Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Echidna Media Organization project S.N.A.L.'s LiveJournal:

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Friday, May 18th, 2012
10:36 pm	Korem, Tigray    Picking up where I'd left off, I had just arrived in Mek'ella on Friday, May 4th. Saturday, May 5th - Goru (sp?) the local ACDI/VOCA (host organization) director met me at 9:00 at my hotel. Apparently, and rather to my surprise, he had only come by to tell me he still needed to find a translator and that he'd be back around 3:00 and we'd head to Mek'ella. But then as a sort of afterthought he offered to give me a quick tour of Mek'elle.    Mek'elle (alternatively Mekele or Mek'ele) as it turns out is mostly made of stone -- there are cobbled streets and cobbled houses. It's the largest town and capital of the Tigray region and the location of a major Ethiopian university.    Mekelle and its immediate surroundings are also much more desert-like than Amhara (the region I'd previously been in in Bahir Dar and Finot Selam), while water was plentiful in Bahir Dar (which means "By the Lake"), seeing the surroundings of Mekelle it's easy to understand how a devastating drought in the 80s killed thousands. The camels pictured above also don't look out of place in Mekelle, and prompted another great quote: Goru turned to me and asked "Are these the same kind of camel you have in the United States?" followed by "what do you mean you don't have camels in the United States???"    The road to Korem from Mek'elle is about four hours long and after about an hour of the desert highlands begins to wind among steep green hills and mountains.    We passed through about three small towns and countless huts and little clusters of huts. Frequently when children saw me in the car they'd shout excitedly "china!" or "ferringi!" "China" because Chinese engineers are among the more common foreigners they see I guess, and all of us non-Africans look the same really ;) "Ferringi" because that's a word throughough the middle-east for foreigners, especially Europeans. I believe it comes from Byzantines referring to all Westerners as the Franks. And yes, the Star Trek aliens, the "ferringi," got their name from this word. Also in the Star Trek universe the Ferringi leader is called the "Grand Negus" -- "negus" being the Ethiopian (Amharic) word for "king".    I bet you science fiction fans didn't think you'd be learning science fiction things from my trip ;)    In the town of Maychew we stopped to get a "beamer" -- a projector. In an unlikely seeming occurence, a fellow brought a relatively modern looking projector out of a mud-and-wattle shack, in a nice clean modern looking carrying case. We then monkeyed around to see if it would talk to my laptop and of course it wouldn't, so we made some calls and eventually determined that someone else was bringing a laptop the next day with which it would probably talk. It seemed like an interesting mix of "first world problems" and a thoroughly third world setting. Sunday, May 6th - I was wondering how we were going to have class on a Sunday, what with Ethiopians being fairly religious and presumably needing to be in church on Sunday morning. Well it turns out two members of the class were priests (identified by a white turban-like wrapping upon their heads), and they came with their hand-held wooden crosses to bestow blessings.    Korem is a remote little village. For the first time in all my assignments thus far I felt like I was truly out deep in the third world. No fancy hotels here, no internet cafes here. An adorable little town it was pleasant to walk about in.    For lunch we went to a little restaurant down the road a bit that had a nice little outdoor eating area in front that was overflowing with foliage.    It started to rain while we were eating there, which prompted us to move from under the foliage to under the roof overhang, but the temperature remained comfortable and I just found sipping tea there while watching the rain over the village to be possible the most pleasant thing ever.    It even hailed a bit.    And then during the afternoon training session there was thunder and lightning outside and the lights flickered constantly. It kind of felt like a cheesy movie haunted house. But also awesome.    After the afternoon session was over Girmay (the interpreter) and I as well as the two lads from Comel (the honey processing plant director and head beekeeper), and the ACDI/VOCA accountant went strolling about the town. Girmay is a grad student at Mek'elle University, studying beekeeping. He and I got along extremely well.    We first came across a place that looked like a bar -- it had young fellows loitering in front drinking something and loud music coming out. We inquired if they had tea but were told they had nothing other than milk there.    The rain had stopped by this time but it was still damp and smelled of a combination of fresh rain and wood smoke, with bluish-white smoke hanging in the air over low parts of the valley. Monday, May 7th - On Monday we once again had lecture / Q & A training for most of the day.    That afternoon we drove up nearby Girakasu Mountain to a bee yard. This bee yard was located in a forest glade on the mountain. The beehives were all painted yellow (as are all frame hives in Ethiopia it seems). I opened up two of them and found that while the bees weren't completely disinterested in stinging they were as usual not nearly as aggressive as people, including locals, usually make the bees in Africa out to be.    Some of the bees had bee lice on them, which is actually the first time I've seen that. But most importantly, as pictured above, THERE WERE MONKEYS IN THE BEEYARD. Definitely a first for me. Tuesday, May 8th - Training / Q & A all day. These beekeepers were by far the most experienced beekeepers I've met yet in training. Despite using mostly traditional hives, they seemed to have a traditional method of doing almost every beekeeping procedure and really surprisingly good knowledge of bee biology and behavior. They asked me some really in-depth questions. We finally had consistent enough power this day to run the projector.    This not being a coffee producing region, coffee here is usually prepared in the form of an espresso, with an espresso machine (yes they somehow have those). I'm not actually so fond of espressos so I drank a lot of tea here. I noticed that the third common drink consumed here is hot milk, drank in a tea cup. It appears to be quite a common choice of beverage. There's also a local beverage unique to this town called "korefu," which I gather is very strongly alcoholic yet only available in mornings. Despite my efforts I was unable to try any, mainly because I was always busy in mornings.    That evening I watched some fellows playing a game on the pool table in the hotel. It appeared to be basically like shuffleboard on a pool table -- the two players took turns rolling balls with their hand towards the one blue ball; after they'd each rolled all their balls (4 each?) the player with the ball closest to the blue ball wins the round and gets a number of points equal to the number of his balls that are closer to the blue ball than his opponent's nearest ball. Wednesday, May 9th - Headed up Girakasu Mountain again, but this time we parked and hiked up through the forest to reach a different bee yard. The bee yard was on a ridge with a panoramic view of the western edge of the Great Rift Valley, and a waterfall on one of the nearby mountainsides. It was altogether a pretty awesome location.    Went through a hive. Once again the frames weren't spaced right and there was cross-combing and double-combing. Serious problems when it comes to actually making use of frame hives. This is what happens when the government orders people who don't know what they're doing to build 50,000 a year of something and sell them to people who don't know what it's supposed to look like.    After hiking back down the mountain we all returned to the hotel in Korem. There I demonstrated drone eversion -- that is, making a drone evert its endophallus, which is the sciencey way of saying it turns inside out and its inside-penis ends up on the outside. Then it dies. But its a cool trick. Then I gave my gloves to a beekeeper who told me he didn't have gloves but wished he did, and gave my bee suit to Girmay, and my last hive-tool to the local beekeeping cooperative organizer.    Then we returned to Mek'elle, with a brief stop in the town of Maychew again on the way.    Arrived in Mek'elle and got assigned the very same room in the Axum hotel again.    That evening Girmay came by and went with him by taxi and bujuj to a party near his place. It was "St Mary's Day," a day which is traditionally celebrated by parties among families / friends / or neighbours. And specifically it seems the same group tries to get together year after year.    There was a smorgasbord of traditional food laid out when we arrived at his neighbors house, as well as bottled beer and local beer ("tele"), which tasted kind of sour, unhopped, and of course not carbonated. Given the sourness I wondered if they used teff to make it.    I'd get about halfway through a beer before someone would come by and replace my beer, saying I needed a cold one. Presently people began dancing, with typically consisted of men and women shuffling around in a circle, mainly keeping their hands at their side as they went around. Around the time it transition from a food party to a dancing party my endless beer was replaced with a constantly refilled glass of johnnie walker black label whiskey.    There were a few forays into another sort of traditional dancing that involved some flinging of the arms about but it seemed only one man (the host incidentally) and one woman were confident enough to attempt it.    After everyone was good and intoxicated and the night was wearing on (around 1am?) a new phase began involving drunken speeches. The drunken orator would I believe express his gratitude for the bountiful party being thrown and express his hope that he'll see all the same people at next year's party and his further ambition that if the next year is good to him he'd like to host the party next year. I'm not sure how they actually decide which person will in fact be the host. Girmay confessed to me that he'd like to host it but he'll need to be married in order to do so.    Caught a bujuj-taxi home and once again was rather shocked that he didn't try to quote me a higher price than I knew to be appropriate. That night I woke up realizing I desperately needed to hydrate or I'd be in very bad straights considering how much alcohol I'd consumed. But I didn't have any bottled water! Ignoring the "don't drink the tap water!" advice I'd received before my trip (again though, they also told me not to eat fruit that hadn't been soaked in bleach water, gross!) I lurched myself to the bathroom and drank several handfuls of water.    The next morning I was feeling extremely slow due to the alcohol but never experienced any indigestion from the water.    The next day (Thursday) I toured the Comel Honey Processing Facility, but I think I'm going to make that the subject of a separate entry. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, May 10th, 2012
