Sundays are the best.

I should really get more work done on Saturdays, but lately I've woken up so tired that I get little done, and if anything its pressing, immediate matters (a months overdue haircut, refilling the drinking water bottles when there's none left, etc.). So the only bad part of Sunday is that I'm behind on work and I always tell myself that I'll get it done in the afternoon since I really took a day of rest on Saturday. So I feel a bit guilty when I end up on the couch sleeping or playing video games or something.

But besides that nagging in the back of my mind - Sundays are the best. Here's why:

1. I love the church I've found here. Its medium sized (for some reason I've only ever been in large and small sized, it feels like) and vibrant and it just feels real. The people are real about it, they're really joyful and it shows. Its very local, some of the songs are in Kiswahili (a fun way to learn), and I'm not the only Mzungu in the building, so I don't stick out like a sore thumb. Also, there's an 8 o'clock service that I usually try to force myself to get up for, because its just nice to have your whole day in front of you still when you get finished.

2. I miss a lot of foods, but one thing that has (almost) really stood up to the scrutiny is the brunch options. Brunch is the meal where they really pull the stops out - there's tons of great options for places to go, lots of them with nice outdoor gardens to relax in, and there's tons of great things to choose from, both on the food and drink side. My latest indulgence is these fried potato pancake type things called...I can't remember...but they're awesome. It starts with an F I think. What are they called? Hmm. Anyway, they're made up of shreded potato then fried in cakes and you have great topping choices like blue cheese and pear, bacon and cherry tomatoes, or lox and cream cheese. Oh man are they good. Its great to just chill with friends and talk about anything and everything.

3. My leather couch, which I sink into for the early afternoon hours, to zone out until daysleep finally comes, if the stars are aligned. I never sleep very long but its one of the best kinds of sleep. This reminds me that I need to get out the camera and document the new apartment for a photoessayic tour which I shall blog if I ever I get around to it.

4. The part I look forward to the most about is church, but it only edges out Ultimate by a nose, because Ultimate is where I'm really plugging in with my community right now (even guys from church go to it, so, yeah). Ultimate is where I've met most of my expat friends here in Nairobi, and its a great group of awesome people, and just a ton of fun. I haven't played Ultimate in any seriousness since intramurals in college, and I forgot how fun it is. Especially when you play it well, like these guys to - set positions, set plays, focus on technique. I'm even improving my forehand throws to the level of usually decent. We usually play 2 simultaneous games at once team size anywhere from 5-7, darks vs. whites, coed. The first game goes for 45 minutes or so with no one keeping score, and then we try to start a game to 5 or 7 at the same time that the other field is, so that we end about the same time, have a big water break, and then either the darks or the whites switch fields, so that you're playing a new team. That game usually goes for a bit until we play another game to 5 or 7, then a shorter water break for the die-hards and a long water break for those who need to rest, while the last game is started for whomever are the first 7 players of either color to get back on the line in the field.

That game goes until dark, and then we clean up and meander off to find food and do our Sunday night routine (mine: a shower, a skype call home, and dinner with an episode of Band of Brothers). Which reminds me, I need to show off my new TV when I photo-op the new apartment.

Ultimate has been a huge part of me feeling "settled" here in Nairobi - its where I've made most of my friends - the people who you have over for dinner, or meet out, or run into when you're out with others, or go on weekend trips with, even. I'm very thankful for it.

It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there – the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s pain-blanched face.

He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. “How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein.” he said. “To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!”

His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.

Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.

I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness.

As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.

And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself. - Corrie Ten Boom, The Hiding Place

Well. Today was interesting.

I went to Kibera, the biggest slum in all of Africa.

For a court date, where I was found guilty in a real live Kenyan court. Of driving with a break-light out, for which I was apprehended yesterday.

Here's the thing: in Africa, when it comes to dealing with law enforcement, there is the easy way, and there is the hard way. The easy way is to give them money and leave, and this is the one you are taught early on and are supposed to stick with. The hard way is refusing to pay their bribe, and forcing them to actually do their job.

When I was living in South Africa, I was new and didn't know much. The first time I got waved over for speeding, it took me a while to figure out "the process" - which is tantamount to lots of prolonged conversation about the difficulties of having to drive all the way to the station to process the international license and this that and the other thing, and then comes the part where you're supposed to give them money. I didn't catch that the first time and finally the "officer" uncomfortably said something along the lines of "Perhaps we can just sort this out here somehow?" Ooooh. Right. You want cash. OK. So I give him like 10 times as much as I should have, not knowing any better, and thinking I was making off like a fiend compared to fines in the US. After a while I got the hang of it and could handle the whole interaction in a couple of minutes with the right attitude, words, and small amount of cash ready to change hands.

You never really think of it as something wrong, so much as just the way you have to deal with things here. Its just the system of corruption that's been in place for who knows how long. And its everywhere - Kenya's no different. You complain about their greedy, extortionate ways as you drive off, you silently thank God you're not the matatu driver who's day they're really destroying, and you do the same thing the next time you run into the police. Here's some cash, leave me alone.

Because that's what everyone does. That's all everyone expects. Nobody ever asks them to actually do their job.

...

Yesterday morning I'm driving to our office on the other side of town from the one I usually work in (I'm in Westlands, the distant one is Karen). Of course, at one of the major intersections, instead of guiding traffic (there's exactly 4 intersections in Nairobi that I know of with working lights), they are strolling through the stopped traffic, looking for people to exploit.

