Where on earth did Kevin go?

The significance of the wedding dresses

2011-10-28T10:54:00.003+04:00

This is something Rob wrote:
"The gown is always the highlight of all wedding fantasies and earn believes. Since their youth, people will frequently think of a good looking princess bride in a snowy white, ethereal bridal dress of stunning beauty. It comes as not surprising that choosing the perfect bridal gown to your wedding will show to be one of the most challenging and exciting a part of planning the wedding.
Marriage is ideally an once in a lifetime event. There isn’t much leeway to rehearse or get some things wrong. To make bride’s entrance down the rug perfect and memorable, one will need to take great pains to ensure that things are done correctly down to every little detail on the bridal dress.
From watching weddings in the news, or reading about them in books and magazines, or hearing about them off their people, couples to get form an image within their minds of the level of wedding gown to merely wear on his or her wedding. Many people please take a watch and learn stance while they formulate, plan and envision their ideal wedding dress.
In case your the come, and you are shopping for an ideal dress to create the wedding dreams become a reality, then you have come to the correct place. Here are some guidelines to help you defeat wedding ceremony dress hump will less sweat.
Eventhough it might go both ways, the theme of the dress should follow your desired theme or the opposite way round. Some couples pick a theme before selecting Brides Maid Dresses, plus effect, they generate the gown fit the theme they have chosen. But for some people, a choice of gown comes first, and also the theme in the wedding follows the gown’s theme. So if the gown that catches the bride’s fancy is ultra beaded and formal, then this wedding may will be more formal. If your bride chooses a less formal dress, then a wedding may consume a less formal route.
Yes, it can be tempting to attempt every gown that comes your way. But what if you find yourself buried within pile of 20 roughly gowns you think you truly like and can’t decide? That sort of scenario will prove to be an awful headache as well as an excellent method to obtain stress.
To avert this, try making decisions in phases. You could test an ‘American Idol’ style means of picking a gown. You could vote off of the least liked one after which Bridal Wear the remaining gowns.
Permanently is attempting 5 gowns and then choosing two of the most useful. These ‘champions’ will likely be pit against 5 more new gowns. Continue the tournament until you get to the perfect gown.
It might become tempting to say, ‘Aw, but that other gown could have been better.’ Try to successfully make your final decision among Wedding Dresses. If you choose lots of to pick from you might get overwhelmed and wind up choosing a substandard gown, or seeking the perfect gown but forever questioning whether you’ve made the right decision or otherwise not.
And pick a wise companion take a couple of of one’s closest friends or confidants who know a few things about designer wedding dresses and magnificence. Their advice comes into play handy when selecting a gown. Also, be sure you look into the durability and quality of the gown, the material along with the accessories. You don’t want your gown failing giving you throughout the ceremonies.

Poincare's conjecture

2010-03-24T15:59:00.002+04:00

From M&G:

"The Clay Mathematics Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, last week honoured Perelman for his solution to a problem posed almost a century ago by French mathematician Henri Poincaré. The theorem -- known as Poincaré's conjecture -- involves the deep structure of three-dimensional shapes. It is one of seven elusive challenges set by the institute, each carrying a $1-million reward. It took the world's leading mathematicians several years to verify that Perelman had definitively solved the problem in a paper published in 2002."

I wonder if the salaries for the verifiers exceed the prize money for Perelman (that he refused)...

"...Perelman quit the world of mathematics in disgust four years ago. His decision to spurn the Fields Medal may have been driven by a sense that his fellow mathematicians were not worthy to award it. "He severed all contact with the community, and wanted to find a job unrelated to maths," Kisliakov says. "I don't know whether he succeeded in that." "

Tourism services disclaimer

2010-03-15T14:00:00.002+04:00

If you're reading this, you're obviously the kind of person who

a) isn't very busy, or
b) can't prioritise very well, or
c) isn't very trusting, or
d) wants to read through all the silly blogs Kevin has written in the hope of finding something meaningful (good luck), or
e) generally clicks on links from strangers, just in case it's true that they're giving away iPods (they're not)

The disclaimer is this.
1) All services are indicative of what you'll get, but in no way represent anything close to the end product
2) Generally, you should take the indicated costs and double them
3) There is no I in team
4) You should really stop reading this by now

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If you read all that, cool. If not, you're still cool.

Thought for the day

2008-12-05T15:29:00.002+04:00

How to get rid of junk mail - buy one of everything that comes through

Sometimes pictures get the point across

2008-11-28T17:31:00.000+04:00

Everything I know about SME finance (on paper)

2008-11-25T12:15:00.005+04:00

Acs, Zoltan J. “State of Literature on Small to Medium-Size Enterprises and Entrepreneurship in Low-Income Communities.” Manuscript, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation (2006).

Allen N. Berger, and Gregory F. Udell. “The Economics of Small Business Finance: The Roles of Private Equity and Debt Markets in the Financial Growth Cycle,” 1998. http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/1998/199815/199815pap.pdf

“ANDE – ASPEN NETWORK FOR DEVELOPMENT ENTREPRENEURS A CALL TO ACTION,” July 2008. http://www.aspeninstitute.org/atf/cf/%7Bdeb6f227-659b-4ec8-8f84-8df23ca704f5%7D/ANDE_SUMMARY_JULY_2008.PDF

Andrew Stern, and Veronica Chau. “ANDE – Aspen Network for Development Entrepreneurs Background analysis July 11th, 2008,” July 11, 2008. http://www.aspeninstitute.org/atf/cf/%7Bdeb6f227-659b-4ec8-8f84-8df23ca704f5%7D/ANDE_SGB_BACKGROUND_ANALYSIS_JULY_2008%5B1%5D.PDF

---. “Aspen Network for Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) Learnings from analogous markets,” July 11, 2008. http://www.aspeninstitute.org/atf/cf/%7Bdeb6f227-659b-4ec8-8f84-8df23ca704f5%7D/ANDE_LEARNINGS_FROM_ANALOGOUS_MARKETS_JULY_2008.PDF

Andrew Winton, and Vijay Yerramilli. “Entrepreneurial Finance: Banks versus Venture Capital,” March 2007. http://www.kelley.iu.edu/vyerrami/jfe_entre_finance.pdf

Anthony J. Ody, and David de Ferranti. “Beyond Microfinance: Getting Capital to Small and Medium Enterprises to Fuel Faster Development - Brookings Institution,” March 31, 2007. http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2007/03development_de_ferranti.aspx

Aslı Demirgüç-Kunt, Thorsten Beck, and Patrick Honohan. “Finance for All,” 2008. http://www.businessgrowthinitiative.org/KeyPracticeAreas/Documents/Finance%20for%20All.pdf

Augustin Landier. “Start-up Financing: From Banks to Venture Capital,” December 11, 2002. http://finance.bi.no/~charlotte/Seminars/Landier.pdf

Augusto de la Torre, María Soledad Martínez Pería, and Sergio L. Schmukler. “Bank Involvement with SMEs:Beyond Relationship Lending,” June 2008. http://www-wds.worldbank.org/servlet/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2008/06/18/000158349_20080618163014/Rendered/PDF/wps4649.pdf

Balkenhol, Bernd, and Chris Evans-Klock. “Private Equity and Capitalisation of SMMEs in South Africa: Quo Vadis?.” http://www.oit.org/public/english/employment/finance/download/wp34.pdf

Banham, H. C., and R. Wiesner. “Is the current situation of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) conducive to attaining their economic expectations?” (2006).

Beck, T. The Determinants of Financing Obstacles. World Bank, 2004.

Beck, T., A. Demirguc-Kunt, and V. Maksimovic. “Bank Competition and Access to Finance: International Evidence..” Journal of Money, Credit & Banking 36, no. 3 (2004).

Beck, Thorsten, and Asli Demirguc-Kunt. “Small and Medium-Size Enterprises: Access to Finance as a Growth Constraint,” February 2006. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DEC/Resources/Small_and_Medium-Size_Enterprises_Access_to_Finance_as_a_Growth_Constraint.pdf

Beck, Thorsten, Asli Demirgüç-Kunt, and Ross Levine. “SMEs, Growth, and Poverty.” http://nber15.nber.org/papers/w11224.pdf

Beck, Thorsten , and Patrick Honohan. “Making finance work for Africa.” http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTAFRSUMAFTPS/Resources/MFWfAFinalNov2.pdf

Berger, Allen N., and Gregory F. Udell. A more complete conceptual framework for financing of small and medium enterprises. The World Bank, December 2005. RePEc. http://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/3795.html.

Beth Jenkins, Anna Akhalkatsi, Brad Roberts, and Amanda Gardiner. Business_Linkages_June07.pdf (application/pdf Object). http://www.ifc.org/ifcext/media.nsf/AttachmentsByTitle/Business_Linkages_June07/$FILE/Business_Linkages_June07.pdf

Cardone-Riportella, Clara, and Leonardo Cazorla-Papis. “New approaches to the analysis of the capital structure of SME's: Empirical evidence from Spanish firms,” January 2001. http://ideas.repec.org/p/cte/wbrepe/wb011003.html

Celalettin SERİNKAN, and Hasan CABAR. “Management And Organization Problems of Small and Medium Sized Enterprise’s: A Research on Textile Firms in Denizli,” 2008. http://www.insanbilimleri.com/ojs/index.php/uib/article/view/438/289.

Céline Kauffmann. “Financing SMEs in Africa,” May 2005. http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/57/59/34908457.pdf

Charles Tushabomwe-Kazooba. “Causes of Small Business Failure in Uganda: A Case Study from Bushenyi and Mbarara Towns,” July 2006. http://web.africa.ufl.edu/asq/v8/v8i4a3.htm.

Chuka Ekezie. “Challenges Before Yar'Adua On SMEs,” March 27, 2008. http://allafrica.com/stories/200803270056.html.

Cull, Robert, Lance E. Davis, Naomi R. Lamoreaux, and Jean-Laurent Rosenthal. “Historical financing of SMEs.” http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTFR/Resources/475459-1107891190953/661910-1108584820141/Historical_financing_of_SMEs.pdf.

David de Ferranti, and Anthony J. Ody. “Beyond Microfinance:
Getting Capital to Small and Medium Enterprises to Fuel Faster Development.” http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/papers/2007/03development_ferranti/pb159.pdf.

Derik Newberry. “EarthTrends: Feature - The Role of Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises in the Futures of Emerging Economies,” December 2006. http://earthtrends.wri.org/features/view_feature.php?theme=5&fid=69.

DFID. “Reducing poverty through private sector development.” http://www.dfid.gov.uk/pubs/files/china-private-sector-development.pdf.

Easterly, William. “The Ghost of Financing Gap,” December 1999. http://www.cgdev.org/doc/expert%20pages/easterly/easterly_ghost.pdf

ECI Africa. “Study into Tax Incentives for Private Investors in Small Businesses,” May 2006. http://www.finmarktrust.org.za/documents/2006/MAY/TaxIncentives.pdf.

Ed Vos, Andrew Jia‐Yuh Yeh, Sara Carter, and Stephen Tagg. “The Happy Story of Small Business Financing.” http://www.fma.org/Chicago/Papers/VYCTJanuary072005.pdf.

Equinox Management Consultants Ltd. “Gaps in SME Financing: An Analytical Framework,” February 2002. http://www.sme-fdi.ic.gc.ca/epic/site/sme_fdi-prf_pme.nsf/vwapj/FinancingGapAnalysisEquinoxFeb2002_e.pdf/$FILE/FinancingGapAnalysisEquinoxFeb2002_e.pdf

Fox, Tom. “Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) and Corporate Social Responsibility: A Discussion Paper1,” June 2005. http://www.iied.org/SM/CR/documents/CSRandSMEs.pdf

Hallberg, Kristin. “Small and Medium Scale Enterprises: A Framework for Intervention,” May 21, 1999. http://wbln0018.worldbank.org/html/FinancialSectorWeb.nsf/(attachmentweb)/SME_Framework_Paper/$FILE/SME_Framework_Paper.pdf

Harding, Torfinn, and Beata Smarzynska Javorcikr. “Developing Economies and International Investors.” file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/KevinWalsh.GROFIN/Application%20Data/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/07gkp43o.default/zotero/storage/1160/wps4339.pdf.

Headd, Brian, and Bruce Kirchhoff. “Small business growth: Searching for the stylised facts,” October 2007. http://www.sba.gov/advo/research/rs311tot.pdf.

Honorati, Maddalena, and Taye Mengistae. “Corruption, the Business Environment, and Small Business Growth in India.” file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/KevinWalsh.GROFIN/Application%20Data/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/07gkp43o.default/zotero/storage/452/wps4338.pdf.

“IFC non performing loans.”

“Improving access to finance for small businesses.” http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file38295.pdf.

JACOB LEVITSKY. “Credit guarantee schemes for SMEs an international review,” June 1997. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTEXPCOMNET/Resources/2463593-1213887855468/04_Credit_guarantee_schemes_for_SMEs.pdf.

Kelly Desy, Mark Pedersen, Andrea Turner, and Greg Zumas. “Capital Access for SMEs in Latin America and Africa,” January 24, 2007.

Klapper, Leora, Virginia Sarria-Allende, and Victor Sulla. Small and medium size enterprise financing in Eastern Europe. The World Bank, December 2002. RePEc. http://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/2933.html.

LIU Chen Xiang. “SME Financing in China.” http://economix.u-paris10.fr/pdf/dt/2007/WP_EcoX_2007-29.pdf.

Magnus Forsberg, and Nicklas Mattsson. “From Business Success to Failure.” http://www.handels.gu.se/epc/archive/00004951/01/05-06-108.pdf.

MAN, THOMAS W.Y., THERESA LAU, and K.F. CHAN. “Concenptualisation of SMEs' competitiveness: A focus on entrepreneurial competencies,” May 4, 2004. http://www.sbaer.uca.edu/research/icsb/1998/pdf/27.pdf.

Motoshige Itoh, and Shujiro Urata. Small and medium-size enterprise support policies in Japan. The World Bank, December 1994. RePEc. http://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/1403.html.

OECD. “Financing SMEs and Entrepreneurs,” November 2006. http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/53/27/37704120.pdf.

Ogilvie, Sheilagh, and Chris Meissner. “Economic development Reading list.” file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/KevinWalsh.GROFIN/Application%20Data/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/07gkp43o.default/zotero/storage/5694/Part2-Paper4-supervisions-2006-7.pdf.

Per Davidsson, Leona Achtenhagen, and Lucia Naldi. “Research on Small Firm Growth: A Review.” http://eprints.qut.edu.au/archive/00002072/01/EISB_version_Research_on_small_firm_growth.pdf.

Pissarides, Francesca, Miroslav Singer, and Jan Svejnar. “Objectives and Constraints of Entrepreneurs: Evidence from Small and Medium Size Enterprises in Russia and Bulgaria,” October 2000. http://ideas.repec.org/p/wdi/papers/2000-346.html.

“Relationship Banking and SMEs : A Theoretical Analysis.” http://ideas.repec.org/p/diw/diwwpp/dp469.html.

“Removing barriers to SME access to international markets,” November 2006. http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/4/16/37818320.pdf.

Rocco Macchiavello. “Vertical Integration, missing middle and investor protection in developing countries,” November 2007. http://www.economics.ox.ac.uk/Research/wp/pdf/paper373.pdf.

Rosen, S. B., and P. J. Connelly. “HIV/AIDS services for small and medium enterprises in South Africa: a market analysis..” Int Conf AIDS (2004): 15.

Sanders, Thierry, and Carolien Wegener. “Meso-Finance position paper.” Position paper. Meso finance filling the financial service gap for small business in developing countries, September 2006. http://www.bidnetwork.org/download.php?id=40005.

Santiago Carbó-Valverde*, Francisco Rodríguez-Fernández, and Gregory F. Udell. “BANK LENDING, FINANCING CONSTRAINTS AND SME INVESTMENT,” April 2008. http://www.chicagofed.org/publications/workingpapers/wp2008_04.pdf.

SEAF. “From Poverty to Prosperity.pdf (application/pdf Object),” October 2007. http://www.seafweb.org/Economic_Impact_Documents/From%20Poverty%20to%20Prosperity.pdf.

Shiau, W. L., H. C. Chao, and P. Y. Hsu. “Obstacles of enterprises moving towards the next generation internet.” International Journal of Internet Protocol Technology 1, no. 1 (2005): 34-39.

“Small Companies are Generous - 2008-06-06,” June 6, 2008. http://www.cbn.co.za/dailynews/2904.html.

“SME access to finance in South Africa.” http://www.treasury.gov.za/documents/sme/.

“SME finance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.” SME finance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SME_finance.

“SMEs and foreign trade.” http://www.unece.org/indust/sme/foreignt.htm.

“Some issues on SME finance in Bangladesh.” http://nation.ittefaq.com/artman/publish/article_29844.shtml.

Sophie Manigart, Koen De Waele, and Mike Wright. “Determinants of required return in venture capital investments:
A five country study*.” http://ungaro.u-bourgogne.fr/WP/1020701.pdf.

Stijn Claessens. “The link between competitiveness and SME financing,” December 15, 2006. http://www.fsa.go.jp/frtc/20061205/07-01.pdf.

Thompson, John, and Stephen Lumpkin. “The SME financing GAP.” http://www.insme.org/documenti/sme_financing_gap_oecd.pdf.

Thorsten Beck, Asli Demirguc-Kunt, and Maria Soledad Martinez Peria. “Banking SMEs around the world,” April 2008. http://www.businessgrowthinitiative.org/KeyPracticeAreas/Documents/Banking%20SMEs%20around%20the%20world.pdf.

Torre, Augusto de la, Juan Carlos Gozzi, and Sergio L. Schmukler. “Innovative Experiences in Access to Finance,” August 2007. file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/KevinWalsh.GROFIN/Application%20Data/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/07gkp43o.default/zotero/storage/90/wps4326.pdf.

Tyler Biggs. “Is Small Beautiful and Worthy of Subsidy?.” http://rru.worldbank.org/Documents/PapersLinks/TylersPaperonSMEs.pdf.

UNEP FI African task force. “Innovative financing for sustainable small and medium enterprises in Africa,” 2007. http://www.unepfi.org/fileadmin/documents/innovative_financing_africa.pdf.

Vives, A., Inter-American Development Bank, Sustainable Development Dept, and P. Enterprise. Social and Environmental Responsibility in Small and Medium Enterprises in Latin America. Inter-American Development Bank, 2005.

VK Chopra. “Innovations in SME financing.” http://www.ficci.com/media-room/speeches-presentations/2004/sep/banking/Session%205/V%20K%20Chopra.pdf.

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Yerima Wilson Musa, and David M. Danjuma. “Small and Medium Scale Enterprises:
A Veritable Tool for Sustainable Job Creation in Nigeria,” October 2007. http://www.jbpponline.com/article/viewFile/1908/1363.

Zavatta, Roberto. “Financing Technology Entrepreneurs & SMEs in Developing Countries | infoDev.org,” June 2008. http://www.infodev.org/en/Publication.542.html

Camel Lube

2007-07-15T10:05:00.000+04:00

Omanis certainly know how to give their camels some tender loving...

