(Pronounced TEE-zed)

Writing from Kilimanjaro International Airport in 80 degree weather across from a fully decorated Christmas tree, I’m thinking about all the ups and downs of the past month. It’s been a while since I last posted, so bear with me because this will be a long one. But for those who aren’t too fond of a lot of reading, the lists are twice as long and the pictures twice as numerous so everybody wins.

I normally have the attention span of my neighbor's three month old dog, Moshi, when reading a blog.

Whenever there’s good news and bad news, I tend to ask for the bad news first. I’ve been a little under the weather the past two-plus weeks with a nasty, persistent, debilitating, sudden…cold. Boring in terms of acute infections in Africa, I know, but this one kept me inside for over a week. I have to admit I had it coming, since I had been entirely healthy, knocking on wood, and doing my best not to think or talk about being sick for my first three months. Thankfully I’m patient enough to wait out sore throats, coughing, congestion, and an inability to communicate verbally, but this one is still lingering. After an onslaught of Western remedies from CVS failed to achieve anything, I decided to go for a tried and true local cure: Zanzibar.

One week of self-administered quarantine = lots of movies and lots of Kili pictures.

OK, so maybe it was a little more planned out than that, but I boarded the bus for Zbar (as the cool/lazy kids call it) with a stack of kleenex (a.k.a. napkins) and a complete lack of a voice. It just so happened that my travel buddy, Kelly, had also lost her voice overnight. This would be a fun one. Our coach left Moshi at 7:15 am, miraculously almost on time, and took me east well beyond where I had already been in Tanzania. Although it was still pretty hair-raising compared to a standard Greyhound trip in the U.S., the eight-hour ride was pleasantly uneventful. We passed through the Usambara Mountains, which looked more like the Peruvian Andes to me than an isolated range in East Africa. We watched a movie, Emotional Risk, and its sequel…twice. We saw the reality of bus travel (among the less reputable companies) in this area – an accident that left one bus with a cracked windshield and another on its side. Finally we made it to Dar es Salaam, where our optimistic goal was to catch the last ferry over to the island of Zanzibar. Having consulted friends and Moshi veterans alike, we figured our chances of making it to the island in one day were 25% at best. Still, it doesn’t hurt to set goals, so we caught the first cabbie at the Dar bus stop and (after some haggling) sped through the mid-afternoon traffic of the largest city in Tanzania.

The Belafonte, or just a creepy deserted ship in Stone Town harbor?

Thankfully we had some guidance from Maria, a friend living there, who warned us that it would be a tight connection. She also warned that we would be overwhelmed with hawkers at the Dar ferry office, but we really started to take this advice seriously when our Tanzanian taxi driver reiterated them. If you’re wondering what I mean by “overwhelmed,” imagine you just stepped out of a taxi in a new city only to be greeted by about a dozen young men shouting at you to hurry with them in about fifteen different directions. And we had to keep an eye on our bags. And we had to pay the driver. Oh yeah, and we had to buy tickets before the boat left. Before we knew it we had been shuttled into a tiny office, where one of the guys from outside proceeded to sit down at the desk in the frenzy to appear like he could sell us a ticket. We left Catherine, our Aussie friend from Moshi, in this office and went next door to the resident ticketing desk. An old man seated there brought some calm (and frustration) to the situation when he said we could make it as long as we forked over our money and booked it. One of the “friends” from outside had claimed one of our bags (actually Catherine’s) and led us out around the building. First Kelly and I picked up our ferry tickets on the run, then we proceeded down to the dock hearing a series of “pole pole” (“slow down”) calls from confused onlookers. Just like that scene in Indiana Jones, we made on the boat it right as the gate went up. Winded, we had made it with Catherine’s rogue bag, but no idea if she had jumped on the boat before us. Our self-hired porter demanded money as the boat pulled away, and our Australian friend appeared from around the corner on the deck. All was well as we coasted through the port with two hours ahead of us to come back to Earth.

A rare victory over African tranportation

The ferry encountered some slightly rough seas upon reaching the Indian Ocean, but all in all the trip wasn’t bad and we didn’t see anyone lose their ugali. We met up with Maria and three of her friends on the boat before we arrived in the port of Stone Town at sunset through a graveyard of rusted cargo ships. Of course, the first thing we learned after stepping into town was that the entire island had been without power for a full day and wasn’t expecting it back on soon. Some hotels would have generators, but fans or air conditioning would be a stretch. Again, Maria and her friends came through for the group and used their Zanzibar savvy to find us a cheap place to stay for the night. It may have been the hottest sleepless night I have ever experienced (with the illness still in full force), but it didn’t matter too much since my stomach was full of seafood from Forodhani Gardens and I had a day in Stone Town to look forward to. The charm of this capital city of the former island nation is tough to describe in words. We didn’t go on any tours, see any attractions, or experience any entertainment. Still, just walking aimlessly around town on a hot Saturday morning gave us a taste of this ancient Arab trading center. In terms of architecture, the main focus is on the elaborate doors, but the dirt-worn buildings themselves were dripping with character. The quiet alleyways in the middle of the town were also a welcome change from walking around Moshi, since a wandering merchant couldn’t spot us from a hundred feet away to lure us into his shop. We basically spent the morning taking pictures, complaining about inflated prices, and playing bau (a Swahili board game much like mancala) before catching a van to the east coast for some quality beach time.

One of the many huge decorated doors in Stone Town. The girls were determined to take enough pictures to put together an overpriced coffee table book.

I had heard mixed reviews on both the town and the hotel where we would spend the next four days. Paje is one of the larger coastal towns and thus has a reputation for being slightly crowded and busy. The hotel/resort looked amazing from the website, but of course the only people to write reviews were those who had been thoroughly disappointed. Thankfully our weekend was neither busy nor unpleasant. Dealing with sunscreen and heat in December (still sick) was odd in a bad way, but completely outweighed by the fact that this place represents the picture of “paradise” in my mind. A group of bungalows opened up to a grove of palm trees, the only obstacle between my room and the ridiculously blue ocean. The “resort” consisted of a bar/restaurant/reception area, pool, and about ten beach chairs, but that’s all we needed. The others voted to skip out on any recreational activities in favor of unending lazy beach time, so I’ll have to save any snorkeling or dolphin visits until next time. The beach wasn’t entirely peaceful, as a number of local merchants would approach any tourist offering trinkets, snorkeling tours, coconuts, pineapples, seafood barbecue, massages, etc. This game got old after a while, but we did take up the offer for coconuts. A young guy about high school age would free-climb a 40-foot tree in about 10 seconds and toss his prizes to the ground. He then peeled an opened them so we could drink the juice and eat the inside for a cheap snack. For dinners, all we needed to do was walk down the beach for a few minutes and walk into a place with a generator. This part of the island turned out to be extremely quiet before the holiday rush, so we probably saw barely thirty other tourists the whole time.