"Oh crap," I thought as the officer passed me, "Brandon told me on Sunday that I had a break light out, and I haven't gotten it fixed yet."

Tap tap tap on the window. Yeah, I have a break light out. Pull the car over there on the other side of the road.

So I wait while he walks around the intersection hassling some more people, all the while holding my driver's license. Then he goes and talks to someone else he's pulled over for a bit. Then he gets on his cell phone to take a personal call. Then I go wave him down and tell him he's making me late for my meeting, which he pretends to care about for about 2 seconds before he goes to start hassling a bus they've pulled over. So I pull the "I want to talk to your supervisor" and he starts to pay attention to me and says we'll have to go to the station to write the ticket, and what a hassle that will be and so forth.

And stupidly, I finally had rash of furious resistance to this endless corruption, and I say "FINE, let's go." His jaw drops but I'm already getting into the car. So he too hops in my car and I drive him to the station while he's laughing away on the cell phone. He makes sure to get off in time to suggest it would be easier for me just to pay him, before we drive all the way there, and I don't even respond to him, I just drive the rest of the way with my jaw clenched. He asks me why I appear annoyed.

Of course, they haven't seen a mzungu in the station in who knows how long, so his supervisor is a bit off-put at the idea of actually writing a ticket, but they eventually do it, and I post my bail of 5000 schillings, with a court date set for 8am this (Thursday) morning.

...

The magistrate I'm sent to is in Kibera, as mentioned. Its one of the parts of Nairobi I've not been to yet because I'm not allowed to go there without WV security, who I had with me. It dawned on me in retrospect that I should have taken a camera, who knows when or why I'd be back there again anytime soon. Anyway, it was of course the same other-worldly feel that I've gotten in slums in other countries, but the sheer size of it was oppressive. There are no realistically accurate estimates for the number of people who live there, but its commonly accepted to be above a million.

We bounce through the stalls of chickens and bananas and sewing shops and family houses and as we dodge puddles I'm wondering what its like there when it rains (it will rain all afternoon in Nairobi today). We find our way to the courthouse - I'm supposed to be there at 8am but at 8:30 the building isn't even open yet. We stand outside with a hundred or so other people. I'm the only mzungu, again, and everyone's looking at me and talking about me and they all assume I don't know it. At 9, they open the gate, and everyone pours into the various court rooms, we find the traffic one.

We sit there, waiting for the judge to show up, for an hour and a half. The cops, the lawyers, the court admins, everyone's reading newspapers or chatting and I realize rather early on that this happens every single day. I work on emails on the blackberry, thinking about how much I'm not going to get done today, because I had to insist on pursuing justice, for a change.

They start reading names, and lo and behold - for once - the system actually worked, somehow my paperwork had made it from the police station to the courthouse in good order (funny how that happens when there's cash at stake). "David Charles" the court admin calls, he doesn't even try with my surname, which is actually my second middle name on the paper, they never even wrote my actual last name on the bail receipt from yesterday.

I walk up to the box, wait as they read my infraction in terse English, nod and mutter "sawa," and the judge announces my fine, and that's it. Some bills trade hands and I wait 10 minutes outside for a receipt.

We find our way back out of Kibera, and I spend the drive back to the office wondering whether or not its a better use of time / resources / etc. - for myself, for the organization, for the beneficiaries at the end of the day - to just pay the cop a few hundred schillings cash and be done with it on the spot.

I don't reach an answer.

Something spurred me to look something up on my blog yesterday and that made me realize how long its been since I last wrote - it hasn't been often since I started this thing that I actually missed a whole month, but I managed to do it again.

It has been straight crazy - non-stop - since I hit the ground here in January. I've worked in 5 countries so far (including here in Kenya), 2 of which - Rwanda and Malawi - were new additions to my passport. I've been working minimum 60 hour weeks just trying to keep up, and not doing a very good job of it. I've done a good job of forcing myself to take weekend breaks thanks to out-of-town trips and lots of fun with my (mostly) new friends here - Ultimate on Friday evening and Sunday afternoon/evening, softball on Saturdays, and the random BBQ, poker night, dinner out, dinner in, movie night, church on Sunday morning and looooong brunch after, what have you. (Whew, long sentence) I need to be writing about this stuff, but with the weekends full of all of that and the weeks chock full o work...my reading / writing time has plummeted.

So there's a whole slew of things in that last paragraph that I need to write about and maybe I'll actually try to get back on it this week (hah, yeah right). In the meantime, I thought it would be fun to take a spin back through the to-do list I made back before I last left the states:

- get a medical screening done for WV
check. only had one parasite - blastocytis, a pretty common one. probably got it in ghana or maybe tanz. had it all fall and didn't know it.

- see a travel clinic to update any of my immunizations
nope. i don't think i really needed to do this anyway, but don't worry mom, i promise i'll (try to) get around to doing it real soon.

- meet with my financial guy and sort all the 401k rollovers out
half-check. we met, i still haven't gotten any of the rollovers done. or my taxes! you get 2 extra months if you're out of the US but I'm fast burning through that.

- interview potential sub-letters for my place
half-check. had a couple people look at it but never got it rented. this was a major bummer but here i was way too busy to do much about it.

