Made it Home from Kenya and Now I’m Off to Croatia in Two Weeks…..

....after a good three-week trip here and in Rwanda. One of the downers was no Internet access while I was in Kisumu but, in a way, it was of nice going a whole week with no Internet, newspapers, emails or cell phone.

Kisumu is reportedly the third largest city in Kenya but is nowhere the size of Nairobi. It is also considered a peaceful place normally but all of Kenya is under alert right now because the government is trying to rewrite the constitution to allow for equal power sharing and the process is deadlocked right now. South Africa is sending in a mediator to get the negotiating process going again but this power sharing thing is very touchy with the people right now. You may remember two years ago, after the elections here, there was widespread rioting and killing over the new government changing the constitution. The initial rioting started here in Kisumu and something like 1,200 people were killed in the first three days alone. Buildings were ransacked and churches were burned—one church with about 200 people inside it. I’m told the Center for Disease Control chartered a jet from Europe and evacuated during that period.

Well, the power sharing issue is back in the news and there is a really pronounced police and military presence here in the city. Instead of making people feel safer, however, it is making people even more nervous because the police are generally considered more dangerous than the criminals. Around mid-week we drove by a small group of police on the sidewalk and they were all carrying machetes. I’ve never seen that anywhere else in the world—not even in Africa. I don’t think they were planning to do any landscaping work.

Also around mid-week, we drove out towards the Uganda border and drove past the village that reportedly President Obama’s father was from. Tourism isn’t very established here so much of what you hear and see is undocumented but Obama did visit here in 2006 when he was still a Senator. As is normal in the countryside, there isn’t much to the village and we didn’t stop. I’m told there is a sign leading to his father’s house and you can pay to visit but, like I said, we kept on driving. He also visited the Center for Disease Control facility while he was here and had his photo taken with a lot of the people working here. They published a commemorative photo book of the event and it seems every desk has a photo of somebody posing with him.

Overall, the week went pretty well. The Center for Disease Control is a very large facility here and they were good hosts. The main drawback is that they were 30-40 minutes from town and most of our training needs to be done in the city. On Friday morning we were picked up at the hotel and were going out to the facility on the two-lane potholed road when we ran into a road jam. Cars and trucks were backed up for quite a distance and we slowed to a crawl. We thought it was an accident but as we got very close to it we heard automatic rifle fire. It didn’t sound like popcorn or popping balloons—it was obviously gunfire and people on foot started running back towards us. Since we were boxed in with the traffic and couldn’t move, we were pretty much stuck where we were. My thought was “get the camera out.”

As we got closer, we heard another burst of gunfire and saw more people running. When we got up to the scene it wasn’t an accident but an arrest being made. The police were arresting this van driver who was a pretty big guy and the crowd kept moving in trying to help him. There were several policemen there and two of them had automatic rifles and as the crowd got too close they would start firing in the air. They did it again while we were right beside them and I have no doubt they would have fired directly into the crowd if they had felt threatened. The man they were arresting was in the back of the police wagon—basically a flat-bed truck with a cage welded on the back—and we could see he had had his shirt ripped mostly off of him and he was already pretty bloody. While we were right there, I guess he decided he didn’t want to go down to the Kisumu city jail (and who would blame him), so he went charging out the back of the cage. Just as he got out, two policemen tried to take him back down and I shot a photo from the back seat then put my camera away. It’s a blurry photo but you can see the two police wrestling him to the ground. After we passed by, we picked up speed again and I remember looking out the back window and watching four or five policemen with clubs just beating the heck out of him on the ground. I mean they made the Rodney King incident look like fraternity hazing.

Anyway, while the week went well overall, the machete-carrying police and the arrest with gunfire didn’t exactly make for a relaxing environment. As I said in the previous post, one of my favorite moments each day was to go to the top floor and drink tea and watch the sunset over the lake. My final night was a good one—probably the most beautiful sunset of my visit.

Friday we wrapped everything up around noon and headed back to town. As a side trip on the way back to the hotel, we drove down an old dirt road to a place called Tilapia Beach located on the banks of Lake Victoria. While the place wasn’t exactly Cancun, it did have the thatched-roof cabanas with tables. Lake Victoria isn’t particularly pretty right here but it is historically significant in that it was embroilled in conflict over the illusive “source of the Nile.” While we were there, fishermen were out doing their thing and the kitchen had a large number of Tilapia drying in the sun.

