Locus Amoenus

One wild and precious life

2011-06-21T20:57:00.000-07:00

A Summer Solstice Poem: The Summer Day
by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Creating opportunities

2011-05-23T11:38:00.000-07:00

In 2007, I was working for Global Youth Partnership for Africa, a non-profit that organized youth programs on conflict resolution in Northern Uganda. We were based in Gulu for a week, meeting with young people, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), government officials, and Ugandan citizens - to try to understand the roots of conflict, and how the region might realize a sustainable peace. During our breaks, I would walk with students through the central market, admiring the beautiful fabrics and the quiet whir of the foot-pedal sewing machines. Stall after stall was filled with tailors - a by-product of NGO vocational trainings. Tailoring is a very popular skill set meant to economically empower women in places like Northern Uganda.

Gulu's central market, filled with NGO-trained tailors

There was a problem here. While the market was filled with tailors, few of them were able to earn a livelihood - most of them could barely cover rent on their market stalls. Their best hope was to clothe the aid workers (like us) who spent lazy weekend afternoons in Gulu shopping the market and having dresses made.

The first principle of Fair Trade is about market connection:

Creating opportunities for economically and socially marginalized producers.

The Fair Trade Federation, the membership body in North America promoting fair trade products, defines this principle further:

Fair Trade is a strategy for poverty alleviation and sustainable development. Members create social and economic opportunities through trading partnerships with marginalized producers. Members place the interests of producers and their communities as the primary concern of their enterprise.

Auma Lucy in her market stall in Gulu

Auma Lucy was a good tailor. She had a bare stall with a sewing machine, and was trying to grow her business amongst the competition in the market. She was charismatic, and compared with most women in Northern Uganda, her English was fantastic. She took every opportunity to bring in young women who were suffering - single mothers, young women she feared might "get into trouble" - she saw herself in these women, sitting at home with nothing to occupy their time, never finishing their schooling for lack of school fee money, getting pregnant too young - or worse, contracting HIV.

the tool to change lives

On her own, Lucy struggled to make ends meet. She didn't have funds to pay rent on her market stall. She had thirteen children at home (eleven orphans) and her elderly parents to worry about. With a market connection to customers in the United States, she could really make an impact (and much-needed profit).

All women in Northern Uganda bear a heavy burden. During the conflict, they lost their husbands, sons, fathers and brothers, and are often victims themselves - forced to fight as soldiers, serve as soldiers' wives, raped and stigmatized by their own communities. Regardless of their past circumstances, any woman will tell you that when it comes time to put food on the table and send their kids to school, she will do whatever she must to pull it together and make ends meet.

The sheer quantity of trained tailors in Uganda was a curse for the local market, where customers were few. A connection to the United States market turned that curse into an opportunity - an opportunity for poor women in a region destroyed by more than twenty years of armed conflict to earn a living and create change in their lives.

This post is part of a series about Fair Trade Federation's Nine Fair Trade Principles. The series was inspired by Using Fair Trade Principles to Empower Women in Uganda, a talk given at the Library of Congress by One Mango Tree's founder in November 2010. You can watch the video here.

Using Fair Trade principles to empower women in Uganda

2011-05-20T07:31:00.000-07:00

Last November, I had the incredible opportunity to give a talk about One Mango Tree at the Library of Congress. Since Fair Trade Month had just concluded, I decided to focus the talk on the principles of Fair Trade, and how One Mango Tree uses those principles to create sustainable income for women in Uganda.

The video is a long one, but it's the equivalent to meeting for a cup of coffee to learn about how and why One Mango Tree got started. My presentation begins at 8:25. I hope you enjoy it!

Adventures in sourcing: horn & leather

2011-05-17T06:05:00.000-07:00

Sourcing locally is a big deal for us in Uganda. I certainly appreciate the meaning of value-add - particularly in a country where so many resources are exported raw (coffee, tobacco, tea, cotton, to name a few). Our organic apparel line at One Mango Tree boasts "seed-to-sewn," but it's at a high cost. There is only one factory transforming Uganda's organic cotton crop into knit. High school economics taught me that only one company equals a monopoly, and we're learning - the hard way - all about the impacts on pricing. Pricing issues aside, the factory doesn't have the flexibility to mix in Lycra, or to produce heathered textures. We do what we can with what we have.

factory visit with our print manufacturer, july 2010

Another reason we try to keep supply chains in Uganda is because of logistics. Uganda is land-locked, so for us, the only way to import findings (zippers, buttons, rings, etc.) is using costly air freight to bring them in. We buy zips for our bags in the local markets, but the trusty YKK brand is not available in Uganda. We often have to sacrifice quality by buying in the local market.

adding a local market zipper to a coin purse in production

As we work on design improvements on our products, naturally the conversation falls to trims - small additions we can make to the bags that add a lot of value. Horn and leather are two items in Uganda that have a lot of market potential, so Gihan and I went on a little adventure to find both.

Horn

The horn guy wasn't too difficult to find - after all there's only one of him. All of the horn bowls, napkin rings, bracelets and rings in the local markets are made by one company. On a gray, rainy afternoon we drove out to visit Charles at his workshop. We pulled in to a water-logged field, the mud sucking our shoes as we stepped out of the Pajero. Charles invited us into his office, which was in a wooden building that had been lifted up onto cinder block stilts. I expected to see the striped stockings of the Wicked Witch of the West peeking out from the foundation. We walked down a creaking, tilted hallway and into the main office, where Charles explained the set up.

"You see, the government came in and improved the roundabout here," he gestured towards the road outside.

"Most people are happy about that. But I own this land, and when they build the new road, they elevated it. Now all the runoff comes right into my lands. Every time it rains, even a little, our workshops flood and people cannot work."

We weren't able to see the workshop that day, and learned that flooding is seriously hurting the business. Weather isn't his only problem. When we asked about high prices, Charles explained that the Chinese are coming in and buying up all the horn.

"I have a relationship with the butchers here. I've been working with them for many, many years," he explained.

"I used to go to trade shows in China to sell our horn products. Now the Chinese come and buy the horn straight from the butchers - by the CONTAINER! - and take it back to China to process it themselves. And," he paused, widening his eyes, "do you know that they are undercutting my prices?! They have increased the cost of horn for me here in Uganda, and they can still make the products cheaper than I can."

Gihan and I exchanged glances. This was becoming a familiar problem. Uganda's companies all seemed to be capital poor. While natural resources were abundant, they often found that they couldn't match the prices paid by foreign buyers. As a result, raw goods flew right out of the country before Ugandan companies could add value. We faced this all the time with Phenix, our organic cotton knit producer. With a worldwide cotton shortage, the Chinese, South Koreans and others had come in to Uganda and bought up all the raw organic cotton. Instead of buying knit from Phenix, they were taking it back and processing it themselves - and then selling the final knit version cheaper than the Ugandans could. We were left with the little Phenix could produce, which came with a very high price tag to make up for these losses.

We left Charles with some sample pieces for some horn jewelry we wanted to try, and picked our way through the marshy property back to the car.

Leather

Cows are a big deal in Uganda, so you might think leather goods would be a home run. Or that we could at least find some leather goods in Uganda. Or maybe just Ugandan leather. Our leads led us to a residential area off Ggaba Road, where we found what turned out to be a mid-size shoe factory. The scale of production was impressive - someone had clearly invested a lot of money into this project, judging by the heavy machinery that was being used to make work boots, sandals and all sorts of shoes for the local market. A friend suggested that they might sell us some leather to use for bag trims.

In the marketing office, the staff pulled out rolls and rolls of soft leather dyed in pastel colors. We marveled at the flexibility - it would work very well as piping and trim on bags. Gihan asked about the origins of the leather.

"Oh, this one? It is goat. From the UK. Very good quality. How much you want to buy?"

In a country FULL of cows and butcher shops, they were trying to sell us pastel British goat leather. The only Ugandan leather they had was extremely thick black leather used for uppers on work boots. Finally Joseph, our contact and the Director, came in from an outside meeting. After a brief conversation about our needs, he sent us off to a company called Fishnet, and we assured him that we'd be back if we ever got into the business of shoe-making.

Continuing on our journey, we headed back across the city into industrial area, to a compound not five minutes from our own apparel workshop. I'd heard that Fishnet sold leather, but Gihan was insistent that they only sold nets for catching fish. I enjoyed giving him a hard time about the huge detour we made with the shoe factory visit, when the leather place was our neighbor.

We walked into the main building, the facade tiled with undersea scenes. The reception area was empty. Gihan peered over the counter and waved me over excitedly. It was 330 in the afternoon, and the receptionist was sleeping. Not at her desk, but on an actual mattress next to her desk. She had a pillow and blanket, and was clearly sound asleep. We had to suppress our giggles as we walked down the hallway to find someone conscious to help us out.

I found a woman in the first doorway, labeled "Marketing Department," and walked into her office. I asked if we could find the person in charge of selling leather samples. She rolled her eyes dramatically and gestured to a chair outside her office. There was a one foot by one foot hole cut into the wall adjacent to her desk, with a chair sitting next to it. Apparently the protocol was that information could only be shared through the "window." Once I was in the chair, she perked up -

"Yes, hello. Welcome to Fishnet. How can I help you?" as if I hadn't met her just a second before.

I played along "Yes, thank you so much. We are looking for the person here who sells leather." Gihan stood in the hallway suppressing his laughter at me talking through this literal hole-in-the-wall.

After much back and forth, we found ourselves in a small room lined with shelves - shelves stacked high with high-quality, Ugandan leather. We bought a hide and drove the few minutes back to our workshop, content to add two more materials to our list of Ugandan-sourced supplies:

Organic cotton knit
Woven cotton prints
Banana leaf
Seeds
Horn (could be made into buttons, toggles, loops/rings, etc.)
Leather (could be made into straps, trims, or whole bags)

More than good intentions

2011-05-05T13:47:00.000-07:00

Suppose you are walking down a street by a lake on your way to a meeting, and if you miss the meeting you will lose two hundred dollars. You see a child drowning in the lake. Do you have an ethical obligation to stop and jump in and save the child, even though it will cost you two hundred dollars? Most people say yes.

Don't you then also have an ethical obligation to send two hundred dollars right now to one of many organizations delivering aid to the poor, where it can save a child's life? Most people say no, or at least, they don't cut that check.

children in an IDP camp in Northern Uganda, 2007

This example comes from Peter Singer, a utilitarian philosopher at Princeton. Dean Karlan and Jacob Appel use the hypothetical scenario to introduce the central dilemma of their new book, More than Good Intentions. The idea makes most of us uncomfortable - sending a check off to an organization requires a great deal of trust - how do we know that the organization is actually going to save the child? There's a big leap between the personal rescue and the checkbook.

When I first traveled to Uganda in 2006, I had the vague notion that I wanted to work in international development. I arrived in Gulu for the first time and my jaw dropped at the roundabouts lined with signs for NGOs - psychosocial support, HIV/AIDS work, conflict resolution, infrastructure, agricultural programs, demobilization, reintegration of child soldiers - the list goes on. I was moved by what I saw. I was appalled by the poverty, the conditions at IDP camps, the blank gaze of an 11-year-old boy who had just escaped captivity. I was deeply saddened, and felt a strong sense of responsibility (like the "walking-by-the-child-drowning-in-the-lake" example).

walking by the lake, sanyu babies home, kampala 2006

The super-saturation of NGOs and donors seemed positive. Everyone was passionate about helping Northern Uganda, and hundreds of millions of dollars in aid were pouring from the US, Europeans, and other donors. It was like a giant do-gooder party.

When I actually started working in Northern Uganda, I quickly became one of the cynics. Once a champion of Jeffrey Sachs, I started to think along the lines of Dambisa Moyo - who in Dead Aid posits that aid is actually making things worse. There are very clear reasons why I started One Mango Tree as a business. It created jobs and income for people in Northern Uganda. There's nothing muddy about that, and the impacts are obvious. I wasn't as interested in the trial-and-error (and keep funding even if it fails) approach that development seemed to take.

Randomized Control Trials: Asking the Right Question

In More than Good Intentions, Karlan and Appel take a step back from the aid debate and suggest that measurement is the only clear way forward. Serious testing and analysis can tell us what works and what doesn't, and if we put efforts only into what works (and abandon what doesn't), then aid really should make a difference, right? They dive right into this possibility, using randomized control trials (RCTs) to answer some big questions:

Why would a perfect loan candidate choose not to take a loan?
When you loan someone money for something specific (and urgent!), why do they buy a TV?
Why don't people use bed nets? Will they use them if they're free?
Why won't people pay for chlorine tablets for clean drinking water?
Why do people go to herbalists and avoid hospitals?

The answers are behavioral, and Karlan and Appel argue that most development programs operate on classical economic assumptions - leaving very important behavioral factors out of the equation. RCTs provide answers to the questions of why people do what they do. By surveying both individuals receiving the program and a control group who does not, researchers can get to the bottom of what works. Simple before-after analysis is not enough.

The Takeaways

The implications of Karlan and Appel's work are clear - support research to back up effectiveness of aid programs. If you're going to spend aid money, then spend money on a system to monitor its effectiveness - and do it right (I supposed this is where the ever-present M&E comes in). And if it ain't workin, then STOP funding it.

One Mango Tree's Village Savings & Loan Association

For a business venture, One Mango Tree does a lot of research. We collected baseline surveys for all of our staff, and re-visit the data each year. We collect cost information to re-assess our wages annually - can our staff still support their households on their One Mango Tree earnings? More than Good Intentions made me wonder if we could do more.

We could survey tailors in the local marketplace as a control group to see how our staff are faring compared to tailors in the market
We've come across problems where women stop coming to work once they earn about $100 in any period - RCT could help us get to the bottom of this
We could apply the research on savings - working within the One Mango Tree VSLA structure to help women set goals and restrict them from withdrawals until they reach the goal amount

Cutting a $200 check to save a child isn't enough. If we're to take poverty and development seriously, then we need rigorous testing to find out what works pump funding to those areas. A few listed by Karlan and Appel:

Microsavings (over microcredit)
Reminders to save - to combat messaging to buy
Prepaid fertilizer sales
Deworming
Chlorine dispensers for clean water
Remedial education in small groups
Commitment devices

Summer 2011 Lookbook

2011-05-05T13:10:00.001-07:00

I've been wanting to make a One Mango Tree Lookbook for ages. Every time I see a new Anthropologie catalog (my mom always sends me the ones that show up at home), or some cool indie designer who put together a video with a neat little song, my creative itch starts up. I get all sorts of ideas in my brain, but then sit in front of the computer wondering where to start - or rather, how to get the ideas from my head onto the computer screen.

anthropologie lures us to exotic lands with their gorgeous lookbooks

In January I bought myself an SLR camera. I don't really know how to use it. I have an HD video camera, but no editing software. Last weekend I put Adobe Photoshop on my netbook, and then, after it crashed about 15 times, I finally accepted that netbooks are for the INTERNET, not for ginormous design programs.

What I do have, however, is Lauranne Boyd, PowerPoint, and dafont.com. Lauranne's already a brilliant photographer, so I took the photos from the shoot she did for Summer 2011 and put them together on PowerPoint. Amy directed me to dafont (awesome), so I added some fun font descriptions and PDF'd the whole thing (using Primo PDF, free download).

Voila! A bootstrapped Lookbook.

cover of the OMT Summer 2011 Lookbook

I mean, hey. OMT started with $500 and a suitcase of products. The website is still Yahoo! Sitebuilder (free) and the blog is still blogger (free). The shopping cart is still PayPal (though I finally figured out how to get rid of those fugly yellow buttons). I use Excel to do accounting in Uganda (at least our US office is upgraded to Quickbooks), and I "edit" my own photos using Picasa (free).

I will learn Photoshop, and Illustrator, and InDesign. I will learn how to use my SLR on manual. I will learn about lighting and photographing models, and how to take video footage and make it into gorgeous little riffs that make you want to live in OMT products.

But in the meantime, I've got a business to run.

FYI - I wrote this entire post with the repeat of the song in this little DACE video streaming in the background. A girl can dream.

Spring 2011 from Dace on Vimeo.

Carry me home

2011-04-18T09:15:00.000-07:00

I started out this life with Catholic influences. St. John Neumann church, with its brick interior shaped like an inverted boat. I remember the puzzling blue toilet water in Father LaRocca's residence. At some point in time, I wore a frilly little dress and had some holy water splashed on me. Nevertheless, Sunday School didn't stick. I never quite became a Catholic, but I developed an affinity for the religious kitsch - especially prayer cards and paintings of saints.

in my journal: a little baptized me.

In high school, I made a little beaded necklace with a Saint Christopher pendant, a gift from my high school boyfriend's mom when I started {recklessly} driving my purple Chevy Camaro with T-tops. I hung St. Chris on my rearview mirror to ward off speeding tickets. In college, when I was studying Spanish at Fundacion Ortega y Gasset in Toledo, Spain, I marveled at the colossal painting of him crossing a river with little Jesucristo on his shoulders, faded and peeling on the cathedral's wall.

I was in Mexico last December during Puerto Vallarta's Virgen de Guadalupe celebrations, with parade floats of little girls donning virgin blue capes. I marveled at the feathered Aztec dancers approaching the cathedral with drums, hoots and yells, and stuffed my face with sugary donuts from street vendors. Across the street in the obligatory Cathedral Shop, I stocked up on prayer cards - of course St. Chris was in the mix - a nod to my secret protector.

I've spent the last 2.5 years as if I had a terminal illness, racing around the planet collecting memories and stories as quickly as I could, always anxious that I'd be missing an opportunity if I just stayed home. I've been terrified to waste time on the mundane details of everyday life. This most recent trip - a combination of a consultancy (setting up a USAID/OTI project on democracy and governance in Kenya) and product development (checking in on One Mango Tree and working on designs and supply chain issues) - lasted 2.5 months. Over the course of those months, the messages in my journal changed, from "Let go of knowing" to

Carry me home.

All I can think about is growing herbs and vegetables, cooking wonderful meals, and lavishing in routine. Building a nest and tucking in.

a list of ways to stay put.

creating a space to work from home.

books. bed. sit quietly, do nothing.

From The Alchemist:

"...before they left, he came back to the boy and said 'You're not going to die. You'll live, and you'll learn that a man shouldn't be so stupid. Two years ago, right here on this spot, I had a recurrent dream too. I dreamed that I should travel to the fields of Spain and looked for a ruined church where shepherds and their sheep slept. In my dream, there was a sycamore growing out of the ruins of the sacristy, I would find a hidden treasure. But I'm not so stupid as to cross an entire desert just because of a recurrent dream.'

And they disappeared.

The boy stood up shakily, and looked once more at the Pyramids. They seemed to laugh at him, and he laughed back, his heart bursting with joy.

Because now he knew where his treasure was."

The proof is in the matooke

2011-03-24T01:58:00.000-07:00

Dinner at Prisca's has become a routine for One Mango Tree visitors and interns. The first time you go, she'll cook for you - after that, it's time to pitch in. International Women's Day is a national holiday in Uganda, so we accepted the invitation to lunch at Prisca's, knowing full well that we'd be put to work as soon as we arrived. We headed straight into the family kitchen tukul, the last evidence of the traditional grass-thatched housing on Prisca's property.

inside Prisca's kitchen

Kaela got to work cutting matooke, while Martina and I provided moral support. Cutting matooke is a much harder job than it seems, as the tough green bananas don't peel like the familiar yellow ones, and they ooze a sticky sap.

Prisca & Kaela peel matooke for lunch

Before we arrived, Prisca had already made her now-famous fried chicken, dodo with simsim (greens with ground sesame paste), and sweet potatoes. With the boiled matooke, we had a ladies-only feast. We filed out of the kitchen and into the two-room brick house where Prisca's family currently lives.

watching Al-Jazeera, drinking refrigerated sodas

The living room got a fresh coat of robin's-egg-blue paint over the holidays, and Charles (Prisca's husband) connected the house to the Gulu electric lines. We watched Al-Jazeera on their little TV, and Prisca commented on Qaddafi and what she thought might happen with the conflict in Libya. The new chest refrigerator hummed in the corner, and Prisca presented us with a selection of cold sodas.

success doesn't come to you... you go to it

What seem to be normal, mundane details of a ladies lunch are actually quite extraordinary. When I started One Mango Tree, I wanted to see quick results - big changes in the tailors' lives, and fast. I'm learning that fair trade's proof comes with time - sustained, regular income is what moves people out of the poverty trap, and for good. Charles only works sporadically on construction projects - Prisca is the family breadwinner. Through careful savings and budgeting, the incremental improvements she's made have translated into big changes for her family.

the front door of the new family home

In between the kitchen tukul and the two-room home, Prisca and Charles built a large brick home. She used her 2010 savings to put in the roof, floor and window casings. Even while building their home, Prisca and Charles are now able to make spending decisions based on comfort, not necessity. Their family crowds the TV each evening to watch the news and local programs (Prisca loves the Spanish telenovelas dubbed into English - they are a big hit here). They have meat for dinner almost every night, and usually invite friends and family to join in the feast. Prisca cuts up cold pineapple as a treat for the kids when they come in from playing after school. Even the matooke we ate is telling - it's a cuisine choice from southern Uganda, and very expensive to buy in Gulu. It's one of Prisca's favorite treats - one she can now easily afford.

