in a nutshell

haiti happened. it's a beautiful, small country with passionate, kind, entertaining people. it had all of aspects i find myself loving about africa (smiling faces, no watches, fresh juice, reggaeton dancehall music, hilarious--not actually ironic--music videos and t-shirts, motorcycle rides, cheap beer, etc) but it is only a 3 hour flight from d.c.! i was never that far from home. i wished every day i spoke creole (or even better french), so i could have communicated with people better. i just felt like a doofus as i utilized every bit of body language i could muster to get a point across.

we--myself and an awesome team of 9 volunteers and 2 other trip leaders--began in port-au-prince where the earthquake looks as though it happened last week. no joke. there is rubble in the streets, caved in buildings, tents thrown up in any free space available in the urban center. tents are strewn together with USAID tarps and pieces of scrap metal, yet there are basic services available: water, illuminated latrines, and (some) assistance, so the individuals that flocked to port-au-prince seeking answers and potential opportunity are finding it difficult to leave now.

rape continues to be a problem.

as a group we moved to jacmel, a now sleepy coastal town 3 hours south of PaP. we moved in with Let Haiti Live and set up our tents and ground pads after a warm welcome. our work over the course of the week+ consisted of hauling cinder blocks up a steep hill, assembly-line style. as if there was any doubt, it was hot. like sweating-standing-still-hot. lots of water was consumed. the haitian students hung around and helped us out when we looked weak and as though we would melt. in the afternoons we taught english/art/leadership/etc. it was a blast. the kids were a riot and super smart and some even wore some sweet Nike sneaks. and every night i got to ride on a scooter--my favorite. just hanging out on the back of a scooter in perfect evening temperature, cruising by people dancing, praying, eating and just being. i loved that. there were many other priceless moments: swimming in an abandoned, warm ocean at dusk; dancing in a local bar-turned-live-music-joint; eating plantain chips; SUPER white socks thanks to hand-washing techniques i'll never be able to master; being woken up at 1am (and 4am and 5am) by a rooster, goat, cow; hearing 20+ haitian children proudly sing their national anthem; standing in the back of a pick-up truck as we came through small towns...

hurricane irene grounded me an extra 4 days. after a mild meltdown i returned from PaP back to jacmel for a surprise resurgence and an extra 2 day adventure, complete with crowded bus rides, extra Prestige and some serious rain that flooded our 2-room classroom. the PaP airport could be an entire story in itself, needless to say, it was mildly chaotic, but i'll save that for a rainy day? (get it?!)

now i am back in d.c., safe and sound, watching the storm pass by again.

pictures (a bit out of order):

we built a tippy tap!

kids listening to their peers teach us about haiti

the palace in port-au-prince, 1.5 years later

haitian street art

bassin bleu--like out of a movie

our view from atop of the hill

what happens to donated puzzles and jump ropes = decorations!

the local beer of choice

tess, mike and i with rolliance

steps down to the small beach

the whole gang after a soccer game

spectators

meryl, andrea and i

the team, piled into the back of a pickup

our view and where we ate all of our meals

some local kiddies at the bottom of the hill

the team on the road to jacmel

solar-operated lights by the latrines--public health in action!

where we stayed the first night

poisson en sauce creole

meryl probably said something funny--on a break from "hauling block"

an example of port-au-prince transportation: tap-taps (brightly colored and decorated buses, frequently seen with painted pictures of jesus and/or little wayne)

haiti, take II

i'm excited that soon i may have something on here worth reading. many travel posts ago, i was supposed to go to port-au-prince to lead a trip of volunteers in re-building a classroom in a boys school.

unfortunately, due to a devastating cholera outbreak and the subsequent riots, the trip was cancelled at the last minute. but now it's back! and on Saturday (yes, in 2 days) i am going down to Port-au-Prince and a southern, coastal town called Jacmel to lead the same dedicated volunteers. we'll be doing a little re-building, a little playing, a little English teaching, and a lot of hanging out with young kids.

you can read more here: http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/lauren-welch/haiti

(and as you'll see, the programs run mostly off of donations. my whole excursion is paid for, so ANY LITTLE BIT you can donate will go directly to the kids)

these photos (from about 8 months ago) give a compelling portrait of how much building there is left to do.

