A Sweet and Sour Exit

I leave in two days! Whoa.

That aside I'm feeling much better. The malaria is pretty much dealt with and I'm back to enjoying Nairobi. I bought some cool Congolese and Cameroonian masks to take home with me. Hopes are that when I finally have kids I'll have one room filled with cool masks that the youngin's will be too afraid to go into (planning peace and quiet seems to be important). Saw The Simpsons Movie yesterday (average, but entertaining) and I'm off to see Transformers today. Life is back on track.

Anyhow, where was I. Ah yes, Chinese food. I liked the bold headline last time for the malaria thing, let's use that again. It's very official looking. It's amazing what thicker letters can do, eh?

Chinese Food Abroad: Breaking Kosher in the Name of Science

Before the reviews come I'd like to go over my technique and mission. The purpose of this project is not to find "real" or "authentic" style cuisine. That couldn't be further from the truth. The bar against which all this is measured is really, really, really good Chinese take-out (you know, the kind in little folded boxes with dragons on them). With this in mind the plan became clear. One Sweet and Sour Chicken, two Veggie Spring Rolls and Steamed Rice would be sampled at each resto in order to create an even picture, with all other dishes sampled being treated as side-evidence (all foods capitalized for emphasis, we can't always use bold you know). What I looked for went as follows:

Spring Rolls: Overfried? Greasy? Crispy/flakey or bready? What was in it? What kind of sauce came with it?

Chicken: Was the chicken fried? Too fried? Crispy? Sizeable pieces? Was there pineapple and bell pepper? Sauce quality? Sweet? Sour? (Chicken?)

Rice: Honestly, anyone that messed up rice was written off immediately.

Now, where was I? Ah yes, the reviews.

The Good:
Fang Fang (Kampala, Uganda): Likely the most famous resto I visited, Fang Fang's decor was gorgeous. A flowing lawn, with garden, giving way to the patio where you're seated. Very, very soothing if you have being walking the insane streets of Kampala for more than twenty minutes. The presence of a giant Chinese buisness convention was probably a good sign of quality as well (Dro still thinks it was a mob meeting). Here I actually goofed. Ashley got the sweet and sour and I got veggie lo mein. Her chicken (I tried some) was fantastic. Sweet, sour, chicken-y, crispy, packed with veggies and deliciousness. Spring rolls were a close to take-out as you get. Round, flakey, packed with shredded veggie goodness and coated in a thin layer of grease. Mmmmmmmm. Fluffy rice, good tea and excellent service. My noodles were thick and filling. Good veggies and big servings. Fang Fang lives up to the hype as a solid backpacker splurge.
Rating: 4 stars (out of four)

Schezuan (something I can't recall that began with "z") Chinese Restaurant (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania): Having been unable to find the resto recommended to me by the Lonely Planet I stumbled across this place about 2 blocks from the hotel. Go figure. Mike, the Canadian I had met at the hotel, had veggies and prawns he said was amazing (I dared not try) and I had the usual. The spring rolls were by far the best I've had in Africa. Super-thin shells, with plentiful, steaming veggies inside. Plus, instead of ordering them individually they came in plates of three (cheaper!). The sauce, while not very thick, was as close to duck sauce (it wasn't very close) as you'll get here. The chicken was a masterpiece. Huge chunks of perfectly crispified white meat, tossed with veggies and massive pineapple wedges piled high from the table to well over my head (exaggeration!). The rice was...uh...steamed. The only negative was the fact that they took an hour to take our order and another 45 minutes to serve. Oh African time...
Rating: 4 stars

Dong Fang (Bujumbura, Burundi): Following the trend of "Fang" restaurants being great, Dong Fang (giggle) was a tasty surprise to find in a city that was 5 months removed from civil war. My friends were less impressed with their fried rice and cashew chicken than I was with my s&s goodness, but this stuff was delish. The spring rolls were a little small and the casing a little thick, but the crispness was spot-on and the pili-pili (uber-chili) sauce they came with almost necessitated a nasal cavity transplant (awesome). The chicken was plentiful (huuuuge plate), the sauce perfect and the level of frying outstanding. The inclusion of red AND green bell peppers alongside massive chunks of pineapple added a nice finishing touch to an excellent meal. As an aside, the cashew chicken Ashley had was also pretty good.
Rating: 3.5 stars

Mandarin Chinese Restaurant (Jerusalem, Israel): Certainly posher than anything in Africa (but still not Kosher!), Mandarin got bonus points for being a family diner. Everyone else seemed quite pleased with their food, but honestly I was too wrapped up in my chicken to notice. Small portions (not in Africa), but tasty chicken done right. The addition of San Pellegrino was a fantastic touch. The spring rolls, while not memorable, were tasty. Well done Holy Land.
Rating: 3.5 stars

Macau Portuguese Cultural Centre (Lilongwe, Malawi): I know what you're thinking "Macau what?" I swear this is a Chinese food place. There's three pages of Chinese food offered and about 3 Portuguese options. Very surreal place. Anyhow, the food was pretty damn good. The spring rolls rivaled those of Dar es Salaam, but the sauce was a little cloudy and had the colour of a cherry slushy. Eww. The chicken came in small pieces, but the veggies were good and the sauce was incredible. Cassie (one of three friends in attendance) had the same as me and concurred that the food was good, but not great. Jess's veggie noodles were tasty, while Gur looked pretty sad about his "Ants in the Tree" (lettuce wraps). It wasn't great Chinese food, but hey...it's in a Portuguese cultural centre, what were you expecting?

Bonus: Great fortune cookie message: "It will happen, in good company." Brilliant.

Rating: 2.5/3 stars

The Restaurant of China (Kigali, Rwanda): This was kind of a wash, literally. The resto is perched on the roof of a two story office building and is open air. Perhaps a bad design move in a city high up the moutains that has two rainy seasons. The spring rolls and rice came first and they were pretty average, but the sauce was great. Disappointing since the food in Kigali is normally so good, but all things considered they weren't bad appetizers. Then, the rain came. Pouring, freezing cold, pounding rain. Shit. I never got to taste the chicken, but the kitchen smelled great so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. The food on other tables looked fantastic before it got drenched. I headed to meet some friends at a great non-Chinese resto New Cactus, where I had amazing 5 cheese pizza and garlic bread. Not a bad way to end the evening, but I left Kigali feeling incomplete. Buy some umbrellas for the tables you idiots.
Rating: 2.5 stars

China Plate (Stone Town, Zanzibar): Here's an odd place. With a balcony overlooking the Indian Ocean to the west (prime sunsetting spot), China Plate has a serious feel of neglect to it. The bad Chinese TV shows are a little too loud. The paint is peeling and the table cloths have some holes in them. It's an old joke that there is no word for "maintenance" in Kiswahili, apparently the Chinese owners caught that bug. The spring rolls were...chewable. Good filling, but the casing was a bit too burned and a bit too bouncy to be called tasty. The s&s was, on the other hand, fantastic. Did it taste like sweet and sour chicken? No. Did it look like it? No. Was it delicious? Absolutely. I have no idea what it was that I ate, but I know I enjoyed it. The second visit was less impressive, when the lemon chicken came with no lemon sauce or lemons. "Sorry sir, we have no lemons. Here is chicken." They eventually made some bland, mystery sauce to make the chicken a little more exciting, but the damage to their rating was done. Get it together China Plate, y'all got potential.
Rating: 2.5 stars

The Bad:
Chinese Gardens Restaurant (Nairobi, Kenya): Nice decor, good view of the city (it's on the 5th floor of an office building) and friendly staff. The spring rolls were decent enough, though the pili-pili was lacking, but far too small. The chicken was greasy, which leaked into the sauce and made the veggies (green peppers and onions) soggy. The sauce was super-sweet (no trace of sour to be found) and almost runny. Coating the chicken with it was hard and soaking the rice with it just messed up the rice. It wasn't a total train wreck, but it wasn't delicious by any means.
Rating: 2 stars

Yaya Centre Food Court (Nairobi, Kenya): Like Chinese Gardens, this was hardly terrible. It tasted great after three months of no Chinese food in CFSIA, but in hindsight it was not all that and a bag of fortune cookies. This, as the first resto, did not follow normal procedure so no s&s was consumed. The Hot and Sour soup was way more hot than sour, and too big to finish (Christilyn and Stacey helped with that). Nice veggies inside, but definitely not your usual hot and sour treat. My veggie lo mein was greasy, but could have been greasier. Take out lo mein should be thick and greasy! The tea was alright, but the company was fantastic. Food aside it's a meal I still think about with a smile on my face.
Rating: 2 stars

