Polumaraton!

Hello internet,

Check out me and David!

This time we weren't even way at the back.

Yeah.  We ran a half marathon.  In Bosnia.  And it was awesome.

Happy Peasant's Day!

When conducting our local hires, during every interview, we ask candidates what they know about agriculture and where they learned it.  We've come to expect a variety of answers but none are more common than this:

"I'm a peasant."

The first time I heard this, I nearly laughed out loud: "Well, gee, please thank your feudal lord for letting you come see me today."  I managed to keep it together and good that I did.  As it turns out, the translation of "wakulima" is "peasants" as well as the more traditional back of the flash card: farmers.

Anyway.  Yesterday was Peasant's Day, one of the 16 public holidays in Tanzania.  I tried to learn a bit more about the history of this holiday, but struggled to find anything official.  I read somewhere that it was originally meant to be the opportunity for city folks to get home and harvest their farms, but I suspect it's more just an acknowledgement of an enormous segment of the population.  You know, the peasants.

We drove about 4 hours south of Iringa to the third largest city in the country - Mbeya - where the Peasant's Day celebrations were being held for our region.  I've been to an agricultural festival in East Africa once before so I thought I knew what to expect: demonstration plots, fried foods, photo booths, and tons of people... sounds a bit like the state fairs back home, no?  In many ways, this held true for Mbeya's fair, but they must have known that a photo booth with a stuffed tiger and an Obama backdrop wouldn't be enough to bring the people out in droves.  (Ok, the photo booths here are a little different from the ones you might see on the Midway back home.)  So, Mbeya really upped the ante this time around.

In addition to the demo plots:

More fertilizer = more cabbage!

And the fried foods:

Not quite the funnel cake you might have been expecting...

We got real animals!

When not texting, her job was to use that stick to make sure
the Colobus monkey on display was entertaining the crowd.

While I originally intended to make a joke about this little celebration of animal cruelty, I gotta give 'em this: those cages aren't great but I've seen much worse and there were guards posted to move the crowd through and prevent any tormenting from the crowd.  Plus, despite living in much closer proximity to the natural habitats of these animals, most Tanzanian children don't ever have the opportunity to learn about or visit them, which is a real shame.

Anyhoo - the highlight for me was our booth in the Iringa building where we demonstrated our products, showed a comparison between typical maize cobs and ours and where, at the next stall, I bought some delicious looking honey.

Still, I'm wondering if changing our slogan from Farmers First to Peasants First would turn off any donors...

Fire!

The mountain is on fire. Like, a big chunk of it.

I’ve seen a fire truck in town exactly 1 times, and it was more like a fire-minivan, so I’m not convinced it would have much effect, even if I could find it now in our hour of need.

I’m also not convinced that this is an accidental fire although “controlled” would probably be a much more favorable description than it deserves.

Meanwhile, since that fire is probably 6-8k away (that’s 4-5 miles for my metrically challenged friends), I feel comfortable letting my thoughts continue to be preoccupied by Paris. In a mere 44 days, I’ll be on a flight to Paris. 

Obviously, I’m pretty excited, but just now my musings are more on the mileage I just mentioned than on the Louvre. That 6 to 8 dreaded k: I'm anticipating my Parisian runs. Nope, that’s not an allusion to diarrhea. In fact, those kinds of runs I typically get to leave behind whenever I leave Africa (yes, there’s an ugly side to living in the developing world beyond general injustices like hunger and poverty). I’m talking about actual runs. Like, with my legs.

Let me start from the beginning: you see, my company is staffed mainly by the insane. We’ve got the guy whose weekend run is a marathon. We’ve got another who wants to see how many birthdays he can match mileage to age (at this point, he’s far exceeded his age and I won’t get into the actual numbers… it’s just upsetting). The entire Rwanda team runs with him. Last year, according to my sources, all of them ran further than they’d ever run before and at least a half marathon. Another guy is a world champion ultimate player. Still another finished the New York marathon first in his age group for Americans (okay, the Kenyans still smoked him, but still).