Fabric shopping: back to our roots

2011-03-22T08:15:00.000-07:00

Since I started One Mango Tree, East Africa's {broken} supply chains have been a pretty consistent source of wonder and frustration.

supply chain problems got so bad I had to journal about them

I followed the sad history of African kitenge fabric, from its Dutch origins to bales of imitation Chinese piece-meal versions flooding the local markets. As the business grew, I tried out working with a small local fabric print workshop. I watched in fear and horror as the mismanaged business collapsed under the weight of our order. I went bigger, working with the only vertically integrated textile manufacturer in Uganda. The echo of their laughter persisted for months when they price gouged us on a critical fabric order. 2,000 meters of printed organic cotton fabric means nothing when you're clothing the South Sudanese military.

new skirts, made with Cowry print - need enough fabric to make a zillion!

So, after 4 years of trying to find the perfect fabric source, I'm still searching, and trying (really, really hard) not to source directly from China. In the meantime, I decided that we'd just go back to our roots this season, sourcing bright kitenge in 12-yard pieces from the local vendors in Kampala.

Lisa haggling with a fabric vendor

Lisa Sonora Beam accompanied me downtown to help choose fabrics. I lived vicariously through the exhilaration of her first boda boda ride as we wound between matatus and afternoon traffic. When we arrived at Nakivubo Mews, I was shocked to see an empty construction site where Nalugo Traders used to be. I heard a woman calling out, and turned around to see Margret - one of the many vendors from Nalugo Traders - beckoning me from across the street.

stacks of kitenge - this is Lakshmi

I was amazed to see how the market had changed - the cotton, color-saturated kitenge is less common these days, replaced by synthetic silk-like fabrics, laser-cut lace in yellows and teals, and lots of glittery trims and big plastic buttons. It didn't take nearly as long as I thought to find the big vendor - today it's an over-loaded booth called Wax Africa. He buys from the Chinese bales and sells to the rest of the market vendors.

this season's source

We went nuts over the colors, deciding on five busy and bright prints - Lakshmi (red with a distinctly Indian vibe), Cowry (like the traditional Congolese, white, black, blue and green batik, with parallel lines of abstract cowry shells), Nalubaale (purple!), Mandala (one of the oldest kitenge print designs, recreated in turquoise and lime), and Gingko (a deep blue with cream and black abstract gingko leaves). When we were sure we'd bought just about every piece in the market, we packed it up and headed out, excited to start creating.

pack it up!

While this return to market fabrics is likely a brief reprieve from dealing with the big manufacturers, I really enjoyed the return - the boda boda ride, the haggling, the crazy crowded market, the clouds of exhaust from the neighboring taxi park, the almost comical insistence by vendors that "these fabrics are from CONGO!"

Filling the Well

2011-03-19T07:20:00.000-07:00

Lisa passed around a bunch of colored pencils to the group. We each chose one (I picked a dark, brick red), and wrote out a message to ourselves in scrawling, loopy cursive. We squirted paint over the text, and scraped it around with a credit card, forever obscuring the secret message, which peeked out in the texture and parts with less paint. My phrase came out of nowhere, and became a motif for my journal - a much more personal one than the business-focused journal I made in Mexico:

Let go of knowing.

We made mini-journals. I started mine on an Art Date - a three-hour workshop with wine, which my friend Anne Liese hosted at her home. I carried that journal to the weekend Filling the Well Retreat at Lagoon Resort - a two-day workshop where I added and added to my new little book until it was literally bursting at its temporary, yarn-secured binding.

I've worked on my big journal since Mexico, but going to Lagoon Resort gave me the excuse to completely unplug (no power, no internet) and be present, totally absorbed in my art supplies.

essentials: magazine images, packing tape, glue stick, coffee

What's more, my new little journal didn't have a purpose. I didn't think I was doing any problem-solving in my pages. I just worked in the process, painting and collage, layering, tape transfers, all sorts of textures on top of each other, leaving the blank space to fill it up with writing later on.

one of my favorite poems - self portrait

At our rubber stamp station (a table set up with loads of alphabet stamps), I found little number stamps, which had the numbers spelled out as words:

THREE ZERO

I'm about to turn thirty (one month from today), and feeling oddly calm about it. I'm never one to get worked up about my birthday, but at the retreat, I stamped the words THREE ZERO on the bottom left corner of every page of my journal, concentrating on the number - making it real. I left lots of space to write, filled with beautiful images. A safe and beautiful place to record the mundane and the emotional as I journey through my 30th year.

H30: my mini-journal

About a week after the retreat ended, I reached cruising altitude. For the first time in months, I felt safe. I was shaken upon arriving in Uganda - astonished at how easy it would be to just stay; reminded at just how much I love this place, and the feeling of being alone here. My emotions were turbulent, and both happiness and anxiety were running full throttle. I don't fully understand what happened on the {still empty of text} pages of my little journal, but I'm grateful for the leveling out; the letting go.

Working alone together

2011-03-19T04:51:00.000-07:00

When I asked Lisa Sonora Beam to come to Uganda last December, I had no idea she'd really take me up on it. Just a few months later, we met at Entebbe Airport and began an artful adventure - two weeks of travel/working together with some evening art dates and a weekend retreat.

meeting my travel/work buddy in Mexico

I've traveled with many people, but it was a completely new experience to travel with a fellow entrepreneur. Lisa and I both spend most of our time working from home on the businesses we love, and quickly found that we also suffer from the same ailments of the work-at-home entrepreneur (time-wasting on Facebook & Twitter, too much time alone, thoughts and confidence taking a nosedive in the late afternoon, etc. etc.). I'd never want to return to a regular 9-to-5 employee existence, but sometimes "working-at-home" isn't all it's cracked up to be.

recipe for success = fellow entrepreneur + double cappuccino (image source)

As Lisa and I shared morning coffee highs at Javas, a coffee shop in Kampala owned by a Somali family, we laughed over the concept of being "alone together," and how much better it is to share a workspace (or a cafe table) with a like-minded individual. Lisa worked on her design business and workshop descriptions, and I re-coded all the add to cart buttons on the One Mango Tree website. Our laptops are the tools of our trade, which allows us to work wherever there is internet. I've enjoyed this new way of working for a few years now, but traveling with Lisa was the first chance I had to co-work "alone together" with a fellow entrepreneur.

The result? Ideas shared, support during the 3:30 crash, and someone to share in the sometimes annoyingly-slow African internet. We also brainstormed ways to collaborate, began planning an Artful Traveler Africa 2012 trip, and helped talk each other through some sticky business dilemmas. The whole experience was so inspiring, I'm thinking that finding some other co-work buddies in Ecuador will be a must.

Lake Victoria, or how water hyacinth is like the chatter in our minds

2011-02-22T08:01:00.000-08:00

utterly consumed

I was in Kisumu last Saturday, interviewing candidates at the dusty old Imperial Hotel. On the way to the airport, my colleagues and I stopped at a beach resort, expecting a view of Lake Victoria. As we picked our way across the grassy yard and whispering palms, the shore came into view. From the coastline to the horizon, all we could see was green - the surface of the lake completely covered in a carpet of water hyacinth. I could see it multiplying - the tentacle-like stolons reaching through the murky water, doubling again and again, thickening the field of bulbous plants. I imagined the hyacinth devouring the boats that were anchored in the bay, patiently waiting for a wind to free them from the suffocating grips.

I walked around the waterfront, Bob Marley wafting through the humid air as I took snaps of the hyacinth. A breeding ground for mosquitoes, a haven for snakes.

hyacinth at the apocalypse

With broad, thick, glossy, ovate leaves, water hyacinth may rise above the surface of the water as much as a meter in height. The leaves are the size of a human palm, floating above the water's surface. They have long, spongy and bulbous stalks. The feathery, freely hanging roots are purple-black. Their flowers, a softer shade of purple, are beautiful; long-coveted for colonial water gardens across the tropics.

From the Victorian shore, I felt for the water, invaded as it was by this unwelcome visitor. I envisioned the similar infestation creeping in on me day by day. A "what if?" followed by more "what ifs" until the mind, unable to fend off the reproduction, is completely consumed. Suffocated by thought. Choked and paralyzed by the vastness of too many creeping opportunities. What was once calm, blue water is now something entirely different. The lake's only option is to wait it out, to wait for the winds to disperse the hyacinth.

a "beach resort" no longer

The owner of the beach resort joined us at the shore, a Kenyan-Indian with a magnificent white Fu Manchu mustache and a large belly hanging over a giant anchor belt buckle. He talked about the old days - before the hyacinth - sweeping his arm across the scene so as to erase the green and replace it with white sand beaches. He gestured to empty dirt pits on the shoreline - he decided to build fish ponds on the property instead, to give guests something to do.

the no-longer-useful recreational equipment

An hour later, on the short flight to Nairobi, we took off over the lake. The waters finally came into view, fringed by an innocuous green mist - from afar the scene seemed fine; pretty, even. I laid my head back on the seat, closed my eyes, and began to count my breaths. I envisioned a strong wind pushing the hyacinth away from the shore, leaving behind a white sand beach, waves gently lapping, and a calm, impenetrable surface.

Listening to heart sounds

2011-02-22T04:55:00.000-08:00

I just finished reading Cutting for Stone, a book I received as a gift at Christmas and have been toting around on my travels since then. A beautiful book - here's a section from a dog-eared page.

"Looking back, I realize Ghosh saved me when he called me to feel Demisse's pulse. My mother was dead, my father a ghost; increasingly I felt disconnected from Shiva and Hema, and guilty for feeling that way. Ghosh, in giving me the stethoscope, was saying, Marion, you can be you. It's okay. He invited me to a world that wasn't secret, but it was well hidden. You needed a guide. You had to know what to look for, but also how to look. You had to exert yourself to see this world. But if you did, if you had that kind of curiosity, if you had an innate interest in the welfare of your fellow human beings, and if you went through that door, a strange thing happened: you left your petty troubles on the threshold. It could be addictive."

Take a peek at my bookshelf on Goodreads.

Rediscovering yoga on the road

2011-02-17T06:29:00.000-08:00

It was late 2009 when I broke up with yoga. Earlier in the year, after my big move to Uganda, I was ecstatic about both practicing and teaching, and I'd found a great community with daily classes. I was madly in love with my practice.

yoga at sipi falls

Then I found a boyfriend. Cooking dinners, drinking wine and snuggling seemed way more enticing than my nightly yoga practice. Falling in love didn't seem like a good enough reason to stop practicing altogether, but before I knew it, it was Christmas vacation, and then a road trip, and then I was on my way to Pakistan. I spent most of 2010 living out of hotels, telling myself that I'd find balance in my life "when the trip was over."

It turns out that the trip is my life, and while I was lucky enough to visit and/or work in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Pakistan, Turkey, Kenya, Mexico and Ecuador, my well-being was taking a serious hit. Stress, coffee and an unpredictable emotional roller coaster were my new practice.

One of my biggest crutches in yoga began as an amazing blessing - I started practicing in a community. My friends and I traded yoga schedules and planned our entire social schedule around our combined practice. I put heavy emphasis on the physical presence of a teacher, and the benefit of the combined breathing of all the students - taking you to a completely different place. Yoga classes were often followed with food, friends and comfort. When I traveled, as much as I loved the journey, my practice felt lonely, and the solitude drove me far away from my mat.

my lonely jade travel mat

When I started packing for yet another trip - a two-monther in Kenya and Uganda - I sighed as I folded up my yoga mat and stuffed it in my suitcase. A nagging little voice in me said "put it back, you know it's just extra weight and you won't even use it." Before I left, I stopped by my friend Dan's place (a yoga teacher) and asked him for some new music. He loaded me up with Beirut, Cinematic Orchestra, and one of his yoga class playlists.

my yoga teacher on the road - yoga downloads

One slow afternoon on the other side of the earth, I convinced the spa receptionist at my fancy hotel to let me use the 'relaxation room' to practice. Looking over the leafy streets of Westlands, I rolled out my mat, took child's pose, and came home.

My rediscovery of yoga has not been what I expected - trumpeting angels rejoicing in my return. My body feels weak. I can't do poses I used to do with ease. My breath often feels strangled and it sometimes takes 10 minutes for me to be able to fully breathe through both nostrils. I sweat buckets doing what used to be simple. But, oddly enough, instead of feeling ashamed or frustrated, I feel liberated. I wake up each day with a new soreness, and feel newly alive.

I'm beginning to realize that somewhere around this globe, maybe somewhere between Turkey and Kenya, I lost my compass. Before this trip, I was walking down 18th Street to meet a friend for enchiladas. The winter day was beautiful, but I felt wildly out of body. Wildly out of touch. I looked around at the streets crusted with ice and snow, and felt displaced.

A million miles away in a town in the dry, hot and dusty Northern Rift Valley, I arrived in my decrepit old room at Sirikwa Hotel, overlooking an eerily green swimming pool - the floor covered in an old dusty green wall-to-wall carpet. I dropped my suitcase on the bed, pulled out my yoga mat, and brought myself home.

I can be the product

2011-02-05T04:31:00.000-08:00

excerpt adapted from my journal, early December, 2010

I can’t believe it was only this morning that I woke up to the chime of my alarm clock bells sounding off the hours of my scheduled bio-holistic massage.

my most frequently-viewed page, advice to my little vulnerable self

It was still dark out when I creeped out of the room and to the main building to meet Adrian, who spent the next 90 minutes working on my energy with vibrating tuning forks and hot rocks.

We spent the day today working on a combination of our takeaways and the convergence of Heart & Meaning and Gifts & Flow.

little blue archers help me find the sweet spot

Each day we’re writing down 10 takeaways from the workshop – sort of little a-ha moments (and some big ones too). After sitting in the studio flipping through my pages, suddenly I wrote down:

“I can be the product.”

We spent the better part of 45 minutes answering the question “What if I can be the product?” Each skeptical, doubtful question was immediately followed by a positive one (not necessarily intentional, but that was the flow of the discussion).

What if it’s a complete failure? What if it’s a complete success?

the inner critic is a real bitch, but I am a BAD ASS

We really do walk a fine line when we follow the convergence and stay true. It could tip in either direction based on tons of different factors. Nevertheless, the question is never whether or not I’ll try. I know I will still try, regardless of the potential outcome; regardless of the fear.

Talking about convergence, stamping, creating and writing my way into the first two paths of the mandala reawakened the massive energy I received when One Mango Tree came into alignment. It’s the sweet spot – the embodiment of both my heart and meaning, and my gifts and flow. I know how to ride that wave. But, putting it all down on paper gives me something to pull out and remember when I’m having a hard time paying the bills and everything seems to be falling apart. I reconnected with the WHY behind One Mango Tree, and it’s much more personal than what I thought.

Now, what’s next? On to the next challenge? Can I be the product? What am I doing with this consulting career? What do I do with myself if I go to Ecuador?

what's next? opportunity exploration

If I am, in fact, the product, then how do I package it up and ship it out? I’m happy to say we’re still going over all of these issues, and I’ll have plenty of time to turn back to the journal and work them out in the morning. At least I’m excited to try, because working things out now also means that I get to paint and create beauty while I’m problem-solving.

Tonight we decided to end class early and head into town to check out ArtWalk. It turned into several quick trips into craft shops, looking for the perfect little altars, embroidered stuff and those hand-blown glass hearts. We stopped off at little art supplies shops and picked up more “notions” – ribbon stencils, funny Mexican bingo cards, more acrylic paints, and a bundle of magical pom poms on a rope. I have no clue what I’ll ever use them for, but I had to buy them.

art supplies: magical pom-poms and bingo cards

Halfway through our journey, we came upon the Virgen de Guadalupe. She rose above the cobblestone street in her blue cape, in front of a cloud-dotted blue sky. Bells pealed from the old cathedral. I ate another tamal.

Rubber stamps as meditation

2011-02-03T23:32:00.000-08:00

excerpt adapted from my journal, December 2010

Rubber stamping has been a big surprise. I was in love with it as a little kid. I had a whole Caboodle box (pink and teal) in which I stored all my stamping supplies. I’ve been borrowing Lisa’s alphabet stamps, taking the time to stamp out words slowly, one letter at a time.

stamping out my "I love being messy" page

It takes on a rhythm, and each time I stamp a letter, I repeat the word to myself. I pick a letter from the box, ink it, stamp the page, dab the stamp to clean it, and replace it in the box. Over and over. I wish I could be as deliberate as this about so many other processes in life. The sheer inability to skip a step, or to make the steps any shorter requires a lengthening of pace. I want to stamp out poetry. Novels.

meditation

If when I’m having a hard time accepting something, maybe if I put the word on a page using stamps, I’ll be able to accept it more readily. I’ll fully grasp the consonants and vowels, and their almost-but-not-quite alignment on the page. They’ll come together as a full word and I’ll smile, pleased at the reward for all of the effort.

I want to stay in the flow all the time, and learn to swim in it – to float sometimes, but also to actively move with it. To stay still within the flow when I need to. I so often get going on a project or an idea and my brain speeds up to the point where I can’t slow it down. My heart races – I feel excited, but I also feel panicky. I’m not sure what to do with all the thoughts flowing into my very open brain and heart. Sometimes it feels like too much – filling up the tub to soak and relax, but then forgetting you left the tap on and walking into a bathroom flooded with suds.

opportunity statement, in stamps

I have a lot to give, and I feel comfortable contributing. I know what it takes to take a dream and turn it into a functioning business. I can walk through all the things that often seem to suck life from the dream: legal business registration, import/export regulations, shipping documentation, supply chain gaps, training, quality control, accounting and finance, cash flow management (still getting the hang of that one), finding capital (any ideas?). I guess we’ll work on those tomorrow. We started with the fun stuff.

Filling the Well: A Retreat

2011-02-03T04:36:00.000-08:00

You're invited!

Filling the Well: A Mixed-Media Creativity Retreat for Women
March 5-6, 2011
Lagoon Resort, Lake Victoria

Please join us 5-6 March 2011 for an incredible weekend retreat with Lisa Sonora Beam, author of The Creative Entrepreneur. I attended Lisa's retreat in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, in November, and found it to be a transformational experience (check out recent posts here to read about my experience in Lisa's workshop). I knew that women living and working in Uganda would appreciate this type of retreat. I was thrilled when Lisa agreed to come to Uganda to teach a workshop. We're excited to host the weekend at Lagoon Resort, a beautiful (and quick) escape from Kampala.

Visit Lisa's site for a detailed workshop description.

We have three pricing options, depending on your lodging preference - prices include the retreat, optional yoga classes (vinyasa flow classes taught by me on Saturday evening and Sunday morning), all meals, and lodging. Most art materials are also provided. Boat ride is also included.

Camping (bring your own tent) $305
Banda (shared) $350
Banda (single) $370

Please let me know if you have any questions - space is limited, so reserve today! Send an email to halle@onemangotree.com to arrange payment and secure your spot!

Hope to see you at Lagoon Resort!

Gifts & Flow

2011-02-02T22:57:00.000-08:00

excerpt adapted from my journal, early December 2010

Another beautiful day at Hacienda Mosaico – Venessa woke up at 5:30 and went out with her computer. At 7:30 we did yoga in front of the blue mosaic fountain wall.

our yoga studio

Today’s focus was on building the Mandala itself. The mandala has 8 legs – we’ve explored four at this point – Heart & Meaning, and Gifts and Flow. Every time I think of “Gifts and Flow,” I think of the walk between Starbucks and my house – the one I take late every morning to pick up my cup of coffee and head back to my office for whatever is waiting there to be tackled.

gifts & flow spread

With caffeine coursing through my veins, the world transforms a bit – the colors are all amped up. Images, designs, and wacked out design ideas start to bombard me so much that sometimes I feel like sitting down on the sidewalk to just soak it up. It’s a huge surge of creativity – creativity I was previously unable to put down on paper to communicate in any productive way. I would just use it as a motivator to go home and focus on email / Facebook / Twitter, etc.

Journaling is going to be a new way of life for me. A new way of work.

finding the sweet spot of the entrepreneur's mandala

It’s the communication tool with myself that’s been absent. Everything I’ve created seems so intangible, and I repeat the mantra “I’m not a designer” over and over again to anyone who asks a question about One Mango Tree products. But why shouldn’t I be the designer? Do I need to go to RISD to be a designer? Harvard GSD? I can develop color stories and ideas for textile designs – or at least I have found a language with which I can better communicate with designers to achieve what I want – to get those ideas from my head onto paper or a screen.

The feeling of immersing myself in the creative process is complete.

Heart & Meaning

2011-02-02T05:33:00.000-08:00

excerpt adapted from my journal, early December 2010

Our second journal prompt was part of the entrepreneur’s "mandala" – Heart and Meaning. We spent what felt like eternity flipping through magazines, looking for images that expressed our heart and meaning. Lisa read out prompts, but each one left me feeling a bit lacking – like I just wasn’t finding the right stuff in the magazine images.

glass-blown hearts and sunshine

I felt super anxious tearing images out of magazines, yet internally I ridiculed my own anxiety. I kept thinking "it's just collage! Chill out!"

Somehow, at the end of this arduous image collecting stretch, I had a pile next to me. Some of it was overtly negative – representing the stress I feel on a day to day basis; the burden of risk and financial responsibility of playing this role of entrepreneur. The fact that I spent more time finding images of stress than heart and meaning was telling. It's not unlike how I spend most work-at-home days.

I pushed those stress images aside for later and laid out the pieces that best represented heart and meaning. I added an extra page and made a sort of map of blue calm. On the left was Africa, with the firm grounding I found there, and the empowerment I felt and created with my work on One Mango Tree. The middle showed even more grounding – inner calm, a Hindu diety, a lone mountain gorilla contemplating the forest, two people kayaking on a calm sea, aerial views over the middle east, reminiscent of chaos and order of Pakistan. On the far right page was South America, with the taunting parrot claw pointing to Ecuador.

my heart & meaning spread

Can I take it all with me? Will Ecuador be the next part in this journey? What will it all mean?