Pagoda Chinese Restaraunt (Stone Town, Zanzibar): The decor is wonderful and the adverts make it clear that it beats out China Plate for the almighty tourist dollar/euro/pound, but I would avoid the Pagoda if I were you. Bones in the s&s is an unforgivable Chinese take-out sin, and having a sauce hinting to BBQ flavouring (it's sweet and sour, not Colonel Sanders!!!!) is a bit embarassing. The spring rolls fell to the common problem of overfrying and overbattering, though well sized and filled. The rice was...uh, rice. Mmm rice. Zanzibar is hardly a Chinese food haven, but if you must sample it head to China Plate.
Rating: 1.5 stars

The Ugly:
Hong Kong Restaurant (Blantyre, Malawi): Not in a capitol city and not really China (ooooh political statement!), Hong Kong is all show and no substance. Great decor and a rentable "special" rooms, the resto looks great. The food? Not so much. The spring rolls were burned and tiny and the sauce runny. The s&s was plentiful, but fried to a crisp and served in the same sauce as the spring rolls with no veggies. Boo. I returned with some Brits and sampled the veggie lo mein, which tasted like nothing (and soy sauce) and hit my stomach like an atom bomb. I suffered for this review people. Ugh
Rating: 1 stars

Sarit Centre Food Court (Nairobi, Kenya): This shit was radioactive and unfinishable. Paging Tiki Ming/Manchu Wok we need you in African malls!!!!
Rating: Unstarable

So there it is, my life's work. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did (well, most of it anyways). This is likely the last travel update, so I hope this has been interesting to read for those who had the energy to keep up with me (not sure how many of y'all that is, haha). The trip, on the whole, has been incredible and incredibly exhausting. I'll look forward to seeing y'all back at home.

Cheers,

-Dave

Malarity Ensues

Ending with a bang? Oh dear. Not to worry anyone back home, but I've been under the weather for the past few days with a wicked case of malaria. I probably got it by being an idiot and staying at cheap hotels that didn't have mosquito nets over the beds, but hey...who knows? Malaria, simply put, is awful. A lot of tourists here want to get it just to say "I went to Africa and got Malaria!" but I heavily advise against doing this. Malaria is awful. I've been steadily improving on a cocktail of quinine (no, I don't mean gin and tonic) and coartem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coartem), but I've still got about 5 days to go before I'm all better. Malaria, awful as it may be, is not all bad though. It is with this in mind that I proudly present to you "The Pros and Cons of Having Malaria"

The Pros and Cons of Having Malaria

Pro: Great conversation starter with the ladies. Simpathetic responses tend to include back massages.

Con: Having a mouth smelling of vomit and quinine has to be one of the least attractive things on the planet.

Pro: It's a great diet!

Con: Solid food is actually pretty awesome.

Pro: It made an excellent excuse to book a few nights at the nicest hotel in Malawi.

Con: The bar is unusable.

Pro: You get to watch TV all day.

Con: BBC World is crap. Really, really crap. I mean honestly, the "Top Stories" repeat every ten minutes! There has to be more going on in the world than this.

Pro: Simpathy from Malawians gets me comfy seats on minibuses.

Con: "Comfort" in a vehicle designed to hold 8 people that has been filled with 20 people, 10 chickens and luggage is a relative term.

Granted, there are other cons (see: symptoms), but I just want to illustrate that all is not lost.

Infectious disease aside, Malawi has proven to be a great spot to relax for three weeks. My time in Nkhata Bay (which was supposed to last 2 days, but got extended to a week) was fantastic, until Malaria hit. I slept late, enjoyed excellent food, excellent views, excellent company and a most excellent lakeside trampoline. I didn't swim much, but apparently there was excellent snorkelling too.

Last I checked Malawi was ranked as one of the 5 poorest coutries in the world, but you would never know that being here. It's really easy to see places as mixtures of news items and statistics, but the reality here contradicted most of my expectations. Yes, people are very impoverished and there are likely a slew of serious challenges facing the country, but looking at the people you'd hardly notice. Blantyre and Lilongwe (the two largest cities), are clean and bustling (if astonishingly dull). These are just broad observations made by a guy who has only been here 3 weeks doing absolutely nothing, but Malawi in person is a million times better than it sounds on paper.

Anyhow, I'm out of here the day after tomorrow to Nairobi (I'm just going now to pick up my ticket). By September 3 I'll be back in Montreal. The coming home fiesta will likely have to be postponned a few days (drinking on an injured liver is hardly intelligent), but it will be a pleasure to see y'all soon.

Cheers,

-Dave

12 days and counting

Seriously, I'm counting. Smoked meat! Canadian beer! Patati Patata! Hockey! Uh...you guys? My trip to Malawi is nearing it's end, meaning it's time to try to traverse 3 countries in 10 days this Wednesday. I'm currently in Nkhata Bay (google it or something, I'm not even that sure where I am anymore), and I'll be headed from here to Mzuzu, Mzuzu to Karonga, then into Tanzania via Mbeya, Mbeya to Dar es Salaam, Dar es Salaam to Nairobi, Nairobi to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Dorval. Sounds exciting doesn't it? Nothing says good times like transit.

Malawi seems to be set on finishing with a bang. Lilongwe's dullness was replaced by Blantyre's less dull dullness, which made for a few notable occasions. The only brewery in Malawi (foreign owened, of course) was visited with a South African-German, five Japanese, two Irish, a Brit and three Malawians. The tour itself was awesome, with the highlight easily being the the machine that puts the labels on beer bottles. Seriously, whoever came up with this thing better have won some engineering award. From the little buckets of bubbling glue getting sucked into some invisible tank, to the paintbrushes slapping the labels on tightly, to the little laser beams that make sure everything goes on straight, this thing is amazing. Honestly, someone actually sat there for several months to a year thinking "hmm, it's really hard to put labels on beer by hand. If only there were a much more complicated way to do it that involved a 13-tonne machine..." Kudos to you "beer laber machine engineer." You're ridiculous.

Blantyre was also home to some truly terrible Chinese food. Chinese food so bad I was sick for hours after eating it. Don't say I've never suffered for my craft. I've got one more place in Dar es Salaam to check out, then I'll get to reviewin'. Don't expect Blantyre to rate too highly.

The last highlight was...well... a long story. Here goes.

My last day in Blantyre I woke around 4:30 AM to drunk Brits stumbling home from the clubs. After about an hour of them shouting I was able to get back to bed, only to have my alarm wake me up around 7. See, I was trying to catch an early bus to Mzuzu so I could connect to Nkhata Bay in one afternoon, but (alas) the only bus leaving for Mzuzu was leaving at 5:30, so my early rise was for naught. After plodding about the city for a while I managed to find a reggae show playing at "The Warehouse" that afternoon, and figured I'd check it out before the busride. The show was amazing. Playing were some of the bigger names in Malawian reggae (The Black Missionaries, Sally Nyundo and Gift Fumulani). People danced like madmen, the most impressive dancer being a man stricken with polio managing to breakdance on his crutches. Craziness. I left early to catch my bus, which began boarding at 5, a little tipsy from some rasta-borne gifts, but feeling good.

As soon as the bus left things began to change...

Side note: before we get to the interesting stuff I'd like to have a word about Malawi in general. The people here are amazing, polite, nice, kind hearted and generally always laughing about something (usually me). However, all isn't well in the country politically. It's now August and the governement still hasn't passed the budget for 2007. The reason being is Section 65. Section 65 states that any Malawian politician that switches parties while in office must give up their seat until by-elections are held to see if the people are ok with the switch (take that Belinda!). Unfortunately, prior to the passing of the budget this year the president crossed the floor. His old party wants elections before the budget, and his new party wants the opposite and neither want to budge. So as it stands, the government is spending money illegally to fund schools, hospitals, civil servants and the like, and because it's all outside the budget no one really knows who's getting what or how much is being spent. There's no end to this in sight, but the rest of the story makes a little more sense in this context.

So where were we? Oh yeah, I'm on a bus. Right, so the bus has been cruising along for about 3 hours when my asthma kicks in. No big deal, I'll just find my ventolin and get some sleep. Shit. Where's the ventolin? It suddenly occurs to me that I lent it to a Brit I'd been hanging out with that morning, and that he likely accidentally pocketed it. No worries though, things should improve if I just relax my breathing and chill out.

Not so much with that working.

At 5 hours into the bus ride I can't breathe. I non-chalantly ask the guy sitting next to me (who can't fall asleep due to my weezing), where the nearest clinic or pharmacy is. He doesn't know, but goes to ask the driver for me. Keep in mind it's around 10:30 PM at this point. About 45 minutes later (11:00-ish) we pull up to a public hospital (the name of which escapes me) and I'm ushered out of the bus. I wait for my bags to come out, but they don't. I don't really care at this point though, I just need some drugs. The doctor sees me immediately, but says that due to budget problems (i.e.: inept, power hungry MPs) they have no inhalors or nebulizers handy. Shit. Shit. Shit.

