The Agrinautica

Saturday, July 30th, 0200 hours, Conakry, Guinea - "ready for your flight in five hours?" The message flashes in the dark. I shouldn't still be up but I'm not sleepy and after all I don't have to be anywhere in the morning.
   "Dad it's not for like 19 hours"
   "It says on the itinerary you sent us that it's in the morning, seven hours from now" Hmmmmm. In the Organization's office they had told me I wasn't flying out till 8:45pm and I hadn't thought to cross check it because, well, they've never been wrong before! So I scrambled for my printed itinerary. Right there staring back at me: 8:45 AM.
   Had the flight been changed?? There wasn't much time to find out! And no one in the office would be able to answer before the morning flight! Fortunately the Organization books with a major corporate travel agency that has a 24 emergency phoneline! Called them and they confirmed I was departing in just under seven hours!!
   Fortunately Daniel happened to be departing at 5:30 for a flight at that same time 8:45, actually the same flight as it turns out, and already had a ride arranged. So I dove into bed to sleep for three hours. Got up at 5:00 to pack in a mad hurry -- and apparently in so doing left behind my good northface jacket and one shirt which I wouldn't care about so much but my malaria medication was in the pocket. The hotel front desk wanted me to pay an additional $20 for the already-paid-for taxi they had arranged. That seemed like a raw deal but I was too tired to argue and figured I'd get reimbursed anyway .... except that receipt, which I thought I had immediately folded in half and placed in my lower left pocket, was utterly not to be found when I got home and looked for it... so so much for expense reporting THAT ):

   Arriving at the airport in time to be at the front of the line, it still somehow took them an hour to issue our tickets, and the flight wasn't going to the intended destination of Abidjan anymore but that flight had been cancelled and the aircraft rerouted to Lome, Togo, from where we were assured we could connect to continuing flights -- Daniel on to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and myself from there to Abidjan where they optimistically said I could catch my original flight to Dubai (departing there at 15:20). Also while waiting in line for htis extremely tedious ticket sorting I started to feel nauseous, something I had eaten the day before apparently wasn't agreeing with me. Just eyeing the utter non-movement of the line behind us in the hour it took them to sort out the first people in the line I predicted an 8:45 departure wasn't in the cards.
   Proceeding up to the gates, the guard at security made a half hearted attempt to solicit a bribe from Daniel, but he laughed it off and maintained his forward momentum (she used the old "what present do you have for me? money? hm?" trick). The 8:45 departure time came and went. 10:00 ... 11:00 went by. While idling about I was taken by the sudden need to puke by guts out into a nearby trashcan, and then some kind mzungu girl handed me a bottle of water. Daniel struck up a conversation with some airline employees who mentioned some interesting facts relating to France's continual grinding-of-Guinea-under-it's-heel -- apparently France or Air France owns the airport and charges such high fees on any other airline besides Air France that no one else will go there. Asky, the little airline we were flying on, keeps its airplanes on the ground there literally the least possible number of minutes because I guess Air France charges them by the minute or something? When our aircraft finally did arrive around 12:30 they had us crossing the boarding bridge as the offloading passengers crossed off on the other side of the glass wall, and we were off as soon as we were aboard -- the aircraft couldn't have been on the ground for more than 40 minutes (safety checks shmafty checks!)

1400 hours, Lome, Togo - At the transfer desk I found my flight to Abidjan was scheduled to already be boarding, so I bid a very hasty goodbye to Daniel and ran off to find the gate. As it happens Daniel would be stuck in Lome overnight and continue on to Addis the next day.
   My flight was... not boarding. and then it disappeared from the departure board. Then it reappeared on the board with a different flight number and gate (that is, the Asky flight to Abidjan did), so I hastily proceeded to that gate and found a big crowd of people around the gate desk. It seems they had recombined two flights, so now an aircraft would fly to Abidjan and then onward to Dakar. They needed to reissue everyone's tickets but somehow couldn't organize people into a line, so one just had to jostle through the crowd to the front and then get the attention of one of the three people behind the desk, who were taking people in no kind of order. Once you got one of them to take hold of your existing ticket they leafed through the tickets on their desk to find the matching name ... but their stacks of tickets didn't even seem to be in alphabetical order, the overwhelmingly obvious way to save time in a situation like this, so they had to leaf through all the tickets on hand. Fortunately this kind of incompetent tediousness really brings people together and there were plenty of sarcastic witticisms traded among the passengers (and by the way, I wouldn't think I'd need to note this, but I saw a hollywood movie recently where they visited an African airport (in Namibia) and most of the people inside in the movie were white, wtf. Just so you know, the ratio of Africans to westerners in west african airports is something like 200:1.)
   Predictably, this flight too departed 2-3 hours after its scheduled departure time -- even when we were finally boarding there was still a disorganized crowd of people trying to get jostle their way to the front desk and get their tickets reissued.

2000 hours, Abidjan, Cote D'Ivoire - At the transfer desk here they were flabbergasted that I had managed to miss my connecting flight by five hours. In contrast to how helpful everyone had been last time Asky marooned me here, this time the transfer desk guy bruskly escorted me into the check in area to where he saw someone he could hand me off to, who kind of grunted upon receipt of me in a manner that left me not entirely sure he had actually accepted the mission, and as he kept walking in the direction he was already going I really wasn't sure, but tagged along. He led me into a back hall of the airport and pointed to a door down the hall, and then left. I proceeded to that door and found it locked and knocking or listening did not reveal any signs of life. My escort had left, and I ran to the door he had led me in from but it had locked behind him. I was stuck in empty back hall of the airport!!
   After about ten minutes of me being quite consternated there, much to my surprise someone from Asky DID actually show up to enter that office. I had written them off. He seemed marginally competent, I mean like, he seemed to barely be able to work out the obvious facts, that they'd made me miss my flight and they should put me up in a hotel until the next day and arrange for my ticket for that flight the next day. After some coaxing he did manage to conjure up the driver from the hotel they'd put me in last time... though he wouldn't issue me the usual paperwork to make transfer lodging official, just saying it was worked out. I had to take his word for it but since the driver was right there for the conversation it seemed promising. Also I asked him what time the flight the next day was and he said 12:00. I said "not 15:20 like it was today?" and he said "no it's 12" and I said "like leaving at 12, so I should be here at 10??" and he glared at me like I was being really annoying and said "sure"

   There were no problems with the hotel, and the manager was glad to see me again, he was the same young fellow who two weeks prior had issued me the invitation to come work in Cote D'Ivoire. (Note to self for future reference: this is/was the Hotel Ile de Maurice). I had been feeling vaguely nauseous all day, and had eaten literally nothing because I just couldn't stomach anything. As soon as I got in to the hotel I conked out on the bed.. was awoken an hour or two later by the manager knocking on the door saying my dinner was ready and why hadn't I answered the phone. Went down and stared at the dinner (grilled chicked, and onion salad, same thing I had two weeks ago that was actually pretty good. And the amount of food was huge, like half a chicken), tried to eat a bit if only to be polite but I really couldn't stomach anything at all and had to excuse myself.


Sunday, July 31st, Abidjan, Cote D'Ivoire - 10:00 was at the airport promptly at 10:00 the next morning... only to find that grossly incompetent nimrod had lied!!! The flight was not at 12:00, but at 15:20!! As I had entirely expected! The Asky flight to Lome was at 12:00 which is probably what the utter baffoon had been thinking of.
   I tried to go check in but Emirates wasn't even manning any check ins until three hours prior to their flight. I went back up to the Asky office but either they said I needed to talk to Emirates first or maybe they just weren't there at all, all I remember is I ended up having to sit in the outer part of the airport for two hours, the area where arriving passengers are emerging from the baggage claim and being greeted by whomever is waiting for them, and people are hanging around trying to sell them in country phone cards or ask if they need a taxi. So as it happens I was able to at least find a seat in this area and was rather bored ... and I took note that one of the girls working as a greeter for one of the hotels was quite attractive. Her duties happened to take her upon occasion right past me since I was between the area where arriving passengers emerged and her hotel's desk. I've gotta give my friend Trent some credit here, since I was talking to him on facebook messenger and he encouraged me to talk to her after I noted her high level of attractiveness to him. I was just conceding that "well maybe" I would when she seemed to disappear. Oh well.
   12:20 - And then it was time to go check in, so I got up and started walking towards the check in area, which happened to take me past her desk.. and as it happens she stood up behind her desk as I went past, I hadn't seen her behind it there. I walked a little further and looked behind me, and I couldn't say for sure she was looking AT me but she was looking in my direction. I thought for a moment and then slowly turned around making a wide turn with my wheeled luggage behind me like trailer, and proceeded directly up to her desk, where she was waiting expectantly with big pretty eyes.
   "Do you speak English?" I asked
   "A little" she answered, blushing a bit
   "Ah. I just wanted to come talk to you because you're so beautiful" I explained -- no point beating around the bush. She blushed deeply but really I almost felt like she'd been expecting me.
   "Do you have whatsapp?" I continued, and just like that she was giving me her number (Whatsapp is the messenger app that everyone in the rest of the world (except the US and Australia as far as I can tell) uses instead of texting), I had actually neglected to get her name until I had to ask what to put her in my phone as (Chantal, it turns out). I then explained I had to go check in, "but you'll come back here after checking in?" she asked with a tone of real concern. What a sweetheart.