Slightly unbelievable

When I ran out of patience for just sitting on the beach, I decided to take advantage of the drastic low tide that opened up hundreds of meters of extra beach to check out. I actually decided to keep going all the way to the breakers (past the reef), which turned out to be over a kilometer from where I started. Unfortunately the coral and sea urchins got the best of me just before I made it to the dark blue waters, but I ended up with a nice little guided snorkeling tour of the seaweed farms and reef bed. Of course this trip had to end, and thankfully Precision Airlines made the trip back much less eventful than the ride from Moshi. Oh, and you ask why the entire island had no power? Their power plant exploded, apparently. Part of me hopes it comes back for the Christmas/New Years crowd, but another part hopes they can see the stars as clearly as we did through the palm trees.

No shortage of priceless lounging spots

To completely defy the laws of chronological order and confuse everybody, I’ll jump back now to Thanksgiving time. I was a little skeptical of the plan…it was the weekend before Thanksgiving and a group of Americans working in East Africa would converge in a private lake house in Kenya for a traditional dinner. Plans beyond that were sketchy at best, but I was excited to reunite with friends I had made on the Uganda rafting trip. If the bus to Dar sounded interesting, you should experience the shuttle to Nairobi. Opting for the more expensive luxury coaster (mini bus), Malavika and I endured the somewhat paved road to the capital of Kenya for more than seven dusty (yes, inside the bus too) hours en route to the lakeside town of Naivasha. The unpredictability of transportation shined yet again as our matatu from Nairobi to the lake town included music videos on a television screen, a stolen (and recovered) cell phone in city traffic, and a transportation center that was impossible for our friends to locate at night. It took some effort to convince everyone we didn’t need a taxi, but eventually we caught up with our ride and finally made it to our destination.

Diversions like this due to construction made for a rough ride to Kenya.

Twiga House is basically a private luxury house on a side-lake of Lake Naivasha. And the great thing about East Africa is that a bunch of regular college students can easily afford to rent it for a weekend. Fifteen of us in total, we put together a few good meals and enjoyed some quality time at the house, but the real fun was had outdoors. Even in the yard, there was a close call with a stray hippo at night and talk of zebras breaking in through the fence. Beyond that, we could see the lazy hippos and flamingos in the lake from the back porch. Believe it or not though, the two adventures of the weekend required us to actually put on shoes and leave the Real World Kenya house.

No biggie, just another cool view from a back porch

Our Saturday trip took us to Hell’s Gate National Park. The ominous name exists for a good reason: the park rests on somewhat unstable geologic formations, resulting in hot springs and an uncommon amount of underground pressure. Kenyan ingenuity has brought about a massive project on this land to run one of the world’s only geothermal power plants, bringing a dizzying amount of pipelines and industrial buildings to the national park. Beyond this first impression, however, we were treated to a day of gorge hiking in terrain that doesn’t seem to belong in the otherwise green Great Rift Valley. For those of you who haven’t been gorge hiking (who hasn’t?), it was basically a long walk through a mini canyon along a thirsty creek.

We thought we were serious hikers until a huge school group in their fancy uniforms overtook us.

To make matters interesting, there were a handful of boulders in the way that required us to make use of what little climbing skills we had packed for the day. Even more interesting was the fact that our Ugandan friend brought along her two sons (about 2 and 5 years old). While our nimble guide took the lead in both climbing and child transport, we all chipped in to make sure the whole group made it through unscathed. Adrian, the older brother, may have appeared tramatized, but he’ll definitely brag about this in five years. The highlights of this hike included finding plenty of obsidian stones, Todd scaling a 25-foot wall without equipment, our guide telling us how Tomb Raider 2 was filmed there, the steaming trickles of water flowing down the walls in places, floating pumice stones, and the fantastic view at the end.

Almost the same view we had at the beginning of the hike, but still much more impressive this time

The second trip started out exactly the same as the first: we arrive at the park, guards ask for a standard exorbitant entry fee, Damian commences bargaining, and about 15 minutes later we all enter at a discounted student/volunteer/resident rate. This time his American negotiating charm gained us access to the Naivasha Country Club, which is pretty much exactly how you’d imagine an African country club on a lake. We weren’t there for tea and croquet, however. We just wanted a place to catch a boat across the lake to Crescent Island, one of the only places on the continent where tourists can do a self-guided walking tour among wildlife. Given, the wildlife is limited to the tame variety – giraffes, zebra, and wildebeest mostly – but it made for some nice photos. It also provided an opportunity for Miriam to fulfill her lifelong dream of chasing down a pack of zebra for the sole purpose of frightening them enough to make a noise. Unfortunately science still may never know what sound a zebra makes, but at least we didn’t have to deal with any angry guides or park rangers afterwards.

The giraffes and zebra were pretty skittish the whole time, but a few of us managed to creep within about 30 yards at one point. None of the pictures will show it, but being this close really gives you a better idea of how these creatures are simultaneously so enormous and graceful. Our boat ride back to the country club was spiced up when the captain of our six-person vessel offered to throw some bait out to lure the fish eagles close. This well-rehearsed show consisted of the guide whistling, showing the fish, and throwing it into the water just before the eagle would appear out of a treetop from several hundred yards away to grab the snack with its talons. Obviously I wasted all of my chances to see this while I stared at my camera to get the perfectly timed shot…which of course didn’t happen. Lake Naivasha was another successful outing on this trip, but what would it be wit hout a movie reference? Out of Africa was filmed on Crescent Island, and the animals we saw were descendents of those that were brought in just for the movie. I guess you can’t escape Hollywood even when you least expect it.

If only giraffes could use phones, Anne and Damian would have a restraining order out against them.

