Barack Obama

by Dom on October 16th, 2008

I was curious if it was “ck” or just “k” and all I had to do was look at the shelf next to me. There’s like 8 different books or movies or something for sale on him in this little shop. I also heard some crazy regae song here in the airport earlier. It was naming all the states and saying vote for Barack Obama. It was amusing. I guess they like him here in Nairobi. As I type this there’s a news report on it with excerpts from CNN about the debats on the tv here. They’re in Kiswahili so it’s not very helpful but still…

Return Trip Interlude 1

by Dom on October 16th, 2008

So Nairobi airport is infact pretty boring. I think I’ve looked in all the duty free shops and done like 6 laps down the one hallway.

I made it out of Malawi ok. I did almost miss my flight though, that would have been amusing. No one informed me where the boarding area was or when it was time to board, just when it was leaving. So I was just hanging around drinking some beers. I just finished brushing my teeth and came out of the bathroom when this exasperated lady inquired if there were any more Nairobi passengers. There were. I pretty much ran through the metal detector. She told me I was the last passenger. Ha. Oh well, let’em wait we still got off early. So now I’m here and really bored. My flight leaves in like 2 - 3 hours and they haven’t even told me which gate to be at yet so I can’t really like nap or anything. Oh and it’s hot as crap. Stupid equator. Rainy season has started here too.

This morning was a bit crazy. Apparently my meeting with Dale, the CD, took like 2 hours. I was surprised. It was just a lot of form questions like “what do you think was your greatest achievement in Malawi?” Fun stuff. It actually made me late for the transport to the airport so I was running all over the place. Probably forgot something pretty important. Actually I know I did. I forgot to leave my house keys with Dora. That’s funny. Sweet memento. I hope that’s spelled right. They’ll figure something out. There’s an extra set with the Headmaster.

One thing I think is funny about this airport is there are no clocks anywhere almost. They only seem to be on these flat panel displays that show the flight information but there are only about three of those. Even in this big coffee shop here, obviously the hangout, there’s no clock. Ridiculous. I hope Amsterdam is cooler.

It was funny. PC gives me travel allowance, and in dollars at that. Except they didn’t have any one dollar bills this morning. So they asked if I wanted kwacha. Why would I want kwacha? I told him I did not want kwacha. MC ended up helping me out by making a little forex swap where she got kwacha for dollars from PC and I got her dollars. I used it to buy a Bitter Lemon soda. Ah Zanzibar. I’ll miss Africa. I like it’s ridiculous style. More later I’d guess.

Oh I also had the ending of that Pink Floyd song stuck in my earlier. “Good bye cruel world, I’m leaving you today, good bye, good bye, good bye.”

Nalua

by Dom on October 9th, 2008

Oh yeah, I posted some knew pictures of that hike I went on and of my village farewell…enjoy.

Other Issues…

by Dom on September 26th, 2008

Why’s Gmail so jacked? It’s been acting up for the past month now it seems. First had to go to the secure site or it wouldn’t load or act funny, now it just gives me an error and opens a new window and won’t send emails. I’d love to let them know but they conveniently don’t have a means of contacting them that I’ve see that I felt would be useful. Just a lot of FAQ’s.

Google best get it together.

Stupidest Pre-PCV Action

by Dom on September 8th, 2008

So a bit irrelavent comment. Selling my free-ride bike before coming here was probably the stupidest thing I did. I keep wanting to ride that thing.

Busy day

by Dom on September 4th, 2008

Oh it’s been a busy day. Packed. Posted scores for Form one’s presentations. Reviewed a past test for form two. Got three hitches into town. Saw the doctors. Talk to an APCD or three. Made sure my bank account stuff was on file. Returned my PC books.

The middle ride was with real cool Malawian. Possibly the coolest actually. He has a phd in business, as well as a masters and undergrad in that. However he’s an agriculture specialist. He has his own business with like seven subsidaries. Teaches part time at a private university in town. What we talked the most about however, is how he is heading this consortium of different churches wanting to help their constiuency. They are teaching people especially affected by droughts and flooding how to manage their farmland and resources better to not have such problems and not be so dependant on foreign emergency aid. He said when he first arrived no one wanted to participate because they knew they would just get relief aid. But now he has over three thousand households participating. Using new techniques for farming they are increasing their production. Varying their crops means different harvest seasons less dependant on rains. They are creating seed banks so if crops get ruined they don’t have to get aid to help they can just start again with their own seeds. And other such ideas. It sounds like a true success story. I guess that can only be seen in the years to come but right now I am really impressed.

Now time to go to the grocery find food for dinner and work on some paperwork for PC. yay.

A bit stressed

by Dom on July 22nd, 2008

Term three was over days ago now. I’ve come to Mzuzu to do some work. See Jenn left and I started thinking, I’ll see her soon, I don’t have much time left here. Only then I took it to the next level and started worrying about grad schools and moving out and TJ coming and my peace corps paperwork. I think I worried so much it caused my face to break out in hives. I think. It might not be hives. It might not be stress related. Could be an allergic reaction, though I didn’t think I was allergic to anything. Plan on seeing the doctors next week before I pick up TJ. We’ll see what they say. It’s starting to go away.

Another teacher was transfered from my school. I’m not sure if I’ve posted this already. It was the only woman we had. She was pretty awesome. Real nice, laughed at everything. So now we’re down to four plus me. I went to the division education manager with a letter from my headmaster to request more teachers. that was only a day or two ago though so no action has been taken. Atleast none that I know of. I hope I get replaced. They need it.

Jenn’s still in thailand. She went to Cambodia, said she loved it but super corrupt. Now I think she’s gone to visit Vietnam. From all her emails it really sounds like the place to be. Like the place to be. I’m a good bit jealous.

Blackle

by Dom on July 6th, 2008

So there’s this flyer here in the computer lab someone posted describing this site, Blackle.com. Apparently the premise is a Google with a black background instead of white. The idea being that white uses more energy to produce to by changing it to black your saving energy. Hence the “Watt hours saved” counter. I think it’s a great idea. Baby steps.

Grad Schools

by Dom on July 6th, 2008

So I’ve started doing some research on schools. I’ve narrowed it down to about 8 right now. As it is I would like to apply to them all, but we’ll see what I can afford. I’m a bit scared some are out of my league but I want to go for them anyway; I don’t want to sell myself short. I’m pretty excited. I’m going to email them soon to try to get a few questions answered. I hope to have finished applying by the time I return home but we’ll see how that goes. It’ll be a lot of work and traveling. I think my biggest setback will be my inability to edit my portfolio from here. Such is life though, we’ll see if they let it slide in lieu of my Peace Corps service. Anyway, here are the schools and locations in case your curious. And if you forgot, it’s industrial design that I am interested it.

Rhode Island School of Design - Providence
Art Center College of Design - Pasadena
Cranbrook Academy - Detroit
Pratt Institute - New York City
Carnegie Mellon - Pittsburgh
University of the Arts - Philly
Notre Dame - South Bend
Ohio State - Columbus

Gone

by Dom on July 3rd, 2008

Jenn left today. I’m sad. She’s traveling through southeast asia for a bit before heading home.