A taste until tomorrow

So, once again, I have written a few blog posts but between traveling a bit with the teachers, teacher training begining and the power going out for a couple days I have not had a lot of time to post them. Instead of flooding you with all the posts, here is a quick adventure to tide you over - and DON'T FORGET to check in on the other blog for near daily updates of the teacher training and project work - AfricaXO.blogspot.com

The days here can drag a little. We try to stay busy at the school, but with things going so well it gets hard to spend too much time there. Lunch is around 1 most days and then most things are closed until around 4 when it starts to cool down just a bit. It leaves a good space for a nap in front of an oscillating fan that hardly does the trick. After 2 hours of rolling around to find the driest part of the sheet, we usually wake up a bit wrestless.

I got Eli to join me for a walk down to the market with no real goal in mind. After passing a few shops, and struggling to decide if the price of 40 cents which I was quoted for a small mirror was a good price or the toubab (white person) price, we managed to walk out of town town. We stopped at one last mango stand to grab some sustinance before exploring a path through some farms.

Wandering up and down the dunes, our goal always reaching the top of one to pick out the next, we decided to aim for the beach about seven kilometers from where we then were. First, we needed to stop to ask a farmer if we could use some water to wash off the mango juice which had run down our hands and arms. A 'yes' was a pretty safe bet since Muslims aren't supposed to refuse anyone water. Judging from the young farmer's reaction, another safe bet may be that we were the only two white people to ever set foot on that farm.

Minding our way through the patches of cacti and thorny vines, we headed in what we thought to be the right direction. Passing two men, as confused as the farmer by the white people in the desert, we doubled checked... and redirected slightly. Here we met a donkey.

They are all fairly focused in town, always at work, but this is under a cheap yoke and the threat of a whip. In the desert, no one around, he seemed to be quite interested in us and soon became slightly more threatening than those pulling the carts or the one befriended by Pooh Bear. We wondered if this one this was maybe an escaped donkey which now had a grudge against the species that enslaved him. After dancing for a while down a few different paths, a useless, dried vine in my hand, the donkey - which we totally could have taken on in a fight - lost interest and went a different way.

A while later, still not at the beach, we checked our path again with a woman passing by. This time, we were right on course, even after being rerouted by the donkey. We finally got to a strip of pine trees which we assumed signaled the nearness of the ocean. A ways a way, first thinking it was a pack of cats, I got to see my first group of monkeys - I didn't even know they had monkeys in this area. They paused to take a look at us but weren't as interested as the donkey.

Soon enough, we proved ourselves correct and found the ocean just beyond the trees. A part that we had never been to, we used our semi-keen sense of direction - a setting sun on the coast makes North and South pretty easy - to find our way back to a village where we could get a ride back.

We found Stephanie and James in the kitchen helping our land lord, Mohammed, cooking dinner. He had bough some of longest fish I'd ever seen - said it was related to sardines but these were about two feet long, not two inches. Everyone ate dinner on the roof to avoid the heat but eating large hot meals followed by boiling mint tea still takes its toll. We stayed up there for a while afterward but it was almost 11 and teaching began the next day. After staying long enough to be polite, we thanked our host and headed to bed for the secondtime that day.

Back-owed blog posts

Ok – These are a lot of back-owed blog posts that were written but did not get posted. Internet has been an issue on and off and when I have had internet I have not always been able to load these off the USB or I just had more important/official things to do. Sorry. Now it is up to those of you with time and strong eyes whether or not you would like to read them. The bonus is that if you get to the end, you are up to date and I will post again soon. Sorry again - Have fun.

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Those of you who have read my blog before know that I tend to stay busy rather than stay connected. In Rwanda, I most certainly stayed busy but being connected was not always an option. Either way, I apologize for only updating you now.

So for starters, thank you to all who wished me a happy birthday a bit ago. It was the first day of the conference and I only remembered my birthday the day before, so there wasn’t a big party or anything. I’m ok with that. There still happened to be a social hour planned for after that day’s sessions, and meeting all of the other teams and so many people in one day was enough of a gift.