We sat down under one of the cabanas and had something to drink together as we were splitting up in six different directions that evening. When I do these international jobs, it is not uncommon that the group that week gives me something small to remember them by. They don’t make a lot of money so it’s usually something very small but they are also things I really appreciate. This group, it seems, decided to thank me by providing a fish dinner and had ordered three large tilapia for lunch. Given the sanitation standards of the kitchen and the unknown factor of the sanitation of the waters of Lake Victoria, I would not normally have eaten here it would have been a major insult to have refused so I double-checked for my emergency medicine I carry in my left pocket, smiled real big, said thanks, and grabbed the first handful. You basically just use your fingers to dig the meat off the carcass and eat with your fingers. I enjoyed it and, thankfully, didn’t have any lingering after-effects.

They were all flying out on Saturday and I had a Friday evening flight so I caught a ride to the airport; transferred to Nairobi; made a relatively smooth trip through customs and ticketing and spent about three hours at the business lounge there finally getting Internet access and checking my emails. The flight from Nairobi was nine hours with a three-hour layover at Heathrow in London where I had really good Internet access and posted my previous entry on this blog. From there it was a ten-hour flight to Houston and a one-hour drive home.

Overall, it was a very good trip: No major problems with a lot of interesting things and a little excitement.

I leave for Zagreb, Croatia in about two weeks so there’ll be more on the blog from there…..

Had No Internet at Kisumu But We Did Have A Little Excitement.....

..... The flight from Kigali was, as I expected, not without problems but I made it here ok and with my entire luggage. The flight to Nairobi was only one hour and we flew over the Rwandan mountains, across part of Lake Victoria and even over a part of the Serengeti Plain before landing. It would have been possible to see Mt. Kilimanjaro except for the cloud cover, which is almost always the case. On my first visit to Africa, when I was flying from Johannesburg to Nairobi, we caught one of those rare days when you can see it from the air and I was sitting on the right side of the plane so I got to see the summit and it does have snow on it.

The flight to Kisumu from Nairobi was only about 45 minutes and I arrived before dark. I was mistaken before, Kisumu is actually north, not south, of Nairobi and sits on the bank of Lake Victoria. In fact, from my room window, I can just see the water and the sunset over the lake every night isbeautiful.

The airport here is very small—we have larger convenience stores in Texas. Literally. After we deplaned, we had to wait on the tarmac for another jet to take off in front of us. Of course, only small jets can access this area. The waiting area for departures is under a large tent.

The Imperial Hotel is not bad. During the British Colonial Period, I’m sure it was a 5-star. Today it is a 3-star but still very adequate. The restaurant is beautiful—fully finished out with teak paneling and planking. There is teak through the hotel, even the outside areas (teak is almost impervious to weathering). The only problem was no Internet.

The first morning I walked around and went downtown. I felt fairly comfortable doing it and didn’t have any problems but there is a considerable tension because of the upcoming elections. Two years ago the elections resulted in rioting and thousands being killed and much of it was here at Kisumu. Kisumu was an important British colonial outpost and I’m sure sixty years ago it was a beautiful and maintained small city. Unfortunately, like most former colonial cities in Africa, today it is run down, dirty and in disrepair.

I walked down past the University of Nairobi branch (again a very small building) and down to the city’s main attraction—the clock tower in the center of the main traffic circle. Sikhs have a strong presence here—obvious by their long beards and turbans—and I went past one of their temples and took a photo. The main street was pretty deserted on Sunday morning, but street venders were already putting out their wares on blankets along the sidewalks.

Odd thing happened again—I ran into someone I knew here. The driver who picked me up at the airport trained with me in 2005 wh
en we were at the US Embassy in Nairobi. He now works up here for the Center for Disease Control.

My students were from Botswana, Ethiopia, Zambia, Rwanda and Mozambique and were a pretty good group. The only really notable thing we did this week was one day we drove south toward the border of Uganda and visited the village where Obama’s father was from. There wasn’t much there—really poor road with shacks and dirt floors.

I particularly enjoyed the evenings here. Because of the mountains and Lake Victoria, there is a fiery beautiful sunset every evening and I would go up to the bar in the top floor of the hotel around 6:00 and order a pot of mint tea and sit there and watch the sun set across the lake. After that I would go down to the outdoor Victoria Terrace and eat supper. Really an enjoyable end to every day…..

