Getting Sick (From the Food) While Traveling

I've gotten sick, diarrhea, multiple times while traveling. A lot of people get sick traveling in Asia and Africa. A lot of people, even former locals of these countries, eventually get sick of the food. It's funny, dal bhat apparently is even not liked by some Nepalese who live in the western world and return here to visit family, yet I could eat the stuff every day. Dal bhat is generally vegan, and reminds me a lot of the vegan meals I ate last year. Plus, they keep giving you seconds and thirds. Most meals, especially the western ones, are pretty limited, but rice and dal they just keep giving and after nine hours of backpacking that's pretty nice.

I'm pretty stunned that I didn't get sick this time. I was really expecting to get some sort of sickness. I did have some loose bowel movements on the trek in, but one Imodium cleared that up. Gut bacteria is the new genome, the cure for every ailment is supposedly linked to gut bacteria now. I'm pretty sure that on my 11th country now, and after spending over a year of my life living in the mountains, I've got some pretty awesome bacteria. It's no surprise that after time our bodies get hardened to the environments we subject them. Other people were sick, some multiple times, and I had no real problems.

The standard tips are to drink only bottled water, or boiled water drinks like tea, and wash you hands often. It's pretty simple, carry a bottle of hand sanitizer and use it after going to the bathroom and before meals. I didn't worry about clean water as much on this trip as I have in the past. I mean to say, I drank a whole lot of tea, and you never really know if they boil the water or just heat it up. Also, the way they bottle water locally everywhere, after paying 25 cents for a one liter bottle I have to wonder how pure it really is.

Nepali food and I got along quite well. Indonesian food was really spicy and the fish with all the scales still on and bones still in was intimidating. Pakistani food was a shock at the time, but in hind sight only the goat was really not an enjoyable experience. Rwandan food was basically the same as the three above with more sweet potatoes and chicken instead of goat or fish. Costa Rica is the same rice and beans three times a day. The challenge in these places, as it is in the USA too, is of course their cleanliness standards for washing things, but also they use different oils and I think that the shock of changing the type of oils used makes things slide through a little differently. Also to my benefit, I can be pretty good at boring monotonous tasks, like running over an hour a day or eating the same meal every day and that helps me cope in places where, because of the money, they eat the same meal every day and sometimes multiple times per day. It might also be worth noting that as far as my engineering career is concerned, I've never had a sick day. I've taken personal days for hospice and a funeral, but not for being sick. Huh, I didn't realize that until just now.

By the way, I hate porridge. It's gross. I'll take oatmeal 100% of the time over porridge.

Well, I leave Nepal in like six hours. The next time you hear from me I will probably be blogging from my parents basement. It's been an interesting trip to say the least.

A Good Picture

The evening of our first full day in Rwanda last July we took this picture. I knew when we were taking it that this was in some ways the picture we came for. It tells a story about my parents and I and our friends more detailed than pages of writing. 

Does Anybody Care About The Less Fortunate?

I want to start a charity. Sustainable South Sudan, because starting a country is hard. Why help some far away land that is constantly at war when there is so much need at home?

1. South Sudan probably is the poorest place in the world. It is almost the only place in the world the Guinea Worm still exists.
2. Having been to Rwanda I know how poor East-central Africa is. One dollar can feed a starving family for a day and ten dollars a family for a week.  Sending a kid to the YMCA for six hours a week just doesn't seem like as good of a deal.
3. No one else wants to go to a "war zone". I'm not saying I'm going anytime soon, but the point is the most vulnerable people are the ones getting the least help. Planes in and out of Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda are full of "do-gooders", high school and college kids and their parents on mission trips, Peace Corps volunteers, and some generous tourists. A country in conflict with no infrastructure has none of that support.

What do I want to do there?

1. Agriculture! If people can't eat, they can't do much of anything. Wether it is buying hoes, seeds, or something I don't understand, sustainable means eating on a regular basis.
2. Education! I feel that education is the key to so much in life. It is the opening to more productive agriculture, reading and writing, businesses, commerce, and an economy. 

That's where my head is. As I look around, maybe the right people to help get this off the ground are in plain sight, but I don't see them. I just see new cars, home renovations, and luxurious lifestyles. I'll be honest, I don't even really want to start a charity. I would rather just donate money to one that already exists. Alas, to the best of my knowledge there is nothing like what I am seeking.