- host the NYE party at Lincoln center
check. i knew all of 3-4 people (Erin, Amber, other hosts) out of the 300 or so, most of my crew were at other events so it was mostly the other hosts' friends. i guess that's what you get for up and moving to Africa.

- schedule an appointment with the derma doc
not a chance. its fine though, hands are back to normal now that i'm back to the land of perpetual no-winter. its like the opposite of the start of Narnia.

- figure out how to transfer all my personal stuff from Outlook and OneNote to the home computer
check of super awesomeness. how i cleaned that bad boy out and actually backed up both those programs and all the user data locally is beyond me, but i made it happen, cappen.

- back up the home computer
dangerous no-check. it suffered some internal jostling on the way over and i've been having issues getting it running but the memory's still in decent shape so hopefully i have it up and running by friday and can spend my weekend doing my taxes. yay.

- get new headphones, an external hard drive, a projector to serve as my TV in Africa, and potentially a DSLR (woot)
check, no-check, check, check. got the newest shure SCL4 headphones and they're great, just like the e4c's were. didn't get the small external drive i wanted but i still have my 1.5tb here with me to backup everything. got the projector (albeit late, via a friend bringing it from the US, along with the headphones) - let me just say its the best consumer decision i've made in years, probably since i built the home computer. it is hours of endless movie awesomeness. oh and i used all my amex points from the accenture card to get the DSLR and some lenses, i've got about 8gb of pictures from the last 5 months waiting to be DL'd, edited, and flickr'd.

- find my old receipts and submit them for work expenses
check. no idea how i did it, but i got my monies.

- finish all the administration around leaving the company
same as above. i need to write about the feeling of walking out of that building for the last time. wasn't great - more like "did i just do that?"

- send some thank-you cards
no-check. i am a bad person.

- pay my parking ticket
no-check. THANKS MOM.

- find a new bank account that won't screw me on withdrawal charges in Africa
no-check. i still hate you BoA.

- figure out where I'm going to store my stuff
check! it now fits in a 5x10 instead of a 10x10. its sitting quietly in a unit across the river from the UWS. i'm hoping next time i get it all out i can find a way to reduce it to 5x5, i love reducing the amount of stuff i have. its the books that are an issue. they keep growing.

- start packing
check. holy cow was that a nightmarish last 72 hours of no-sleep insanity.

- find some jeans sample sales
nope. maybe in August when i'm back briefly?

- get a living will drafted
nope. arg.

- send my (late) holiday cards
the great thing about the cards i picked out for Christmas 08 (the first time i think i ever was going to try to send holiday cards, mainly with a "oh and btw i'm leaving the country letter" as the underlying motivation) is that they will work great for cards sent from Africa for this year's Christmas. its like i was planning ahead (maybe i'll even put an "oh hey i've been out of the country all year in case you were wondering" note).

- finish all the on-boarding paperwork for WV
nope. still haven't sent them my W2 or my personnel form. oh well.

- see Grand Torino
check. fun times with hol, man that was an unexpected ending.

- switch all the bills over to Dave's name
half-check. gas and electric yes, cable and internet no. need to shut off cable.

- figure out how to get out of my Sprint plan without having to pay
quarter-check. did it, but a few months late.

- eat slightly healthier and perhaps even get a few runs in
can't remember for the life of me. i think i was running. i know i was getting rides in with Kuz too.

Also, I have decided that I will be acquiring a pair of dogs once I get settled (so to speak) in Kenya. This makes me happy.
awwww man this one is a bummer. i saw all crap apartments, one of which would allow a small "house dog" (i don't think they had 2 rotties in mind). then i found the place i'm in now, which is super awesome, but no dogs. i'm going to keep an eye out for other places that might work in the meantime, but no dogs in the immediate future. given my work schedule right now its probably for the best. sigh.

A bit about what I'm doing in Africa. Prepare yourself for some acronyms.

I am now with World Vision International (WVI, or WV for short), the largest non-governmental organization (NGO) doing humanitarian work on this continent (based on spend. I think its World Food Program - WFP, World Health Organization - WHO, and UNICEF - all 3 of which are public orgs - who are bigger). WV is:

...a Christian relief, development and advocacy organisation dedicated to working with children, families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice. Inspired by our Christian values, we are dedicated to working with the world’s most vulnerable people. We serve all people regardless of religion, race, ethnicity or gender.

I am the Program Manager for Supply Chain Management (SCM) Implementations in Africa. WV has, I believe, National Offices (NOs) in 26 African nations, and those offices are typically structured according to their main functions - an operations department, an HR department, a finance department, and other departments on a more ad hoc basis depending on WV's particular work in a given country (AIDS/HIV response, Humanitarian and Emergency Affairs - HEA, water projects, Children of War programmes, etc.).

A few years back, WV identified SCM as a key internal initiative - with the help of my former employer, Accenture, and their ADP program, which is how I first came to be working with WV's Global SCM unit. As part of the strategy for building SCM as a function within the organization, the Implementation team was set up to work with NO's to identify the need within the NO, and assess the organizational structure impacts and make recommendations to address them. The team then carry out the actual training of the staff on the tools and processes to be used in key SCM functions such as Procurement (the main function we focus on initially - other stuff comes later: Fleet Management, Warehouse/Inventory Management, SC Planning, etc.). In layman's terms, SCM is the part of the organization that gets "stuff" for the organization, and then gets said stuff from where it is to where it needs to be.