   12:30 - the woman at the Emirates desk seemed to take a sadistic pleasure in giving me bad news. Her eyes danced with glee as she informed me the Emirates flight that day was booked solid and I couldn't get a flight until the next day. And then her face filled with pure joy as she announced I'd have to pay a $500 fee. She was vaguely dismiessive of my assertions that Asky should pay any fee, waving me off to go talk to Asky about that, in a manner dripping with her secret hope that they wouldn't.
   13:00 - Up at the Asky office I found there were actually three other Americans waiting in their office to get flights fixed, no doubt after their own missed connections. I haven't seen so many Americans in one place since the fourth of July in Melbourne! With typical Asky slowness it took at least an hour to get through these three before the one guy there could begin to look into my case. Long story short it concluded with him saying only his supervisor could authorize Asky's paying of the fees, and his supervisor wouldn't be in in the morning so he'd "call [me] at 10:00 the next morning." I gave him my number but was also careful to get his number as I had no faith in his actual calling me. Also he said they wouldn't put me in a transit hotel this time because I wasn't _actually_ their transit passenger any more -- Asky and Emirates don't actually have any agreement so they were two entirely seperate tickets.
   "But I was a transit passenger yesterday!" I exclaimed... which he easily parried with
   "Yeah well ... you shouldn't have been."

   Time to call the travel agent again! They confirmed that yes, they were actually two freestanding tickets, but kindly offered to book me a hotel (what fun travel agents are!), on the spot I couldn't remember Chantal's hotel (turns out it was the Marconi Ibis, which was one of the ones the travel agent had in her computer) but it so happened the cheapest one on their list ($114 a night after taxes for those following along) was one I recognized as having been about 200 meters from the airport so it sounded good. The travel agent made the booking and emailed me a booking number and all that.

   14:00 - went down and chatted with Chantal a little bit more before going out and catching the aiport shuttle. We made dinner plans before I left, though she was working till ten.
   The guard by the hotel shuttles spoke surprisingly good English, I was initially pleased with this but then it started to become a little irritating that he kept trying to interest me in one of his friend's taxis despite that I had a free shuttle bus coming to take me the 200m (hey I know you're asking why I didn't walk but the wheels on my luggage barely work and it was uneven ground the whole way), and then when it did come the guard asked if I had something for him and acted quite hurt and offended that I didn't. I don't mind handing a little baksheesh to someone who's helped me in some way but I hate it when people expect something just for the pleasure of their conversation.

   15:00 - Arriving at the Oronomo Hotel they couldn't find my booking, even with the reference number they couldn't find it anywhere in their system. I tried to check my bank statement on my phone to make sure they hadn't charged me already but Wells Fargo in their infinite wisdom has locked me out of being able to check my accounts online (though my cards still work) because they can't be convinced my every activity isn't fraud apparently. So I decided to just book the room anew ... and THEN I was informed that "well, actually the hotel is full" (!!!!) Seriously must _everything_ go wrong???

   15:30 - Fortunately I happen to have an inside line on a hotel! I asked Chantal how much the Marconi Ibis was and it was literally like only $3 more so I made plans to return to the airport and catch the Ibis shuttle (have I mentioned that I happen to love ibises? they're an inherently funny bird, always looking like they ought to be wearing a top hat), but as I got up to go the manager suddenly called out "wait! I think we have a room for you!" Okay... They showed me to a room and I really wasn't very impressed but a bird in hand is worth two ibises in the bush I suppose and was ready to be done running all over the place.
   The hotel had a really fancy looking lobby and restaurant area but the room was small and claustrophobic. Most of the other guests appeared to be flight crews. A big contingent of them I thought were Australian because they were dressed kind of like Americans but with shorter shorts than any self respecting American male would wear ... but then I heard them talk and it was just bizarre! South African apparently.

   22:00 - I walked back to the airport to meet Chantal when she got off work and we grabbed a cab into town. Unfortunately it was a bit late for most nice restaurants but between my list of restaurants from the tripadvisor app and her local knowledge she recognized one she thought was open, and we proceeded to a fairly decent cafe with outdoor seating that appeared to be a popular nightlight location, it was pretty hopping. Apparently it was open 24 hours. Chantal was a real trooper because I think she was really tired actually but was trying to be game.


This is her somewhat constrained face after putting up with my cameraphone failing to focus properly on her pretty smile for a minute or two. Also lol at the girl in red behind her wtf!


Monday, August 1st, Abidjan, Cote D'Ivoire - 10:00 I began calling "Mr Binto" at 10:15 and continued like clockwork every 15 minutes until at 11:30 I actually got ahold of him. He said to come to the airport and talk to his boss Eric, who would sort things out. So I checked out and proceeded to the airport. Unfortunately Chantal was not there, having errands to do in the morning and not working until that afternoon.
   12:00 - I found the door to the Asky office locked again. Waited around for about half an hour till someone showed up and let me in, and then about half an hour later this boss man showed up. He barely spoke to me but got most of the story from the other staffmember in French, and from his tone it sounded like he (the boss) was making fun of me for the most part.
   13:30 - I was starting to be concerned that this wouldn't get solved today when another staffmember in a suit showed up and the boss character told me to follow him down to the Emirates office. With less than 100 minutes left until my flight was scheduled to leave I started providing my mom with the countdown, as I was talking to her on facebook messenger. I was getting seriously doubtful this would get sorted out this day. But then suddenly the Asky guy was counting out a very thick wad of money onto the Emirates desk -- he must have been bpaying the whole $500 fine right htere in cash! And then I had a ticket!!
   14:00 - I got all of about ten steps from there with my Emirates ticket in hand when the check in counter people wanted to see my Australian visa ... which was recorded in my other passport. All I could show them was electronic evidence of a visa for a different passport number, and a current flimsy temporary passport (recall the earlier passport shenanigans).. this seemed a big problem at first, but once it proved to be an unresolvable difficulty they seemed to kind of shrug it off and left me proceed. And then I was through security! And boarding the plane! At this point at every one of these ordinarily mundane steps I expected to run into some kind of obstacle, just the way things had been going. Flight was prepared to depart on time at 15:20 since Emirates is a gosh darn real air line, but "three people failed to board the plane after checking in so we need to find and offload their luggage" ... how do you get all the way through check in but ail to make it on the plane in such a small airport? I pictured one of the many sudden obstacles I had dreaded reaching out its bureaucratic tentacles and snagging these people as they blissfully walked to the gate thinking themselves home free, and thought to my self "there but for the grace of god go I!"


Tuesday, August 2nd, Dubai - morning? Really time has lost all meaning by the time you fly halfway around the world. Anyway only noteworthy thing I can recall about Dubai is someone had tipped me off that there's a Shake Shack in the Dubai airport, the famous New York burger chain, so it was my goal to find it! And I did! And it cost me $24 USD for a small albeit delicious burger!
   That and sometime within the following 24 hours apparently an Emirates flight crashed in Dubai and burned to cinders right there on the tarmac!


Wednesday, August 3rd, Melbourne, Australia - 05:45 I had been dreading a potential visa problem ever since the passport switcharoo, though I was optimistic that they had straightened it out in the system as I left. Turns out they did, it wasn't a problem, but then the passport control officer threw me a curveball -- "you're coming from West Africa.. do you have your yellow fever vaccination?" ... which I do but the documentation is with my old passport (which FINALLY arrived back today, the 9th of August). Yellow fever is primarily an East Africa concern so I hadn't even thought to worry about the lack of that paperwork on this trip! On my explanation that I did but didn't have the paperwork on me she grunted disapprovingly and wrote a note on my immigration card wihle saying I'd need to see the health officer ... but no one asked me about it again.
   From there without incident I took the shuttle bus back to Geelong and was picked up by my housemate, the end!! Total travel time, 89.5 hours spanning five days!!!!

Monday, July 18th, Labe - Arrived in Lafou about half an hour north of the town of Labe. The highway was really shockingly well made here -- no potholes at all. Apparently its part of a new road that goes from Labe to Senegal and will eventually link all the West African countries together.
   We (myself, Mr Damba, our driver Mamadou, the beekeeping association trainer Khalidou) were put up in a guest house on one side of a dirt square across from the tiny little local government hall, which is where the training would take place. There was also electricity this time! The little government building had solar panels and they strung across wires so we had working lights, though we couldn't plug anything in to charge.
   Along the highway and around the square there were these big white light poles with solar panels, to light up the streetlights at night. Apparently this charity project called Akon Light Up Africa put them in. Personally I think they're a nice improvement of safety by the main road and I guess prevent people from tripping at night in the village, but I'm not sure where streetlights fall in the pyramid of needs. Still everyone seems excited about it and everything helps. I did miss my starry nights though.

   As the people filtered into the little hall that first day I noticed a mzungu, or as they call us in Guinea apparently, a porto -- a white person. She was, it turns out, a Peace Corps volunteer. She was working on a beekeeping project so she came to attend the training, which she had heard about the previous years' projects. She was really nice and it gave me someone else to speak with, since Damba usually couldn't be bothered to translate anything conversational for me. Monica, AKA "Umu Bah," wrote a blog entry herself about the training. I'm not going to write too much about the nuts and bolts of the training because that's the same as it always is, so you can read her entry for a fresh look at that (:

   For me, having a Peace Corps volunteer there was itself one of the most interesting things. I have an interesting relationship with Peace Corps, having been thinking about doing it on and off ever since college and at one point had almost gone. And there are lots of informational sessions where you can talk to returned PC volunteers in the states if you are interested, but that's nothing like spending two weeks with one in the field to really see what it's like. I greatly enjoyed discussing various development problems and projects with her.