Where am I supposed to find the time for this? Can someone else take this mission? You don't have to answer, the answer is no. If I don't do it, no one else will. I would love to be surprised, but I'm not getting my hopes up. I don't know. I have everything but time. People will die because I don't do anything; probably kids under age five. I need help. I can't do this alone. If I save one starfish, thousands more will still die. To be honest, life is happier not knowing some things. 

Give Directly

Returning from Africa it has been a bit of a struggle to understand what can be done to alleviate the health issues and lack of prosperity. The feeling is: whatever I can do, it will not be enough to make a change anywhere close to the prosperity I enjoy. The truth is really: whatever I can do will will help. When I think of the $2500 I spent on the week I know that a better use of the money would be just to send it to people living in poverty in Africa. However, part of the reason I had to go was to share the experience with the 65% of Americans that do not have a passport. If I don't tell people how good they have it, how will they ever know? While the pictures and videos never capture the smell or the taste or the ambience, they show the shoe-less feet and weathered faces. The pictures show the living conditions and lack of infrastructure.

While I have not decided exactly what I will do to change the world in Africa Planet Money had a nice piece about a charity that gives money directly, named Give Directly, to the people who need it most. In short, the most direct way to give charity. Talk about low overhead, you only need a name a cell phone number. In short, if you are looking to make a difference in Africa, this is as good as a place as any to send your money: http://www.givedirectly.org/

Lest anyone think I am doing this haphazardly I will be highlighting several different charity options in the future including specific charities that I will be doing fundraising endurance events for. The idea of feeding a starving kid will probably help me run harder at the end of a marathon.

Only Three People Cared to Hear About Africa

Since returning to Dubuque from Africa I have had the opportunity to tell a number of people, maybe close to 100 by now a little of my adventure. However, only three people so far have been interested in more than a very superficial overview. That is an oversimplification, the only presentation I did was to a group of high school students and they asked more questions than anyone else, but due to time constraints we didn't have time for a long discussion.

The point is, most adults are so comfortable in their lives here that the thought of a difficult life in a far away land makes people uncomfortable. Besides, we worked hard for our 2500 square foot house and new cars, we deserve these things. No, we do not deserve to be born in the USA. We do not deserve to have the opportunity to go to college, even if that means taking out massive loans. We do not deserve any sort of government social safety net. Yet for some reason, we can afford these luxuries. Do these safety nets become a privilege we are now responsible for maintaining? Yes, with great power (wealth) comes great responsibility. We do not like to hear that when it means we are the rich one with the responsibility. Yet often the uncomfortable truths are the ones we need to hear the most.

The Hills Are Steep in Rwanda

We take for granted that agriculture in the US is on level ground. In Rwanda, and what I have seen of Indonesia and China, that is not the case for most of the arable land in the world. The United States is very fortunate to have the farm land we have. Honestly, we should import some people to bring the population density on arable land at least remotely close to that of other countries.

Our Host's House, Cut into the Hillside

In the panorama above you can see our host's house and compound. Also, notice the UN tarp that I mentioned a few days ago to the lower left of the house. The platform is cut into the clay hillside, by hand and with only three feet of space between the hill and the house, at the top the land cut away is taller than the house!

The Front of our Host's Compound

Similarly, the platform is also built up in front of the house, and this is what results. Those are banana trees in most of the picture and the fence is made of bamboo vertical pieces and wood horizontal pieces. This is all recent construction, that's why the lawn hasn't come in yet.

Tractors just will not work here. Besides the fact that most plots of land are less than a quarter acre, the hills are too steep for machinery anyway. There is some terracing, but it varies by region and even a terraced field may still be on a 15 degree slope with a 50 degree slope between fields. While that sounds inefficient to us, during the rainy season the last thing they probably want is a giant pond where their crops are. So the challenge is: how to make the land more agriculturally productive? Short answer, I do not know. Long and uncomfortable ecologically incorrect answer, terraform the country to make it less steep.

A tangent on all this is that if other parts of Africa are this hilly, and the Africans ever decided to go into the mountains to run trails or hike serious mountains, they shall utterly destroy the speed records.

Running to Congo

It's funny how we don't realize the significance of something until it is over. I had no idea how close I was to Congo (Democratic Republic of Congo) and specifically the fighting near Goma until I was back in the US and uploaded my GPS tracked runs to my running log. Thus, I want to share this with you.

Running Toward the Gorillas and Guerrillas

This first run was just up a long low angle road toward the mountains that were somewhat masked by haze, smog, and dust. I knew that we were in the general region of the DRC and Uganda, but when I actually look at it on the map... Wow, it's just another five miles away, I was halfway there!