I'm tasked with setting up SCM offices in at least 6 countries this (fiscal) year and a good deal more in the year to follow. Once we've established the function in all of the NO's in Africa, Asia is next in line (we've already started some assessment work in Mongolia, where I might end up sooner or later).

So yeah, that's me in a nutshell. Lots of Program Management type work (fitting, for a Program Manager, no?) - planning, budgeting, more planning, selling the project internally with Senior Management Teams, and managing the specialists that actually carry out the assessments and implementations in-country. Its a challenging position but as my boss' boss has told me, "if it was an easy job than we wouldn't need you here to do it."

There's a lot of very reasoned debate amongst many minds greater than mine around the places of relief and development in the 3rd world. Many feel that the former is preventing the latter, and not without good reason. That said, I feel both are important, and with about a year of insight into WV before deciding to hop aboard, I saw them doing both, and in a fairly balanced approach. The organization is not perfect and could benefit from myriad improvements - my particular line of work is just one of those potential areas for growth. There's a lot of work to be done and sometimes it looks rather endless, from where I'm standing, but I believe in what I'm doing - and having been in other positions where I couldn't say that, I think its important.

No blogging lately, work has been pretty intense lately. I move next week to my new place and I'm still looking for a car. Easter is a 4 day weekend holiday here in Kenya and it couldn't come at a better time. I feel like I gave up sleeping for Lent.

This is awesome, its ESPN's top 4 players from each team in the American League, and they pick Billy Beane, even though he hardly even played for them, citing his incredible contributions off the field as the General Manager. The explanation is priceless (literally, almost):

Billy Beane? Over Rollie or Catfish or La Russa or Giambi or Eck? Yes. Since 2000, only two franchises have won more games than the A's -- the Yankees and Red Sox. During that time, the A's have spent $460.6 million in payroll while the Yankees have spent $1.47 billion and the Red Sox $1.05 billion. So, yes, Billy Beane.

Pitchers and catchers reported to camp a couple weeks ago. I miss a lot of things about home, but few so much as baseball.

There's this brief 15 or maybe 20 minute window in the weekday afternoons here in the Westlands area of Nairobi where everything just slows down for a minute. The children leaving school across the street have all disappeared, and people aren't yet "knocking off" (as they say) from work. It usually starts right around 4:30pm, and it is glorious.

Pretty soon the street will be covered in the walking masses and the driving lesser masses, but right now it is just the wind in the trees and the occasional laugh in the distance. Its warm out in the sun but the breeze pushing through the office is just right. Pretty soon it will start carrying the charcoal woodsmoke of locals making dinner. But right now, its like one big collective pause before the evening bustle begins.

This is my favorite part of the workday here.

Been insane busy with work but hoping to blog more shortly)

This is a small cone of paper wrapped around some nuts.

I bought it tonight on my way home from a kid, standing in the middle of the road, in the dark, in traffic. He stands there every night, from the start of rush hour until late in the evening. He's wearing his school outfit - a dirty white collared shirt covered with the typical v-neck sweater. Slack shorts that are a little too short for his slender frame, dirty brown socks sticking out of over-worn brown loafers.

He's standing there every night. Selling nuts. Waving the little cones back and forth in the air, trying to attract the attention of the drivers streaming past him on their way home, or out to dinner, or to the mall.

"How much?"

"Please sir, pull forward." And he trots along with me - more worried about holding up traffic than making the sale.

"How much?" As I'm reaching for my wad of cash.

"5 Shillings, sir."

.

...





The smallest paper bill I have is 50 shillings. That's the smallest one they make. I don't even bother carrying coins less than the 20, the one you use at the mall to pay for parking if you stay over 30 minutes.

5 shillings.

For the past hour that's all I've been able to think about, just sitting here staring at this little home-made, smoke-smelling cone of nuts. He sells them for a little over a nickel. Every night. In the dark. Almost no one rolls down their window to buy one. I don't know why I did. I think it was that part of me that tries to reward industrious effort when I see it - I always leave a buck or two with the subway performers in NYC.

But this kid is in Nairobi, and he's much better off than millions of others who aren't privileged enough to live in the slums here, selling nuts on the side of the road. Which hardly anyone bothers to slow down and buy.

When I was thirteen I had my first job and I was making 6 dollars an hour training hunting dogs and cleaning kennels. 6 dollars an hour. This kid was selling nuts for 6 cents a cone.

Where do you sleep, when you're that kid selling nuts? What do you eat, for your one meal of the day? If you get one? How many hours do you walk to school? What did your mother have to give up to get you the uniform, so you could go at all? Will you ever see a doctor, or own a pair of jeans? Will you live to see 30?

What can you possibly afford when a good night nets you - maybe - half a dollar?

Hell. I spent so much mental energy and frustration this week on the fact that I can't afford the big 4WD I want to be driving around this continent, feeling betrayed of what I know is rightfully mine. Because I've worked so hard for it. Or something.

5 shillings.

What is wrong with me?

OK so I should probably write an update about last week and who I met in Kampala and what I went and did last weekend in Western Uganda, but instead I'm just going to blow some steam about the car situation here in Nairobi. Which can be summed up pretty succinctly:

It sucks.

