Travel-bug-blog

Avoiding clichéd Vegas quote here....

2009-10-07T19:45:00.000-07:00

I could say something about "leaving Las Vegas," or about things that stay in Vegas, or the usual standby, "Vegas, baby!" but I'll spare you. Instead just the details.

We went there for the food.

And honest to god, I mean that. I'm not trying to "cover" for any shenanigans that went on in our group. No crazy all night gambling or strip clubs. Not even a stealthy trip to see Celine Dion (Is she still even performing there?) or other big Vegas performer.

We went for Bobby Flay, among others.

I think my dad was a little disappointed in me. "You should go back and see a show," he says, and recounts his story of going to see Don Rickles in the old strip days.

But we didn't see a show.

We fought AT&T's crappy service. We (okay, maybe just I) complained about the smokiness of the casinos. We beat the crowds to the pool bright and early only to be wedged like sardines in the rows of deck chairs. We wandered through malls full of stores we couldn't afford to shop at. And I even took the enjoyment up a notch and had an allergic reaction to a horse and came down with an eye infection worthy of antibiotics.

Good times.

It was a sociologist's fantasy land, that's for certain. A study on the demographics of consumption. Whether it was spoiled rich, laden-with-'tude twenty-somethings wearing "shiney shirts" and lots of hair product(the boys) or wearing almost nothing (the girls) going out for a night of hard partying and hooking up, to the older folks clearly from a different socio-economic bracket (though still with lots of hair product, often) looking dazed sitting at the penny slots for hours slowly putting a small dent into a pension, maybe? Vegas truly is an alternate universe from the one I know.

I think I was prepared for it and not prepared for it at the same time. I mean, you can't not know what it's going to be like, but I think I under-estimated how annoyed I would get by it.

Having said that, we had some excellent meals. My favorite food experiences included another trip to In-n-Out Burger (of course), Border Grill (in the Mandalay Bay complex), and Bobby Flay's fabulous Mesa Grill. And I also was pleasantly surprised to learn about Sake at Shibuya.

I think I would consider going back. Actually - I kind of have to since Dave and his friends go every few years and I'm not going to be the wet blanket on that tradition. Next time, I'll just have to budget a little more discretionary spending for a more secluded and maybe relaxing spot at the pool, a spa treatment or two, and maybe a trip to see the Hoover Dam. And I'll take my dad's advice and go to a show.

California - Napa and San Fran, before I forget them completely

2009-10-06T19:07:00.000-07:00

When I started this blog, it was back in my days of work travel. Usually when I traveled for work, I had a lot of time on my hands. I would have hours of downtime to plot my next entry, and I was usually in the same place for several weeks - not just a few days here and there. I also usually had easy access to the internet and a computer.

I don't travel as much since I left the world of international health. That often makes me sad because I really love to travel. I guess I just need to try harder.

I've had two good trips during the last few months. I went to Napa Valley and San Francisco back in July/August for a week and then I went to Las Vegas for a few days just a few weekends ago. Really, my first trips to both places.

I'll try to re-cap Napa and SF first.

Dave and I arrived in San Francisco and immediately got in a car headed to Napa. It was a Tuesday afternoon, and our first stop in this culinary land of plenty was In-n-Out Burger, something of a legend I had heard about from Dave and his friends. It may not have resembled the rest of the meals we had that week, but it was darn tasty.

From this point on, I think the easiest thing to do is to list the specifics of the food and wine, which, after all, is why one goes to Napa. I'll do food first.

Dinner at Brix: The website boasts "a renewed focus on farm-to-table dining." Um, yeah, and that "farm" is about 15 yards away behind the restaurant, where we are pretty sure a head of lettuce had been whacked off just moments before being served as an appetizer on Dave's salad plate. No joke. The one mistake I made here was that I had filled up on cheese earlier in the day at the Oxbow Public Market in downtown Napa. But the food at Brix was very good. It wasn't anything fancy, but it isn't meant to be. Truly just good, honest, high-quality food in a beautiful location.

Another dinner at Terra: This place earned a Michelin star in 2008 and did not disappoint. The restaurant itself (as I recall) was down to earth and the food was amazing. Even better was the wine recommendation, and one that I have even found in DC wine shops! (A Belle Glos Meomi Pinot Noir, for anyone who is keeping track)

As for wine, we hit a good cross-section of wineries over the course of basically a day and a few hours. In no particular order, we visited:

- Artesa
- Silver Oak (awesome - and expensive - cab sauv)
- Domaine Chandon (Bubbly stuff. we did the "sensory" wine tasting, which was a lot of fun)
- Rutherford Hill (great picnic area that came highly recommended. They also have a yummy Port)
- Cliff Lede (has a sauv blanc that seriously has a guava taste. In a good way!)
- Reynold's Family
- Domaine Carneros (more bubbly)

We stayed at the super-quaint and really comfy Candlelight Inn.

Back in San Francisco, the culinary and wine tour continued through the course of several days time, despite the fact that it was a work trip. We did get the burritos that Dave day-dreams about at Taqueria Can-Cun in the Mission District. We also had breakfast in The Haight at the Pork Store Cafe, which, seriously...how could a place called the Pork Store Cafe be bad?

Dave also introduced me to a fantastic tasting room/wine bar concept called The Press Club, which is this great "bar" representing 8 California vineyards. You can order by the glass, but you can also do tastings for a small fee at each table. Those small fees have a way of building up though - you swipe a card each time you drink and at the end of the night you pay at the front desk. That part is kind of painful! But worth it.

Without Dave (sniff), I also went to the Samovar Tea Room in the Castro, Zare at Fly Trap (awesome Mediterranean with a very friendly chef) in SOMA, and The Slanted Door, tasty Vietnamese food in the Embarcadero Ferry Building.

So, yeah, we got around. It's exciting to feel like I actually know something about California wines now. And I really like SF a lot. It's just got a good feel to it. Despite being a city girl, sometimes there's a lot to dislike about them. But not SF.

Anyway, will try to continue with Las Vegas in the next few days and try to get back on track. And I think I need to buy a travel laptop and plan a few more big trips so I can have more to write about!

Wrap Up of Vietnam...only 5 months later

2009-08-09T14:04:00.000-07:00

I have contemplated buying a notebook computer to take with me when I travel. This way, I can write more, edit photos maybe, and when I decide that I want to get "plugged" in to home life, I can choose to have more internet access. But only if I choose to. This way I can also avoid the inevitable "last post several months after the trip". This usually is finally prompted when I am ready to move on to the blogging of the next trip.

In any case...

So, back in March, after I left Lisa in Hoi An (she had to fly back to Hanoi to work), I moved on to Hue, which was the imperial capital of the Nguyen Dynasty during the 1800s and into the 1900s. Within the city of Hue is the Citadel (a walled city) and the "Forbidden City" within the walls was only accessed by emperors, their concubines, and, well, the guest list. Much of this area was destroyed during the Vietnam War and is currently being reconstructed and restored. I spent a day there walking around the walled city.

After Hue, I headed back to Hanoi and made plans for my final week: a two day trip to Sapa, in the NW part of the country close to the Chinese border, and a two day boat trip in Halong Bay, off the NE coast of Vietnam.

Sapa required an overnight train ride, which was a first for me. I was in a cabin with 3 other Vietnamese (two crammed into the bed beneath me). The first hike was a bit of a let down. Sapa is known for its stunning scenery. It is in the mountains and home to many of the "Hill Tribes" such as the Hmong. Unfortunately the fog was so thick that you could barely see more than 20 ft. in front of you. So much for the scenery! But I was in a group with two hilarious Australian couples who made it more fun than it might have been. Day two improved a little bit once we hiked below the cloud line. It wasn't perfect, but it could have been the same as day one, which would have been terribly depressing.

What was most interesting to me about Sapa was the level of aggressiveness that we encountered in the women who were selling their textiles. I am not proud to admit that, after a few interactions with the women scared me off, I left the hotel under cover of darkness to find a store where I could buy some souvenirs without fear of harassment. I've never seen anything quite like it.

After Sapa, I took a bus to Halong Bay with another group tour. We boarded a boat and - unfortunately, on another cloudy, foggy, rainy day - set out amidst the limestone karsts (big, upright rock formations jutting out from the sea)that make this place so beautiful.

For a pop culture reference, this area was featured in Tomorrow Never Dies (James Bond) in 1997.

It might seem like a bit of a bummer that it was so rainy and foggy, but to be honest there were two benefits to this. 1) I saw the beauty of Halong Bay in a way that isn't the typical tourist photo. 2) there weren't as many boats out as a result. Lisa had mentioned going to Halong and feeling like the sheer number of boats kind of took away from the beauty of the scenery.

I ate lots of seafood on that boat. Lunch, dinner, breakfast on day two, lunch again. Fish, shrimp, squid, more fish, more squid. And I was a trooper and ate it all (for those who don't know this about me, I really don't much care for seafood - although I do like some shellfish, so the shrimp was okay). When in Rome, right?

With just a little time left in Hanoi, I finished up some shopping, had two lovely meals with Lisa and got packed up.

Before I left, though, Lisa and I put together the following list of the best and worst of our travels, which, now that I am reading through it again for the first time since leaving in March, definitely still brings back some good and entertaining memories.

So...

Best Breakfast: The Cargo Club in Hoi An. Okay, so it wasn't anything local. It was a pretty straightforward western breakfast. But darn, it was good.

Best dinner: Tougher one. La Verticale, Green Tangerine, and the Temple Club were probably up there on the list.

Most satisfying tourist experience: Tie between the Dragon Temple outside Dalat and Preah Kahn/Bayon in Cambodia.

Least satisfying tourist experience: Day one in Sapa.

Best Hotel View: (Theoretically) in Sapa (if there had not been fog)

Worst hotel view: Can Tho. There were no windows in our hotel room.

Best contribution by the Lonely Planet Guide: The Temple Club restaurant in Saigon

Worst LP contribution: The map of Hoi An. There were no less than three errors that led us wildly out of our way.

Best beach: Mui Ne. Okay, sure, that's the only beach we went to, but it was pretty good!

Most imposing statue of Uncle Ho: Can Tho.

Most impressively French colonial experience: The Elephant Room in Siem Reap.

Best mode of transportation: Motorized cyclos in Can Tho.

Most one-sided historical "representation: Tie between the Cu Chi Tunnels, the War Remnants Museum in Saigon, and the Hoa Lo Prison in Hanoi. Eeesh.

Most well-balanced historical representation: Um...hmm....(scratching head)

Best architecture: Hang Nga Crazy House in Dalat.

Worst Architecture: The summer palace of Emperor Bao Dai. Also in Dalat.

Best use of the color pink: Cao Dai temple.

Best marketing Slogan: "San San: For women who use computers" (advertising for a boutique in Hanoi)

Most confusing drink: Yogurt and fruit on the rocks with a straw, in Can Tho. It's like no one told them that you have to then throw everything in a blender to make it drinkable.

Maybe the Lonely Planet will pick up on our reviews for the next issue. Since these are clearly pieces of information that everyone needs. And hopefully Lisa and I will have future travels together in some other exciting corner of the world and have things to add to the lists.

Foreign diplomacy improvement has already started :-)

2009-03-01T18:07:00.000-08:00

One of the things that drove me crazy about the Bush presidency was how I was constantly received overseas, and many of my friends had the same problem. When we would travel, and introduce ourselves (or just simply "become known") as Americans, we would end up automatically on the defensive. I don't think I ever met someone overseas who said "Hey - you guys have a GREAT GUY as a president! Thumbs up!" It was frustrating to have to clarify to everyone I met that not all Americans supported the administration that has caused so much chaos and bad feeling overseas.

I am happy to say that time has ended. :-) At least in Vietnam.

Even in the most limited of English language situations, the conversation usually goes like this:

Vietnamese: Where you from?

Me: America.

Vietnamese: (Smiles) Ahhh, Obama!

It is SO great.

The conversations got even better with the several Australians we have encountered, who mention the hope and optimism that he has brought, not just to us in the US, but to the world.

Now, I have always maintained that while I like the guy, I wasn't drinking any Kool Aid and thinking that he was going to be capable of changing the world (I've worked in politics. I know better!), but it's so lovely to hear, nonetheless.

Finally I can have a little more pride in being American when I travel overseas. And no, I'm not being unpatriotic in saying that, like so many people jumped on Michelle Obama when she said something similar about pride. I will never be blindly and unconditionally proud of my country and what we do - and that's a positive thing in my mind. Every country has something to be ashamed of or embarassed by in their pasts, and anyone who doesn't think that, in my humble opinion, is a little bit ignorant.

That doesn't mean I'm not happy that I'm American. I think that being so has offered me a lot of opportunities that I would not have had in other places (though that has just as much to do with being in my demographic and socioeconomic group as it does with being American - maybe more).

But it's nice to travel now and feel like I don't have to defend myself anymore. We've done something good in the eyes of the world. And it's about time.

Reality Check

2009-02-28T04:58:00.000-08:00

So, before I left for Vietnam, I received an interesting mix of reactions from people when I told them that I was coming here for vacation. On one end of the range of those reactions where those who expressed surprise - as in, why would I go to Vietnam for VACATION???

Sure, it's not the place that invokes images of relaxation, and it dosn't have the same kind of draw that a beach resort or mountain lodge might have, and maybe the word "vacation" is a poor label for it. Sometimes I just need to have a travel experience that is so far away from what I usually experience that it has a grounding effect: It brings me back to earth.

This is what I was looking for here. Not to mention, I hadn't seen Lisa in a while and it's always more fun for me to travel somewhere whre I know someone. But I really felt the need to get far far away and ground myself. Regain perspective, in a way.

So here's the gritty reality of my vacation:

I'm hot. I'm really hot. And sweaty and smelly. Be careful what you ask for. I kept saying I wanted to go somewhere hot to escape DC winter. (And what a wimp I felt like about that when we met Bev from Ottawa who escapes her hometown every winter when the temps dip around -30C. But anyway...) And A.C. seems to not always be a guarantee anywhere, even on buses that say "A.C."

I've had this rash on the backs of my hands since Cambodia. It seems to be going away finally, but something similar popped up in a few other locations, which is annoying, but I assume related to what I said above about being hot and sweaty.

In addition to the rash, the place we stayed in last night may have had bedbugs, because my face looks like I might have a mild case of the measles.

Enough about me and my complaints.

When we were in Dalat, there was a motorbike wreck outside of our hotel. I heard the screech and crunch of metal, and when I came to the window, there was a crowd forming. Lisa pointed out that of the three bikes involved, two got up and drove away, but the third guy appeared trapped UNDER his bike. It was hard to see because it was dark an there was a crowd, but I saw someone trying to drag the guy out from under his bike, and he seemed to be struggling with the task. I saw at least one woman go running away from the scene after looking, with her hand over her mouth, implying that what she saw was pretty grim. A cab pulled up, and the guy, finally freed from his bike, was carried by three other guys, unconscious, and loaded into the cab. Asuming that medical care here isn't stellar, I felt a bit haunted thinking about what might have ultimately happened to that guy.

Also in Dalat, we were at a house and looking off of a balcony. I noticed Lisa looking down, and followed her gaze. There were two men holding a dog down, but I didn't know what else was going on. When we left the house, I saw the dog, lying on it's side on the side porch of the house next to where we had been, twitching with seizures. Lisa said that a vet had been one of the people with the dog, and she assumed that either they had injected the dog with either medicine, or with something to put the dog to sleep. Who knows what made the dog sick, but Lisa seems to have had past experiences here with questionable vets anyway. It's just a weird image - just laving the dog lying there with no one around it, regardless of whether it was just sick and being treated or dying. But I guess that's life.

More on general issues here, Lisa works with street youth here as part of her job. She tells me that there are a number of reasons why youth end up on the streets. They may have been kicked out of the house when a parent remarries. It often happens that a second spouse doesn't want to have anything to do with the children from the first marriage, so they get kicked out. Sometimes they get kicked out because they are "difficult" behaviorally. There doesn't seem to be much time to deal with parenting challenges, and if the kid isn't perfect, they're done. Or sometimes it's poverty, plain and simple. It's a sad situation because there are often no places for the youth to go once they have been kicked out, so they end up living incity parks and are driven into drugs or sex work to survive. Vietnam seems to frown on non-conformity and lack of discipline. Thanks Confucius!

In both Cambodia and Vietnam, I have seen many people who are missing limbs. Most of the people we encountered in Cambodia were victims of land-mines, and it appears that many of the Vietnamese have experienced the same thing. Over 40,000 Vietnamese had been killed or maimed by unexploded ordnance since 1975, as of the last Lonely Planet publishing in 2007. There are several NGOs working to help these people with job skills, but not nearly the structure that might exist in the US. Many seem to be on the street begging for money and food because there's nothing else they can do.

There are not many Americans here. There are lots of tourists, but I haven't encountered an American yet. Lots of French, Canadians, Australians, and Brits, but not Americans. Somehow just that fact is sort of sobering. I guess Americans don't view Vietnam as a desirable destination quite yet.

This is my grounding experience. This is the kind of place where you realize how good you have it, and also how much damage humans can cause others, even when we don't really mean to. I guess I'm still thinking about these issues and the historical context in order to define my "place" in the grand scheme of things. But these are some of my reflections on the experience so far.

It just occurred to me that my description of this blog involves occasional social commentary, and I didn't want to disappoint anyone by not doing that.

Anyway, busy day tomorrow, so I'm off to bed. Ready to storm the Citadel in the morning.

Shop Til We Drop in Hoi An

2009-02-27T04:37:00.000-08:00

We are on Lisa's last stop of our travel, and couldn't have found a better place to land.

But first...

The journey was not easy.

We started yesterday afternoon at about 3:30pm in Dalat on an overnight bus to Danang. This bus (remember - we STARTED at 3:30pm) would get us to Danang at 6:00am this morning. That's a long time to be on a bus. They did not serve us Bibimbap. On the contrary, they handed us each a stack of plastic bags, which I was to find out later was for motion sickness. I was not afflicted by this issue, but as our bus catapulted around mountainous corner after corner from Dalat to Nha Trang, I became quite intimately aware of my co-passengers and their inability to hold onto their lunches. Awesome.

Lisa and I did quite well on this, even braving the weeds during a side-of-the-road "rest stop". We got to Danang right around 6am.

We hopped in a cab from there and got to Hoi An around 7am, just in time for shopping to begin.

Hoi An is known for its silk markets and its tailors, and admittedly, that's the main reason why Lisa and I spent 14 plus hours on a bus (okay - in hindsight, it seems like we should have thought about that a little more carefully). Between the two of us, I believe we purchased 4 skirts, 3 dresses, 1 shirt, 1 pair of pants and 3 pairs of shoes, all tailor-made to fit us with materials that we picked out. It's a very dangerous place here. There are many vendors in the market who have the foresight to sell big duffel bags for all of us who are carting home all of these products.

After a long day of shopping and trying things on, we had dinner. Now that it is dark, the town takes on new flavor, and all of the vendors selling paper lanterns are all lit up in every color imaginable.

Beyond the shopping, it's a beautiful town too. It is categorized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so there are no cars allowed on certain "old town" streets, and a lot of restoration work has been done. The trademark colonial French yellow buildings with terra cotta tile roofs are still intact, or have at least been cleaned up, and are now museums, restaurants and storefronts. It's quite lovely to walk around here, though overwhelming with the marketing, but I guess we are contributing to that just as much as anyone else is.

Tomorrow Lisa will go back to Hanoi, and I will take the bus to Hue, just overnight to hit another historical spot. This time just 4 hours in bus, which seems a whole lot more reasonable. And then I will fly back to Hanoi. I may have another overnight trip next week before my final one coming home, and I want to save my strength for that.

Nice Ride!

2009-02-25T02:13:00.000-08:00

I spent the day on the back of a motorcycle. Not a likely place to be, but as I have mentioned, and as will be clear when I finally post pictures, there's no way to travel in Vietnam without it. In Dalat, the Easy Riders are a group of motorcycle guides who do countryside tours. So Lisa and I arrived in Dalat yesterday and Truong and "Ted' (easier to say than "Thiet") found us at the hotel. We got on the road this morning at 8:30am.