I can't tell you all of the things I took away from this time in Rwanda. There is just far too much that will still take a lot of time to reveal its full value. The team that lead the orientation was personable, motivated, and did a great job of talking with each of us to get to know us personally as well as get to know our own goals so that they could help us as much as possible. The school visit was great - which you can read about at the end of this whole mess of a blog - and the time spent with other students was bitter sweet, start to finish, and I am grateful to work with such a great group. Don’t mean to gush, but this was quite an experience.

Outside of the conference, Stephanie and I took a trip to Gisenyi, a town in a northwest border, to see Lake Kivu and visit the NGO started by some new friends of ours. Gisenyi is most well known, today, not for its beauty but for its neighboring city, Goma, across the border in Congo. This is where many of the rebels were pushed into after the genocide. Goma is still over-crowded and in need of a lot of help. Attacks still regularly occur within fifteen year old refugee camps which act as breeding grounds for both healing and hatred of the Tutsis and Hutus.

While here, I found opportunities to speak with a few local people who where about my age. At 21, I was timid to ask about their family and their experiences, but both of the people who I spoke with the most were able to admit that they lost both parents and multiple siblings 15 years ago. What I couldn’t ask was how they managed to survive. Honestly, even if they were able to tell me, I don’t know if I could respond to hearing how one witnessed and survived the death of his or her family.

Still, there is a lot that is changing and advancing in Rwanda. The president is dedicated to his project 'vision 2020' which promises to make Rwanda a middle income country by 2020. Although we didn't get to talk much, I was able to meet him as well as representatives from the ministries of education in Uruguay and Haiti. I spoke with the man from Haiti and am looking forward to working with him and a Rotary club in Appleton on expanding an on going project there in Haiti.

I knew that we would also be visiting the house of the king of Rwanda, and while I knew that he hadn't officially been king since the early 60s I knew he was still active. What I didn't know was that he was active from the U.S. where he had lived for some time now. His house in Rwanda is a museum now. The bus ride was beautiful anyway and I loved the long drive up and down the mountains - only a couple close calls passing on curves.

It was a good two weeks, even with the cold bucket showers on days when the shower wouldn't work - at least some water did. A subtle transition into what was to come.

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Me and Stephanie were the first to arrive and tied for the last to leave. When we got to the airport, we saw the team of two from Ethiopia - where we happened to have a 13 hours lay-over. There were 100 people from different teams at this conference and I am bad with names - I have to admit that these were two that I had yet to learn. My first thought was, 'crap, we have to fly with them - how long can I hide that I don't know who they are?' Luckily, they didn't know our names either.

We talked for a little while before getting onto the plane. Nice flight, biggest exit row I've ever sat in, and pretty good food. Here's the best part - After we landed, me and Stephanie had heard rumors that we could get a free hotel. We thought we'd just have to pay for the visa. Well the visa was free, hotel was free, free transport to and from, and we happen to have two nice Ethiopians available to show us Addis Ababba (the city in Ethiopia).

Ethiopia is a place I would certainly like to go back to. We got a great history lesson from our taxi driver into town which helped prepare us for our night. We went out to a place to watch some cultural dancing. At first I thought they took us there just because we were tourists, but when I asked what Ethiopians do on a normal night, he looked confused and assured me that they just go and watch dancing. They take part in the dancing too.

From the look of the people and dress, to the style of their food and dancing, Ethiopia is an overt, cultural crossroads for Europe, Asia, the Middle East and all of Africa. In the states we have a lot of cultures that exist side by side, but here they fuse together. I'll admit that there was a lot of visible poverty where we were, but there was also a lot of construction - often a good sign. While in some areas that could put a culture at risk, I think that in this case it will only enable the mix that the culture already is to continue to grow.

It was a good night out and a decent rest in the nicest hotel I've ever stayed in. Next morning - bright and early - off to Dakar!

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[Originally meant for the team blog]
Orientation and School Visits
The conference is finished and, as you read this, Stephanie and I should have just arrived in Senegal. The past two weeks of orientation have been a wonderful opportunity to delve further into the goals of the OLPCorps program as well as develop a network of support to help us while we are on site in M’boro, Senegal.