The main problem is the duties. Duties to get a new vehicle here typically (TYPICALLY) run right around the same amount as the ENTIRE STICKER PRICE OF THE VEHICLE ITSELF. So, I'm looking at a nice new Hilux, Toyota's kind of equivalent to the Tacoma pickup back in the US, the first (and only) car I had out of college (I payed something in the mid-teens for it, used and a couple years old). The sticker price is something around $25K which of course is a stretch on a humanitarian budget, but possibly doable.

Here's why a pickup or an SUV - something with decent clearance and 4WD is important - of all the countries I've been to all over this continent, Kenya has, hands down, far and away, without a doubt, and beyond all comparison the WORST roads of anywhere. Ever. I'm talking speed-bumps the size of Volkswagens, roads in complete disrepair, potholes so big they should really be called craters. Some of them actually look like sinkholes, there are at least 2 within a couple kilometers of my apartment that I know if I ever hit by accident will pop the tire and probably bend an axel, at the least. There is no way I'm investing in anything less than a truck, as it would just get torn to shreds here. I've actually seen potholes in the speedbumps.

So anyway, back to the shiny Hilux. I'm thinking I just might be getting one when WHAMMO I find out about the duties. Just take that price and double it. Hey at least the math is easy, right? So instantly you take the idea of "new" and eliminate it from your car shopping vocabulary, that's no longer an option.

OK, so, used. Anything in the last 7-8 years is pretty much still out of reach because locals typically pay the duties in monthly installments, like their actual car payment. So anyone selling one is also selling it with whatever is still left on the duty. So I can't really afford anything newer than a 2001, maybe a 2002 if I find a steal.

Which just so happens to prove a very minor problem in that Kenyan banks won't make loans on older cars given the legal restrictions around the selling / importation / etc. of older model vehicles, in what I understand to be a rather admirable governmental policy trying to force newer vehicles onto the road and reduce fuel consumption. Smart move when the country's often out of gas (lines were 30 deep at the pumps yesterday, that I saw). So, I can't get a loan for the cars I can afford, but I can get a loan for the cars I can't afford. Brilliant.

Which in a way is fine, because, considering the state of the roads here, 100K kilometers on a used car, well I'd estimate that to be at least 1.5 to maybe 2.0 times as many kilo's wear and tear as it would be on the same vehicle in most developed countries. So I'm hesitant to consider one of those cars anyway.

So I'm up a creek. At this point I'm thinking maybe I'll just resort to taxis and borrowing friends cars here, and renting when I have to. WV's vehicle allowance is nice and all, but it gets me nothing up front to fund a car, so unless you want to blow your down-payment-on-a-home savings on something decent, that's not an option. I can always take the pool car which will be one of those used sedans that will get swallowed in a pothole, but then I don't get the allowance, and you can only use that for work anyway.

I realize I'm in the humanitarian sector now, but honestly, time is money, and the amount of time I've burned and will still burn on this headache is just bad business.

/vent.

And now I live in Nairobi.

Actually I'm still at a hotel, where every night I get to play my favorite new game, "Let's Not Get Malaria." You get points for however many mosquitoes you can kill, bonus points for finding the holes they're getting through and blocking them, and negative points for every bump you wake up with - one on my forearm and one on an ear this morning. I can't wait to get an apartment, hopefully one with actual screens on the windows, if I can hold out such hope.

I really hate sleeping under mosquito nets, but I suppose I need to get used to it again.

Nairobi's smaller than you originally think. Even for its size, its a bit intimidating - after all it does have 3-4 million people and is the 4th biggest city on the continent. Its a huge hub not just for NGO work but also governmental, business, and culture, although I'm not sure where to find the best of the latter yet. The climate's pretty moderate as its just below the equator, and a strong British presence remains here from days of old (which my palate of course appreciates deeply). But city-wise, it just doesn't feel that big - I'm not sure how else to explain that, but once you work through the uncertainties, it almost feels manageable.

Its called "Nairobbery" by many, given the rising crime rates in the last couple decades, attributed probably in equal parts to the massive urbanization / growth, combined with your sadly typical police / government corruption that does little to punish criminals anyway. I won't be posting the US State Department travel warning for the city like I did for SA and Zim way back when (I'll be fine, mom) - suffice to say this is where the embassy attacks occurred and Kenya's no further from the middle east and the general spread of Islam now then it was a few years back. WVI requires I undergo security briefing, and they require security analysis of the compound where I pick an apartment, and I'm trying to find a German-Shepherd friendly one at that.

84% of Kenya's population is native Kenyan - one ethnic tribe or another, leaving 15% of other African, and a whopping 1% of non-Africans, the majority of which I can pretty safely guess are Indian, probably followed by Europeans. I'm in a minority of a minority here, but at least most of that minority is here in the city.

The people are generally pretty friendly, but everything - EVERYTHING - is slower here. You have to talk slower, move slower, wait longer, and not get impatient. People get frustrated when you move too fast for them. Its like I've written about before - the one thing that the African has no paucity of is time. Its a completely different paradigm. My fast-growing grasp on Swahili has been helping me considerably this time around.

45% of Kenyans regard themselves Protestant, another 33% regard Catholic. Those are just estimates, though, and estimates on Islam range from 10% to as high as 45%. And 100% drive like they want you to die. Fortunately traffic is so incredibly bad in Nairobi - again, the rapid urbanization, combined with the almost complete lack of infrastructure development in that same time period - that its many times difficult for anyone to work up enough speed to kill you. Unless its a mutatu (minibus taxi), which only have 2 speeds: stop, and death.

