"Do you have rainmakers in Italy?" ... You all know the answer to that one, so I won't repeat the one I gave, but what you probably don't know is that here in Sudan "sometimes they are liars.. they are just pretending". So if you are ever looking for a rainmaker, watch out! Gotta do some serious research... wouldn't want to get yourself one of them fake ones.
Even if you were sitting right next to me now I would have to be writing to communicate with you because unless I yelled, you wouldn't be able to hear me. The rain is coming down so hard on the iron sheets right above my head that the noise dominates the sound waves like when you are standing next to the Iguazu waterfalls on the Brazilian side... ok, that is not exactly a mainstream analogy, but if you ever make the trip, close your eyes and think of rain falling on iron sheets in Sudan. But seriously, it sounds like there are two guys up in the sky fighting over the faucet. For a while just now it looked like the anti-rain guy, who was turning it closed, got the better of the rain-lover; but no, looks like the rain God's protege came back with a vengeance and opened it all the way. Maybe the dry season comes when they break the faucet altogether and they need to call the plumber. Must be a Sudanese plumber because it takes him more than 6 months to get the job done. Reminds me of the only electrician around these parts. We were looking for him the other day, only to find out that he was in jail. Sounds like one of the other NGOs, Concern, might go try to bail him out... they really need him to work on their vehicle. Who knows how long that will take, but you know what shocks me about the fact that everyone is always late around here? The fact that even if it's 4:25 people say "it's almost 5". I mean, it's always "almost" such and such an hour, which would make you think that people are looking ahead, and would therefore not be late as much. I don't get it. Then again, when people come on time I don't understand how they do it considering they don't show up wearing a watch. When someone is wearing a watch you can't miss it though, because usually the watch is digital and somehow the alarm always goes off. What do you expect to happen if someone's watch alarm goes off? They turn it off, right? Well, not here. In Sudan it just keeps ringing the whole minute, full blast, and you look around and nobody even turns to look, as if nobody even heard it. My guess was that nobody knows how to turn it off, but I like David's explanation better: they want to keep it on to show people they have a watch.
Yesterday I saw rainbow twins. The two half-arches were right next to each other in the sky, very bright, but the order of the colors was reversed: one went ROYGBIV from left to right, the other from right to left. Maybe if I had been a better physics student that wouldn't surprise me, but it did. The beautiful sighting came seconds before we had to retreat indoors, where David and Lasu proceeded to discuss the advantages of the Kalashnikov, which even after getting overheated can be simply thrown into the water to be cooled and will be good to go. You can even shoot underwater! Do the Russians use them to hunt polar bears up there in the Arctic? Must investigate. As for in Sudan, we all know what they were used for, and could still be used for. Remember, it is not over till the fat lady sings, and there aren't many fat ladies around here, so it's no surprise that the headline on one of the Sudan biweekly papers reads: "The next war will affect Sudan's neighbors", "The next war will rock the North" "...a full-scale war". David actually recounted some of the past battles he was a part of, but I'll spare you the details. Let me just say the last story ended with him pointing out a piece of shrapnel, which will forever be embedded in his left forearm.
Once upon a time a man was relieved of his duties as a guard (in other words fired, or "sacked" as we say around here). At the end of the following month he came to his former employer asking to be paid. The exact conversation was not recorded, but this is clear: his former employer explained to him that since he was no longer employed and had not worked for the last month, he would not be paid. The former employee left and returned some hours later with two Kalashnikovs. He threw one in front of his former employer and held the other one over his shoulder saying, "I don't shoot an unarmed man...let's go outside". What year did this happen? 2007, you bet. You'll be happy to know that the employer was a project manager at one of the other IRC sites in Southern Sudan. I'll tell you one thing, I'm happy I'm getting out of here before anyone needs to be fired.
Trying to do all I can before I leave though. I got to play dominos at the local market today, where I found out that the team who let us play in their stead were nice enough to waste a donkey on me and my teammate (four people play dominos in teams of two). Turns out that the men from the two sides of the "road" play each other every day at this market, and they begin the day by deciding on a number of "donkeys" they will play till. I guess as a means to ensure they will not play all night. These "donkeys" are really just another name for "games", so since we lost a game, I can say that I made them lose a donkey. Sounds better than "we made them lose a game". Tomorrow we're gonna try to play soccer with the young guys from Darfur who live at the IDP (internally displaced persons) camp near our compound. I only have 2 days left here in Kauda!
I was hoping I could make it through my last week without getting sick, but... although the headache that was bothering me the other night turned out to be only as a result of too much "DOOM" being sprayed in my room, or so I have concluded, today I made a very unpleasant discovery. The water in the pot that I have been drinking from, is also home to a tribe of worms. Sounds like I'll be taking home some souvenirs in my stomach! Can't wait for one of those funny patriotic immigration officers to ask me "nothing to declare?"
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Friday, August 17, 2007
A stupid month & Mother Tongue Interference
“This is a stupid man” was David’s comment after the man moved away from our vehicle. God, what must he have said? I thought I had caught a little of the conversation in Arabic as he spoke to us through the vehicle’s half-opened window, but I guess I was wrong. I asked David why. I had never heard David insult anyone before; this must have been pretty bad. “Everyone gets sick,” he replied, “August, this is a stupid month”. I smiled realizing the misunderstanding.
I had heard that August was “famine month” because the crops were not ready and the rains made “getting to market” especially difficult. The dead goats we spotted on the side of the road in the morning only reemphasized this. Could the lack of food and the bad health be related? One of our cooks has malaria, probably something she caught from a mosquito coming from her daughter who had malaria before her. Our water carrier has yellow fever. A guy who shares our office has been bed-ridden for the past 4 days, probably with malaria, while everyone else, including myself, complains of headaches and stomach problems. This is a stupid month.
“Mother tongue interference,” what a brilliant expression! I will never say, “that person has an accent” ever again. From now on it’s only “that person has mother tongue interference”; and I can just use either “strong”, “noticeable”, or “slight” to describe the level of “mother tongue interference”. I suggest you do the same, although describing a specific type of mother tongue interference might become tricky, or simply ridiculous. For example, if you were to say, “Have you ever heard Sarkozy speak English? He has a really strong French mother tongue interference”… you might not find it so convenient, while trying to shorten it to simply “French interference” might get you in trouble. I suspect that in true DC fashion, if adopted, it will simply assume the form of MTI.
Speaking of acronyms, UNMIS is a great one around here. It stands for United Nations Mission in Sudan, and is pronounced “yunimis”. Their mission is not to prevent another war, that’s too hard… they just want to be ready for it. So last night, once it was dark, they were getting ready for an eventual evacuation and having one of their new helicopter pilots fly in and out of our airstrip. Some say it was to see if he could find it at night, but considering the fact that he was taking off from it, it would take an idiot not to be able to find it, especially with the beastly spotlight shining from the front of the chopper. I think at one point he might have even made it over the hills to the west of the airstrip and was still able to find the airstrip. They really chose the right guy for the job! Can’t wait for an evacuation during a normal evening with winds like the ones that make roofs collapse and lightning like the one that struck and burned homes the other night. One thing’s for sure, under normal conditions our new chopper pilot definitely wouldn’t be rescuing us since our compound is on the other side of river, which would probably be full and impassable, and anyway, how would they contact us to warn us? All these thoughts came to me last night as I heard the helicopter come in for it’s 4th or 5th test-landing… but suddenly I heard a familiar sound.
Every night after I turn off my computer I hear a sound similar to that of a nail scratching at my bag. The first night it was a mystery, what could it be? A frog like the one that slept in one of the other rooms? No, frogs make different sounds. A snake maybe, like the one we spotted in a tree and proceeded to kill yesterday? Perhaps. A mouse, even more likely, especially considering the baby mouse I’d seen outside my room last week. But there isn’t any food around, what would it be doing? Did I leave crumbs of something in my bag? I tried to spot the creature by shining my computer on it from my bed, but it was only last night that I finally spotted my friend the lizard, not the usual gecko, crawling on my bag. What was it after? Of course, my ant cemetery! By killing ants I was attracting this lizard, who has proven to be a superb cleaning service, leaving my room’s floor spic and span by the time I reach out to grab my alarm in the morning.
I had heard that August was “famine month” because the crops were not ready and the rains made “getting to market” especially difficult. The dead goats we spotted on the side of the road in the morning only reemphasized this. Could the lack of food and the bad health be related? One of our cooks has malaria, probably something she caught from a mosquito coming from her daughter who had malaria before her. Our water carrier has yellow fever. A guy who shares our office has been bed-ridden for the past 4 days, probably with malaria, while everyone else, including myself, complains of headaches and stomach problems. This is a stupid month.
“Mother tongue interference,” what a brilliant expression! I will never say, “that person has an accent” ever again. From now on it’s only “that person has mother tongue interference”; and I can just use either “strong”, “noticeable”, or “slight” to describe the level of “mother tongue interference”. I suggest you do the same, although describing a specific type of mother tongue interference might become tricky, or simply ridiculous. For example, if you were to say, “Have you ever heard Sarkozy speak English? He has a really strong French mother tongue interference”… you might not find it so convenient, while trying to shorten it to simply “French interference” might get you in trouble. I suspect that in true DC fashion, if adopted, it will simply assume the form of MTI.
Speaking of acronyms, UNMIS is a great one around here. It stands for United Nations Mission in Sudan, and is pronounced “yunimis”. Their mission is not to prevent another war, that’s too hard… they just want to be ready for it. So last night, once it was dark, they were getting ready for an eventual evacuation and having one of their new helicopter pilots fly in and out of our airstrip. Some say it was to see if he could find it at night, but considering the fact that he was taking off from it, it would take an idiot not to be able to find it, especially with the beastly spotlight shining from the front of the chopper. I think at one point he might have even made it over the hills to the west of the airstrip and was still able to find the airstrip. They really chose the right guy for the job! Can’t wait for an evacuation during a normal evening with winds like the ones that make roofs collapse and lightning like the one that struck and burned homes the other night. One thing’s for sure, under normal conditions our new chopper pilot definitely wouldn’t be rescuing us since our compound is on the other side of river, which would probably be full and impassable, and anyway, how would they contact us to warn us? All these thoughts came to me last night as I heard the helicopter come in for it’s 4th or 5th test-landing… but suddenly I heard a familiar sound.
Every night after I turn off my computer I hear a sound similar to that of a nail scratching at my bag. The first night it was a mystery, what could it be? A frog like the one that slept in one of the other rooms? No, frogs make different sounds. A snake maybe, like the one we spotted in a tree and proceeded to kill yesterday? Perhaps. A mouse, even more likely, especially considering the baby mouse I’d seen outside my room last week. But there isn’t any food around, what would it be doing? Did I leave crumbs of something in my bag? I tried to spot the creature by shining my computer on it from my bed, but it was only last night that I finally spotted my friend the lizard, not the usual gecko, crawling on my bag. What was it after? Of course, my ant cemetery! By killing ants I was attracting this lizard, who has proven to be a superb cleaning service, leaving my room’s floor spic and span by the time I reach out to grab my alarm in the morning.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Empowering Vulnerable Groups
What is a day in Kauda like? I wake up at 7-7:30 to the sound of the little square alarm clock I bought from an Indian in Nairobi. I switch it off after untucking my mosquito net from the side of the bed, usually to find that at least one of the corners of the net has come untucked... probably the reason for the early-morning itching. I proceed to untuck the entire net and tie it in a knot above the center of my bed. Time to open one of the two windows. One of them I keep open all night to let the air in, while the other I have to close because the netting that was originally put there to deny bugs access, is now big enough for a bird to fly through, or better still, a bat. Throw on my morning shirt, and head out the door with my Hawaianas flip flops; in one hand the solar lamp, in the other the solar panel, which I place on the ground outside my room facing East, with the lamp serving as the stand. I then grab two sets of keys: one to open the "office" 
for the cleaner who is already here by 7:30, and the other to open the "store" where we keep the foodstuffs, so that the cooks can prepare breakfast. That storage room is also where the batteries for the solar lamps are kept... that early in the morning all blinking lights are red. We'll have to wait until at least past 8 to get a flashing green light on one of the indicators. Back to my room to grab my toothbrush and head towards the latrine/shower area where we have a jerry can filled with water, which serves as our faucet. A shower in the morning is optional. I mean, if it's kinda chilly I prefer not to pour kinda chilly water all over my head. We finally got a carpenter to come and fix the door to the shower and latrine, the latter of which you previously had to hold onto to keep closed. A "short call" is what we say around here when we want to say "nature calls", and since toilet paper is no longer sold in the Kauda market (who needs toilet paper when you have soda) the alternative is either to use soda bottles filled with water, or as I taught Lasu, to use old paper, Kyrgyz-style. So now, anytime he is off to the latrine he just grabs a piece of paper from somewhere, raises it up in the air as a sign of victory and all he says is "Kyrgyzstan!" It makes me laugh every time...
It's still not 8 am yet... At this point I change into my "day clothes", grab my laptop, my book, and my camera, and proceed to the office. Everyone is supposed to show up by 8, but of course 8:30 is usually when you see the last person come in, and by then the first people who arrived are already heading out to grab their "morning tea". "Morning tea" for a Sudanese means taking a small mug and filling it with 3 giant heaps-of-a-teaspoon of powdered milk and 3 giant heaps-of-a-teaspoon of sugar and then filling the remaining space with hot water. I prefer 2 barely-teaspoons of sugar, 2 decent-sized teaspoons of powdered milk, and 1 decent-sized teaspoon of Cadbury's chocolate powder. If we're lucky enough we have eggs, but we have to make sure to have them sent from Kenya. There are no eggs to be found in the market here, not because there aren't chickens who lay them, but because, as David told me, "who would buy them?"
