Where's my t-shirt?

I earned my "IT Babe" t-shirt this week, let me tell 'ya. I think I have finally gotten the computer going again, with an incredible amount of help from my remote computer geeks ... they're all married men, so I don't think they would appreciate the "IT Babe" label.

I learned a ton, though it's all knowledge which I hope I will not have to make use of any time in the near future! I felt like I ran a marathon yesterday - I was in the computer container from 9am (the time we turn on the generator) until after 6pm. I didn't even leave to eat lunch - I just ran out to go to the loo and grab a plate of food, which I ate whilst mucking around on the computer! It's probably not good practice to eat in front of a computer (and I have a salad dressing stain on the front of my t-shirt to prove it!), but it was when my guides were available, so that's when I worked. Too bad there was a huge pot of fish head stew for lunch - ew. I ended up with a plate full of matooke (plantains) and tomato salad. It didn't quite keep me going for the long haul, so I also had a Nature Valley peanut butter granola bar for a snack - thanks to leftovers from the work crew that was here last week from the US!

Finally, this afternoon, I think I got the computer all back together again. Tomorrow we shall move it back into the office where it belongs and see if it actually DOES work like it's supposed to! Once that's done, I'm taking off my IT Babe t-shirt (don't worry, I wear many other t-shirts underneath!) and revealing my "multilingual education specialist" t-shirt.

Jackie and I were called to a bit of a surprise meeting at the Ministry of Education yesterday. I was up to my elbows in the guts of computer, so I couldn't go - but Jackie went, and now we've got a bit of of work to do! Pray for us tomorrow as we sit together and try to come up with a plan for how to move forward in a good way with some of the things that some people in the Ministry want to do... though others in the Ministry don't want to do those things... so we've got to tread carefully and figure out the best way to approach this situation!

IT Babe

I almost forgot about something I wanted to blog tonight: my housemate Annamarie said that she would get a t-shirt made for me. It would label me an "IT Babe" - not a "geek" or a "techie" or anything else. But an "IT Babe". I kinda like that one.

But really, I think she was still in shock from the wheel falling off their SUV on the way home in the middle of the road! Yup, just another typical commute in Jb - who needs the front wheel anyways?! So probably once the shock of that wears off, she won't be thinking of me as an IT Babe anymore... :(

Surrounded by my friends...

... except that they all happen to be computers! I have really turned into the ultimate computer geek today. The main computer for one of our translation teams died sometime over the weekend. On Monday morning, the casualty was discovered. And I have spent the last two days trying to do something about it!

I'm SO glad I have people all over the world at the end of a Skype line who can help me. I even have Andy sending me pictures of different cables by email so I have at least a little bit of a clue as to what he's asking me about :) Who knew there was a difference between SATA cables and PATA cables?

Of course, my little adventures into the innards of the desktop computer was hampered by the rain. The tin roof on the office block is being replaced at the moment. Of course, it's supposed to be dry season now, but somehow, the rains have kept coming. So over lunch time today, it poured. And I mean, poured. When it rains here, it's not just a little drizzle. It's a deluge. So once again, for the second time in a week, the ceiling boards have been ruined and a room has been flooded in an unexpected downpour.

This time, the downpour came into the office with the dead computer. Even after the flood, the ceiling boards were wet and dripping, there was water running down the walls, and quite a few puddles on the floor. At least the computers had been covered by some plastic sheets in the middle of the downpour, so they were safe!

But I certainly didn't want to turn anything electrical on in all that water, so I had to move the computer into the container where all the other computer stuff is kept. I felt like such a geek carrying all the computer bits around the compound, and finding power cords, and getting it all set up again. I even learned how to yank the hard drive and the memory out of the computer!

So there I was, all day long, surrounded by my friends. The Toshiba M1, and his extra special battery. JJ and his faithful service as a backer-upper of data. M3 and her trusty little hard drive with all my music, photos and data on her. And the newcomer, JD7, who just seems to want to keep sleeping, and can't be roused no matter what we seem to do to him! All these little friends of mine - they all have their own quirks, but somehow, they're family. So I'll do what I can to keep them all happy...

Roads in Town

Andy took a few little videos with his phone whilst in our fair city last week. The resolution it's great, but it gives you the idea of what it's like to drive across town...


Now can you see why we call this road "Rag Doll Ally". Make sure you notice at the very end the big Hilux coming right for us! Keep in mind, as well, that is one of only two main roads which goes from our side of town to pretty much anywhere we need to go!

Um, right. I just tried to post the video... after waiting for a few hours (yes, literally hours) for it to upload... only to get an error message in Italian. So. No video tonight. Maybe another day... once I get the Italian dictionary out to figure out what that error message meant...

How to keep cool on a Sunday afternoon...

We went out for a lovely lunch, and then a little trip to the market (where, rather unfortunately, I bumped into "my" immigration guy. I was hoping that my profuse sweating would show him just how unattractive I really am. But he still seemed happy to see me, as I was wiping the drips from the end of my nose...). Anyways, it was sweaty today. The weather is changing from the rainy season to the hot season, so now we've just got hot and humid. Yuck.

However, one of my old neighbors left me this lovely little pool.I hadn't yet set it up, but today was just so sweaty, so I thought I might as well get fully immersed in some water, rather than just being wet in uncomfortable places. I was going to set it up outside in the yard somewhere, but then Annamarie reminded me that I probably wouldn't do well sitting that close to the grass for too long. (It was very nice of her to remind me of my hay-fever, though I think she's just tired of hearing me sneezing and snorting and sniffing all the time!). So, I ended up setting it up in the verandah - the perfect combination of shade and non-grass!