The team leading the conference did a great job of working with the Corps teams - like me and Stephanie - to find out what our most pressing concerns and needs were to get us the information and experience that would best prepare us for our deployments. One of the most valuable experiences which I had was the school visit. Stephanie and I visited separate schools and those of you who keep up on the blog may have already read about her experience. While mine was relative to Stephanie’s, I was happy that we were able to get different perspectives on different situations since we have yet to see exactly what our own situation will be this summer.

Our first day at the school was teacher training. Although we believed the teachers had had some experience with the XOs prior to that day - that was mostly untrue. Still, the goals set for Friday morning were ambitious, working with a fairly advanced program, and the teachers picked it up much quicker than I had expected. I sometimes underestimate what people can do with minimal guidance and the support of their peers around them. Kinya-rwanda is a language I have yet to learn, but if I could work with one teacher who seemed to be getting it quickly, they would easily turn and help three others. In the afternoon we worked with other programs like Record to show them how to use other media in their classroom projects and it was incredible to watch them chuckling like children as they made videos and took pictures of their own, awe-struck faces. While it highlighted a number of things to be aware of as I begin working with teachers in Senegal, it was certainly a motivating experience.

Monday, I began working in the classroom with the children. I had the honor of instructing the kids how to turn on the XOs for the very first time. When working with someone who has never once touched a computer, it is interesting to see what teaching needs to come first. They were three of us Corps members and about 45 students, unfortunate odds, but it was a fun for the kids and us to work with Paint to develop basic skills for using with the mouse pad and learning to click, drag, and draw. Also, a circle indicating ‘record’ and a square to mean ‘stop’ is not common knowledge if you did not grow up with a VCR or DVD player. The kids picked it up very quickly though and I am sure that they will be working with the more advance programs very soon.

In the afternoon, we had to deal with some electricity issues but were able to resolve them in order to work with a math class. The goal was to demonstrate knowledge of fractions by creating images in Paint that clearly depicted things like ½, ¾, and 5/7. Once again, I was pleasantly surprised with the students’ ability to learn quickly and then share the knowledge with those struggling around them.

Sorry to make this long, but the time spent at the orientation was quite busy and also quite beneficial to the project that officially begins as soon as I land in Dakar in a few hours (I’m writing this on the plane). However, before I end, I would like to clarify something. There is blog called OLPC News that is in no way affiliated with One Laptop per Child. It seems official and they provide a good bit of necessary reporting, but, due to their lack of affiliation, fail to fact check much that they report and often misrepresent OLPC. While we have asked them not to report information from this blog, they did so anyhow since blogs are considered public. We ask that you consider this if you happen to come across their website, and remember OLPC News is not connected in anyway with OLPC or the separate group of OLPCorps.

Thanks for reading this long and we will be sure to keep you updated as we begin to work with the school in Senegal.

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Ok – This is the most recent thing – you’re almost done.

We spent a couple days in Dakar before the Peace Corps could drive us to our new home. It was a good couple of days and a gracious transition to the country - living in the capitol with a bunch of people from the US before moving to a small town not too near to anything. After that, the four of us got as many computers as we could along with our baggage and sweaty bodies in the back of a Land Rover and then bounced our war to our the town of M’boro.

We’re now in M’boro – the town of the school that we are working with. Everything has gone wonderfully so far. If you are reading the team blog – AfricaXO.blogspot.com – you already know a bit about our progress. We make it a priority to update that blog – not so much this one.

We thought we had a great house lined up but that fell through the day we got here. We then moved into a bed and breakfast that had just enough room for us all since the husband was away in France for four more months – then he called and said he’d be back in one day. So we moved to our, hopefully, final place. Stephanie has her own room and the four guys share a big one. We have enough mosquito nets for all and the school loaned us mats to sleep on. Water only works at night but if we fill enough buckets we have enough to bathe in the morning.

We started working with the school and have been really successful in getting them to invest in the program. This helps to ensure that, after we leave, they won’t let the program fall to the wayside. The school dug trenches to lay the Ethernet cord, they are putting extra outlets in each room, and we met with the head of Catholic schools in the country and who then agreed to supply the conduit so we can install everything professionally instead of just stapling it to the wall. Best part yet – electricity in town is free thanks to the phosphorus mine/factory in town. Life is good.