Thanksgiving in Moshi provided two additional traditional dinners, spoiling me beyond belief. All three of these even featured turkey, which is a miracle be cause Nairobi is the only place one can find it in this part of the world. The Bowes hosted a smaller doctors compound get-together with some friends who were visiting from the States. As always the food was great (probably with the exception of the cheese/garlic bread I threw together at the last minute), but this happened to be the night the termites emerged from the ground in full force. All it took was a brief afternoon shower, which isn't out of the ordinary, but the air was thick with small, blind versions of dragonflies. These bugs obviously wanted in on the festivities, as they found any chance to sneak in a cracked door or through a hole in the window screen. Luckily for us, the fact that they can't see anything makes it very easy to swat them out of the air and send them back outside to find their own food. I've only witnessed this strange occurrence one other time so far. On one of my sick days home from work, a steady stream of the creatures emerged from a patch of land in my backyard for fifteen minutes straight as "Flight of the Valkyries" played in my congested head. Back on topic though, the second Moshi Thanksgiving dinner was at the Crumps' house down the road. These folks also know how to host, as w e were treated to games of mafia and guess-the-famous-person-written-on-the-card-attached-to-your-back among a nice group of kids and adults from the KCMC and ISM communities. And what Thanksgiving dinner isn't complete without a post-dessert live viewing of a New Zealand vs. France rugby match (with enthusiastic narration from the resident Kiwi)?

Sunset over the Rift Valley on the way to the lake house

As always, life hasn’t just been trips and adventures. Work as usual has been going pretty well, and the first year medical students at KCMC just concluded their Community Health projects with presentations last week. It was very interesting to see the responses they came up with on their own to the problems witnessed in all the different villages. Many of them were shaky in their presentation skills, but I saw a lot of improvement in critical thinking over the course of the project. I also think it’s priceless that they have had a chance to do meaningful fieldwork immediately upon starting their medical training. It’s probably just the public health bias within me, but I think American college and medical students could learn a lot from experiences like this early on in their education. It was also flattering and a little weird to see some of the groups acknowledge me in their poster presentations…as “Dr. Andrew.” If people start taking that thought seriously (along with the “occupation” line on my res ident’s permit), it can only mean trouble.

Outside the local primary school's kitchen in the village we surveyed.

So all of that happened since I last wrote, plus I had to say goodbye to a lot of good friends who won’t be back in Moshi next month: Christian, Mirke, Henriette, Linn, Marianne, Hanna, Judi, Daniel, Julianne, Kelly, Fabian, Urs, Josh, David, Jan Willem, Wouter, Steph, Magda, Helena, etc. etc… It will be nice to meet some new folks in January and see some familiar faces, but hanging out with this international group was a very cool experience over my first four months in Moshi. My plane home for Christmas just landed, but I’ll get back to writing in January for Part II of my Moshi experience.

Marianne and Linn just before heading back to Norway, (via Zanzibar) the land of Christmas lottery tickets and all things floppy.

PS: Please excuse the sloppy writing, as this was done entirely in airports and I'm too tired to look back over it. A million bonus points to anyone who gets the reference in the title of this post.

Looks like dinner time at the lake house.

This week's soundtrack:

UB40 – Red Red Wine

Frank Sinatra – Somethin’ Stupid

Kenny Rogers – The Gambler

Rammstein – Seemann

Fleetwood Mac – Silver Springs

The Kinks – Strangers

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Black Tongue

Michael Jackson – Bad

The Decemberists – The Crane Wife 3

Modest Mouse – Teeth Like God’s Shoeshine

Bob Dylan – A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall

Arcade Fire – Keep the Car Running

Bob Marley – Iron Lion Zion

Modest Mouse – Edit the Sad Parts

The Walkmen – Wake Up

Cold War Kids – Hang Me up to Dry

Frank Sinatra – That’s Life

Pink Floyd – Us and Them

Eddie Vedder – Hard Sun

Arcade Fire – Woodlands National Anthem

Al Green – I’m So Tired of Being Alone

Johnny Cash – I Got Stripes

Shannon – Let the Music Play

Othar Turner & The Rising Star Fife & Drum Band -- Shortnin' / Henduck

Zanzibar bonus disc:

The Kinks – Apeman

Booker T. and the M.G.s – Green Onions

The Beach Boys – Sloop John B.

Vampire Weekend – Mansard Roof

Led Zeppelin – D’Yer Mak’er

Jack Johnson – Symbol in My Driveway

Toots and the Maytals – Pressure Drop

Bob Marley and the Wailers – Sun Is Shining

Three Dog Night – Shambala

311 – I’ll Be Here Awhile

Israel Kamakawiwo’ole – Henehene Kou ‘Aka

Jack Johnson – F-Stop Blues

Additional team attire spotted:

Raptors

Phillies

Dolphins

Bills

Brewers

Browns

Lions

Sharks

Bears

Pistons

Red Wings

Royals

Bengals

Falcons

Spurs

We also spotted this guy's attire: flannel shirt, long pants, and Gilligan hat while windsurfing. He deserves a blog of his own.

Dala dala themes:

Super custom

Rastababy

Super Wax

Rap

Said n’ Said

B 52

Bulldog

Happy Nation

Ranger

Redemption Express

Take it easy

The Barack Obama

Hello Express

Red Card

Super Man Digital Movement

Revelation

Jubilation

Ruff Ryders

Soft Cotton

Love Situation

Hot Stepper

Kazakhstan

Brenda 09

Small Axe

Laizor Son

Bad Intension

No Way Out

Texas Boy

Tough Luv

The Spike

West Life

Jewel

No Air

Hustle & Flow

Katalyst

Dear Folks

Sly

Wrong Number

Mayhem

The Rock

Providence

Dreams

Cocktail

Marine

Dear Mama

Undisputed

Nice Guy

Country Boy

Flipper

Memories

The Ol’ Skool

Chain Game

Area Code

Testimony

Unfinished Riddle

Dipset

Struggle

Precious
Black Marker

Testament Restored

Love Me or Leave Me Alone

Confusion

The Wailers

You Never Know

Suprise

dag

Bridal

Digital Control

Ride on Time

Perfect

2Pac Life

No Objection

Skyline

j.com

Sunset Beach

Paradise

Hollyhood

i-pod

City Jet

Inflammable

King of the Road

Makaveli

Hakuna Umeme, Hakuna Matata

No power, no worries…although we have had to live by this mantra since I arrived, the situation has been greatly improved for the first two weeks of November. Nevertheless, of course it was out for our first attempt to have a doctors’ compound movie night last week. That night turned into a nice candlelight and Chinese food get-together in A33 though, and the beginning of a weekend full of new international friends and experiences (good and bad) in this unpredictable country.

