BLungerHog

hey hogs...
its been a long time since i posted or looked at this...however, since there were many other places and occaisons that i had shared some of my experiences and reflections about my time here in Addis, I will just share them here with you as well. 
this is a short note i wrote to a fellow Ethiopian friend in DC who was eager to return home like me.  maybe some of you who are going back to your roots can identify with this...

This is Ethiopia

Here in Addis.  We are living and learning and growing.

Sometimes it just doesn’t make sense, and other times it if so rich with meaning…

But most times its somewhere in between. 

I suppose that is how it was when I was in DC as well. 

Its funny how we keep visualizing so many wonderful things but end up in the same place we were at, we end up right inside ourselves. 

Coming to Ethiopia is not the transformation that we dream about when we are in DC, but coming to the self that we expect Ethiopia to bring out in us is the transformation, and for that, Ethiopia is not necessary.  So I say, come, but don’t expect to love Ethiopia, or at least not in the same way.  And prepare to find that Ethiopia just does not give a damn about you.  Ethiopia does not hold dear all the things that you hold so dear for her.  She does not see beauty where you see beauty, she sees survival and struggle.  She does not think culture and history are very vital, she just blindly uses them because she has not choice.  And you too may find that the worst part of Ethiopia is her culture.  Prepare yourself to slowly fall out of love with Ethiopia.  And this is fine, but what deepens this anguish is that even when you don’t love her and she does not love you, you are bound together, forever.  You learn that you can never walk away from her.  Ethiopia is like an alcoholic parent, you can’t help but love her simply because she is yours but you hate everything about her, how she abuses herself, how she abuses you, but she has so much potential to love and to be better, but those moments are fleeting and the rest is pain. 

 This is Ethiopia to me.

How to crash a Kikuyu dowry ceremony

As I was catching a ride home from work on Friday afternoon I began wondering just how I was going to pass my first [long] weekend back in Nairobi. Most everyone I knew was already out of town, and the prospect of wasting away in the Pact guesthouse all weekend seemed unappealing, especially because two of my good friends back in the US were getting married on Saturday and I was missing the event. That’s why, when Paul, the driver, practically read my mind and asked aloud what plans I had for the special “May Day” weekend, I honestly answered, “I have no idea.” The entire week Paul had been throwing out future invitations for me to go on various outings with his family, so when he suggested a Saturday afternoon of eating lots of African barbecued meat with him and his friends, I thought, “Why not?” Since my Summer in Argentina I’ve learned better to turn down local meat :o).

The next morning I received a text message saying Paul would pick me up at noon. Unsure of exactly where I was going and what sort of environmental conditions to expect (and it’s a muddy, rainy season here), I put on a pair of jeans and a sweater, and my Chaco sandals (read: easily washable). Paul arrived on time with two of his friends in the backseat. We made introductions and drove off to a nearby area where Paul lived.

Again I was unsure of the day’s events and got fairly obscure explanations when I asked, so by the time I arrived in Paul’s living room I decided I should stop asking questions and just follow along with whatever was going to happen. The room was modest, heavily furnished with couches and large padded chairs. A small TV sat in a large wooden shelf, playing dubbed over Japanese skits – this was my first time actually seeing African TV, so I had trouble taking my eyes away from the screen. I found a comfy space on a couch and Paul’s daughter brought all of us milk tea and heart-shaped biscuits. Paul explained that we were waiting for people to come meet us (namely the wives of the male threesome), and then we’d be off.

Soon as promised, beautifully decorated and dressed women began to enter the house. Their clothes were made of pastel lace and their hair was wrapped up in intricate knots and wraps. Looking at my own muddy sandals and cropped jeans, I felt a little out of place. I felt even more of an oddball when they began to tease their husbands for wearing casual shirts and sneakers – enough so that they returned home to change. This is when I got my first inclination that the event was more than just an eating activity. This became even more apparent when seeing my camera, I was invited to attend a future event the following April – they explained to me that they did activities like this 3-4 times a year. I felt very honored to be part of the day, but I still was very unclear as to what the day entailed, especially as they reassured me that my clothes were perfectly appropriate.

Finally Lucy, Paul’s wife, arrived in a gorgeous black, red, and gold dress. Her hair was also in intricate knots on the top of her head, but decorated with pearls instead of a colorful wrap. After sitting in the livingroom with her puttering about the house for the next 40 minutes, I became engrossed in an “ABC Family” movie and the blaring screen juxtaposed with the afternoon’s household activities was bizarre to say the least: “After-school special land goes to down-and-out Nairobi”.

Apparently whatever needed to be accomplished was taken care of in the next ten minutes and Lucy led me out of the house down the muddy road. I had been so engaged with the TV, because lets face it, being in an unpredictable situation can be anxiety-wrought and mentally exhausting, so I had completely missed it when the other men and women had left ahead of us.

We walked for another 10 minutes, passing by little children yelling, “how are you?” to the confused Misungo (me), and women in corrugated metal storefronts selling fruits and vegetables and maize. When it became less and less clear as to where we were going, Lucy ducked into a metal doorway in a large fence, and we arrived at another house. Inside were nearly 20 people, piled on couches that again framed the entire house with their large cushions decorated with lace coverlets, the same ABC Family movie blaring in the background. Women were fussing with their dresses and hair and greeting one another (you have to shake EVERYONES hand when you walk through a door in Kenya) while the men stood outside, apparently arranging the day’s transportation. Large sacks from Nakumatt (the local grocery store) were carried into the already overflowing room, and the women gathered together to stuff Costco-size packages of tea, sugar, ugali, and rice into striped straw bags, covering them with cotton sheets embroidered with flowers. One of the ladies next to me explained that when you visit someone’s house for a party, it’s customary to bring gifts, but they have to be wrapped nicely and the women attending will usually wrap the bag straps over their heads and present them to the family.