   In the evenings a local man named Abdul would take Monica and I walking around, in a different direction each day, and I greatly enjoyed this, since I always love to explore the area. While the part of the village where we were staying was more open, other parts of the village were much more like Doumba had been last year, that is, houses and huts connected by veritable tunnels through thick maize, lots of tree cover, generally green and lush.
   One of the days, Abdul led us up a mountain trail, pointing out various herbs along the way and telling us the local beliefs about their medicinal values. Just when I thought we were really far from anywhere, up the mountain, we suddenly came to another little village, where he said his sister lived. Greeted his sister and her family and came back through thick rain.
   We got a fair bit of rain in general, and one whole day was lost because it was raining too hard to do anything, but even when it was raining I was revelling in the fact that it was SO MUCH WARMER than Victoria, Australia, which has been within ten degrees of freezing all winter. As always, many hours were spent sitting on the veranda, reading as it rained.
   Since Mr Damba only really seemed interested in translating for me when it suited his purposes and/or translating what he wanted to communicate, I found myself increasingly using Monica to go around him to communicate directly with the FAPI (beekeeping association) president and FAPI trainer Khalidou. When someone annoys me I tend to tell myself I'm just being grumpy and it's not that bad but after awhile I realized its kind of ridiculous that I was having to go to all this effort to go around my own interpreter (so he wouldn't intervene I'd often be trying to get a chance to talk to Monica without him around about what I wanted to communicate to the other participants!
   Things really came to a head at the end of the week -- I had talked my friend Daniel from Ethiopia into coming to Guinea for the project. He is a honey exporter in Ethiopia, and even if they found another exporter in the United States, no one would have as pertinent experience as Daniel does from exporting from a similarly undeveloped African country to Europe. So Daniel had volunteered to come which I am very grateful for and I paid for his flight from Ethiopia. He was arriving in the nearby town, Labe, on Monday. All week I'd tried to bring up the plans with Damba and he kept brushing me off with "we'll deal with that later." So finally on Friday I sat down with him and said
   "okay we need to go in to Labe on Monday to pick up Daniel," to which he said
   "No we're going to Labe on Wednesday it's in the itinerary"
   "Yes but Daniel is there on Monday and we need to go get him." I said
   To this Damba went into the other room and came back to show me the printed itinerary, saying "no see it's on Wednesday"
   "I don't care if it's in the itinerary!" I exclaimed, "my friend will be there Monday and I'm not going to leave him twiddling his fingers there for three days"
   Damba was completely unmoved, saying we couldn't change the itinerary. Which, I've seen all kinds of wild deviations from the itinerary. We had days off and trips to Labe that weren't in the itinerary already, I really don't know why he was being like this.
   "Okay well I'll email Ibro then and ask about it" I offered, since Ibro, the country director for the Organization, surely had the authority to change the god damn holy text of the itinerary. Ibro called him an hour later and I don't know what he said but Damba seemed a bit better behaved.


Monday, July 27th, Labe - On Monday we headed back in to Labe to pick up Daniel, and Ibro who had actually come up with him. At breakfast that morning in the hotel in Labe there was the Justince Minister, the governor of Labe region, and the mayor of Labe. Place to be apparently!
   Returned to the village of Lafou for one more day of wrapping things up with the participants and "closing ceremonies." Lots of speeches ensued. I gave a boomerang decorated with aboriginal art to Abdul as thanks for taking us walking every day. I'm not sure he knew what it was or what the kangaroo on it was but he seemed very touched.

Wednesday, July 29th, Labe - On Wednesday we had a meeting with the board of FAPI and Daniel presented about how to meet the import requirements for the EU and it was very good and informative and I myself learned a lot. I had really wondered many times if it was worth the stress and cost and effort to bring Daniel here but after this I was satisfied I had done the right thing. His contributions were very valuable and I'm very happy to have fostered pan-African exchange.
   For lunch that day we went to Sanpiring, the little village just outside Labe where I had my first Guinea project in 2014. There I was shocked to learn this young girl of about sixteen I knew (she's the one who was declared my wife after she cried for two weeks after I left the first time) had been married and gone off to live with her husband. You hear about these young marriages but it's truly shocking when it happens to someone you actually knew. She was so young! I was really quite shocked. At least her husband looked young too, not some old creeper.

   And the next day we would return to Conakry! Usually its mostly a straight shot but it actually turned into a rather interesting 14 hour road trip complete with being waylaid by drunk soldiers. But that's definitely another entry! (:

Myself, Ibro, and Daniel

   By now not only has nearly a year passed, but my daily notes on the Guinea trip were ALSO on the phone that was lost in Nairobi so they're gone! ): So The last two weeks or so are going to be super condensed! I'm going to assume you don't remember my last Guinea entry, because I certainly don't!



September 2015 - Let's see I don't think I wrote about the making of wax products, which we did the last few days and everyone was very interested in it. I write about it now mainly just to illustrate (or rather literate) the numerous good pictures I got of everyone being very interested in it.



   Anyway, then I returned to Conakry. Did that take one day or two? I don't know any more! But it's a long way.

   Back in the capitol, Conakry, I was once again there at the same time as Dr Sandra, a pesticide expert. The next morning I'm still loafing in my room in my pajamas when I get a call from the lobby saying my driver was there to pick me up. Uh what? So I quickly get dressed and run down there ... and it is then that they (the guys from The Organization) inform me that we have to go to the Ministry of Agriculture to make a presentation. GEE THANKS FOR THE WARNING!!
   THEY had known about this in advance, it's not like it just came up, but somehow didn't think of telling ME about it in advance. Fortunately I have no fear of public speaking so was able to decently wing a presentation to a room full of under-secretaries and heads of branches, two reporters and the local peace corps coordinators -- but I would have really liked to have had a chance to put a power point together, which I could have easily done the night before if I had had warning!
   After that we went to another big presentation room for Sandra to give her presentation on how pesticide safety can be improved in Guinea. I found it quite interesting! I often wish I could sit in on more of other volunteer's projects.



   My dear mother had asked me for some of the cloth they make their beautiful clothes with in Guinea so we went looking for clothe, and once I'd indicated to my local colleagues what I wanted we left without buying it, since the sellers obstinantly would _not_ give a decent price seeing a white guy was the buyer, and instead we had Miss Adama, the Organization's secretary, later go back and buy that same fabric for an actual decent price.

   That evening The Organization guys took Sandra and I to a restaurant out on a pier called "Obamas" that was actually quite nice ... if you ignored the really alarming amount of trash floating in the water.



   Sandra and I were both to be taken to the airport at the same time the next day. At some point I decided I wanted to stop by the craft market on our way to the airport and talking it over with the Assistant Director he agreed to this and I asked if Sandra was on board with this and he said, I believe, sometihng along the lines of "I assume so"
   Knowing how terrible they are about communicating I asked Miss Adama again just before tehy came to pick us up if Sandra had been told of the chane in plans and she gave me a similar positive sounding yet not 100% positive answer.
   Aaand when they showed up it turns out Sandra had NOT been told we were leaving an hour earlier. It's things like this that I just find shocking -- how can it not occur to you that people involved in plans need to be told of changes of the plans? Especially when someone involved is actively reminding you??

   One last funny thing -- on Tinder, the dating app, there was no one in Conakry but a lot of medical professionals in Freetown, Sierra Leone, 80 miles to the south. I chatted with this one girl a handful of times but then I went into the interior and got busy with stuff.
   Arriving in Atlanta, Georgia, when I got to passport control and told them where I had come from, the officer promptly put on a surgical mask, gave me a surgical mask to put on, and put in a call for another officer to come over after a few minutes, also wearing a mask, to escort me to the quarantine area. There were about half a dozen of us in the waiting area, and then they took us into a little room to take our temp and stuff. All staff wearing protective clothing. And I realized the little room had a thick door with one way window, stainless steel walls, a cot bolted to the floor ... it was totally the room where they beat you with hoses before disappearing you to a plausibly denied secret CIA prison in Eastern Europe!! Fortunately they didn't do that to me.
   But now I mention the girl because when I finally got home to California I had a message from ehr saying "was that you in quarantine with me???" ... so we "met" on tinder while 80 miles apart in Africa, and then two weeks and 3,000 miles later we happened to be quarantined together in Atlanta. Funny!
   The morning after my arrival in California there was a knock on my door, it was a county health inspector there to serve me with a formal notice of quarantine. I was free to leave the house and go about my business but would need to notify them if I left the county, and had to report my temperature to the county health inspector twice a day -- to fail to do this would be a misdemeanor.
   I asked what would have happened if I came back with a fever like I did last time, and he said they'd have had an ambulance waiting for me at hte airport to take me to the back entrance of the hospital where they would put me under intense quarantine. YIKES!!

   Anyway I was officially quarantined for 21 days I believe and on day 22 I was off again to East Africa! And that is another story... which has already been told!



Ismatou, in the blue making a kind of funny face here is getting married around the time I'll be back next month so I'm really hoping I can coordinate it to attned her wedding. Recall I just barely missed a village wedding last year and I was really bummed because it seemed very interesting, so maybe I'll get my chance!


See Also: there's really too many good pictures I'd like to post! See them on flickr! Guinea is such a beautiful place I really want wait to go back!

Okay following relatively quickly on last entry, I found where I was on the map. The pin is dropped in the town we spent the night, the place where we walked around a lot was Bundibugyo. Note Kesese in the south of this map, Fort Portal where the major highways all intersect, and the border with Congo just by Nyahuka.