For months, Malavika and Dr. Wilkinson had been working hard to put together a big blood drive in Moshi. Working in KCMC’s surgical theater, he often sees women whose surgeries are delayed indefinitely just because there is no blood available at that particular time. The good news for Moshi is that there is a blood bank across the street. The bad news is that it is typically poorly stocked (despite being well funded), partly because it is stretched thin being one of four such centers in a country of 45 million people. Although a number of recruits for our blood drive had flaked out citing anxiety over testing, mistrust of anything medical in Africa, and disdain for KCMC, the turnout more than doubled our expectations (cue Cameron Crazies) with a final count of 61 units. I was one of the first to donate in the morning, and the process went very smoothly. Compared to Red Cross procedures, the donation was stripped down to the bare essential steps: medical history, hemoglobin check, blood pressure/pulse, cleaning the site, filling a bag, stopping the bleeding, and snacks. Absent were the private cubicles, extra collection test tubes, bar code scanners, repetitive questions about my name and any iodine allergies, and exit paperwork. Either way, I gave some blood without any issue, and at no point did I feel uncomfortable about it. Malavika did a great job talking the blood bank folks into spending a whole Saturday on this, all while turning on the charm to convince anyone with a heart and veins to donate. We’re hoping to duplicate this effort again early next year to make it into a sustainable event including ex-pats, KCMC staff/students, and townies.

Take that, Red Cross donation exclusion criteria.

Saturday night’s post-blood drive celebration introduced me to some new people, including the Aussies David and Josh, as well as the Germans (who were happy to meet someone who speaks German) Daniel and Judith. By the end of this, what had been a small maybe-trip planned for the next morning to the waterfalls at Marangu turned into a 12 person entourage. See the attached pie chart for a breakdown of the nationalities represented:

And a partridge in a pear tree...

The day started out just fine…the Moshi veterans showed the newcomers the ropes in terms of taking the dala dala to down, most of the group having arrived just that week. The frustrations started when we found a dala dala to drive us the half hour to Marangu. Being beckoned by conductors wanting to take us to every other part of the region, we dodged through a few cars before finding one man calling out “Marangu Marangu Marangu.” He told us it would cost 1,000 shillings (75 cents) and we departed with no issue beyond the engine’s suspect performance. Ten minutes down the road, when the time came to pay up, of course the conductor started asking for 1,500 shillings. While we didn’t care about paying the extra 30 cents, a price list and word from friends confirmed the more expensive price as the real one…meaning we had been lied to. With that more or less settled, we jumped out of the dala dala in Marangu to be mobbed by 4 or 5 self-proclaimed independent guides willing to take us on a combination of cultural and nature tours in the area. Prices offered were in excess of five times what friends had paid in the past, so we moved along. One particularly persistent guide named Kenneth ran after us and bargained with us to cut his price in half and show us everything we had come to see. Cut to 20 minutes later, and we are at the first waterfall arguing with him about why he suddenly raised his prices to include admission fees at each of the stops we would be making. The sitting around while waiting for an explanation as to why the guide kept changing his story really killed any early excitement the big group had for the day’s hike, but we finally found another guy who spoke more English and talked Kenneth into a modified route for the same price. Outside of him asking for another price hike at the very end of the day, everything else went fairly well, as we literally took the roads less traveled to see a few smaller waterfalls. Back at KCMC we heard several other stories about Marangu guides taking advantage of tourists in all kinds of ways to make an extra buck, so it looks like we won’t be back there anytime soon without a Tanzanian friend who knows what they are doing. Still, we grabbed some nice pictures and spent quality time with a group that should be together here for another month or so.

David demonstrating Marangu policy on entrance fees outside the "underground cave"

Other than that, life in Moshi has been pretty standard the past two weeks. When I haven’t been busy with Thursday lectures and field visits with the med students, I’ve been working on a few databases at work. It’s actually a surprising amount of design and layout work (thanks, yearbook skills), which should simplify data entry in the future and hopefully help transfer a few processes around the hospital to digital formats rather than paper records.

Some children gather water from a natural spring in the village of Rawuya Mamba, where I've been doing work once a week

Winding down from this past week at work, a bunch of people came over to my place for the first time to watch a movie. Of course on Friday the 13^th Murphy’s Law was in full effect, as the bulb in the projector burned out after five years and the readability of the subtitles for Slumdog Millionaire suffered from the poor quality of the 40 in 1 DVD. These miracles of modern technology can fit anywhere from 10 to 40 movies on the same disc, and typically cost about 3,000 shillings downtown. Video quality and whether or not the disc will actually play…that’s another story. It’s still nice to know that I can watch Speed 2: Cruise Control and Mission: Impossible 3 on the same Keanu Reeves vs. Tom Cruise DVD whenever I want. Don’t tell the economists now, but I’m pretty sure this is the reason behind any success they’re seeing in China and Dubai.

Falls near Marangu, but not the cliche tourist ones

I’ve also had to find ways to pass time in the evenings after work. Since dusk is between 6 and 6:30 year-round here and it’s not easy to get around outside the compound after dark without your own car, there’s not really much to do. Not to worry though, as I typically listen to a few Stuff You Should Know podcasts while making dinner, then watch an episode of The Office (with deleted scenes and commentary). Dinner usually means some kind of pasta or ramen, but on Fridays Beatrice started making some special rice dishes for me. Snacks or appetizers usually take the form of a PB & J sandwich, or a nutella and banana sandwich if I’m lucky and the kitchen is stocked.

One of the many obstacles on the hash

The largest wild animals I’ve seen here in town have been hedgehogs, but the most prevalent by far are ground termites. In the process of digging out their complext networks of underground tunnels, these blind insects create spontaneously placed mounds that I’ve seen reach up to at least ten feet in height. Another weird aspect of living with these termites is the sound they make. My first experience with this occurred when I was walking home at night from across the street. When I reached the end of my driveway, it suddenly sounded like the ground was moving in response to my movement. Naturally, my instincts told me I was surrounded by giant snakes and would have to make like Indiana Jones if I ever wanted to reach my front door. Frozen in place and scanning the area with my cell phone flashlight to no avail, I walked on unscathed. The next day, Aaron and Sarah told me these were just the termites scurrying around as I walked on top of their domain. Luckily, these guys stay outside (knock on termite-free wood)…the lizards, on the other hand, enjoy being indoors about as much as I do. Actually, most of the bigger lizards I have seen stay outside, but my house has plenty of geckos that live in the garage and venture inside every once in a while. Thankfully, they prefer bugs to the food in my kitchen, so in the end it’s a feel good story of mutualism in action. I even witnessed one of the geckos in my garage take out a grasshopper his own size one night:

The Planet Earth film crew would have been jealous.