So that’s who I lived with the last two years. We also maintained a pretty serious “Taco Tuesday” tradition. Tuesdays, therefore, should have been the happiest night of the week, except that it coincided with “sports night” with these maniacs. So, my colleague Gazi and I revolted. We formed Team Sensible, the non-running club of our organization. In defiance of sports night, we followed up the Tuesday staff meeting with a “coke walk,” meandering down the block about 5 minutes to the stand that sold 500 milliliter bottles of Coca-Cola. It was beautiful.

And then I moved to Tanzania. And something weird happened. I started running.

It hurts pretty bad most of the time and I pretty much hate it. That’s probably why it’s on my mind right now. On the 15^th of September of this year (that’s roughly 7 weeks from today), I’ll be trying to complete a half marathon in Sarajevo. We’re leading up to this trip with a few days in Paris, which means my final training runs may well be along the Seine. That’ll be nice, too, because instead of ralphing the physical incarnation of my nerves onto the lawns of the Greek Orthodox Church (oops), a foreign diplomat (sorry, Norway), or my neighbors (I’m not sorry, you jerks), it’ll all be washed away by a scenic, historic river. So, that’ll be nice.

Did you think I’d be able to cover forest fire, half-marathoning, diarrhea, and vomit all in one post?  You’re welcome, internet.

Finishing my first 5k.  I'm in the pink shirt.
See how few people are left?  That's cause I was way at the back.

Child Labor

I’d like to recommend a dissertation topic to any takers. 

While I was in America a few weeks back, I got into a conversation with my pops. He’s an old-school story-teller, the type to spin wild yarns that may or may not have really happened. As he likes to say whenever I challenge the veracity of one of his tales, “Never let the facts interfere with a good story.”

Anyway. Most of dear old Dad’s stories are numbered. Not literally, but we know them all so well, they might as well be. We know about how he copied the master key to his undergraduate college. (He was the head of the dish crew and found the key on a returned plate; he carefully sanded down a blank key until he could literally unlock the campus. Not bad, until the story closes with him choosing after hours time in the Physics lab… am I making him sound like a terrorist? He’s not. Just a tinkerer.) We also know the story of my great aunt trying to scatter the ashes of her father – that one is a real gem. It involves old ladies on adult-sized tricycles, a windy final dispatch, and rubber waders. And we know about the time my great-grandfather accidentally shot himself in the foot. The stories get better and better with each re-telling.

This one, however, was new. We were chatting about my Great Aunt Dorothy. When Aunt Dorothy was just a girl in the early 1900s, she, like any girl her age, was interested in ways to earn some extra pennies to spend at the local candy shoppe.* So, she got a job.

Now, this is where I get back to the title of my post. (Did I have anyone nervous about how my organization is planning to reach sustainability? Settle down, now.) When I was a kid, there were only a few things you could do to earn extra pocket money. I babysat and housesat for the neighbors. My brother mowed lawns in the summer and shoveled snow in the winter. And that’s all I can really think of. (Because I swear no one ever made any money at a lemonade stand and I was never up early enough to even consider a paper route.)

In Mississippi, some neighborhood kids knocked on my door once and asked if they could collect the pecans that had fallen from the tree in my front yard. (PECANS?  I HAVE PECANS?)** They wanted to take them over to a local shop that would pay a certain price per pound.

But Great Aunt Dorothy was too young to be sitting for children. She could, however, get a job assisting the local doctor. All she had to do was sit on the end of a dock and dangle her legs into the lake. This might have been tricky for a kid, seeing as she really wasn’t meant to kick her legs or splash the water. Why? (I can feel your question burning through the computer screen.)

Get this: she was fishing for leeches…with her legs! These were still the magical days of yore when doctors needed leeches to “treat” their patients. So Great Aunt Dorothy would dip her legs into the water and then pull the little blood-suckers off to sell them to the local doc.