So by 9 or 9:30 everyone is back in office for work. By now we are lucky to have had some sunlight and might have enough power for internet. Some days we have trainings, so people come to us and we spend the day with them training them in finance, leadership, organizational development, gender & vulnerability, or whatever the flavor of the month is. Some days we go to visit partners, to see how they are doing on their projects, to pass info to them, or to discuss a certain issue. Sometimes they come to us for the same reasons. The best part about the job is the interaction with the partners and seeing their progress. But now that our vehicle is grounded (I think I forgot to mention that during our "full war" the vehicle's reverse gear got messed up as we tried getting the Land Cruiser out of the mud), we are borrowing NDI's vehicle and their deaf driver that comes with it. Yes, deaf. We need to empower vulnerable groups I guess... at least he's not blind. He's generally ok, except for the times when he drops us off, we close the doors, and we yell after him to stop because we forgot something in the vehicle... but he just keeps going.
Work is over by 5, the power is also gone by then, so then what? Sometimes we walk to the airstrip with radio in hand, listening to music, or more frequently, the news in either French, English, German, Russian, or Arabic. On a couple occasions we headed over in the opposite direction to watch some wrestling. Usually, though, we go to town to play volleyball or dominos, walk around the market, or just sit around and watch people, and OF COURSE, ALWAYS, drink soda. At this time in the afternoon among the passer-byers you see military guys with a flashlight in one hand and a nice black stick in the other, meant for hitting dogs or any other creature they might encounter as they walk at night. Lasu and I are the only 2 people on the compound nowadays, so after the deaf driver has driven us to town, I drive us back. One of these days I personally started a new "road", which has now become the "main road". I guess that's as good as the World Bank building roads...gotta find a place for that on my resume.
Back home usually by dark (7:30) and time to take out the solar lamp. Sometimes we are lucky, like tonight, and still have a little power left so we can conserve the solar lamp. When we have "a little power" that means the light blinks every 10 seconds or so. Try it now; blink every 10 seconds; you'll see what it's like. See, after a while you don't even realize you're blinking. Dinner by blinking-light usually includes bread or Ethiopian-like bread (called kisra) or if we're lucky chapati. Rice is almost always included, and sometimes beans, peas, or lentils. Finally there is some kind of meat, either the chicken we were running after this morning to kill, or goat or cow meat, usually in a stew-like form so that we have some "sauce" for the rice. Silverware is not included, but water to wash your hands is always available, along with soap, which is replaced by detergent at the food joints at the market.
At this time over the Eastern hills a battle breaks out... or at least I thought it was a battle the first nights I was here. The lightning does not look like lightning, but like blasts of light, like a bomb going off, while the thunder only confirms one's suspicion. (Don't ask me where I learned about war-zone light effects). A wind starts blowing and it's time for me and Lasu to run to our rooms and hide... A quick shower with a flashlight lighting the shower room, and I'm back in my room tucking in my mosquito net under the mattress. Before going to take my shower I usually spray the room with DOOM, to kill any bugs that might be around, but the name of the product doesn't scare them all off. An ant colony has established its base in a hole in the floor of my room, so I usually have to make an ant cemetery out of them before going to bed. I usually try to read between 9 and 11 using the screen of my laptop for lighting, since the solar lamp is too bright and attracts lots of mini-bugs that can fit through the mosquito net. At this point just waiting for malaria symptoms since they're sure to come before any shipment of insect repellent.
for the cleaner who is already here by 7:30, and the other to open the "store" where we keep the foodstuffs, so that the cooks can prepare breakfast. That storage room is also where the batteries for the solar lamps are kept... that early in the morning all blinking lights are red. We'll have to wait until at least past 8 to get a flashing green light on one of the indicators. Back to my room to grab my toothbrush and head towards the latrine/shower area where we have a jerry can filled with water, which serves as our faucet. A shower in the morning is optional. I mean, if it's kinda chilly I prefer not to pour kinda chilly water all over my head. We finally got a carpenter to come and fix the door to the shower and latrine, the latter of which you previously had to hold onto to keep closed. A "short call" is what we say around here when we want to say "nature calls", and since toilet paper is no longer sold in the Kauda market (who needs toilet paper when you have soda) the alternative is either to use soda bottles filled with water, or as I taught Lasu, to use old paper, Kyrgyz-style. So now, anytime he is off to the latrine he just grabs a piece of paper from somewhere, raises it up in the air as a sign of victory and all he says is "Kyrgyzstan!" It makes me laugh every time... It's still not 8 am yet... At this point I change into my "day clothes", grab my laptop, my book, and my camera, and proceed to the office. Everyone is supposed to show up by 8, but of course 8:30 is usually when you see the last person come in, and by then the first people who arrived are already heading out to grab their "morning tea". "Morning tea" for a Sudanese means taking a small mug and filling it with 3 giant heaps-of-a-teaspoon of powdered milk and 3 giant heaps-of-a-teaspoon of sugar and then filling the remaining space with hot water. I prefer 2 barely-teaspoons of sugar, 2 decent-sized teaspoons of powdered milk, and 1 decent-sized teaspoon of Cadbury's chocolate powder. If we're lucky enough we have eggs, but we have to make sure to have them sent from Kenya. There are no eggs to be found in the market here, not because there aren't chickens who lay them, but because, as David told me, "who would buy them?"
So by 9 or 9:30 everyone is back in office for work. By now we are lucky to have had some sunlight and might have enough power for internet. Some days we have trainings, so people come to us and we spend the day with them training them in finance, leadership, organizational development, gender & vulnerability, or whatever the flavor of the month is. Some days we go to visit partners, to see how they are doing on their projects, to pass info to them, or to discuss a certain issue. Sometimes they come to us for the same reasons. The best part about the job is the interaction with the partners and seeing their progress. But now that our vehicle is grounded (I think I forgot to mention that during our "full war" the vehicle's reverse gear got messed up as we tried getting the Land Cruiser out of the mud), we are borrowing NDI's vehicle and their deaf driver that comes with it. Yes, deaf. We need to empower vulnerable groups I guess... at least he's not blind. He's generally ok, except for the times when he drops us off, we close the doors, and we yell after him to stop because we forgot something in the vehicle... but he just keeps going.
Work is over by 5, the power is also gone by then, so then what? Sometimes we walk to the airstrip with radio in hand, listening to music, or more frequently, the news in either French, English, German, Russian, or Arabic. On a couple occasions we headed over in the opposite direction to watch some wrestling. Usually, though, we go to town to play volleyball or dominos, walk around the market, or just sit around and watch people, and OF COURSE, ALWAYS, drink soda. At this time in the afternoon among the passer-byers you see military guys with a flashlight in one hand and a nice black stick in the other, meant for hitting dogs or any other creature they might encounter as they walk at night. Lasu and I are the only 2 people on the compound nowadays, so after the deaf driver has driven us to town, I drive us back. One of these days I personally started a new "road", which has now become the "main road". I guess that's as good as the World Bank building roads...gotta find a place for that on my resume.
Back home usually by dark (7:30) and time to take out the solar lamp. Sometimes we are lucky, like tonight, and still have a little power left so we can conserve the solar lamp. When we have "a little power" that means the light blinks every 10 seconds or so. Try it now; blink every 10 seconds; you'll see what it's like. See, after a while you don't even realize you're blinking. Dinner by blinking-light usually includes bread or Ethiopian-like bread (called kisra) or if we're lucky chapati. Rice is almost always included, and sometimes beans, peas, or lentils. Finally there is some kind of meat, either the chicken we were running after this morning to kill, or goat or cow meat, usually in a stew-like form so that we have some "sauce" for the rice. Silverware is not included, but water to wash your hands is always available, along with soap, which is replaced by detergent at the food joints at the market.
At this time over the Eastern hills a battle breaks out... or at least I thought it was a battle the first nights I was here. The lightning does not look like lightning, but like blasts of light, like a bomb going off, while the thunder only confirms one's suspicion. (Don't ask me where I learned about war-zone light effects). A wind starts blowing and it's time for me and Lasu to run to our rooms and hide... A quick shower with a flashlight lighting the shower room, and I'm back in my room tucking in my mosquito net under the mattress. Before going to take my shower I usually spray the room with DOOM, to kill any bugs that might be around, but the name of the product doesn't scare them all off. An ant colony has established its base in a hole in the floor of my room, so I usually have to make an ant cemetery out of them before going to bed. I usually try to read between 9 and 11 using the screen of my laptop for lighting, since the solar lamp is too bright and attracts lots of mini-bugs that can fit through the mosquito net. At this point just waiting for malaria symptoms since they're sure to come before any shipment of insect repellent.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Guests of honor drink soda
"The guest of honor has not arrived [notice the label on the empty chair] so we cannot begin. Welcome, feel at ease, feel at home, feel KTTC". KTTC is the Kauda Teachers Training Center and I'm not sure they really wanted us to "feel" the training center, but I definitely wasn't feeling it. At that point we had been waiting 40 minutes for the graduation ceremony to begin. The organizers proceeded to hand out sodas and pass around plates filled with dates and cavity-balls (I can't really refer to them as candy). Soda, by the way, is to Sudanese as coffee is to Americans. If you have money for it, you will buy it. It doesn't matter if it's 9 am or 9 pm, "every hour is a soda hour". If you ask me, Coca Cola and Pepsi don't even need to have ad campaigns in Sudan. Much like Starbucks in the US. I don't watch much TV, but I don't ever remember seeing a Starbucks commercial. Anyway, as I sat there and planned my next trip to the dentist the time passed, and 20 minutes later, at 12 o'clock on the dot, the next announcement came: "we have received news that the guest of honor is waiting for the minister of education who will be arriving at 1". "I'm out of here" I thought. The ceremony was supposed to begin at 9, but we had expected delays, so we arrived at 11, only to find that the guest of honor was not coming till 1! And that's a Sudanese 1, which really means 2 or 3. I'm sure some of those South Asian UN police guys (don't ask me why, but they are all from South Asia: Nepal, Sri Lanka, India, and Pakistan) got there at 9 and waited for hours with nothing better to do. Yes, it's true that another war will probably break out around here, but having the funny UN police here is not going to change anything. At this point you might be asking yourself what this talk of war is all about. I won't bore/confuse you with the situation, but let me just quote (unedited) a couple people to give you a sense of what I mean:
"How can we emancipate from slavery; since childhood we have never seen freedom" (yes, this is a direct quote!)
"We take the guns, we Nubians are not cowards!"
I think you get the idea: people are not happy with what they see as discrimination by the Government in Khartoum and are ready to pick up their arms again!
So in case you were wondering, no, 21 years of war doesn't make people tired of war. If you don't get what you fought for you'll fight again until you get it.
As for me, I'm just fighting mosquitos. Life goes on: geckos in my bed, snakes in the "office", mice & bats in the eating area, and work to keep me busy. What work? Well, I've been serving as "acting Project Manager" since the new guy has yet to come. The story with this is quite classic. Apparently he's a Ugandan, but since IRC will only hire national staff, he needs to get himself a Sudanese ID card. How do you get one? Well, all you need to do is find someone with your same last three names (in other words, same father, grandfather and great-grandfather name). That's not as hard as you might think since there is not that much variation in names around here. All first-born (more or less) are given the name Kuku if a boy, while if it's a girl, Kaka. The second born son also has a special name, Kodi. So, having easily found someone with your same 3 names you talk to him and convince him (I'm not sure if you convince with a monetary reward) to serve as your witness. He will testify that you are in fact Sudanese. Now you probably don't have a birth certificate--or you say you don't have one since that's very likely--and you go to a doctor for a age authentication. The doctor writes a note that says you were in fact born on whatever date you choose to make up, in whatever place you choose to make up, and then the doctor also serves as your 2nd witness so that the authorities can process your "documents". The word on the street is that this process takes a while and that's why the new Project Manager isn't here yet. My guess is that when the system was invented they weren't thinking about people trying to pretend they were Sudanese because who in the world would go through all that trouble to become Sudanese? If you think about the system, given the fact that little official documentation is required, you could completely change your identity and make up a name (like my new names, which include Johnson, Jona, Jackson, and "Italian Wizard") to match your best friend's names and say you are cousins. It all depends on how badly you want to become Sudanese. All I know is that you better like soda.
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
the peaceful and calm caribbean...
Can't say I've gotten anything stuck lately, but I did cruise around on a dirt bike for the day with a wannabe professional motorcycle rider. When I asked for a helmet, they just laughed and shook their heads. That is about as exciting as it gets. I think I have examined maybe 50 pig projects since I have gotten here now. The latest email is below...
Thursday I returned from 2.5 days in the field. It was a very refreshing trip compared to the trip I took the week before, both literally and metaphorically. Last week, I was visiting an NGO that works with an afro-Antillean population called the Garifuna that lives along the North coast of Honduras and a couple of stray communities in Guatemala and Belize. This ethnic group has a very interesting history as it is composed of escaped slaves, Venezuelan indigenous, and some Carribbean indigenous. For its first hundred years, they lived on some Carribbean Island, but then were forced to the Honduran coast in the late 18th century. Google "Garifuna" and I am sure you can find a better description. Anyways, the main point though is that they are "poor", losing their unique culture, and Trickle UP with its partner is trying to help them generate other sources of income.
Unfortunately, the NGO on the ground Trickle Up is working through isn't doing such a great job. The NGO is focused on promoting and protecting the territorial and human rights of the Garifuna, so the Trickle Up seed capital project wasn't necessarily their specialty nor receiving much attention or resources. That was obvious when I went to visit. The groups organized to receive the funds hadn't been trained at all, didn't know how much money they were supposed to be receiving, and in one group, more than half didn't show up to the meeting. It is common that members of groups don't show up to meetings, but when they have recently just received cash in hand, it is rare that they don't show from my experience on this trip. 1. They usually want to show their appreciation; and 2. they want to know if there is more cash from where it came from. There is a bit of an organizational culture clash one might say between TUP and the Garifuna NGO; US NGO which is very transparent, time oriented, and procedural versus the laid back and non-transparent culture of the Garifuna run NGO.
