Angeli, Here and There

Lighting Africa Competition

2007-08-29T11:20:00.000-04:00

I love the World Bank's Development Marketplace Competition - what a great way to encourage innovation! This year's theme is Lighting Africa. Check it out, and if you know of anyone who might be interested in or good at this sort of thing, pass it along. And if there's some way I can help, let me know! The preminary proposal deadline is October 31.

And she's back!

2006-12-02T17:00:00.000-05:00

It's been nearly a year since I've written, but taking a holiday to Egypt via NYC and London has provided some new material and the blog seems to be an easy way to tell the story and post some photos we took. As far as possible, I'm trying to postdate entries to match approximately the relevant days, even though it puts everything in reverse order... For the entire trip, start with the entry dated October 30 "Take-off point: NYC." To cut straight to Egypt, start with November 4.

I'm posting more photos through Flickr, so if you're interested - or if you'd rather just skip the text - you can click through my sets at: www.flickr.com/photos/angelikirk

*Disclaimer: Please note that picture taking was a collaborative effort - many of photos here and posted on Flickr were taken by J's hand. He is more of a purist about his art than I am (sometimes I'd just rather see the images the way I remember them), however, so the blame for any shameless cropping, etc, is purely mine.

Finally, the Pyramids

2006-11-21T22:00:00.000-05:00

Yes, we did eventually make it to the pyramids, on our second-to-last day in Egypt:

I must say, with the first glance as we were entering the pyramid complex, I felt a little like we were entering an amusement park - some addition to Universal Studios, I suppose.

It's not until you're right up against them that you really get a sense of how massive they are. And you're simply struck for a moment. Wow.

And then you turn the corner and you see the self-proclaimed "Dr. Photo," who looks suspiciously like an armed policeman holding both a large weapon and a camera, as he directs a lady, "Okay, move your arm a little higher, higher, there. Now smile!" And you have to wonder if she's really going to have a photo of herself touching the top once she gets the roll developed...

We were lucky to get into the pyramid complex just before it was technically open, such that we were allowed to climb into the Great Pyramid without the typical claustrophobia-inducing nightmare of inching up the tight shafts behind hundreds of other crouched and inching tourists on the way to the main chamber.

After taking a round of photos in front of it, we worked our way to the second pyramid and hired a camel named Columbus out to a hill with a view of the pyramids nicely aligned. J was trapped into buying some soft drinks and the camel driver didn't exactly get us all the way to the Sphinx as promised, but we checked the experience off our lists and were thankful the ride hadn't been much longer.

I'm still not sure what to make of the Sphinx, and it seems I'm not the only one- no one really knows why it was built. It's really an odd sight to see - interesting, impressive, and a bit bizarre (and maybe even a little kitch?) all at the same time. It's much closer to the pyramids and smaller than I had imagined.

From Giza we moved on to Sakkara to see the Step Pyramind (precursor to the pyramids),

and from there to Dashur for the Bent and Red Pyramids. Dashur is something of a military zone, and so we had a miliary escort in the vehicle with us. The Bent Pyramid, which I was perhaps most interested in seeing, is off limits, so we had to take our photos from a distance. It was something of a"practice" pyramid. You can see the base that was built at a steeper angle than the rest. As far as they can tell, it didn't seem sufficiently stable, so the angle was adjusted to that of the top half. The second angle was then used for the Red Pyramid - the first of its style - and then the rest of the pyramids.

Palm Trees and Seashells in the Desert?

2006-11-19T21:30:00.000-05:00

Looking back now, I can't believe I ever even considered skipping the Siwa Oasis, worrying that it was too far away and that we wouldn't have enough time there to make it worth the distance.

I think the day at the Siwa Oasis was probably my favorite day. The previous morning we got an 8:30am bus from Alex that followed the coast of the Mediterranean until Marsa Matruh and then made a left turn South toward Siwa. The landscape between Marsa Matruh and Siwa was not much to speak of until we were quite close, when suddenly mountains of sedimentary rock would appear here and there. Just after sunset, there was no doubting the fact that we were in the middle of the oasis and its 330,000 palm trees. After finding a hotel and dinner with a pair of new Japanese friends, we went quickly to sleep. Up early, we headed first to the tombs at Gebel al Mawta. We hopped on the back of an already-overloaded pick-up truck, greeted by locals trying to discourage us. One of us was quite hesitant in the matter (I’ll let you guess which one!), but we were able to hop off at the tombs without any problems.

Then for the rest of the morning, we hired a donkey cart and the three boys that accompanied it. Enjoying the day off of school, it seems that the father of one them lent them the use of his slowest donkey to earn a little cash. Fortunately, we were in no hurry, as the only time the donkey seemed to move faster than we might have walked ourselves was when the shade was quite close in front of us.

Stop One was the Temple of the Oracle, where Alexander the Great himself had come to consult the oracle and enjoy a little rest and relaxation- not too much left to see at this point.

Next we headed to what I kept understanding as "Kilbatra." I'm embarrassed to admit that not until I actually saw the sign for "Cleopatra's bath" did I realize what they were saying. The boys quickly jumped in, and J and I were quite content to sip some Karkadee tea and watch.