Now, this is an Africa blog, so I don’t want to neglect some local flavor. I’ll admit to pretty scattered and anecdotal research, but so far, I can’t find anyone who remembers earning money as a child. The best I can get is from a colleague who, knowing he wanted something, would spend the morning helping his mom: washing her clothes, cleaning the windows, tidying the house, only to ask her for some money later that day. (Sound familiar?  I guess some things are universal.) But this actually makes sense. Village life in rural Africa would preclude children from earning money for watching other kids and chores like fetching water, cooking dinner, monitoring cattle, and the like are expected rather than rewarded (or, if they are rewarded, it’s in the less fun-blog-joking way of getting to go to school rather than candies from the local shoppe).

But now I’m interested. I’d love to read a paper or a book or something called “Pocket Money: Innocuous Child Labor Throughout History.” But, I have a full-time job, so if one of you out there in the blogosphere has some extra time or needs a dissertation topic, you don’t even have to credit me for the idea. Just send me what you find out!

* Just trying to stick with the old-timey feel.

** This was an exciting day for me.  I had no idea.

Reflections on Two Years in the Field

Yesterday was my anniversary.

I never expected to even be here.  I did have expectations, but those all landed me in a fur hat, drinking vodka, and singing folk songs about the Volga while strumming a balalaika.  For those of you who know me outside of the interwebs, you likely already know about my little obsession.*  But, what do they say?  Life is what happens when you’re making other plans… no, no, that’s not the one I want.  Right, it’s “if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.”  Anyhoo.  Here I am two years later typing at eight degrees South instead of sixty-ish degrees North.

A lot can happen in two years and I feel I’ve accomplished and experienced a good amount.  (Deep breath in…) I’ve read like 50 books, climbed a mountain, been charged by a hippo, swam in the Nile, sailed on Lake Victoria, ridden in a hot air balloon, learned to drive on the wrong side of the road, ran a 5k, purchased and cared for a puppy who I subsequently semi-trained, been promoted, moved countries, improved my Swahili, and learned many of the ins and outs of my new best friend (Microsoft Excel).

I’ve also been dished up a whole heap of crap.  I’ve been held at gunpoint, defrauded, had a machete-brandishing man try to "adopt" the aforementioned puppy, lost my computer, music, pictures, and not to mention WEDDING RING to thieves (okay that one’s a combo with the first, but I felt it deserved it’s own section), suffered malaria and steady intestinal discomfort, and may or may not have contracted Schistosomiasis.  Which is worms.  Awesome.

So, it’s been eventful.

Starting this post, I wanted to think of something eloquent – stirring even – to summarize my time spent here so far.  I wanted to think of something persuasive to convince you that it’s all worth it because we’re changing lives and rooting out hunger.  But for some reason, instead, all I can think is to tell you about a game I just learned.

It’s not the no-pants game, which I recently learned from my dear friend, Ducky.  If you want to hear that one, just ask.  You can play it anywhere.  I was just a spectator because it turns out that Meridith might be called Duck but I’m just plain Chicken.

This game is called “goat or kid.”  You can probably guess the rules.  When you hear a baby crying in the village you have to decide…. Goat or Kid?  Could have been called “Kid or Kid” really.  (It woulda been if I ran things…)

The chances of you getting to play this game are very low if you’re reading this from a developed country.  You probably only get to experience goats at petting zoos, and that’s kind of a shame.  Then again, not really.  In fact, I might not mind a more limited interaction with these, the dirtiest of creatures.  Because it turns out: goats are dumb.  And noisy.  And under-foot.  And tough (the meat part).  And just generally annoying.

That said, I’m still thinking of getting one for Pickles.

Among the things I never expected to do... on safari with mis padres.

*I’m a Russophile.  I have a certificate to prove it and everything.

Just Like Ma Used to Make It

Nothing quite says “holiday” like the food that defines it.  I grew up eating a set menu for just about every holiday, not just the major ones.  Obviously, we did the traditional spread for Thanksgiving and something similar at Christmas, but we also had a couple of others.