The towns we visited are located on an undeveloped swath of beach on the Caribbean which was beautiful. Once the electricity arrives (only 20km away), I give it 5-years before the ex-pats arrive and purchase the majority of the land. The interesting part was that there were some beautiful houses in all of the towns owned by some Garifuna with significant amounts of money, while their next door neighbors lived in dirt floor wooden or adobe shacks waiting to be blown over in the next storm. Of course you have the Wall Street banker passing the bum in the street in NY and have the same disparity in wealth, but not usually living next to each other. I paid $4 for my "room", which wasn't much, but have a bucket shower and its own toilet. I was hoping to eat some great seafood with coco, but was only served fried chicken and bananas. The coconut trees were infected with some virus and recently all died. Thus, they have had to adapt their diet and bring in a new species of coco from the Pacific side of Mexico that is supposedly resistant to the virus. I was able to see how the women process the local variety of cassava or yucca. It takes them two days to do it by hand, which many still do. The result is a disc "bread" made from the processed cassava flour which tastes like the host at church or a very grainy, thin pita.
At the end, a very interesting cultural experience, but organizationally and work wise depressing and not worthwhile. This week's organization though was exceptional and should probably be studied in the US. Central Cultural Hibueras is the name of the organization and they work in the region surrounding the town of Santa Barbara. A beautiful town which I am surprised hasn't been over run by ex-pats yet as it is identical to Boquete in Panama, a town now known world wide as a place to retire. The field trip took us about 2 hours away, up to about 4500 feet and to the base of a large mountain which is a national park. There wasn't electricity, so I was returned to my Peace Corps days of early to bed and early to rise. Coffee in the morning was mixed with direct from the cow milk, which was a treat. Fresh un-pasteurized milk is something that everyone should have at least once in their life.
Back to work though… Central Cultural Hinbueras focused the Trickle Up seed capital in 5 neighboring communities and had dedicated substantial time and resources to training and selecting the recipients. Many recipients had chosen pigs to fatten as that is what they are most familiar with, so I visited probably 15 different sets of pigs. I am now familiar with all of the different breeds of pigs in the area and possible combinations of food to fatten them. Surprisingly, no one names their pigs. I did visit one participant with 6 school aged daughters that all lived in a two room "shack" (in every sense of the word) measuring 10ft by 20ft with one large poster of some beer girl scantily clad that dominated one wall. The participant though had built a small pig pen (about a quarter the size of her "shack") for her two pigs, cleaned it daily, and provided the pigs with fresh straw to sleep on each night. The daughters probably sleep very similar to how the pigs sleep, on mats on the dirt floor in the "living room" of their "shack".
When I visit a group or an individual with their business, there is a certain series of questions that I go through, I want to see the business, and if possible, sample product. No pigs were ready for slaughter, so I wasn't able to sample pork chops or chicharrones, but I was able to sample one lady's chilies. They were very small chilies that she sells to a large Tabasco sauce producer. Being the adventurous Gringo, I bit right into one to prove my manliness in front of my counterparts and to sample the product. The sample was plenty fiery and I ended up crying and dripping snot for the next 5 minutes to the amusement of everyone. Even though the chile lady is offering employment through picking the chilies in an area with scarce income opportunities, she can't find any labor to help her harvest because people are afraid that they will become incapacitated for life by harvesting chilies. Other small businesses started included a small bread making operation, vegetable wholesaler, a lady selling women's delicates door-to-door, and plenty of small plantings of potatoes, beans, and corn.
After hours, I found Honduras to be a soccer mad country. The sports pages have 90% of their sports copy dedicated to soccer and the rest to all the other sports. I laced up my hiking boots for a game at the village and unlike in Peace Corps where I was one of the better players, found myself being dribbled around by 50-year olds. I did score a goal which saved some face and respect for the Gringo and US soccer in their eyes, but it was a humbling experience. It was my first time playing in a couple months per doctor's orders, thus I lump some of my poor showing on just starting my recovery, and my lack of cleats of course (always blame faulty equipment, right?).
Other non-work activities did include going to mass two Sundays in a row. I was pleased to find a priest who still was dedicated to some form of Liberation Theology. The Catholic Church in Honduras doesn't seem to have lost as much ground to the Evangelicals like in Guatemala and Panama. I was told this is mostly because they are much more active socially and organizing the people to fight for justice and equality, which I have found to be true. The priest in his homily did rail against the mining companies which are polluting the land, but also had an environmental component for the congregation that they should be working their land in a sustainable manner too. Much more the poor man's church in Honduras versus the wealthy's church it seems to be in the other Latin American countries.
Only ten more days and then it is back to the US. All of the traveling has been great, but also tiring having to constantly move. I am looking forward to being in one spot for a while.
Thursday I returned from 2.5 days in the field. It was a very refreshing trip compared to the trip I took the week before, both literally and metaphorically. Last week, I was visiting an NGO that works with an afro-Antillean population called the Garifuna that lives along the North coast of Honduras and a couple of stray communities in Guatemala and Belize. This ethnic group has a very interesting history as it is composed of escaped slaves, Venezuelan indigenous, and some Carribbean indigenous. For its first hundred years, they lived on some Carribbean Island, but then were forced to the Honduran coast in the late 18th century. Google "Garifuna" and I am sure you can find a better description. Anyways, the main point though is that they are "poor", losing their unique culture, and Trickle UP with its partner is trying to help them generate other sources of income.
Unfortunately, the NGO on the ground Trickle Up is working through isn't doing such a great job. The NGO is focused on promoting and protecting the territorial and human rights of the Garifuna, so the Trickle Up seed capital project wasn't necessarily their specialty nor receiving much attention or resources. That was obvious when I went to visit. The groups organized to receive the funds hadn't been trained at all, didn't know how much money they were supposed to be receiving, and in one group, more than half didn't show up to the meeting. It is common that members of groups don't show up to meetings, but when they have recently just received cash in hand, it is rare that they don't show from my experience on this trip. 1. They usually want to show their appreciation; and 2. they want to know if there is more cash from where it came from. There is a bit of an organizational culture clash one might say between TUP and the Garifuna NGO; US NGO which is very transparent, time oriented, and procedural versus the laid back and non-transparent culture of the Garifuna run NGO.
The towns we visited are located on an undeveloped swath of beach on the Caribbean which was beautiful. Once the electricity arrives (only 20km away), I give it 5-years before the ex-pats arrive and purchase the majority of the land. The interesting part was that there were some beautiful houses in all of the towns owned by some Garifuna with significant amounts of money, while their next door neighbors lived in dirt floor wooden or adobe shacks waiting to be blown over in the next storm. Of course you have the Wall Street banker passing the bum in the street in NY and have the same disparity in wealth, but not usually living next to each other. I paid $4 for my "room", which wasn't much, but have a bucket shower and its own toilet. I was hoping to eat some great seafood with coco, but was only served fried chicken and bananas. The coconut trees were infected with some virus and recently all died. Thus, they have had to adapt their diet and bring in a new species of coco from the Pacific side of Mexico that is supposedly resistant to the virus. I was able to see how the women process the local variety of cassava or yucca. It takes them two days to do it by hand, which many still do. The result is a disc "bread" made from the processed cassava flour which tastes like the host at church or a very grainy, thin pita.
At the end, a very interesting cultural experience, but organizationally and work wise depressing and not worthwhile. This week's organization though was exceptional and should probably be studied in the US. Central Cultural Hibueras is the name of the organization and they work in the region surrounding the town of Santa Barbara. A beautiful town which I am surprised hasn't been over run by ex-pats yet as it is identical to Boquete in Panama, a town now known world wide as a place to retire. The field trip took us about 2 hours away, up to about 4500 feet and to the base of a large mountain which is a national park. There wasn't electricity, so I was returned to my Peace Corps days of early to bed and early to rise. Coffee in the morning was mixed with direct from the cow milk, which was a treat. Fresh un-pasteurized milk is something that everyone should have at least once in their life.
Back to work though… Central Cultural Hinbueras focused the Trickle Up seed capital in 5 neighboring communities and had dedicated substantial time and resources to training and selecting the recipients. Many recipients had chosen pigs to fatten as that is what they are most familiar with, so I visited probably 15 different sets of pigs. I am now familiar with all of the different breeds of pigs in the area and possible combinations of food to fatten them. Surprisingly, no one names their pigs. I did visit one participant with 6 school aged daughters that all lived in a two room "shack" (in every sense of the word) measuring 10ft by 20ft with one large poster of some beer girl scantily clad that dominated one wall. The participant though had built a small pig pen (about a quarter the size of her "shack") for her two pigs, cleaned it daily, and provided the pigs with fresh straw to sleep on each night. The daughters probably sleep very similar to how the pigs sleep, on mats on the dirt floor in the "living room" of their "shack".
When I visit a group or an individual with their business, there is a certain series of questions that I go through, I want to see the business, and if possible, sample product. No pigs were ready for slaughter, so I wasn't able to sample pork chops or chicharrones, but I was able to sample one lady's chilies. They were very small chilies that she sells to a large Tabasco sauce producer. Being the adventurous Gringo, I bit right into one to prove my manliness in front of my counterparts and to sample the product. The sample was plenty fiery and I ended up crying and dripping snot for the next 5 minutes to the amusement of everyone. Even though the chile lady is offering employment through picking the chilies in an area with scarce income opportunities, she can't find any labor to help her harvest because people are afraid that they will become incapacitated for life by harvesting chilies. Other small businesses started included a small bread making operation, vegetable wholesaler, a lady selling women's delicates door-to-door, and plenty of small plantings of potatoes, beans, and corn.
After hours, I found Honduras to be a soccer mad country. The sports pages have 90% of their sports copy dedicated to soccer and the rest to all the other sports. I laced up my hiking boots for a game at the village and unlike in Peace Corps where I was one of the better players, found myself being dribbled around by 50-year olds. I did score a goal which saved some face and respect for the Gringo and US soccer in their eyes, but it was a humbling experience. It was my first time playing in a couple months per doctor's orders, thus I lump some of my poor showing on just starting my recovery, and my lack of cleats of course (always blame faulty equipment, right?).
Other non-work activities did include going to mass two Sundays in a row. I was pleased to find a priest who still was dedicated to some form of Liberation Theology. The Catholic Church in Honduras doesn't seem to have lost as much ground to the Evangelicals like in Guatemala and Panama. I was told this is mostly because they are much more active socially and organizing the people to fight for justice and equality, which I have found to be true. The priest in his homily did rail against the mining companies which are polluting the land, but also had an environmental component for the congregation that they should be working their land in a sustainable manner too. Much more the poor man's church in Honduras versus the wealthy's church it seems to be in the other Latin American countries.
Only ten more days and then it is back to the US. All of the traveling has been great, but also tiring having to constantly move. I am looking forward to being in one spot for a while.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
This is full war
"This is full war" Well, what Yousif really means to say every time he says that is "this is field work!" That, and "that road is bad" are his two English sentences. The latter is a sign of trouble ahead, while "field work" to him might as well be "full war" and is equivalent to a really tough situation. Wednesday we were off at 9 am to visit another partner. We stopped at 10 for a mid-morning lunch (egyptian beans with oil and onions, accompanied by liver.... the good bread would save me from hunger and hold me over until our dinner at 7). We reached the partners by 12 and had some tea and coffee at the "market" before heading to their "office". The tree wasn't doing a good job at protecting us from the first rain drops so we moved into an empty brick building (room) near the "market". A long discussion and we were out of there by 2. "We'll be back by 4! When it's raining it's better" exclaimed David. I guess you could argue that a slight rain made the mud a little smoother and easier to slide on and harder to get stuck in, but this was a serious tropical downpour. Anyone who has spent time in the tropics during the rainy season will know what that's like, but try driving down a river of mud with that rain coming down. The rain had just started as we were getting into the car and we were hoping to make it past the worst part of the "road" before the rain got worse, but just in case we gave a ride to a Save the Children guy hoping he could help us push if needed. I was sitting in the back on one of the benches and everyone started fastening their seat belts... who knew we even had any! Who wears seat belts in the bush unless they are afraid of crashing into bushes? Time to find and tighten my own. The notoriously "crazy part" of the "road" was our enemy. Once we passed it we'd be fine the rest of the way. The ordeal lasted 5 minutes. I held my camera tight in my right hand the whole way trying to capture this rare film of true full war. It was almost like riding on ice. The car goes wherever it wants, into the fields, back on track, back into the corn fields, this time almost pulling a 180. Can't go forward. A super-quick change of gear and we reverse out and back ahead. You can't take your foot off the gas or it's all over, can't push on the break, just have to keep going. Yousif's wild arm movements rally-style and the windshield wipers are just not fast enough. James in the front seats decides to wipe the windshield with a cloth, but as he bounces from one side to the other the only thing stopping him from ending up on Yousif's lap is the always-reliable seat belt. Around minute two we skid past a woman who is standing in a field to our right... we could have hit her, but no time to think about that, especially Yousif can't afford to look back. An F1-style chicane ahead and Yousif's arms are looking like a baker's wrist movement while whipping. We barely miss one tree to our left, hit another one that is lying to our right, but there's no stopping. Looks like we're stuck, the car is struggling, but we make it out. We are into the 4th minute and the "road" is now looking more like a river and water is flying off the wheels on all sides. We must be reaching the end, almost there, but suddenly we hit another ditch. Again I lose control of my right arm securing the camera, but I've held firm and haven't dropped it. The wheels are spinning, it's not looking good. We know that sound all too well. We're officially stuck. 