The next thing I know my shirt is off and they're desperately searching for something that will work. Five minutes later I'm hooked up to some mystery I.V. and feeling much better. I get some salbutamol pills (yum!) and in about twenty minutes I'm right as rain. I have the whole procedure documented in my notebook (my "prescription"), so any medical professionals (read: Mom) that want to know details beyond "mystery I.V." can get them when I'm back. The doc is a UN volunteer from Kenya, so we speak some Swahili and in the end I pay for my visit in ball-point pens (it's public hospital so they can't take money, but they had no pens. It was more of a gift than a payment). To my amazement, the bus is still outside. 45-passengers have been sitting outside in the dark while the engine idled for around an hour. Whoa. Malawians are nice.

I jump back on expecting some dirty looks, but everyone is asking me how I'm feeling and offering me hugs/water/herbal something or other/good wishes. This is surreal. I sit back down, thank the bus for waiting and we're off again.

I can't sleep due to a mixture of "big guy" next to me, "compulsive chair lean-backer" in front of me and "baby who kicks" behind me, but I don't really care since I'm breathing normally again. At about 4:30 AM there's an announcement that we're stopping in Nkhata Bay before Mzuzu (sweet), so I hop out and try to find a taxi. There's no taxi. There are, however, a series of thugs insisting that they "help" with my bags. 30 seconds later I'm back on the bus (thanks baggage attendant-guy!). My bags intact I'm dropped off at a police roadblock 30 minutes outside of town, where I sit from 5:00- 6:30 talking to the Zambian and Malawian officers about the CN Tower and hockey vs. football until a minibus arrives.

I (finally) arrive at the hotel at 7 AM, after having been awake for almost 40-something hours, bouncing from reggae shows, to hospitals, to police stations. I meet my friends, get a quick backrub (mmm) and tell my tale of transit. Sleep happens shortly thereafter.

Whew. What a trip.

So the moral of the story is: always pack a spare ventolin and don't trust the British!

Alls well that ends well.

Cheers,

-Dave

Note!

I finally figured out how to enable comments (thanks to the internet cafe staff who speak Afrikans)/. Send me love! (please?)

Cheers,

-Dave

Malawi Wowee!

Honestly, that's the best title I could come up with. The trip from Zanzibar was rocky, as I was hungover and the seas were rough, but it was apparent that I was up for a return to travel. Deciding that Dar es Salaam qualified as "extremely dull" I decided to quickly move on. First, however, I met a nice Canadian who had been working in Zambia. We shared a hotel room (making it cheaperz) and got our obligatory Chinese food (don't worry, the update is coming sooooooon). The next afternoon after a traditional French Breakfast (sans porc) at a tourist place I was off on a 24-hour train ride across the country that would wind up taking 29 hours due to breakdowns and "wet tracks" (ominous, eh?). There was no food, no water (which meant no flushing toilets) and not much doing as far as amenities (there was a bar, but I did not use it). The saving grace was my company. Two hilarious Zambians named Uliya and Twiza. They had an additional 24 hours of training to get to Zambia, but for my leg of the ride we shouted at people out the windows, talked about how annoying it was to learn Swahili and about how odd it was that the Chinese built everything on the TAZARA railway. We scrounged for food by buying fried something or others through the windows, getting chips (crisps!) from the bar and eating some atrocious coctail of wannabe sardines and chili sauce. In the end, good times were had and I bid the Zambians adieu at Mbeya, Tanzania.

At the station I met a group of three UKers (who were actually from Kenya and Zimbabwe) and we were off to find a hotel. Despite Mbeya's appearance as a sleeping little town, a group of Swiss tourists had apparently booked the whole town so we went through 8 hotels (and one punctured tire) before settling at the Princess View Inn at around 8:30 PM. The rooms were lovely, some with Superman sheets, others with odd posters of blonde, white people in swimsuits, but most importantly the showers were hot (a must after 29 hours of transit + 2 hours of hotel hopping).

The next day we hopped a mini-bus with some Germans to a village near the border, grabbed some bicycle taxis to immigration, exchanged Tanzanian Shillings to Malawian Kwacha, and went on our way.

A note: NEW MOST WORTHLESS PIECE OF CURRENCY!!!! One Malawian Tambala. One hundred Tambala make one Kwacha and one hundred and forty Kwacha is one US dollar. Math time.

1 Tambala=.001 Kwacha=.0000714 USD. 1/14,000th of a dollar. Jeebus.

Anyhow, after securing a cheap taxi to Karonga (a road dotted with Police checkpoints where officers would usher us out of the car, dance with us to the music on the radio and tell us to have a nice trip) we were off to Chitemba. A lovely lunch was had a local resto owned by "King Elijah", who was probably the first
real Rastafarian I'd met so far in Africa ("no scissors, no brush, no meat, no drink, no smoke unless it's the herb, no violence") and a lovely evening was spent on the beach trying to make our own constellations in the sky (lots of stars, like whoa).

Then it was off to Mzuzu where we stayed at Mozoozoozoo, a place owned by some friends of the UKers' parents. A huge poker game was had (the pot: 5,000 Tambala) thrice and sleep was enjoyed in the chilly/rainy/greyness that is Mzuzu (are we still in Africa? We don't need sweaters in Africa!). From there it was a night of insanity in Nkhata Bay, two nights with the UKers, cake, and my Israeli friend Gur (met in Zanzibar) in Kande Beach and then it was off to Lilongwe (the capitol).

Although Gur has left early to head home to Israel (:sad face:), Lilongwe has been essentially comprised of the consumption of baked goods (i.e.: cake, croissants, eclairs, cream puffs, etc), wandering, eating Chinese food (!!!) and sleeping in the dirty, pest-infested office of a local dive bar-resto called Annie's. It's much more fun than it sounds like it is. That being said, it is an excellent description of what there is to do in Malawi if you don't have a job: nothing. You can do nothing on the beach, do nothing looking at animals in a park, do nothing in the village and do nothing in the cities. Chilled out. Anyhow, I'm off to Blantyre tomorrow-ish (it's the commercial capitol in the southern tip of Malawi), and then back to Nkhata Bay with some lovely new UKers I've met who are based in Lilongwe (Old UKers: Ryan, Lucy and Emilie, New UKers: Jess, Cassie).

So there it is. I'll be in Malawi until around August 24th-ish, then a few nights in Dar, then a few more in Nairobi, then I'm home. 19 days till I'm on a plane, 20 until I land.

Chinese update coming soon. (ANTICIPATION!!!!!!)

Cheers,

-Dave

Exodus from the Zanz

Whoa, a month and a half flies by in paradise, doesn't it? I booked into the noon fast ferry (1st class!) to Dar es Salaam tomorrow, and it may be years before I see Stone Town again. I rarely get choked up about leaving a place that doesn't rhyme with Zontreal, but I'm pretty shook up about leaving Zanzibar. My hotel/apartment, while small (really, really small) was beginning to feel like home, with breakfast (fruits! eggs! coffee!) outside on the balcony every morning. Work at ZIORI, while very mundane, was really interesting. I got to skim articles that seemed to tickle my brain, talk to the random academics that came to visit Prof. Sheriff (I got TWO buisness cards and an invite to info for scholarships to Oxford!). Plus my enormous lunch break left me with time to take Swahili lessons, so my Kiswahili has been upgraded from "utterly painful" to "passable" in most personal interactions. Plus I've got a steady group of friends (I nice mix of locals, Canucks, Brits and Yanks), which is always nice.

So yeah, wistful pensiveness aside life has been good. Food every night at the market, followed every now and then by drinks on the beach. I've spent another weekend Nungwi with my two Canadian ladies and attended the thoroughly insane Full Moon Party in Kendwa last weekend. Try to imaging about 1000 people dancing to techno and reggae (odd mix, I know) in a giant tiki hut on the beach (for the Peskinds, it was at Kendwa Rocks where we had lunch). Aviva (who I met in Kenya) came up for a few and we had a fairly chilled out time in Kendwa and Stone Town. Aside from that it's really just been a relaxing few weeks since we last spoke. For the first time this trip I had a routine, one that gave me enough responsibility to not get bored, but not so much that I couldn't relax when I wanted to. So yeah, I'll be back in Zanzibar one day. Mark my words.

In Dar tomorrow I'll sample the penultimate Chinese food sampling of my journey (wait for the upcoming Bujumbura/Kigali/Nairobi/Jerusalem/Kampala/Zanzibar/Dar es Salaam/Lilongwe Sweet and Sour Chicken Showdown! Bated breath, while not required, is recommended), fill up my passport with new pages (I hope), buy me a train ticket to Mbeya and move on to Malawi.

Also, I had a new Fanta. It was Apple and it tasted like really sweet cider. Mmmmm.

Also, Alexander, I found a coin more worthless than the 10 Tanzanian Shilling Coin. It's the 5 Tanzanian Shilling coin. $0.0039. Seriously. I swear this thing exists.