To good friends

2007-07-15T08:48:00.000+04:00

Hi faithful readers ;)

I'd like to put a shout out to our good friend Pekka, and his soon to be wife Jutta, who need our thoughts right now.
Sterkte my man - all the best.

Scorecard

2007-07-09T20:11:00.001+04:00

Well, the time is almost due to run through the list and see how well I scored, on Kevin's patented country scoring system (trademark pending)
This was the list:
1) Swim to the big rock (started this by just remembering how to swim)
2) Get a photo on the roof (where my Weber sits) with a large plastic gun (machine gun type)
3) Get a photo on the roof of the SA embassy (with gun)
4) Email photo to Omani embassy in SA...
5) Go sand duning (what do you call it when you slide down the dune on a board/sheet?)
6) Dive, of course
7) Learn to surf (well, start by learning the language - I couldn't understand the guys when we met last week - all about cycles and charts and stuff - fully...)
8) Barbeque an oryx
Seriously, why not?
9) Oh, and learn arabic (which has already started)

And these are the results:
1)1/2 poit: I swam around the rock, and did scuba (what's the past tense of scuba?) almost under it.
2) Full poit: A bit arbitrary, but I'll take success wherever I can get it.
3) Nil poit. Closest I came to this was making friends with the deputy ambassador.
4) Nil poit. I do have their email addresses though. Sad sad sad.
5) Full poit! Was still discovering the sand a week later.
6) Full points. Turned out to be a great way to make friends.
7) Fully. No, nil poit. Although during the cyclone we did get to body surf Shatti al Qurum - some sweet waves.
8) 1/2 poit. Burnt a goat, which probably tastes the same anyway.
9) 1/2 poit. Lost enthusiasm once I rationalised my time and goals...

Total: A half arsed 4 and a half out of ten. Not bad, when you consider the high standards I have set myself. Those self help books are so true - it clearly pays off to hold yourself to a higher standard, and dream bigger than you can imagine (never understood how to do that one).

Then again, life isn't just about keeping score according to some silly list. It's also important to keep score on things you did and forget to even strive for:
So the comprehensive score for Oman is:
Friends made: 9
Friends lost: 1
Colleagues I will remain in contact forever with: 5
(Ex) colleagues I wince when I think about: 1
Dunes bashed: 2
Wadis bashed: 4
Turtles seen: 4
Sharks seen: 1
Hurricanes survived: 1
Flood survived: 2
Shoes lost: 2
Cars lost: 1
Times I found the expression 'You drive like an Arab' funny: countless

Thanks to all who supported me with midnight emailage, smssage, skypage, msnage, and even the odd call. Living in Oman has taught me to value friendships and an understanding word, the same way Mexico taught me to value every minute of every day.

Gonu galore

2007-07-09T20:02:00.000+04:00

Well, the storm turned out to be ok. We lived and snorkled through it. I did write off the company car, which I felt bad about, but we couldn't have really planned that differently. Sometimes the gods just want to have their say.And they said it.

So, life goes on. I will be back in South Africa by next month, which will be fantastic - I haven't quite figured out if I've completed my work here, or if I've just got new things to tackle, but the result stays the same.

See you soon!

Fated

2007-06-05T07:50:00.000+04:00

I'm jinxed in the middle east, which in not a pleasant place to be jinxed.

First my trip to Iran was cancelled due to fake kidnapping in March, and now my trip to Masirah is cancelled due to a bit of harmless wind. The evacuated the whole island. I bet these guys are just overreacting...(will update with photos of carnage to rub in these famous last words...)

Sum thing to think about

2007-05-23T19:43:00.001+04:00

I was walking back from the beach this evening after eating a dodgy yet scenic chicken burger, and, as you do when you walk past a mosque, I wondered how much time a muslim spends praying.

Ever wondered how many times an arab prays? Well, if you have, and were too lazy to figure it out yourself, never fear, read on!

I'm pretty sure I remember Sami saying that he prays 6 times a day. So I used that. I then had to decide how long he lives. Since he doesn't drink, I was thinking of being generous, but then I remembered the shishas and greasy kebabs. So I gave Sami the standard four score and 10. I couldn't actually remember what a score was, so I racked the noggin and out popped the number 70. By trial and error, I worked out that score must be 15. That kinda made sense because a score can't be 12 (that's a dozen!), and if it were as high as 20, 4 score and 10 would be 90, which is just silly.
So, assuming a score to be 15, and the average lifespan of an arab to be 70
(ahah, google backs me! http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=average+lifespan+of+an+arab)
, I made the quick sum in my head. 6 times a day, 365 days a year, which got me to 2190 times a year, for 70 years (oh, let's assume they start on day one...), gets us to 153,300 times a lifetime. That's a lot.

I then wondered, how much time does he actually spend on his knees? I figured we'd take a nice round number like half an hour per prayer, since I didn't have my beach calculator with me. That means 76,650 hours of saying the same thing. That's about 3000 days, which is about 8 and a half years. What a work out.

Just before I got home, I stopped at my local mosque to the see how young they start - I'm no child expert, but them mini Omanis were pretty small - when I was that big I only cared about church because they gave out Oros and Marie biscuits. I lost interest long before they turned Oros into wine.

So, in conclusion, you're probably wondering how they can spend so much of their lives praying. Well, 8.5 years out of 70 is about 12 and a half %. of a life. Most of us spend 33% of the time sleeping. 10% of our time eating. 10% travelling. 1% blinking and 45% wondering what's going on. Which is exactly why we have to put in more than 100%

cheers all

Oman and the art of wadi hunting

2007-04-28T07:50:00.000+04:00

I feel like a mini celebrity, the last few weeks - I've done a radio interview, had my picture in the paper (well, I was caught in the background, I think...), and now I wrote an article - as pointless as you might think I am, I'm horrible at writing pointless articles - the only point of the following was to fill space in a circular. Now I'm using it to fill your time...

The article
>>>>>>>>
Coming to Oman has been a fulfilling experience and there’s still a lot left to discover. There have been unique experiences, challenges and just plain fun almost every day. Some of them I could have prepared for more, but the majority are just a part of this beautiful life.

Movies led me to believe that I would be living in a country filled with camels, sand and caves full of treasure. Instead, I found a land of goats, mountains, beaches and palm trees. I thought I was going to learn to ride camels, instead the goats are taking me for a ride.

The ultimate goat experience occurred on the way to Nizwa, the old capital of Oman (in Oman, when you say old, you mean really old!). We stopped off at a village to explore a nearby oasis, and after a 40 minute wander up the valley (wadi), found a maze of caves and palm trees next to deep, blue ponds (still no treasure though).

We all took off our shoes and dived in as fast as we could. After splashing around for a while and trying to catch some tiny blue fish, we climbed back up to the rocky ledge. Shoes and socks were everywhere. A family of goats were in the middle. Next time you catch me wearing socks with holes, you know why.

It’s not all wadi hunting and competing with the local wildlife though, there are a lot of subtle pleasures and challenges, especially conspicuous by their absence.

One evening in February, I was searching for the city reservoir which is within walking distance of the main market, and I managed to end up in the hidden inner city with a myriad of narrow alleyways. Normally I would have held on to my wallet and traced my way back to a street with people and lights, but in Muscat, children are running from doorway to doorway, old men are sitting around with sticks and dominoes, and everyone has a friendly face. I continued walking for over an hour; until I was convinced I never need to worry about crime in Oman. If you ever come to visit, there’s no need to worry about car keys or house keys, although it’s still a good idea to protect your passport…

On the work front, the experience has been fascinating. As a company we have a lot to learn from the large corporates who treat all these nuances with an attitude of ‘business as usual’. Although there are many things we need to find the maturity to accept as changes, we also have a lot to offer from the experience, systems and overall knowledge we have gathered. Approaching Oman takes as much consideration for local preferences as it requires confidence in the effectiveness of our vision, mission and passion for our business model.

Lastly, it has to be said that the hospitality of the Omanis and the camaraderie of the South Africans is astounding. As I finish this paragraph, I am sitting with a group of people from all over the world (including people from different parts of South Africa) appreciating the fact that although we are losing the cricket, Andre Nel has just taken the wicket of Ricki Ponting!

Paradise lost

2007-03-21T14:13:00.000+04:00

There I was sitting on the beach last week, generally flustered by the sun and sand and stupid seagulls (and a dead puffy fish - those ones that are like spiky balloons), and I suddenly realised that there is no such thing as paradise (remember the Azteca story?). The closest I came was mocambique up north, but even then, I used to get paranoid because it was impossible to not walk under coconut trees. Anyway, my conclusion was that since there is no such place as paradise, I might as well get used to the bad bits so I can focus on enjoying the good bits. Which is why you see this picture: I know it doesn't look like a life and death moment, but when you know that coconuts kill more people than sharks, I'm sure you'll agree I'm quite a daredevil. Now that I'm over that, my next desensitizing stunt will be to cover myself in seed and just let the seagulls have their way.

And since the title of this is now paradise lost, here's a picture of the road that got me there (lost).

Oman conquered

2007-01-26T10:37:00.000+04:00

The gun is actually normal sized - it's just that I'm so big...

This picture is taken on the roof of my house. The satellite in the background is fairly common.

Phoning to Oman

2006-12-24T07:53:00.000+04:00

Due to popular demand...

First off, the country code is +968
Area codes are:
Muscat fixed line code is 24
Nawras mobile service is 95
Omantel mobile service is 99 or 92

Here are some interesting calling options:
1) Prices from Oman elsewhere
2) Calls from anywhere to anywhere (works out cheaper for all the options I tried)*
3) Prices from South Africa elsewhere

* Call2 doesn't pay me to say this, but I'm expecting them to start at any moment...

Ana shoofuk badin (see ya later...)

Oman arrived

2006-12-23T15:01:00.000+04:00

O man was I wrong. This place isn't quite the restricted scary place I had in my head (and some silly books talked about).
It's friendly, clean, peaceful and, did I already say clean?
I see a French guy arrived around the same date as me and saved me the effort of blogging the normal stuff - check out omanexpat. Given Adam Smith's simple idea that when any particular market gets crowded, it leads to specialisation of skills, allowing a more segmented market (catering for more specific needs) as well as higher level of skills, leading to higher quality, lower costs and general market happiness. In Adam's theory, this is why London is a place of such notorious happiness. In my own example, it's the reason to not provide a one stop oman blogspot. So, all I'm trying to say is, thanks, french guy - as if the blogging market wasn't tight enough - I moved all the way to Oman to increase my google ad click rate, and now this.
Well, good thing I have a backup plan...

So, I won't be doing the usual stuff, or as regularly. What I will try to do is take pictures of the real stuff I do and stick it here rather than shoving it down your e-throat.

To start off with, my missions are as follows:
1) Swim to the big rock (started this by just remembering how to swim)
2) Get a photo on the roof (where my Weber sits) with a large plastic gun (machine gun type)
3) Get a photo on the roof of the SA embassy (with gun)
4) Email photo to Omani embassy in SA...
5) Go sand duning (what do you call it when you slide down the dune on a board/sheet?)
6) Dive, of course
7) Learn to surf (well, start by learning the language - I couldn't understand the guys when we met last week - all about cycles and charts and stuff - fully...)
8) Barbeque an oryx
Seriously, why not?
9) Oh, and learn arabic (which has already started)
For all visitors - your first lesson is: I want a pen - Ana oreed qalam

Probably not going to save your life, but at least you can write about it while dying.

Okay - and preferably, this stuff would be cool to do with someone who has any of the following
a) beer, b) a big 4x4, c) a voice like d) a cool surname like Hutch, Clyde or Brain.

x--------------------------------------------------------------------x

Okay, I know I skimped on the actual news - truth is it's boring, but if you're already that bored to read this far, here it is:Okay, maybe Adam Smith was wrong about the specialisation thing - maybe a crowded market just leads to pointless oneupmanship - but, hey, I didn't start it...

Okay, and here's the blurb - enjoy*
* Do not read while operating heavy machinery, small sharp objects or complex algebra. In general, you shouldn't read at these times.

Arrival in Oman (part 1 of 1, not continued or repeated elsewhere, except google cache (hopefully))

If you’ve been following the last several years of ‘Kevin’s travels’, you might have picked up that every time I arrive in a new country for an extended period, the email usually starts with “Bang”. And sometimes, for dramatic effect, “Bang and bang again”. Usually I end with interrobang.
This is mostly because I tend to leave packing until the last minute. One day I will expound the ‘night before packing philosophy’, which will end all head shaking and start a revolution in the niche field of long term travel. But that’s for another day.
Today, I’m in Oman. And I’m going to use this shiny new mirror to reflect on the past few weeks and last 24 hours in particular.
First of all, the last few weeks have been hectic, outrageous, overwhelming, underwhelming and overall, just what life should be – full of things happening, one after the other.
The last time I really sat down to think was the day I went to a conference on microfinance development institutions. Unfortunately, the reason I got to think at the conference is because it was so tedious and self obvious. Maybe I just didn’t understand the depth of the issues, so I couldn’t take anything home besides a new friendship with the CEO’s daughter and a shiny business card holder. I threw away the business card holder. I kept the relationship.
For a few weeks, anyway, until some roundabout whirlwind tours through drakensberg, eastern transvaal (too lazy to spell Sabie's province), Kruger, Moz, and let's not forget the festival of light that sparked it all off. Happiness and sadness and lots and lots of heart felt chats. We saw Tugela falls in Drakensberg, the second highest in the world, and spent a whole day walking towards it, but never got there. Next time we’ll bring a helicopter. We saw Horseshoe falls in Sabie, and even took some time out to clean God's window. We visited Kruger’s house, Kruger’s statue at Church Square and Kruger park - what a guy.
Marisela and I also went up a ferris wheel with a couple brazilian guys (that's a lot) and down a gold mine with some dutch. No gold though.
Quite as suddenly, the games were over and time for packing - Marisela was a star in helping me to pack for Oman. First we hauled off a car load of books. Next came cushions and winter clothes, and last came the bed, bicycle and bits and pieces.
From leaving work at 13:00, I arrived home at 18:00 after having fun with the post office, National treasury, and a bank that doesn’t exist any more. After that we managed to pack the final things fairly quickly and made it to Gerry’s house by 19:30. We left at almost 21:00, arriving home at 22:00. Then we unpacked the car into the bedroom. Unpacked the bedroom into the house, then put the remaining stuff into a couple bags. I might have slept after that.
It was really a blur until walking through customs in Oman, where there was quite distinctly nobody to meet us. We spent an hour walking around the airport, 2 hours driving around Muscat in a Taxi, and 2 hours sleeping in the Intercontinental foyer. After that we came to my new office and house and dropped off our stuff. Then we found our way to the waveless beach and swam. Better than any shower. Should have brought those Intercon soaps though...
So, that was our first day...since then I've been running around with work type things in the day and house building type things at night. There was a fair amount of driving on the wrong side of the road. It rained. It flood. I felt like going to the UK for some sun.
A moment that sticks in my head is Johan asking, "Should we eat this rice with our hands? "
The obvious reply was, "No, eat rice with fish."
Another night, we had to give up our unplanned plans to await the delivery of a TV, hi-fi and microwave, at 17:30. At 18:30, we’d finished cooking, having given up on the idea of getting out, and received an SMS,
"Unfortunately, the delivery of the electronics will not take place today due to pain."
Hell, we understand.
After 2 weeks, I finally had a day to myself, which was great, but I realized that I’m going to need to meet people soon. I took a drive in the early evening, in the rain. The main road (outside my window) looked really busy so I hit the back roads. They were empty for a reason. I reached a car stuck in water up to the windows. After finding another way across the ‘river’ I headed towards my destination – the Harthy shopping centre. Police blocked the road I wanted to take, and after my experience with them after dropping off Marais at the airport, I was keen to not stop for a chat. So I was channeled on to the highway – luckily after the major traffic jam. It turned out the traffic jam was created by cars just pulling off to the side of the road to see my desitnation, which was built in the middle of the river. I drove on to the port area, Matras, to find a beer. I’d heard the cheap place was the Corniche, which I found quite easily. For some reason, I didn’t go inside. Instead, I went next door to the Marina hotel. Beer was cheap, is the good news…the not so great news is that the drinking corner was set up like a library. Rows of tables, 4 people sitting by themselves, and not a sound. Very peaceful, but if I want peace I will go to sit next to the ocean. Also, the librarian kept complaining that I was spilling beer on her books. Weird.

So, after a beer and an attempt at a chat with an Indian guy, on the road again. I turned on the radio in the traffic – there is only one English station. First the news – not a mention of the flooding, His Majesty reaffirming his commitment to some trade agreement with Palestine was all the rage (the 15 minute report was spent listing His Excellency this and Minister that that attended the meeting) - no mention of why this was news. After that, good music. Some people calling in, the usual. The special part was everyone who called in said they were sitting at home (mostly young girls - expected I suppose), bored, but enjoying the rain. They all loved the rain. The same way the English love a sunny day, I suppose.
And that's me, over here in Oman. Expect photos of conquered buildings soon. Now, to find an accomplice for this master plan.
Oh, also, thanks to all the family and friends that helped me get sane, keep sane and prentend to be sane of the last year. I would be here without you. In some cases, that might be a recrimination, but I mean it as a nice sounding recrimination.

And that's all - if your computer is beeping, you've fallen asleep on the space bar. If your watch is beeping it's time to go home.

Banginterro. Ha - didn't see that coming, didya?!

Oh man, let's get it correct

2006-11-09T11:36:00.000+04:00

Oh man oh man oh man Oman. Sitemeter tells me that there are 2 people who regularly check this site (besides myself). I have a suspicion that 1 is a guy from some secret service making sure I'm not blogging about blowing up the world, and another is Wolfowitz, who's still hoping I'll give some more hints on lame books to read so he can sound like he knows what he's doing. But I may be doing this more regularly again, if only because I can't vent my thoughts in public. I arrive in Oman on November 30, and it seems that that will be the end of free speech. In a nice way though. It's not that I can't say anything I want, just that what I want to say will probably piss a lot of people off. (Well, at least the 2 or 3 people I say it to...)

I really have no idea what I'm getting myself into, but the stories vary from hands getting chopped off, to 'it's no different to any other country' (except that there's a lot more sand).

Anyway, I don't have too much to say, or at least don't feel like saying it, which is why I haven't for the last 2 months. But at least the 'Faithful 2' now know what I'm up to. Click on those google ads (which seems to have adjusted to my content and are advertising bugger all) and make me another 5 US cents...

Summer time

2006-08-31T11:08:00.000+04:00

Just a quickie to wish all the people of the South a happy summer.

And to say 'Ha ha' to those of you in the North - not even you global warming will help you now...freeze buggers...

Math 'genius'

2006-08-24T10:19:00.000+04:00

So, you all heard about Perelman solving the Poincaré conjecture? Bet you didn't realise the only part of the story that is actually news is that he didn't accept a million bucks. In a bid to sway Juan Carlos to give the money to someone else, I propose the following:

Namaqualand fairies

2006-07-24T23:11:00.000+04:00

Wow, this year is whizzing by...