Time to take a shower. Shirts off, roll up the jeans, sandals off, and we're out into the mud. It wouldn't be until the next day that we'd realize how many thorns got into our feet. The first thing to do is to try to push and so we did. "Everyone, one, two, three".... The back wheels were stuck in a ditch that had essentially become a stream and was not going to make things easy. We tried with the jack lifting the back wheels, pushing forward, then everyone running to the front of the vehicle and pushing back. The rain never stopped. Gather branches and throw them under the tires, maybe that will help the wheels catch. Yet another try backwards and wait, it's going... we got it out! We rejoice and Yousif walks ahead to figure out how to pass this tricky spot. We move out of the way and let him do his magic, but as he tries to go around the side the ditch prevails once again and this time catches the front tires. Back we go to our pushing routine. Branches to fill the ditch, but the mud just sucks it all in. We got the Land Rover out once again, but pushed it back a little too far and got it stuck in the bushes. Another simple push and it was out again, but the ditch was not going to let us win, and back they went, the front tires, right into the ditch with no way out. If there had been young men walking by we might have asked for their help for another big push, but the only passer-byers were women and children or old men with walking sticks. Just our luck. We had spent more than 2 and a half hours in the rain, it would take my fingers hours to return to normal as the tips were wrinkled from the excess water. We eventually gave up and decided to walk to the town we knew was not too far (maybe a half hour "footing", if that) to get help in the form of a tractor, which would be able to pull our vehicle out. Well, we discovered on the way to the town that between the vehicle and town were 2 impossible hurdles. One kilometer or so down the road, just when we had assumed it was all clear, the road turned into a river. How? Well, whenever rain falls in this spot, two rivers form and flow across the road only a couple hundred yards of road between them; but the rain had been so heavy that the first river had flooded the area between the two rivers and the "road" had served as a nice new river bed. We crossed the first river, which was not flowing too quickly and wasn't too deep, just up to the waist. "When you walk in sand you need to drag your feet" was the advice Charles gave me as we crossed. We were already drenched so when it came to jumping into a river waist-high to get across, we didn't think twice about it. We then walked through the water of the river that had formed along the road, with water only reaching our thighs, until we reached the second river. 
A few hours earlier this river had been completely dry, only a bed of sand, but now it was a fierce flow of water, ideal for rafting. We were led by David - the fearless one, having walked for days during the war to escape "the enemy", and having crossed the Nile with crocodiles and snakes ready to attack. However, I was a little skeptical of his experience with rapids given the fact that the Nile is generally quite calm, but we were determined to get to the town. Dragging our feet in the sand we moved through the water keeping our arms out as David kept warning James, "don't look down". James was the shortest amongst us and was definitely the most concerned (a Kenyan, not a Sudanese) as the water was high well past his waist, but holding Charles's hand he made it across. The Save the Children guy offered us shelter at their compound next to the market. We were ready for food, but needed to find a tractor. By 9 we were all lying on mattresses ready to sleep, with the vehicle safely in the compound, having been dragged back by a beastly tractor that somehow had made it across the rivers and through the mud without being washed away. Our clothes were soaked, so we borrowed random clothes that were lying around the rooms we were staying in, and looked like a bunch of clowns 
the next morning as we went to the market to have tea. I was wearing florescent green sweat-pants that only came up to just below my knee, while David was wearing a bright blue jump suit. Charles had gotten himself a pair of Chinese shorts at the market and James refused to go barefoot like the rest of us and had picked up pinkish purple sandals a couple sizes too small. We sat there taking tea seated under a tree as the woman filled the glasses with way too much sugar and brought us some biscuits from another shop nearby. Ok, we're done, David turned to the woman, "how much do we owe you?" She looked at him with a shy smile and said "I don't know". We proceeded to figure out the bill for her. Total of 6 pounds (50 cents US) per person. We handed her a 10 and she reached into her pocket. She knew we had given her too much, but she wasn't sure how many of which bills to give us in change. We helped her choose four 1-pound notes and bid her farewell. Money is a huge headache here because there are 3 currencies: new pounds, old pounds, and dinar. The only difference between them is the number of zeros, (1 new pound = 100 dinar = 1000 old pounds) so you can imagine the confusion. And to add to the difficulty there is number illiteracy. Some people are not aware that the comma should only be placed every three digits. I even saw someone write 1,000,500 only to find out later that he meant one thousand five hundred. Makes sense I guess. I have seen people bargain and argue to only find out that they were talking about different numbers and different currencies. Upon realizing it they smile and go back to trying to agree on a currency and a figure. If the French and Italians are still talking in Francs and Lira years after the introduction of the Euro I'm not sure what will happen here.
Time to take a shower. Shirts off, roll up the jeans, sandals off, and we're out into the mud. It wouldn't be until the next day that we'd realize how many thorns got into our feet. The first thing to do is to try to push and so we did. "Everyone, one, two, three".... The back wheels were stuck in a ditch that had essentially become a stream and was not going to make things easy. We tried with the jack lifting the back wheels, pushing forward, then everyone running to the front of the vehicle and pushing back. The rain never stopped. Gather branches and throw them under the tires, maybe that will help the wheels catch. Yet another try backwards and wait, it's going... we got it out! We rejoice and Yousif walks ahead to figure out how to pass this tricky spot. We move out of the way and let him do his magic, but as he tries to go around the side the ditch prevails once again and this time catches the front tires. Back we go to our pushing routine. Branches to fill the ditch, but the mud just sucks it all in. We got the Land Rover out once again, but pushed it back a little too far and got it stuck in the bushes. Another simple push and it was out again, but the ditch was not going to let us win, and back they went, the front tires, right into the ditch with no way out. If there had been young men walking by we might have asked for their help for another big push, but the only passer-byers were women and children or old men with walking sticks. Just our luck. We had spent more than 2 and a half hours in the rain, it would take my fingers hours to return to normal as the tips were wrinkled from the excess water. We eventually gave up and decided to walk to the town we knew was not too far (maybe a half hour "footing", if that) to get help in the form of a tractor, which would be able to pull our vehicle out. Well, we discovered on the way to the town that between the vehicle and town were 2 impossible hurdles. One kilometer or so down the road, just when we had assumed it was all clear, the road turned into a river. How? Well, whenever rain falls in this spot, two rivers form and flow across the road only a couple hundred yards of road between them; but the rain had been so heavy that the first river had flooded the area between the two rivers and the "road" had served as a nice new river bed. We crossed the first river, which was not flowing too quickly and wasn't too deep, just up to the waist. "When you walk in sand you need to drag your feet" was the advice Charles gave me as we crossed. We were already drenched so when it came to jumping into a river waist-high to get across, we didn't think twice about it. We then walked through the water of the river that had formed along the road, with water only reaching our thighs, until we reached the second river. 
A few hours earlier this river had been completely dry, only a bed of sand, but now it was a fierce flow of water, ideal for rafting. We were led by David - the fearless one, having walked for days during the war to escape "the enemy", and having crossed the Nile with crocodiles and snakes ready to attack. However, I was a little skeptical of his experience with rapids given the fact that the Nile is generally quite calm, but we were determined to get to the town. Dragging our feet in the sand we moved through the water keeping our arms out as David kept warning James, "don't look down". James was the shortest amongst us and was definitely the most concerned (a Kenyan, not a Sudanese) as the water was high well past his waist, but holding Charles's hand he made it across. The Save the Children guy offered us shelter at their compound next to the market. We were ready for food, but needed to find a tractor. By 9 we were all lying on mattresses ready to sleep, with the vehicle safely in the compound, having been dragged back by a beastly tractor that somehow had made it across the rivers and through the mud without being washed away. Our clothes were soaked, so we borrowed random clothes that were lying around the rooms we were staying in, and looked like a bunch of clowns 
the next morning as we went to the market to have tea. I was wearing florescent green sweat-pants that only came up to just below my knee, while David was wearing a bright blue jump suit. Charles had gotten himself a pair of Chinese shorts at the market and James refused to go barefoot like the rest of us and had picked up pinkish purple sandals a couple sizes too small. We sat there taking tea seated under a tree as the woman filled the glasses with way too much sugar and brought us some biscuits from another shop nearby. Ok, we're done, David turned to the woman, "how much do we owe you?" She looked at him with a shy smile and said "I don't know". We proceeded to figure out the bill for her. Total of 6 pounds (50 cents US) per person. We handed her a 10 and she reached into her pocket. She knew we had given her too much, but she wasn't sure how many of which bills to give us in change. We helped her choose four 1-pound notes and bid her farewell. Money is a huge headache here because there are 3 currencies: new pounds, old pounds, and dinar. The only difference between them is the number of zeros, (1 new pound = 100 dinar = 1000 old pounds) so you can imagine the confusion. And to add to the difficulty there is number illiteracy. Some people are not aware that the comma should only be placed every three digits. I even saw someone write 1,000,500 only to find out later that he meant one thousand five hundred. Makes sense I guess. I have seen people bargain and argue to only find out that they were talking about different numbers and different currencies. Upon realizing it they smile and go back to trying to agree on a currency and a figure. If the French and Italians are still talking in Francs and Lira years after the introduction of the Euro I'm not sure what will happen here.
Community contributions
"First of all I would like to pass my greeting to you in the name of almight father amen." That's one way you could start your next job application. It didn't work for the guy who applied for the job here, but you might have better luck if your future boss is a product of good refugee-camp Christian missionaries. But my guess is that nobody is reading this blog for tips on how to get a job, but rather to find out what Sudan is like and what a fool like me could possibly be doing here, so let's get back to daily life in Sudan. Without boring you with the details of the IRC (International Rescue Committee's) program here, let me just tell you that this story is about our partners, which are civil society organizations (CSOs) in this county. As you'll see, when it comes to planning on visiting them or conducting trainings it's not about what we'll do, it's about what we can do. Here is what the journeys are like...
It's Friday around 11 and Charles says, "we're going to drop off the Longan partners at this market... just here" raising his arm and indicating the other side of the hill to the East.
"Great," I said "I'll come too so we can pass by Save the Children on the way back and drop this letter off". The way was pretty dry and as we drove up and down the rocky hills, then through "roads" with corn fields on either side we suddenly reached a road block. A small log has been placed waist-high across the road held up on two Y-shaped sticks. A tukul (the name of the houses around here) is off 100 yards to the right, so we honk the horn figuring someone will come out. Does he want us to pay a tax for passing through his land? Does he want to warn us that there are land mines ahead? The truth is, we'll never know why, because nobody came out and we just removed the trunk, drove through, and then put the trunk back in its place; close the door behind you, right? An hour and a half after we had left the office we stopped. There was no longer a "road" ahead, but just a river of mud. I turned to Charles and said, "that's it". Not in the form of a question, but more to indicate the fact that we had passed "that hill" long ago and I didn't care which market he was referring to, it was time to head back. The driver, Yousif, got out to check out the terrain ahead, but the three members of the CSO who we had taken, were delighted to have gotten this far. Where were we? We hadn't seen a tukul or a goat (only guinea fowl) for 20 minutes at least and it didn't look like there was anyone around for miles. The sun was beating down on our heads and there wasn't a chance of finding a bit of shade, but the three passengers got out of the vehicle and prepared for the five hour journey on foot back home with the two women carrying on their heads bags of goods they had purchased at the market (not the one we never got to). Turns out we had passed the market already, but given the good road conditions Yousif had decided to take them further. Bags and jerry cans filled with 20 liters of water (that's 20 kg) is not all you'll see women carrying on their heads. Tables? fine. Sand in buckets? sure. But the most shocking for me has been seeing a woman carry on her head 1) a baby in a straw basket (Moses-style), 2) stones! or maybe I should say rocks, and 3) a trunk. Yes, a tree trunk a few meters long! This leads me to journey number 2.
It was Monday afternoon a little after 2:30 and one of our partners was supposed to be trained in basic farming practices, but the trainer was called by some government officials and was not able to go. We only found out about this in the afternoon, so we were going to tell our partner CSO that there would be no training (they probably would have figured that out already) and that the trainer would be free any day before the 30th. Off we went. Another pretty dry day, so we were safe. On the way we saw a man carrying a rifle, or maybe it was a Kalashnikov, (you can tell I'm not a war veteran nor a hunter) with two animals hanging from the tip of the weapon. "Are those rabbits?" They kinda looked like squirrels too, but I was way off: "wild animals without a tail" David said. Not sure if that is the official latin or greek name, but one thing is for sure, they were going to be the man' dinner: Cena in latin. The road turned into a rocky trail. It didn't look like a vehicle had ever been down this creek-like passage between the hills. James, the Kenyan guy who was also making the trip for the first time (as was I) was quite worried about land mines, but David reassured him that "this area was not affected by the enemy". Yousif kept driving. After a little while James asked, "David, did you come here?" "Once, during the dry season". Why was James asking? Well, not only was there no sign of a vehicle having ever passed there, but we were making our way following what were clearly trails meant for people and maybe bicycles, and after we almost got stuck between two trees and pulling a U-turn I too was wondering if Yousif had any idea where he was going. In Kenya they have the Rhyno Charge where land cruisers are supposed to complete an impossible course through fields, ditches, trees, and rocking terrains. We were essentially on the Sudanese rhyno charge.
My mom probably would have wanted to stop and ask for directions at this point, but since there was no one around, that wasn't exactly an option. Finally David said, "I think I recognize this place". What was he talking about? All these short trees and ditches looked the same. The hills around the clearing looked just as far in all directions no matter how far we drove. Then David turns with conviction and goes "they were waiting under that tree... maybe they went". The tree he was pointing to was a little larger than the others around, but how in the world did we find it? We didn't stop at the tree, but drove another 100 meters. David's time to play tour guide. "The office is somewhere there" he said pointing in the direction of.. well, nothing really, just some more trees. "That's the community contribution", he continued. He could tell James and I looked puzzled, so he clarified, "those stones". They had been collected and brought to this area to be used as building materials. But what about the community? "They are not around, when we used to come, when they'd see a vehicle they'd come running". So nobody running meant nobody around. "The house of the project manager is over that hill". Turns out the location of the "office" was chosen as a central location, but it took people hours to get there. Ok, nobody around, back in the vehicle, time to drive back. But as we drove past THE tree we heard voices coming from the small hill on the right. A man was coming running! He must have been at least 50, more like 60, but he was sprinting regardless. We slowed to a halt as he approached and he shook hands with all of us through the open windows seemingly not out of breath. He was going to be our messenger.
