Monday, April 21, 2008
Coming to an End
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Slowing the Pace
Friday, March 21, 2008
Hippos, Gorillas, and Swimming at 14,000 Feet
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Teaching in the Crater Lakes Region of Uganda
I was the only guest staying in the community-run campsite becoming quick friends with the manager, his family, and the six local boys training there to be tourist guides, and the camp dog, Jex (what can I say, I love animals!). I also volunteered at a local community school.
In Madagascar, I thought I had seen just about the simplest school I could see. I was definitely wrong. That school had the benefit of being established and sponsored by a small Catholic mission. This school in the Crater Lakes region was established by the community so that children living in the areas between government school locations would have an opportunity to attend school. Therefore, the school has no governmental support in terms of training or funding. This was obvious the first time I saw it. The school consists of two buildings (similar in structure to my banda), totaling 5 classrooms (one for each of 5 grades). Approximately 170 children, ranging in age from 6-12, crammed inside these classrooms, either standing for the five hours of instruction, or sitting in the dirt on the floor. Each child had a few pieces of scratch paper to use as a notebook, most shared pens with their friends, and none had textbooks. My classroom was luxurious, having an old blackboard to use. It was very sad.
I taught the oldest group of kids math and science for five hours each day. The kids were terrific and immediately loved me (probably because I was the first white person to pay attention to them). My second day there, the kids presented me with 4 huge papayas, 2 mangoes, and 5 avocados as gifts. I was extremely touched and grateful, although carrying them all the way back to my banda was a bit challenging, especially considering that I had to walk over 4 miles roundtrip to and from school each day, including half a kilometer up a very steep hill. The teachers at the school bestowed on me a Ugandan name, "Amooti," which refers to the reverence and respect a king demands. I am honored by the respect, but I certainly don't want to be thought of as a king.
Teaching without any materials at all proved very challenging, but I managed and we all had a good time. To liven up the atmosphere and make it fun, I taught the children some games, which they continued to play even after school was dismissed each day. I am glad that I was able to provide the children with a friend, teach them some new things, and share in their love, but I also felt bad that I couldn't do more. Out of the 170 children at the school, nearly 80% are orphans, losing their parents to AIDS and other diseases. The community members have been wonderful and taken many of the orphans in, but it is still rather easy to find groups of 4 or 5 children sleeping under a tree together at night, and then spending the next day trying to find enough food to give them one more day. It is truly heartbreaking to see, and to even think about. Nobody should have to live like that, never feeling loved, never having another thought except about survival, and never experiencing a feeling of hope for the future.
Well, I don't want everyone to be depressed by this blog post, so I will switch topics. I have been eating the local food for the past five weeks (mostly matooke, a potato-type food, potatoes, maize, and beans), but like in Madagascar with my rice and beans diet, my stomach has decided to rebel. I found myself feeling sick just looking at another plate of matooke (normally part of breakfast, lunch, and dinner--it is very cheap because of the vast number of matooke plantations everywhere). Only the taste of fruit has been appealing to me. So lately, my diet has consisted almost entirely of fruit, with some avocados thrown in. I have never eaten so many bananas in my life (6-10 a day!). It is not exactly a balanced diet, but it is the best I can manage right now. When I get back to Kampala, I will definitely treat myself to a pizza!
I had an interesting encounter the other day. As I was walking down to the lake to fetch water for a shower, I rounded a corner and saw a huge snake winding down the path a few feet from me, going down into a hole. The thing was huge, like 8 feet long! As it turns out, it was a black cobra (a very, very, very deadly snake). Needless to say, my daily trips down to the lake for water have been a little more stressful lately!
My afternoons after school have been spent relaxing. I have been teaching the local boys how to swim (very, very funny--none of them had been in the water before, and they all think I am part fish by the way I swim multiple ways across the lake) and visiting the homes of some of the local community leaders. I have again been the first white person to visit two more villages here. In each village, I felt like the president, as everyone came out and wanted to shake my hand and do their best to impress me with their limited English. Some of the leaders have been telling me that the whole village has only been talking about how they actually touched and spoke with a mzungu, and they have also been arguing about who touched me for the longest and whom I said the most words too. It is quite a feeling walking into these villages, and I think I may go down in history here. Maybe I will be spoken about in legends or those types of things:) How cool would that be!