I am posting this from Heathrow Airport in London and will make another post after I get home. There were some interesting things happened towards the end of the job......

Went to a Chinese Market, a Bootleg Video Store, a Black Market Money Exchange and Discovered I Don’t Have a Ticket to Leave Kigali This Weekend…..

…..I did a short two-day recertification class Monday and Tuesday and had a student from Togo; one from Ghana, and a local Rwandan. They were a good group and in some ways it was basically a two-day drive around the city just reviewing stuff they already knew. We went up by the national soccer stadium and shot some photos there and just kind of cruised around town. Nice way to earn a living….

After the second and final day, we took to the two from Ghana and Togo to visit the Genocide Museum and I somehow ended up being the guide since I had been there before. About half-way through, the guy from Togo broke down and couldn’t finish it so we made it a quick visit. From there we went to a Chinese market so they could get some things to take back home with them. It was kind of interesting—the Chinese are everywhere over here (and in all of Africa). Africa has all the natural resources and minerals they need for their industrialization and they are really investing heavily over here. Almost all the sports stadiums in Africa were constructed, and paid for, by the Chinese as well as a lot of the government office buildings. The Chinese market wasn’t “official” but just another example of the growing influence they have over here.

Before we went to the market, one of the students needed to exchange money and the bank at the Embassy was closed and the hotel has terrible exchange rates so we went downtown and he went into a Black Market Money Exchange. They are semi-legal, or semi-illegal, depending on how you look at it. Officially they aren’t supposed to exist but unofficially nothing is ever done about them. I imagine there are some payments under the table somewhere. The one we went to was downtown and you entered through a door with an electronic lock and buzzer then walked down a long narrow hall that was lined with, believe it or not, sheet metal. At the end of the hallway were two “teller” booths completely enclosed in one-way glass with the reflective side facing you. You put your money in a slot and a pair of hands took it and returned the local currency. At no time could you see who was on the other side—and I presume, you could never identify them. I thought about taking a photo then it dawned on me that might not be a real smart idea.

That same student wanted some CD’s from several African singers so we went to a “video exchange” store. Now that I think of it, I’ve never seen a music or video store in Africa and the reason is that everything is bootleg over here. The store had all but one of the titles and the price was right, so while we stood there they burned copies of the titles in stock. It was about $2 per CD—about what a rental would cost in the States—and he gets to take the CD’s home. They also do the same with videos—I’m sure if I wanted a copy of Gone With the Wind, they would pull it up on the computer, burn me a copy, and send me on my way. The problem for Americans, however, is that there are several international formats for music and videos and most of those won’t work on players or computers in the States.

The second recertification group arrived and we started Wednesday. There are four of them and it was a surprise for me at the hotel Wednesday morning when we were waiting to be picked up—I knew all of them! We had trained together two years in Ethiopia and they were also a good group and we’ve had a good time the past three days. One is from Djibouti; one from Madagascar; one from Gabon; and the other from Ethiopia. More and more I’m beginning to run into people I’ve worked with before.

Wednesday I took my tickets to the travel office at the embassy to have my reservations confirmed and learned I don’t actually have a ticket from Rwanda to Kenya—which is not a good thing. Somehow when my tickets were purchased for this trip, the one leg from Kigali to Nairobi was left out of the billing so I had to buy a ticket on my credit card. I think everything is ok now but flying in Africa is always a stressful experience and this doesn’t help. Unfortunately I have to spend five hours layover at Nairobi and that’s considered the nastiest, dirtiest and most dangerous airport in Africa. On my first trip, in 2004, I had two guys try to snatch my brief case.

Since the embassy closes at noon on Fridays, we had a little time to take this group around town and, for the third time in two weeks, I ended up at the Genocide Memorial. There is a small chapel in the center of the museum and this time I just got them started on the tour and waited for them in the chapel. I turned the flash off my camera and shot pictures of two of the stained glass windows. Everything about this place is sad but these two windows seem to say it all—notice in both of them the preponderance of human skulls. The top picture has a reclining cross in the center and the lower right corner also has skulls but the lower left corner contains machetes.

At one point I went outside and struck up a conversation with the guard outside the front door. He was wearing a black military-style uniform and was carrying an AK-47 assault rifle and the clip was actually loaded with ammunition. I asked him if they had any real problems and he told me that it’s not unheard of that survivors or family members of the victims to visit and get so overwhelmed that they storm out—sometimes looking to strike out at anything or anyone they see.