It's Friday around 11 and Charles says, "we're going to drop off the Longan partners at this market... just here" raising his arm and indicating the other side of the hill to the East.
"Great," I said "I'll come too so we can pass by Save the Children on the way back and drop this letter off". The way was pretty dry and as we drove up and down the rocky hills, then through "roads" with corn fields on either side we suddenly reached a road block. A small log has been placed waist-high across the road held up on two Y-shaped sticks. A tukul (the name of the houses around here) is off 100 yards to the right, so we honk the horn figuring someone will come out. Does he want us to pay a tax for passing through his land? Does he want to warn us that there are land mines ahead? The truth is, we'll never know why, because nobody came out and we just removed the trunk, drove through, and then put the trunk back in its place; close the door behind you, right? An hour and a half after we had left the office we stopped. There was no longer a "road" ahead, but just a river of mud. I turned to Charles and said, "that's it". Not in the form of a question, but more to indicate the fact that we had passed "that hill" long ago and I didn't care which market he was referring to, it was time to head back. The driver, Yousif, got out to check out the terrain ahead, but the three members of the CSO who we had taken, were delighted to have gotten this far. Where were we? We hadn't seen a tukul or a goat (only guinea fowl) for 20 minutes at least and it didn't look like there was anyone around for miles. The sun was beating down on our heads and there wasn't a chance of finding a bit of shade, but the three passengers got out of the vehicle and prepared for the five hour journey on foot back home with the two women carrying on their heads bags of goods they had purchased at the market (not the one we never got to). Turns out we had passed the market already, but given the good road conditions Yousif had decided to take them further. Bags and jerry cans filled with 20 liters of water (that's 20 kg) is not all you'll see women carrying on their heads. Tables? fine. Sand in buckets? sure. But the most shocking for me has been seeing a woman carry on her head 1) a baby in a straw basket (Moses-style), 2) stones! or maybe I should say rocks, and 3) a trunk. Yes, a tree trunk a few meters long! This leads me to journey number 2.It was Monday afternoon a little after 2:30 and one of our partners was supposed to be trained in basic farming practices, but the trainer was called by some government officials and was not able to go. We only found out about this in the afternoon, so we were going to tell our partner CSO that there would be no training (they probably would have figured that out already) and that the trainer would be free any day before the 30th. Off we went. Another pretty dry day, so we were safe. On the way we saw a man carrying a rifle, or maybe it was a Kalashnikov, (you can tell I'm not a war veteran nor a hunter) with two animals hanging from the tip of the weapon. "Are those rabbits?" They kinda looked like squirrels too, but I was way off: "wild animals without a tail" David said. Not sure if that is the official latin or greek name, but one thing is for sure, they were going to be the man' dinner: Cena in latin. The road turned into a rocky trail. It didn't look like a vehicle had ever been down this creek-like passage between the hills. James, the Kenyan guy who was also making the trip for the first time (as was I) was quite worried about land mines, but David reassured him that "this area was not affected by the enemy". Yousif kept driving. After a little while James asked, "David, did you come here?" "Once, during the dry season". Why was James asking? Well, not only was there no sign of a vehicle having ever passed there, but we were making our way following what were clearly trails meant for people and maybe bicycles, and after we almost got stuck between two trees and pulling a U-turn I too was wondering if Yousif had any idea where he was going. In Kenya they have the Rhyno Charge where land cruisers are supposed to complete an impossible course through fields, ditches, trees, and rocking terrains. We were essentially on the Sudanese rhyno charge.
My mom probably would have wanted to stop and ask for directions at this point, but since there was no one around, that wasn't exactly an option. Finally David said, "I think I recognize this place". What was he talking about? All these short trees and ditches looked the same. The hills around the clearing looked just as far in all directions no matter how far we drove. Then David turns with conviction and goes "they were waiting under that tree... maybe they went". The tree he was pointing to was a little larger than the others around, but how in the world did we find it? We didn't stop at the tree, but drove another 100 meters. David's time to play tour guide. "The office is somewhere there" he said pointing in the direction of.. well, nothing really, just some more trees. "That's the community contribution", he continued. He could tell James and I looked puzzled, so he clarified, "those stones". They had been collected and brought to this area to be used as building materials. But what about the community? "They are not around, when we used to come, when they'd see a vehicle they'd come running". So nobody running meant nobody around. "The house of the project manager is over that hill". Turns out the location of the "office" was chosen as a central location, but it took people hours to get there. Ok, nobody around, back in the vehicle, time to drive back. But as we drove past THE tree we heard voices coming from the small hill on the right. A man was coming running! He must have been at least 50, more like 60, but he was sprinting regardless. We slowed to a halt as he approached and he shook hands with all of us through the open windows seemingly not out of breath. He was going to be our messenger.
Monday, July 23, 2007
honey and strawberries
Am now in a grimy beach town which is trying to be a tourist destination, but failing miserably. La Ceiba is its name. The weather is agreeable though and the local food tasty and cheap, which is all I really require. There is even 100 channels on the tv to go through, which I am finding to be seductive. For those of you who didnt' get the latest update, disfrutes...
$.33/pound strawberries was the highlight last week. I was in a small town (15,000) called Comalapa, about 2 hours away from Guatemala City at about 4500 feet. The town was 99% indigenous less me and a hand full of missionaries that occupied the only hotel in town. The hotel was brilliant as I upgraded from $5/night to $8/night with my own bathroom with real hot water (not a suicide shower) and a tv, which allowed me to watch more soccer. Decent sheets and a real mattress was the proverbial icing on the cake. I ate most of my meals in the center of town, about two blocks down. There, everyday gathered a small little market and during breakfast and dinner hours food venders. Breakfast was usually half a cup of hot milk with the other half being hot chocolate and then a couple of sweet breads to dunk in the mixture. Dinner consisted of Guatemalan taco which is a variation of the Mexican variety, but a little larger and for some reason they like to season their meat with soy sauce.
Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays are their market days and I caught the best one, a Tuesday. About two football fields were packed with people who brought something to sell from the typical fruit and vegetable stand (but laid out on a tarp on the ground) to the chili lady to the medicinal herb/bark man with all kinds of exotic looking remedies. Everyone is a capitalist here, trading and selling something.
I visited the town for three days while evaluating a Trickle Up partner. The NGO, named ASOGUADI, is a small outfit of only about 5 people, which recently had its main project reduced because its larger partner, SHARE, lost its USAID funding. Lots of acronyms. They are doing some great work with women's weaving cooperatives, some farmers trying to take advantage of the new free trade agreement. A highlight was being ferried around one morning on the back of a dirt bike. Can't say it was very comfortable and found it quite the work out for my groin muscles as I had them constantly tensed so I wouldn't fall off the back of the motor bike as we went up hills. I think it would've been better if I was driving. It didn't help either that it was a day with "gastro intestinal" issues. The doctor told me to lay off the dairy products, which I finally did and seemed to solve the problem.
The other highlight was visiting a honey business that ASOGUADI was supporting. This included me being decked out in a bee keeper's outfit. We visited the bees which of course weren't too excited about us breaking into their house. I was informed that the bees were actually being very calm as there wasn't any honey as it was the off season. When there is honey, they go crazy and fly directly into your face. There were three legit bee suits between the five of us. The other two honey entrepreneurs wore extra pants, a sweat shirt or wind breaker, and make shift masks made from grain sacks and some plastic mesh as their viewing window. All of the bees swirling around you is a bit discerning, but after a while it becomes normal. They supposedly can smell you and if they recognize you, refrain from stinging you.
My last day with ASOGUADI, I went to a business training being held by a local NGO being funded by Oxfam Holland. The training was decent, but in typical manner dominated by one or two more outspoken attendees. All of the attendees work as leaders of their agriculture associations or cooperatives and are trying to learn how to play the export game now that the free trade agreement is in place. There is definitely plenty of help being offered to them, but you have many of the members of the organizations that don't want to change how they farm or make the necessary investments, thus they aren't taking advantage of the new market. At the training, they showed a cartoon based on the book "Who Moved My Cheese", but in Spanish of course. It did a great job of getting across the message that they have to change the way they do business or will be left behind and miss the benefits that are coming to the country from the new business. Now the just have to sell the 50 members of their own organizations on it.
Friday I crossed into Honduras. Honduras reminds me of Panama. The food is similar with stewed meats, rice, and fried plantains. Tomorrow the roads are to be blocked as the locals are very happy with the mining countries. Supposedly they don't pay taxes and are contaminating water supplies, which is producing large amount of deformities amongst newborns. US companies aren't to blame though, it's the Canadians who are running the culpable mines. Hondurans are very hospitable and laid back. We went to a carnival on Sunday night. Typical carnival with rides, carnival games, a couple of bars, carnival food, and plenty of families and little kids. For $.05/game, I played foosball against some Honduran kids. A game included 5 balls and a slanted table, which gave a distinct advantage to one side.
The organization I am evaluating here at the moment is partnering Trickle Up seed capital with cows from Heifer International. I have heard much about Heifer as they have an office in Ellensburg and they are my mother's favorite xmas gift now. This was the first time I have run across one of their projects though. People received pregnant cows, which they then passed on the birthed calf to someone else and kept the cow. Everyone still has their cow 2-years later and either drinks the 5-7 liters of milk the cow produces or sells it to others in the community. The Trickle Up funds are being used as rotating credits which some groups have used either to invest in more cows or their crops such as corn or beans. Corn prices in Honduras have almost doubled from last year's prices. Thank you ethanol and the lobbying skills of the Iowan corn farmers. This produces a dilemma for many poorer countries though as it pushes up prices for the urban poor and population (tortilla prices), but is a bounty for the rural poor who are the poor farmers that produce it.
Now it is off to the North coast of Honduras to the town of Tela. This is supposedly the Cancun of Honduras. I will be writing some of the evaluations there before heading to La Ceiba to do more evaluations and profiles on projects with the local afro-antillian community or Garifuna people. I am looking forward to eating some decent and cheap sea food. Need to gain back the 10 pounds I lost while in Guatemala.
$.33/pound strawberries was the highlight last week. I was in a small town (15,000) called Comalapa, about 2 hours away from Guatemala City at about 4500 feet. The town was 99% indigenous less me and a hand full of missionaries that occupied the only hotel in town. The hotel was brilliant as I upgraded from $5/night to $8/night with my own bathroom with real hot water (not a suicide shower) and a tv, which allowed me to watch more soccer. Decent sheets and a real mattress was the proverbial icing on the cake. I ate most of my meals in the center of town, about two blocks down. There, everyday gathered a small little market and during breakfast and dinner hours food venders. Breakfast was usually half a cup of hot milk with the other half being hot chocolate and then a couple of sweet breads to dunk in the mixture. Dinner consisted of Guatemalan taco which is a variation of the Mexican variety, but a little larger and for some reason they like to season their meat with soy sauce.
Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays are their market days and I caught the best one, a Tuesday. About two football fields were packed with people who brought something to sell from the typical fruit and vegetable stand (but laid out on a tarp on the ground) to the chili lady to the medicinal herb/bark man with all kinds of exotic looking remedies. Everyone is a capitalist here, trading and selling something.
I visited the town for three days while evaluating a Trickle Up partner. The NGO, named ASOGUADI, is a small outfit of only about 5 people, which recently had its main project reduced because its larger partner, SHARE, lost its USAID funding. Lots of acronyms. They are doing some great work with women's weaving cooperatives, some farmers trying to take advantage of the new free trade agreement. A highlight was being ferried around one morning on the back of a dirt bike. Can't say it was very comfortable and found it quite the work out for my groin muscles as I had them constantly tensed so I wouldn't fall off the back of the motor bike as we went up hills. I think it would've been better if I was driving. It didn't help either that it was a day with "gastro intestinal" issues. The doctor told me to lay off the dairy products, which I finally did and seemed to solve the problem.
The other highlight was visiting a honey business that ASOGUADI was supporting. This included me being decked out in a bee keeper's outfit. We visited the bees which of course weren't too excited about us breaking into their house. I was informed that the bees were actually being very calm as there wasn't any honey as it was the off season. When there is honey, they go crazy and fly directly into your face. There were three legit bee suits between the five of us. The other two honey entrepreneurs wore extra pants, a sweat shirt or wind breaker, and make shift masks made from grain sacks and some plastic mesh as their viewing window. All of the bees swirling around you is a bit discerning, but after a while it becomes normal. They supposedly can smell you and if they recognize you, refrain from stinging you.
My last day with ASOGUADI, I went to a business training being held by a local NGO being funded by Oxfam Holland. The training was decent, but in typical manner dominated by one or two more outspoken attendees. All of the attendees work as leaders of their agriculture associations or cooperatives and are trying to learn how to play the export game now that the free trade agreement is in place. There is definitely plenty of help being offered to them, but you have many of the members of the organizations that don't want to change how they farm or make the necessary investments, thus they aren't taking advantage of the new market. At the training, they showed a cartoon based on the book "Who Moved My Cheese", but in Spanish of course. It did a great job of getting across the message that they have to change the way they do business or will be left behind and miss the benefits that are coming to the country from the new business. Now the just have to sell the 50 members of their own organizations on it.
Friday I crossed into Honduras. Honduras reminds me of Panama. The food is similar with stewed meats, rice, and fried plantains. Tomorrow the roads are to be blocked as the locals are very happy with the mining countries. Supposedly they don't pay taxes and are contaminating water supplies, which is producing large amount of deformities amongst newborns. US companies aren't to blame though, it's the Canadians who are running the culpable mines. Hondurans are very hospitable and laid back. We went to a carnival on Sunday night. Typical carnival with rides, carnival games, a couple of bars, carnival food, and plenty of families and little kids. For $.05/game, I played foosball against some Honduran kids. A game included 5 balls and a slanted table, which gave a distinct advantage to one side.