On Fat Tuesday, it was always pancakes for dinner.  To celebrate the Luck of the Irish on St. Patty’s Day, we ate corned beef with sauerkraut.  For Easter, my mom would break out the big guns with a breaded ham garnished with pineapple.  But, my favorite by far was the 4^th of July.  Bratwurst, Juicy Lucys (cream-cheese stuffed burgers), baked beans with real Wisconsin cheese curds, corn on the cob, devilled eggs, and don’t get me started on the salads: potato, pasta, garden, take your pick! Now, set all that to the pleasant crackling sounds of sparklers and – for me – you’ve just defined summer.

                                         

So, yeah, I love the 4^th of July.  I love that even the sleepiest of towns and cities come alive with the Sousa-spangled parades, fireworks, and a sense of community with everyone you meet.  Needless to say, I struggle with the fact that, around here, the 4^th of July is just another day at the office.  No stars.  No stripes.  Certainly not forever.

However, over the past two years, I’ve learned an important lesson: when it comes to holiday food, expats can’t/dont/won't shy away from the kitchen, the garden or, if it comes to it, the slaughterhouse.  During his introduction to Thanksgiving, my English friend George not only learned that Americans aren’t crazy for loving this family-filled holiday (tragically slandered in his home country…), but he also got to cut the head off the turkey.  Because, facing a dangerous deficit of Butterball, we’ll get the real thing, feed it for a week, and then spend 4 hours plucking each one of those stubborn feathers out.

Thankfully, hamburger is not in short supply, so we won’t be slaughtering anything this weekend.  But, we are still missing a lot of key ingredients for a properly mid-western Independence Day picnic.  We can’t get brats or the right fruits and berries to decorate the cool-whip cake like a flag (yeah, you know the one). 

For that matter, where's the cool-whip?  And the graham cracker crusts?!

So we’ll have to make do.  Today we’re facing down a lot of serious from-scratch cooking for our 4^th of July extravaganza tomorrow.  In the past week, I’ve had ricotta drying from my water tank for an attempt at cheesecake and experiments on our new pasta machine for one of the salads.  Right now, the boys are out looking for a grill grate and, when they return, I'll head to our local western-style grocer who, thank goodness, carries food coloring… because I swear my desert is going to look festive regardless of the presence of strawberries and blueberries.

So, Happy 4^th, America - we’ll be celebrating you tomorrow!  And, since he’s here, we’re hoping the Prez will stop by our little barbeque, but I’m not holding my breath…




Before I sign off, though, I gotta lodge one complaint.  Why is it that I can carry firearms and ammunition in my checked luggage but not sparklers?  Dear NRA (because I can only assume this is your fault): WHY ARE YOU THE WAY THAT YOU ARE?!

Ohio Pride

It's pride weekend. That refers to something my illusive African readers might find shocking, so I'm scaling this up to encompass my general sense of Ohio pride.

I'm from Ohio. I've probably mentioned that a few times on this blog. In my experience, Ohio usually only surfaces as our coastal brethren complain about "flyover states," whenever an election comes around, or as the butt of jokes. I'll admit one thing though, they're often good jokes. (Thank you, Drew Carey, and the guy who made this video and then this video.)*

In response, we humble Ohioans have developed a fierce pride (re: defensiveness) that sometimes manifests itself in the unifying hatred of our neighbor to the North.

*Woman of Questionable Character.
Come on, internet, this is a family-friendly blog.
Still, you see what I mean?

When we're not hating on Michigan for their audacity of having a football rivalry with... someone else (those jerks!), we're representing our more endearing pride whenever we go... anywhere.

But when I say "anywhere,"  I really mean anywhere.

Whoa.

But still, I'm a Columbus kid, and so I can't really avoid it. It's the same reason I have no shame about my life-long devotion to Leonardo DiCaprio in his Titanic days of glory or the fact that I still own both Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync albums. When you're a 12-year-old girl in 1997, there are some things that are simply outside your sphere of influence.