3:47 pm	Finot Selam 4/30, Monday- Monday morning Teferi, Beide & I drove about two hours to the town of Finot Selam. The road slowly wound through the undulating countryside. Much of the land we passed was being tilled by pairs of oxen pulling wooden plows. There were also large patches of eucalyptus forest.    Eucalyptus has been imported from Australia as a source of wood and by and large taken over the countryside it seems. People are happy about it because it provides good straight wood for construction as well as firewood, though I feel a bit saddened that it's no doubt heavily displacing the native foliage, and wonder about the ecological consequences such as animals not having their native forage any more.    We also passed through many villages. Often there were stacks of eucalyptus logs ready to be hauled off (I'm told they're imported to Sudan as well). Smoking piles of dirt signified charcoal production and bags of finished charcoal were stationed near the road for sale. And of course we had to slow to pass many many herds of goats and cows.    We crossed the Nile a second time (it makes a giant spiral before it leaves the country) and just before we descended from the highlands to lower country, as I was preparing to take a photo of an ox plow, suddenly I found myself looking at the rusting hull of a T-54 main battle tank.    "It's very old, from the battle with the derg 20 years ago" it was explained. "Have you ever been through a war?" I was asked ("no, America only has it's wars in other countries")    Finot Selam (or Finot Salami as it's called in my head) turned out to be a small town in which my hotel and the building next to it were the only tall (four story) buildings. Hotel was pretty nice, though my window looked right out onto an open air restaurant and specifically was right next to their television. Unlike the hotel in Lafia, Nigeria, they fortunately had the decency to turn off the TV and try to enforce quietness after 10 or so.    But before I discovered this, on entering the hotel, when I thought I was being led to my room, I suddenly found myself entering an event hall full of people sitting expectently, and was led to the dias. Apparently Teferi didn't feel like telling me that I'd be starting the training the very moment I got there. I was... somewhat caught off guard by this.    The Finot Selam group had a lot of very experienced people in it, including four who described themselves as "bee experts" when I asked what they did. I still don't know what exactly that means they do. But the group in general was restless with my coverage of bee behaviour, kept interrupting with questions like "when you smoke a hive, how do you prevent the smoke from drifting to the hive next to it and making those bees angry?" (asked while I was explaining the role of drones in the hive), or "but doesn't smoke kill the bee larvae?" (asked while I was explaining queen cells), as well as many other off-the-current-topic questions, many also pertaining to "tell us how you produce so much in the United States."    Finally I had to say "look, I could jump to the end right now and tell you right now that we produce so much in the United States by trucking the bees to whatever is blooming all year round and flooding our hives with pesticides, and be done in ten minutes, but we have three days here and I'm pacing myself to give you three days worth of material. The things I'm telling you to look for in the hive and what I'm telling you to do about them is the real way you're going to increase your production."    Tuesday afternoon we visited one of the beekeeper's beehives and I went through a hive. The next day at the beginning of class the beekeeper and those present expressed to the class how impressed they was with how I went through the hive, and how I did it during the day and without wearing the protective clothing, and the level of respect from the class was palpable.    As for the bees themselves, the beekeeper had at least ten frame (ie modern box type) hives lined up along two sides of the outside of his house (including the front) and several traditional basket hives (see picture above) hanging from the eaves on the back. Dinner was being cooked on a stove outside not six feet from the nearest hive.    The sun was still up but it was a cool day and close to sunset and the farmer actually gave me the go-ahead to open a hive ... and even use smoke!    As usual with African bees I started out fully suited up. Shortly after I got started though I decided I needed to know if they were being stingy since I was in the middle of a village so I took off my left glove. And then when I was in the middle of the inspection and hadn't received any stings yet I took off the veil and other glove. Didn't see any small hive beetles, which had been pervasive in Nigeria. Bees had a major tendency to run off the comb being examined, which is a common trait I've found among African bees. By the time I was done nearly the hole colony was hanging on the outside of the hive.    After I was done inspecting the hive the beekeeper invited me into his house for some traditional food. We sat on cow skins on the packed-dirt floor and took turns tearing pieces of injera (crepe-like sour material made from the millet-like grain "teff") off a a communal plate and eating the pieces of roasted meat with it. They also poured us each a cup of "local beer." It tasted... like hay. Wasn't carbonated of course. Between washing my hands with local water and this somewhat questionable local beer I was quite certain I'd have some sort of intestinal failure in my near future (again I didn't, god bless my iron stomach!), but went along with it sportingly anyway. And I certainly greatly appreciate the beekeeper's generous hospitality.    As a thank-you I gave him one of the hive tools the Orange County Beekeepers Association donated.    Wednesday, as I said, the class finally seemed to decide I knew what I was talking about. Also Teferi and Beide had stolen away either that morning or the night before without mentioning anything to me. They didn't reappear until the next morning. I didn't really need them for anything but being as they're supposed to be my support on this project and coupled with Teferi not mentioning to me on Monday that I'd be starting lecture immediately, I feel like maybe his communication skills could use a little work.    Also this day we visited the little honey processing facility in town. They had some interesting comb honey extractors that I was told were specially designed and manufactured in Ethiopia at the instigation of the NGO "SOS Sahel." They didn't appear to have any frame honey extractor, and most of the hives I've seen here have been frame hives, but I'm told there are frame honey extractors around (somewhere?). Though the lack of access to such was cited by several beekeepers as problems.    Thursday we drove back to Bahir Dar. On the way I saw what looked like a black coloured bird with a body about the size of an ostriches, but much shorter legs, and it appeared to have some red plumage on its head. It went by so fast I didn't get a good look at it, and I've been kicking myself ever since that I didn't immediately ask if we could stop so I could get a better look and a picture. It was huge! Beide and Teferi tell me its called a "turkish type" bird or a "jigra," but no combination of those words brought anything up on google. I'm still dying to know what it was. As we sped on from it and immediate regret at not stopping was already settling upon me I asked Beide if we might see another, to which he responded "no, it's quite rare."    That evening the girls from the hotel invited me out to dinner again. Dinner for three and a bottle of wine? $13. (Needless to say I paid this and last time)    Friday is already the subject of it's own entry    And I'll write about my adventures in the Tigray region in a subsequent entry ( Pictures from Monday ) ( Pictures from Tuesday ) ( Pictures from Wednessday ) ( Pictures from Thursday ) (Comment on this)
Saturday, May 5th, 2012
2:52 am	Bahir Dar    4/28, Saturday - Had the last day of the training session in Bahir Dar. Usually I try to do some hands-on candle or lotion making, but Teferi (the local ACDI (host NGO) representative) had told me uses of wax wasn't in the scope of work so we shouldn't do that. However due to interest among the class members and with the help of the instigation of my interpreter Kerealem, we reinstituted candlemaking into the schedule. So we did that on this last day.    For a mold they tried to use a hollow stick that Kerealem had found, but I think it ultimately proved unsuccessful. They had much more success, however, making the traditional candles used in Ethiopian orthodox churches -- by dipping strands of wool repeatedly in wax. I'm told they also sometimes make candles by pouring wax on a flat surface and letting it dry and solidify in a thin layer, and then rolling it up with a wick in the middle (back home at the Orange County Fair every year we have kids roll candles with this method).    That evening after the training session was over Teferi, Beide (the driver) and Kerealem and I ended up sitting at tables in front of Beide's restaurant having some beers. There we were joined by two of Kerealem's colleagues from the university, one of whom was another beekeeping specialist. 4/29, Sunday - Started out the morning by riding bujujs (bujuj being a weird word to me, I think of them in my head as "buk-buks," which then makes me think of chickens) with Beide to get to "St George," the local orthodox church. Bujujs were invented in India and are common in Ethiopia as low cost local taxis. They appear to be little more than a minimal hull built around a motorbike engine. The parts are still manufactured in India but they are shipped over and assembled here, I am told.    Church was very interesting. It didn't appear to have a set start or end time, rather a continuous stream of white-shawl-clad church goers entered the sanctuary, received a blessing from a priest, listened to the ongoing sermon for as long as they felt like, and then joined the stream exiting. Church service is conducted in Amharic and Ge'ez (an ancient form of Anharic that now only exists in church use).    Thereafter Beide and I took the bujujed to a restaurant near his own, where I had a delicious breakfast. It was basically a fresh piece of flat bread with honey on it, and when I dabbed it in the pile of red pepper ("red pepper" here tastes more like cinnamon than the red pepper we have in the States) that had been provided with Beide's food it was even more delicious.    Also while going about with Beide I noted that he didn't seem able to go more than 100 yards without running into someone very glad to see him. Even later in Finot Selam some 200 kilometers away he'd run into seeming old friends on the street all the time. Eventually I'd find out that it's because, in addition to being a very likeable person, he teaches driving school (and maybe administers the test?) so drivers all over the area know him from having been taught to drive by him. In addition to this and owning a restaurant he has a bachelor degree in mechanical engineering, specializing in automotive. So my driver was thoroughly overqualified!    Hung out at Beide's restaurant for two hours or so that morning. It was a pleasant sunny day with a nice breeze (as always in Bahir Dar). Took a lot of pictures there including several of some colourful birds that were flitting about the trees. I don't think I'm normally very good at portraiture but I think I got some nice pictures of the local butcher.    While there I got to watch the production of coffee from the roasting of beans through to the cup of the freshest coffee possible being handed to me. I even got to try my hand at the grinding.    Also they served me some raw meat (beef), a common traditional way of eating it. I was pretty sure it was going to make me horribly sick but I went ahead and tried several pieces and it was indeed very good. I was grateful that shortly after that I was returned to my hotel for an hour to relax, being as, though feeling fine, I was quite convinced something horrible was about to happen to my digestive system. As luck would have it though I suffered no ill effects.    Beide and I reconvened a little later (around 13:00) and took a bujuj to the lake shore. There I'd been led to believe Woina, an assistant manager from my hotel, had arranged for us to go by boat to visit some more monasteries on the lake. Beide then departed saying he had other things he had to do, and Woina shortly showed up with Rahel, an accountant from the hotel. I guess all the other monasteries take hours to get to (wouldn't have really deterred me) but they decided instead we'd take the boat to another hotel that's on the water and have lunch there.    This other hotel did indeed have a very nice garden patio area. Set up was currently going on for a wedding to take place there that evening. One of the girls commented that it looked to be a very expensive wedding, possibly as much as 500 US dollars.    Woina (short of Woinechet)'s name means "wine," but she doesn't drink alcohol "because the bible forbids it." Rahel ordered an Ethiopian wine though (apparently they have that!). I tried the Ethiopian wine and to my utterly un-wine-sophisticated palette it tasted like a pretty decent wine. Altogether food for the three of us and the wine and two beers for me came out to around $15 I think.    While that may seem shockingly cheap, to put it in perspective I learned that as an assistant manager at one of the best hotels in town, and having a bachelor degree in law, Woina earns 1.8% as much as I do per month.    Then around maybe 16:00, a driver friend of the girls picked us up and dropped them off near their homes and drove me to my hotel. He even refused payment because he was doing it as a favor to his friends.    The next day I was off to Finot Selam to begin another training session. I'll start a new entry for that. And here's a young mother who was part of the training class. And here's a look underneath that shawl O_O ( Pictures from the 28th ) ( Pictures from the 29th) (Pictures taken before 10am appearing on previous day due to camera still being on California time at this point. Later I changed the camera time setting) (14 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, May 4th, 2012
