When I moved to Ethiopia in 2006 I started a blog to keep my family up to date on what I was doing, and what it was like to live and work in Ethiopia as a foreigner. I called it the Ferenge Addis Blog. A "ferenge" is a white foreigner in Amharic (the official language in all of Ethiopia and the lingua franca in about 1/3 of the country). I was surprised by how many hits the blog ended up getting, usually more than 100 per day. It was used not only by Mom and Dad, but by foreigners who wanted to know about life in Addis Ababa, and Ethiopians who wanted to give their opinions about foreigners in their midst.
When I moved back to the US and was no longer Ferenge, I started this little blog (Written in Caps), to keep family updated on my frequent travels through many of the world's capitals.
As I posted a couple of days ago, I recently accepted a position in Amman, Jordan. In the spirit of the Ferenge Addis Blog I decided to start a new blog about life and times in Amman. I was happy to see that there are already a few blogs in a similar vein. Bibs, Babs, and Bobs is about a family with a baby and a stay-at-home mom. Apricots Today is about a four-person family from the US Midwest. I feel that there's room for our new blog as well: about a childless couple working in development in Jordan. Imagine my happiness to learn that one of the acceptable translations of "foreigner" in Arabic is "frenji." While the romanization of the word is slightly different, I think it's safe to say that I'm frenji once again.
See the Frenji Jordan Blog, here. We'll start posting some info about what it's like to move overseas, and then start from Jordan next week (!).
Recent Posts
- Hello from Greece
- 10 best/worst things about living in DC
- One trip, seven capitals, three weeks
- A suburb in search of a city
- Sudden interest in local DC politics: voting against noise
- Heading for the Hills (Greetings from Miller's Creek, NC)
- Beaver Queen Pageant, 2010 (Greetings from Durham, NC)
- ¡Bicicletas en la acera!
- "The best place in town" (My $12 hotel)
Sites I like
- Apartment Therapy Unplugged
Interior design meets technology - Sin Noticias de Stew
Noticias de mi amiguita LaStewie, en Durham - The Unofficial Apple Weblog
- Unclutterer
- Wonkette
The DC political gossip blog
May 31, 2011
Hello from Greece
As the wheels of our Royal Jordanian Airways jet left the tarmac, we realized it had been nine months since either of us had been on a plane. For a pair who travels a collective 200,000 miles a year, it felt too sedentary, and we we anxious to get away. While the weekend getaway was all too brief, it was more refreshing than we could have imagined.
We touched down in Athens at 3:00 on a Wednesday afternoon. With a quick stop at the Olympic Airways transfer desk to pick up our tickets to Santorini Island, we found a coffee shop and settled in, drank a Heineken, and people-watched European tourists. After a 30-minute flight populated with aging Danes in safari-wear we touched down in Santorini, a volcanic island south-east of Athens. We grabbed a 15-Euro cab to Fira, the capital city that is perched on the rim of the crescent-shaped island. We walked down a meandering narrow lane and found the Nomikos Villas, our home for two nights. Fira and the Villas were everything we expected: lots of white and blue houses, perched on the steep hillside, with a breathtaking view of the Caldera, or volcanic basin which now merges with the sea. We settled into our suite and sipped our welcome glass of wine while watching the sunset. Later we walked five minutes along the lane until we found a recommended restaurant. After dinner, contented by fresh fish (Mari), perfect pasta (me), and a liter of local wine, we made it back to our room before falling into a coma-like sleep.
The Santorini sunrise was as spectacular as the sunset the night before. Three minutes after we called the front desk, our breakfast appeared and we sipped coffee while lounging on our balcony in our hotel robes. The receptionist helped us book a day-tour on a boat around the Caldera. We set out on a bus that took us to our two-masted boat at the main harbor. The boat set sail for the black rocks of the Mea Kameni volcano island where we hiked to the top. While the volcano is technically dormant, we did see steam rising from several hot spots. From there the boat took us to Palea Kameni island where hot springs meet the sea. Some people braved the freezing sea temperatures to swim into the hot springs. Some people, but not us. From the hot springs it was a quick boat ride to Ammoydi Thirassia island for lunch. Mari raved about the seafood skewers with pieces of squid as big as your palm. After all those hours in the sun, I raved about the ice-cold local beer. We climbed the 150 steps to the top of the island for an after-lunch coffee, and then hustled down to the boat to make our 2:40 getaway. The boat dropped off some people at Oia, the northernmost village on the main island. We said goodbye to our boat crew at the Fira old port. We rode the cable car up to Fira proper, and by luck alone found our way back to the hotel. After a shower and another spectacular sunset cocktail hour, we strolled to yet another (yawn) perfect dinner with a view of the Caldera as sunset became night, highlighting the twinkling lights of the cruise ships in the harbor. Friday morning we gave over to exploring Fira and shopping. After lunch we cabbed to the airport and made the half-hour back to Athens.