First stop was Tuyen Lam Lake, a madmade lake outside of Dalat surrounded by pine forests. It's a beautiful setting for what else than elephant riding!

???

Okay, yes, I admit, I had some mixed feelings about this activity. All sorts of "don't elephants belong in the wild with the other elephants, and are we participating in an exploitative activity, and I wonder if they at least treat the elephant well, and how does the elephant feel having two western women (one of whom - moi - could stand to lose a few pounds) and a smallish Vietnamese man riding around on it's back?" But ultimately, I had to push those thoughts out of my mind and enjoy the experience of seeing the lake and forest the way emperors did and admiring the sheer strength of this amazing animal. I've always thought that elephants are wise looking old souls. This guy was no different. And he liked sugar cane. A lot.

So we rode the elephant, which wasn't nearly as cool as just being up close to the elephant, I will admit, because we couldn't exactly SEE the elephant when we were sitting on top of him. But it was still pretty cool.

After elephant riding, we had a variety of stops with the Easy Riders, but only a few really worth mentioning. First there was the Truc Lam Meditation center, which is a Zen Buddhist monastery outside of Dalat. It's a beautiful place and most buildings are open to the public except where the real meditation work happens. The campus (my term) is filled with gardens and pagoda buildings and just a general peacefulness that came from hearing a monk bang a gong while devotees presented incense and said their prayers.

The next stop was to the Linh Phuoc Pagoda, also known as the Dragon Pagoda for obvious reasons. And thank god for Flickr, because my memory stick seems to be acting up, but I have to be clear that I cannot take credit for the photo I lifted from there and have posted here. Another beautiful, spiritual place. This one had added spiritual significance because on the ground on a particular side of the tallest tower was a constant crowd of people looking upward and pointing their cellphones in the same place.

So apparently there is something about the way the sun is these days that, when it hits a certain spot over the temple and when you take a picture with just the right exposure, it looks like a halo is circling the top of the temple. Yes, I got caught up in trying this, and no I did not succeed. And I admit, I was annoyed that my nice camera was not able to capture what - apparently - many other Vietnamese people were able to capture on their stupid cell phones.

We saw a good deal of the Dalat countryside. It's beautiful and the weather is perfect. Cool and dry, since we are in the mountains. We will have most of the day tomorrow to explore some more, and for me to figure out what the heck to do about my memorystick issue. Then we will board a ridiculously long bus to Hoi An, almost exclusively for silk shopping. :-) Nah, we'll probably find more to do than just that.

Technical Difficulties and Some Stuff About the Finer Things in Life (Food and Beach)

2009-02-24T05:46:00.000-08:00

I'm having some issues getting the past few computers to cooperate with my camera, so I will be without images for a while, apparently.

Lisa and I arrived in Dalat this afternoon after a few days of "real" vacation, meaning, we went to the beach.

But I should start before that.

After we got back to Saigon, Lisa needed some down time. So she sent me to cooking school. :-) I spent a half day in a Vietnamese Cooking class on Sunday morning. I met our teacher, Chef Bao, and his translator/assistant, Jasmine, in Ben Thanh Market. Matt and Katie from San Francisco followed close behind. It was just the three of us. We started the class by taking a spin through the food section of the market, learning more than I needed to about the delicacies of Vietnamese cuisine. Luckily, the menu plan did not include any organ meats, frogs, or eels. We finished the market orientation and headed for the Vietnamese Cookery Center, which sounds so much better in French (Centre Culinaire du Vietnam).

At the Cookery Center, we started off with a small snack (We didn't make it. Just ate/drank it) of tea and candied ginger. Tea is a coomon starter in most restaurants. I think it's generally a pretty weak jasmine or green tea, and can be hot or cold. After tea we moved to our work stations.

The first course was Vietnamese Spring Rolls (Cha gio). We were instructed on the ingredients to mix (including pork, taro root, spring onion, shallot, and a few other things), and then we were instructed on how to roll it in the netting rice paper. Netting rice paper gives the spring roll a kind of cool consistency - almost like you have rolled it in really thin noodles. We deep fried the rolls, and made a dipping sauce, which included one of THE most important ingredients in Vietnamese Cooking: Fish sauce (Nuoc mam). If you have a Vietnamese meal in which fish sauce does not figure prominently, then it isn't Vietnamese.

Course two: Caramel pork in clay pot. I have also seen this dish using shrimp. The thing that makes southern Vietnamese cuisine different from northern Vietnamese cuisine is that it tends to be sweeter - thus the caramel use, as well as liberal use of sugar in most of the dishes. We were to work for a balance between sweet (sugar or coconut juice), salty (fish sauce) and sour (lime juice) in several of the dishes, including the spring roll dipping sauce. We did not make the rice that went with it, but Chef Bao showed us the proper amount of coconut juice (not coconut milk) to add to steam the rice. He had a seriously bad-ass rice cooker too.

Course three: Sour clam soup with dill. Seafood is very common, and dill is used constantly, with seafood as well as other things. I wasn't sure I'd like this dish, because, I mean, come on - sour clam soup? Does that really sound appealing? But it was surprisingly tasty.

We did not make dessert, but we were served sauteed bananas in coconut milk, sprinkled with sesame seeds.

After class, Katie, Matt and I hopped in a cab back to the market. I HAD to get some of that netting rice paper to bring home to try this out. After securing three bags of the stuff, I met Lisa, and we got on the road to the beach.

Ahhhh the beach. You can't *not* relax at Mui Ne Beach. That is, after you have reached your final destination. The 2km walk from where the buss dropped us off to get to our hotel while carrying a heavy, overstuffed frame-pack, in flip flops while you need to pee after a 4 hour buss ride was NOT very relaxing (mental note: Lonely Planet Guide does not use the same scale on all of their maps, so objects may appear closer than they actually are).

But once we got there, it was reeelaaaaxing. We went to bed early, we woke up when our internal alarms told us too, we ate good breakfasts, we relaxed by the pool with books, occasionally hopping into the cool blue water when we got hot. I did finally get in the South China Sea on Day 2. It was lovely. We ate pizza for dinner and went to bed ridiculously early again.

It just doesn't get much better than that.

Now we are in Dalat. It is significantly different. They call it City of Eternal Spring for a reason. It's cool out and we are surrounded by mountains and pine forests as opposed to beach and palm trees. It's lovely too, just in a different way. And both options are better for me than being at home in cold Washington DC.

More on Dalat tomorrow after our tour with the "Easy Riders."

Boating the Mighty Mekong

2009-02-21T02:46:00.000-08:00

The Mekong Delta takes up the southern tip of Vietnam, and thanks to it's lushness, it has helped make Vietnam the world's second largest rice exporter, according to Lonely Planet.

Lisa and I decided to get there by group tour. It was cheap and made things easy. It was a two day/one night tour and advertised stops in a few towns and floating markets along the way. Floating markets are made up of boats anchored in the middle of the river selling wholesale produce to buyers. It's a pretty cool sight, but the best action is seen really early in the morning.

Our tour yesterday did what tourist-tours do: We stopped at a bunch of places to buy crap and to see some educational things, like how to make coconut candy (I can just hear Dave gagging as he reads this), rice paper, and puffed rice treats (they only look like Rice Krispy treats, which was a disappointment to me). We went to the Cai Be floating market, but it was late afternoon so everything good was pretty much over.

Today was going to prove to be much of the same, so we decided to ditch our tour and do it on our own. The group stopped in Can Tho last night and we had some free time. We arranged for a nice lady to take us in her boat to the Cai Rang floating market this morning at 6am. We spent the night in a hotel arranged by the tour. I swear it sounded like we were sleeping on the side of the road. I'm convinced that the roof was just corrugated plastic with nothing insulating the noise from outside, and we were right on a main road. I think I got a few good hours of sleep there, but not much!

The departure was early and slightly painful, but worth it. The river was teeming with boats, and because we took a small motor boat instead of the larger tour group boats, we were able to maneuver right in there with everyone else.

After we returned to land, with the help of a local colleague of Lisa's, we took a "non-tourism" bus back to Saigon. It was the best air-conditioning I have encountered on a Vietnamese bus yet.

I left Lisa alone this afternoon to take a nap and walked around Saigon a bit. I went to visit the War Remnants Museum. Interesting but VERY one-sided (not surprisingly). I think the most interesting/sad part of it was seeing a special exhibit on US Vietnam War correspondents. There was a room full of photos with the stories of what they depicted as well as who took them. It was an homage to the fallen of the press corps, and therefore many of the pictures were labeled as the last photo taken before the particular photographer was killed, sometimes immediately after the photo was taken. It was an emotional exhibit.

There were some pretty graphic photos and stories of other events, usually involving the bloody torture and murder of civilian women and children, and the aftermath suffered by victims of dioxin (Agent Orange) exposure. But of course the Viet Cong soldiers were nowhere to be found in any of the horrors of war. There was lots left unsaid. Not to say that what WAS shown wasn't horrible of course. And much of it can never be justified. But I do know it wasn't always that one-sided. As Lisa put it on another occasion, we have a lot left to learn.

In between all of this, I DO plan to relax some. :-) Tomorrow we plan to go to the beach for a few days. After my morning cooking class, of course!

World Religions and World History

2009-02-19T06:34:00.000-08:00

First full day in Saigon, aka Ho Chi Minh City, depending on who you talk to. We took a bus tour to two interesting destinations: To the Cao Dai Temple at Tay Ninh and to the Cu Chi tunnels north of the city.

I had been fascinated with what I read about Cao Daism (a true "world" religion) in a book I got for Christmas: A Dragon Apparent: Travels in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam by Norman Lewis. He wrote of his introduction to Cao Daism in 1949 that he encountered:

"...a cathedral that looked like a fantasy from the brain of Disney, and all the faiths of the world had been ransacked to create the pompous ritual, which had been grafted on an organization copied from the Catholic Church."

The inside is about the most colorful place I've ever seen, with dragons swirling around pink pillars, blue cloudy skies painted on the ceiling, and a large orb with a big eye in the middle of it over the "altar." Apparently past consultations have been held via seance with the likes of Victor Hugo (who happens to be one of the patron saints), Joan of Arc and William Shakespeare.

Odd doesn't even begin to cover it.

Next we changed gears COMPLETELY and went to see the Cu Chi tunnels, which was a network of 125 miles worth of underground tunnels dug by peasant guerrillas and Viet Cong during the war. The network had three tiers and in some places went down to 30 feet underground. Approximately 18,000 people were living in these tunnels during the war, and they included kitchens, dining rooms, hospital rooms...basically anything you might need to live underground for an indeterminate amount of time.

There were two particularly hard things about seeing the tunnels. First it was the claustrophobia. We were allowed down into one. We could make the choice to circle out at the second tier down or continue to a third tier. These tunnels are small. You have to crawl through them in places. I opted out after tier 2. That was enough for me to see.

The second difficult part was seeing the intro video that was filmed as part of Vietnamese propaganda in 1967. It was a little over the top, even for me. I may have my own conflicted feelings about the US involvement in Vietnam, but it's still hard to hear about peasant guerrillas being awarded as "American killer heroes." Our tour guide himself had been conscripted into the Viet Cong for 3 years.

Vietnam still hasn't healed it's own wounds from the war. Those who fought for the South Vietnam Army (and sided with the US) and actually stayed in Vietnam (instead of fleeing after the fall of Saigon) still face discrimination and persecution. It's pretty sad to see the aftermath from this side of the world. It's clear that there really were no winners of the war, no matter what the Vietnamese government thinks.

Tomorrow we are off to the Mekong Delta.

Day 2 : Temple Hopping

2009-02-17T21:16:00.000-08:00

We didn't know how great the weather was yesterday until the sun came out today. It gets hot when the sun comes out. Lisa and I wanted to hit a few of the temples that we didn't make it to yesterday. It's a good thing there weren't that many. We were done about 2 hours in.

But we did get to see some impressive stonework. First we went to Preah Khan, which is one of the larger temple complexes. The Lonely Planet Encounter guide sums it up best:" "Preah Khan is a genuine fusion temple."Many - if not all - of the temples have a mix of Buddhist symbolism and Hindu sympolism that went back and forth over time, but this building had the most interesting combination. In each area, you see combinations of the religions. The picture I have posted shows the most interesting example. At the base of the picture is a "linga stand,"which originally housed a linga, which is a phallic symbol associated with Hindu worship of Shiva. You can see a slight protrusion at the left of the picture (most of the lingas themselves have actually been stolen). Sitting on top of the linga stand is a Buddha statue, which is - obviously - associated with Buddhism. But as you will notice, the Buddha head has been cut off, a casualty to the Hindu worshipers at some point over the centuries.

Finally everyone seems to be living in harmony. At least in stone form.

We are going to get some Mexican food for lunch (they have good margaritas, and I have to admit I haven't been too impressed by Khmer cuisine - even if the temples are awesome and the people are really nice!), and then heading to the airport, bound for Saigon. Then I will be happy to not be on a plane again for a while. :-)

Siem Reap and Ankor, Cambodia

2009-02-17T01:41:00.000-08:00

I was going to say something cheesy involving Laura Croft or Angelina Jolie, but I thought I'd spare everyone the obscure movie/video game reference, although it was seeing that movie years ago that introduced me to Angkor Wat as a place anyway. So Lisa and I arrived in Siem Reap yesterday afternoon and spent all day today temple-hopping with our guide, "Tim." I don't have time to go into a lot of details about this amazing complex, but it is worth mentioning the fact that it has seen a lot of history since construction began in the 10th century, and seems to have experienced back-and-forth identity crises (Is it Hindu? Is it Buddhist? Is it both?) ever since. We hit several temple complexes, including Angkor Thom and the Bayon, Ta Keo, Ta Prohm (where parts of Laura Croft: Tomb Raider"" was filmed), and Angkor Wat.

What is also clear is that the Cambodian people have a huge amount of pride in this complex, which is important, because after the intense and horrifying history they saw under Pol Pot, these people deserve to have something to have pride in. They have built up a heck of a tourist industry around this town and these historic structures. Normally I would be averse to over-touristy areas, but I'm glad I didn't avoid this one.

Tomorrow we will check out some smaller temples in the morning, and then in the afternoon we will fly to Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City to check out the Mekong Delta for a day or two. It's nice to have some warm weather. :-)

While you were sleeping...

2009-02-15T16:18:00.000-08:00

It's Monday morning for me, but back home, it is Sunday night. At least so far, my body seems to be adjusting. The fact that I was able to slep for most of the night here unaided is pretty impressive. I'm glad I wasn't interested in "sleeping in" though, because everywhere is loud outside in the daytime.

I got here about mid-afternoon yesterday and was able to walk around with Lisa for a while, before we met our friend Karin for dinner. It has been unexpectedly warm recently and was sunny yesterday, but it appears likely to rain today.

In about an hour I will becollected by Tu, a friend of Lisa's who is going to play tour guide for me this morning. Then will meet Lisa for lunch before Lisa and I hop on a plane again (goody) to Cambodia.

Having not seen much of Hanoi so far, I have limited observations and not much new knowledge. I think I am close to mastering the art of crossing the street which requirs more trust in your fellow man than I ever imagined. With hoards of motorbikes and bicycles bearing down on you from every direction, you have to keep from looking at the big picture and instead take is row by row. You step out and get past the first row and then look for your next opening, trusting (at least hoping!) the whole time that the drivers will ultimately stop for you if needed (they don't move too fast, which helps!

The sidewalk of every street is filled with open shopfronts, spilling out with a wie array of products, and each street is known for what it primarily sells. For example, last night we walked down (among others) candy street, toy street, "offerings" street, and maternity clothes street.

A few additional odd things I learned:

The Ho Chi Min mausoleum is open for viewing from Dec-Sept. After that, rumor has it that he sent back to Russia for re-embalming.
home/shop owners are taxed based on what square footag of space touches the street. As a result, many placs look narrow, but they go far back, or have many stories.
You have to be selected or appointed to be a member of the Communist Party, which makes it a very elite group. This seems very strange and extremely counterintuitive to me. Isn't teh whole point of communism about the "collective" and equality of everyone? I'm going to have to find out more.

I happened to luck out and I have free internet in my hotel room (I can't imagine that's standard!), but I'll be checking out shortly. Hope to get a hold of a connetion in Cambodia!

Quality Airport Time

2009-02-14T14:58:00.000-08:00

I knew when I planned this trip to visit my friend Lisa in Vietnam that the worst part about it would be getting there. My Orbitz itinerary kindly pointed out that the total duration of my travel would be 29 hrs and 32 min. This included a 4 hour late night layover at JFK and a 5 hour early morning layover in Seoul. The thing that sucks about both of these scenarios is that nothing is open in airports really late and really early.

For my first layover at JFK, awesome Dave came to the rescue by supplying me with snooty chocolates and wine money, so I was fortunate to find a sport at JFK that was selling half bottles of wine (all of the actual bars were closed by then). I can't tell you how the pairing of the airport Cabernet Sauvignon really worked, but it didn't much matter. It was a lovely way to spend time in a fairly crappy airport.

We started boarding the 747 bound for Seoul at about 12:30am. It's no picnic spending 14 hours on a place through the night and across multiple timezones, but the Korean Air flight attendants made it as nice as they could. I was extremely psyched about the dinner (I guess? At 2am, it didn't really fit into a "meal framework.") which arrived complete with an instructional sheet (in English and two other southeast Asia languages) with "Directions on How to Make Bibimbap." This includes adding the steamed rice, as much hot pepper paste as you'd like, and sesame oil. Then you mix it all together.

It was probably the best damn in-flight meal I have ever had. Way to go Korean Air!

I arrived at Seoul airport at 5am, and had to basically kill time until anything opened. I'm still waiting to be able to get my boarding pass (I am told that this will happen in about 15 minutes), and I still have about 2 hours til my flight leaves. But the airport is excruciatingly clean, lots of comfortable seating and lounge areas, a free internet cafe, and...there's a Dunkin Donuts right across the hallway. The airport experience doesn't get any better. Seoul is now my new favorite airport. :-)

I'm looking forward to getting on the ground in Hanoi though. I need a shower pretty badly at this point.

Then the real adventures will begin.

Dusting off the Pasaporte!

2008-07-10T12:57:00.000-07:00

When I left the field of international health, I assumed I wouldn't get any more cool trips. But in May and June, I had three trips. The first was to Philadelphia. I got my cheesesteak fix taken care of. Then I was off to Chicago. I went shopping on the Magnificent Mile. Then I was off to Spain. And as an added bonus, I got a few days to play. And Dave came along too!

So just to recap the higher points from Spain, here's my top ten list:

Number 10: Experiencing the joy's of Czech auto engineering

After some time in Madrid, Dave and I rented a car to head towards Barcelona. The rental car guy said "it's a Skoda Fabia." I had to have him repeat it several times, before I said, "I don't think we have that car." He just shrugged.

The Skoda is cute. It doesn't feel real safe, and didn't fit both of our bags in the trunk, but whatever. It functioned and Dave enjoyed driving stick shift. We held our own against the European drivers.

Number 9: Spanish Style

Most of our friends who Dave and I have spoken with already already know of our amusement with Spanish style trends. Basically, if we use Europe as a harbinger of what is to come in the fashion world, the what we will be seeing with be a really scary 80s flashback. It will include:

Mullets
Rat tails
MC Hammer pants
Bright colors (as in fluorescent)

Indeed, a little disturbing, but amusing to see nonetheless. Not all Spaniards were dressed this way, but the trend was noticeable.

Number 8: Eating enough cured pig products to ensure that I myself will be well-preserved for years to come.

Two words: Jamon Iberico.

I had it for the first time at the conference in Madrid, and Dave knew about it from the exorbitant prices of the stuff that the one guy has at Eastern Market. So the night that Dave arrived in Madrid, we went out for tapas and sangria, and found a place that sold it, basically, by the plate. They do thin strips, and it is so rich, we couldn't finish the whole thing. Dave also got to try a "vermut" or glass of sweet vermouth wine that is a very popular drink in Spain.