Cheers,

-Dave

Killing Time in Zanzibar

Have I only been here 18 days? As it stands I'm chilling with the Peskind family in Nungwi after traversing the entirety of the island yesterday. Before I get too wrapped up in what's going on these days, how does a bit of history sound?

Zanzibar has been one giant friend swap so far. I started with My Swiss friend Sina (27 June-3 July), who watched the film festival with me and joined me for lunches. The Californians, who were fun when un-coupled (28 June-9 July). Puna, the chain smoking Finn (10 July). A few ex-peace corps folk (9-11 July). Roy and Gur, two Israelis that made drinking more interesting (10-13 July). Also, there's Feisel and the rest of the Zanzibari I see around town. Finally, I had around a million amoebas swimming around my insides to keep me company when there was no one else around (30 June-7 July). So yeah, not a lot of consistency, but an interesting mix of people/microscopic entities.

The job has been less thrilling than anticipated (the film festival stopped me from doing any work until last Tuesday), but can be withstood for the next 2-3 weeks I'll be here. I have my daily routine now, starting at 9:00 when I get to the office, a Swahili lesson at 1, lunch at the place across the street, more work from 3-4:30, and dinner at the fish market. Aside from the occasional quiche for lunch or the more than occasional outings to one of 4 bars in Stone Town, that's what I've been doing for the past 2 weeks or so. The film festival provided some solid entertainment, but none of the movies was worth writing home about (and since folks from home read this, I'll refrain from writing).

So yeah, that brings us to now. This weekend has been devoted to getting out of the confines of Stone Town, so Saturday was spent asleep on the beach in Paje with my teachers and some fellow students from Holland and today involved meeting Jeff, Cynthia and co. in Nungwi to walk down the beach and unwind. Tomorrow I take the 6 A.M. dalla dalla back to Stone Town and restart the routine all over again. Does anyone want to go to Pemba next week? I'm not even back in Stone Town yet and I'm planning my next escape...

Cheers,

-Dave

Information!

Quick update!

Zanzibar is going great, and I have info to share. First, my organizations website can be found at www.ziori.org. Secondly, I can be reached at the following address (allow 2-3 weeks for delivery, I'm leaving Aug 9).

David Shiroky c/o
Flamingo Guesthouse Room #0
P.O. Box 4279
Mkunazini St
Zanzibar

Cheers!

-Dave

ZIFF! ZIOR!

I am currently working for two organizations that have quite fun-to-say acronyms. The first is the Zanzibar International Film Festival (beginning Friday) and the second is the Zanzibar Indian Ocean Research Institute. The zed really adds a flavor to these things doesn't it?

Anyway, my return to Africa was uneventful in terms of travelling. I didn't get my Chinese food in Addis because Ethiopian customs wouldn't let me leave the airport for some reason, but aside from that it was a smooth ride. Upon arrival I met an Israeli and a Brit who joined me for Ethiopian food and billiards in what was my only night in Nairobi before heading back to Mikinduri.

Being back in Mikinduri for what was likely my last visit was a little bittersweet. The problems with the feeding program had been addressed (all programs had been cut to 150 children a week visiting one central site), the feeding complex had been improved (floors! windows! water!), one borehole had been completed (yay!) and the main office moved from a rented area in the market centre to our feeding complex outside of town. Furthermore, the addition of an accounted (the wonderful Cicily) has cut down on wasted funds enormously. Pretty good stuff if you ask me. The people I had been working with were happy to see me (since my visits are always surprise visits), excited to hear about what Israel was like and really pleased at how things had turned around since the "April 2007 Dave/Pete" Report was published.

The visit would have been perfect had village politics not derailed our committee meeting to the point where Silvanos (the head consultant and my close pal) threatened to quit (he didn't). I also got to visit my police buddies one last time and enjoy the horrendous village matatu ride home for (thank the lord) the last time. If there's time I'll head back in August, but it looks like I'm pretty booked so it may not happen. If that's my last visit to Mikinduri until my next trip to Kenya I leave proud that I worked to the fullest extent of my ability and something positive came of it. Volunteering In Afria experience #1 was a resounding success.

Cheers,

-Dave

Finally, an Israel post

So yeah, internet has been surprisingly elusive over the past little while, leaving me with no serious second entry for Israel as of yet. Well, until now anyways.

Cruising around the Holy Land with the family was unsurprisingly excellent. The trip had its definite high points. Haifa was a fun night getting to know the teens on the trip, Petra (in Jordan) was absolutely stunning, praying at the Western Wall (once during the week and once for Shabbat) was an earthshattering experience and hiking Masada was...well...sweaty. Jerusalem solidified its position as one of the greatest cities I´ve ever had the pleasure of staying in and Eilat solidified its position as a bad ripoff of Vegas. There was quality bonding time with the Mom and sisters, Chinese food, hookahs and enough falafel to kill a smallish sized bear. I made some friends among the younger folk in the audience and wound up enjoying Jerusalem visit number two with good company. Yad Vashem was a nice shift from the US Holocaust memorial´s brutality (which is not necessarily a criticism, just an observation), to a message of hope for the future.

An interesting sub-plot to the trip was the state of Reform Judaism in Israel. In the Holy Land (I love saying that) Reform Judaism seems more poised to try and create a sea change in the country, letting people see religion as something relevant to modern day. Congregations here seem to face constant harassment from Orthodox communities, discrimination in local politics (making it harder to get access to public land, recognized conversions and marriages, etc) and a vast community of secular Jews who aren´t necessarily begging to return to religion. In this light the Reform movement seems almost revolutionary, aiming to bridge the gap between secular and orthodox Israeli communities not only with regards to faith, but with regards to politics as well. My impression of the American Reform movement has always been that members often join more out of the desire to justify eating pepperoni pizza, than to link the past with the present. Needless to say, being in the presence of a community of true "reformers" was really nice.

Anyhow, since the trip I´ve split my time about evenly between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, enjoying the former far more than the latter. Jerusalem had a nice blend of faith and fun, whereas Tel Aviv is all clubs, bars, beaches and strip clubs. That´s not to say Tel Aviv is boring (no I did´t go to a strip club), but rather that it feels too seedy to be the centre of the Jewish state. In the end, a few more days in Jerusalem would have been a good call, but hey...hindsight is blah blah blah blah.

I´m off to the airport in 2 hours for a quick lunch stop in Ethiopia (I´m thinking Chinese food) before I return to Kenya en route to Zanzibar. Whew, 2.5 months left.

Before I head off, here´s some more Fanta for you.

Fanta Strawberry (UAE import)- Pure sugar. It tastes like a more natural version of Robitussin.

Exotic Fanta - I have no idea what´s in this, but it´s gross. Too much sugar, not enough distinguishable flavour.

Grapefruit-pineapple Fanta - Just amazing. The fruits play off each other surprisingly well, creating a sweet, yet crisp soda with just enough tart to create a flavour one could actually call "complex". A rare soda indeed.

That´s all for now. More Fanta to come I´m sure.

Cheers,

-Dave

Tomorrow is country number seven!

So yeah, I'll be in Jordan in 8 hours. Crazy stuff. Israel has been spectacular. We've gone bar hoping in Haifa, cruising around Old Jerusalem, enjoying life by the Dead Sea. It'll be a long entry one day, but this laptop is out of juice. If you're impatient you can gimme a ring. My Israel number is +972523654769. I have no idea what country codes or anything may need to be added to that, but it's a start right?

Cheers,

-Dave

Out of Africa

So I'm in Israel, although the trip took a little longer than expected. Nairobi to Khartoum, 45 minute layover, Khartoum to Cairo, 3 hour layover, Cairo to Tel Aviv, 4 hours until we board the buses. Seeing the family in the airport was great, seeing the family in the airport wearing a custom made Kenyan suit they didn't know I had was better, seeing the family in said suit while a group of ultra-orthodox Jews watched us looking really confused as to why everyone was so excited was pretty hilarious. The fam seems to be well, even if I am somewhat under the weather with a headcold of sorts and culture shock is somehow being kept in check. You know you've been in East Africa too long when you're Jewish, yet the replacement of Swahili with Hebrew as the "language being spoken by everyone that I only sort of understand" makes you kind of sad. Aside from that, it's a little hard to go from a society where "warm shower" is a fairly relative term to one where people get nervous about the complimentary shampoo/conditioner combination at the hotel drying out their hair.

An aside, as I sit typing this in the hotel lobby (wireless!!!!!) a small child (a toddler really) is trying to play with the fish in the fountain just by reception. The mother keeps trying to keep him from falling in, but the kid seems pretty adamant about playing with the fish. There's no real point to all this, it's just pretty adorable.

