2008/07/30
Re assessing my week’s in Nairobi
After reading some material from The four hour work week blog which I originally remember reading on Mix Masters blog I’ve deiced to try a new approach to my day (for now)
My main objective being: be as active as possible
This does not mean that I will only work four hours a day, or that I will spend as much money as possible – it means that when it comes down to it, the times I remember most revolve around “doing.” Regardless of what that is. Not doing usually goes by a term I think most college age persons understand but I will explain for those of you that don’t:
Facebooking – The act of checking up on social gossip for hours on end to little or no advancement in productivity. Usually on the website www.facebook.com but also on www.myspace.com , news/google.com , and well just about any other time waster you can imagine on the internet. Idle Gossip at work while not working also applies to this category.
The conflict I have with this ideology is that I find large parts of my week scheduled around planning (which is some form of ‘doing’). The Mountain club of Kenya is a great example. Every Tuesday I head over to Wilson Airport to “plan” the weekend out with new hikers and climbers – I can also do this by email, by the way- there is more drinking and eating (which are fun, but not really all that involved) than climbing or much of anything else.
Social engagements are fun, but don’t really supply the ‘doing’ that I’m looking for. For instance yesterday I decided to run from the hostel that I just moved into – to work. It was awesome! I hadn’t run much of anywhere in forever. Kenyans though I was crazy (not much running going on inside the town) but hell, my endorphins were pumped so much that I decided I didn’t need to take a Matatu from my hostel to work ….ever again :D [excluding late night danger times]
If I could do more of something and less of Facebooking, then I think life would be pretty cool. So… here’s my week (again) where I evaluate my level of doing vs. facebooking [I’ll try to make a chart too]
Monday (where the week really starts- Mentally):
-not much here
Tuesday:
-Eat out at Comfort Inn with friend, plan the week (could be allot more active)
-Mountain club of Kenya (again a ‘planning night’)
Wednesday:
-Nairobi Dive club
Thursday:
-MSS and discussion nights ☺
Friday:
-Partying in excess
The weekend:
Much ‘doing’ happens here, so no need :p
(That wasn’t as productive as I thought it would be which is weird since I feel like I do allot :\, this might be more interesting than I thought)
I know I’ve said it before, and I know I’ll probably say it again- but I need to focus on ‘me,’ find out what I can do for ‘me,’ and not everybody else (meaning I’m not at the bar for your enjoyment, if I’m not having fun I’ll leave- simply put)
This week’s new resolution:
No more than one beer a day- otherwise it’s a waste of money and not conducive to my personal enjoyment, drink water or tea instead- it’s good for you (and there’s more variety here)! And if you’re in a social situation where there is more beer drinking than ‘not’ going on- decided what you are doing the next day and figure out if it’s really worth it. (you can always hike Ngong hills for free)
Currently reading: White Fang by Jack London
This story along with ‘The Swiss Family Robinson’ is probably the first movie I remember watching. I really have been looking for something more ‘wild’ while at the same time satisfying in a fictional way.
I was in a bookstore about twenty minuets before I was going out for a weekend of climbing, and I ran across a shelf of Penguin Classic’s for relatively low prices, and found both ‘White Fang’ and ‘The Call of the Wild’ in the same librus, ergo I purchased the item (on my way out I saw ‘The four hour work week,’ which I’ll have to go back and get before too long- at the rate I’m devouring this short work on wolves in Alaska* which really makes me want to go up North!
Book related tangent/ Babies
Katherines blog on all things book related, made me update my book log, to where I now have a non-online related catalog which I found for mac’s called Bookpedia. It scans bar codes and is cool.
Related, There is a new Eliot in the world, and He will be a great poet if all goes according to plan. May the world be with you little one (it won’t but it’s better to instill hope than dispar, builds character too)
And… Jasen, who I don’t think has a blog, but I’ll find it if he does recommended that I read: David Mitchell and Italo Calvino – and Katherine made me think about Umberto Eco, and Joe’s head exploding, so I’ll look into him to (less movies and comics more reading)
*Carleigh High just got back from her NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School) course in Alaska! Yey, and when she puts ups a gallery which isn’t on Facebook! I’ll send you a link ☺**
**I might delete my Facebook account :p – or just leave it up and link it to my blog but never check it (so message me)
2008/07/25
2008/07/21
Don’t Judge a Dutchmen by his accent
Yesterday, I woke up at 12pm after a long night of partying, and staying up till about 6am. Go me.