Everywhere you went though, there was pork. It was not uncommon to see a ham hock just hanging from the ceiling, waiting til it's time to shine arrives. And shine it did, whether it was by itself on a plate or in a croquet or in sausage form. We had breakfast one day with a spread that included at least 6 forms of the stuff. I have photographic evidence! At dinner the night before, one of the dishes we split had 3 or 4 types. Who knew a pig was so multi-purpose?*

Number 7: "Clubbing" in Barcelona

I put "clubbing" in quotes because I don't know if what Dave and I did could really constitute clubbing. We eagerly stayed up past our bedtimes (even on a Saturday night), and arrived at Club Moog at 12:30am. We were the first ones to arrive. The bartender said it usually didn't pick up til about 2am. Lucky for us, all of the other tourists who had read about the club in the Lonely Planet guide showed up around 1am. Because you know the Spaniards weren't there. We passed them all on our way out of the club around 2am. They were ready to start their evening, while we were ready to get our lame American arses to bed.

Number 6: Modernista Architecture.

Architect Antonio Gaudi et al did an amazing job creating a very unique Barcelona in the early 1900s. We visited (and heavily photographed) several sites, including the famous Casa Batllo and the unfinished Sagrada Familia cathedral, and the expansive Park Guell in Barcelona. If only someone would renovate a DC condo building to be as unique.

Number 5: The Spanish Parador System; or, spending the night in a castle

Yes, we spent the night in a castle, overlooking the town of Alcaniz, which is roughly halfway between Zaragoza and Tarragona on a Spanish map. It's a small town with not much, but a good sized castle sitting atop a hill.

A website about the Paradors describes them in this way:

"The hotels in the Parador Group were set up by the state to use quality tourism to act as guardian of the national and artistic heritage of Spain and to assist regions with fewer economic resources. "

They are scattered all over Spain, and oftentimes are built from castles (like ours) or monasteries, and are really really nice. I highly recommend them on your next trip to Spain.

Number 4: Art

Well, that's easy enough, isn't it?

I'm not a very high-brow art appreciator, but I remember reading about Picasso's Guernica in college Spanish Class, and I felt like I would have failed something in life if I came to Spain and neglected to see it. It is housed in the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, which also houses lots of other cool stuff (Picasso, Miro, Dali, for example) so it was a no-brainer.

I also spent some time in the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, which is a good sized private collection, which has some cool stuff too. I did not see the Prado while in Madrid. I know that sounds shameful, but in general I much prefer smaller museums when I hit these different hot-spots anyway.

In Barcelona, we went to the Museu Picasso, which basically had everything in it that Picasso ever drew that did not become famous. I guess that's not fair. There was some cool stuff in there, but going back to how I'm not a high-brown art-appreciator, I don't have the same interest in the sketches that someone found in picasso's closet that he did when he was 9. Sorry.

And we walked all over Miro... on La Rambla. :-) Joan Miro did a cool, very "Miro" styled mosaic on the main pedestrian thoroughfare in Barcelona.

Number 3: Churros y Chocolate

Ahh the humble churro. All you are is fried dough, but pair you with thick, European-style hot chocolate after a night out on the town in Madrid, and you are something as exquisite as the art I discussed in item number 5.

That is really all I can say.

Number 2: Vino y Queso

Spain is a big wine country, and we were driving right through Cava country. Cava is the Spanish equivalent to champagne. It's light and bubbly and refreshing. Tempranillo and Albarino grapes make really nice red and white varieties as well. We tended more towards the rather informal sangria during a lot of meals, but split a few bottles of white and red here and there too. I had checked into trying to do a vineyard tour, but it didn't work out this trip. A good reason to go back.

Then there was the cheese. From my experience here, Manchego and Idiazabal are both commonly known Spanish cheeses, but we had dinner one night at a restaurant (practically our only non-tapas meal) and we got the Spanish cheese platter as an appetizer. There were ten cheeses on it, and most of them were REALLY good. Our main problem was, we couldn't get any of the wait staff to be able to tell us which ws which, so we will forever be left wondering what it was that we ate.

Number 1: Outdoor dining, Spanish Style

You can't beat the climate. We had left DC in an awful heat-wave and arrived in Madrid with very nice weather, perfect for spending almost every night eating outside in a plaza somewhere. Everyone has outdoor seating, and the weather works well for it. And most of the eating areas were in cute little plazas/courtyards, with mostly pedestrian traffic, and not loud cars or trucks polluting the setting. It almost didn't matter what you were eating - the setting was such that every meal was perfect. Though since most meals involved a pitcher of sangria or a bottle of wine, that may have figured into it too...

So it was a great trip and we saw a lot for the amount of time we had. We also walked a lot. Every town we stopped in was extremely pedestrian-friendly. So in spite of the fact that most of my top ten list is food related, I did not gain a bit of weight since we were walking so much. I definitely hope to go back, but will wait til I have more time and the dollar is doing better against the euro. Even still, I expect that Coca-Cola will always cost more than wine in Spain, but I can handle that.

* Vegetarians, please accept my apologies, but I really can't help it. No tofu-derived product could ever convert me after these experiences.

No passport required...Part 2

2008-05-13T19:37:00.000-07:00

So, we landed in Fajardo, which is on the east coast of Puerto Rico and hopped in a cab to the Hotel Gran Melia. Notice I have not added a link for the Gran Melia. I just wouldn't want a link to be mistaken for an endorsement.

I should be nice. The Gran Melia had some things going for it. First, it's in Puerto Rico. Second, it has a pretty kick-ass pool complete with swim-up-bar and lounge "chairs" in the water.

Well, it has two things going for it.

Here's the thing - and believe me, the five of us have analyzed the crap out of this whole experience - in my mind, we were paying a lot of money, but apparently, as far as all-inclusive resorts go, we were actually going a bit cheap as it turns out. The Gran Melia is a family friendly resort - which means screaming children, loud music, annoying activity coordinators trying to get you to happily participate in things like dance lessons, and poolside quiz games, and yoga at the wedding chapel every single second you are there. It's not that relaxing, unfortunately. Everything about it is just mediocre. The food. The service. Even the phone system was mediocre. We escaped to San Juan on Sunday night for one last hurrah before we left and we were all as giddy as little schoolgirls. We had a fabulous meal at Tantra (see- now that place is worth a hyperlink), and a few drinks, and then negotiated a cab ride home.

And then about halfway into the 45 minute trip home, with five of us crammed in the car, the cab lost it's transmission in the middle of the highway, and we came to a screeching halt off to the side of the road (thankfully).

You have to laugh in these situations. There we were on the side of the road around midnight on our last night in Puerto Rico, waiting for the poor cab driver - who is looking at a huge repair bill - to call a friend of his from a town 15 minutes a way to come and pick us up. And pick us up she did, in her tiny little Corolla, with a lifesize baby doll in the trunk, which we all spotted when she opened the trunk to throw some stuff in, and caused a moment of startled confusion. Just a moment though, until we realized quickly that she did not have a real baby in the trunk of the car. She got us home in one piece, but it was a challenging trip, considering how we had to again cram into a car too small for 5 passengers, and considering how the road in and out of the resort had so many speedbumps that it warranted a four-wheel drive vehicle just to adequately travel the terrain.

I'm not saying we didn't have fun. I think the five of us will always share some sort of bond that will have us joking about the pilates chapel, the Activity Czar, and the dueling DJs for years to come. But at the same time, I think that given a choice, I would much rather vacation at the no frills beach with the barbeque put and some snorkeling gear to keep me entertained over the all inclusive resort any day.

Having said all of that, one of the coolest experiences of the entire trip was going to Bio Bay. But just to be clear, this was NOT associated with the resort. This was a kayaking trip we took one of the nights we were there. You start on the open water right on the ocean and in kayak pairs, following a guide, we paddle in a group through a small channel flanked by mangroves. The channel opens into a lagoon that is one of 5 places in the world inhabited by a plankton or algae (maybe they are the same thing) that photosynthesizes and gives off light when disturbed. The paddling of kayaks disturbs these little guys en masse, and the effect is so wild it's hard to describe in words. When you put your hands in the water, they basically glow. If a fish swims by, you can see a trail of light behind it, and you can see the trail of the kayaks and oars as well. A once in a lifetime experience, no doubt. I highly recommend it.

So that was our little wintertime jaunt. I highly recommend Puerto Rico as a travel destination. I'm hesitant to recommend Culebra because it still seems to be pretty sleepy and less "discovered," but considering only my friends and family are probably reading this blog, I guess it's okay to mention it. Especially because I'll be bugging people to go back when we make a return trip.

No passport required...Part 1

2008-05-13T19:33:00.000-07:00

This is embarrassing. It's MAY and I still haven't posted about my vacation in February. It's almost not even worth posting only because everyone has already heard about it, but since this is a travel blog and the trip counts as travel, I have to at least document it before I got on another trip. So if you already know all about it, humor me and relive it for a few moments...

Dave's friends take trips together every so often, and we did some talking back in November about a beach vacation. We settled on Puerto Rico, "Island of Enchantment." I can tell you that most of it was, in fact, enchanting, even the parts of it that didn't work out so well. But I'll get to that later.

Dave and I left before the rest of the party (there were five of us involved in the planning - myself, Dave, and Dave's friends John, Jill, and Clay) Feb. 20. We decided we wanted a slightly longer vacation and were interested in going off the beaten path. Just a little though. Not like trek-the-Himalayas - style off the beaten path, but just something a little different. We decided on Isla Culebra, a smallish sounding, less developed island off the east coast of Puerto Rico. It claimed great beach-front, easy-to-reach snorkeling, and bare necessities for food. That's all we really needed. We had a few hours to kill in San Juan when we arrived, so, laden with luggage, we taxied to El Morro, one of the forts built by the Spanish to defend Puerto Rico against the English and the Dutch (or "The Hollands" as out slightly English-challenged cab driver cum tour guide described to us during a later jaunt to Old San Juan).

After an hour or so checking out El Morro, and in general basking in the warm sun, we stopped at a Wendy's for lunch (I know - roll your eyes at the predictability of Americans on holiday), and headed to the junior airport in San Juan to await our Vieques Airlink flight to Culebra.

The logistics of landing in Culebra after 5pm makes things a bit difficult because many things have closed at that point. Accompanied by a woman from New Hampshire who was planning to camp at Flamingo Beach, we found our way into the "town" to look for transportation. A kind fellow who was chatting with two of approximately four policemen on the island called a taxi driver friend of his, who promised to finish his dinner quickly and meet us in 15 minutes. The details on getting us to the Culebra Beach Rentals are boring so I won't go into it.

We arrived at Playa Flamenco - Flamingo Beach - before it was dark, which was nice, because we could get really excited about what we were in for the next day. The beach was long, deep, and had the softest white sand I've ever felt. The first night we were there, we got to see most of the lunar eclipse, however the clouds rolled in about a half hour before it was full. I'm guessing some higher power was just jealous that we had found our way to such a beautiful location and didn't think it was fair to everyone back home. But we didn't mind.

Once we got moving on day 2, we headed to get a taxi back to town so that I could rent snorkeling gear, we picked up important provisions for the evening (rum) and headed back to the beach. Dave had figured out how to get to two prime snorkeling destinations, both just a 20 minute walk away from where we were. Neither beach could be accessed other than on foot, which meant that they were pretty untouched. The first stop was Playa Tamarindo. It took us a while to find the reef, but once we decided to pay attention to the obvious (dark spots in water=coral), we came upon it pretty quickly. And how cool it was. Fish everywhere, several types of coral, and even an octopus! There's nothing quite as relaxing as snorkeling on a beautiful day. Playa Luis Pena was the second one. The coral wasn't quite as nice but we had a very unique experience with some fish escorts (about five or so unidentified fish were more curious about us as we were about anything else going on and would not leave us alone the whole time we were in the water). There was something very "Disney Movie" about being followed around by these fish. It's like they were trying to tell us something.

We spend the rest of the day either laying on the beach or swinging in hammocks. Seriously - can you beat that? Don't even try. Then when we started to get hungry, we fired up the barbeque pit and started grilling. We finished the day with a beach bum gourmet meal of grilled BBQ chicken and veggies with saffron rice on the side, not to mention a few Cuba Libres.

The next day, we woke up, and did some snorkeling around Playa Flamenco, our home beach. Again, it took us a little while to find the coral, but once we found it, it was (similar to our experiences the day before) really cool. Our cool sighting of the morning was two little squid pushing their way through the water.

We checked out around late morning, and headed for Dewey, and the ferry back to Puerto Rico.

That ends part 1. I really felt like I had to separate the two sections of the trip because they were, just seriously, incredibly different.

Drum roll please...

2008-04-11T19:22:00.000-07:00

The painting...

My first piece of real art.

By "real" I mean expensive.

Next to my computer, this is the most expensive material object I own.

Yes, yes... I just looked around my apartment. It may very well be worth most of my other belongings put together.

But when you see something that moves you, even if you can't explain why, and it lodges in your mind and won't go away, sometimes a dollar amount doesn't matter as much.

Here's the artist: http://www.keikogonzalez.com/

Painting up soon

2008-03-05T18:15:00.000-08:00

I'm such a slacker. Two people (at least) were interested in seeing the painting that I bought in Bolivia, oh, six months ago. I have thought about taking a picture of it several times since, but it's usually at night (like now) when the lighting is bad. I promise to post one before the end of March.

I haven't been doing much traveling recently because in September I quit my job in international health and starting working in the domestic world. The most exciting travel I have lined up for that job will be 4 days in Philadelphia in May. I promise to post my best picture of the Liberty Bell for everyone. I did go to Miami for a weekend back in October for my goddaughter's first birthday, which was fun, of course. Dave came with me which was great, and that became beach trip number two for us (I went with him to his family beach trip in Nags Head in September). Beach trip number three was much more blog-worthy so I will write about that next.

But I promise...the picture...soon.

Fun new feature

2007-08-21T11:37:00.000-07:00

So I found this fun new map feature on some website (see right), though when I filled it out I was really dismayed to find out that, despite the fact that I call myself a travel-bug, I have only visited 8% of the world's countries. I better get on that!

Open to ideas!!!

Back in the country but still recovering

2007-07-16T11:27:00.000-07:00

Either way, I was supposed to arrive at national Airport yesterday morning. But the line between point A and point B didn't end up being as straight and smooth as I had hoped.

I left Bolivia on Friday night. The plan was: La Paz through Santa Cruz (another city in Bolivia where all American Airlines flights pass through), to Miami, then spend Saturday day and night in Miami hanging out with my friends Katrina and TJ and my beautiful goddaughter, Sophia. Then continue on home on Sunday morning from Miami.

This, however, did not quite work the way it was supposed to.

(I am not, generally, a superstitious person, however I find it appropriate to point out that I commenced travel on Friday the 13th).

Flight one: La Paz to Santa Cruz. Friday night.

The flight was delayed for two hours, so it's good that I wasn't counting on a connecting flight in Miami right away. We arrived in Santa Cruz a little after midnight, and the plan was, to drop off and pick up more passengers and continue on to Miami.

On the tarmac in Santa Cruz, we were informed that there was a mechanical problem with the plane's landing gear and they had to call in a mechanic. After periodic updates for a little while, we were asked to de-plane and await further news. Another mechanic was woken up and called in, while we lined the hallway of the Santa Cruz terminal for about two hours. At about 3:30am, we were told that the flight had been cancelled and that we should get our luggage and proceed to the check in area for hotel vouchers. By the time all of our luggage came through (including my ridiculously large painting), and we got the vouchers, it was about 6am.

We got to the hotel at 6:30, and despite thin walls (enough to hear the next door neighbor taking a shower and the gathering of dudes hanging out with some weird car alarm/horn thing that sounded like the soundtrack to something like 2001: A Space Odyssey), we were able to don earplugs and sleep for 4 hours, until we had to go back to the airport.

Flight two: Santa Cruz to Miami

Luckily this one left on time, but because of all of this mess, I obviously did not make it to Miami to spend the day with Kat and TJ and to fill my Saturday night babysitting duties. This was the most disappointing part of the trip. We got to Miami around 11, and got checked into the Airport Marriott, got some food (and much needed alcohol!) and went to bed around 1am. I could complain about how poorly stocked the plane was with beverages from Santa Cruz to Miami, but that just seems so insignificant compared to anything else. At least there were decent movies.

Flight three: Miami to DC

We woke up at 5:30 to catch an 8:30 (or so) flight from Miami. This time, the plane left on time, but did not have enough blankets for everyone who wanted one. Luckily, my co-worker, with whom I was sharing this unfortunate adventure, had snagged one for me from someone else's seat before everyone had boarded.

Baggage Claim adventure DCA.

I should point out that this entire time, we had been hauling our luggage (which included 4 checked pieces, of which one was my oversized painting and one was my overweight rolling suitcase, for which I paid a total of $144 dollars additional just to get on the plane) to and from every airport and hotel we set foot in. Everything had successfully made it out of Bolivia. But somewhere between Miami and DC, my painting was lost. I travel enough that this was not the first time luggage had been lost/delayed/misplaced/whatever, but it was the most expensive piece that had ever been lost.

Luckily by Sunday night, it had apparently been located and was scheduled for delivery. Though it's Monday at 3pm and I'm still waiting. Though I talked to the delivery guy who assured me it woudl come maybe around 7pm tonight.

I wasn't planning on taking the whole day off today, but after trying to sleep in unsuccessfully and looking around at the disaster area that is my apartment, and realizing I had no clean clothes to wear to work and no food to eat, I decided it was worth taking a day to recover. I'm sure at some point in the future I will be able to look back at this experience and laugh, but I'm not there yet.

But at least I can breathe and not get winded walking up flights of stairs. And I just went on a produce buying binge at Whole Foods. And I'm in my comfy and familiar apartment, even if it does have crap lying all over, half unpacked. And I'm not at work. So life's not all bad. But I'll be much happier when my painting arrives.

Winter is here!

2007-07-09T06:12:00.000-07:00

People kept telling me that it was going to be really cold when I was here, but up until this weekend, it hadn't been too bad. Last night it started to drizzle, and the temps went down pretty low. From the window of the apartment this morning, you could see white at teh higher altitudes. One of my co-workers just came in and told me that flights have been canceled because they got about 15 cm of snow in El Alto and they don't have any snow removing equipment. It's supposed to be rainy like this til Wednesday I think, so I will keep my fingers crossed that my flights don't get changed any for Friday night.

Taking full advantage of my last weekend...

2007-07-08T09:40:00.001-07:00

It’s Sunday and I have had a very full weekend, which is good because it’s my last weekend here. Here’s the run down of activities…

Friday night: Destination: Peña Marka Tambo

Peñas are best described (by Lonely Planet, of course) as traditional Folk Music venues, but they can definitely come to resemble variety shows of sorts. We met a former staff member and his wife and son at the Peña Marka Tambo which is on Calle Jaen, a really pretty and well-preserved colonial street near the Plaza Murillo. I didn’t stay until the end, but got a good cross-section of the entertainment. First there was a woman with a guitar who sang some traditional folk songs. She had an amazing voice and was a brilliant guitarist. Interspersed were some numbers by a folk dance troupe, which was also pretty interesting. Then there was a guy who was a (very funny) comedian, who seemed to be pretty well known by the audience. I left with a colleague before the headliner – Pepe Murillo – which was too bad, but it was already late and we were exhausted. Maybe next time.

Saturday: Destination: Tiahuanaco

Tiahuanaco is still considered to be a very important Aymara religious ceremonial center. It’s about 1 ½ hours drive from La Paz. We basically hired a taxi to drive us there, wait, and then drive us home. Not a bad deal. The ruins themselves aren’t as impressive as I had thought, but after the fact, someone told me that it is much better seen with a guide, because the history you get with a guide makes it much more interesting. I can see how that would be the case. I think the most impressive thing about the ruins was the size of some of the rocks that were used to carve figures and gateways. One of these pieces, the Gateway of the Sun, is said to weigh at least 44 tons. That’s a lot of rock to be hauling around. As in the case of most pre-Columbian ruins I have seen, the engineering that went into building these structures seems pretty amazing and advanced. You can see pictures on my flickr page, and hopefully in the next day or two I can upload them to the kodakgallery page for those of you who prefer that.

