otium sanctum

Now in Nairobi

2010-05-22T13:20:00.002+03:00

A new chapter in my PhD career is beginning. I arrived in Nairobi early yesterday morning (21 May 2010) and plan to be in Kenya for the next ten to twelve months doing field research for my dissertation. My camera was not stolen this time (or has yet to be stolen), so I might actually get some pictures posted this time. Anyway, wanted to experiment posting to this neglected blog. Look for more exciting news in the coming weeks and months.

Happy New Year!

2007-01-05T00:04:00.000+03:00

Another year has come and gone…all without a single posting to this blog...shame on me! But since I’m my own blogmaster, I can retroactively update you on 2006. A year ago I was celebrating the coming of 2006 with Medair friends in Maasai Mara, a game park in western Kenya. So I’ll start there and bring you to the present…which is me poolside on a cloudy day in Gainesville Florida, enjoying a raspberry/lemon scone and cup of Earl Grey. By the way, tea for one is just not fun, so an open invitation is extended to all for tea with Steve (read below for tea time details). Or grab a cup yourself where you are and read on…

Christmas tangerinis…

2006-12-27T23:27:00.000+03:00

were quite the hit this Christmas. I was hanging with Steph and her family in Tampa when we stumbled across tangerini mix. I always thought I would be fun to be a bartender, so here was my chance to practice my skills. I even got an orange martini shaker for Christmas.

My mistress moving in with me…

2006-12-22T20:43:00.000+03:00

was quite the excitement recently. For several years I have considered purchasing a road bike. I ride my mountain bike to campus often, but at 35 pounds it is not fun for longer rides. Several friends in the area ride, so I thought with Florida’s ideal climate, the flat geography, and the need to pedal some stress away, I would join them in cycling adventures. Now I know what I’ve been missing the last few years! In December I found a used Specialized carbon road bike in Ocala. It weighs 16 pounds and flies like a kite through the air. A 30 mile ride seems like a walk in the park. I feel like a 16 year old with a new driver’s license placed in a NASCAR race. I have more bike between my legs than I know what to do with…rather scary when I think about it. I’ll keep you posted when I complete my first century race.

Four months of academic labor…

2006-12-17T21:02:00.000+03:00

came to end 15 December. I’m not sure how many thousands of pages I read or hundreds of pages I wrote, but it is all over now. Hard to believe it is all water under the bridge. This semester I had five hours of Swahili (East African lingua franca), an African bibliography course, and two general political science courses, one on methods used in the discipline and the second exploring the various epistemological approaches utilized.

Day hammocking…

2006-10-11T08:22:00.000+03:00

is fast coming a favourite pastime…combining hiking and napping. When I don’t want to hike, I just set up my technicolor hammock poolside in the backyard and lounge away. In June Steph and I found a great spot in Rock Creek park in DC for some hang time. There are many more places to explore for day hammocking in the area.

Kindergarten all over again…

2006-09-27T15:35:00.000+03:00

is how it feels to enter the halls of academia once again. I and 16 other students started the PhD journey the end of August. I soon discovered I have a great cohort. All together there are 12 of us studying African politics. I would venture to guess that this is the largest amount of any school in the world. The University of Florida has a strong African Studies Center and three faculty devoted specifically to African politics. On Friday afternoons the center sponsors a lecture series. These were always informative and a chance to meet other scholars with interests in Africa.

Home sweet home…

2006-08-28T16:47:00.000+03:00

in the lush environs of Gainesville Florida. Finding a home that would match the beauty of my home in Nairobi was going to be difficult, but why settle for second best? An ad on craigslist caught my attention. A few emails later, I land myself in a very nice home about three miles from campus. I’m living with a family who travels a lot and wanted someone to kind a look after the place on the weekends. I’ve got a bedroom, bath, and office on my end of the house. A big screened in porch complete with a Jacuzzi offer protection from mosquitoes and the backyard pool is completely surrounded by woods. I am five minutes from a bus to campus and a great health club is just down the trail through the backyard. I can walk to the post office, grocery store, bank, video store, and bakery. My new home is so nice, I will probably not want to go anywhere else on weekends.

My research project is finally done…

2006-08-20T19:37:00.000+03:00

after visiting countless universities on the East Coast, and working from the home of family and friends. In August my research was combined into a 120 page multi-authored report that was submitted to a philanthropic organization that will use the data to make better funding decisions. Here Jesiah (my latest nephew) and I are working hard on research in Nebraska…he was a good little research assistant.