At the beginning of the year, just 3 months into being reasonably healthy, I decided I would visit Namaqualand this year. It's one of those far away, limited time only activities that you always wanted to kinda do, but never get around to. That's probably the reason I enjoy having foreigners come to visit - brrings out my inner tourist...

So flowers, hey. Ja, they're here. And apparently here all the way until September. Stunning.

So, all aboard the "wit gevaar" - my rapidly delapidating white BMW - and let's go hunt some flowers. Awesomeness etc.

CFDs - better than sliced bread?

2006-07-19T15:00:00.000+04:00

Wow. I've just learnt about a whole new part of the universe called CFDs. The specific website I was referred to is www.gt247.com, which surprisingly operates in South Africa.

So, what is this CFD I talk of? Contracts For Difference offer the chance to assets trade (online). The difference is that instead of trading the actual asset, you're entering into a contract (either with the company or other traders) to settle the difference between your buy and sell price.

Some of the bonusses:

access to a variety of markets and assets, including currencies (finally I can trade live after working hours)
ability to short (bring out your inner opportunistic pessimist)
margins (so you can lose it a lot faster)
lower fees (nothing funny about that)

Some of the question marks:

Somehow, you end up paying finance charges if you hold a contract overnight
The actual fees aren't clearly spelled out
It's not clear how they arrive at the quoted prices - are they straight from the market, or adjusted to include fees, or just made up according to a random number generator?
The old bucket shop tricks might apply, with behind the scenes matching and price shifting unusually large positions.
This stat saying that 25% of market trading activity is made up of CFD trades - does it imply that somehow a CFD trade results in the actual asset trade?

And while that being cleared up, what are spread bets? And who will win the soccer on saturday?

There seems to be enough literature out there, but none answering my questions quite yet...thank Google for the internet...

South African internet trading commissions

2006-07-06T22:09:00.000+04:00

I've been meaning to do this for 6 months, but now that I have permanent internet I can do it without distracting from work. And how appropriate now that Virgin mobile and Virgin money are here to shake up South African banking.
Here are a few of the cheaper No frills stock breaking fees compared.
Just like cell phones, the differences in fee structures and benefits are so confusing that most people just give up and choose the service with the pretty sales girl. Fortunately, banks don't employ pretty girls to sell their boring products, so it forced me to work it out...enjoy...
In the unlikely event that anyone actually uses this info, please be aware that this was as accurate as I could figure out at January 2006. These guys are pretty good at hitting you with hidden fees, so I might have missed some...don't go taking this without a pinch of salt...
Oh, and this specific graph shows fees for at least 4 deals per year. If you do more than 14 transactions (buy and sell) per year, Finance 24 (BOE) is cheaper if your deal size is around R50,000.
Well done ABSA*.
*I'm not affiliated with ABSA other than that I plan to get a trading account, and they closed down my current account while I was overseas by draining the positive balance with fees. But I welcome any feedback from ABSA, especially if it involves a concessionary mortgage for my promotion of their product to my extensive audience...

Kenyan giraffes and other delicacies

2006-06-26T16:30:00.000+04:00

Jambo

Last week I was privileged enough to feed some Giraffes. I discovered that Giraffes are not the inquisitive and docile creatures you notice when they're peeping from behind a tree. Instead, they are born munching machines, capable of eating my body weight in McGiraffe pellets each day. And you don't want to get in the way of their munching. Those little black tufts on their heads were not just designed to be cute but are roughly the size of an eye socket.

Talking of which, these Giraffes had the biggest, saddest eyes I've ever seen. I even captured a giraffe tear on my sleave for good luck. Or, as the japanese tourist put quite succinctly, "These giraffe eyes would feed a whole family!"

Asante sana, karibu and mzungu. In that order. Go well.

Tortoise crossing

2006-03-16T17:02:00.000+04:00

This is a 'lesser spotted moving rock', spotted infrequently in our office gardens. Although rare in South Africa due to collisions with the 'more frequently spotted moving vehicle', they show up in the strangest of places.

Many people fear their ability to pounce unexpectedly, while others think only of their inverted shell's use as a large ashtray.

Fortunately, they are now protected species in South Africa. It is illegal to mock them or ask them to hurry up at a zebra crossing (which apparently aren't just for zebras). It's is a good thing too, because this species is a mere shell of its previous magnificence.

Herds of tortoises used to roam the plains north of the Skilpad river, but sadly, they are now mostly found artistically placed on bar counters in small towns everywhere.

Renewable energy alternatives

2006-03-16T15:32:00.000+04:00

Since I'm working for an organisation that has its roots in financing and assisting viable renewable energy developments, it's only right that I take my new, two wheel self propelled vehicle to work and back.

Of course, the easy part is taking it to work, since it's 7 in the morning and about 1.5km of downhill suicide. After 2 trips I've already had a back brake failure - twice.

And surprisingly, I'm tired by the time I get to work, so you can imagine that going back up those hills after a restful day in an office chair is a pleasure. So far, I've managed to ride 300m. The rest I walk, which, it turns out, is both faster and easier than pumping the pedals in 18th gear.

Although I'm all for renewable energy, I've decided that cars are a wonderful alternative to alternative energy sources. Thank god (peace be upon him) that the people living in the desert prefer dull green pieces of paper to sticky black liquid energy.

Just to show you how valued my renewable energy locomoter really is at the office, here is a delightful picture of the boss's oil propelled machine sharing a bit of garage space. Strangely, he hasn't asked to trade yet. His "technologically advanced" oil propelled machines can't even go off the black bitumen surface that winds up toward my house.

Okay, I'm definitely flaunting the new picture ability of this site, but I just thought I should put the newly purchased "bi-cycle" into context. Although my previous bike, "Impala" was admittedly a vintage specimin, manufactured before they invented brakes or gears, it only cost €17, and was made of a much more rugged stainless steel and brown paint alloy. It came with a gyro-powered front and back light, which served as a very efficient braking mechanism when activated. The design was also ergonomically superior, although it is clear that this came at a great sacrifice to performance and let's face it, general aestetic principles.

As the famous Dr. Seuss once said, "A old dutch bike, I do not like. I do not like it on a steep hill. I do not like it by the windmill. I do not want one with a light. I want a Raleigh mountain bike."

Life in Pretoria

2006-02-16T18:39:00.000+04:00

Jeez Louise.

I thought posting these things would be fun. In fact, they are. But you'll notice that the last time I posted was before I found a job, in September.

The most succinct explanation is that I feel bad using the company resources to post blogs.

The longer, more accurate explanation, is incredibly boring.

Well, since this is still a travel blog, I think, I'd like to annouce that I'm living in Pretoria now.

Pretoria is surprisingly Afrikaans. I'd forgotten that people still actually assume other people understand the language. It amazes me that for a 30km radius, people change their world models completely, for no reason other than a 1or 2 degree Celsius change. It's almost as severe, although less obvious, as crossing the Dutch border into Belgium. One minute the rivers and towns have one name, the next you know the names look like a rare type of cheese.

Back to the point, I like the whole Afrikaans assumption, actually. For that split second before my accent (or my lack of understanding) betrays me, I could actually be a real biltong eating, lion (it's a beer) drinking bar tool.

Just to round off the story, I work in a company that is based in Pretoria (obviously), and get to travel to cool places in Africa and eat hotel food. I've found a commune in Moreleta park, which houses 8 people, 2 weirdos and a couple cats. I like the cats.

My life has become surprisingly stable, and infinitely more healthy. In fact, I'm at that point where I'm willing to consider what tomorrow might be like, again.

I'm not sure what's happening to this blog. I'm quite sure nobody wants to read about the quiet suburbia of an underpaid yuppie, so maybe I'll just start to write about one or two of my hobbies (like writing blogs).

Seriously, I'm thinking of making this a much more interactive blog experience, since I can't be interesting by myself. The first person to write an insanely insane comment wins a plastic bucket half full (or empty, depending on how you look at it) of water. Shipping not included. If the comment is about an idea to make this blog moderately worth continuing, I'll make the bucket full (or not empty, depending on how you look at it).

btw. the most useful useless information I've learnt in the last 5 months of not writing is that (strict) Muslims cannot pay or receive interest. Jeez (peace be upon him).

Benoni Fun: Partytjie at the end of the world

2005-09-11T17:19:00.000+04:00

I’m celebrating still being alive after 25 years (and half of them in Benoni!) by having a few drinks at the Rabbit and Hutch in Benoni (opposite the Bunny Park!) on Saturday 17th (September), where I’ve spent a few good nights with new Benoni choms since I got back.

For the adventurous, I will be drinking wine with the bunnies in the afternoon, moving across the road later on.

You’re welcome to sleep the night at my house, and just hang around until you feel good enough for the trek back to civilisation. Breakfast can be organised, although birthday cake is a push.

To get to the Bunny Park and the Rabbit and Hutch, take the N12 East, getting off at Benoni, Snake Road off-ramp. Turn left into Snake Road and follow it all the way along (changing it’s name to Pretoria Road) until you see the Bunny Park on the left (three traffic lights – electricity optional). If you see a fire station on the right, do a u-turn because you’ve gone too far. The bunny park will then be on your right hand side…

(Pretoria people get hold of me for R21 directions)

The Ponte Story

2005-08-31T17:42:00.000+04:00

If you drop a coin from the 54th floor of Ponte, and it lands on a Nigerian’s head, will he make a noise?

Ponte tower is this formidable building in the heart of Hillbrow, once the partyland of Johannesburg, now the heartland of Johannesburg taboo. Where it used to be drugs, sex and rock and roll, it’s now drugs, prostitution, and 419. Not much has changed, I guess, except that free choice has been removed from the picture.

But why I’m telling you about Ponte, is that this tower, which is the definitive mark on the Joburg skyline, has got a silver lining. This grey cloud has 6 penthouse suites, each with a view unlike that anywhere else in South Africa. Hell, unlike anything in Africa. On a clear day, you can probably see as far as Pretoria. On a smoggy one, you’ll have to make do with looking at the police wizzing past.

Each penthouse suite comes with its own bar, sauna, 4 bedrooms and accompanying bathrooms, and a key-operated lift which whisks you up to the 54th floor – do not pass the 8th floor inhouse shops, do not collect a disease on the 24th, and do not make friends with someone named Oyingbo Nyare (aka Nigerian Nightwatch).

So, how much rent would you expect to pay for a penthouse, rooftop view, sauna, bar and 4 bedrooms? If I get three people who feel the same as I do about this, it will cost a whopping R1000pm each. Given that most of the people I know are paying between R2000 and R3000 a month, you could use that extra money to hire a bodyguard.

Not that it’s even necessary. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from travels, it’s that the preconceptions people have are always distorted in favour of fear. But you never know, until you try, so as soon as I line up a job that is within suitable commuting distance – you’ll know where to find me.
I’ll also be selling rare 1 cent coins for you to test the urban legend…

Soweto day trip

2005-08-05T16:14:00.000+04:00

Being a tourist in South Africa is hard work. After waking up well before 10 o’clock on a Saturday morning, and having Phil cook us a nice breakfast, we spent about an hour deciding whether to spend the day at a pub watching the rugby, or be more adventurous and check out the famous Soweto that is our doorstep.

I’ve been planning to go since I got back to SA, but as it turns out, I’ll need to go again. My idea of a trip to Soweto is to catch the most touristy tour bus with a guide to all the touristy spots – like the Hector Peterson Memorial, Nelson Mandela’s House, Desmond Tutu’s birthplace, and a shebeen filled with Germans, Americans and the occasional Japanese.

This trip, rather, was a drive through random streets with three locals. Although that might sound like a more authentic experience, the motivation behind hanging out with locals seemed all wrong. If these guys had taken us to their houses, and showed us their personal experiences of Soweto, fair enough, but the reason we seemed to be with them was more out of fear.

So we ended up going to an incredibly conventional (although apparently famous) restaurant called Wandies. We had fun. But that had nothing to do with Wandies.

Then we went to a shebeen, which was pretty lame, although it was fun to play soccer with some kids on the street. Again, it was fun, but had nothing to do with the place.

I guess that just goes to show it’s more important who you spend time with, rather than where you spend it.

10/10 for company, 0 out of 10 for our Soweto Experience

Tri-Nations rugby season has now started...so expect a few anti-australian blogs to come...

The give and take of blood and guts

2005-07-28T18:55:00.000+04:00

I read in the Wednesday newspaper (which has all the jobs) that a South African man has continued to break the Guinness Record for giving blood. He first broke the record in 2003 by donating for his 337th time (or something like that – who’s counting). The reason it made the news again, is that he’s just cracked 350 times. Apparently, this guy has been donating since he was 11, every 56 days.

It must be quite something to break a record every 56 days. And the beauty of it is that he’s untouchable by contenders, unless he stops donating, or someone comes up with a way of donating more frequently. It got me thinking abou my own little triumph over needles this week.

I had a chat with my doc today, to find out that two out of the three tests I had done relating to UC came back very good. I can’t remember the tests or the results of the good ones, but basically, I went from off the charts abnormal a month ago, to well within the range of normal humans, two weeks ago. The third test that was still abnormal was my white blood cell count. It’s come down, but I’m still above what I should be to be normal. The only further test I can do, really, is the old camera up the bum trick, which I’ll put off for as long as possible…

So three cheers for blood tests, and as the doc put it, “Oh, by the way, you’re negative on HIV too”, so hip hip, and nogga hip hooray! Being negative has it’s positives.

If my Thursday continues as well as it’s started, I should be getting a phone call about becoming a business plan writer for the millions of South African would-be entrepreneurs. Hold thumbs, and enjoy your dop on me!

Oh, and to clear it up for non-SA speakers – a dop is a drink, not dope, so if you go out and smoke a joint on my behalf, thanks, it’s still apreciated, but don’t waste your dingy Mexican prison call on me…

Kevin and the adventures of an HIV test (aka South African Life part two)

2005-07-27T15:27:00.000+04:00

Well, about two weeks ago I had to go for some blood tests. The doc said that the tests were pretty much pointless, but about the only quantitative measure of whether my intestine is actually healing. So I figured, if I have to have a needle in my arm (again), I might as well dispel that question that’s been lurking ever since I went to the first doctor 6 months ago.

Apparently AIDs causes diarhorrea at some stage in the sickness, and we all know that AIDs patients get really thin. So I don’t blame the doctors for asking whether I have AIDs, but curiously, they never actually bothered to test in the battery of things they eliminated as causes for my condition.

So it was great to get the test out of the way last week, and not even have to pay the price of a stick in the arm. Then came the waiting. It should only take a few days, which leads to weekends, which leads to forgetfulness, which, of course, leads to procrastination. So it’s been two weeks now, and I ran out of some mysterious powder from the homeopath, which prompted me to haul out all the medical numbers.

I’ve just called the doctor to get the results, and his secretary has just told me that the doctor will phone back when he’s finished with his patient. I’ve never been so nervous in my life. Silly, but true.

I’ll let you know how the story ends when I know.

Adios

Brawn again Kevin

2005-07-26T15:23:00.000+04:00

Well, I think I’ve just had a defining moment in my South African life. Starting up is a slow business. Sometimes I think I’ve started, only to find myself back in the same place I was a few weeks before. But all that’s changed now, I think.

So, of course, you wanna know what the moment is? I’m not letting it out that easily, because I’m sure it will come as a complete letdown unless it has a decent build-up. Then again, the build-up could be the let down creator. Hmm.

Okay, two paragraphs of suspense should be enough. A quick background check though. For six months, I sat in Mexico watching life pass me by. This meant passing the tortillas to my left, the guacamole to my right, and the tequila straight back to the group of lovely people who tried to show me the Mexican life. For the 6 weeks that I’ve been back in South Africa, I’ve kept a bottle of the golden poison on my mantelpiece (yes, I actually have a fireplace at home). Every day, I’ve chatted to that bottle. It’s been my inspiration and the embodiment of my goal. To get back on the path of righteous indulgence. There are a few provisos about learning about the evils of modern living etc that could have led to my peculiar state, of course, but those are more scant than you’d think they should be for a chronic digestive disease.

As part of my roadmap leading to this envious goal of sharing a bottle of tequila with those I call friends, I’ve promised that I would work up to a level of health that would enable me to have full energy, and what better way to quantify this than the old exercise regimen. 100 push-ups, and 100 sit-ups. Okay, that was always a tall order even for the good old days, but it’s such a nice round set of numbers that I can’t resist. Today, half an hour ago, I started working on that goal, and was happy to find that I got through the hundred sit-ups on the first try. I made it up to 30 pushups. So, if I’m going to have a joyous, forgetful and vrot weekend, I’ve got three days (and a bottle of prescription steroids), or I could just lower my aim.

Shoot for the moon, and you may just hit the moonshine. It’s gonna be a great weekend, celebrating the born-again Kevin with some of the people who made that happen. For those of you who won’t be joining (only geographical excuses accepted), please do yourself a favour and have a dop on me.

Cheers to all, and salud

Er on EE

2005-07-10T20:00:00.000+04:00

EE, AA, errr, grrr. Equity Employer, Affirmative Action. The other letters were the sounds I make when I try to navigate these cool phrases.

Could anyone please tell me whether having a chronic disease gets me anything more than sympathy on the whole Political Employment guidelines? I can't really imagine any companies boasting that they have 3 Africans, 2 women, and a guy with a really bad bowel at executive level, in line with Economic Empowerment Initiatives, but hey, the suggestion came up this weekend.

Every little bit helps when you're a self admitted previously advantaged white guy in a country that's fighting for it's life not to make the mistakes of it's most prosperous neighbour, Zimbabwe, right?

It's food for thought though, innit? Oh, and on an exciting side note, Zimbabwe's head of Operation Clean-Up (aka - 'let's bash down the houses of dissidents') resigned, I think. My best bet is he's just started a real estate development company - there seems to be so much vacant land in prime city space these days...

Mexico might be over, but life begins again

2005-07-09T19:43:00.000+04:00

Yee Haa!!! And appropriately…weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

It’s the day we’ve all been waiting for! Well, at least, it’s the day all the people who’ve had to put up with my frail, feeble, irritating and endless accounts of my intestinal progress have waited for. Without going into too much detail, I can happily announce that I’m the proud owner of a fine tuned, homeopathically enhanced digestive system.

I put down my fantastic recovery to those little drops of alcohol mixed with 26 herbs and spices, combined with omega-3 fatty acids, sesame seeds, oats and honey, and burnt toast. That and a hell of a lot of steroids and nuclear mesalazine. Fortunately, I’ve turned for the better before the doc’s could convince me that using drugs to shut down my immune system might be just the thing.

There are a whole bunch of other factors that this Health Oscar Speech shouldn’t forget to mention. There have been three weeks of eating local South African food, drinking rooibos tea and generally lying in the lap of luxury that living in South Africa provides. I’ve also been able to walk and talk freely with familiar faces, which probably sorted out any emotional turmoil going on in the deep recesses of my bowels.

But the highest correlating factor that I can find to the amazing recovery of Kevin Walsh, is that a third string South Africa played a top-notch Mexico in the CONCAF this weekend – and won! I’m sure I’ll have the homeopath relating this to esteem issues if I mention it on Friday.