Finally, we headed up to Gebel Dakrur. The mountain was a what was left of the wind-eroded sedimentary rock, and the most common sight on the way up was the boys shouting down at me, "Come on, Angeli, come on!"

Still, every effort was worth it once we could see the entire oasis from the top. As we made it to the second peak, the smallest boy brought me what looked like a handful of rocks. On closer inspection, they were clearly fossils of seashells, and they could be found all over the top! Who would have guessed that we were climbing up to what had once been on the ocean floor?

The afternoon presented us with a safari in the Great Sand Sea. With nothing but giant sand dunes as far as the eye could see, our driver quite successfully did his best to elicit squeals as he took us up angles I was sure would leave us tumbling backwards (okay, only one of us was squealing...). So much fun! J, always braver than I, rode up on top of the vehicle for a bit. After I saw that it didn't kill him, I joined him for a while and really enjoyed it. We stopped once for a chance to run, leap, scramble, and dive down the dunes and again later to catch the sunset. If I hadn't already covered my pants in tar in Luxor, I might have been more concerned about the large amounts of sand that I just couldn't seem to get rid of...

Other treats on the trip included both a cold and a hot freshwater spring, and another heap of fossils seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

That night we climbed through the ruins of Shali (top photo), an old salt-and-mud built fortress that hadn't held up well to heavy rains in the 1926. Mother Nature accomplished in three days what invadors hadn't in six centuries. In the main square, however, there is a rendition of what it was said to have looked like:

Alexandria

2006-11-16T21:30:00.000-05:00

On our way from Dahab to the Siwa Oasis, we stopped a day in Alexandria. Much less touristic than anywhere else we visited, Alex is definitely a city with an eye on business. Famous for its ancient library, most of old Alex is six meters beneath the current city. When materials of interest are found during rebuilding projects, archeologists must fight to be allowed time to explore or preserve, and so much of the current excavation occurs in the Mediterranean Sea.

A new library was built in 2002, a tribute to the ancient one:

Mount Sinai

2006-11-12T21:30:00.000-05:00

The traditional way to visit Mount Sinai is to trek up in the wee hours to catch the sunrise view. So we piled into the minibus with our posse at midnight, trying to sleep just a little during the two-hour ride. When we arrived, we met our bedouin guide Hassan, who insisted on calling us "Dahab Group" despite our best attempt to go by "Killer Cobras." We would follow the "camel path," the gentler of the two ways to the top. J and a few of the guys initially wanted to hire camels for the climb, but we talked them out of it, and a 30-minute ride later in the trip proved it to be the wiser (less painful) choice.

I think the climb took about three hours, though I really lost track of time. As it got colder and colder (between elevation changes and desert climate), I wished I hadn't forgotten my sweater in Cairo while feeling thankful J had loaned me an extra shirt, but they cheered me on with the promise of blankets available for rent up at the top. In retrospect, the ideal system would be to wear several layers (and gloves!) starting in the beginning, shedding most of them after warming up with the hike to avoid sweating, and adding more again as it gets colder, especially at the top.

Have I mentioned the killer cough and insufficient clothing enough? And J wasn't feeling so well either. We were quite a pair, neither of us certain we would live to post pictures of the event. Still, our twenty-something-ness got the best of us, and for the sake of not having to wait for the seventy-somethings, more than a few times we were scrambling up places not really meant for scrambling up. All the while we were calling out "Dahab Groub? Killer Cobras? Killer Cobras!"

Nearing the top, we enjoyed a hot tea, rented a blanket and a pad to sit on, and moved toward the top to find a spot with a good view. And then we waited. And waited. And dozed. And coughed. And waited. And even with the blanket, I thought I was going to freeze to death. Then the sun started to come up from behind the rows and rows of mountains, and the view was enough to make me forget that I couldn't feel my fingers or toes.

On the way down, we took the second path - the Steps of Penance - set by a monk at St. Kat's Monastery and definitely steeper than the camel path up. Taking the road less traveled offered the advantages of fewer crowds and the ability to set our own pace, though fatigued muscles led to a few slips and trips by the end. Reaching the monastery at the bottom, we went inside to see the burning bush*, which - if I may say so - was a little underwhelming but still not to be missed if you're going to the trouble of climbing up and down the mountain.

*Disclaimer: said bush claims to be a descendent of the original burning bush. Note that the bush, pictured here, is not burning, nor does it change colors, nor do much else of interest. One hopes that said bush may bloom red, orange, and yellow at some time of year, but the present visitor witnessed no such phenomenon.

Transportation Bingo

2006-11-12T11:00:00.000-05:00

As I'm standing in the women's line for subway tickets, you can see here the beginning of what we would eventually begin to call "transportation bingo."

By the end of the trip, we had gone by airplane, foot, flippers,
subway, car,

pick-up, Jeep, taxi (including one with a meter), bus,

minibus, microbus,
train, tram, rowboat, sailboat,

ferry, cruise ship, carriage, donkey cart,

and camel.