This was definitely appearing to be a much more formal event, and when a beautiful buxom woman walked into the room wearing a bright yellow outfit and a huge grin, someone explained to me that her parents were the host of the event. She had two little girls following around behind her and I assumed her husband was outside, so although I knew the host of the event, I was still clearly confused as to the meaning of the occasion.

Once the men had arranged to rent a matatu (a large van used for public transport throughout Africa) for the day, the group assembled to figure out how to split the cost. This took another 10 minutes of discussion amongst everyone and when I pulled out some cash to hand to Paul and Lucy, they refused to take any contribution whatsoever. The woman next to me explained that since I was their guest it was their responsibility, regardless of how much I wanted to help out. It was funny because they insisted on having the transport negotiations in English so I could understand, but I wasn’t allowed to help pay for anything.

Next a man called Lucy to the head of the room and requested that she said a prayer. I’m not sure if I mentioned earlier, but Paul’s wife is a preacher at a church in Naivasha and the entire group is extremely religious, so it was only fitting for us to say a few words before we hopped on a matatu to who knows where to eat some meat :o). We bowed our heads and Lucy gave thanks for the opportunity for us to meet that day and a bunch of other things that were lost between her mumbling and the ABC Family movie still playing behind our head. She knew what she was competing with, though, and strategically placed her head exactly in the center of the TV screen.

After the prayers were completed, we all helped to lug the huge straw bags outdoors and into the trunks of a few waiting cars. Then I followed a woman named Esther into my first glimpse of the inside of a matatu. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of this because I wasn't certain if it was a)Safe to take my camera out and b)Appropriate, but I can give you a rundown of one of these notorious forms of transportation. It's basically a large bus, heavily worn from stuffed bodies and overladen cargo. The engine barely putters along with a fierceness necessary to get over the clumpy mud streets of rural Nairobi and the windows are highly decorated with dayglo decals of disco scenes and party phrases. Exhausted plush seats supported by rusty metal frames contain bodies upon bodies of wall-to-wall passengers. The presence of seatbelts is only slightly reassuring - these vehicles have some of the worst accident rates in Africa. I felt in a virtual sea of carburator cacaphony, jubilant laughter, and the familiar scents of Clairol hairspray.

This is when I had to ask myself again, where the hell was I going? :o)

We drove for about 30 minutes through Nairobi and out the other side. I barely noticed we were in the countryside until the matatu stopped and we all filed out into a very muddy road. It was also at this instant that the sky decided to open a veritable floodgate onto all party-goers. In a mess of muddy splashes we walked down the road to the house of the hostess. Outdoors a large tent was set up with rows and rows of folding chairs, sinking deep into the grassy mud wetness. A table covered with silver serving dishes steaming in the cool air.

Paul and Lucy pushed me through the crowd of people and we found seats near the back of the tent. Finally I figured it was safe to ask Paul where the heck we were and who's party it was. Lucy finally admitted that it was a dowry ceremony for the woman wearing the beautiful yellow outfit. I had to laugh to myself, only in the developing world could you be mistakingly lead to an event such as this under the pretext of eating meat :o).

In Africa when women get married, their fiance's family needs to pay a dowry to her parents - quite the opposite of Asia where the woman's parents pay the groom's parents for the marriage. This meal was provided by the bride's parents in preparation for the dowry negotiations that would happen afterwards. Apparently women can live with their fiances for many years (including have children) before the actual marriage ceremony, without any judgment from the community.

Soon it was our turn to file up and fill our plates with food. I was a bit wary. I'm not a huge fan of African cuisine and Paul promised me there would be goat meat intermixed with some of the dishes and I was hoping to avoid it. We first rinsed our hands under the hot water in a silver canteen. Then plates in hand, we walked down the row of dishes, having heaps of local favorites piled high on our plates. I'm totally going to botch the names, so instead I'll describe them to you. The first dish was something like ugali (made of white corn flower) mixed with green vegetables and maize (corn), then there was something almost a purple color - another starch mixed with thick black beans, some beef stew, a dish of black beans, bones of the goat (I avoided this one), flavored rice, and a red and green pepper salad.

Never in a million years would I ever have eaten this much food at a restaurant I loved, so I was a bit nervous that I might not be able to finish all of the food on my plate. That paired with the conspicuousness of being the only white face in a crowd of 100 was a bit intimidating. I plunked my spoon into the ugali green clump and went for it. Nobody really spoke as they ate and ate. Paul kept looking at me to see if I was doing alright with all the food. I actually got a lot of glances throughout the meal. I'm sure everyone [as well as myself] was wondering, "what is this white chick doing here?"

After I had made a significant dent in my food, people began to clear the plates and hot milk tea was passed around. Then came plates of pineapple and watermelon, and a donut pastry (who's name I also can't remember). I think at this point I finally began to catch my breath and feel a little more comfortable in my surroundings. People began asking me where I came from and seeing my big camera at my side, asked me to take their pictures. There were two little girls in particular who were enamored by seeing themselves on the LCD screen. Finally, just before the introductions for the dowry negotiations began, halved gourds were passed around and these bowls were filled high with "oogie", fermented flour porridge. At first I was especially wary of this dish, but after much coaxing I gave in and admit that I really enjoyed this sour-sweet warm liquid. It was also very fun to eat in a gourd. I'm sure my head was thoroughly confused - less than a week ago I was eating Cambodian food and a week before that watching some Vietnamese friends eat frog-legs. A culinary paradise, or something like that.