After visiting the museum, we stopped by a Rwandan craft market where they sell tourist souvenirs and I negotiated a couple of items with one of the ladies there. We both negotiated hard and I probably paid more than I should have but the old saying is “if you leave happy, you got a good deal.” She let me take a picture of her in her shop before I left. A true entrepreneur……….

My job in Kenya next week involves the US Center for Disease Control and it’s the first time my company has worked with them anywhere so this is a pilot project and I’m not sure what to expect. Because of the travel involved, tomorrow will be somewhat stressful but once I do make it to Kisumu, I’ll be able to relax and then spend Sunday as a layover day. If I have Internet access, I’ll be posting after I get there. Maybe I’ll be able to get out and look around Sunday; maybe not……..

This Was My View at Breakfast This Morning…..

…..I normally don’t eat breakfast even though it’s included in the price of the room but today is Saturday and I slept in (my jet lag issues seem to be resolved) and went down for a leisurely light breakfast. It was a bit chilly—probably 68 to 70 degrees—but refreshing. The hotel really does have beautiful grounds and as a result there are all kinds of birds around and most of them are exotic with bright colors. They’re pretty camera-shy, though, and I couldn’t get a picture of a lime-green hummingbird that hovered right over my table like a helicopter looking straight at me. There weren’t many people in the outdoor area so I sat there probably an hour or so drinking coffee. African coffee tends to be very strong, somewhat bitter and has a really strong taste—kind of like I make it at home—and I really like it.

After breakfast I took a two-hour walk around town and basically just explored. I stopped at one point and got a picture of a matatu bus—usually a Volkswagen mini-van—that are popular here and in Kenya. Here they are somewhat regulated but in Kenya they are notorious for packing as many as 25-30 people inside. In Nairobi, they had cargo racks on top and it wasn’t unusual to see people sitting on top holding onto the side rails. They are very cheap and most Rwandans use them but, like I said, they don’t pack them like they do in Kenya. They are one of the biggest causes of wrecks here because few have brake lights or turn indicators and they tend to unexpectedly stop in the middle of the road every time they see someone looking for a ride. This past week I saw one of them get in a wreck with a truck in front of the hotel on one of my walks and shot a photo.

In my suicidal quest to ride every type of public transportation once, I rode in a matatu in Nairobi for a short distance and it was probably the stupidest and most dangerous stunt I’ve pulled. I’ve ridden tuk-tuks in Thailand, pedicabs in Lima, a jeepney in Manila and a Chinese taxi but no more matatus for me.

I will, however, probably try the other type of public transportation over here—the green and yellow motorcycle. These are also very cheap and are strictly regulated by the government. They are identified by their green and yellow reflective vests (the Rwandan national colors) and they wear green helmets. They also carry a second helmet and passengers are required to wear it when being transported. My only concern is that the helmets have face masks and you don’t know what kind of diseases the last passenger may have breathed into it. I’ll still take a short ride on one before I leave however.

Today, I walked though and went up and down the hills around the hotel for two hours. I walked past their national Parliament and Supreme Court and a number of other government agency buildings. It’s interesting to see how they prioritize their government functions here. I went past a Bureau of National Reconciliation, the Agency to Prevent Genocide and an Agency to Investigate Genocide Crimes. Near the Supreme Court is a National Forensic Bureau—I’m sure it’s function is still to try and identify remains.

At one point I walked down the Embassy Row and, from a distance, shot a picture of the U.S. Embassy where I’m working on this trip. It is strictly forbidden to photograph the building (security guards will actually come out and make you erase the pictures from your camera) but I shot this one from a distance—you can see the American flag in the left side of the photo.

This afternoon I spent about three hours lying around the garden area resting in a lounge chair—reading and even napping briefly. I had hoped to arrange a tour somewhere this weekend but my two attempts fell through so I’m just taking it easy this weekend…..

One Week Finished and One More Week Until I Head to Kenya…..

…..this was a good week—things have gone really well so far. I had a good group today and we closed down around noon and then took an Embassy car around town sightseeing. Thanks to you, by the way, for supplying the tax money that paid for the Suburban, driver and gas.

We went by a Rwandan craft market, stopped briefly at the hotel featured in the movie Hotel Rwanda about the genocide, and lastly visited the Genocide Memorial itself. I’ve been to far too many genocide memorials but this one is easily the most disturbing and touching that I’ve visited.