Running Toward Goma

For those that do not know, Goma, or north of Goma, DRC is where the M23 rebels are fighting and UN peacekeepers have moved into the area. This was a shorter run, but this is clearly the main road from the city of Ruhengeri to Goma, with a population up to even one million. I look at this map and I think, while fighting still exists there, and the city was captured by M23 rebels in late 2012, I could have run there! Sure it would be 20-25 miles or so, but the road was pretty good. 

The strange thing about this whole experience is that the two days spent in this area no one ever mentioned anything about the fighting in the Congo just 15 miles strait away. It's like Platteville, Wisconsin was having a war and in Dubuque no one talked about it.

Interesting to say the least. This highlights an idea that I had after Pakistan, the world is more day to day than we understand. I think in the US we still think wars are fought on battlefield in far away destinations, because we have not had anything up close and personal on our land in a long time. Yet in much of the rest of the world, wars are fought next to uncle Jim's fruit stand and behind aunt Margret's house. By far, most people do not participate in the fighting, thus the issue of refugees. Yet these struggles are so close to their daily lives that there is not a choice of stopping until the conflict ends. If a country or place wants to develop and have something economic, life and work must continue.

By the way, DRC, doesn't that sound scary? I keep thinking, 'Demilitarized Zone' because of all the fighting that has happened and the connotations of demilitarized zone in Korea. 

You Are Too Kind

While in Rwanda every meal was an event. The red carpet was rolled out every time us mzungos were there. It was embarrassing at times. It was humbling and sad too. How much did all this extra food cost? Why do this for me? I am not an overly generous person, I have not helped make your life better. Yet they cooked enormous meals for us.

Cooking for the Celebration

Using pots and kettles so big only an industrial kitchen would have those kind of resources, they cooked for us. They have us their best food, they killed the goat, perhaps even actually, to celebrate us. 

Preparing Bananas

Beans and vegetables and rice and meat and all manner of calories, tens of thousands of calories prepared for us when others were hungry. 

Is it better to be blessed and not know it or know just how blessed one is? I don't deserve this, any of this. Knowing that I enjoy what others do not honestly makes it harder to enjoy my luxuries. It is good that I become less materialistic, and in short, that is kind of the point. Life is about relationships, not possessions. The more one sees that, the more one can align with that idea. 

A Packed House Celebration in Rwanda

The day I left Rwanda we had a big celebration for the 30th wedding anniversary of our hosts. They basically renewed their wedding vows. Anyway, hundreds of people came, I would like to give a more specific estimate of the number of people, but it could have been 200 or 400 because of the walls and hills and buildings I could not really tell. People had traveled four hours from Kigali the capital and similar hours from Uganda, well, I suppose we traveled from the US in large part for this celebration.

View to My Right

Celebrations like this are apparently very common in Rwanda. They even had a choir in shiny button up shirts sing for us!

View to my Left

The point is that community still exists. Maybe most of the people were there for a free meal or sorghum beer, or to see use mzungos, or because this was the richest family in town and people like handouts. Regardless, it was fantastic! I did cry taking the second picture. Again these people were singing about how happy they were, yet the situation was far more tenuous than anything we experience in the US. 

This was the reason going with a local was the ideal way to visit a country. I would not draw crowds like this, of more than 200 people. The whole experience reinforced the fact that I am, and we all are, so blessed. Even in a desperate place to live, like rural Rwanda, there is no conflict, most people have food and most people have extended families. There are many things in the world to be grateful for, it is important to remember those things and not take our wealth, our power, our authority for granted.

Refugees and Kids in Africa

Two topics today, first refugees, second kids, there will be videos about the kids in the future too.

Shown below is a United Nations refugee tarp, which I am told you can easily buy in the markets. I may have a video, and I know my dad does, of going to a market and unwrapping bundles of clothing. It turns out that clothing people donate to Africa is often given to someone to sell, while it seems unfair at first, keep in mind someone is economically profiting from those sales and probably feeding her family. In other words, in many organizations, items donated are actually sold to the people they are meant to help.

The second refugee point that I was also told, by a Rwandan, "Africans only move when they are refugees." In other words, aside from the general migration from the country to the city people don't move for work or family or climate reasons, they move because they are refugees. That is to say, they flee a war.