Until then, I’m very very happy to let everyone know that my life starts again, and that all bets are now over. Since I’ve been hinging my whole life on this ridiculous disease for the last 6 months, I’d be delighted to hear about all of your plans and places so that I can begin to rebuild some of my own.

Hope to hear from ya all soon

And er, if you’re still reading this as a Mexico travel blog – well, watch this space. It could turn into a South Africa local blog (interesting?), a Mexico take-two blog, or just a dusty old blog that contains bad haiku and stream of thought babble. A bowel is a bowel is a bowel is a bowel…

The final Mexico Blog?

2005-05-31T23:41:00.000+04:00

Sad but true...

I thought I was staying here for a year, and would have a lot more groovy things to say, but fate has decided otherwise. I've been sick since one week after I arrived here, and just keep getting worse. Finally, I'm taking some really powerful and slightly nuclear medicine, which needs good, regular meals and all the stability that home life brings, so I've decided heading home is the best thing to do.

It's decidedly a mission unaccomplished. I spent all my money on doctors and medicine, and nothing on diving, tequila or salsa lessons. I have lots of reasons to come back to Mexico.

I still want to buy a Bocho. I still want to go wander in the desert. I still want to visit the white coral sands of Cancun and Cozumél island. There are still the mysteries of the Spanish Inquisition and the Aztec calender (which runs out soon!). And there are all the foods that have oil, chilli or dairy that I wasn't able to try.

I will definitely be leaving Mexico with an uncompleted list. But the things I have ticked off, have been pretty damn good.

Goodbye, and thanks to the 3 people who clicked on google ads over the last 4 months. I earned a theoretical 30 US cents over the last 4 months (but then they nail you with the taxes...)

Estacas Rocks!

2005-05-24T20:01:00.000+04:00

Everything started with the big dilemma of whether to make a reservation or not. On the one hand, Darren, the reception told us that we wouldn’t get a place unless we booked. On the other, a reservation would tie us in for a minimum of three people, $900, and we weren’t sure which of our flaky friends would join. In the end, we took a page from the old Real Options handbook, and delayed the decision until we arrived there, taking the risk that they’d we hopelessly overbooked (in which case, I wouldn’t want to stay anyway).

We had invited everyone, as usual, and as usual, everyone had lame excuses. Our landlord was overly excited about us inviting her, for reasons that became apparent way too far into the trip.

So we made careful calculations and schedules, which required us to leave the house at 8:30. Not a tall order, although mornings really only start at 10 for me these days. Amazingly, I had a great night’s sleep with only 5 or 6 trips to the toilet, so was bright eyed and bushy tailed the next morning. Unfortunately, the schedule did not take into account that two out of the three travellers were Mexican. After a long breakfast and a walk with the dogs, we made it out of the house by 9:30.

Fortunately, Mexicans usually conspire about being late together, so when we arrived at the bus station, we found that the bus had been cancelled anyway because apparently no Mexican can get there that early on a weekend. We had to take a bus to some other little town 2 hours away, Jujutla, and then catch a minibus the remaining hour, direct to the Estacas parking lot.

I learnt two things from this journey. One is that Guanajuato is beautiful, when you compare it to every other little town in Mexico. Sometimes I forget that the word ‘beautiful’ is relative too. ‘My, what a beautiful place this is, compared to all the other disasters in the area.’ The second thing I learnt is that public transport really does rock in Mexico. For $10, we travelled for about an hour, and ended up sharing the bus with Estacas staff. I thought this might come in handy later, somehow, but the most it led to was a smile and a nod later in the day. So much for getting free coconuts.

Right, so the park is really beautiful – you’ve all seen the website. What they don’t tell you is how peaceful, quiet and natural the place is. Although there were people everywhere, there were fountains everywhere too, so the most you ever heard were a small child’s drowning screams. What did surprise me, though, is that the whole park was painstakingly, lovingly and very bloody carefully handmade to look as natural as possible. This thing is one some Yankee scale, really. I mean, they built the river. There is a beginning to the river, although no real end, because they just let the water find it’s own way at the end of the property. The beginning starts out near some big concrete block that looks like a mini hydroelectric plant. Water just pours from a massive reservoir, right into the ‘river’. I never felt so cheated in my life. But I got over it pretty quickly, because they’ve still done a bloody good job, and it’s probably better that there’s no upstream for a relatively not beautiful town to muck up to their own agenda.

It was somewhere at this point, after travelling for 4 hours, after entering the park for an hour or so, after spending close to $1500 on everything for all of us, that I discovered that Marisela had been paying for our landlord. Apparently, our landlord had taken the invite more in the spirit of ‘I invite you to my wedding and party thereafter’, than the more usual, ‘Hey, you wanna go out for a beer.’ Now, besides the wedding thing, I’m totally stumped for examples of when you think you don’t have to pay your way. Obviously, if the person says, ‘Hey, let’s go for a beer – you don’t have to pay because my father owns a brewery’, you can make the assumption that not forking out your fair share might be okay. In most other cases, you’re making a risky presumption. When George Bush invites poor countries to start initiatives to relieve their poverty, he doesn’t expect them to launch programmes – even very good programmes – and send him the bill. When George invites other countries to go kick some terrorist ass with him, he would be really pissed off if countries in his Alliance of the Willing, were also Allies for Billing. No, an invite doesn’t work that way. And in the rare case that it does, I’d say it’s best to check beforehand. Otherwise you probably won’t get an invite again.

Anyway, by the time I learnt what was going on, we’d already spent the biggest part, and trying to sort it out at this point would be like kneecapping a cuddly white sheep. Anyway, it wasn’t the money, just the principle. And the money. Most of the time I was torn between cackling like a lunatic, when she’d say something like, ‘I haven’t gone somewhere with people for years’, and some sort of unwilling nobleness when she’d say something like, ‘Thank you so much for bringing me here blah blah blah You are wonderful’. In between, there would be incredibly annoying moments where she hadn’t even brought enough money to pay for a toilet (although quite funny, watching her run around and finally ask us for $3). And it is funny. I’m not feeling sad or sorry for her. She’s not poor, she’s not stupid. She’s not young and she’s lived in the huge city that makes you grow up quick, so she’s not naïve. Well, actually, I think she’s very naïve, but hey, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re stupid.

So well, we enjoyed our trip there, and the trip back, although I was really tired and I think I ate something bad, like a burger. The hardest part was that my usual 5 or 6 toilet trips became marathons on Saturday night, because our Bambu hut was about 500m away. Not pretty.

One other thing worth mentioning, recording for posterity (and prosperity?) is this lime issue. Now we al know that you shove a bit of lemon in your Corona, right. Stupid because it turns your beer into lemonade. Ah, but the lemonade is really refreshing on a hot sunny day. Well, so is a cold beer.

Now in the real Mexico, it’s not lemon, it’s lime. And you squeeze the juice into the beer, or onto the top of the can, so it can be stronger. You also put lime on almost all the food you eat. Mexicans don’t use pepper, but make sure there is plenty of lime and salt. I’ve seen one girl at work put lime on apple slices. And then pile on the salt. And everyone sat around and didn’t react like it was bloody crazy.

But the reason I’m talking about the lime is that this weekend, we could buy coconuts for $15, which is a fair enough deal. I love the juice, and hate the white stuff. After drinking it, the man chopped it up into little pieces so we could get to the chalk. What did our landlord say? ‘Do you have any lime?’ No come on. Some things you can just eat for the taste they have, no? I mean, coconut is so soft and subtle, and so unique, that when you add lime, all you’re really eating is lime that looks like chalk. In fact, I think you could probably get away with selling lime flavoured cardboard in the shops.

Well, that’s it for this week, next weekend my Dad is visiting, so I hope I feel a lot better by then.

And this was written quick and tired, sorry, so send complaints to the editor.

Estacas

2005-05-17T23:15:00.000+04:00

This place always confuses me with a hundred places called Aztecas. I just translated it online and the meaning is "it stakes". Nah. I don't know. It's a big park about an hour, or two by bus, from DF. In fact, go check out the site, and then you don't have to read this...

Very cool flash thingies going on...

But the best part, I think, about going to Estacas, besides the diving, and the river, and the nature, and the well, you get it, is that Mexicans generally don't like camping, so the place is pretty empty. (Empty by Mexican standards means you can go for 10 minutes without bumping into people)

Oh, and if you mention my name when you make a reservation, you might not be welcome. Enjoy!

Lethargy

2005-05-13T17:20:00.000+04:00

Last weekend, we had all the plans made for Taxco. Well, at the very least, we were going with someone, which involved some planning.

Unfortunately, Claus came round to our house the night before for a chat, which meant that I would only be able to get 7 or 8 hours sleep. A travesty. Fortunately, when I phoned him the next morning at 8, to ask about calling it off because Marisela was sleeping and I wanted to go back to bed, I woke him up. By some freak occurrence, all three of us were incredibly lazy.

At the time, of course, this seemed like an incredibly good plan, and on the whole, it was. I'm really not up to moving big distances at the moment. Even after my weekend of bed and sleep and idle nothingness, I still didn't have energy to make it to work on Monday. But Tuesday I decided I had to give it a go, only to arrive to an empty office.

It seems that the world is just as I suspected, and that everything shuts down, stops working, and generally fails to perform if I do not do my share for just one day. Tuesday was mother's day in Mexico, which is a much bigger deal than you might think. You're kinda expected to congratulate every mother you see. I congratulated a few girls on not being mothers.

Apparently I missed the memo on mother's day, which is why I ended up spending a quiet day in the office, wondering whether it was too late to start a four day weekend all over again. The memo was only sent on Monday evening, which didn't give anyone a fair chance in planning a decent long weekend, really. I think I came the closest to it, but haphazardly threw it away on my bed. tsk tsk. You win this time, HR.

Anyway, this weekend is filled with doctors and moving house, after finding out that a promised table for the flat was more of a promise of the idea. Our new place is basically next door, costs $600 more for both of us, but is incredibly clean and has at least one friendly inhabitant, who is also the landlord. Living with the landlord is never the best scenario, but we're keen to make a break. She was very kind about me telling her that my father will come for a weekend, offerering to let him have her bed. Let's see how it goes.

Have a great weekend.

Guanajuato Mission

2005-05-03T01:48:00.000+04:00

The cool thing about traveling in Spanish or French countries is that you often get to sleep in Missions, while you're on your mission. Sometimes you have to rough it with the pensioners in the pension. Why the hell they call some of them backpackers stumps me...

But this weekend, we actually chose to stay in a conventional hotel. With unconventional beds. They must have been antiques, made of genuine hand-cut rock. Anyway, the point of traveling is not to sleep, is it? It is to see the place, experience the sounds, tick off the to-do list, and then, only then, fall asleep. At this point the sleep should be so essential that location is not a concern. Park benches, rock concerts and the occasional train station bathroom have all been known to be suitable.

Anyway, we did learn one useful traveling tip this weekend. Maybe two. The first is that the travel information offices provide free service to get discounts at hotels for you. The second is that an upgrade to a swimming pool equipped hotel is worth the extra Mex$25. (In theory: we'll test the swimming pool dream next time we're in a little arid town.)

Guanajuato itself is a nice little town. The best part about it for me was just getting out of Mexico City. The second best part was riding around in the underground tunnel network. I don't know where this city got the money from, 20 years ago, to build this network of tunnels all over the city. You can see they were cut out of solid rock.

It turns out that the main activity in the city is gold mining, so maybe the town council made some lucky finds on their first tunnel, which financed all the others. Who knows?

The other unsettlinglyishness cool thing to do in the city is to visit one of several museums dedicated to the Spanish Inquisition (what did Monty Python used to say?). You can see a variety of scary torture instruments, and a couple real mummies left over from their experiments. I don't know which translation of the bible these guys were reading, because the one I read didn't say anything about these unthinkable tortures if you didn't choose to believe in God. You'd think it's a punishment enough to not believe in God since it's such a wonderful thing, according to my friends who have seen the light. Is it really necessary inflict hell right here on earth? I mean, hell...

On the other hand, Darren, they did discover some interesting facts about humans, adding to our body of medical knowledge. They discovered that people generally die after you squeeze their heads too hard, and that they no longer move after you stretch them too much. Dead people or resentful paraplegics don't make good converts, or slaves.

But oh, the Spanish did bring with them the knowledge of mining and architecture. So how was it that the Aztecs got all their gold and built those pyramids 2000 years ago? Hmm. We're so much more civilised now with our modern technology and freedom of speech. Hope that link holds out.

Next week, off to Taxco, the silver mining town! Wonder what surprises are around that corner? Hasta luego

The yin and yang of insurance

2005-04-28T20:11:00.000+04:00

Over the last week, I've gone from frustration with my travel insurance for not covering my theft, to incredible frustration for the new discovery of an exclusion of my particular disease.

But that's been relieved a bit because the insurance payers are holding a special committee to decide whether they should pay me or not. It looks like they will actually pay me, which I find myself incredibly relieved and grateful about.

But in the bank of my mind, I keep going,'What the hell?'. I've taken out this insurance for over three years and never made a claim, and now within in 2 months when I've needed help twice, they've told me I'm not covered. This means that for the last three years I've been walking around with a placebo. All those stress free moments and worry free days were based on fantasy insurance. I could have kept the premiums and bought myself a huge lock, a couple consultations at various doctors and healers, and still had change to write out my own useless policy document.

There's a huge, untapped market out there for insurance that actually pays. The idea of insurance is simple. In fact, insurance is capitalism approximating the mindset of socialism. Everyone pays into a pool so that those who are in need can draw from that pool. The problem is that capitalism comes from the mindset that everybody involved in the transaction is automatically going to try to cheat, lie and steal in order to maximise profit. So the insurance company attempts to shoot before it gets shot. But if it shoots to many people, it ends up with no customers.

Ultimately, capitalism can't copy the socialist model, because the model is based on and promotes a different mindset. So from now on, I think I'll have to pay my own bills.

Just when you think...

2005-04-27T18:01:00.000+04:00

Just when you think it's time to throw in the towel and accept a miserable defeat at the hands of the thousand bombardments of everyday life, something beautiful and unexpected happens, and makes sense of all the struggles and tests.

Sometimes it's really difficult to see how it can be a positive thing that Marisela lost her job because she was not medically able (make sense?) to work overtime. There were thoughts of rejection, thoughts of futility, and thoughts of letter bombs to the hypocritical company (voted in the top 100 places to work!!!???)

But less than a week later, she'd secured a new job that was much more enjoyable. And they pay her the same amount to only work half days. Then, yesterday they told her that they'd like her to work a full day, with double the pay. Marisela has gone from a situation three weeks ago, where one couldn't possibly imagine how such an evil action by her company could turn out for the best, to a situation where she not only enjoys her job, but gets paid double to work standard hours.

Guess which company is going to get her loyalty and respect?

Anyway, this new insight has made me wonder about all the other little things that are happening. What on earth are the silver linings for these? Hmm. We'll see...

Crime Rates, Bad Luck and Teaching English

2005-04-22T18:29:00.000+04:00

Normally no news is good news. Right? Well, sometimes no news is because the news team has been kidnapped, the news itself has wiped out the only interested audience, or that the news is just so depressing that apathy sets in before the news giver gets around to sharing it.

The third is most responsible for the current lack of news. Sometimes, the news did result in number one happening occasionally, but only rarely did the news result in number two. So with that lovely introduction, let me break the news. Ready?

Not only am I having my wonderfully extended case of the trots uncured, but I'm now not so certain it will ever actually stop. There is pretty much nothing I can do about this except try to get in touch with my spirutual side. But wait, there's more... last night I came home to find --- nothing. In place of a well organised and clean house, I came home to find a well organised and empty house. The first thing I did was have a cup of tea. Our robbers were kind enough to leave us with the essentials.

In fact, they didn't take much. When I really sum up what was taken, it astounds me. Of the four people living in our house who own DVD players, stereos, TV's, Hi-Fi's, Polaroids, Walkmans and the odd Picasso or two, I was the only person needing to get on his knees, look up at the sky and cry,'Whyyyyyyyyy?'.

It is a little strange that someone would spend half and hour chiselling the wood around the lock, only to steal one old laptop with years of bad writing in English, a few mp3's and 10 year old copy of Jones in the Fast Lane. I didn't have much time to contemplate the most probable conspiracy theories, such as that my landlord is actually a heroin addict, or that my dirty flatmates are actually evil in more than just the bacterial realm. This is because I was giving an English lesson to a guy from work. (See conspiracy no. 3)

This is a new little gig Marisela set up for me. It's great because it pays well ($150 a session each) and it's something I tend to do free of charge anyway. I can't claim to be good at English, in fact I'm sure I'm getting worse every year, but when the standards are low enough like in (uh, as with such in etc.???) Mexico, I really start to shine. Like a light bulb. When it's turned on.

I still have to build up the ideal school of eight sessions per week, but a start is always a step in the right direction.

Anyway...After my exciting tangle with the mother (of all) language (um, s), I showed the guy where to find his car in relation to our little rabbit warren Lomas de Sotelo. We passed a cop car (there are always cop cars doing nothing apparent in our area) so Marisela decided to ask what we should do about the robbery. It took the guy about ten minutes to rev up his engine, but eventually he decided that he had nothing better to do and insisted on taking us home, a drive of about 200m, or a walk of about 50m. He radio'd in for backup, which arrived within minutes from the local Torta stand. Suddenly we had three pollice cars - a pretty effective outdoor disco - and about 10 Torta munching cops. They checked out the house, did some cool stuff on their radios to eachother, and wrote down suspicious things like the fact that I've only got around to cleaning half our muddy carpet, which is now a dirty ocre colour, while the other half remains a beautiful chocolate brown.

Then it was off to the cop station. This was definitely the most exciting moment of my last year. At first they wouldn't let me sit in the back of the cop car, with the bullet proof windows, child locks and little hooks for handcuffs and who knows what else. After acting like a lunatic for five minutes, the cop pulled over and swapped me for Marisela. We had fun scaring our neighbours by writing desperate lipstick messages on the windows. Don't ask where the lipstick came from.

After three hours of filling out forms and writing down all the possible conspiracies (6 in total, including that dog that wee's on our door early every morning), the cops gave us a friendly ride home. With smiles and service I thought recruiters screened out in the Force. Great experience.

But the real point of this isn't to tell you that I got robbed. Or to tell you that I'm incredibly sick of being sick. It's that this robbery has had the strangest effect on me. It's made me realise that nothing can happen that's so important as to take seriously.Why worry? Eh? Eh indeed. Sometimes the last thing you expect to create a feeling of happiness and contentment, comes up one day and slaps you in the face. You gotta love it.

As an incredibly small footnote: it should be noted that everyone who has corresponded with me in the last 7 years now has the potential for that mail to be read. If you were ever thinking of a life in politics, expect some embarrassing email to pop up at an inconvemiemt time. If I had your numbers or addresses, they have this too. A small consolation is that this happened in Mexico. Also, they'll probaby just give up when they find it's Linux.

Zocalo Concert

2005-04-19T00:13:00.000+04:00

We tried to go to a concert at the Zocalo this weekend, but didn't make it as planned because the Metro Cuatro Caminos was closed for unknown reasons. This had a huge knock-on effect on the bus services, so in the end we just walked around the markets.