Seeing the Red Sea

2006-11-11T21:00:00.000-05:00

Finally temple-saturated, we opted for a change of pace, and oh-so-mellow Dahab was the perfect location. Situated on the Red Sea to the north and east of Sharm El Sheik, Dahab is much less of a high-end tourist destination than Sharm while still boasting great opportunities for underwater exploration and endless excursions.
The day or two I thought we'd spend there quickly turned into four or five, as Dahab became our comfortable and practical home base for snorkeling/diving and our trek to Mt. Sinai.

Dahab was also the place of making and leaving friends, as nearly all who had traveled with us up to that point ended up there for at least a few days before splitting off in their own directions. We also met a great new group during our various activities, and a "the more the merrier" policy led to a very merry time.

I did two snorkeling trips - to the Blue Hole and a few other spots. The fish and coral varieties were amazing, but I could only stay in for so long before jumping out for some hot mint tea. It's a bit chilly in November! J took some longer dive trips, including an overnight to Ras Mohammed National Park, rated the 2nd best diving in the world. I should have read up earlier and gotten my certification!

Temple Trail

2006-11-09T22:00:00.000-05:00

Most of the first week we devoted to the cities with all the temples and tombs - the famous parts of ancient Egypt short of the pyramids. I left this section to last, and it seems I've run out of steam... But the short version that won't communicate amazing I found it all to be:

From Aswan the first night, we caught the police convoy (no other choice) at 4am down to Abu Simbel near the Sudanese border, and by early afternoon we had come back to the island of Philae near the Aswan Dam. The temples at both locations had been moved (no easy task) when the dam caused their original sites to be submerged by Lake Nasser. After a couple of days in Aswan, we took an overnight felucca cruise up the Nile to Kom Ombo (more temples), and a bus to Luxor - the old Thebes (many, many more temples and tombs)...

Photos from Abu Simbel, Philae, Kom Ombo, and Luxor...

Aswan: Dams, Tombs, and Nubian Villages

2006-11-06T20:00:00.000-05:00

Our first destination was Aswan, with our first real view of the Nile. Among the treasures in Aswan are the Nubian villages on Elephantine Island, the Botanical Garden, and the Tombs of the Nobles.

Art in one of the tombs:

Among requite stops was the Aswan Dam. Now functionally less important than the High Dam, it is still quite impressive. The dam has completely changed the flooding patterns and left large areas submerged beneath Lake Nasser.

The Land of the Nile!

2006-11-05T19:00:00.000-05:00

We decided to save most of our time in Cairo for the end. Arriving in the middle of the night, we bought tickets first thing in the morning for a 12-hour sleeper train down to Aswan. To pass the day, we hit the Egyptian Museum thinking that surely guidebooks’ suggestion of two days there were exaggerated by at least 1.8 days…

As it turns out, the books were right. I thought the highlight was the Nemes Palette from 3100 BC, when Nemes joined upper and lower Egypt for the first time, UNTIL we made it to the second level. Two rooms house something like 15 mummies in varied conditions – generally Pharaohs and a few queens. The most interesting were probably *** with manicured black hair and *** who was clearly mangled from battle. Many died quite young, some from mysterious wasting diseases. *** was an exception, and you could tell you were looking a an old man, complete with some fluffy white (yellowing) tufts of hair. After the mummies, we rushed to see as much of Tut’s treasures as we could fit in. They say he was relatively unimportant, ruling for only nine years, but the treasures they’ve found in his unraided tomb (thanks to a lucky position hidden by the rumble of another tomb that hadn’t fared so well) have shot him into the spotlight permanently. Even with all of the buildup, the collection did not disappoint. Display after display – jewelry and other adornments, sarcophagi, golden chariots and beds, and a gold and jewel-encrusted death mask – presented some of the most beautiful craftsmanship I’ve ever seen. I am definitely glad we saw the collection before visiting the tomb in Luxor almost a week later.

After the Egyptian Museum, we got a bite to eat and took a little stroll around downtown. Suddenly we realized we should be at the train station already. We jumped into the first cab we saw, only to find that we couldn't communicate with the driver. Fortunately, we were headed in the right direction, and naming all the kinds of Egyptian trains we could find while flipping through the guidebook managed to convey our desired destination. Looking back, I'm not exactly sure why we couldn't find "train station" in the book...

Stopover, part B: London

2006-11-02T20:22:00.000-05:00

Two days later, we took the bus back to London. I was able to see UCL (Thanks, N!) and LSE and wander around the city a bit (It was my first visit!).

[Big Ben and Westminster Abbey]

No one told me ahead of the time that the London Bridge wasn't really so much to see:

At least the excursion did give me a (somewhat distant) view of the Tower Bridge, which was what I was actually looking for:

Ironically, London provided my first preview of Egyptian treasures, as the British museum has quite a large (stolen?) collection.

In the British Museum:

. [the Rosetta Stone!]

D, one of J's travel companions in Brazil, took us in and showed us a good time his part of town (Thanks, D!).

London would definitely be a lovely place to live for a while!

Stopover, part A: Oxford

2006-11-01T07:00:00.000-05:00

A six-hour flight (British Airways) and one-hour bus ride brought us to Oxford. We stayed with the lovely S (Thanks, S!), though not before a requisite stop at Kebab Kid (J spent a summer at Oxford and got a kick out of revisiting his old haunts). Such a quaint town provided a great chance to unwind a little and enjoy time with friends.