I found so much meaning through my work in Uganda, and I found strength and calm through yoga and meditation. I found new confidence working in Pakistan. What will I find in Ecuador? How do I make this place a new part of my own story? Where does it leave the other plot lines (Uganda, Pakistan)?

We took our page spreads into the garden and took on the role of a scientist, collecting field notes about the images. Some excerpts:

1. What surprises you? blue blue blue calm instead of red red red passion

2. What's not here? text. a silent film with no words.

3. What is the mood? contemplative. neverending exploration.

4. What do you want me to know? warm, coffee-stained and aged with time. beautiful, complete calm with the journey. You found a place of meaning within - through meaningful work - it's okay to take it with you.

Take away

2011-02-01T12:36:00.000-08:00

excerpt adapted from my journal, early December 2010

Dos tacos pastores, con frijoles, cebollas fritas, queso y cilantro. Una quesadilla de pollo. Una margarita con sal.

taco stand menu near Hacienda Mosaico

All eaten by twinkling lights pool-side back at Hacienda Mosaico. Venessa and I discovered that the only thing we like more than our visual journals is food. When the afternoon workshop wrapped up at 6:30, we hit the corner taco stand. I practiced my espanol, and marveled at the wonder of a taco stand, and the bewilderment that there isn’t one in my hood in DC.

get rid of the blank page

Today’s workshops were a dive (head-first) into creativity. Within minutes, Lisa had our journals open, smocks on, and paints blurted all over the page. The only thing more intimidating than creating is looking at a blank page, so to confront this initial fear head on, we squirted our craft paint onto the page and then used old gift cards to scrape the paint horizontally and vertically, creating gorgeous color and texture. I quickly realized that I preferred working with bright colors and deep hues – blues/greens, greens/yellows, reds/oranges, pink/yellows. Purple/yellow didn’t work out so well. Lisa was right – I instantly fell in love with every single thing I was doing on the page. It brought out an artistic confidence that I hadn’t felt in a very long time.

What do I really, really, really want?

Our first prompt of the day required that we take out a pen and take on this issue head-on, in writing, right on one of those perfectly painted bright, beautiful pages. It was scary, but then again, I wasn’t doing this for anyone else – only myself, so I just started writing whatever came to me, without judging what was being put onto the paper. It’s a process; not a product. Adding magazine cut-outs and text, I framed the spread with beautiful images of work. I don’t exactly know what it means, but it’s something about overcoming obstacles, giving first in order to get back, and doing what equates to “beautiful work.”

take away #6: I love being messy

It is strange how in this visual journal, I’m completely messy. It’s a trait I don’t allow myself in real life, keeping everything tidy, in its place, organized. Yet on these pages, I’m splattering stuff. I don’t care about lettering or handwriting – somehow the messier it all gets, the better. The more color, the better. It’s so different from the self that I put out there to others, yet I still love it. I love that it’s me.

Mosaico: magical arrival

2011-01-31T23:14:00.000-08:00

the place of renewal

Once again, I find myself in Amsterdam, at Schiphol Airport. I re-organized the contents of my external hard drive on the flight from Washington - a task I've been meaning to get to for some time. Strange that such a technical-sounding activity could end up being so reflective. With Beirut cooing in my ears, I browsed my folders and happened across some writing simply titled "MOSAICO." In the typical holiday craziness and all of my ensuing travels, I'd forgotten how much time I spent writing about the process of experiencing Lisa Sonora Beam's workshop in Mexico. Since I'm helping Lisa put together a workshop in Kampala in early March, I thought it would be a good time to share.

one of Hacienda Mosaico's many breathing spots

Last New Year's Eve, as Danny and I were embarking on our circumnavigation of Lake Victoria, we stopped off at our friends' Wim and Monique's place in Jinja for the night. It was my last night of internet, and I came across a blog post by Lisa Sonora Beam. I was drawn in by her art - the visual journal technique that she teaches. I saw that she was teaching a workshop in 2010 in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. I simultaneously thought "I could never create something like that!" and "I must go!"

Almost a full year later, the stars aligned and magically, I'm here.

Hacienda Mosaico is absolutely beautiful. It is a living, breathing manifestation of art – from the winding pathways and strategic little breathing spots, to the frenzy of color and artwork on every surface. It didn’t take much cold weather in Ohio for me to re-appreciate warmth, palm fronds and the living, breathing green of the tropics. Even just feeling the sun and warmth on my skin opened up my heart a bit about moving to Ecuador. It reawakened my desire to stay with the journey. The creation of place is really strong here – there’s a hammock strung up in a little grotto, with hand-blown blue-glass hearts hanging from the tree branches. It’s truly magical, and it woke up the tiny creator inside of me. I have a feeling she’s going to roar tomorrow morning.

looking down the stairs from the studio

It’s also a magical thing to be here with so many energetic women – all searching for something and here to connect with their art. We’re all devouring the thought “what’s next?”…as if instead of creating art in our journals, we’re actually just chipping away - revealing what’s already there on the page.

2010 bookshelf

2011-01-24T16:45:00.000-08:00

* * from bookshelf porn * *

Reviewing my bookshelf is another way of reflecting on the year. My reading selections mirror my travels, exploring new parts of the world through literature - both fiction and non-fiction. I spent most of 2010 traveling, mostly between Africa (a place I've come to call home) and South Asia (a region I knew next-to-nothing about). An exploration of corruption and democracy in October was prompted by a trip to Kenya to work on a proposal for preventing election violence.

Aside from my work, my reading delves into my psyche, and those things that are always bubbling up, distracting me. I started to examine the possibility of a serious, long-term relationship, one that would make me into a "trailing spouse."

And as always, there are the books I read for guidance, looking for literary mentors as I shape my life as an entrepreneur. How can I improve One Mango Tree?

This reading reflection is a journey through the year - a satisfying one at that - traveling anew through places and emotions (bathtubs, earthquakes, identity, pool floating, unknown airports, turbulence, anticipation).

Be the Change: How Meditation Can Transform You & the World by Ed & Deb Shapiro - a collection of perspectives on meditation - recommended by Britt Bravo of Have Fun, Do Good Blog. Motivated me to really commit to a meditation practices in the new year.
Location: on the couch in front of the woodstove at the Old Rag Mountain Cabin in Syria, Virginia

Traveling with Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd & Ann Kidd Taylor - a beautiful look at the mother-daughter relationship, filled with observations as each woman passes through very different stages of her life.
Location: cuddled up in front of the woodstove with Henry at Old Rag Mountain Cabin

The Art of Non-Conformity by Chris Guillebeau - saw his Empire Building kit on Lisa Sonora Beam's blog and decided to check out the book - lots of good ideas, but mostly focused on helping to push the almost-there non-conformist into totally unconventional. I'm already there, so it felt like preaching to the choir. If you need some pushing, here's a good place to start. Although, Chris's frenetic travel patterns make even me a little uncomfortable...
Location: Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, in between glue-ing shit down in Lisa's Creative Entrepreneur retreat.

Little Bee by Chris Cleave - it's rare for me to really hate something I read, but I really hated this book. While the writing itself was great, I just don't think white men should try to create a voice for African women. I could not stand the selfish British characters. It all just made me feel very ugh for days on end. Carrie warned me, I should have listened.
Location: at home in DC

Wars, Guns and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places by Paul Collier - wanted to learn more about this after traveling to Kenya and learning more about ethnic conflict and elections... good read.

The Creative Entrepreneur by Lisa Sonora Beam - I went to Lisa's retreat in Mexico after Thanksgiving, and was SO excited to get her book - it's all about strategic planning for creative businesses, but involves a lot of writing, drawing, painting, etc. Right up my alley, as I think about what's next for One Mango Tree.

Purple Cow by Seth Godin - great, quick little read about how to change your business by being remarkable. Lots of inspirational bits - picked it up off Catherine's shelf.
Location: on our thrift store arm chair

It's Our Turn to Eat by Michela Wrong - picked this up to get up to speed for the consultancy I'm doing right now, related to Kenya's election violence in 2007 and continuing ethnic conflict. Great book; well-written - seems to have the same message (though more subtle) as Moyo in Dead Aid.
Location: en route to NBO

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson - this one took me FOREVER to finish, but the fast-paced courtroom drama at the end was well worth all the boring parts in the beginning - tying up loose ends, just like the 3rd of a trilogy should do.
Location: home in DC in the armchair that eats you, and in Nairobi

Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo - an honest viewpoint I can't help but share - that foreign aid may just be the source of Africa's suffering. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Location: train to and fro Boston

The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson - just like the rest of the world, the train wreck of a first book got me hooked, and I couldn't put this one down. Grateful that it was less violent than the first.
Location: Schiphol KLM Biz Class Lounge

The Lost City of Z by David Grann - another loaner from Lauranne. All about nasty insects in the Amazon, but also about a fascinating time when places awaited discovery.
Location: Under the mossie net in Gulu, and on the couch in an otherwise empty house in Muyenga.

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller - a recommendation from Lauranne, I devoured this book in one night. Absolutely fantastic read - Miller is asked to write a screenplay about his life and uncovers the importance of "story." Read, love, read again.
Location: Under the mossie net in Gulu

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larson - my turn to jump on the bandwagon. Great writing and character development, just unsure and unsettled about the EXTREME VIOLENCE and EXTREME POPULARITY of this trilogy. Yes, I will now read the next two.
Location: Under the mossie net in Gulu

The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande - a recommendation from Julie, great little book that excuses us for being human and explores why and how simple checklists can make a huge difference in many disciplines.
Location: hammock at The Haven in Jinja

Start with Why by Simon Sinek - borrowed this one from Lauranne up in Gulu. Inspiring, though at times loses its thread - a good pep talk for all the OMT-speak I'll be doing this fall and winter.
Location: Istanbul and Uganda

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid - read this on the way back to Uganda at the suggestion of my new friend and Pakistani jewelry-maker-extraordinaire - Amna Shariff. Well-written - short but powerful.
Location: bounding through the Middle East airspace

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown - I really needed a fast-paced distraction from the work in Pakistan. This was a perfect, ridiculously-written, guilty pleasure. And it made me long for DC.
Location: various terminals waiting for PIA flights

The Great Partition: the making of India and Pakistan by Yasmin Khan - a historical account of partition, certainly an eye opener for me, and it added so much context to my trip (when I had a few moments to ponder historical references).
Location: straddling Uganda and Pakistan

Descent into Chaos by Ahmed Rashid - a total eye opener about South and Central Asia since 9/11. When Clinton briefed Bush at the White House in 2000, he enumerated three major threats: Al Qaeda, nuclear tensions between Pakistan and India, and Pakistan's links to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Oops.
Location: My very first Kindle book, read on the patio, in the pool and on the porch at Gorilla Forest Camp.

Diplomatic Baggage by Brigid Keenan - about life as a "trailing spouse" - for women who fall in love with a man in diplomatic service (CRAP) and then find themselves traipsing around the world on his coattails. This was a gift from one such woman in Kampala, with whom I happened to get into a discussion about my relationship with an FSO... Unsettling and entertaining at the same time.

Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert - the author of Eat, Pray, Love writes the highly-anticipated follow up, about her skeptical venture into second marriage. She artfully picks apart the institution of marriage, but somehow companionship still wins.
Location: on the back patio in Kampala

Linchpin by Seth Godin - I've been getting Seth's Blog updates delivered to my inbox for some time now, and they're always insightful and relevant to my business. Linchpin seemed a bit repetitive, but really should be read by college students everywhere - message: there is another path.
Location: plane ride LHR - Doha - Dubai - Addis - EBB

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts - a brick of a book that I just could not put down. Adventurous and totally worth it. Maybe get the Kindle version because it's actually heavy to lug around.
Location: PIA flights and departure lounges of IBD, KHI, LHR, etc.

Enough: Breaking Free from the World of Excess by John Naish - picked this up at the Dubai Airport, on adopting the art of "enoughness" - we already have everything we need; it's all just a state of mind.
Location: various hotel rooms across Pakistan.

Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas Friedman - I already drank the Friedman Kool-Aid ages ago, and even though his books are all too long and repetitive, it feels like hanging out with an old friend (you know, the kind who always gets worked up about the same thing and talks incessantly, but you still love them?)

Leaving Microsoft to Change the World by John Wood - excellent quick read. for anyone who's ever wanted to do something "radically" different with their life but didn't have the courage to walk away from the normal path. Feel like I found a kindred spirit in John Wood, founder of Room to Read.
Location: PIA flight from Lahore to Multan, Pakistan

The Piano Teacher by Janice Y.K. Lee - this one was another gift - riveting and a bit creepy - I kept reading before bed and would wake up thinking the Japanese were invading Kampala... kind of a sad look at expat life.
Location: bath tub and in bed - mostly passing out and waking up all bewildered with the light on

Stones into Schools by Greg Mortenson - I loved Three Cups of Tea, so was happy to see this on the shelves in the US at Christmas - and now that I'm reading it, there's lots hitting home, from descriptions of the earthquake, to working with women in Pakistan.
Location: bathtub at home, under the net at night in Gulu, thinking of Danny in Haiti

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell - we're a product of our upbringing after all - thanks, Mom, for the learning kit! It made me who I am :)
Location: bow of the African Queen in Mwanza, Tanzania

War Dances by Sherman Alexie - a Christmas gift from a friend, excellent short stories
Location: petrol station in Serengeti while we got the bushings repaired on the Defender

Out of Poverty by Paul Polak - a gift from OSU Prof. Blaine Lilly when I stopped by for a visit over the holidays. Excellent book on product design for less than $1-a-day families around the world - focusing mostly on irrigation and growing off-season vegetables
Location: the big trip - picked up at Uganda/Kenya and Kenya/Tanzania border crossings while paperwork was being done

For a look at my 2009 reads, check out last year's reflection.
For a summary flavor of my reading {past, present, future} check out my Goodreads profile.

the america experiment

2010-09-12T12:16:00.000-07:00

After about two years on the road, I'm back in America, feet [sort of] firmly planted on the meticulously organized and clean sidewalks of Our Nation's Capital. I'm awestruck by the things around me - the apparent mainstreaming of skinny trousers and leggings, funny toe-less boots (huh?), and the complete proliferation of hand-held technology. I was dismayed the other day, on my way to buy slouchy ankle boots in Dupont Circle, at my inability to two-thumb text/gchat/email on my LG Ally while walking with a coffee in my other hand. I suppose in a couple of months I'll be longing for the simplicity of a tank top, flip flops and my circa-1992 Ugandan-dirt-stained Nokia phone.

But for now, I'm happy just soaking up all things American. Sick of airplanes, I decided to take the Amtrak up to Boston for the Fair Trade Futures Conference this weekend. I reclined the seat, pressed my forehead up to the glass, gazed at the marshy beaches of the somewhere-north-of-Delaware, and started to reflect.

The sheer enormity of change in 2010 put a damper on reflection - one of my favorite hobbies. Perhaps some years are all about reflecting (2008) while others (2009, 2010) are all about moving.

This year has been filled with dramatic movements - first the circumnavigation of Lake Victoria, then the shifting earth in Haiti. And then working in Pakistan. March. April. June. July. The intoxicating dance of being completely on your own in a place that is completely new.

In July the unthinkable occurred - my Mom and Dad came to Africa. Seeing them take in my Uganda felt like an invisible hand sewing up the giant crevasse that my work there had created.

dad, lucy, me and mom in lucy's new house in gulu.

Summer 2010 wrapped up with a magical eggplant- and kilim-shopping-filled trip to Istanbul, and Danny's turn to climb Kilimanjaro.

hank and neilos - do we really have to leave?

Before I knew it, we were packing up Henry and Neilos and saying tear-filled goodbyes to Aisha, our housekeeper, who had become my best friend. We sat at a goodbye dinner amongst our closest friends, with twinking candlelight and bottles of wine, and had to remind ourselves over and over again that this time we were the ones leaving.

For Danny this America experiment is a mere stopover to learn a new language before his South American adventure begins in April. For me, it's a homecoming. As fall approaches, so too does my penchant for slow, quiet music and forehead-pressed-against-the-glass reflecting. I suspect that in the coming months, it will be about much more than skinny jeans and fancy phones.

lahore - the return.

2010-06-15T08:49:00.000-07:00

After a hot bath and some ridiculous chick lit, I feel better. I started feeling better when the turn-down guy came to my room - the same guy I sent away last night. Tonight, after a few hours hunched in front of my laptop and a smelly tray of the remnants of sweet and sour chicken on the coffee table, someone else in my room seemed welcome. I opened the door, smiled, and waved him inside.

He hurried around me with his tasks, but something about his energy filled the room - or maybe it was the rose water he spritzed all over the floor. Or the oil lamp he lit on the bedside table. Suddenly, the little wilty roses in plastic on my pillow took on so much more meaning. We didn't make eye contact, but I sensed that he was smiling as he went about his work

It feels good to be alone, in this dark little room.

It feels good to be back in Pakistan, riding around the leafy streets, watching auto-rickshaws buzz by. Turbaned men in salwar kameez stroll down the street in pairs, or lounge in traffic circles, or sit cross-legged facing each other in the park. Women, so seldom seen on the street, tuck their dupatta a little more closely around their face.

Something about being somewhere so other, so far away and so removed from everything… there’s something about that which is appealing. The lure of the hotel room – the quiet hotel room where I don’t have to listen to anything at all.

Gorillas on a cliff

2010-06-02T04:05:00.000-07:00

pensive lady

After four years of working in Uganda, I finally made it to magical Bwindi Impenetrable Forest - the land of the mountain gorilla. As you might have noticed from a blatant lack of blogging, my work life has been all-consuming. So much so that I don't even have time for the typical meta-work (reflection) that I do through the One Mango Tree blog. I outsourced that to Lauranne Boyd, our newest employee. Tying myself down to $500 per person gorilla trekking passes ensured that I would get out of Kampala, and away from my laptop - for four solid days. A small [albeit expensive] victory.

Bwindi is Uganda's piece of national forest where mountain gorillas still roam - the endangered species can be found only in the region where Uganda, Rwanda and DRC intersect. Ten years ago you'd be more likely to find guerillas instead of gorillas in this area, but things have stabilized and tourism is on the rise. The huge permit fee goes towards research and conservation efforts - including community development in the surrounding areas.

Danny and I drove out to Bwindi from Kampala - instead of taking the horrible Masaka-Mbarara route, we headed northwest to Fort Portal. We stopped for lunch at Rwenzori Travellers Inn, and ate what looked like deep-fried bat carcasses (I think it was supposed to be chicken and chips). From Fort Portal the road swings south, following along the base of the Rwenzoris and flirting with the Congolese border. We drove through an eerily empty Queen Elizabeth and Ishasha.

We stayed at Gorilla Forest Camp - as luck would have it, we had the entire lodge to ourselves for the weekend. The altitude in southwestern Uganda creates an autumn-like crispness in the evenings, so we chilled out post-dinner in front of the campfire and found hot water bottles tucked into our bed. The peace and quiet made me nostalgic for autumn back at home.

---

Our trekking passes were good for Sunday, so we got up early and headed down to the headquarters to meet our guides. On the way from our tent to breakfast (a 2-minute walk), a monkey pooped on my head. I think it also laughed - a premonition of the day ahead, no doubt. I'd heard that tracking gorillas was a "walk in the park," so in my frenzy to pack, I only brought yoga pants and a pair of low-top Chuck Taylors. We were assigned to track the "H" group. I scoffed at the suggestion that I might need a porter to help "pull or push" me in difficult tracking situations. A couple of hours into our hike (?!) we started descending the steep cultivated hillsides. My Chucks were no match. I was instantly rendered a complete un-balanced klutz, and I fell over and over again. I even cried once. Finally, a nice porter (one hired by someone else - someone less arrogant and more practical) rescued me, and I spent the rest of the day clutching onto his hand, trying not to fall off the hillside entirely.

The elusive "H" group had decided to hang out all afternoon munching vegetation on a steep (and heavily shrubbed) hillside above a river. Danny got all National-Geographic-up-close-and-personal with the gorillas, while I clung onto tree trunks and branches and tried not to think about falling. I still managed to snap a few good shots, but I couldn't help wondering how in the hell we would get out of this precarious gorilla observing perch. The answer was a stumble-fall-crash down the hill and across the river, while our trackers hacked through thick sugar cane to create a path out of the ravine.

When we made it back to the Defender 8 hours after our journey began, I was exhausted and happy that I'd made it out with both of my ankles intact. Back at Gorilla Forest Camp we were rewarded with another gorilla sighting - another group had passed into our camp and was eating fruit near the toilet. Check it out:

When I think about the leisurely stroll that other gorillas trekkers had reported, I'm not really sure what happened. I think I get it now about the monkey pooping on my head. He was laughing so hard when he saw my Chucks that he shit himself.

In any case, we earned it, and what a reward it is to be only a meter away from a mountain gorilla. It truly was an amazing experience, and three days later, I'm finally able to walk again.

that-a-way, lady

2010-03-13T09:40:00.000-08:00

pointing the way for prayer - on my hotel desk

My first travel upgrade - from a normal room to a "Lady Avari Suite." In addition to being on a ladies-only wing of the hotel, I received a box of cookies, a cake (yes a cake), fresh flowers, and a platter of fruit. That's not all - I also received bath salts, complimentary face cream (for sagging skin), and a red silk kimono with pink satin slippers. From this "cocooned" suite, I have a window that overlooks the pool, which is always filled with men swimming and sunbathing. Hmph.

lahore's bad week

2010-03-13T05:02:00.000-08:00

DAWN headlines on 13 march

I'm in Lahore, the cultural heart of Pakistan. That's the spot of land nestled between China, India, Afghanistan, and Iran.