The Adam’s family house really…

2006-05-27T21:47:00.000+03:00

does exist, and my friends Ian and Caroline own it! When in New Haven in May I helped them prep the house for a HGTV film crew who produced a special for “If Walls Could Talk” I also got to attend my friend Kristy’s grad ceremony from Yale’s School of Public Health.

Here comes the clown…

2006-05-20T15:11:00.000+03:00

and what a way to bring smiles to friends and family. Not sure what sparked my urge to take my mother’s clown suit on my trip back east, but I certainly had fun surprising friends. I think everyone should own a clown suit. When you are having a bad day, put the suit on, don the wig, funky shoes, and whatever else strikes your fancy and hit the street, go grocery shopping, get the mail, etc. No one will know who you are, so be wild and crazy, for no other reason than you are in a clown suit and have been given great liberty.

Orange Alligator Adventurees…

2006-05-06T21:03:00.000+03:00

strike again…this time on Assateague Island in time for Cinco de Mayo. Joe, Julie, Laura, Steph and I did a short camping trip to Maryland’s coast area. It was rather cold, got sand blasted at night, and the wild ponies interrupted a couple of meals, but otherwise my creative companions compensated well with making pad thai and sushi…yum and a half.

Starting the snow bird lifestyle…

2006-05-03T22:07:00.000+03:00

early sounded appealing. In early May I flew to Florida to check out the school that had just offered me a fellowship to start my PhD. In the three days there I managed to get a feel for the city of Gainesville, the University of Florida and my new home come mid-August. I’ll write more about this PhD thing later.

Beaucoup des Français…

2006-04-15T16:30:00.000+03:00

dominates my study time now that I’m back in the

United States

. After three weeks of cramming and revising my French (first learned 2002-03 in Paris), I successfully passed my oral and written proficiency exams on 07 April. This had to be one of the most exciting days of my life, for it paved the way to finally receiving my masters in international relations from Baylor University in May. This almost brought closure to my time in Waco, Texas, but I managed to land a research job with Baylor’s Institute for the Study of Religion. My grant enables me study international faith-based organizations in Latin America, Africa and Asia, plus I am able to travel while doing this research.

Farewell Kenya and my Medair family and hello…

2006-03-18T23:05:00.000+03:00

America

. Due to changing circumstances (internal structural change and my desire to get my PhD), I changed my contract with Medair to one year, thus my time was up 19 March. I really will miss Nairobi, Kenya, and all my colleagues in Medair. This year has been truly spectacular. Medair is an amazing organization to work for, so I highly recommend it to those considering a relief and development career. My love for Africa was renewed, for I got to experience East Africa and her people in more intimate ways in the last 12 months. You will all be missed dearly!

Switzerland and Auschwitz in Africa…

2006-03-11T11:33:00.000+03:00

was an emotionally dichotomistic experience. Rwanda has to be one of the most beautiful countries in Africa. This small mountainous country is full of not only natural beauty, but the human beauty was alive and well 12 years after the world witnessed one of the most horrendous carnages conducted by mankind. Close to one million people (Tutsis, Hutus, and Twa) were slaughtered between April and June 1994.

Low Tea…

2006-02-17T17:45:00.000+03:00

is a great British tradition I tried to uphold in this former British colony. The backyard patio made the perfect venue. I bought two matching tea sets (John Deere colors!) that could serve 12. Sunday afternoons were the typical time to invite co-workers, neighbors and friends over for low tea. If you want to know the difference between high and low, afternoon and cream teas, click here.

Lions, leopards, and elephants…

2005-12-31T10:30:00.000+03:00

oh my! In December 2005, six of us on holiday from Medair activities took a trek into Maasai Mara, a Kenyan game park just north of Tanzania’s Serengeti. Our three day safari brought us into close proximity to lions, cheetahs, leopards, zebra, elephants, giraffe, wildebeest, impala, and hippos. The only big five we missed was the rhino.

Medair does deal with flying...

2005-12-09T11:14:00.000+03:00

on many occasions, as it is often the only accessible way to enter South Sudan. Over twenty years of civil war has resulted in no infrastructure or roads in the country. Mission Aviation Fellowship provides the flight services we need to access these remote communities. Dirt airstrips can also pose a problem in the rainy season, but locals are usually willing to give a lift and a pull to get a plane out of the mud and back on the runway.

My home...

2005-12-09T10:51:00.000+03:00

has been a luxurious 8 bedroom house in a leafy suburb of Nairobi, complete with an extensive backyard garden. The weather here is very
conducive to spending hours in the hammock, soaking up the sunshine, watching the birds and our resident horn-nosed chameleon. In fact Nairobi has the best weather of any location I have lived.

Patty Driggs...