9:51 am	Crisscrossing Ethiopia (With Numerous Delays)    Well this will be a little out of order since I haven't told you much about the last week and a half yet, but allow me to tell you about my day today.    At 0600 I got up and packed my stuff in preparation to catch a 0900 flight. One is always advised to be at the airport two hours ahead of time here. My camera battery was dead this morning, I'd forgotten to charge it last night. Entirely my fault but that meant I'd be spending a day camera-less.    By 0645 I was all packed up and signed out of the hotel, sitting in the lobby with my luggage. It only takes about 15 min to get to the airport so I was still on schedule. Regretted not having time to eat at the hotel restaurant but my ride should be there any minute... or so I thought.    Tried calling the driver but both numbers I had for him gave me a "this user's phone is currently shut off" message. I next called the other ACDI staffmember in town, and he (Teferi) asked "oh you want me to send the driver?" ...which I thought shouldn't have been news to him since we'd discussed it yesterday. Long story short by the time the driver arrived it was around 0800, and I'd been kept in constant expectation of his imminent arrival the whole time so I still hadn't gotten a chance to eat.    Arrived at the Bahir Dar airport to find no rush there -- plane not yet on the ground. Called the Winrock staff in Addis (where I was headed) and asked them to exchange 300 of the dollars I left with them there for Ethiopian birr. Then my phone died (because the charger I'd been provided with doesn't work).    And then I waited, and waited, and waited. Airplane finally landed at 10:30. Well after I was supposed to have already arrived in Addis!    Arrived in Addis Ababa around 1200, with a flight to catch at 1450. Originally, when I was coming in at 1100, it made sense for me to visit the Winrock office in the mean time. But with only an hour before I needed to be back in the hotel I was thinking I could probably better use the time to eat. But there was a driver waiting for me and I had no phone to call him.    The winrock driver was all about bringing me to the office. When I reminded him I had to be back at one this seemed to be news to him, which concerned me a bit. But he was confident we could make it there and back no problem and I only vaguely remembered it not being terribly far to the office so I went with him.    1240 we finally arrived at the office with me feeling quite hungry and irritable and anxious to return to the airport immediately. The winrock staff hadn't bothered to exchange the money yet and took me with them down to the bank to do the exchanging. Seemingly not in a terribly hurry. I surmise perhaps the entire reason the airports advise a two hour early arrival is because everyone arrives on "Africa time."    Arrived in the airport terminal "lounge" area (between the first security check / ticketing area and the second security check + gates area) around 1420. My flight was supposed to begin boarding at 1415 but I was about dying of hungry. Ordered a burger from the little restaurant in this section of the terminal. As of 1432 there was still no sign of my burger. I was just packing up to head to the gate without it when it finally arrived. I devoured it as fast as humanly possible and was off to hope I made it through the second security checkpoint in time to catch my flight. (which I did)    Touched down in Mek'ele about an hour and a half later. Was impressed by how nice and modern looking the terminal here is. Especially since in Bahir Dar, one of Ethiopia's primary tourist destinations, the airport was kind of a glorified shack. As I headed out of the terminal though it occurred to me that I didn't have a working phone, and both my earlier first arrivals in Ethiopian cities had involved trouble finding the people I was supposed to meet (in Bahir Dar Teferi and Beide hadn't bothered to approach me because they were expecting an ACDI staffmember they'd recognize to be with me, and apparently no one's ever seen a volunteer technical expert as young as me before. So they waited until I was the only person left in front of the terminal before they finally approached me).    But fortunately this time a fellow from ACDI met me as I exited the terminal, and took me to the hotel here.    Tomorrow we were SUPPOSED to continue on to the city of Korem, but I've been informed there is no car (the car they had is having problems?).    AND if we don't get there tomorrow, the following day is Sunday! I have yet to see any work get done on a Sunday in Africa.    Welcome to the third world! And here's a cow! No new pictures today but here's another link to the set. (Comment on this)
Thursday, May 3rd, 2012
12:20 pm	Pictures from Ethiopia Children from a village near the town of Finot Selam, Ethiopia. Didn't have internet access down there so today I uploaded a bunch of pictures from the last several days. Back in Bahir Dar today, tomorrow I fly to Addis Ababa and then a few hours later fly to the town of Mekelle. Then the NEXT day I drive to a town called Korem where I'll do more training. So I'll be all over Ethiopia for the next few days. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, April 27th, 2012
12:32 pm	Ethiopia: Advanced Beekeeping Practices Up In Smoke Wednesday - So Wednesday afternoon Belde and I drove to the Blue Nile Falls. It was about a 30km round trip out of Bahir Dar. When we got there a local (and licensed) guide convinced us to hire him, and I'm glad we did because he was very friendly and full of information. We took a little boat across the Nile and then hiked a few hundred yards to the top of the falls. The falls were impressive and big as it is, but apparently they are only a small fraction of what they once were before most of the water got rerouted to irrigation and hydroelectric (did you know Ethiopia sells electricity to Sudan?). In fact we got lucky on Wednesday that the falls were "turned on" at all because one of the hydroelectric stations was off. After poking around the waterfall we visited the totally indiana-jones-movie bridge: And then had coffee under a little thatched awning on the ridge right in front of the waterfall, the picture of which I put up the other day, but here's the coffee roasting and the falls: Thursday - Was our first day of training session. Unlike other assignments where we visited hives first to see where we were at, this one started right in with lecture. I found my interpreter to be a fellow pursuing his master's degree in apiculture (beekeeping) at the local university. So he knows almost as much as me. ;D    In the afternoon we finally visited some beehives. The owner of the beeyard hadn't been at the training which I thought might account for him insisting "it is not the appropriate time to open the hives! We must wait for the sun to set!" and forbidding me from using smoke on the hive.    For those of you unfamiliar with beekeeping, smoke is an essential tool. Applying smoke to beehives prevents the bees from getting all riled up because they can't smell the alarm pheromone (and there's a persist myth it makes them think their hive is on fire so they gorge themself on honey and then can't fly. That myth is dumb).    Finally I was able to convince him to let me open up one hive, so long as I didn't use any smoke and didn't remove any frames. As a little background, a large part of why I'm here is because the government has been promoting removable-frame hives from on high but not providing training on how to use them. The purpose of removable frames hives is you can remove the frames to inspect them and put them back without damaging the beehive. But in order to do this you need smoke, and you need to, well, remove the frames.    Even without smoke though I was able to remove my gloves and veil right in front of the hive as soon as I was done, the kind of antics I make a point of doing to try to combat their certainly that their bees are way too mean for management. Traditional basket hives, a few yellow langstroth-like "zander" hives, and one "swarmin gourd" in the middle (lower rack). The colony in the gourd is supposed to swarm frequently because of the small size of the gourd, and thus give them more colonies.    After that Jean Reno Belde, Terefe (Belde's boss), Kere (the interpreter) and I went to a hotel that has high quality "tej." Tej is a traditional mead made with hops and olives. Formerly it was widely consumed throughout Ethiopia. Formerly. In more recent times it has become so common to make it with sugar instead of honey (and fermented sugar water is just plain crappy) that people generally stopped drinking it. Similarly the honey market here and in Nigeria is suffering from the fact that there's so much diluted honey being sold that consumer's don't trust most honey any more. In Ethiopia they are ALSO having trouble with beeswax that has been cut with parafin. Welcome to the modern world, where anything worth making is worth making crappy. Friday (today) - Lecture presentation training in the morning once again. With of course coffee breaks at 10:00 and 3:00. Then a bunch of us went out to visit another bee yard.    I was hoping yesterday was a fluke, but once AGAIN I was told "no you can't open the hives right now you must wait till it's dark." I managed to finally convince them to once again let me open one hive and I thought we had an understanding that smoke was to be used. These beehives were in an interesting location, you had to go through a shed-like room with a door in it and you came into a beehive enclosure. When I got there I suddenly found that none of the English speaking persons were there with me and the people who were (there were very limited numbers of bee suits) didn't have a smoker. Trying to mime the need for a smoker was getting nowhere. I was strongly inclined not to even both opening the hive without a smoker because it would just make a mess and further convince them that hives can't be opened during the day, and I really should have, but we were already right there and they were expecting to open that hive. So we opened it, didn't remove any frames, but these bees got mad. Not any crazy unusual mad. Nothing worse than I'd expect if I did the same thing to bees in Southern California. But it was regrettable because there were angry bees flying all around the house, the whole group who didn't have bee suits had to hastily retreat, and it didn't do anything to improve the case that hives should be opened during the day.    Further discussion about smokers ensued when I was reunited with the English-capable members of the party, and they (and now these are people who had been in attendance at the training, AND in particular the person pursuing his graduate degree in apiculture) all firmly adhered to the line that no, smoke will only make the bees angry.    Smoke DOES THE OPPOSITE OF THAT. And is a critical element of the use of the hives they're all trying to figure out how to use!!! After learning from this discussion just how convinced they all were that smoke would make bees angry I was feeling extremely frustrated.    If we are able to tomorrow, I want to visit some bees and even if we don't get to open a hive I want to have a chance to blow smoke into a hive and demonstrate that the bees do not become angry from it. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 25th, 2012