But I wouldm't be calling this the Zocalo Concert unless there were more to it...

On Sunday, we made it to the Zocalo and the concert was still going. It was a great mix between the protestors who usually occupy the square, the police who didn't know who to menace, the tourist who didn't know what the hell was going on, and a diverse group of people united by the music.

The oddest thing, and actually the most ingenious thing I've seen in Mexico so far, was that most of the music watchers were holding home made periscopes. Everyone had his or her one metre long tube, made of cereal boxes, with a mirror in either end.

Unfortunately, this is not a case where network economies come into play, so everyone was competing to get their periscopes above the next guy. I can just imagine the day when Sony gets hold of this idea. 15 metre hydraulic, telescopic, flexible periscopes with built in video cam and anti jamming device. And they would throw in a little upgrade or two, like nightvision or stabilizer. Of course, they'd call it the Peekman. The extended 30 metre version be the Peekedman...

Btw, somehow, photos aren't uploading anymore, hence the extended imagination.

Mexican torture

2005-04-14T21:11:00.000+04:00

I live with three girls. One from Mexico, one from Venezuala and one from Argentina. Two out of three rank pretty high on the international filth scale.

When I arrived, they had been living there for 2 years. It was time to take the garbage out. This took one day. I bought a vacuum cleaner. I poured water on the brown carpets and sucked up mud. The carpets are now brown again after two weeks. I can't open the door due to the garbage.

I think of Sisyphus a lot...

Cars in the City

2005-04-14T02:21:00.000+04:00

'There is a stupid rule in Mexico City that you can only enter the city by car on a certain day, depending on the last number of your license plate! So Tuesdays and Thursday are odd numbers and the other days are evens!!!! What is that all about?'

I read this somewhere. Sorry, I'm too lazy to quote. Is this true. I don't know. I don't have a car. Hmm. Will find out soon...

---update---

Joakim from Norway, who's lived here for a few years, tells me that the story is not entirely true. The idea is based on pollution control in Mexico City. The idea is that old smelly cars (isn't that all of them?) can't drive on one day of the week, which is an incentive to buy a new car (or convert it into an old, pedal powered car).

He says this has been quite successful in helping the pollution problem, which is clear to everyone who compares 10 years ago "birds falling out the sky" to the current "can see to the end of the street". The system is known as 'No hoy circula', which as far as I understand, means 'Today it doesn't circulate'.

Exactly what doesn't circulate is not clear. The air? It doesn't circulate most days of the week. The traffic? One would expect the traffic to circulate better on this day. Perhaps then, it refers to the circulation of civil rights for the people owning these cheaper cars.

Since 60% of citizens live below the Mexican poverty line, we can assume they use busses, which are free to pollute as much as they like. About 30% are classified as middle income, which in Mexico means that they're scaping by each month. My guess is that these are the people likely to be driving old cars. The remaining 10% of politicians, criminals and lackeys who obtained bargain public companies a few years back can proudly say they're doing their bit by buying the latest eco Smart car from across the border. Strangely, most of the new cars I see are big SUV's or heavy luxury cars. hmm.

Okay, to put in 2 pesos worth of balance, it's got to be said that cars make up three quarters of the air pollution in this little town, so the Gov in on the right track. hmm again.

Using the Metro

2005-04-11T20:57:00.000+04:00

The Metro in Mexico City is great. It costs Ps 2 to go anywhere, it's well used and faster than the traffic above, and if you're a girl, you can usually count on a free grope as the train fills up and courteous Mexico men feel the need to express their appreciation of beauty.

Usually, a metro station is within a 15 minutes walk from any location. Obviously, this increases a little in the outer areas. There is usally a strong police presence, and there are attempts to provide a seperate area for women who do not feel the need for a free grope. Usually, the metro closes by 11, although some special nights, including fridays, it closes at 12.

People have warned that it's not safe to be using the Metro too late, but often there's no choice, and I've found it safe so far. Using busses at night is defintely safer and probably gets you closer to your destination, but it costs a bit more and takes a bit longer.

Check out the map for a easy reference of the spagetti shaped network.

Zona Rosa Highlights

2005-04-11T18:42:00.000+04:00

I've been here two months now, and it's taken me that long to get to Zona Rosa. Why, I cannot imagine. This is the premium tourist spot in DF. You get people selling you stuff at your table, lots of very brown kids selling chewing gum, and drunk people generally everywhere.

We stopped at a terrace for a while, and Marisela had a mint shake, which was the worst possible medicine available without prescription. I felt smug about ordering a much cheaper and better beer, at Ps 21.

Tourist mania kicked in when the waiter decided how much of the Ps150 change he would claim as a tip. That wasn't nice, but I'm sure it was just that we had a bad apple.

Afterwards, back at the hotel we were having a conference at, I learnt that Zona Rosa is actually the prostitution area. And I thought everyone was just friendly. No, really, I didn't see anything to suggest this distinction. It was definitely an area full of nightlife, but looked like family fun to me.

The story goes, according to the Telmex Telephone Guide, that the area was first called Zona Oro, but that flopped, and eventually it became Zona Azul (or some other colour). This was moderately successful. Eventually it turned pink and became popular (the telephone book doesn't say that this is because it became a gay friendly area). Pink. Duh. People call it the gay area, although it only has a couple of gay bars out of maybe 30. Seems pretty standard odds to me. But then, this is Mexico.

Gödel on Mexico

2005-04-07T00:32:00.000+04:00

I was just reading up about this guy Gödel. Quite a clever, but dead, guy. He made this theorem that no system of logic, reasoning, or representation, can be complete because it will always face a proposition of which it has no conception. Usually this is a proposition concerning the system itself.

Or something like that. This little mathematical proof has been interpreted in many different fields, including the annihilation of the proof itself. Or not. But what does it have to do with Mexico?

Well, nothing. Same as everything else. It just came as a little relief to find that someone had actually put some effort into showing the world that things can never be, and are not intended to be perfect and complete, given the universe we live in. I feel an incredible weight lifting every time I go over this in my mind.

Suddenly it seems quite appropriate that Nigeria's Ex-Police chief and Senate President should be wearing handcuffs. It seems appropriate that Mexicans are complaining about the corruption of the new party that rode to power on the anti-corruption ticket. It seems appropriate that the US determine our collective destiny. And it seems perfect that I have no clue about whether all this is right, wrong, or even real.

My take on Gödel is that we should be taking the system for what it is, rather than lamenting the incompleteness of it. Sure, the system can be made better, and it will be, I'm sure. But this will happen whether I fret and rant about it or not. If we step back a little and look at our progress over the last two thousand years, this is abundantly clear.

So no more rants. Or maybe just one about Mexican dog owners who don't use poop scoop thingies! Somebody's gotta do something about it, right?

Daylight Saving

2005-04-05T21:57:00.000+04:00

Daylight saving kicked in this Sunday, which means I wake up in the dark again. I think they're trying to save a little too much...

Anyway, this doesn't seem to work too well, because my computer still thinks it's one hour earlier. Microsoft and Mexico have a little communication problem, ever since the Telecom tycoon in Mexico, Slim, started nibbling at Bill's number one spot on the rich guy list.

So, if you're trying to get hold of me, you've now got an extra hour's difference, unless you've gone through a time warp too (or live on some island West of Mexico, in which case, we're now an hour closer).

Mexico, for a 23 hour day.

Update on the phoning thing

2005-04-04T23:52:00.000+04:00

Well, I'm holding a competition. The first person who can get through to my mobile phone from outside of Mexico gets a free beer or beverage of choice. And I'll pay you for the call if you can tell me how you did it...

Obviously, this only applies to people who know my number. If you're just checking out this site, you're welcome to try. If you get through, I might be a little scared.

My mom got through from the UK, in the first week I was here, I think by dropping the 044 and using the 55 Mexico City code. She's tried the same again, and various other combinations, and it doesn't seem to work. Nobody else has been successful.

It might be because I had credit at the time, which means I pay for the call. In this case, I don't really care about anyone calling on my mobile. Reception in Mexico is bad anyway, and I only get it when I'm walking the streets.

If you speak Spanish, you have a really good chance of winning this competition, because one of the number combinations gives you a message. Nobody so far knows what it said. Probably something deep and meaningful. It might be worth phoning just for the message...

Enjoy...

Mexican Hospitals and travel insurance

2005-04-04T23:21:00.000+04:00

Well, sorry about not writing last week. The thing is that I've just done nothing. Well, almost.

But I'm avoiding giving the armchair psychoanalysts fuel by describing the lovely details of my illnesses and woes.

Basically, I've spent my time between the doctor, hospital and pharmacy. It turns out I might definitely have some intestinal disease that the doctors don't know anything about. They don't know what causes it. They don't know what it will do. And they don't know if or how the prescribed medicine works. But they do know its name. Ulcerative Colitis. Apparently it's called UC among those in the know.

What I do want to say though, is that the medical services in Mexico are great. The first doctor I went to was next to free (I had to buy some of those blue freezer blocks from her, to use for the recommended fishy diet). The next doctor (actually unrelated - I went to get a certification of fitness to join a sports club) gave me a full workover. Joining a sports club in Mexico requires a more thorough examination than an annual flying medical in South Africa (or anywhere else, probably). The only drawback was that this quack found my blood pressure to be a bit low, and prescribed blood pressure tablets. (A prescription he charged $20 for, and coincidently found a similar result in Marisela). Well, he was a government doctor... The third doctor was at a proper private clinic, which I chose after the travel insurance said, 'Just go anywhere you like' (Thanks for the long distance call, SOS advice guys...).

The third doctor was great, and started some real tests, and I met the fourth doctor (because Doc 3 was a Friday doctor, and Doc 4 works Mondays). The results confirmed that they didn't know what I had, which of course led to more tests, and the eventual definite diagnosis of something that nobody knows anything about.

All the way through, the doctors spoke enough English to match my bad Spanish, and would never open their mouths until they'd taken your blood pressure. This is an incredibly important ritual in Mexico. My pressure in the last month has varied from 60/90 to 90/120, but this hasn't raised any eyebrows. It's just important to get it down on the records...

I can imagine that getting help outside of Mexico City might be a little harder, but I think the services are cheap, professional and competent in the City. I'm more worried about the fight with the travel insurance, really. They've already indicated how they're here to help, by saying they will only pay into a South African bank account, which I haven't had for a couple of years.

No recommendation for better insurances, but watch out for Travel Insurance Consultants. They're all about marketing and premiums, and about an easy claims system which involves getting crapped on by the England office for using their emrgency number. (The South African emergency number doesn't work in Mexico)

Well, all the angst is out, and I am getting better, I think.

The last, most interesting thing about what I have, is that smoking may actually help the disease. Jeez, these guys really are scraping the barrel... a good pretext to keep up the habit though.

2005-03-28T21:49:00.000+04:00

Diving with Cojones!

Acapulco heat

2005-03-28T21:16:00.000+04:00

Yeah! I was there. I can tick off another of the great myths in the world that I've exposed. Acapulco is about as cool as that lump of metal in Paris that seems to blot the landscape wherever you go.

How can a place that has such a cool name, be such a dump? Don't get me wrong. I had fun. I had a great time. And I really like Acapulco. But it's not the Acapulco the tourist magazines have been telling me about for ten years. I guess it's like finally meeting Charlize Theron and realising that she really is just another Benoni girl, after all. Not a bad thing, but it sure ain't Hollywood.

About the best view you can get of Acapulco, is through the eyes of a Chilango. If you've grown up in a city where you think it's normal for birds to fall out of the sky, and for sunsets to more resemble rainbows, then Acapulco is truly the untouched wonder of the world. But if you're from somewhere as remotely beautiful as London or Johannesburg, Acapulco will seem like just another human insult to nature.

The cool things you will see, all include the touch of a human hand. Sadly, the bad things have that same touch. The ocean is a wreck, thanks to centuries of being a mercantile city, and due to irresponsible diving over the last 20 years. But the Spring Break students from the US are a sight for sore eyes. And so are the hotels and designer swimming pools they enjoy. There are two massive lagoons, which look like paradise on the map, but are surrounded by holiday resorts, military bases (Rambo was filmed here!), and holiday houses. There is also a lot of cool history going on in Acapulco, both from the Mayans and the Spanish. The most interesting for me are the stories about pirate coves and buccaneer hunters. Aarrgh.

One last cool integration of man and nature was the Mayan diving site. It's an intensely commercial activity, but still great fun to watch. A few divers, including a kid or two, make their way up a 45m cliff at high tide (about 11pm for us), and take their turn in jumping off. It gets a little tense as they time their jump to match the swell of the wave, avoiding a shallow bump on the head. The highlight is a man with flaming torches, all lights turned off, flying through the air with a blur of red behind him, until ten seconds later, he completely disappears into the black water.

Well, it's another great experience, and something more to tell me that magazines are really a waste of time and imagination.

Hasta luego

Marisela has a new eye

2005-03-28T21:14:00.000+04:00

It's a great world we live in!

Marisela has a new cornea, as of Saturday. Mostly, this is due to Jesus dying on a cross.

Easter, or the week long Santa Semana in Mexico, doubles up as a spring break. Almost everybody is going somewhere, which means the busses are choka and the roads are a little more crazy than usual (unless you're one of the few who stay in Mexico City.)

On the roads, evidently, are a lot of Americans. And it's one of these who had an accident on Saturday morning. I'm surprised that foreigner transplants take place, actually. I would have thought that all the red tape of dying in a foreign country would slow down the process.

Anyway, Marisela is a little sore, but very happy, and we're all grateful for the donor. Within 6 months, she'll be right as rain. Just in time for the next eye...

Not quite perfect

2005-03-28T21:12:00.000+04:00

One thing I love about Mexico is that absolutely everything is not quite what you expect. This is obviously my theme for last week, because I seemed to realise it at every corner.

There was a Charros brute with no hair and more tattoos than brain cells who sat next to me on the bus to Acapulco. Turns out he works as a human rights lawyer in London.

Acapulcans have a hard time figuring out (over a few beers in the shade, of course) which they dislike more: the Chilangos, who represent the wealth of Mexico City, or the Gringos, who represent the wealth of the world. I tested this out by saying I'm a Gringo who's lived in Mexico City for a few years. Found some common ground in disliking the Springbreakers (Student holidays) from Mexico City and the US. Not so much dislike as to share a few beers, though.

Getting to Acapulco, I learnt that most of the earthquakes originate in this area, but most of the damage happens in México. It turns out the whole city was built in a lake, way back in the Aztec times.(Really, in the lake! It's a crazy story) The Spanish just perfected it with the help of a few crafty dutch canal engineers. So the whole city is built on mud, really, and earthquakes tend to notice that kind of thing.

Lastly, I just opened a packet of chocolatey things that Marisela gave me. I'm protesting against the stupid diet the doctors gave me 2 weeks ago. Basically, they only want me to eat bread or rice. And I've got much worse and am losing weight much faster. Anyway, point being: the chocolate isn't quite chocolate...normally, you open a Nestlé and it's just what you expect. Perfect. Well, here, it's never what you expect, so even if I don't exactly like the reinterpreted chocolate, I'm grateful for the thoughtful gesture of adding some sense of surprise to my day.

Anyway, back to my 14 hour work day, doing nothing in particular.

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2005-03-28T21:10:00.000+04:00

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Oops. The rant goes on.

2005-03-18T23:07:00.000+04:00

Okay, the rant isn't over. I'm only beginning to understand this World Bank appointment. I'll get back to Mexico specific news (instead of developing world pessimism) after the long weekend. For now, I'm off to the doc because my stomach is falling apart, fast.

March 8, 1992

The Defense Planning Guidance document, a “blueprint for the department's spending priorities in the aftermath of the first Gulf War and the collapse of the Soviet Union,” is leaked to the New York Times. [New York Times, 3/8/92; Newsday, 3/16/03] The paper causes controversy, because it hadn't yet been “scrubbed” to replace candid language with euphemisms. [New York Times, 3/10/92; New York Times, 3/11/92; The Observer, 4/7/02] The document argues that the US dominates the world as sole superpower, and to maintain that role it “must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.” [New York Times, 3/8/92; New York Times, 3/8/92 [B]] As the Observer summarizes it, “America's friends are potential enemies. They must be in a state of dependence and seek solutions to their problems in Washington.” [The Observer, 4/7/02] The document is mainly written by Paul Wolfowitz and Lewis Libby, who hold relatively low posts at the time, but under Bush Jr. become Deputy Defense Secretary and Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff, respectively. [Newsday, 3/16/03] The document conspicuously avoids mention of collective security arrangements through the United Nations, instead suggesting the US “should expect future coalitions to be ad hoc assemblies, often not lasting beyond the crisis being confronted.” [New York Times, 3/8/92] It also calls for “punishing” or “threatening punishment” against regional aggressors before they act. Interests to be defended pre-emptively include “access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, [and] threats to US citizens from terrorism.” [Harper's, 10/02] Senator Lincoln Chafee (R), later says, “It is my opinion that [Bush Jr.'s] plan for preemptive strikes was formed back at the end of the first Bush administration with that 1992 report.” [Newsday, 3/16/03] In response to the controversy, in May 1992 the US releases an updated version of the document that stresses the US will work with the United Nations and its allies (see also January 1993). [The Washington Post, 5/24/92; Harper's, 10/02]

People and organizations involved: Lincoln Chafee, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Lewis Libby, Paul Wolfowitz

This came from www.cooperativeresearch.org

Where dey go now?

2005-03-17T04:13:00.000+04:00

Okay, today was a bit of a political rant day - let's finish off with this No WMD

2005-03-17T03:51:00.000+04:00

They think of everything

The world according to Bush et al

2005-03-17T00:15:00.000+04:00

Good old Bush. You've got to admire his courage to appoint his war buddy Wolfowitz to the most important job for the developing world. Not that it's a big ticket item for American voters.

"Mr. Wolfowitz's nomination today tells us the U.S. couldn't care less what the rest of the world thinks," one source said.

Weeks ago, his name was downplayed and dismissed because the world bank staff rejected his proposal as president. So expect a few resignations this week...

Then there's the EPA Johnson appointment who answered Japanese reporters on future US Kyoto Protocol participation: "That question is easy, and it's no."

And with John Bolton to the UN, attempts at multilateral diplomacy aren't even a pretence any more. "There is no such thing as the UN." "There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power in the world, and that is the United States, when it suits our interest and we can get others to go along." Okay then. That voids another fine international institution.

Perhaps we should the scrap the world court too. Oh wait, I forgot.

Have a great decade.

Buying Stamps

2005-03-16T20:01:00.000+04:00

Okay, here's a bit of trivia for ya! Nobody's gonna get a postcard.

Although the postal service is better than Nigeria, it's really only geared to businesses with their own franking machines. The only place you can buy stamps, is at the post office (go figure). Post offices keep office hours, of course. So the day I skip work to go into the centre of town for a stamp, is the day you'll all get your postcards.

Now, if I was a bored Mexican trying to make a few bucks, I think I'd have better idea than feather dancing. Prepaid postcards! It's the way of the future. Plus, if you're crazy enough to dress up in feathers, you'd probably enjoy licking all those stamps.