Now, this isn't the most flattering picture, but the following will give you an idea of the size of my swimming pool:Just big enough for me to be half-way immersed... but it's amazing how quickly being immersed in a pool of cold water can cool you down! I took my book and "swam" for over an hour, and the cooling effects stayed with me for quite a long time afterwards, too! So I might just make it a habit to have a Sunday afternoon swim :)

Footing

Now, if we had just gone footing we would not have had the trouble with getting the cars through the mud. "Footing" is what they call "walking" over here. Today at lunch, we were eating with some of our guests who have come for a workshop to start translation projects in their language. They've been with us in the guesthouse a few other times for workshops, as well, and they just arrived today to stay for another 3 weeks. They're really neat people. Today they were telling us stories of what it was like during the last war. So many people had to walk. And walk. And walk.

Most of them left their homes in various locations in the South, and they started footing. They just put one foot in front of the other until they reached a border, and relative safety. Then they had to walk back again. One of the men with us had a little child of about 4 years old, as well as a baby. This man had to carry the baby, along with a few of his belongings, a tent, a cooking pot, some basic food and water, so he wasn't able to also carry the small child. Normally, it took people 1 month to walk from their village to the border of a neighboring country. But with this child, it took 3 months. Imagine walking with all of your possessions and your baby on your back for an entire month. Then imagine doing it with 4 year old size steps!

My getting the car stuck in the mud once in a while absolutely pales in comparison to the thought of walking across this country - and I live in a very big country!

No party is complete...

... without getting stuck in the mud on the way home!

This evening I went in convoy through the jungles of suburban Jb to the new compound of some friends of mine for a BBQ birthday celebration. It was really a crazy place to find, and there's one pretty dodgy section where you have to cross a bit of a river. On the way there, I was riding with the folks who live there, in their Toyota Hilux. We got to the river bank, Francis paused for a minute, took a deep breath, and then we plunged in and quite easily got out the other side.

I then enjoyed an amazing party - it's been a long time since I've been to such a big party, but it was a really nice mix of people that I know quite well, people that I sort of know, but have wanted to get to know better, and people that I've never met before. Plus, the food was great. I love BBQs - even when they have a slab of goat sitting on the grill! There was also some chicken and a few sausages. I think the sausages were brought in from Nairobi, along with a bit of ice cream, specially for tonight!

One of the highlights of the evening was the bagpipe rendition of "Happy Birthday"! The nieghbours must have really been wondering what was going on when the bag pipes started wailing! The birthday boy is Scottish, you see, and we happen to have a friend here who plays the bagpipes. So it was the perfect surprise for him, and for the rest of us! Who would have thought we'd get to hear bagpipes in the middle of Jb?!

Anyways, on the way home, I drove with my friend and nieghbor, Kathy, in her SUV. I think it's a Prado or something like that - I'm not exactly sure. But it's more the luxery kind of SUV, not really the "working" kind of SUV. So we tried to drive straight through the river again... and got stuck as soon as we hit the mud on the bank. Ooops. Kathy had never had to use the 4WD before on the car, and I didn't know how to stick it into 4WD, either. Thankfully, we were driving in convoy with two Rav4s, one of which was carrying a fellow Canadian who seems to know quite a bit about 4WDriving. So he popped into the car, got it into gear, and got us out of the mud in a flash... or, rather, in a splash :)

We then got out sticks and stuff and started trying to poke the other sections of the river, to see if there was a shallower way to go through, as the Rav4s are a bit smaller and have less clearance than the Prado. So there we were, a bunch of white folks in the middle of the suburban jungle in the middle of the night, trying to get three cars through a river.

But in the end we were all successful and we managed to find our way home! No party in Jb is complete without an adventure getting home!

"It wasn't a very interesting day, really"

Jackie and I are sitting in our little verandah, enjoying the night noise. I'm sneezing and congested because something green and growing has gotten itself lodged in my nose. I've taken a double dose of allergy medication, so I thought it would be a good day to ask Jackie for her opinion on what she thought I should blog about tonight. Her response was, "It wasn't a very interesting day, really." So, there you have it. It wasn't a very interesting day.

But not having anything interesting to say never stopped me from writing before... so...

My day began with yet another trip to the airport! This time I was bringing the work team away so they could catch their flight home. I felt a bit like a tour director - I've learned from Richard how to get a group of people through that airport most efficiently. It goes like this:

1. Before leaving the compound, a single focal point gathers each person's passports, tickets and travel permits. Reciepts (especially those that have been hard-earned by yours truly) must be removed from the passport for most efficient processing.
2. Everyone gets in the trucks and you proceed to the airport.
3. Once at the airport, driver stops in the middle of the road nearest the front doors. Driver keeps an eye on other vehicles which may be backing into our truck whilst passengers unload the luggage. Passengers proceed to the front door and wait in the shade whilst driver drives across the road to park the truck.
4. Driver now puts on her airport guide hat and finds her group, quietly waiting together with their pile of luggage.
5. Airport guide instructs group to stand in a corner out of the way, then procures stack of passports, tickets and travel passes and proceeds to fight way through crowd to airline check-in desk.
6. Airport guide clears a way through the crowd to the other side of check in desk so luggage can be wieghed and tagged. Airport guide instructs group to stand out of the way on the other side of the luggage scale.
7. Airport guide makes sure passports, tickets and travel passes, along with newly acquired boarding passes are neatly stacked and that all pieces of luggage are tagged for the appropriate destination.
8. Airport guide guides women to take their luggage to one side of the security desk and the men to the other side of the security desk. Airport guide observes whilst group opens luggage and allows security personnel to have a look inside.
9. Airport guide instructs group to go to departures waiting area and to try to find a seat.
10. Airport guide procedes to immigration desk. Airport guide goes back to group to borrow a pen (a more experienced airport guide would never forget her pen!).
11. Airport guide elbows way to the front of the crowd to find the appropriate departures list. Airport guide writes names, passport numbers, nationalities, hometowns, and destinations of each individual group member on list. Note, answering a phone call in the middle of completing this form will forfeit your turn, and you must go back to the end of the line.
12. Airport guide manouvers through the crowd back to the other immigration desk and stands in front of air cooler whilst waving a stack of passports in front of the uniformed immigration officer with the stamp. Greeting him in the local language in a smiling voice will help get your passports to the front of the line.
    