Thursday, November 5th, Day 33, Nyahuka, Western Uganda - Woke up in a little hotel last entry, I found where I was by the Uganda/Congo border, western Uganda, feeling marginally better. This day the plan was just to drive back to Kampala, 243 miles east. Google maps optimistically estimates it as a 6 hour drive but of course it was more like 12, with at least two of those hours being slogging through the Kampala traffic.
   Once again we stopped to eat in Kampala at the little restaurant I think I've been compelled to mention every time (honestly though food this good is pretty rare in central Africa). I had a crocodile burger, which tasted kind of like a cross between shark and chicken. I'm convinced now that it would make a really good teriyaki burger. Also, it occurred to me that there's actually crocodile farmers out there, how hard core is that??

   The rest of the drive was relatively uneventful. Lots of gently undulating Ugandan countryside, covered in banana plantations. At one point there were a lot of people gathering things in the grass by the road and Alex told me they were people gathering grasshoppers to eat. I remember scrambling for my phone to jot this down in my notes lest I forget .. but fortunately that scramble to write it down itself engraved it in my memory.

   We arrived in Kampala just at twilight, and the hotel I was trying to get to was unfortunately on the far side of the city ("the Forest Cottages"), so we were making extremely slow progress. An hour later it was completely dark and we were still miles away. It was now that Alex, who I believe is in his fifties, asked me if I could drive, since he couldn't see very well in the dark. Not without trepidation I agreed to do so.
   Now let me lay this out for you. It was dark. There were no street lights. Pedestrians in dark clothing (and, um, having dark skin) were constantly crossing the road willy nilly. There was thick vehicular traffic, the roads in this area being one lane each way. It was RAINING and Alex's windshield wipers weren't great, so the uncoming cars made a terrible glare on the window. The road was full of potholes sometimes so big you HAD to go around them, and/or sometimes there's just be an open ditch on the side of the road. On top of all this they drive on the left side of the road, contrary to what I was accustomed to. Alex's car was manual transmission, which I'm adept at when I'm shifting with my right hand, but the left-hand-driving leaves you shifting with your left hand and breaks your muscle memory ability to shift without thinking. And on top of all this the motorbike taxis, boda-bodas, are zipping in and out of traffic, the ones whom you will recall I mentioned are often former soldiers with probable severe psychological damage, and Alex casually mentions to me to be careful not to hit any of them because even if it's totally their fault they'll all swarm me if I do. Gee thanks. No stress.
   BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! I hadn't been to this hotel before, and my phone battery was on its very last legs. So when I had a moment to pull over I'd turn my phone on, study the map, and then turn it off again ... until we appeared to be lost again.
   Altogether I think I was driving for about forty minutes of insane hell. We drove past the hotel turnoff, realized the error and came back that way and passed it again, then we parked and Alex went exploring on foot until he found it. Even with him knowing exactly where it was then it was still really hard to find in the rain and darkness!

   Alex left his car there and took a boda-boda home so he wouldn't have to go back into driving hell. The hotel, as it happened, was on a nice spacious grounds with lots of trees, hence the "forest cottages," name. My room was relatively cheap but really small, in conversation with another guest I came to believe that they have a lot of rooms for that same rate, most of which are much bigger, but I think I got the very last room they had.
   At dinner in the hotel restaurant there was a big group speaking Danish, which I can recognize as a language I can almost but not quite understand, through my Swedish. They turned out to be a Danish church based charity called Karitas, after dinner I had a good long chat with one of them, a girl I at first thought was a local but then she proved to speak fluent Danish -- I guess she was a Ugandan adopted into Denmark at a young age.


   I'll keep this short and sweet, next entry, another wild goose chase trying to get to the US Embassy on time for a meeting! And then I might be able to wrap up this whole trip in one or two entries after that!! Finally!

Thursday, October 29th, Day 26, Bweyale, Northern Uganda - As is all too often the case, we didn't get to actually openign any beehives until we'd been in Bweyale several days, until the last evening we were there actually. People are often enthusiastic about showing me beehives sitting in fields, but opening it up? Oh noe, we have to do that later, we're not ready now because we uh, didn't bring the suits or the smoker or there's children playing nearby. By and large it all amounts to excuses. I get it, opening beehives can be intimidating, and I think that's one of the single biggest obstacles to overcome with training, if you're always apprehensive about opening your beehives you won't do it enough, you won't take good care of them, but if you just can't wait to see what they're doing and you're constantly telling yourself to give the bees at least a week before opening them again so as to not bother them too much, and feeling impatient about that, then you have the right idea.
   Alex had said we'd go see the bees the evening before. He initially proposed something like 8 or 9pm, I said "how about 3pm?" I think we compromised on 5 but he waffled around didn't show up till nearly eight and then I declared it was too late.
   Unfortunately, Alex, who is otherwise very forward thinking about development projects, was solidly possessed of the pernicious belief that beekeeping should be done at night. Another significant thing I try to change, since you can't see things like pupae, much less eggs, or anything else really, in the darkness of night, especially while wearing a bee suit.


The road just near the field with the beehives, as seen during the day. Picture from my DSLR, notice the big ugly splotch that looks like bird crap on the lense ): ):

   So Thursday evening we again compromised on 5pm, twilight, and once again he was late arriving (this is a common Africa thing, "Africa time," he'd usually pick us up in the morning about two hours after he said he would), and by the time we got to the field with the beehives it was pitch black out. I groaned inwardly about this but it was the last evening and I did want to see how the hives looked on the inside.
   We tromped along a narrow path between waist high crops (corn? cassava? I don't remember exactly), lighting our way with flashlights. Grace would occasionally shriek as some giant insect flew into her face, attracted by the flashlight. Finally we arrived at a little clearing next to a hut. The hut was the storage shed for beekeeping supplies ... and they had forgotten the key! Fortunately we had bee suits but I think it contained all the smoker fuel. Two young men who had come with us started a camp fire to get fire going for the smoker. This took some minutes and I took the time to enjoy the cool night air, the small of damp organic earth, the infinite stars overhead (stars are pretty good in rural Uganda!), and the hut flickering in the campfire light.
   Creepy crawly things in the night were bothering Grace so she opted to return to the car and wait for us there. Finally we got the smoker going, donned locally made bee suits, and went to check out some hives. As predicted, through the obstructive netting of the veil, one could hardly see anything, we were just bumbling around in a void. Pretty soon we had bees all over us and in our suits. They work bees at night because they believe the bees won't be so bad, but bees are very crawly at night and frankly I think that makes them more likely to get into a sub-optimum bee suit -- certainly I think all my most unpleasant getting-stung-all-over experiences have been working ebes at night. As far as Icould tell the hives were mostly poorly constructed and maintained, which is not surprising, but made it even more difficult to do anything useful with them in the dark abyss. After going through about half a dozen hives I declared we'd seen enough even though the young fellow who was working with me seemed ready to keep on going all night.

   They have a beautiful field full of beehives (I had some nice pictures on my phone, taken during a daytime visit ....) that they plan to use for training, but if they don't learn to work it during the daytime, what's the point?

Friday, October 23rd, Day 19, Nairobi, Kenya - For years I've made jokes about giraffe tongues, for example "how will we get the last of the peanut butter out of the bottom of the jar?" "oh just use your giraffe tongue." I suppose this was inspired by some nature documentary I once saw.
   There is a Giraffe Center on the outskirts of Nairobi, dedicated to the breeding of the endangered Rothschild Giraffe (Random Giraffe Fact: did you know there's nine species of Giraffe? Some are fairly plentiful but some such as the Rothschild are dangerously endangered. All I know about giraffe species identification is one of these species looks like it's wearing white knee socks). But let's back up a bit before we boomerang back here.

   My friend Grace met me at the bus stop as I arrived from Moshi on Thursday. I invited her to follow me to Uganda as well but she wasn't sure she'd be able to make it, she had some work she had to do.
   But in the mean time we had the weekend, so we decided to go on an adventure to the elephant orphanage and giraffe center. This time I used the hot tip my friend on the Arusha-Nairobi bus had given me and we used Uber, which indeed worked really well, we ended up using the same uber driver all day, he'd just wait for us in the parking lot, and the rate seemed a lot better than the rates taxi drivers had been giving us.
   We got a spot lost finding our way to the elephant orphanage, since the map-pin on tripadvisor had been put in the wrong place. They feed the baby elephants once a day over the course of an hour and we unfortunately only made it there in time for the last ten minutes of this. Nevertheless the baby elephants were adorable and full of personality, grabbing oversized baby's-milk-bottled with their trunks and squeezing it into their mouths, as well as tussling with eachother playfully or nuzzling up to the staffmembers fondly. During our short time we were there I was able to get many pricelessly adorable pictures, all with my phone since my DSLR battery was still dead ... and as my phone was subsequently stolen THEY'RE ALL GODDAMN LOST ::sobs in the corner for a few minutes:: except this one which I had uploaded to instagram:



   I had a great picture of myself scratching a baby elephant behind the ear which I deeply regret having lost.

