Even Better than a Gym Membership.

Fleeting Childhood Bliss.

From discovery to abandon.

The Motorist.

 

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Photo Credit:

Carolyn Schroder

Reaching for the Sky.

Blue Ribbon.

This Way.

Run Like a Kenyan.

Recently Andrei and I traveled to Nairobi for the day. We woke at 3am, were picked up at 4am, departed from Dar es Salaam at 5am, and arrived into Nairobi at 6am. Luggage and agenda free, we had 11 hours of adventure ahead of us before our return flight home. While we both enjoy getting lost in urban settings, we have found that trekking through concrete jungles can make for a less than relaxing getaway. 

So instead we hired a driver for the day and headed straight to Ngong Hills, about a 40 minute drive outside of the city center. "Ngong," literally meaning "knuckles" in Maasai, is a series of 4 peaks overlooking the Great Rift Valley on one side and the skyline of Nairobi on the other side. These hils resemble the knuckles of a giant whose fate is the subject of several Masai legends.

At altitudes above 2000m, the air was thin and left us breathless. As we rested and enjoyed the views,

these guys ran circles around us. The Kenyans, famed for their running prowess, did not fail to impress.

But why is it that Kenyans are such good runners? The theories are many and varied.

According to some, high altitude running partially explains this phenomenon, as running at higher altitudes builds greater lung capacity as runners grow more used to the athletic rigors of thinner air. The vast majority of Kenya's most accomplished runners were born and raised at high altitude, hailing from a hilly region surrounding Eldoret ranging in altitude from 7,000 to 8,000 feet above sea level.

But certainly that alone cannot explain this phenomenon, as worldwide many populations live at high altitudes. One theory our driver explained to us in great detail is that the "Kenyan" running stardom actually lies mostly with one particular tribe, the Kalenjin. Though Kalenjins represent just 12 percent of Kenya's population, they comprise about three-quarters of the nation's elite runners. It was Kip Keino who kicked off this trend back in 1968 when he won Olympic gold for his winning performance in the 1,500 meter event. In 1972, added an Olympic steeplechase title. His successes apparently inspired succeeding generations of Kalenjins to seek distance-running titles.

Kip Keino, among many other Kalenjin marathon winners, are viewed as heros and idols for Kalenjin youth. However, not only are they admired for their athletic talent, but also because many young Kenyans view winning distance running titles as their ticket out of poverty. In races where winning cash prizes reach upwards of $100,000, surely this helps aspiring runners keep their eye on the prize. This in turn feeds the legacy and tradition of "Kenyan" running talent because as interest in running increases, so does the competition for much coveted positions on traveling squads and accordingly so does the intensity and difficulty of Kenyan training regimes.

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References:

http://www.slate.com/id/2090658

http://www.kilimanjaro.cc/eam/ngong-hills.htm

Mtoto.

Explosion of Color.

And the Best Dressed Award Goes to.

Adventure Seeking with a Twist.

One of the main reasons I travel is because of the people I get to meet along the way. Some, of course, are more impressionable than others. But there are a select few I have met along the way that have left me so inspired that I have been moved to search for more consequential meaning in my own life. This past weekend, I had the opportunity to meet two such people. And I would like to take the opportunity, in turn, to introduce them to you.

Their names are Gwyn and Ryan. Gwyn is from the UK. Ryan is from South Africa. Gwyn is driving Ryan home. Although this is hardly an ordinary drive. For starters, their journey begins in London and ends in Capetown. Their journey began on 11th October 2009. We met them nearly 8 months later on the south coast of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania at the bar of Mikadi Beach, a well known stop for overlanders in Africa. Gwyn was quite chatty and pumped with excitment for the pending U.S. v. England World Cup game, while Ryan, who appeared to be a bit shyer by nature, remained in the background reading the "Getting Started" Section of their Southern Africa Lonely Planet guide. We could not help but laugh at this fact, especially since 8 months into my year's long journey in Dar es Salaam, I still feel like I am "getting started." If only someone had penned a neat summary I could read to better equip me for this experience. 

Both Gwyn and Ryan share a sense of adventure. But their shared adventure is one with a unique twist. Namely, their overland route is being undertaken in a 1989 Toyota LandCruiser partially powered by solar technology. Gwyn’s keen interests in solar energy and development in Africa combined to create OverlandintheSun. The OverlandintheSun trip is an opportunity for Ryan to combine his journey home with a real world adventure that will aid in capitalizing on the potential of solar power and technology to bring benefits to some of the world's poorest communities. OverlandintheSun is raising money for SolarAid, a charity that fights global poverty and climate change by coordinating projects in rural Africa that bring solar power to schools, community centers, and health clinics. SolarAid augments their introduction of solar power technology by training beneficiaries to make and sell their own solar powered products and chargers.

