To market, to market

Yesterday Susan (my roommate), Ben (her local engineer friend), Matt (and MVP staff from NYC), and I went to the market for a look and some shopping. What fun! I was very excited to find colorful African print fabrics, chilis and other fresh spices like rosemary. Susan was excited to find cookstoves (that's her speciality), a thermos, and some ceramic mugs. We have decided that we might make a weekly or bi-weekly trip to the market. There is one in particular which is very big and apparently has a lot of handicrafts.
Speaking of handicrafts, we also went to the local "artists village." Its a group of little houses which sell locally made and regional imported handicrafts and all things African. Here I found a necklace with beads made from newspaper. Something I was considering for a cooperative in our project. There were also tons of baskets, wood carvings, you name it. Another idea I had was to use the local beans in some sort of craft. They are absolutely beautiful - multiple colors and patterns all from one species of plant. If anyone has some ideas, please leave your suggestions here!

Business Meeting in a Sauna?!

Last night I went to meet a the guy who is running one of our partner organizations for a coffee. We talked for an hour getting to know each other and about our working relationship. He mentioned that he was going to a local sauna with a friend and said I was welcome to join. Knowing very well that I would go home and sit on my butt by myself, I decided to join. The friend, Christine, was a beautiful Rwandan woman, who used to work as the guest relations manager at the Serena Hotel and work in President Kagame's office, so she knows everyone. She was extremely sweet and took great care of me.
We arrived at the sauna and were given some big pieces of African print cloth - one for the body and one for the head. These are used as a cover up while in the sauna. For the next 2 hours (? I lost track of time) I was followed the Northern European ritual of sauna, cold shower, relax, sauna, cold shower, relax... with one other muzungo (white man) and roomfulls of Rwandans. It turned out to be incredibly relaxing. Water mixed with herbs is thrown over the heating system in the sauna, so it had the most fragrant intoxicating smell. I especially liked my frabic and hair do!
The most difficult part was continuing to talk about work and business as the night went on and I got more and more drowzy from the heat, steam, and relaxing atmosphere. Its a good thing we plan to have a normal business meeting this week, but I hope I can remember even half of what we discussed in our loin cloths!

Week One - Hitting the Ground Running

Regards from Rwanda! This is the end of my first week in country and its been an exciting, fascinating, and fun time already. Below is a flash report - daily highlights from my week.

Sunday - travel delay by 7 hours; absolutely nothing to do in the Addis Ababa Airport; arrive in Kigali to an overflowing toilet.
Monday - out to Nyamata office for the weekly team meeting; back to Kigali for meetings with a livestock and agriculture specialist and a bee keeping specialist.
Tuesday - meetings and brainstorming - village tourism, brick making, jewlery, cards....
Wednesday - Visits to the basket weaving cooperative groups to follow up on their first international order!
Thursday - Spent the morning surpervising a school cleaning in preparation for painting and in the afternoon had a surprise visit from 2 Brittish Members of Parliment. Scramble to get the right people in the right places (including my team member Chantal tracking down a group of basket weavers from the cooperative!), only to wait hours for them to show. With any luck this will pay off...
Friday - bumpy morning in the village with 2 visiting agriculture specialists to understand the poosibilities for irrigation, which is poorly needed!
Saturday - finishing the proposal for the Brittish MPs for a new knitting cooperative.

That's it in brief. There were so many things which were striking, frustrating, exciting... its hard to remember them all, but in the future I'll try to write more regular to capture those things. For now, keep the comments coming - you have no idea what a shock it was to wake up early this morning and have no idea what I was going to do with my whole weekend!!

P.S. It couldn't be any different than my last few days in Hong Kong! Riding the Ferris Wheel at Ocean Park and drinking Proseco at Isola...

The Wasting Wonderland

During my last week in Hong Kong, I've been running around the city for lunches, coffees, and the myriad of errands I need to do before leaving. After spending only 10 days in Africa in early May, one of the biggest contrasts between Hong Kong and Rwanda which I noticed was the level of waste. In Rwanda, there is so little waste. Non-biodegradable plastic bags are not even allowed in the country (they take them away from you at customs). And village women come to market or to the health center with the one bag their family possess. Its likely to be a fertilizer or seed bag and it will hold their few Rwandan Francs, whatever they might be bringing to sell, and their medical insurance card. Every possession is dear, even the recycled seed bags.
In Hong Kong, on the other hand, almost nothing seems dear! In particular one thing which drives me crazy is the lack of concern for the waste in energy. Building after building has air conditioning blasting away with doors wide open. I wish that the Environmental Agency would do a study on how much money and resource is wasted from simply leaving the doors open (or not having doors at all).
So all of my friends in Hong Kong, while I'm gone, do me a favor and if you see the door to a shop open, please close it and think of the ladies in Rwanda with their recycled seed bags.
P.S. See picture for another way Hong Kong wastes energy... but what a beautiful skyline nonetheless!

Best wishes from Japan

Today I received a farewell card and gift in the mail from my friends at ING Life Japan. They sent a framed picture of the team there. This way I never forget what a lovely group of colleagues they all are. I received other sweet letters and gifts from other old colleagues in the region as well - from Malaysia, China, India...

All of these people from around the region extending their warmth and luck reminds me how blessed I am to have spent nearly 5 years in Asia. What a wonderful blend of cultures, tastes, sights and sounds that I am getting sad to leave!

So here is one last thank you to all of the people in all of the countries which have made those 5 years special.

Fair Vanity at "Vanity Fair"

A good friend told me that this month’s Vanity Fair magazine is all about Africa and the people and programs around the world that are trying to help Africa face and overcome her challenges. It’s a great issue, with articles about various programs including Product (Red) and yes, Millennium Villages Project (MVP), or rather about Jeff Sachs the founder of MVP. Anyone who cares to learn more about the state of Africa today should read this issue. Link to Vanity Fair's Africa issue.

Right now I’m on my way back from America. So many people know so little about what is going on in the rest of the world, especially Africa, and the little that they do know or think they know is mostly antiquated or negative perspectives about corruption, AIDS, and people shooting each other in the streets. The interesting thing is that a person will talk about how awful, unsafe, and undesirable Africa is and then mention about people getting shot in their city, about the neighbor who is HIV positive (or maybe they have no idea), and about the injustices of oil prices and the war in Iraq without realizing that they face the same issues in their own beloved country.

Most Americans really love America. This is great, but often this love of state is blinding. Yes, there are a lot of problems “over there,” but there are an equal number of problems at home. Equally there are good things in the states and good things in other countries. We can learn a lot by just being open to learning about them and not wearing rose colored glasses when looking at our current situation.

Bono is a guest editor of this month’s “Vanity Fair.” He has suggested to the magazine to change the name to Fair Vanity. Not a bad idea… I believe that some more American’s could use a little less Vanity Fair and more Fair Vanity.