Luckily, the Vols are popular in Hawassa

This fan is working on my project.

I showed him a picture of Jon in a hat with a power T and he very excitedly declared that they must be "brothers!"

And I met this man downtown.

(The pictures are not great, but both hats say "Volunteers" on one side of the brim, in addition to the T and the "Tennessee" on the back.)

First Week of Work

Hello from Hawassa!

I got here on Tuesday evening, after a long day of driving from Addis. Hawassa about 270 km south of Addis and is built next to a large lake. I'll be based here for the next 2 weeks, helping to train the regional teams on how to develop student books and teacher guides for reading and writing. As you can see, we are focusing on the mother tongue curriculum for grades 5-8.

There are 7 different teams working on 7 different languages: Sidaamu Afoo, Amharic, Afan Oromo, Hadiyyisa, Af-Soomaali, Wolayttatto and Tigrinya. At the beginning of August, each team will go back to their region to continue their work.

This week I was assigned to support the team from the Somali region of Ethiopia, since they seem to be struggling the most. Since all of the lessons are being written in Somali, there is a lot of translating back and forth. Some of the topics we covered: the difference between text-based and inferential questions and why it is important to use both when teaching; why one should consider having images or graphics in texts for grades 5-8; what it means to preview text features before reading and how to select appropriate vocabulary for direct instruction.

Here's the building where we're working:

(donkey carts and motos are popular modes of transport in Hawassa)

This is a view of the inside:

To get the full effect, you have to imagine the fact that, when it rains, water pours through the seams in the glass ceiling and into the atrium, runs down the stair cases, and floods the landings at each level. Luckily our room seems to be water tight, so none of our masses of hand-written lessons have been ruined.

You can get a bit of a sense of the piles of paper that we use everyday in this picture:

(these are the papers just for the Af-Soomaali Grade 5 team for one day)

I'll write more as internet access permits. I'll leave you with a picture of the local State Education Bureau's approach to promoting girls' access to education (the top line is written in Amharic script).

Highlights from the baggage carousel

I've made it safely to Addis and am getting settled in at the Harmony Hotel. 

My room is very luxurious! 

It took quite a while to get my visa and bags at the airport, so I enjoyed watching the baggage carousel. You always see much more interesting checked luggage in Africa than in the US. My favorite item of the evening: a mop. 

Breakfast in Frankfurt

One flight down, one to go.  

Isn't this breakfast spot in the Frankfurt Airport nice? 

I had scrambled eggs and appreciated both how tasty and how yellow they were. When we lived in East Africa before, I learned not to take bright yellow yolks for granted. Malnourished chickens often produce eggs that are very pale yellow and have less nutritional value. I may not get eggs from such well-fed chickens for a while. 

ps. This blog post was created with an app on my iPhone instead of on my computer. This is the first time I've used it  and I love it! Thanks, Jon, for setting it up for me. You are the best. 

Off to Ethiopia!

Hello!

This is me in May 2011 at Lucy Fast Food in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

I'm all packed and getting ready to head to the airport for another Ethiopian adventure. I've got a mosquito net, sunscreen, crisp $100 bills, books about literacy instruction and lots of granola bars.

I'll be there for 6 weeks, working on a project with the Ethiopian Ministry of Education and USAID to improve their reading curriculum for Grades 1-8.

I'll blog here about my work and adventures as internet access permits. I hope you'll follow along.

Live Blog - Megabus from New York to Boston is not like the bus from Dar es Salaam to Mbinga town

Lucy and I are on the way back to Boston after attending our friend Kyle's wedding and spending a few days in New York.  The wedding was a lot of fun and at an awesome roof deck venue with incredible views of the Hudson River and the midtown Skyline. Kyle (@kyleparkinson)was really happy and it was great to spend some time with our friends Rawson (@rawsondaniel), Lynda (@lyntric), and Greg (@mrholtz).  Congrats Kyle!

On a related, yet unrelated, note, Lucy found a great article on the rapid population growth in Dar es Salaam and general lack of urban planning to deal with it (BBC - Dar es Salaam: Africa's next megacity?).  Inadequate infrastructure is a major issue facing Tanzania (and many other places across the continent) as post-colonialism buildings are generally few and far between and donor-funded projects (i.e. road and bridge construction) may be drying up.  It also got us talking about our memories in Dar es Salaam.