I don’t intend to make this blog into a history lesson but I think the story here is worth telling. Historically, Rwanda has been populated by about 85% Hutu, 14% Tutsi, and 1% Twa (who are the pigmy tribe living in the mountains.) After the Belgians colonized Rwanda after World War I, they used the Tutsi minority to rule the majority Hutu—giving the Tutsi the good jobs, good business and nice homes. In return, the Tutsi insured the Belgians they could plunder the natural resources of Rwanda pretty much at will. Obviously this arrangement angered the Hutu majority.

After World War II, when Europe—including Belgium—was in ruins, the Hutus made their move and took over indigenous control of Rwanda but the historical hatreds between the two tribes really came to the surface. In 1959-60 there was a large-scale genocide against the Tutsis that was eventually put down by Belgium with the dubious help of France.

During the 1960s most of Africa achieved independence from colonialism and nearly every former European colony became involved in civil war and border wars. Rwanda received independence with no political or social infrastructure and soon dissolved into anarchy with armed militias basically running a non-state.

In 1993, a number of events occurred that led to a hate-mongering Hutu majority leading what they promised would be an “apocalypse” against the Tutsis. The real trigger was when the presidents of Burundi and Rwanda were flying into Kigali and were shot down by a rocket just outside the city airport. France is believed by many Rwandans to have been involved in the assassination (although French mercenary pilots were flying the plane that was shot down.) The interim government was taken over by a prime minister who pledged to mediate peace between the tribes but she was assassinated along with eight elite Belgian army bodyguards. In response, Belgium pulled out of Rwanda entirely (as Europeans are prone to do when the heat is on) and basically left the Rwandans to their own fate.

For the next 100 days, the “apocalyptic” genocide took place at such a deadly rate nobody in the world could stop it. In 100 days, over one million Tutsi were killed by machetes, gunfire, spears, knives and anything that could be used to kill a human being. Men were tortured before being killed, women were raped—often by HIV+ soldiers intentionally—and either killed or left to live infected lives, and babies and children had their heads smashed against walls and even disemboweled. Today, some 16 years later, authorities are still finding mass graves.

Initially, Western European countries sent military forces into Rwanda—but only to evacuate Westerners. Over 5,000 soldiers were sent in for the evacuation, a force large enough they could almost certainly have prevented the genocide but their mission was only to evacuate Europeans. After the genocide and fighting were over, France sent in “peacekeepers” who promised the Tutsi refugees living in Uganda that it was safe to return. France then turned around and left and the returning refugees were subjected to many thousands more killings.

Today, Rwanda is quiet again. Almost certainly the scars and hatreds will remain forever, but the current government seems to be genuinely trying to reconcile the people. The memorial we visited today is part of that effort and is really well designed and presented. It is not, however, for the weak of stomach because they don’t pull any punches with the exhibits. The photos show hacked, disemboweled and beheaded bodies, including children. One section has exhibits of the clothing that was collected up in the aftermath. The most touching were the children’s clothes with bloodstained stuffed dolls and smashed toys. Another wall was dedicated to photographs of the victims that relatives have placed there. The wall was easily 100 feet long, 8 feet high and totally covered with photos of smiling faces—all dead today.

Another room had exhibits of human skulls and bones. This I had seen before in Cambodia but here the skulls all had splits from machete blows and many were small skulls no larger than grapefruit—the skulls of babies.

Unfortunately, my travels have exposed me too often to the ability of humans to be cruel to other humans—memorials in Cambodia, Thailand, Senegal, Goree Island, and Soweto—but this is by far the most touching I’ve visited. The memorial here includes an education center and there were three different groups of small children doing tours while we were there. Visits are required of all students in Rwanda today and the government really does seem to be trying to reconcile the two groups. There are millions of orphans and widows and this will never be forgotten for generations to come.

On the side of the hill below the memorial are mass graves of victims who were identified, claimed and then buried in Christian funerals (Rwanda is a very devout Christian country despite all the prior violence) and at one place, three graves are open and exposed to the visitors. As more victims are identified, the graves move further down the side of the mountain but there will never be enough space to bury them all.

After that, we were dropped off at the hotel and said goodbyes. This evening I walked over to the nearby Obama Rama Ding Dong Pizza Parlor and had a very good pizza. It was kind of hard not thinking about this afternoon though……

Thunderstorms at Nights and Beautiful Sunrises in the Mornings…..