I'm in Lahore because I took a consultancy with FIRMS Project - a USAID-funded project which is tasked with:

developing a dynamic, internationally competitive, business sector in Pakistan that is increasing exports, employing more people and producing higher value added products and services.

I am working on the Market Readiness Program - providing training and support to women-owned businesses in the garment, jewelry and home decor sectors in Multan and Karachi.

After numerous delays because of visa issues (a dark and dingy Pakistani Consulate office in Hotel Diplomate in Kampala, a leap of faith in Fed-Exing my passport to DC, the freak snow storm that delayed it, and one Officer McTernan who held onto my passport for a long time for no good reason), I finally got the stamp and boarded the plane... Only to land in Lahore during the worst week in recent history. I arrived on Wednesday. Last week, Pakistani intelligence captured the leader of the TTP in Karachi (that's Tehrak-i-Taliban, the Pakistani version). On Monday, in retaliation, a suicide car bomber rammed into a police interrogation building in Lahore.

After a routine security briefing on Thursday in the FIRMS office, I felt fairly doubtful that I'd come to understand what "lockdown" even meant. After all, some friends were silly enough to compare suicide bombs to that old adage about lightening never striking the same place twice. Then, just as I was in a meeting thinking about lunch on Friday, the PA came on and twin suicide bombs in the Cantonment area of Lahore were announced. Lockdown = check.

I didn't hear anything, feel anything or see anything, other than concern on the local staff's faces as they called their families and tried to resume work. One woman brought over menus for lunch - Subway, McDonald's, or KFC. The Subway man still delivered our lunch, we just weren't allowed to leave the building.

I finally made it back to my hotel around 8 pm, and was once again contemplating food when I received a text message from the office reporting another bomb blast in Moon Market. And then two more, and then more. The sound of an SMS started to make me flinch. I ate my room service - red snapper, mashed potatoes, red carrots and French apple pie. I finally fell asleep, fitfully, and spent my Saturday indoors - mostly in my hotel room, locked down once again until further notice. So much for kurta shopping.

haiti

2010-02-01T04:35:00.000-08:00

haiti (courtesy of getty images)

Almost immediately upon returning to Kampala, the earthquake in Haiti happened. I was sitting on the couch in the living room as Danny was going to work - "did you know there was an earthquake in Haiti?" He hadn't heard. Haiti was his last post with State Department - he was there for two-and-a-half years.

And a day later, he was gone. He took a one-month assignment to help out at the US Embassy in Haiti, so we went from circumnavigation of Lake Vic mode into crisis-earthquake-goodbye mode. I guess that's how these things happen.

completing the circle

2010-01-23T05:13:00.000-08:00

a home-grown coffee shop in kigali

12 Jan.

On the morning of the 12th, we drove through central Kigali to exit the city and head north, and made a stop off at Bourbon Coffee for some joe and breakfast sandwiches for the road. We bought a bag of coffee to feed Aisha (our housekeeper). I unfortunately had gotten her hooked on caffeine, and we thought it best to give her her own stash.

The most remarkable thing about this last leg of the trip was crossing the border back into Uganda. While it still held that feeling of "home," after visiting Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda, we couldn't shake the feeling that something is just not right with Uganda. I freshened up on the history of dictators, reading aloud from the guide book. Danny tried his damndest to avoid the idiot drivers trying to run us off the road. Admittedly, that last chunk of road from the border, up through Mbarara and Masaka is quite bad - we knew that. But somehow, after the smooth tarmac of Tanzania and Rwanda, we were quite pissed off.

Remembering our trip out to Mihingo in October, we counted off the clustered items on sale on the way back into Kampala - the drum section, the woven mats, the painted stools, the asparagus-like unidentifiable veggies, the FISH. We pulled back into Kampala, sat in jams and finally pulled into the compound in Muyenga. Greeted with waggy butts of Henry and Neilos, we gave a collective sigh and started to unload the car. Home.

mwanza - kigali

2010-01-22T05:13:00.000-08:00

so long, friends

11 Jan.

Eventually we had to say good-bye to Hotel Tilapia and pretty little Mwanza, and get back on the road. We were a little over halfway around the lake - and we only had two days to get Danny back to the office. It was appropriately rainy when we woke up, packed the car and hit the road. Due to some bad instructions from the hotel front desk, we ended up at the wrong ferry. When we finally found the right one about an hour away, the ferry was pulling away from the shore. I silently read the New Yorker (about how to make Jews feel included on Christmas) while Danny fumed.

As always happens on a trip so long on the road, a melt-down occurred. I wanted to read him the New Yorker story and he wanted to be mad. Then I got mad that he was mad and he cheered up by purchasing a monkey hat off a vendor. We rode the ferry silently, with arms crossed.

The road from Mwanza to Kigali was a good one. We reached the border at Rusomo Falls, I walked across the little bridge over a raging orange rapid, and met Danny on the other side. The "no-corruption" policies of the Rwandan border control made for a quick crossing, and we were on our way - on the right-hand side of the road. Rwanda is called the "land of a thousand hills," and we wound our way, zig-zagged and swooped all over the country, heading north, then west into the city. Everything about the Rwanda seemed tidy - from the cleanly swept yards to the impeccable dresses worn by the women. The road was smooth and free of potholes. We remarked at how something must be going right here.

We ended the evening crashing at my friend Julie's house in Kigali. We walked through the residential neighborhood and had dinner at Papyrus, drank oodles of wine and walked back home.

mwanza

2010-01-21T05:12:00.000-08:00

bye-bye to the animals

9 Jan.

Danny and I were pretty quiet driving back out of the Serengeti. We fondly remembered the worst parts of the trip in "hey, this is where you had your first absolute freak out and took out the emergency flask!" or "hey, isn't this where you got out to pee and had to dance to get the tsetse flies off of you?" We paid another visit to the Grumeti River crossing, which was flooded and filled with crocs. And finally, we were at the gate. Danny haggled with the rangers about the fee, and I sat in the car reading and fending off vervet monkeys that were trying to break in and steal stuff (little bastards).

oh, hi. gimme your cookies.

It was high fives all around when we got back onto the tarmac and made our way to Mwanza. I think I even heard the Defender give a loud sigh of relief.

The rock outcroppings of Mwanza are unmistakable, surrounding the lake shore with scenery. They reflected pink, dusky light as we entered the town from the east. Mwanza is Tanzania's third-largest city. At the suggestion of my Kampala Book Club friend, Anna, we drove straight to Hotel Tilapia.

the buganda queen

It was when we were touring the available rooms that Danny and I caught a glimpse of "Buganda Queen," the steamship permanently docked at the hotel. They'd turned the ship into guest rooms, and to our delight, the Marner Suite was available.

We spent two days in Mwanza, without really leaving Hotel Tilapia. The permanently-docked room listed to the left, so you had to do a bit of a gravity-dance in the bathroom so as not to slip and hit the wall. All part of the charm. On the second night we ordered in, Indian food by candlelight on the bow/patio, amidst the old cranks and chains. The rest of the time we caught up on Al-Jazeera and watched Religulous on my netbook. I could have stayed there for a month.

ngorongoro crater

2010-01-20T05:11:00.000-08:00

wildebeest crossing our path on the way to the crater
7 Jan.

The road to Ngorongoro Crater was just as bad as the road to Seronera. If you can ignore the bumps caused by the grading technique used to make the road, it's possible to spend the journey in awe of the landscape. The Serengeti plains were made by layers and layers of volcanic ash from the huge volcano that collapsed into the Ngorongoro Crater. The soil is thin, which accounts for the tree-less plains punctuated by kopjes - the tops of what were once mountains, now just rocks on the surface of the plains.

We passed the turn off for Olduvai Gorge and the landscape changed again, now ascending into verdant green hills, passing Maasai herders as we climbed higher and higher. The temperature dropped quickly and dramatically, and we arrived at the edge of the crater in the middle of the afternoon - lucky to grasp a brief moment of clear before the clouds swept across the rim.

view from the top - ngorongoro crater

The fog crept across the road as we drove along the rim and made our way to Simba A - our camp site for the night, perched at the top of the crater. We concocted our best meal of the trip: Kraft Mac & Cheese, beef chili and canned corn. Five star accommodation and dinner. Late into the night we heard crunching and saw a lone elephant making his way through the trees on the rim. Bush pigs surrounded the camp, crashing and squealing in the dark.

8 Jan.

The next morning, after much discussion and debate, we decided to splurge and pay the fee to go into the crater. We got this far...

After a visit to the Crater Park HQ for fees and fuel, we descended into the crater. The setting seemed surreal, with the lake rimmed with pink flamingos and a giant male lion napping next to the road.

ah, I'm so full, I'm just gonna lay here and zzzzz.........

The blues and greens of the walls were a dramatic backdrop for the yellow grasses of the floor. We mostly just drove around for a while, seeing zebra, elephant, and rhino in the distance. We had to make our way back to Seronera to camp, so after a quick drive around, we had to get back to the ascent road and make our way back. The whole time we were in the crater, I couldn't help but think about the geological process that created it - the instantaneous collapse of an enormous volcano - bigger than Kilimanjaro. I wondered which was more impressive - the volcano in its mighty, natural state, or the depression caused by its collapse?

big lonely guy walking on the crater floor

the serengeti

2010-01-19T05:10:00.000-08:00

massive herds of grazers on the vast serengeti plains
6 and 7 Jan.

We'd heard from lots of people to be prepared to spend a fortune in Tanzania. The visa alone is $100 for Americans. Entry to the parks is $50 per person per day, with another $40 per vehicle per day and $30 each per night of camping. Get out your calculator - that's $200 per day if you do safari entirely on your own. Maybe that was why I expected big things. Or maybe it was that the Mara was so spectacular, that Serengeti just had to be bigger and better and... more.

bless the rains down in africaaaaaa

I clung to my relentless optimism as we passed through the gate to embark on the "two hour" journey to Seronera camp site. Four and a half hours later, after heavy rains, horrific roads, killer tsetse flies and a looming sense that something must be wrong, we saw the sign for Serena Seronera Serengeti Safari Lodge. We were so frustrated by the drive that we shelled out $427 to stay for one night at the lodge instead of camping. Danny awoke in the morning announcing the "best night of sleep ever in his whole entire life." I just wanted to sit next to the pool. We had a fabulous breakfast with tasty little plums, and one of the staff washed the muck from the Defender and the increasingly smelly muck from our cooler (melted ice + spilled milk + spoiling meat).

defender gets a bath

And then, of course, we got back on the road.

from mara to musoma

2010-01-18T04:40:00.000-08:00

5 Jan. Our departure from Masai Mara was a bit delayed - first by the deluge, then sleeping in, then the gutsy blue-balled vervet that stole our pasta, a side trip to see some lions, and the road to Lolgorien "paved" with 3-foot deep mucky muck. We reached the border at Isebania and then continued south on Tanzania's beautiful tarmac roads, hoping to reach camp just outside Serengeti's Ndabaka Gate before nightfall. It was ambitious.

With the waning light painting a magical horizon around us, we tried once again to find that idyllic off-the-road spot that eluded us in Kisii. We pulled off to see about camping on a farmer's property, and were quickly surrounded by every Tanzanian in a 5-mile radius - none of whom could speak English. We drew pictures of tents and tried our best to convey our need for a scenic and private campsite, but to no avail.

We pressed on in the dark, eventually arriving at Tembo Beach Hotel in Musoma - a small town on the shores of Lake Victoria. Tembo Beach is a common stopping point for ginormous overland trucks, and when we pulled into the car park, there was a circle of travelers chatting next to one of the large, lumbering vehicles. We set up our tent in a sandy spot and cooked chicken spaghetti. I turned in early and left Danny to the devices of an older woman from the overland group - who'd taken a liking to him and his scotch.

Upon leaving the next morning, we saw what we'd missed in the cover of night. Musoma is a really neat town, with sand-swept streets and a languid beachy feel. As we drove through on our way to Serengeti, we were both sad that we didn't have time to walk around and get a better feel for the place.

food chain

2010-01-17T00:25:00.000-08:00

crows on a wire (Flickr pic)

I read a Sherman Alexie book - War Dances - on vacation. Mostly at the Serengeti petrol/repair station in Seronera, while some guys repaired the bushings on the Defender. Later on, as we were making our way to Mwanza, I got to the last page and found this poem, Food Chain, which really struck me. I'm still writing about our trip, but this is a little interlude.

Food Chain

This is my will:

Bury me
In an anthill.

After one week
Of this feast,

Set the ants on fire.
Make me a funeral pyre.

Let my smoke rise
Into the eyes

Of those crows
On the telephone wire.

Startle those birds
Into flight

With my last words:
I loved my life.

~ Sherman Alexie, from War Dances

hyena, lion, weaver : dog, cat, bird

2010-01-16T08:07:00.000-08:00

teddy bear? no, that's a sleeping hyena

danny woke them up

Then, the next day, we heard a rumor about some cats that made a kill....

that's a very dead giraffe head in the foreground

grrrrrrr........

Later that day, the rain sent the weavers into a frenzy.

sand river camp = locus amoenus

2010-01-16T00:25:00.000-08:00

Home to the first 360 degree sunset.

Several people had suggested we stay at Sand River Camp. The site, which is actually a park gate, is nestled in the hills, on the winding banks of aptly-named Sand River. We were the only campers, which added to the feeling of remoteness of the place.

When we pulled up to talk to the rangers on the first day, they all shrieked and ran away. Turns out it wasn't because of us, but rather a young green mamba that showed up on the walls of the gate. Here's the deadly little guy eating a lizard. The ranger gave us a full lecture on the deadliness of the green mamba.

green mamba eating a lizard, which appears to be shitting itself

The first night at Sand River, after the amazing sunset, night fell and we were sitting at our campfire - when suddenly we heard what can only be described as munching. We took out the spotlight to check it out - a family of five elephants was walking along, eating grass on the other side of the car - not 25 yards from where we were sitting.

Our second night at Sand River, we decided to cross the river and camp a bit further from the gate. We picked a perfect spot with a tree on a bending bank. After a full day of incredible safari, we pulled up in the drizzle to set up camp. It had been drizzling all day, and it turned into full-on rain as night fell. Sometime while I was cooking dinner (minestrone soup mix with pasta and chicken added in), there was this strange howling sound. It gave me goosebumps. Again, out with the spotlight... but this time it wasn't animals, but rather a fast-rising river. Within minutes, Sand River had risen about 6 feet and was now a raging torrent of dark brown water.

morning after the deluge

We pulled the Defender up higher onto the bank and nestled in for a night of flood-filled dreams. The next morning, we took our time with breakfast, assuming the bridge was out.

We weren't alone. A vervet monkey crept up on our campsite and perched himself in the tree. It didn't take long to figure out he was casing the joint, and as we were merrily photographing his blue balls, he chose the perfect moment to run into our campsite, tucking a bag of rainbow-colored pasta under his arm football-style, looked both ways and ran. Danny was fast behind him (yes, he chased a wild monkey to retrieve our pasta), returning and fist-pumping the bag of pasta he stole back from the monkey.

And THAT was the end of our stay at Sand River.

from kisii to sand river camp

2010-01-15T00:02:00.000-08:00

atop the western escarpment, looking out over masai mara

3 Jan. Following our hearty mashed potato breakfast, we continued south through Kilgoris, where the tarmac ended and began a winding journey through a beautiful pastoral setting - green hills with grass kept short by munching cattle, the occasional Maasai herdsman. My trucker side-kick sun burn began.

We entered Masai Mara through the seldom-used western gate - most tourists come from Nairobi, which puts you at the northeastern corner of the park. Seeing that Kenya had been receiving huge amounts of off-season rain, the last stretch of road into the park was horrific. Danny got to use more than his fair share of his defensive driving skills getting through this mucky mud pit that was eating everyone else's cars. I don't know how he did it. The actual arrival at the park is stunning - we didn't realize we'd been driving atop an escarpment, which promptly opened to the widest, most beautiful and empty scene you can imagine - yellow-green grass, acacia trees, and rainstorms on the horizon.

wide open spaces in masai mara

After a brief stop off to check out Kichwa Tembo Camp (a luxury camp - we stopped for a beer, tour and some ice for the coolers), we reached the main gate.

Our campsite, Sand River Camp, was on the complete opposite end (southeast corner) of the park, so we got to drive through the entire park on our way there.

hitting the road: from kampala to kisii

2010-01-14T23:48:00.000-08:00

Danny and I are unfortunately getting a reputation for being late to things. We were definitely late for our trip - luckily there was no plane to catch - just the Defender sitting in the driveway, waiting patiently. We spent most of New Years Day packing: a trunk with our clothes; a bin filled with canned beans and corn, chili, pasta, oatmeal, coffee, mac & cheese, packets of tuna; foldable camp chairs and table; lanterns and cooking stove; yellow jerry cans of drinking water; "the kitchen" - a backpack filled with cooking and eating utensils; coolers with meat for the early days on the road; our two guitars (in a romantic ideal of our trip, we were musical vagrants), and an inexplicable amount of booze for two people for 12 days (you know, just in case). Neilos hopped in the back seat and put on a VERY depressed face.

We finally hit the road just before dark, and ran into rain on the Kampala-Jinja Road, realizing the headlights were not sufficient to be driving in the dark. So, on our first day, we made it about 90 km. We stopped for the night at our friend Wim's place, staying in his cottage for the night.

2 Jan - time to get serious. We got on the road to Kenya and crossed the border at Busia. Kenya greeted us with rain and shitty roads (yes, worse than Uganda). We drove into Kisumu for money and bread - Kisumu is a lakeside town, and Kenya's third largest city. Then on further south to Kisii. I'd been reading about what an utter crap hole Kisii was - litter-strewn streets, lots of weird unfinished construction - a sort of Tijuana in the Kenyan hills. Unfortunately, darkness was again fast approaching, and we recognized that there was no possible way we'd make it to the Mara before dark. We both shared the dream of setting up camp in some idyllic spot just off the road, with stunning views.

Instead of scenery, we were awarded with an evening at the Kisii police barracks. Danny pulled his international policeman card and we parked the Defender between two buildings housing about ten officers. Surely the highlight of their new year.

The highlight of my morning, however, was when Danny tried to turn last night's mashed potatoes (accidentally made enough for an army) into potato pancakes. Note: mashed potatoes fry up nicely the next day as.... mashed potatoes, nothing more. So we had mashed potatoes for breakfast and hit the road.

the big trip

2010-01-13T07:38:00.000-08:00

adventure! animals! the roar of a diesel engine!

Sometime this past fall, Danny and I decided we wanted to take a big trip - a road trip. His affinity for Land Rovers made it an easy thing to envision - hitting up some of the hottest spots in East Africa on an over-land adventure all our own, in the world's coolest car. Danny already had a Land Rover Discovery when I met him. Sometime in 2009, he came home with a beat-to-hell white Defender, made sometime in the late 80s, with doors that didn't entirely work, and a constant smell of petrol - reminiscent of going out on the boat at home. As much as I loved that Defender, the thought of relying on it to get us around East Africa made me nervous. The solution? Buy one more Land Rover Defender - this time a late 90s model (also white) with a roof rack.

I came back from the holidays with maps of TZ, Kenya and Rwanda. A friend loaned us his South African rooftop tent, which involved a few Clubs and Danny sawing off part of his roof rack with a handsaw. After that we were more or less ready to go. Except that we didn't have the slightest clue of where, exactly, we were headed. At some point we'd gotten it into our heads that we'd just drive all the way around Lake Victoria - seeing everything we could along the way. Eastern Uganda, western Kenya, Masai Mara, Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Vic's coastline, Rwanda's hills, western Uganda and home again.

In twelve days.

2009 bookshelf

2009-12-31T08:01:00.000-08:00

a great little used bookshop in Melville, a neighborhood in Jo'burg, RSA

I'm starting a new side bar list for 2010 reading, so here's a comprehensive list of the books I read (mostly devoured) in 2009. The books are in the order I read them (backwards) - the most recent book first, all the way to the beginning of 2009.

As I was going through the list to hyperlink the titles, I realized that I felt emotion and memory for each entry on the list - I could actually imagine how I felt and where I was when I read the bulk of the book. My most productive reading place this year was my friend Katie's place in Beaver Creek, Colorado, where I hid out for a couple of weeks in the snow - maybe it was the giant bath tub or the fireplace - I read A LOT. Otherwise, my favorite place to read is on a couch, with one leg thrown up over the back of the couch. I do a lot of that at Danny's house - usually around 3:30 pm when my mood inevitably crashes.

Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder - from the author that wrote Mountains Beyond Mountains - this book is about a Burundian man who makes his way to NYC during the war in Burundi (after a horrific journey through ravaged Burundi and Rwanda), ends up at Columbia, and returns to Burundi to build a clinic - which has become Village Health Works. Incredible and inspiring read.
Location: the couch in Danny's living room, recovering from a cold picked up in the Ohio winter

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger - read this first and then watched on my flight back to the US. Eric Bana continues to be one of the most beautiful men on earth. And it was a great book.
Location: KLM flight across the Atlantic on my way home for Christmas

Half the Sky by Nick Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn - excellent and inspiring book about the plight of women around the world. Incredible - everyone working on women's issues should read this to feel refreshed. I sent it as a Christmas gift to my wholesale distributor - Stacey Edgar, of Global Girlfriend.
Location: Danny's couch

Buddhism Without Beliefs by Stephen Batchelor
Location: in bed, all over throughout the year

The Lexus and the Olive Tree by Thomas Friedman - hungover and in my underwear, this seemed perfect for a Sunday afternoon - a bit outdated today, but Friedman's crystal clear explanations for globalization and globalution are addicting. I'm loving the education on stocks, bonds and the electronic herd.
Location: poolside

Man Walks into a Room by Nicole Krauss - my mountain-climbing companion Kapner left this with me and I reluctantly picked it up - it was beautiful. A man loses the last 24 years of his memory - a haunting look at memory, love, forgetting...
Location: Mihingo Lodge at Lake Mburo

Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali - fantastic first choice for the Kampalan Ladies #1 Book Club. An honest look at what it's like being a woman in the Muslim world. Unbelievably brave book. Read most of it with malaria.
Location: on my malarial sick bed

Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin - a No. 1 Ladies Detective knock-off, this novel was a welcome respite from anything serious - quick and quaint tale of daily life of a Tanzanian cake-baker in Rwanda.
Location: night time by lantern in Gulu

The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman - I loved this book, even with it's ridiculous length and redundancy. I was really late on the bandwagon, but now I know so much more about Bangalore, the internet, China...fascinating. Read this in Zanzibar, of all places. I really know how to pick em.
Location: Z Hotel, Zanzibar, recovering from climbing Kilimanjaro

Surrender or Starve by Robert Kaplan - picked this up off the bookshelf in my house for the Kilimanjaro trip - about the politics of famine in the Horn of Africa in the 1980s. Turns out it was Jackfruity's old copy, which made me think of her Bissell vs. Kaplan posts back in the day.
Location: slopes of Kilimanjaro

Cheap by Ellen Ruppel - excellent book about the high costs of discount culture in the West - pretty relevant to my current existence.
Location: my apartment - a rare place to hang out

Body Surfing by Anita Shreve - and thank you, Anita, for depressing the shit out of me. I got hooked on Shreve back when I was an even more emotional high school student. I hope it says something positive that I can no longer stomach the drama.
Location: poolside at Danny's house

Life of Pi by Yann Martel - really enjoyed this, but was thoroughly confused by the island that eats you.
Location: at my parent's cottage on Johnson's Island - laying on the couch on the patio, but somehow conjures memories of rhubarb at the Marblehead farmers market

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho - re-read this on a Wednesday afternoon. Means more to me every time I pick it up, and I'm feeling very at one with the soul of the universe...just about to turn myself into the wind.
Location: Danny's couch

A Place of My Own by Michael Pollan - how the writer built his own "place" - a little shack in which he writes, read, and thinks. A heavenly piece of literature.
Location: in bed at my apartment

The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton - checking in with Socrates, Seneca, etc. to feel better about the random annoyances of daily life.
Location: on the little couch in the Cronin guest house

Siddhartha by Herman Hesse - I picked this up in South Africa at a little used book shop.
Location: on the little couch in the Cronin guest house

The Native Commissioner by Shaun Johnson - picked this up at the Apartheid Museum in Jo'burg, and wow. Tells the story of a white South African man working under the Apartheid regime and trying to detach from his horrific work - resulting in depression and, ultimately, suicide.
Location: on the couch at Mosetlha Bush Camp in South Africa - while Hitesh was snapping away taking photos

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan - as beautiful and depressing as Atonement. McEwan seems to be a bit obsessed with how small decisions totally change our lives.
Location: in Melville/Jo'burb, at the Ginnegaap Guest House

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
Location: On the porch of Virunga Lodge, Rwanda, with that looming volcano in the distance

The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan (not finished, gave it to Julie) - an exploration of sweetness [apple], beauty [tulip], intoxication [marijuana] and control [potato] - so nerdy it hurts (and I'm actually reading it - the apple part was all johnny appleseed...)
Location: Rwanda

Creating a World Without Poverty by Muhammed Yunus - treatise on "social business" and lots and lots of talk about the various Grameen businesses.
Location: on the couch at the Cronin's guest house

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - excellent book, scary parallel reference to red satin pajamas.
Location: New York and DC, before heading to Uganda

On Love by Alain de Botton - read this for the second time, with fresh eyes.
Location: Los Angeles, during downtime at the LA Gift Show

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn - "talking" gorilla unveils the dangerous story we as humans have been selling ourselves - the bogus idea that the world belongs to man. Man belongs to the world.
Location: Katie's place in Beaver Creek, Colorado

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell - Why didn't the Getty realize that the kouros was a fake? "...mostly it's because the Getty desperately wanted the statue to be real."
Location: Katie's place in Beaver Creek, Colorado (most of it read at a little gelato shop while Katie was skiing)

In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan - I heart MP and the pages 147-201 of this book. In short, the cover says it all: "Eat Food. Not too much of it. Mostly plants." Thank you, MP, for your continuing common sensical brilliance.
Location: Katie's place in Beaver Creek, Colorado - mostly read in bed

The Good Husband of Zebra Drive by Alexander McCall Smith
Location: Katie's place in Beaver Creek, Colorado

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell - LOVED this book and trying to figure out how to tip One Mango Tree
Location: Katie's place in Beaver Creek, Colorado

Untethered Soul by Michael Singer - eliminating the annoying chatter in your head, letting go of your stuff, tao - excellent and simple advice for a better way of living
Location: Started in the Bahamas, on the beach at the Sivananda Ashram, finished in Beaver Creek, Colorado

The Other by Ryzcard Kapuscinski - a collection of lectures on the concept of "the other" as told through Kapuscinski's journeys. Always thrilled for "new" stuff from Kapuscinski, and this one is pretty bold and thought-provoking - an honest look at being a white westerner working in a non-white, non-western context.
Location: Katie's place in Beaver Creek, Colorado

yawning chasms of change

2009-12-18T17:27:00.000-08:00

For weeks prior to leaving for my two-week US Christmas vacation, I was waxing poetic about snow, Starbucks coffee, and shopping malls. The months since my last visit were enough to wash away any cynicism I'd had about Midwestern American life. Plus, it's Christmas. It's home.

Since I got home, I've been in a bit of a fuzzy and emotion-less observation mode. After a whirlwind 24-hour DC visit and trunk shows at a fair trade shop in Cleveland, the snowy white fairy dust settled out.

I forgot that winter in Cleveland means this:
It gets sort of light outside, the sky stays gray and ominous and from 8 am to 6 pm it looks like it's 6 pm. Perpetually on the cusp of dusk.

And Christmas:
Even in a dying county facing brutal job loss, the Strongsville Mall is packed to the gills. In this little suburb of just over 40,000 people, the roads are brimming with cars and the all paths seem to point to the mall. Nothing seems to have changed.

Except, it seems, for me. Everything seems a bit shellacked. Even the Starbucks Grande Mocha that was my lifeblood for so long looks bigger and architecturally weird (was there ALWAYS that much whipped cream on my coffee??). Driving my mom's Matrix feels like a kid's toy after the rumble and roar of my diesel Pajero. Driving is too easy. The country of origin labels on every piece of clothing seem larger than life. In my first 24 hours back home, I managed to have a quick spree at Victoria's Secret (helloooo people - they figured out how to increase your bust by TWO cup sizes!) and GAP (a perennial addiction that's harder to break than Starbucks). But since then I've been a bit shell-shocked.

Much of this is superficial. I doubt I would have had the same reaction had I spent two weeks in DC. But the chasm between the life I live in Uganda, and the life I knew in Cleveland - the life I left more than ten years ago - is gaping. So I imagine it's a bit like visiting the Grand Canyon. Looking down and wondering at the majestic fissure - wondering how it got there. What it means.

dreams of sewing machines - taking stock

2009-12-09T22:37:00.000-08:00

I'm back at Schiphol Airport again. This time I found the Starbucks, in Lounge 1. I had to go through customs to acquire this grande mocha.

It really hasn't been that long since I was last here - it was summer then, on my quick layover back to Entebbe. One thing is certain - I always feel very far away when I'm here. It's cold and dark. It's almost 8 am and the sky is still inky black.

So, in my usual habit of reflection at Schiphol, here's the list.

Personal

I climbed Kilimanjaro.
I made a second visit to Zanzibar and got a henna tattoo on my butt.
I survived malaria.

After surviving malaria, I succumbed to workaholic syndrome - putting aside everything else in my life to focus 110% of my energy on One Mango Tree.

dreams of sewing machines...

Personal merged with professional, and my emotions suddenly linked up with the ebb and flow of doing business in Africa. In short, over the past few months I thought I was losing it. Coming out on this end, surrounded by the sterile organization of Schiphol, I can now say that I've "learned lessons" and "overcome challenges." Starting a business in Uganda is no easy task - trying to make it sustainable is even more difficult.

Professional

moved into our new workshop
hired a cook/cleaning woman, compound manager and armed guard service - fired compound manager for pimping and hired a new compound manager, suspended new compound manager for stealing airtime... and so it goes
started up the One Mango Tree Guest House, and quickly discovered that being a landlord is a full-time job in and of itself
hosted Stacey Edgar, founder of Global Girlfriend, who visited our new workshop and gave me a schooling in all the things I didn't know - she more or less lit my ass on fire
worked with Hilary Dell, our first design intern, to design 5 pieces of apparel for Global Girlfriend - a cami, scoop neck tee, tee dress, cardigan and wrap dress - production on 7,500 pcs. starts in December
started working with Gihan da Silva - a Sri Lankan living in Uganda who knows everything - about apparel production, textiles, used cars, rally car racing, government bureaucracy, how to talk to Acholi women to make sure they show up for work, etc. He is my saving grace and my best friend in Uganda, and he's now working with One Mango Tree
found a Ugandan lawyer and went through the annoying process of registering as a national NGO in Uganda, which took months and cost $1,000 and about a dozen trips to the lawyer's office, only for him to send me home to collect additional documents. Our complete certificate sat on the NGO Board Director's desk for weeks just waiting for her to show up and sign it, but it is now complete
went through a similar lengthy process to acquire a TIN number (like the EIN in the US)
faced slightly less run around and acquired an export certificate
build a relationship with a mostly reliable shipper, dropping our costs from over $12/kg to about $4/kg (thanks Gihan)
learned how to fill out oodles of customs paperwork - commercial invoice, packing lists, GSP Form A, and continued my education on AGOA policy (handbags don't qualify), Category 9 exemption and HTS codes
learned how to procure packing materials - carton boxes, poly bags, sticker labels - the things you don't really think about until you get an order for 4,600 pieces
completed a 4,600 pc. order for Global Girlfriend - definitely our biggest accomplishment this year - through this production we brought all of our tailors up in their skill levels and perfected quality control. The change this created in our capacity was incredible, and we had to bring on three new tailors to get it done - the end result was 133 cartons of One Mango Tree products shipped to Seattle
received a grant from International Organization for Migration (IOM) to take on referrals from their partners (ex-combatants, vulnerable women) for training and employment, training program starts this month, wrote a case study for their Labor Market Analysis
found a textile designer and worked with volunteers Anna and Zach Thompson to design four of our own fabrics for 2010 - all organic and absolutely beautiful - allowing us to cut ties with the Chinese wax print knock-off market we relied on in the past
signed off wholesale distribution in North America to Global Girlfriend
brought on Alison Farley to be our independent sales rep through Global Girlfriend
received another order for 3,000 pcs from Global Girlfriend
made our first projections and income statement
somehow squeezed in production for Christmas and gave the website a face lift, with help from new intern Amy Karr on photography and editing
since June, our staff went from 6 to 25

And finally, at 8:20 am, the darkness is lifting outside. Welcome North.

beautiful one mango tree video

2009-12-07T23:18:00.000-08:00

Our friends at International Organization for Migration (IOM), with whom we partner on community reintegration, put together this gorgeous video of our tailors working in our new workshop. Check it out and pass it around!

the badge of honour

2009-10-17T07:09:00.000-07:00

In the early days, I was religious about Malarone. I filled my prescriptions before trips, and popped each pill feeling pretty good about the fact that I was being so responsible. That was until a) my health insurance coverage ended, and b) I actually moved to Uganda. It seems that no one who actually lives here long-term really takes the stuff. When I got here in February, I started myself on Mefloquine. After weeks of waking up bathed in sweat and immersed in fear from my freakish dreams, I called it quits. I'd started having nightmares that were turning happy memories into scary, non-sensical, apocalyptic scenes. I figured malaria would be better than that.

So, it's no wonder that eventually, my time would run out, as it did earlier this month. I was as busy as ever, looking forward to a packed week of One Mango Tree tasks, when I woke up Monday morning with the vague feeling that something was off. Very off. You know it's pretty far off when I wind up at The Surgery. The faint pink line showed I was prego with parasites, so the doc loaded me up with killer medicines and sent me home to misery.

What's malaria like? Cold...so cold I must wrap myself in lots of blankets...then so hot I can't stop drinking water and feel delirious (104 degrees hot), then bathing in sweat. 20 mins of feeling exhausted and sort of okay, and then all over again. Then hips aching and aching - then lower back, then add in a pounding headache. 3 liters of water every day - my skin never looked or felt better, but those little parasites kicked my ass for the better part of a full week.

People kept joking that I was earning the African badge of honour, and I promptly replied that the badge was stupid. In hindsight, I realize I now share one more thing with Kapuscinski, and am happy to brag that I, for one gross week in early October, was his sister in African illness suffering.

thanks katie

2009-09-28T06:42:00.000-07:00

that fierce embrace

It doesn't interest me if there is one God
Or many gods
I want to know if you belong - or feel abandoned;
If you know despair
Or can see it in others.
I want to know
If you are prepared to live in the world
With its harsh need to change you;
If you can look back with firm eyes
Saying "this is where I stand."
I want to know if you know how to melt
Into that fierce heat of living
Falling toward the center of your longing.
I want to know if you are willing
To live day by day
With the consequence of love
And the bitter unwanted passion
Of your sure defeat.

I have heard, in that fierce embrace, even
the gods speak of God.

~David Whyte

zanzibar return

2009-09-14T05:22:00.000-07:00

When you can't walk, you lay on the beach, or next to the pool. After finishing the Kili climb, Dan and I headed to Zanzibar. We further tortured ourselves by stumbling around for a day photographing Stone Town (which really does beg to be photographed) and then heading up to Nungwi for the beaches and the stylish W-ness of the Z Hotel.

on the streets of stone town

feeling a little better on the infinity pool edge at Z

another zbar starfish photo

storms rolling in and out like the tides

day #6: a long way down

2009-09-13T05:06:00.000-07:00

descending views

Ever since I slipped and fell down the escalator that slushy February day at the Ballston metro stop years ago, I've been a mess going down hills. Physically, downhill hikes have always been traumatic - I remember how much my knees killed me coming down from the lemon and olive groves of Cinque Terre years ago. Climbing Old Rag in VA - the downhill fire road made me crazy. The Ballston incident made it mental - in my mind I'm always slipping, falling and dying. Coming off Kili was infinitely harder than going up it - for one big stupid reason - I stubbed my toe over and over again and couldn't stop beating myself up for it.

Each time I could hear my mom "rub it rub it rub it" in my ear - like back when it was the coffee table or the sofa. This time I kicked a huge rock somewhere below Horombo in the moorland. I must have been looking at the clouds. I knew immediately that my left big toe nail was done for. And then I proceeded to do it 4 more times. Poor Dan tried to console me; I was inconsolable. It was more anger than pain by the time we made it back.

We finally crossed through the triangular gate back into reality, and rode back to Moshi to our hotel. I tried to walk up the stairs. I've never been so immobile in my life. I could barely lift my feet. The way up the mountain I felt [mostly] like an athlete. The way down I felt like an 85 year old woman. The receptionist at the hotel laughed at me. A lot.

Even as I write, I'm still suffering - now it's my vanity, as I look down at 9 perfectly pedicured purplish-magenta toes and one giant glaring absent toe nail on my left big toe "so gross!" But really I would trade that toe nail over and over again for the feeling of standing on Kilimanjaro - anywhere on Kilimanjaro, breathing oh-so-little oxygen and feeling oh-so-very alive.

success!

day #5: summit and descent

2009-09-12T04:36:00.000-07:00

Months earlier, at Patagucci in Georgetown, I told the sales guy what I'd be doing and the usual temps on the mountain between the hours of 12 am and sunrise (usually about 15 degrees below Celsius). He introduced me to base layers, mid layers, down vests and shells... and I borrowed a pair of ski gloves and went merrily on my way, thankful that each layer can be used separately even in Uganda (rainy season actually brings on some chilly nights here). Several hundred dollars later, I was "well-equipped" for the summit.

We headed off in the darkness, starting the immediate steep ascent up the scree, joining the twinkly zig zag of headlamps in the darkness. My headlamp illuminated the frozen scree on the earth below me. The only sound was that of snot blowing freely from my frozen nose and James and Danforth softly singing "Jambo, jambo bwana." My hands quickly froze, even in the ski gloves with the hand warmers. I started to wonder if I'd be too cold to make it up. We'd only been moving for 2 hours. We stopped; Dan felt drunk and I was so cold. James rubbed my hands and fed me frozen chocolate goji berries. I wiped my boogers on his towel. I couldn't feel my face.

We kept moving and I kept looking up and down the mountain, confusing the headlamps for stars. I felt distended in space, hanging onto this mountain that didn't want me there at all, moving ever so slowly up the scree one slow and pathetic shuffle at a time.

Finally James whipped out his bright yellow Helly Hansen down jacket and insisted that I put it on. I came back to life.

Just as the scree turned to a scramble over boulders, a thin red line appeared on the horizon. The boulders took on an eerie-Mars-like shimmer. We clambered over the top rim. Gilman's Point. We celebrated; our first glimpse of a glacier, the wide sky putting on a show as the horizon changed from a deep red to orange to yellow to blue. Six hours in, we'd made it to the rim - now it was a ridge climb - 2 more hours around the crater to Uhuru, the highest peak.

gilman's point, giant yellow coat saved my life, glacier in the background

I pushed on, reminded of cross country races in high school. Saving it all for the end. In truth, I had very little left to give. When we got to Stella Point the ice fields were in full view. Tears started flowing uncontrollably down my face. My chest heaved. Ice on the roof of Africa. I took my last few steps to Uhuru and looked around. A couple right behind me collapsed in tears and kisses at the bottom of the sign post. I simply sighed, over and over.

the snow on the roof of africa

I sat down, the morning sun burning my cold cheeks; my nose hurting from the altitude and the cold. I looked at the glacier, the clouds, the earth. All I could think of was my brother, and how much I wished he was there to experience this summit with me.

And just then, we turned around and started our descent.

I surfed down the scree, churning up the rocky dust in my wake; eating the dust of those descending before me. Dust, relief and joy filled my eyes, my nose, my mouth. The scree wall that took us 6 hours to ascend - I came back down in 1.5. And then across the saddle again, just as windy, arriving once again at Horombo, where a couple of days before I'd clutched the doorstep and puked up my hope.

I slept, a boiled Kili Sigg of water at my feet, a smile on my face.

day #4: moor. desert. endurance. kibo.

2009-09-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

the saddle - on what? satan's horse?

Fact #4: When uncomfortable in an environment, I do everything I can to get out of the situation as fast as possible, particularly if I see an end in site.

Exhibit A) High school cross country meets - I only gave it my all when I could see the finish and then I burned a path to get the race over with ASAP.

Exhibit B) Biking up hills - I love it I love it I love it. Especially at the top.

Exhibit C) Day 4 Kili - the saddle - wind burn, dust, cold, hungry. Get me out of here!

Discomfort makes me the fastest-moving person out there.

Day 4 started out beautifully - a clear morning, a walk through the moorland. Altitude sickness for me had all but vanished. The giant lobelias showing off the mountain's curves, their lively green hats and shaggy old brown sweaters sucking water from the parched earth. We got to the top of Mawenzi Ridge and took in the sweeping views - moorland behind us, alpine desert ahead. I thought it looked so flat and beautiful.

looking back at mawenzi's jagged peaks

...and looking forward towards the alpine desert and the steep slopes of kibo

Immediately upon descending into that valley, I felt like Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments - the part where he's wandering around in the rocky wasteland somewhere in Bible world, wondering why he's been cursed to struggle. It certainly was biblical - the scenery, my suffering...

And so I put my nose down and burned a path to Kibo, stopping at the rocks just before the hut to binge on the little bagged lunch in my pack. Sheltering from the wind in front of a rock and hunched over the bones of what was once a piece of fried chicken.

Just the mindset I needed to climb a mountain. We trekked the final bit to Kibo Hut, where we shared a room with about 8 other people. I tucked myself into a top bunk and listened to the wind whistling outside. One of the girls was puking over and over and over; her guide trying to tell her she should still attempt the summit. I turned towards the wall and drifted off, awakened by Peter and dinner. I know we had soup, because we always had soup - but for the life of me I cannot recall anything else.

Midnight loomed. We asked James why we had to summit at midnight. He assured us that if he tried to take us during the day, we'd never make it up the scree wall.

day #3: adjustment

2009-09-11T07:20:00.000-07:00

Fact #3: During our climb, I took great pleasure in doing little more than either:

a) hiking for a long time,
b) eating, or
c) spending every other minute tucked into my sleeping bag, resting.

