negative

I am really terrible at killing mosquitoes.  You'd think that I'd be better, considering I've been clapping at them for a solid month now, but I'm not.  I'm still miserable at getting them.  Now and again I'll get one, but I've heard that there is an illusion of improvement right after the area's been sprayed.  Just my luck.

Regardless, thankfully, I don't have malaria.  I'm taking pills and bathing in bug juice and there is fogging around the camp three times a week, but the people-who-know suggest you get a malaria test every two weeks.  I went a full month of being in Tanzania before they caught me (I don't much like doctors or clinics), but I have had my first malaria test and it is negative.

It is worth noting that once you detour through the security compound and travel along a barbed wire fence through the secret passage to the clinic, it is actually a good time.   No one comes to the clinic for a headache - there's a serious issue by the time you get to the clinic.  There was someone in physical therapy outside the front doors, re-learning how to walk.  A fair number of foot and toe injuries.  I also saw a guy with big black open blistery wounds on his swollen legs - yikes!  Now, I just require a finger prick and I made an appointment, so... apparently none of what is going on in the waiting room is an emergency and I am passed right on back.

The doctor is very happy that I have come in for my malaria test and the lab technician, an old man named Wilfred dressed in burgundy scrubs, is also quite happy to see me.  I'm not sure if this is because I am a pleasant person or I'm the least of their worries today (black wounds, man, that is a problem!) or because my attempts at Swahili are so funny.  Wilfred calls me "mami" the whole time, which means I love him.  Also, the finger prick is the lightest thing I've ever felt.  I actually asked Wilfred if he missed me, which only made him like me more.  Wilfred, in fact, is the person most amused by me since I got here.  As I was wondering if I was only being humored back in the States, I am pleased to find that I can truly be entertaining.  After the finger prick, I asked if I could sit and watch my malaria test "change color."  I thought that meant it was like a litmus test, but it's more like a pregnancy test (at least the way pregnancy tests work on commercials.  I don't have first hand knowledge of this.)  Wilfred talked me through the specifics of the superficial malaria test - which lines mean what, what happens if it's invalid, the whole nine.

Then there was the second round of testing, which involved a microscope and which I was not involved in.  All the same, no malaria.

Malaria, by the way, is apparently unmistakable.  The symptoms are discussed as "flu-like," but anyone who has had malaria said it is definitely not like anything normal... you feel like you are DYING.  Vitaliy believes he has malaria twice a week on average.  He's tried to diagnose me with malaria at least half a dozen times since we arrived.  Neither of us have malaria.  No one in camp has malaria.  We will not get malaria.

But we will get tested for it every two weeks.  I'll be going just to visit Wilfred.

excitement! adventure!

I've struck gold!  Okay, not really.  But I toured the processing plant last week, which was incredible.  It's a grown-up jungle gym, with chemicals and machinery.  It's real-to-life alchemy, turning rocks without visible gold into iridescent bubbles rich with minerals - gold and copper.  I loved it.  Learning an entirely new technical genre is amazing.  I wonder who and when someone pondered through the process... what it was like for him or her and if they experienced anything like the excitement that I do when I'm learning about it.

So, there we go.  Some real live mining stuff.  In case you weren't sure that I wasn't on safari in Africa, what with the mostly animal discussions.

Also, it's tough to be an advisor.  While I am part of a team here, I'm an outsider.  The core team, the heads of their departments, the management team... they comprise the serious get-it-done work.  When something goes wrong, I get out of the way.  They know how to fix it and they should be fixing it.  I advise, I coach, I listen, I help them work through what they are thinking.  But I can't jump in and do it.  That's been an adjustment.  I want to get my hands dirty, you know?

Also, we went to Mwanza this weekend.  Flying never gets old for me.  It's just fun to do something that you know you weren't made to do.  Lift off and soar.  I got some decent shots of Lake Victoria, being prepared this time around.  (Next time I'll get you all some shots of the mine.)  It was a little bit stormy, but the clouds made the lake look silky, glossy, and flat.  It was beautiful.  Also, I saw lightning from a plane, another first for me.

We met at the Gold Crest, which was a nice enough hotel.  Just nice enough though.  The impression it gives is of a nice hotel, but the details are a bit lost.  The wireless access didn't really work.  My bed was a queen-size mattress placed on a king-sized boxspring.  That sort of thing.  Almost a nice hotel.  Situated directly next to the loudest club in town.  You could hear it through the walls.  Quite the experience.  BUT the meeting we held together was very productive and the dinner that night was phenomenal.  A little restaurant on Lake Victoria with a great view and even better dessert (fried bananas and ice cream, yum).