Heaven!? Give me mango!

The quickest way to make me happy is to put me in the back of a moving car with my iPod and cruise through rural Africa, any part of the continent will do. If you put my good friend next to me and five additional men in a little sedan for 4 hours, it may just make my week. That’s how I got back to Freetown from Bo with Evan the other day. What we would think of as 5 passenger vehicles, simply means we don’t have enough imagination. The cars in Sierra Leone are packed. When I arrived at the airport, we hopped in a cab and there were three of us in the back and a mildly confused Nigerian man in the front. He asked Evan why we weren’t going since the car was full and Evan said, “Oh no, they’re waiting for two more people. One up front with you and one in the back here.” Shocked, the Nigerian guy called over the taxi driver from the side of the road and asked him what we were waiting for. Naturally, the driver said, “Two more people. One up front with you and one in the back.” The Nigerian man ended up paying the $1 difference and we left for the ferry with some leg room to spare.

The trip back to Jimmi Bagbo this time was just wonderful. It was comfortable, I polished my four Mende words enough that I could be trusted to walk to the corner store alone, greeting people without embarrassing myself. Although, different from last time, is was hot. Stifling hot. If you were breathing, you were sweating. There was no way around it. It was like D.C. in the end of July without air conditioned buildings to duck into. Just damp. I took an average of three bucket baths a day. It was also mango season. Mangos were everywhere. Faiya climbed a tall tree for some, and people had long handmade stick tools to poke them from the trees. Everyone was eating mangos. It seemed as though Sierra Leone certainly had more mangos than they knew what to do with. Due to the abundance of one fruit, we spent an afternoon making mango chutney. It took awhile, but it was pretty delicious.

Evan working hard on his front porch to get the charcoal stove burnin'

Ibrahim liked to have his picture taken

Photo shoot with a few of the the frequent visitors

Every afternoon the humidity teased us into thinking it would rain. Then, on the last day in Jimmi, it finally did rain. Beautiful, clean, cooling African rain. Evan, Faiya and I stood outside and played frisbee for an hour and it was perfect. Evan’s porch was full of spectators (read: 20+ people) and the sunset was dramatic due to all the dark clouds and for a time no one was sweating, one might even goes as far to say it was cool outside.

the dramatic (rain-filled!) sky and the road leading up to Evan's house

Georgie at the bottom of the hill leading up to Evan's house

The three of us went on a bike ride the evening before. It’s too fun thrashing down dirt roads on nice, sturdy mountain bikes. There are palm trees everywhere and a handful of villages to stop in and say hello to. I also utilized my last opportunity for a motorcycle ride and went on a cruise with George (my grandfather’s namesake) and visited two nearby villages, one of which we got off the motorbike and went to tour the small pond, surrounded by thirty or so children. An elder in the village in the 1970s (or so) declared that if anyone that was born and raised in the village ate fish from the pond they would get leprosy, so naturally no one has tested that voodoo in 30+ years and the pond was full of big, edible fish I obviously had to see to believe. It was entertaining.

A few of the mornings I got up and walked to school with Evan so he could sign in (school was in session, but the kids hadn’t shown up yet). One morning we had sardines and bread for breakfast while we waited and I learned that I’m not a huge fan of fish before 8am. I hung out in a nice hammock a few times. I found some little puppies to swoon over. I got my hole-ridden (favorite) red jeans fixed at the tailor. I helped paint a flower box. I took a lot of film photos. We napped a lot. We tried to rig ways to stay cool. Evan’s grant to bring an internet class to Jimmi got accepted (<-- check it out). We cooked spaghetti. Everyone listened to the music tapes at night. We spent a night in Bo with Evan’s friend, Marty, eating chicken and having a few beers while watching ‘Who Wants to get Rich’.

My flight left at 4am, so the last night we splurged on chicken and chips and beer and an improvised beach bar across the road from the airport. I checked into the flight and we spent an hour sitting on the curb trying to entertain each other and stay awake while people slept on the sidewalks around us.

