From Doha, Qatar (Posted in Hong Kong)

22 December 2007 - 1855 GMT
Doha, QATAR

Early this morning, I left Ouagadougou for Casablanca, one fantastically named city for another made famous by the movie of the same name. I have only ever seen the last scene. This is the first time in more than six months that I have left the country. I wish it were under better circumstances. As I mentioned previously, my grandfather passed away two weeks ago. The news came as a shock because after almost six months of serious health problems, it looked like he was finally on the upswing. I actually found out several days after he died due to poor network coverage. On holidays and weekends in Burkina Faso, text messages are hit or miss. And unfortunately, they missed me for several days in a row.

Originally, I was planning to holiday in Ghana. My entire stage (training group) is going, with the exception of the ETers, a couple people, and myself. Also, my neighbor and a few other PCVs are heading down there as well. I was planning to spend Christmas on the beach, hike and river raft, and traverse the renowned canopy walk (this list is neither exhaustive or ordered). Also, HB is headed to Ghana to visit his family at conveniently the same time I had planned to be there. As fun as it is to think of might-have-beens, I decided that I need to be with my family.

Looking on the plus side, my grandfather lived a very long and successful life despite his penchant for smoking, drinking, and a rich diet (all three of which he gave up as the years went on). I did have a chance to see him back in March before his health started to give him problems again. I also will be with my family for an extended period of time, and I am very grateful for that. My colleagues (PCVs and HCNs) as well as the PC staff have been very supportive during this time, and I want to thank them for that. I have been distracted, distraught, and pretty much just doing what I need to get myself to Taiwan. I know, however, without the wonders of modern technology, I could in all possibility be finding out about this news even later than now. Or, alternatively, I could be trapped in an airport trying to pay my way between countries. Really, without the support of everyone, I would be a lot more worse for wear than I currently am (mild case of bronchitis). Being sick on top of it all, hasn't helped, but at the same time I think the being sick is related to the stress that I have been feeling. (Stress weakens the immune system after all.)

The flight from Ouaga to Casablanca was mostly a half-asleep blur to me. It left at 0330 after all, and I was exhausted (n.b. I typically wake up somewhere between 0400 and 0600). I am not as young as I used to be, nor have I been in the best health or sleeping well lately. I was not at the airport long before taking off for Doha, Qatar. I have to say that Royal Air Maroc had surprisingly spacious legroom, but the food left something to be desired. Qatar Airways had very tasty food and personal tvs. The flight was not full at all, so I sat back and caught up on some movies before dozing off. I am hanging out in the airport right now waiting for my flight gate to be announced. The layover is approximately five hours. I hope that the flight to Hong Kong is equally awesome, but I don't have my hopes up.

(This part written in HK.)

Flight from Doha to Hong Kong was not bad. Though I slept a lot again. I will be with my family soon. Will probably be online until my battery runs out as I am hanging out in the HK airport until my next (and last flight). Thanks to everyone for their support.

PS, One of the down sides to traveling alone is the lack of people to watch your stuff while you run to the bathroom.

Fo Gou'ni

Fo Gou'ni Good morning everyone.

I am back online for the second time since... well, the last time I posted! Yesterday would be the first time but blogger was being persnickity.

These would be the only two pictures that my camera is willing to give up. The rest from Thanksgiving (food list to come) and pictures of my students refuse to be recognized by computers all around BF. I have some more photos of my house and pictures of a storm rolling in from September/October, but they are stored elsewhere so I will try to remember to bring them in tomorrow.



The first one would be one of two pies made for Thanksgiving holiday (that would be the apple pie) and the other is me after eating lots of tasty thanksgiving food. Even from the unflattering angle, it is apparent that my eating seven or more meals a day isn't helping. Yes, I do actually have first breakfast and second breakfast and sometimes if not often first and second lunch and don't forget the snacks, too! No, I am not a hobbit, but I do bike a minimum of 5k a day, if not more.