13. Airport guide watches while each passport and travel permit are stamped, and makes sure no boarding passes slip out in the process. Upon completion, Airport guide gives a friendly smile and a appreciative nod, as airport guide knows that the man with the stamp is a good man to befriend.
14. Airport guide shoves her way through the crowd to find her group. Her work is almost done. If steps 7 - 13 have been done correctly, there will be a passport, travel permit and boarding pass for each member of her group. The group will accept their documents with an appreciative smile and encouraging words for a job well done.
15. Before airport guide leaves her group to the mercy of the airport, she must give a few final instructions. First, direct any women in the group to the bathroom near the small shop. The squatty potty on the left-hand side is bear-able in an emergency. Also, let them know that when their flight is called, there will be two lines - one is for men and one is for women. The men's line will be much longer, as there are typically more men flying and the security searches seem to be stricter. Women will be on the plane first. This is key, as flights leaving this city are all "Free seating". The men should be instructed to ask the women to save a seat for them, if they have a preference as to where they are seated.
16. The airport guide should now make sure that one memeber of the group has her telephone number, just in case the flight is cancelled and the group needs to be picked up again.
    
17. If there are no further questions, the airport guide's important role is complete. Hugs, or handshakes (as appropriate) can be given, and well wishes and kind words are exchanged. The airport guide can now leave the airport, greeting any friends or acquaintences she may see on the way out. In the parking lot, airport guide can once again put on her driver's hat and congratulate herself on a job well done.

Once my role as airport guide was complete, I drove across town to my favorite Eritrean shop where I procured some office supplies and phone credit, and then it was back to the office. I just stayed in the office for the rest of the afternoon, catching up on a bunch of bits and pieces, including sweeping and dusting out the computer room!

See, it really wasn't a very interesting day, really.

But just for your viewing pleasure, here's a hilarious photo that Andy took of me in the computer hub last week! Do I always look this excited whilst surrounded by computer kit? Or maybe it's the Tim Horton's mug full of Kenyan coffee that's making me so happy?!

My receipts will go on and on...

I've been listening to too much Celine. The title of today's blog was inspired by the never ending Celine Dion love song from the Titanic. It's all coming back, it's all coming back to me now.

Today I had to finish the receipt process. First, I did all the photocopying at our office. Not a problem. Then I had to go back to the airport. First, to find my Immigration Buddy. Of course, he was on the Arrivals side of the wall. So the first challenge was to charm the guy in the sunglasses standing at the partition. He didn't like me poking my head through the window to see if Immigration Buddy was at the table or not. So I had to put up with a bit of gruff from him, first. Why, oh why, do some men here insist on wearing their wrap around sunglasses even inside?!

Anyways, I had a fist full of passports and photocopies, which was sufficient evidence to convince the guy to let me through the door.

Immigration Buddy seemed happy to see me. So he kept me there a long time. It seemed he was doing everything in his power to keep me there for as long as possible! Grrrr. He even mentioned at one point that I should stay there with him, and call someone else to come and pick up the receipts! One of his friends there was looking at me and commenting on how I would be a good wife in his tribe because I'm tall. I think Immigration Buddy shut him up pretty quickly, because he wanted to keep me for himself! There are disadvantages to being tall in this country, I tell you!

Anyways, Jackie had been waiting in the truck for me (we had been out for some other things, as well), thinking that I just had to go into the office and drop off a few photocopies. I wasn't so optimistic... but Jackie waited in the truck anyways. Eventually, after about 20 minutes, she decided to come in and see what had happened to me. Maybe she was actually concerned that Buddy had actually stashed me in some closet somewhere for safe keeping...

Eventually, though, I did end up with all the receipts. And I do give the guy credit - he did have an awful lot of papers to sign to get all of this stuff done. After a total of 4 hours between yesterday's visits and today's, I walked out of there with 21 pieces of paper, and a marriage proposal, and I had given him 28 peices of paper and $455. All just to register the work team who came for 2 weeks!

Untitled.

When I was back in school, I remember my Language Arts and English teachers always telling me that I needed to come up with a good title for the essays and stories that I wrote. I don't think I ever came up with a good title. Now, if I ever write papers or anything, I tend to default to something like, "Towards an analysis of..." of "Towards a report of..." So maybe tonight's blog should be called, "Towards an analysis of the process of getting a receipt".

Yes, it is a process.

When visitors come to our fair land, they need to register with the authorities. Normally, people do it when they fly out - just pay their $65 on the way out, get their passports stamped, and out they go. No problem. But for some reason, someone here wanted to register our visitors two days before they left. So they went this morning to the airport to register them. Of course, the guy with the reciept book wasn't around. Now in our organization, you need to get receipts for everything. And I do mean everything. If you spend $0.50 on a pen, you need to get a receipt. It's gotten to the point that we have given our staff their own receipt books that they can take with them to the shops so they can write out their own receipt, should the shopkeeper not have his own receipt book.