The organization I am evaluating here at the moment is partnering Trickle Up seed capital with cows from Heifer International. I have heard much about Heifer as they have an office in Ellensburg and they are my mother's favorite xmas gift now. This was the first time I have run across one of their projects though. People received pregnant cows, which they then passed on the birthed calf to someone else and kept the cow. Everyone still has their cow 2-years later and either drinks the 5-7 liters of milk the cow produces or sells it to others in the community. The Trickle Up funds are being used as rotating credits which some groups have used either to invest in more cows or their crops such as corn or beans. Corn prices in Honduras have almost doubled from last year's prices. Thank you ethanol and the lobbying skills of the Iowan corn farmers. This produces a dilemma for many poorer countries though as it pushes up prices for the urban poor and population (tortilla prices), but is a bounty for the rural poor who are the poor farmers that produce it.
Now it is off to the North coast of Honduras to the town of Tela. This is supposedly the Cancun of Honduras. I will be writing some of the evaluations there before heading to La Ceiba to do more evaluations and profiles on projects with the local afro-antillian community or Garifuna people. I am looking forward to eating some decent and cheap sea food. Need to gain back the 10 pounds I lost while in Guatemala.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
The bush and the one-armed pilot
"We'll be done in less than an hour... we don't beat the bush around". That's nice, I thought, at least the bush doesn't suffer.
"The bush" is an term you hear daily around these parts, usually used to refer to the area outside of "towns" or settlements. If you didn't leave the country during the war, that means you were "in the bush" and after the war, came "out of the bush". Now, if your vehicle gets stuck you can spend the night "in the bush"; the same "bush" where the Arab herders hang out. Sorry, all of you guys in DC must hear enough about the Bush, so I'll move on.
Life is highlighted by the adventures you have, but more than anything, by the cast of characters on these adventures. I met Abraham: the only member of his family who caught the last train out of South Sudan before the war broke out, made his way to Egypt, and eventually ended up in Raleigh, North Carolina, only to return this summer to his home town to help build schools. His life is in his adoptive home, but his life is devoted to his motherland. There is Andrew, who after escaping to Uganda, made his way to Australia with his family, and while his brothers and sisters are successful doctors and lawyers Down Under, and his father is in South Africa training SPLA pilots, he has chosen to return to his home. Why? Well, he's not a fan of the "white collar" life. But he's not thinking about settling here for good. Few are. For now peace is just temporary. So sounds like people aren't coming back. But then I meet Jacob. He tells me that now everyone is on their way back. Life abroad has not been easy for the Sudanese people; families have suffered, it has been difficult to adapt, "the Sudanese people never aspired to leave their country" but were forced to do so. Apparently many professionals have not been able to find jobs--the Indian lawyer driving your DC cab last night could probably tell you about that. But what about Andrew's brothers who are practicing law and medicine over in Melbourne? As always there are those who make it and those who don't.
But remember, some, many actually, never left... the guys in the bush. A guy just came into our office crawling on all fours. He's a finance officer for one of the local community organization. A smart guy, but can no longer walk. He doesn't really have a wheelchair, but even if he did it wouldn't help on these "roads". Maybe crutches would help, but actually they would get caught in the muddy ground... If only we had roads... By the way, I have also discovered that the lack of roads is the reason for no glass! You can't transport glass windows or glass anything on these roads, so there is no glass anywhere. Stood by the side of a vehicle this morning and used its rear-view mirror to shave.
I'm back at my site, but I wasn't able to catch a flight back here on Tuesday because I was the only one who wanted to fly to Kauda so they canceled the flight. However yesterday I managed to get on a plane...it was me, another passenger, the pilot and the first officer. As we were taking off I noticed the pilot was only using her left arm and kept her right arm in a bent position as if she had it in a sling, only without a sling. Turns out she had had a motorcycle accident. I didn't catch her name, but she'll forever be known to me as "the one-armed pilot". They call the planes up here "matatus", which is also the name given to the little mini-vans that drive people around Nairobi like taxis and compete with the public buses. For all of your French and Spanish speakers the name "matatus" should be as disconcerting as it is to me. Sounds like "mata" "tout", or in other words, "kill" "everything"... or everyone in our case. They real reason the flights are compared to the Nairobi vehicles is that they stop and go, stop and go. We landed after 20 minutes, took off, landed after 5! Took off again; were supposed to land after another 15, but as we came in for our landing the one-armed pilot saw that the landing strip was flooded and decided to reach over her right arm with her left and push the plane back up. So now the 3 guys who we were supposed to be dropped off at the flooded place got to choose where they wanted to go. What a treat. They were given a choice of five places, but the one they chose was quickly scratched by a radio communication. Kinda like a menu at a restaurant in a developing country; at the end, they had no choice, they were going to be dropped off in Rumbek, but not after dropping me off first.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Now I know you all think no one could top your summer adventures, but have I got an amazing story to tell you....
This summer I decided I really needed a change of pace; I needed to get myself away from the 1700 block of Mass. Ave. and out into the fresh air of the rest of the world, so I pulled out the old inflatable globe, gave it a couple of spins and took off to the first place my finger landed.....
So now instead of taking the metro everyday the 45 minute commute from Maryland to Dupont Circle.....I am getting off at Farragut North. That's right. My little inflatable globe knew that the one thing I was missing out on in this world was spending the summer in a windowless DC highrise office-building (any benefit to it be a highrise being negated by the fact that it's windowless).
But not to get too sarcastic, I am enjoying a relatively peaceful summer in the city. Juanito's job at the sandwich shop keeps him busy and is actively motivating him to find another job.... My job as an intern at Pact International is also keeping me busy, but I'm happy to say I think I'm doing meaningful work and they're really taking me seriously as a capable person in this field. My co-workers are really friendly people, and they have felt very open to griping to me about the downsides of working at headquarters.
And while my weekends are not filled with trips to the ocean or the mountains, or the source of the Nile, Juanito and I have been heading out on our bikes to other exotic locales like College Park and Silver Spring, and hosting famed violinist Mahatma Hernandez (brother to Juan Hernandez) during his 5-state musical tour (ok, sorry, sarcasm snuck in again).
In all seriousness, I miss you all. DC is not the same without all you I-Dev-ers in it. So enjoy your travels and the chance to do some great field work, and keep sending your stories; I enjoy the vicarious globetrotting.
Take care,
Kim
This summer I decided I really needed a change of pace; I needed to get myself away from the 1700 block of Mass. Ave. and out into the fresh air of the rest of the world, so I pulled out the old inflatable globe, gave it a couple of spins and took off to the first place my finger landed.....
So now instead of taking the metro everyday the 45 minute commute from Maryland to Dupont Circle.....I am getting off at Farragut North. That's right. My little inflatable globe knew that the one thing I was missing out on in this world was spending the summer in a windowless DC highrise office-building (any benefit to it be a highrise being negated by the fact that it's windowless).
But not to get too sarcastic, I am enjoying a relatively peaceful summer in the city. Juanito's job at the sandwich shop keeps him busy and is actively motivating him to find another job.... My job as an intern at Pact International is also keeping me busy, but I'm happy to say I think I'm doing meaningful work and they're really taking me seriously as a capable person in this field. My co-workers are really friendly people, and they have felt very open to griping to me about the downsides of working at headquarters.
And while my weekends are not filled with trips to the ocean or the mountains, or the source of the Nile, Juanito and I have been heading out on our bikes to other exotic locales like College Park and Silver Spring, and hosting famed violinist Mahatma Hernandez (brother to Juan Hernandez) during his 5-state musical tour (ok, sorry, sarcasm snuck in again).
In all seriousness, I miss you all. DC is not the same without all you I-Dev-ers in it. So enjoy your travels and the chance to do some great field work, and keep sending your stories; I enjoy the vicarious globetrotting.
Take care,
Kim
Monday, July 2, 2007
the edit version
Ite, some of you I think already received this. It has been edited for more crass coommentary as my sponsor is on the email list. Gotta love when our development money is going to cut down forest next to a national park to make cattle pasture, yep. I am tired of hippies too. they are all over the place here, hanging out, and talking about stuff they know nothing about. a little long, but worth it. Good luck getting to that wedding Jon and getting back...
Last week I spent on the Rio Dulce, and literally spent a good half of my time on it boating around. The Rio Dulce is a river that exits into the Caribbean and is at the moment half salt water/half fresh water. Rich Guatemalans have bought up most of the “river” front, but you still have the occasional hold out, so you have large mansions next to shacks which look like they ready to fall off their stilts and into the river at any moment. The area is mostly populated by indigenous of Mayan ancestry and reminded me of Panama; hot, rainy, and sweaty. While there, I visited three communities where Trickle Up (for whom I am interning, www.trickleup.org) has projects with the organization, Ak’Tenamit. Ak’Tenamit (AT) is interesting as it is almost all composed of indigenous workers and is currently run by a 23-year old. AT was started by a Gringo 25-years ago and has since grown substantially. It now runs a vocational school (where the 23-year old graduated from) for 370 students and has a multi-year and million dollar contracts to provide health services for the ministry of health and community organization development funded by the Danes. They are new to the Trickle Up program, so there was plenty of work to do.
One highlight was supposed to be a traditional Mayan celebration, but was more the locals getting partying. It probably didn’t help that I had the Giardhea (sp?) and had only eaten a couple of pieces of bread in three days and plenty of 7-Up. The same Giardhea hit my travel partner, but as our counterparts from AT said the community especially requested our appearance for the ceremony, we agreed to attend. We though that it would occur soon after are early evening arrival and that we would be soon off to a restful sleep, but that was not to be had. The ceremony wouldn’t start until 11ish and not finish until mid-night we were eventually informed, so we requested a place to sleep/rest before arising again for the ceremony. They set us up with hammocks in a neighboring shell of a future or past house. Unbeknownst to us, they had us set up our hammocks in what became the nursery and later the cafeteria. First as I settled to get some rest, a women set up her hammock right next to me and laid down what must have been a toothing baby because it didn’t stop crying for a good hour. That was from 9-10pm. Two small girls also decided to lay down right under my hammock, so I almost stepped on them went to exit the hammock at 11pm when I had set my alarm. The ceremony was a bust as it was just the locals sitting around a drinking with our counterparts. There was some incense burned and an older gentlemen circled the store sprinkling water and chanting a bit, but that took all of 5-minutes, during which the rest of their men continued on their mission to get drunk. After realizing I had seen the ceremony I returned to my hammock, 11:30pm. At 12:30pm I was awoken again by my now semi-drunk counterpart announcing another meal. As groggily watched, a table was brought in and bowls of chicken soup were placed on it. Once the table was full of bowls, all of the semi-drunk men grabbed a bowl and started eating, tossing the chicken bones to the ground in the normal chicken eating manner. They eventually finished their food and exited allowing me and my partner to lay down once again. That lasted all of an hour before the pigs and dogs arrived to scavenge the strewn chicken bones. Pigs rooting around are not quiet and neither one of us had the energy to chase them off, so I laid awake listening to the dogs and pigs battle for the chicken scraps for another hour. Finally, to sleep around 2am only to be awoken at 5am by my now fully drunk counterpart to rise and start hiking to catch our 6am launch, that of course arrived an hour late. That is a night that I won’t soon forget and as my travel partner stated, is why he earns comp time while in the field.
I sit here in bed with a full stomach. I ate some kind of Guatemalan “taco”, or at least that is what the lady told me it was. It looked nothing like a Mexican or US taco. It had been fried and was filled with potatoes and meat and covered with salsa, cilantro, and crumbled queso blanco. I added to that a chicken tostada and two cups of some kind of sweet warm corn drink. I only wanted one cup, but she gave me two and charged me for two, so there I was the Gringo double fisting styrofoam glasses of sweetened corn meal. In general, I am tired of the food as it mostly consists of corn tortillas and beans. I am a fan of beans, but I prefer mine with rice. Breakfast consists of eggs, beans, and tortillas. I have eaten eggs for breakfast the last two weeks. Today’s variation was ranchero, or covered in a tomato salsa. Probably my favorite variation so far. The orange juice wasn’t the fresh kind I usually get at other locations and more of the SunnyD variety, which I am not a fan of.
Since I have arrived, I feel like I have seen a good portion of the country. I started out by staying in Antigua, which is Gringo(a) central (Gringo(a) for those of you who don’t know is Central American’s name for those from the US, not to be confused with Canadians). We pass each other in the streets trying not to notice each other, but it is pretty hard when a third of the population seems to have white skin, not brown skin like the Chapines, or Guatemalans. Antigua is supposed to be a great place to learn Spanish, so there are 20 or so Spanish schools and with it being summer break, there seem to be plenty of college aged kids down to brush up on their Spanish and get some culture. Most of the culture though has been sucked out and what is left is the typical Westernized pseudo culture that permeates other formerly culturally beautiful cities or spots in Central America. Not that I don’t find using the Wifi very convenient in the Bagel Barn while munching on my pesto bagel, but with every other store front being an internet café or travel agency, the town quickly loses any originality. That was my first weekend and I returned there for another couple of days as it was where my partner wanted to stay.
I am now in the town of Coban though, a much more Guatemalan town as the weather fouler, which keeps away the Gringos. I am staying at Posada Don Pedro, which occupies a corner. I have a huge room to myself with three other beds and I think actually the whole Posada, less Don Pedro and his family which occupies one side of the building. There is a nice courtyard with the requisite fountain and where the laundry hangs. The bathroom is shared and the hot water is courtesy of the suicide shower variety water heater (attaches to the shower head and heats on the spot). The suicide shower at my hotel in Antigua actually gave me a decent electric current through the shower nob if I wanted to change the temperature or turn it off. I had to be pretty quick about it. Don Pedro is charging a whopping $5.50/night, the best deal I have found so far. The laundry service thought isn’t a deal at roughly $.70/pound. As half of my clothes are still semi-humid with sweat, I don’t feel like I am getting a deal even though they fold your laundry for you. I have searched for coin operated machines, but I guess they don’t trust guests with their own laundry.