Our guides didn't have to tell me twice to rest. So, on our day to acclimate at Horombo, post-vomit, I ate porridge, I tested my blood oxygen level, and then I rested. I didn't read. I didn't chat. I didn't sleep. I rested.

the horombo dining hall, with mawenzi's teeth bucking over the horizon

The guys roused me in the afternoon post-lunch to go for a hike to acclimate - from our current altitude of 3720m to Mawenzi Ridge just past Zebra Rocks at 4200m. I said okay, wandering through the moonscape amongst the giant lobelias and little piles of rocks that marked the trail, trying to be a good sport, but burping the whole way. Tripping on rocks.

water-colored zebra rocks

We got back and I tooled around Horombo, listening to the Swahili porter chatter, watching the comings and goings of all the local guys that make it possible for us crazy mzungus to climb. Dan and I had a staff of 9 guys - guiding us, carrying our crap, carrying our food, cooking our food.

porter village

We ate another dinner, I slurped my soup and ate lots of toast. Peter cleaned up our table and used the red-and-black cover as a scarf. We thanked him for our meal. He never had a clue what we were saying. Oddly enough, I went to sleep on day 3 and woke up on day 4 completely renewed. A million bucks. Not the last time my body would surprise me.

day #2: vomitus altitudinus

2009-09-11T06:45:00.001-07:00

Fact #2: If you have to puke - as in you really cannot avoid it - clinging to the stone stoop in front of your hut on Kilimanjaro and being utterly distracted from your agony by the sheer beauty of the starry sky - that's the best way to do it.

Despite the frigid air, I woke up in the middle of the night thinking I was in Gulu. I had that all-too-familiar taste in my mouth that usually is brought on by bad water or tainted local food during so many past trips to Northern Uganda. I lay under the eave in my bed at Horombo, feeling really bad for myself and figuring "well, that's it. I tried my best, but the altitude will take my life, so tomorrow I have to go back down. Shucks."

fail.

When I woke in the morning to Peter's broken English "water for wash. breakfast red," I'd already assumed my Kili trip was over. I washed my face. Brushed my teeth. Popped some Diamox anyway. Devoured my oats porridge with honey and sugar. My slightly burnt toast with plastic-y orange jam. Still I felt like shit.

Day 2 had been a great day. We'd emerged from Mandaru in the morning feeling strong - Dan with a slight headache and me with the start of blisters - but otherwise in solid form. Not long into the hike we passed from forest into heather, and finally got our first glimpse of her.

the elusive peak reveals herself

We ascended above the clouds. Spaces grew wide open and majestic. Plants got smaller, clinging to the earth. I mistook the happy shining sun for a welcome friend. The radiation intensified and burned my hands and neck. We saw scores of people descending post-summit. Big smiles and trekking poles flying, burning a path down the mountain. Optimistic/Foreboding.

We got to Horombo in the afternoon, and it was still warm in the sun, so I perched myself on a rock outside of our hut, intermittently reading Rebekah Heacock's old copy of Surrender or Starve (really? did I REALLY read about famine and politics in the Horn while climbing Kili?) and watching two buzzards dance high overhead, their wings brushing each other. My mountain mind found it to be romantic.

So I listened to my entire Sigur Ros collection. I inhaled and exhaled with the clouds; expanding, contracting. The sun set. I was awestruck.

As the sun set I reluctantly came down from my rock, brushing the lichen from the seat of my lululemon yoga-turned-mountain pants. Maybe that's the trick with mountain sickness. It purges all that beauty; clears the way for the realist. And so I woke up wretching.

photographic interlude

2009-09-11T06:32:00.001-07:00

Some photos from our crater walk on day 1.

impatiens kilimanjarico

some creepy guys dressed up in russian monkey suits or
black and white colobus monkeys

day #1: the quiet caboose

2009-09-11T05:43:00.000-07:00

Fact #1: Mount Kilimanjaro shut me up.

From the second we stepped through that magical triangular gate into the green, the words stopping coming. Dan, on the other hand, found that the mountain gave him plenty more subtext for witty banter. As he and James (chatty guide #1) marched ahead lying to each other about all their girlfriends, Danford (stoic guide #2) and I hung back, silent. The quiet caboose.

I have 100 girlfriends! No, my belly is bigger!

Everything, everywhere: green. Moss, lichen, vines, leaves, trunks. In the absence of sound you could hear the chlorophyll pumping. Pole pole slowed my feet, but it slowed my brain too. All I could register was the throbbing green, my thumping heart, and my chilled skin. And blue monkeys.

who, me?

We stopped to eat the packed lunches we were carrying in our packs. Already starved from the 1.5 hours of fresh air and movement, I did a quick inventory:

2 Marie glucose biscuits
1 very fried piece of chicken
1 sandwich with white bread and something like tuna
1 triangular-shaped carton of pineapple juice
1 nugget of cake
1 teeny tiny itsy bitsy banana
1 hard-boiled egg - anemic white yolk

The moss thickened around the tree trunks and hung from the branches overhead, and we kept marching up, boots slipping on damp rocks until we arrived at Mandaru Huts. Dismal, gray, cold. Just like the two Slovak dudes in snow pants with a satphone who refused to share a hut with us. Jerks.

We drank a metal cup of Milo and hot [powdered] milk and set off for a quick walk with James up to the crater. We stopped for a full ten minutes, slack-jawed at our first view of Mawenzi, flanked by grasses, Kili's peak shrouded in clouds over it's right shoulder.

on our walk to the crater

On a passing recommendation from some South Africans we ran into in Moshi, we asked Peter to fill up our aluminium flasks with hot water to put in the bottom of our sleeping bags. I thought we would spend the night sleeping on a mat in a tent, so a nice little A-frame hut with a hot water bottle at my toes after a day of really slow walking in a pretty forest. Piece of cake!

how kili came to be.

2009-09-11T05:12:00.000-07:00

mawenzi ridge at dawn

Last December, as I was saying goodbye to DC, I spent an evening hanging out with my friend Dan. He played Jose Gonzalez on his Martin and we talked about respective futures - mine filled with Africa, his filled with international arbitration. We were equally excited about our diverging paths, and as I ducked out into a mist-filled dusk, I said good night with "Kili 2010!"

Nine months later, thanks to the economic downturn and my tendency to say "sure, why not?," Dan was scheduling a nice long holiday and suggested we take the Kili trip early. "Sure, why not?" I didn't have anything else solid on the calendar in September.

As the summer passed, August 28 came at me like a slow motion, un-dodge-able bullet. With my name on it. I rushed to get everything in line with One Mango Tree so that I could piss off on yet another holiday (one which I was quite sure I did not really deserve). To climb a mountain, at that. I went to yoga a few days before climbing - that constituted my training.

With the summit now in the rear view mirror and attention turning to riots in Kampala and the annoying pain in my left toe nail that reminds me it's going to fall off, it's somehow hard to believe I was ever on those beautiful slopes. So I figured I'd write about it, before the details become even more fleeting.

jaia ganesha

2009-08-24T04:20:00.000-07:00

hindu temple, kampala

A day after getting back to Uganda, I went downtown to the fabric market with Sejal. During our downtown trip, Sejal spotted the birthday-cake spires of the Hindu temple, and begged for a visit. Sejal's own religion is Jainism, but she was eager to check out the temple, making comparisons with her Jain temple at home in Fort Lauderdale. I'd always been curious, my brush with Hinduism rooted in my yoga practice - and mostly in music and the strange connection I've felt with Ganesh since Justin brought back a little statue from his trip to Bali last year.

We slipped off our shoes and walked around the temple, admiring the ornate carvings and statues inside, and the lingering scent of incense. I asked about a shop (surprise, surprise), seeking a bigger Ganesh statue to add to my apartment. The priest directed us across the street to a building that faces Nakasero Market - the doors were shut tight, but there was a banner proclaiming "Hindu Religious Items."

In the weeks since that first trip, I swung by every time I emerged from the fabric market (during my daily vendor payment trips), and the doors were always shut - until last week, when I saw them flung open with all sorts of crazy Indian stuff pouring out. I ran up the steps, breathless, and came back cradling a big white Ganesh statue, with a lotus unfurling behind his head, and a very lopsided face (thanks to a poorly made plaster cast). The priest begged me to let him paint it, but one glance at the garish green and orange versions on the shelf behind him and I tucked a wad of shillings into his hands, thanked him profusely, and said I preferred the dusty white version.

Lucky for me, I brought Ganesh home just in time for Ganesh Utsav - the 11-day festival celebrating the deity's birth - it began yesterday. The priest offered to come to my house every day for pooja...but again I politely declined. I'm nowhere near a real Hindu anyway. I'm not even sure why the little Ganesh from Bali needed a big, pale twin... but yesterday, at the start of the festival, I lit some Nag Champa and put a bowl of flowers out in his honor. He's the Hindu God of Wisdom, after all, and who can't use a little more of that?

16 again

2009-08-24T04:03:00.000-07:00

my new ride - the pajero - at the OMT compound in Gulu

"I'll drive! I'll drive!"
"You want me to come pick you up?"

After selling the Focus and committing to bike commuting last August, I never dreamed I'd own another vehicle, let alone fall in love with driving... a {gasp} diesel SUV. Sorry Earth, but I wouldn't do much good if I ended up another victim of the boda boda fate.

In June I bought a Pajero from my roommate's friend, assuming I could trust in a mzungu's car care enough. I was so busy before leaving that I didn't bother to have a mechanic check it out. I came back from my US holiday in July and a day later hopped in my new Pajero to drive up to Gulu - and shredded a tire on the way there...at which point I quickly realized that all four tires needed to be replaced. A few weeks and thousands of additional dollars in repairs later, I have a pretty reliable, rugged, diesel SUV that gets me everywhere I need to go.

And as for the driving-on-the-left (cake), traffic jams (not so bad), and obstacles (goat! chicken! woman with bananas on her head! man with a bicycle! twenty boda bodas riding my bumper! pothole!)... it's nothing. I learned by osmosis from all the other crazy drivers in this town. I hopped in the car and immediately became a part of the "flow" - if you can call it that.

The only time you find me on a boda boda these days is to go downtown to Nakivubo Mews to buy fabric/sponge/etc. It's too insane to get out of there - in one jaunt with Medi I ended up stuck on a street full of matatus for 1.5 hours. That's the point on the curve where risking your life on a boda boda actually sounds better than wasting another minute sucking matatu fumes and wondering if you'll ever get home.

All longish-term people in Uganda - I URGE you to get a vehicle. Just have a mechanic look at it before you buy it!

rainy season: my work

2009-08-24T03:04:00.001-07:00

I've said it before - living and working in Uganda sometimes feels a bit bipolar. A self-fulfilling prophecy, the bipolarity reached extreme magnitudes this month.

Crest. Trough. Crest. Trough.

the pink palace - right before move-in

Perhaps the biggest crest of all was the opening of the new One Mango Tree workshop in Gulu. In one swoop we closed Unyama and Bobi locations and brought all the women together under one roof - Plot 9 Obiia Road, Gulu. The pink palace. One Mango Tree has an address, and it has a giant mango tree right outside the front gate. A compound manager, a guard, a cook, a guest house. All under the [invaluable] direction of Josh Engel and Hilary Dell - the One Mango Tree summer interns. With that huge move came big changes, and change is not always easy here. The personal and professional relationship with Lucy stretched and strained, as I sought to understand the reasons behind her choices; her decision to step aside as One Mango Tree achieves what she had dreamed. The smiles, laughs and gratitude of the other sixteen tailors shadowed by the confusion behind Lucy's refusal to take on a key role; the unhappiness that seems to grow proportionately with her successes.

Lucy in her shop, photo by Stephanie Makosky

But there are the other sixteen women, arriving early each day, picking soursop fruit from the tree out front, eagerly sweeping the production floor and settling in for a good day's work. The happy delivery of posho and cabbage cooked up by Mili while the morning hours pass. There is Prisca - eagerly taking on a management role at the workshop, commanding the ship with grace and ease. Crest.

Mili, dishing out posho and cabbage

Another crest was the visit from Stacey Edgar - the founder of Global Girlfriend. She arrived at an intense period of change for One Mango Tree; and provided a guiding voice for all of the difficult things I so needed to hear. We agreed on five apparel pieces to add to Global Girlfriend's best-selling organic cotton knit collection. We received our biggest order to date (this single order topping ALL of our orders combined from 2008), but it sent me packing to Kampala, a quick descent to the trough - to get the legal and financial pieces of One Mango Tree situated. NGO registration (constitution, bylaws, work plan, budget, LAWYERS...), export certificates, commercial invoices and GSPs...the export promotion board...a frantic (and still failing) search on how to take advantage of AGOA's duty-free policy on exports for our handbags. One million ush withdrawal limits at the ATMs, with 30 million ush due to the tailors and vendors. Daily trips to the ATM, hourly calls from vendors wanting their payments. Reserving a van to deliver materials and realizing it will take a lorry, not a van, to get all of the materials to Gulu. Realizing this after 500,000 ush is already sunk into the van rental.

Back and forth, up and down.

Cresting again - today I signed a contract with International Organization for Migration (IOM). We're receiving an in-kind grant through their USAID funding - 16 sewing machines and lots of fabric and liner to take on 10 referrals and provide them with work within the next six months.

I laugh, I cry, I scream, I slam my phone down after the fifth Sunday morning call from Joel the sponge guy asking for money ("Joel! we agreed on a payment schedule", "yes, madam but you know these African guys"). My chest gets all tight, I become convinced that I'm crazy, and then I chill out and breathe and start again.

rainy season: the weather

2009-08-24T02:47:00.000-07:00

This morning, as I peered out the window at the now-familiar black clouds bunching in the distance, I realized that in all my trips to Uganda, I've never really experienced rainy season.

Each morning seems the same - clear and blue and even slightly hot, an otherwise beautiful dawn that now seems suspect and deceptive. I dress in my typical daily outfit - some random short-sleeved shirt, jeans and flops. And I hop into my Pajero and head to whatever meeting/coffee/internet/errand I have topping the list, turning on Fat Boy and Melanie for the Sanyu FM morning show.

I'm getting the point where I'm having a hard time remembering when the sky hasn't churned; the clouds materializing from sunshine, the heat magically evaporating, as if a vacuum is sucking the warmth from the air and turning it into gushing, weighty rivers pouring from the darkened and apocalyptic sky. It eventually fades to a light-ish gray, the green leaves freshly rinsed and the red earth churned into a sucking lurchy mess.

This week, as I drove from lunch near the US Embassy down to Lap Textiles, the rains began as I passed through the industrial area - which suddenly seemed totally abandoned - except for my lone SUV. To the right of the road I could see a sewer line exploding into the air, shooting waves of murky black water at least seven feet into the air, and then flooding the street, rushing across with a force that I imagine will sweep me away.

And then, as sudden as they came on, the rains will retreat, and a new day will dawn with another sunny, false optimism - as if no one suspects what's in store during the horrific afternoon lunch hour.

on ohio

2009-08-24T02:03:00.000-07:00

Almost two months have passed since taking stock. Another cold trip in the big steel belly of KLM, a few weeks in Ohio with my family, a week in DC with friends, and back to Uganda again.

If I was writing while I was home, I would have told you all about Strongsville, the suburb where I grew up. I would have told you that I started each morning with a short drive to Starbucks, and how from there I proceeded to go to the mall. There wasn't much else to do. I would have shared my frustration at the bland emptiness of strip malls. The vaguely depressing feeling that sets in during the too-bright summer afternoon hours when there's nothing to do.

But then I would have told you about the evening spent with markers at a Little League game, dodging rain drops and drawing tattoos on Ella, my three-year-old god daughter (rainbows, ladybugs, a family of crabs, I LOVE USA, an American flag). Her first attempts at AcroYoga, and the warmth you feel when a little kid you love but rarely see starts to feel comfortable around you again. Voluntary hugs and kisses when you go home.

I would have told you about IngenuityFest, where my heart pounded viciously as I strutted down the runway in a super short yellow dress and a wide straw hat for the Revive Fair Trade Fashion Show. I would have told you my parents were near tears at the event and talked about it for weeks afterward.

I did get to see a different sort of Cleveland - the east side is still pretty vibrant, and with a wrong turn on the GPS, one day I ended up in a neighborhood that used to be home to the industrialists that once made Cleveland a beautiful city. I would have described the leafy and winding, yet broad streets; the houses reminiscent of English tudors.

I certainly would have told you about the day I took my dad to songwriter night at The Winchester in Lakewood. The small front room with little candles on the tables. The musicians pouring in to listen and cheer each other on. I couldn't possibly have described the look on my dad's face as his mind raced imagining himself up on the stage.

I took a trip to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Armed with my iPod and a playlist mostly in sanskrit, I walked around a new exhibit - Streams and Mountains Without End: Asian Art and the Legacy of Sherman Lee at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Outside the museum, I felt a world away from Strongsville. I would have described how taken aback I was at the shimmering silver surfaces of what had to be a Frank Gehry building.

On the weekends we took the drive out to the cottage, where I lazed away the afternoons with Life of Pi (I certainly would have posted on the weirdness of that book!) and annoyed my brother with my cooking and excitement over peaches and berries at the farmers market. I would have written about the cocky joy in Henry's gait when he ran on the beach, ears cocked and paws prancing, stopping to pee on every sand castle. How good it felt to snuggle up with his salty paws. I would have written about the ice cream at Dairy Dock, the sunsets that turned the bay into a pool of liquid gold, and the joy of riding my Surly through the quarry to have coffee in Marblehead.

All this I would have written, but instead chose not to write at all, until this rainy Monday in Kampala, a month after my return; the intermittent weeks shedding a golden light of nostalgia on the memory, like photographs with the edges worn - a bit more loved for their distance from the present moment.

taking stock

2009-06-25T00:26:00.001-07:00

stopping to smell the flowers - these flowers were in ruhengeri

I'm halfway done with my layover at Schipol, en route to DC and Ohio for some R&R. It seems a good time to take stock of what's transpired since the last time I was in this airport.

Here are some of the highlights:

I finally started teaching yoga, and I love it. I started a weekly class at the US Embassy.

I met Alison, fellow Clevelander and yogini (and incredible friend), and starting August 1, she'll be the full-time sales rep for One Mango Tree in the US.

I traveled. A lot - I spent a week in Rwanda with Julie, a few days in Jo'burg and then assisted Hitesh with a case study on an eco-lodge for his forthcoming book, took another Nile cruise in Murchison, spent a weekend in Sipi Falls, spent a weekend in Mabira Forest, and logged a dozen or so trips to Gulu.

I moved out of the Cronin's lovely Kololo guest house, and into a flat in Muyenga with my friend Whitney.

I bought a Pajero.

I rented a compound for One Mango Tree, forging a partnership with Greater Good to increase our production and begin to make exclusive products for their brands (starting with organic cotton apparel for Global Girlfriend).

I started working with interns - bringing Josh and Hilary on board to do some awesome stuff for One Mango Tree - Josh is delving into operations, and Hilary is a fashion designer. The One Mango Tree family continues to grow...

I completed a two-month consultancy with Chemonics, working on a bid for a new project in northern Uganda, and became an expert on local government capacity building and labor-intensive infrastructure projects. I think I met every government official in Gulu, Amuru and Kitgum.

Oh, and I quit AIR. But you knew that already.

-----------------

And those are just the tangible outcomes of the first four months in Uganda. In the wee hours of the long nights in Gulu I learned some big huge lessons about forgiveness and moving on.

I cannot wait to see what's next, following this little breather at my family's cabin. It's been an absolutely incredible first half of 2009.

ugandlisht 6 - traveling. traveling.

2009-06-24T00:05:00.000-07:00

This week I'm traveling back to the US on holiday, so I figured I'd give some pointers related to traveling in and out of Uganda.

1. Visa.
Unless you are coming to Uganda long-term for work, I'd suggest getting a travel visa at the airport - it's $50 and a lot easier than dealing with the back-and-forth of sending out your passport and photos to the Ugandan Embassy in DC.

2. Money.
MasterCard really is not accepted in Uganda, so try not to bring it. If you must, I've heard Crane Bank works. Other ATMs are strictly VISA. With that said, Uganda is still a cash economy. With the exception of fancy-schmancy hotels, credit cards are not accepted. Best bet is to bring USD to get your travel visa and then hit up the Barclay's ATM right outside international arrivals at the airport to take out some cash. If you bring USD, make sure they are 2000 or later date - there's no one in Uganda that will buy 1996-series bills. And bring $50 and $100 denominations, otherwise you get jacked on the exchange rate. The forex at Grand Imperial Hotel in town is the best place to exchange, but all major banks (Barclay's being my personal favorite) will buy your USD.

3. Special Hire.
That's what we call taxis in Uganda. If you say "taxi," Ugandans will think you're referring to matatus, which are the little minibuses that serve as public transit in the country. There are tons of drivers waiting for fares at the airport. The airport fare is typically 60,000 (about $30) to get anywhere in Kampala. Entebbe is about an hour from Kampala.

4. Duty-Free.
If you're en route to your travel destination via an EU airport, forget about all the duty-free liquids at the Entebbe Airport. They'll confiscate them at the EU airport and you'll have to buy your booze all over again. Stupid rule, but it's a rule.

5. Caffeine and wireless.
Good African Coffee opened up a shop inside the airport (finally! something besides Crane Cafeteria!), so now getting to the airport the suggested 3 hours before your flight is not nearly as painful. They have awesome espresso drinks and muffins, and Uganda Telecom hotspot, so surf away while you wait to board. As a side note, EBB is really stepping it up a notch. I can't believe the continual improvements at the airport - every trip it gets better.