   From there we went to the giraffe center, which wasn't far. The Giraffe center has a raised platform that puts you on eye level with the giraffes, whom you can feed pellets. The pellets look like giant rabbit pellots, you feed them one at a time by holding your hand out with a pellet on it, and the giraffe eagerly leans in and extends its long purple tongue a foot or two to take it from your hand. Your hand might be a bit slimy after this (though they didn't slobber as much as one encounters when feeding a horse an apple, moisture is probably a premium for them), but random giraffe fact!: giraffe saliva is naturally antiseptic! So it's good for you! And a giraffe can literally "kiss it and make it better!" Though my mother, who knows these things, informs me all saliva is to some degree antiseptic, I choose to believe giraffes have magic saliva.
   Grace was grossed out by these snake-like giraffe tongues, though she did get brave enough to feed a giraffe one pellet and suppressed the urge to shriek when the giraffe tongue came out. They generally seemed impatient with pattings but would permit one to pat them if they were distracted by pellet eating, so I was able to cop a feel on one of those giraffe knobs atop their head (another lifegoal I didn't know I had).
   Then I had a funny idea. As a joke I held a giraffe pellet in my lips and pretended I was about to tempt a giraffe to kiss me. I put it back in my hand before I received giraffe smooches but one of the staffmembers saw what I was doing and nodded eagerly that it was doable -- then he did it himself, placing the pellet between his lips and letting the giraffe come in and take it from him.
   I still wasn't exactly inspired to do this but Grace decided this had to happen and kept wheedling me till I gave in. So I placed a giraffe pellet between my lips and:



   Grace shrieked in some combination of horror and delight and managed to get a picture of it, which I fortunately posted to instagram so its not lost like every other goddamn picture I took of the giraffes. Despite having been entirely the instigator of this, Grace proceeded to act like I was covered with giraffe cooties and wouldn't let me get near her for a little bit, randomly breaking into song with "I kissed a giraffe and liked it!" to the tune of Katy Perry's "I kissed a girl and liked it."

   There was a little gift shop on the grounds that was selling mostly $1 carved wooden birds as christmas ornaments. On the back wall I cast my eye across a huge dusty wooden spoon. I wasn't even sure it was for sale, since it seemed different from everything else she was selling. "How much for the spoon?" I asked in a tone calculated to sound half joking.
   "3,000 shillings" ($30), she said, also as if she didn't really expect to sell it. She took it down and let me hold it, saying "hardwood!" And indeed, it had some heft to it. On the pommel end three faces are carved, in the middle held inside by a sort of cage carved in it was a ball which must have been carved in-situ inside the handle since it was all one piece. By and large I try to avoid big heavy souvenirs, which this definitely was, but I know something absolutely epic when I see it!
   "I'll give you 2,000 shillings for it" I said, as if I wasn't really serious and could just walk away chuckling.
   "2,800" she countered.
   "2,500 and one of this bird ornament?" I countered, which was accepted (bird value: 100 shillings. I have no regrets at all about getting this epic quest artifact, which I have named THE SPOON OF JUSTICE, and have since proudly showed off to anyone who has come anywhere near it. I've given it my dear mother to hang in her kitchen (where it hangs near an epic decorated horn from an earlier trip). People ask what it's "for," which I think is obviously hanging from walls but we joke that you stir cannibal soup with it.
   The bird I got was a cute pied kingfisher, a bird I'd seen earlier. Unfortunately I ended up leaving it at Grace's place at the end of the trip.


Here I am much later (ie this morning) modeling the Spoon of Justice!

   There was a nice little nature walk path attached to the giraffe center, which, as it had "giraffe crossing" and "this path for giraffes only" signs must be part of the giraffe enclosure. Among other things I took a picture of a big wasp with wings that faded from orange to purple and looked like it might belong to the Pepsis genus that I also deeply deeply regret having lost.

   After the weekend, my plan was to head to Uganda. I asked Grace again if she wanted to follow me to Uganda, since it looked like I'd just be arriving there briefly and boomeranging back two or three days later (spoiler: I would not be returning that quickly!), and despite my having giraffe cooties she agreed to come along! She'd never been to Uganda before. I'd never been to Uganda before either! I had googled a bit on my phone and as far I could tell I _probably_ could get a visa at the border and going there _probably_ wouldn't invalidate my existing single-entry-visa for Kenya, but as we would be traveling overnight, and we'd be crossing the border around 2am, I was really nervous the visa office would be closed.
   Left most of my stuff at Graces place, only taking enough clothing for Grace and I for two or three days. Caught the bus around 5pm ($15 or $20 each for us to get to Kampala, Uganda, 12 hours away). Bus was a big coach style bus, I was the only westerner aboard, I think muzungus usually fly. As we rumbled through the night we mostly slept, there were the usual stops every few hours for people to use the bathroom. Didn't get much of a view since it was night. When we finally arrived at the border crossing we had to disembark to walk through. It was 2am, the ground was damp and muddy from recent rains and lightning flickered over the western horizon -- over Uganda. TO BE CONTINUED!

   Continuing from where I left off, where I was sort of stranded in Arusha, Northern Tanzania, for a few days and feeling a little annoyed at my contact, "Dr K," who "worked with the Hadza people in some capacity," as I put it last time.

Day 7: Sunday, October 11th - I called Dr K at the appointed time. He asked if I could come to the New Arusha Hotel, which is in the center of town and where I'd stayed last year. I fancied it didn't quite make sense for me to get a taxi and hussle my stuff into a taxi to take me to someone who has a car so I urged him to come to Mvuli hotel, which he seemed a bit reluctant to do and didn't know where it was (no one seemed to), so I put him on with the hotel manager to explain directions.

   When Dr K arrived it was in a rather nice SUV. The hotel manager's eyes bugged out a little bit as she remarked "those are government plates, is he with the government?" to which I could only say "maybe?" Dr K himself was an older man with grey hair and a kindly face. He was accompanied by a driver in a grey-green suit that almost looked like a uniform. Dr K read the newspaper as we drove on down to Singida, which took a few hours. The moment we crossed into the Singida region (province/state), we pulled over not even a full cars-length past the sign and the driver hopped out and attached a Tanzanian flag to a pole on front of the vehicle. Dr K said we'd drop him off at his house first and then the driver would take me to a hotel. His house, as it happened, was large, on a hill, surrounded by a wall that left ample room inside, and most strikingly, had an entire squad of smartly dressed soldiers in red berets who stood at salute as the car came through the gate. The moment Dr K was out of the car the driver whipped off the flag, as if it were an admiral's pennant.

   After all this I was feeling like this guy was a little bit more important than I'd expected him to be. Not having ready access to the internet I had to ask a friend to google him for me. Turns out that my contact, whom I'd been griping about, whom I had vaguely imagined to be some civil servant in a basement office tasked with responsibility for underdeveloped communities or something, is none other than Dr Parseko V Kone, GOVERNOR ("regional commissioner") of the Singida region. He is the head of government of an administrative area encompassing 1.3 million people. Also he's killed a lion with a spear.

   Needless to say, I was absolutely shocked by this revelation. I had had no idea. I always treat people with respect, I've remarked before about how I like to learn the names of the hotel doormen and ask them about their kids -- but suddenly I was questioning whether I had always treated this man with the respect due to a governor -- which no matter how egalitarian your principals are one certainly must be respectful of someone with so much responsibility. And I was feeling pretty mortified by the sure conviction that I probably had not -- in all my phone conversation sure there was nothing deficient of respect I could think of, but only this morning I had insisted he come pick me up at my hotel. This really had me squirming in recollection. I had insisted a governor come pick me up rather than I go to him! If I had known I wouldn't have hesitated to take a taxi right to whereever he wanted me to be!! I think it's a real testament to how humble this man is that he just took it in stride.


   The hotel the driver took me to happened to be one of the ones we'd stayed at on the three day "technical excursion" after the beekeeping conference last year. I hadn't realized it was in Singida. I thought it was kind of funny to come all this way to the center of Tanzania to find, oh, I've already been here. There's a big lake next to Singida, I'm told there's two actually but I've never seen the second one. But this hotel is right on the lake shore which is nice, and the wind comes over the lake and kind of quietly howls against the side of the hotel which is picturesque in an audible sort of way.
   I remember being unimpressed with the food in the hotel restaurant last year and it was the same this time. I tried ordering the pepper steak but they said it would take 45 minutes (for some reason?!), so I tried ordering the spaghetti but they said they were out, so I ordered the chicken but it ended up being the rubbery hard to get off the bone sort of chicken typical of Africa and I didn't enjoy it very much, and it STILL took an hour for them to prepare.
   A week later when we were back, I tried to account for this by phoning my order down an hour before I wanted to eat it, they said they'd call when it was ready, and it wasn't ready when I called an hour later, and when I called an hour and a half after ordering tehy said it was, and I came down to the restaurant to wait another 15 minutes ... to finally be delivered a pepper steak that appeared to have already lost what heat it once had. It's problems like this that are really frustrating, this isn't a lack of resources or development problem, this is some kind of gross incompetence!


   Also I was joined, in Arusha before leaving there actually, by my friend Neema, who would accompany me as translator. She had been the receptionist/housekeeper of the guesthouse I had stayed in in Moshi last year, and was not currently employed.