2005-12-09T10:33:00.000+03:00

gave me this windsock fall 04, before leaving for Scotland. She said it was to be a reminder that the sun is shining even if I can't see it. I have plenty of sunshine in Kenya, so it now serves as a reminder of Patty's life that was cut far too short last January. Patty loved Africa and her people, and I take solace that she is in an even more beautiful place than the sub-continent.

Colours have come alive...

2005-12-09T10:22:00.000+03:00

in several ways. First, I have started to paint again, after a 20+ year hiatus. This was at the encouragement of Elizabeth, the counselor in Edinburgh. It has been enjoyable to use my right brain for a change...below is my rendition of a Cezanne. The Jacaranda trees were also blooming in Oct/Nov, giving the neighbourhood a purple tint.

Basic English will suffice to say...

2005-11-02T11:41:00.000+03:00

it is hot! As in over 100 degrees in the shade. Fortunately it is not humid, despite the Nile being a mile away. I’m in Medair’s compound in Payuer, a small community of 600 located on a post-flood stage swamp of the Nile River. By compound I mean half a football field, surrounded with a grass thatched fence, inhabited currently by six Medair staff. We have a pit latrine (one of six in the community), an outdoor bathing shelter (not a shower unless you consider dumping a cup of luke-warm water on you a shower), a cooking tukel (Arabic word for grass hut), office tukel, food storage tukel, dining tukel, guard’s tukel, and a medical supply tukel. Compared to the rest of the community we inhabit palacial grounds.

Medair has been on site for almost three years now. Due to Payuer’s proximity to Khartoum, the area has witnessed the atrocities of Sudan’s 21 year civil war in a powerful way. Local farms are still hidden in nearby forests that are three to six hour walks from here. Creating a sense of normality will take some time, in the meantime, food shortages, lack of safe drinking water, and poor nutrition and health predominate. Medair supports three Primary Health Care Units (PHCUs) in the area. These are staffed by Community Health Workers, Traditional Birth Attendants, Female Assistants, and Medical Assistants. In June a Therapeutic Feeding Centre was established to meet a nutrition emergency.

I have been trying to get into South Sudan for about 6 months now. Exposure to the field is an important element to understanding Medair’s activities. I came to Payuer (pronounced Pie-you-air) to assist with a community workshop led by our capacity building team. We met for three days with about 35 community representatives to discuss community agreements, whereby they promise to assist with ongoing development activities (i.e. supporting the local health care staff, pump mechanics, etc). To fully elaborate on the dynamics of this meeting is a separate topic…suffice it to say it was an eye opening cultural experience.

Back in the compound, life consists of working 6.5 days a week. Sunday afternoon affords the leisure of a nap in the hammock or reading a few chapters of a good book (actually any book on ground will do). After devotions at 8:00, work begins at 8:30. The nutritionist will visit the TFC, the nurse walks 15 minutes to the PHCU and tend to patients there, and the logistician does all the behind the scenes work like overseeing the filling of the 5,000 litre collapsible tank used to treat local water to make it safe for TFC patients, or repairing a door on a tukel, coordinating the cargo for the next flight, or taking inventory of medical supplies. Medair also hires two local women who provide clean water for us, do laundry, prepare lunch and dinner, and do dishes. Two guards supposedly provided security, but we all had our doubts.

Overall it was good to experience to see Medair in action and catch a glimpse of a nation that is slowly recovering from 21 years of civil war. The road ahead for South Sudan will be long and diffcult, but not impossible.

Surreality best describes a three week detour...

2005-09-08T11:36:00.000+03:00

on the path of life. Our (Steph and I) adventure in Zanzibar was transitioning into a three day safari to Maasai Mara when disaster struck. Nairobi is notorious for car jackings, and unfortunately Steph and I got to see this a bit closer than we would have wished...actually 30 eternal minutes closer. Many of these incidents can end badly, and since one punk was brandishing a pistol I feared the worse. Shock, anger, fear, sadness, anger, shock, disbelief, denial, anger, shock all seemed to float through our minds on a regular basis for the first week after the incident. The second week found us sitting at the feet of a trauma counselor in Edinburgh. It was all a bit fairy taleish (surreality is the word I invented to describe it all), as we were roamed through a large castle that was part of the property. And it was also a bit odd to be back in Edinburgh (my fall 2004 stomping grounds), hanging with friends at the Pear Tree pub, having tea with flat mates, attending my church, chatting with former professors. After 4 weeks of the high life, hell, and holistic counseling, it was sad saying farewell to my partner of a crime, but I departed south to the comforts of the Mercy Ships mansion overlooking Lake Geneva. A week there recharged my batteries, plus provided retail therapy to replace items knicked in the car jacking (mainly my watch...I'm now a proud owner of a Swiss one).