Coban is in the coffee country. I haven’t seen the countryside yet, but that will be tomorrow and the next day as I will be out working or visiting the villages. The area is known as the world’s leading cardamom spice producer. Town is 80% indigenous with most of them selling food from little stall or just baskets from the sidewalks. Unfortunately, I took an extra long siesta yesterday and missed the crowning of the town senorita, which had promised to be quite the beauty pageant. Today was spent cheering on the US team in the Gold Cup final with who I think is Don Pedro. The Chapines don’t like the Mexicans and were all cheering for the US.
The week before last week was spent with my direct report at Trickle Up being introduced and touring the other projects there are. I saw some of the poorest people I have ever seen. Hurricane Stan, similar to our Katrina as I understand it (same year at least, 2005), washed their village down the mountain side. The government or some official agency decided on top of the mountain would be a good place for them, so now they live in the clouds at 8000ft. The landscape is very eerie as it is barren from them having cleared it for fire wood and to plant the milpa, or beans and corn. “Town” was set up by all the big relief agencies: CARE, Mercy Corp, World Food Program, USAID, and UNDP. It has square blocks and everyone’s house is the same, less some individuality that is now starting to creep into the buildings. Think US cookie cutter suburbia, less the McMansions and more like 10x15 block buildings where 8 people live squeezed. The people were remarkably resilient though and are making a go of it. The Trickle Up seed capital is going to be invested by the women in thread and material so they can weave the traditional blouses that they will then sell. For coming to visit they made us chicken soup. The most amusing thing was that they bought us cans of Pepsi as refreshment. A luxury to them, but the last thing I wanted to drink. Ah, American consumerism. There I am in a displaced person’s camp, one of the far and poorest corners of the earth, and Pepsi had arrived…
Finding a humorous note in their situation from some USAID tarping. I assume it was originally supposed to be used as walls for structures, but was now being used for many different things. Under the large USAID brand which was stamped every two feet on the tarp was written in English, “Donated by the American people.” Less then 10% of the population spoke Spanish and maybe .1% a couple of words of English. A great example of what I learned in one class… that the US’s motives are often grand and just, we just screw up the details and execution.
Other than getting to see a ton of different development projects, one of the coolest parts is that the people are so grateful for the help, that they usually give you a meal as that is their way of showing appreciation. As most or subsistence farmers, the food is home made and quite tasty. Some even give elaborate weavings (nothing to valuable, but still very interesting). Of course it is nice to receive things, but as I didn’t donate the money nor do any of the trainings to help them start the building, it is a little awkward.
Last week I spent on the Rio Dulce, and literally spent a good half of my time on it boating around. The Rio Dulce is a river that exits into the Caribbean and is at the moment half salt water/half fresh water. Rich Guatemalans have bought up most of the “river” front, but you still have the occasional hold out, so you have large mansions next to shacks which look like they ready to fall off their stilts and into the river at any moment. The area is mostly populated by indigenous of Mayan ancestry and reminded me of Panama; hot, rainy, and sweaty. While there, I visited three communities where Trickle Up (for whom I am interning, www.trickleup.org) has projects with the organization, Ak’Tenamit. Ak’Tenamit (AT) is interesting as it is almost all composed of indigenous workers and is currently run by a 23-year old. AT was started by a Gringo 25-years ago and has since grown substantially. It now runs a vocational school (where the 23-year old graduated from) for 370 students and has a multi-year and million dollar contracts to provide health services for the ministry of health and community organization development funded by the Danes. They are new to the Trickle Up program, so there was plenty of work to do.
One highlight was supposed to be a traditional Mayan celebration, but was more the locals getting partying. It probably didn’t help that I had the Giardhea (sp?) and had only eaten a couple of pieces of bread in three days and plenty of 7-Up. The same Giardhea hit my travel partner, but as our counterparts from AT said the community especially requested our appearance for the ceremony, we agreed to attend. We though that it would occur soon after are early evening arrival and that we would be soon off to a restful sleep, but that was not to be had. The ceremony wouldn’t start until 11ish and not finish until mid-night we were eventually informed, so we requested a place to sleep/rest before arising again for the ceremony. They set us up with hammocks in a neighboring shell of a future or past house. Unbeknownst to us, they had us set up our hammocks in what became the nursery and later the cafeteria. First as I settled to get some rest, a women set up her hammock right next to me and laid down what must have been a toothing baby because it didn’t stop crying for a good hour. That was from 9-10pm. Two small girls also decided to lay down right under my hammock, so I almost stepped on them went to exit the hammock at 11pm when I had set my alarm. The ceremony was a bust as it was just the locals sitting around a drinking with our counterparts. There was some incense burned and an older gentlemen circled the store sprinkling water and chanting a bit, but that took all of 5-minutes, during which the rest of their men continued on their mission to get drunk. After realizing I had seen the ceremony I returned to my hammock, 11:30pm. At 12:30pm I was awoken again by my now semi-drunk counterpart announcing another meal. As groggily watched, a table was brought in and bowls of chicken soup were placed on it. Once the table was full of bowls, all of the semi-drunk men grabbed a bowl and started eating, tossing the chicken bones to the ground in the normal chicken eating manner. They eventually finished their food and exited allowing me and my partner to lay down once again. That lasted all of an hour before the pigs and dogs arrived to scavenge the strewn chicken bones. Pigs rooting around are not quiet and neither one of us had the energy to chase them off, so I laid awake listening to the dogs and pigs battle for the chicken scraps for another hour. Finally, to sleep around 2am only to be awoken at 5am by my now fully drunk counterpart to rise and start hiking to catch our 6am launch, that of course arrived an hour late. That is a night that I won’t soon forget and as my travel partner stated, is why he earns comp time while in the field.
I sit here in bed with a full stomach. I ate some kind of Guatemalan “taco”, or at least that is what the lady told me it was. It looked nothing like a Mexican or US taco. It had been fried and was filled with potatoes and meat and covered with salsa, cilantro, and crumbled queso blanco. I added to that a chicken tostada and two cups of some kind of sweet warm corn drink. I only wanted one cup, but she gave me two and charged me for two, so there I was the Gringo double fisting styrofoam glasses of sweetened corn meal. In general, I am tired of the food as it mostly consists of corn tortillas and beans. I am a fan of beans, but I prefer mine with rice. Breakfast consists of eggs, beans, and tortillas. I have eaten eggs for breakfast the last two weeks. Today’s variation was ranchero, or covered in a tomato salsa. Probably my favorite variation so far. The orange juice wasn’t the fresh kind I usually get at other locations and more of the SunnyD variety, which I am not a fan of.
Since I have arrived, I feel like I have seen a good portion of the country. I started out by staying in Antigua, which is Gringo(a) central (Gringo(a) for those of you who don’t know is Central American’s name for those from the US, not to be confused with Canadians). We pass each other in the streets trying not to notice each other, but it is pretty hard when a third of the population seems to have white skin, not brown skin like the Chapines, or Guatemalans. Antigua is supposed to be a great place to learn Spanish, so there are 20 or so Spanish schools and with it being summer break, there seem to be plenty of college aged kids down to brush up on their Spanish and get some culture. Most of the culture though has been sucked out and what is left is the typical Westernized pseudo culture that permeates other formerly culturally beautiful cities or spots in Central America. Not that I don’t find using the Wifi very convenient in the Bagel Barn while munching on my pesto bagel, but with every other store front being an internet café or travel agency, the town quickly loses any originality. That was my first weekend and I returned there for another couple of days as it was where my partner wanted to stay.
I am now in the town of Coban though, a much more Guatemalan town as the weather fouler, which keeps away the Gringos. I am staying at Posada Don Pedro, which occupies a corner. I have a huge room to myself with three other beds and I think actually the whole Posada, less Don Pedro and his family which occupies one side of the building. There is a nice courtyard with the requisite fountain and where the laundry hangs. The bathroom is shared and the hot water is courtesy of the suicide shower variety water heater (attaches to the shower head and heats on the spot). The suicide shower at my hotel in Antigua actually gave me a decent electric current through the shower nob if I wanted to change the temperature or turn it off. I had to be pretty quick about it. Don Pedro is charging a whopping $5.50/night, the best deal I have found so far. The laundry service thought isn’t a deal at roughly $.70/pound. As half of my clothes are still semi-humid with sweat, I don’t feel like I am getting a deal even though they fold your laundry for you. I have searched for coin operated machines, but I guess they don’t trust guests with their own laundry.
Coban is in the coffee country. I haven’t seen the countryside yet, but that will be tomorrow and the next day as I will be out working or visiting the villages. The area is known as the world’s leading cardamom spice producer. Town is 80% indigenous with most of them selling food from little stall or just baskets from the sidewalks. Unfortunately, I took an extra long siesta yesterday and missed the crowning of the town senorita, which had promised to be quite the beauty pageant. Today was spent cheering on the US team in the Gold Cup final with who I think is Don Pedro. The Chapines don’t like the Mexicans and were all cheering for the US.
The week before last week was spent with my direct report at Trickle Up being introduced and touring the other projects there are. I saw some of the poorest people I have ever seen. Hurricane Stan, similar to our Katrina as I understand it (same year at least, 2005), washed their village down the mountain side. The government or some official agency decided on top of the mountain would be a good place for them, so now they live in the clouds at 8000ft. The landscape is very eerie as it is barren from them having cleared it for fire wood and to plant the milpa, or beans and corn. “Town” was set up by all the big relief agencies: CARE, Mercy Corp, World Food Program, USAID, and UNDP. It has square blocks and everyone’s house is the same, less some individuality that is now starting to creep into the buildings. Think US cookie cutter suburbia, less the McMansions and more like 10x15 block buildings where 8 people live squeezed. The people were remarkably resilient though and are making a go of it. The Trickle Up seed capital is going to be invested by the women in thread and material so they can weave the traditional blouses that they will then sell. For coming to visit they made us chicken soup. The most amusing thing was that they bought us cans of Pepsi as refreshment. A luxury to them, but the last thing I wanted to drink. Ah, American consumerism. There I am in a displaced person’s camp, one of the far and poorest corners of the earth, and Pepsi had arrived…
Finding a humorous note in their situation from some USAID tarping. I assume it was originally supposed to be used as walls for structures, but was now being used for many different things. Under the large USAID brand which was stamped every two feet on the tarp was written in English, “Donated by the American people.” Less then 10% of the population spoke Spanish and maybe .1% a couple of words of English. A great example of what I learned in one class… that the US’s motives are often grand and just, we just screw up the details and execution.
Other than getting to see a ton of different development projects, one of the coolest parts is that the people are so grateful for the help, that they usually give you a meal as that is their way of showing appreciation. As most or subsistence farmers, the food is home made and quite tasty. Some even give elaborate weavings (nothing to valuable, but still very interesting). Of course it is nice to receive things, but as I didn’t donate the money nor do any of the trainings to help them start the building, it is a little awkward.
PRM coming in handy
OK, so all of you from our PRM class last semester will laugh to know that I've been asked to help carry out an impact assessment of the microfinance institution in terms of both economic and social aspects of clients' lives. So I'm happy/sad/perplexed to say that I actually looked back at some of my notes and staff reviews. Yes, PRM may actually prove to be "practical." Yikes. In my proposal for the project (which had a frightening resemblance to a staff review), I planned for the project to take 9 weeks. This will be tricky given the fact that only 6 weeks remain of my internship. Hmmm. But there are a couple other interns that will be here longer, so I may have to entrust them with finishing the task.
This weekend, Pierre, Janine (from Bologna) and I went to a nice lake about an hour outside of Kigali, and spent the afternoon swimming. It was really nice, and even though the water was kind of dirty, it was still a fun swim. I'll leave it to Pierre to post some photos!
I think I've seen about 3 genocide memorials so far. One had preserved bodies, another had skulls and bones. The latter one was in a Catholic Church. Yeh, I think I'm done with genocide memorials for a while. I get the idea. Actually the 4th of July is a national holiday here as well as it marks "Liberation Day" which is the day the genocide ended (or at least when the Tutsi-led rebel forced took control of Kigali).
So happy 4th to you all scattered around the globe, and Jonathan, I'm sending good thoughts up north in your direction so that a plane arrives to take you to your sister's wedding!
This weekend, Pierre, Janine (from Bologna) and I went to a nice lake about an hour outside of Kigali, and spent the afternoon swimming. It was really nice, and even though the water was kind of dirty, it was still a fun swim. I'll leave it to Pierre to post some photos!
I think I've seen about 3 genocide memorials so far. One had preserved bodies, another had skulls and bones. The latter one was in a Catholic Church. Yeh, I think I'm done with genocide memorials for a while. I get the idea. Actually the 4th of July is a national holiday here as well as it marks "Liberation Day" which is the day the genocide ended (or at least when the Tutsi-led rebel forced took control of Kigali).
So happy 4th to you all scattered around the globe, and Jonathan, I'm sending good thoughts up north in your direction so that a plane arrives to take you to your sister's wedding!
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Travel at the weekend (Dhermi)
So the 5 of us (Rali my SAIS fellow roomie, 3 of her intern friends at the US embassy, and me) piled into a Jeep Wrangler Sport (4 seatbelts) at 6 AM Saturday morning and bumped and lumped our way down what would be maybe 120 miles, and it took about 5 hours because of the roads- unbelievable switchbacks and weaving, potholes and narrow mountain passes... reminded me of the path up to Yosemite falls, where you keep coming upon switchbacks and wonder if you're moving anywhere at all. It was kind of unreal because of the beauty of the landscape so I didn't feel worried about falling to my death from the very high mountainsides we were traversing, although I did think about it a few times- we were REALLY high, and there were often no barriers at the many blind turns.... !