The house was a bustle, and a mess – with only two showers working, and three toilets (both out of four) – I brought up the key point, that I was no longer under contract to stay in this place, that we were never getting any of these items fixed (hell my shower caught on fire two days ago) and that we were spending around 1000 USD on two people, while our parent organization was putting other people in here because we “had free space.” So the people who were playing (from my project) decided we needed to look for another place to stay for a month that would cost about 1/3 of the price.
Meaning: sorry we can’t have party’s here anymore but we can go out more with the extra 400USD we’re saving- we’ll have “were moving down the street” party.
Then Florent and I went to watch the Tour de France with Kevin (fellow American from LA working with the Clinton foundation) and went to a bar where.. once again they said they would change it to our requested sports channel after another event was on (some F1 race in Germany which wasn’t that bad), but instead when it was over they put on Golf.
It’s not that we care if you don’t put on our requested item, just tell us so we can leave- because otherwise you’re lying/ignoring me [which is kind of like a service not being provided so maybe I shouldn’t pay]
So after being slightly peeved, we walked to Bart’s house, a friend of Florent’s who works here with a Dutch Flower farm, and is moving to Ethiopia in a week or two.
Bart has a very different accent than Thomas, Roel, and Florent- that they told me is indicative of the “working class.” I didn’t mean to, but I did, the put Bart in a “working class” file of my highly indexed brain. I had met him at bars several times, and he was a nice – yet very quipy, but I had never had what one would call an “intellectual” conversation with him.*
So we walk into Bart’s house, where he is packing up, he invites us in, we turn on the Tour, have a few beers, explain the whole tactical and stage concept to Kevin (I’ll admit I didn’t know all of it either) then argue with Florent on the concept of competition in a bike race (being nice isn’t part of the game, so don’t lose respect for someone when they don’t wait for a fallen rider, it’s part of the game)
Then we started talking about the French sensory, and the aqueducts, and we don’t have anything like that in America, and how all the bridges in Europe were destroyed in WW2. Basically it evolved into an awesome history lesson.
Somewhere along the way the idea of the Technology Singularity come up- the concept that the rate at which we discover new technologies is growing shorter and shorter, and up until the point where (like a exponential curve) all technologies will be discovered at the same time ( 60 million years for fire, 40,000 for a bow and arrow, 200 years for the internet, 10 years for artificial limbs, 5 months for new drugs, 2 seconds for faster than light travel OMG we discover everything [ it’s a concept, go with it])
Then we talked about Farming, and what the new fertilizers are doing to the ground, and how it affects the whole ecosystem, but how it’s not really “that” bad, it’s really just leaving too much salt in the grown- and
Oh hey look it’s the last 2km of the Tour!
The point is, that I judged someone on what someone else told me, and later found out that it was very wrong.
And I have two or three topics which I will end up writing about in the next week ☺
*by the way, using Quotations is enjoyable, it means so little and so much at the same time that I think I’ll write about it later. – oh, and Habiba came up for a word for her recently perceived mood swings that I have (they usually doesn’t see me so wild at work) S.C.O.M. Sudden Change of Mood, which I made into an adjective, so I’m being “Scomy”
The house was a bustle, and a mess – with only two showers working, and three toilets (both out of four) – I brought up the key point, that I was no longer under contract to stay in this place, that we were never getting any of these items fixed (hell my shower caught on fire two days ago) and that we were spending around 1000 USD on two people, while our parent organization was putting other people in here because we “had free space.” So the people who were playing (from my project) decided we needed to look for another place to stay for a month that would cost about 1/3 of the price.
Meaning: sorry we can’t have party’s here anymore but we can go out more with the extra 400USD we’re saving- we’ll have “were moving down the street” party.
Then Florent and I went to watch the Tour de France with Kevin (fellow American from LA working with the Clinton foundation) and went to a bar where.. once again they said they would change it to our requested sports channel after another event was on (some F1 race in Germany which wasn’t that bad), but instead when it was over they put on Golf.
It’s not that we care if you don’t put on our requested item, just tell us so we can leave- because otherwise you’re lying/ignoring me [which is kind of like a service not being provided so maybe I shouldn’t pay]
So after being slightly peeved, we walked to Bart’s house, a friend of Florent’s who works here with a Dutch Flower farm, and is moving to Ethiopia in a week or two.