The school gave me a farewell ceremony yesterday, with the school committee, the parents/guardians, and the children all present. The children performed their traditional songs and dances for me, several people gave speeches thanking me for my service and for a hefty donation I made, and then presented me with several gifts, including a wonderful handwoven basket and even a rooster! I must say that I don't think I ever expected to receive a rooster as a gift at any time in my life. When I return, the parents and guardians told me that they will present me with a goat! Wow! Oh, by the way, I named my rooster Jimmy, and Jimmy is the largest bird around, and he seems to know it too, as he has become the community bully:) Well, that's the last two weeks in a nutshell. Now it's off to a Ugandan national park and then Rwanda. Life certainly is interesting!
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Back in Africa
the dark red African soil again. It is an amazing feeling being back
here, and my heart started beating a little faster as my plane started
descending over Lake Victoria, toward Entebbe Airport in Uganda. Lake
Victoria from the air is an incredible sight, and seems to stretch
forever. It is a deceptive view, especially knowing that most of
Africa is struggling to find fresh water. I guess that is one thing
you always have to remember in Africa-- things aren't always what they
seem.
I had remembered the poverty, filth, and challenging conditions in
Madagascar, but being away from it for over a year, I found myself
still surprised by the conditions in the surrounding areas driving
from the airport to Kampala, Uganda's capital. The straw and wooden
boxes that serve as people's homes dotted the roadsides, reminding me
that life here is a different life than most of us know, and in fact, a life
most people do not wish to know.
I have been staying with a guy I met through some other contacts.
He lives with his sister, niece, and their maid on the outskirts of
Kampala, in a little village. The village is very poor and most people
live in the small shacks I wrote about above. The house where I am
staying is simple, but pretty nice for this area. The family has been
extremely nice to me, showing me the generous hospitality and
friendliness Ugandans are known for. Electricity is sporadic, hot
water is non-existent, the nights are hot, the mosquitoes are
plentiful, and the food is a little redundant, but I am loving every
minute of it. The family has also been teaching me Lugandan, the local
language! It is a lot of fun, and many people in the village are happy
to hear me speaking a little Lugandan to them when I go to buy some
mangoes or bananas. I have also been able to visit many areas where
tourists never venture. This is the best part, and you can imagine
that I receive a lot of glances walking through the little village
markets and gathering areas at night, when my white face can easily be
seen in the firelight.
Kampala is a pretty typical African capital, although it seems much
safer than many others. Like the other cities, it seems totally
unorganized and chaotic, but it is also very interesting. There are
many different areas of the city (the rich area where the ex-pats
live, the poor slum areas, the villages, the wealthy area full of
Ugandans who have been working abroad, etc.). Although I haven't quite
figured out the taxi system yet, I have managed to see a lot of the
city, mostly by getting lost and then having to find my way back:)
One beautiful thing that I really missed after leaving Madagascar,
although I hadn't really realized it, is the beautiful singing of the
African people. Every morning, I wake up to the girls in the house
singing beautiful Lugandan songs, while preparing breakfast, washing
dishes, cleaning the floors, and burning the garbage (all at the same
time!). Their voices resonate through the house and display their joy
of life, always bringing a smile to my face.
One cool thing that happened to me during the last two weeks here is that I got the opportunity to attend two Ugandan weddings. The receptions were very fun, with traditional Ugandan dances performed by several girls, and a great deal of African songs and boys playing the congo drums. I was popular, especially with the kids, because I was the only mzungu (white person) at either wedding. The costumes worn by some of the guests and family members were great, and now I need to find out how I can get ahold of one of those men's outfits, called kanzus, for myself!
Every day here is a new adventure. Another cool new thing that I have experienced is a boda-boda ride. The boda-bodas are guys and young boys on motorcycles and scooters, who weave in and out of the jam-packed traffic here, ferrying passengers around town. Although
they are probably about a -4 on a safety scale of 0-10, they are definitely cool and a lot of fun, in a dangerous sort of way!