It wasn't completely unproductive, either. I got a chance to check out the economics department at the university, including sitting in on some classes and chatting with one of the advisors for the Economics for Development program for which I'm thinking of applying (again- thanks, S!)

Take-off point: NYC

2006-10-30T17:00:00.000-05:00

I took a Chinatown bus from DC to NYC, where N and her flatmates generously put us up (Thanks, N!). J flew in the next morning, and we met up at the newly renovated MOMA.

[This is our hungry new friend R.]

Adventures in Laundry

2005-12-04T10:31:00.000-05:00

The income restrictions of grad school life make you a bit more creative, I think...

The rate of water flow into our washing machine has slowed to a trickle, meaning it can easily take two hours to do one load. I'm rarely here for two hours straight (plus drying time) during waking hours (and we can't do laundry during sleeping hours because the thin wall between the washer and Jennifer's room leave Jennifer surrounded by noise comparable to a train passing by...), so I just don't do laundry more often than every three weeks.

Alas, today I hit very close to the three week mark, but had to leave sooner than two hours after Jennifer was awake. My solution? Help the washer fill faster! But having no buckets or empty gallon jugs, I pulled the top out of the Brita pitcher. 10 pitchers from the wash basin later, the washer was ready.

We really need to call the landlord.

Maybe a Sports Fan After All?

2005-11-30T23:10:00.001-05:00

Thanksgiving offered a MUCH needed break. For a few days I actually forgot about how much I still have to do before Christmas break. Wonderful, really. I spent time with my parents and got to see some of my best friends in Atlanta. And J kept me well entertained. He took me to another hockey game, this time right on the ice. I jumped more than once when the players slammed up against the wall right where we were. And the Thrashers won, which added to the fun.

In the same night, J's magic got us into the Georgia/Georgia Tech football game at Tech, which is, of course, THE GAME at home. I grew up HATING football (Sorry, Dad), but in recent years I've learned to enjoy it, and it was a lot of fun to watch. It was a close game, but Georgia managed an interception at the end that gave them the win. My dad and brother were of course thrilled. J wasn't so pleased.

Tuesday

2005-11-22T23:31:00.000-05:00

I have just turned in the paper. It may not be a masterpiece, but I have survived it, and it is turned in. Now, to pack, and then a few hours of sleep to add to the 1.5 I got this morning from 8:30-10...

It will be so good to be home!

Happy Thanksgiving.

Monday

2005-11-21T18:38:00.000-05:00

Bridging the Digital Divide

2005-11-14T23:42:00.000-05:00

Three cheers for technology that advances international development!

Sub-$100 laptop design unveiled

One MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte has developed a laptop that costs less than $100. Why? Because children in developing countries can't afford them at current prices. And because many children even here can't afford them. The "digital divide" means faster and faster progress for those who have access to technology, while those with no access are left ever-further behind. So much for convergence theory-until now. Expected to come out in late 2006 or early 2007, these laptops will not be available for sale but will be distributed directly to schools through government programs, domestic and internationally.

The laptops are highly portable and will have a handcrank for locations without electricity. They will be enabled for "peer-to-peer" networking and wifi internet connectivity. The low price is possible because of technology developed to create a display that can be produced for $35-an incredible reduction. They are also designed to be adjusted for viewing in a range of lighting conditions.

You can check out the design plans here:One Laptop per Child

Bad Joke of the Day

2005-11-14T15:00:00.000-05:00

Q: When is it bad luck to meet a black cat?

A: When you're a mouse.

*This Bad Joke of the Day has been brought to you by Laffy Taffy.

Angeli in Haiti

2005-11-10T23:30:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to mention that I've been updating my other blog Angeli in Haiti a little bit lately. I'll try to do more as I manage more of the data. Teachers have been emailing the program, and the director Joy is going back in a week, so we're getting a better sense of what's going on there....

Decluttering

2005-11-09T22:30:00.000-05:00

In an effort to reduce clutter...

I just finished changing the last of my bills to online billing. That's how I pay anyway, so I end up not even opening the bills when they come in the mail, and it's more to had to get rid of. Then I unsubscribed to most of the random email lists I've ended up on. There's a little sense of relief in the process.

I also called to disconnect our home phone; we don't use it anymore now that Jennifer's cell gets reception in the apartment.

Biting the Bullet

2005-11-09T13:30:00.000-05:00

After spending half of my graduate school life (Okay, I exaggerate, but only a little.) in the Hurst Social Science (Statistical) Computer Lab, and after getting kicked out of the lab last Friday night because it was closing(sad, I know), I have finally decided to go ahead and purchase STATA, the statistical software that I use for everything. Haiti data, an empirical assignment this semester, my SRP (Substantial Research Paper, basically a thesis)...

Now, I'm trying to figure out why I didn't just go ahead and buy it last semester...

Making Walmart Nervous

2005-11-06T09:52:00.000-05:00

What do Wal-mart, car dealers, and newspapers all have in common?

They're afraid of Google.

I read an interesting Times article this morning about how internet searches give consumers increased price information while requiring less effort, increasing the real competition that businesses like Wal-mart face. (If you don't already have a NY Times sign-in, you can use "aktimesreader" with password "akreader.")

