Tourist for a day

On our second day in Axum, prior to catching our flight back to Addis, we toured some of the UNESCO heritage site.  I'd like to say it was impressive but actually not so much. The city is the site of an ancient kingdom which had its height in 4th AD.  Tall stelae (ancient tombs stones), empty tombs and palace ruins, a stone slab with writing in Greek and two ancient languages (think Rosetta Stone).  I opted to not go into the church where the Ark of the Covenant is supposedly kept.  They parade around a replica before mass and only one person is allowed into the inner sanctum where the real one is said to be kept.

A highlight from both days was having lunch at a local restaurant of good Ethiopian food finished off by the customary coffee ceremony.  They roast the beans, grind them, heat the water and brew it in front of you a few demitasses at a time.  The Ethiopian coffee is good but it is strong.  A couple ounces is all you need.  I had a glass in Addis at 4p and didn't fall asleep until 2a - I blame the coffee not jet lag.

Field visits in Tigray

Without incident but enduring a middle seat on a 13 hour flight, I landed in Addis.  I hadn't received instruction on being picked-up and didn't see anyone standing with my name on a sign.  Turns out, due to security, they no longer allow drivers and taxi touts to approach the arrival hall.  It makes for a very calm introduction to the country.  A legitimate looking lady walked me to the taxi stand, was familiar with my destination and told me how much is would cost.  And 15 minutes later I arrived safe and sound.

Before dawn the next morning, my team convened to head back to the airport to board our short flight up north to Axum.  We drove out to a small rural village about an hour outside of town.  It is a very dry landscape with giant aloe type plants, and a variety of cacti.  There is a rainy season, but it is not now, so all the creek beds were dry.

We visited a household compound consisting of three huts, chickens and livestock.  We were there to learn about poultry keeping of the small holder farmer.  The women control the care and maintenance of the birds including marketing and spending the money how they wish - at least in this village.  We also met with a make-shift focus group to ask them question about poultry production, gender norms, and chicken and egg consumption.

Making Bail (aka paying the hotel bill)

Tuesday night late, I was to check out of my hotel (which by the way is a "dry" hotel stemming from its Lutheran religious affiliation), and lo and behold, the credit card machine would not connect. My only other card was Amex, which they did not take. After numerous tries and failures, the hotel clerk suggested I withdraw the money from an ATM and pay in cash.  A $560 hotel bill comes to over 1.1 million Tanzanian shillings.  With the help of the driver I'd hired to take me to the airport, I drove around to multiple ATMs only to have the first set down for maintenance, the next having a limit of 400,000 shillings and thereafter, my bank would not allow me to withdraw any more.  I went back to the hotel with my stack of cash (10,000 seems to be the largest denomination), and after some back and forth, the clerk remembered that there was a hotel that takes Amex cards.  So away we went to that hotel which fortunately has a 24 hr business center.  They were able to withdraw the other 700,000 shillings I needed (at a horrible exchange rate), and with my even bigger stack of cash, I went back to the hotel.  1.1 million plus a handful of extra shilling I had left over, plus some US dollars, and my bill was paid.  Imagine paying your US hotel bill in $5 bills and you can picture how ridiculous this looked.

A couple hours later I was departing Kilimanjaro airport on my way to DC via a quick stop in Mombasa to pick up passengers, and a change of planes in Istanbul.  It feels good to be home.  

Field Trips

Thursday and Friday were spent in meetings...about as exciting as that sounds. All the foreigners who had traveled from the US were hit with fierce jetlag.  My eyes crossed, my head nodded, I may have fallen asleep during a short video clip when they dimmed the lights.  I felt a bit less guilty when our donor representative confessed to almost falling out of her chair at one point when she nodded off. 



Bean pickers

Saturday however, while a long, long day included an afternoon of field trips.  We boarded mini-buses to go out to a small private company started by a couple agriculture university graduates who had put their entrepreneur class to good use.  I admit, I don't quite understand the business model, but our group of 20+ trudged out into the muddy fields (some with better suited shoes than others) to see how production worked and chat with some of the farmer workers.  They were mostly women, barefoot in the mud, hand picking green beans.  The field we went to was run by a young woman as well which was heartening since one of the main aims of our project is to improve women's empowerment. 



Bean pickers

The second field trip was more eco-tourism than project oriented. A sub-set of our group bused out to walk around a "Masai" village to see how they live.  I put that in quotations because traditionally Masai are pastoral and constantly move with their herds.  These Masai were in an established village with only one or two cows per family.  They harvest bananas and coffee, it seems, and we were treated to a coffee preparation demonstration starting with the raw bean and ending with brewed coffee.  Not really what one would like to do every morning, so thank goodness for modern processing.



Shelling and roasting coffee

After that long day we had our group dinner at a fancy restaurant which unfortunately did not have fancy food.  Good thing we weren't terribly hungry.  Last thing I did that evening was clean the mud off my running shoes, knowing that I would have a significant amount of sludge to clean out of the sink once the water slowly drained.

 

 

1st Day in Tanzania

Heritage Cultural Center shops

After eventless flights, arriving in the small Kilimanjaro airport at 1:30a, I finally arrived at my Arusha hotel.  Four hours later I was up to meet my colleague and others who I will be working with at the meetings which will start tomorrow.  They are from African non-profits and UK research universities.  We are in the midst of a long start up process for this project and I am coming on board part way through it so have a lot of catching up to do.