Of course, we were also registering 7 people, and at $65 per person, it is useful to have a receipt for that amount of money! So I was asked to pick up the receipt this afternoon when I went to the airport to bring Andy to catch his flight back to the UK. Getting Andy all checked in and everything was a piece of cake - no problems at all. So once that was done, I went in search of the man with the receipt book. The thought had crossed my mind on the way that I should have stuck my own receipt book in my purse, just in case... but I thought, well, this is immigration, so they might have to do something official or something.

Anyways, the guy with the receipt book was around - but he was drinking his tea. Fortunately (or not?!) this is the guy that has decided to be my friend. Several months ago, he seems to have taken a bit of shine to me, and he has remembered my name since. Of course, I'm also in the airport at least once every week or two, so he has lots of opportunity to greet me (by name, of course) and give me a big smile. So far, I've been quite polite to him, and always greet him, as well, as he has been quite helpful to me in the past.

And today, I thought, good, he's got the receipt book today, no problem. Since Andy had to wait for his flight, anyways, I thought I'd just hang out with Andy for a bit, give my buddy a chance to finish his tea, and then he'd get to work and I'd be on my way.

Right. Over two hours later, I was still sitting there, waiting for my receipts. I was checking back and forth and back and forth, and going back to sit with Andy, then going back to check.

One time that I went to check, I got the whole speech about the cows. Or would my father prefer cash? If my father doesn't want cows, he could certainly send some cash, as he's always wanted a white wife.

Right. So then the dilemma comes. Just how do you say, "In your dreams, buddy!" politely enough to still get your receipts and the necessary help that I often need in the immigration department, and yet still give him the message that this whole marriage thing is not open for negotiation!?

I tried to sort of laugh it off, and make a joke out of it. But that didn't seem to work so well... he wanted me to sit on the little bench next to him whilst he finished writing out the receipts. Well, at this time, Andy was still waiting in the departures area, so I went off and sat with Andy. Finally, though, Andy had to leave to board the plane, so I went back to check on the progress of my receipts. Still not done. This time I didn't really have a choice but to sit with him, to see if my presence would speed the whole process up.

By this time, though, the airport was starting to close up for the day - the last flight leaving was the one that Andy was on. So his buddies came over and started chatting with him. I could understand enough of the Arabic to realize that my buddy was telling his buddies that he was going to marry me and that I was going to give him lots of white babies. Sigh. All this just for a couple of receipts... I'm still not quite sure if it's worth it!

Anyways, I buried my head in a newspaper that I found sitting on the desk, and tried to pretend I didn't know what they were talking about.

Finally, he finished filling in my receipts. However, he needed photocopies of each of the receipts. And oh, look at that. The guy who runs the photocopier has already gone home. Grrrr. At least he trusted me enough to take all the paperwork home with me. He then asked if he, too, could come home with me. I said that I would just take the paperwork and photocopy it at home... I didn't need him to come and help me with it!

Then we negotiated the return date of the paper work. I have to go back to the airport on Thursday to bring these visitors away, anyways, so I said I would bring the copies then. But no, that wasn't good enough. The copies have to be brought tomorrow. He wouldn't budge on that one. So I have to go all the way back to the airport AGAIN tomorrow to bring him a photocopy of the receipts!

So, it would seem like such a simple thing to do... just to get a receipt. But in fact, it has already taken almost 3 hours. And with the photocopying and extra trip to the airport again tomorrow... will probably be at least another 1.5 hours! Next time, for sure, I am bringing my own receipt book!

Sunday

Since I haven't blogged since Thursday, I'm thinking I should probably post something. But hmmm... it's nearing midnight on Sunday night, and I'm not feeling very creative! I know there was something amusing that I wanted to blog about this weekend... but for the life of me, I can't remember what it was! So, perhaps I'll just blog a few random thoughts:

• Went to a local church this morning - the same one that I was at for the Literacy Day celebrations last month. It was great fun - I didn't have to sit in the front of the church facing the congregation this time. But I still had to sit in the front row. I'm really more of a back row kind of girl. But I've had to break that habit since moving to Africa! Anyways, the church service was great - full of traditional drumming again, plus everything was translated from Arabic to English, which is really good for my floundering Arabic.
• On the way to church, my old Arabic teacher called me! He had disappeared for quite a few months, and rumour had it, he had gotten an interview and permission to immigrate to Australia. So I was really surprised when he called me! I'm really hoping that we can hire him to continue with our Arabic lessons again.
  
• Don't go to the Bridge Hotel for lunch if you have less than 3 hours to spend there. It's a beautiful location, right on the banks of the River, and the food is normally really good, but it takes FOREVER and a day to get your food. I was getting grumpy when we didn't get our lunch until 4:20pm! Too bad we had to rush off afterwards to get to our Bible study fellowship group. I hate being late. Especially when it means that poor Jackie, who was left all alone on the compound, had to to put out the chairs and make the tea all by herself! She's a trooper, though, and had everything ready when we rolled in about 10 minutes after the official start time. My sandwich with some strips of grilled meat in it was almost worth the wait... or was it just that I was SO hungry by the time the food came that I would have eaten just about anything?!
  
• I need to find a new toothbrush. A rat chewed on my stock of extra toothbrushes. I'm really hoping I have another extra toothbrush stashed in a separate box. The brushes you can buy here are made in China (like everything else) and are really good for scrubbing the sand out of your shoes... and that's about it.
  
• I'm reading an interesting book right now, called "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak. I'm only on page 120, though, so I can't say for sure if I would recommend it or not yet. Jackie brought it back from Europe, so it's now doing its rounds in the house.
  