Bart has a very different accent than Thomas, Roel, and Florent- that they told me is indicative of the “working class.” I didn’t mean to, but I did, the put Bart in a “working class” file of my highly indexed brain. I had met him at bars several times, and he was a nice – yet very quipy, but I had never had what one would call an “intellectual” conversation with him.*
So we walk into Bart’s house, where he is packing up, he invites us in, we turn on the Tour, have a few beers, explain the whole tactical and stage concept to Kevin (I’ll admit I didn’t know all of it either) then argue with Florent on the concept of competition in a bike race (being nice isn’t part of the game, so don’t lose respect for someone when they don’t wait for a fallen rider, it’s part of the game)
Then we started talking about the French sensory, and the aqueducts, and we don’t have anything like that in America, and how all the bridges in Europe were destroyed in WW2. Basically it evolved into an awesome history lesson.
Somewhere along the way the idea of the Technology Singularity come up- the concept that the rate at which we discover new technologies is growing shorter and shorter, and up until the point where (like a exponential curve) all technologies will be discovered at the same time ( 60 million years for fire, 40,000 for a bow and arrow, 200 years for the internet, 10 years for artificial limbs, 5 months for new drugs, 2 seconds for faster than light travel OMG we discover everything [ it’s a concept, go with it])
Then we talked about Farming, and what the new fertilizers are doing to the ground, and how it affects the whole ecosystem, but how it’s not really “that” bad, it’s really just leaving too much salt in the grown- and
Oh hey look it’s the last 2km of the Tour!
The point is, that I judged someone on what someone else told me, and later found out that it was very wrong.
And I have two or three topics which I will end up writing about in the next week ☺
*by the way, using Quotations is enjoyable, it means so little and so much at the same time that I think I’ll write about it later. – oh, and Habiba came up for a word for her recently perceived mood swings that I have (they usually doesn’t see me so wild at work) S.C.O.M. Sudden Change of Mood, which I made into an adjective, so I’m being “Scomy”
2008/07/19
Sex and the City, an Espresso, and some Dutch men
I only drink Coffee when necessary, such as a socially pressured moment, at an Italian restaurant in Nairobi after three to four glasses of wine and an amazing day in Kenya.
I only cry when I need to, like when I watch a movie about a group of friends celebrating life in their own way, and I remember all the people I haven’t seen in six months- and some who I won’t see in even longer- and the time I’ve missed being with all of you, your smiles, your hugs, your gratuitous offers of alcohol, the hard slaps to the face, the long quiet moment we have where nothing needs to be said because were so comfortable with each other that if anybody else was there they would call it an “awkward silence,” but of course we know better, the long talks we have over simple nothings or complex everything’s where I learn more than I ever could in any class, the truths you tell me that you wouldn’t dare speak to your parents, the long bike rides, the short chats, the revolutions we planed, the nightly excursions we had, the kisses that were sniped, the caves that we explored, the meals you cooked, the fights we had. I miss it all.
Thomas leaves tomorrow, just like Henry left the night before, and Florent leaves the following Saturday and Bart will follow in suit. I don’t know when I’ll see them again. I met them for such a short time, and reshaped my life with them in it- Just like I’ll have to do all over again when they leave and other come. But damn it was fun.
Thank you Thomas for bringing us together, the group that is made almost entirely of Dutchmen, with the two Germans and two Americans thrown in. It was a magnificent meal, our last meal for a while, and if anything; epicurean. We talked about dead baby jokes, about my brother who hops trains, about how one twenty year old I met today has done more in the past five years than I might ever- and how I see it as a challenge, about Harvard, about Germany, about life. We then had espresso and I went insane and danced like a mad man, then stayed up till 6am watching Charlotte, Kerry, Miranda, and Samantha in their everlasting man troubles critiquing every dress I saw and wondering why anyone would want a Louis Vuitton purse in such an ugly tan- seriously, the shoes were amazing, the dresses were a complex mixture of Havana beach wear, nuevo sixties “Jackiesk” pregnancy garments, Wedding dresses from heaven and Spain, men suits straight from Black and Decker (they were black and he was going to deck her), and a short from 80’s hell – and even they Café attire was quite vogue, but that purse she gave to Miss St. Louis – WTF.