Saturday night: Destination: Mongo's Bar.

I joined our administrative assistant and her best friend to go to Mongo's, which is known as a big ex-pat hang-out, which is probably why I didn't like it too much. The bar itself is cool. The music is eclectic (when have you ever been in a bar that played J-Jo, Pink Floyd, and that song by the bloodhound gang about "you and me baby, we ain't nothin' but mammals so let'd do it like they do on the discovery channel..." not to mention endless trance-euro-techno stuff all in the same night?), but the crowd just seemed like an odd mix of people, and not as friendly a feel as other places I've been to. But it was definitely a popular place to go.

Sunday: Elizabeth (colleague) and I went to have an american style breakfast at Alexander's coffee shop and now I'm back at the apartment getting ready to do some work. This afternoon we will take a break and go with another colleague to hang out in the Zona Sur. Not that I need another shopping opportunity, but there's a big market there on the weekends apparently. Looks like the Fighting Cholitas won't happen this trip. Too bad, but I think I have fit in a good amount of activities to tide me over for a while.

Local Art, of the snooty variety

2007-07-06T16:57:00.000-07:00

I bought the most expensive souvenir I have ever purchased for myself today.

I bought art.

This art was meant to be mine. I saw this painting on the wall in the Maya MacLean Casa in San Miguel seven months ago when I was here. I contemplated buying it. I even had a dream about it. I went back to see it again, but the price tag was speaking too loudly to me at that point.

To an art connoisseur – which I am not – this painting might be unimpressive. I believe it’s an oil painting, thickly coated with brilliant reds, yellows and oranges. It’s maybe about 5x5ft. big. It’s by a Bolivian artist who was trained in the US named Keiko Gonzales.

But when I found out I was coming back to Bolivia, I thought about this shop and I thought, if that painting is still there, I should buy it.

And there it was...

I didn’t have to buy it. I certainly would have survived without it. It was an investment that will cut back my food budget for the next few months (which is okay. I need to lose some weight anyway!).

But I have a big blank white wall in my apartment that has been screaming for a piece of art to be hung for many, many months, and it will make my little home feel a little more complete. And it will remind me of a place I have visited. And no one will have the same piece of art in their house, anywhere. All those reasons are good enough for me.

Now the big question is, how am I going to get it home...

Happy Fourth of July

2007-07-04T08:25:00.000-07:00

Wish I were there eating burgers and hot dogs and potato salad and beans, etc... with everyone. But alas, here I am at work, while you guys are all probably preparing to go to picnics or the pool, or you are still asleep, or getting ready for fireworks. Poor me. ;-)

Enjoy the festivities today!

If you are an ex-pat like me (at least currently), I hope you are having a lovely day at the office!

12 hours to see a bunch of salt

2007-07-02T18:35:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend, I traveled through the southern Altiplano (highlands) to Uyuni. This is what the Lonely Planet guide has to say about this area:

“Stretching southward from La Paz to the Chilean and Argentine frontiers is a harsh, sparsely populated wilderness of scrubby windswept basins, lonely peaks, and almost lifeless salt deserts. …The moment the sun sets – or even passes behind a cloud – you’ll realize this air has teeth… Those who live on the Altiplano are among the world’s hardiest souls, existing on the edge of human endurance…. They deserve a great deal of respect for their accomplishments.”

I personally feel like I, too, deserve a great deal of respect for going there and surviving for just a weekend. To get to Uyuni, one travels 3 ½ hours in bus from La Paz to Oruro. Then it’s a further 7 hours in a dusty and cold train to Uyuni. The miserableness of the train travel was compounded by the fact that the DVD player (or maybe DVDs?) were not fully functional, so during the trip, I watched from ½ to ¾ of three different movies, dubbed in Spanish, none of which I would have ever bothered to watch in the US. I sat next to a slightly melancholy Italian woman who seemed to think her blend of some Spanish and mostly Italian was enough to have a variety of small conversations with me during the trip. She meant well. I smiled and nodded a lot.

I was met at the train station by someone from one of the various travel agencies that arranged this trip (as a team, I guess), and taken to the hotel. He showed me to my room and turned on the “heater.” The heater didn’t do much, and the hotel was made from adobe (mud walls, basically), and it was very, very cold. Let me describe how cold it was. I had three blankets on my bed, which I doubled because it was a queen or full sized bed. I also wore to bed my pants, my running lycra pants under them, two pairs of socks, alpaca wool leg warmers, a long sleeved tee shirt, two sweaters, my hat, and earmuffs. Oh, and my scarf and gloves. I managed to sleep okay.

I mucked around in town for about an hour or so before the day trip to the Salar (salt flats) left and bought a few souvenirs. I ended up on a tour with a very nice group of people: a Swiss packpacker traveling alone, a very cute Canadian couple, and a mom and daughter team of Brazilians, the daughter being a theater actress living in Sucre and mom being a visitor. All very nice.

Our first stop was the Train Graveyard. Interesting, but not much of a story behind it. Then we drove to the small town that’s right at the entrance to the Salar. I did my fair share of supporting the local economy, based almost entirely on salt and alpaca products. Then we drove out to the flats. It was very cool. I mean, yes, in a temperature sense, but also in a sense of being really neat, awe-inspiring, other-worldly. For as far as the eye could see, it was white. We stopped in a few places on the flats and then drove to Isla Incahuasi or Isla de los Pescadores – Island of the Fisherman. It’s literally an island (one of several dozen) that was left behind when the salt water sea evaporated into the flats, and managed to sustain life in the form of mostly cacti and other scrubby, desert plants. The rock formations on the island were actually coral at one point when the area was covered in water. We hiked around on the island for a while and then started driving back, stopping a few more places along the way.

At that point, I was feeling like the trip had been worthwhile.

We got back to Uyuni around 6, and I made plans to meet the Canadian couple for dinner at 7. We found our way to Minuteman Pizza, inexplicably good pizza, inexplicably owned by a dude from Amhert, Massachusetts. Then we, along with another Canadian couple, went to the Arco Iris restaurant/pub for a drink or two before we all went our separate ways and I headed to the train station around 11pm to catch my midnight train back to Oruro.

The train was even colder than the hotel. The conductor handed out blankets. I was wearing the same amount of layers that I had worn the night before, except this time I was wearing an additional alpaca wool hat that I had purchased, along with three pairs of legwarmers (one pair on my legs, one pair on my feet and one pair on my arms). I did not sleep at all. We got to Oruro and luckily I didn’t have long to wait til the bus came. But with the bus came another bad American movie dubbed into Spanish that only worked until about 2/3 of the way through when a cable seemed to become disconnected, and no one bothered to tell the driver to do something about it.

I got home around noon on Sunday, took the hottest shower I could possibly stand, and slept for 4 hours. I felt like a new woman after that.

So the to and fro were horrible and uncomfortable, but hopefully the pictures speak for themselves about how incredible this place was once I actually got there. Definitely a unique experience that I will probably not have again. But, if the chance does come up, I’ll be bringing a sleeping bag. No doubt about it.

Pictures, Pictures

2007-06-26T08:39:00.000-07:00

I couldn't get the kodak gallery stuff to cooperate, so if you want to check out some pictures from my first week, take a look at my Flickr page:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/amyspix/sets/72157600498533112/

This link will take you directly to the Bolivia 2007 set. I haven't gotten a chance to put captions on everything, but will try to do so during the week.

I think the pictures next week will be more interesting. This first week, I didn't do a whole lot. At least not a whole lot that was worth taking pictures of!

pictures tomorrow

2007-06-24T13:03:00.000-07:00

Okay, so the connection at the internet cafe is worse than at work, so I have been sitting here for about an hour just trying to upload pictures: I give up. I´ll do it tomorrow.

Caught in the San Juan Crossfire

2007-06-24T12:23:00.000-07:00

If I didn´t know that this weekend marked the Fiesta de San Juan, I would have thought that La Paz was under attack. I learned at a dinner party on Friday night that the celebratin used to be marked by huge bonfires in the streets, but luckily, some sort of Smokey-the-Bear typed movement to ban bonfires got pretty active. So now the preferred method of celebrating is by shooting off massive amounts of fireworks (probably of the variety found at South of the Border, but definietly not of the variety found in suburban northern VA!) all over the city until late into the night. What this results in is lots of explosion-type sounds filling the air, along with the scent of gunpowdery-smoke. You can see why it would have been a little scary if I hadn´t known about San Juan. Even so, every so often something would explode so close by, I had these images of having a bottle rocket come right through my bedroom window. It´s not the same as being bombed, obviously, but still, when you are curled up in bed trying to stay warm and sleep, the last thing you want is a firework projectiling through your window.

Though it´s kind of cool looking out my window at the outlying areas of La Paz and up into El Atlto and just seeing random fireworks go off all over the place.

Other than that, I went to a really fun dinner party on Friday night, and then I went to the National Art Museum yesterday. The art museum took about 45 minutes to get through. But they had some cool stuff and they allowed picture taking, so some of the pictures I´m posting are of some of my favs in the gallery. So it has been a pretty productive weekend for me, despite the fact that I didn´t get out of bed until about 1pm both yesterday and today.

Anyway, I´m in an internet cafe today trying to upload pictures. I think the internet connection here is even slower than the one in my office, which is kind of a bummer. Plus the keyboard sucks and it´s laid out spanish-style, so lots of the characters are in places I´m not used to.

So check out my pictures, link to the right - password is my last name. Hope everyone had a great weekend.

Oh, and lastly, I was feeling super-snarky about the sale of hotdogs at the Ketal the other day when I posted, but yesterday I stopped there to pick up some stuff, and everywhere I looked, folks were buyin´up those dogs. That´s the last time (well, maybe) that I´ll be snarky about something like that.

How to survive the longest night of the year, Bolivian Style

2007-06-21T16:14:00.000-07:00

What do people in developing countries with predominantly indigenous populations do to get through the winter (here) solstice? The shortest day of the year? Sometimes referred to (though I think they are off by a few degrees) as the coldest night of the year?

They barbeque.

Um, duh?

At least that’s what the local supermarket thinks. Consider the flyer that got placed in my grocery bag this week:

KETAL TIENE LOS MEJORES PRODUCTOS
PARA LA NOCHE MAS FRIO DEL AÑO.

So, Ketal, the supermarket, claims to have the best products for the coldest night of the year.

What are these great products that I must have to get me through the frozen night, you might ask? Well, let me tell you what items Ketal has on sale. For very special sale prices, you can buy the following items:

Combo 1 Extra: with 24 hot dog buns, 24 extra large hot dogs, ketchup, mayonnaise, napkins, and two 2L bottles of Coca Cola. (Combos 2-5 seem to contain similar items, except for 4, which throws in sauerkraut for the dogs)

Chorizo (spicy or mild) by the kilo.

Red wine

Singani, which is a grape based liquor that you generally mix with Sprite, so of course, the Pack Casa Real includes a bottle of Singani, a 2L bottle of Sprite, and a glass.

Oh, and you can also buy Marshmallows. And of course, charcoal.

Man, if only Ketal would consider having this sale in another week and a half and I would be set to celebrate the Fourth of July here.

Long distance dating has never been so entertaining...

2007-06-21T10:47:00.000-07:00

So, I admit, one of the more difficult things about leaving DC behind actually had to do with a guy. His name is Dave. He's awesome. He's everything great. He's absolutely fabulous. (And I know I'm totally embarassing him here, but he'll get over it. ;-) )I'll make it up to him somehow. Anyway, we've been spending a lot of time together over the past few months, so I knew that this trip was going to be difficult for both of us.

Luckily, Dave is a total tech-geek. I mean, the guy owns a Roomba, fer cryin' out loud. He has a ROBOT that vacuums his home!!! So before I left, I was sure to outfit myself with the latest in high tech communications devices. Now, if you have known me forever, you are probably realizing what this guy has done to me because I have never EVER been at the curve, much less ahead of the curve when it comes to adopting new technology into my life. I really did resist getting a cell phone for as long as possible. And I only just bought my first computer a little over a year ago.

So here I found myself, packing for Bolivia, with my laptop, my headset, and my webcam. Dave and I did some troubleshooting back in DC to make sure we could get everthing working, and maybe a day or two into my trip, we had already had a fairly good quality video-phone call (free of charge. Thanks, Skype!). This was actually something of a miracle because the internet is only moderately predictible most of the time.

Yesterday Dave and I had planned to talk towards the end of the day, but I was worried because all afternoon my internet connection in the office kept on going down, which did not bode well for a smooth phone call. I had thought once or twice about emailing him to say, hey, maybe we should try this another day when it's looking like a better connection, but then I realized that that day of a better connection may never come, so I decided that we should just go for it.

The first call was okay, but not great. We had audio and we had video. The video was a little shakey, but more of a problem was the incredible lag time we had.

Dave: Okay, I'm going to count to three and then you say four and we'll see how long the lag is, ready? One, two, three....

(crickets chirping...)

Amy: Four

Oh dear...Dave pointed out that at one point the lag time was approximately 30 seconds. But it made things entertaining, even if we couldn't have any sort of a real conversation. We just spent a lot of time laughing at each other, and starting to talk, and then stopping because, due to the lag, we kept interrupting each other. And then we'd just laugh again. It wasn't productive , but it was damn funny.

All of a sudden those terrible words come across my instant messenger screen...

Dave Copeland says: you froze
Dave Copeland says: no audio
Dave Copeland says: d'oh
Dave Copeland says: connection lost immediately
Dave Copeland says: no audio :*

We still have video so we can see what's going on. Dave is typing all of this for my benefit, but that sad part is, while he can't hear me, I can hear him perfectly fine. I try to tell him that. He laughs at how I just look like I'm yelling at the camera.

Amy Maura Pearson says: I'm saying I CAN HEAR YOU!!!
Dave Copeland says: hahahahah
Amy Maura Pearson says: Now I feel like a deaf person!
Dave Copeland says: I think the video is actually more fun than the audio :)
Dave Copeland says: the lag in response
Dave Copeland says: always funny for some reason
Amy Maura Pearson says: but I'm not talented enough to type and watch the video at the same time.

Remember that all of this is going on while we are both on video, but only Dave can be heard. I feel like I must look like an old soundless movie, like I should be holding up cards that say what I'm saying in between scenes.

Amy Maura Pearson says: okay - well, shoudl we quit this nonsense and try again tomorrow
Dave Copeland says: yeah, def
Amy Maura Pearson says: This is my worst nightmare
Amy Maura Pearson says: not being heard.
Amy Maura Pearson says: :
Dave Copeland says: hahahah
Dave Copeland says: I hate to click that big red hang-up button
Amy Maura Pearson says: you hang up first
Amy Maura Pearson says: hahah
Dave Copeland says: we're like in high school
Dave Copeland says: "ok on three we both hang up same time"
Dave Copeland says: hahahah
Amy Maura Pearson says: Okay - hanging up. Bye. :*
Dave Copeland says: bye!

This looks like it was a very short conversation, but it really wasn't. We spent most of the time laughing at each other and laughing at this really unfortunate state of affairs in which we have outfitted ourselves with the highest of high tech (okay, well, maybe not the highest) equipment in the hopes that it would seem like we were still right there in the same city. But, while I would much rather be able to video chat with my honey any time I want to and see his picture and hear his voice clearly, it's still pretty freaking funny to see the slow motion video, with the lagging audio (when you have audio) trying to catch up with the movement of our mouths, or just typing while we make faces at each other on the video screen. It's not ideal in terms of communication, but it will make the month go by faster. Besides, yesterday I got a local SIM card for my cell phone so I can use it here. Who knows what other high tech trouble I can get myself into while I'm here? >:-)

Warning: Vegetables May Be Hazardous to Your Health

2007-06-18T16:28:00.000-07:00

So here is the three step process to preparing vegetables in a developing country:

“Wash” them, or more accurately, remove the visible dirt from them by rinsing them in water.

Boil, fry or steam the life out of them

Continue to boil, fry or steam the life out of them for at least ten more minutes.

Then, your veggies are ready to be eaten in such a way that most likely will not cause harm to your person. The disclaimer here is most likely, because, to be honest, I’m sure there’s a more exact process out there, like how when I was in Guatemala, the general standard was that you should boil your water for no less than 20 minutes. By then it tasted so god awful due to smoke from the fire that was boiling it, you didn’t want to drink it anyway. But you knew, more or less, that it wouldn’t cause you to get sick.

There were similar rules to follow for fruits and veggies. I believe the common mantra was to never eat anything that wasn’t baked, boiled, or peeled. It definitely cuts back on your selection.

So I just got done steaming the shit out of some spinach, and now it’s cooking for about 45 minutes at 350, along with the other companion ingredients in a lasagna. That probably sounds pretty impressive. You should have seen what I was going to cook for dinner. It involved ingredients in the following picture.

But what I ended up eating (because the lasagna would be done too late to eat tonight for me) involved ingredients in the following picture.

Yes, I wimped out. See, the altitude plus the fact that I think I am fighting a bit of a cold have combined to sap all of the energy out of me. The idea of having to think about what to do with all of those ingredients plus prepare it all in such a way that it wouldn’t kill me, well, it was just too much for tonight. I’ll try to tackle it tomorrow night when I have more energy. But for now, I will wait for the lasagna to be finished, and I will look forward to eating it some other time this week. Maybe tomorrow while I’m boiling ingredients for my next Bolivian culinary adventure.

Off the beaten path tourism, maybe?

2007-06-14T09:49:00.001-07:00

So, my good friend Sarah sent me a link to this short film she saw this week. If anyone is in the DC area on Saturday, it's playing at the AFI theater in Silver Spring on Saturday morning at 10:30am. It looks fantastic. The film is described in the following way:

Bolivian indigenous peasants, la cholitas wear traditional layered skirts when slamming each other in the ring. The luchas' strength inside the ring and out is remarkable.

I mean, come on, how could you NOT want to see that???

I've suggested to my colleague, Elizabeth (who will be joining me in Bolivia for my last two weeks there) that we should go check it out. The event takes place in El Alto (a suburb of La Paz) every Sunday night. She seemed interested, but then reminded me that El Alto is ranked amongst the most dangerous cities in the world. So this may not happen. But we'll see.

Today is my last day in the office and I fly on Sunday, so more from the southern hemisphere to come soon!

Heading south again

2007-06-05T08:02:00.000-07:00

Looks like I'm heading back to Bolivia. I'm not really too thrilled about going for a variety of reasons, but I'm going to make the most of it. I'll be there for a month again, and this time it will be winter there, which will mean a pretty significant break from the DC Summer. I think the temperatures in La Paz during June and July reach a high of about 60 degrees and a low of about 30. I'll be pulling out my warm sweaters again, and supporting the local economy by stocking up on alpaca products. :-)

So along with work, which I'm *technically* being sent to do, I have my eye on a few potential weekend trips.

The first one is to the Salar de Uyuni which is in the south of Bolivia. It's the world's largest salt flats, which sounds a little weird, but check out some of the pictures and you might understand why I'm intrigued: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salar_De_Uyuni . It just looks very cool and other worldly. Certainly a unique experience.

The second one is to head to Peru and visit Machu Picchu: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machu_Picchu . I was told during my last trip that it's fairly easy to get to by bus, actually. We'll see. But who knows when I will be that close again so I might as well give it a shot.

And I will be working up a storm when I'm not being touristy too. :-) We've had some major staff changes in our project so we are headed into a bit of a transitionary time. It could be good, it could be bad. You'll have to stay tuned to find out.

I leave on June 17 and will return home on July 15.

And just as a reminder, to see the photo albums in the link on the right, the password is my last name. :-)

Not quite home, but close...

2006-12-16T21:05:00.000-08:00

I'm not quite home, but arrived back in the US on Friday afternoon. Now I'm in Miami. I met my new god-daughter yesterday. Isn't she cute? Okay, she's only 2 months old so she doesn't do much yet, but she's still pretty cute.