The OverlandintheSun trip itself will be producing less CO2 than they would otherwise living in the UK. How you ask, can driving an energy inefficient car, over such a vast distance produce less CO2 than simply staying in the UK during that time?

Well, a trip of this kind takes a serious amount of preparation, and Gwyn diligently worked for over two years to make his dream a reality. But these two years of dedicated preparation work consisted not only of outfitting the vehicle to make it a place they could call home for the coming year, but also, reconfiguring the vehicle to make it partially fueled by solar energy. This has been achieved through the use of Solar Photovoltaics, a technology that has been around for 20 years, but is only now maturing and becoming economically viable. This technology will allow them to capitalize on the potential of the equitoral sun to fuel the vehicle's fans and water pump to keep them cool, the power steering to give them a helping hand, and the alternator to provide such amenities as lights, stereo, mobile satillite navigation system, as well as in-vehicle entertainment in the form of a solar powered kettle, solar powered mobile phones and personal computers and cameras, and the ultimate luxury - hot showers - via solar powered "heat" aka shower bags warmed in the sun.

While they recognize that by walking or biking they certainly would have consumed less fossil fuel burning energy (although perhaps more physical energy!), driving was in fact part of the mission. They were driven (no pun intended) to demonstrate to people in general and car manufacturers specifically the power of Solar Photovoltaics. While it is now widely accepted that using cars less, carpooling more, and driving more efficiently are all laudible goals, they realize that draconian policies restricting car usage is something no politician would dare to dream of and also changing the behavior of the "average Joe" is usually quite an impossible feat. Therefore, part of their mission is to take a bold stance in demonstrating the power of technology to help reduce the impact of climate change.

Many others with a similar sense of adventure have joined them along the way, as surely a trip of this magnitude would be impossible with two people alone, however we only had the pleasure of meeting Gwyn and Ryan.

Are you feeling inspired yet? Play your part in helping them arrive into Capetown and complete this dually inspirational journey.

Donate money for a good cause: Help OverlandintheSun reach their goal in raising money for Solar Aid.

Show your support on Facebook for OverlandintheSun:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/OverlandintheSun-London-to-Cape-Town-for-SolarAid/119064302706

Valuing Life and Death.

The other day Andrei and I were headed back into Dar following a careless afternoon lounging on our favorite beach just south of the city. This spot has won our favor with its totally chill atmosphere, including good music, good people, good food, and an all around good vibe. En route home, we saw a huge pack of people shouting and carrying about approximately 10 yards ahead of our car. As we passed, we quickly realized this was not simply a shouting match, but rather an angry and violent mob lynching against a young man. I was embarrassingly naive enough to think this was a mere egotistical demonstration of might amongst some immature village kids who were none the wiser, a fight that may result in a few bruises and bumps but certainly nothing worse. I was wrong. We witnessed someone being killed before our very eyes, worse yet, we even saw someone running into the mob with a lead pipe, and we were completely powerless to stop it or do anything about it.

We quickly learned his transgression was a cell phone theft. The reactions, as we tried to get to the bottom of this story, were very nonchalant, "meh, it happens all the time here," "people are fed up with crime and theft." But where are the police in all of this, I probed. "They will come later to collect the body" was the apathetic response. Trying to make sense of this all, I ran this story by a few wazungus at a dinner party one night, one person quickly shamed my sense of surprise about the whole incident, "In my few years here," he said, "I have seen at least 10 village lynchings, one time over stealing a chicken from someone's yard."


Andrei and I both experienced very visceral reactions to this incident, but in markedly different ways. Andrei was stunned by the fleeting nature of life and how arbitrary the rules of life and death seem to be. I was stunned by the rules of mob justice, or rather, the lack thereof. I still cannot wrap my mind around being so passionately caught up in something to actually be delivering deadly blows to another person, especially with respect to something as minor as the theft of a cell phone. At what point does the human consciousness get overtaken by the rules of mob justice? How can a sense of right and wrong, the difference between life and death, be so easily eclisped?

Interestingly, in the Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller pondered some of these very same questions,
"There's something more involved--not just manhood perhaps, but will. It's like a man in the trenches again: he doesn't know any more why he should go on living, because if he escapes now he'll only be caught later, but he goes on just the same, and even though he has the soul of a cockroach and has admitted as much to himself, give him a gun or a knife or even just his bare nails, and he'll go on slaughtering and slaughtering, he'd slaughter a million men rather than stop and ask himself why."

