Hangin' in Hawai'i

There's something about alliteration that really, really satisifies. Yum. I'm also feeling flu-y (more!), so perhaps there's a touch of the delusional about me right now.

I am at the University of Hawai'i right now, packing up so I can move from the dorm where we've been on retreat for three days to our hotel on Waikiki. Today I officially go on leave for five whole days. And I feel sick: stuffed nose, thick head, swollen eyes, etc. Sigh. What madness. Laurence flies in this afternoon, so he's going to get a "lei" greeting by his very own gal around town, moi. I've decided a mild amount of public embarrassment is a necessary rite of passage here.

Speaking of public embarrassment, we had decided that we needed to do some sort of big team bonding/event during our retreat, so we had planned to go on a luau last Sunday. It poured -- it's been raining here for weeks now and we have had terrible, anti-Hawai'i holiday weather -- and we postponed until Tuesday. Tuesday arrives, clouds heavy in the sky, etc., etc., and we all headed down to the pick-up point at the Ala Manoa Hotel. I noticed that my colleagues seem to have a lot of extra things with them, most notably Jodie with a rather large box. As we stood on the street corner, Jodie began to pull out grass skirts for people to put on...

More anon. Breakfast and other stuff. xx

Quaking in Kabul

I forgot one thing: we had an earthquake Tuesday night! It rumbled, my tummy jumped around a little and I ran outside to check with the guard. All was well. I went back into the house -- everyone else was at dinner -- and scoped out the place for a safe place to stand in case there was another rumble. Although the house was only one story tall, I fear that concrete ceilings pretty much guarantee pancake people post-quake.

My colleague Maureen, who was staying at a local hotel, called the front desk to ask what the commotion was. They told her it was a bomb -- perhaps to ensure she would never forget her first trip to Kabul?

Boom!

An office with a view... My last gorgeous day in Kabul.

Afghan adventures

I am now sitting in my little apartment in Adams Morgan, listening to the spring birds chirping merrily away. Two days ago I was listening to the spring birds chirping as well, but from the country director's lovely little compound in Kabul, Afghanistan. The birds chirp merrily there, too.

What a week! It was the first country visit I've made with a team before, so the entire show didn't depend on me, but rather our Vice President for Finance and Administration. This made the trip infinitely less stressful than other experiences, which gave me an opportunity to really open my eyes and take a look around. A look around from a convoy, admittedly, but a look nonetheless. They take security very seriously in Kabul!

If you're an expat in Afghanistan, you're kind of limited as to what you can do. It also depends on your organization: USG employees do not move from the American compound and live in what other expats liken to "pod living". My dear friend Amanda also says it's "shag fest", since there's nothing else to really do. (Sounds like our experience with rice mill workers in Bangladesh -- there's nothing to do but work and have sex, so the incidence of STDs in the rice areas is quite high, with local NGOs focusing on STD prevention!) For those lucky enough to be based in the town, there's eating out and eating out. We went out multiple times: French, German, Korean, Italian, and Pakistani were our cuisines of choice. And of course Afghan -- we went to a buffet at the InterContinental on Tuesday evening with our senior staff. Yummy, with a huge focus on meat. "Meat!" grinned my colleague Hashmet as the barbecue man came towards us with a massive skewer. "I love meat!"

When we did go out, it was by convoy. Admittedly, a convoy of two cars, both unarmed, but a convoy nonetheless. I think had they been armed I would have refused to go anywhere as the possibility of something going very wrong would have increased exponentially. We had a few little mishaps with cars being separated momentarily, but all went well. No western women were kidnapped during the week I was there, and that's been the standing threat since Clementina Cantoni from CARE International was kidnapped (and released unharmed!) in May 2005. And let that record continue, please.

I must take a nap. More anon.

Bombed-out remains of the King's Palace in Kabul.

Lovely children in our Child-to-Child (CtC) programs in Kabul. In their hands are books from the CtC mobile library, ready to share at home with their families.

Development creeping up the mountainsides in Kabul.

Julee in Kabul on Tuesday, March 7, en route to Chicken Street.

The blurry couple in this picture are getting married!

Scott Farm, the site of the April wedding. There might be snow then, too!

Asia Earthquake Appeal from Peter Gabriel

Just to remind you that the tugboat still looms large in daily life. Other than that, nothin' much is happening. Work. Work. And a little more work.

I took this photo last March in Petra. This young girl gave me a piece of sandstone, so I took her photo. I showed it to her and she giggled and ran off to the next tourist. Ah, Petra.

Turning 35

Since it's my birthday tomorrow, I thought I would follow Julee tradition and share a gift with you: the worst poem ever written in the English language. It delights my soul.

A Tragedy

Death!
Plop.
The barges down the river flop.
Flop. Plop,
Above, beneath.
From the slimy branches the grey drips drop...
To the oozy waters, that lounge and flop...
And my head shrieks - "Stop"
And my heart shrieks - "Die"....

Enough! I can't torture you any more. If you want to read more, I highly recommend Very Bad Poetry. This particular masterpiece, by Theophile Marzials, stands out.

Enjoy!

Late August blues

I'm getting restless again. Laurence laughed when I mentioned this and asked where I would have to be sent this time to chase the blues away... I've been asked to do a temporary assignment in Afghanistan for two months, which would probably chase them away for good! Anyways, that decision is still pending, so here I am in DC, scurrying along with the other rats, hoping to finish the race with grace and good humor.

Off I run.

The Wendy B in her new home in Washington, DC. House/boat warming this weekend!

One of these boats is not like the other.... Wendy B c'est arrive!