The trip from the airport to downtown Athens reminded me perhaps most of Rome. One moment you're traveling 120 kph on the express way. Then, three minutes off the exit ramp and you travel back a thousand years in architecture and mood. From our room at the Hilton we could see the Acropolis in the sunset, then lit from within after dark. We walked to a neighborhood restaurant. In its dining hours, Greece is closest to Spain: at 9:00 we were the only ones in the restaurant. By 10:30 when we left, the place was mostly full, and getting more so by the minute. On Saturday morning we walked the half-hour to the Acropolis. While Jerash in Jordan had prepared me for massive ruins, it had not prepared me for the crowds. Being a weekend, we literally elbowed our way past enormous throngs of locals, with some foreign tourists like us thrown in for good measure. But the crowded conditions couldn't detract from seeing in person what I'd seen in history books for so long: the Parthenon, the Agora, Hadrian's Arch, and a lot more. When we'd had our fill of history we crossed a small bridge and dropped into a seat at a sidewalk cafe for rest and refreshment. We followed our rest with a stroll through the Plaka, the historic neighborhood
which borders the Acropolis grounds. Tiny streets meandered this way and that as we passed shops of all kinds, cafes, bars, and restaurants. We became hopelessly lost, but I finally figured out that didn't matter and we had fun discovering what might be around the next turn: another small park with thousands-year-old columns, or a shop blasting techno music and selling faux-military hipster wear, and everything in between. Eventually, not even another bowl of pistachio gelato could keep us going, so we walked back to the hotel, more slowly than the outbound trip.
On Sunday we spent most of the morning in the National Garden, which is like Athens's Central Park. We topped off the visit with one more cup of Greek coffee in a cafe under a canopy of trees, and headed back to the Hilton to pack.
While we hadn't set out consciously to go somewhere completely different from Jordan, we certainly did so. And while we love our home in Amman, being somewhere so green, with so many sea views, was a welcome change and left us ready for the work week ahead.
There are more photos at the flickr site, here.
September 02, 2010
September 01, 2010
August 31, 2010
A suburb in search of a city
(Composed in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana.)
From
the Lonely Planet Guide to Botswana: "Gaborone is little more than a
rambling village suffering from growing pains, drabness, and a lack of
definition."
On my way back from a tour of east and southern Africa (see next post) I stopped in Botswana for a couple of days to visit W, who is there on a one-year posting, saving mothers and babies. Before I arrived I found Botswana on the map (which I always have to do whenever I find I'm going to a new country). Botswana is big. Imagine my surprise to learn that there are only 1.7m inhabitants. The guide book maintains this is because of the Kalahari desert which makes up most of the country. I know better. It's boredom. It took me two days of driving around Gaborone, expecting to hit the downtown area any minute, before I realized there is no downtown. All of Gaborone looks like a poor suburb in Arizona (without the race profiling). Lots of strip malls, dusty streets, dying trees and shrubs, and sand everywhere, all whipped about by the constant high winds.
Thankfully W, in her vivaciousness, has a large group of fun friends, so we spent time listening to music, scarfing great Indian food, and drinking the thin local beer. So it was worth the trip to add a new country to the list, to see an old friend, and to make new friends. The game drive we took certainly wouldn't be worth the price of the round-trip from JNB ($200): we saw some cows. No kidding.
June 25, 2010
June 21, 2010
Heading for the Hills (Greetings from Miller's Creek, NC)
Composed in Miller's Creek, NC, capital of... quiet.
When looking for places to do the non-Michigan week-off this summer, we searched for the opposite of DC: quiet, clean air, low population density, plentiful woodlands, plentiful wild critters, friendly local inhabitants, slow pace of life, lots of outdoor recreational opportunities, and quiet [repeated for emphasis]. Having some experience in the mountains of NC, it's the first place that came to mind. We let the web help us find a week-long mountain rental cabin. The "musts" were seclusion, quiet (!), and an outdoor hot-tub. We found just such a place near Miller's Creek, NC, a suburb of West Jefferson. We rented a 2-br octagonal house with a wrap-around deck that faces the forested Blue Ridge range of the Appalachian mountains. After the cacophony of DC the place is eerily quiet. The only road noise is from the state highway several miles away. One can hear clearly every bird call, squirrel forage, and drop of acorns onto the expansive deck. There is no cell phone coverage and no internet. We're in a dry county so the nearest beer is in West Jefferson, 12 miles away. We're two miles from an entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway, and five miles from a canoe livery on the New River, which led to a lovely three-hour walk in the woods along a stream, and getting a canoe stuck on the rocks on the New River. The BRP is perhaps my favorite road in the world. There's no commercial traffic, a breathtaking vista every mile or so, and hiking opportunities along the way. It's ideal for cycling but is very hilly, which makes it perfect for those with little gears, big legs, or both. The only inconvenience, and that's very slight, is getting stuck behind lumbering motorhomes or (worse) noisy Harley-Davidsons inching their way around the curves. There are photos of the mountains and the BQP (see previous post) on the Flickr site.