A recent headline in the BBC world news page caught my attention, "Barbaric killing of murder suspect by Lebanese mob." The story went on to describe an investigation by Lebanese officials into a lynching by angry villagers of an Egyptian man accused of killing a local couple and their two grandsons. The "facts" of this case as reported by BBC were indeed gruesome. Following his alleged confession, the Egyptian man, eventually to be murdered by this mob of angry villagers, was apparently leading police officers through the events preceding his crime when dozens of villagers dragged him away from police custody and began beating him with sticks and knives. The police managed to rescue him and usher him to safety at a nearby hospital, thwarting this mob reaction, only for the crowd to later break in to the hospital's intensive care unit, drag him out and continue to beat him. After the crowd killed him, they stripped him down to his underpants, drove his body through the village streets on the hood of a car, and then hung his lifeless body from a pole in the village center while onlookers chanted "God is Great!" Following his gruesome and public death, the army was finally able to intervene and take his body away.

The words sprinkled throughout this BBC article were telling of some reactionary differences between here and there. "Officials condemned the action by villagers as 'barbaric'," "vigilante action was 'extremely dangerous',""nothing can justify this type of reaction,""horrible crime," and "No state of law can condone what happened."

I do not include this story to make light of the situation in Lebanon, nor to compare the gravity of the alleged killing of four people, including two children, to the theft of the cell phone, but the reactions to each case bring up some compelling questions. Why in one circumstance does the lynching case warrant investigation, where in the other not? What is the value of life, and death for that matter? And why does a death by a lynch mob in one part of the world merit a grabbing headline in a world renown media outlet while in the other blithe and tired indifference?

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References:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8654604.stm

Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer

Competing Visions of White.

Superstitions in Tanzania are plentiful, some more consequential than others. But one superstition in particular is outright deadly. Many people in Tanzania, as across Africa, believe albinos have magical powers. Recently this belief has morphed into a morbid practice. Since 2008, more than 26 albinos, including children, have been mutilated and killed; victims to the belief promoted by witch doctors that albino body parts including skin, bones, and hair are key ingredients in potions that will make people rich. Under this same guise, some fishermen weave albino hairs into their nets believing they will catch more fish in this way. These superstitions have resulted in a gruesome and growing criminal trade in albino body parts.

It is not clear why these practices have flared up in recent years, and police officials are at a loss to explain this recent wave of albino killings. Some claim an influx of Nigerian movies, which hail witchcraft practices, explain this recent wave of killings, especially as people who follow witch doctors tend to do so in an unquestioning manner. Of course, rising food prices and the desperation this causes might be more basic explanations, as people seek easier, "fail-proof" paths to riches. The below youtube video provides some interesting insights into the historical and contextual circumstances that have given rise to these practices and beliefs.




South East Asia provides a starkly different set of beliefs around albinism. In fact, the kings of Thailand, Laos, and Burma have given a sacred status to albino elephants. This tradition derives from a story in which the Buddha's mother is said to have dreamt of a white elephant presenting her with a lotus flower -- a symbol of purity and wisdom -- just before she gave birth. This story has imparted a cultural legacy that survives today -- a monarch possessing a white elephant is regarded as a just and benign ruler. Across the region, any genuinely albino elephant automatically became royal property (of course, first meeting the physical characteristics used to rank elephants as outlined in the Royal Elephant Musuem). Laws were even developed to prevent these sacred white elephants from engaging in work, so ironically despite being venerated they served no practical use while costing a fortune to keep.

Today in Thailand, the white elephant retains its sacred status. A white elephant is still kept on the grounds of the current Thai King's home, Chitralada Palace. A museum in Bangkok houses a sculptural representation of that elephant, which is draped in royal vestments, and is essentially treated as a shrine by the visiting Thai public.

Dually inspired by this more positive legacy and cultural set of beliefs, I share the below photos I have gathered from various home design blogs. Also, keep in mind, if you are in the Chicago-area the Children's Hospital White Elephant shop is always fun to pass through and supports a great cause.

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References:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/world/africa/08iht-tanzania.1.13549207.html?_r=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsfWvnE4njs

Lonely Planet: Bangkok City Guide

Thank you, please come again.

Andrei used to find it quite amusing to thank his employees for coming into work everyday. At day's end, he would send off his employees with an ironic "Thank you for coming to work today, please come again," similar to how 7-11 attempts to entice their customers into repeat visits (or maybe 7-11 achieves this with their delicious tacquitos, er, lest I digress...). In response, Andrei often received befuddled expressions and blank stares.