Car dealers? Same thing; consumers are better prepared with information. They can read all about their cars of interest online, often comparing prices or evening finding an online dealer.

And newspapers? Online ads are proving to be highly effective, which reduces companies' incentive to pay for printed ads.

In the end, consumers win. Reducing the cost of information should increase efficiency and productivity (and lower costs), though not before wreaking some havoc in the process, as businesses and workers scramble to adjust.

Iraq Realities Close to Home

2005-11-04T19:26:00.000-05:00

I received word today from my childhood friend J that her little brother was injured last night by a grenade in Fallujah. That's three injuries for the people I know there- all two of them. While I am thankful that dear Adam Fus is only injured, I hate that the US has entered into such a mess. So many people on both sides suffer.

I hope for peace. Soon.

Oh, the Irony!

2005-11-03T19:00:00.000-05:00

Well, when i arrived today, I was pleased to find a nice, clean, appetizing box of fresh, organic produce at our door. I was amused to see VERY specific directions written on the box, followed by exclamation marks: "Back yard, under deck, glass doors!!!" It seems Washington's Green Grocer has redeemed itself.

I decided to check out their website today, for kicks. I laughed out loud when I read the headline of the website, which reads "We're Proud to Sell You a Lemon!"

I couldn't have described our experience with our last box any better myself.

Organic Produce Service Failures

2005-11-02T23:45:00.000-05:00

More mold.

But this time it wasn't my fault. About a month ago, Jennifer and I joined an organic (and local, we thought until we received bananas and avocados) produce delivery service that she had heard of through a friend. It just hasn't QUITE worked out as planned.

Each Monday we get an emailed list of the produce that will be delivered, with the option of switching out certain items we might not like for more of other items that we do like in the Thursday delivery. We tried to do that with our first box (and we've only had one box, technically, so far), but we really just got the generic box, which turned out to be fine.

We've opted for bi-weekly service, as there are only two of us and it takes us a while to work through the produce. So after a week off, we waited anxiously for our second delivery to arrive last Thursday with all the ingredients of a wonderful salad... We waited, and we waited....

No box arrived.

Jennifer emailed the company, who EVENTUALLY wrote back to say that they didn't know what had happened but that we wouldn't be charged and we'd receive a delivery this Thursday.

Then tonight Jennifer came into the apartment with two giant boxes. One from Amazon, and one mysterious one we thought was from Amazon, both of which were left on the front porch. So she opened up box number one- no drama there. Then, the oddly labeled box number two...The first thing I saw seemed to be rotten celery, though I'm still not sure. Following the celery were moldy grapes, moldy lettuce, moldy potatoes, moldy... You get the picture.

Gross, really gross.

So Jennifer emailed the company again to say that a box did arrive, disgusting, and we'd like to cancel the service. To which they responded that the box must have been delivered to the wrong place, and someone else brought it to the house (It did have our address on it). After apologizing profusely, our friend Z offered to deliver a box free tomorrow, if we'd be willing to give it a second chance.

So I'll let you know how it goes. And I expect Jennifer will post photos soon.

Monica's Family Business in the News

2005-10-31T14:40:00.000-05:00

My good friend/classmate/coworker M's family has a bike touring business, mentioned in this article in The Coloradoan.

Course Registration

2005-10-31T00:20:00.000-05:00

It's 12:15am, and I just signed up for classes for the spring semester. It's a slightly odd system, but the online registration service opens at midnight of the first day of registration. Generally, there's no rush for most classes, but a few really popular classes fill up so quickly that you have to sign up as early as you can. The system is so busy at this hour that sometimes you have to try several times before you're allowed in to add your classes.

I signed up for Hirschmann's Development Management class, which always fills up right away. Otherwise I would have waited until later. And I almost did wait, though not on purpose. I forgot registration was TONIGHT, and had I not gotten an email from E, worried about a "System Busy" message, I would have sat here reading another hour or two and gone to bed...(So thanks, E!)

The other course is Training Program Design, which I've heard good reviews of. I'll officially register for my SRP (Substantial Research Paper- like a thesis) closer to the start of next semester. The thing that's going to kill me, though, is the schedule. DM will be Tuesdays 8-11pm, and Training Program Design will be Thursdays 8-11pm. I thought one course in that time slot was bad enough this semester! I may just have to shift into a generally later schedule, so that I feel more awake during class...

Halloween

2005-10-30T19:41:00.001-05:00

There was a Halloween party at R's house, and the IDPSA used it as a fundraiser. M and I went together. A couple of hours before we had no costumes, but her roommates' mother was full of ideas. So by the time we were done, M was Static- dressed in black and covered in socks and dryer sheets and underwear and such. And I was a Chinese fortune cookie, wearing M's grandma's Chinese dress, with cookies with fortunes on the backs pinned to me... No, not fortune cookies, just chocolate chip cookies with fortunes.

We didn't stay very long, but it was fun, and I think we raised a bit of money!

John in Samoa

2005-10-28T21:00:00.000-04:00

For those of you who didn't know, my brother John is in Western Samoa doing Peace Corps. He went just after I left for Haiti this summer, so if my calculations are correct, he'll be home September or October 2007.