I really don't feel like a typical tourist here, since I have been living in a village with a family, eaten only local food, learned some of the local language, and also seen many areas tourists never see. The other day, I walked through one of the poorest slums in Kampala with one of my friends. I can definitely say that I saw the "real Africa." I can't really describe what I saw because I still have trouble thinking about it. Poverty is a huge understatement. My
friend, who lives there, told me that I am one of the first white people to walk through that slum, so that is why I received so many stares and looks of amazement. The kids absolutely loved me (except for the little girl who ran to her mom, screaming that the white man was going to eat her), and by the time my walk ended, I had around thirty children following me. Unfortunately, my friend also told me that many of the adults were hoping that I was there to try to improve their village in some way, by building a school, fixing their water supply (they get water out of a filthy little canal, that probably is not even safe to touch, let alone drink), or providing more land. I felt bad that I couldn't help them, besides providing a brief distraction from their daily struggles.
I also took a stroll through the largest outdoor market in Africa. The Owino Market has everything you can possibly imagine, from second-hand clothes and shoes, to fruits, vegetables, old appliances, and a fish market. It is a huge maze of alleys, each lined to the max with sellers and their goods. I could tell that not many tourists visit the market by the attention that I received. The market is a very interesting, but very dirty place, so most tourists stick to the nicer supermarkets, where prices are fixed and they are safe. Every seller I passed tried to shake my hand and welcome me to look at his merchandise, either as his "brother" or "friend." It was pretty amusing. I even saw a huge 150lb. Nile perch being cut up for sale. They definitely don't have these back home!
The last thing I will mention is that I was invited by the maid of the place where I am staying, to go with her and visit her mother and family in their village. It was incredible! The village is about 2 hours outside Kampala, in the forested hills. I received a huge welcome from her mother, who was so happy to see me and make sure I remembered my visit fondly. I met the 12 or 14 children she has (most were orphans from the village or children of other family members who had died), and ate some awesome food. After eating, they took me around their land and showed me how they grow their mangoes, jackfruits, papayas, coffee, pineapple, guava, and everything else, which was really interesting. We then strolled to the "main street," where the village was. The village consisted of two little shops and about 10 little mud houses. The whole village came out to greet me, and my friend explained that her mom had told her that I was the first white person to visit her village. I shook hands with over 100 people and several more children. I even tasted two of the local alcoholic drinks, called "tonto" and "quete." They were very good, and everyone watched me as I sipped them, laughing and smiling at this strange person drinking and eating their food. My visit to the village was something I will never forget, and a great break from the rush of Kampala. Life cannot get much simpler than the lives those people lead.
Well, there is a summary of my first two weeks in real Africa. It has been great, and hopefully will only get better. Every day here is a gift. Every night, I take a moment to look up at the stars and say, "Wow, I'm in Uganda!"
A few pictures I have managed to upload so far can be found at http://www.photoworks.com/members/Nathan_Owens under the Uganda folder.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
My brother
I just wanted to point this out to you all. My brother, Dan, just graduated from the San Francisco Police Academy two days ago. Not only did he graduate, but he was the top academic student out of over 40 graduates! Way to go Dan! You are making the Owens family very proud.
On the Road
Hello from Dubai! I have spent the last week and a half in Cairo, Egypt, and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. It has been quite an experience and the differences between the two places are striking.
Once arriving in Cairo, I was immediately overwhelmed by the size of the city and the number of people there. Cairo is the second largest city in the world, with around 22 million people! It is a very dirty city with people everywhere, and what seems like mass chaos all day, every day, except on Fridays (Muslim holy days). It was cool seeing Arabic writing all over the city and hearing only Arabic as I walked through the streets. I was very surprised by the lack of English spoken in Cairo, with very few people able to speak any more than a simple greeting.
