A Week Down Under: Notes from my Field Immersion

This past week I spent “out in the field” as it were, living with the Field Officer John at his home in Bomokora. Asked to type up some notes for the other staff members, I thought I’d condense my observations into a few key categories that reflect some of the major learning points I had over the week.

Family

I think it’s fitting to place this first, as in my experience this past week, family comes first in nearly everything. A bit about John’s family: He has 4 children with his wife, and has adopted 2 others from his late brother. His 2 oldest are in university in Nairobi, and his 3^rd and 4^th are in boarding schools in the area. His older adopted daughter in in Form 3 and lives at home while attending a day school, while the younger one is HIV + (what her father died from), and is in an orphanage in Nairobi where she gets treatment. As John says about his 9 immediate family members (6 children, wife and mother) “I trust them completely, when you talk to them, you are talking to me”. His brothers he describes as all polygamists, he being the only monogamist in his family. His father recently passed away at the ripe age of 102, and his mother lives on next door, fairly spry for her 85 years. I mention all of this from memory because it was so often a topic of conversation, highlighting its paramount place in John’s life. 

Indeed not only did I get to know the immediate family he lived with, but also talked on the phone several times with the older children and we are now friends on Facebook, having still not met in person. It also seemed that everywhere we went, there were relatives, from the many people we met along the road (“my cousin, my niece, my sister-in-law”), to the m-pesa agent, the matatu driver, and the parsley salesman, all members of the extended brethren of John.

Certainly the tradition of having many wives and many children contributes to this network, but even more it seemed that a family was more than just the linking of bloodlines, but the linking of lives, where each member had a different role to play, all coming together to support each other and play their part in the progression of life’s events.

Economy

The individual economic decisions, based on certain knowledge and logic, was another arena in which I became indoctrinated. It seemed John was aware of the opportunity and price potential of everything, and as we walked through his shamba and past others, he expressed this knowledge to me. For example, he grows sugarcane, which he fetches 10 ksh a stalk in Kisii, but will bring you 35 in Nairobi, so he piles it on a truck and sends it on to be sold there. His papayas are fairly unique, and so they fetch a fair price in market and also a great demand for seedlings, as many people recognize their desirability for restaurants and hotels making juice, but find them difficult to cultivate. He knows fruit and basic veggies are of little profit in the market, so he grows plenty for home consumption, as well as having secured a contract with the local hospital to supply their produce at favorable rates.

MLND

Another constant in our walks through the shambas and along the paths in Bomokora was the constant outlook for sign of MLND. Many the farm was identified as having caught the disease, and as it appeared so often, it was also frequently a topic of conversation, both between John and I and also with the groups of farmers that we were meeting with.

A few examples are illustrative. As we left early Friday morning to attend the meeting in town, we ran into a facilitator, making the rounds with a folder and sheets to note cases of MLND. His dedication to being up and about at this hour on volunteer work was admirable, and the number of cases he’d documented were sobering, filling about 3 sheets with farmers who’d been afflicted. This, as well as the number of somewhat yellowed or marginally stunted maize plants that were said to be afflicted led me to wonder if the scare might be leading to some over-reporting of the disease. As I told John “when there’s a flu outbreak, every cough is a symptom and no one just has a cold”. Certainly many farmers do have the disease and many more are very worried about it though, as was shown in one meeting, far atop a hill, where several women departed the meeting early, only to return with clippings from their withering maize, wondering what they could do. I explained about the prevention, the trials, the alternative, and that Farmer’s United was working on the issue, but at the same time I felt helpless, for by being there people put hope in me as someone with the answers, and at least at that point, I had none.

The Many Hats of an FO

In walking around for long hours with John during the week and attending a variety of meetings with his groups, I came to understand that the Field Officer often wears many hats. Some of these may be above and beyond the callings of Farmer’s United, but they also work in mutually reinforcing ways.

An example is the group that we visited one rainy afternoon, a large, well-organized group that had originally been formed as an education support group before also taking on Farmer’s United responsibilities. In this group the Chairman, who also served as Facilitator for OAF, had been remiss in her duties, with members afraid to give her their money and with attendance by her and her board members scarce at the regular meetings. During the course of the afternoon, John effected a change in the groups leadership, whereby, through spirited debate, a new Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer were elected, promising to faithfully fulfill the duties previously neglected. Furthermore, John helped advise them on some procedural changes, such as fining group members who failed to attend, and other mechanisms to ensure quorum and smoother operations, which were requested by several concerned members.

In another example, the next day, early in the morning, we found ourselves with a facilitator in the home of a delinquent farmer, where a very heated argument was pursued for the better part of an hour. Finally the grimaces turned to smiles and after exchanging some pleasantries and departing, I learned that the farmer’s wife, fearful of her husband, had run away, taking the money owed with her. She returned several weeks later, minus the funds, and the furious farmer wished to beat her because of this. John managed to convince him that beating his wife would not solve the money issue, nor provide for a happy family on in the future, and so he enjoined him to take some of his maize, which his wife doled out, to sell, and thus clear his account in preparation for next season. This and a promise of more peaceful marital relations accomplished, we headed on to our next destination, as I formulated the following maxim in my mind: “in order to solve the problem of credit, you must first solve the family”.

These are but two examples, but I feel they highlight the various roles a successful FO must at times play, striving for good community relations and strong families as a necessary prerequisite to reliable farmers and OAF clients.

Me and Eating; Others and Eating

A good chunk of my experience living with John’s family was purely culinary. Certainly, when there aren’t many other diversions other than working and talking with your neighbors, and when most of your work revolves around the planting, growing, and selling of food, then the meals of the day take on a fairly great significance. One very salient menu item was Tea. Tea was the only way that the day got started, usually a very hot thermos of sweet tea with fresh milk was shared around and I was encouraged to have 3 or 4 cups, which I struggled to reduce to 2 or 3. The end of the day, either right before dinner to cut the evening chill, or right after to draw out the hours of family time under the dim solar light, we had cups of “strong” as John called it, which was tea with lots of sugar but no milk, as far as I was able to discern.

Other important items included Ugale, which the family was more than a little astonished to know I’d only had once before in my life (the afternoon before I arrived). Paired with this were an assortment of greens (pumpkin leaves, bean leaves, spinach, skuma wiki), which I pretty much enjoyed greatly, especially when compared to the crunchy little fish bodies that were the alternative for my first dinner. Breakfast or lunch often involved the cooked bananas, which, devoid of flavor and of a mealy texture, did not rank high in my index of bananas (or meals in general), inclining me to agree with John’s proposition that he had “never heard of a man who could sleep well after eating bananas for dinner”. The culinary highlight for me was far and wide the chicken and chapatti, which I devored once for dinner and then again for Sunday lunch before I departed. This meal, which could not be too common, since it involved slaughtering one of the household fowl, included a zesty broth with parsley and other spices that was a wonderful dip for the crispy chapatti chunks, with any remaining to be slurped from the bowl.

