife and a fun section of Ugandan Olympic athletes. (The photos were obviously taken by media from other countries, as they showed Ugandan runners trailing far behind the Ethiopians and Kenyans, Ugandan boxers taking incredible shots to the head from Russians, etc…)

Then Sunday I decided to get out of town, birdwatch, check out some monkeys. I took a two hour local boat ride out to an island in Lake Victoria to visit the chimpanzee sanctuary. This was after having dinner with a primatologist the night before, all of whose stories ended with the phrase “and then the chimp ripped the guy’s face off.” Chimps are very aggressive creatures and apparently that is a common thing for them to do to a human. The sanctuary chimps seemed pretty mellow, clapping and carrying on to get the attention of the handlers to be thrown another orange or pumpkin. Plus they were behind a high voltage electric fence. Some of the birds were actually more aggressive – dive bombing anyone that walked too close to their nest. It made for some moments of hilarity when an unsuspecting human did it, but took on a bit more of a nature channel life-and-death struggle when a pair of three foot long monitor lizards went after the eggs. The bird’s attacks were unsuccessful, the lizards being just too big and scaly, but readers will be happy to know that they were chased off by the stampeding herd of camera toting tourists.