…..since this is one of the two rainy seasons here, we do have rain several times a day but not a constant downpour. Here’s a picture of a thunderstorm on the mountain behind my hotel room last night and the second picture is the sunset—also from my balcony this morning. Rwanda is 2 degrees south of the Equator but 4,500 feet above sea level so it is mildly hot during the days and this morning it was almost chilly. It stays this way almost year round so it is a very temperate climate.

The first week is almost over and the Embassy closes at noon on Fridays so I’ll have a short day tomorrow. The first week has gone well and I’ve really enjoyed it here so far. We drove out into the countryside today and on one of the breaks I took a picture of the road. I don’t mean to harp on the road conditions here but it is so unusual for Africa—heck, they don’t even have roads this nice in Houston!!! You’ll notice the road is paved with bricks and has a brick drainage ditch and sidewalk. There’s not a piece of trash anywhere in the photo. The cleanliness is what really continues to amaze me.


I had hoped to arrange some kind of tour this weekend but it hasn’t happened yet. If it does make, I’ll be posting more photos then……

Rwanda Has Not Been At All Like I Expected……

…..admittedly I was expecting another impoverished Third World country like Cameroon or Chad, but the fact is that Rwanda is one of the most beautiful areas of Africa I’ve visited. It is pretty close to the Equator so there is the element of heat and humidity but the altitude here in the mountains keeps the climate reasonably comfortable. The by-product of this heat and humidity, however, is a very high rate of rainfall which, in turn, makes this one of the greenest countries I’ve ever seen. They also have a huge variety of plants that are bright yellow—they even have a yellow cactus over here—so you get this constant splash of green and yellow. For that reason, the national flag of Rwanda is green and yellow.

They use the British system of traffic circles over here and every one of them has beautiful landscaping and most have statuary and even fountains that actually work—something unheard of in Africa outside of Egypt and South Africa. The roads are really well maintained and even have paved shoulders. Even outside the downtown area, there are wide sidewalks with contoured stone curbing. And the place is immaculate.

After work today, I took an hour walk despite a light rain. I was actually looking for trash and never once saw a piece of paper or trash on the ground. As I walked around I was impressed with the people I passed on the sidewalks. They weren’t particularly friendly but if they looked at me, I would say hello and they would always smile and reply. I never once felt threatened in any way although I did draw quite a few stares (probably because I was out walking in the rain.) I certainly had a lot more people stare at me in China and other places.

I have a good group of students here also. I have two local Rwandans and students from Burundi, Liberia and Sudan. They all speak good English and we’re off to a good start. Next week I’ll actually know some of the students from our training in Ethiopia two years ago.

So far it’s been a really good job—the only problem is that I really got hammered with jet lag this trip. Until last night I had gone nearly 60 hours without any really good sleep.

I Can Officially Add Rwanda to the List of Countries I’ve Visited…..

…..Made it to Kigali (pronounced Key-gall-lee) and was met by a supervisor from the Embassy who escorted me to the hotel and got me checked in. Although I arrived after dark, my initial impressions of Rwanda were very good. I talked a little with the Embassy representative and she told me it is relatively safe to walk around alone and that most of the restaurants are safe to eat at.

After 19 ½ hours in an airplane seat I had trouple sleeping when I got into my room but finally managed a decent night’s sleep. This morning was overcast and rainy but very cool—around 66 degrees. The hotel is a former Novotel—a very good class of hotel—but has seen better days however is still really nice. It is, by African standards, a four-star hotel. The room has no heat or air-conditioning which is common for this area. Although Kigali is in “central” Africa, it is also situated fairly high in the mountains. In fact, the motto of Rwanda is “country of a thousand hills.” I’m on the third floor with a secure outside patio so I can open my patio door during the day and run a fan in the room and it’s actually really pleasant. High temperatures are expected to be in the upper 80s this week so I finally got away from all that cold Texas weather.

This morning I walked around the hotel grounds which are really nice—so much better than the situation in Cameroon last year. There are some stork-like birds walking around everywhere and the grounds are really well maintained. Like I said earlier—my initial impressions are very good so far.

I start work tomorrow morning and next week I will have a recertification program with some of the students I worked with in Ethiopia two years ago so there will be some familiar faces.

The Internet is relatively cheap--$10 for six hours time—so I should be able to email and post to the blog on a fairly regular basis……