It's late and I'm still exahusted from traveling yesterday, even though I slept 12 hours last night. I'm a little sick, and a little stressed about how much work I have to do, but tomorrow I'll be home (DC) and start getting caught up.

I totally just got hit on by a Bolivian Rock Star...

2006-12-14T22:22:00.000-08:00

...Okay, that might be a minor exaggeration. According to some colleagues, he was indeed directing his attention towards me - that part's not so much an exagerration. However, I think it would be exaggerating to call him a Bolivian Rock Star. He is the singer of a Bolivian cover band that plays all the hits of the 70s and 80s and makes regular appearances at Fulvio's Piano Bar. They were fresh off a whirlwind tour of Peru and other parts of Bolivia, like Potosi. Their set list included the works of Pat Benetar, Kool and the Gang, and Boney M.

The flirting part was probably partially my fault. They played Gloria Gaynor. I guess I was singing along to "I Will Survive" a little too heart-felt-ly, and he noticed.

I did buy their CD though. Just for the memories.

Now it's 2:30am. I'm getting a wake up call in about 2 and a half hours and then I'm off to the airport. Now, the lyrics to "I Will Survive" take on new meaning. I'm exhausted and not looking forward to sitting in an airport again for a few hours. Though it was worth it. I'm telling you, going to Fulvio's and rocking out to Antologia... there's no better place to spend your last night in La Paz...

Holy crap! I'm almost done!!!

2006-12-13T18:13:00.000-08:00

It's about 10:15 on Wednesday night. I finished most of my packing and I have to be up bright and early for my debriefing at USAID. I think I'll probably be up late tonight trying to prep for it. Tomorrow will be a full day too, but it also sounds like one of my colleagues here wants to have a little get-together after work. Then I'm going out dancing (finally) with Denisse. Then Friday morning I leave Bolivia. I'm feeling pretty exhausted and I miss my bed, but part of me sort of wishes I had a little more time here. I mean, I've gotten a fair amount of work done, and I have seen a heck of a lot of the country, but there's still a lot leftover that I didn't have time for. For example, I understand that the city of Sucre is beautiful. I didn't get to any of the national parks. I didn't get to the Salar de Uyuni. Though I hear that this time of year isn't very good for that because it's rainy.

I'm in the process of putting up week four pictures. If you are confused about the password that kodak gallery asks for, it's my last name.

I heart llamas

2006-12-10T14:14:00.000-08:00

So Vicky and I got back this afternoon from Lake Titicaca, where we hiked, saw some Incan ruins, and contributed greatly to the growth of the local economy (in the form of me shopping for Christmas presents). We took a bus yesterday morning to Copacabana, a main town on the lake. The drive is pretty incredible. It takes you through the altiplano, with the Andes mountain range lining the way. Once we got to Copacabana, we took an hour long boat ride on the lake to get to Isla del Sol. From there, we saw some Incan ruins (Pilko Kaina), and then hiked to our hotel. It made me feel incredibly out of shape, but I have to remember, we were actually higher in altitude than La Paz, so I shouldn't be too upset that I was winded by the walk! The views of the lake from the ridge are incredible. And the island itself is interesting. There's lots of agriculture, and because it's hilly, everywhere you look, there is terrace after terrace after terrace of potatoes, or beans, or corn, or other edibles. The terraces almost make the island look like a pyramid.

We spent the night in Yumani, at a very nice little hotel called Ecolodge La Estancia. It's an ecolodge because they use solar panels to heat everything, recycle water for more than one use (not for drinking or bathing, obviously), and have constructed cabanas that are very much environmentally sound. They also have a close partnership with the local community, hiring locals for full time, part time and seasonal jobs, and sell artesania crafted locally. It's a very relaxing place.

This morning we hiked down to a different place, to see ruins called the Inca Staircase, and the "Fountain of Youth," and Inca-era spring fountain that the Spaniards thought was magical.

We stopped for lunch in Copacabana, saw the cathedral there (really pretty "moorish"-Spanish style), and did some shopping.

I just got back (only 8:30) from having dessert at the Kuchen Stube (um...I'm guessing some German influence here) where we went for tea and dessert. She lives pretty close by, which is nice. :-) You always need someone in a far away place to have dessert with from time to time!

Tomorrow morning I leave for Cochabamba. I really am looking forward to having my feet on the ground for a while after this week. I've been really lucky to have gotten the chance to see so many places, but travel really gets exhausting after a while!

Week 3 photos up...

2006-12-08T16:20:00.000-08:00

The plane from Tarija got delayed so I had some time. Not enough time to do headings, but I'll do that later...

It's a small world after all...

2006-12-08T13:14:00.000-08:00

So, we just arrived about a half hour ago at the airport in Tarija, and the have free wireless internet. How cool is that? Suddenly the world is so small!

It's weird though thinking that I can check in with friends all over the world, but just a few hours ago, we were at a clinic where the director was telling us that, for the communities in their network that are the furthest away, it can take a half a day to get to the hospital if they needed to. So maybe the world isn't so small.

We've covered pretty much the entire department of Tarija this week, at least it looks that way on a map. But it's amazing how remote some of these communities are. Despite that, or maybe because of that, I will continue to say that people in these remote places in the world are the NICEST people. We have been lucky enough to stumble upon a few annual health festivals in two of the comunities we visited and ended up being treated to lunch, and wine (boy was THAT an experience.), and conversation. In one community, they tried to get us to stay for the party that followed, with dancing and music into the night.

We met some incredibly dedicated community health workers too, which has boosted my spirits, at least, in thinking about how we are going to be able to do this program, which is very much volunteer based. My favorite was a woman in a town called Sama. Her name is Anastasia, and she has been a health volunteer for 10 years. She has 7 kids and 4 grandchildren. She gave birth to 12 kids, but 5 died. Since part of the integrated health program she works with has to do with reproductive health and family planning, she joked that family planning came late to where she is, but as we found in most of the communities, the women were very actively using family planning methods.

Anastasia took a break from tending her sheep to talk to us. She is also the owner of what may be the most content dog in Tarija, if not Bolivia in general. She had a very sweet young herding dog who watched the sheep with one eye, while getting petted by his owner. I asked Anastasia if the dog has a name. "Yes," she said. "He has a name." The dog's name is Bin Laden.

There's no way I could make that up. Somehow I think it's hysterical, in a weird, warped sort of way. And I had to share...

I'm trying to post some pictures, but it may not work out tonight. I even have pictures of Anastasia and Bin Laden.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.

From the Forgotten Corners of the World...

2006-12-07T12:34:00.000-08:00

That´s the expression that my colleague Cristina used when we were in a community this week. We are based in Tarija, but have covered quite a bit of mileage, and it does indeed seem like not too many people know about these places teh way they know about other places in Bolivia. And I mean that no one from the outside NGO world is really working here the same way they are in the Altiplano. The population is much more dispersed here, which is part of why. You don´t get as much bang for your buck I guess if you are working in these areas. It´s the same problem I had when I was in the Peten in Guatemala. The aid went to where the most people were.

So, it´s Thursday and so far we have visited 5 communities in Tarija department. The rest of my team is visiting one now while I´m stuck in an internet cafe. Tomorrow we will visit one more in the morning, maybe stop by a vineyard to visit, and then head back to La Paz.

It´s exhausting but energizing at the same time. I´m sure many of you have felt this way about work. If you have, you know how lucky you are.

I´m also totally loving the weather here. It´s hot and sunny. Just teh way I like it. All the other women are complaining about the heat, because they are used to the coolness of La Paz. Not me!

I´m trying to finish work to head back to the hotel. I´ll try to write more over the weekend. I´ll post pictures by next wednesday. I have taken so many this week, that I´m trying to edit back. I managed to become the official team photographer so I have managed to document probably far too much.

I´ll work on having something more pithy and profound to say next time I write. For now, I´m tired. I hope everyone is having a great week.

Not quite Che - quality adventure, but close?

2006-12-03T08:42:00.000-08:00

The Plan…. To travel all over Tarija Department
The Goal… To visit in four days 5 or 6 different communities who will be implementing the basic health package that we are working on.
The Method…Improvisation

Okay, so we aren’t quite the adventurers that Guevara and Granados were, but I do feel like we are headed on an adventure, and since it’s South America, I couldn’t help thinking about the opening to The Motorcycle Diaries. (A good movie to rent, by the way. And I swear that has nothing to do with my mild obsession with Gael Garcia Bernal…) Besides, the connections are many: They started their journey in Argentina, who’s border we will be a stone’s throw from at least for a day, and Ché’s life ended in Bolivia. And the two of them did pass some time as health workers. Como yo…

So here’s the plan: In about 2 hours, I leave La Paz by air and land an hour later in Tarija. Monday we will travel to a few communities around Tarija. Tuesday we drive to Bermejo, which is close to the Argentine border. Wednesday we drive to Entre Rios, Thursday back to Tarija. Back to La Paz on Friday.

At least I think that's the plan.

I might be missing part of that, but whatever the plan ends up being, we are going to cover a fair amount of territory in just a few days. The main goal is to familiarize ourselves with the communities where we are going to be supporting health programs that local NGOs will be implementing.

It’s going to be a big change from La Paz. My lungs are psyched. Tarija’s altitude is just under 2,000 meters, significantly lower than La Paz. Bermejo is a mere 415 meters. It’s also hot down there. Not that La Paz is cold right now, but down south it’s going to be swampy-feeling I think. Tarija and surrounding area is wine country for Bolivia, boasting the world’s highest vineyards. Bermejo is petroleum country.

That’s about all I know. It seems that there might be spotty internet access, but I’m not counting on it, nor am I counting on the time to do it. But hopefully next weekend (Yikes! That’ll be my last weekend here) I will have some good pictures and stories of my little adventure down south.

Have a great week, everyone!

All sorts of goings on in La Paz

2006-12-02T17:03:00.000-08:00

First stop this morning was to visit our project's Chief of Party. He lives in the Zona Sur in an apartment, but he is building a house in the neighborhood where it seems all of the diplomats live. The American Ambassador is a few streets over. Then we went out to lunch in San Miguel.

Everyone wants to show me around San Miguel, yet it barely seems to be mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide. I think I need to write to them.

After that, I took a nap and then went to the fourth annual Feria de Chocolate. Wow. I can't believe THAT's not in the Lonely Planet guide either. What's wrong with these people??? I think there were something like 30 different producers of chocolate with exhibits. Many of them were Bolivian companies, but then there was a Brazilian company there, along with Lindt (Swiss) and a booth with M&Ms. They even had a stage where someone was creating a chocolate sculpture.

And yes, of course I purchased. Duh.

I was going to go off to experience La Paz nightlife tonight with Denisse but she just called - a child care problem has come up and we have to put off our night out until next Friday. So I think I'll try to get some shopping in tomorrow before leaving for the field.

Rockin out for World AIDS Day

2006-12-01T18:46:00.000-08:00

December 1 was World AIDS Day. It's a day where organizations all over the world take the opportunity to educate people about AIDS and HIV: what it is, what causes it, what doesn't cause it, and how to avoid it. Latin America doesn't have as big a problem as other developing countries, which puts it in a reasonable position to hopefully keep it that way.

In La Paz, there is an outdoor ampitheather fairly close to where I'm staying. Advertisements in the newspaper showed that a bunch of bands were playing, so I decided to go check it out. It's always intersting to see if these events really do much to raise awareness or if they are just an excuse for a free concert.

By the time the show started, the ampitheather was about halfway full, which, considering the fact that it started raining before the first band took the stage, was pretty impressive. Volunteers were handing out condoms and educational literature on the way in. It was a fairly diverse crowd - probably the majority were teenagers, but I did see some older women bringing their kids, which I thought was pretty cool.

Most of the people around me were part of a couple, which meant I had to deal with far too much kissing and couples draping themselves all over each other. Not to sound like an 8 year old on the playground (eewww cooties!), but it's something about the culture that I really do not like much. But since it was raining, my umbrella made a very nice gringa-soltera protective bubble around me, so I could block it out. ;-)

By the time the first band - Veneno - started playing, the crowd was restless and most of the distributed condoms has been blown up into balloons and launched into other areas of the audience. The first band was very popular, a combination of cumbia, reggaeton, and maybe some ska. They were definitely fun to watch. It did get a little tiresome, when in between each song, there was a recording of that deep, radio advertisement announcer voice saying "Veneno...." Every time.

In between bands, there were two screens on either side of the stage that played clips of testimonials from people living with HIV, and educational information about how it is transmitted, or not transmitted. For example, "It is 0% possible to transmit HIV by shaking someone's hand..." Then the organizers introduced the Bolivian Army, whose members were going to perform an educational skit - or sociodrama. There were big boos from the crowd for that, but some people sort of seemed to pay attention once they started. I just got a kick out of seeing army guys dressed up as white blood cells, viruses, condoms, and syringes acting out the whole HIV process.

I left about halfway through the second band - Calle 4 - even though I really liked them. But it was pouring down rain at that point, and I had a long day at work and needed to get home. When I left, it was around 9:30, and despite the rain, people were still coming in. I'm told that the other two bands - Azul Azul and Dezaire - are both pretty good. I'll have to catch them another time.

Becoming Fluent

2006-11-30T12:14:00.000-08:00

Our receptionist, Denisse, just got my attention. "Amy," she said, and then very deliberately, "It's raining cats and dogs." Then she looked at me expectantly. I laughed and said, "You are absolutely right! it IS raining cats and dogs!" So she said, "so that's a real expression?" Yes, I told her. She was very proud to have used it correctly.

Denisse's English is excellent, much better than my Spanish is. Occasionally she confuses verbs, or other minor things, but in general, it's really good. And it's her third language too - her second is French.

This also made me think of a conversation I had with Alejandro on Saturday. He was an exchange student for a while in California, where he grew to love Sprite, Ranch dressing, and KFC. As part of his language experience, he also apparently learned a full repertoire of "momma jokes," which he proceeded to share with me, giggling after he delivered each joke.

People often ask me if I'm fluent in Spanish. I don't think I am. Or rather, maybe I have a certain level of functional fluency, but to be truly fluent, you have to be able to add in idiomatic expressions or use local humor, or even use sarcasm in another language. I can do some of this, but not frequently enough. To these fluency requirements, I might also add that you have to be able to argue in the language, and really argue your point. Because to do that requires that you understand 100% of what the other person is saying. I think my level of understanding usually hovers around 80%. Not great for arguing with someone.

Not that 80% is too shabby, considering I haven't spent years living in a Spanish speaking country and I don't use the language on a day to day basis. People understand me, and I understand them. I get around just fine and I can do my job. But it still contributes to my end-of-the-day exhaustion because sometimes I really have to focus and think hard about what's being said or what I'm trying to say. My brain translates some of the more simple day to day conversations automatically, but not everything comes that easy.

Maybe Alejandro will teach me the "momma joke" equivalent in Spanish before I leave. :-)

Pictures Up

2006-11-26T12:32:00.000-08:00

That's all I have to say. See the link to the right - when asked for a password, use my last name. If you don't know my last name, you shouldn't be reading my blog anyway! ;-)

I went out to lunch today with Denisse and her family. We were going to go to the Lake, but her husband hurt his foot playing soccer yesterday so he can't drive long distances. But I swear, if someone takes me to any more of these huge "tipica" meals, I'm going to gain weight while I'm here. Ugh.

I have to admit, for the record, I'm really disappointed in the Lonely Planet Bolivia guide. I have the 2004 version of it and so far I have been taken to tons of places (either for eating or shopping) that aren't even listed. They don't even have a map of the Zona Sur, where San Miguel is. Maybe I'm reading it wrong or missing something. Anyway, disappointing. I'm trying to keep lots of notes.

Dia del turismo

2006-11-25T17:21:00.000-08:00

Today was a big day. I went to visit the markets on Sagarnaga Street, which is in central La Paz, an area referred to as El Prado. It's the main shopping area in La Paz for artesania. It rained a little bit in the morning, but not for very long. In general the weather has been GREAT here. I was under the impression that it would be really rainy, but it has been warm (relatively speaking, since it's probably about the same temperature as DC is now) and dry. The church in the picture is Iglesia de San Francisco. It's pretty run down but looks like it's being renovated.

After doing some shopping (I may have mentioned this, but because I get home the weekend before Christmas, I feel like I should take advantage of the time and do my shopping here) at the market with my colleague, Elsa, we went to meet a friend of her's and her son, Alejandro, for lunch. I can't remember the name of the restaurant, but it was not a place where a vegetarian would be comfortable (as most of you know, I am not a vegetarian). The food was traditional food from Chuquisaca, which is south of here, just north of Tarija. Recommendations were made for food that wouldn't be too spicy. The plate that came was filled with more meat than I have probably ever eaten at one sitting. There was chicken, pork, sausage, two large potatoes, and tripe. Yes, tripe. Being the trooper that I am, I tried it. I did not like it. I ate what I thought was a significant part of what was on my plate, but my lunchmates were unimpressed. But Elsa's dog is going to eat well tonight as a result. I tried, I really did, but I guess I'm just not used to that much meat. Still, I feel that I made an honorable attempt.

Luckily after lunch, we got some walking in. Elsa and Alejandro walked me close enough to where I'm staying that they could point me in an easy direction home. I didn't stay in for long. I backtracked to where we had been, in an area called Miraflores. There's a big park on top of a hill that overlooks the city. Great for pictures as well as people watching. Miraflores Park seems to be a very popular place on weekends, especially for families with kids. So I hung out in the park for a while and then came home. Exhausted.

Tomorrow's plans are up in the air. If the weather is nice, I'm going to Lake Titicaca with our receptionist and here family. If it rains, we'll have lunch here, and maybe I'll hit the Witches Market. I had hoped to do that today, but I ran out of time.

Good grief. It's 9:30pm, and I'm still feeling full from lunch. I guess the diet gurus aren't kidding when they say protein fills you up!

Oh, and tomorrow night I'll post my first week's worth of photos. Stay tuned...

I had spinach and cheese ravioli for Thanksgiving lunch. What did you have?

2006-11-23T10:36:00.000-08:00

I feel like when I wrote that blog entry this morning, I wasn't feeling so reflective. Now I am feeling it a little more. Perhaps it was because I just spent lunch with a few colleagues who wanted to know what the history of Thanksgiving was and why we celebrate it. It seems that Americans (of the US variety) have exported some ideas about Thanksgiving to countries in Latin America, so everyone seems familiar with it and wants to do something to celebrate it. For us, that meant going out for Italian food, but hey - that works for me. My colleague Vicky is going home to Honduras this weekend, and she was planning on making a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner for her family to celebrate her husband's birthday. She is going there, armed with my recipes for cranberry-pineapple sauce and apple-cornbread stuffing. She's very excited about it.

I guess the idea of a day where you spend your time with friends and family eating lots of good food and reflecting on the good things in your life is universally appealing.

Well I hope everyone is having a great day and eating lots of turkey (or ham if you don't like turkey), and if you are lucky enough to have Cope's corn and green bean casserole, well, I say you've had a good day.

Today I'll give thanks for having a great family and friends, and the good fortune to explore far away places in the world, while at the same time (hopefully) making a difference in the lives of the people there. I know how lucky I am.

Feliz Thanksgiving

2006-11-23T05:10:00.000-08:00

I have to admit, it's a little strange being in another country again during Thanksgiving. And this year is a lot less Thanksgiving-y than last year. Last year I was in Kampala. Because it was a USAID project, the office was closed on Thanksgiving day, so I gathered with a whole lotta American ex-pats (and one German who was thrilled with the discovery of pumpkin pie - Happy Thanksgiving Ruth, if you are reading this!) to eat, drink and be merry the good old American way.

Here, the office is open for business, since the little piece of the project I'm working on is really the only USAID part of the deal.

But in honor of Thanksgiving, here are some interesting facts about one of the favorite Thansgiving foods that you all will probably be eating tonight. The Mighty Potato (Sara S. - this is dedicated to you):

There are nearly 4000 varieties of potato found in the Andes that come from 8 different species.