Here in Tanzania, getting into work safely each day sometimes feels like a herculean feat. Traffic is intense. Three lanes of traffic crowd into a space designed for one. Cars play chicken with each other angling to jump ahead of throngs of standstill traffic by driving against cars coming from the opposite direction. The clamor of taxi horns and dala-dala touts shouting to solicit passengers ignites the senses quicker than any local brand of instant coffee. Most days I arrive to work dripping in sweat from my bike ride to the office, with feet caked in mud from the previous nights' rains which require me to push my bike through pools of stagnant water in the sewer-less streets, jarred by an all too close encounter with a car. I often wish somebody would thank me for bothering to come into work each day and beckon me to please return again.

Instead, a few weeks ago I was told directly by someone in my office that I do not offer any valuable professional services as a mere "intern", however my tenacity is "endearing". This comment felt like a punch in the stomach for two main reasons, among others. Firstly, I know my current scope of work and portfolio of responsibilities would fetch a handsome salary under any other circumstances (ie: not being allowed to accept renumeration for my work here in Tanzania on account of the Fellowship I was awarded to support my time here). Secondly, I inherited a project from another visiting fellow that was distinguished from me by this person as offering "real" professional services. Upon a stroke of her goodwill, this individual decided to privately fund raise among her friends and colleagues from back home in the US the monies necessary to facilitate the purchase of an emergency motorized tricycle vehicle in a rural village in Tanzania to allow women to arrive in a timely manner to health facilities to give birth under the care of a skilled health professional. She did this outside any structured programming within our organization. Despite her good intentions, she did not consider the logistics of how this vehicle would be introduced into the community (including identifying and training drivers of the vehicle), and failed to develop a strategy to ensure the vehicle would be financially sustainable over time (including payments for fuel and maintenance servicing). Soon after I began work here, I inherited these tasks. I was asked to undertake research and develop a strategy to ensure a smooth transition of this vehicle to local community ownership and management. All the while, I feared my role was too little, too late. Until today.

Upon arrival to the office compound this morning, Mr. Ndaki, a man whom I greatly admire and respect, came rushing up to me to impart great news. Before he even greeted me (you know its big news in Africa when the niceties of the greeting ritual fall by the wayside), he shared a very welcome status update on the management of the emergency tricycle within this community. Following our  community facilitation exercises in February, the transportation committee we helped establish has since generated 800,000 Tsh (approximately $600USD - a huge sum in a village with pervasive poverty) in community contributions towards an emergency fund for the vehicle to support maintenance and servicing needs as they arise and they have agreed to establish financial management systems to ensure the long term financial sustainability of this vehicle including the collection of funds on an annualized basis from each community household, and perhaps, most importantly, the vehicle has already been instrumental in helping to save several mothers lives by facilitating timely arrival to a health facility at the time of delivery.

In this way, I have received the greatest, "Thank you, please come again," I could expect and all the convincing I need to continue to make the effort to come to the office each day. All is well that ends well I suppose.

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In case anyone is interested here is a link to a video I placed on youtube of the excited reception of this vehicle into the community.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5UkcrSiyyM

U.S. foreign assistance, the long and short of it.

Andrei and I both recently experienced several frustrated days, a spell where nothing seemed to be going right. Work colleagues are unresponsive to our calls and emails, impeding our progress. We bought a kilo of frozen prawns that were spoiled, the stench lingered in our kitchen for days. ATMs are out of cash or power, and so are we to do anything about it. A friend's $400 blackberry was stolen from an open window of our vehicle in moving traffic, shaking our complacency with security concerns in our immediate surroundings. Amidst all of these frustrations, it is easy to loose sight of our motivations for being here and the importance of foreign assistance work in Africa. However, a positive reminder of my commitment to this line of work appeared in my inbox this morning.

During the recent Congressional recess, two U.S. Senators conducted a tour of U.S. foreign assistance efforts in East Africa. They not only visited a CARE office, but toured some project sites where I have been directly involved in managing emergency transport and communications systems for improved health outcomes. Below, I include an excerpt from Senator Dick Durbin's (D, IL) remarks to President Obama reflecting on this tour.

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Last week I joined my colleague Senator SHERROD BROWN of Ohio on a trip to East Africa. It was an important trip that took us to Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, and Sudan. We went in to observe American development assistance, to look at programs that help the victims of HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, child and maternal mortality, victims of sexual violence, clean water, sanitation issues, democracy, governments, refugees.