Chameaux sunbathing on the beach in Tadjoura

I went to Tadjoura today, a small township on the other side of the Gulf of Tadjoura, just an hour away from Djibouti-ville by boat. By Land Cruiser, two and a half hours.

But what a trip!

Inactive volcanoes suddenly popping out of the landscape, hardened lava flows creating dripping black walls along the side of the road. Salt patches dotting the slopes of mountains. The gulf itself glistening below us, then next to us, as we descend and descend along numerous switchbacks. Strange animals – no, wait, baboons! – scurrying across the blacktop, congregating on the bushes on the side of the road to feast and play. Baboons in the desert! Camels lazing on the beach in Tadjoura, like great, bloated tourists.

It was almost too much to take in. As a result, I’m absolutely exhausted, but I must keep writing before I forget.

A “water” team from USAID wanted to visit the schools in Tadjoura to get a sense of the schools where water was difficult to access. As the people who are working in the schools, we went along for a site visit and, well, sheer curiosity. The first school was accessible by a dirt road that wound its way along the spine of several mountains; I envisioned my death at least four times and it wasn’t much fun in any scenario. When we reached the school, a pristine concrete building padlocked for the summer, we were greeted by extremely curious children and very cautious women. I am assuming the men were out somewhere – tending goats, chameaux, or perhaps chewing khat, the hallucinogen of choice in Djibouti, particularly for truck drivers.

Next to the school stood an old, decrepit water tower constructed of failing concrete. The women said that there was a water source that was piped in, yet it wasn’t enough. We went to investigate the source of the water on a route that took us truly into four-wheel drive territory: straight down a mountainside into the valley below, where a small oasis grew out of the spillage that dribbled out from the spring. The road was narrow, lined with rocks, and – at times – dropped at an angle of 30 – 40 degrees. It was almost breathtaking, particularly as we came closer and closer to the edge of the “road”.

When we arrived at the bottom of the valley, having followed the water pipes all the way down, we were greeted by a small gaggle of children, some of whom were visibly upset... “Freaked out by the foreigners” is probably more apt. One of our uber-sensitive water team members immediately pulled out her camera and snapped about five photos of them, without asking permission, ignoring the little whimpers of terror. I hate this kind of behavior – you always ask, but before that, you make sure that the situation is appropriate. That moment was definitely inappropriate.

The well was a bit further beyond, a shared and ancient resource for the people who dwelled in the surrounding mountains. A family of chameaux watched us warily, groaning and grunting with their half-strangled voices; we watched them too, wondering if they’d come and storm the water source.

All of this seems incredibly banal the way I’m writing it, but it wasn’t! It was odd and dislocated, incredibly hot and very familiar, like I had been there before and knew what it would be like, but then all of a sudden there were baboons in the most unlikely place ever. (I blame this sense of familiarity on too much reading and watching “Wild Kingdom” in the 1970s.) As we bounced down the mountain path we were listening to the Fugees’ cover of "Killing Me Softly", throughout which I had to suppress the urge to yell, “Turn it off! You’re tainting my Djiboutian desert mountain valley experience with memories of teaching 8th grade English!” But I didn’t. I sat there and watched the world bounce by.

The water source was fine, the motor new and strong, the piping sturdy. The real problem was the shabbily constructed water tower, which turned out to only be 2 years old, instead of 50. Ah. Problem solved – the USG would be very happy to build you a new water tower, o Djiboutian village, in exchange for access to the deepest port on the entrance of the Red Sea and the rights to build a military base with lots of American soldiers. And those soldiers would be joining the Germans, the French Legionnaires, the... Ay yi yi.

More on the rest of the day anon... Must get back to work!

Shakin' my (dji)bouti!!!

Greetings from Djibouti! Today I went to Ali Sabieh, near the border of Somalia and Ethiopia, which was unlike anything I’ve seen before. Perhaps the closest comparison would be some images shot by NASA on Mars. Not a unique comparison, but true. Yet no matter how desert-like the landscape, and how short the drive, the vista was infinitely variable. Lava rocks here, mountains there, a lake suddenly created by rainfall miles and miles away, camels chewing their cud solemnly on the side of the road... It was invigorating. And Ali Sabieh was cool! It was in the mid-80s with a brisk cool wind. Dang. I was expecting Lawrence of Arabia heat and horror.

We traveled by Land Cruiser down Djibouti’s notorious high-risk corridor: a heavily trafficked truck route between Djibouti’s lucrative port and Ethiopia. The high-risk comes not only from dodging dodgy overloaded trucks on the dusty and winding highway, but from prostitution along the trucking route that spreads SIDA (HIV/AIDS). We had a frank little conversation in the car about the benefits of regulating prostitution... Ah, I love development work. And our conversation was in three languages: English, French (oh, Julee, why don’t you learn French?), and Somali. We all got the gist.

I now know the French word for camel is chameau – okay, I’m not too sure of the spelling, but I know it sounds like “Shamu”. (I kept envisioning the killer whale every time my colleague from Mali would elbow me in the side and yell, “Chameau!”) They were everywhere: lean eating machines, chewing their cud and loping through the desert brush. I had one of those “I can’t believe this is my job” moments, which occasionally strike me when confronted with anything that is the polar opposite of my New Hampshire childhood. I can’t believe this is my job... I am so, so lucky.

Must dash, my friends.... Implementation plans to write.

Juicy little trip forthcoming! Shake your (Dji)bouti...

I leave on Friday for Djibouti. This is my first trip to Africa. Ever. I don't speak French, except for whatever I learned from Pepe Le Peu from Looney Tunes. This might be a bit of a barrier, but...

I will have a digital camera, so tune in for updates, written and visual, from Djibouti-ville on Monday.

Au revoir! (Boy, I better prepare myself for this...!)