Eating and conversing about the items being eaten is a time honored and most likely universal tradition, and it served to greatly bring home a few points for me about the importance of ugale to Kenyan cuisine (it’s really pretty necessary in every meal, and so versatile it allows any manner of greens, meat, or fish to be stretched and made into a filling meal). Also my prior conceptions about ugale, sweet potatos, bananas, and many other vegetable that share a name with American staples, but differ significantly here, were challenged, and their proper place in the weekly diet was then understood.

Family (Part II)

“I can’t stand loneliness, If I were to move to America, and be alone like the people there, I would just run away” John’s dislike of isolation was manifest in his surrounding himself with the good will of his neighbors and community, where he is greatly respected and even relied upon as a peacemaker and trusted friend. Even more important is his relationship with his family who is a constant source of pride and companionship for him. After getting to know him, his wife, sons, daughters, cousins, nephews and nieces over the past week, I was honored with the sense that I was a member of this family. This was reinforced by his exhortation to return each weekend, to spend it in Bomokora, where I would never be lonely. And I believe him. 

My Life as Spiderman

October 5, 2012

One thing that quickly becomes very apparent to anyone living in a developing country, in particular in a rural area, is that you have something of a celebrity status. By virtue of being such a novelty, one has to become accustomed to near constant attention, often disturbance, caused by your presence, which is firmly that of some being of another world, one that is perfectly ok to stare at, announce the presence of loudly to any and all who are within earshot, or engage in any number of behaviors which might be sociably questionable with a member of one’s own race.

Here in Kenya, this relationship has taken on a new significance, as the life of a “mzungu”, as the locals refer to a foreigner as, has quite a strange dynamic. In the city it’s little beyond the occasional stare, or in the case of areas more frequented by tourists, the call to the touts to come and offer some sort of service, good, or just “friendship” with an eventual price. In the rural farms where One Acre Fund works, there is quite a different story however, as these areas have scarcely if ever had a mzungu happen by and many of the people living there have never been to a city where they might have a chance to spy one if they’re timing is right. The reaction to seeing this mzungu then can be quite extreme, with loud exclamations, followed by immediately turning to the person next to you to make sure they have seen as well, almost as if to confirm that yes, this is really happening, there is truly a mzungu RIGHT THERE, and we are looking at him!

Whenever I stop in one place, before long a crowd of children appears, and rather than attempting to talk with me, or even making any noise at all, they generally are fairly dumbstruck, staring silently as they ranks fill up behind them, a quiet throng of onlookers who are content merely to observe this mzungu, preferably from a safe distance of several feet. To ameliorate the oddness of this situation, I will choose a point at which I acknowledge them and then attempt to engage them in conversation. This inevitable fails, often quite dramatically, as the children are simply too petrified to respond. Upon addressing a large group, even in words they surely understand, silence is the only answer, many inquiring eyes only widening slightly at the unexpected turn of events (it speaks!). At this point, if a conversation (if it can be called that) is really desired, one must resort to cold calling, picking one to address directly, perhaps the tallest, in the hopes that he or she will have become worldly enough in their extra years of schooling, or at the very least studied a bit more English than the others. The reaction to this is generally swift and involves the selected child backing away, and likely hiding behind their nearest friend, if not dashing swiftly away to the safety of their home.

Unsettling as this reaction may be, I’ve decided on an analogy which I find fairly appropriate, and which at least gives my presence and the strange attention is generates some sense of the absurd, which alleviates my own anxiety and surely is close to how those on the observing end view it as well. I’ve decided that the best way to represent this situation is to imagine that I am Spiderman. This is not to say that I personally feel like a superhero. Far from shooting web and climbing tall buildings, I am actually significantly less advanced than the local population, at least when it comes to physical survival. After greater than 30 minutes in the strong sun that they work under all day, my skin will begin to blister and peel, painfully and harmfully. If I stare too long without sunglasses in this same sun, my light colored eyes will ache and the quality of my vision will deteriorate over time. The water, the grass, and the air itself is full of such insects and organisms that may easily harm me and cause me to fall sick for weeks, should I fail to ingest several drugs that boost my system and make up for my own lack of defense. So from this and more it is clear I consider myself not to be some superhuman, but rather a human who is fairly lacking in comparison to the average fellow of these parts. My status as Spiderman is more a function of how strange Spiderman must seem, how unusual it would be to see him in the street, and what mixture of fear and awe one might feel were one to encounter him in person, after thinking so many years of him as more legend than actual man. Even this seems to attribute a bit too much undeserved mystique, so I’ll recalibrate the analogy ever so slightly: My status in Kenya is fairly analogous to the status of a man, dressed in a large Spiderman outfit, were he to travel around the rural United States.

The success of this analogy is its differentiation of the reaction of children and of adults, for we all know the special place with children hold superheroes like Spiderman, and the mild interest bordering on indifference which is the attitude of most adults. Even an adult however, seeing a man dressed in a large Spiderman costume, say in the parking lot of Wal-Mart, or at the post office, will take notice. He may stare at this silly outfit, turn to his neighbor and make some sort of joke at the costumed character’s expense, or even call out “hey Spidey! How’s it hangin’?”, before bursting into laughter. The occasional grown man, having been a profuse fan of Spiderman in his youth, and still retaining something of that appreciation, may greet the costumed man warmly, express his appreciation at the outfit, or, if he’s still more of a fan than he’ll likely admit, jokingly thank the man for “protecting the good citizens of this county”, ask after Mary Jane, or express his anger at the Green Goblin’s latest maneuver.

It is in a similar way that adults react to the presence of a mzungu in their neighborhood. All will take notice, many will do a double-take, or stare a bit, while others will make sure to offer a greeting or call out some amusing comment, most likely meant to mimic the way that mzungus supposedly address one another. The elderly, even those who have not left their village or encountered a mzungu for some time, if ever, will chuckle wryly to themselves, no doubt reminding them of the time when they were young and used to believe in such things, before of course, they realized that Spiderman was just a funny man in Spandex, and Santa Claus was a something their parents did for them.

Children, as you might imagine, have a different take on the situation all together. A child in the US, upon seeing Spiderman, will likely scream, become agitated and torn between running toward this admirable man of fantastic powers, and running away from a human-spider who no doubt has the ability to suck their blood and tie them up to hang from a tree or lamppost. The somewhat older child, firmly immersed in the lore of Spiderman, will regard this personage with more awe than fear, soaking in his presence and getting as close as they dare so that they might see what the legendary Spiderman might be up to in their community. Towards the older end of the spectrum, we have children who are entering a period of maturity, who are rebelling against their childhood obsessions, and are awakening to many of the harsh realities of the world (i.e. Santa Clause doesn’t exist). These teenage boys and girls will want to challenge the man in the Spidey costume, test him to see if he is real or simply another one of these lies that adults enjoy constructing to fool the naïve younger kids. This child will even speak to Spiderman, trying to prove something perhaps to the other young ones gathered, show that he or she is not in thrall to this false idol any longer. But still, because of the power of Spiderman’s legend, because of all he represents, this child will likely remain respectful, even shy, in a way he might not with a person dressed, say, in a Barney or Elmo costume. Though he must prove his maturity by talking to him, deep in his heart he still hopes that Spiderman is real, or that there’s still the possibility for him to become something special, something out of the norm for the ordinary world that he is fast becoming a part of.