My schedule has been shuffled around a bit, and now I teach math and EPS (that would be PE/gym). I have Mondays off which works out well for me since Sunday is typically my big cleaning day. My villagers/fonctionnaires make fun of me because they don't see me all morning (and I get up before dawn) except to go to the water pump to get water. So, it gives me Monday to relax and run errands and whatnot. I am the professeur principal of 4e. That means I do the work of what computers do to calculate "GPA" or the "Moyenne". I did some programming on my dusty old TI-85 (literally it was quite dusty). Unfortunately, I remembered the limitations of that sucker in the process of programming. I remember back in high school how jealous I was with people with even TI-86's and let's not even talk about those TI-89's. I am sure technology has much advanced since then. What I would give to have Matlab and Mathematica running on something the size of a TI (and AAA or AA batteries)!!

I did not leave my village for the entire month of October, not even day trips to go to the "big city" or to visit CLM's village. In November I was finally getting stir crazy and had to restock on some tasty treats at the "supermarket" so I got to the "big city". I also played basketball, got beat up by some kids in it (not really), but I tried to turn a corner and I am just not as fast as the boys here, so I got knocked down. Banged up my glasses, knees, elbows and my head pretty good, but I am fully healed now. The glasses could be in better shape, but I still wear them in village because its better than having to switch between normal glasses and sunglasses. I am lazy, it's true, but I also bike 15k to play basketball all day and then bike back 15k afterwards, so I make up for it sort of. Internet by me has been broken since I last used it. So, I haven't gone in to the "big city" that often except to buy food for Turkey day.

Thanksgiving was amazing. Here is the list of goods consumed: popcorn, peanut brittle, beef stew, green bean casserole, candied yams, mashed potatoes, gravy, turkey and stuffing, pintade, fajitas, fried rice, pumpkin pie, apple pie, brownies, sparkling cider, sparkling grape juice, soda (I have now grown to be a big fan of tonic), yaw (dolo/millet bair). I am sure there were other things, but that is all my addled brain can remember right now.

December was kind of hectic with schedule shuffling and then grading and then calculating all my grades by Friday night so that I could leave Saturday morning. It has been hard for me because I found out on Wednesday that my grandfather passed away a week ago due to a stroke. I was planning on going to Ghana for vacation, but instead, I am trying to get to Taiwan for the funeral.

I don't have much more to say right now, except that I am a little sick and a little out of it due to the combination of events and sickness.

The World Map Project

So, for some reason the internet is painfully slow at the bureau. I am typing this in notepad while I wait it for it to pick back up again.

World map project is a popular project started a few years back by a PCV in another country. She got the idea to paint the world map in her community and it picked up from there. I am really happy that I helped CLM out on this project because I learned a lot. I think she might be happy that I was there, too (especially since I provided all the brushes that we used for doing detail work - i.e. almost all of the painting). I am really glad that I brought my paint brush set, but I think they are pretty much ruined for the acrylics that I want to use (since we used a latex-based paint). CLM was lucky because they had already painted the blue square in the 3e classroom and there were examples in all of the other classrooms. Even parts of Antarctica and South America were traced. We spent most of the first few days cleaning the wall, redrawing the grid lines and then (re)drawing the countries. After we realized that the brushes that CLM had were too big, I went home and came back a few days later to do the painting. We actually only took one day to do the painting thanks to a couple of students. We finished all the countries in the morning and then redid the ocean blue and touched up the countries in the afternoon. I think it looks pretty darn good, even though I free-handed the flag and the compass. CLM is going to go back and label the countries at some point.

I am hoping to do the same thing in my village and CLM is even going to hook me up with some of the paint that she has left over. The director and I have discussed a little bit about the positives and negatives of different locations in the village. While in the classrooms would be the easiest place to do this (and also the easiest location to maintain), it is probably the least accessible location to the community. I have some ideas of where else might be good, but the problem is if it is an outdoor mural, natural deterioration with time, and hence the need to maintain the mural.

I posted the pictures in my gallery: http://picasaweb.google.com/pictureandrea/WorldMapProject.