So. Yeah.

Not much blogging lately just because life has been nuts. That's always the excuse but this time its somewhat legitimate...

I resigned last week from Accenture and accepted a position with World Vision. I'll be returning to Africa as the Program Manager for Global Supply Chain Management Implementation there (a mouthful, right?). I'm flying to Nairobi on January 10th and will be looking for an apartment there, at least in the short term. Doesn't really matter where I put my stuff, the position will be 75%+ travel to the countries across the continent (primarily southern, eastern, and western regions) that we are working in to set up SCM offices within WV's existing architecture. Its exciting but its going to be a lot of work.

I'm finishing up a 10-day stint here at home in Cali tomorrow and flying back to NYC tomorrow night. Its been good to spend time with the entire fam, eat all my favorite foods, and get a day of riding in on a foot of freshies. Also I think I caused some nerve damage in my arm that I need to see a doc for next week. Speaking of next week, I also need to:

- get a medical screening done for WV
- see a travel clinic to update any of my immunizations
- meet with my financial guy and sort all the 401k rollovers out
- interview potential sub-letters for my place
- host the NYE party at Lincoln center
- schedule an appointment with the derma doc
- figure out how to transfer all my personal stuff from Outlook and OneNote to the home computer
- back up the home computer
- get new headphones, an external hard drive, a projector to serve as my TV in Africa, and potentially a DSLR (woot)
- find my old receipts and submit them for work expenses
- finish all the administration around leaving the company
- send some thank-you cards
- pay my parking ticket
- find a new bank account that won't screw me on withdrawal charges in Africa
- figure out where I'm going to store my stuff
- start packing
- find some jeans sample sales
- get a living will drafted
- send my (late) holiday cards
- finish all the on-boarding paperwork for WV
- see Grand Torino
- switch all the bills over to Dave's name
- figure out how to get out of my Sprint plan without having to pay
- eat slightly healthier and perhaps even get a few runs in

Also, I have decided that I will be acquiring a pair of dogs once I get settled (so to speak) in Kenya. This makes me happy.

More when I get around to it...

In the last decade, urbanism has con- verged, to some extent, with another field of study: Internet use. It's probably not an accident. Both cities and the Internet are at once highly atomized and elaborately connected milieus that encourage both solitude and interaction with the diverse, bountiful unwashed. And like city solitaires, Internet users were also once identified as antisocial loners, painfully awkward people who vanished into the green-gray light of their computer screens rather than joining the warm community of man. In the beginning, studies even showed this to be true (or that users were shy, anyway). But not once three-quarters of the public started using the Internet.

"The idea that you're isolated when you're online is, to me, just wrong," says Keith Hampton, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania who did an extensive ethnography of "Netville," a new, 100 percent wired community in suburban Toronto. "It's an inherently social medium. What starts online moves offline, and what starts offline goes online." Which explains why the people with whom you e-mail most frequently are your closest friends and romantic partners. "Online and offline are inherently connected," he says. "They're not separate worlds."

-- Alone Together: The Loneliness Myth, by Jennifer Senior, New York Magazine, December 2008

7 days, 1 hour, and 14 minutes ago was the last time I heard from my friend Lu. We were chatting over gmail, like we always did.

We had been chatting off and on all day, ever since I pinged her at 8:25am right after I woke up that Saturday morning.

It seems really long ago now.

She told me about the bad dream she had and I told her about how I never really dream anymore. She told me about how foggy it was there that morning and we bitched about squirrels together - we shared a special hate for them. I complained about my cold and how the medicine wasn't working. I told her about the two things I want to do before I die. She complained about the small town post office. And then we started sending each other the music we were listening to.

I sent her Bach's hunting cantata "Sheep Can Safely Graze." She sent me Clem Snyde and some Pharcyde. I sent her a Dan Bern song and she sent me a bunch more of his back. She sent me a song that her band played. She sent me Fantasie in F Minor - not played by her but I know she played it perfectly, all 19 minutes of it. I sent her some Jozi.

She remembered the Uganda slide-show of pictures from the orphanage that I was supposed to show her, so we watched it and talked about it. We talked about African languages that I'll need to learn over there. That was the last thing we talked about.

"rofl. peace out."

That was the last thing she ever said to me.

Alexandra Clare Wilich, 28, died unexpectedly Sunday, Nov. 16, 2008. Her many friends and family called her Lexi.

I'm spending today and tomorrow in our West Village office for meetings with the partners that are doing the account planning session for the client I'm helping out with. I love this office because this is the view from my desk.

Also, the main office area is a big wide-open work space about half the size of a city block. Its got high ceilings with those suspended HVAC ducts, and for some reason whenever the heat or the AC comes on in the building, the entire hanging metal structure does a sort of metallic shudder, causing a big sound akin to thunder, but its right above your head and your inside.

I've gotten used to it after years of being in and out of this office, but it still sneaks up on you sometimes. Every time it happens you kind of look around to see everyone else who got taken by surprise and is mildly freaked.

The real bonus however is when you get a completely brand new analyst. She's hard at work in the brand new office with her head down at her laptop trying to meet some ridiculous deadline her manager gave her and all of a sudden thunder above her head and presto: office scream. And then we all turn around with huge grins and watch her cower and turn beet red.