Scientists believe they were first domesticated about 8000 years ago around Lake Titicaca.

There are lots of ceremonies associated with the potato harvest, for example:

"Ritual ceremonies marked by singing, dancing, and drinking still take place throughout the year to ensure a successful harvest. Young men playfully drag young women across potato fields to make the land fertile. Cow horns and flutes are played to cheer on the plants and bring rains." (From National Geographic News, online)

Hmmm, being a young woman, I'd better stay away from those young guys when I go visit the lake. I don't know what time of year they drag women across the potato fields, but that's not a cultural experience I want to have!

I hope everyone enjoys their turkey today. Happy Thanksgiving.

Just some random stuff...

2006-11-21T16:11:00.000-08:00

Ode to Coca Tea
A Haiku…

Green leaf wakes me up,
You give me a nifty buzz,
Can I export you?

I also learned a new word today (Thanks cdc.gov!):

Paresthesias: A skin sensation, such as burning, prickling, itching, or tingling, with no apparent physical cause.

This word explains why my foot fell asleep while I was in bed last night and why my feet feel asleep during a meeting this morning. It also explains why my nose tingles when I touch it. It’s apparently one of the side effects of the Diamox. Well, I think tomorrow morning is the last dose I really need to take anyway.

Dia Uno

2006-11-20T16:57:00.000-08:00

Greetings from La Paz! I made it here in one piece – after sitting in planes and airports for a full 24 hours last year to go to Uganda, this trip was a piece of cake. I arrived at the airport in El Alto/La Paz at about 6:40 this morning. I know I mentioned that La Paz is the highest capital city in the world, but maybe what’s more impressive is that El Alto is the highest commercial airport in the world. And flying in over the Andes is pretty damn impressive. I don't have any impressive pictures yet. In the meantime, this is one of the views from my room.

So here are some of my initial observations:

I get a warm fuzzy feeling when I see evidence of student socialist groups. They have been in every Latin American country I have visited. They graffiti up the walls with things like “Long live the revolution” and “Free university tuition for all” and other related thoughts. I guess it makes me nostalgic for the days when I was young and idealistic and naïve about the way the world works.
I get a slightly disturbing warm fuzzy feeling from the smell of diesel car fumes. Again, I associate the smell with my travels in developing countries, which I’m sure is why I feel warm and fuzzy when I smell the absence of emissions standards. Here, I could also blame it on the fact that I’m already challenged in getting enough oxygen to my brain, so maybe there are a few variables at work.
Being in a car or trying to cross a street here are both extremely frightening experiences. They can be in other countries too, but here, the traffic lights and lines to denote lanes on the road are definitely viewed as suggestions rather than rules. I haven’t seen it quite this extreme in other countries.
I’m slightly disappointed with my first high altitude experience. I really thought I would have some hard core survival stories, but so far I haven’t had much of a problem. Just tired and a little out of breath, but if you saw how hilly this city is, you’d be out of breath regardless of how high the altitude was.

Beyond that, I’m (finally!) excited about being here! I’m settled in to Vicky’s apartment and I have a fabulous view from the 13th floor. We’ve already talked about a variety of non-work plans. There’s a cool looking Jazz bar right next to the office that we are going to try to go to sometime while I’m here, the receptionist is going to take me out dancing with her friends, I get to go to the field in early December (Tarija is one of the areas where we are working. See the southern part of the handy little map I posted), and Vicky and I are going to go to Lake Titicaca the weekend after that. And so far, from what I’ve seen of La Paz, it’s a really cool city. I can’t wait to do some exploring.

I’ll write again at the end of the week. I don’t think there will be much other than lots of meetings for the next two days. And I know that no one wants to hear about that!

You can't make people healthy if you can't breath...

2006-11-13T12:48:00.000-08:00

Not to freak anyone out, but this travel gig to La Paz is considered pretty heavy duty in terms of health effects. This is mainly due to altitude. The following is an excerpt from my official concurrence cable:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6. Medical -- Attention! Very Important!

Altitude: The altitude of La Paz is between 10,000 feet and 13,400 feet (4,075 meters) above sea level. The altitude alone poses a serious risk of illness, hospitalization, and even death, if you have a medical condition that affects blood circulation or breathing.Adjustment to Altitude: All people, even healthy and fit persons, will feel symptoms of Hypoxia (lack of oxygen) upon arrival at high altitude. Most people will have increased respiration and increased heart rate. Many people will have headache, difficulty sleeping, lack of appetite, minor gastric and intestinal upsets, and mood changes.

The Health Unit strongly/strongly recommends taking Acetazolamide (Diamox), 125 mg twice a day -- starting one day before traveling, on the day of the trip, and two to three days after arriving at high altitude. This medication has a slight diuretic effect, and stimulates respiration. Diamox cannot be taken by pregnant women and nursing mothers. Consider that many health care providers in the U.S. are not familiar with high altitude medicine, don’t let them dissuade you from taking the Diamox. If you have a severe allergy to sulfa, you may not be able to take Diamox.

Avoid alcohol and smoking for at least one week after your arrival.
Limit physical activity for the first 36 to 48 hours after your arrival.
For those who exercise, expect that you will not be able to perform your normal routine for several weeks. Please start slowly!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, I guess as long as weakened appetite goes along with inability to do exercise, it should all even out, right? And I'm also glad to hear that I can blame "mood changes" on altitude too. That's refreshing.

I've got my prescription for diamox, but the recommendation has been made (like my use of passive voice in order to avoid identifying anyone?) that I should try the coca tea when I get there.

One week to go!

Just can't wait to get on the road again...

2006-11-02T11:45:00.000-08:00

It has been far too long since I've done any traveling, but finally I'm off again. After several months of planning and cancelling, I'll be leaving on November 19 for Bolivia. I'll be there for about a month, which should be plenty of time to work and to play. I picked up the Lonely Planet travel guide yesterday and have already started to fold down pages.

Here are some facts about Bolivia:

It is South America's poorest country, with 70% of the population living in poverty

Over 50% of the population are indigenous, with Aymara and Quechua being the largest groups.

La Paz is the highest capital city in the world at about 12,000 ft (3,657 m)

The country has had more coups d'etat than any other country, with approximately 60 coups in its history.

Despite how poor it is, the country has LOADS of natural resources, including natural gas, iron, and magnesium.

It is the world's third largest cultivator of coca.

Che Guevara was killed here in 1967.

This time I have set up my pictures on a webpage and hopefully I will be able to take lots of pictures there to update frequently. The link is on the right of this page. It will ask you for a password, which is my last name. If anything exciting comes up, I'll write, but otherwise, tune in after Nov. 19 to hear about my adventures in the southern hemisphere!

Dispatch from Kentucky

2006-06-04T18:58:00.000-07:00

I took a very interesting trip last week. I went with a colleague to Kentucky to work on a childhood obesity prevention project in eastern and southern Kentucky. It was fascinating stuff. I think as well-educated, well-resourced adults, we around here already have a difficult enough time preventing obesity - or in some cases, just trying to get rid of 10 pounds of beer weight or resisting a bagel or whatever.

But out where we were working, there are no sidewalks, there are very few ball fields, and there are a lot of mountains and winding roads. Apparently the only folks who go walking in the woods are the ones that you don't want your kids to be near anyway, so hiking is out of the question. The economy is tougher than in many places. The main money makers are found in coal mines and meth labs. We were told that marijuana is one of Kentucky's largest cash crops these days. The nearest place to go grocery shopping isn't close, and if you are lucky enough to get there, you may not have money or food stamps left by mid-month anyway. So trying to tell people that they should exercise more or eat more fruits and vegetables really doesn't work very well.

Pretty much all of the kids in the areas where we worked get school breakfast and school lunch, but it's not always healthy either. For lunch on the last day of training, we had fried pork chops, mashed potatoes with gravy (real gravy!), cornbread stuffing, peas (canned), and coleslaw. What makes this way of eating especially hard to change is that, in an area where parents are poor and want to spoil their kids however they can, good parenting is symbolized by one's ability to feed their kids traditional comfort foods. Talk about a tough habit to break!

It's not that I haven't seen this sort of setting domestically before. When I was in high school, the church youth group went to the Virginia part of Appalachia every year for work camp, so I've seen these settings before. Still, in a way it's even more difficult to see in this country because as a country we are so wealthy, yet so many people live like this.

For what it's worth, though, I should tell you that Eastern Kentucky has a beauty to it that I bet most people don't see. The air is clean, the mountains and forests are damn scenic, and we happened to have great weather too. I'd love to go back. After all, those really are my neighbors out there, and I'd like to give them a hand.

Reversing the Cultural Exchange

2006-06-02T08:14:00.000-07:00

I'm still here in DC. But that doesn't mean I can't get interesting and enlightening cultural exchanges happening.

Every year during this week, there is a big global health conference in DC. People come from all over the world to attend panel discussions, round table events, networking opportunities, and all sorts of professional improvement activities. They also come to shop.

One of my colleagues from when I was in Uganda is here. It's his first time in the US, and boy is he having a good time. We have introduced him to the finer things that the US has to offer, including Best Buy, Payless Shoes, and Chipotle burritos. He really likes the carnitas burritos. In the office we have also introduced him to some very good chocolate cake and iced tea. And yesterday we went shopping at Filene's Basement.

He is a bit overwhelmed by everything, but is embracing it all at the same time. And he has had some very funny observations about Americans. I'll share my favorite commentary:

We were waiting for the metro yesterday and I said to him, "Onesmus, you have experienced the metro system in DC, in New York City and in Boston. You are now an expert!" He laughed and said, "Yes, but no one in Uganda will believe me when I tell them that you travel like rats!"

Yes indeed - they will hear that Americans travel to and from work through a network of underground tunnels. What I am most proud of though, is that I have educated yet another outsider that one should always stand right, walk left on the escalator, and wait until people have exited the train before boarding. If he goes home having learned nothing else, I will still feel that I have been a succesful tour guide.

Feet back on the ground

2006-03-07T13:04:00.000-08:00

I arrived home on Sunday night after a great trip. If anyone ever deserves a great host award, it's Norma and Rick. Thanks guys!

Though the weather was cold, I highly recommend hitting Tilburg during Carnival. The potent alcohol makes it easier to prounce things in Dutch, and it's a great excuse to wear cool fluttery gold eyelashes.

Now I am back home, and my next big adventure is... Jury Duty.

But I'm under oath to not talk about that, so there will be no blogging on that matter! ;-)

Not your typical tourist destination

2006-03-03T13:39:00.000-08:00

So, Norma and I went to Amsterdam on Wednesday and saw all sorts of great artwork in the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum. I went back yesterday to see the Anne Frank House, and to take a canal boat tour. All of these stops were impressive and, especially in the case of the Anne Frank House, very profound. But none of these stops were quite like the stop I took on my own yesterday in the Red Light District.

Now, if you think you know what I am referring to, you probably don't. I am one of probably very few Americans who have made the trip here and did not go to a "coffee house" or smoke pot in any other establishment.

What I did do though, was to stop off at the Prostitute Information Center. I have to say it was truly fascinating.

The PIC is in the heart of the Red Light District, where, at the time I stopped, I was the only woman present who was not scantily clad and motioning suggestively in a storefront window. Norma and I had walked by it the day before, and I was very curious but it was closed (lucky for Norma!) so I came back. I walked through the door of what ended up looking like just about any other gift shop in Amsterdam. There were postcards, books for sale, maps, pamphlets of frequently asked questions, and condoms.

Okay, most of the other gift shops probably don't sell condoms.

The PIC is staffed by a former prostitute (that's their term - my public health colleagues would beat me if they thought I was jumping on W's terminology bandwagon by not referring to them as "Commercial Sex Workers") who was very nice, and offered to answer any questions I had. So, of course, I started asking. In case you didn't know, sex work is legal here.

Here's what else I learned about sex work in Amsterdam:

They are all free-lancers, and would get their start by talking to the landlord who owns the windows. The literature in the PIC says that they are supposed to have certificates showing they have gone through health screenings, but that's not really enforced, and there isn't a certain period of time during which they need to get "renewed." There are free clinics for health screenings and STD treatments that the PIC can refer prostitutes to (or clients), and they have a loosely organized group called the Dutch Sex Workers Network, which serves as something of a support organization. However, I was told that the level of supportiveness from one's colleagues very much depends on each place. Just like any other place of employment, you might luck out and get supportive co-workers. Or they might just see you as competition. But sometimes these groups are useful, because, as the woman I spoke with pointed out, you have to totally separate your feelings from your work and realize that "sex is not the same as love."

Basically, as she explained it, they are in it for the money, plain and simple. As she pointed out, if you get a job as a cashier at a supermarket, you aren't doing it because it's fun or interesting. You are just doing it for the money. I asked her if there was any sort of blanket policy on condom use. She said no, but "if they take the work seriously, they use a condom, because otherwise they get sick and can't work." But, she admitted, if men find out that someone isn't insisting on it, they will more likely go to that prostitute.

There were many more questions I wanted to ask, but I didn't. Two women came in while I was there and asked the woman for information about a Hep B screening that was going on. She gave them written information and told them where to go.

There's probably more that I learned but just am not remembering as I write this. For more information you can go to their website: www.pic-amsterdam.com . I haven't actually looked at it yet - that's just listed in the information sheet they gave me.

And sorry, I didn't take any pictures.

Department store culture shock

2006-02-28T08:03:00.000-08:00

There's a rumor that Americans are much more prudish than Europeans. That we seem much more uncomfortable with all things sexual. We try to protect ourselves and others from exposure to these things and we make everything even remotely sexual sound like it's wrong, evil, or immoral.

Quite some time ago, if you lived in the Washington, DC metro area, you probably heard about the Victoria's Secret display at Tysons Corner shopping center. In their front displays, they depicted female mannequins in lingerie in suggestive (well, I guess that's sort of subjective too!) positions, either by themselves or together with another mannequin on a couch/bed sort of structure. The local news stations were all over it. Passersby in the mall were asked their opinions, morally upstanding citizens called for boycotts of the store, and in general everyone seriously got their panties in a bunch over the display. I can't remember exactly what happened in the end, but I think the warring parties arrived at some sort of consensus and some of the advertisement was removed or changed.

I was remembering this today as I was browsing through a department store in Tilburg. It's a chain-store, much like, let's say Macy's or Hecht's in the US. First floor - shoes, accessories, greeting cards, third floor - bed linens, kitchen supplies, second floor - clothing and lingerie. As you come up the stairs to the second floor, you are met off the escalator by two female mannequins, each one in bra and panties, one sitting on a bed, and one draped across the bed next to her.

Do you think anyone batted an eye? It didn't look like it. I'll have to ask Norma and Rick to be sure, but it seemed like business as usual, with many shoppers out today, since I think a lot of people have the day off from work to celebrate the last day of Carnival. Kind of funny though. I thought for a moment about taking a picture, just so that I could really illustrate the point. If someone had done that at Victoria's Secret, onlookers would have thought that the photographer was just as intrigued or shocked by the display as they were. But it occurred to me that if I had taken a picture of the Dutch lingerie manneqins, it would look just as strange as if someone took a picture of the Macy's shower curtain display. So I didn't take it. I already stand out enough as it is here, seeing as I am several inches shorter than most everyone else and a few pounds heavier. No need to exaggerate the differences.

Learning from our mistakes - or not

2006-02-27T14:47:00.000-08:00

Today we took advantage of having a car and drove to two spots. Kinderdijk is a beautiful area with lots of windmills which were built, like most of the windmills here, so that people could build homes where water was previously - aka "land reclamation." The picture here is of the windmills at Kinderdijk.

After Kinderdijk, we spent the afternoon in Zeeland touring the Delta Works Project, another huge land reclamation project (and impressive display of engineering) on the west coast of the country. The Delta Works began construction after a huge flood in 1953. The quotes taken below are from the museum display:

"In 1953, the dikes were too low - too steep - too weak...All the experts issued warnings. But no action was taken! This was a consequence of the Second World War and the Cold War (in the 1950s). The government spent a great deal on defense in those days and not much on the dikes."

In February, an abnormally strong northwesterly storm blew in from the North Sea. Winds reached 110 km/h out at sea but gusted upwards of 180 km/h. Evacuation began, as water rose to levels previously unseen. By March 1, over 72,000 people had been evacuated from their homes, mostly to control disease spread. Coordination, however, was not smooth. "Those at the top were often unaware of what the rescuers were facing...There were misunderstandings in the armed forces. No one knew exactly who was in command and thee pilots were not allowed to act without orders... After a phase of incompetent maneuvering, coordination of the work carried out by various organizations improved."

The finalization of the Delta Works Project completed a series of storm surge barriers and reinforced dikes that should provide people with protection from the sea for years to come.

Sounds like a familiar story. And it seems fitting considering that now it is midnight here, which means Mardi Gras is well underway in New Orleans, which suffered a similar situation over 50 years after the Zeelanders lost close to 2000 people who died in the flood of 1953. We should learn to pay closer attention to history. It might help us to avoid a lot of heartache and devastation in the future.

Chocolate, beer, and lace

2006-02-26T13:18:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we rented a car and drove all the way to Belgium. Which is actually very close. It was the most anticlimactic border crossing I have ever experienced. We were driving, and Norma or Rick (I can't remember because I was asleep) said "hey - we're in Belgium now." Just like when you pass to another state on the highway and there's just a sign that says "Welcome to..." No passport stamp or anything. We spent the day in Bruges, which is a very cool little town. It's very medival-looking, with some of the travel guides saying the town just sort of ground to a halt in the middle ages, while the more cynical ones point out that a lot of it has been recreated, just for us tourists. Either way, it is pretty, which hopfully you can tell from the picture, which I took from the top of the bell tower in the center of town.

As you can tell from my Title line, the main three products of the area appear to be chocolate, beer, and lace. There were more chocolatiers per capita than probably necessary (I have, indeed, found what my mom would call "heaven"), and many restuarants bragging hundreds of types of beer. Lace is another product that I did not purchase, but it is a local product of which the people are very proud.

Then we went to Ghent for dinner. Norma's Belgian colleagues told her that Ghent is where the nightlife is, but we couldn't find any. We may not have been looking in the right place. But Ghent also had many interesting old buildings, including a castle in the town center.

Today (Sunday) Norma and Rick hosted a Carnival party. It started at 1pm. I was wasted by 5pm. I was sobered up by 9pm. What a party! There were only a few Dutch people there, but we all enjoyed ourselves partaking in tradition. We had a great view of a parade that took place in town, and we dutifully threw confetti everywhere and wore silly hats, which was the minimum required to participate in Carnival.

We were going to go out tonight, but considering we were all feeling a bit hung over by about 9:30, we decided that we would throw in the towel. We got to experience the drunken reverie that is Carnival on Friday night anyway, so I certainly didn't miss out on anything. It's 10:30pm, and it has been a busy few days, so I am going to call it a night and head to the warmth of my bed.

Everything's coming up tulips

2006-02-24T11:12:00.000-08:00

It may still be February, and it may be freezing cold here, but that won't stop the Dutch from showing off their blooms. Norma, her friend Aundrea, and I went to Hoorn today for the Holland Flower Festival. It was inside (thank GOD!) a large convention center sort of place north of Amsterdam. I can't say exactly where because I have yet to take a good look at a map to get oriented. But the flowers were indeed beautiful, and if it's a preview of what will be seen outside in another month or two, I'm sad to be missing it.

We saw a good amount of the Netherlands too, by train to Rotterdam where Aundrea lives and then by car to Hoorn. A few hours all together. To add to my brilliant observations from yesterday, I should also say that the Netherlands is very wet. I'll write more about that later. For now, Carnival starts tonight and we are about to head out bar-hopping to join the festivities.

So much to see, so little idea how to pronounce it...

2006-02-23T07:35:00.000-08:00

As much as I've traveled, I'm finding that I am feeling more lost here than anywhere because of language difficulties. I was set loose today to find the town of Breda, which is a few stops over on the train from Tilburg. The train system should be pretty easy to decipher, except that 1) it's all in Dutch and 2) written Dutch looks very different from spoken Dutch. So it's really of no help to me when the train conductor announces each station as we pull in because he makes everything sound like he's clearing his throat.