I can't figure out how to SSH into the new UGCS. Is the address still to.ugcs.caltech.edu? And if I am using a MindTerm facility (like the one at http://www.netspace.org/ssh/) will it work? I vaguely remember that there was a MindTerm applet on the UGCS website, but that no longer seems to be there. Help? I want to make some basic text changes, update the FAQ and links page, and also fix some links due to the UGCS migration (because obviously the quickie cgi scripts (especially for the art page) I have no longer work thanks to the change in folder names).

OK, here is the selfish part of my blog. I feel slightly guilty asking for it, but I am exercising my right (or addiction) to preservatives as an American. I can get Laughing Cow cheese and Starkist (in water) and corned beef and Oats in the big city (that's actually pretty darn good, even if I'm isolated I can get these things) amongst other canned goods. I still feel pretty solid muscle wise at least in the legs though. AKA, things I wish I could eat:

• Slim Jims
  
• Beef, pork or chicken(canned or dried, it's all good)
  
• Seasoning/sauce packets for cooking stuff (e.g. Easy Mac, Knor Lipton PastaSides, gravy and other assorted items)
  
• Summer sausage
  
• Easy Cheese (yes, canned cheese is amazing) or parmesan cheese
  
• Hot Sauce and condiments from fast food joints in general (I like Del Scorcho from Del Taco and of course Cholula)
  
• Dried cuttlefish
  
• Refried beans or at least a good refried beans and tortilla recipe
  
• Nuts that are not peanuts
  
• Kashi Tiny Little Chewies
  
• Dried fruit
  
• Chocolate (preferably individually wrapped or even M&Ms)
  
• Instant mashed potatoes!!!
  
• I hear bear creek soup is good
  
• Maple syrup (though I probably shouldn't be rotting my teeth anymore
  
• A shampoo bar or two (mom)
  
• The recipe for monster cookies
  
• Instructions on different stiches.
  

I am seeing the dentist tomorrow because my teeth have started looking like I am smoker (no, don't worry I have not picked up the habit). I bought a mirror on Saturday and saw myself for the first time in about a month. It was kind of scary. I am getting skinny as you can see in the pictures, but don't worry, I am still in the healthy BMI range.

Big Post with Photos

So, this was my first day living in village (officially my third day in village if you count the two I spent there during site visit). No, that is not a giant bottle of liquor, it is kerosene for my kerosene lamps. Fortunately, the day I arrived was marche day, so I was able to get that giant basin and assorted buckets for bathing.

The following are some pictures of my house. When I first moved in, they hadn't yet completed my terrace or private courtyard.
I live in a celebratarium which is like a bachelor's pad (quite literally). The houses are connected sort of townhouse style. When I left village, they were in the process of finally cementing over the other latrines and showers and also some gaps in the outer courtyard walls (as you can see in the first picture).



You can also see my transition from living off of the floor to having furniture!!! :)
These buckets are what I use for bathing and also to get reseau (network coverage). In this manner, I can get five bars of coverage from my Telmob number and supposedly Celtel works in my house now (it just got there Saturday), but since I haven't had enough units, I haven't been able to test it. My alternate solutions for coverage are to go out to the telecentre (a cell phone carefully balanced that everyone in village without a cell phone makes calls from) or to bike the approximately 3-5 k to my school and stand halfway between the tree and the latrine and hope real hard, or to bike towards the big city (where internet and the cell towers are to be found).

Story Time:

1. When I bike more than 30k in a day, it rains. It is unexplainable, but it happens more often than not. My dear nearest neighbor CLM has suggested that it is just an effect of the rainy season, but I have managed to convince some of the kids in my village otherwise. On the second day in village, CLM and I biked to the city to scope it out. I ordered a bench and the fancy table you see covered in green tarp and heard rumors about internet and also found a decent supermarche (where I can buy tuna IN WATER (!!! extremely rare outside of the capital) amongst other things). The bike ride is about 15k and takes me anywhere between 30 minutes and an hour depending on how tired I am and the condition of the road, though they claim it is only 11k (but that's only if you go from signpost to signpost and there is a lot of farmland and brousse before you reach the ville). It is rather hilly and pretty, I don't have any pictures of it yet, but that will hopefully come later. Someone showed me a "shortcut" back to village. I don't really know if it is any shorter, I will have to time it next time to find out. Anyway, on that day, on the way back it started pouring, and the roads stop being roads and turn into rivers. Needless to say, I was about as pleased as a drenched cat. The first time I biked to CLMs village, I meant to come back the same day. I got about halfway back through a downpour before the road became completely washed out.
   