Conor, I don’t know what to say, you scared the shit out of Mom with probably no knowledge of it and I don’t really thing I can blame you for any of it- you make your own choices, you aren’t really dependent on anyone monetarily, and from what I can tell you seems to be surviving just fine- I love you and I care about you: see you when I see you
I only cry when I need to, like when I watch a movie about a group of friends celebrating life in their own way, and I remember all the people I haven’t seen in six months- and some who I won’t see in even longer- and the time I’ve missed being with all of you, your smiles, your hugs, your gratuitous offers of alcohol, the hard slaps to the face, the long quiet moment we have where nothing needs to be said because were so comfortable with each other that if anybody else was there they would call it an “awkward silence,” but of course we know better, the long talks we have over simple nothings or complex everything’s where I learn more than I ever could in any class, the truths you tell me that you wouldn’t dare speak to your parents, the long bike rides, the short chats, the revolutions we planed, the nightly excursions we had, the kisses that were sniped, the caves that we explored, the meals you cooked, the fights we had. I miss it all.
Thomas leaves tomorrow, just like Henry left the night before, and Florent leaves the following Saturday and Bart will follow in suit. I don’t know when I’ll see them again. I met them for such a short time, and reshaped my life with them in it- Just like I’ll have to do all over again when they leave and other come. But damn it was fun.
Thank you Thomas for bringing us together, the group that is made almost entirely of Dutchmen, with the two Germans and two Americans thrown in. It was a magnificent meal, our last meal for a while, and if anything; epicurean. We talked about dead baby jokes, about my brother who hops trains, about how one twenty year old I met today has done more in the past five years than I might ever- and how I see it as a challenge, about Harvard, about Germany, about life. We then had espresso and I went insane and danced like a mad man, then stayed up till 6am watching Charlotte, Kerry, Miranda, and Samantha in their everlasting man troubles critiquing every dress I saw and wondering why anyone would want a Louis Vuitton purse in such an ugly tan- seriously, the shoes were amazing, the dresses were a complex mixture of Havana beach wear, nuevo sixties “Jackiesk” pregnancy garments, Wedding dresses from heaven and Spain, men suits straight from Black and Decker (they were black and he was going to deck her), and a short from 80’s hell – and even they Café attire was quite vogue, but that purse she gave to Miss St. Louis – WTF.
Conor, I don’t know what to say, you scared the shit out of Mom with probably no knowledge of it and I don’t really thing I can blame you for any of it- you make your own choices, you aren’t really dependent on anyone monetarily, and from what I can tell you seems to be surviving just fine- I love you and I care about you: see you when I see you
2008/07/17
House
The house I live in is kinda big, so we get all the people who can’t find housing, so here are the stages of housing that have happened over the past … 4 months
1.0 one: Sean [USA}, Charlotte [Norway] Florent! [Netherlands](3)
We all have our owns rooms, Mulache [Kenya] is over just about every night, but hell- that’s what beds are for.
1.1 Thomas [Netherlands] (moved in really early one morning to the master bedroom (4)
1.2 Cami [USA} also stayes in the master bedroom (both Cami and Thomas are only supossed to stay four “at max a week” a month later they’re still here, and alls well (5)
1.3 Dunia [USA] moves in after a crazy incident, Pascal would have liked to, but we ran into some problems :p (6)
1.4 Dunia leaves, Roel [Netherlands] (moves in! (6)
2.0 We have two new Interns move come to Kenya: Lara [Germnay] and Habiba [Egypt] , so we have to reorganize the house, Thomas and Roel move to Kirt’s [Kenya] , Charlotte leave to go back to Norway! (5)
2.1 Manuela and her boyfriend Benjamin [Germany] stay here off and on for a few nights while traveling until Manuela’s internship starts (7)
2.2 Richard [China] moves in and sleeps on the couch, which is kinda an issue, but some people are leaving in a week, so we’ll be more beds (8)
By the way, we only have 5 beds ☺ so you can figure that one out
The kitchen is a mess, out maid “Holiness” tries to overcharge us for all the laundry, the power is off and on, and the water pressure is sporadic. BUT we have hot showers (pretty much every morning), so it make up for everything else.