• Plans for the coming week include: starting a list of all the things I have to bring back here from Canada when I go at Christmas, paying for my plane ticket home at Christmas, and trying not to think too much about my trip home at Christmas.

That's about it for the moment... I know, nothing too interesting tonight. I'm sure by tomorrow something more bloggable will have happened, and maybe I'll even remember what I forgot to blog about today. And I might even have some photos from some of the visiting Americans of some of the fun that we had today. There might even be a little video that is postable from Andy's phone. Andy's phone takes videos. How cool is that?

It's so quiet!

No Celine. No Ethiopian music. Not even any gunshots tonight! Just a few crickets and a few creatures scurrying around in my ceiling. And the sound of my typing, of course. I sort of like hearing myself type. I was wrong, by the way, about where the Ethiopian music was coming from last night - the Ethiopian trade show is on the other side of town, not at the trade show. So I'm not sure why there was Ethiopian music blaring from the cultural center last night! I went with one of my friends to the trade show this afternoon after work, and it was, well... um, not really all that exciting, actually. But I got to meet loads of her colleagues from work, and even sat and had a drink with the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Trade and Commerce!

But the most exciting part of my day was my arts and crafts session with Andy, our visiting computer savvy guy (I'm not allowed to use the word "geek" anymore). He showed me how to put ends on the network cables and even how to attach them to a socket in the wall. It was like being back in arts and crafts class - I got to use special tools, put the different colored wires in certain orders and certain slots, and snap things together! Really, it was quite fun to do something completely different today! And I feel like I'm learning SO much by just hanging out with Andy and Rauf (the other computer guy who came along this week).

My not so favorite part of the day was where I had to get some of the translation staff here to sign their new contracts. The Director of Administration happens to be in a different part of the country at the moment, so he can't be here to sign all the annual contracts with these guys. So he asked me to do some of them on his behalf. Argh. I don't like administration, and I don't like having to try to explain employment things and salaries to people - especially when I don't quite get it myself!

And I have to admit that some of them can be quite... well... um... maybe "fierce" is the right word, when it comes to discussions of salary and money! Supposedly they already agreed with the administration on what their salaries would be, and of course, I'm not a part of that discussion at all. So now when they come to sign the contracts and still have questions about it... well, I can't do anything except refer them to the folks that they had the original discussions with. Unfortunately, those folks are in a different part of the country. And discussing some of these issues long-distance, even by phone, is a bit of stretch for them.

There are just some things that have to be done in person in this culture. And I'm learning what sorts of things can be taken care of by email or a phone call, and what sorts of things require a personal presence to get done. In our culture, we really value time and efficiency - get things done as quickly as possible. So you shoot off an email or leave a message in someone's voice mail. Quick and easy. But here, sometimes you've just got to get in the car, or even get on a plane, and go and sit down with someone and talk to them, face to face. But in a lot of ways, I can appreciate the face-to-face-ed-ness of this culture. It causes you to slow down, and to focus on the person that you're dealing with. And I like that. It puts the other person ahead of your own agenda and ahead of what YOU think is the most important thing to get accomplished. And I like things that help me focus on people, because people, not tasks, are what's important!

She's back.

Just when I thought I was getting a break from my dear friend Celine... I was really enjoying the nice Ethiopian music from the cultural center tonight - there's some sort of Ethiopian trade show going on this week, and they had some great music blaring from the speakers. But just as I was about to shut down my computer and settle down to sleep here at 12:25am, "I'm your lady, and you are my man...the power of love..." has snuck up on me. Next will be "My heart will go on"... and it will go on and on and on for the rest of the night. I just don't get it. I'm so thankful for my MP3 player so I can hopefully drown out my dear Celine. I wish I liked her more. After all, she is a fellow Canadian. But I sorta like the Ethiopian music better.

Online Shoe Repair

What would I do without the Internet? Well, for one, I probably wouldn't have to follow Andy around all day, learning about networks, IP addresses, DNS numbers... and I wouldn't stay up too late listening to Celine. Nor would I look up random shoe repair things! I went to the Mountain Equipment Co-op site this evening to find out about the warranty on my Chaco sandals, which are having a bit of an issue with the sole coming apart from the main body of the shoe. When they're whole, these are the most amazing sandals in the world. Chaco ZX2 Unaweeps. Truly amazing. I don't wear anything else. Well, ok, I do wear nicer leather sorts of sandals once in a while when I go out... but only in dry season, because my Chacos are so much better for the mud.

Anyways, I can gush about the loveliness of my sandals in the next installment of "My Favo(u)rite Things". Tonight I'm recording my search for getting these lovely little footwears repaired! I didn't find anything about the warranty from the MEC website, but I did find something on the Chaco USA website.

So how do you know what sort of thing is normal wear and tear, and what sort of thing is workmanship issues and under warranty? Somehow, I have a feeling I wear my sandals more than the average bear, and in some pretty serious conditions - there are few places that have heat and dust and mud like we do here. So if I send them into the company (paying for the shipping, of course), how much is it going to cost me to get them fixed if they are deemed to be not under warranty? And then how much is it going to cost for them to ship them all the way back to me? (oh, by the way, I'm thinking of shipping them out once I get back to Canada for Christmas). And if I ship them away over the Christmas holidays, if they don't come back to me in time to come back to Africa, then I'm hooped...

So what to do? Do I go for the warranty and take my chances? Or do I buy a tube of super-glue and see if I can stick 'em together myself? If I didn't have the internet, I'd never have this sort of conundrum. I'd just be sitting here singing along to Celine. Except that even Celine seems to have been silenced tonight!