Anyhow, my last few days in Nairobi were fun. One last round of partying with my Peace Corps. buddies, a sumptuous meal of Indian food and a lot of juggling of luggage that had been stored around the city. The flight, while uneventful, was fairly uncomfortable. Partly due to the captain's refusal to stop pointing out landmarks we couldn't see (it was night) and partly due to Kenya Airways concept of a what a "Kosher Meal" was. Kosher? Yes. A meal? Not so much. I feasted on unfrozen fried balls of something (maybe fish, maybe falafel), fried squiggles (unidentifiable), a still frozen fruit cup, a frozen pastry and matza. The matza was nice, but the rest left quite a lot to be desired. I miss KLM sometimes.

Upon arrival in Israel (after a few delerious hours in the very spiffy Cairo airport) I decided to enjoy my first trip to a Kosher McDonalds (the Big Macs at 6:45 AM always taste best anyhow) and begin my ritual sampling of the Fantas of the world. Here is a synopsis of my trip so far:

Orange Fanta (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Israel): fairly standard soda, but seems to vary from place to place. Sweeter in the West than in Africa, and boardering on Orangina in Israel.

Fanta Citron (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi): This is what you generally get when you order lemonade. Invented for those looking to make mixed drinks, it's perfect blend of sweet and sour leaves quite a crisp, refreshed feeling in your mouth.

Black Currant Fanta Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania): A-mazing. The sugar content of this soda is off the charts, so drinking the 50 cl bottles should be considered a "sometimes" treat. Guaranteed to wake you up after a day spent on the back of a truck in 35 degree (celcius) heat.

Fanta Ananas (Zanzibar): Pineapple-y goodness. Not really my thing, but it certainly has it's moments.

Fanta Maracuja (Rwanda): If G-d drinks Fanta, this is his flavor of choice. The beverage engineer who decided to create this passionfruit infused concoction needs to be shortlisted for a Nobel Prize. Not to be cosumed in large quantities (its sugar content rivals our buddy Black C), but absolutely perfect to add a little sweetness to lunch or a mid-day snack.

Mangorange Fanta (Israel): A blended Fanta? Heavens to Betsy! While I initially wanted to write this hybrid off as a monstrosity (I tend to dislike Mango), the orange complement is slightly redeeming. This is best described as "not repulsive."

Grapefruit Fanta (Israel): This drink is a serious curveball. Sour Fanta? Can it really be so? Indeed, our final entry is a wonderful escape from the insta-diabetes feeling you get from most Fanta out there, even if the sugar content is probably about the same. Sour, tangy and crisp, grapefruit Fanta is really starting to grow on me.

Raise your cans of Fanta up high.

Ready?

Cheers,

-Dave

Next week in Jerusalem!

So I'm back in Nairobi. The remainder of travelling in Rwanda and Uganda by my lonesome was quite entertaining as I kept running into the same backpackers I had met on my way into Rwanda the first time around. More Mexican food, more parties and a good deal of catching up (I was a little proud that I had been the only one to venture into Burundi, while everyone else regretted not joining in on the fun). From Kampala it was back to Nairobi where (surprise surprise) I ran into some more travel buddies I met in Uganda. We had a nice night or two on the town and Dro, Jesse, Alec and I had a farewell sushi dinner.

That Friday I met a nice young lady named Aviva and we went to the only synagogue in Kenya (that I know of). It was a gorgeous, 95 year old building (dedicated by the queen in 1912!) with a congregation of about 11 people. An odd experience to say the least, I met the Israeli ambassador to Kenya, an aid to the US consular department and a few African Jews from Uganda and Ethiopia. The service was short, but sweet (it even included Manishevitz wine!!!). I didn't know all the tunes they used, and I was a little out of place in flip flops (my only closed toed shoes had been destroyed by some nasty fungal invasion from the Ugandan wetlands), but we had a good time.

From Nairobi I headed with Silvanos back to Mikinduri for a surprise check up on their progress. Since my last visit they had convened in Nairobi for a restructuring meeting based on Pete and my report, and the results were mixed. Money is now being handled by a CPA (so no more corruption!) and sub-committees were shook up to removed inert members. Projects were still lagging waaaaaay behind their supposed "end" dates, Bishop (who I like less and less these days) was still meddling in the affairs of others and maintenance of buildings (pest control, cleaning, fixing, etc) was pretty non-existent, but I am confident that after some initial growing pains over the next few weeks things will turn around. I'll be back on the 23rd of June for a final check up, so I'll hold judgement until then.

In other news, I get to see my family in Israel in three days!!!! YAY!!!!!!

Cheers,

-Dave

All by myself...

Back from Burundi like a boomerang, it's time for Kigali round 3. Bryan Adams is blasting from the stereo of the nearby bus station, the caffine from my 8th cup of coffee (it's so cheap!) is keeping me wired and the countdown to Israel is on.

Burundi ended well. Ashley and I gourmeted it for the last few days, enjoying amazing grilled fish, wood oven pizza, chocolate mousse and (of course) the magestic grand Primus. Alas, as our Franc stash ran low we jaunted for the border on an air conditioned (glorious) bus that played movies for our enjoyment. This somehow cost the same as a regular minibus ride. I heart Africa.

Football/soccer with the president never worked out. We got close on our last day and caught a sneak peak of him between some bushes, but unfortunately the army saw us and chased us away. As it turns out, there is a special "protocol" that we neglected to follow that allows you (meaning any foreigner) audience with the head of state. Ah well, we got close. Next time I'll get a picture with the dude, haha.

Anyhow, I've got a few days to relax in Kigali, then a few more to relax in Kampala, then a few more in Nairobi. You get the idea. Life is good.

Cheers,

-Dave

P.S. My application to graduate was finally approved. I graduated with "distinction" (what that distinction is is unclear at the moment) and my diploma will arrive in Florida in the next 3 weeks. Groovy.

I'm not an idiot (really!)

Just so you know, all mispelled words in this journal are being credited to the forced use of French keyboards, poor African spell checking devices and my own quirky sense of humor.

Really, I know what I'm doing.

Ceers,

Dqve

Failure!!!!

Soccer with President Nkurunziza didn't work out, he had a meeting. However, we may get a shot on Wednesday. He's said to never have missed a mid-week match! Burundi still has yet to disappoint on a large scale though. Our friend Dominique has left for a week trip to Georgia/Armenia before his new job starts, but we've met a Quebecois named Sylvain who should fill the drinking buddy void. Our other (as of yet unmentioned) friend, Patrice Faye, has proved hard to find, but great to talk to. He's the only non-clergy foreigner to ever have been awarded Burundian citizenship and is somewhat of a national celebrity for being the Burundian Croc Hunter (in fact he was supposed to work with the pre-dead Steve Irwin to track "Gustave", a 7 meter croc living in the nearby lake). His house is hilarious, filled with souvenirs from all over the continent from hios 20+ years stay in Burundi, captured snakes (endless vipers, pythons, cobras, mambas and an anaconda), crocodiles and rodents who serve as dinner for these creatures. He's been in two international films (Search for the Killer Croc and a Japanese movie that apparently was viewed by 15,000,000 Japanese this past March) and is set to work with National Geographic this year, so it's fair to say this dude has his share of stories to tell.

In other news we were thrown out of yet another over-booked hotel, and have since moved on to bigger and better things. Our new lodgings, costing 50 cents more per nite offers a king siwed bed, clean showers and friendly staff. For those thinking of coming to Bujumbura (and you really should, it's fantastic), Saga Residence dowtown is the place to be. Rooms are supposedly $20 per nite, but we paid $10 after a day's worth of haggling by Ashley.

The only bad news to tell is sort of funny in it's own right. There was a mid-day dowtown pick pocketing attempt made yesterday by two guys who will henceforth be titled the Worst Pick Pockets on the Face of the Earth (WWPPFE for short). These WWPPFE tried to distract me and reach in my pocket (which had my camera), but were horribly unsubtle about it. One looked too drunk to do much distracting (which comprised of poking at my plastic trash bag containing the remnants of lunch) and the other put TWO hands (unheard of among respectable pick pockets) in my left pocket. One WWPPFE was set asunder by a thorough slap from Ashley, while the other got an albow to the shoulder and a severe cursing by myself (in French AND English!). Looking dismayed, one WWPPFE ran and the other pretended he was a beggar who got mixed up in the whole process. In return for their carefully planned assault they managed to get...well, nothing really. Maybe some lint...maybe. I know it's probably foolish to joke about attempted robbery, but when the attempted robbery is in itself a total joke I can't resist the urge.

Learning from yesterday's experience I am today much less conspicuous, sans day-pack. I remain confident that with this subtle difference I should be able to completely blend in with the locals. Really, it's pretty easy for a caucasian Canadian-American to blend in in urban Burundi, seriously. No, seriously! Honestly! They can't tell the difference!

Sigh.

Cheers,

Dave

Burundinsanity

After three fairly tame days in Butare (we hiked Parc Nyungwe to see monkeys and waterfalls, saw the Rwandan national museum and drank on the porch of Hotel Ibis) we took a weird matatu ride from Butare to Bujumbura. The driver would taken hairpin turns at _à Km/h (really fast on African mountain roads), clap along to songs on straightaways and play nothing but solid tunes all ride long (Boyz-II-Men, Justin Timberlake, Toni Braxton, etc). The only downside was the cramped seating situation (14 people in a van) and the one carsick dude who threw up out the window the entire ride post-border crossing.