Earlier that day, on the ride back into Freetown, the Sierra Leone colors (blue, green and white) were painted on roads and rocks and trees, left over from the 50-years-of-independence-celebration and this was painted on a wall we drove by: Slavery lasted for a time, freedom is forever; and I thought it summed up the overall positive, sparky, passionate, friendly, happy people I met while having the privilege of visiting the country for a second time.

Now, it’s back to what I presume is reality. The people I miss has shifted as I’m now back in D.C., safe and sound and overwhelmed by all the choices (of everything!) available at Trader Joe’s. This particular jaunt to the beautiful African continent moved me significantly. I wouldn’t have traded the journey for all the bagel chips and cold cottage cheese in the world. The blog will stop till some other worth while adventure comes my way (Haiti in August?), but thanks a million for reading ya’ll, it meant a lot.

hippy-tastic

i'm not sure where to begin. it's hard to pick a starting point when an entire 10 days just blends together in beautiful, love-filled memories.

there is Judy: a big yellow, dream of a bus that carried us out to africa's version of Burning Man. she provided shelter, comfort, music and eventually she provided a little unanticipated adventure.

judy in the desert

there is Afrikaburn: a magical land where there is no money. everything is gifted. everyone shares. the only point is to have fun and be kind to your neighbors. so much laughter. so much hugging. so much hoola-hooping. there was a boat in the desert that played music. there was a house on wheels. there were countless people in costumes. there was coffee. there was a hot air balloon. there just wasn't any cell phone service or internet.

shawn, angel, raph, julie, liana and brad in our tented home

home base at afrikaburn

there is the "crack den": three rooms in a slightly run down hostel operated by a kind, young guy named lil Wayne in the Observatory suburb of Cape Town. We stayed longer than we had planned as Judy was repaired. It was our little nest in Cape Town: big kitchen, cozy beds and 12 people's luggage sprawled everywhere.

i want to just tell you about the 10 or so people i spent time with that touched my heart. i want to tell you what the sunrise looks like in the desert after an endless night of dancing and then what the sunset looks like that same day after an endless nap. i want to explain the shock we all felt when we pulled out of the desert and learned bin laden had been killed. i want to tell you about the view from the top of Table Mountain or what little penguins looks like in the rain in Simon's Town. i want to tell you how beautiful the Kirstenbosch gardens and how magical it is to stand at the base of a huge acacia (?) tree. i want to tell you how difficult it is to dance to 'drum and bass.' i want to tell you how the sunrise at the southernmost point of africa looks like a cheesy-ocean-oil-painting found in the mall (it's that hazy purple and powerful waves). i want to tell you that South Africa's autumn looks like New England in a way.

jonathan at the top of table mountain

sunrise

we took a vacation from our vacation

frolicking in the gardens on the last day

but, know this: i had a lovely time. i am safe. i am healthy. i shared good times with lovely strangers. i am excited to head home (after a brief visit to sierra leone with a mustached friend) and just be there. it's been a perfect post-Kenya adventure; it's going in a box.

here's to a wonderful d.c. summer, ya'll!

south africa, hooray!

I am now in South Africa and one thing that has stuck out is how much it looks like America. i was pretty shocked to spend $30 on a single taxi ride. there are no goats in the middle of the road. no deteriorating sedans blasting music with steering wheels at a 45 degree angle to keep the car straight. no men sleeping under trees on the side of a busy road. if these hints of what i had known as africa exist here, i haven’t seen them amongst the malls and neatly trimmed hedges.

the cost of living is undoubtedly higher. it feels different to converse with africans who are accustomed to paying $1 for a soda or a mini-bus ride. or those that spend $20 to go to SeaWorld and see a seal show. There is certainly segregation and I am sure my Lonely Planet is not guiding me into impoverished areas on purpose. I am just noticing differences. It’s like I’m in America, but I’m still in Africa.