Most nights are crazy, with all the cooking, and people doing they’re own thing- watching movies, reading, playing guitar, beer games, umm… yeah
1.0 one: Sean [USA}, Charlotte [Norway] Florent! [Netherlands](3)
We all have our owns rooms, Mulache [Kenya] is over just about every night, but hell- that’s what beds are for.
1.1 Thomas [Netherlands] (moved in really early one morning to the master bedroom (4)
1.2 Cami [USA} also stayes in the master bedroom (both Cami and Thomas are only supossed to stay four “at max a week” a month later they’re still here, and alls well (5)
1.3 Dunia [USA] moves in after a crazy incident, Pascal would have liked to, but we ran into some problems :p (6)
1.4 Dunia leaves, Roel [Netherlands] (moves in! (6)
2.0 We have two new Interns move come to Kenya: Lara [Germnay] and Habiba [Egypt] , so we have to reorganize the house, Thomas and Roel move to Kirt’s [Kenya] , Charlotte leave to go back to Norway! (5)
2.1 Manuela and her boyfriend Benjamin [Germany] stay here off and on for a few nights while traveling until Manuela’s internship starts (7)
2.2 Richard [China] moves in and sleeps on the couch, which is kinda an issue, but some people are leaving in a week, so we’ll be more beds (8)
By the way, we only have 5 beds ☺ so you can figure that one out
The kitchen is a mess, out maid “Holiness” tries to overcharge us for all the laundry, the power is off and on, and the water pressure is sporadic. BUT we have hot showers (pretty much every morning), so it make up for everything else.
Most nights are crazy, with all the cooking, and people doing they’re own thing- watching movies, reading, playing guitar, beer games, umm… yeah
2008/07/10
2008/07/09
Invincible
We are Youth,
We are strong, powerful, beautiful, and wise
Running screaming, shouting, pushing
Embracing what we love
Fighting with what we hate
We are Youth
Horribly curious
Unimaginably stupid
Perplexingly naive and all the better because of it
We know all, We know nothing
We know that we know all and nothing at the same time
We are confused
We will live forever
We will die in an instant
We will be reborn with the fist chuckle
And subside with a sob
We are youth
The immortal and the instant
The loved and the hated
The little and the big
We are youth
Twenty one years ago, two days, and a few hours; a couple of other people and I decided I should be. And I was. Now I am- So far I think being was the best decision I’ve collaboratively made.
Celebrating my existence on the other hand might not have been the best idea I’ve collaboratively made- and Thomas I don’t know how I ended up there, honest- but there were no hippos involved, so I wasn’t the worst thing to ever happen ☺
Since I’ve been, I think I’ve changed stuff, much like everybody else- which is both exciting and belittling- because I want to change more than them (and it takes away from the romantic individualism of being me!).
But if you haven’t noticed, and I have- especially when watching the Euro cup, when Germany stopped playing as a team- that when people work together they can do more than the individual [that whole 1+1 = 3 nini]
And Change is fun, it’s different, it’s wild- it’s also nice to share with others, to see what they want. To collaborate with people, see your vision changed into what a group sees, have it help people, inspire little children, or anger those into action.
Collaborative processes are just that- collaborative. Using words like “me,” and “I,” don’t work so well when trying to share a goal with some one else. I’ve also found that when you refer to your position instead of your attributes or pervious action it pisses the hell out of people. Arbitrary justification sucks, so don’t use them [Contradictions! dum dum dum].
I really want to change stuff. I say stuff, because it’s as ambiguous as I can get. And while I don’t mind fighting for that, I need to have a reason, or else I’m just fighting- which can be fun to, but I don’t quite think I’m James Dean. But I do have a cause, and when someone gets in the way of that cause it goes back to the over used idiom – if your not part of the solution, your part of the problem.
Be part of the solution, please…
If this got tangential to you, and you don’t know what this is really about, take it for what it is, and look outside [like I just did] and I see… lots of trees, and some birds, and eww, a burning heap of trash – stupid trash, someone should do something about that, wait I’m someone! What can I do?
Pictures from my Nakuru adventure … soon?
We are strong, powerful, beautiful, and wise
Running screaming, shouting, pushing
Embracing what we love
Fighting with what we hate
We are Youth
Horribly curious
Unimaginably stupid
Perplexingly naive and all the better because of it
We know all, We know nothing
We know that we know all and nothing at the same time
We are confused
We will live forever
We will die in an instant
We will be reborn with the fist chuckle
And subside with a sob
We are youth
The immortal and the instant
The loved and the hated
The little and the big
We are youth
Twenty one years ago, two days, and a few hours; a couple of other people and I decided I should be. And I was. Now I am- So far I think being was the best decision I’ve collaboratively made.