12:45 pm	Ethiopia!    So one morning I was sitting in a little cafe in central Nigeria and they put nescafe IN THE ESPRESSO MACHINE. That was it. It was just too much. The next morning I was on a plane to Ethiopia, the origin of coffee.    The origin, of course, of not just coffee, but life as we know it. I was returning to my homeland, to everyone's homeland. (It's only been 100,000 years or so since we left)    A coincidence that Homo sapiens and Coffea arabica originated in the same place? I think not!    And shortly, things like this were happening: And I haven't seen nescafe since!    Flight took about five hours, and took me two hours into the future and 8 years into the past.    The next day I was wondering for several hours why there was a meeting with another NGO (ACDI/VOCA) scheduled for 8:30, until I was finally informed that in Ethiopia they reckon time from 6am, so 2:30 is their 8:30. The new day begins not at midnight but at 6am. Additionally the Ethiopian year has 13 months and... it is currently officially the year 2004 in Ethiopia. My friends back home tell me it's a good year to invest in Apple.    South Sudan looks VERY dark from the air at night. The occasional lights one does see look like they are probably bonfires or something. Or lights the same shade of orange and flickery.    Ethiopia is also pretty dark, and then suddenly Addis Ababa appears over a ridge as a giant splatter of twinkling stars far below. While most American cities I've seen from overhead at night appear as grids and lines of warm toned lights, Addis looked like a giant starfield with no grids or straight lines, and most of its lights were a star-like blue-ish white.    Arriving in the Addis Ababa airport I was struck by how friendly everyone was. In the Nigerian airport they're not exactly rude per se but everyone working there seems at least "gruff," and security seems prone to hassle you just because they can. But everyone in the Addis airport including the immigration officials (ground zero of gruffness in the Nigerian airports) was very friendly.    A girl trying to snag people for her hotel as we came out of the baggage claim even seemed genuinely concerned about helping me find my contact and volunteered the use of her phone to call him (for free!). Tuesday My hotel was rather fancy, and cheaper than a Motel 6 in the US.    At the complimentary breakfast the food was all out in a buffet, but coffee was made to order in the kitchen. Welcome to Ethiopia!    Met with the winrock staff (the two of them), had a delicious lunch of spicy ground lamb, a sort of bread made from the root of the "false banana" tree, fresh rolls of normal bread, and peanut tea.    Then we drove across town (took 50 minutes, longer than the later flight across the country) to visit the NGO ACDI/VOCA, who is actually running the project. Wednesday (today) - Woke up at 4:30 for my 7:30 flight. The Ethiopian airport asks everyone to be there two hours before every flight, but I've never gotten into an airport so quickly and smoothly!    Leaving the Nigerian airport they had searched my carryon bag and found a nailclippers, which the guy confiscated from me with a disappointed shake of his head and stern look.    In the Ethiopian airport now they discovered a six-inch-long sharpened-at-both-ends hive tool in my carryon that had presumably also been there when I left Nigeria ... and they let me take it on the plane after the took it out and looked at it!    I still don't understand how you could POSSIBLY hurt someone with a nail clippers...    Flight from Addis Ababa to Bahir Dar here took about 45 minutes. Here I was met by ACDI/VOCA representative Terefe and driver Belde. They initially suggested I might want to rest, but the day was just beginning and I had plans! Esp since every day after this will probably be busy, I wanted to hit the ground running with some sightseeing!    Terefe had some work to do so it was Belde (who looks kind of like a dark skinned Jean Reno, IMO) and I most of the day. For about $15 I got a lad operating a small boat to take us to a nearby island on Lake Tana. On our way we saw hippos.    On the island was a church said to be 900 years old. That may be true but I'm not sure this book is also 900 years old like they said: Though I'm sure it's rather old. See also: the Ethiopian alphabet!    Then we had a delicious lunch prepared by Belde's wife, who runs a little restaurant:    And then we drove out to the Blue Nile Falls (Tis Abay), the official starting point of the Blue Nile (which provides 85% of the volume of the consolidated Nile). My battery is getting low and I want to get this posted so maybe I'll post more about it later. In the mean time here's a picture: The Tis Abay waterfall and a young girl serving coffee. How more Ethiopian can you get? Posted a heap of pictures from Ethiopia today most of which were from today. So look at them for a even fuller report on today! (13 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 24th, 2012
1:04 pm	Nigeria II - Last Few Days Saturday - You will recall where we left off I was bored out of my mind and being tortured by excessively loud music. Here's a picture that should have gone along with that: See the speakers on the far side of the pool? See the window peaking out from behind the roof over the speakers? That was my window. d:    An hour or two after I wrote the last entry I couldn't stand it any longer and sent a text to Mike, the Winrock country director in Nigeria, asking if there was another volunteer we could visit or ANYTHING other than stay there. He called me shortly later and we agreed I'd return to Abuja (terrorists or no!). He said he'd call Blessing (who happened to be lodged across the hall from me but I hadn't talked to him about it because he seemed to oppose any deviation from his idea of what the plans are). Blessing came to my room a few minutes later and greeted me with "are you packed??"    It's hard to tell if it was really a two questionmark intonation, since everything he says has an intonation that seems to hit its greatest emphasis on the second syllable and plateau there.    He then told me we shouldn't leave yet because Ango had not yet returned from Obe with information I had requested from him.    "Ango has a phone though" I reasoned    "His battery is dead" said Blessing    "Well then he can call us with the information tomorrow" I knew Blessing would have excuses but these were pretty flimsy. As it happened Ango did turn out to be back already so we met up with him briefly before returning to Abuja.    In Abuja I checked into the Rochview hotel. The hotel has a security guard posted on the landing of every floor, and I was once again on the second floor, and was surprised to find Anthony, the very same guard who had been there in February, still posted there. He expressed a strong desire to find another job (he works 8+ hour overnight shifts standing there and apparently isn't allowed to sit down, it sounds awful).    I also met another Winrock volunteer who had just come in that day and was staying in the same hotel, Jim. Jim spent his career as an adjunct professor of Agricultural Economics at none other than UC Davis (my alma mater) and a commercial farm manager. Like all the winrock volunteers I've met he was extremely friendly. He has 20 volunteer assignments under his belt with various organizations.    Jim, Blessing, Mike, and I went to dinner together. Returning to the hotel I found the internet not working there either (now on day 3+ w/o any internet!). So I went to talk to Anthony for awhile, since the poor fellow always seemed bored out of his mind. We talked for awhile and he asked if I wanted to come with him the following morning when he went home to see the famous Zuma Rock, since he lives right next to it. It's a 45 minute journey into Niger State on public transit (Niger is a neighboring country, a Nigerian state and a river that runs through both). He told me to come out to the landing at 0700 when he was getting off (it was presently 11:30pm). Sunday - at 0700 I popped out of my room to find Anthony... exactly where I left him. I'm not sure if his shift was 2300-0700 or what but I think it was 0800 by the time he was finally relieved of his post.    He went to change out of his uniform and when we reconvened he had also rustled up a taxi to take us there and back. Taxi driver initially wanted 7500N ($47.47), but on being informed I only had 3000N on me he settled for that ($18.99). So off we went to Zuma Rock! The aforementioned rock. Zuma Rock is pictured on the 100 niara bill. I think "zuma" also means "honey," though why that would be the name of the rock is beyond me. The first hotel in Abuja was built next to the rock (remember Abuja is a very new city), but thirty years later it is still abandoned. Apparently they can't shake the belief that the spirit of Zuma Rock haunts the hotel -- people won't stay there and employees won't work there.    At the base of the rock a family was relaxing and eating fresh mangoes from the trees that were right there, and they waved us over and gave me two. Anthony also knew a nearby place to get palm wine, which I henceforth had failed to find and try, so we went there next (it was pretty much just across the road). There I ate my fresh mangoes under the shade of more mango trees (after first washing them with my bottled water) and had my first taste of palm wine.    Palm wine is relatively clear with a milky tint. As you bring it up to your mouth it kind of smells like it's about to taste bad but isn't half bad.    Anthony hadn't asked me for anything in exchange for showing me around so I bought him a container of palm wine, and off I went back to Abuja.    A little later Jim and I went visit his assignment, which is an irrigation project just a half hour or so out of town. A fellow there has built an ambitious dam and reservoir, here's a picture: (left to right, Mike, Jim, the entrepreneur behind the project)    Aand then on Monday morning I was off to the airport for Ethiopia! ( Pictures From Friday ) ( Pictures From Saturday ) ( And the complete photo set from Nigeria! (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, April 22nd, 2012