Silver Surfers

Seems the Internet is good for the brain. At least, for those in "middle-aged and older".

So, Mom, Dad, Andy..., keep on surfing! I believe the term used to describe this particular demographic is "silver surfers"! Tee hee. I laughed.

But now I've got to go be nice to Andy so he continue to impart to me his wisdom of all things networky.

Thanksgiving fun!

Happy Thanksgiving to all ya'll Canadians... well, ok, to the rest of you who aren't Canadians, but you know you WANT to be Canadian... Happy Thanksgiving, too!

My belly is stuffed with overflowing bountiful goodness. Seriously, we had a feast tonight, and it was so much fun! In fact, the preparation and anticipation of it all was almost as much fun as the dinner itself! Kendrah and I put together quite the feast (with the invaluable help of my housemates, of course!), and invited the Canadians (and honourary Canadians) that we know in town, and had quite the feast. I think we ended up with 13 people for dinner!

I have to admit that all day I was worrying if my stuffing and gravy experiment was going to work out... and in the end, it was amazing... if I do say so myself! I think it must have been the bouillion cubes that my friend brought me from her honeymoon in France that made it all taste so good :)

Anyways, I will post photos and more details about it all tomorow. But I just wanted to post a little note to say Happy Thanksgiving. We are so incredibly blessed, and we have so much to be thankful for! May we continue to give praise and glory to the One who has given us every good and perfect gift... including the very air we breath with each breath we take!

Celine Dion is wafting through the air...

I don't know what it is, but Africans seem to love Celine Dion. And Shania Twain. But this week, they're especially loving Celine. I can't count the number of times I've heard "My heart will go on..." this evening. There aren't any laws about noise pollution in this town - so anyone can blast anything they want at an hour they want. And if you've never been in Africa, well, then, I just can't really describe just how loud they can crank their music. Celine is probably being played at the cultural center, which is about a kilometer away (well, maybe a bit less as the crow flies). And I can hear Celine as though she were belting it out just outside my window!

Celine. Shania. Bob (as in, Marley). Those three names are synonomous with Africa for me. I just wish someone could explain to me what it is about them that people like so much!

Me and Steve used to have conversations about this fact. We had very similar taste in music (don't tell the copy right folks this, but there's been an awful lot of music swapped between our two computers!), and we always thought we needed to introduce Africa to something a little bit different! Steve tried quite valiently to do so, but he never quite made it here to Jb to help me in my mission of adding a little variety to the Celine-Shania-Bob trio. I wonder what he's listening to in Eternity?

My friend Steve

On September 8, I wrote a blog about how great my friend Steve's blog is. At the end of the post, I said, "... if anyone could ride his bike to Jb, it would be him! So I've got to keep reading his blog to see when he's going to show up at our gate here..."

Last night, I got the news that Steve will never be showing up at our gate here. On September 26, Steve was hit by a car and killed as he fulfilled one of his dreams of biking around Africa. He loved Africa. He loved biking. He went to the gates of heaven doing what he loved.

His blog description says, "A journey into the unknown... . I don’t really know where or when I will end up, and it doesn’t really matter. It will be an adventure, an epic journey, a time of soul-searching and of praying, of exploring and learning and sharing – a time of drinking Life to the fullest."

And Steve lived life to the fullest. He was such an amazing example to me of how to really live, how to live the adventure that life becomes when you're living for the Lord. He was never afraid of just being who God created him to be. And in the years that I knew him, he helped me to not be afraid to just be who God created me to be. He helped me to just live, and to live openly and honestly, stinky feet and all. Friends like Steve don't come around every day.

The last time I saw Steve was in Ethiopia. He had had one of his usual crazy adventures in actually getting to Ethiopia. And we had a great time. What a refreshing time it was, hanging out with an old friend. He was with me when I got the news of my niece's death, as well, and was amazing in helping me to grieve as I was so far from my family at that time. Of course, I didn't know that would be the last I would see of him.Yesterday, when I heard the news, my housemates here were great. They just let me sit here on the couch, writing and reading various emails from people who knew and loved Steve... tears running down my cheeks. I'm still having a difficult time actually believing that he's gone.

But when I heard the news, I immediately got this picture in my mind, which I know is from the Lord, of Steve, with his big goofy grin on his face, riding around on smooth streets paved with gold. In all the emails I've gotten from him since he started his bike ride around West Africa, he was always talking about the potholes and thorns and dangers of the roads on which he was biking. But now, I can just see him cruising around as hard and as fast as he can ride, on the smoothest roads he's ever been on... with a few goats crossing his path, just to make him feel like he's still in Africa, his favourite place on earth. It was making me laugh to myself through my tears last night to think of him giving Jesus rides on the back of his boda!

Please pray for Steve's family, and for all of his friends spread around the world who are grieving today. And especially pray for his family, who have some difficult arrangements to make. We all loved Steve, but pray that these next days and weeks will be filled with celebration for the amazing life that he lived, and that we will be comforted by the knowledge that he is, today, with his saviour. One of my colleagues, who also knew Steve well wrote in an email to me today, "I can only imagine how thrilled he is to explore new spheres, get his questions answered, meet new friends, and bask in our Saviour's love". That's exactly what Steve is doing today.

Help is on the way!

I've been somewhat defeated by a pesky computer problem over the past several days. One of the translation teams is using a program specially designed for translation work, and I've never touched it before. So, when they start having problems formatting documents to import into the program, and then having problems opening the program itself... well, I'm a little out of my league. I've gotten some very good help already from my remote computer geeks. And I think that I probably could sit and figure it all out after a time...