Back to current events, my fourth hash (the 174^th in Moshi) was yesterday, and it was probably the most adventurous one yet. Hanging back with the walking group this time, we crossed the same river at least five times (without the benefit of stepping stones), pole vaulted across an irrigation canal, waded through some mud, and saw a few loud monkeys in the trees. This was the first time I remembered both to bring my GPS watch and to start it on time. Hopefully you can see a map and some stats about the course here.

The pole vault challenge...

...and the result

I almost forgot to mention that I returned to Arusha National Park, about an hour away from Moshi, for another day trip safari. Although Dr. Wilkinson, Naz, and I had a few run-ins with a grumpy tour driver about park rules, we saw plenty of zebras, giraffes, baboons, and colobus monkeys. We also had some great views of Mt. Meru doing its best (active) volcano impression and heard that one of the other groups spotted an albino baboon, which is apparently once-in-a-lifetime rare.

Who took all the baking soda and vinegar?

Dala dala themes:

Tommy Boy

FANTASTIC

Happy Star

The Blues

Love Boat

Unreasonable Doubt

Bushbaby

The Limousine

Rose Trumpet

Jeans

Air Force

Back Town

Additional team attire spotted:

Atlanta Braves

Buffalo Sabres

Colorado Rockies

Kansas City Chiefs

Florida Panthers

Dallas Cowboys

Tennessee Titans

This week’s sountdtrack:

Bob Marley – Small Axe

Weezer – (If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To

The Strokes – Under Control

Toto – Georgy Porgy

Lucky Dube – God Bless the Women

Coldplay – Green Eyes

Sammy Stephens – Flea Market Montgomery

Queens of the Stone Age – I Was a Teenage Hand Model

Interpol – Who Do You Think

Detroit Cobras – Cha Cha Twist

Herbie Hancock – Rockit

Empire of the Sun – Walking on a Dream

Boy Kill Boy – Suzie

Dave Matthews Band – Let You Down

Coldplay – Lovers in Japan [Osaka Sun Mix]

Nada Surf – La Pour Ca

Scorpions – Wind of Change

The Guggenheim Grotto – Philosophia

The Shins – New Slang

The Golden Republic – She’s So Cold

No Fi Soul Rebellion – Let’s Pretend

Big Audio Dynamite – Rush

The Walkmen – Another One Goes By

Bonus video:

Next time:

A weekend on the lake in Kenya and the irony of ex-pat Thanksgiving festivities in Moshi

In other news:

I can’t forget to send along congratulations to Brandi and Scott after the birth of their daughter Katie on Friday morning. I know she hasn’t been here yet, but I’d be willing to bet that baby probably already has a taste for wali maharage and Stoney.

Please leave comments...your updates, questions, complaints, requests, etc...

"This one will affect you psychologically."

            Life here has been good.   For my second international trip since arriving here, I joined Malavika and a group of her friends for a long weekend in Uganda.  We got to spend about a day and a half in the capital city of Kampala, where two members of our crew have been conducting different types of health research since the summer.

The view of Kampala from Miriam's place

There wasn’t much of a plan going into this leg of the journey, but just in the first night we experienced an African art gallery, a blackout speed dinner with the assistance (and entertainment) of head lamps, an outdoor street ball-style basketball game under the lights, and Ghana beating Brazil for the Under-21 World Cup (on TV).  As if that wasn’t interesting enough, the power was also out for the art gallery.  As far as we could tell by the light of our cell phone flashlights, some of the paintings were amazing, and all were nowhere near our price range.  The basketball game was also unforgettable.  Team Power ended up narrowly defeating the Falcons despite a miraculous fourth quarter comeback, but the basketball was outstaged in the end by a “loose cannon” fan determined to entertain.  We started to get the idea that he may have been under the influence of something after his over-the-top performance in a halftime shooting contest.

Devastated after losing the contest

For the rest of the game, he took it upon himself to practice his moves (with or without a ball) out on the court during timeouts.  He was eventually forcefully removed from the premises, later to return with a bandage around his head.  He did a good deal of wandering around the court after the end of the game, and managed to find his way to our group to tell us about Diego Maradonna and [unintelligible].  All in all, the game was a success.  The next day we all met up again for lunch in a modern shopping mall food court, where we were swarmed by waiters in a 1:1 ratio and presented with just as many different menus.

Kampala's two shopping malls (left and right), and probably the future site of the third (center)

We then walked through what has to be the busiest part of Kampala (or K’la for the cool kids): the bus stand.   The five-minute walk from the main road to the bus we eventually chose was exhaustingly overwhelming for me.  People traffic, road traffic, and and endless stream of aggressive wandering merchants combined to create a perfect storm of “get me out of here.”

            Luckily, we did make it out of there after some miraculous shuttle bus maneuvering.  Oh yeah, and the bus took us north to the city of Jinja, where we were to go rafting at the source of the Nile River.  Minor detail.  I think the whole group (seven of us at the time) had either read or heard something about this rafting experience, and only two or three of us had been rafting at all before.  Another four joined us for a fancy dinner complete with “hot banana brandy” for dessert, before we shared some time cringing at the stereotypical extreme sports/snowboarder party taking place in front of us at the campsite’s bar.  On the bright side, this bar had a porch with an amazing view of the river from the top of a cliff.