Poyote Stamps

2005-03-16T18:07:00.000+04:00

Just keep licking!

Indian Dancers

2005-03-15T19:51:00.000+04:00

You gotta love the centre of Mexico City. The zocalo in Mexico City is where all the action takes place.

You can find scarce tourist information, Diego Ribiera murals (have you seen the Frida movie? – I haven’t yet), postcards, markets, various protests and of course, international tourist attractions like live statues, henna tattoos and tarot card readers.

But the highlight of the plaza is the Indian dancing. These are normally just some local Mexicans out to make a buck, but it’s still really fun to watch. The dancers dress up Indian style, which is really just a bunch of feathers. When they dance, the feathers move so evenly that the dancers, who don’t really look like they know what they’re doing, seem very graceful.

By the way, there’s a whole politically correct way of referring to the Mayans and Aztecs and assorted other cultures. I can understand they resent being mistaken for people in India…

Traditional Dancing

2005-03-15T19:43:00.000+04:00

So, how can we get some quick cash, Pedro?

The Latin America Tower

2005-03-14T20:50:00.000+04:00

The Latin America Tower was built in the late fifties, and imposes on the historical zocalo of Mexico City like an oversized pill box.

The tower is 43 stories high, and used to be the tallest building in Latin America. Now, it's just another shadow on the beautiful Bellas Artes. Fortunately, all the other skyscrapers in Mexico city are to the west, so although the building is really out of place, once you're on top looking out at the world, you've got an unobstucted view of the entire Mexico Valley.

There's not much to do, besides looking around for half an hour, so I think on the whole, I preferred the World Trade Centre. The WTC doesn't have the $P 40 entrance fee, and has a rotating restaurant at the top. This means you can spend $P 40 on a beer with a clear conscience... Dress up though, because most people here don't just buy one beer. They probably don't even look at the price.

The Latin America Pillbox

2005-03-14T19:47:00.000+04:00

Pride of the 50's

Mexico Phones and travelling

2005-03-11T22:59:00.000+04:00

Local Calls

Phoning in Mexico involves finding out hidden information that locals know, but hasn't been fully documented yet. If it has, let me know where you found it.

Mobiles (oh wait! I'm back in the land of cellular phones) and landlines can use the same numbers, and cells use local area codes too. If you're making a cell call to a different service provider (operator), you need to add 044 before the area code.

In Mexico City, the code is generally 55. Dialling the area code is necessary for some numbers and unnecessary for others. The catch is that adding the code when it is not necessary will take you to a completely different line. The safest way to get the call right is to ask a local about the specific time, place and service provider. One day I'll understand this system and add to this description.

International Calls

Phoning to Mexico is a little harder than calling other international places. This is because the telephone system is sort of privatised, but not well regulated or standardised.

The code for Mexico is +52

For Mexico City, you just add the area code and the 8 digit number, and you're away. For Mobiles, also just add the area code and the 8 digit number. If this doesn't work, try to add the 044 or 44, which is the mobile designator.

Check out the link for cheap calling rates. The numbers change often, and so do the rates, so don't bother to research it. Just try any one that pops up at the time, but as always, be careful about giving away personal information.

To check out what the + in +52 means for your country, go to http://www.countrycallingcodes.com/ for the full description

2005-03-11T22:49:00.000+04:00

Sobering, ain't it

Richest people in the world

2005-03-11T22:21:00.000+04:00

Hey good news!

We can still rank the wealthiest 100 people above most African countries, although the comparison isn't fair unless we talk about incomes.

So, the list hasn't changed much over the last few years, and when it does we all hear about it without even trying to. Here are some people and nationalities that interested me.

4. Carlos Slim Helu, Mexico, 65, $23.8, telecom

Okay, I had heard of this guy - he owns a lot of Mexico - but it surprised me that he was right up there with golfing buddies, Bill and Buffett. (He's about half their individual worths, actually)

72. Nicky Oppenheimer and family, South Africa, 59, $6, De Beers

It's always a bit of Natioinal pride to see my very own cutthroat monopoly holding onto a place in the top hundred, but to put it in perspective, Japan's wealthiest guy is right behind, with a far less glamorous or dominating business:

77. Nobutada Saji and family, Japan, 59, $5.8, beverages

94. Kerry Packer, Australia, 67, $5, media

It's an even bigger sense of national pride to know that the diamond business not only beats the Australians, but the British tabloids too!

103. Rahmi Koc and family, Turkey, 74, $4.9, diversified (means he owns the whole country? Bet he can't wait to join the EU)

3,669,750,000. Kevin Walsh, South Africa, some food and clothes, diversified (means he looks all over the place)

Actually, it's not fair to compare myself like that, because my ranking is based on income, and the top guys on wealth, but who's counting.

To check out your position, check out http://www.globalrichlist.com

Hasta luego

Holy Mole!

2005-03-11T02:50:00.000+04:00

Mole in a can - standard Mexico travel cuisine!

Mole!

2005-03-11T02:18:00.000+04:00

Mole! Almost as good as holy, and definitely deserves an olé!

Last night I had my first taste, made by Marisela. Mole is more complicated than I imagined:

Mole Paste Ingredients

10 dried ancho chiles

6 dried pasilla negro (or negro) chiles

4 dried guajillo or mulato chiles

6 T black raisins

1/2 cup almonds

6 T raw sesame seeds

1/4 cup raw pumpkin seeds

1 slice French bread

1 corn tortilla

One 3-inch piece of Mexican Canela (soft-bark cinnamon)
OR 1 1/2 t ground cinnamon

6 whole cloves

1 t black peppercorns

1 1/2 t dried oregano

1 round of Ibarra Mexican Chocolate (3.1 oz.)

Sauce Ingredients

3 large tomatoes

1/2 onion

4 cloves garlic

2 t olive oil

2 cups (1/2 recipe) Mole Paste

1 to 2 cups chicken broth for thinning

There's a lot going on there...but basically, it tastes like sweet nuts (hmm, did I say that) with a 10 second time bomb of chilli fire. I think you can eat it with anything, really, but the favourite is chicken and, of course, a few tortillas.

There's a cool page if you'd like to try out some real Mexican things, that don't involve Tequila and sombreros...

Clothing in Mexico City

2005-03-08T23:11:00.000+04:00

I mentioned briefly that Mexico is very class conscious society. This is mostly in Mexico City, I guess because that’s where most of the important business is located.

I’ve finally realised why this is relevant to me! Because it can’t be taken for granted that you don’t wear clean, new clothes, it’s very important to do so if you can. I’m sure this is what the 10 people who rule Mexico call the nouveau rich attitude. But there are only ten of them, and millions of people trying to keep up, so their voice isn’t really heard.

The reason I object to this is that I have been told, in very polite terms, that I need to start ironing properly… It’s hard enough for me to get a shirt to be flat, never mind geometric, so I think it’s time to outsource. It pains me only slightly less to beg someone to do my ironing, than it does to do it myself.

So this is an appeal to the fashion world, to please consider the fashions of the business world, and quickly give the voice back to those 10 rich grandmasters, so that we can all dress sensibly, even if it means living under their complete oppression.

When I get over this, I'll write about the actual specialities of clothing over here. Later.
Check out other Mexico Travel Information in this blog.

2005-03-08T23:06:00.000+04:00

well...

Bono for world bank President!!!

2005-03-08T22:23:00.000+04:00

??? Wouldn’t it be great???!!! Not in my lifetime…at least, not in Bush’s lifetime…oh well, the dream was nice for a second…maybe I'll end up eating these words. I hope so.

Mexican geysers everywhere!!!

2005-03-07T20:29:00.000+04:00

A geyser like the ones we saw - very smelly!

A weekend outside Mexico City

2005-03-07T20:22:00.000+04:00

First of all, I’ve got to say how nice it is to travel on busses in

Mexico

. DVD movies had people not wanting to get off the bus after a 5 hour journey.

This weekend, I went to Michoacan State, which is somewhere North West of Mexico City. It was really cold, slightly wet, and very beautiful.

I always imagined Mexico as a place of desert and cactuses, which is pretty much true, except for the desert. The moment we left Mexico City, we saw mountains covered by pine trees, and huge spaces of cultivated land. It was very dry though, and I am still wondering what the farmers were trying to grow.

But about the butterflies… In Michoacan State, they have a mountain or two which they’ve turned into a butterfly preserve (no, they don’t make butterfly jam). We walked up and down mountains for 2km and about an hour, and suddenly the leaves on the trees turned into butterflies. The whole forest went from spring to autumn. Orange leaves were falling, swarming, swooping and generally doing butterfly type things.

The first one I picked up showed me immediately that it was capable of flying to Canada. Its wings beat against my hand, as strong as a small bird. This monarch butterfly is definitely in charge of its destiny. Although, I had to wonder about US visa problems. Marisela suggested that the butterflies were Canadian nationals, not Mexican… It’s a good thing too, since there are over 60 Million of them.

Even if the butterflies hadn’t been there (apparently their immigration plans are not cast in stone, but generally they can be seen between March and April) it would have been a beautiful outing. Walking through forests and mountains is always worth it.

The next day we went geyser hunting. Apparently most of Mexico’s electricity comes from these geysers. All along the road for a few kilometres, we saw the huge smoke rising from these natural factories. We stopped at one large hot pool, which smelt like a toilet on a bad egg day. It reminded me of a story that King Herod had gone searching in the desert for some smelly pool like this – the pool of life! Well, the Mexicans thought so, and were even selling the mud as a face pack. Marisela bought some, and now our whole house smells like an egg factory.

We ended the tour with a few hours at a more commercial resort, with hot pools and not much else. It was a good way to relax after the strenuous mountain climbing and butterfly hunting. The whole trip, for 500 Pesos, was a bargain.

This week, I hope to do a bit more closer to home. Maybe some tequila and salsa testing.

Butterflies in Mexico

2005-03-05T06:44:00.000+04:00

Yes, it's true! This weekend, is the butterfly extravaganza.

I'm packing off with a bunch of schoolkids to witness the migration of huge butterflies, from Canada to Mexico. Who knows what the butterflies were doing in Canada in winter anyway, but I guess they'll be here for the spring.

I look forward to Spring in Mexico. No more overly crisp mornings, and a general increase in the fruits available. I love living places where they still have seasonality. The wait for avocados and bananas is worth it because you can be sure when they arrive, they're coming from not too far away, and they've been ripened on the tree. I'm still amazed when I find tomatoes that are actually red, not a watery pink...

Okay, that's my little friday rant - time for weekend!!! Hasta luego all

Lookout for pictures of butterflies, and possibly some news on the cactus juice (highly intoxicating snot like drink - I can't wait!)

The weekend expedition

2005-03-05T06:40:00.000+04:00

Butterflies in Mexico - all the way from Canada!!!

Mexican Taxis

2005-03-05T04:21:00.000+04:00

Beatles were made until the late 90's

Boats at Xochimilco

2005-03-04T03:27:00.000+04:00

Great for families and parties too

The First 2 Weeks

2005-03-04T01:52:00.000+04:00

Hello!

Well, it’s time to play ‘where has Kevin gone’…update your addressbooks!

I'm in Mexico now, Mexico City. Marisela has helped me set up here, and has shown me around this maze of a city. For those of you who love something to read in between work, here´s the teaser version - I think I'm going to start charging a monthly fee for the full thing...(what - you think I should pay you for reading this?)
If you don't want to read through all this, skip to the part about addresses, and you've got all you need to know.

Here goes:

I have the pleasure of announcing that I despise the pleasure of pleasing those that I despise. The US embassy treated me like gold, because I paid them about a quarter of an ounce for their transit visa, which they refused to give.

So I arrived in Mexico about two weeks ago, in the most haphazard fashion ever. After being in South Africa for two weeks, to sort out a new passport, visas, and other homely things, I made a last minute (no, mustn’t exaggerate – last hour) decision to jump on a plane to London, and try to find a flight to Mexico that didn’t fly over that great nation of liberty and freedom.

I was able to buy a ticket via Paris, and then over to Mexico City. What a cool flight – chasing the sun all the way, I arrived about 36 hours after leaving SA. It was great to fly over the ocean in daylight, for the first time, I think, and see nothing but water. Wonder how long it will take before humans overflow onto these last expanses of nature.

Arriving was very much like Nigeria, which says more about the quality of the Nigerian airport than about the Mexican custom officials. The queues were as huge as Nigeria, flowing right back into the duty free shops, but the 2 or 3 customs guys were trying their best. In fact, I was a little disappointed, after preparing myself for the intense grilling of arriving without a work visa, when the customs guy just said 'Sudafrica?', and stamped my brand new passport on page 16. Apparently we haven't pissed off the Mexicans yet.

Okay, I won’t go through all the other exciting details of my time here so far, because it’s a lot of mush and a little bit of chilli. Also, for the first time, I’m battling terribly to understand the culture. It’s not that I don’t get along the people, or navigate my way through the Spanish world. I’m just not sure if the things that are happening are happening for the obvious reasons. There are a lot of influences going on here. Mayan, Aztec etc ancenstry (which people are semi proud about), Spanish influences (which people don't really care about), a history of poverty, corruption and dictatorship (who would of guessed those three go together???), and a strong link with old school religion. It’s all mixed up because the church uses poverty, which is created by the government, which uses the church, which tries to pretend nothing ever happened regarding the Aztecs and Mayans, who are living in poverty and protesting about human rights abuses to the government, which is dependent on the US and EU, which of course, are only trying to help... No, seriously - everyone gives free trade to Mexico, since naughty Bill implemented NAFTA - everyone has to, to even their own playing fields. Plus, Mexico has a little oil, and it's a good PR thing, so what the hang…

None of this is true, of course - I don’t understand it, because every person I speak to gives a different flavour of this theme. In the words of someone famous, ’This report contributes a lot to the problem.’ A fundamental that everyone seems to agree on, though, is that Mexicans are very class conscious. A family name can be a powerful tool, and a designer label is the next best thing.

One thing I’ve learnt the hard way, is that the food is very dodgy. I used to hold the idea that if other people are eating it, I can. In Mexico, it’s a source of pride that foreigners can’t stomach the gunk that locals eat. Well, I say a little pain never hurt anyone, and soon enough, I’ll be eating the same. I was at a football (wait – finally I’m in a land of soccer again!) game because Marisela got box seats from some company she’s auditing (a mini Enron???). It was great because they gave us beer and sushi – a classic combination which left me sleepless in the toilet. Talking about toilets. I love the showers here. There’s a little F and C on each tap, which of course stands for cold, and f#%&ing cold. Then again, it´s winter here, so I can’t complain about a morning low of 10 degrees. Not quite Nigerian Harmattan 22 degrees, but not bad for 2200m above sea level (which is significant because I have to drink cold tea).

Alright, I’m not getting a little blah blah for the free version. Let’s just stick to: I’m alive in the meantime, and really enjoying experiencing the freedom and relative safety that I missed in Nigeria. Days are filled with markets and traffic, and nights are splashed with a full array of parties that I don’t go to because I´m being diligent and hard-working. Not quite the tequila drinking binges I imagined, but the same sort of atmosphere. I've been to a football game, checked out the president's house, eaten something I can't pronouce, and my favourite, wandered around for three hours, with not a care in the world.

I’ve got a lot of photos from Nigeria, from all the other trainees, and they really look nice. I guess there's more to photography than meets the eye. Please let me know how I make on of those album thingies on the internet, and I’ll put them all up for you.

As for Mexico, well, they pay me a nice salary, so I actually have money left ofter eating and sleeping. Maybe I'll spend some of this on a camera, although I'm always happy to download pictures of Mexico on the internet and send you those...

I’ll write more about life here when I get one. For now, I’m trying to figure out how I fit into the company, and trying to make a little home in a beautiful country. Also, trying to understand what the hell people are saying...

Let me hear from ya soon. Take a look at the draft my Mexico activities...

Kev

Ps. My thought for the day - Health foods make me sick.

The details unpolished

2005-03-03T22:03:00.000+04:00

Airport Experience similar to Nigeria
Xochimilco = Marisela’s house
Not too different from Nigeria
Selling on streets
Noise, cars, people
Small houses, modern, clean, no garden
This one not finished – Father’s habit…offered to help, accepted but never implemented
Sunday boat ride
Cold in morning
Punters
Very colourful, girls names on boats
Little Venice – selling everything on the water
Musicians
Hot by lunch
Mom gave me $500 and vegetables and packed dinner
Drive to new house
Cool little beetle- beetles everywhere
An hours drive across the city, from SE corner, to slightly west of centre
Maze of roads
Pretty strong traffic, considering it was Sunday evening
Procession of masked people – religious
Big flags
Spent quite a while to find actual destination
Cost $150
New House
Living with Argentian and Venezualan
Scholarships – schooling in Norwar
Trashed – Argentian on Uni holidays – mucho party
Someone tried to explain that girls are actually very messy creatures when they are single – I just nodded – the evidence is overwhelming
No lights – great landlord – lots of promises to fix stuff, and already delivered some stuff
Spent first day cleaning and sleeping (pretext of jet lag and altitude issues)
Cheap, no fuss – thanks to Marisela
Great neighbourhood
15 minutes from work
Keeping busy
Met company – they’d extended me until next week
English everywhere in company
Spanish needed on streets, so I’m working on buying things
Great foods
Great veges and fruit – green guavas???
Lots of fresh oranges
Everything green = trimmed
All flat surfaces swept (except in our house)
Army = Cuban hats
Security everywhere – labour intensive
Shoe shines, and manual orange juice makers
Johannesburg weather, although warmer considering it’s winter – everything green – said to be a little hot in summer???
Huge shopping mall – everything closed until 12
Cool breeze outside – inside humid
Gigante – big time pay in coupons – bought funky mugs
Samples – crazy! Sampled cheeses – eventually bought – felt guilty
Cars dirty
Social discrimination = wealth/status/family name – colour not an issue
I’m immediately considered US
Bus - $3 to metro (could’ve walked, but didn’t know where it was)
Metro $2 anywhere, doors open and close mega fast
Cool advert for Institutional Revolutionary Party!
Each station = logos = illiteracy? = original reason – now just nice and for kids
Guitar on train – gave $2, he gave half to kid shoe wiper – no team because he got off after that
Telephone has a couple conversations going on at once
Ricas tortas Especiales = $13
Church = market – obviously haven’t read that bit where Jesus gets pissed off
Full - Thursday???
Glow in the dark Jesus?
Bottled holy water
Crack smoker??? Near police
Police everywhere
Metro grids in street – hear whoosing as they go past
Organ winders – wear same uniform – have covert collectors on opposite side of street
Protests – human rights, something else – very peaceful, although actively disruptive – friendly cops
Alarm sellers always have alarms going off – obviously no workers rights – shit job

AIESEC Presentation

Wore Nigeria clothes
Was only planning on helping Marisela, turned into doing my own impromptu speech
Not sure anyone understood

AIESEC Trainee Meeting

Spent an hour walking around a suburb, searching for the home.
Got there, met some trainees, some AIESEC people
Food and drinks
Exactly what I expected of AIESEC – great evening
Didn’t join to after party because we were going to football

Football Game

Wow! Biggest stadium in the world (except Brazil, but that’s a standing stadium)
Cool game, fortunately wore yellow shirt
Local team won
Drank beer and ate sushi

Temple Weekend
Did a presentation on Netherlands, South Africa and Nigeria
Only 10 people turned up so I jsut had a casual chat
Made friends in Acapulco!!! Going Diving
Made contact with all the Mexico dive shops - small community
Went to Xochimilco boats again
This time, with alcohol

Went to the pyramids on Sunday
Not so impressive from the ground
Not mystical at all, except that the stones come from somewhere far away
Very impressive from the top though
Must have been a very organised city

Work

Do nothing.
Explore the internet
Write business plans
Searching for other jobs part time

Going to English Pub to find job???
Or drink a good pint...