So here we are, the captial of Burundi! Our first day was spent just getting used to the city, which is far different from anything else I've ever seen in my life. Sprawling urban areas on a plain before the lake, stretching east to the mountains leading back to the main road. No tall buildings, reasonably constructed roads, nice people and more French language practice than I've had in a while (no rebels either!). Despite the ominous travel warnings Burundi is almost absurdly safe (mening of course that it is no more dangerous in my mind than Kampala or Mombasa), although taxis are useful in the evening. No hassles, no police wanting bribes (in fact they're among the friendliest roadblock guards I've ever seen!) and certainly nothing to be overly concerned with safety wise.

We had our first dinner at Dong Fang, a local Chinese place. After that delicious meal it occured to me that I need only dine Chinese in Kigali and Dar es Salaam (or Dodoma, depending on who you ask) to have had spring rolls in the capital cities of all of East Africa, sans-Somalia. Friday involved a quick swim in Lake Tanganyika (one of the few lakes in East Africa with enough currents to kill the vectors of bilharzia), a small meal at the Saga Plage and dinner at a happening resto-bar. Drinking was likely to have followed, but health would not permit it so it was off to bed at around 7 pm. Our French ex-pat friend, Dominique, showed up at our room with his girlfriend around 9 surprised to find us in bed (and even more surprised to see me sleeping in a tent indoors to save money), but promising to take us out the next day.

The next day we took off in his car to an unknown place, stopping on the way to see the place where Livingstone apparently met Stanley (very bizarre), buy some oranges at a local market, check in on some post car-accident aid workers (Aid workers, for those who don't know, drive like idiots. Worse still are UN drivers!) and spend the rest of the day chilling at a beach that had more of a Carribean feel than an African lake feel. Amazing swimming, good food, good company, good times. Our dinner took us back to the Saga Plage, where we camped for the evening. In hindsight, camping in a nightclub was really stupid, sleep was minimal and the DJ seemed to love MC Hammer.

Today we awoke to people shouting at us (mzungu, why are you in a tent?) and telling us to co;e chill with them. Mind you, they're drunk and it's 6 am. We eventually join this small group of young ladies and one gentleman, later on realizing that they zere all prostitutes servicing the US armed servicemen. Gorgeous people (well, all but one of them), but quite drunk and quite aggressive to the other locals so we didn't spend too much time with them Oh, did I mention that 3,000 Burundian male youths were on the beach doing military excercises (no they weren't rebels), trying to swim to Congo (seriously) and watching us take our tent down. The prostitutes may be trying to follow us around town so they can offer us "services" but Dro and I aren't very interested.

From there the day got weirder. We left the plage around 8 (I'll be honest, we had found some leafy things and were really, really hungry as a result) and headed to Kapa Bakery. Kapa is owned by a series of Cypriot-Sudanese brothers who arrived via Congo (loooooong story) who absolutely love our company and make the best pasteries in town. Apparently today breakfast was on the house (Merci Gabriel!) so we ate well. On our way back to find a hotel, we ran into Dominique randomly, went back to Kapa for coffee, found a random Greek Orthodox church to gawk at and headed to our new guesthouse (named Guesthouse) which was actually the same guesthouse as before. We were even given our old room back! Our attempts at napping were thwarted by a seemingly impromptu drum rally right out side our room.

You can't make this stuff up.

So this evening the plan is (seriously) to see if we can play soccer with the President of Burundi, have a nice dinner with Dominique and get our party on away from any potential hookers.

Dro and Ashley leave tomorrow for Rwandam but I may stay a few more days here. Bujumbura is absurd in the best way possible.

Cheers,

-Dave

I'm an idiot

Mother's day is next week. I suck, although I still love my mom nonetheless.

Cheers,

-Dave

Things never seem to go according to plan...

Our vacation to Lake Kivu was interrupted by some conference that stole our hotel room from us. It was relaxing while it lasted, gorgeous views, good food, new friends and cheap beer. We saw the clouds turn red with the glow of Congolese volcanoes, Dro and Ashley canoed to an island restaurant and ate goat (I was sick with a headcold) and we made friends with a nice group of American post-grads. So, with no home in Kibuye we returned to Kigali (we're staying with our new American friends who have a house outside downtown). Tomorrow it's off to Butare, followed by either Parc Nationale Nyungwe or Bujumbura. Burundi is a must visit since we already bought our visas, but when we make it there is starting to get confusing. Stupid overland transport systems. Anyhow, happy mother's day to Mom and pleasant greetings to all non-motherly readers. Tonight we're celebrating at the only Mexican resto in Rwanda. This could get interesting.

Cheers,

-Dave

Has it really been a month?

Considering how often I update this, I'd be curious as to who still reads it. Haha, anyhow I'm writing from Kigali, Rwanda and having a great time. Before I get to current events I feel like y'all need a bit of a recap.

So yeah, things finished up in Mikinduri on April 24. Pete and I wrote a 35 page joint audit of the entire organization which is apparently currently being used at a large meeting in Nairobi as we speak to determine the future of the organization. Whoa. The month ended fairly well, we were given a live chicken as a reward for our hard work (his name was Tasty and he was lightly battered and deep fried) and seemed to have deserved it. By the time we left meetings had be regularized (as opposed to "whenever") and projects were to be consistently monitored and audited per our suggestions. There were some hard times though. Kids (who weren't being given the money they were asking of us) began throwing rocks at us, someone turned off our water (we fixed it ourselves) and I got some nasty skin infection from an allergic reaction. Such are the trials of a foreigner in rural Kenya. All in all though, while I don't know if I'll ever spend another full month in Mikinduri (there is nothing to do), but I know I'll keep in touch to make sure all is well.

From Mikinduri it was back to Nairobi with Pete. We saw a movie (300, it was sweet!), hit up the bar scene, had buisness meals with Silvanos (our chief advisor), enjoyed sushi and generally revelled in the joys of urban life (did I mention there was drinking?). Pete Dumoulin is by far one of the best travel companions I have had the pleasure of chilling with. His presence is sorely missed and our time spent in Nairobi was the culmination of an epic one month experience.

From Nairobi I travelled to Lake Nakuru to meet up with Alejandro (another friend from the McGill trip) and off we went to Kisumu to spend the night. Kisumu is supposedly the 3rd largest city in Kenya, but you wouldn't know that from its relaxed atmosphere. We were able to walk around at nights with no hassle (impossible in Nairobi), and eat spring rolls and pizza. From Kisumu it was off to Kampala where we spent two nights camping at a backpacker's hostel. Our fellow backpackers proved extremely entertaining as one of my nights was spent out at an outdoor concert until 6 AM (some of the most popular artists in Kenya and Uganda were on hand), and the second spent at a houseparty hosted by a British guy who has been living in Kampala for over a year now. Very, very, very good times in Kampala.

From Kampala was the 9 hour bus ride to Kigali. We arrived in the late afternoon at the One Love Club hoping to set up our tents, but their "campgrounds" was actually a cement parking lot. We booked a room instead. Our first day in Kigali has been plagued by rain (although it's quite sunny now), the fact that it's Labour Day (changing money is pretty much a no-go) and the absence of a working ATM in the city. Aside from that the city is gorgeous, the people are very friendly and I've been getting to use my (extremely rusty) français. Plus there's passionfruit flavored Fanta!

From here we spend another two nights in Kigali, then move to Gisenye or Kibuye (we thought about trekking to the Congo, but upon research found that "active militia and Interahamwe rebels in the Eastern Provinces" was a fairly strong disincentive to making the trip. Oh well, haha. Instead of Congo, we'll head to Butare (still in Rwanda) and use that as a base to make our way to Bujambura, Burundi. Bujambura (although a travel warning exists) is probably safer at nights than Nairobi, so there's no need to worry about us. There we'll do some day trips to other parts of Burundi, return to Rwanda and from there I'll head to Jinja, Uganda for whitewater rafting and back to Kampala for another round of bar attending. All this is up in the air though, so if the next entry says something totally different, don't get all mad at me.

The bottom line? Life is grand.

Cheers,

-Dave

A strong urge to beat children with sticks

The program over, the hostel vacated, the matatu entered (26 Passenger Capacity my ass...I counted well over 70) and here I am...the middle of frickin' nowhere. Mikinduri, Kenya. A fairly sizable (though spread out) town near Mt. Kenya with a lot to be done and not a whole lot to do. My days are spent in meetings with the local business and water project subcommittees, assessing the sustainability of local projects and drafting a funding/grading report to send to Ted, a kindly resident of PEI who apparently finances EVERYTHING here. I eat lunch at a local feeding centre, after taking the names of about 80 orphans, serving them and washing their dishes. Nights are taken at (wait for it) THE LOCAL POLICE STATION, which somehow has the cheapest beer in town. Don't ask who thought it was a good idea to supply a group of 30 cops (armed with AK-47s and G3s) with an ass-ton of booze, but hey...it works for me.