So we are still working at the school to get all this set up and training will begin in less than a week. Meanwhile, we live five kilometers from the coast. A taxi costs about $1.50 to get there so we decided to relax a bit on Saturday. After about 5 hours of swimming, we almost went home but ran into our friend the Peace Corps volunteer, Devin, who invited us to his friend’s house on the beach. It turns out we were sitting in front of his friends house earlier, we just had yet to meet.

We watched the boats fly by the coast and throw lines to groups of waiting locals. If you help pull in the net, you get a cut of the fish. We didn’t help, but fresh fish are cheap and within an hour of the fish arriving on shore, they were cooked over the fire and buried in onions and sauce. Eight of us around one big plate were able to pick it apart with our hands in minutes. It was the best fish I had ever eaten.

Normally, dinner is at one of a few small huts along the road and they all cook delicious, traditional food – well, I find it delicious, some in my group disagree. There are bugs bigger than I have ever seen but they still seem more afraid of me than I am of them. Lizards of few kinds chase each other around and up trees, stopping half way to watch me pass by – something like desert squirrels. The streets are made of sand which follows you everywhere, and although the heat is a constant reminder of the more-intense desert to the north, there are still plenty palm trees and mangos to show the more tropical area that exists to the south. Maybe since things are going so well I’ll have some time to travel to one or the other.

If you have made it this far you have earned the right, if you please, to ask me questions. Feel free to comment or email me and I'll try to respomd to you personally or blog about it - depending on the subject of the question. Thanks for finishing - now go do something more interesting!

Something about Senegal

Ok I know it has been forever, but I promise that it is not on purpose. I am sorry to anyone that has sent me email that has not gotten a response. Internet has been hard to find or out temporarily out when I find it. I have been writing blog post but unable to load them from a flash drive so some day you will look at this and have more than you could ever want to read. I hope someone still looks at this at that point.

Senegal is nice but very hot. Much hotter than Rwanda. As I sit here, I am dripping over a foreign keyboard (please excuse the typos). I drink water out of a little bag, which is the cheapest way to buy it. I even sweat through the entire night, sleeping under a mosquito net in the Peace Corps regional house. Nice people and a nice place. Tomorrow my team and I are moving out of Dakar to head to Mboro where we will live. The Peace Corps is driving us out there and will get the laptops out of customs by Friday, then driving them out as well.

I Will find good Internet soon enough. Stay with me.

New Look - New Location - Same Great Blog!

Having someone pick you up at the airport is almost like cheating - just too easy. Still, after we arrived to Kigali, Rwanda, I was grateful to see one of the program heads, Paul, when we walked out of the baggage area. We got a cab and headed to our hotel just barely down the road to drop off our bags before meeting some people for dinner. Luckily, even after traveling for 36 hours, me and Stephanie were surprisingly awake when we got here.

I didn’t see much from the airport to the hotel since it was only about a half of a mile and we arrived around 7 PM, just after sunset. Later, however, I could look out over different parts of the city as the three of us road across town, each on the back of our own Moto-taxi. The town is fairly spread and since nothing is too big or too tall, you can usually see a good distance in any direction depending on what part of the hill you happen to be on. The gentle roll to the area helps the house windows and street lamps create an impression of a net of lights draped over the city’s swells. It’s nice.

We met some of the project leads and ate at buffet style, outdoor restaurant – good, heavy food. It was great to meet everyone and we had some interesting conversations. Since me and Stephanie were the first to arrive, I think that this was a good, calm way to get introduced as opposed to after the next 100 or so students all get into town.

Outside of this program, I do not know when I would get the chance to come to Rwanda, but am very grateful to have this experience. This is a country known for genocide and sadness but this is not just the site of atrocious events which once took place – people still work here, go to school here, raise families and live here. My time spent here, what has passed already and what will soon pass as well, will help me to understand Rwanda a bit better – will help me be able to locate a certain event within the country’s history as opposed to identify the country by a certain event. I really like what I have seen and experienced so far and I think that the next two weeks will be good – but this is certainly something outside of what I have experienced before.