6. Time.
Give yourself at least 1.5 hours to get from downtown Kampala to the airport. You never know what kind of jam you're going to run into getting through town or on Entebbe Road.

7. Airlines.
I always fly KLM, because I love Schipol Airport. I used to fly Emirates, but the 10-hour layover at Dubai Airport was NOT worth the comfy cabin, air freshener and good food. There's just something about the Dutch that make that Uganda-America or America-Uganda transition just right. And they have plentiful wireless, delicious coffee, and typically play jazz Muzak, so it makes me really nostalgic for America. Haven't tried Brussels Air yet, but they and British Airways also fly from the US to Uganda. And apparently you can now do a direct DC-Addis and then Addis-EBB on Ethiopian Airways. I'm sticking with KLM and my World Perks.

I'm ready for a holiday!

ugandlisht 5 - getting pretty

2009-06-17T02:01:00.000-07:00

This should probably be a list, but I'm so excited about the salon I went to this week that I'm dedicating this post only to Sunel Lourenco Hair & Beauty in Bugolobi. Prior to visiting Sunel, I lived under the impression that to live in Uganda meant to deal with my grown out roots and flat hair. Not so.

Sunel's salon is in a converted garage - looks boring from the outside...

totally beautiful inside (that's Sunel, working on some caramel-colored highlights)

Sunel (pronounced sue-kneel), originally from South Africa, has lived in Uganda for the past five years. Her jewel of a salon is a converted garage. The style is simple and modern. Sunel did a combo of highlights and lowlights on me - full-head color - for 150,000 ush ($75). In my long history of hair agony, that's a steal. And she did an amazing job. Ladies haircuts are 35,000 ($17). Angel assised Sunel with my hair, and gave me the most incredible shampoo/massage...

She gets all of her products imported from Italy - including ammonia-free hair dyes. After getting a lesson from Sunel on how Uganda is damaging my hair (sun, heavily chlorinated tap water), I stocked up on real shampoo, conditioner and a hair mask. Those are a bit expensive ($20 for each and $25 for the mask), but a massive difference. I put the remnants of my Palmolive stuff under the sink.

And Sunel's place has plenty of salon-ness. You know - the chit chat, flipping through glossy South African fashion mags, drinking coffee.

Location:
Plot 12 Hanlon Road, Bugolobi, Kampala
Make an appointment! +256 (0) 782 571 816
sunellourenco@gmail.com

reason #176: why I love kampala

2009-06-16T02:31:00.000-07:00

the sunsets.

resurfacing...and roads

2009-06-13T14:15:00.000-07:00

Ugandlisht was supposed to keep me on track with updating this blog, but it failed miserably. A few nights ago, while hiding under the mosquito net in my room at Bomah, I started making Ugandlishts. A few hours later, when I was ready to call up friends to get a vote on "best pizza in kampala," I looked at my phone - it was past 1 am. I decided to give Ugandlishts and myself a rest.

I started a consultancy on 1 May, and it's kept me pretty occupied. We're working on a proposal for a new USAID project in Northern Uganda. It will bring a big investment in local government capacity-building - by implementing lots of infrastructure projects using the procurement process in place at the district level. That means lots of community roads in the north - using labor-intensive construction methods. Aside from general development (and the very obvious fact that NU needs lots of road improvements), roads mean a lot for economic development. In NU, it's the difference between farming for subsistence and farming for livelihood - the road connects to market. In the case of this project, it's also infusing much needed cash into the economy through the provision of jobs for unskilled laborers within returning communities. Community roads are pretty easy to construct, they just need oversight and lots of willing and able labor.

So, since the beginning of May, I've been immersed in the world of - gasp - planning. It's been a truly engaging project, and I'm loving how much it gets me up to Gulu. I'm currently logging my fourth trip since the consultancy began. It also pushed back my return to the US for visiting the family (sorry mom and dad), which means I won't be on the road til June 24. Roads, roads, roads. On the road again...tomorrow morning, back to Kampala.

ugandlisht 4 - work + caffeine

2009-06-10T01:00:00.000-07:00

coffee in sipi falls - image courtesy of joe shymanski

Every day of my life is "work from home," and the only down side is that it can feel pretty anti-social after a while. Here's where I head when I need to caffeinate and get some work done.

**Cafe Pap - Parliament Avenue - Infocom Hotspot, outlets lining the padded both seats in the inside along the walls, excellent coffee (single capp is my favorite) - they also have a really great juicer. If you don't need a plug in, it's great to sit out on the patio. I've been a fan of Pap for some time - some will say the prices are too high (and they are), but it still draws a sort of fascinating crowd of Ugandan professionals mixed in with expats in hemp wear.

**1,000 cups - Buganda Road - no wifi here - across the street from the Buganda Road craft market and has it's own plentiful craft shop. Better for meetings than all day hang out, and no food here, but the coffee selection is incredible and delicious and the outdoor chairs are comfy if you can snag one. You can also get a french press and buy whole/ground coffee beans grown in Uganda.

**Javas - Bombo Road in City Oil - Infocom Hotspot - the classiest truck stop coffee shop I've ever seen. Close to Mak U, and has excellent and cheap coffee and food. I get the mocha here. Air conditioning inside, and a cute patio (though if you stay too long, it gets pretty dusty from bombo road).

**Good African Coffee - Lugogo shopping center Jinja Road - UTL hotspot - fantastic coffee drinks and a nice menu (great pastries too!). Only down side is that the plug-ins are upstairs and the ambience isn't as nice up there. Outdoor seating available too - great if you have to run other errands - Lugogo has Shoprite, Game, Banana Boat, Silverback pharmacy, MTN, and ATMs galore.

and when in Gulu...

**Cafe Larem - just opened! between Jojo's Palace and Acholi Ber Inn, this cafe is operated by American couple Justin and Rita Garson, who just opened up two weeks ago - fantastic addition to Gulu. Hookups for internet, simple mahogany furniture, soothing colors and just flat out nice people - Cafe Larem is soon to outgrow its current shoe box space. Justin and Rita really know what they are doing. Excellent coffee (including espresso-based beverages and iced coffee!), cookies, and brownies. Other snacks and some One Mango Tree products coming soon.

on shifting

2009-06-05T02:34:00.000-07:00

St. Stephen's Church - providing all-day Sunday gospel - right behind my house

Universal alignment has been the theme of 2009 - particularly in my living situation. When I decided to move to Uganda, the Cronins offered up their guest house in Kololo rent-free. I lived there for my first four months. When the Cronins told me they'd hired a live-in nanny and needed the space back, at first I was really nervous. But then a few days later I met Whitney, who works with Grameen Foundation. We met at a yoga class, and later that afternoon while chatting at the pool she told me she needed a roommate starting June 1.

So it goes.

the living room - I had some sofas made at a shop on ggaba road

After only two trips in his little gray sedan, Medi and I moved (Ugandans call it "shifting") all of my worldly belongings to the new place and I started settling in. I can't even begin to describe how happy I am to live in Muyenga. I've dreamt for three years about making a home in Uganda, and it's finally real.

my bedroom - with blanket from khana khazana

I am within walking distance to Helle's yoga classes, Ciao Ciao gelato and the Italian supermarket, Fuego Cocktails (with it's fantastic drinks and fire pit), and the raucous bars and shops of Kabalagala (including Lalibela, my favorite Ethiopian joint). In the mornings I make some French press and sit on the balcony watching the kids from the neighboring school go through their exercise classes.

Grace, our housekeeper, is quite possibly the sweetest woman I've ever met. I've been giving her money each week to pick up fresh fruits and veggies at Nakasero market (she likes to go early to get the best prices as the farmers arrive at the market). This morning I looked in the fridge and found she'd made fresh watermelon-pineapple juice.

In short, I feel like I won the lottery, and I hope friends and family will take up the offer and come visit.

ugandlisht 3 - sweet cravings in kla

2009-06-03T00:51:00.000-07:00

When you're fiending for sugar in Kampala - here's the low down on where to satisfy your sweet tooth needs.

gelato - ciao ciao's and cafe roma gelato in tank hill
banana split - crocodile cafe in kisementi
mango sticky rice - krua thai in kololo
sweet plantains - mama ashanti's bombo road
chocolate cake - i love new york kitchen garden city
corn pudding - lotus mexicana nakasero
chocolate mousse - la patisserie ggaba road
snickers ice cream bar - nakumatt oasis mall
banana milk shake - kabira country club bukoto
baklava - lebanese store in basement of garden city

ugandlisht 2 - three great places to have a drink in kla

2009-05-27T00:10:00.000-07:00

for the context
Lalibela - Kabalagala - directly above Fancy This lingerie shop, Lalibela is a little slice of Ethiopia tucked away in Kampala's rowdiest neighborhood. Hang out on their balcony - a church pew width overhang that gives you the perfect leverage to people watch and sip on a club. Background music shifts between Ethiopian beats and 90s movie soundtracks. Stick around for dinner too - no menu, but whatever they're serving promises to be delicious.

for the view
Hotel Diplomate - Muyenga - a dusty bit of the old Africa, complete with a stuffed lion chained to the staircase. the hotel feels pretty vacant, which only adds to the romance of the sunset over Kampala. Add a g&t and watch the jam build up on Ggaba road as the clouds and sky turns all shades of magic.

for the atmosphere
Emin Pasha - Nakasero - this hotel is simply gorgeous - the most well-sited and tastefully-designed piece of architecture I've seen in Kampala to date. Build into the hill-side in Nakasero, Emin Pasha has infinite options for seating experiences - on the patio, in the cozy bar, in the garden, next to the fire pit. Pick one and settle in with a glass of house red. Perfect opportunity to put on your best fancy lounge-y clothes and feel utterly luxurious.

ugandlisht 1 - what to do in gulu

2009-05-20T02:54:00.000-07:00

A new feature! Each Wednesday I'll be adding a list to this blog, related to all the Uganda PR I tend to naturally do. Ugandlisht (a combo of the peculiar dialect of English spoken here + list) will pull together all things strange, interesting and useful about living and working in Uganda.

View of Owino Market from the balcony of Jojo's Palace

Ugandlisht 1: For some reason, you find yourself in Gulu. What to do?

Stay at Jojo's Palace. Book with Denis at +256 (0) 782925004, single self-contained at ush 35,000, breakfast of hard-boiled egg, pineapple, banana, bread, jam, coffee and tea included.
Bring mosquito repellant, take your anti-malarials, and sleep under the net. Gulu is not Kampala. They are vicious little suckers up there. A little Deet goes a long way.
Say "acho maber" (good morning in Acholi) to Mama Lucy at One Mango Tree - enter Owino Market right across from Jojo's Palace, and you'll find One Mango Tree about a 30-second walk down, on the left. The tailors make lots of One Mango Tree designs to sell at a discount to locals, so stock up!
Check out the rest of Owino, particularly the food section. You'll find stalls with some traditional products too - like metal ankle bells used for Acholi dance, and carved out gourds used for carrying water and food, as well the local clay bowls, which are a pretty shade of deep red.
Get yourself some African shirts or dresses from the tailors in Owino. Pick out crazy African fabric (roller skates? chickens?) and play fashion designer. Eat lunch while you're there. A delicious plate of rice and beans is only ush 1,500, or try some malakwang, bo, cassava, or odii.
Eat some paneer (the tikka masala is delicious) and naan at Obama Inn (ask any boda driver to find the place, right in town)
Treat yourself to a massage at Bomah - ask for Judy (a delightful Kenyan therapist) and enjoy the rubdown and, even better, the after-massage scrub with a hot wash cloth - only ush 20,000. If you're feeling really adventurous, join the big men of Gulu for a steam bath and talk shop. And afterwards...
Have a feast in their restaurant. Introduce yourself to Jacob, the manager, and bring your own avocado for the chef to slice and add to your greek salad. If cheese is there, the macaroni au gratin will satisfy your garlic craving and fill an empty belly. Steak with pepper sauce is pretty good too.
Pick up some handicrafts at Wawoto Kacel - a little craft shop across from Pearl Afrique Hotel in town. Gorgeous natural jewelry, banana leaf cards, tie-and-dye and creative bark cloth products made by Comboni Samaritans - a coop supporting HIV+, widows, orphans and the disabled. Schedule a visit to Comboni with Godfrey, who works at Wawoto Kacel. It's about a 10-minute boda ride outside of town, but their operations are truly worth a visit.
Stop by any of the many bicycle vendors in town. Talk them into letting you rent a bike for the day and take a ride around the outskirts of Gulu - head for the Cathedral to check out Gulu's architectural marvel and a nice big statue of Jesus.
Take a late afternoon beer at Havana or Da Pub, or head there after hours to get a taste of the Gulu night scene.
Have dessert. At Bomah, bring your own mango to add to the pancake and drizzle it with honey. Perfect washed down with spiced African tea. At Bambu, it's the Sweet Temptation. Indulgent; if you're lucky and they have all the ingredients in stock.
Before you head out of town, stop by Country Bakery for provisions - chicken and veg samosas are excellent, as is the banana bread; and pick up a bag of vanilla yogurt (bite the corner, insert straw - instant smoothie) is great for a hot day in Gulu.
If you're taking the bus back to K'la, try for the first Northern Tours bus (leaves around 6:45). It takes only 4 hours to reach the outskirts of K'la from there. Keep your luggage on the bus with you and when you get to Kawempe, tell the conductor to let you off and hop a boda. It will save you up to two hours of sitting in traffic and the hassle of the bus park.

Apwoyo (pronounced ah-pho-yo) means thanks, use it liberally, and in response to pretty much anything anyone says to you in Acholi. Have a great time!

entrepreneurial explosion

2009-05-15T04:54:00.000-07:00

Turns out I'm an entrepreneur. One of the side effects of living and working in Uganda - opportunity abounds. One Mango Tree continues to grow - adding products and continually widening our customer base, delving into organic cotton and other craft - screen-printing, seed jewelry, etc.

I'm not sure if it's Uganda or it's my changed modus operandi - but all of the businesses I've dreamed of in the past somehow seem much more realistic.

Like...

The eco-B&B somewhere breathtakingly beautiful with a yoga deck.
The yoga studio cafe with a fair trade shop.
The smoothie/juice/coffee shop with wifi.

sipi river lodge at night photo credits joe shymanski

It's a compilation of all of the things that I love. I don't just want to do yoga - I want to design and market organic cotton yoga clothes. I want to organize retreat weekends bringing together Ugandan massage therapists and yoga teachers with beautiful spots like Sipi River Lodge and Rainforest Lodge. The colors, the smell, the taste, the sounds. Right now it all just keeps me energetic and inspired, but at some point I know I'm going to find a spot and put down some roots - build an experience for people to enjoy.

----

let's dry these suckers!

And then there's food processing. This week, while working in Gulu on a consulting assignment, I was talking with a colleague about how to dry fruits (merely out of curiosity - brought on by the mounds of mangoes to be found all over northern Uganda right now). After hearing how she dried fruits in Peace Corps in Benin, my mind went crazy over the idea of artisan-dried fruits to market and sell within East Africa and possibly abroad! One Mango Tree dried fruits!

Sometimes I wonder if I've totally lost it. Or found it?

let's hang out at the cineplex

2009-05-10T02:32:00.000-07:00

Garden City Mall in Kampala

courtesy of farm3's flickrstream

In the three years I've been traveling to Uganda, I've only ventured into the Garden City Cineplex once, to see Vantage Point with Steve last April. Being as that I'm a Butvin, movie-going runs deep in my blood. Trips home to Strongsville are not complete without at least one dinner-and-a-movie combo - not to mention the scores of flicks we watch out at the cottage on rainy summer days. I always forget how much I love the experience until I'm watching the previews. At which point I get so excited that I forget you also get to see a full-length feature film after the previews are done!

After a hot hot hot afternoon walking around the various tents at the Europe-Uganda Village on Saturday, we decided to see a matinee - Duplicity. Popcorn, spies, love and air conditioning - perfect.

So perfect, in fact, that today, after an extended brunch at Emin Pasha, we decided to hit up the Cineplex again - this time for X-Men Origins: Wolverine. We stopped at the new Nakumatt that opened up at Oasis Mall, spending a very American sum ($10) on a Snickers ice cream bar, gummy bears and one very small bag of peanut M&Ms. It felt just like home.

Two Hugh-filled hours later, we reconvened in the food court. Yes, the food court. This was the weekend of the American teenager. I'm full of gummy bears, paneer wrap and pop culture. Life is good.

pollan fever

2009-04-28T06:50:00.000-07:00

I love Alain de Botton. Travel, love, status anxiety, physical space - he wraps it all up in an artsy philosophical package that you just can't wait to tear open.

Michael Pollan has done the same thing for the tangible world, totally re-shaping the way we look at food - and writing about it in that page-turning way only Pollan can do.

pollan's writing house

While perusing the used bookshops in Melville last month, I came across A Place of My Own, Pollan's treatise on personal architecture. Written after finishing renovation of his own home and upon entering into fatherhood, the book winds elegantly between construction handbook and the individual's need for personal space.

my writing house?

When I was growing up, I had a little hideaway under the basement stairs. My dad creeped me out by telling me it was because it was only 8 years earlier that I was just a little seed in my mom's womb. Twenty years, later, it makes sense, but the desire to have a "place of my own" has never subsided. Pollan's place is a shingled writing shack in the woods near his home. I've visualized a whole range of my own places, from one of those prefab houses dropped on a plot in rural West Virginia, to a house on stilts in Belize with zero decoration - just warm wood tones and sea breezes. Or a Bon Iver-ish dark cabin in the woods with a hearth and blankets of snow outside.

Pollan's descriptions totally hit home - from my own dreams about place to his education on architecture. The book traipses from framing to Le Corbusier, from roofing to Frank Lloyd Wright, and from site selection to Peter Eisenman (eek! I still hate him!). Ultimately, he brings it back to architecture as shelter, and the very personal architecture of creating a space that suits who we are. Bravo.

jumping ship - with both feet

2009-04-18T01:59:00.000-07:00

go for it, and don't look back

No more of this one-toe-testing-the-water stuff. After spending three years gazing out at the vast, inviting and unsure waters, I just dove in head first.

It's been about a year since my friend Ivan gave me the book The 4-Hour Work Week. It took me a few months to not feel silly reading it - a business self-help book of sorts with a gilded guy in a hammock on the front. When I finally did pick it up (after removing the jacket), I hid myself away for a few days and emerged with a fresh perspective on life. The impact the book had on me cannot be exaggerated. Of course it provided valuable lessons for One Mango Tree - finding a good fulfillment service, outsourcing anything and everything you can, being comfortable with delegating. But bigger than that, I realized there were other people out there like me - people who felt completely stifled and discouraged by the 9-to-5 career existence.

There is another way to live.

When I left DC, I intended to stay with the day job I've had since moving there in 2005. All fall I'd been experimenting with working remote, and started taking Fridays off to work on my business. I'd convinced myself it was the office environment, not the work itself, that was killing me. Once I got to Uganda, I continued the remote work thing; checking in, doing my reports, trying to make the conference calls work. And then, suddenly, One Mango Tree really started working. And I started teaching yoga. And I realized how little it really costs to have a great life in Uganda.

And so on Friday, I took the leap. I quit AIR.

I dove in head first. And let me tell you - the water feels really damn good.

on teaching

2009-04-16T00:46:00.000-07:00

svasana adjustment at sipi river lodge

photo credits joe shymanski

When I was finishing up the "apprenticeship" component of my yoga teaching training last year, I had to teach parts of a few private group classes in my mentor Judy's home in Woodley Park. I'd head off on the Surly in the early summer light; the anxiety and the bike ride making me feel very much alive. Judy didn't like to prep me too much before the classes - she'd be teaching and then say, "and now Halle will lead us through balancing postures." At which point my brain would start to sift and scroll through sanskrit and posture nicknames. No matter how much my nerves would cause me to sweat and shake, I always left class feeling totally invigorated.

I moved to Uganda with the full intention of teaching yoga at Kevin and Gavin's studio in Munyonyo, but it took me almost two full months to finally accept an invite to teach. I'd just returned from South Africa, and Kevin suggested that I sub their Sunday morning class. I laughed nervously and then accepted. At 2:30 am on Sunday morning I was still burning incense and perfecting my playlist.

I love to practice yoga, but I'm coming to realize that I love teaching yoga in a completely different way. Much like giving and receiving gifts, there's something to be said for experiencing both sides of the equation. The giving part I like the most is svasana, when I can prance around the room with herbal eye pillows, adjusting all the students and giving them head massages. I love the squinty-eyed bliss that follows svasana after a class that really pushed you.

All in all, I really love teaching, and I'm truly enjoying being the newbie teacher in town.

the things i carried

2009-04-08T03:48:00.000-07:00

You can't get fresh asparagus in Kampala. As Hitesh wrapped up his meetings at University of Pretoria, I spent a lovely morning wandering the beautiful aisles of Woolworth's Foods. After much pacing, I picked up two packs of asparagus. A stop at Pick-and-Pay for Ouma Rusks and a couple of bags of biltong at a local vendor rounded out my shopping trip.I tried my first rusk at Ginnegaap, curiously dipped it into my coffee...and fell in love. I then proceeded to DEVOUR the muesli rusks at Mosetlha, at one point eating more than a dozen in one 24-hour period. At home in the US, I sometimes make tomato soup solely to dip my grilled cheese. After finishing my sandwich, I make sure no one is looking and pour the remaining soup down the drain. I found myself doing the same at Mosetlha, making just enough tea or coffee to submerge my rusk, and never even drinking the liquid.