The bride, Eva, soon sought me out and began dragging me around the tent taking pictures of all her friends. Her father (I think it was her father) kept insisting to me that I had the run of the place and could take whatever pictures I wanted. This became fairly awkward once introductions were made and people were standing up and introducing themselves - I wanted to capture the event for everyone but I didn't want to get in the way of anyone actually viewing the proceedings. Eva and her dad brought me around the compound, into the house at the start of the negotiations, out back where the dishes were being washed in a backdrop of lush green hills, and up the road where Lucy and her friends were collecting crates of soda (8 in all, because 7 is an unlucky number) to carry down to the house once the dowry had been settled.

When the light grew too dim to take anymore pictures - and secretly I was thankful because there is nothing like wedding-like pressure for a photographer (one reason I will never do that as a profession - the women assembled at the top of the driveway to carry down the sodas. One of Lucy's friends gave me a Kikuyu name, "Shiku", and from that point on began hollering to me with it anytime she wanted to grab my attention. With my hand on one side of a soda crate, we sloshed through the mud, beautiful dresses, fancy shoes, and all, shaking the bottles (they're glass here) up and down while many of the women began to sing. We marched towards the house, singing echoing over the lush green hills and Eva glowing. I thought the sodas or my fingers would break with all the sloshing of bottles - a completely surreal experience.

Once the sodas were presented we were all allowed to take one (this was the first time most people had drank during the whole meal) and party attendants sat in groups and chatted - men in one group, women in the other. The group of women I sat with were excited about the amount of food they had eaten. In fact, many of them were counting the rolls on their stomachs! What a fantastic practice - I think the supermodels of America could learn something from this practice ;o).

Soon it was time to go, and the groups of people piled into cars and matatus. Paul let me ride in his car this time (the matatu was just so I could have the experience, apparently). The driveway had grown so muddy and slippery that he had to completely gun the engine, dodging party-goers and small children (probably goats too) as we plowed up the driveway. The colorful matatu plowed on ahead of us, dancing through the mud like a woman's hips on a disco dancefloor.

Walking in Africa

March 9-15, 2006

A few weeks ago I was privileged enough to accompany my colleagues in Africa – Erica and Marcia – to a WORTH launch training in Mbale, Uganda. Since working in Kenya was my first time in sub-Saharan Africa, Uganda was quite a new and amazing experience for me also.

The training originally was to have been held in Kampala, Uganda, and I was looking forward to catching up with some of the other hunger fellows based there (hi Todd, hi Peter!), but unfortunately, it was much more convenient to hold the training workshop out in the field, where the beneficiaries of our program (and local implementers) are based.

That’s how I found myself on a plane to Entebbe, Uganda, peering out the window at the beautiful and quite massive Lake Victoria below. The plane ride itself was short, and once collecting our bags, we were whizzing away with Sully, our taxi driver, alongside the gorgeous lake (Entebbe is stunning), on our way to Kampala.

In downtown Kampala – which looks completely different from Nairobi, and a bit more visually appealing – we stopped at a famous hotel (Hotel Speke) to change money (ugh, more shillings, different exchange rate), and then on to the Rwenzori Café to meet up with our donor counterpart, Holly for a late lunch.

One thing about Africa, they have phenomenal coffee - after being completed detached from it in Cambodia (lack of to-go cups), I became a complete addict in Africa. That explains the iced lattes Marcia and I made sure to grab after our yummy lunch with Holly. The restaurant reminded me of some place back in the states, and it was in a strip mall - which I guess has become a popular form of architecture in Africa.

After collecting Holly, her things [and our lattes!], we drove off towards the countryside of coffee and papyrus plantations, mud houses, and little school children in their brightly-colored uniforms - like dancing Easter eggs prancing along the highway. One of the most popular colors was a bright pink, and they just looked magical wandering next to the lush fields.

Uganda is a lot greener than Kenya - it seemed tremendously lush, comparatively. But in Kenya's defense, I've spent little time out in the countryside, other than the "bush", so I could be completely wrong in this assumption.

The four-hour drive seemed to go relatively fast, as we all had a lot to discuss about the upcoming training. The gorgeous landscape provided a great cinematic metronome that supplied a soothing background and helped us pace our discussion:

- good highway: talk about work.
- horrible road: watch with curiosity as Sully maneuvers along the wrong side of the road, while trying not to let your head bump the ceiling.
- Coffee plantations: Wait for Erica’s announcement and then try to catch these with a quick glance before they zoom by.
- Cross the start of the Nile River: ooh and ahh, then talk about PR for WORTH

You get the picture. (I’m actually amazed that weeks after we made this trip, I’m still remembering that kind of detail :o)).

Once in Mbale – a very rural town at the foothills of a mountain range [I can’t for the life of me remember], we drove up a gradual hill and around a bend to the Mbale Botanical Hotel. In the driveway were a pack of potential WORTH-ees who greeted us with big hugs and smiles. We were shown to our rooms – very basic with shared bathrooms – and after a brief tea with the Director of Women’s Ministries, we turned in for the night.

The next few days were a blur of all-day training gatherings, after-hours meetings, and planning sessions in our rooms, munching on bagged popcorn and apples and fresh peanut butter (the lunch food was pretty awful).