Adventures in Netherlands, Belgium and Beyond

I have to make this quick – I have my good buddy Tony D. here and we’ve got a few things to do today so here’s the short of my trip to Holland and Belgium:

Started off thinking I was going to sleep in the airport so I could catch my early morning plane – but last minute I figured out how to take night connections at 3 AM. So I do it but end up in an unfamiliar are and couldn’t find my transfer – and still ended up taking a cab to the airport that cost over half the price of my ticket…Oh well I’m going on vacation!

Fly to Holland and arrived - after a long morning – still earlier than I would want to wake up – and a little sick. But this was my vacation and a trip that I was looking forward to for too long!

So I wander around Amsterdam for like 5 hours, almost non stop walking since I didn’t want to stop to spend any money – tight budget for this trip. But I got to see a ton of Amsterdam – beautiful city. At like 1, I met up with this girl who showed me her favorite café – one of the cooler I’ve ever been too – and then we went to a museum outside of town that her friend worked at. It was all about the change in politics and social structure and how architecture was the driving force in the change - SUPER interesting and something that most tourists would never see. Then we met up with her friend who worked there and got some traditional Dutch food and after talking for a while they said that every Wednesday – the day I happened to be there – they cook food together with another friend and they invited me to come…OKAY!

Her friend lived in a shipping container but it was actually temporary student housing – they had made a little village of apartment buildings from it. So unique.

Note: The weather throughout that day and the trip was so random – I always needed sunglasses, an umbrella and a jacket. Rain, heat, sun, threat of rain – it was nuts.

Then they walked me to the train station through their favorite part of Amsterdam and it was probably my favorite too – really nice and along the water…like most of the city.

That was my most action packed day – then I took a late train to Rotterdam and stayed with a guy for 5 days. I didn’t plan on staying that long but he was so nice and generous. Over the time that I was there we saw like 5 or 6 cities, a famous Dutch amusement park, the damn that closes the river Rein, a Dutch bath, and ate dinner with another family. (I know that description was a lot shorter than that of Amsterdam but this was just way to much to even try to lay out. An incredible person to stay with and some great talks about life and traveling.

Then I headed off to Belgium to see a friend I had made earlier this summer in Krakow, who then visited me in Prague. (These plane tickets for this trip cost less than my train tickets to Krakow.) So I got to Belgium and Thomas was still busy so I had some time to wander. That was nice to see Antwerp and I have to say is probably one of the most wonderful cities I have ever been too. Beautifully preserved architecture that isn’t perfect or fully restored, just left at this romantic state that took hundreds of years to achieve. Its not too big and not too small and I think some day there’s just enough room for me.

But seriously, HUGE beautiful church in the center right next to my favorite pub in Antwerp. Great little place that serves just about every beer that Belgium makes – that’s an overstatement but they have a lot. Having a beer with Thomas was like going to school – he knew so much about so many – and I loved hearing about them all while sampling a few a long the way. (Don’t worry family – remember I had a low budget – nothing out of hand). I got to meet a lot of his friends too and hang out at his… student housing type place – that will take an explanation in person – and we went to a free movie a long the river one night – part of a summer long festival called Summer of Antwerp. - - - - great city and a great time.

Over all a Great trip – and this is only a fraction of the stories. But I am headed home soon and you can all hear more in person. Keep checking this though – I might post once more before I get back and once I am back I will do something about those pictures I promised all summer – slow internet stopped me from doing that here – sorry.

So keep checkin’ in and I will talk to you all soon – I need to go show Tony all the highlights of the Czech Republic.

No time to witty titles - Just read

Ok – so since last week… again not much has happened. At least not much that makes for lengthy stories – although it seems that I manage to turn any story into something lengthy.

I am sitting on a train right now and enjoying the trip back to Prague (don’t have internet but I am pre-writing this on my computer to save some time). I have been in Budejovice for the past 5 days or so doing pretty much nothing. It was great.

Most of my friends are traveling right now – nearly every Czech takes a minimum of 2 solid weeks of vacation each summer – national minimum is 4 weeks throughout the year. Wouldn’t that be nice? But my friends being gone gave me time to spend with some of my host families who did happen to be in town either right before or after their vacations abroad.