My trip started off well with my bag actually arriving on the same plane as myself. I should have known that something bad was about to happen, and it did. My second day in Cairo, I withdrew money from an ATM machine. However, the machine refused to give my card back. To make a long story short, I ended up having to cancel my card, and now I will have to hope that a new card arrives in Uganda pronto. Unfortunately, this setback prevented me from traveling down to Luxor to see more pyramids and the Valley of the Kings. I did see the Pyramids of Giza and the Pyramids at Saqqara, which were incredible and something that I have wanted to see my whole life. I got the chance to ride a camel through the desert around the pyramids, and that was a lot of fun. I polished up my bargaining skills and by the end of my trip, was receiving items for almost the cost that a local Egyptian would pay. I also befriended a kid from Cairo who took me around some of the areas of Old and Islamic Cairo, including entrance to several mosques. Since nearly 80% of the Cairo population is Muslim, at five different times each day, a person can hear the entire city praying out loud throughout the thousands of mosques of the city. It really is a beautiful sound. On the contrary, the rest of the days are filled with the nonstop honking of car horns (I named this "Egyptian music":). If you think drivers where we live are bad, just spend an hour in Cairo, and I can guarantee you that your perspective will change. To give you a better idea, as far as I could tell, there are absolutely no traffic laws in Cairo. This is shown on a three-lane highway when there are five or six cars spread across it, and also by the fact that my taxi drivers rarely spent time driving below 120km/h, while simultaneously passing a "60 km/h speed limit" sign and waving to the police on the side of the road. When bored, or just when the mood strikes, the drivers begin honking and don't stop until both hands are required for driving while talking on their cellphones. Cairo was absolutely crazy, and although seeing the pyramids was the fulfillment of a life-long dream, I couldn't wait to escape the chaotic hustle-and-bustle of that huge city.
Dubai is an absolutely incredible place. There is so much money here that it is a little mind-blowing. Dubai is over-the-top in every way you can imagine. This city alone has the tallest and most luxurious (7 stars) hotel in the world, the largest shopping mall in the world, and the tallest building in the world. Everything is brand new and the amount of building going on here is insane. This city reminds me a lot of Las Vegas without the casinos. All the cars here are new Mercedes, BMWs, LandRovers, Ferraris, and Porsches. It is kind of funny seeing a Muslim man in his headdress and robes, speeding down the highway in a Ferrari while talking on his new iphone.
I stayed with a friend in his apartment, a sweet place up on the top floor of a tall building near the water. I'll just say that it is a little different than staying at the hostel in Cairo. I'm afraid that I've been spoiled now before going to Uganda. We'll see.
So tomorrow morning I will catch a taxi to the airport and hop on a plane to Uganda. I can't wait! I wish you all the best and will report next from Kampala!
Friday, January 25, 2008
One Chapter Ending, Another Beginning
So I won’t bore you with all the things that have happened this last week, but I will mention some of the more important things, and also some of the more humorous happenings and thoughts. So when it came time to leave my worksite for the last time, I was looking out the window of the place I have essentially called home for the past 11 months, up at the mountains that I have befriended during my numerous hikes. As I was looking out the window, only a few minutes from catching a bus and leaving that place for good, I saw a small dog run up to the fence of the yard. I immediately recognized this dog, a
After saying my goodbyes to the mountains, to the place where I have been calling home, my hosts, and to my biologist friends, it finally came time to say goodbye to the wolves. It is always hard working to protect something that you never see, but I have learned that you just need to trust that your efforts are making a difference. I will miss these wolves and always trying to solve the puzzles that they leave behind. I hope that they have a future in this region and slowly gain more acceptance among the people here.
I then traveled up to
So getting back to
I said goodbye to my friends in
After wishing Krakow a goodbye and giving it my thanks, I traveled to
After leaving
So that is that in a nutshell. Tonight I am headed to
Pictures of my Christmas trip in Italy, and also pics of Warsaw and Berlin, can be viewed at
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Happy New Year!
Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all had a very nice and joyful Christmas and got to share it with the people that matter most to you. I hope Santa also brought you everything that was on your Christmas lists. I spent my Christmas in Torino, Italy. It was nice seeing some places in Italy that I had never visited before, but it was definitely not a normal Christmas for me. This year, without my family and those I care about around me, the 25th of December was just another day. I spent the day walking around Torino taking pictures. The weather was beautiful, so that made walking pretty pleasant. I definitely had a cool experience on Christmas Eve. The friend I was staying with drove me up to a small village in the Alps, on the Italian-French border. At this village, we followed a live nativity scene, as it ascended up the mountain, through the old village. I think every person living in that village (probably about 200) was following the procession, and there was singing and dancing the entire way. We all stopped frequently for some mulled wine, punch, and other goodies being distributed by “innkeepers” and other people from the village. At midnight, we arrived at a small church high up the mountain, where we attended mass. It was really special and an experience I will never forget.