I got to talk to him for 6 minutes tonight (Thanks for the phone card, Mom and Dad!), which made me miss him more than usual. But it sounds like he's doing pretty well, and I know it's going to be a great experience for him to have had. He has sent his camera home for Mom to develop, so hopefully I can post a few of his photos soon.

As for projects he's trying to work on, he is looking to find books for the school in his village. Right now the school library has only a handful of books: Deliverance, Shakespeare, and a few others. Not exactly material suited to kindergardeners. SO if you're interested in helping, there are two options:

1) Give children's books (in English).
2) Give money (to pay for books or for shipping).

Actually, I'll add another option:

3) Offer specific advice on how to accomplish this most cheaply/efficiently.

Let me know if you'd like to help with any of these!

Pumpkin Carving

2005-10-27T22:46:00.000-04:00

L and I carved pumpkins today after school. There were two rules:

1) I was only allowed to cut exactly what she had drawn on the pumpkins.

2) No hole in the top.

No holes in the tops meant that we had to scrape the "guts" out through the eyes, nose, and mouth. The process was full of a lot of "Ewww!" and "DisGUSTing!" L aptly noted, "They look like they're throwing up!!!"

She also got a real kick out of the fact that she could stick the knife in the eye and have it come out of the mouth:

Yeah, maybe a little morbid. And a little (okay, maybe VERY) messy. But oh so much fun!

A Series of Firsts

2005-10-26T22:00:00.000-04:00

This was a weekend full of firsts for me:

First time our humble apartment has had cable. (As it turns out, we could have had it since school started, but Jennifer and I failed to investigate fully...Thanks, James!)

First hockey game. The Washington Capitals were terrible and lost by an embarrassing margin. There was at least one fight, and at some point one of the referees was hit with a puck right in the face, leaving blood on the ice, and apparently this is the stuff fans go for (well, they're sure not going to see the Capitals for their great hockey skills...).

First Nascar race. [Okay, Jennifer, I have now admitted it publicly, so you don't have to!] Whether you're a racing fan or not, there's no denying that the people-watching possibilities there are fantastic. I have to wonder if there have been any anthropological studies done on Nascar society. It's the only place I've ever been where trucks comprise the vast majority of vehicles. During the race, people left all of their tents and chairs and grilling paraphernalia outside without fear of it being taken. Carrying the right beer (Budweiser or Miller, depending) could get you invited into the circle for dinner, while the wrong one could have you laughed out of the parking lot. And if you try to get away with anything imported... well, I wouldn't recommend it!

Fortunately, there was a pink car that I could follow for a bit until I learned about some of the other interesting competitions going on within the big race. At some point, I was surprised to realize that I was actually enjoying myself!

Grad Student Realities

2005-10-17T10:48:00.000-04:00

It's 10:30a.m., and I'm just now waking up. But don't go muttering about the easy lives of students just yet... I didn't get to bed until 8:30. Yes, that's 8:30a.m. I had a policy-relevant literature review to finish for Development Microeconomics. I kept thinking I was almost done, every day, then every hour, but the details just always end up taking longer than I plan. Education and migration was the topic- why it is that if you educate people who live in rural areas, they will usually migrate to the cities or outside the country. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of clear solutions. One of the authors actually suggested abandoning rural education! Surely this can't be the best solution. Governments can think about incentives for businesses that create jobs in rural areas, etc., but the "brain drain" continues...

I think I'm going to fit in another hour of sleep now...

Snow in the Backyard?

2005-10-14T22:50:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I have these BRILLIANT plans that turn out to be not so brilliant...

We looked out at the weed patch (a little square under the porch and near our door that doesn't get enough sun for much except a few odd weeds) today, and it looked as though there were little clumps of snow all over it. It's getting colder, but it's only October... So I look closely and realized that the weed patch is covered in white mold. Yes, mold. Yes, gross. And yes, my fault. When I moved in LAST fall, I bought some wheat germ, which I had sprinkled diligently on everything I could think of (It's high in Vitamin D, E, Thiamin (B1), Riboflavin (B2), Niacin (B3), B6, Selenium, Zinc, and Pantothenic Acid.) for maybe two weeks, at which point it became part of the Permanent Collection of the Refrigerator Door.

So last week, after a year on display in the Permanent Collection, I replaced the wheat germ with strawberry jam and sprinkled the flakes out in the weed patch to break down so I could recycle the jar, just like I do with old spices. But, sadly, I didn't plan for days and days of rain, and even if I had, I thought these nutty brown specks would simply mix in with the dirt. But no. Apparently "nutrient rich" means "makes spore happy." And so the mold. Eww.

A Little Thank-You to Russell

2005-10-13T21:46:00.000-04:00

I would like to take a moment to thank my former LVC roommate Russell for catching the typo in my last entry (No, don't look there now. I've corrected it.). If you don't know me personally, maybe you'll wonder why I've wasted time worrying about it. And if you do know me personally, you're probably rolling your eyes or shaking your head or sighing...