Day 8: Monday, October 12th - Dr Kone had told me to come by his office (the regional headquarters) at 8am, so I hopped to it and got a taxi there. There of course they were like "who are you here to see? Oh Dr Kone, do you have an appointment?" I had to wait in his ante-room for about half an hour while he finished breakfast and then I was ushered into his large office, where he sat in a suit behind a large desk with flags on it. I did my best to make up for any possible omissions the day before by being ingratiatingly polite. We talked a little about the plans. He had to swear in a new district commissioner (mayor / county supervisor?) for the district the Hadza were in that very morning, and then he would have the district commissioner take me down there. But first he called in the regional immigration officer, a woman who came in in a police-like uniform, and explained what I would be doing and asked her if I needed any special permit or what, and it was agreed that I would go with her to the immigration office for some paperwork and then come back. Interesting to see how she, deferential and almost meek in Dr Kone's office, walks into the immigration building where she herself is lord paramount and herself has a big office in the corner of the third floor where she can summon assistants who again themselves are probably important people in the region. She was very friendly though and I opened up about how I had had no idea Dr Kone was as important as he is and we all had a good laugh. She wanted a letter from the organization I was with, which, since I run Bee Aid International entirely myself, I wrote myself an introduction letter, noting pointedly that I was here at the "invitation and encouragement of Dr P V Kone," and they stamped "approved" and photocopied it. I hadn't anticipated any problems with the government but now if anyone tried to hassle me in the region I was armed with an officially stamped letter citing the governor as well as the business card of the regional immigration chief.

   Returned to Dr Kone's office, he told me he would go swear in the district commissioner and then he had another meeting and i should return at 11. Walked back to the hotel as it wasn't really particularly far, had breakfast/lunch since I hadn't eaten yet, it took an hour for my food to come as usual, and then Neema and I were back at the government headquarters with our bags at 11. Newly minted district commissioner arrived about half an hour later, and we were off! Neema and I and the district commissioner and a driver. We drove for several hours out on a road that wasn't paved but it was pretty well maintained, until we finally arrived at Mkalama, the district headquarters. There we had to sign in to the guestbooks of the District commissioner and Assistant District Commissioner (which btw I had to sign the books of Dr Kone and the immigration officer as well, they're really into signing visitor-logs). Briefly ran into the outgoing District Commissioner, who was being transferred to Arusha. Then we were introduced to the district development officer and assistant development officer (the guys who I suppose hold the position I had whimsically imagined Dr Kone to have!) and was told they would take us out the Hadza, or at least out to see what we would need and return here tonight and go back the next day.
   So then we were off again! Another two hours or so, down a more rural dirt road and finally turned off this road and drove for awhile on no sort of road at all, but sort of a rough cattle track, until I was surprised to find a number of nice square buildings suddenly appear through the scrub, connected to eachother by well kept little paths. It turns out this was the rural ("bush") school of Munguli (founded 1960something) where kids from all around board, including some from the Hadza. We were shown a little vacant house we could stay in but it had no bed so we added "mattress" to our shopping list. Then we returned to Mkalama for the night.
   Stayed in a "guest-house" there which is what they call local hotels I guess. They act like muzungus ("westerners" / "white people") could hardly be expected to stay in one, and had even offered to drive me the three/four hours back to the nearest "real" hotel in Singida, but the guest houses aren't that bad. This one was a typical design of a number of small rooms opening onto a small courtyard. Most of the rooms don't have their own bathroom and I wouldn't be surprised if they just have a mattress on a floor but what more do you need. The room we were assigned was one of the two "self contained" rooms with attached bathroom (no western style toilet though, and no hot water), but there was a bed and the door locked.


Day 9: Tuesday, October 13th - in the morning I realized there was a honeybee colony in the roof of the guest-house directly above our room. I took this as a good omen. We did some shopping, got enough spaghetti noodles and beans to hopefully last us a week, as well as a flat of water bottles and a mattress. Then we were off to Munguli! Got a flat tire on the way, a must for any true African adventure.
   Arriving there we occupied the little house, and one of the teachers invited us over to dinner, a number (all?) of the teachers seemed to live in two or three little houses built around a courtyard. I was also introduced to my first Hadza:
   Two Hadza had journeyed in to meet us. "The chairman," was a short man who appeared to have a gold watch dangling loosely from his wrist. Him and his companion were wearing worn western style clothes that appeared to have been given to a thrift store at some point. Noteably though, his companion was sporting a bow and had several arrows. I was told the next morning they would guide us to the Hadza encampment which was several hours walk from this location.
   The two district development officers left us shortly after introducing us to the Hadza, with a promise to come pick us up in about a week (Sunday), and I remember one of them said "good luck" in a manner I felt was distinctly sarcastic like "you'll need it!" And with that my only way out drove off into the acacias with a cloud of dust!

   A truck with loudspeakers on it arrived from one of the political parties and made a short campaign speech shortly after we arrived.

   That evening there was a soccer game nearby between teachers (all of whom looked barely 20) and locals. It was well attended with spectators from all the local community. Teachers won.

   That night after Neema and I realized the door to our house only locked from the outside, at her suggestion we moved the table in front of the door (it opened inward) and thus barricaded it zombie-proof style.


Day 10: Wednesday, October 14th - We got up at first light to start our trek. To help carry the luggage four young boys from the school were recruited and we proceeded like a little line of ants, luggage and mattress being carried on heads. It took several hours winding through acacia, thorn trees, and scrub. We passed several family compounds of square mud-and-stick buildings surrounded by a big circular barrier of piled up thorn branches (mainly to keep livestock in and safe at night), and saw many people dressed in the traditional maasai manner, including some women with the classic big brass disks around their necks -- for the first time I was seeing people that looked right out of national geographic (other than the ones that dress that way at tourist hotspots to better bilk money out of tourists).

[as of this writing, November 11th, my phone was just stolen and with it among other things my rough log of days happenings. After this its just up to my shoddy memory]

   We arrived in the Hadza village of ??? (see above ): ) and were shown to a little house that had been built for a doctor who hasn't arrived yet. The doors didn't lock so we continued to barricade them at night and I felt obliged to carry all my valuables on me at all times.
   Once we'd put our things in the house we walked to the village chairman's "house" just a hundred yards are so away. This village was quite different than the villages in Guinea, in this case it consisted of a smattering of family dwellings all about a hundred or two hundred yards apart, just out of site of eachother through the scrub. The family dwellings almost all consisted of one rough rectangular brick structure that would qualify as a "crude shed" in the western world as well as one or more wigwam like huts. I got the impressions the huts were the traditional mode of housing and still preferred because the breeze blows right through them during the day for a cooling effect, and the rectangular buildings were the work of efforts to "modernize" them and did have the advantages of better shelter from the rain. I'd post some illustrative pictures but well, see above.
   Anyway at the village chairman's place we were welcomed into the wigwam and given baobab juice, created before our eyes by mixing baobab seeds (a rock hard seed with a white chalky covering the is edible) with water and sugar by hand (ie his wife was churning it with her hand, but who's got time to be squeamish about germs hey). I actually rather liked the baobab juice.
   We returned after that to our little house to rest and then the weirdest thing happened. I heard the winds suddenly become very strong and looked outside to see a very large whirlwind (nearly the width of our house and clearly forming a tornado shaped cone of dust up high into the sky) heading straight for our house, hit us, and continue on the other side. It fortunately wasn't strong enough to do any actual damage. Weird though!!

   And that's the journey to the Hadza. I'll make a separate post about the actual work there.

...

[skipping ahead again a bunch]

Day appx 40: Tuesday, November 10th (today)- Sorry for so few updates, I've been busy! Have barely opened my computer. Anyway, as I mentioned, yesterday, which was my last day in Nairobi, while leaving downtown for the last time, I was successfully pickpocketed for the first time in my life. I'm always extremely careful, and if I have to be in crowded conditions always have my hands in my pockets on my wallet and phone. Unfortunately in this case I had my hands full with a big bag. I probably wouldn't have even tried but I was with a local friend who got on the bus before me and was afraid of being separated. I actually felt my wallet being lifted, a feeling which still gives me the chills. But it was already too late there was no determining who had gotten it. I could have taken a taxi that night and wish I had but I was being too cheap I guess, trying not to be a "rich muzungu" who takes the taxi all over the place. What bothers me the most isn't the loss of they physical phone but the pictures on it, which I unfortunately hadn't bothered to back up on to my computer all month, as well as the rough log without which it will be much harder for me to include interesting minor details in my blog. My memory is really notoriously bad, and without the photos and rough log I really feel like a large part of the past month has been stolen from me.
   Fortunately this did happen on my last night so I don't have to survive for days in Africa w out money or phone. And my friend Grace whom I was with showed that heartmelting African generosity by actually loaning me her rent money, $40 of the $50 she had to her name at the time, so I could get to the airport and eat today. I felt bad accepting it but I'll be able to western union her back the money and more as soon as I get back to the states.

Day 5 - Monday, August 31st - On this morning we finally had a projector ready to go and ... my computer stopped working. Specifically, it would no longer log in to my own profile, I could log in to guest but not access any of my materials! I could log in in "safe mode" but it would't talk to the projector or run powerpoint. Finally I logged in on safe mode, hauled all my stuff into the public directories and logged in again as guest. To this day I haven't solved the problem, still having to log in as a guest on my own computer, and I miss all my customized settings and such. I swear whenever I'm in Africa there is just a inexplicable variety of ways my electronics start to fail.