So I'm proud.  And I thought I'd share a few of the reasons why with all of you:

1. Ohio matters - when you're wondering about whether or not to cast a ballot, you're probably justified. There's no real reason to do it because, unless you're from a swing state like me, it probably won't matter.
2. Ohio is the mother of the Presidents. Eight American presidents call the Buckeye State home. So, for history nerds, our state is a veritable playground of presidential libraries and historical sites.
3. Speaking of famous Ohioans, we are also the home of (yes, North Carolina) flight. The Wright Brothers, Neil Armstrong, John Glenn, and Eddie Rickenbacker all hail from Ohio... as do their inventions (Get out of here, NC!)
4. Let's keep going shall we: How about Thomas Edison, Annie Oakley, Bob Hope, Pete Rose, Steven Spielberg, Dave Chappelle?  Impressed yet?  (I tried to hit a variety of interests there.)
5. But our people aren't our only talent. Goodness, no. We've also got a ton of fun things to do:

• The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
• Pro Football Hall of Fame
• Cedar Point
• Rails to Trails all over the place (my fave!)
• Lake Erie
• Outdoor Dramas
• Cleveland in general (30 Rock, anyone?)

There are lots of other reasons to like Ohio - the Buckeye songs, the retail (so many things are from here!), the test market food, the hot-but-not-too-hot summers, but this post is getting a bit long and, as you might guess, the thing I love the most about Ohio is that it's home.**

*Go watch now. I'll wait.
**Too sappy? I can see that.

Hey! Hey!  Why do they say West Virginia is almost heaven?  Because it's next door to Ohio!

Dar es Sweaty.

I'm in Dar. Busy, sweaty, traffic-jammed Dar. This is not the capital of Tanzania, but you probably think it is. So do all the government officials who live here even though their office is a bone-rattling, multi-hour rough road drive away... in Dodoma... the actual capital. So, you're in good company.

I'm passing through on my way to America for a few weeks of visiting the land of milk and honey (and Chipotle).  But since I'm here for the next 4-ish hours, I thought you might enjoy a few fun facts about the de-facto capital of my current home.

• The first thing you should know: Dar is the hottest place on earth. I have no evidence for this other than the perma-shvitz I'm working whenever I'm here.

• The city was founded in the 1860s by the Sultan of Zanzibar as a summer residence. Zanzibar is now one of the world's premier paradise island destinations, so I really don't know what this guy was after.

• The Sultan of Zanzibar was also the Sultan of Oman.  That's not really a Dar fact but I still think it's weird. He moved to Zanzibar from Oman because of how much cash he made from the slave trade. Oh, also, he had 36 kids.  Whoa.

• Dar is really Dar es Salaam which is commonly translated as "Haven of Peace" or "Abode of Peace." Given that the city was christened by a man who was making his fortune from slavery, I find this name weird. That said, Dar is known to be much safer than its East African counterpart, Nairobi.

• Swahili, the lingua franca of East Africa, originated in and around Dar (or maybe Zanzibar... it was a really long time ago so there isn't really a common consensus on this point). Swahili is a member of the bantu language group, which is a sub-branch of the Niger-Congo languages (think: interior Africa). But, because of the heavy Arabic influence (12 centuries), a good deal of its vocabulary is derived from there.

• Rent in the nice areas of Dar is absurdly high - easily 2,500 USD (or much, much more) per month for a small flat. While that's frustrating enough, most Tanzanian landlords expect a full year's payment up front. You can see why we only visit Dar and don't stay.

There you go. If you're planning a visit, there's plenty to see, do, eat, etc., but you can get a guidebook for all of that.

Happy trails.

Happy New Year!

You may not have realized it, but it's 2014, y'all.

My circadian rhythm is all messed up. Well, not my circadian rhythm - that's my body's 24-hour cycle. To be fair, that does get messed up pretty regularly though - just because, whenever possible, David and I flee for foreign shores.

All in the last 8 months or so... if you want jobs like ours, get in touch! We're hiring!