We spent a lot of time meeting with people, meeting with government officials, meeting with individuals who are part of the current political environment of Africa, but also many of their lives are touched by programs in which the United States is involved.

I could not help but notice as I traveled the extraordinarily dedicated Americans who are in our Foreign Service. Many of them are posted in places around the world that are not glamorous by any means. Their jobs are hard and sometimes dangerous, and they go to work every day without complaint. We need to tip our hats to them as Americans. Let me add in there Peace Corps volunteers, many who work for the nongovernment organizations, the NGOs. Many Americans serve our best interests around the world every day without fanfare or praise.

We went to Tanzania. In Mwanza in Tanzania, we encountered a group of young Baylor University doctors who are doing part of their residency at a regional hospital, one that serves a population of several million people. Can you imagine one hospital serving that many people? That is what the people are up against in Africa.

We met a representative from Abbot Labs from my home State of Illinois who was there helping to build a modern laboratory and train local staff for the hospital.

In a small rural village several hours down a dusty, bumpy road from the nearest city, we witnessed a program by the nongovernmental organization CARE that helped build a rudimentary but critically important health clinic. It is hard to describe this to an American, what an African would call a health clinic. It is, in fact, a building without windows but with openings for air to flow through. It is a building that is so basic it does not have running water or electricity. But it is, in fact, a building where 168 babies were born last year. When you see this and meet the people who are delivering the babies, you realize that in many parts of Africa health care is very basic. The man who runs this clinic has about a year or two of education beyond high school. The woman who serves him is one who is gifted with not only personal skills but a lot of human experience in delivering babies. 

What happens if there is a complication in the middle of this village in the middle of nowhere with no means of communication? Well, they try to get the message to the man who runs the ambulance. The ambulance in Mwanza is a tricycle, a tricycle with a flat bed on the back. They take a woman who is needing a Caesarean section, for example, put her on the back of this tricycle and take her off for a 4-hour trip to the closest hospital. That is maternal and childcare in Africa, in Tanzania. We are trying to help through the organization CARE that I mentioned earlier. 

With their help, they have not only brought them the money necessary for their ambulance, this tricycle, they have helped the local residents develop a savings and loan where their modest earnings they make by selling agricultural produce are banked away for a better day. They are allowed to borrow small units of money for buying sewing machines, which can dramatically change a life in these poor villages, or livestock or to help to pay for their kids to go to school.

There are frequent debates about the value of U.S. foreign assistance. When Americans are asked, how much do we spend in foreign aid, the most common response is, about 25 percent of the Federal budget. The fact is, it is just over 1 percent in foreign aid around the world. We spend far less as a percentage of our gross domestic product than many nations. But the work we do is so absolutely essential for maintaining life, fighting disease, for making certain that young people have a fighting chance.

President Obama recognizes that. I hope we can have bipartisan support to continue our
help with foreign aid, even in this difficult time.  

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Senator Durbin's comments provided a powerful reminder of the day-to-day realities of the beneficiaries of U.S. foreign assistance and humanitarian aid. On a personal level, his comments were not only a high level recognition of the importance of the work I am involved in during my time as a visiting fellow with CARE in Tanzania, but also a swift reminder to not let short-term frustrations obscure the importance of longer term development objectives and goals.

If anyone happens to be interested, I placed a video on youtube that provides an example of one of the community tricycles for emergency health transport referenced in Senator Durbin's comments above:

Beekeeping Expertise, Anyone?

Late last year I took a weekend trip to Lushoto, a charming town within the Usambara Mountains, with my Swahili teacher Musa. This mountain range is prized for its cool weather and breath taking views. This trip provided not only a much needed reprieve from the sweltering heat of Dar, but also afforded a great opportunity to catch a firsthand glimpse of Tanzanian village life. Musa is interested in buying some land near this mountain range, where he hopes to take up beekpeeing. During this trip we toured through some farmland in the area to learn more about current beekeeping practices (see pictures below), which appear to be very different than western beekeeping practices that I am familiar with. Musa is curious to learn more about western style beekeeping practices and is wondering if there are any practices from elsewhere that would translate well into this context and setting. Since I am no expert on this matter, I am curious if any of my blog readers have information, tips, expertise to share about beekeeping, especially in Africa. Please feel free to comment on this post or get in touch with me directly if you have any information to share with us. Thanks in advance!

 

House in a Village.

Boys on a Bicycle.

Women Fishing in a Village.

Girl under a Tree.