   "They have a handicap in the mountains," Damba, my interpreter, informed me after a member of the beekeeping class had raised his hand and said sometihng, "chimpanzees."
   Later another man told a story about when he was living in Gabon: he had spent some time training a chimpanzee to be domesticated and then gave it to a family up in the mountains. Later he saw them again and asked them how the chimpanzee was, and they said "oh it was very good, we have finished eating it." :O

   In the evenings a bunch of us would usually end up sitting on the veranda or in the meeting room chatting by flashlight-light. They eat really late, dinner wouldn't usually arrive (brought by the women) until around 10pm. Until then we'd just sit around and talk, and afterwords as well. Unfortunately it would be in the local language (Foula), French, or a combination of the two. If French I could usually at least get the gist of what was being said. I'd ask Damba what was being said on occasion but unless it was a particularly good story I'd usually only get a general topic ("oh they're talking about politics"). According to my notes they were talking about marriage and wives this evening. It seems polygamy is pretty accepted here, but it's also pretty easy and normal to divorce. One man was saying he had had two wives and everything was just fine, but then the first one died and after that the second one started to become unbearable so they divorced. He has since remarried and currently has at least one wife.



Day 6 - Tuesday, September 1st - Sitting under the orange tree this afternoon after we were done with the days training, one of the older women in the class was telling Damba about her children, and he translated to me: "she has six children, four of whom are still living. One is a doctor in Canada, one is a lawyer in France, the daughter just graduated university in business and management." It always feels a little surprising to hear things like this from people who live in villages of thatched huts. You imagine they have no upward mobility, and don't get me wrong, life isn't easy there, but people who are able to get to school are able to get to college and get out of the village.


Hanging out under the orange tree was a major afternoon activity

Day 7 - Wednesday, September 2nd - in the late afternoon Damba, Kamera (our driver) and I are sitting by the crossroads (karafou) as one does. Suddenly there's a commotion, some young men are swinging big sticks at the ground just off to the side and people are running over there. It turns out a large green snake was sighted, which is believed to be venomous. The day's excitement!

   In the evening I got to talking to some of the teenage girls from my "neighborhood" of the village. It was funny they'd been hanging around on the periphery of things, then as two walked by one pointed at the other and said "she speaks english" and I said "oh really?" and she said "a little" and came and sat down with me under the orange tree, soon joined by her friends. As the darkness gathered I showed them pictures from home on my phone which they found very interesting.


it kills me that Damba ruined this picture by walking behind them at the moment I took the picture

Day 8 - Thursday, September 3rd - They had wanted a "beekeeping as a business" lesson. I don't really get nervous or stress about teaching beekeeping because I'm so well versed in it I just kind of show up and open my mouth and out comes a coherent and useful lesson plan. But being as I'm not a business consultant, when they start asking for an entire day's session on running a business I get a little anxious.
   Last year I had let my interpreter, Bara, give them a business lesson since he'd served as the interpreter for many lessons by actual business consultants. But, and maybe it's just because it's what was most easily retained in his memory, from what I could gather listening in as he spoke in French, that sounded to me like more of a lesson on all the business related cliche buzzwords.
   One interesting thing that became apparent was a deeply ingrained socialist mindset, which I remembered from last year as well. It's funny how anathema such a mindset is in America. I was trying to highlight that there are some things that they can best do as individuals, some things that it would be best for them to cooperate at on the village level, and some things it would be best for the regional organization to organize, so I had made a chart with three columns and asked them to list the pros and cons of doing things at each level ... but ALL I could get out of them were recitations of slogans about how it is best to do things together and the individual is weak etc etc etc. Personally I think there are definitely economy of scale advantages to doing things in larger groups but I believe the only real motivator is self interest and they must see an individual reward for their actions. A lot of the hives are communally owned and I think that leads to lax management as no one is individually responsible for them. Also I tried to teach them that while they're waiting for the regional organization to solve their problems, bigger organizations are much much slower to implement things and they should look to solutions on their village level in the meantime (example, waiting for the regional organization to find a way to bottle and sell their honey).
   It also became apparent that there were some serious communication problems between understanding what the regional organization's responsibilities and services were versus what the regional organization thought the villages should be doing for themselves, so I dusted off my old Learnin from when I was a communications minor in college (focusing on organizational communication!) to teach them about how clear and distinct lines of communication with designated responsible people could help them work together. I don't know why so many people act like communications is a useless major.


Damba and Kamera

   That evening Damba, Kamera and I drove into the town of Timbi-Madina five kilometers away, I think just for a change of pace. Two of the girls came along as well primarily I believe because you can get a cell phone signal in Timbi-Madina but only barely in the village of Doumba.
   In addition to the colourful African robes, in Timbi-Madina there are also the occasional women wearing black Islamic body coverings, with so small a slit for their eyes at first glance it looks like they don't have a way of seeing at all. But then you'll have two fourteen-ish year old girls come by on a motorcycle dressed African casual (t-shirt and long skirts). I'm told there's no driver's license system in Guinea. If you can afford a vehicle you can drive it (and/or if your parents can afford a vehicle and let you drive it).
   After asking around at a few little shops Kamera and Damba found what they were evidently looking for, a woman selling grilled meat on skewers from a little shop on a corner. I thought for a second of all the warnings I'd heard about eating grilled meat from roadsides in Africa, but I think that mainly applies to questionable grilled meat that has likely been kept in unhygenic conditions for hours or days -- in this case I could see the fresh meat that looked pretty good and see that it was being grilled right there in front of me. It was really good.
   ...and probably a lot safer than the salad I had later that evening which was after all uncooked and washed in local water. This whole trip I never had any intestinal discomfort other than that caused by my fear and avoidance of the hole-in-the-floor-toilet.



Day 8 - Friday, September 4th - A definite highlight of my day was Abdul, my old host from the village of Sanpiring, visiting us in Doumba. I love this man he has a quiet kind dignity, and an old weathered face that's quick to break into a smile. I learned that after last year's training he was able to significantly increase his honey production, selling several hundred dollars worth of honey (which keep in mind is a fortune there), which allowed him to repaint his house.
   We were also joined by Aissa (Aissatou actually, but not to be confused with one of the several other Aissatous in the village), the female training technician with the beekeeping federation. She had been in the capitol getting a passport so she could travel to nearby Senegal for some sort of training. She had also been present last year so she was another welcome familiar face.



Day 9 - Saturday, September 5th - by now I'd run through all my organized lessons on beekeeping and somehow filled up the day with questions and answers and miscellaneous topics. I think it's a testament to how interested the participants were that even when there was an awkward silence while waiting for someone to bring up another subject to talk about, everyone sat attentively waiting.
   Two other daily rituals are worth commenting on. (1) One of the participants, Karim, would always be boiling water in a little teapot on a small stove (by which I mean actual hot coals) on the veranda and then, after adding tea leaves, some mint leaves, and probably an alarming amount of sugar, would pour the tea from cup to cup over and over again until it had a thick froth.
   Usually around the time we finished the lesson he would use his last boiled water to boil peanuts (readily available locally) and then serve them to us while we sat under the orange tree. I thought this was a novel new way of having peanuts but then I met an American from the South who said boiled peanuts are a staple down there. Who knew!
   Saturday night found us down at the Carafou (crossroads). There wasn't terribly much going on there (though still a fair number of people hanging out). Kamera played us some music on his phone and we joked about it being a wild Saturday night in Doumba. We were joking but I'm sure I'll fondly remember that relatively quiet Saturday night at the Doumba crossroads long after I've entirely forgotten nearly any Saturday night of partying in a Western city.

Day 2 - Friday, August 28th - As often the case things were a bit slow getting started. This first day it rained much of the day, though I don't think that effected much. Some of the members of the beekeeping class assembled briefly to sort things out but it was generally understood we would start the next day. Fortunately we did go out and open some beehives to get an idea of what we'd be dealing with, which was nice because last year we didn't get around to actually opening any beehives until several days in.



   A major highlight was that evening, as we're sitting in the flashlight-light after dinner, my phone rang, my phone from home. It was a (530) area code, which is the Davis (Nor Cal) area where I went to school. I sometimes get wrong number calls from that area code since my phone is also still (530). Anyway I almost didn't answer it, thinking it was likely another wrong number and would cost me over a dollar a minute, but decided "who was that" would bother me too much if I didn't pick it up.
   As it turns out it was UC Davis itself. I had applied for a job as the head beekeeper basically, managing the beehives belonging to the honeybee research lab there. They were calling me back for an interview!!!
   "So let's see, you're about seven hours south of here aren't you" she said, referring to where I live in California.
   "hahaha oh no I'm about 6,000 miles away at the present moment -- I'm in the middle of Guinea." Anyway, reception wasn't great, there was a lot of "what was that again?" so it was agreed that a phone interview probably wouldn't work where I was, but she said they could wait until I get back for an interview. I tried to say I'd drove up when I got back but I don't think that got through, reception was really bad.
   Anyway, this development made me really excited.



Day 3 - Saturday, August 29th - I never set an alarm clock the whole time I was there, relying on roosters crowing and voices outside reaching a certain level. Typically around 4am the rain would pour down with a roar (see also: aluminum roof), around 5am the first call to prayer would warble out through the darkness. I always love to hear the meuzzen, though I wouldn't savor the idea of having to get out of bed and pray every morning at 5. Sometime between 7:00 and 7:30 I'd get out of bed and have breakfast of a piece of fresh baguette. They tried to ply me with butter, mayonaise, or honey but I liked to just tear off as much of the baguette as I wanted and sit on the veranda eating it with no further adieu. At first I tried to drink the accompanying nescafe but after a few days I realized I was barely drinking any of it and switched to tea. At some point Kamera (the driver) would turn on the land cruiser to warm up the engine and I'd jump up to go plug my phone in to the car charger, like a chicken seeing chicken feed being tossed out. If the car was at all dirty Kamera would also start cleaning it at this time, truly he takes his charge of the vehicle seriously.
   Finally at, I really don't know what time, about an hour and a half later maybe, we would begin every day when a critical mass of people had arrived, the African way of doing things. (:
   A portable generator had been acquired and positioned just outside out building and it would be turned on at this time, and as always people would flock to the power plugs like pigeons on bread crumbs to charge their phones.