Shanga River House glass blowers

Because the official meeting hasn't started yet, we had the afternoon off - my only time off for the next seven days.  My supervisor who is here, did her trip advisor homework and found some craft centers and a driver so away we went.  Unfortunately I didn't see anything that called to me, but she found some tchotchkes for friends and talked another place (where crafts are made by people with disabilities) into removing and selling her four blue glass pieces from a chandelier.  She can barter like no other. 

This evening will be dinner with a couple ladies from our meeting and then hopefully I will catch up on some sleep in preparation for tomorrow. 


 

Winding Down

Tomorrow is my last day in country - and this week has gone fast.  Each day has been full of working with our nutrition manager on envisioning how this project is going to succeed in meeting all the targets and objectives laid out in the contract.  We had numerous meetings both internally and externally to try to work out all the details.  The trick is that we are not doing separate activities but instead integrating our messaging and training into other areas of the project (and therefore have not budget of our own either).

It has been nice to be walking distance to the office - a straight 20 minute shot.  Notable events have been navigating lunch options at local restaurants with my colleague (and translator) and yesterday, so far the only day, the weather cleared enough that I finally saw the majestc, snowy mountain range to the south of the city. 

Pictures for these posts will have to wait until I go home since for some reason on either the hotel network or this computer, images are failing to load. 

 

Weekend in Bishkek

Friday night I flew back to Bishkek.  I was only going to spend the weekend (with a business meeting to make it worthwhile) but it turned out that my colleague would be coming to Bishkek next week to present the work plan to the boss, so we decided she would come early and we could work here. 

It is nice being back and staying again at the same hotel as my work associate from the partner organization.  She invited me out to a pizza place with another expat friend of hers.  Very good food - though you can smoke in restaurants which got to be a little much.  I'm glad another friend suggested I pack Febreeze. 

Saturday she took me on a long walk up to the center of town to meet a Kyrgyz colleague for some shopping and lunch at a Chinese restaurant.  It is unfortunate to be here in winter because they kept assuring me that it is actually very beautiful when there are leaves on all the trees and the flowers bloom.  I browsed some of the typical Kyrgyz souvenirs and did my best to make some quick purchases since it was likely my only opportunity on this short trip.  In total we walked 5 miles which was a nice way to stretch the legs after sitting in offices and meetings all week.

This Sunday afternoon she and I will meet with my project director to further figure out how these two projects are going to collaborate - and hopefully how my team is going to be able to meet their activity goals. 

To the South

After two days acclimating in Bishkek where fortunately I am overlapping with the visit of the acting director (and nutrition expert) of a project with which we are to collaborate (and strangely we have worked at two of the same organizations), I headed south to Osh City.  I traveled via an inter-country flight with our project chief-of-party (COP).  Initially we were attending a stakeholder meeting and then I was staying on to train and work with my team on planning project activities.  Because this event brought together all the staff from our three country offices, aside from work, there has been opportunity to socialize and get to know people. 

The first night we went out for shashlik (shish kabob) with some staff from our main partner organization.  Apparently this area is well known for their shashlik.  What I found more interesting was the restaurant consisted of small private dining rooms facing a central courtyard, so that the waitresses have to run around outside in between diners and the kitchen.  Given the weather here in the winter, I'm not sure that's a comfortable line of work.  Each dining room has a call button to summon your waitress. 

The second night, all our staff when out for pilav (pilaf).  The type served is unique from this area.  I don't think I can appreciate the finer points of pilav because it really reminded me of what I had in Afghanistan.  The staff said that the rice they use here is very special and only grown in this area - and indeed it did have a slightly different texture.  The evening consisted of speeches (yes I had to give one) and toasting with vodka and local cognac.  Having tasted the vodka from the night before, I opted for the cognac and was much happier.  What was especially nice was there was a set end time to the evening.  The highest ranking person opened and closed with a speech and then someone led a prayer and that was it!  Back to the hotel in time for some end of day work. 

On the road again

It has been 14 months since my last international trip and the break has been nice.  This trip has been postponed numerous times but finally I am in Kyrgyzstan.  I'll be in Bishkek on the front and back end and in Osh for the rest of the two weeks.  Routing took me on a direct 9 hr flight to Istanbul, short layover and a 5 hr flight arriving at 3:30a.  My seatmate across the Atlantic was a bit of a riddle.  A young guy, he was friendly enough for me to find out that he was on his way to Yemen.  Not anyone's travel destination of choice and apparently he wasn't thrilled about it.  Stranger still was the large computer case he kept on his lap for the entire trip, and even took with him to the lavatory.  When I asked if he wanted to put it overhead, he replied that his life was in there and he couldn't part with it.  This, in addition to the fervent prayers he recited upon take off, gave me pause.  But trying to keep in mind cross-cultural sensitivity, I managed to keep my imagination in check.

Fortunately, my travel coincides with two acquaintances, one who is managing a project with which we are to collaborate and has been able to provide me with very useful intel and another who used to work in Kyrgyzstan (now in DC) and is very familiar with the country.  Turns out the former and I have worked at the same organizations at different times and know many people in common.  Today she took me to a local grocery store and gave me a brief history lesson on why the country contains such diverse cultures - Korean, Chinese muslims, Russians, Germans and Kyrgyz.