UN Refugee Tarp Over Richest House in Musasa

I attach the subject of kids to this because life is harder in Africa and I think it relates to being a refugee. In sub-Saharan Africa about one in nine children die before age 5, which is actually an improvement on 10, 20, 50 years ago. There is a certain maturity in kids, at least in Rwanda, that I feel is a consequence of a challenging life. In other words, it is common to see children under ten and even five carrying 10 and 20 liter water jugs, full, on roads and trails alone, with no parent in sight. No child in the US would do that. I understand now why Angelina Jolie has adopted three kids from around the world, despite the fact she is made fun of in this country for it. I see these kids and think, 'I could house half a dozen of these kids in my little apartment and feed them and give them a better chance at economic success and a longer life.' This led to a strange, very strange, idea that I had in Rwanda, I want to get married and have kids, but if that doesn't work out maybe I would adopt several from Africa as a single parent. Ridiculous right? Yet it seems like a very concrete way to make a difference in several people's lives. What more can I do for others, for the world, than open up my house and all that I have to those far less fortunate?

He is Really Just Playing

What Do You Say?

International Relationships: China in Africa

One of the big topics is international aid and international investment in the developing world. Just yesterday I listened to a story about Egyptians hating the US, despite them getting more money than I certainly get from the US government.

One of the interesting topics seems to be the competition for the hearts, minds, and resources of the undeveloped parts of the world by the two dominant economic countries, in this decade that is the US and China. In the second half of the 1900s it was the US and the USSR. In the first half of the 1900s it was probably between European powers. France, England, Spain, Portugal, and Germany have all spent time in the role of developing the rest of the world. Although we look back at the atrocities that many countries ruled other nations using and it is often appalling. 

Here are two images below of China both educating and investing in Rwanda. We must be happy for the Rwandans to have international investment, after all, even Detroit would probably like international investment right now.

The Inyange Girls School in Rwanda

China and Rwanda 

The one thing that struck me as unusual about all of this is the "Wisdom, Science & Patriotism". In the United States, we just would not say that. The reason being we generally feel that patriotism is loyalty to the country (the government) while we prefer that our government is loyal to us. In other words, China and Rwanda have more hierarchy and status in their cultures than in the US and that impacts how we view our government as well. 

For the record I saw a number of USAID signs of similar size, shape, and text, probably over a dozen, while I was in Rwanda, but I might have neglected to take a picture, these two signs just stood out to me because it was one of the very few references I saw to China.

An African House

'You call that a house? How rich we are in the United States that even our barns and sheds have concrete floors? My wealth makes me sick. I could house a family in the space that I take up for myself better than they are housed now.' I thought to myself as I took these pictures.

The Church Sam Started in 1988 and Parsonage They are Building

Sam, the man in the white suit jacket started this church you see on the right of the photo above in 1988. Of course the congregation did not have a church when he started it. They even have a blue sign that mentioned it is an Anglican church of the Byumba Diocese.

Parsonage for a Future Pastor

This is how most houses start in the countryside in Rwanda, and likely much of Africa. Basically it looks like bricks around the perimeter and then local clay blocks for the interior walls. Then, I believe, they are covered in an adobe like plaster to give a smooth surface.

Close Up of the Wall

Totally different building standards. Yes, that is some sort of mud or clay holding those bricks together.

Cell Phone Charging Station

One of the interesting things of the undeveloped and developing world is cell phone charging stations. People are so poor they cannot afford electricity, yet almost everyone can afford a $10 cell phone if for no other reason than the business of theirs it helps facilitate. As we walked around the business district in Ruhengeri, Rwanda we saw a number of cell phone charging stations. We were in a developed part of the country, so no solar panels, you can just see the electric cord on the lower left in the picture. MTN is like an AT&T or Verizon service provider.

Cell Phone Charging Station Ruhengeri, Rwanda July 2013

What does this say about the wealth or the economy, both of the world and in Rwanda, or much of Africa?

1. For one it highlights the importance of connections between people. People don't have lights in their house, but they have a cell phone to connect with people. 
2. A light bulb, the most basic of electric appliances, is still a luxury for many. Forget computers, refrigerators, ovens, flat screens, and DVD players, these people don't even have a single outlet in their house to charge a phone.
3. Not only do people pay to charge their phones at this stand, it is worth it for this lady to sit here and guard them. Her job is recharging and guarding up to 20 cell phones at a time. I guarantee she does not make $7.25 an hour, the minimum wage in the United States. At an electricity cost of about $0.15 per kilowatt hour (1000 watt hours) wholesale and cell phone battery size of 4-5 watts this is a business of cents not dollars.