BUT, one of my remote computer geeks is flying in from the UK tomorrow afternoon! Yahoo! He's coming to stay for 10 days or so, and he's going to fix all our problems around here :) To tell you the truth, I thought he was coming next week, so I'm really not ready for him (for instance, I wanted to tidy up the "hub" where we keep all the internet and network computer stuff, and clear a desk of all the boxes I've been busy unpacking in there so that he actually has a place to work. But I didn't realize he was coming so soon until this afternoon!

Anyways, there was much rejoicing by me when I realized he's coming just in time to help with this pesky translation program problem :)

And I have my work cut out for me tomorrow in clearing him a place to work, amidst the calendar template that I'm working on for the teams to make a calendar in their own languages for 2009, the literacy book covers that I have to print out and check, the report I have to write... you get the picture!

Besides, my knee is really hurting for some odd reason (just started a few hours ago), so I'm hobbling around like an old lady. This on top of the hay fever that I've been suffering from and the funky stomach that I've had for the past two days. I tell you, I'm really feeling old these days - my poor little body is letting me down today! (But don't worry, it could all be a LOT worse - I'm not really suffering from anything serious! But you can keep praying for health, as this place is not only hard on computers, it's also hard on one's body!)

Picnics in the Park!

Well, ok, we don't have any parks around here. But I did go with some friends across the River and we found a secluded little spot next to the River to have a Sunday afternoon picnic!

First, though, since it's rainy season and the grass grows like... well, like a weed, we had to prepare our picnic spot and chop down a little grass to put our kikoys down on, and to sit on to keep our bums dry.I probably should have stayed out of the whole grass-cutting bit, since I'm still suffering with the sneezes, itchy eyes and runny nose! But anyways, it was good fun to be out there!

We had an amazing spread of sandwiches and beverages, including an amazing cake that K made - tasted exactly like the bottom part of a Nanaimo bar! I must get the recipe...
After we munched on our food for a while, we meandered down to the river side, to look at the water. Of course, while we were down at the river, it started to rain a bit... and by the time we had gotten back to the mango tree beneath which we'd spread our picnic, it was really threatening some serious rain. So after a few throws of the frisbee, a few mangos plucked from the tree, and a quick gathering of all our picnic accroutements (how do you spell that word?), we had to make a mad dash back to the car!

Quite the mad dash it was, too, as we were all slipping and sliding through some pretty amazing mud! I thought I was going to lose Annamarie in a deep puddle at one point! But we all made it back to the car, and back to the bridge.

Of course, all the huge trucks were stopped at the customs post (which closes for the weekend), and there was a bit of a traffic jam at the checkpoint before crossing back over the bridge. We couldn't really go anywhere... so I jumped out of the truck and sort of moved the barrier over a bit so we could drive through... no one started running after us with guns or anything, but I was a little nervous when we had to wait for our friend's Hilux to follow us through, and some of the guys at the check point started muttering about the white girl who moved the barrier... so I was happy when we started moving again :)

It was great to get out of the city and do something a little bit more "normal" on a Sunday afternoon! Who would have thought that a rained out picnic would be one of the highlights of my month!

I'm kuku for kuku!

We now have our very own fast-food take out restaurant! A Kenyan fast food chain has opened up shop on the main street here in our quickly changing town! It's actually one of my favorite Kenyan fast food places for chicken and chips. So you can imagine my glee when I saw this one opening on the road as I cruised on down the brand new tarmac!

This afternoon, Annamarie and I were out and about, so we decided to try it out and take some home for dinner tonight. Turns out one of the waitresses there used to work at our other favorite Kenyan restaurant by the river (which we found out was closed when we tried to eat there for Eid). She remembered Annamarie, which was quite nice and welcoming :)

Anyways, I got my quarter chicken (wing and breast) and Annamarie got hers (leg and thigh), topped with a side of crispy fries and we were off down what we have dubbed "rag-doll ally" to get home before it all got cold. We almost stopped in the middle of the road to unpack it all and dive in, because it smelled so amazing. But we refrained, and made it home before eating!

Mmmm... it was so good! And it was all packed up in a little box with tin foil, plus a little packet of tomato sauce (that would be "ketchup"... well, I mean, as close to "ketchup" as you get in East Africa!) and a little packet of chili sauce. There was even a paper napkin in the box with it all! It was amazing! Real fast food take out. In Jb. This place has changed so much, I hardly even recognize it anymore!

Of course, the thing that made us so hungry for this chicken was a drive out in the country... well, ok, at least out to the suburbs! Annamarie has some South African friends who are starting up a brewery here, and they just moved out to a new camp/hotel this past week. So they invited us over to visit and to see the new digs. Well, ok, they invited Annamarie, and she just needed a driver :)

What an amazing place that was! I was a little worried about the road - we had to go along the road that nearly swallowed the Hilux last weekend, and it's been raining since then. So I actually stuck my gum boots in the back of the truck, just in case we got stuck somewhere! Turns out, though, they actually graded the road, and did some repair work to it. So it wasn't too bad - only one lake to drive through instead of 4.

So we made it safely out there, and were welcomed by a beautiful little establishment out in the 'burbs. It's really quiet, there's open feilds of grass, you have a view of the mountain, very little garbage, no loud motorcycles... really very peaceful. The best part is, they're building a SWIMMING POOL! I'm so going to keep up this relationship with these folks, just in case the pool gets finished before they have to move out of that place!

