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)!

what I do on my day off

I've told some of you... I work a lot here.  Mining hours are 24/7, and my hours have become 7 am - 7 pm, six days a week.  And everyone knows just how pretty I am at 7 am.  But, I love the work and I love Africa, so I don't mind that my time here, right now, is mostly work.  Also, the mine site is miles and miles (kilometers here, and frankly I haven't a working conversion-in-head go-to standard yet, though I change dollars for Tschillings like no one's business, so anyway, I'm still measuring in miles)... miles and miles from anything.  So really going exploring is a plane ride and two days. Today was my first full day off.  I looked forward to it.  Mostly because I got to sleep in.

RIDE A BIKE
I borrowed a bike from Lydia, who is currently acting as the assistant to the General Manager.  She's helped us with a lot of things - getting our office set up, how to say you-name-it in Swahili, how to use the phone.  And she was the bearer of surprise soup a few days ago when I had a cold.  Anyway, she also lent me her bike for the weekend because she'd be away.  I was very excited.  My bicycling days of Key West were fondly remembered and I hoped to get more of my bearings on a bicycle.

The bicycle is huge.  I was only able to ride it by not sitting on the seat.  I fell, but only a few times, and I don't think anyone saw.  I sure hope not because everyone here rides bikes everywhere and I'd like to think I can master at least a little part of their way of life - or at least not look like a total fool while trying.  Being on the bike though, however awkward, was just as enjoyable as ever.  I did reorient myself to the site, though I didn't find a good vantage point for the sunset.  I think I could wander through the golf course and maybe find a good spot there, but it will take some more exploring.  Maybe next Sunday.

READ (A LOT)
I'm nearly finished my second book - and my third is Travels with Charley.  I know, from experience, that even slowly, that will only last three or four days.  The security manager spoke of Cocktails under the Tree of Forgetfulness.  He'd picked it up when he met with us in Dar es Salaam for the workshop, at a fantastic bookstore that I will be sure to visit the next time I am in town.  It's about Kenya he says, and raves about the bookstores of Tanzania.

SAVE THE WORLD
I am interested in becoming more connected to this community.  As a consultant, I am not really part of the work, simply an advisor, an interested and useful bystander.  I can't jump in at a moment's notice and save the day.

I volunteered to read or help with homework or anything at the school on the site, but that has not actually panned out.  It's a very small school - six children - and it seems that in addition to the teachers, the parents, and others are all very involved.

I did become fascinated about the idea of libraries in Africa, as I loved my library as a child, and wish for one on the mine site (however impractical an idea that is).  Googling led me to Libraries Across Africa, a really thoughtful idea which encompasses community empowerment on a number of levels.  Though they don't seem to have been active in a while, I may contact them anyway.  Otherwise I have to find something else...

LEARN THINGS
Googling is a great past time.  In addition to libraries and the current conflict in Dar, I've learned about types of Tanzania dance (and decided that I'm going to stick to riding a bike) and black swan theory.  Black swan theory is terribly interesting because it both deals with commonly held beliefs about what impossible is and how humans react to the impossible once it becomes reality.  I've never head of black swan theory, but I'm going to begin incorporating it into conversation as soon as possible, because I think it's a fascinating line of thought.

Also, it isn't only Google who can teach a person things.  Today, I found out that that mine's vector control guy (the mosquito - and it's said mo-SQUEE-to here, which I prefer now), also has a farm.  He went to visit it today.  I can't wait to hear more about Dastan's farm, and if maybe he can identify the maybe-a-coconut, maybe-a-mango tree in the backyard.

THINK ABOUT HOME
Friends of mine got married yesterday.  And though I got a picture, it's nothing like being there in person.  My littlest sister (the munchkin) has left to fend for herself (okay, so at college, it's not really survival-mode) while three-quarters of the Kearby clan is overseas.  I miss my car and my heels and using my phone as something other than an alarm clock.

When there isn't much to do, I get lonely.

CATCH A MONKEY
Luckily I found a friend... this is as close as I got to him (probably two feet away), but he was nice enough not to run out of the picture...

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.