We began most mornings with a 6 am walk around the neighborhood where we watched cattle grazing, women working in the fields, and little children on their way to school. (I actually think this is when it *finally* hit me that I was in Africa, because it was the first chance I'd had to explore any of it on foot). Even if we didn’t go for a walk it was nearly impossible to sleep past 6 am as the roosters were crowing by around 5:30 am. Then it was time to shower, which was always a challenge. Holly and I shared a bathroom that consisted of a large bathtub, stained by clothes dye (I’m pretty convinced), and no shower tap. Regardless if we had hot water (every other day, but barely) or cold, I spent my showers squatting in the tub, pouring buckets of water over my head, a muffled shriek slipping out for the first dunk, if it was a cold-water morning. I thought I was being especially quiet in my reaction, but later on Holly pointed out that she could almost hear my body contort (which it did) as that first chilly splash soaked me.

Breakfast was usually some pineapple slices, a few hard-boiled eggs, and French-press style coffee, without the press. It was also intermixed with morning worship and devotionals as the Salvationists are very disciplined in their religious practices.

Once the training began, all of us were running around, hooking up equipment, tracking down TVs and VCRs that could play Western-recorded videos, chasing down markers and pads of paper, and trying to keep everyone on-time for the next portion. It was completely exhausting, and I did very little of the presentation part. The energy of the participants was inspiring though, and they frequently broke into song – albeit usually referring to Jesus and all his glory – but the music was gorgeous. As an aside, after visiting both Kenya and Uganda, I’m convinced Africa is “Jesus Land.” Missionaries, STOP, everyone is ALREADY converted. Save your money. Woah.

My favorite part of the training was getting to know all of the local implementers and hearing their reaction to WORTH and the appreciative methodology (APA). It was unbelievable to watch them transform overnight, from slightly timid and dubious, to complete micro-finance WORTH converts. As I began to discover in my graduate thesis, discourse plays such an important role in international development, and seeing “it” in action, was extremely fulfilling – like everything has finally come full-circle.

At the end of each day, we closed our workshop with a type of evaluation, and then the participants took over. Literally every day, without fail, we were summoned to the front of the room (and I didn’t deserve this praise as much as Erica and Marcia), where the attendees cheered for us and shared “Coca Cola’s”. I don’t really know how to explain a Coca Cola without physically demonstrating it, but lets just say it’s an exaggerated pantomime of people shaking cans of Coke and spraying them all over the training leaders. It was hysterical to watch, I felt like I was back in elementary school – yet it achieved it’s desired effect, I felt completely “washed over” with appreciation.

In the evenings we wandered into Mbale town to find something more palatable than the poorly-cooked Ugali, Mtoke, and bone stew. Similar to Kenya, there are tons of Indian restaurants in Uganda, even in remote areas like Mbale where we managed to find two. On the other days we went to another restaurant in town that seemed to have the best variety of food in the area. I think we went there a total of three times to indulge in their kabobs (not like KB at all, Rob). The place was usually packed with other Westerners – lots of Americans, lots of missionaries.

Every other day the power went off, for the whole day. We had a generator for training purposes, but it was extremely loud and made it difficult for us to concentrate. It was also fairly hot (though I’m laughing while typing this because today was one of the hottest days I’ve ever felt in my life, in Cambodia), and without well-operating fans, it got really sticky. At night I wrestled underneath my mosquito net, which didn’t fully cover my bed. When the power was on I turned on the fan, but it just blew the net around so much I felt like it was attacking me during the night. Even once I got comfortable I was usually awaken by a revival out in a field nearby, some animated discussion from the “doily room” (everything was lace, like a grandma’s valentine), or a female coming-of-age ceremony that concluded at dawn with a loud worship a few buildings down. Needless to say, I got little sleep and each day wore us out completely.

I thought we’d get a bit of time to catch up on our sleep on the Sunday where we weren’t training, but it seemed as though we worked straight from dawn till near midnight (in my case). We did get a ride over to the Mbale Resort, where we worked in a bungalow out on the lawn, had a large thermos of coffee, and ate salads while we typed up presentations and I worked on the monitoring and evaluation system. The change of scenery was nice, and it felt *so* good to be doing challenging work, all the time we spent actually working, was relatively painless. It just felt amazing to be useful.

When the training neared its end on the 15th, the participants threw a little party for us with a cake, soda (mmm Stoney!), cupcakes, and Cadbury Eclairs (yes folks, they make more than “eggs” in Africa). Poor Erica and Marcia had literally made themselves sick from working so hard that week, and Marcia barely had a voice, however I think this last day for them made all the hard work worthwhile. We all wandered outside and stood in a circle to make our personal commitments to the program. It was so wonderful to see everyone so passionate and dedicated to the program and it was sad to say goodbye to these amazing women and men that we had spent the past seven days with. I really expect incredible things from our Uganda program, absolutely incredible.

The ride back concluded the way the ride to Mbale began – good road, bad road, good road, Rwenzori coffee. Then we hit traffic, relatively BAD traffic. We all tensed a bit because we thought we might not make our plane, but about 45 minutes later the traffic cleared and we neared Entebbe, alongside the gorgeous Lake Victoria.

The training [and all my time in Africa] really renewed my spirit and passion for development work – it was where the rubber really hits the road, and where we as change agents, foster real – and in this case internal – transformation. Being there made WORTH come alive for me in a way I hadn’t yet experienced. The energy there really was beyond description.

People’s lives have changed because of our program and this first [of many] training, and these were just the implementers being inspired. Wait till the women get hold of WORTH. The whole week was an absolute self-discovery of how I could positively contribute to the broader spectrum of development work [and how unbelievably hard development work is]. I have to say I couldn’t have two better mentors – watching them make our program come alive was awe-inspiring and I can only hope that someday I have equally strong facilitation and programming skills.