Zanzibar sunsets...

2005-08-23T16:31:00.000+03:00

are one of those events not to be missed. Fortunately a brief respite from the central highlands of Kenya (read Nairobi) allowed me the opportunity to experience tropical paradise on Spice Island (aka Zanzibar, island off the coast of Tanzania). My friend Steph provide travel companionship, as she escaped the desert heat of Darfur for a week. It wasn't exactly a week of bliss, but came very close. I crossed one those marks of age. Holiday/vacations in the past have been opportunities to go hard, see as many sites/countries, etc in a limited amount of time. But Zanzibar was different...I wanted to be pampered and do nothing but chill in a hammock and watch the waves roll in the sun set...day after day after day.

Cranking commiserations on an irascible day...

2005-07-08T15:28:00.000+03:00

I empathise with Alexander, for it has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. A non-cooperative table in a Word document about drove me into frenzied madness. The lack of an electrical supply, phone service, and internet connection has become three horses of the apocalypse, ready to devour this humanitarian aid worker, despite being two hours and 32 minutes away from the weekend. If only Judith Viorst could flawlessly and humorously capture my testy temperament, rendering me patient rather than whiny.

Ants in the butter...Part II

2005-07-05T10:37:00.000+03:00

to conclude the ant saga...freezing them worked. I then let the butter thaw and used a knife to extract their dead bodies, but since ants are basically protein, likewise for peanuts, I wondered why we don't smash the ants and make ant butter...couldn't be any worse then vegemite or marmite (apologies to my Aussie and British friends).

4551...

2005-06-29T09:52:00.000+03:00

It is funny what one can remember when there is nothing to think about. When I was in grade school, Stewart Brinegar repeated his phone number for the entire bus ride to his home. Shirley Braun, the driver of that baby blue station wagon, told him to be quite, but in his obstinance, he droned on, “4551, 4551, 4551, 4551….” I will never forget Brinegar’s phone number (NB: it still the same today). This was like 25 years ago, but only seems like yesterday. Does this mean I’m getting old?

Folding fitted sheets...

2005-06-26T21:37:00.000+03:00

I stayed home today. I didn’t go to church. Nairobi Chapel’s two hour service did not seem appealing at 9:43 when I woke up. The spiritual side tried to rationalise that fellowship with other believers is essential and good, and besides, two hours is half the length of some African services…but to no avail. Instead, I watched a yellow butterfly, black cricket, green gecko, and brown ibis, go about their activities…all oblivious that it was the Sabbath and they should be resting. Instead, I listened to Pachebel’s Cannon in D major, Allegri’s Miserere, and the multitude of birds singing their merry hearts out. Instead I sipped on a special cup of tea (using my second to last passion/peach tea bag that I snagged from Tianna’s stash), and later made a Tango Hotel martini and tonic (secret is in the raspberries). Instead, I folded laundry put out by Esther, including twin fitted sheets. There is a trick to folding them, but one Theresa taught me when we worked together at the Teton Tree House in Wilson, Wyoming…see all things have a purpose and place. Instead, I sat in my beautiful backyard that could be award winning if Mrs. Bamber would add her special touch. Instead, I enjoyed the presence of Abba alone…and even without singing worship songs in Swahili.

Congressional Psyche Ward...

2005-06-24T02:49:00.000+03:00

I'm afraid the US Congress needs to build a third wing to the capital. This is where deranged senators and representatives can continue their harangues about comparing current US foreign policy to the atrocities of Nazi Germany. Senators Dick Durbin and Robert Byrd, with Rep. Charles Rangel could be the first three patients admitted. See Victor Davis Hanson's article for more commentary.

Ants in the butter

2005-06-19T02:37:00.000+03:00

We have a rather large butter dish…almost brick size, holding half a kilo of that creamy, high-cholesterol stuff. And we have those mischievous ants that seem to like to get into everything. This morning hundreds were gorging themselves, unaware of the danger to their tiny hearts. My dilemma: how do you get them out? My miserness refused to throw the lot away. Trying to remove them with a knife would only embed them in the sticky stuff. Instead I wrapped the dish in a plastic bag, stuck it in the freeze, hoping to kill the creatures, and then extract their corpses from the outside layer when the butter thaws. Do you think it will work? Let me know if you have better suggestions.

Ma première fois

2005-06-15T19:37:00.000+03:00

my first time at my blog...but deadlines, paperwork, to do lists all sit piled next to me on this cold, dreary, rainy day in Nairobi, so I shant really say more other than to say more is to come...soon hopefully.