View of Dar es Salaam from co-pilot seat on our way back from Mafia

View of Indian Ocean from TechnoServe Office

Yeah...

I don't know what it means but I like it!

This is why Lucy is a vegetarian

Baby sea turtle hatching just south of Dar

Africa seems incredibly far away from our current lifestyles while also extremely tangible in our memories!  After three restaurant week meals in a row with Jason (@jasonaedgar) and a chicken and waffles meal at Amy Ruth's thrown on top, I must say it is nice to be back in the city sometimes...though we look forward to adventuring again soon!

Thought of the Day (8/24/11)

Put Them on the Endangered Species List

Reminder of our past life:



We were there!

Something to Think About

We have left the land of hoses and squat toilets (like the one in the bottom left of this picture)!

So on to the hard hitting questions!

Via: Engineering Degree

Africa & Coffee Articles VI

Africa:

• International Tanganyika Grade 4 Blog - Lucy's work blog has just been discovered!  It covers all four sections of Grade 4, but Lucy's posts are by far the bests (her class is 4-BL).  Check out the most recent post on the kids' newspaper articles on speakers that came in to tell them about Tanzania.  Unfortunately, I was unable to present on the Tanzanian coffee industry since I was out of town but our roommate Jacie stepped in to talk to the kids (Seems none of Lucy's kids wrote on coffee but there are some stories here).

• Huffington Post: From Rwanda to Libya: Who's Calling Whom a Cockroach Now? (3/1/11) - The documentary on the Rwandan Genocide cited in this article (Coexist) is not on Netflix but certainly sounds interesting.

• The East African: Dar on Brink of Darkness as Power Crisis Deepens (2/28/11) - The power cuts have been quite bad since it hasn't really rained in about four months.  Thankfully we have a generator that runs our refrigerator, fans, and lights (but not our stove or A/C).  Two weeks ago we did get a gas hotplate so we have been able to use it to cook when the power is out.

• WSJ: Danish Sailboat Hijacked in Indian Ocean (2/28/11) - Pirates are now interested in civilian leisure sailboats, not just big tankers.

• WSJ: Ivory Coast Lurches Toward Civil War (2/25/11) - Pretty wild that this has gone on for three months with no real end in sight.

• NYTimes: New Violence as Strongman of Ivory Coast Fights Ouster (2/23/11) - Ivory Coast was front and center on the news for a while but with Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, and Libya stirring the pot the news doesn't seem to care about Ivory Coast anymore.  Well, the incumbent President, who seems to have lost the election but won't turn over power, is still around and the guy who won continues to run a second government out of a hotel.  Anyway....it is still going on and eventually it will affect everyone as the prices Snickers and Green & Blacks are going to increase as cocoa prices continue to skyrocket (Ivory Coast is the world's largest cocoa producer).

• WSJ: Pirate Attack Force Leisure Sailors to Change Course (2/23/11) - Pirates are really not messing around.

• BBC: Tanzania Blasts: At Least 20 Dead in Dar es Salaam (2/17/11) - These explosions noticeably shook our house even though we are about 10 miles from the airport.  The neighborhood where the munitions depot is located would definitely termed low income and  was largely wiped out, leaving people homeless and pretty devastated.  There have been blood and clothes drives on going since the explosions.  The picture below was likely taken from an apartment building near our house and made it all the way to CNN (CNN: Explosions at Munitions Depot Rock District Near Dar es Salaam Airport).

Recent 4th Grade Highlights

As part of our "Survival Under Pressure" unit on plants, animals, and peoples that survive in extreme climates, we've been learning about heat, heat transfer, and insulation. IST doesn't have lab science until sixth grade, so designing and helping execute science experiments falls to me. Last week, my students applied their knowledge to the task of designing and building ice cube insulators. I was so impressed by their engagement, focus, and creativity.

As you can see below, our "control" ice cube did not fare well in the Dar es Salaam heat. It melted after only 15 minutes. But the winning insulator kept an ice cube solid for almost three hours! Way to go Bryce and Sean!

My fourth graders are currently learning about Tinga Tinga style painting in Art class. Renato painted this Tinga Tinga nameplate for me himself. It made my day.