   That evening there was an important soccer match being televised between two European teams, which Kamera in particular wanted to watch, so in the evening Damba, Kamera & I went to the karafou (crossroads), where for a few thousand francs a person (ie less than a dollar) we were admitted into a little room that I guess would be the Doumba cinema -- it had benches set up so we could all watch this small TV that was affixed to the wall and had the game on (powered by a generator just outside). There were at least a dozen men in there to watch the game. I wasn't so into the game, even soccer (the One True Team Sport) I can't really get into unless it's the world cup (and national honor is therefore at stake), but it was an interesting cultural experience watching it in this rudimentary fashion.



Much Later - Sept 14th - Despite the initial assurance they'd wait to interview me for the bee lab job, which I confirmed later in the week by email, and had then emailed them again a few days before my return to my states expressing my eagerness to come up there to interview ... upon my arrival in the states I received an email saying they had filled the position. Broke my little heart, as the job would have been absolutely perfect. ):

Sunday, August 23rd - The day before the trip I found myself particularly stressed, not so much about packing so much as a number of things that needed to be sorted out before I left. Among other things, I bought my tickets for the October trip to East Africa. The group in Tanzania I've been planning to work with, the main contact has been extremely difficult to get ahold of and when I finally had a friend in Nairobi call him (he always asks me to call him in the afternoon, which is the middle the night for me) he apparently said "call in September" to find out if everything is ready for the project ... which as you can imagine increased my frustration with trying to plan it. But then I got a nice email from the Beekeeping cooperative of Pemba Island, the northernmost of the Zanzibar islands. I had contacted them as a backup plan to Tanzania but they seem so much easier to work with...

   I'm thinking of trying to fit both in though.

   I took most of the evening off though because my dear friend Asli was passing through LAX with a seven hour layover, on her way to Fiji to take up a position as a third mate on a ship there. It's funny because last time I was her was a little less than a year ago when I myself had a ten hour layover in Istanbul.
   It was interesting to note that for her to legally immigrate or even visit the states would be a huge process, but, without even dealing with the US embassy or consulate she was able to get a transit visa on a ticket from Istanbul to Fiji, get stamped for a "transit visa" on arrival and walk right out of the terminal to disappear into Los Angeles.
   As it happens of course she has no intention to illegally immigrate and to do so would throw away her huge investment in time and money in her merchant marine licensing (US authorities who are reading this please take note and keep it in mind when granting her a tourist visa eventually!)

   We had just time to drive down to the Santa Monica Pier and stroll about there for a bit before rushing back to the airport. Unfortunately didn't have time for In-N-Out as we'd hoped -- the line was around the building. I feel well satisfied though that we made the most of the time, the pier and surroundings were suitably emblematic of the LA area.



Monday, August 24th - Got up at 5:30 for my 8:45am flight. And then began packing ;D
   Last time I was really freaked out because I didn't seem to have forgotten anything, which just seemed wrong. Well I don't have that worry this time. Despite distinctly remembering unplugging my phone charger and picking up the solar phone charger that would have been so useful on this trip, I can't find them in my luggage. Very irritating, I guess I must have set them down somewhere between retrieval and putting them in the luggage. ):
   And before anyway says "you wouldn't have forgotten anything if you had packed the day before! I'll point out that I needed my phone to be charging that night so the one tihng I forgot I couldn't have packed earlier anyway.
   As it happens I have another charger that's for the in-country phone I've been provided with, but it doesn't seem to charge my phone very fast, charging overnight last night (in country now) didn't even get it about 80%.
   Also it means I can't transfer pictures from my phone to my computer. :-/

In Flight Movie Review Intermission!
The Hobbit III: Battle of Five Armies - D+ I loved the Hobbit book, though granted I was in elementary school when I read it, but I'm going to wildly guess there was just a chapter or two dedicated to this battle, and there's a reason for that. While an important event if you dedicate an entire novel / feature-length-film to one battle, we've really gotta care about it and/or it needs to be done extremely well. You could make a movie about Gettysberg or Waterloo or such, but I think almost any entirely fictional battle is just going to be a lot of pointless killing in movie form. And that's what this was, CGI orcs and dwarves and elves throwing eachother around for 2+ hours. On top of this the orc commander suddenly appears on top of another mountain that wasn't there before, and though it's snowy on top everyone seems easily able to teleport there from the battleground and/or see what's going on there? Or how about when characters trekked to some other fortress presumably hundreds of miles away and returned, also during the battle? I'm not talking about the wizards going to renamed Dol Guldor in the south, but that made up place in the West. Anyway, I thought it was pretty terrible, probably the only reason I didn't give it an F was out of my tremendous respect for JRR Tolkien's original story.
The Water Diviner - A and I don't give many As! Russell Crowe as an Australian farmer and water diviner sets off to look for three sons, all of whom failed to return from the Battle of Gallipoli four years prior. Also his wife commmits suicide, which I guess really bummed him out, but obviously opening it up for him to fall in love with a Turkish woman, which I'm not even calling a spoiler because who wouldnt' see that a mile away. Anyway for some reason, despite not having had any relatives involved to my knowledge, the Battle of Gallipoli always seems particularly poignant to me, maybe it's because I lived in Australia, have been to Gallipoli, and fell in love with a Turkish woman myself (and whom I'd seen just the day before). Anyway I think the movie was well done, and did a good job of portraying the Turks of the era as a rich and dignified culture torn between a disintegrating empire and Turkish nationalism.
Gunman - B- A solid running-around-shooting-pepole of the "trying to find out why they're trying to kill me" variety. Noteworthy aspect to comment on, in the beginning the protagonist and his compatriots are working as private security for aid agencies in Congo, and then most of the action occurs eight years later, where we find him digging water wells in the Congo (an interesting random parallel to the Water Diviner, which involves some well digging), and all of his compatriots are now filthy rich running their own aid agencies. I had no idea aid work was the path to the swanky life! ;D


Tuesday, August 25th -Other than those movies, nothing much to remark on about the flights. Orange County -> Minneapolis -> Paris CDG (where they still don't know how to queue for security check, but I got randomly waved into the flight crew line, where I think security was much more laid back and friendly) -> Sierra Leone (didn't de-plane) to Conakry. Arrived in Conakry at 17:30, which if I'm doing the math right is 25.75 hours after my plane had taken off in California. It took another hour and a half to wind through the narrow crowded streets of Conakry to my hotel at the end of the peninsula.


Wednesday, August 26th - For my own reference, this is the Golden Plaza Hotel that they've put me in this time. It has a nice restaurant in it, the food is downright good, and the internet works better than it does at home (that being said, it's been down this last hour, but hey). Generator kicks right on when the power goes out, AC works ... but my room is a cell with no window. There's a window, on the side wall of an adjoining utility closet which I have a curtained window that looks into. So the level of outdoor light and fresh air in here is dungeon status. And the bed takes up most of the space in the room so it's very dungeonesque. I'd ask to be put in the hotel I was in last time, which is right around the corner ... but internet is lifeblood and it mostly works here. When I get back into the city I'm definitely requesting a room with an actual window though. I don't care if it gets street noise, that's preferable to being in the Bastille here.

   Speaking of when I return, usually there's a day or two of lollygagging about upon my return to the capitol, which is generally not very fun because, like today, I end up with nothing to do but sit in my cell. But I google image searched the islands off the coast here and ... wow! And then looked at the tripadvisor comments on them and they're totally doable in a day trip! I'm so doing that when I get back!

   But back to the present, today I spent way too many hours cooped up in this cell. Oh I went out and walked around a bit, but this town isn't entirely safe even in broad daylight (last time I was year one of the other volunteers got picked up by some soldiers allegedly for photographing buildings he wasn't supposed to photograph, and they took him back to their barracks to pressure him into bribing them. Though ultimately they let him go not terribly worse for the wear, I'm still particularly leery of soldiers in this town. I did find my favorite Turkish place from last time I was hear and had lunch there.

   Also exchanged money for 8300 Guinean Franks to the dollar, thus making me once again a millionaire (1.8 million franks to my name at the moment). I always find it novel that the official exchange rate (7300:1) is just an average and you can actually beat it. In industrialized European countries I don't know how one can do that, usually everywhere that'll exchange money will only do so at a rate significantly advantageous to the broker in comparison to the exchange rate, but dealing with individual money exchangers in Africa I've frequently been able to significantly beat the rate (and by me, I mean the savvy Winrock staffmember assisting me).



   It is presently Wednesday evening. Tomorrow morning I head up country to the project site in the field. Immediately prior to beginning one of these projects it always feels a bit like walking to the front of a big lecture hall with no idea what you're about to say. Getting to the podium, turning around and seeing all eyes on you ... and you just start talking. By which I mean, it's impossible to plan what I'm going to say/teach/do, every situation is different and I won't know until I get there. But thousands of dollars have been spent to get me here so there's certainly pressure. And I don't feeeeel like I have anything that valuable locked away in my head to share. I think I would have been more terrified before my first project if I'd known what I was getting into. I think I would have been more terrified on my second project, except I knew by some miracle I had made it through the first one ... seemingly with flying colors. It still marvels me that it works.