For those of you who don’t know all the super specifics of my exchange the last time I lived here, I never actually lived in the city center, but always within the reach of city busses – and I am so happy. I always landed in one of the many small and romantic towns that plan themselves along the side roads that jut out from the main city. Mainly when I’m back now I stay in Doubravice with one of my host moms and her son. It’s on top of a hill and I can see most of the city from the balcony. Beautiful place to step out of the city and enjoy yourself for a while. I had a great time spending a lot of evenings with neighbors, cooking some of the best meat I have had in a long time (not your fault dad, locally-raised meat marinated for a day and then cooked over an open fire with friends and beer is tough to beat). It was nice just to relax.

Now I am headed back to Prague – a day later than anticipated since some friends I hadn’t been able to meet with yet just got back to town and talked me into skipping my train so we had more than an hour to spend together – an hour to compensate for three years of absence doesn’t quite cut it. Glad I stayed but a lot still to do in Prague today.

It’s my turn to clean the flat – hope that goes alright. Then a lot of things to prepare for my trip and I don’t even think that I’ll get to sleep in my own bed tonight. I took a 6AM flight to Holland tomorrow because it was so cheap – then I remembered that the metro doesn’t run that early and I don’t know if night busses can get me there and a taxi would cost as much as my plane ticket. It looks like I might just have to sleep at the airport so I can check in at 4 or 5. I’ve heard of people getting stuck at airports and having to sleep there but who starts their trip like that? This will be an interesting trip as a whole.

Like I said – I am good at turning a whole week of nothing into a whole lengthy post. Maybe I just naturally write proportionally to my height. But MAKE SURE to tune in for what’s up next week when I tell all about my Adventures in Netherlands, Belgium and Beyond.

Its good to be back

Still don’t know if anyone checks this anymore – I just seem to get worse and worse at updating. I have been busy but its not so many fantastic tales of near death experience or outrageous chance-happenings.

After the last time I wrote, I spent most of a fairly quiet week here in Prague. I found some great new places in my exploring and met some awesome new people who I really connected with. I love that. 2 of the people where from Idaho and they were so cool. They came to Prague for 2 days and stayed for a week. I tell everyone to do that but no one actually does – maybe that’s why I liked these people – they have good taste in location.

Then, I had been talking back and forth with some people in Ceske Budejovice where I used to live and thinking about when I’d go as if I’m so busy I could hardly get away – then I realized I’m being dumb and just went. I planned for about 3 days and stayed for almost a week.

This is possibly the highlight of my summer – By good fortune all my closest friends happened to be in Budejovice for the summer and I got to see almost all of them. Almost non-stop for the whole time I was there I just got to talk to them, catch up, see the band that some of them are in now, and see a number a places I attended as often as school. It was incredible and so little has changed – the city, the shops, the people. That could be taken as bad, but I can tell the people are wiser and they have changed some for the better, but the part of them that I love is still there as it was. I am so glad to still have these friends. I’ve been back in Prague for about 2 days and I am already heading back for a concert and some more time there. I can’t wait.

I also secured the plan for my good buddy Tony to come over for the last week that I am here – that will be a blast. I am going to drag him back south to Budejovice so he can see where I used to live the people there. Then we’ll spend some time in Cesky Krumlov (google that town – it’s worth it) and Prague.

You can only show so much in a 4x6 and only tell so much through blogs and stories, so I am glad that I finally have a friend as good as Tony coming that I can show and share this with. I am really looking forward to that. Its too bad that when caitlin was here we didnt have enough time to head down that way - I'd really like to share this with all my friends.

Lastly, by way of more good fortune, I bought plane tickets to Holland and home from Belgium. Best part is – the first time I looked I found them at a great price – I was going to pay about $50 each way. Then I left for a week and came back and they were almost double one way and triple the other. I didn’t know what to do! The next day I search again on the same site and they dropped them to about $40 each way – which means almost the whole ticket is “tax and fees” and my fare is about a dollar.

I’ll be traveling between the two over a course of a week. I made a friend in Krakow when I was there and then he came to see me in Prague – I am returning the favor by visiting him in Belgium, hopefully he’ll travel a bit with me Holland too. It’s good to have friends all over. Makes traveling much more exciting than the gawking at artfully crafted stone and cement.

Some good stories should come out of that trip. Hope you guys tune-in to hear about it later.