Survived: Kilimanjaro Half Marathon

We returned Sunday from a great weekend in the northern part of Tanzania near the Kenya border and had an excellent half marathon experience.  We arrived at Kilimanjaro International Airport, which is pretty much halfway between Arusha and Moshi, on Friday afternoon.

You can see how "international" the airport is as people are just roaming the tarmac (including Lucy and our running friend Diana).

We took the Precision Air shuttle bus to Arusha for supper at a boutique hotel called The Bay Leaf that had been recommended to us by Matt and Nena (our housemates in Rwanda).

I had Kenyan beef and Lucy had a stuffed chicken dish.  Both were pretty good and the atmosphere was very pleasant, but it did not surpass Brew Bistro in Nairobi as the best restaurant we have been to East Africa.  We ate at Brew Bistro twice when we were in town over Christmas and would highly recommend it to anyone.

Birthday Weekend in Zanzibar

For my birthday this year, Lucy surprised me with planning a trip to Zanzibar to go swimming with giant sea turtles at the Chumbe Island Coral Park off the western coast of the island.  I returned from the field early Friday morning 28 January, had a few meetings in the office, and picked up Lucy to get on the last ferry of the day to Zanzibar (4pm).

We arrived in Stone Town around 6pm to make the sunset at the Africa House Hotel.

Kilimanjaro Half Marathon

After a few weeks of training (Lucy) and trying not to be hobbled by said training (Jon), Lucy and I are running the Kilimanjaro Half Marathon this weekend.  Lucy is in prime shape and ready to tackle part of the highest mountain in Africa (from base to peak, Kilimanjaro is actually the highest mountain in the world).  I hope to survive 21.1km (half uphill, half downhill) starting at an elevation around 3,500 feet.  We have to finish in the first 1,650 to receive medals and t-shirts so we have a goal.  This video pretty much sums it up.



We fly to Kilimanjaro Airport on Friday night and plan to go on a safari in Arusha National Park on Saturday.  The race begins at 7am Sunday morning (10pm Saturday night, CST) at the stadium in Moshi, home of this  business.

We fly back to Dar on Sunday afternoon.

Wish us luck!

Baby Elephants

A highlight of our time in Nairobi was our visit to The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. I'd been wanting to go there since last year when Jon, Nena and Suha visited. The trust takes in orphaned elephant babies who would be unable to survive in the wild (elephants subsist exclusively on their mothers' milk until they're two years old), hand rears them in the "elephant nursery," and then gradually reintroduces them into the wild. The nursery is in Nairobi National Park and the public is invited to see the keepers feed the elephants (using elephant-sized baby bottles).


After eating, the elephants drink water,


play,


and cool off in the mud.



The whole experience was just as cool as I'd imagined. I even got to pet this elephant, who was feeling friendly. She was quite bristly feeling, since she was covered with short wiry hairs, and rather muddy.


If you ever find yourself in Nairobi, this is a must-do activity!

Merry Christmas from London

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Lucy and I arrived in London for the holidays early Thursday morning after being snowed out in Nairobi for a few days. We changed from our shorts and flip flops at Heathrow and took the subway into town looking a bit like a traveling circus.

We are staying in a very nice flat in Chelsea that belongs to a friend of Lucy’s family.  Our blood has thinned significantly since leaving Hanover so it feels quite cold to us here and are each wearing multiple layers of long underwear at all times for safety.  The grocery store around the corner has been visited four times and we have stored up butter, cheese, and chocolate for the long winter ahead.

Yesterday afternoon we went to St. Paul’s for a carol service but were unable to get inside it was so full.  They had set up a jumbo screen to broadcast the service in a nearby square so we stood in the cold singing carols with a couple hundred of Lucy’s fellow countrymen.

After the service, we took the tube back to our neighborhood and did only what seemed appropriate when in England on Christmas Eve: stopped in the local pub for a snack and beer.  We had some excellent warm brie with red onion chutney and some sweet potato fries (Lucy: “best I’ve ever had”) to go with my Guinness and her blueberry cider.

This morning Lucy had a stocking for me with dark chocolate covered ginger and an orange in it.  We had tea and french toast for breakfast.  We went to church at St. Luke’s (built in 1825) across the street from the flat.

We have a small tree from Nakumatt in Nairobi with two maasai angel ornaments on it.  We don't have any presents, but we feel quite festive and are certainly happy to be here.