For any of you who are more versed/experienced in development fieldwork, I’m sure you’re likely rolling your eyes at the description and my reaction, or better yet, saying to yourselves, “this was how I felt before I got jaded.” Call me a non-cynic or rather an optimist, but I actually believe that this program is different, that how it works is completely different, and that it really will change these women’s [and men’s] lives. Instead of doubting these emotions, I’m embracing them, because if there’s one lesson I’ve really learned in the past eight months of working overseas, if you don’t have hope and passion, you have no power.

How to Win an Election

We just passed through the exciting time of elections in Uganda and I wanted to pass along some of the highlights of the process since I got here last July. Just for a little bit of background, Uganda was visited by President Clinton a few years ago and he announced that the president of Uganda was part of the new breed of African leader. President Yoweri Museveni took over the Ugandan government in 1986 and has just concluded his second five year term after the new constitution was created in 1996. Twenty years in power and going strong.

When I arrived in Uganda there was already a lot of excitement in the air about the upcoming elections because it was supposed to be the first election with an actual peaceful changeover of leadership in about forty years for Uganda. The current president had promised in his last campaign that this would be his last term as president and that he was ready to go home and take care of his cattle ranch. Apparently, a lot changed in the past five years and the big guy decided that his country needed him again.

How to accomplish this? Well, step one is to get a little help from your friends. When the constitution was adopted in 1996, the president was supposed to be limited to 10 years in office (2 five-year terms), allowing for a peaceful handover of power. About the time that I got here this was about to change. The president paid out large sums of money to the ruling party members of the parliament, which also happens to be his party, to vote for a constitutional amendment to get rid of term limits. We were now on our way.

Next step, get rid of the opposition. There was an opposition leader who fled the country after the last election because he did too well and he was afraid of assassination attempts. This guy is a glutton for punishment. Before this election he snuck across the border to register for the presidential election and then he arrived to huge crowds of supporters in the capital a few weeks before the campaigns were supposed to kick off. This definitely made the president a bit nervous, but what to do? A couple of weeks later a large police force arrested the opposition leader and put him on trial for treason, illegal possession of arms, and rape, to top it off. One court was not enough for all of this so the civilian court and military court were both called into action to handle the same charges. Two for the price of one!

These criminal cases seemed to slow down the campaign schedule of the opposition leader while the president was able to use the military helicopters to fly to his rallies. The opposition leader stayed in jail for about a month before being released on bail. He continued to have to make court appearances during the campaign season.

The charges turned out to be a little bit amusing as well. The guy was charged with running a shadowy rebel army in Congo that has never been seen or heard from before. Those charges still stand but the rape charge was just thrown out of court. During the trial it came to light that the woman who had accused the opposition leader of rape had been living at the equivalent of the White House for the past five years. This alone might not have been enough to show a conflict of interest but then it turned out that the other key witness had been arrested and put in jail and then suddenly released. Upon her release she also got a brand new house as a gift from the government.

That is most of the excitement before the election except for the occasional riot or two, but nothing a bit of tear gas couldn’t put down. Once the Election Day came around everything was pretty quiet. I decided to hang out in my small town where there was sure to be no excitement and watch how things went down. It all went pretty smoothly and the president won with 59 percent of the vote. Well done, sir.

There was a little bit of excitement after the election when a couple of stories came out about election fraud. Some of the members of the armed forces reported that they were each given 10-15 votes to put in the ballot boxes. Vote early and vote often! There was even one a little closer to home. One of my friends that I work with supports the opposition leader but his girlfriend supports the current president. After the election she called him to let him know that she was very excited because she got to vote three times. Free and fair elections.

So next time any of you would like to run for president don’t forget these handy tips for ensuring victory.

See you all in a couple of months. Take care.

Todd

Two Sides of Rwanda

Another email I sent out about a trip to Rwanda that I took a few weeks ago. Hope you all enjoyed the holidays.

Hi Everyone,

So I have been trying to think of a good way to sum up my recent trip to Rwanda and have not been very successful so I thought I would just start writing and see where it leads. I got a visit from my friend Kerri who was in the Peace Corps with me. As soon as she found out that I was coming to Uganda to work she told me she was coming to visit. She really wanted to go to Rwanda and I was happy to tag along. The trip had started as a chance to get to see the mountain gorillas in the area. The few remaining mountain gorillas live in a transboundary park along the Rwanda, Uganda, and DRC border. It is kind of expensive to go but I can definitively say that it is worth it. These are the gorillas that the movie “Gorillas in the Mist” is based on.

We spent about a week in Rwanda and mostly visited the northwest region. We spent most of our time traveling and, from what I saw, Rwanda is one of the most beautiful countries in Africa. There are rolling mountains throughout the whole area and farm terraces all the way up the mountain sides. It was still the rainy season so everything was still very green.

I guess I thought of the trip in two ways. I thought of it as a tourist getting to see a beautiful place for the first time and I also spent a lot of time reflecting on Rwanda’s brutal recent past. It was hard to have those two thoughts coincide in the same place. We spent a few days near Lake Kivu in the west which is directly across from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The lake is stunning and sits in the foreground while massive volcanoes fill up the background. At night, the sky glows yellow from the lava that is still cooling after an eruption on the DRC side in 2002. But at this very site where I was taking in the natural wonder of the place I was standing next to a Catholic church where 11,400 people tried to take refuge from the 1994 genocide. For those of you that don’t know, in 1994 about 1,000,000 of the Tutsi minority were killed by the Hutu majority. At this site, these 11,400 men, women, and children hid in the only place that they thought they would be saved and instead they were all killed in one day by machetes in the church and surrounding grounds by their neighbors.