At the post-rafting barbecue

While waiting for our ride to the rafting company’s headquarters in the morning, a talkative Scotsman named “Fraggle” guaranteed we would have the time of our lives that day.  He also tried to point out the falls in the distance that would be a 30-meter sheer drop.  We found out later that this was a slight exaggeration, probably because the party was still taking place that morning for Fraggle.  Next came breakfast, a safety briefing, and a cattle car parade of foreigners through town to the river.  Let’s just preface the rafting story with the undeniable fact that I applied two (2) generous layers of SPF 50 sunscreen before we departed.  My group of seven ended up with the coolest rafting guide ever, hands down.  His name was Tabani Tabani (meaning “be happy”), and he was the steady elder guide with realistic expectations for what the group could do.  During the day, he showed us around his “office” and took us through a series of class 1-5 rapids.  He gave us a thorough on-boat safety crash course, and we would typically stop for a few minutes before each serious rapid to discuss the plan of attack.  During one of these pep talks, Tabani bluntly informed us, “This one will affect you psychologically.”  Thankfully, we handled that one well and our psyches emerged unscathed.  We went for a few swims (voluntary and involuntary), had some water wars with other rafts, saw huge monitor lizards, and had fresh pineapple for lunch on the boats.  I ended up in the front of the raft for the whole day, I guess because I was the one who didn’t want to go on the “easy raft.”  In reality though, everyone took some spills and nobody was seriously hurt.  There was one possibly broken finger in our boat, but only two of the five minor injuries I ended up sustaining in Uganda were rafting-related.  Speaking of spills, my group only ended up flipping twice, including the last run in “The Other Place,” sister falls of the infamous “Bad Place.”  The first flip was actually much more fun than it sounds.   Our raft made it through one big swell, but suddenly was turned to the left in a trough as we approached the next wall of water.  The next thing I knew, I was floating down the river with my paddle and scanning for the helmets and life jackets bobbing up and down around me.  I swam back to the raft and grabbed onto the rope as Thabani pulled himself up and stood on top of the flipped vessel, spontaneously bellowing a triumphant song of joy, before hooking onto the rope with his paddle and leaning back to flip it over again.   Everything about the day was so perfect that something had to go wrong, right?

Probably the worst picture ever created of me, but Tabani is loving life

Well, let’s just say I was marked with my first equatorial sunburn that day.  The tops of my knees and feet took the brunt of my 2^nd worst sunburn ever, but improved greatly after a week of aloe and painful walking.  That said, the trade-off was fair, but I’ll take some long pants next time.   Unfortunately we couldn’t take cameras along on the river (obvious reasons), but you can get a feel for it by reading this article or visiting the website of the company we went with.

Last weekend I just kind of hung out around Moshi.  The international school across the street had a sports weekend in honor of its 40th anniversary, so I went over and joined in on a soccer game with my neighbor and some of his middle school friends.  I'll probably try to start going to play pickup soccer if it's possible, since this was the only time I have engaged in competitive sports I've since I arrived here.  At college it was tough for me to go a full week without joining an intramural volleyball game or playing some hockey, so these two whole months have been a challenge in that sense.  At least I got to see a big rugby tournament at this school a few weeks ago.  Teams came in from Kenya and Uganda, and at the end there was a drum/dance celebration that was cut short by rain.

The crazy guy with the short-sleeved blazer and polka dotted straw hat wonders if the red cloud means rain or impending doom

It has actually rained probably 8 of the past dozen days, which is a huge change after it rained maybe three times in the first month and a half (two of those in the first week).  Monday night we had torrential rain, which made getting to work on Tuesday tricky and messy.  The short rainy season isn't supposed to be until December, but maybe it's getting an early start after the long drought.

Two weeks ago I actually added an element to one of the projects I’ve been working on at the hospital.  I have been working on preparing three versions of a village survey for the Community Health class all the first year medical students at Tumaini University are currently taking.  Because of my background and time spent with the survey, the professor invited Sumera and me to give a lecture on interview strategies and etiquette.  We learned that morning that at least 90% of the students are straight out of high school, but it’s still tough for me to think that I’m at all qualified to lecture to medical students.  Nevertheless, the talk went pretty well.  We actually had people asking a few questions and coming up to us afterwards to clarify things.  This past week we went with the same group on field visits to different villages in the region.  I spent the day with a group that will be interviewing leaders and families in a town called Mamba, near where most Kilimanjaro climbs start.  It was a very small town and 100% of the group interview was in Swahili, but it was nice to see a different setting and learn some new things (after translation).  The day as a whole was one of the strangest I've had in a long time, though.  On top of the fact that there was basically zero English spoken the whole day, the shuttles set up for the students were about as organized as dala dalas.  We were delayed in the morning when it was time to leave because, surprise...50 people can't fit into a 30 person bus.  The solution?  Squeeze everyone in and drop off ten to take a dala dala the rest of the way.  The interview time also had an unusually high concentration of awkward silences, especially when things shut down for a 15 minute peanut break and silence prevailed.  All of this is from my moderately acclimated American perspective, however, and I think the day was beneficial for everyone in the end.  That night some folks from the hospital went around the corner to the tiny grocery store for their special pizza night.  This old German couple who has been here off and on since 1961 and have run the radiology department at KCMC basically ever since treated all 11 of us.  The wife was born in East Prussia, so I spent some time speaking German with her and discussing the work (and pronunciation) of one of my major advisor’s favorite public health minds: Rudolf Virchow.

            For Halloween a bunch of people got together to return to the ex-pat bar called the Watering Hole for a little party.  It was mostly just a chance for the Europeans to laugh at the Americans, but at least half of the people ended up coming in costume.  Due to a lack of real costume resources, I decided to go as “mzungu sana,” or “very white/foreign.”

"I'm not from here."

My head lamp, travel guides, hand sanitizer, and Nalgene bottle actually came in handy, plus I learned what IKEA stands for.

            Today was my third hash, and I actually decided to run it for the first time.  My cross-country coach would be proud—this course took us through a huge coffee plantation and across a river.  While it wasn’t necessarily the same as running XC (because you need to find the proper trail), we covered about 7.5 km in less than an hour.  This time I even actually remembered to bring my GPS watch along, which is the true sign of a dedicated hasher.  The walking group ended up pretty significantly off course, but all was forgiven after an assisted shortcut and pizza for dinner afterwards.

Notice I'm behind even the older crowd

            The internet saga at home continues for me, and it's only working in one of the two offices at work.  Basically I received a “special free offer” for the first month when I bought the my modem.  I was told it might be a little slow, but then it ended up being very fast.  Two weeks ago I renewed it and bought another month of airtime thinking it would still be fast...and it was very slow.  So we know it's possible for my modem to be fast, but they say they don't know why that happened.  In reality, I know there’s a guy sitting in a cubicle at the office who pushed the SLOW button when I renewed.  After way too much time researching the issue, I have found that this particular provider (rhymes with Slowdacom) has two options:

- Unlimited usage internet at a very slow speed and reasonable price

- Limited usage (1GB, 2GB, or 5GB over 3 months) at a moderately fast speed and high price

I’m really hoping more than ever that the mysterious fiber optic cable will inspire them to flip the switch back to FAST sometime soon.