Celebrating my existence on the other hand might not have been the best idea I’ve collaboratively made- and Thomas I don’t know how I ended up there, honest- but there were no hippos involved, so I wasn’t the worst thing to ever happen ☺
Since I’ve been, I think I’ve changed stuff, much like everybody else- which is both exciting and belittling- because I want to change more than them (and it takes away from the romantic individualism of being me!).
But if you haven’t noticed, and I have- especially when watching the Euro cup, when Germany stopped playing as a team- that when people work together they can do more than the individual [that whole 1+1 = 3 nini]
And Change is fun, it’s different, it’s wild- it’s also nice to share with others, to see what they want. To collaborate with people, see your vision changed into what a group sees, have it help people, inspire little children, or anger those into action.
Collaborative processes are just that- collaborative. Using words like “me,” and “I,” don’t work so well when trying to share a goal with some one else. I’ve also found that when you refer to your position instead of your attributes or pervious action it pisses the hell out of people. Arbitrary justification sucks, so don’t use them [Contradictions! dum dum dum].
I really want to change stuff. I say stuff, because it’s as ambiguous as I can get. And while I don’t mind fighting for that, I need to have a reason, or else I’m just fighting- which can be fun to, but I don’t quite think I’m James Dean. But I do have a cause, and when someone gets in the way of that cause it goes back to the over used idiom – if your not part of the solution, your part of the problem.
Be part of the solution, please…
If this got tangential to you, and you don’t know what this is really about, take it for what it is, and look outside [like I just did] and I see… lots of trees, and some birds, and eww, a burning heap of trash – stupid trash, someone should do something about that, wait I’m someone! What can I do?
Pictures from my Nakuru adventure … soon?
2008/07/04
The formation of a plan
I think I want to do
Because now, I feel like I just am
And though a part that contradicts everything I say
Tells me I’m not
It would also just say I am, if I thought I was doing
-Cornelius Witabaker
The world turns, I’ve been here longer than some, shorter than most, but really I’m just happy to be here. This place, it’s a nice place. While I’m not entirely sure why I chose to be in this place, here I am and I’ll work with that*. I would rather not leave life up to chance, because I do not believe that it would be a good idea. It would parallel leaving your life in the hands of a travel agent you do not trust, or following a crowd that doesn’t know where it’s going. It’s stupid and everybody does it. Me: of course. It’s called trust, and it’s the foundation of relationships, but at some point, you have to learn when not to trust, realize that you don’t like where this crowd is going, and make your own call. Because no one else is going to do it for you.
* I constantly struggle with the task of grasping and struggling with my environment, changing it and molding it to what I want and not so much adapting as implementing and creating. But I don’t feel that I should feel naive enough to try and change me, my goals and my passions because where I am is different. In this stout resolve; I will change, and I welcome it. But I will not sacrifice what I love because another culture tells me, “Your care is wrong here.” Fuck them. I will be me, because me is all I can be, and they can be they, and we can both try the new, and learn from the old
-a sub-thought in the realm of hypocrisy
Current projects:
Climbing wall design:
The Nairobi Sailing and Sub-Aquatic club and the Mountain Club of Kenya are merging into the same club (for all intents and purposes) ergo I’m a member of both, you can guess which I joined first). As part of this merge, the Mountain Club is moving on to the premise of the dive club. Before they were located (and still are for a time) on Wilson airport, a small local airport outside Nairobi, which they have been at since 1954. After the bombing of the US embassy in 1998, the Airport has increased security, and only allowed member to go to the club on one night a week, not allow member to live or rest at the club (as had previously been done) and does not allow for nightly access to the climbing wall.
So- The Mountain club moves about a kilometer down the road to the Dive club with is privately owned land, and has a wonderful pool, two bars, a nice lawn and about Twenty meters of wall space which is just begging to be climbed.