Rusks and biltong evolved during South Africa's early pioneering days - a way to preserve bread and meat in the dry climate. Both were also used extensively during times of war, for people traveling long distances.

And so I traveled my long distance home, about four hours on South African Airways, from Johannesburg to Entebbe, keeping my fingers crossed that customs wouldn't find the little goodies hidden in my big red suitcase. Success!

on the road in south africa

2009-04-07T03:17:00.000-07:00

sunset on a walking safari with chris, owner of mosetlha bush camp

Hitesh and I set off early from his B&B in Rivonia, tucked into his little rented Yaris and zipped northwest across the superhighways into the South African bushveld. Tasked with navigating our journey, I wasn't sure if the road signs were pointing to furniture bins at IKEA - Roodesport, Zeerust, Swartruggens - or actual places. My mind started shuffling again outside of Jo'burg, attempting to place the landscape - some mix between Tuscany and northern California - rolling yellow hills dotted with cypress. We stopped off at a gas station. I filled up on Lunch Bars and water. Hitesh dove into his vegan stash of nuts and Green&Black chocolates. We both brought music, but didn't even attempt to turn it on, as two professional bullshitters in a little Yaris on a road trip, we simply chatted for the entirety of the 5 hour ride. We had much to catch up on.

I first met Hitesh back in 2007, after having a few phone calls when a friend put us in touch to talk about conservation issues in Kenya. He'd already started writing his forthcoming book, Authentic Ecolodges, and our paths crossed one evening in Kampala as he was wrapping up visits to an ecolodge in Zanzibar. Hitesh is a Kenyan citizen, and a trained architect and landscape architect, with all the fervor of an avid environmentalist. He's the world's leading expert on ecolodges, and walks the walk more than anyone I've ever met. I've always been interested in ecotourism, more as a tourist than anything else, but this time our crossing paths was more strategic than originally intended.

The Ohio State architecture program kicked off its spring Uganda studio at the same time Hitesh and I were traversing the South African landscape. 14 students began researching building materials, climate issues and culture in northern Uganda, in the attempts to collaborate with One Mango Tree tailors to design a green, off-the-grid production facility. Over our four days in Madikwe, Hitesh and I discussed community ownership models (visiting Buffalo Ridge, an ecolodge in the reserve fully-owned by the local community), ventilation improved pit toilets, water-heating methods, alternative energy models, and site planning. Who knew that an ecolodge, meant for a traveler's enjoyment, could so fully inform the design of a production facility? We stayed at Mosetlha Bush Camp, a fine example of how people can (and do) coexist with ecosystems without destroying them. I can't wait for Hitesh to share his insight and experiences in East Africa with the Ohio State students.

On our way back to Jo'burg we got a bit lost in the yellow hills so close to Botswana, listening to Habib Koite and planning our next journey. At OR Tambo the next morning, Hitesh headed off to a full moon-lit massage at an ecolodge in Namibia, and I back to Kampala. Home.

this should be in a museum!

2009-04-04T02:53:00.000-07:00

one of the pillars of the new constitution outside the apartheid museum

I remember the scene from my beloved Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, when he's chasing the bandits at an archaeological dig, trying to rescue this big, golden cross. He's breathless running around and pulling his incredible stunts on trains and across the desert, clutching at this cross, trying to protect it. Perhaps ridiculous to link up Apartheid and Indy's golden cross, but I couldn't help but think of that scene, while sitting in the little veld outside the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg.

As I was finishing Yunus's Creating a World Without Poverty, I remember him dwelling (for a few pages) on the concept of poverty museums. Museums are for remembering - pieces of our culture, pieces of things that make up the history of man. Just as much as that big, golden cross belongs in a museum, argues Yunus, so do the social ills that plague society. On my recent travels in Africa, I've visited three museums - none of which commemorate culture or art.

Kigali Genocide Memorial Center - Kigali, Rwanda
The Hector Pieterson Museum - Orlando West, Soweto, South Africa
Apartheid Museum - Johannesburg, South Africa

Perhaps in creating a beautiful space to commemorate the horrific things we've done to each other, that violence and hatred can be a thing of the past. After reading through the history and seeing the exhibits about Apartheid's creation and demise, I sat down in the veld and realized that there is a piece of me missing. I cannot fathom hatred. This has been bugging me lately - first when I was in Rwanda, and now in South Africa.

I at first thought Yunus's proposition of a "poverty museum" a bit laughable, but I'm coming around on the concept. Surely the phrase "never again" must have a broader breadth than genocide alone.

where to stay in jo'burg: melville

2009-04-03T02:39:00.000-07:00

Ever an urban planner, I'm always drawn to walkable cities, vibrant street life, cafes that induce people-watching. When I heard that I'd definitely need to rent a car to get around in Jo'burg, I was bummed. Then a friend recommended that I stay in Melville - a few blocks of cafes, bookshops, boutiques and bohemia in a suburban area on the outskirts of the city. It did not disappoint, starting with where I stayed. Ginnegaap Guest House is adorable, with wood floors, beige walls, white trim and pressed ceilings, framed black and white photos, simple white down comforters, rain shower head in the bathroom. The dollar is really strong in SA right now, so four nights at Ginnegaap only set me back $150. Upon arriving, I announced that I would not be leaving the confined of the cute guest room and adjoining patio. But then I would have missed:

A visit to Audrey at Bookdealers, a second-hand bookshop on 7th - where I spent over an hour selecting titles, finally settling on four (for a grand total of less than $15):
Siddharta by Herman Hesse
The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton
Snakepit by Moses Isegawa
A Place of My Own by Micheal Pollan

Dinner at Cafe Picobella, with delicious wine less than $2 per [huge] glass and some amazing things done with butternut, including a butternut and sage lasagna.

Dinner at Cafe Mezzaluna, on their adorable garden patio, with more delicious wine and apricot chicken with couscous.

And when feeling adventurous, call up Maxi Taxi and discover the hideout of all the white South African hippies at the Bryanston Organic Market every Thursday and Sunday. Smells like nag champa, sounds like flautists, and [the best part] tastes like savory crepes with roasted veggies and pumpkin seeds, plus an almond polenta cake. Definitely worth a visit for the crowd and the food.

the psychology of fear

2009-04-02T01:28:00.000-07:00

juxtaposition in jo'burg, hot coffee and hot fence

When I decided I'd meet up with Hitesh Mehta in South Africa to help out on a case study for his forthcoming book, Authentic Ecolodges, he suggested I spend a few days on the front end in Jo'burg. I'd been interested in opening up the market for One Mango Tree products in South Africa, so I booked four nights ahead of my trip with Hitesh to meet with owners of boutiques and yoga studios interested in carrying our line.

Jo'burg has somehow become synonymous with violent crime. I'd envisioned a dark, gray, concrete city - something akin to City of God. In complete contrast to this, I arrived in Jo'burg on the first days of autumn, and quickly noticed how green the place is. There are trees everywhere. I met my friend Stephanie at the airport, and we took a cab to Ginnegaap Guest House in Melville, an area recommended by a South African friend. As we drove through the city and surrounding suburbs, everything looked so familiar that my mind kept racing, trying to place the landscape and architecture with places I've been in the United States and Europe.

I was struck by many things in South Africa, but more than anything I was confused by the whole concept of fear. Flying into OR Tambo Airport, the suburbs of Jo'burg looked a bit like Beverly Hills from the sky - huge mansions with pools and rolling acreage - but you can't miss the thin outline of a wall around every residence. The city is filled with gorgeous architecture and landscape, but the majority of it is well-hidden behind tall walls with electrical fencing across the top. Ginnegaap itself is an urban oasis, nestled behind a clay-colored wall. Our key ring had no less than 8 keys, and when we came in at night, we used all 8 to un-lock the gates that lie between the 4th Avenue and our room. On the first night we stayed in past dark, only to realize that the place had been locked down. While we were eager to explore the area, the many gates convinced us that maybe it wasn't the safest thing to do.

On driving through the city center days later, I saw the concrete and gray city that I'd envisioned. The fear in South Africa makes sense when you combine the still-present (though not forced) segregation and xenophobia. The city center houses much of the unemployed population, which looks like a lot of Nigerian men loitering on street corners. Unemployment is at 30% in SA. This, in contrast to the jacaranda-lined streets of Houghton, where Nelson Mandela now resides; the incredibly smooth and modern highways that criss-cross the nation; the beautiful golf courses; the strip malls that line the suburban roads.

We visited Soweto, and even there I was surprised to find such a developed area. The separation was the more appalling piece, and the fact that the race lines are still so clearly drawn in where people live. One night at dinner, Steph and I talked to two South African men. They shared the story of their recent adventure into Soweto. They'd befriended a black South African woman, who invited them to a restaurant in Soweto. The recalled the intense fear they'd felt as they drove into the area, and how they'd so much enjoyed the food and atmosphere in the restaurant. When we asked if they'd ever go back, their response:

"No. No way."

and more cotton

2009-03-31T00:52:00.000-07:00

I'm getting used to this 24-hour turnaround in Kampala. After the long journey back from Gulu on Sunday, I had one day in town before my 4:30 am drive to the airport, setting off for Jo'burg.

The one day back in town was broken down into tightly-packed hours and minutes, starting with a morning meeting with Phenix. We toured their factory in Kampala, which looked exactly like UTEXRWA. Phenix gets its 100% organic cotton from farmers in Lira, northern Uganda. The factory was filled with the same big green Swiss machines, spinning the raw cotton into yarn. The difference between the two companies is in the processing. UTEXRWA weaves cotton, while Phenix knits it. What's the difference? With UTEXRWA you get wax-print, woven fabrics. With Phenix you get t-shirts. Turns out Phenix is the supplier of all the organic cotton yarn used for EDUN Live - the clothing company started by Bono and his wife, Ali Hewson. I'll let you use your imagination as to the outcome of our meeting.

On to Jo'burg!

of tsetse flies and brake failure

2009-03-30T00:10:00.000-07:00

I spent much of the past week with Tim, the owner of Greater Good, and One Mango Tree's biggest buyer. After two days with the ladies in Gulu, we decided to take an on-the-way-home safari at Murchison with Noela and Medi, our driver. Gulu is about a two-hour drive from the north gate of the park - on a really nice tarmac road that runs from just north of Karuma Falls out to Pakwach. In 2007, I stopped in Pakwach on a reverse trip (heading to Gulu after a safari in the park). The town must see its fair share of tourists, as it's completely packed with men selling handicrafts - little drums and funny carved men with spears balancing on a pedestal. We stopped for breakfast (roll-ex and tea), and proceeded through the north gate, treating ourselves to a self-guided game drive on the only road that goes to Paraa Lodge - where we were meeting park ranger Nelson and his boat.

Elephants road-side during our self-guided game drive

It turned out to be a beautiful Sunday, cruising up the Nile in our long, white boat. I parked myself at the bow, often hanging off the front pretending to fly. It was so relaxing that we all fell asleep at one point or another. The smell of fresh water and the sound of waves lapping against the hull set me dreaming of my family's cottage on Lake Erie. It felt a bit odd to have a wave of nostalgia for home while cruising up the Nile surrounded by hippos and crocodiles.

Me and Medi, our awesome driver, at the base of Murchison

We set off for K'la around 2 pm, hoping to reach Masindi by 3:30 and K'la no later than 6:30 pm. The gods had other plans for us. About 5k into our drive, the tsetse flies launched a full-on offensive, dive-bombing our car by the dozens. We had no A/C, so we had to choose between sweat lodge or angry biting flies. You would think we would have chosen the sweat lodge. Tim embraced his inner zen while Medi, Noela and I shrieked, cussed and swatted with hats, notebooks, hands. There was a tsetse fly massacre in our little sedan, but I'm sure we barely made a dent in the population, which lies in wait for unsuspecting tourists on their way to and fro the safari lodges.

Then, not long after the attack subsided, we lost our brakes. Noela and Tim were blissfully passed out in the back seat, and Medi calmly showed me when he pressed the brakes that nothing at all happened to slow the car. I was mildly freaked out, but Medi illustrated such calm that I decided to roll with it. Literally. We drove brake-less for one hour, until we finally arrived in Masindi (honking at pedestrians as we rolled through town). Medi finally threw the car into reverse in front of a garage and we came to a jolting halt. I must say, only in Uganda can you blow out both brakes, roll to a garage and have them repaired in under an hour on a Sunday, and for only $10. It was barely an annoyance, and gave me time to drink a bag of yogurt, eat some glucose biscuits and read about ritual murder and devil worship on the front page of the New Vision.

acel, aryo, adek, angwen (1, 2, 3, 4!)

2009-03-29T12:02:00.000-07:00

Havana Pub celebrated the fourth anniversary of its opening in Gulu on Saturday night. I'm not one for the bar scene in Gulu, but I've definitely had my fair share of Havana experiences. Early in 2007 it was bending bottle caps during happy hour, drinking Bell and falling for a much, much younger guy. Later that year it was hearing gunshots from the balcony of Kakanyero and learning that a UPDF soldier had shot himself in the head just inside the bar.

Now, in 2009, with Club beer apparently buying every piece of advertising space they could get their hands on, Havana celebrated its anniversary by closing off the street for a night of musical debauchery. Between two rigged walls of blue plastic tarpaulin, the Hotel Pearl Afrique Band filled the air with jazzy Antibalas-like tunes. The lead singer announced that they were "going traditional," switching into the familiar beats from all those bus rides from K'la to Acholiland - with live dancing. In black t-shirts, jeans and NY Yankees caps, the guys came out and performed what can only be described as a crotch-thrust, where the upper body stays totally still and the lower body, well....hips thrust, knees wobble. I was smiling and laughing so hard my face hurt.

The MC and DJ gave lots of shout outs to northern Uganda, and as I looked around at the growing mass of smartly-dressed young Ugandans at the show, I couldn't help but think of how much this place has changed since I first came in 2006. I went back to Jojo's after the hotel band wrapped up, but when I left for K'la the next morning at 6 am, the music was still going strong.

friday night hafiz

2009-03-27T14:59:00.000-07:00

the small man
builds cages for everyone
he knows.

while the sage
who has to duck his head
when the moon is low
keeps dropping keys all night long
for the
beautiful
rowdy
prisoners.

- hafiz

cotton & cooperatives - digging deeper

2009-03-25T15:17:00.000-07:00

One of our One Mango Tree customers is in town visiting the cooperatives he buys from in East Africa, so I ended up spending much of the week going on his site visits with him - first to Gahaya Links (they partner with Fair Winds Trading to supply all those baskets to Macy's - and pretty much any African-made product you see at Starbucks) and then to Partners in Health (PIH) in Rwinkwavu.

In between, I spent yesterday morning at UTEXRWA - a textile factory located in Kigali. The factory is a shining example of Rwandan industry, with a spotless facility and remarkable openness about their processes. I learned about fabric production in its entirety, starting with raw cotton from ginneries in Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi:

-- from cleaning - to spinning - to weaving - to processing - to printing - to packing --

I saw how they make 50/50 poly blend (mixing in equal parts natural cotton and the blindingly white poly made in Korea and imported), and watched women in the weaving department hand-hook the fabric patterns before sending them off to the automated weavers. Into the processing department, where all those chemical baths reside - hopefully we can avoid this room with One Mango Tree's fabrics.

Then on to the printing, where they have thousands of designs etched into huge metal cylinders. I found the ones used for Obamabags (recognize the face in the image below?) - that's right, they too are a production of Fair Winds and UTEXRWA. The Obama print is off-limits.

The whole process is impressive and incredible - and a challenge to explain, particularly the spinning department, where cotton turns from fluff into longer and stronger threads. The end result? We get to choose from thousands of designs and weights, which means One Mango Tree products are about to get that much cooler - we're aiming for 100% organic - and our bags will finally be 100% East African, a combo of Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and Burundi - from soil to sale.

Check out some potential new prints here.

omnivorific, or julie carney-copia

2009-03-22T05:56:00.000-07:00

Showing off some shiny eggplant at one of the GHI gardens

Our first dinner in Kigali was wheatberry risotto with squash, and salad greens from the garden, topped with beets. I'm visiting Julie Carney, one of my best friends, who lives in Kigali and runs Gardens for Health - an organization that works with HIV/AIDS cooperatives to construct home gardens, in the hopes of improving nutrition (and thus the effectiveness of ARVs) the good old-fashioned way - with nutrient-rich foods. We first met back in 2006, on a GYPA trip in Uganda - both of us visiting Africa for the first time. This trip is our first African reunion - three years later and we now both live here.

Julie is IN it. She lives, breathes, and sleeps (and obviously eats) sustainable agriculture. We visited the GHI model farm, which occupies what used to be the backyard in the compound that houses their office. Julie convinced the landlord to tear up the turf and ornamental trees, and they now have a thriving example of a home garden: eggplant, cabbages, pepper, tomato, amaranth, onions, carrots, spinach, and sweet potatoes, along with a tiny tree farm of tamarillo (tree tomatoes), mango, and moringa. GHI uses lots of innovative gardening techniques, since all of their cooperatives live in a peri-urban area and do not have the space normally required for a garden. My favorite is the sack garden.

So, understandably, the underlying theme of our stay in Kigali has been food. We're eating carrot-zucchini muffins, lots of wheatberry, fruit salad topped with tamarillo, loads of fresh veggies. On our hiking trip to Ruhengeri this weekend, Julie tried out her latest iteration of a power bar - a mix of moringa, honey, peanuts and some left over dried fruit she found in my backpack.

All of this food and farming is probably the reason I wasn't too surprised when I opened the Sunday NYTimes email to read that the Obamas are tearing out a piece of the South Lawn to build an organic garden at the White House, something Michael Pollan suggested in a New York Times op-ed back in 1991. Granted, Pollan offered a garden as one of several alternatives - a symbolic gesture for removing the chemical-loving non-native turf that so often symbolizes domestic American life. Either way, to me this is illustrative of a priority shift. I've been reading a lot about food and farming in the past year, and am elated to see that Michelle Obama is embracing food issues. What impresses me most is that this so-called food revolution crosses the divide. Whether improving nutrition for people living with HIV in Rwanda, or decreasing obesity in the United States, the spotlight is on how we, as humans, eat.

And, thanks to the happy combination of Julie's cooking and Rwanda's fertile soils, I'm eating quite well.

italian african fusion - mango caprese

2009-03-20T04:20:00.000-07:00

photo from closetcooking.blogspot.com

slice up a ripe mango
slice up fresh milk mozzarella cheese
layer with fresh basil
drizzle with balsamic vinegar and olive oil

I encountered this awesome variation on the traditional caprese at torero cafe, kigali, rwanda.

tea fjords

2009-03-19T02:44:00.000-07:00

image courtesy of farm2's flickr photo stream

10 hours on a bus from Kampala to Kigali, passing through the increasingly rugged terrain that separates the two cities. Oh, Rwanda. I've wanted to travel to Rwanda for the past couple of years, adding it to my itinerary several times, only to inevitably cross it off as the packed weeks fly by. That crazy bus ride always seemed a bit much.

This time I actually made the trip, getting to the Jaguar Bus station a few minutes before the on-time departure. I managed to eat an entire box of NICE coconut biscuits before making it to the border. I listened to music, but rarely nodded off, looking out the window facing east, across matooke plantations covered in red dust.

The border crossing was uncomplicated - there is no visa fee to enter Rwanda if you are American. As I grabbed a bottle of water and a hard-boiled egg from a vendor and re-lugged my pack back onto the bus, the engine rumbled to a start and we were once again on our way.

Just minutes into the ride, Rwanda's landscape became dramatically different. The road hugged the snaking base of the hills, flanked on the east by little bunches of eucalyptus and tea stretching across valley floors to the opposite terraced hillsides. It was a cloudy day, with mist and woodsmoke collecting in pockets; the deep green of tea leaves criss-crossed by footpaths. Up ahead the curves of the hills recede and you see more tea, lapping at the base of the hills, sometimes washing up onto their slopes before the elevation steepens and the terracing starts. I imagined the tea as water, doing a lazy, shimmering, and winding dance between the hills and the road.

I put down my book, turned off my iPod, and spent the next few hours peering through raindrops at the scenery. So, you could say I'm grateful for that ridiculously long bus ride, and surprised by the sheer beauty of Rwanda.

sipi river lodge - heaven on mt. elgon

2009-03-10T10:44:00.000-07:00

Alain de Botton conjures Wordsworth in The Art of Travel; something he referred to as "spots of time." There are certain places that stick - owing their sticky-ness to a fortuitous combination of scenery, smell, temperature, and a very specific mental state - that become a motif in life. For me, it's the low-hanging stars in Belize, it's the smell of water in Zanzibar...and currently, it's every little piece of Sipi River Lodge.

wildlife: a cow peering at you while showering, baby pigs and wandering goats
cuisine: carrot and coriander soup, pineapple crumble with vanilla custard, ample Roberts Rock wine
soundtrack: falling asleep to the sound of sipi river flowing by your banda, will's awesome iPod selections during dinner
wake up call: drinking coffee you roasted yourself

ambience: the banana leaf roof in the lodge, especially in the lantern-lit evenings
fun: the hat collection in the bar (and play bites from Captain - see slide show)

If you're visiting East Africa, you owe it to yourself. Set aside 4 or 5 days and a few good books, and go there.

fabric of life - one mango tree press

2009-03-09T21:57:00.000-07:00

Check out the latest piece of news on One Mango Tree - thanks to Bob Sberna for an awesome piece, and to Glenna Gordon for the beautiful photos!