            I didn’t set my clocks back last night, but that’s because we don’t observe daylight savings here.  That means the time difference just jumped from 7 hours to 8 hours, so keep that in mind if you’re trying to get in touch from the States.

Dala dala/Matatu themes:

Big Boss

Big is Big

Back to Jesus
Obama Express
Fun is a Must (Land Rover, but I'll count it)

Not sure why this was parked at the mall...

Additional team attire spotted:

New York Rangers

Texas Rangers

New York Mets

Pittsburgh Penguins

Toronto Maple Leafs

Houston Astros

San Diego Padres

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Toronto Blue Jays

New Jersey Nets
Golden State Warriors

This week's soundtrack:

Phil Collins – One More Night

Cyndi Lauper – Time after Time

Arcade Fire – Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)

Incubus – Are You In?

Sublime – Jailhouse

The Beach Boys – Good Vibrations

Fatboy Slim – Build It Up, Tear It Down

Modest Mouse – Trailer Trash

Modest Mouse – Fly Trapped in a Jar

Counting Crows – Round Here

Led Zeppelin – Kashmir

James Brown – Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag

Hockey – Song Away

Arcade Fire – Windowstill

Ronnie Hudson – West Coast Poplock

The B-52’s – Rock Lobster

Timbaland – Here We Come

Next time:

Another day trip safari, a blood drive, and Thanksgiving in Kenya, among other things of course.

In other news:

I don’t think I mentioned that I actually saw Lake Victoria for the first time.  Awesome. Below is another picture of the river to make up for my lack of pictures of the lake.

Only in Kenya

It’s not that Tanzania was getting boring, but I just had to jump at the opportunity to spend a week in Kenya. Before I left Durham, my co-worker from the past three summers, Charles, had extended an informal invitation to join him for a meeting in Eldoret. I had done some work on the side to help him develop a website and strategic plan for his project (the Association of Research Administrators in Africa), and thought I’d just tag along to help things run smoothly at the group’s first official meeting. For anyone who doesn’t already know Charles, I need to preface this whole story by saying that he’s the most happy, outgoing, easygoing, and go-getting Nairobian/Durhamite I have ever met. His enthusiasm about the Association is contagious, so it wasn’t a tough decision to leave Moshi for a week.

Jump to the Monday before my planned Wednesday flight. Charles emails me in the afternoon asking if I could fly up a day early to help set some things up before the meeting. This doesn’t seem like a big deal, so I say sure and start to leisurely make some calls and send some emails to change the itinerary. Problem 1: the flight to Nairobi is full. Yikes. A slight panic ensues and I start asking friends how bearable/reliable the bus to Nairobi is. There’s also a question of whether I would get there in time for my second flight to Eldoret. My communication skills were really put to the test as I tried to connect with a friend of a friend (whom I hadn’t yet met) living in Nairobi to set up a backup plan, as well as the driver who may or may not be picking me up at 6am to take me to the airport. This was all put to rest at 10:30 that night, when the travel agent called back to tell me I had a full flight booked (albeit without any proof other than a few numbers scribbled down on a post-it). Needless to say, I stayed up way too late packing because I had overlooked the one thing that needed to be done either way. The flights were uneventful, aside from the fact that it was my first time in a propellor plane since my first flight. We didn’t want to risk getting stuck in traffic or running into trouble downtown, so Frank and I soaked in the sights and sounds of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport for the entire seven-hour duration of our layover. And by that, I mean we ate lunch and sat for a really long time…we didn’t exactly have access to the Government Lounge.

Panic ensues.

The first big surprise about Eldoret hit me as we landed. There appeared to be water falling from the sky in small droplets. It took a second before I remembered that it actually rains from time to time in some parts of the world. After a cab ride spent wondering how I would survive in this crazy climate, we arrived at the Hotel Sirikwa near downtown Eldoret. While it’s probably past its prime, I can’t complain too much about the place. There was a pool, a restaurant, fake animal heads on the balcony, and even wireless internet. The next four days were spent organizing, powerpoint editing, nametag creating, videotaping, website updating, and generally assisting Charles with anything that needed to be done for the 55+ people who showed for the meeting. It was an extremely busy and exhausting week, but in the down time I got to spend some quality time with folks from all over Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania (including a lawyer, a marine biologist, and a medical school Provost).

Life in my first real hotel room as part of a business trip was made even stranger by the presence of a TV.  For those of you who haven't experienced Kenyan basic cable, here's a cross-section of the programming available at 9 on a Tuesday night:
CHANNEL 1: Filipino family soap opera, dubbed in American English and painstakingly enunciated
CHANNEL 2: American teen drama intended for an elderly audience (think Lifetime network)
CHANNEL 3: [dark snow]
CHANNEL 4: [light snow]
CHANNEL 5: Police drama in Kenyan English
CHANNEL 6: Aforementioned American teen drama
CHANNEL 7: Ibid.
CHANNEL 8: Aforementioned police drama
CHANNEL 9: Fear Factor
CHANNEL 10: Teen drama

"But mother, I just do not think that Tony is that into me."

Each of the two meeting days in Eldoret were capped with a tour of a local AMPATH facility. The first tour took us to the Imani Workshop, a program designed to provide steady work and access to services for HIV/AIDS patients and others in need. The women working here made everything by hand, including jewelry, paper products, ceramics, and tote bags. Our group pretty much raided the gift shop after the tour, and I may have taken care of a lot of Christmas shopping early. The second tour showed us the AMPATH offices/clinics/labs on the campus of Moi University. The contrast between this place and a hospital like KCMC really shows how extensive collaboration with Western funding sources can make a dramatic difference. At the same time, our tour guides were definitely aware that steps must be taken towards sustainability if these programs are to really have a long-term impact. If you take some time to read up on AMPATH though, many of the programs are very much community-based with innovative strategies to keep them running.