I'll take a second moment to encourage you to look at Russell's blog at http://www.bither-terry.org/russell/. I tried to put it in my collection of links, I really did, but it attacked my formatting, turning all my "Previous Posts" into a continuation of the "Links" section. Alas, I'm resorting to a second-best option of promoting it here.

Confessions of a Shoplifter

2005-10-12T21:50:00.000-04:00

I look into my purple bag today and find two pairs of tights and a Target receipt. Strange. Why aren't the tights in the other bag, with the cotton balls, and razors, and chocolate I bought? I wonder if...No, can't be... Hmmm... And so I check the receipt. No tights. No tights at all. I cringe, and realize that as I was rushing around the store, I had stashed the tights in the bag without paying attention- the same way I do with my keys and everything else I never remember misplacing... I cringe again.

Then a sense of relief. If the alarms had gone off....

And I cringe yet again. I'll have to go pay for them. How embarrassing. Um, hi. I accidently walked off with these? No, I don't know how they got into my bag. Yes, I'd like to pay for them now. No, no, I'm not out of my mind...and no, I suppose this isn't something you see every day...

Sigh. It has definitely been one of THOSE days...

Update

2005-10-11T21:08:00.000-04:00

About the visitor... There have been a few concerns that I thought I'd address.

1) Yes, we called the police. A little embarrassing, but we wanted it to be on record.

2) Yes, M, the landlord, has agreed to put up motion-sensing lights. We are thrilled. It will be nice to have the lights come on when we come home, too.

3) The comment left on the previous entry was in fact Jennifer, my roommate, not the peeping Tom himself, elaborating on his activities.

And, in the end, some good has come out of this incident. To leave a comment, you have to sign in. Jennifer now has her own blog.

Ugh

2005-10-07T00:51:00.000-04:00

I had a peeping Tom outside my bedroom window tonight. Yuck. We reported it to the police, and we're going to ask the landlord for a pair of motion-sensing lights. Ick, ick, ick.

Aids and the Ecology of Poverty

2005-10-05T22:45:00.000-04:00

One of my big time commitments here comes from my role as co-president of the International Development Program Student Association (IDPSA) at AU. The beginning of the year is the busiest, as we set the propose and defend the budget to receive university funds and plan out the activities for the year. I really enjoy it though; the IDPSA is known for being really active, productive, and having a good time!

One of our primary activities is the Friday Forum. Eight or nine Fridays of the semester, we bring in a speaker or panel of speakers on a topic we find to be interesting. Most weeks we follow the academic material with happy hour at various locations around town.

Our first Forum was September 23rd, and it was fantastic! Dr. Eileen Stillwaggon, professor at Gettysburg College and author of the newly released Aids and the Ecology of Poverty , gave a presentation on the biological factors that have helped spread the HIV/AIDS crisis in so many poor countries.

While everyone knows that HIV is spread by sexual contact, Stillwaggon challenges the idea that the disease is so much more common in Sub-Saharan Africa (possibly as high as 40% in some countries while less than 1% in the US) because the people there are having what she calls "exotic sex." Evidence suggests that in otherwise-healthy adults, the chance of contracting HIV from a person who has it with one contact is somewhere around 1/500 for women, and maybe half that for men (Please note: No one is suggesting you test this at home.) And if you do the math...? "No one can have that much sex!" she says. (I wish you could see this smiley, unassuming woman who must be older than my mother!) So what's the difference?

This is where she introduces the ecology of poverty. What are all the other conditions that are more than commonplace in Sub-Saharan Africa? Malnutrition, malaria, schistosomiasis, and all sorts of other parasites and worms, to give a short list. None is a problem in developed countries because each is quite cheap to prevent or cure.

And what do these have to do with it? Malnutrition causes a deficiency in any number of micronutrients, which supress immune activity (it's harder for the body to fight off infection) and reduces integrity of the skin and other membranes (extra rips and tears that allow the virus to enter the system are more likely). Malaria, schistosomiasis, and other parasites cause an overactive immune system, which leave it less able to defend against new infections, and they increase susceptibility to other STDs, which also increase the chance of contracting HIV. Parasites also cause malnutrition. All of this DRASTICALLY, DRASTICALLY increases your susceptibility to HIV. And so you get an epidemic.

So yes, people should be encouraged to stay in mutually monogamous relationships when sexually active, and condoms should be available, but these aren't helpful when one partner already has the infection, or when a couple wants to have a baby, or when one partner has no say in the condom-use or fidelity of the relationship. And it seems the policies with this single focus aren't working. Until more of the symptoms of poverty are dealt with, the epidemic will continue to spread, causing further devastation.

Stillwaggon ends on a positive note, however. The good news is that we can see these connections now, and the solutions are out there. Mosquito nets or insecticide can reduce malaria; the treatment for parasites can be just a few cents, as are supplements of the lacking nutrients. All that's needed is funding and political will.

And crusaders like Eileen Stillwaggon.

Greek Festival

2005-10-02T16:54:00.000-04:00

M, S, J, and I went to the Greek Festival at the Greek Orthodox cathedral at the corner of Wisconsin and Mass. After wandering through the crafts and jewelry for sale, we decided to sample the food. S and I settled on spanakopita (spinach, cheese, and egg in filo dough), M had dalmades (spelling?), and then we went back for a collection of sweets. All very good, very rich. Thankfully, it's just once a year, but it was a lovely break from paper-writing!