2. The door handle incident was hilarious. I closed my door at night because I wasn't used to the sounds in village yet, besides the fact that my neighbors haven't come back from vacay yet and its just awfully lonely in that huge courtyard that I can't lockdown. I didn't even lock the door when I realized something was wrong as I was closing the door. It turns out the catch had snapped off and was stuck in the door. After struggling with the door handle a bit, it fell off. Here I was, locked effectively in my house at about 8 PM. I started yelling and yelling and finally my neighbors heard me. Luckily for me, I had actually gone around and faired some voisinage (chatted up the neighbors) and introduced myself to people who live around me (very important culturally here to saluate and talk to people). They found my landlord who busted open a hole in the wall to push out the latch from the catch. He fixed the wall the next day, but I no longer have a handle catch, and I am fine with that.
   
3. I have biked with chairs, giant basins, giant bidons of water and other fun objects attached to my bike. I am getting pretty good at tying things on there and not having them fall off.
   
4. The basketball court is right by the internet cafe in the big city. For those who are curious, the service is provided by www.africaden.net. Unfortunately, upon closer inspection, I realized that the baskets were on the ground, but at the very least the court is there! :)
   
5. I happened to walk outside one day and catch this beautiful sight, a double rainbow going right over my house. I took a bunch of pictures and some day when I have enough patience I might photoshop it all together into a panoramic view.
   
6. On the night I got my table and wicker chairs, I also got a mouse. It took me a while to figure out that it was a mouse trying to get out and not some stranger trying to get in (like a toad two nights ago). I spent a good deal of time chasing it around the house until it finally left. I have also killed many crickets, flies and weird creepy crawlies in my house. I leave the lizards alone since at least they eat the creepy crawlies.
   
   
7. World Map Project and huge Wishlist of what I really miss eating (and can be feasibly sent to me)... lot to say about that, will blog about it tomorrow. If not, you can find it at CLM's blog soonish.
   

Sorry this post isn't more coherent or organized. Maybe tomorrow's will be slightly better. :)

Found Internet!

Extremely short blog right now since I only paid for an hour of internet! Yes, there is internet within a 15 km bike ride from my village. It is of course on top of a giant gravel hill, with a greater than 45 degree incline. Anyway, I will blog more on Monday or Tuesday with all of my adventures. My network coverage is hit or miss right now for either number since I am biking in between my village and my nearest neighbor's (a short 30 km ride that takes about an hour and 15 minutes when the road isn't covered with mud from the rain) as we work on her secondary project. We just finished the drawing of the countries yesterday with the help of some lycee students. I am going back on Sunday to help with the painting (since I actually own brushes small enough to paint countries like Swaziland and Djibouti). I am learning a lot from helping her out and am hoping to do the same sort of project with students at my CEG and Ecole Primaire (there are no such murals at all), will post pictures later and also a link to her blog. Other fun tidbits that I will elaborate on later... it always rains in the place I just arrived at if it is greater than or equal to 25 km away or if it is the first time I am there ruining my plans to bike back on the same day (or my clothes); I got locked inside my house because the door handle broke and fell off; I have biked with lots of large objects tied to the back of my bicycle; there is a basketball court by the internet café; I saw a double rainbow over my house; I had an incident with a mouse in addition to your standard creepy crawlies; and some days I just enjoy reading by kerosene lamp light. Mom, I promise to be in network coverage on Monday/Tuesday, call me then.