Imani Workshops just after clearing out for the day

Moving along to Nairobi, Charles and I looked forward to a busy weekend without many real plans. The time we spent sitting around the apartment all day Saturday catching up on emails was a pretty poor representation of all that would happen to us around the city. In the following two and a half days we managed to find:

- An apartment with a full kitchen, nice TV, free fast internet, and no blackouts
- A “deep” club called Tacos
- The launch of a soccer tournament on a dirt field
- Raw sewage in the street
- Two ultra modern shopping malls
- Mercedes, Volkswagons, and Subarus
- A fender bender in the middle of downtown Nairobi
- The best pilau I’ve had so far
- A cookout for the promotion of Charles’s old friend
- A flatbed party truck blasting rap music
- Tusker Project Fame on a bigscreen TV (the African version of American Idol)
- Two cooked goat legs
- Fresh chicken at Charles’s mom’s place
- A rush hour standstill in East Nairobi, along with multiple somewhat successful detours (including one passing near Little Mogadishu)
- Dinner at an actual fancy restaurant, including real caesar salad and apple pie
- Cows claiming right-of-way on streets where pedestrians can only dream of it
- A grand total of six (6) full soccer matches on TV

I could go on for a while about most of these, but I’ll at least describe a few…

On Sunday morning I tagged along with Charles to the kick-off event of the Farova Cup tournament, which he and a few buddies worked to put together. The tournament will be taking place around Nairobi until December, bringing in well-known club teams from all over East Africa. In addition, the organizers have developed a set of community-oriented goals: “keeping the streets safe, engaging and encouraging the youth to positively volunteer in the community, tapping and developing soccer talents in the neighborhood, saying no to drugs as well as conveying the Kenyan national motto of ‘Peace Love and Unity.’” It was dubbed Farova after a specific area in Nairobi with a name that has been gradually Anglicized and Jamaicanized into "Far Over" and "Farova."  Arriving at the primary school dirt field where the event was to take place, I realized just how much passion there is for the sport in Kenya. Several hundred kids and adults surrounded the chalk-lined (by hand) perimeter of the playing surface, where the footballers slide tackled, danced around empty water bottles, and shot on goals without nets. Where was I during all of this? With a video camera on the sidelines being mobbed by a group of 6-10 year olds. Even though a Nairobian about my age was wielding a similar video camera only a few feet away, apparently the fact that I was the only white person in sight was enough to make the day that much more exciting. While most of them just wanted to be seen dancing on camera, one slightly older boy appeared out of nowhere and decided he wanted to learn how to use the camera. Taking advantage of the fact that many technological terms are identical in English and Kiswahili, I gave him a crash course on zoom, battery, tape, tripod use, and breaking down. He was very professional about the whole thing (even demanded a digital camera lesson), and I left the field confident that he’ll be an all-star cameraman for KTV within five years.

With a side of delicious, please

For those of you who don’t know, pilau is one of the more popular of the traditional East African dishes. At the baseline, it includes dark rice and beef. When Charles’s friend Yusuf took us out to his favorite lunch spot in a back alley, it included much more. First of all, Charles suggested I cut up my complimentary banana and mix it in with the rest of the dish. Then the waitress came back with a tomato-bean soup to add on top. Just when I thought it was safe to dig in, Yusuf warned me that I should probably take out the cardamon and cloves. Basically, this turned into a process of sifting through my dish for things I shouldn’t bite into. Oh, and did I mention we were in a hurry to get to our next meal? We had downed three plates of pilau in about 15 minutes and paid (probably less than $10 total) before I realized the best meal of my time here was already in my stomach.

Fortunately we both speak Smile

Soon after this meal, we dove into some nostalgia by looking through old photo albums at Charles’s mom’s house. Her minimal English and frequent mixing of Kikuyu with Kiswahili confused me several times, but she was extremely welcoming and didn’t hesitate to serve us chicken and mashed potatoes with crushed pumpkin leaves. On the way to our next meal (yes, #3 of the afternoon) we hit the legendary Nairobi traffic. I head heard stories of the 14-kilometer ride from the airport to the city lasting up to three hours, but this was just a typical inner-city logjam. This ride gave me a protracted tour of East Nairobi, a.k.a. the non-tourist part. It was a step above the legitimate slums I had seen in the distance from the highway the day before, but the struggles here were evident and tough to put into words. Pedestrian traffic ruled between merchant shacks covered with tarps, metal, scraps of wood, or anything else available. The trash and disorganization made me feel out of place and uncomfortable, but Charles spoke of memories from his childhood and gave me an appreciation of how many people call that area home. The contrasts I witnessed just in that one day in Nairobi added a very local, zoomed in example to my understanding of global inequality.

All in all, I left Kenya with some priceless experiences and an appreciation of the subtle ways it differs from both capitalist America and post-socialist Tanzania. I also left with eight business cards, four bottles of the Kenyan miracle beverage called Alvaro, and the crucial bit of knowledge that traffic lights exist in Nairobi, but only as polite suggestions.

Trailing a matatu...at a safe distance

Matatu (Kenyan dala dala) themes:
Fernando Torres. The Prince.
Punch
Blessed Assurance
Touch and Go
City Boy
Super Sony
Fartleg
Shifter
Biggy is Back
Diplomacy
Alicia Keys
Little Joy
G Phat
Dre Express
Not Guilty
Leather So Soft
In Real Terms

Additional team attire spotted:
Cincinnati Reds
New Orleans Hornets
Boston Celtics
Minnesota Timberwolves
St. Louis Rams
Seattle Mariners
Arizona Diamondbacks
New York Knicks
Chicago Blackhawks
Phoenix Suns
Phoenix Eagles
Baltimore Orioles
New York Giants
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
Cleveland Cavaliers
(44/122)

Black market t-shirt dealer

This week's soundtrack:
A Flock of Seagulls – I Ran (So Far Away)
Modest Mouse – Here It Comes
Outkast – Rosa Parks
Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose – Treat Her Like a Lady
Jack Johnson – Tomorrow Morning
The Antlers – Bear
The Doors – When the Music’s Over
Ludacris – Get Back [blasting from a Matatu]
Celine Dion/Kenny G – My Heart Will Go On [heard at least five times in the past week, typically with the volume higher than normal]
Anthony B. featuring Turbulence – Real Warriors [The kids at the soccer tournament couldn’t get enough of this song.]
Lucky Dube – Different Colors/One People [covered on Project Fame]

In other news:
EAWoHNet, one of the larger projects going on here, finally has a website.  After many frustrating hours wondering how it can be so hard to publish a simple site, Brandi and I finally have it up and running.  Check it out at eawohnet.org.

Next time:
Rugby, housekeeping, and a trip to Uganda…