Good times.

They're projecting Pennsylvania for Obama, which essentially means that McCain has to find a way to carry 5 out of 5 of the remaining must-win states to have a chance at the white house.

Whatever.

That's what I have to say to this whole race. These many months of insanity. This night of anticipation and mass celebration and grieving. What the freak ever.

You know what McCain would screw up? The economy, he has no idea how to fix that. He's going to keep giving the tax breaks (not to mention legal breaks) to the big corps that the Republican party is chronically indebted to. He'd more than likely not do a damn thing about the gross misappropriation of power to the executive branch of the government under the Bush administration. Gitmo, the NSA and the wiretaps, the Homeland Defense disorder, The Patriot Act. And he'd probably keep fairly similar foreign policy going, although he has a much more realistic approach to the war.

You know what Obama would screw up? The economy, he has no idea how to fix that. He's going to increase taxes for everybody 3-fold if he's going to pull off the kind of policy changes he's claiming (hint: he's not). He'll completely bollocks up the pull out of Iraq - and I have about that much confidence in his ability to manage Afghanistan and Iran - the man has no military experience whatsoever. He might do a bit more about fixing the office of the president and some of the other disasters developed in the previous administration. And although he might have a better foreign policy (this is my biggest siding with him - I can't imagine a candidate with a better position on Darfur), its not one that's supported by experience, which he'll have to get in real time. At least we don't have to fear the Palin factor if he did win.

Frankly I think neither of these candidates are a really great choice. We need change but it needs to be even more than the touchy-feely type that Obama's waxing his way into office with. We need a complete roll-back on financial policy and regulation. We need a massive shift in approach on the war in terror, and we need out of Iraq in a structured manner. We need a return to a position of moral leadership and a respected position in the world forum - we need to eliminate our gross violations of the Geneva Convention, our resistance to the Kyoto protocol, and other rights that we claim for America but forbid for everyone else. We need to fix the broken judicial and prison system, starting by realizing that the war on drugs is a war we shouldn't be in. We need a lot of other stuff that neither of these candidates is going to get around to during their stint in office.

Despite my cynicism, I went and voted today. It amazes me how few people think through these issues and then actually go out and vote. Its frankly quite frightening. We have sons and daughters still dying overseas to protect our freedom to do this and the vast majority of us will watch it on TV without ever taking part in the process. There is no national dialogue - we're a nation of zombies. Quite literally - we have been programmed.

In Zimbabwe this very year, there was an election complete with brute squads forcing people to vote in a completely rigged presidential election. The results weren't released for over a month, and when they were they were a lie. Hundreds of people were killed in the meantime. Thousands more fled the nation. And a tyrant remains while the economy continues to plummet. I'm convinced our freedom to vote without fear is one of the ones we appreciate the least and therefore will most miss when we lose it.

There goes the projection for Ohio. Whatever.

I've been researching the story of Lt. Daniel Dawson, a pilot shot down over Vietnam in November of 1964, and his older brother Donald. I first heard of the Dawson brothers' story in a sermon that quoted Edmund Clowney's own sermon, Sharing the Father's Welcome. You can read the following excerpt in its entirety, here.

During the war in Vietnam, Army Lieutenant Daniel Dawson’s reconnaissance plane went down over the Vietcong jungle. When his brother Donald heard the report, he sold everything he had, left his wife with $20, and bought passage to Vietnam. There he equipped himself with a soldier’s gear and wandered through the guerilla-controlled jungle, looking for his brother. He carried leaflets picturing the plane and describing in Vietnamese the reward for news of the missing pilot. He became known as Anh toi phi-cong—the brother of the pilot. A Life magazine reporter described his perilous search.

The Life magazine article in question was called "A Haunted Man's Perilous Search," from the March 12, 1965 edition of Life. Life is no longer in print but it is owned by time, and I'm still trying to find a back-issue of the article.

Time, however, did have a brief follow-up article on Donald's search, found here:

Californian Donald C. Dawson, 25, emerged from the jungle north of Bien Hoa airbase and reported that his reckless, obsessive search for his brother, Army Lieut. Daniel Dawson, was over after nine months—four of them as a Viet Cong prisoner. "They told me he was dead and gave me a flight vest he wore, and then they told me to go," said Don sadly. He never saw the grave, but the Viet Cong claimed they would tend it until Dawson could come back after the war to recover the body of his brother, shot down last Nov. 6 in a light reconnaissance plane. For Don, it was time to go home to his wife and four children in Costa Mesa, Calif.

The story really kicked me in the gut the first time I heard it related, and its one I'd like to write up in detail. I've found a couple more detailed but somewhat conflicting recounts of Donald's time in Vietnam here(from The First Marine Captured in Vietnam, by Donald Price) and here (from Honor Bound, by Stuart Rochester, Frederick Kiley).

In the meantime, more searching.

Today I went to meet a friend for free lunch at her work (yes, she works at Google, the company I so very-much-want-to-but-probably-will-never-work-for). After catching up on all the deets of late, I started home. Which is when I found out I had taken the wrong keys in my frantic run out of the house (to be fair, I was on the phone getting my annual review from my career counselor at the time).