2:43 pm	Duldrums [Entry written Saturday morning in Lafia, Nasarawa State. Posted Sunday evening evening in Abuja, Federal Capital Territory] Blessing: "We need to leave a little early so I can get foil" Me: "Foil?" Blessing: "Foil for the car" Me: "Foil... for the car??" Blessing: "Yes after driving to Farin Ruwa yesterday the car is almost out of foil"    Yes, Nigerians (who, for those of you just joining us, speak English as an official language, along with over 200 local languages) pronounce fuel as "foil," as in "aluminum foil." I found this to be one of the more baffling differences in pronunciation I've encountered in my life but I suppose if you looked at the word "fuel" spelled out and hadn't the slightest idea how to pronounce if "fuy-el" might result. I even saw a fuel truck with the word fuel spelled "foiul" on it. Blessing: "The hotel didn't have any tea (making hotels with tea 0 for 2, but they always have nescafe), so I went out to the street and got you some tea bags, sugar and pigs milk" (And while the hotel couldn't rustle any up I'm sure it took him 30 seconds to find those materials from street venders out front) Me: "Pigs milk?? I don't think I've ever had pigs milk before!" Blessing: "You haven't had pig milk? You haven't been putting the milk in your tea back at the hotel?" (back at the hotel we're staying at (this was at a hotel in a different town (Garaku) where we were to have a training sessions) they bring us an omelette, nescafe, powdered milk, and hot water, every morning, complimentary since we're staying for two weeks. We had to buy our own tea though.) Me: "I don't usually put milk in my tea, but if I knew it was pig milk I might have tried it!" Blessing: "In the United States they don't put pig milk in tea???" Me: "No they put cow's milk in tea, I didn't even know you could milk a pig!" Blessing: "Oh. Not PIG, PIG. PIG." He points to the satchet of powdered milk, which I hadn't examined closely, and I realize it says PEAK on it. "Peak milk" I guess is like half and half or whole milk? You never realize how similar a G and K sound are until you meet someone who pronounces them as halfway between eachother.    And so when we went into a cybercafe to use the printer I was not terribly baffled when the attendant told us "okay, just a minute let me get some foil." Not surprised they needed foil to run their own generator to run the printer, though perhaps a bit surprised that we're already two hours into the business day and they haven't made sure they had foil on hand for the possibility a customer would want to use the printer.    And on the subject of energy shortages when you want to run electronic devices I think I figured out why on two occasions I had my camera battery charging all night only to find it deader when I put it in my camera than it had been when I took it out.    When we ran out of foil during our training session at Garaku, one of the beekeepers plugged his phone and charger into the powerstrip. I thought it was an odd time to decide to charge his phone, but then the projector came back on and lasted another minute and a half. I don't know, I'd always assumed electronic devices had safeguards so the power would not flow backwards, but apparently not, at least here. He was able to run down his cell phone to power the laptop, and I'm sure while my battery charger was plugged in, when the power went out, as it inevitably does (right on cue it just went out), my camera battery proceeded to power everyone's AC (and the heinously loud music outside) for another .5 seconds.    Thank goodness I think my laptop battery at least doesn't flow backwards. I think that big boxy thing on the middle of the cord may have some magical properties that prevent this (I assume it is filled with voodoo charms).    The internet's been out here for at least three days now. When I start to feel bitter about that I tell myself "first world problems, firt world problems." And that it'll probably be good for me to be unconnected for a bit. But then another voice in my head says "but I have things I want to DO with the internet dammit!!" Such as, for example, in two days I go to Ethiopia. They're at a more advanced stage of beekeeping, with a central processing facility exporting 3000 TONS of honey every year, and they want me to, among other things, help the individual beekeeping operations with a "template business plan" and "out-grower schemes." There's two other volunteers in Lafia here, one of whom is from Sri Lanka and working on business development. I asked him what "outgrower schemes" are and he had no idea. I NEED THE INTERNET! I'm sure if I had two days of internet access I'd be a god damn expert in outgrower schemes by the time I get there. And I wouldn't mind boning up on the ins and outs of business plan writing either.    If you're reading this, it means I finally got some intertrons. Presently I'm writing it offline.    I'm not sure why, but training ended Thursday, giving me two days of "rest," "and to write the reports" (which took me about half an hour). I was skeptical about the utility of scheduling two days of nothing but Blessing has his ideas about what should be done and there's no budging him. It's presently Saturday, Sunday we drive up to Abuja and Monday I fly to Ethiopia.    I could have used maybe one full day to prepare for Ethiopia... but I can't do that without the internet.    Yesterday the other two volunteers (Ali, the SrI Lankan, and Yuan, a chinese Canadian with a Nigerian fiance (not present) whom she met in Malaysia) were going to Obe, a quaint village of thatched huts where there's always a pleasant breeze, and they were going to spend the night out there (The YMCA Training Center is there and has guest rooms). Being as we had nothing planned for today and yesterday I asked Blessing if we could go do that as well but he started talking about foil costs and how it's not in the scope. I said they were going anyway but he said they were taking public transit, and anyway he seemed so prepared to barrage me with excuses I decided not to push the issue (I could have offered to give him money for the foil costs myself, but I got the distinct impression he did NOT want to go). So instead of enjoying a pleasant breeze surrounded by thatched huts, I'm cooped up in my hotel room learning why they sometimes blast music to psychologically torture people.    You see, every day from sometime early in the evening until at least midnight they blast music at high volume here. Usually it's out by the pool and even with my windows closed it's so loud that for example when I tried to talk to Kori on skype I couldn't hear her even with computer volume up to full. Sometimes they do it in the bar downstairs, which is almost worse because then the floors and walls reverberate. At least it's not N Sync or Shania Twain, I'd probably have offed myself by now if it was.    Back when I had internet access I posted a facebook status complaining about this, and a "friend" commented on it "white boy problems." Incidentally the girl who posted this is a white girl with dreadlocks. I'm baffled how the neighbors and other hotel guests can stand this music, but I don't really see how objections to not being able to hear myself think before midnight has anythign to do with the gender/race/entitlement issues the comment seems to imply. Another of my friends "liked" the comment so I messeged her for explanation. She was surprised I was offended and said she just thought it was a "cheeky" way of poking fun at me. I perfectly understand the phrase "first world problems," since it implies I'm bothered about something that only someone from the first world would feel entitled to (wifi for example), but her phrase implies only a white boy would feel entitled to a non-audial-barrage environment? Am I missing something here? In conclusion I think the comment was deeply insulting and I'm going to de-friend the original commenter as soon as I get online again (didn't do it immediately due to a standing policy to never do anything "in the heat of the moment").    So all day Friday and today I have nothing to do all day. Yesterday morning we ventured out to the aforementioned cybercafe and visited the local YMCA HQ (YMCA is the local host organization) to say goodbye. Then I wrote my reports, which took about half an hour, swam some laps aaand... spent a lot of time in my hotel room. I can't leave my hotel by myself and even if I could it's not exactly pleasant to walk around out there, because everyone just tosses their trash out the window there's trash on every surface and the air is diffused with car exhaust. At least while the music isn't playing outside I can read a book. Last night, unable to sleep or read or do anything else I had to resort to something I don't think I've done in over twelve years -- I turned on the TV and flipped through channels until I found something watchable. In this case the music wasn't so loud I couldn't turn up the TV enough to hear it. (And it turns out the movie Lost Boys isn't completely awful, "Death Sentence" is surprisingly deep, and "Shooter" is a delightful example of the "shooting and explosions" genre)    In conclusion I'm going freaking stir crazy here with nothing to do. I wish we could go back to Abuja, but Abuja is on lockdown due to Boko Haram (the local terrorist group) threats to bomb hotels Westerners stay at (great) and/or the US Embassy (what did WE do? No seriously this time I think we're relatively innocent -- it's local politicians who are exploiting the oil [and say routing it to a refinery they own in Sao Tome & Principe rather than local refineries] and Boko Haram's complaints are only about "Western Education" [which I think means me ;) ]). It's a terribly shame because in Abuja I CAN walk around by myself and the internet usually works. Damn terrorists are having a negative impact on my life! ): (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, April 15th, 2012
6:14 pm	Nigeria II - Day 7 Friday Night - It rained so hard I felt like I was in a typhoon. I was sitting on the hotel balcony watching it come down, but wind was causing the rain to come down at enough of an angle I was concerned about getting water on my laptop so I retreated to the hallway. There I was still getting blasted with wet wind though so I had to withdraw all the way to my room. Saturday - We (Blessing (the Winrock driver), Ango (the YMCA Agric Director), and I) left the hotel in Lafia around 0900 and drove to "Mada Hill station," a town and stop on the train route (which, as I mentioned, hasn't run in ten years). There we parked the car and waited under some mango trees for some motorbike drivers to be rounded up. It was really quite pleasant. The air was cool from the previous night's rain, and on the benches under the trees it was thoroughly comfortable.    Once three motorbikes had been found, we proceeded on the lengthy trek up the hill. first it was past small villages and huts and their surrounding yam fields and then we started climbing the hills. In places we had to get off the bikes and walk them up particularly steep rugged parts of the trail. About two hours later we reached the village. I'm informed motorbikes only reached the village in October of last year, and other than that the only vehicles to reach the village were some range rovers in 1956.    Most of the honey collected in this village (called Ogabi or something like that) is from honey hunting, ie finding colonies that have naturally occurred in hollow trees or crevices in rocks and stealing the honey. There also appeared to be a number of traditional hives in use though -- hollowed palm logs hoisted up into trees. Honey is harvested at night without a bee suit and the entire colony is taken. They (or at least the one of them that could speak English) seemed to understand the benefits of a topbar hive but appeared intimidated by the task of putting it together. In particular he was "waiting for zinc" by which he meant the corrugated metal they put on their roofs (is that really zinc? I'd probably call it tin though I don't know if that's correct either. I'd have guessed it's aluminum). He was in fact skeptical when I tried to dissuade him from using corrugated metal (the rain makes a huge racket on it, which can cause the bees to abscond), but I showed him some pictures of hives with wooden lids or wood covered in plastic or tarp and he seemed persuaded he didn't need to wait for his zinc.    