I showed interest, someone said: “Come up with a design and it’s yours.” I worked on it with another member, Steven, who’s a graphic designer and fellow climber, and Rad helped from GT, and "Bam" (as some Yalite would say) the climbing wall got rolling. Still need a real budget, but we have designs and a proposal
The fun Ensures
East Africa Trainee’s (EAT)
I just made that name up, but it is a really project. I made an integration tool that AIESEC (the student group I’m part of) in Kenya could commutatively use to integrate interns, allow them to give feed back, help learn about the area, and communicate. It has received various feed back, but I enjoy updating it every once in a while, so I will continue to do so, and send it to anybody who asks questions about coming to Kenya.
While I was working on the site, and the community that was formed around it (well.. it was really formed around people, and the site came latter) A group of Ugandan interns who were in Kenya though it would be a great idea to bring back to Uganda with them. They have started they’re own group, and though it would be cool if the Ugandan and Kenyan groups could be part of a large group, and then the whole intern population could collaborate and plan trips, and it would be a jolly ol’ time. I agreed, and this Idea will continue to evolve.
To see what I’ve worked on for my group check out http://aieseckenyatn.pbwiki.com I need to get a real site, and have better advertising, but I enjoy it so far. We also have a google group for communication that is on the site. So I think I covered the basics of forming a modern online/in person… community (Website for externals- wiki for a form of input – google group for rapid communication- weekly meetings- and smiles)
My life
One of my longer projects, but the current phase involves possibly hiking Mt. Elgon* in the next month, then mount Kenya before I leave in September. After I finish my project, which is going nicely actually, I just don’t like all the accounting, I plan on traveling… a lot, and going broke in the process. It’ll be great.
*By the way, I really do like sharing my passions with people, but sometimes I have to say “No.” I can’t take every idealistic worldly person on climbing trips, I would love to, but I can’t, it would be dangerous to you, me, and possibly other people. There is a beginner-climbing trip coming up at the Mountain club of Kenya on 27th of july if anyone would like to go, which I can sign you up for. – This is a topic of longer proportions, and I really don’t want to sound selfish, but it’s just not possible for you to tag along sometime (just like I can’t go with professionally mountain climbers on they’re assents of the Trango towers
I’ll make a very tentative plan and post it here the best I can on a calendar
But just to keep it simple (and to.. idk, worry my mother- sorry I want to go to Israel)
October:
Egypt
*Cairo
*Alexandria
*Giza
*Aswan (maybe)
*Luxor (maybe)
Jordan
*Petra
Israel
*Jerusalem
*West bank
*Telaviv
Turkey
*Istanbul
Greece
*Athens
November
Spain
*Granada
*Madrid
*Barcelona
France
*Paris
Netherlands
*Amsterdam
*Tilburg
United Kingdom
*London
*Birmingham
*Edinburgh (maybe)
United States
*New York City
*Atlanta (temporary destination)
And that’s my plan.
If you live in one of these locations, or know someone who does, I would love not to stay in a hotel, or … spend any money if at all possible. I’ll probably have one day-pack with me, and virtually nothing else but a camera ☺.
Currently reading: Three Cups of Tea
I was attracted to this book because I like tea, cups, and three is a good number …not really. It’s the story of Greg Mortenson, who is a horrible writer, but a very good humanitarian- who with the help of some wealthy mountaineers/circuit industry gurus founded the Central Asian Institute to build schools for the girls of Northern Pakistan (pre 9/11).
Thus far I am about half way through the book, but it really made me question my life. First off Mr. Mortenson was a climber who attempted K2 (2nd highest mountain in the world- and far more difficult than Everest) and failed, only to be rescued by a little town that he then dedicated his life to help, and build a school for. He gave up his climbing life, and came out the better end- doing what he was passionate about. But what does that mean about climbing? Did he switch one passion for another; he changed his whole life because of the events in this book, and affected thousands of people.
While reading “Three cups of Tea,” I’ve also been reading the magazine “Alpinist,” Which is a beautiful publication that comes out quarterly, and has very moving photography and very inspirational essays and story’s. One is that moved me was about a 23 year old mountaineers who goes back and forth between school, climbing, his girl friend, drinking and LSD, and trying to find out what he’s really doing in all of this.
The two different sides of climbing and the lifestyle that I think I might possibly fashion myself make me think for a long time, while staring out my window in the Nairobi suburb of Kililashwa- I really do miss snow, and I wonder how much I’m really doing, sitting in front of a balance sheet, looking at receipts, and getting angry over peoples laughter and joy while they relax in the office that is my work space.
-To my readings