So it is with the mzungu on the farm. The youngest children are both fascinated and afraid, not knowing whether this strange creature is for good or evil. The average child is mainly in awe content to stare and ponder the improbability that such a figure, from their parent’s stories and perhaps the few TV shows or movies they’ve seen, has come to their village, is walking among them. The older child is also fascinated, but he or she will be careful to show it less, to care less and treat this thing as less unusual, though still he wonders, is curious, and will alternate between engaging in conversation, or at least allowing himself to be engaged, and walking away, in an attempt to show some indifference, to distinguish himself from the crowd of fans gathered there.

So this is my lot. To sit in the passenger seat and drive along the dirt paths and watch the disruption in my wake: A child in awe, a group of school girls shouting, a man on a bicycle with a double take, a pair of young men calling out in English, A pair of young boys surprised and then whispering to each other. They are simply reacting as anyone would upon seeing a man in a large Spiderman costume. 

We're Not In Kansas Anymore...

October 3, 2012

The past two days have proved the value of not judging a book by its cover, and have managed to show me several things which I can immediately appreciate and be thankful for about my situation here in Kenya. In the span of only 5 days in the country, I have already entered many more homes of Kenyans, many of them poor, than I ever did in Somaliland, and received invitations to visit many more. I have had nice, intelligent conversations with people all over the area, full of warmth and appreciation. I have exercised my freedom, both by traveling all over the district, sans guard, and by walking solo around the town on some errands. I’ve even chatted with a young lady who works at M-Pesa, to the point she offered me a chair and then asked when I was free so she could show me around Kisii, quote, because she “really enjoys my company”. Now these things in and of themselves may not seem major, life altering, or even particularly exciting, but they all lie in sharp contrast to the previous year of my life, where contact with the outside was minimal, freedom was limited to a small space within 4 walls, guards were a constant presence, and talking with Somalis, let alone females, was a rare occasion.

Indeed these differences represent everything that I yearned for during the previous year. I wanted the freedom to walk around and explore on my own, the ability to develop friendships with local people and be invited into their homes. These all being denied to me, I wished for them. Now that I have them, I must give some space to appreciating them, for it is the tendency of the human mind to ignore what it has and constantly bemoan what it does not, seeking out new sources of misery and frustration. Indeed I can now appreciate some of the things I had before more fully, such as a larger room with my own bathroom, considerable space to do as I please within the confines of our compound, the constant interaction with many people near my age, the friendship of people like Suzanne, Claire, John and Dylan, with whom I shared the experience of being young and having many cultural references in common. Also the sense of purpose I gained through teaching, something I could immediately engage in with my students and which never ceased to be relevant, giving me a continual source of self-worth throughout the year. While this is yet to come here, come it surely must, as I gain familiarity with the context of this place, OAF’s role, and my own specifically, I will be able to start creating value, and thus valuing my presence more and more with time.

Finding the Hunger

October 1, 2012

2 days later and the fairy tale is shattered. Well not quite that far, but certainly things have progressed, and not, in ways that I probably should have expected, but somehow didn’t. To put a face to my troubles, last night and the night before were a bit difficult. I don’t have internet at the moment, and so having a few withdrawal symptoms from going cold turkey after my splurging over the past few weeks in the US. I finished writing the previous entry about the high quality of sleep available here, only to be beset by a sleepless and restless night. Awakening only a short time after drifting off several pages into The Shadow of the Sun, I was possessed of a horrible thirst, while at the same time feeling overly warm and needing to urinate. Arising after several minutes of trying to regain my slumber, I drank from the bottom of the water jug, used the restroom, and turned on the fan, attempting to address the triple threat of issues which had been plaguing me. Turns out these were mere smokescreen obscuring something deeper that had really stolen my repose, as for the next many hours I tossed and turned, until finally I gave in, switched back on the light, and proceeded to complete the aforementioned novel. Still not drooping, though highly irritated from being open so long, I screwed shut my eyes as best I could and held on till near morning, at which point I finally drifted off into a doze until sun light seared my face.

The day proceeded in fits and starts, which a lengthy taxi trip with a pleasant man named Jared placing me far afield, in a village called Gasieka, where a meeting was supposed to commence. The meeting was running a little late, and later still, and so I sat, in a chair in the shade of a large tree, for the better part of 2 hours, until finally several farmers arrived to be trained in how to spot the dreaded MLND (Maize Lethal Necrosis Disease). The training lasted the better part of an hour, all in Kisii/Kiswahili, allowing me to retain the same oblivious sitting position. Upon its conclusion, myself, the Field Manager, and the Field Director, began our ascent, climbing straight up a very large hill, in search of delinquent farmers who were behind on their payments. Almost an hour later found us still climbing this monstrous hill, though considerably winded, prompting passersby to exclaim “why are you making the mzungu climb so high?” Finally reaching our destination along the crest of this mountain, we stated our claims at several homesteads, only to have our demands shut down by the majority, including a monstrous woman who would not have looked out of place in the immediate family of Shrek.

By the time we had done what we could and were considering returning back to Kisii, it was near 5pm, and my stomach was more aware than any nerve in my brain that I had failed to eat anything since the small bowl of yogurt I had slurped down at 9am that morning. During the taxi ride home, as I briefly bemoaned my sad fate, of having essentially eaten too small a breakfast and skipped lunch, an internal debate arose. Perhaps this was intentional, perhaps all new hires are sent into the field without lunch so as to cultivate a proper appreciation of those who go hungry. It was, after all, hungry farmers, who inspired the founding of this organization in the first place. And part of this consideration was accompanied my some measure of anger: had I not experienced hunger before? Had I not gone long without a bite for lack of funds, or while observing Ramadan? Did it not make a worker less productive, less motivated, unhealthy, to engage in such blatant starvation practices? And as I was fuming about all this, I caught my mental breath, and released a cerebral sigh. No one had arranged this for me. I had failed to seek out food, or failed to pack a lunch, or any manner of oversight or lack of effort. Part of what had stopped me was seeing no one else I had been with throughout the day eat a morsel. And I realized, this anger was really the hunger talking, the gnawing feeling in my stomach had gotten the better of my rationality, my self-criticism, my sympathy. And those around me must all have had the same ache. It was, as I had related in my interview, very difficult to work well while hungry. Yet these people did it every day. So though I may be tired, and hungry, I had barely sprinted through a period of deprivation, skimmed the surface of a feeling many run marathons through day in and day out. So to have brought this on myself was really my brain making up for the lack of empathy it had possessed previously. I wouldn’t bemoan my sad state for lack of a lunch again. Instead, I would be proactive, seek out my own sustenance, and appreciate every meal as the blessing it is, for all too many around me had no such blessing in their life with anything like the regularity that I did.