After Torino, I traveled to Aosta, where I spent a few days. Aosta is a unique region that borders France, Italy, and Switzerland, and is probably most famous for being in the shadow of Mont Blanc. The area is beautiful and there are castles everywhere you look. I visited three castles while I was there and also visited the ski village of Courmayeur, which was really nice, but also made me a little homesick.
After Aosta, I went back to Torino and spent New Year's Eve there. Unfortunately, I got sick a few days before that and didn't really feel like celebrating too much, so I mostly just reflected on the last year. This last year has been a year of firsts for me. Right before last New Year’s, I caught malaria for the first time (and hopefully the last!), I had to fly for almost 34 straight hours back to the U.S. from Madagascar, but then I got to spend Christmas at home, which is all I could ever want. I traveled to Poland for the first time and spent an extended period in Europe for the first time. I learned my first words in Polish, German, Czech, Norwegian, and Austrian. I fell deeply in love for the first time (and hopefully not the last time!), but then had my heart completely broken for the first time also (hopefully the last time, but I doubt it!). I met the wonderful people at Holy Cross Ministries and got the incredible opportunity to work as a teacher over the summer with the cute (most of the time) Hispanic children in Park City. I received my first recognition of “Scary Story Master” (sorry Mark, maybe next time:). I saw Stockholm, Oslo, Bergen, Prague, Vienna, Torino, and Aosta for the first time. I went hiking in the awesome Tatra Mountains for the first time and also had my first wolf reply to one of my howls! On a lighter side, I did my laundry in a cereal bowl for the first time (it took a looooong time), opened my first wine bottle with an axe (don’t ask me how, because I don’t know, and definitely don't ask me to try it again), and bought my first $12 beer (thanks Oslo). I saw my first live performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in a 12th century church in Stockholm (I get chills just thinking about it!), ate rabbit for the first time in a Prague restaurant, visited my first European Christmas markets in Vienna, where I also tasted mulled wine for the first time. I drank coffee with honey in it for the first time (those crazy Italians!), bought and wore my first scarf (I am still unsure of how I look in it), saw Mont Blanc for the first time, and spent my first Christmas away from my family. I saw my brother move away from home for the first time and become the first member of our family to kick butt in the San Francisco Police Academy.
I met some incredible people this last year: the people at HCM, including Sister Mary Ann, Alma, Magali, Jesus, Miriam, Laura, and Molly, the biologists I have been working with in Poland, Robert and Sabina, my ex-girlfriend Ania (I know, but I was still lucky to have met her), Krystyna and Łucaś, whose home I normally stay in while working in Poland, Michael in Stockholm, Magnus and his roommates in Oslo, Kevin and Bashar in Bergen, Andrew on the train in Norway, Claude in Geneva, Alicja and Sabina in Krakow, Slaven in Prague, Lija in Vienna, and Andrea in Torino. Thinking back on it, I guess quite a bit happened this last year. Some times were incredibly happy, and other times were incredibly sad. But without sadness, we wouldn’t know what happiness is. Those sad times help us to really appreciate and savor those happy times.
So what do I hope for this next year? Well, I think it will be hard to top this last year, but it may happen. I would like to see my first wolf in Poland, but unfortunately time is running out. I would like to see my brother in a SFPD uniform. I would like to meet my new cousin (Congrats Tim and Alli!). I would like to visit Raphelle and Tim in their new house, reinforce my position as the “Scary Story Master,” finally graduate with my master's degree, visit Yellowstone numerous times, where my soul is renewed and my spirit is at peace, fall in love again, see everyone in my family filled with happiness, maintain and strengthen the relationships I have made this last year, and constantly be reminded of how lucky I am and of what is truly important in life. If all of those things happen, I will be one very happy guy. In fact, I will be very happy if just those last three things come true. I know I am forgetting a few things, but they will remind me in their own good time.
I wish all of you the happiest year imaginable, and may all that you wish and hope for come to pass. Thank you for making this last year one that I will never forget and that I will always look back on fondly.