But we made it, and found a few beaches where we went swimming, and the water was wonderfully warm- a first for me. The swimming was sooo nice. The Ionian (south of Vlore is the Ionian, north of it is the Adriatic) is very salty, prone to pebbly beaches, and very clear. So watch out for contact wearers or getting any water in your eyes (they tear) or walking barefoot on the shore! The sea reminds me of Greece, Hawaii, pictures of Sicily, even sandy Gallipoli (like the Sphinx part) sometimes... it's so OLD...
ANyway. I'm back in Tirana. There was a moment yesterday (Sunday) when I was walking up to a cafe from a lagoon and I actually smelled the pines and scrub and land, and I felt like I was really absorbing the landscape, but then the next moment I couldn't smell anymore. I may have said this before, but I'm even more sure now that being so blocked up is just my body's defense against the horrible smells and exhaust and fumes of Tirana. I'm taking anti-allergy pills now, but they only last unil about 4 PM, then I start struggling to breathe again. And any attempts to ask for anti-congestion tablets at the local farmaci produces a firmly shaking head- no, there are only nose sprays for anti-congestion, which of course isn't true. *sigh* I tried the big Greek farmaci, where they speak English, and the woman recommended breaking the pill in half, taking the second half later in the day. Enh, I just have to keep busy and forget about my nose, then it's not a problem. Except while dodging dodgy traffic.
Finally cooling off in the capital, going from over 100 back down to a high of 93, 94. And I bought one of the little wooden parasols I see middle-aged ladies with here, to protect themselves from the sun. Hey, I know I'm white, nevermind people squinting at the reflection of the sun, as Jonathan was describing...
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
"Everyone in Africa has worms"
In case you hadn't heard yet, that's the word on the street. So all you guys in Ghana, Rwanda, and Malawi, might as well have your relatives send you some gummy worms so you can at least say "we have worms where I come from too" just to fit in; although my guess is you'll have the African kind before the package makes it to you.
The other day I woke in the morning to find myself staring at a goat through my scorpion net . Yes, the goat was IN my room, next to my bed! It had been a rainy night and I guess it had decided to come inside to sleep. It might have knocked, but you know me, I sleep through anything. But you might be asking yourself why I call it my scorpion net. Well, I have come to fear the scorpions more than the mosquitos, and this is why. The other day we were at a meeting (that makes it sound like we were around some table in some office on the 7th floor of some building, but really we were just under a mango tree, the lucky ones sitting on cracked plastic chairs while the others trying not to fall off thin tree logs barely balanced on stones)-- sorry, I got sidetracked. I was saying that one of the men at the meeting looked sick and as I tried to follow the conversation in Arabic I caught just one word: malaria! Well, turns out that "when someone is sick they just say they have malaria." That's good to know I guess. And hey, I'm not worried because I bought myself the pills whose slogan is "if you get malaria take these pills and you won't die". You guys might have heard about those prophylactics that they have people take: the ones that make you have messed up dreams (or don't let you sleep at all); the ones that make you as sick as if you had malaria and worms at the same time; the ones that don't allow you to get tanned so you can be whiter than your usual color while everyone around you is already squinting as the light off your unusually white skin blinds them; and guess what? At the end of the day, if you take those prophylactics you still might get malaria! Malaria prophylactics anyone? Oh, and in case any of you were wondering, I haven't received my anti-scorpion stuff yet, so that's why my scorpion net is my lifeline. Today I was supposed to fly out of here, but my first attempt to make it to my sister's wedding failed. The gods were gracious enough to open the skies for us, but there are always man-made problems. The flight was scheduled to arrive at 13:43 local time. Here in the Nuba Mountains where we only have 2 scheduled flights a week, WFP (who runs the flights) probably thinks it's funny to set an arrival time of 13:43; as if there's a clock anywhere around the airstrip; as if anyone has a watch that is half-reliable; as if the flights actually arrive! And so it was that we sat there in our vehicles at the airstrip next to the fuel barrels listening... hoping that the 13:43 plane would show up. Suddenly, it must have been 14:43, someone's satellite phone rang. "Technical problems". No plane.
Having heard of horror stories of planes arriving, but not being able to land, I had rejoiced during the thunderstorm last night because I knew that not only before, but "there is calm after the storm" too. At the same time, I had also heard that pilots pull off all kinds of stunts. Once a pilot was trying to land, but the landing strip was covered with goats, so his first attempt failed and he had to go back up and come back around. On his second attempt he said "screw the goats" and just landed anyway. Fortunately none were caught in the propellers. Birds are usually the problem and in fact once, a pilot coming here hit a bird on his way up and announced to the 8 passengers that he would have to let all the fuel out in mid-air and might have to go in for a crash-landing since he wasn't sure whether the landing gear had been damaged. To come full circle, and to end the pilot stories, there was a time when a pilot, although advised and ordered not to land, had landed a plane in the worst weather conditions because "he just had to go"..."nature called"... I say it must have been the prophylactics. But in my case it wasn't meant to be... technical problems it was, and now I am still here in Kauda hoping that a plane will come and rescue me before it is too late. Literally rescue me. Save me from what could be my inevitable death or eternal family disownment if I miss my sister's wedding. (In case you were wondering I have NOT given my family the link to this blog)
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
No roads
Other than eating white ants and hunting scorpions, what is Jonathan actually doing, you might ask. Well, first let me describe the conditions under which we try to work. It's the rainy season. That means that almost every day it rains. So what? Well, I woke up this morning and it was cloudy, which means no power. We had a generator, but it broke down and was flown out last week, but who knows when it'll be flown back. So that's why we have to rely on the solar panels 100%. So we had planned to do all kinds of things on the computer, but that didn't happen. We talked to a man from the Norwegian Church Aid yesterday and were supposed to meet him at 9 am, but turns out he left town this morning, so the meeting was postponed til 4:30 pm. No power and no meeting. In the meantime our IT guy was supposed to be conducting a computer training for some of our partners organizations, but without power there wasn't going to be much of a training. So no power, no meeting and no computer training. The morning flies by... I'm not sure what we got done, but all of the plans we had yesterday evaporated into nothing. I talked to David for a while, who reassured me, "No hurry in Africa". He also informed me that wives are quite cheap here in the Nuba Mountains, only 2 cows! But let me tell you about the afternoon. Just before lunch the sun came out and there was hope that we could get some work done on the computer and make our 4:30 meeting. We got some work done on the computer (almost two hour's worth!), but then the wind started blowing. Sand was blowing through the nets on the windows (there is no glass) and the rain was coming, so we had to close all the computers and hide everything in the drawers and cabinets because the roof leaks and the wind can blow the rainwater in. So we sat and watched the trees bend and the sheets of rain fall all around us. By four it had all stopped and we were ready to go to our 4:30 meeting. We all get into the vehicle and headed out. Let me just add that we have no spare tires. We put in an order a while back, but a bridge collapsed in Kenya and the vehicle that is supposed to be bringing them our way is stuck. Stuck is exactly where we don't want to end up, but everything except for the airstrip is at least 5 km and 3 potential streams away. Some are streams, but others would be insulted to be called that, because they become true rivers, and as you see the brown water appear from nowhere and fill the dry bed, as if someone up in the hills has just turned on the faucet, you can imagine the Pharaoh and his men getting washed away by the waters in the Exodus, only a few hundred miles North of here. After miraculously making it across dangerous waters and reaching our meeting point, only to find that the people we were supposed to meet were not there, we proceeded towards the center of "town" hoping to meet someone else instead. To get there, however, we would have to cross real rapids. People were standing on either side of the "river" wondering how long they would have to wait until they'd be able to cross. Some ventured across on foot, with the water reaching almost their waist, and with their bikes being carried over their heads. They probably can't swim, so I'm not sure what they would have done if the water had swept them away. There were 3 other vehicles on our side (a tractor, a UN jeep, and a big truck), and a pickup on the other side. Nobody wanted to test the waters, but eventually somebody did, and barely made it across as their pickup was nearly submerged. I'm here writing this, which kinda kills the suspense, but we took a few of the "pedestrians" along with us for the ride and made it across. (In case you were wondering, we didn't charge for the ferry service.) Our second attempt for a meeting also failed as we found nobody in the PACT office, and to top it all off we didn't even catch the guy who had to sign a contract with us... he apparently ran home to avoid the rain. So we turned around and went home, although we knew that there would be more unknowns ahead of us. Now remember, there are no roads in the Nuba Mountains. I know, you must be thinking that I'm exaggerating, but it's true, there are no roads, not even dirt roads. On our way home we came across what you might call a road block. We had made our usual S-shape route around the usual tree when suddenly we could go no further, as the way we usually would take was blocked by branches and tree trunks, which had purposely put there. There were some men standing nearby and their message was "we are cultivating this land". Waru, our program manager, was shocked: "This is the main road, I thought!" he said confused. "Since 2001" replied another one of our staff. Well, so they thought, but they had forgotten that in the Nuba mountains there are no roads. They are both Sudanese, but from the South, not from here. When I heard Waru ask "did they give prior notice" I couldn't help myself and exploded into laughter. I asked Waru the other day why all this former soldiers are still carrying their weapons around with them everywhere they go; he replied "they are still soldiers". So of course we weren't going to start an argument. We turned around and found another way through, laying the ground for what might become the new main road.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
White ants for dinner
Today I saw a line in a resume/CV that read "can resist thirst and hunger". This is Sudan. His name is David and he is one of the people I work closely with here. For those of you who know as much as I knew six months ago about South Sudan (in other words very little) let me describe the story of most of the people I meet here so you can better understand the quote above. The southern half of Sudan was at war for 21 years both with each other and with the North. Most of the young men in the South fled to Ethiopia and eventually many ended up in Uganda or Kenya at refugee camps. They are the so-called "lost boys" because they were separated from their families and are, in some cases, still to this day looking for their family members. I could go on, but that is the really short version of the story. I guess I was just trying to give some background for now. This is actually the first time I'm writing from my site (Kauda), in the Nuba Mountains region of Sudan, a contested area between the North and the South, which has been administratively divided 55% North, 45% South, but nobody really knows what that means. I'm here with an NGO, the International Rescue Committee (IRC), sleeping in their compound, which is actually not what you might imagine a compound to be like: a few sticks have been put around the property (an area of about 7.5 acres if that means anything to you) to protect the "vegetable garden" from goats and other animals coming in, but this "fence" has been eaten up by termites, so there isn't much of a fence left; even though the total staff here is over a dozen people (all Sudanese) only 4 of us sleep here: the guard, the program manager (Waru), the finance guy (Lassu), and myself; we don't have tents, but we sleep in rooms with mosquito nets, which, more than anything, are meant to protect us from the scorpions that might fall from the ceiling. It rains almost every day here, and there aren't any roads, which means you just follow the tracks of another vehicle and make your way around the trees and shrubs that way. (apparently all the land mines have been removed) The only thing that is smooth and looks like a road is actually a river bed that is all dried up, but apparently floods as soon as it rains and the water comes rushing down from the hills. Jeeps, tractors, and motorcycles are the only vehicles that will get through the mud, although they sometimes have trouble crossing rivers since "in the Nuba Mountains there are rivers, but there aren't bridges". Recently, coming back from somewhere, the staff was stuck in the vehicle for 6 hours, surrounded by water on all sides. Luckily there aren't any wild animals in the area, but there are many iguana-like purple and orange lizards roaming around as weird-looking wasps fly about and snakes find their way on the ground. At night the real "wildlife" comes out. Frogs, worms, scorpions, geckos, mosquitos, grasshoppers, spiders, and apparently there are these bugs called "white ants". White ants are not ants, nor are they white in fact. They are more like thin beetles with white wings. They only come out sometimes in the evening after the rain, and Wednesday I was lucky enough to see them. It was around 8 pm when we turned on our solar lamp. In a few seconds there were dozens of these bugs flying towards the lamp. I thought it was pretty disgusting, but Lassu rejoiced! He moved the lamp outside the room, ran to get a big basin which had a little water in it, and placed the basin in front of the lamp. The basin started to fill with these "white ants" as he called them, and soon I was also crouched down grabbing these bugs in flight and throwing them into the 2 basins (one was not proving enough so we had to fetch a second). When, the plague was over, Lassu proclaimed "We will soak them tonight, take their wings off in the morning, fry them, and have them for dinner"... and so we did.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
From the heart of Africa - Rwanda
So Pierre and I are here hanging out in Kigali, Rwanda. Actually, he's with a different organization, so I've only seen him once since we've arrived. Kigali is a cool city, pretty big and active. The people are super friendly, and I've been surprised by how openly everyone talks about and discusses the genocide. The microfinance institution I'm working with is going through a merger right now to become the first microfinance bank to be licensed by the central bank. So even though it is a bit crazy around the office, it is a cool time to be here. There is a big AIDS conference that will be hosted in Kigali next week, and rumors have it some big names (maybe Bill Gates, maybe Angelina Jolie) will attend. It's actually really mild temperature here, do I dare to even say a bit chilly? I guess Kigali is at a high elevation. But I didn't expect that in Africa. OK, gotta run, but hope you all are having fun!
Just to give an idea
Here's the picture of the Pyramid, formerly dictator Hoxha's mausoleum, now a museum/ nightclub, a week BEFORE the visit, when the city was completely plastered with banners and flags and posters. The day of, the sides were covered by about doznes of AMERICAN flags, starting small at the top, and increasing in size as they neared the ground. I am told that the "Ekspozite" on Bush inside includes baby pictures and different pictures of the life og Bush. I don't know, I didn't go in.
Normally, the sides of the Pyramid are plain, and sometimes kids get towels and slide down them.
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