Kisii - town, First Impressions

September 29, 2012

The steep and muddy path from our house

Having arrived in Kenya yesterday, a few observations from my first 36 hours or so: 1^st and most relevant: I can sleep! Being able to sleep in a place is a pretty important quality, given the fundamental role that sleep plays in our health, and is also a marker of a number of other things. One is the climate, for me a climate needs to be sufficiently cool at night to allow for the highest quality sleep. Sleeping in a pool of one’s own sweat, is, simply put, not really sleeping at all. The air this time of year in Kisii is deliciously cool, just warm enough during the day to be relaxing, not too hot to cause sweat without effort. In the shade it is cool and the presence of clouds in the sky promises respite from the powerful sun at regular intervals. Night brings a cooler climate yet, like a refreshing breeze, the dark chases away all vestiges and swelter and leaves the atmosphere refreshing and crisp. Just enough so that long pants and a sleeved shirt are comfortable, but not so much as to provoke the need for a blanket or any idea of shivering. Warm tea becomes appropriate during the hours of sunset, as the sun withdraws its heat and leaves only bright colors painted across the shards of cloud as a remembrance of its earlier presence.

Woken by the mooing of cows mixed with the crowing of roosters the strong light streaming through my window nonetheless kept me transfixed to my bed for several minutes more as I struggled to open my eyes against the glare. Arising with no knowledge of time or purpose, I wandered forth into the light and set about exploring items fit for consumption.

A view of Kisiitown from our hill

Though I did relatively very little during the day today, I settled into living in this house with some alacrity, first making my own breakfast and lunch from materials found in the kitchen, next shaving myself in the yard, being bitten by ants, and then peaking in on the litter of puppies squirming and squeaking in the small ramshackle shed. The rest of the afternoon saw me reading out on the back porch as dusk settled in, listening to the great hubbub of African life taking place all around me in the hills and down in the city below. Pop music, engines, running, cheers from a football game, and the chatter of neighbors all mingled under the pink and yellow sky to isolate the serenity of the backyard and highlight the message that things were happening elsewhere. When it became too dark to read outdoors, I retreated to the foyer, where my continued literary exploits were interrupted by a disappearance of the power. Unfazed, I retrieved a candle stuck in a beer bottle from the interior, fished my lighter from Somaliland from my luggage, and continued to read by the quaint flicker of candle until an hour or so later the lights reappeared and the preparations for dinner commenced. 

The Long Journey Home

September 28, 2012

Having just finished putting together the compendium of random reflections and thoughts from this past year in Somaliland, which I did partly for me, and partly because Sam wouldn't get off my back about it, I’m now sitting in a hotel room near the Cairo Airport, about to embark upon my next great journey. Before I can adequately prepare for that, which I would like to do so as to enter with as clear a mind as possible, I need to put aside these past few weeks (or months really) of travel and personal interaction, storing it in a safe place for the gem that it was, and then making room in the NOW of me for the serious task that lies ahead.

My story after leaving Somaliland has been one of superlatives in a sense, with by far the most countries I’ve visited in a short amount of time, most food I’ve eaten (ever?), most people I’ve visited who weren’t a short drive away, most distance traveled, etc. The facts of the matter, in as plain a narrative as I can muster, were that a mere day after arriving back in Somaliland from my interview for OAF in Kenya, I was on the road again, crossing the Wachale border into Ethiopia, this time with no immediate plan of coming back. From one last Hip Hip Harar! With Erimayas, to some delicious dinners and a nice afternoon on the Taitu terrace from Ellen, Nicholas, and Stephen, to the final, tastiest, chicken burger of our lives, John and I savored Ethiopia as only true connoisseurs could. Even as we flew out of the Addis airport, we didn’t shed too many tears, for we knew we would be back.

The next stop was Egypt, where we had made plans to stay with Thibault in the same apartment Dylan and I had crashed at the previous break. There, owing to the presence of Ramadan and the extreme heat, we didn’t do a ton, but rather walked around a bit, ate some delicious meals, saw the Pyramids (again) and got inexplicably lost rather too many times. After a few days we were ready to journey further for me, to unexplored territory, so we bused down to Dahab, the golden camp on the edge of the red sea. There we became acquainted with a local guru of sorts, a young man named Roddy whose American passport and Egyptian-Samoan background didn’t keep him from declaring Dahab his favorite place on earth. Roddy and a few more of his crew made Dahab a splashing success, with highlights of tipsy truck riding, Y’ella bar DJing, Kofta cookouts, discount beers in the surf at sunset, and early morning skinny dips after scoping the limited club scene. By the time we had to leave, we didn’t want to, and it was with a certain trepidation that we made our way to Nuweiba for the ferry across the Red Sea to Aqaba in Jordan.

A fairly pleasant ferry ride (all things considered) gave way to a noxious late night bus ride up to Amman, until we finally arrived at Sam’s apartment in Jebel Webdeih sometime in the wee hours of the morn. The next 5 days were mainly characterized by sloth and recovery from the previous shenanigans, and Ramadan managed to caste a thick blanket of nothing to do over the city and over us especially. We managed, at last, to rally in our final hour and made a trip down to the Dead Sea for a brutal hike into Wadi Menshallah followed by a stony night of sleeplessness and a morning dip in the putrid waters of the Dead Sea. More than worth it. The next day it was onward and out with John and I flying on to Qatar, where we planned to meet up with former AT teacher Teresa.

Despite the refusal of Qatar airways to sponsor us a visa and the absurdity of paying $40 for 1 night in the city, we decided getting to hang out with Teresa was worth it, which proved to be correct intuition, as between her crazy driving of her open top jeep through the humid streets, the sights of so many buildings, born in their flashy, twisted shapes, almost yesterday, and the fact that she bought us dinner and gave us a nice place to sleep in her living room, more than compensated for Qatar’s antiquated immigration policies.

The next day saw us on a morning flight bound for Sri Lanka, which John and I were both looking forward to in no small amount, in part as it symbolized our break with the Middle East and the introduction to a new culture entirely. Our introduction was less than stellar however, with the almost 2 hour crawl through traffic to our hostel exposing us to enough smog to send a mission to mars. Things immediately improved once we arrived at our beautiful little hostel and realized it was 100 meters from the sandy beach, where we proceeded directly to mix as many local liquors with the popular ginger beer as possible. The next few days were a mix of beach fun and serious consumption of the local Arak (not at all the same as the aniseed liquor of the some name found in Syria). A short trip up to Kandy turned up beautiful countryside in the hills, but no discernible nightlife, making me yearn a bit for Ethiopia and its constant buzz of activity. I returned on my own for one last night on the beach in Colombo before flying out the next day for Malaysia.