They had one hive near the village that had inhabited a cute little granary hut, and so they let it stay there for harvesting. Opening a hive during the day was something they had to see to believe, so they had me suit up and open it. If I didn't know better I'd say the young fellows were actually laughing at me as I suited up (okay I think they were). They didn't have a smoker and I hadn't brought one, so I just used the traditional bundle of reeds. Unfortunately this doesn't allow you to blow smoke into the hive BEFORE you start, so the bees ended up getting a bit riled up and everyone who had been crowded around in a 30 ft radius or so went running for their lives. I examined the comb and determined that none of the honey was capped, ie it was not ready to be harvested, so I closed it up and walked to a clearing a little ways away and waited for the bees to stop following me so I could join everyone else without bringing bees with me.    Blessing came and shouted to me to set fire to the surrounding brush (presumably to disperse the bees), a suggestion which I didn't really appreciate, being as that would make the whole thing a big fiasco and my whole goal is to show that beekeeping can be simple and easy. While the bees were a bit angry they still weren't even as bad as some "Africanized" colonies I've encountered in California. After a few minutes I was able to take my suit off and rejoin the others.    Another thing to note is whenever I tell anyone here who does beekeeping or honey hunting that they should NOT harvest honey that is not capped they about roll their eyes acknowledging that they know this. BUT for example on this occasion when I reported it wasn't capped so I didn't take anything out, the English speaking villager (who had earlier also acknowledged that uncapped honey should not be harvested) seemed frustrated and said "yes but it might be gone later, or it will rain and water it down." So I explained that the bees will only cap it once they've gotten the water content down to suitable levels. If you harvest uncapped honey it will not ferment and go bad. I explained that he'd be better not selling any honey than selling that uncapped honey because it WILL go bad and he'll get a bad reputation for selling bad honey. I'm not sure I convinced him though.    And then we had the long trek back down! Sunday - Oh dear god. So. Despite the locks sometimes being really hard to lock or unlock (I've had to call maintenance twice), and the AC frequently not working, and various other similar problems, I've been telling myself this is a third world hotel cut them a lot of slack. But today they had music BLASTING all day long down by the pool. So loud that even in my room with the windows closed when I tried to talk to Kori on skype I couldn't hear her (and the volume on my computer was up as high as it could go). Oh it was horrible and I had nowhere to go to escape (we didn't work today, and it's unsafe for me to go into town by myself, and I don't know where I'd go all day anyway). And music blasting all day like that is not a problem I can chalk up to lack of developed resources such as the AC, power, and lock problems. Nigerian dogs are in general very small, but here's a tiny little pup! ( Other pictures from Saturday's trek ) (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, April 13th, 2012
5:49 pm	Nigeria II - Day 6 Friday - Today we drove two hours or so to a town called Garaku. There we met with probably two dozen beekeepers and eight or so honey marketers. Once again the overwhelming majority of the beekeepers use the traditional bees-in-a-log hive.    Amusingly, when I asked what a typical honey price here was there was a hubub and finally someone informed me "the beekeepers are shy to name a price with the honey marketers here." So I told them just name a price they'd be totally comfortable selling it to them for or something. Finally I was informed that the beekeepers couldn't afford to sell their honey for less than 15,000 niara / 20 liter jerrycan ($94.94) and the marketers wouldn't buy honey for more than 10,000 niara per ($63.29).    I tried to dispell their awkwardness by pointing out that in the US, beekeepers sell their honey directly to the consumer for $6-8/lb (and I've seen it in the store for $10-12!), or that which they don't have the time / market to sell directly they sell to bulk honey dealers for appx$1.70 (this number goes up and down like the price of gas but it's generally in that range).    After converting liters to gallons to pounds (honey = 12 lbs / gallon) to dollars to niaras we figured out that would be 16,116N for the jerrycan at the bulk rate and 56,880N at $6.    Anyway the group had many questions for me and ended up asking if I could come back another day. We have a lot of communities to visit though so I don't know.    Leaving there we stopped by the village to meet my host (the YMCA Agg director)'s aunt. This was fun because I'd never really been in a village before. There were lots of interesting things to see in there, like a grane silo-hut-thing I don't even know how to describe (but fortunately got pictures).    Down one street we saw a crowd and someone appeared to be dancing about in a head-to-toe costume of feathers with a mask on, which I was excited about but Ango hurried us the other direction. I don't know if he was just in a hurry and didn't think it was interesting or actively didn't want us to see it.    Another interesting thing I learned today is that while there are traintracks crisscrossing Nigeria, the trains haven't run at all in over ten years. Similarly, while Nigeria is a major oil producer and exporter, they're also a major oil IMPORTER because all of their refineries are run down. And I've seen a lot of seemingly abandoned not-terribly-old construction equipment sitting with flat tires getting overgrown.    At least in the case of the trains, I'm informed the trucking companies are all against the trains being revitalized. Pictures from today I had taken the time to write a caption for each one and then when I hit save the browser borked and lost them all. Argh. Well I'm not rewriting them tonight. d: (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 12th, 2012
5:27 pm	Nigeria II - Day 5 Thursday - Today we drove out to Farin Ruwa about three hours away. I was rather irked because one of the tallest waterfalls in the world is in Farin Ruwa but we didn't have time to go visit it. I saw it at a distance but it was so far away and indistinct that I couldn't even get a picture to come out.    There were about 15 beekeepers in this area, many of whom had been doing beekeeping for many years (7-20), and had dozens of hives. And yet once again they had ONLY ONE SUIT between the lot of them, and only one smoker. Nearly all their hives are traditional log hives up in trees. They hoist them so high up in trees that it's a lot of work to get them down again I guess. But they have major problems with theft so I guess that's one countermeasure. But that and the fact that the log hives can't be opened to be inspected means its kind of a shot in the dark whenever they do decide to pull them down, whatever the condition they harvest them at that point. And speaking of shots in the dark they do it at night so the bees are flying about stinging less.    So once again I think the emphasis here is going to be on making equipment. One beekeeper had some hives that were near the ground so we went there and inspected his hives.    Bees were once again pretty docile and I was able to take off my gloves and veil right next to the opened hive.    I believe we're planning on returning to this location, and I'm crossing my fingers we can work a visit to the falls into the plan!    In unrelated news, it pains me that it is the ubiquitous practice here to throw trash on the ground. Plastic bags, bottles, whatever it is, out the window it goes! When I finish I bottle of water I've taken to trying to smuggle it safely to a trashcan without being noticed and told to just drop it. I'm not really sure where the trash cans empty to (it's been a mystery to me for awhile. Recall that the entire city of Ibadan with over a million people has 11 trash trucks), but it gives me piece of mind. Today we were out in the forest where the beehives were, and there was no other trash in the area. Someone tried to discard a plastic bag on the ground there and I just had to surrepticiously scoop it up and put it in the car. I'm sure they thought I was being weird. d: ( Other Pictures From Today ) (Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 11th, 2012
11:29 pm	Nigeria II - Day 4 Wednesday - Today we drove out to the training site, which was about two hours away. There were many adorable thatched huts along the way AND MY CAMERA WASN'T WORKING!!    I'm really kind of baffled -- last night it was NOT out of battery but I decided to charge it, since I don't have a spare I can't risk running out of battery. So I charged it. And I didn't look at the battery status when I pulled it out of the charger but when I tried to use my camera for the first time today it informed me the battery was completely dead. It hadn't even been dead when I put it in the charger!! O:    So no pictures today ::weeps::    Anyway the YMCA training site teaches all different kinds of agriculture. They have several beehives but only one bee suit, no smoker, and no gloves. It's hard to imagine how they get by working their hives with that, much less teach anyone when they only have a single bee suit!!    It kind of reminded me of the apiary unit at the college I visited last time. In theory they are to teach beekeeping but they're just.. obviously not trying very hard. You don't need me to show up to teach you how to make a bee suit and smoker. I mean, I don't even know how to manufacture those myself but I know if I tell someone with garment making skills to use mosquito netting and whatever clothing materials are available to make a bee suit they can do it, and your tin-smith or blacksmith can make you a smoker.    I think that might be a major goal of this project though, to teach the trainees how to either make the necessary equipment themselves or to get it made for them. Having the right equipment after all is as important as anything else I can teach them.    Maybe I was spoiled by the other two hotels I've stayed in in Nigeria, but this one seems kind of crappy to me. My AC didn't work in the room I was in last night, and in the one I've been moved to it only works sporadically. I had to call reception twice because my door lock either wouldn't open or wouldn't lock. Shower doesn't have any hot water, not that I terribly miss it around here. Oh and the refridgerator kept making a banging noise every 45 minutes last night till I unplugged it. And they have a serious no outside food or drink policy?! Aaaand my internet just went out again. Guess they don't want me complaining ;)    I think this project is going to be good though. Okay time for bed. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have pictures again!! Unrelated Picture of the Other Day They have ZIPLINES in public parks in Nigeria. FOR KIDS. WHY DON'T WE HAVE THESE???? Okay I know why but still. Stupid litigious society... (4 Comments |Comment on this)