Some of my other initial observations about the Netherlands.

1. Everyone has a bicycle. And everyone uses the bicycle as their primary mode of transportation. There are even designated bike lanes on all roads, and sometimes they are even separated from the road. This does not mean they share the sidewalk. Pedestrians walk on the sidewalk. Cars and pedestrians always watch out for the bicyclists. There are even divets on the side of stairways so that you can wheel your bike down beside you instead of carrying it. The Dutch get a lot of exercise and are generally not overweight.

2. Everyone seems to smoke. Okay, maybe not everyone, but all of the eating and drinking establishments which we have visited have had smokers all over the place inside. I'm not used to leaving a restaurant smelling like an ashtray.

3. There are some very tall people here.

4. Life comes to a halt when Speed Skating is being shown on televison.

That's all I have to report today. We will be doing a fair amount of touristy stuff over the next few days, including visiting a flower festival and going to Belgium, so I am sure I will have much more execiting things to report by Monday. Unless I'm too hung-over from Carnival to blog. But you'll hear from me again at some point.

Grocery shopping in Tilburg...

2006-02-22T02:35:00.000-08:00

It's the first time I have ever been to a grocery store and had virtually NO idea what any of the labels said. Though Norma says her favorite grocery store word is Winkelwagon, which means "shopping cart." It's just fun to say, she thinks...

Dutch is not at all like any of the languages I have ever seen, or heard for that matter. After a good long nap, I am sure I will be able to focus a bit and figure out how to describe it. But for now, after a virtualy sleepless night on the plane, I am going to sleep.

From SUVs to Bicycles and Trains

2006-01-25T09:53:00.000-08:00

Well, I found out last week that I'm not going back to Uganda. Only slightly a bummer, but a bummer nonetheless. But never fear, loyal readers - this does not mean the end of my traveling exploits! Because there will never be an end to my traveling exploits. It will just mean a new location for them to happen.

And what other corner of the world could be appropriate for exploits than Amsterdam?!

So, on February 21st, I will be jetting off again, this time bound for Schiphol Airport Amsterdam, then to Tilburg, where I will be visiting my good friends Norma and Rick. There I will be spending about a week and a half doing all things Dutch - like bicycling everywhere, waxing philosophical about Rembrandt and Van Gogh, eating cheese, wearing wooden shoes (okay, maybe not). Oh, and of course there is Carnival in Tilburg. Would.Not.Miss.It.

It's a significantly shorter trip than Uganda, and I can almost guarantee I will not experience an earthquake or be chased by an elephant while I am there, but it will be an exciting trip, regardless. Especially if I get to keep talking about amsterDAM and emphasizing the DAM part like we all did when we were kids so that if we got yelled at for cussing, we could just say that we were simply boning up on our geography. :-)

So tune in next month...

Giving Kampala another chance

2005-12-11T21:31:00.000-08:00

I had a really nice weekend. And since it was my last weekend here, that means that it makes it a little harder to leave!

On Friday afternoon, we had an office Christmas party at a rec center a little ways out of town. Saturday I slept in, did my final shopping runs with my housemate, and then met my friend Ruth for dinner at this really good Thai restaurant. We proceeded from there to grab a drink at what may be the only Irish Pub in Uganda, Bubbles O'Leary's. Some people call it Bubbles. I prefer O'Leary's myself though. They had real Irish music playing, and you could even get Baileys, which we did, of course. We left O'Leary's and continued our bar crawl to "Just Kicking." a pretty lively mostly ex-pat hang out.

Around 11, my housemate called to give me the coordinates of a party that we had to attend. It was just around the corner at a house belonging to a project director of another project here. Every year he apparently has a big blow out Christmas party, complete with hundreds of people, a DJ, and lots of beer. Ruth and I arrived to a huge and energetic crowd of mostly Ugandans and we danced until about 1:30am. Since this was way more social activity than I even have at home, and MUCH more social than I have been in Uganda, we called it a night and headed home.

Sunday, a former colleague invited me to spend the day with her and her 3 year old son at Munyonyo, which is something of a resort outside of town. Another big ex-pat hang out, but it was a lovely day and they had a good sized pool, so it was worth it. The three year old loves to swim and they have pony riding too, which was very very exciting!

Sunday night I attended an even that was definitely the highlight of the weekend. I went with a consultant we've worked with to see the Ndere Dance Troupe. This group of dancers, singers, and musicians is unbelievable. They put on a regular show of about three or four hours every Sunday night in front on a packed crowd. I don't think I have ever seen any performance with so much energy! And it took all of my own energy to sit still during the performance.

It was a really good weekend to end the trip on. I wasn't sick, I didn't hang out at a shopping mall all weekend, and I was super social. Can't beat that!

I start my journey home tonight, to arrive in DC tomorrow afternoon. I'm not looking forward to the process of getting home, but I'm eager to catch up with friends and family and start getting into the holiday spirit. I'll also find out (hopefully) today if I am coming back in January, so you may see a new round of stories in a matter of weeks.

Tune in next time...

SUVs aren’t all bad

2005-12-07T21:29:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I took a spur-of-the-moment trip to Luwero to work with some folks in the District Health Office on budget and workplans. There is a cadre of drivers on the project team to get us losers who don’t drive back and forth from the field, but when every single one of them is out on call, we have to resort to the special hire taxi.

Charles arrived to pick me up around 2:00pm. Luckily, that meant that there wasn’t much traffic coming out of Kampala. We got moving…and boy, did we get moving! I’ve learned that drivers here are pretty fearless, but it feels a little more comfortable when you are several feet off the ground barreling down on a car your own size, rather then tooling along at 100km/h in Charles’ little Toyota Corolla. The bumps and potholes feel bigger and deeper when you go over them in a small car. And it doesn’t help that the main road between Kampala and Luwero is the straightest road I have ever seen. This facilitates high speeds, of course.

It is generally taken for granted here that anyone on four wheels has the right-of-way over anyone else. So when a driver is careening down the road, they slow for almost nothing. They use their horns liberally too, and everyone else knows what to do when they hear a horn toot. They scatter frantically to as far off the side of the road as they can. This goes for people as well as bicycles and motorcycles. And it’s not like the driver slows down while this happens either.

As far as I could tell, there were three things that Charles slowed down for while we were moving. A goat, a truck full of Ankole-cattle that was moving slowly in front of us (but only because there was an on-coming car so he couldn’t fly past said truck), and the rumble strips in Wobulenzi-town. At least someone was aware that this road is commonly mistaken for a NASCAR track. The rumble strips are big enough that if you don’t slow down to about 5km/h, you will probably tear off your undercarriage as you go over them. And there are about a half dozen of them too on your way through the town. Clearly, though, most drivers haven’t figured out that the purpose of the rumble strips is to cause you to maintain a constant slow speed all the way through town. Drivers go over the rumble strip at a very slow speed, and then manage to cover the 15 meters or so in between them at a normal “out on the freeway” speed. It’s not comfortable either with lots of lurching back and forth.

I made it, even though my heart rate did speed up significantly a few times, I found myself gripping the door handle a bit, and at least twice, the thought crossed my mind to tell Charles “you will not get paid by the project unless I get home in one piece.”

Anyway, as much as we all hear (or submit others to) lectures on how bad SUVs are, I have to admit, there are certain situations where I just don’t care about their impact on the environment. Often, when you are in a developing country that has two rainy seasons resulting in lousy roads and no speed limits, I admit, the oil crisis, ozone depletion, and acid rain are really the last thing on my mind. I’m just really thinking about getting out of the car safely at home.

Not just a herd of stampeding elephants...

2005-12-05T21:25:00.000-08:00

If you are paying attention to the news, you might have already confirmed what I felt yesterday afternoon:
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KINSHASA, Congo (AP) -- A powerful earthquake has toppled dozens of homes and buried children in rubble in eastern Congo, killing at least two people in a region already beset by chronic violence and grinding poverty.

The quake, with a preliminary magnitude of 6.8, struck at 2:20 p.m. (12:20 a.m. GMT) and was centered beneath Lake Tanganyika on the Congo-Tanzania border, about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) southwest of Nairobi, Kenya, the U.S. Geological Survey said on its Web site.
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This was reported on cnn.com. The epicenter was a fair distance south of us, which shows you how powerful it must have been there if we felt it pretty significantly here.

The excitement never ends here...

Unexpected Thrills

2005-12-05T05:04:00.000-08:00

It's about 4pm on a slow moving Monday. The most exciting part of the day was that we just felt a smallish earthquake - tremor really, but it was enough of a shake that a lot of people went flying out of the building. Your's truly included...

Non-Verbal Communication 101

2005-12-04T21:19:00.000-08:00

The most interesting people here are the ones who I feel like I can’t adequately communicate with. I’m frustrated by my verbal limitations here. Even when I am (I think) speaking the same language, the accents are so different that both I and the other person end up repeating ourselves over and over trying to be understood. Sometimes I finish a conversation aware that my mouth is really tired because I have been focusing so much on an exaggerated enunciation of each and every word, every syllable. It reminds me of vocal warm ups from drama class in high school.

But then there are the situations where I have a true language boundary. Like I have with the gardener. He’s a very sweet guy. He greets me every morning with a big smile and “good morning madame!” Most of the exchanges we have usually consist of me saying something, usually with pantomime gesturing, and him grinning and nodding saying “okay!” It doesn’t matter what I have said, or what I have asked him. The response is always a spirited “okay!” He has no idea what I’m saying, I think.

Today (Saturday) I was sitting out on the front patio writing Christmas cards. He came around the corner, saw me sitting there and greeted me. We briefly discussed the universally appealing topic of the weather (I said, “the sun came out!” because this morning it was overcast. He grinned and replied “okay!”). He sat down on another chair and looked off across the yard towards the primary school behind us, where there seems to be an all day festival going on with lots of singing and dancing and drumming. I’m not entirely sure what he was doing there, and I tried a few more angles of conversation before I gave up and got back to my Christmas cards.

It’s quite possible that he simply wanted company.

See, this guy is the gardener, and as far as I know, that’s his main, possibly only job. He lives in a small house on the compound. At night I hear music playing from his house. During the day, he is often talking to the day guard, a young woman who is also very nice. (I have decided that they would make a good couple. :-)) He is single, and his family is in a village far, far away. He says he may get back there over the holidays at some point but that's not certain.

It must be really lonely being far away from your family, and not having people to talk to who understand you. The day guard was gone today, which probably added to his boredom.

I can understand what he’s going through. I went to hang out at the mall today. The MALL. I’m 31 years old. Hanging out at the mall on a Saturday afternoon is something that people don’t usually do past the age of 16. Nevertheless, sometimes when you need human interaction, you are willing to go to desperate measures. So, when push comes to shove, I hang out at the mall in a far away country, and my gardener friend hangs out on the front porch with the Mzungu who can’t even communicate with him. Sometimes we expect very little from companionship I guess. Sometimes someone’s presence is just enough.

Right about now, I would kill for a pizza

2005-12-02T02:45:00.000-08:00

A nice greasy deep dish pizza.

I’ll admit, I am sure there is much much more to Kampala than what I have seen. Maybe I’m not being adventurous enough. Maybe I’m just feeling like I should save money so that I can but people Christmas presents. Whatever it is, I have indeed been skimping on food (having food poisoning Wednesday didn’t help either, of course!) during this trip. It’s easy when you are traveling to eat at restaurants…at least when there is a restaurant nearby. I will be moving into a hotel on Sunday, and I am really excited about having access to a restaurant. But so far, I have been surviving on cereal, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and some traditional Ugandan food for lunch. Maybe we are spoiled when it comes to food. I am so used to having a wide variety of culinary choices that when I am deprived of that choice, my body seems to think it is literally starving. I remember having these inexplicable cravings for Pad Thai when I was living in Guatemala. So far this past two weeks, several people have asked me at lunch if I’m vegetarian. They see my plate full of rice, potatoes, posho (corn meal, sort of), and peanut sauce, and I suppose the question makes sense. I have had a hard time eating goat, which is commonly served. I don’t know why. I don’t know why it’s easier to eat chicken. I see just as many chickens running around as I do goats. Then there’s the fish. I am not much of a fan of fish to begin with, but even less so when all original parts of the fish are still attached. I sat across from the IT guy yesterday and watched as he waded through fins and gills and skin. Ick. So maybe I should just tell people that I am vegetarian. But then I will have to explain myself when I make a lunchtime run to Lugogo Mall tomorrow. I noticed the other day that there appears to be a fast food fried chicken place there. That might give me the fix I need to make it til I get back to DC.

Have a good weekend. I’ll check back on Monday and let you know how the weekend here was and how my new digs are. Apparently part of my Friday will be spent shopping for housing. I guess that’s the courtesy they give you when they insist that you go low-budget. I’m thankful for that.

Getting Salmonella does NOT make me feel like a badass

2005-11-30T21:39:00.000-08:00

It makes me feel horrible.

I have spent the greater part of the last 12 hours in the bathroom. I throw up everything that’s there, and when I’m done, I throw up nothing. That part really sucks. After about three rounds of this before about 11am, my colleagues decided I needed to take a visit to The Surgery. I was in no shape to protest.

The Surgery seems to be where ex-pats go when they get sick. The head physician is British, I believe, and there’s another doctor who I met at Thanksgiving dinner who is Australian. The line was long and we were counseled to make an advance appointment for the afternoon. I came home, slept for two hours and went back.

The doctor assured me that whatever it was, it would most likely run it’s course in 24 hours, but it could last five days. He suspects Salmonella, which is apparently very common – as he put it, “everyone’s a carrier here, so why not?” He gave me some antibiotics to start taking only if the “troubles” start up again, and some other pills to take if the other “troubles” come back (the latter troubles being the barfing uncontrollably). Very inexpensive pills from Pakistan and India. Hooray for generics manufactured in south Asia!

I’m especially happy about the pills that will keep me from throwing up. I’m weak and dizzy when I stand up and I’m supposed to visit the field on Thursday. So it is now about 4:40 PM on Wednesday and for the next 14 hours, I will most likely only move from my bed to go to the kitchen and refill my water or get juice. It’s all part of the job. It could be worse. All that will come of this is a missed day of work and a few lost pounds. But I would certainly prefer to go about meeting both of those results and not feel like crap to get there.

Work: That's what they pay me for

2005-11-29T03:47:00.000-08:00

I’ve written about all sorts of adventures, but not much at all about my actual purpose of being here, which is to work. I know – you couldn’t really tell so far, could you?

If you have any interest in what I’m really doing here, read on. If you want to hear more stories about crazy wildlife adventures, skip this entry.

For the past several years I have been working with a particular model of child health program known generally as community-based growth promotion. I worked with this program first in Honduras, and did my Master’s thesis research last summer with a similar project in Guatemala. Personally, I believe that it’s a very promising child health program. But the conditions have to be, if not perfect, then very close for it to work well and show results. First, we must gain the support of the local government body because without their support, the program will not be sustainable. Then we need to work with the local health officials to train the people who will train and then supervise the community volunteers. That’s what I was doing in Arua during my first week. Then the trainers train community volunteers to conduct growth promotion sessions on a monthly basis. This also requires financial, material and human resources, which you don't get unless you get the local government support as well as generous donations from implementing organizations.

Growth Promotion involves a series of steps. All children (ideally) under the age of two are enrolled in the program and weighed every month. Based on their weight and age, their growth is monitored. Each month, there is a goal weight to be reached that is based on their weight the month before. The idea is that, just because a baby is growing doesn’t necessarily mean it is growing well. Maybe the kid gained 2 ounces from last month. Technically he grew, but not at a healthy pace necessarily.

Then, the child and caregiver (usually mom, but sometimes grandmothers or fathers) are counseled by the growth promoter. The counseling messages vary depending on the age of the child and whether the child gained adequate weight or not. The counseling session is used to discuss nutrition, illness, and other health issues. The goal is to negotiate certain behaviors with the caregiver to try during the course of the next month to improve the child’s growth. The idea is for these negotiated actions to be realistic. For example, if I were counseling a mother whose 3 month old child was not gaining weight, and I thought she needed to breastfeed more times a day, but she works away from home all day, I would work on giving her options that were realistic to her individual situation. So I might ask her to try to feed the child more before she left and when she came home at night. The behavior might be as simple as making sure that whoever prepares food is washing their hands adequately or making sure the child's shots are up to date.

It’s something that ends up making caregivers feel empowered. It can be frustrating and scary to have a child who isn’t growing well and is always sick, because it’s not like we are all hard wired to know exactly how to take care of children and make them healthy.

We went to the field last Friday to visit a community in a district north of Kampala. We ended up talking to a mom whose child is involved in a growth promotion program there. She told a trainer (who translated for us) that she likes the program because she now knows that she has all of the resources she needs to feed her child well at home. The problem was that she didn’t know exactly how to use those food resources. Now she does, and her child is healthier for it.

Before you say this is simple and ask why the mom couldn’t figure out how to feed her kid, it’s not as easy as it sounds. There are lots of cultural factors that get in the way of correct feeding practices, for example. Sometimes if a kid is sick, the caregiver doesn’t push food and milk as much as they should. Have you ever tried to get a kid to eat when he or she didn’t want to? It’s not that easy! Also, as I have learned over my years working in public health, breastfeeding isn’t all that easy either. There are all sorts of problems that mom shave which keep the baby from getting enough nourishment. And here especially, AIDS is a problem. HIV can be transmitted through breastmilk. So what do you feed your baby if you can’t breastfeed.

These are the questions thatthe growth promoters try to help answer. So my purpose here is to follow up with three districts whose trainers have been trained and they are ready to start weighing sessions. They are eager to start, and it spurs me on to action and inspires me to continue working. Hopefully by the time I am done with my consultancy in February, I will be able to say that I helped get at least two district programs going, and hopefully in another six month to a year, I will hear good news that kids in these communities are doing better than ever thanks to the work of the devoted supervisors and community volunteers helping them. That’s really all I could hope for.

Did you know?

That a 2001 poll sponsored by the University of Maryland showed that most Americans think the United States spends about 24 percent of its annual budget on foreign aid.
That the U.S. foreign-aid budget as a percentage of gross national product (GNP) ranks last among the world’s wealthiest countries (at about 0.1 percent).

We could probably do better...

Getting chased by an elephant makes me feel like a badass

2005-11-28T05:53:00.000-08:00

I just got back to Kampala from a very cool weekend away. My colleague, Adwoa, invited me to come with her family to Murchison Falls National Park, which I believe is the largest national park in Uganda. It had some bad publicity recently when two British tourists happened upon some rebels, who then killed the tourists. There are some rough stories about the north because of ongoing war, which is really unfortunate. We all had to assure everyone back home and in Kampala that we would be extremely cautious because we were going to an area that wasn’t being recommended by various official sources. But we did take precautions – including bringing along a guard in our car with us. George has worked at the park for 23 years, knows it inside and out, and carries a very large rifle. I felt pretty comfortable with George. The park rangers were also spending more time patrolling the park to make sure it was clear of rebels.

We left Kampala on Saturday morning. We arrived first at the Falls, which is about a half an hour away from the lodge. It’s a pretty powerful waterfall. If you know your geography, the Nile begins at Lake Victoria, slightly east of Kampala in Jinja. The Victoria Nile flows north and then west to where Murchison Falls takes in into Lake Albert. It then flows north from Lake Albert, where it becomes the Albert Nile. Eventually it makes its way through Sudan and Egypt.

Then we went to our lodge for the night, the Nile Safari Camp (http://www.innsofuganda.com/nile.html), which really is like camping. Lots of stars, and bugs, and I even slept in a tent. It was nicer than a tent though. There was a wooden room and I had a full bathroom, but there was still a strong canvas tent built into it where my bed was. I went to sleep at night to the sound of frogs and hippos.