Arriving in Kuala Lumpur I was ambushed by Mark who had set up a video chat with Sam and snuck into the baggage claim area. Shutting his shenanigans down STAT, we made our way to visit Kyle and Ayu at Ayu’s sister’s place, where a delicious meal and baby Dash were awaiting. Taking their leave the next day, we traveled on to Melaka, where the Jonker Walk night market overwhelmed me completely and lead to serious overconsumption of strange Chinese snacks and sweets. The next morning we set out for Tioman Island, a fantastic paradise, reachable by annoying and stressful ferry, but worth it for as many days of blissful near-solitude you can spare. There I discovered the joys of snorkeling amongst coral reefs, while dodging sea urchins (successfully) and jellyfish (less than successfully). Tioman offered some of the rawest tropical beauty of my trip so far and stands out as a singularly peaceful place amongst the pandemonium of earlier and later destinations. On from Tioman we made our way to Mark’s town in Southern Malaysia, where we drank more bubble tea, ate more delicious Chinese food, and, when I found out I got a job offer form One Acre fund, drank lots of overpriced beer in a completely empty Indian dance club. Well, I did at least, Mark kindly watched me celebrate and then, when the time was right, participated in a spirited rendition of our fusion dance from the senior year SAS show we performed in.

The next morning it was on the road again, with a short but tiring border crossing into Singapore, leading to lunch with Trixie at the Google office there. Post-lunch Mark and I finagled our way into an Andy Warhol exhibition at the Art Museum, and part of a Harry Potter exhibit before we were kicked out. By that time it was time to head for the airport, and we boarded our Airphil express for the short journey to Manila.

Arriving in Manila by night, we, and by that I mean I, immediately ate some pork, and then we cabbed into Magallenas village, the home of the Angela Poe. The next morning I met Angela’s darling mother, who would be the most consistently awesome host I’d ever had (along with Angela’s Dad and Brother) over the next 4 days, making us feel more at home than our actual homes (almost), and treating us to a rare view of Manila through the perspective of some of its most successful inhabitants, who nonetheless were committed to working for the betterment of their country, down to its most destitute inhabitants (that would be including us :)) Highlights include the awesome volcano on an island with an island, the volcano called Lake Taal at Tagaytay, the ridiculously crowded Manila train service, and the rooftop bar Sky with its strict shoe policy and wonderful view of the city’s most modern buildings. Oh, and the food tour through Chinatown, that was incredible. It was with a heavy heart that I made my way to Clark Airport outside Manila, and an even heavier heart that I learned I would have to spend the night on the benches outside the airport, even though there was no other option for me I could think of.

So it was yet again off a sleepless night that I boarded my flight for Hong Kong early the next morning, but with a few winks en route and the excitement of being amongst so many incredible buildings, I rallied with the energy to test out Hong Kong’s lack of open container laws and eat the most incredible dim sum of my life, before passing out in Jared’s apartment for the rest of the day. The next few days saw me win quizzo for the first time! (not really my doing), bike all over Cheng Chao with Matt, and dance on top of a bar at Carnegie’s, before rising much too early for my long haul flight through Japan (spent 3 hours on trains, saw some of the countryside from these trains) to my final destination of San Francisco.

Emerging from the BART at Civic Center in San Fran, the 1^st thing I noticed was the cool rush of air, the 2^nd the smell of gange. Successfully navigating the bus system (after some false starts) brought me to Catherine and Yuqing’s apartment, where over the next 4 days or so I would meet a great number of Penn people I hadn't known before, listen in on some fascinating conversations on start-ups in tech and growth strategies, and walk, a lot, up and down some serious hills. Add a quick lunch with Aditi, a sojourn into the Sonoma valley for a wine tasting of sorts, and it was a nice time spent in one of America’s most interesting cities.

But then it was time to return home, and so I arrived in Greensboro (cheaper than Raleigh!) to be met by 2 parents, and a serious helping of BBQ, coleslaw and hush puppies. Arriving home was comforting, though lessened somewhat by the lack of Sonny Boy, who had passed away a few weeks previous. My plan of sitting at home and reading all day quickly gave way to a slew of doctor and dentist appointments my mom has so generously arranged for me, and between various errands, seeing family and friends, it was all I could do to get everything essential taken care of before I departed, yet again, 2 weeks later, for NYC and the last leg of my “Hello-Goodbye Tour”.

Spending a night at Arvind’s place on the upper west side, the next day I bused to Boston, where I met up with "the gang", Mike Chen, Maria, Brittney, and Gillian (over the next 4 days), running into several other Penn kids randomly and getting an interesting view of Boston via the North End, Brighton, and Cambridge.

Upon returning to NYC, I was ushered to Brooklyn with Lily where I observed her cozy apartment, shared with Grace the Dula. Taking leave on the early train the next day, I bummed around Bryant Park until I was to meet up with Seghen and Therlow for drinks. Randomly encountering Mary at the same intersection, the 4 of us enjoyed some tasty beers and finally I rushed back to the upper west to catch Arvind before he fell asleep. The next day found me at Bryant Park yet again, where after a dear lunch with Arvind, I caught up with Michelle before being forced into the subway on my way to JFK, which would land me, some 10 hours later, at this hotel in Cairo, where EgyptAir is putting me up for the day while I wait for my onward journey to Nairobi in a few hours.

Reflections Scribbled at Dusk on a Bus Ride into Ethiopia

Homelessness: that strange ache of nostalgia and déjà vu that you feel when entering a foreign land.

One that is not yours, nor has ever been yours, yet somehow, gazing out on its gently folded landscape, you feel a calling as if from the house of childhood years, and the man you might have become.

If only you could remove yourself from the current, descend from the ton of metal and plastic and engine fuel, have these evaporate around you until even the roar of motors and the squeal of brakes are no more than a dissipated echo, a mirage gently sinking into the moist earth below.

If you could walk barefoot through this earth and feel the pulse of its ancient rhythm, as soft and malleable as silt curled beneath your toes, then you would have found an origin, a starting point at least, a tap from which the soul trickles, spreading far, but always with the taste of this spring on its ephemeral lips.

Through the kind bushes and sunken ravines you would walk, over the mounds of soil and craggy rocks alike, until you would come out onto a surface, more alien than the stars above (your roof), more unnatural than the cathedrals built by insects (your neighbors), sliced across the horizon as if to subdue it, pulling the soul’s trickle faster, tugging it toward a mythological infinity that whispers, always barely audible, yet piercing through the low rumble of the earth, implanting a desire that cannot be fulfilled, yet begs satisfaction,

until the metal and the plastic, the rubber and the fuel with a destination to achieve, re-condense around you, forming smudged panes through which the eye hungrily digs, and in the belly, or behind it, barely audible over the motor’s hum, whispers an ache.

Ethiopian countryside outside the walls of the ancient city of Harar

Where the Streets Have No Name

Our Welcoming Entrance - Vestibule

Perched on a large rock near the entrance to a construction site, illuminated only by the small flashlight in my hand, I listened to the voices pass by in the dark as people went on about their evening business.