The nights have been hard to pass (we're searching fruitlessly for board games, all we have is magnetic snakes and ladders), but the days have been super busy. Last weekend I rode around with the Honourable Peter Munya (http://www.mzalendo.com/Members.Details.php?ID=118), making campaign speeches for him and informing the area about my work as the "Water Expert" (alongside Peter "Microfinance expert" and Ellyn "Health Expert").

My only real annoyance here is the village children. They're constantly banging on the windows of our place asking for money/bread/candy/our radio/etc, breaking into windows to take our bag of sugar, asking us to play football when we're working and being general nuisances. Our general solution is to chase after them screaming in Swahili, carrying large sticks and threatening to cane them (which would be the general punishment they'd get here anyhow). Them kids run fast when shirtless white dudes chase after 'em. Hah.

Anyhow, today is my first day off since the program started in January, so I'm relaxing in Meru. Eating fried fish, drinking coke and basking in the Internet I've so sorely been deprived of. We're off to try and get some groceries and find a Monopoly board.

Cheers

-Dave

DONE!!!

20 minutes ago I finished my undergraduate education. Ha! More on that later, we have chronology to keep up!

Zanzibar ended well. Our dolphin trip was almost cancelled due to the beginnings of monsoon rains (so...much...rain), but the rain cleared and off we went. Not too much swimming with the dolphins, but we did see a few swimming. Abdul Sheriff and I haven't finalized my research position for this summer, but I'm under the impression that it's good to go. Leaving Zanzibar was a 30 minute plane ride to Mombasa, where we toured Fort Jesus in some seriously oppressive heat.

From Mombasa (we were there a good 45 minutes) we went to Malindi, where last minute hotel problems left us staying at the Blue Roc. The Blue Roc, while very resort-y, targetted German sex tourists (a huge industry there). As a result, in between lectures we got to watch fat old white men smoke cigars and hit on skinny 18-year olds. Weird, weird stuff. Definitely a learning experience in terms of the dynamics of the trade. That's all I'll say here, but e-mail me if you want to hear some more thought out opinions. Aside from that, we toured museums and saw the Gede Ruins (where we got attacked by monkeys...seriously). I had too much work to do, so I didn't even get to go swimming, but it was all worth it. We got back to Nairobi last night (after a 14 hour truck ride), pulled an all-nighter to finish a group project, presented it today and as of the completion of our questioning period I ceased to be an undergraduate (grades pending). Pretty exciting stuff, eh?

I plan to spend the next few days at Backpacker Hostel in Nairobi, leaving for Mkenduri on Wednsday. Two CFSIA alumni I ran into today said it was an awesome exerience when they volunteered there, so I'm pretty excited. We (myself, Pete and Ellyn) get a house (a dispensary actually) to ourselves and get to spend our days off in Meru. Sweet deal. Rwanda is still up in the air, but the two alumni are friends of my travel buddy who just returned from a week there. They seem dedicated to convincing him to join me. Sweet deal x 2. That's all I know for now, but its pretty sweet.

Anyhow, I'm off to buy top-up cards for my cellphone.

Cheers

-Dave

Sandbars and Zanzibars

Greetings from Unguja, the biggest island of Zanzibar (and the one commonly referred to as such, since it contains the city of Zanzibar. However, Zanzibar contains not only this island, but the clove-producing island of Pemba as well! Fun facts!!!!)! We arrived a few nights ago and I think I've lost about 4 pounds of sweat. It's hot. It's sooo hot. I just left a semi-arid area in Kenya (Mpala) where I thought it was hot, but it was not. This is hot, this is eyeball-melting, shirt-soaking, "oh-please-say-there's-air-conditioning" hot. Real hot (this just in, according to weather.com it currently "feels like" 101 F. It's hot).

Mpala was fun, lots of lectures, lots of hippos, lots of stone tools (we started an archaeological dig site!) LOTS of thorns everywhere and lots of campfires. We shut off the electricity to the camp one night so we could all stargaze (awesome) and I got introduced to the informal economy, shifting through crowds at some impromptu market looking for mirra (an energy boosting stick, which I swear is legal. Seriously!). Good times all around. I even found a boulangerie, owned by a French national, that made the best pain au chocolat I've had since France. Kenya is pretty awesome like that.

From Mpala we went back to Nairobi for one night of partying, after which we flew to Zanzibar. Since arriving I found out that Freddie Mercury owed a restaurant here that serves affordable curry dishes (Mercury's Zanzibar), food from street vendors is the most delicious thing available for 80 cents Canadian and that pretty much everything I knew about the East African slave trade was wrong. I'd go into detail about my coursework, but I'm paying for internet by the minute. The highlight was yesterday, when we all got on a Jahazi Dhow (look it up) and sailed to an unpopulated sandbar in the Indian Ocean and swam for hours. We got our lectures on the way to and from the beach, and cooled off in the crystal-clear (urchin filled) water. A-mazing. Since then it's been museums, lectures and a whole lot of work to be done (5 essays, two journals and a series of sketches) due between tomorrow and the 20th. I guess I won't be hitting the beach much after all. Tomorrow (and I can't believe I'm saying this) we go off to learn some biology on a boat and swim with dolphins (should we be able to find them). Groovy, eh?

Anyhow, I need to get lunch and get to work on my "stone tools and archaeology" module.

Cheers,

-Dave

Did I say Feb 25th? Tee-hee

Long time no see ladies and gents. In Kenya the internet is a cruel mistress. Whenever you have access it becomes a 50-person scramble to check e-mail, upload photos and poke people on Facebook using a slow modem, so updating blogs can be a little crazy.

So yeah, the past month has been a whirlwind. The Mara was fantastic, I saw all major animals (photos to come whenever I have a few hours with the PC) aside from Leopards and Rhino (so lions, gazelle, elephants, giraffe, wildebeast, warthog, etc and about 120 species of birds) and got my tent flooded during a freak rainstorm in the middle of the dry season. Our bags were floating in 2-inches of water.

Dear @, thanks for convincing me to get the waterproof backpack!

After that (somehow) we got a campfire going and danced with some Masai (this has since become a fairly common occurance, I've gotten pretty good at the heavy-breathing, head bobbing, jumping parts, but yeah it's a little hard to explain). The prof. I spent the most time with (being in WILD 420-Ornithology), Dr. Bird, showed me that science courses are a great deal of fun when you let them be and he may have sparked a future birdwatching hobby (I just need a pair of working binoculars). The guy was a blast to be with, hopefully he and I will stay in touch.

Moving on from the Mara we stopped in Nguruman and Elangata-wuas, easily the hardest locations to spell on this trip so far. Nguruman was a lot of farm tours, blistering heat, cool birds and more diarrhea than I'll ever know what to do with. The highlight was chasing down wild animals in a Land Rover in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night armed only with a guide, Dr. Bird and a Maglite. Even with 9 people in the Rover we had a great time. E-wuas was a bizarre experience, camping at a fairly posh place (sunset vistas, refrigerated beer, curio shop) after weeks of flooded tents, ants (SO MANY ANTS!) and brown water (from the taps, the diarrhea wasn't that bad). I started and finished a research project on the nesting habits of barbets with my friend Francois, climbed a minor mountain in the Rift Valley, visited a factory that makes calcium carbonate (which clearly appears in the dictionary right next to the word "exciting") and had a pretty amazing experience in a boma. A boma is ostensibly a Maasai household, made up of a bunch of smaller huts, a few families and a whooooole lot of livestock. Myself, fellow student Pete, translator Noah and staff-member Mukhtar spent the night with a delightful family and had a blast. We hearded goat, cooked, cleaned kalabashes and impressed kids with my headlamp. We spent the whole night talking about our various cultures (our foursome was a Jew, an Athiest, a Catholic and a Muslim. Alas, we did not enter a bar). Notable conversation topics included a 45-minute explanation of hockey (Skates? They're shoes with blades...no no no they don't try to cut each other with them), a shorter debate over the merits of big-ass potato-knife vs. potato peeler, why we didn't own cattle and what exactly "The Jewish" was. We slept on cow skins in a dung hut (of which one of the walls hadn't dried...you know, the wall by the head of the bed), ate porridge (despite it being around 50 C inside the hut) and laughed a great deal. The head of the household (a village elder and former warrior) gave us walking sticks and gave me his rungu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rungu_%28weapon%29) that he had been using for quite some time. Seriously cool stuff.