Walking into the church today you would never know what happened inside. The church appears to be in use again and there is a large memorial attached to the front of the building where some of the victims are buried and some of the bones are visible in a case as a reminder of what happened. In this town, 90% of the Tutsis were killed. In the whole country, 10% of the population was killed in just a few months. There are small memorials all over the country because there was no safe place to hide.

It was very strange to be in the country so soon after the event. Wherever we drove and whoever we met I was constantly thinking that every person above the age of 10 had a story to tell about how this affected them, where they were, and which side they were on. Besides this lakeside memorial we also visited the national memorial in Kigali which is the capital of Rwanda.

To look at Kigali, once again, you could never believe that something like this happened 11 years ago. It is a bustling city with new construction going on everywhere. The memorial in Kigali is on a site where 250,000 people are buried. The memorial was completed on the 10th anniversary of the genocide and gives a history of all of the events leading up to the genocide starting from colonization by the Germans and Belgians. There was also another well done section of the memorial that was dedicated to all of the genocides of the last century. I thought that was well placed because it is too easy to look at Africa from the outside and say that something like this is just what happens in lawless Africa. That is definitely not the case and for proof all we have to do is look to Eastern Europe, the Baltic States, and Asia. If we want to look closer to home we can go back a little further in time and talk about Native Americans.

There were also a lot of reminders in the memorial about the term genocide and how all of the members of the U.N. signed an agreement to never let it happen again after World War II and how often that has been ignored until it was too late. For anyone who is thinking that we must be doing something about it now, we need only look to the Darfur region of Sudan for evidence of inaction by so many.

Sorry to send out such a dark email right before Christmas. That was not planned and I hope that everyone is somewhere with the people they love and getting to enjoy the holidays. I will be on an island in Lake Victoria getting a tan for Christmas. I hope everyone is doing great and I’ll catch up with you all next year and I’ll try to send something a little cheerier next time. Todd

Happy Holidays, BLungerHoggers

I hope this post finds everyone well and indulging in whatever form of merriment strikes your fancy! I was thinking how many of us might be having alternative holiday plans this year and how it might be fun to use the site to share where we all are (if we've gone anywhere) and what our holiday experiences have been like.

Feel free to make a small post and maybe provide a photo so all of us can celebrate with you :).

I'll be heading off tonight to the Thai beaches for rockclimbing and scuba, and then to Luang Prabang, Laos for some sightseeing. My friend from the States is coming over and I'm looking forward to us both experiencing some new places :). Once I arrive I hope to upload a photo.

Wherever you are and whomever you're with, I wish you a magical and peaceful holiday, and a fabulous 2006!

My trips to Mexico, Bolivia and Colombia

I got back to Rome on Dec. 1st after a 4 week-long trip to Latin America.  I can say i do not want to see another airport or the inside of a plane in a long time after the 15 flights and with my luggage trailing 1-2 days behind me for most flights . 

Oaxaca was absolutely beautiful and left me with a desire to go back there and visit its beaches, which i did not have time to do.  The thing i loved the most about Oaxaca was its people--every person I interacted with whether in a restaurant, museum or a market were so nice, helpful, talkative, polite and had the nicest smiles!  I visited some milpas (agricultural systems based mostly on corn) which were about 1 hour away from the city of Oaxaca.  In this field trip i was able to see at least 12 different varieties of corn. Mexico has the greatest corn variety of all countries--57 varieties and of these 30 are in the State of Oaxaca.  These milpas had also different varieties of beans and squash, quelites (green edibles) and of course chiles. We were invited to share a great banquet that the local women prepared for us.  I put my vegetarianism aside for the day and enjoyed chicken with different moles (coloradito, negro, verde, amarillo), very nice fresh tortillas, sopita de quelites con maiz y calabaza, chapulines (grass hopers with chile, salt and lime), Tejate (a corn drink spiced with cacao flower and ground mamey seeds) and of course a variety of locally processed mezcal.  I learned from the women that a good Mole Oaxaqueno (del campo) can have as many as 60-70 ingredients including 6-7 different types of chiles, clove, ground cinnamon, almonds, raisins, sesame seeds, pumkin seeds, well you get the picture--and not all moles have chocolate.

While in Oaxaca I also had a chance to see the widest tree on earth (according to the Guiness record) the Tule tree (58 mts of circumference), a huge 12 century cactus --a lot bigger than me (i knkow that does not say much) and huge maguey or agave plants, which also make me look like an insect next to them.  And of course i could not pass visiting the amazing ruins of Monte Alban, Mitla, the Museum of Santo Domingo, the Ethnobotanic Gardens, the Tlacolula Market, the textiles/weaving town of Teotitlan del Valle and the local food market 20 de Noviembre in the city of Oaxaca itself.  You will think that i was on vacation but i was actually in a conference and yes I attended this great Biodiversity conference everyday from Tuesday to Saturday I just managed to arrived 3 days earlier to maximize my time.

Bolivia was a bit hectic, with little time to do any tourism but full of meetings all day with NGOs and ministries in La Paz and municipalities and people in the communities where i will be working near Uyuni.  In Bolivia i got sick (some food related thing), i got stuck one night and one day in Oruro (not the best town to get stuck) because these buses to Uyuni only leave once a day at 9:00pm. I witnessed quite a few blocades in front of my hotel and inhale tear gass quite a bit as a result.  I tried to find my future home while in Uyuni and realized that the rental market in practically non-existent so i found someone to build me a nice small cozy apartment which will be ready for mid January (hopefully unless the construction workers go on strike haha).  Problems aside i enjoyed very much the visit to El Salar--the scenery is absolutely gorgeous and i really felt i was somewhere other than earth after crossing this salar from begining to end.  The islands in the salar with the beautiful 1,000-2,000- year old cacti are just incredible and the caves with all the petrified algae formation are really something else. Visiting one of the mayors of a town in the other side of the salar, i felt i was in a pimp's palace--red carpet, cozy golden and red chairs, posters of naked women on the walls and the strong smell of men's colone in the air.