As unlikely as it may seem, I was in the process of administering a University Entrance Exam, albeit, what was rapidly turning into the most ghetto attempt at professionalism ever conceived. Zooming out for some context on my nighttime perch brings into view the large building behind me, well on its way to becoming one of the nicer buildings along one of the more central and developed streets of Hargeisa, but currently in a state of sorrow half-completion. A windowless concrete hulk, the bare walls, staircases submerged in cement dust, and piles of rubble surrounding the entrance bespoke a construction project that, like much else in Somaliland, was running significantly behind schedule.

All this was fine and good, save the minor detail that Ilya, our Comrade-cum-University Administrator in Chief, had scheduled the Entrance Examination for our Adult English Program to be THAT night, at THAT exact location. It was to be given to prospective students who, having braved the unexpected turn-off down a dirt road and entered the grounds of the eerie construction site, would make their way up the debris strewn stairwell to a classroom on the second floor, distinguished primarily by the fact that some tiles had been put in across the floor, which had also been apologetically swept. It speaks volumes about the adaptability and general tolerance for ineptness that we expected students to navigate this obstacle course just to sit for our exam, and it might have gone off without a hitch, if it weren’t for one minor construction detail that absolutely HAD to have been completed by this point in time… Indeed, prospective students could locate the towering building shell, step through the rusty wire and bent nails on the stairway, and find the one classroom with the swept floor and the desks we had trucked from our secondary school, EXCEPT for the minor detail that the exam was slated to begin after dark, and we had no lights.

“The wiring was supposed to be completed last week!”, “This is such a poor reflection of our program, we should postpone the exam!” were Ilya’s initial pronouncements. With no lights to illuminate even the bare floor or rubble filled stairs of our semi-completed locale, cancelling the exam, changing its location, or just giving the whole enterprise up would have been logical actions. Did we do any of these things? Of course not, otherwise how would I have ended up sitting on a large rock at the construction site entrance, ushering shadowy figures across the road to come forward, “weren’t they here for the Adult English Exam?”

Our “solution” was to leave Abaarso for the exam 30 minutes early, stop by the only electronics shop in the market minutes before it closed, and negotiate for four electric lanterns, which we would use to provide safety, reassurance, adequate testing conditions, and all the comforts of home for the intrepid test takers who would see our lantern, shining in the empty rectangle where a window would eventually be, as a beacon to everything that our program stood for: Preparedness, Professionalism, … Enlightenment?

My job was first to strategically establish key areas of illumination so as to minimize our casualty toll, placing one lantern in the hallway, one at the turn in the stairwell, and two in the classroom where the students would pleasantly work their way through their test papers, enjoying the cool breeze through the window frame and the soft blare of the two adjacent mosques calling out their evening time prayers. Secondly, I would establish myself as the docent to this ghoulish edifice of education and wait patiently on the large rock outside the entrance for any souls brave enough to wander near, ready to guide them with my single beam through the horror movie set that would be their testing locale.

As I waited there patiently and listened to the voices float by in the deep evening gloom, I was reminded of another uneven dirt road, the one that ran, or often flowed, past our house in Buea, Cameroon. There, as well as here, strangers passed in a seemingly endless procession, heading who knows where but always willing to offer a word of greeting, or nod hello to the strange white figure seated, staring out at them. Though these two dirt roads existed in manifestly different contexts, one ambling off into the jungle under sagging power lines and constantly pawed by chickens, the other mere blocks from the Ministries of Finance, Agriculture, Livestock and Somaliland’s Parliament, they held for me a comforting similarity. Both were immune to the hustle and bustle that might be expected to comprise a country’s fourth largest city, or a semi-country’s capital. Both were of soil, uneven, reshaped by the rains and immodestly slippery when wet, the kind of roads that seemed more at home in a quiet countryside. But for the many feet that morning and evening molded them into something new. But for the cars, carts, and trucks that tried to put them straight and only ended up mired in their muddy grip. These were not roads that resisted change, no, they merely bent and sunk, tilted and turned to each new force that rode them. These roads were indifferent to whether the woman whose car got stuck every time it drizzled and repaid our assistance with fresh pineapples left on the front porch needed to be somewhere, or would rather have kept her pineapples. And they were indifferent to our English exam, advertised by a pale figure, perched atop a large rock, outside a creepy construction site.

Eventually several examinees arrived, were ushered to a chorus of excuses and apologies up the debris strewn staircases, and successfully sat for the exam. One young lady even had two of her friends accompany her as far as the exam room door before explaining that they had only come to reassure her and would wait outside. It would be hard to say I blame her; chances are I wouldn’t have set foot in a strange building that matched ours’ description if I had the 101^st Airborne Division following behind me. But TIA (This Is Africa), and the students who came were determined to enroll in our course, to better their English, to fulfill all the promises that such a language offered. But as the tiny lanterns illuminated the test takers, struggling through the grammar exercises before them, I felt that they shouldn’t be judged by this building, by this situation, by the half-finished wreck around them or the desire to speak a language not their own that drove them to such a place. Rather, I’d like to think of the voices outside, the silhouettes moving in the darkness, and the road they traveled on.  

Our "Ambiently" Lit Exam Room

The View Out On Downtown Hargeisa from the Unfinished Roof

A Courtside Lesson in Somali History

Yesterday, while resting after completing my daily ritual of shooting a basketball at the rickety hoops Suzanne and I assembled, sans wrenches, last week for the new girls’ basketball court, one of the 10^th grade students visiting for the day decided to give Jake, John and I a lesson in recent Somali history.

Coming to this country several weeks ago, I realized I knew practically nothing about the history of the region, be it the tumultuous events of the past few years, or the earlier story of a place that went from being one of Africa’s most promising countries, to the world’s most famous failed state.  Seeking to remedy my surprising ignorance, I procured a copy of I.M. Lewis’s A Modern History of the Somali, one of the few comprehensive texts on the Somali people, thankfully on hand in the school’s library for Stephanie to use in her African history course. Lewis, a social anthropologist by discipline, is probably the leading scholar on the Somali people, a nation unfortunately split between five “states”, from Northern Kenya, the Ogaden desert of Ethiopia, and Southern Somalia, to Somaliland and Djibouti in the north.

As any scholar of history, ethnicity, and nationalism will tell you, the misalignment of nations and the modern boundaries of states, often as a consequence of ignorant, malicious, or simply uncaring Western colonial decisions, is one of the chief drivers of conflict in today’s world and often a recipe for recurring disaster. The Somali nation, a uniquely dismembered people in terms of the state boundaries imposed upon them, suffer the further complications of their unique position at the intersection of Africa and the Middle East; a crossroads of religion and commerce notable equally for the value of the bountiful goods that pass by its shores as for the starkness and unforgiving caprice of its desert environment.