I arrived in the morning to Johannesburg and took my (pricey) taxi to an area of town called Melville. I dropped my stuff and went to the Apartheid Museum and wandered through apartheid history, jogging my memory of my Politics of South Africa class in college. I splurged and had the best hot water shower and night’s sleep in a long while at a very nice B&B. I then taxied into Soweto, the large township responsible for the Soweto student Uprising in 1976 and housing Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Tutu on the same street. OMG. I napped. (I forgot to check the weather, and South Africa is approaching winter, so Johannesburg was 50 degrees and raining, felt like a Seattle winter = naps). I also finished Our Time to Eat, which was quite good.

I then wandered out of my awesome hostel and walked to the famous Vilakazi street. The area of Soweto I walked around in felt like a neighborhood to be canvassed by the Obama campaign: low income, young men hanging in small groups on the street, chatty old ladies on their porches. Everyone was friendly. I walked and read all about the fascinating history. I was reading one sign about a South African liberation song that was sung by students as a form of protest and low and behold two 5-year old boys showed up just at that moment to sing the song for me. They wanted money, which i sadly didn’t have, but they sang anyway in their stained t-shirts. I walked more, looking foolish in my socks and Toms, and found the “Koppie” which was a rock and look-out for student groups where meetings were held and police were chased away. Now, it’s covered in plastic bags. I would have taken a picture of the ironic beauty, but alas I forgot my camera. I wandered back to the hostel, hung out at the “beach bar” with the only other guest, a nice Irish guy, and went to bed by 9pm.

I arrived the next morning two hours early for my bus. I tried to nap but a man yelled at me that I was not allowed to sleep. And then Jehovah Witnesses came around to our seating area. They had a binder FULL of literature in dozens of languages. How come Kingdom Hall can find a way to translate literature and it takes us public health people weeks to find a Tingrinya translation? Freezing cold at 6:30am led me to Wimpy (the fast-food answer to S. Africa), which was full, so I sat in the “smoking room” and ate my eggs and toast with an older, shaky white lady who chained smoked. I regretted that decision, but appreciated the warmth. The 8-hour bus ride that followed was pretty uneventful.

My taxi drivers got lost in Durban trying to find the hostel, so I laughed from the backseat while they studied the map in the Lonely Planet. We found the hostel, I pounded through half of Freedom and went to sleep by 10pm (again). The next day, I woke up early and met my dorm mate, a nice girl from Holland and we went in search of the internet and found it! And then ended up at the Durban version of SeaWorld. It was a trip. Durban looks and feels like Miami. The live seal show solidified this judgment for me. Following a brief swim in the ocean, I went to buy a 24-hour bus ticket to Cape Town which was sold out! (things get busy on Easter weekend, apparently) so I now have an additional night in Durban.

There are worse things.

(i also have been taking pictures, but the net is too slow to upload. soon.)

encounters from africa

i ate my way through this past weekend, which is surprisingly easy to do in nairobi. grace was visiting from kigali and arrived on thursday night. i had a ceremonious little going away dinner, where i cooked pasta and salad (can't claim to be a creative cook). the rest of the weekend we walked around kibera and markets and downtown nairobi. it was fun to be get out and do all these things my last weekend in nairobi.

"yay, Lauren, you have friends!"

feeding giraffes

still feeding giraffes

federico loved the giraffes

an upper view of kibera

i'm starting to get a bit nostalgic, as happens when i'm about to leave. this is the last time i'll eat githeri, the last time i will walk to this place, the last time i will see this person, etc. it's emphasized by the fact that i don't know when i'll be back. laabda baadaye, nitarudi kenya. becoming settled in a new city happened without much fanfare, just one day everything felt comfortable and content. now, i'm gearin' up for the next adventure!

this past week has been easy. last day of work on monday where i turned in my CDC laptop and said my goodbyes. tuesday i went to a cultural orientation class for urban refugees, a mix of burundian and congolese about to move to the U.S. i observed the teacher talking about winter clothing, "you will need a hat, scarf and gloves. life does not stop in winter, you must go to work anyway. and there is this clothing, they call them long johns..." an older man with 1/2 inch thick glasses was shocked he couldn't physically discipline his children. and a promotional video was shown, which read just like an obama campaign ad, with sweeping views of mountains and autumn leaves and the grand canyon, people of all ethnicity stood in front of a brick wall and said "Welcome!" there were cheerleaders and bikers and jazz musicians and little african american girls playing in water from a hydrant and LOTS of cowboys and people rebuilding homes in new orleans and skiers. it choked me up and it also made me yearn for america. i was waiting for the follow-up video to be of long lines at the WIC office, and snow at the bus stop, and overcrowded schools and 1-bedroom apartments and gang violence, but there was no such thing. maybe they show that video on day 3.