Still have a bad stomach

Looking to make contacts at EY South Africa and UK

FAQ: How does this AIESEC thing work

2005-03-03T21:23:00.000+04:00

History, Marketing and other propaganda

Okay, let’s get the official story out of the way so that I can continue with my subjective truth…

AIESEC was started after WW2 to promote world peace and cultural understanding. It aims to send people all over the world to share cultural perspectives. It also aims to develop leaders through workshops, seminars etc.

It is a student organisation, by the students, for the students, of the students. It aims to not discriminate by race, religion, nationality, creed or consciousness.

Any AIESEC members reading this, please comment…

My AIESEC Experience

AIESEC in South Africa, Stellenbosch was a guy taking up extra time in a hot, sweaty hall to tell you about why you should join his club. His reasons were mostly that you could meet some top businessmen, and get free drinks. In South Africa, I never heard it mentioned that AIESEC was about sending people all over the world.

AIESEC in Netherlands, AIESEC was mostly about giving away free things in the entrance hall of the main university building. This was useful when you forgot your pen, or just wanted a piece of scrap paper to throw at someone. Sometimes they gave away tasty sweets.

In hindsight, I learnt that AIESEC was behind the Maastricht CareerWeek, which also gave away lots of handy things like umbrellas, pens and notepads. It was a pretty good event, although useless for people who weren’t from Germany or Netherlands.

Eventually though, AIESEC Maastricht’s marketing paid off, and I actually read one of their brochures. Actually, someone else read it and told me it was useful for me… I went to their presentation, got more goodies, including shoe polish and a box of tea, and never looked back until I found myself in Nigeria and Mexico.

In Holland, they are very competitive about sending as many trainees as possible. In South Africa, they seem to care more about training their members.

So I like both organisations, in theory. Sometimes the implementation isn’t quite what the marketing suggests it is. It’s run by students after all. But you do get the chance to travel to almost any place in the world, which is the big catch, in the end.

If you’re a student, below 27 years old, you are eligible for the AIESEC traineeship programme. You don’t have to be an AIESEC member, in theory, although it will probably help you through the selection process. Every university(local committee) is run independently, although they are monitored by a national and international board. This means your AIESEC might be quite different from the one in a neighbouring country. The only way to find out how to do this is to speak to someone in your local committee.

Once you’re selected, the world is your oyster. If you take enough time, and do enough research, you can find your ideal job in the ideal country. You’ll get paid enough to live, and travel a bit if you’re lucky, and you’ll have an immediate support structure for getting visas, accommodation, and learning the local culture.

So now you know. For more info, go to your local university committee…

Estadio Azteca

2005-03-03T03:27:00.000+04:00

The Azteca Stadium is the biggest in the world - unless you count Brazil, where there's only standing space

Thoughts on getting to Mexico

2005-02-12T15:17:00.001+04:00

It’s been I while since I did this. Getting to Mexico is turning out to be much harder than I ever imagined. I’ve been sitting in South Africa for a week now. Frustrating, but it gives me the time to think, and write. Or write and think. And isn’t that a nice thing?

So much was clearer when I just wanted to shut the whole world out, but it was stupid, obviously. I’ve always been a bit slow in understanding people, but I’ve found a whole new easier strategy – I’m just respecting people’s opinions. It seems like a bit of a flake out since I’m not sure what the difference between respect and indifference is. It doesn’t matter, really, because it’s all the same and we’re all one. Actually, there is no we. And it will let me be happier, and those around me, which I’m realising is more important than any perceived right or wrong.

It’s not even about happiness, is it?

It’s about being who you want to be, and wanting to be a person that is able to make every moment great, in a way that doesn’t affect anything that doesn’t want to be affected, whether now or in the future, or the past. Or doing more than providing opportunity for choice at the time it’s wanted, so that the choice can be made by itself. In reality, there is no separation between me and you, us and them. This is something we have to think about, and create in our minds. It takes a lot of effort, and leads to wonderful fantasies, but that’s all they are.

Until now, I’ve been thinking of helping the sheep because the shepherd is sick. What about just making sure that the shepherd is healthy, able and willing to help the sheep? What about realising that there is no shepherd, and there are no sheep. There only is, and is not, and it’s the same thing.

How to do this in the world we have created? Well, the free market is based on a concept giving choice to individuals, but is twisted by dishonest marketing. This is because as soon as we acknowledge individuals, we acknowledge difference. This is a fantasy. Still, most of us attempt to live in this fantasy, so, given this fantasy, a free market acknowledges individuality. What is needed to create free choice for all individuals is to provide perfect information, so that the choice can be made rationally. Our best solution so far has been to attempt to provide opportunity to those without the basic Maslow needs. We’ve been trying that for at least 60 years. A better answer is to develop those who have the potential to help others. If you give collective awareness to those who are ready for it (have their other needs met), they will help us add up to the critical mass needed to realise the goal of lifting others up to a level where they too can search for a collective awareness. These are the individuals who have the power to provide the opportunity to other individuals.

Marketing (called propaganda when the government does it) adds value when it leads to an informed choice. One only needs to spend ten seconds staring at whatever media source is closest to realise that marketing does not attempt to create an informed choice. Rather, it tries to create a perceived image of a product or service, which can be used to achieve a predetermined end. Increased sales, wearing seatbelts, wars. Like any tool, the it is not wrong in itself, but can be if used in a certain way. There are controls on advertising, but they are easily exploited. Advertising cannot be legislated for two reasons.

Firstly, it is trying to legislate against human behaviour, given the fantasy of individuals. Individuals will find a way to achieve their desires, just as surely as water will flow to the ocean. Legislation or market interference can curb these symptoms, just as a mountain will alter the course of a river, but it will never change the ultimate result.

Secondly, that legislation would have to come from the same individuals imposing this inefficiency on the free market system. In a democratic system, a majority of people elect the leaders. Whoever has the power to create the strongest perceptions, will be voted into power, so that those individuals can yield their power under a veil of legitimacy.

What is needed instead of legislation is a development in the collective awareness of those with the power to influence. A collective awareness of the impact of ones decisions and actions will effectively militate against any conscious restriction being placed on another. This is because no person with an awareness of the effects of their actions, will willingly impose something they believe to be bad, on someone they regard as their peer, or themselves.

This makes a fundamental assumption that humans attempt to do good things, given their model of the world. What is needed is to ensure that their model is accurate, or at least only positively distorted. Collective awareness suggests that every being on this planet is a peer, is in fact so interconnected that there is in fact no individual. We are a collective. Just as drugs come from the desperately poor countries in the world, that have no other choice for prosperity or even survival, so terrorists come from those places that feel the continual struggle for survival, all the while eyeing their perpetrators sitting comfortably on the other side of the fence.

Collective awareness can only really happen when we have the first few of Maslow’s needs sorted out. It takes a hero or a saint to look beyond an empty stomach and act in above the interests of surviving. For the fortunate minority of the human race that does not have a life threatening crisis to face every day, it is much easier to consider the fundamental assumptions of life. Whether this is seeking fulfilment through embracing an injustice of pet welfare, or seeking to end all human suffering, it is only a matter of desire and understanding.

But it’s the very people who have those needs sorted that are not only not reaching this awareness, but imposing extra stumbling blocks on others. I will not go into the details of how to develop a collective awareness, because there are numerous books in numerous fields, from anthropology to Zen, that can be used as guides for doing this. This may sound like mind washing to some, but it should be clear that people would be given these guides as information, not as doctrines. They should be free to reject anything they don’t agree with. It will also be a personal process, so that people will not face public scrutiny of their ideas. All this is suggesting is that people who are ready for that missing piece of their lives (take the millions who lead lives of quiet desperation), be given access to this knowledge and understanding.

Currently, there are many reasons why people never find this understanding. One reason is the erroneous view that these ideas are against Christian doctrine, or any other religious belief (which many people turn to when they begin to feel that desperation in their lives). Rather, a collective awareness is precisely the understanding that Jesus Christ, Muhammad and Buddha had of the world. They all constantly spoke of love of ones fellow man. And there are great men and women of all faiths spreading this same message today. This is another reason for this idea not being spread because it comes from many different sources, all with a slightly different angle. It may be confusing at first, but it is precisely this difference that makes the message so potent. No two individuals understanding of this awareness is quite the same, because each of us has a subjective experience of this world. The best we can do is to share our experience in the understanding that our experience will not match perfectly with another’s ideas. What can be done to solve this issue is to follow an objective recommended reading list of the various seminal works in this field, so that an overall understanding is obtained.

Only at the point that we can allow our markets and society to be accurately informed, will the individuals truly be free. One way is laid out. I’m sure there are other ways too. But then maybe peace and prosperity for all is only what we say we want. Our news would certainly indicate that we thoroughly enjoy the strife and catastrophe of our current world. Maybe we need to start with identifying exactly what we want.

p.s. I see the US has just tried to save 100million (in the same week they appropriated billions for the Katrina disaster) by removing all mention of the Millennium Development Goals from their speeches, so another point has to be that once we decide what we want, we should choose that thing consistently…

Thoughts on getting to Mexico

2005-02-12T15:17:00.000+04:00

Nigerian Oil

2005-02-04T02:33:00.000+04:00

Self service, spacious restrooms

Nigerian Transport

2005-02-03T02:32:00.000+04:00

Last car to Timbuktu

Living in Nigeria

2005-02-02T02:31:00.000+04:00

Sometimes the coconuts talked back

Just another day in Nigeria

2005-02-01T02:30:00.000+04:00

Our busy schedule couldn't wait for the coconuts

A bus trip home

2005-01-31T02:30:00.000+04:00

A satisfying beach trip

Our favourite restaurant

2005-01-30T02:28:00.000+04:00

Hope is all we had...

Everything you need to know about Nigeria

2005-01-28T02:24:00.000+04:00

Information is priceless...

Lagos Forever!

2005-01-27T02:21:00.000+04:00

It never ends

Beautiful Badagary

2005-01-14T02:21:00.000+04:00

Alper on the Beach

A trashy little house

2005-01-11T02:22:00.000+04:00

Forget about taking out the garbage...

Helpful tips for living and working in Nigeria

2005-01-04T04:24:00.000+04:00

Introduction

The aim of this document is to point out some of the harder aspects of my time here at First SMI and in Nigeria. The aim is not to scare you away, but to give you the benefit of my mistakes and my lessons. Also, this document might be used for you to come to Nigeria with your eyes open, rather than walking into something you would never choose. I hope I can address things in a way that doesn’t create a negative impression of Nigeria.

Maybe I’m being presumptuous and taking away some of the fun of exploring things for yourself. First I’ll talk about those things I’m not quite sure about, like culture, and then move onto sections with more definite advice and experience.

Take this as a guide to help you get right into the swing of things, and feel free to build on or remove things to reflect the situation for the next trainee. Hopefully you find it useful.

First Things First

First of all, I recommend you get proactive and plan things yourself. Nobody else is interested in you, other than shouting Oyibo. (See Patrik’s guide to languages). That’s not entirely true, but it’s a better attitude than assuming people care and will show you around, even if they say exactly that. AIESEC Lagos’ support can be wrapped up by saying that they pick you up from the airport, and help you get your visa extended every few months.

I’ve written about a couple of the things we did on our own, and I’m sure there are lots more ideas if you know where to look. Hopefully this will help you get into the swing of things quickly, rather than taking 3 months to safely venture out.

Culture factors

I always hate putting anything down to culture. To me, it seems like a big cop-out in solving the problem, or at least correctly identifying it. I’m willing to admit that I might be biased by many factors too. I am drawing from a very small sample, and I am being selective because some workers are able to do their job in a way that has little impact on me. Also, it is possible that I am the one who has not been adaptable and amiable enough. Whatever the case, there are some things that I feel may be interesting for you, in order to anticipate, avoid or resolve these situations.

Age is a significant factor in Nigerian relationships. So is position. In some circumstances the higher position can order the lower position around, and in other circumstances, the key factor is age. Skin colour does play a role too, unfortunately, but it has mixed effects. Generally a white person is perceived as having money, and perhaps knowledge. Both of these perceptions have advantages and disadvantages. You’ll be harassed and robbed and charged higher prices, but also given preferential treatment and status. Making friends is really easy because of the interest attached to skin colour. Again, this is handy to get things like directions on the street, or a lift into town, but it destroys trust and often I catch myself wondering why some guy is talking to me (the general reasons are visas, image, money or genuine kindness, in that order). The opposite effect works too. Because we’re pretty much reliant on a network to get anything done at work or for fun, I find myself looking at people to see how I can use them. Over and over I have to remind myself to try to be friends for company, not for resources. This is the thing about culture for me– sometimes it’s just an unusual situation in disguise.

In terms of position, a young trainee is regarded with little respect, although more than someone doing manual labour. You probably win white man respect, foreign respect, and knowledge respect. In different situations, these have different strengths, just to confuse how and when you’ll be treated as what.

You’ll win great friends by treating the manual labourers as human, and make good enemies by doing the same to people who think they’re superior. (Whether older or younger). More senior positions of leadership have usually risen to that position because they are able to rise above all this and see humans as just that. The problem arising from culture will most likely be seen in that middle strata of management. Maybe not so different from other parts of the world.

The big Nigerian factor comes in when you get to conflict management. I’m sure this is a culture factor. Well, pretty sure. Conflict management doesn’t exist. There will be screaming, shouting (in one case some physical abuse, although I think this is beyond the line, even in Nigeria). The technique seems to be to win the argument by shouting louder. Maybe one should join this technique, but I admit that I haven’t. Either I walk away (which for another trainee ended in the physical abuse) or I keep talking calmly until I’m heard, if I’m able to remain calm.

I think it’s an insult in Nigeria to walk away and say that you will talk about it when everybody is calm. (you can only insult people who think they’re your superiors, btw, others will be genuinely happy that you want to talk and solve a problem).

The end result of conflicts in Nigeria is that people prefer to ignore the incident than to address it. This has even happened in boardroom situations. If you’re someone who can live with that, then you should have no problem. I know from bad experience that I cannot live with forgetting about problems because they almost always come up to bite me in the bum. For the last few years I have religiously addressed problems when they arose, and have found the short term pain of doing so much better than the long term pain of continued misery, and a bigger problem in the end.

Whatever the case, I was seldom successful in resolving conflicts with peers or mid-level staff. I wish you better luck, creativity and happiness in solving these issues. The closest I usually come to solving a problem is admitting how wrong I am about the situation, and that I won’t let the problem happen again if the other person can help me by doing XYZ. Another technique is to ignore the problem by finding a neutral third party to blame. (Only works if whoever you’re dealing with really knows it’s their fault – if they end up believing it’s not their problem, the problem doesn’t get solved). There must be ways to talk about a problem directly, and solve it without ending up in a worse situation than before, but it was a rare and painful occurrence that I gave up on.

Another issue that can be tentatively placed under the culture heading, is asking for things. This might just be the circumstances of being a trainee, I don’t know. But in Nigeria, it’s completely true that if you don’t ask, you don’t get. Just because you ask, doesn’t mean you’ll get, but it puts you in the game. I tie it to the custom of negotiating for everything. If you don’t specifically ask for something or make your feelings known, it is unlikely that someone will spontaneously consider the implications of their actions for you. I come from a culture where consideration is really important, so maybe I’m exaggerating this for others. I find that sometimes, even when I’ve made it perfectly clear how the person’s action has affected me, I have to request a specific action in the future instead of what has happened. Sometimes this works.

Okay, that’s it for the soft stuff, now onto more tangible experience and advice.

Moving Around

I wish somebody had given me this when I arrived, because I am still learning how to move around. I live at 17B Herbert Macaulay Street (near Onyx Plaza), GRA (Government Reserved Area), Ikeja (near Maryland Junction). Living in First SMI has the advantage of not traveling to work, but that’s where it ends. You should avoid using Okada (motorbike) in the GRA after dark. Marisela and I had an experience with three big men with three bigger machetes. If you’re on the main road at night, even if there are cars around, if it’s not busy with people, don’t walk on the street. Okada drivers robbed us with guns. We thought it was safe because it was a busy road. Cars don’t stop…

Last week I asked an Okada to take me to buy some paint, and when he didn’t know where or what, I walked away saying that I’d find someone who knew. (I’d had a really crap day in the office and wasn’t feeling to friendly– maybe I’ll tell you about it sometime). This seemed to do something, I don’t know, because suddenly he was offering to take me wherever I wanted, saying I was his friend. I was feeling slightly suicidal, so I said yes, and he ended up waiting for me in Inside Ikeja while I shopped. After I was safely home I gave him some cash, but he didn’t ask and didn’t complain that I only had about half what the trip was worth. This might be something worth exploring. I know that Marta used to get free okada everywhere, but Marisela never did. Good luck on that one.

So, unfortunately, this leaves you stranded to Shogunle at night (walking distance, and lots of people on the street.) It’s safe and friendly, and I think the people are quite sensitized to seeing Oyibos now. We went there one Friday night at about 11, and some guys smoking pot started harassing us. It wasn’t a serious thing, but it could have turned ugly.

Using busses is safe (at least from violence) and cheap, but not at night. A recent example is the mugging that happened to Godwin, a Nigerian guy in my office. He was going home at about 7-7h30pm, and the bus he got into was a fake. Everyone except three passengers were gang members, and the bus drove to some random place, while the gang collected all the stuff, and left Godwin a little beaten.

Taxis are always a good choice when you have more than 3 people. Taxi prices shoot up after 6 or 7pm. For a general discussion on pricing, negotiating and taxis, read the introduction from Patrik. I’ve never been good at getting a Taxi below N500, but I argue in the hope of one achieving this modest goal… One word of caution with Taxis is when you’re coming from the airport. There are stories about fake taxis picking you up and dumping you in the middle of nowhere, without your bags or travel documents. Try to use friends or AIESEC for this.

So most of the moving around is left for weekends when it’s daylight. Generally, the other trainees came to our house because we have a pretty free rein and a quiet neighbourhood. You’d do better to ask them their own reasons, but whatever, the company was always nice. I’ll continue this in a new section.

Things to do and See

Nothing.

No, just joking, but it’s quite a tense joke. Of course there’s stuff to do, but if you didn’t come with a full bank account, you’re going to battle. The way around this is to band together with trainees (don’t expect AIESEC to arrange anything – although this might change over the next few months (or years))

There are markets to walk in. Check the guide books and try to take a Nigerian with – otherwise you’ll wander the alleys looking at plastic bottles for 2 hours, when just down some strange turn, there are the most amazing textiles and curios.