J’étais nerveuse!

2005-09-29T22:51:00.000-04:00

Tonight was week 3 of my French class at the USDA Graduate School. I’ve been a little bit intimidated, as I feel like most of the class is more advanced than I am (and definitely has more vocabulary than I do), but the teacher is very animated and friendly, and I don’t mind spending my Thursdays from 6-9pm there.

I had a bit of extra anxiety tonight, though, because last week I was asked to make a presentation this week. Well, actually, that’s not quite true. Two weeks ago, I was asked to make a presentation last week, but she had forgotten, and I conveniently forgot to remind her. Anyway, I was only delaying the inevitable, and tonight I had to present. Not knowing what else to do, I brought in pictures and talked about my trip to Haiti: my work, the poverty, and the animals, too (Really, I think it was an excuse to show the giant spiders). All in all, it was okay. I wasn’t as nervous once I stood up; the anticipation of it had been worse. The teacher would help me when I was stuck for a word, and the class was interested enough to ask questions. AND, that was the only time I’ll have to do it all semester, so I’m the first one to have gotten it out of the way!

School Closings

2005-09-27T13:03:00.000-04:00

My mom wrote me yesterday: nearly all Georgia schools were cancelled yesterday and today, by the governor's request. The goal is to save the gas that would be used by buses and school employees. Whoa! The time will come out of the scheduled snow days. Still, with such short notice, it leaves working parents scrambling to figure out what to do with the kids. I suppose it's a creative (?) solution, but hopefully he won't start asking schools to keep the lights off next...

Wha...?

2005-09-26T21:59:00.000-04:00

The worst sentence I've read this week (granted, it's only Monday):

"The neopatrimonial nature of political authority has coincided with the ideological predispositions of policy elites and the state's low capacity to result in a state with a proclivity for ineffectual intervention in the economy and repeated fiscal crises."

-p. 22 of African Economies and the Politics of Permanent Crisis, 1979-1999 by Nicholas van de Walle.

Plerisity

2005-09-26T18:59:00.000-04:00

Like every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I watched B and L after school. B brought a friend home. L and I chatted, preparing all her various baby dolls for a plane ride. Here is what I learned:

Destination:
City: New York City
Country: Japan
Planet: Plerisity

Bad news. Laranius (the first planet I learned of seven months ago) exploded, causing L to flee the planet with the entire population, which consists of her babies, and one grandbaby. They moved to Venus, but alas, there were too many bad guys, so they fled once again, this time to the planet Plerisity. Plerisity, not coincidentally, was L's birth planet.

L is six years old.

Tropical Gangsters

2005-09-25T17:04:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I read Tropical Gangsters by Robert Klitgaard for my Managing Economic Policy Reform class. I finished at 2:30am, super-sleepy, but it was so good! It's Klitgaard's story of his two-and-a-half years in Equatorial Guinea in the mid 1980. He has been sent by the World Bank to try to develop a "medium-term economic strategy" with the leadership there.

Some of his managing techniques were things I tried in Haiti. By about page 200, I really had my hopes up: "Maybe he's doing it! Maybe it'll take, and they'll move forward!" I was hoping for my own sake, for my own work, as much as for his. Alas, it's never so simple, and in the end, simple politics are enough to wipe out all his efforts and those of the group he has worked with.

I checked out the country's history since then. At first glance, I was thrilled to see that their GDP has shot up and is growing rapidly. But the next thing I read was that they've discovered oil. So a few well-positioned individuals benefit, while the rest of the country is left behind. More, they can forget all the reforms they were attempting before, as they're no longer desperate to find lenders (World Bank and IMF, usually) to resolve their debt crisis.

Makes You Wonder...

2005-09-17T09:51:00.000-04:00

Walking to campus today, I passed a car with a bumper sticker that said "MY GOD CAN BEAT UP YOUR GOD." There weren't any others to offer some context. Makes you wonder....

Hmmm...From what I hear, it's not so inconsistent with US military philosophy.

Settling into a Schedule

2005-09-14T08:33:00.000-04:00

This is the third week of classes. I'm finally settling into a schedule:

I'm taking three classes at AU, Tuesday and Wednesday nights: Development Microeconomics, Micropolitics, and Managing Economic Policy Reform. Tuesdays are really late; I get out of the second class at 10:40!

Monday and Thursday mornings I put in my hours as a research assistant for R, one of the professors in my program. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, I pick up B and L- the children of two visiting professors- from school and keep them for a few hours.

I just signed up for a French class through the USDA. It meets for three hours Thursdays in the evening.

Fridays we have the Friday Forum for IDPSA (International Development Program Student Association, as well as planning meetings.

It's taking me a while to adjust to the faster pace of life here, after such a different rhythm in Haiti.

New Blog

2005-09-13T10:06:00.000-04:00

I've decided to move my blog, as I'm no longer in Haiti. I will still keep www.angeliinhaiti.blogspot.com for when I have more Haiti-related information, but I'm putting it on mini-vacation for now. This will be the new site.