8:04 pm	And in the News Here...    Sitting in the little eatery where we just had dinner, there was a TV mounted on the wall where I could see it but I couldn't hear it. It was on a news channel. First they interviewed a dozen Iranians who were opposed to sanctions on Iran and in support of Iran's nuclear program. Then it showed Kofi Annan meeting with President Ahmadinejad, then they showed people getting tear gassed with the headline "REVOLUTION IN BAHRAIN," and then there was a lengthy bit titled "UNITED (POLICE) STATES," which appeared to be about the Dept of Homeland Security ordering hollow-point bullets, and alternated between pictures of watermelons exploding from being by such bullets and pictures of occupy protestors being tear gassed. This included intreviews with about four persons who were all either wearing tie-dye occupy movement t-shirts or listed as the editor of some anti-government sounding magazine. Then footage returned to Annan and Ahmadinejad.    These stories seemed to be... a bit less than unbiased reporting. I think there may have been another story as well that seemed similarly themed. I thought the Bahrain story was particularly amusing since a story about a "revolution" usually shows people joyously waving flags, not being teargassed by government troups. Sure enough a google news search of Bahrain right now and the fifth result down is mob violence in Bahrain. Someone's a bit overeager to make it sound like there's been a revolution there.    And also, sure enough, looking up "PressTV," the name of the program, I see it is run by the Iranian state media agency. And apparently people watch it over dinner here in some places. At least they didn't burn me in effigy. Though apparently homeland security DID put in a large order for hollow-point ammunition... (1 Comment |Comment on this)
10:42 am	American Spam in Nigeria I think now that I'm in Nigeria I'm getting scam emails FROM AMERICA! See the following email I had in my inbox this afternoon: Dear Kris, My name Phil Kefauver – Senior Recruitment Associate at YourEncore, Inc. I am contacting you because1 one of our Clients2 is seeking a consultant who is experienced in the areas of honey manufacturing / production, marketing, health (safety & regulatory) and who has business insight and basic technical knowledge. YourEncore is an expert technical services provider that recruits and manages an extensive network of scientists, engineers and product developers. Our network is open for anyone to join at no cost to them. YourEncore then matches our Experts3 with consultations and part-time project assignments from our Client3 Companies3 according to their skills and expertise. We have about 50 Client Companies most of whom are Fortune 500 companies. I would also suggest you visit the YourEncore website at www.yourencore.com to obtain more details of our Company. Included in the website are FAQs that provide specific details of how we operate. I hope that this opportunity sounds appealing to you and that you would like to work through YourEncore to work on this assignment. If you do, please respond back to this email with a copy of your resume’, at Philip.kefauver@yourencore.com and let me know. I can then share more details about how to enroll with YourEncore and provide you with our Confidential Information Agreement so that we can share more information about this assignment.4 If you could recommend someone, that would also be most helpful. Phil Kefauver Senior Recruitment Associate YourEncore, Inc. 10925 Reed Hartman Hwy, Suite 114 Cincinnati, OH 45242 Philip.kefauver@yourencore.com www.yourencore.com    Though suspiciously NOT from Nigeria, it exhibits several classic signs of spam such as: 1 The classic "My name is X, I am Y, I am contacting you because Z" format all Nigerian spam emails start with 2 Suspiciously unnamed "Clients" 3 Overuse of Capitalization. 4 Fishing for me to respond back about an extremely vague offer.    The email from header says "Herb Young" at "hit-reply@linkedin.com," the mismatching name of which is the biggest smoking gun it's not actually a Philip Kefauver. But I checked briefly earlier when my internet was up (internet is presently down) and Yourencore does appear to be a real site and the email he wants me to respond to is in that domain name. And again I can't double-check right now but I don't THINK I had listed "honey manufacturing / production, marketing, health (safety & regulatory)" as areas I was knowledgeable in on linkedin (after all, I what do I know about health?). Poll #1832925 Yourencore.com Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 19 So what do you think? View Answers (A) Americans are sending spam to Nigeria 6 (33.3%) (B) Nigerians have learned to sound a lot more like Americans 7 (38.9%) (C) It's a real email and Phil "Herb Young" Kefauver just really sucks at not sounding like he's a spammer? 5 (27.8%) Unrelated Picture of the Day And here's some stuff that got confiscated by customs in Atlanta and is now proudly on display there! No new pictures today, I forgot my camera battery charger and second camera battery, and even though I bought a new charger (for $45!) for some reason apparently it wasn't charging my one battery last night or something. And there were so many thatched huts today!! ::weeps:: (Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 10th, 2012
3:53 pm	Nigeria II! Saturday -   Flight from Orange County to Atlanta was unremarkable. In the Atlanta international terminal they have some interesting displays of goods they've confiscated from people returning from Africa.    On the 10 hour flight from Atlanta to Lagos I lucked out to an extreme degree, no less that TWO seats beside me were vacant so I was able to curl up across them and have only mildly extremely uncomfortable sleep. International flights these days also let you watch any of two dozen or so movies for free, which is nice, but between last trip and this one I think I've already watched every movie they have that I have any interest in seeing.    This time I watched Appaloosa and Drive. Both were relatively unremarkable examples of their genres (western and crime/car-chases respectively), with the added observation in the case of Appaloosa that Renee Zellwigger can ruin a movie all by herself by the power of her being incredibly unattractive and irritating. Seriously why do they ever cast her as a romantic interest??    Landing in Lagos, after I picked up my box of beekeeping supplies a uniformed officer stopped me near the door and asked me what they were, and then was asking me to open the sealed box. I wasn't terribly excited about this. But then he noticed the chieftaincy beads on my wrist and asked if I was a a chief and what my title was. On being informed it was "soyindaro" (which means maker of honey into wealth) he looked at me with a bit more respect and asked "so you are an expert on honey? okay you can go."    To get from the international to the domestic terminal in Lagos required a taxi ride of 3000N ($19), which was kind of irritating. Then I find out my flight to Abuja has been cancelled!    Fortunately though the airline got me a new one on a different airline that left around the same time.    Arrived in Abuja amid a lightning storm. Saw a news headline that a woman had been hit by lightning in Abuja the previous day. Also in the news this day (Sunday) there was another bomb blast in Kaduna, the state just north of Abuja. The bomber's vehicle had been refused entry to the street on which his church target was so he drove away and detonated in a busy intersection.    As I'd find out shortly, the previous day (Saturday), Winrock staffmember John had been robbed in Lagos. He'd gone there to meet up with his fiancee who was returning from abroad, and armed men stormed the hotel. He was relieved of his laptop and other valuables at gunpoint. But don't worry the Nigerian police are on it -- they've arrested all the hotel staff.    Monday Winrock Nigeria country director Mike took me sightseeing around Abuja with his family. His family had lived in Kaduna but he recently moved them to Abuja because it is safer. The highlight of my day though was seeing some birds called Quelea or "weaver birds." They were bright yellow and fluttering all about this palm tree that had filled with their woven nests. I took a heap of photos of them.    Tuesday (today) we (the winrock driver Blessing, John, and I) drove three hours or so to Lafia. At the hotel here the AC doesn't presently work (they're working on it), so all I have is a ceiling fan. It is QUITE hot. African party music is blasting from the DJ stand out by the pool (which also, incidentally, is just outside my window), it is 11:30 in the evening, and there's not a single person out there enjoying the music.    I asked John why the largest note in the Nigerian currency is the 1000 niara note (about $6.30). He said the economists are worried that if they introduce larger bills it will devalue the currency, pointing out that when the 1000 was introduced the 1s and 5s fell into disuse. It seems to me this is mistaking cause and effect, but in the mean time paying my hotel bill with a fat wad of 100 1000s strikes me as rather inconvenient.    Otherwise, met with the YMCA (host organization) leaders today and tomorrow the fun begins! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, April 9th, 2012
2:19 am	Return to Nigeria!    Hello once again from Abuja, Nigeria! Before I get started on a whole new Nigerian adventure though I want to FINALLY finish with my notes from last trip. The following will be my notes on the remaining days of that trip in brief. Day 2 is as far as I got last time with detailed daily accounts. Oops Day 8 is far as I got with brief summaries. I'll include below some notes that got left out of that. Day 3 - Leafcutter ants in trees, red headed lizards, furry tailed mice, and a "bush cutter???" [later found out its a "greater cane rat," a rodent the size of a watermelon], KFC [was down the street from my hotel. Had about two items on their menu (fried chicken or chicken fingers)], scarification [scarification of the cheeks (such as the fellow on the left in this picture is sporting) is a traditional means of tribal identification. I'm informed it used to be only the high class people that had it, but then during colonization those working for the colonial government didn't have it done, so now those who still do it are not necessarily the high class any more. Reminds me of star-bellied-sneetches] Day 4 - The Boko Haram terrorist group raids a prison just down the road from the other beekeeping volunteer's site, and released 103 inmates. My ride arrives on "African Time" (an hour late) [and proceeds to do so every morning]    So at the government headquarters when I asked if I could use the restroom someone went off apparently to get permission for me to use the chairman's toilet. I don't know what everyone else used, apparently this was special. Presently the person would return and escort me to the chairman's anteroom, and a moment later I'd be let in. Then there's be another five minute wait while the correct keys and/or permissions were found and finally I'd be given a key and directed through a curtain in the back of his office and to a door leading to a bathroom back there. The first time I did this I then went to flush the toilet and found it wouldn't flush! Appalled that I had just broken the chairman's super special toilet I took the lid off the back, saw that the plunger had become unhooked from the flush lever, and fixed it. The second day they explained to me that the toilet doesn't flush... I think they just didn't know how to fix the only flush toilet they had! Day 6 Delicious popovs! [I still don't know if these things when pronounced in a way familiar to me would be "puffpuffs" (like some recipes we've found online) or "popovers," but they're delicious. Fried little doughballs with chili in them!] Day 7 (Sunday) - Was given my first traditional outfit. Went to church with Yinka, then returned to her place with Hattrick among others, and they taught me how to make amala. Unfortunately they decided as a special treat for me on this occasion they'd make it with mackeral. I... hate.. fish. d:    And then we went to the zoo. They had a "domestic horse" in the zoo!! And army ants just casually hanging out not in an exhibit, and they tried to eat my foot. Day 8 - I don't actually have any notes from this day, making it the day that never happened? But looking at the pictures, this is the day they made mead the traditional way. They mixed ground up honeycomb about 50/50 with water and put a lid on the bucket. 3 days later it had fermented!! I taught them my way, mixing it 3:1 water to honey, adding yeast, a ventilation-lock (made from a tube with water in it) and letting it sit for 6-9 months. They thought that sounded crazy.    