There are beaches to go to, but it’s a sacrilege for me. The beaches are horrendous. There is litter everywhere. You have to pay to get in, for nothing, and you’ll be bugged by half dead horses and unemployed university graduates to buy their trinkets. Music knows no volume control either. Hopefully my description prepares you and let’s you wonder what I was fussing about. It was a harsh shock for me, expecting some serenity and beauty. The better ones in Lagos are Alpha and Lekki beach, which are next to each other. It is possible to avoid the entrance fee, but it requires a lot of walking. Lekki also has a tourist market, which is a little expensive, but quite nice.

The other beach options are a) Badagari, which has everything a shade nicer than the city beaches, b) Tarkwa bay which requires a cheap boat trip and c) snake island or something that leaves from Eko hotel – 10 or 10:30 am and comes back at 5:30ish) – costs N6500, which is 25% of your salary, but they give you everything from lunch and beer to beach towels.

Option a) is a favourite because it’s quite cheap and much nicer than Lekki etc. You have to go through police roadblocks and drug searches and immigration control (we get through with photocopied passports by saying our originals are at our embassies). You can sleep in huts at the beach, which is reasonably priced, but there’s no electricity and the guys who went got held up with a gun. During the day there’s no problem. In fact, I would go so far as to say I like it. You can buy cheap fruit (try eating a pineapple like an icecream) and beer, and the water is pretty good for swimming.

Option b) is quite crap in all respects, but it’s fun to go on the boat ride. The beach faces the bay, so it’s really bad water, no waves and quite a lot of floating things. There are more sellers on the beach than there are bathers. We did buy some really nice folding tables though, and the mixed fruit salad was great. They have tyre tubes you can sit on in the water, but we didn’t. It works out a little more than going to other beaches. You can catch a boat from the US Embassy, (or a cheaper one from under the bridge nearby – didn’t try this, learnt too late, but be careful – they might not come fetch you unless you arrange it)

Option c) is unbelievable. Marisela and I did this because we thought she would be rushing home for medical reasons. I’ll definitely do it again – next time with a lot of trainees and an empty stomach. You’re treated like the gold you paid, and everything is on the house. Beer and wine and buffet food, as well as snacks and cooldrinks and smiles. The beach is beautiful and the waves are pretty good, and there is almost nobody to bother you (and the staff will chase anyone if you don’t want to buy). There’s volleyball and and and. Also, I know it’s possible to sleep there, but you have to ask at the Eko hotel for prices – never got around to it.

Near Lekki and Alpha beach is the Lekki conservation centre (ask for Chevron Roundabout/Circle) – it’s cheap and nice, although we’ve never actually seen anything besides droppings and a snake or two. The highlight is climbing the treehouse. Definitely worth a picnic at the top.

Other things to do include visiting random public places like stadiums, theatres (quite a funky looking building) and the Unilag, the biggest university in the world. (If there’s a bigger one, I want to see it.)

Most recently, some trainees from Abeakuta planned a trip to a game reserve up North in Sepeteri – called Old Oyo National Park. It was really nice to be outdoors, have a fire and see what I was looking for when coming to Nigeria. We didn’t see any animals – they say the good time is February to April – but the emphasis is definitely not on animals – more on enjoying a bit of time outside the crazy city. Dennis organized a car which cost N11000. It could take 6 or seven people. The accommodation was 690 per room and their treated us very kindly. We took 2 rooms for 5 people, but it’s possible to have one. The car sorted out getting food from the town, although there is a mysterious restaurant at the camp that charges 500 per plate. We then took a guided 4x4 into the park, which cost 3000+1000 for petrol. It moved about 2 km in the park, and then we walked a lot. I don’t like guides anyway, but maybe an idea is to keep the guide, but just use the car you’ve already paid for (would only cost N200 for own car entrance). It felt really safe, and some police at a roadblock even gave us a watermelon!

Africas is a nice ex AIESECer who did a traineeship in Poland. He has many friends and likes going to the Shrine. He’s interesting to talk to, and likes meeting trainees, and will give you a lift. He also organized a trip to Yankari, but nobody went because it cost too much. New Africa Shrine is a famous club in Ikeja. It’s good fun. It’s got good people, good music, and a nice atmosphere in general. The only thing worth saying is that you should check out different nights, because different things happen – Thursday is free rehearsal night, which I enjoyed, and Sundays is the main show. Friday nights start at about 12 (read 2am) and you end up at home by 7 or 8.

Once upon a time there was a concert by 50 Cent. I didn’t go because it was Marisela’s last night, and I’m very grateful I didn’t. Ask Jacek, Kaisa, Tracy or Mat about this, since it’s their experience.

You’ll get invited to church as often as you want to go. I only went twice, which confirmed that I don’t want to go again, but people move heaven and earth to get you there. Going to mosques is more difficult because you have to be Muslim and know all sorts of Arabic verses. Would be interesting, but I haven’t found a way. I have met someone who will give me some books on it, but I’m still waiting for him.

Lastly, I recommend trying to organize something like a day out in Lagos, once a week. I did this toward the end. It’s great to get out and feel a bit free, and it’s good for work because you get to really feel the market and see whether all the ideas you’re hearing about really make sense. A great person to do this with is Tracy. Tracy is Mike’s (from Poland) girlfriend and AIESEC thinks she’s weird because she actually likes to meet and talk to the trainees. She can show you a lot of cool little things in Nigeria that you otherwise wouldn’t see.

Maybe I need to get into a bit about busses. To get to Abeakuta, we used Oshodi (costs N20 from Shogunle). You can also go to K2. It costs N250 by bus, or N350 by car. In Abeakuta, you use Kuto – same prices.

Maryland bus stop can take you most places, and it costs N40-50 by Okada to get there. CMS bus stop, or Marina, are good central places on the island, which can take you to markets, the beaches, or back to Ikeja. To get to Badagari, we used Mile 2, which you can get to from Maryland. It cost 80 to Mile 2, and 100? to Badagari. Getting to Unilag is best done by going to Yaba (Oyingbo bus route. N40, then catching a campus bus to unilag. N20. You can get there cheaper by going to Under Bridge, but I’m not too sure about this.

Eating

Patrik wrote an intro to me describing a typical weekly menu. It’s interesting because it gives you the prices for some items, but if you stick to his diet, you’ll probably spend about double what you’re paid.

Marisela and I spent a lot of time going to a restaurant in Shogunle (the area across the traintracks.. Unfortunately, Baba (Ola), the security guard showed us the best and cheapest place first time, so any experiments we tried after that kept us running (in more ways than one) back to the same restaurant. It’s called Daily Hope Restaurant, run by Ma. She’s friendly, helpful, and will always try to help you (as long as you want to eat rice or ebba). She runs out of rice later in the evening, but there’s a place next door that usually has. First Choise next door (no spelling mistake – I think it must be french) is more well known, so you can tell people you’ll meet them there. It is slightly more expensive (N100, rather than N80) but you get bigger pieces of meat.

When Marisela got typhoid (see health) we stopped eating there, but I don’t think it was from the restaurant. We started to buy vegetables (onions and tomatoes) for the markets, which are okay in price, but you’ve got to choose carefully and waste a lot of time traveling and hunting. The supermarket, Oasis, next to Sheraton hotel, has everything, but it’s expensive (imported prices). There is a Park and Shop further up the same road, but it’s a little more expensive. We found that if we ate in big groups (especially on weekends with trainees) Oasis food prices worked out okay.

Oh, be careful of eggs in shogunle. Either we were unlucky, or they were always bad.

There are other options which are mostly eating on the street. Patrik covered this, I think.

Health

Hmm. The first big debate is whether to use malaria prevention. My trusted sources say that you shouldn’t because long term use (longer than a few weeks) is bad in many scary ways, and it’s not even effective. Either I’m very persuasive, or I’m right, because most of the people who came here taking tablets have stopped taking them (and got malaria while taking them!). If you follow my advice, be very aware of the symptoms and get treatment quickly. Blood tests are quick (really quick – less than 30 minutes) and cheap enough. Tablets are also cheap enough. I don’t know about doing self treatment, which seems common in Nigeria. I’m not quite brave enough for that yet.

Be sensible and wear protective (but thin for the heat!) clothing. Nigerian traditional clothing is perfect (for a guy) – the girls seem quite sorted with their wardrobe already. Do things like keep the windows and doors closed even during the day. The mosquitoes here are really smart and will lurk in a corner for hours, waiting for you to come home. Also trying sneaky techniques like randomly hitting yourself every few minutes. A great habit that amuses the whole family.

Marsela got typhoid. And malaria. I always thought typhoid was really scary but I’ve learned that it’s just a fever and a problem with bowel movements. (At least, that’s what the doctor said – Marisela didn’t have that, but the test came up positive.) Oh, in case you’re interested, the story is that everyone has typhoid when they do the test – the trick is to repeat the test and see if the amount has increased – then you know it’s active.

Anyway, Marisela ended up in the hospital (Oyibo Tax) because she didn’t take the tablets for malaria and typhoid correctly, and they did it all intravenously. Another sensitive story I’ll tell you about some other time. Maybe. Apparently you get it from water or unwashed vegetables etc.

What else? Have a read through the book someone (Patrik?) left behind, a Lonely Planet Health Guide to Africa.. It will scare the hell out of you. You can get some very, very strange things. I especially liked the one where you just start rotting from the inside out.

I picked up the combination too, just before leaving for South Africa for Xmas. I was aware of the symptoms and didn’t mess around. I went to get a blod test first thing in the morning, and sure enough, I had typhoid and malaria. A few tablets and a couple thousand Naira later, I was fine.

I could write a whole section on food related to health, but the short answer is, take vitamins, because I’m pretty sure you won’t get getting your A’s and B’s in Shogunle (unless we’re talking hepatitis). Then again, something like 150 million Nigerians are surviving (with some amazing physiques) on this diet, so it can’t be all bad.

Phoning

Phoning in Nigeria is a nightmare. MTN is a South African company, and makes its most money per subscriber (or per capita?) in Nigeria. They defend this because there are not many alternatives.

My happiest day in Nigeria was when I found that you can just push redial and do other work, and Godwin’s phone automatically redials for an hour until it connects, while you can get something else done.

Useful tips: Nigerian code +234

Outside Nigeria code 009

Lagos Code 01

Call Directory (well kept secret) 15900

MTN (mobile) = 0803

VMobile = 0802

Glo (Mobile) = 0805

Multilinks and other companies have some strange mobile devices, I don’t know how it works

I recommend meeting with anyone personally before calling. If you don’t, try to explain who you are and where you are from, and exactly who (Name and position) you want to speak to. Once you get hold of someone who can help you, remember to ask for an extension number or direct line. Mobile numbers are much easier to get hold of people, but a little more expensive so try to balance it.

Visas

I didn’t know where to put this, so I made a new section. When you arrive at the airport, make sure that the immigration guy stamps for passport for the maximum amount of time possible. I came with the standard 3 month tourist visa, and they only validated it for a month. You need to extend the visa, which AIESEC will help you with. You’ll have to pay about N1500 for the visa extension (depending on which country you’re from) and give AIESEC some transport money, depending on who does it for you. Also, make sure you come to Nigeria with a nice empty passport if you’re planning on going anywhere, because the extensions fill it up quickly, and re-entry visas take up even more space. Ask in your country about getting a Maxi passport, which usually costs double, but is very handy for stamp maniac immigration officials in Africa.

The Job

Hopefully everything I’ve written in the investment manual gives you an idea of how to do the job. I have made some requests to change the job description in Insight so that it better reflects what you’ll be doing and how you’ll be doing it.

The traineeship I did is TN-In-NG-LA-2004-1250, at First SMI in Ikeja, Lagos. I was here from August 15 until January 27^th. The current description says this:

Payment Salary in U.S. $ 200

Payment Rate Monthly

Reasons for taking the trainee to develop the trainee in investment Analysis in Nigeria

Department investment Analysis

Job/Task Description analyse investment and develop the yield and vaklidity of investments

Details of the working details the trainees will be working with a team of other trainees

Additional information which a potential candidate may require for the traineeship

the trainee should be able to work with Microsoft Excel very well

My job was to analyse investments. I did this by reading business plans or meeting promoters that came in. I then made judgement calls about which projects looked good/fun/the least amount of work/most amount of reward. Some people would come in with no business plan but a really good idea, so I started writing business plans for a fee.

Analysing the investment was not at all what I was expecting. I expected to build financial models and use financial management and accounting skills to evaluate the potential of the investments.

Rather, it is a case of doing due diligence. This means getting on the phone, and in the car, and just meeting and greeting people and trying to figure out whether the business plan you’ve been given is accurate or not. You’ll do market surveys and research, get quotes and valuations, and letters of reference from all possible sources. To be fair, about 10% of your time will be spent building models and doing financial analysis.

In terms of supervision, you will be very independent, although you can always ask questions to the MD. Although it says you will be working in a team of trainees, I cannot imagine how this can be interpreted as anything remotely true.

I would say that if you walk into this job with no experience, and no academic background in finance, but an interest in investments, you will handle and enjoy this job. Knowing excel and being able to write well, as well as think in terms of Porter 5 forces strategy is more than enough for this job. Any more experience or background in finance will lead to frustration, because you won’t be using those skills.

What you can hope to get out of this job is good practice in dealing with diverse clients and information sources. It will really drive home the idea that business is first and foremost, about interpersonal skills.

This traineeship could open up doors in venture capital firms in your home country, although I do not believe you should be coming here for the work experience as a primary reason.

I know there are going to be lots of things you’ll wish I’d told you, but sorry, try to include them for the next person. Some things I’ve left out on purpose because I hope they were isolated negative incidents, or they were incidents that I hope I’ve created a sustainable solution for. After a little time here, I’m sure you’ll see how much of a work in progress this document is. Maybe you’ll see the same about the whole of Nigeria.

If you’re still keen on coming after reading this, well done, and good luck.

Nigeria Blues

2004-11-04T04:13:00.000+04:00

Hi
Things seem to fly in a never ending chaos of no particular direction here in Lagos, so that from Monday to Friday you'll feel like you've worked hard enough to solve all the major problems of the world, and then find you're actually in the same position you started - and forgot to buy bread for the weekend.
This was a week when Maastricht "blah in 24 hours" skills proved themselves, as I wrote an investment proposal in that much time, which will hopefully also serve as a template for future projects I do, making this process much faster.
I've pretty much conquered the work thing now, which is a bit disappointing because I'd hoped to have a steep learning curve for most of my stay here - but I'm still pushing for a few more developments in their rating system and risk assessment, so there's lots of scope for learning if I play the game well.
But on the private front, I'm all but defeated by Nigeria, or at least Lagos. I've found out the disappointing truth that the first restaurant I chose for dinner a while back is not only the cheapest (cheaper than I can cook for), but the best food, friendliest staff and one of the closest and most central to other things I need to do after work. So any experimenting with other places has been a waste of time and money, and often energy and stomach contents. Also, I'm resigned to the fact that this is very much the kind of town where you get enjoyment from walking around in the markets, reading books, and watching movies. There is nothing so exotic as a scenic restaurant or daresay a beach without shipwrecks, litter and the occassional brave shanty family. In fact, I haven't seen a single sunset since I've been here, and when I brought this up yesterday to other trainees, the more experienced ones just smiled while the newer ones realised that they too were living in the city where the sun never sets.
Actually, you hardly ever see the sun. There are old reports from the industrial revolution in London where areas were recorded as having 2-3 of sunlight per year, but I don't think anyone has bothered to do that study here. It seems people just don't miss what they don't know, as blank stares prove when I talk about this to locals.
My new big plan in the search of beauty, although a little desperate, is to somehow find a way of diving regularly - I havea hunch that underwater it may be a little less chaotic, and perhaps even still unspoilt. Apparently Port Harcourt is an unnatural disaster area, courtesy of the moral scruples of the oil companies, and the governments lack of ability or unwillingness to impose a bit of decency on these organisations. But Lagos might still be alright for diving if I can find a company or at least equipment and someone with some experience. I've found nothing on the internet, but then you know how shocking I am with finding anything there, and the closest I've come is directions from the Sheraton hotel (which treats anyone with a white skin as a guest - I'm tempted to take my swimming costume next time) to visit the boat club.
Besides that, life is pretty much 8-5ish, which is good for me right now - I need a bit of discipline in my work ethic after 6 months of haphazard mingling of thesis and every other aspect of my life. It's nice to cut loose at whatever time I do and know I can freely ignore any work obligations, no matter how apparently pressing or important, until 8 the next morning.
Lastly, I've decided to join up with red cross here, although haven't found their headquarters yet, because I've got too much leisure time, not enough money to use it, and not enough activities or books in the world to keep me from walking the streets in delirium.
The last mail I sent didn't seem to get through to anyone, so if you want a copy, please let me know. As I said in the previous mail, I won't be doing these groupies again soon, but just wanted to make sure you received at least one...
Stay well
Kevin
ps it turns out group mail just don't work any more - they get spam alerts and automatically deleted. Maybe this site will be the new group mail substitute. hmm

Strike One

2004-10-04T03:10:00.000+04:00

It takes a lack of credit on the phones, a go slow in the morning traffic, a broken internet connection, and a minor slow motion hangover to get me to put aside the petty activities that seem so important. But Nigeria has finally conspired against any form of work, so I have a chance to write something again.
Iýve been wanting to do this for a while because the last journal thingy was just a little depressing, and Lagos isnýt really as bad as all that. Almost, but not quite.
My dad came to visit two weeks ago, and that livened things up quite a lot, We went with some other trainees to an open air concert (the girls both got malaria) and visited one of the bigger markets. It was big. Big enough to get lost and never come out, but that doesnýt mean there was anything to buy. Basically, you have three kinds of stalls in the markets. Meats, fabrics and dry foods. Competition isnýt so much about selling something different to the Mamma next to you, but shouting louder or using a different tone of Oyibo (white man). We also went to the Lagos National Museum, which gave us a guided tour for 50 Naira each. We traveled through 500 years of Nigeria history and culture, which our guide was pretty knowledgeable about, but got stumped on the most recent 50 years. This was summed up by one page descriptions of each regime (of which the British were the first), culminating in a display of the much revered Mohammud Murtalaýs car. For some reason, Murtala was popular enough to get the international airport named after him (and retain the name in subsequent regimes), but not popular enough to avoid a couple of bullets spattered around the car. Not quite sure if the coup was done on a strict budget, or if they didnýt want to damage Murtalaýs car, but the deed was done and Murtala was deaded, and long live the 5th regime (I think), which lasted an impressive 3 years.
Museum over, Dad and I experimented with some new snacks ý eggroll and meat pie. The rest of the weekend, he got to experience a more realistic day in my life. Basically, we kept trying to find things to do, couldnýt and contentedly achieved not a lot.
Well, the internet and phones are back, so Iým going to find out the price of fish in Port Harcourt. All in the name of businessý
K
that was last week, here is this weeks excitement - well, some of it...
chow

ps Fantastic nationwide strike today (and for who knows how long!) so no real work can get done (but there's no transport either, so just chilling at home, doing the usual - reading)
Stay well
k