Finally my trip to Colombia was brief, nice for the most part until i got to the Bogota airport where i was suspected of being a mula.  I think I fit the profile, young latin american woman travelling alone, visiting Colombia for just 3 days, hmm... Anyway i was detained in a room for 2 hours, searched by 3 different women, all my luggage taken apart and asked the same questions over and over again.  The flight Bogota-Madrid was delayed by 2 hours so I thought I was going to loose my Rome connection for sure.  Once in Madrid i run like crazy to the gate with little hope that the flight has not left yet.  At my arrival what i saw was a mob of 15 angry Roman men not allowing the flight to leave.  I am not sure what was the problem with their reservations/tickets but they decided that if they were not getting on the plane nobody was.  They were yelling all sorts of obceneties and the Iberia staff was doing the same.  Three security men arrived and of course they were not going to do anything about it, finally after some armed forces arrived they were able to move the men from the boarding gate, I was able to board and the plane was able to leave.  And to keep with its newly acquired habits my luggage again did not arrive.

Well that sums up my crazy trips.

Washing Machines and Smoke Grenades

Here’s another email that I sent out a couple of weeks ago.

Hello again,
It seemed like a while since I had written anything and I had a bit of a crazy day so I thought I would take the opportunity to write it down. Let me start this story by saying that I am fine and that this isn't the way that things normally go around here.

So today, my girlfriend, whom my friend Derek would refer to as my special lady friend, and I were trying to get a few things taken care of in Kampala which is usually a challenge. Kathleen has been here about two weeks on a visit from South Africa.

You never want to try to get too much accomplished in one day because the only thing that usually gets accomplished is a solid sense of frustration. We had quite a pile of dirty laundry because we spent the last four days climbing Mt. Elgon in eastern Uganda which is spectacular, by the way.

So we were up early this morning to take on the minor challenges of the day which included getting some pictures developed, going to the post office, and finding a place to get our clothes washed. All of these would be simple enough tasks at home but have the potential to take a full day here. We ended up finding the one place downtown that is a dry cleaners/laundromat early which was great and then heading to the post office. Let me quickly say thanks to my friend Pete for the package even though it took about 45 minutes to get through the bureaucracy of the post office to get it. Six people to check with before being allowed to leave with my package. It was worth it.

After the post office was some lunch and then off to the photo shop. We selected our photos for printing and were hanging around waiting for the pictures when a large march started down Kampala road which is the main route through the city. The point of the march seemed unclear as the people around us all had different ideas of why the people were marching. Some thought that they were all Milton Obote supporters (the former president who recently died in exile). Some thought that it was university students supporting the opposition candidate for president (the election is next year). One guy told me that the people were marching to get a federal system of government. I'm sure there were several other stories. You would think in a march you would carry some banners clearly stating your objectives.

So several hundred people marched by and we picked up our pictures and headed back for the laundry. Everything was going really well. We picked up our clothes and tried to head back to where we are staying and got on some bodabodas to avoid the traffic. Bodabodas are the motorcycle taxis. We started trying to zip through traffic and Kathleen's motorcycle got a little bit ahead of mine. As we headed down Kampala road I ended up losing sight of Kathleen but we were headed in the same direction that the march had gone.

A few minutes later, I heard a bang and then saw a trail of smoke going up in the air. This was followed by several more bangs which turned out to be riot police shooting smoke grenades or tear gas into a crowd. I couldn't see Kathleen but she was much closer to it than me. A minute later, hundreds of people were running in my direction away from the scene. This, for some reason, made me a bit nervous. When I looked down the street there was a riot cop shooting a shotgun into the air to disperse the crowd. It turned out that Kathleen had just slipped through when the first smoke hit the ground with cops on one side and protesters/marchers on the other side. My driver also thought that it would be a good idea if we went the other direction so we turned around and headed up the street into oncoming traffic before ducking off onto a side road that took us around the trouble. I thought my driver probably deserved a big tip for his quick thinking and agile maneuvering through oncoming cars and buses at this point, which was exactly the moment that we ran out of gas. Sweet! I walked with him to the closest gas station and waited for him to get enough to get me where I needed to be.

We made it out of town into the suburb where Kathleen and I are staying and I found her on the side of the road waiting for me. It was a big relief to see her. Pretty exciting day, huh? That was my first experience with anything like that. Like I said, that is not the norm around here and tomorrow I'm sure I'll have a better idea what happened. Within minutes calm was restored on the streets and everyone went about their business and we had clean laundry (except for the shorts I was wearing) and some Snickers bars and beef jerky from the States.

Everything else is going really well here. I have started working on a good project to help start some agricultural marketing groups from a few of our existing farming groups. It has been really interesting to try to get that started and hopefully by the time I leave we will have some of them up and running.

This past week was my first vacation since I got here and we took full advantage. Mt. Elgon is along the border with Kenya and has a peak of 4321 meters. We camped on the mountain for 3 nights and hiked everyday. It was really beautiful and it was great to be able to sit on the top and look out over Kenya and Uganda. We had a clear day and could see for miles into both countries. On the last day of the hike, we came down on the side of the mountain with Sipi Falls which is a beautiful waterfall that you would see in a lot of tourist brochures for Uganda.