On Sunday morning we woke up at 5:30am to take a game drive through the park. It’s better to go in the morning because it’s cooler and the furry critters are more active. I can’t even begin to describe how exciting seeing these animals are up close and personal, and in their own homes! Not like the zoo. Unless you’ve seen it, I don’t think it’s possible to really appreciate how incredibly graceful a herd of giraffes looks running (galloping, gliding…) across the savannah. They are so beautiful – that was definitely my favorite sighting. The elephants were second on my list. I’ve never seen a creature quite as powerful. We saw one close up, and he wasn’t too happy about it so he started running towards our car. I took a picture from out of the roof of the car, and I’m curious about how it will turn out, since he was running and we were moving away fast. It will probably be a big gray blur. Because we weren’t close enough to be in danger and we had a very good driver, we weren’t at all in danger – but it was pretty thrilling.

We stopped for breakfast at a bush camp, and saw our first out-of-water hippo lumbering down a trail to the water. These guys are really funny. They spend pretty much all day in the water and then come back to land at night to feed. I don’t think that sounds too bad as a life. They make a very distinct sound when they are in the water too, which I heard going to sleep at night and waking up every morning, since my lodge room overlooked the water. It caused some weird dreams, that’s for certain!

Continuing on, we saw many more giraffes, elephants, bush bucks, water bucks, hippos, water buffalo (which are more dangerous than any of those other animals apparently), oribis and other deer/antelope-like animals. We saw about 30 species of birds too, which I won’t list out since my dad may be the only one who really cares. The top three sightings of birds for me though, were 1) the rare Shoebill Stork, 2) Red-Throated Bee Eaters, and 3) the Gray Crowned Crane, which is Uganda’s national bird.

We ended the tour thrilled by everything we saw, and ferried back to the south side of the lake for lunch (and for me, a nap).

In the afternoon we took a boat ride up the Nile in the direction of the falls. We saw many more birds, we saw hippos in the water up close and personal, and many more crocodiles than I am comfortable with seeing. I’m told that they were all pretty small, but they looked big enough to me!

On Monday morning we woke up before dawn again to drive to Budongo forest, which is either just inside or just outside the park. It’s about two hours away from the lodge. There is a conservation project there which works with school groups and brings people to the park to see Chimpanzees and other wildlife in their natural habitat. There are three Chimp families in the forest. The staff of the project have “habituated” one of the groups, which means that they are accustomed to humans being there. That doesn’t mean they like them there though. We tracked the group with our guide, Joshua, quite quickly and saw several of them up in the canopy. They made a lot of noise on a few occasions, which was a little scary sounding but apparently they were having disagreements amongst themselves. They did, however, make it known that they were unhappy we were there. They tried to pee on us. Luckily, our wise guide had positioned us far enough away and in a place where there weren’t good branches directly overhead. Something tells me this trick was learned the hard way.

In Budongo Forest we also saw Black and White Colobus Monkeys and Baboons. That was pretty much it, not that we complained! We were there to see the Chimpanzees, and we saw them.

It was a fantastic trip and I am so grateful to Adwoa and her family for adopting me for the weekend. Now I just have to get back into the frame of mind to work!

What I am thankful for

2005-11-24T21:31:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, we drove through the dirty and crowded streets of Kampala. Traffic was thick both on the road and on the sidewalk. We slowed for the street traffic, and I saw a little girl sitting in the middle of the sidewalk. I would guess that she was about 1 year old. She was sitting with legs crossed in the middle of the sidewalk, nestled in a blanket. As we waited for cars to move, I looked around to see if I could identify a parent or some adult who might be nearby watching over her. I didn’t see anyone. As I continued to watch the little girl, I saw two older children approach her. They took her hands and they instructed her to hold them out palms up. Then they moved away, and the little girl sat obediently, with palms up, as people walked by her. Not even seeming to notice her.

What might happen to this little girl? How is it decided who ends up begging on the sidewalk in Kampala and who ends up screaming “Mzungu” from the carseat in the Land Rover?

What I’m thankful for this Thanksgiving is that I’m in the position to be doing what I do. Because I know that things could have gone differently for any of us. I, too, could have ended up as that little girl on the street. I could have ended up the older girl in Arua who had to drop out of school to work and take care of younger brothers and sisters. I could have ended up as the woman in the village who was beaten by her husband, infected with HIV, and left to die. But I didn’t end up any of those women. I ended up as a woman who has friends and family who love and respect her, who has had unlimited educational and professional opportunities, and who has access to food, water, and healthcare whenever and wherever I need it. Sure, I worry about my finances sometimes. I get frustrated because my bad knee acts up and I can’t jog like I used to. I get bored or stressed out by my job. I’ve felt the grief that comes from illness and death of a loved one.

But all and all, I’m in pretty good shape and I realize that even more starkly when I do field work. Nothing puts things into perspective for you like doing this stuff.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Even if things sometimes seem hard, we all have much to be thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving

2005-11-22T21:42:00.000-08:00

As I already mentioned, I had my turkey last weekend, so while all of you are enjoying your turkey and cranberry sauce tomorrow, I'm not sure yet what my plans will be. But since I had my turkey already, I'm okay with that.

My sort-of funny Thanksgiving story is that, when I was in Arua, I was describing Thanksgiving to one of the trainers. I told him that it was a day to give thanks for everything we have, and originated with the first immigrants to the US who were happy to be alive. Then I began to describe the elements of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. What is stuffing?

"Well, it's mostly breadcrumbs with some seasonings and usually you take all of the organs out of the turkey and you put the bread inside the turkey and you bake it. Then you take the stuffing out and you eat it."

As I explained this, I decided that the concept of stuffing is actually not very appealing if you really think about it. It's basically bread stuffed inside a turkey. It was obvious from the look I got from the trainer that this idea was really not something that sounded tempting to him.

Oh well. Just another American custom that won't catch on elsewhere maybe.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Have a slice of pie for me.

A cubicle is a cubicle is a cubicle

2005-11-22T04:09:00.000-08:00

Arua was fun. It was gritty and adventurous.

Kampala is not. It's big and crowded and boring.

Maybe I'm just saying that because I have, for the past two days, sat in front of a computer with very little to do. Yesterday I was completely overwhelmed by my full time access to a decent internet source, yet I realize, no one is awake while I'm emailing, so I have to settle for delayed gratification. Sure, it's nice to get into work the next day and have emails waiting from your friends and family, but I'm so used to the instant back and forth that resembles conversation.

I get picked up in the morning around 8:30, and I arrive in my cubicle. I don't even work in a cubicle in the US. I check my emails. I try to make a phone call or two, and in general I wait until someone important and relevant to my work has the time to talk to me. That happened briefly this morning, but I didn't get too far with it. Tomorrow should be better. Adwoa and I are debriefing with the two activity supervisors at 10 to tell them about the Arua training. I made one phone call this morning, and the planning for the similar training in Bundibugyo is underway.

I took a trip to the close by grocery store today at lunch. The Shop Rite is apparently where all of the ex-pats shop. I treated myself to a can of sour cream and onion Pringles.

I discovered a serious ant problem in the office. This isn't new to me today. I noticed it yesterday too. This morning I came in and found that someone had thrown away the plastic cup I had filled with water the day before, which was annoying because it was just water and I didn't want to keep using more plastic cups. So I got another and drank the water. When I came back from the Shop Rite, I found a parade of ants marching right up and over and into the empty cup. Stupid ants. It's water. Not juice or something else truly march-worthy.

At home it's not much more exciting. I'm staying in a house in the suburbs. I spent about a half hour last night trying to figure out how to work the DVD player. I got frustrated, quit and watched MTV all night instead.

Having access to phones and email is good, but I really feel like an addict of some sort. First there was my flurry of emails yesterday, and then getting annoyed that no one checked their email in DC before 9am. I finally yesterday got a land line number to send to a few important people, and I was so excited to think that I might actually get a call from my fabulous boyfriend, who I haven't spoken to since I arrived. I even had a dream that I heard the phone ring at about 5:30 in the morning, and I got out of bed and flew down the hallway to the phone, which of course, wasn't ringing. I was even more disappointed when I arrived in the office and realized I neglected to include the country code on the number I gave out.

Today I got a cell phone too. Not that it's mine to keep, but to borrow and to pay for minutes as I use them.

Here I am in East Africa and it's about as interesting as being in DC. I have a cell phone, I sit in a cube in front of a computer all day, I go home, I watch TV and zone out. The main difference is that the weather here is warmer than it is back home. I guess I should be happy about that! And maybe Kampala will grown on me if I can just get out of my suburban hideaway once in a while.

Back to creature comforts - Kampala

2005-11-20T22:45:00.000-08:00

Okay, so at the time that I wrote it, that whole entry about race consciousness really did feel genuine. Then on Saturday morning, we arrived at the airport and I saw white people everywhere, so it sort of ruined the “moment” I was having during the week in Arua. The plane was probably half-full (there were only about 14 people that fit on the plane anyway) with missionaries.

We made it to Entebbe, and Adwoa and I were whisked away by Richard, one of the drivers for the project. Having seen traffic in Kampala on a Saturday afternoon, I will never again complain about DC area rush hour. Luckily for me, in order to earn the title of “driver” here, you really have to be able to navigate some pretty tight and crowded spaces, and you have to be willing to play chicken with anyone. There were boda-boda drivers everywhere, except in Kampala they are more often on motorbikes as opposed to bicycles. I arrived at Katrina’s house, the lovely Finance and Admin person on the project, and she took me to Judith’s house. I have never met Judith but she has a lovely house, and I am living in it until Dec 5 when she returns from leave. I have a guard (Brenda by day and Moses by night), a maid/cook (Christine), and a gardener (Tumba Simbi, or something that sounds like that). I have a beautiful house and garden. I have hot water and a toilet that flushes. I even have a panic button apparently. Not that I’m interested in using it. The only things that have reminded me that I’m not in some cushy resort are that a) Katrina showed me how to prime the generator if the electricity goes out, which happens often, and b) there was a gecko hanging on the wall outside my room. I do think it’s going to be hard to get used to never being alone though.

Saturday, I went with Katrina, her two kids, and their nanny to a Drama Festival which is an annual event done by an organization called TASO – The AIDS Support Organization. The organization is celebrating its 18th birthday and is known as an amazing support network for people living with HIV/AIDS. There were 300 participants who came from around the country, all HIV positive. The theme this year had to do with prevention among positives. Uganda is going through an extreme shortage of condoms, from what I understand, and the US government’s insistence on making “moral” decisions for where it funds projects isn’t helping.

One of the really cool things about this festival was that everyone performing had HIV, which means many of them were on anti-retroviral therapies. It’s a true testament to how powerful these drugs are. These were incredibly healthy looking people, who were leading very normal lives thanks to these drugs.

After the festival, we went to someone’s house for an early Thanksgiving dinner. There’s a huge American ex-pat community here working on a variety of projects. I talked to some nice people, and had a wonderful meal, complete from turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce all the way to apple and pumpkin pie. It’s nice to not feel like I was missing out on Thanksgiving completely.

Sunday, I was woken up early by singing coming from a church service in a school sort of in the direction of my backyard. The service goers sounded very enthusiastic and they must have had some serious energy, because the singing and preaching continued for about three hours. Katrina came to pick me up at noon to run errands, and then we went back to her house for the afternoon.

Now it’s about 7:30pm and I am watching Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer on CNN. Funny how even half the world away, watching Donald Rumsfeld talk makes me want to puke. I just made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and I may crash soon. Playing with a 2 ½ year old afternoon will wipe anyone out. Katrina’s son, J.R., is my new best friend it seems. He’s very energetic. He’s also in the “repeating” stage, where he repeats the things other people say, with some very funny results. He’s the blondest, palest, most blue eyed little boy around. Sitting in his car seat, he gets a real kick out of yelling “Mzungu!!!!” at the top of his lungs to anyone (usually Ugandans) walking by. Mzungu is the word Ugandans use for white people, which makes it hysterical that J.R. screams this at the Ugandans. He only knows the word because other kids yell it at him, but he clearly has no idea what it means.

All for today. I'll have pretty steady email access now so feel free to email me. :-)

11/17 Week One

2005-11-20T22:40:00.000-08:00

I am writing this on Thursday night, hoping to post tomorrow. The internet café here is a bit rough and I try to not spend much time there. Here’s week one in Uganda to review:

We arrived on Sunday and were taken to the Hotel Pacific on a main street on the outskirts of Arua. Definitely a change from the Imperial Beach Resort Hotel in Entebbe. The rooms aren’t too secure – they have wussy locks that open with a skeleton key that you leave at the front desk when you leave the premises. The toilets don’t flush well. Though now that I have had the experience of the water going out for a full day (Thursday), I won’t complain. At least when the water was working, they flushed a little. Yesterday water was out all over town, so I, my six co-facilitators, and 26 intrepid trainees got to spend the day using the pit latrines at the hotel where we had the training. That was an experience I’d rather not repeat. The electricity was out all day too. The hotel has been turning off the electricity at night, usually around 10 or 11, but usually I am sound asleep by then anyway.

The streets are busy all day from about 5am until about midnight. I can’t get a good sense of where people are going or from where they are coming. Traffic congestion in the streets is mostly caused by the boda-boda drivers, who offer public transportation in the form of a bicycle with a small platform on the back that you sit on, right behind the driver. They call them boda-bodas because apparently they originated at the border crossing between Kenya and Uganda. There was a kilometer stretch between borders where the more traditional forms of public transport (taxis, buses) wouldn’t go, so the “border-to-border” or “boda-boda” services popped up.

I wish I could say that the training was going really well, but it has been hard. Today (Thursday) everyone started getting lost in the material, and it’s clear that 99% of them don’t understand the program well enough to train other people (it’s supposed to be a training of trainers). I won’t get into the frustrations of work. Instead, I should say that the people are wonderful. Everyone – facilitators and trainees, hotel staff, staff at the workshop site – is incredibly friendly, kind, and enthusiastic. They are really entertaining too. At this point, the group has definitely developed rapport, which is fun. It’s actually very hard to see them struggling, because they are so energetic, and they clearly want to learn it. I wish we had more time here to help.

The only time I have really spent outside of the workshop and hotel has been to walk to the internet café, which has brought me a seriously heightened awareness of my race. I’ve spent a significant amount of time in Latin America, but somehow I never felt like I stood out so much there. In this little corner of the country, I am the only white person on the streets. Some people are curious, especially little kids. Sometimes I hear someone say “hello, my sister” as I pass by. Sometimes I get hissed at, usually by packs of boda-boda drivers with nothing better to do. Others seem to look right through me, as if the whiteness of my skin is washed into the background by the bright sun. I mentioned this to my colleague Adwoa, who is from Ghana andd is married to a white American. “I hadn’t ever really thought of it that way,” she said, when I told her how peculiar I felt walking down the street, “but I know the feeling well. I guess it’s probably good for everyone to go through that at some point.” In my world back home, I am neither a curiosity nor invisible, and I have to say, I’m much more comfortable with that place that falls in between.

That’s my week. We go to Kampala on Saturday, where I am sure more adventures (of the urban variety) await!

Greetings from Arua

2005-11-13T04:01:00.000-08:00

I am now about a stone's throw from the borders of Sudan and the DR Congo apparently. Got an early start with my colleague Adwoa and her husband Biff. It's about an hour flight from Entebbe but we got diverted temporarily because, well, it had been raining really hard and the dirt runway was a bit waterlogged and couldn't take us. Betcha don't hear that often! So we landed in Pakuba. As we touched down, I was startled to look out the window and see a horned animal running alongside the plane. My first African wildlife sighting! It was an impala, and there were several more along the runway and fields around it. When we were finally allowed to take off again and head for Arua, I got my second sighting - about 8 or 9 giraffes a bit of a ways out in the bush along side the runway. I have to say, even from up in there air, there is something way more thrilling about seeing these guys outside of a zoo and in their home environments.

I also just had my first experience with Ugandan food. If I'm remembering correctly it's called Posho - it's a maize mash stuff, about the consistency of mashed potatoes. You eat it with other stuff as a side, like rice.

Okay, that's about as exciting as it gets for now. I have to make my way back to the hotel to meet the rest of the folks working on this training that starts tomorrow. It's going to be a long week. If I get back into the internet cafe, it probably won't be to write much, so tune in next weekend for a better update where I may tell you about more wildlife, my conversation with our driver about the war in Uganda or more strange new food experiences.

Getting there is half the fun!

2005-11-11T23:55:00.000-08:00

Did I sound convincing when I said that?

It’s about midnight local time as I am writing this, which means that you are all still be at work. I’ve just taken a nice long shower and took some advil for my headache, and am, unfortunately, feeling very awake. So here’s the quick recap of my journey.

Airport #1: Dulles. Everyone who complains about delays at airports through check in and security has never flown out of Dulles on a Thursday at 1pm. Being the good passenger that I am, I arrived the recommended two hours early. There was one person in front of me to check in, and no one in front of me to go through security. How anti-climactic.

Airport #2: Newark. A fun game to play is to try to pick out the Americans versus the Europeans. While there is no universal rule when it comes to this, I found that a general guideline is that the Europeans are more likely to be quieter, wear more trendy clothes, and have hair that makes me nostalgic for the days of Pat Benetar and Joan Jett. The Americans are more vocal and are more likely to be wearing color coordinated velour jogging suits (I swear – I saw three of these. Though it could be more a trait of New Jersey than the US. Maybe it’s unfair of me to generalize).

Airport #3: Brussels. All messages are in four languages. I get to sit through Dutch, German, French, and then English. And people can smoke at these little smoking stations that are all over the airport. Other than that, I can’t really remember what happened while I was there waiting for my flight. It’s all becoming a blur at this point.

Airport #4: Nairobi. I should say runway #4 because we don’t actually get off the plane. A very nice Dutch guy was sitting next to me on the flight and he got off here. We got to sit a few minutes and listen to some very skittish German tourists talking to an Italian ex-pat living in Kampala about the murders of British tourists near Gulu (in the north. No panicking folks, I’m not going there) a few days ago. They hadn’t heard about the incident so they were going through a serious inquisition of the resident, who appeared to not know too many details, yet spoke with great authority and so made it sound like he did.

Airport #5: Entebbe. This has been a long two days of traveling. I have a dull headache, and I think I probably slept too much for my own good. My visa looks really pretty in my passport though. No silly little stamp for these people – I get a fancy sticker that fills up the whole page this time.

Now I am at the Imperial Resort Beach Hotel. I’m intrigued to see what beach I wake up looking at. It’s considered a "five star deluxe hotel," but I couldn’t get the hot water to work in the shower. Hmm. But the room is comfortable, and the bed is nice and big, so I’m going to try to get a reasonable amount of sleep. I may try to make a day trip to Kampala tomorrow. Then we will fly to Arua on Sunday.

Good night. :-)

down to the wire

2005-11-07T10:39:00.000-08:00

Passport...
check.

Malarone...
check.

Yellow fever vaccine...
ouch!
check.

I finally got my official approvals this morning, so in exactly three days I will be on a plane to Newark...and then to Brussels...and then to Entebbe. Then after that, to Arua for 8 days. I'm told that they do have internet cafes there.

Here's a map of Uganda. http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/cia05/uganda_sm05.gif . You'll see the big star with Kampala written next to it. That's where I will mostly be. But if you look in the NW corner, you'll see Arua, where I should be for the first week or so, if everything goes according to plan, which it rarely does.

Keep your fingers crossed that I am on a plane in a few days. Already the plan has changed about five times this morning.

One week to go

2005-11-02T06:27:00.000-08:00

Someone in my book club suggested last night that I set up a blog for my traveling, and since most people in my family and many of my friends have no idea what I do when I go far, far away, I thought it sounded like a good idea. Besides, it makes us feel closer, right?

I have one week until I leave for Uganda. It's my first trip to Africa, so I'm a little nervous, but excited at the same time. I'll be getting my first ever Yellow Fever shot on Friday. How exciting, really. Not.

I don't know too much yet about my trip and work, but I do know that it has to do with growth promotion programs and setting them up in Uganda. I worked on some growth promotion programs several years ago with the really cool woman featured in this article, that just came out: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1124300,00.html . She's famous now, but I talked to her yesterday and she says she'll still remember the little people like me. ;-)

More to come...