Jumping into Lewis’s work toward the end at the chapter titled “Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Revolution in the Horn of Africa”, and reading on to “Chaos, International Intervention, and the North”, I came to respect the incredible complexity that modern Somali history has contained, playing host to foreign influences from near and far, while struggling with its own many identity crises between the traditional clan structure and radical new forms of government under Military Dictator General Siyad Barre’s promotion of Scientific Socialism. Making my way through a fairly dense text that at times seemed to gloss over major events like the beginning of the Somali Civil war and the flight of General Barre, while explicating in detail the Machiavellian maneuvers of Barre’s inter-clan positioning and foreign policy dilemmas, I arrived at a better understanding of the diverse obstacles that have been thrown in the way of Somalia’s development as a modern nation. The complex milieu of sub-clans, political leaders, warlords, militant movements and shifting alliances is difficult to reconcile into one cohesive narrative, so I won’t attempt it. 

However, the 10^th grade student, Abdurrahman, managed quite well in his own limited vocabulary to explain to us on the basketball court what this conflict has meant to him in his short 15 years.

Growing up in Somaliland, stable since its self-declared independence in 1991, Abdurrahman has watched the southern part of his country fall apart in stops and starts. Relating the perspective of a friend who lives in Mogadishu, where not a night passes that does not involve gunfire and the blasts of munitions, he tells how his friend’s visit to Hargeisa was met with astonishment at the peace and quiet that allowed him to sleep through the night undisturbed. According to him a similar peace was achieved for a brief 6 months  in the south in 2006, when the Islamic Courts Union succeeded in expelling the violent warlords from Mogadishu and achieving some measure of stability for the beleaguered capital. This peace was shattered by the US-backed Ethiopian invasion that reignited the conflict and re-opened the door to the warlords and to Al-Qaeda, ushering in the past 4 years of near constant violence in the ravaged city that was once the jewel of Africa.

Supplementing this 15 year olds views was an article from the Nation shared with me by a friend from home, detailing the extensive support the US has given the capricious and self-concerned warlords that have battled each other for their control of the area, leading to the rise of Al-Shabab and its tactics of terror. This article is eye-opening, not only for the mercurial nature of the alliances and loyalties of many key figures in the conflict, but for the level of foreign, in particular US, involvement in the region, exemplifying a policy of intervention and secret dealings that has had much the opposite effects to those intended by US strategic aims. It’s hard to see much distinction between the uninformed backing of factional leaders today that accentuate divisions between clans and militarize their differences, and the partition of the Somali people between 5 states by the colonial powers many years before, leading to the conclusion that Western policy in the Horn of Africa remains essentially misguided, and unchanged.

Cause for much more hope, and debate, is Abdurrahman’s pronouncement that he longs for the day of a unified Somalia, an unusual viewpoint seldom heard in Somaliland which is fiercely protective of its tenuous sovereignty and marked separation from the chaos to its south. Whether it reflects the hopeful naiveté of a 15 year old unmarked by the brutal cleavages that have arisen between so many, or a powerful sentiment for reconciliation in the face of so much division, Abdurrahman’s dream is invaluable, for it represents a generation on the rise, and one, as far as he is concerned, determined to seek his education abroad, but then return to his country, for his cause is with his people.

A Coat of Many Colors, a Field of Many Dreams

Several days into my first week here at Abaarso Tech, and I am paralyzed.

Paralyzed, not by lack of possibility or motivation, but quite the opposite; there is just so much to be done here, so much that I can take part in, contribute to, create, that I am paralyzed by the possibilities, and the creeping knowledge that I will not have enough time to accomplish all that I want here in this windy oasis of learning.

First and foremost, I want to teach. As someone who has spent uncountable hours pushing and struggling to make students care about learning in the desperately underperforming yet even more desperately under-motivated Philadelphia school system, the chance to lead a classroom of students, many coming from some of the least privileged households in the world, yet thirsty for knowledge and advancement, is a ship finally come to shore.

To plunge fresh minds into the river of knowledge and immerse them completely, to start fires in the forest of curiosity, to squeeze the milk of reason and the syrup of intellectual stimulation from the craggy rocks and stunted trees of this desert landscape, this may seem slightly overwrought, but often these delusions of grandiosity are the greatest motivation to push onwards towards the mirage, against the insidious sands of ignorance, the unbearable heat of complacence, and through the stark desert landscape of a closed off mind.

A true love of learning is not such a dry and brittle tender that it is easily ignited, but with the effort to get it alight comes the knowledge that it will continue to burn with a smoldering alacrity long into the darkest night, serving as a beacon to others and lighting a path forward through the unknown. As the proud defender of one of the world’s last remaining libraries in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 declared as she went up in flames along with her treasured stacks of books:

"Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England Somaliland, as I trust shall never be put out."

(Originally a quotation from heretics burned at the stake during the Reign of Bloody Mary)

Not that the state of the world is quite to the point of Bradbury’s dark vision yet, but a mounting number of books and documentaries have come to decry the state of education, at least in America, lamenting its long decline and calling to arms any and all who would strive to save this vaunted institution. While America’s primary and secondary schools fall further behind, our Universities remain a bastion of excellence, holding the majority of the top rankings throughout the world and attracting talent from every corner of the globe. Perhaps this merely represents a shift in our comparative advantage, just as the manufacturing industry has all but disappeared from our shores, so the “factories” of basic education are finding the competitive environment unencouraging, while high tech and higher education flourish. In any case, though I will attempt to comment on the macro trends of global education at a later date, let me return to the (plethora of) tasks at hand.

Yes, I want to teach, to instill a love of learning in my students, and to introduce and encourage them along a journey that includes a profound appreciation of the classics, knowledge of contemporary writers, and the empowerment to dive into any work of literature and find meaning. As I am teaching writing, I want my students not only to be great connoisseurs of the best writing available, but to become accomplished practitioners, eager and willing to make their own mark on the word wielding the greatest weapon of all, the pen, err, keyboard.

Beyond my core objective of teaching, my goals run the gamut, from the most mundane to the most complex of endeavors:

I want to improve the landscaping at this school, to align rocks into pathways and sculptures rather than them being a constant hazard underfoot.

I want to change the school’s system of waste management, to limit the burning of unsavory materials that pollutes the air and wastes potential resources, to turn plastic and glass into new things and to develop a sense of responsibility for the environment amongst the staff and students.

I want to raise the school’s image amongst the global conscience, through promotion and engagement of social media, as well as outreach to a greater base of donors and supporters.

I want to be active in the most literal sense, coaching a basketball team, giving tennis lessons, playing football, for the health of my own body as well as the promotion of team skills amongst the students, cohort that they are that must rely on each other to succeed.

I want to prepare the students for applying to college, to help them crack the SAT and TOEFL, to write superior personal essays, to secure feasible financial aid. Partnerships will need to be developed with US universities willing to give them a chance and the students must be ready to survive and compete in a culture very foreign to their own.