I went through the building next door (we live next to a...thing...that is kind of half insane asylum / half retirement home / always interesting...anyway I'm friendly with one of the building managers there, we shoot hoops together) to check and see if I had left the back door unlocked, but I hadn't.

So I took an unplanned walk over to Dave's office to get his keys.

I got to Union Square without much event, although the typical street performers were out in force. A block past that I was passing a cop giving an older dude a ticket of some sort, and the old guy just started losing his wig. Next thing you know the cop and him are screaming at each other "ARE YOU THREATENING ME, SIR?" (They were both screaming this.) Then the dude takes a swing at the cop and down they go and next thing he's in cuffs and the cop is sitting on top of him radio-ing for a car.

Get to Dave's office. Pick up keys.

I'm on the next block and I'm walking up behind a rather shady looking guy in one of those big long hooded black North Face jackets that the hoodlums like to wear. "I shouldn't judge him based on his looks," I thought briefly. Then I watched as one of the med students from the University hospital there walked up to him and casually bought a dime-bag from him (this was in midtown at like 3pm in broad daylight, I kid you not).

I turn the corner to head downtown at the next street and I'm walking past the hospital lobby, which is floor to ceiling glass windows facing the street. And there's a mother in there, about my mom's age, and she's facing me and she's holding what I can only guess was her adult daughter very tightly. She's looking right at me but she doesn't even see me. Tears are coming down her face. I was momentarily awestruck; I kept walking to leave them in their moment but it was one of the saddest things I've ever seen.

Two blocks later I'm at Grace Episcopal and I see the above sign. So I do. I'm sitting there in the strange quiet that doesn't belong in the middle of midtown Manhattan, and I'm talking some things over quietly when all of a sudden I feel the familiar rumbling of the floor as an N/R train passes underneath.

And then I walked the rest of the way home and didn't see anything really of note other than the guy a couple blocks away from our place who was showing off his freshly shaven legs to a girlfriend of his.

Oh and they're shooting a movie on our block apparently.

I love you New York. I'm going to miss you.

Well there's been a lot going on but nothing I've felt particularly inspired to write about. Or I guess I should say some of them are things I can't really write about yet. Most of you who communicate with me through other mediums are pretty much up to date.

Let's just say a lot about my life is kind of up in the air right now. It will be interesting to see where I am (life-wise) by the start of next year. Its not a bad spot and I'm not complaining about things. Life is good right now.

This last weekend was Young Life camp - the junior highers go as campers and we take the senior highers to do work-crew. Amber fought valiantly to get us indoor work crew - serving and bussing the tables in the cafeteria. It's a lot of work and then you're chasing high schoolers around all night, but it's a lot of fun too.

I'm going to try to start writing more regularly. I've got a few pieces I've been sitting on which still need touch-up, but long story short I need to be exercising the brain again.

Week in CA:

- flew there uneventfully.
- went to Margy's wedding (still need to put pictures online).
- spent the rest of the weekend with Peter then took the train back to Sacto.
- worked a bit.
- spent some time with Aunt Betty and Uncle Joe and then with the grandparents.
- worked more.
- drove down to Santa Cruz with dad and got an afternoon of surfing in.
- flew back. had an upgrade on my LAX-JFK flight which was nice.

Last weekend I finally saw Burn After Reading and Sunday was the old routine that I've rather missed in the last year - church, youth group, football. The week's been uneventful. Foot has been healing up from a cut I got when coming out of the surf, so I couldn't run til today.

I want to get back to writing posts of some merit more than these blase updates but I'm horribly lacking in motivation during this limbo period.

I really wanted to start this sentence with the word "so," but I refrained. Have you ever notice how people tend to use that word a lot lately in beginning a sentence? Someone raised that question recently. Its almost taken the place of "like" although I doubt "like" will ever really go away in my lifetime. "So" goes at the start of the sentence, usually, though. Seems like maybe its half verbal stutter (like "um") and half transition or prefacing.

Lately another one I've heard that I'm not sure I particularly like but I may have even used it myself at times is "I know, right?" This might be attributable to the movie Juno. I'm not sure.

Anyway, (there's another one I use all the time!) its almost October and I didn't really have a chance to write much of anything this month. Although I haven't been with a client, things have still been crazy (nobody ever believes this, but I think sometimes not having one is even worse). And I can't even use watching the A's fight for a playoff spot as an excuse, because, well, they didn't.

I fly tomorrow back home for Margy's wedding, and there's been a lot of...shall I say, prep-work and prayer going into that. Plus I'm staying the following week and hoping to meet up with a partner on a project we recently sold out there and see if I can weasel a way onto it in the near future. And perhaps surf, if I happen to find myself south of Santa Cruz dressed in a wetsuit.

I realized I needed to post today because my blog has come up in exactly 3 unique conversations, and my posting as of late has been next to nonexistent. So to direct some of you to the places you might be looking for: if its the snake story (yes, it is true), you can find that here. If you want to see the blog we did for the Youth Group missions trip to Uganda, the post with that link is here. And if its sermon notes we spoke about, you can find one of those here.

I fly in 8 hours and haven't packed or finished re-writing the edits on my piece for the church's literary magazine, so that's what I'm going to do now. Then maybe I'll check back in on the collapse of our financial markets (apparently the FDIC just seized WaMu and sold them to JPMorgan, and the $700 billion bailout? Yeah, that number was just kinda made up.). Then maybe eat finally.