Also in Mwanza, they parade newlyweds through the streets with horns and drums.  The couple stands in the bed of a decorated pickup (streamers, flowers) with a few trumpets or a drummer and they are driven around and around the circle in the center of Mwanza.  It's the greatest thing ever.  All activity has to stop because you can't hear yourself speak over the noise.  The attention too is fantastic.  Everyone looks and cheers.  It's a tradition I approve of... translated to my American way of life, it feels a lot like noisemakers and commotion.  Nakupenda (I love it)!

quite the pair (pear, no really, pair)

These are fruit trees in my backyard. Growing of their own accord. Much the same way my food is getting cooking and my house is getting cleaned and my laundry is getting done. All without any help from me.

I believe one is a banana tree and the other coconut, but I could be corrected. I bet they are enjoying the rain.

Apparently my feet are unusually tiny here in Africa and steel toed boots must be ordered for me before I can venture into anything mining-related.  So, my observations of the site have been limited to getting lost and finding offices, how I'm still startled by the giant marabou storks all over the place, how beautiful and colorful it is here.

My swahili improves little by little. Habari is hello, Na mtufuta means I'm looking for someone, Rafiki is how you say friend. Also, I think the weasel looking sidekick in the Lion King (Timon, you remember) was a mongoose. Though, again, I stand to be corrected on this.

Almost everything travels in numbers here - lots and lots of swallows, and little birds with turquoise bodies and brown wings to hide within, and packs of mongoose, and flocks of guinea fowl, and troops of foxes, and tribes of monkeys. More than one of anything, of everything. It boggles the mind.

But out back, just one banana tree and one coconut tree. They've been there a while, you can tell. I imagine they are friends, grown out of their differences, and now content just to watch the house, soak up the rain, bask in the sun, a pair in their own way.

the trifecta

WOO!

Today I got the trifecta - hot water, power, and internet.  This is apparently unusual in Africa, but I have to say, I might have been able to have it sooner if I'd used the shower properly.  I've had cold showers for five days... and all of you who know me REALLY well know that I don't only NOT take cold showers, I scald myself daily.  And also that I love showers, and morning singing, and deep thinking, and the water, and being clean.  I love these things and I was having to pep talk myself into the bathroom every morning.  However, having conquered what I believe to be my own orientations towards Africa-must-be-missing-something, I have hot showers, starting this morning.  Over the last few days, we've lost power once and the internet has been slower than it was when I arrived (though it's never disappeared completely).  But this morning, I awoke to the trifecta!  And it is VERY EXCITING.

Mostly because I have found what is missing in Africa, and it isn't hot water or power or internet or good food or great people or interesting work or beauty or opportunity or any of those preconceptions that I might have added to my carry on for the trip.  What's missing from Africa is home.  My network isn't here, they are ... hold please ... 43,020 km if I take I-90 through Mongolia and then a ferry of some kind and goodness ... oh okay ... happyzebra.com tells me ... 7,836.7 miles as the crow flies ... that'll do.  So, on with it, my people are forever away.  My PEOPLE that I care for deeply, whose lives are so rich and interesting, whose challenges I find myself engaged in too, whose perceptions inform my thinking.  Those things aren't here.

And I do miss them, but they sent me off well.  With all kinds of hopes and dreams and journals to record them.  With words of support and encouragement.  With the momentum of many years of being loved in the cocoon, they sent me off to see the world.  I will do that for you all, I will happily keep my promise.

Maisha Mzuri.  A Swahili toast to a beautiful life.  (And don't quote me on the spelling, thank you very much.)

do it big

Just wanted you to know that I got in to Tanzania last night and I'm safe and sound and have a full day's work behind me already. I'm here, in Dar Es Salaam at a nice hotel (you wouldn't know I wasn't in the US if someone didn't tell you) with a coffee maker and a hair dryer and an internet connection. Everyone has been very nice so far - a handful of people from the company met us at the airport to get our visas and our stuff and bring us to the hotel, and one of the women offered to take us to the marketplace, which was unexpectedly sweet of her.

My hotel room is lovely (though I think I'll miss very hot showers and I may have already blown my hair dryer this morning) and none of the food has made me sick yet - I'll be in Dar Es Salaam for two weeks and then onto the mine site. We're having regional strategy sessions and workshops to begin the project, and I'm trying to take it all in, while also being totally fascinated with the cultural differences (we went to Mwuenge, a Tanzanian market, today... and I wanted EVERYTHING!), working with Swahili (Asante is thank you, but I keep wanting to default to Gracias), feeling a little jet lagged, and being blown away by the scenery. Literally, I had business meetings today while sitting in a cafe on the Indian Ocean. My partner in crime has a photo of hot air balloons rising above the Serengeti that he took himself. Insane. He speaks very highly of the mine site - it's got great food and a gym and we have a small stand-alone office building. I'll be excited to see it.

As an update, I not only left the country for the first time two days ago, but I did it after quitting my job before having a passport to be here and I'm now an advisor to a gold mine. No halfway here, my friends.