I want to introduce a system of peer mediation and conflict resolution amongst the students to further their independence and interdependence when dealing with life’s issues, and I want to enhance their emotional intelligence, teaching them the soft skills of cooperation, communication, trust, responsibility and tolerance.

As for myself, I want to improve my own teaching ability, increase my knowledge of Arabic and Somali, gain knowledge of management and finance from the AT University programs, and make connections within the Somali community for greater cultural understanding as well as future development projects in the region and the greater Middle East.

As of now, these are the tasks before me. Only time will tell whether a year’s time is sufficient, but all I

can do is begin. Each great oration starts with a single word, and even a small wall must begin with a
single stone, so it’s time to shake the paralysis and begin picking them up, one dusty rock after another.

Our current method of waste disposal, 

one of the many tasks to be accomplished.

(Notice the mini-guard in mid-air above the flame ;)

First Impressions: In Pictures

From the Highest Building in the World 

(Burgh Khalifa, Dubai)

                                                         

                                                       To Our Humble Mosque and Laundry Drying Apparatus 

                                        To the Great Plains of Scrubland and Valley's Surrounding Us

                                                     And One of Our Dashing Guards, Ahmed

                                               And the Pleasant Foliage that inhabits this land

                                          And the actually somewhat Pleasant Garden outside my Room

We have Abaarso Tech and its surroundings, a place to spend the next year exploring and enhancing!

Finding the Country that’s not on the Map

“No sir, that is not my passport number”, “No I don’t have any other passports, you must have made some mistake”

These were the first words I had the great fortune to speak to a Somaliland Official, uttered mid-morning at the tiny building that served as Hargeisa’s airport, arrival hall, customs, and immigration. We had done everything right, printed out the letter urging the government to waive the required exchange of our America dollars into the intensely devalued Somaliland currency, bringing with us our ticket stubs and the sheet of paper with all of our names printed on it that served as our official visa to enter the state-that-isn’t-a-state known as Somaliland. Of course doing everything right is no guarantee, and sure enough, my passport number and the one they had printed for me were completely  different, causing me some anxiety that I would be unable to enter the country…at least in any other country this might pose a problem, however, seeing that many other mistakes were present on our visa, not least the misspelling of the word “Republic” in the official title of the “Republic of Somaliland”, I thought I had a pretty good case for letting me in, and by golly, it had been too long of a flight to be turned back now!

My journey to the country that’s not on the map started off with a fairly typical though perhaps inauspicious delayed flight from Raleigh to New York’s JFK. I had planned to spend my 5 hour layover meeting up with my friend Mike Chen and relaxing in the airport, but instead had only time for a quick hello and the receiving of a gift of trail mix before I had to rush into the security line for my next flight to Moscow. Arriving in the gleaming (apparently brand new) Moscow airport, I immediately recognized how clean and soft the floors looked, and in following up on that intuition, lay down for a delightful 7 hour nap. Then it was time for our flight to Dubai, the Vegas of the Middle East, and a fitting juxtaposition to presage our arrival in one of the world’s newest and least developed countries. After checking in to our hotel, which appeared to double as a Chinese, Korean, and Pakistani brothel during the on-season, the other teachers and I had the chance to scout out some delicious Lebanese Shwarma at 3am before the sun rose and the iron curtain of fasting fell across the (outwardly) pious little Emirate. Awaking early, I had the distinct pleasure of taking Dubai’s brand new metro for a ride, an amazing piece of engineering that evoked the futuristic cities of science fiction, by which I was swiftly transported to the Tallest Building in the World, which proved too large to fit in one photograph, and too expensive to enter and rise to the top ($100 for a peek from its view). After a little more mall-centric site seeing, we met up with Kyle and Ayu, two former Abaarso Tech teachers, who for the next several hours fielded a constant barrage of questions from all of us information starved teachers, and valiantly stood their ground against this onslaught of curiosity.  After breaking our fast at a delicious Indian restaurant, we made our way to the airport, where we awaited the final two legs of our quest to enter the un-mapped nation across the sea.

Our Dallo (Djibouti)  Airlines flight, on an aircraft that appeared to be acquired from Spain, and was operated by a crew from Tajikistan, offered a number of peculiarities which bare relating. Among the expected group of Somali passengers, there was a large contingent of what appeared to be Pakistani Sheikhs, robed and bearded, who took every occasion to demonstrate their piety and defy the normal guidelines for airplane travel. As one took the loudspeaker to voice the call to prayer, several holed up in the small bathroom to purify themselves from head to foot, and as we approached an area of turbulence, though the pilot desperately flashed the seatbelt sign, all rose and knelt in the aisle to pray, much to the consternation of our anxious young flight attendant.

Arriving safely in the early morning, the departure/arrival room of the small Djibouti airport was brimming with camouflage, a large contingent of US Navy personnel evidently were making their long awaited escape back home. The look in their eyes said it all; they had no intention of welcoming us to the small, hellishly hot country they had just been toiling in, their focus was purely on McDonald's, Mom, and Apple Pie. Finally we were called out onto the runway and exactly according to our expectations, boarded a propeller place with no AC and seats that flopped around brokenly in the wind. This proved surprisingly comfortable (for me) and the combination of hot air and roaring propellers lulled me into a deep sleep, until 45 minutes later we touched down on the dirt runway of Hargeisa (Int'l) Airport, and experienced fresh breezes sent down from the hills to welcome us to the country beyond the cartographer’s reach.

Now no matter how fresh those breezes were, I was not going to wait around in that airport for the next bunch of frazzled deliveries to push their way into line, so I explained, as best I could, that the visa was “full of mistakes!” I may have said something to the effect of “you even got the name of your bloody country wrong! Of course you made a mistake with my passport number!” In any case I eventually prevailed, and breathing deeply with relief (though somewhat disturbed at the same time by the depth (or lack thereof) of screening), was able to rejoin my compatriots, claim my luggage (they actually checked the tags!) and make my way along the dusty road to where the Abaarso Tech bus awaited us.

Driving through the streets of Hargeisa, I’m not sure what I had expected, but the dissonance that I felt led me to believe that it had been something else. Hargeisa was unlike any other capital city I had ever seen. In many other economically deprived, underdeveloped countries, the rest of the country may suffer, but corrupt dictators pour all the resources at their disposal into making their capital’s appropriate flagships to their pride and arrogance. Here however, nary a building of any size, nor a thoroughfare of any particular pomp or care was to be found. As we passed through the heart of town, and no large stores nor sizable offices appeared, and as we drove by the Presidential Palace, a building that distinguished itself mainly by its large fence and the cleanliness of its walls, it became apparent that either Somaliland distributed its wealth much more evenly… or the country simply had fewer resources than I had imagined. In any case, the capital was soon left behind and as we bounced along the road to Abaarso I was able to appreciate the removed location of the school where I would be living and working. On top of a hill, surrounded by valleys and dessert planes, the school was a bucolic call to action, and I had arrived at last to do my part.