These little villa type houses that they're building are beautiful - tiled bathrooms, little kitchenettes, A/C, huge flat screen TV. Everything is clean and new and well-finished. I had forgotten such places like that exist in the world. The best part was when I went to wash my hands, HOT water came out of the tap! It was actually a little bit of a culture shock, to tell you the truth. I'm just so used to my dusty, hot, rickety old cold water only existence, that I forgot that not everyone lives like we do! Boy it sure was good to wash my hands in hot water. Next time I go, I'm bringing my soap and some clean underwear and jumping in the shower while Annamarie drinks her tea... they'll never notice that I've disappeared for a while, will they?

The secret is out.

After a long day of work, Annamarie and I got all suited up for a sweaty game of squash! We bundled into the truck and went roaring off into the sunset... only to find 5 white SUVs already in the "parking lot" (that would be a vacant field) of the old squash court :( Apparently there is a squash club every Tuesday AND Thursday. And it seems to be a rather closed club :( I am slightly acquainted with one of the spectators who was waiting for his turn to play - he's a friend of a friend who I have met a few times. But he certainly wasn't too excited about inviting Annamarie and I to join their little club. None of the other 5 people standing around even mumbled a hello to me! I was rather surprised and their, well, unfriendliness. It was too bad, because I was really looking forward to a good game of squash, since it's been a really long time since I played.

Anyways, our attempt at squashed was quickly squashed, so we decided to go out for dinner, instead! I was wearing my shorts, but I had grabbed a skirt to throw on in case I had to get out of the car for something (always be prepared!), so I put that on to go into our new favorite little restaurant. Of course, I didn't think about the fact that I was wearing a striped t-shirt and brought along a flowered skirt. But somehow, that doesn't seem to bother the local fashion sense.

Anyways, we had a lovely meal of roasted chicken, and I got a plate full of my favorite flat bread - it's sort of like a really flat version on injera, and made with sorghum, traditionally. Most people here only eat that flat bread when they have a stew type of thing - they LOVE their sauce. So they never believe me when I tell them that I want it with my roasted chicken, rather than the normal white bread rolls that normal people eat with their chicken!

There's something about the sour taste of fermented flat=bread that I can't get enough of! I really start getting cravings for it if I don't get it at least once, if not twice a week! I've had this local flat bread three times now - once on Sunday, then I had the leftovers with homemade shiro on Monday, and now with my chicken tonight. Mmmm mmmm mmmm.

Oh yeah, since Annamarie and I were still craving some exercize, we decided to dance to the Latin dance fitness DVD that she's got. Man, I don't think I'll ever quite get it, no matter how many times I do that DVD! I just can't quite shimmy the way they do! But it gets me moving, and it certainly gets me sweating, so I guess that's the important part, no matter if I get all the steps right!

Yahoo for Holidays!

Oh, it was a wonderful treat to have a holiday today! I stayed up late last night reading a book, which I LOVE to do. I'm such a night owl. And I didn't open my eyes until 9am this morning, and there was no one in the house to tell me that I was lazy for sleeping in! Then I did actually do some work - I installed some software on the computer belonging to our translation consultant. Of course, nothing is ever as simple as it should be, and that whole process took a few hours, and it's still not quite right! But I left that task and went out to the River for lunch with my housemate, Annamarie. What fun we had! It was SO nice to just be out by the river, to enjoy the cool river breezes, the trees, the birds... it feels like you're out of the city when you go to the riverside. Unfortunately, we found out that our favorite riverside restuarant has closed :( There is now just a limited menu from a different set up in the same location. Anyways, it's one of the nicest locations on the river, so we stayed, and tried the new food. I had a burger and fries, which wasn't too bad. I had a hankering for grilled chicken which the old place did very nicely (they had a whole BBQ thing set up, so nice!). But anyways, the burger was fine, the chips were crispy, the breezes were cool, the company was good... it really felt like a nice break from the norm.

I did wish that I had brought my camera, though, so I could take a few pictures (or even videos!) of the roads that we had to take to get there. During the rainy season, the roads just get worse and worse and worse. And even though I drive a pick-up truck, there are places where I feel like we just might not make it through! Annamarie was bouncing around like a rag-doll (her description!), and I was just gripping the steering wheel, trying to keep myself in my seat! Annamarie is such a hoot, though, and the adventures of driving around this town are so much more fun when you have someone to laugh and joke about it with!

After lunch, we went over to visit one of my Eritrean friends who lives here now. He's working in a hotel/restaurant with his cousin, but his own family is treating him like slave labour! He works from 7am up to 10:30pm every single day, and he never gets a day (or rarely even an hour!) off. It's really insane, and they're taking advantage of him. But what choice does he have?! I've been keeping my eye open for a new job for him, but he's quite inexperienced in anything that any NGOs would need help for, and it seems that these days there is more pressure from the gov't to hire only citizens of this country for the vast majority of jobs :(

Anyways, we had a nice visit, and I hope that he is able to find something to help him get out from under his family's thumb soon. These family things are complicated on this continenet...

After our visit with Solomon, we had yet more adventures on the roads going home. The main road where I wanted to go was closed. So I had to go down a parallel road, which I knew is always terrible... but we got through it the other day, and I thought we could do it again. But alas, there was a huge truck stuck right in the shallow part of the biggest lake, and I didn't want to risk going through the really seriously deep mud.

So we did a u-turn in the middle of the dirt track we were driving on, and tried to find our way back on the road that goes along near the river. All in all, we did quite a big loop today in the truck - 18 km in all! Which translates, all added up, into over an hour on the road. Over an hour to do 18 km, and that's not because of traffic jams! Though we did have to stop and wait for some ducks and some cows to move off the road...

Once we got back home, even though I was sweaty and dusty from all that cruising around on the crazy roads, I felt like I had had a real holiday away from work. Just goes to show that with the right company and the right attitude, you can have fun doing just about anything!