Side bar: This reminds me of one of my all-time favorite songs: Pamela Brown. I really like the Leo Kottke version, which has a folksy feel, but the original, twangier Tom T. Hall version ain't too shabby either. You should you-tube it, mainly for verse 2:

I've seen the lights of cities and I've been inside their doors / 

Sailed to foreign countries and walked upon their shores /

I guess the guy she married was the best part of my luck / 

She dug him cause he drove a pickup truck.

You'll have to go listen to the song to get the rest of that little delight. Anyway.

So, it's not my circadian rhythm this time. It's like my "circ-annum" rhythm or something. All across America, high school seniors are lining up to walk across stages into what, for many of them, will be the best summer ever. Days are getting longer, grills are being wheeled out of storage, gardens are being planted, and weekend schedules are filling up with festival dates, outdoor concerts, cookouts, and bike rides.

In painful contrast, I'm shivering. Literally shivering. Leaves are covering the ground and I've spent the last two weekends in sweaters and boots working on a Christmas knitting project. Last night, I started a puzzle while my dinner - soup - simmered on the stove and I worked on my second cup of tea.

We're less than 8 degrees off the equator, but in the most confusing direction - South. I never realized the weather had such a big effect on me - but I am fully in winter-mode. Of course, if any of my former ilk (Ohioans) visited, they'd laugh. Despite the smattering of leaves on the ground, the bougainvillea is still in full bloom and we're tropical enough that there are limes fruiting on the trees in the backyard of our office as I type this.

But, still.  I'm all out of sorts.

It doesn't help my screwy sense of time that, for our purposes, it is 2014. Monday was basically our New Year's Celebration. We - and by "we", I mean the 1,147 farmers we served during the 2013 harvest - met our payment deadline.* So, it's on to 2014! We're diving head first into enrollment and putting our focus on expanding our services to (likely) more than double the 2013 headcount.

Anyway. My New Year's Resolution: buy more sweaters.  Seriously guys, I'm really chilly.

*And this is why my job is amazing - we're talking about some of the poorest people in the world and what did they do?  This year, 1,147 of them planted what, for many, will be the best harvest of their lives and they all paid for it - in full - by the deadline.  That's how poor people grow their way out of poverty and into a better life.  Cool, right?  If you agree, let me know -- we're hiring!

It's just that I've been busy.

My mom's been bugging me to write more on my blog.  She's even lobbied for a few particular stories.

I still can't tell you about the time that I applied for my Kenyan driver's license.  I'm saving that little gem for my tell-all memoir: "Eggs in the Engine Block."

I also can't claim to have personally lived the story that's inspired my memoir's winning title, but since I think it's a pretty good representation of the optimism, resourcefulness, and unintentional hilarity of the residents of East Africa, I'll probably pretend that it is my story.  I'm looking forward to being exposed as a fraud on Oprah.  But again, you'll have to wait for the memoir.

Given that those two are staying in my back pocket for now, my mom thought I should tell the story behind this:

Schistosomiasis anyone?

But, honestly, what's to tell?  I paid for a ticket and a kayak outfitter hooked me up with some safety gear before we set off.  That's not to say that careening down the Nile isn't a total baller way to spend a Friday, but I'm not sure there's all that much to share, really.

It just turns out that launching a country operation takes up a lot of time.  I've also been busily trying to check things off the old 30 Before 30 list, which makes for some nice life accomplishments, but not so many write-up-able moments.  Since my last update, I've finished a bunch of books* from the hundred-best list I'm working on (22 months and 60ish books remain...oy).  I've also gone from my couch to a 5k and am currently trying to kick that up a notch (10k here we come) though I've been side-lined in the last week by a sick coach.**

So, it's not that I've given up on this blog... it's just that I've been busy.


* The Beautiful and Damned; LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring; On the Road; LOTR: The Two Towers; To the Lighthouse; Naked Lunch; My Antonia; Rabbit, Run; The Jungle.  Need a recommendation?  I feel good about only around half of these, so ask first.

** David had the flu, but not to worry.  He's on the mend.