So life here continues to be interesting and exciting. The work is great and I am really enjoying the time here. It is amazing how fast it is flying by. It will be back to work on Monday. Stay well everyone and I'll try to stay in touch but my internet connection got fried in the village so sorry for late responses.
Todd

News from the land of Genghis Khan

Hello from chilly Mongolia! For those of you who feel miserable sometimes because of the heat, most days I'd be glad to give you a little bit of our cold. We had our first frost in early August, our first big snowstorm in mid-September and now temperatures are just below freezing point during the day and well below (-15F) at night. There's already a good layer of snow on the ground in the mountains and hills that surround Ulaanbaatar. I haven't been cross-country skiing yet, but just bought skis and boots, so it'll come soon!

Some of you probably wonder what Mongolia is like. I've been meaning to write to the Blog for quite a while, but with most of my week-ends away camping in the countryside or traveling for work (I've been to 12 provinces out of 21 in Mongolia already!), time is always scarce. Which is a good thing – I've been keeping busy and overall have been having a great time here.

Mongolia is a vast country with a huge count of livestock (30 million) and a tiny population (2 ½ million). Close to half of Mongolians are nomadic herdsmen, living life like in the 12^th Century. The combination of traditional and modern is amazing. Some of the wealthier cashmere traders who carry cell phones still dress like Genghis Khan -- including wearing traditional Mongolian shoes which, according to folklore, point up at the toe so as to not harm the land. In contrast, in the city, every Mongolian lady wears stiletto high heels that stab the ground with every step.

In Ulaanbaatar ("UB"), the capital, where I live, half of the city is Soviet style block concrete buildings and the other half is called Ger districts. Herders who lost most or all of their livestock during the "dzud" (extremely cold winters) of 1999-2002 were forced to move to the city, where they live in their traditional Mongolian tent homes, on the margins of poverty. Their lignite stoves are a huge source of pollution; with the recent cold days, the city has started to smell like a big campfire and visibility is very poor.

UB is neither a very pretty nor very exciting city, but it has a decent selection of restaurants, theaters, art galleries and such, so there is always something to do after work. On week-ends I usually go to the countryside with a group of friends/colleagues. The countryside is beautiful. We go camping, or sleep in a ger the group owns just outside of town. During the summer we swam and went tubing down the river; now we mainly hike, and soon we'll ski.

At work, in addition to several small projects, my main activity has been an assessment of the Mongolian livestock and meat sub-sector. The goal of the research is to assess the desirability of strengthening local production for local/regional processing and sale. Through background research and discussion with people at all levels of the supply chain – herders, changers, processors, wholesalers, retailers and buyers – I've found that supply, not demand, is currently the main constraint facing the sector. Despite the large national herd, Mongolia does not produce enough meat to supply the growing national and export markets. So I'm now looking at how Mercy Corps can work with herders to help them increase animal productivity and how to improve linkages to facilitate herders' access to markets.

Mercy Corps Mongolia works on diversifying incomes and promoting economic growth through agribusiness support and development. Thus, our herder 'clients' are not the poorest of the poor but rural businesspeople that are fairly educated and reasonably well-off by local standards. The idea -- which took some getting used to for me -- is that by raising the overall economic level of the country, the general wealth and well-being will, in the long run, trickle down to the most poor. This is similar to the Millennium Challenge Corporation's poverty reduction through economic growth strategy. It's quite different from the type of work that a lot of you do (from what I read on the Blog) and from what I've been used to in the past, but I can understand the rationale behind it now, and see the benefits.

There is a lot of commotion at the Parliament, Foreign Ministry and US Embassy these days – and even smaller at organizations like Mercy Corps: Mongolia will be having important guests next Monday. The Bushes (and Condi) will be here to visit, for four hours! This is the first official visit to Mongolia by an American president. I never imagined that so much preparation went into these official visits - it's unbelievable. Rumsfeld was also here a few weeks ago and Dennis Hastert, the Speaker of the House, came in August, so this fall has been replete with events significant for US-Mongolian bilateral relations. One of the main reasons for this new interest is that Mongolian soldiers are serving in Iraq.

That's the news... I hope all of you are doing well. I wish you all a lovely 'Holiday Season' (not much going on here as this is a Buddhist country) and I look forward to seeing you all again next summer!

Sylvie

P.S. A funny poem, written by a Chinese princess who was obliged to live in Mongolia longer than she would have liked...

"A tent is my house,

Of felt are my walls:

Raw flesh my food

With mare's milk to drink"

Her description is all true, but things aren't nearly so terrible, I would say. Even the popular fermented mare's milk is not so bad – right, Margaret?

life with Sophia

Hi All!  This is my first post to the BlungerHog!  How exciting!

Life with a new baby has been so much more fun and interesting than I ever imagined.  It is amazing to watch this tiny little creature explore the world around her, and wonder what is going through her head when she feels the sun and wind on her face, or hears a car going by, or watches an animal at the zoo.

Now that she's three months, she is really starting to show her personality.  She is generally quite calm and alert to her surroundings.  She smiles and coos at us, especially in the morning when I pick her up out of her bassinet.  Her main hobbies are going for walks in her Snugli and playing in her activity gym.  She's been hiking in three states already--Maryland, West Virginia and North Carolina, and we even took her to Coolfont for a weekend getaway!  Here are some cute pics!

Sophia and Lexo at the zoo

Me and Sophia at a pumpkin stand