From E-Was it was back to Nairobi where I took exams (Ornithology ended, Dr. Bird left and I got sad) and started my history course with Prof. Campbell (coolest history prof ever) on East-African slave trade and the Indian Ocean world. We've gone shopping, hit up Carnivore (google "Carnivore+Nairobi" for reviews), saw The Last King of Scotland (awesome) and visited the British Institute in East Africa (http://www.biea.ac.uk/ where I hope to do some research at some point). Tomorrow we depart for Mpala, where we'll do the primary test excavation of a possible future archeological dig site (yay stone tools!) and interviewing folks about slavery (which I'm sure won't be awkward in the least). After then (no internet there, sorry!), it's back to Nairobi when I'll fill y'all in on everything Dave-like.

Oh, and the mohawk is gone, but it did not die before amusing hundreds of children who couldn't stop laughing at the white guy with the ridiculous haircut.

Peace, Love and Rock n Roll

-Dave

Last update until the 25th

As I travel to the Masai Mara (http://www.masai-mara.com/), Nguruman and some place I don't know how to spell I'll be without internet. I believe a quick update is in order. I may have found a volunteer job here in Mbita working at a health center. More on that as it develops. Also, tonight I had the pleasure of dining with the Mbita District MP Otieno Kajwang' (google him, he's kind of a big deal!). We (me and two other students and two of our field guides) talked at great length about fighting corruption, constitutional reform, health issues, Kenyan politicking, the ups and downs of a coalition party and East-African unity. Apparently there's a fair amount of support growing for the fusion of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda into one super-country, with the old borders serving as states of sorts. Think of it like an advanced EU that might actually do something. I had no idea such a thing was even in the works. I can't really do our conversation justice, but I will say that when I told him Bush's approval rating (we were talking about the role of evangelism in politics at the time) he laughed for a good 5 minutes.

Go McCain!

Anyhow, I'll update again in 11 days with all sorts of cool stories about seeing lions and bargaining for spears that I'll never manage to get through customs.

Cheers

-Dave

Back in Kenya

So yeah, back to the internets. Uganda was amazing in every respect. We flew into Entebbe and left immediately in a bus with "In G-d We Trust" mudflaps. 8 hours, 3 juiceboxes, one package of groundnuts and a deformed slice of bread (4 inches of white bready goodness!!!!) later I was in the Kibale National Park (http://www.uwa.or.ug/kibale.html) where I ran through rain forests chasing monkeys at night and looked at air-breathing catfish (and more monkeys) during the day. We journeyed into the towns surrounding the forest (Ibora and Fort Portal in particular) and I got to interview a lots of the locals about health issues, water quality (which culminated in a hike down an invisible path and around barbed wire of ther "hey, don't walk here" variety to see a broken pump that the government and community wouldn't fix) and all sorts of interesting stuff. We met progressive pine tree farmers and toured tea plantations that were fighting to destroy wetlands (those bastards! don't drink James Finley tea!). Sure, I fell into 2 feet of swamp water in those wetlands, but I think they should stick around.

An interesting note about Kibale, the mango fly apparently lays its eggs in wet materials and tends to like to do so in your laundry. If you don't iron your clothes its larvae wind up crawling in your skin and springing out when they've matured. So...yeah. I finally learned how to iron.

We also toured some clinics in Fort Portal and I was (and still am) shocked that the only people who know how to repair x-ray equipment are based in South Africa and can take 6 months-2 years to show up due to the high demand/high prices. The WHO should get on that I'm thinking, right?

From Kibale we traveled to Lake Nabugabo where we couldn't swim due to bilharzia (yay snail vectors! soooo cute and deadly!). I did, however, get to watch a borehole pump get assembled (our resident doctor had helped fund its construction) and a puppet show (the moral of the story was, guerrilla fighters will kill wild animals when they attack you with AK-47s, it was pretty crazy). From there we went to Jinja, which is around the source of the Nile. We stayed at a swanky-ish hotel (great food, CNN international, no hot water and lots of skeeters) and watched people fish, people research people who fish and ate fish. The highlight was finding an ATM that would take my card, I had been broke for a while. You don't realize just how useless traveller's cheques are until they're completely useless.

Dave: Hi. I'd like to cash a traveller's cheque
Bank: Do you have the receipt and your passport?
Dave: Of course, would you like to see them?
Bank: No, we don't cash traveller's cheques...we were just curious.

That exchange didn't really happen, but it may as well have.

From Jinja we drove 12 hours to Mbita, Kenya. One of our trucks got stuck in what can only be described as "Gracious me! That's a great deal of mud...perhaps more than 4 or 5 feet of it!" After breaking two chains trying to push/pull it out, all 40-odd folk of us filled our other 20-passenger truck and rode it to the ferry that eventually took us across Lake Victoria. It was a trying ordeal...I'm still finding bits of mud in my shoes/pants/eyelids/etc.

Mbita is great. Yesterday and the day before we toured a community clinic/health centre and HIV/AIDS support centre. Great people, well run facilities (although burning garbage next to your wards is probably a little unhealthy) and an all around enjoyable time. Yesterday afternoon we were asked (without warning) to lead a discussion pannel about health issues at a local high school. It went really well (everyone gets a kick out of my new mohawk. Mohawk+Yarmulkah=yamahawk. Did I mention I have a mohawk? Well, I do...it looks silly. Facebook pix will go up if I have time.) and I wound up getting some e-mails for future pen-pal-ing. Kids keep asking me to give them stuff (usually cell phones, CDs or cash), which is getting old reeeeaaaaally fast, but I at least partially understand why it's hard to believe that travelling students don't really have all that much stuff to begin with. So yeah. Today I interviewed the head managers of the Lake Victoria South district water and irrigation department, bought a machete (made locally...in China) and wandered through one of the loudest markets I've ever seen in my life. Kids (naturally drawn to the yamahawk) followed me around everywhere (all they say generally is "How are you?" "Fine" or "Mzungu," but they're really, really, really adorable and we seem to have a good time even if we can't talk to each other).

So yeah, whew, there it is. The full update.

Other news:
-Yep, I heard about the carjacking/murder in Nairobi and I don't think there's much to worry about, regardless of the 8 million e-mails the state department keeps sending me. Dear US government, please stop e-mailing me. At least proof-read the e-mails if you must continue. Spelling words wrong makes me feel all weird about the state of affairs in the US.

-If you want to contact me e-mail or facebook is the way to go (radiohead5k@gmail.com). I have a phone (e-mail me if you want/need the number), but I can't promise you won't have to sell a kidney to talk for 10 minutes (yay for routing calls through Europe!).

I miss y'all lots.

Cheers

-Dave

Day 4

The slums were a powerful experience. The poverty was almost unreal. I could go on forever about depressing minutia that would likely mesh with your preconceptions of African slums, but in reality, the Soweto section of the Kibera slums we saw were full of people living normal lives (albeit ones wrecked by poverty). The people were friendly for the most part (which is not to say we didn't get a lot of angry looks) and everyone was more than willing to talk about life in Kibera with hopes that we would spread the word around. It's hard to explain via blog, but some of the optimism for the future (through community and UN programs) is unreal. As long as the world, the UN and Kenyans are actively forcing the hand of the Kenyan government to work towards sustainable slum improvements there seems to be a good chance that the lives of the people in Kibera will show signs of improvement over the passing years.

Anyhow, those who want to know more can talk to me later (I have no pictures, it felt too voyeuristic) when I get back. I'm off to Uganda soon, which means no e-mail for a while. I will, however, try to post my phone number tomorrow morning. If not, you'll catch it when I get back to Kenya.

Cheers

-Dave

Day 3

Whoa, the past few days have been a whirlwind. I'll be brief (since this is one of 3 journals I'm supposed to be keeping), but I'm having a good time. We head to Uganda at the end of the week, but this week we've been checking out Nairobi. Tuesday was spent at Nairobi National Park looking at giraffes, lions, buffalo and waterbeasts from affar. I talked the politics of gazetting parks with our guide and took lots of pictures. Today involved visiting University of Nairobi and a lot of free beer. We learned a bit about the geography of the city and got a short tour of the campus and business district with a few of the students. After that was a meet and greet with the students at ISIPE (mainly biologists and math guys) that involved tasty samosas and a lot of free Tusker. I wound up spending most of the night talking South African politics with a Cameroonian named Felix, who had been studying in Pretoria. So yeah, I'm off to set up my cell phone and write in my travel journal. Tomorrow, visiting the UN and the Kibera slums.

Cheers

-Dave

First post

Here we go! After some awesome delays in Montreal and Amsterdam, I've lost a day of my life (Monday got killed by the time change) and I'm in Kenya! The weather is absurdly nice, with flowers and whatnot everywhere, and the whole group seems to be fighting jet lag pretty well. Today we're hitting up a park so "we can get gawking at giraffes and stuff" out of our system and hopefully getting an itinerary for the trip. We're at ISIPE (an insect research post) for a week, after which no one really knows what will be going down.

I'm missing y'all already and I'll ride a hippo or something for ya.

Cheers

-Dave