last night as a final hoorah (no, really, this is REALLY my last night..) a bunch of us went to karaoke. i, naturally, sang 'leavin' on a jet plane' and simon sang 'give me hope, jo'hanna' about johannesburg....although the lyrics were a bit awkward:

Well Johanna she runs a country
She runs in Durban and the Transvaal
She makes a few of her people happy, oh
She don't care about the rest at all
She's got a system they call apartheid
It keeps a brother in a subjection
But maybe pressure can make Jo'anna see
How everybody could a live as one

[chorus:]
Gimme hope, Jo'anna
Hope, Jo'anna
Gimme hope, Jo'anna
'Fore the morning come

'total eclipse of the heart' was sung, there was ample dancing and lots of smiles (and i may have found an enjoyment in karaoke..)

deb, josh, ashley, simon and i

...and everyone danced

.....and debby and i sang

....and everyone eventually helped

group shot

i have dinner tonight with miss hartstone and her mom (yes!) then i leave nairobi tomorrow, stop in eldoret, then kampala then fly on to johannesburg and then around s. africa, where i'll be clueless and lost for the next three weeks. nairobi treated me well, asante sana.

sunny weekend

friday after work i had some happy hour beers in the canteen with friends and the motor pool staff, stole josh's bike for a few glorious laps around the parking lot and sat in traffic en route to the train station to meet jonathan. i found him and we upgraded to first class (ohhh! ahhh!) and got on the train, bound for mombasa. our compartment was small but the one next door was open so it all worked out. we got to hang out the window and look at stars, eat some chicken for dinner and i slept pretty early. the train is this wild snapshot of history, now really only utilized (at least 1st and 2nd class) by traveling white people attempting to bask in the colonial history of what it must have been like when one had to take the train. also, not much has changed on the train since it was built. the history is here.

leaving the station at night

jonathan in the retro-cool food car

the next morning a staff member came around and said "the train is stopping here. and won't move all day." of course. silly of us to assume our train to mombasa would make it all the way there. so we hopped off, quickly followed the 3rd class kenyan passengers through the little market and got on a bus. one hour later we were in mombasa, on a tuk tuk and en route to another bus which would take us to watamu. i napped in the 2 hour ride. and, well, watamu is gorgeous and quiet and white sand exists and so does a ridiculously large italian population. we had good pizza from an italian man that didn't speak english or swahili (??). apparently lots of italian older women ("...with white hair") come to kenya in search of "a kenyan man" for the weekend. one notorious pair of said italian women didn't get what they came for and wrote a disapproving review of the whole hotel. i heard all of this from a cabana boy who was trying to court me into marriage (i didn't give him our phone number, dad) 'cause jonathan thinks it's funny to tell kenyan beach boys i'm single "and looking for a boyfriend." it never ends well.

view of the quiet, beautiful beach

view of the ocean when the tide was out

we did a lot of sitting. lots of lounging. some swimming. even went to a spontaneous beach party put on by rebellious beach boys. we left before it "started at 2am" though. then we sat in a matatu back to mombasa. that ride was hot. we wandered around old town, found a perch overlooking the water with men drinking strong, ginger-full coffee and had a cheap dinner. it was a nice, chill weekend. just some nice sun and swahili people. i made it to work this morning in what i wore on friday and a head scarf 'cause i didn't bring shampoo to the coast and i looked like a ragamuffin.

my sunburn and i stumbled upon the old SIT office!

a view of jonathan's head on the waterfront

and it just dawned on me that i haven't gotten my weekly 'this modern love' in the reader 'cause of the nytimes paywall. BLAST! that was always the highlight of my monday.