That evening Hattrick, Whale (pronounced Wall-ey), Yinka's sister and I went to a restaurant that had some Western food, and I introduced them all to their first pizza. They thought it was really weird - see their thoughts on it in video. Day 9 - Exploring Nigerian farmland. Honey: 2600N [$16.46] per liter (up from 2000 [$12.66] before recent gas subsidy upheaval), hives produce 10-12 liters per year. A rectangular topbar hive costs 7500N [$47.47], the better Kenyan Topbar Hive (KTBH) costs 6500N [$41.14], the modern langstroth hive costs 35000N [$221.52]. university meeting. kola nuts. pitcher plants. explaining to hattrick why I can't eat certain things (after he ixnayed my order for cane rat meat saying he didn't think my stomach could handle it). in the car way too long. Day 10 - Snake in a hive! giant snails! Papaya candles [the stalks made really good candle molds]! Mead [their mead was done already]! Day 11 - Review and conclusion day. Went to a bar with Hattrick, Whale and Nigeria Winrock director Mike. Day 12 - Closing Ceremonies! Horsewhip -- I noticed my driver had a horsewhip on his dashboard. I asked if this was a symbol of drivers or something, was informed no, police and military usually have a horsewhip, he's not either but if he has one on his dashboard people might think he is and give him more respect. I also noticed that I hadn't seen anyone smoking in Nigeria this whole time. Was informed that people do but it's considered a kind of shameful habit, so people smoke in the bathroom and then wash up to try to get rid of the smell before going out into public. Day 13 - Return to Abuja. Flight out of Ibadan airport had been overbooked, despite having tickets we were told there was no room on the airplane. Instead we drove down to Lagos. Mike commented that the traffic we were running into outside of Lagos was probably due to "sanitation day." "Sanitation day?" I ask. Apparently every locality in Nigeria has one day a month designated as "sanitation day," wherein everyone cleans up their neighbourhood. Did I also mention Ibadan, a city of over a million people, has exactly 11 trash trucks?    Flight out of Lagos was delayed because the flight waited for a half hour to try to sell more tickets! Days 14 & 15 - In Abuja finishing up paperwork and hanging out with fellow volunteer Doug, who's assignment happened to exactly coincide with mine so he was back in Abuja as well. The End. And now I'm back! More on that later! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, April 6th, 2012
1:32 pm	Photo Frenzy!!    Last night I posted a heck of a lot of pictures to flickr.    In addition to finally completing the set from last trip to Nigeria I created no less than six new sets of pictures: Amsterdam (where I spent about 24 hours on the way back), In Flight (I had some really good views of neat canyons and things in Nevada as a flew over), Food (two new pictures and then I moved a bunch of pictures I already had up of delicious food into the set), Hearst Castle (Which Kori and I visited on our recent little jaunt up the coast), Bee Factory (& some from the research facility. I can almost guarantee you've never seen the inside of a "bee factory!"), and finally Package Shaking wherein we take those packages of bees and shake them out into hives as the sun sets picturesquely behind us.    But our main event right now is the completed Nigeria set, which you can see here:    Less than 24 hours left now till I board a plane to return!! (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, March 5th, 2012
5:56 pm	Fifty Six Years Later    The raiding party sets out from the village of Trabuco around noon. Leaving the cinder-block huts with their corrugated metal roofs and the surrounding wall behind them, they cross the cleared pastures around it and disappear into the thick scrub brush of the countryside.    They follow the broad path of an old asphalt road, though it is so overgrown and cracked, with trees and large shrubs growing out of cracks throughout, that it is barely less sparsely forested than the terrain on either side that had once been suburban front yards.    The warriors, clad in jeans and leather jackets that look like jigsaw puzzles of patches, clutch rifles as they cautiously pace through the scrub brush. They walk several paces abreast of one another in preparation for an ambush. Their leader beckons them off the old road and they push through thick California sage and buckwheat before passing between the blackened staves that once were a wall of a house. It only took a few years after The Event for wildfires to level the suburban sprawl and make way for nature to start reclaiming the land.    Like many epidemics in nature, the "zombie apocalypse" had burned itself out. It was too lethal to haunt the world for generations, instead, in a little over a year it had exhausted itself. After infected and killing well over 99% of the human population there weren't enough left for it to spread.    The remaining human population was spread out more sparcely than mankind had been in the ice age. For ten years humanity lived off the canned food hordes that would have sustained the former billions for a week. Then they began to realize they'd have to feed themselves, and with their guns began hunting the wildlife that had quickly begun to thrive among the ruins.    David grasped his rifle anxiously. He didn't have any bullets in it. Neither did anyone else in the raiding party. It had long since been realized by all parties that bullets are a "non-renewable" resource. But as long as your enemy doesn't know how many bullets you do or do not have, a gun's still a formidable weapon.    The neighbouring tribe of Anaheimites had recently taken to crossing into David's tribe's lands to steal the forage and resources. When confronted by the Anaheimite's roving gun toting bands, individual Trabucite hunter-gatherers had been forced to flee or submit to being relieved of anything of value. And so this punitive expedition was necessary to confront and put a stop to them. Bullets being an almost priceless resource, the expectation is that even if the other side has bullets they would rather preserve them, and a mere show of force will restore peaceful relations.    Through a thicket of fragrant anise bushes the group approaches an embankment strewn with ancient plastic bottles. Metal cars rust away, houses burn and decay to nothing, but plastic bottles are forever.    Atop the embankment is the broad clear swath of a former highway. It too is overgrown with grass, with tall weeds protruding from many cracks, but the thick concrete foundation has thus far still prevented trees or large shrubs from taking root.    After carefully surveying the scene, at a signal from the group leader the warriors emerge onto the highway and pad quickly across it. About halfway across David's heart about stops as he sees a rival group move into the sunlight from the opposite side, rifles pointed at them. David's group is ready however and instantly has their guns trained on their opponents.    David tries to will his hands not to tremble as he looks down the barrel of his gun. What if the Anaheimites DO have bullets? It's not an unheard-of possibility. Sweat trickles down his forehead, though he hadn't felt hot a moment ago.    A plastic bag blows between the groups on the breeze. Birds chirp among the chaparral.    To his horror, David sees the Anaheimites begin to slowly, menacingly, advance. There are a few more of them here, and in general they're a bigger tribe. If they aren't checked here and now they will surely overrun David's people's territory and the Trabucites will be pushed into the unforgiving hills, or worse, into Riverside County.    Without thinking, David lowers his gun. They're not going to win this way. As if in a hypnosis he lets gun clatter to the ground and pulls a machete out of his belt. He begins to walk forward with a confidence he doesn't feel, as all the enemy rifles swivel slightly to bear on him. Let's hope they don't have bullets. Previously in the Zombie Saga Weathering the Storm 28 Years Later Note: Anaheim and Trabuco are both currently cities in Orange County, California. A "trabuco" is an old Spanish gun similar to a blunderbus. (17 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 28th, 2012
1:49 am	Damn You Amsterdam!!!!    So I've been in Amsterdam for several hours now and... well I'm still alive, but only after thinking "fuck you Amsterdam fuck you Amsterdam I hate you Amsterdam I'm never coming back why am I even here" a lot.    Everything was going smoothly up until about 7am. My flight came in around 0530, passport control took less than five minutes and I was out in the "Shiphol Plaza" unsecured part of the airport. Got my first real coffee in two weeks (they only drink nescafe instant coffee in Nigeria, just like the middle east), though my regular coffee from starbucks cost 2.80 euros, ($3.76!! for plain coffee!). But was able to connect to the airport wifi and find a pretty cheap hotel (for the equivalent of $30!) that as I'd find out three hours later is totally nice!!    So then at 0700 the tourist information kiosk opened and I bought a guidebook there and asked if they could explain anything I needed to know about the directions I had written down about how to get to the hotel. The girl there told me it was better to take the 192 bus (than the sprinter tram the internet had told me) and where to catch it.    So I wait half an hour for the bus and then look at the digital display and see that the 192 bus isn't even ON the display, which covers at least the next half hour.    So I go back into the airport, inquire at the train information kiosk. They send me to the train ticket sales window. I ask them what I need to get where I'm going and they tell me I should get a 24 hour pass which I can get AT THE TOURIST INFORMATION KIOSK.    So I go back to the girls at the tourist information kiosk and they say I should go to the automated ticket vending machines for the pass. I go to the automated ticket vending machine and even on English mode everything is listed in cryptic options such as "deluxe" "standard" "full fare" and with destinations that I have no idea how they relate to where I'm trying to go. I do my best to push the buttons I think are appropriate and it wants to sell me a 48 euro ticket ($64.54!)!!!    I go back out to the bus stops but there's still no sign of bus 192. I go back to the train information kiosk, they send me to the train ticket sales counter again, and this time I get a ticket for the train the internet had originally told me to take.    I go down to the train station (directly under the terminal), but no train is labeled "sprinter" and once again the destinations listed are things whose relation to my desination I cannot decipher. Can't even find my destination listed on the route map, or for that matter a label saying which line is "sprinter."    After watching a few trains go by hoping for some clues I return upstairs to the train information kiosk. She says "train number 2 in 2 minutes!" I ask what track and what it'll look like and she just repeats what she just said.    So I go back down there and a train just like all the others rolls in but it says 2 on the side, so I jump on it and hope it's the right one. It's about 09:24 by now.    From their the trip proceeded smoothly again. At the train station they were able to give me simple clear instructions for the bus I needed and the bus driver was also very helpful.    But for a good two and a half hours there I couldn't figure out for the life of me how to leave the airport!! ): I kind of wanted to kill myself or break down and weep.    My room in this hotel is pretty nice. I'm gonna sit here and recover from my harrowing morning for a few more minutes before I start thinking about venturing into the city. d: I long ago stopped adding "current music" to entries but for this entry I'm putting Crooked Fingers - You Can Never Leave d: (9 Comments |Comment on this)