June 19, 2010
Beaver Queen Pageant, 2010 (Greetings from Durham, NC)
Composed in Durham, NC, which is not the capital of anything as far as I know.
On our way to the mountains of NC we stopped in Durham to see this year's edition of the Beaver Queen Pageant. This event could only grow and prosper in the unique social mix of "real Durham" NC. The pageant is a means to raise funds for local wetlands. But no bake sale or charity bike ride will do for this neighborhood. The only thing that will suffice is a day-long double-entendre, cross-dressing, knee-jerk liberal, hot and sweaty, pageant to elect a Beaver Queen.
Apparently it all started a few years ago when the local department of natural resources was trying to solve the problem of beavers felling trees across streams and creating wetness in the, well, wetlands. Being a government agency, their immediate course of action was to kill all the beavers. Somehow the local do-gooders in Old Durham caught wind of it, the neighborhood listserves caught fire, and the next thing you know there's a combo protest/fundraiser to save the beavers and the wetlands both. Of course the misuse of "beaver" appeared in the first postings and the campiness has since spiraled out of control, which is perfect for this zip code.
So, the 2010 Beaver Queen Pageant was heralded by months of hoopla and action on the BQP web site, where you can learn all you need to know on the topic. When we arrived at the event on an average-weather summer Saturday afternoon in Durham (temps in the high 90's, humidity high enough to damage currently-available instrumentation made for measuring it), there were already several hundred Durhamites of every social stripe on the scene, spread out on blankets, folding chairs, and milling around in happy little groups. Several tents were selling BQP tee-shirts, BQP water bottles, and other BQP tchochkes festooned with this year's "Peace. Love. Beaver" slogan.
The highlight of the day was the pageant to vote in this year's Beaver Queen. Attendees were encouraged to bribe judges. These bribes were called "donations" which reminds me of many of the African countries I work int. The pageant included competitions for beauty, evening gown, and talent (the mind reels with the memory). Just as your faithful correspondent dissolved into a slimy pool of sweat, sunscreen, and splashed pre-mixed mojitos, Scarlett O'Beavah, pictured above, was voted the new queen. See you in 2011.
Get the whole story and more photos of this year's pageant at the official web site, here.
June 04, 2010
¡Bicicletas en la acera!
When I first started riding bikes for recreation and then for commuting in Kalamazoo (MI), I remember angry motorists honking their horns and screaming "GET BACK ON THE SIDEWALK!" They thought of bicycles as kid's toys, and kids rode on the sidewalk. In the ensuing 30 years bicycles have come into their own as recreational and fitness vehicles. On any given Saturday morning you can find packs of weekend cyclists in their fancy-dan spandex clothes out on the country roads and people are kind of used to it. Oh, sure, once in a while Bubba would lob Mountain Dew cans at us way out on Chicken Bridge Rd. in NC, but there's one in every crowd, eh?
Cycling is different in DC. Here people (like me) ride for transportation, because it's quicker and cheaper than either a car or public transportation. Lots of people walk to work, too, and the sidewalks are frequently very crowded. Luckily there are bike lanes on most main streets, to keep cars, bikes, and pedestrians in their own happy environments. But. There is a certain segment of the cycling population that will not use the bike lanes. The bike lanes are wide, smooth, convenient, and safe. But they will not use them.
And in the vast majority it's one ethnic group that will not use the bike lanes. Will. Not. Use. Them. So they dodge among the pedestrians, scattering people in all directions. I still can't figure out why this one group choses the crowded sidewalk over the empty and beautiful bike lanes made just for bikes. I asked M, who happens to belong to that ethnic group, and she couldn't explain it. A couple of times I've yelled "¡bicicletas deben estár en la calle!" and the perpetrator looked at me like I was from Planet Clair.
I've decided to enlist the help of a friend/family member from NYC who knows the way things *aught to be,* the next time he visits. He's generally excitable and should be able to help stir things up. And I never thought I'd be referring to cyclists as "them."
May 19, 2010
"The best place in town" (My $12 hotel)
In my line of work, where people travel to all sorts of places in developing countries, a fun game to start when conversation ebbs is "what's the worst hotel you've ever stayed in?" Of course the worst-case is always trumped by people who've been doing this work a long time and snort "hotel??? What luxury! When I was in ___ there were no hotels!" The old-timers talk about staying in churches on sleeping pads and bed rolls. (Hint: stay with catholics, not protestants, as the catholics drink and may take pity and give you a beer.) And all is trumped by the Peace Corps people (or "volunteers" in the in-crowd language of people who have been in Peace Corps). They stayed in villages in mud huts and slept on the floor with cockroaches crawling all over them and ate rancid bush-meat washed down with scummy water. For two years. The more volunteers you get together, the worse conditions were for each succeeding storyteller.
Which brings me to the "worst hotel" game. Mine is from my first trip to India. We were in Alligarh district in the north of Uttar Pradesh state. I was told that we were staying in "the best place in town" and felt reassured. Turns out there was one place in town. Starting with dinner at the restaurant, the entire 12 hours was one long exercise in overcoming my gag reflex. Dinner was oily and rancid. The bottled water was suspect. The room was, in a word, filthy, and illuminated by a single 25-watt bulb dangling from bare wires. The floor was gritty. The walls were covered with dirt-covered peeling paint. I pulled back the blankets and stifled a shriek: the sheers were covered with a mixture of dirt, hair, oily stains, and what looked like crumbled Doritos. I kind of slept, on top of the blankets, in my clothes, using my jacket for a pillow. In the morning, after seeing the bathroom in the light, skipped any attempt at washing up. I was sure that after standing barefoot under the gray water of the shower, I would have only been dirtier than when I started. Mentally thanking my employers for forcing me to take every inoculation available on the CDC master list, I checked out, shuddered, and got in the cab… 24 hours later I was back in New Delhi at the palatial Intercontinental, scrubbing my skin raw with loofah and a full bar of soap.
So… when for this field trip in Kenya they booked me in a $5/night hotel, I didn't even flinch. Turns out we stayed in "the best place in town" in Narok, Kenya, and it wasn't clean, wasn't nice, wasn't bright, and the staff was sullen and peevish. But compared to Alligarh, it was the Ritz. I slept like a baby.
May 16, 2010
"Where are you from?" (Greetings from Nairobi)
Hello from Nairobi (the capital of Kenya). I realize that I've never blogged from here, having done my time in Kenya from '99-'06. My last time here was on my way to Ethiopia, even before I started the Ferenge Addis Blog. I'm here on a dubious assignment, but happy to be in Kenya again nonetheless.
Kenya is a relatively well-developed country these days. The infrastructure is not bad: electricity has only gone out about four times during my two-week stay. The internet is pretty good, and cell phone service is great, due to stiff competition between several companies. At the airport I bought a SIM card for my "Africa phone" (cost $3.50) and some airtime and I'm all set with a local number. Everyone in our work has an Africa Phone, which is usually a cheap Nokia, and a box of SIM cards from all over the world. I have SIMs from Israel, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia (2), Swaziland, and South Africa in a little plastic case. I used to have one from the US, T-Mobile, but the SOBs cancelled my account for non-use, even though I had $50 worth of credit on it. "Terms of service" indeed.
Anyway, I was walking from the Nairobi Java House, a mzungu* hangout where I had breakfast, back to the Serena, along Kenyatta Avenue, the main road through downtown, beside Central Park. I got chatted up three times. This happens in Nairobi: people want to know where you're from. When I was first here in '99 I thought they were scamming me, and I was kind of rude, looking back on it. Now I get it and just talk with people. My only rule: no stopping. Usually they ask where I"m from, and then ask how I like Kenya, and maybe sometimes ask why I'm here. Then they go on about their business. Once in a while the young guys want to talk about football (soccer) and ask which team I'm supporting. I just say "Reál Madrid" to avoid the conversation that inevitably ensues if I say "I don't watch football" and people think they must have misunderstood me.
One of the guys today did try to talk me out of some money. He was a well-dressed man who looked 100% Kenyan. His story was that he was a refugee from Khartoum, a college professor, trying to make it to Zambia where there was an organization that would help him make it to the UK. And you know, it really could have been true. I expressed my heartfelt sorrow for his predicament, but didn't give him any money. I could have spared it, but...
What would you have done?
*Mzungu" means "white person" just like "ferenge" in Ethiopia.
