Wofford College - Study Abroad

Religion...Women.....Environment...but I don't mean to offend you

Well there are certain things which you’re just not supposed to talk about. I am sure that we have all been told at one point or another “not to talk about religion or politics because you never know who you’re going to offend.” For the most part I have tried to follow these guidelines in my blog, not knowing who might be reading it. But I feel that because of my choice in study abroad locations I am compelled to talk about these two things. Not only am I in a developing country, and one that is located between “combat-enriched societies,” but I am also in a Muslim country.
On numerous occasions I have been advised not to talk about certain topics with people because they can literally be life-threatening conversations. This is hard to do when you take taxis nearly everywhere in this city and when every taxi driver wants to discuss your government’s actions. Luckily I have been able to answer all questions honestly by saying that I support my country and my government but that I wish our government’s leaders would choose life over death in many various issues. It is an interesting thing though that Jordanians view me(and any other American I suppose) as a responsible representative of their
government. I suppose this is the ideal behind a democracy, that the voter is responsible for the government’s actions. But that same sense of responsibility does not seem to be present when you talk to Jordanians about their government. For the most part they talk about the King and the royal family and not about the parliament. This past Tuesday the country of Jordan hosted its parliamentary elections. And not shortly after the celebratory gun shots members of the Islamic Action Front were claiming voter fraud and the PM resigned. I dare say that voter fraud is common in the elections here because everybody talks about it and nobody seems to be talking about it as though it were a problem or that it was wrong. And one of my teachers, who does not vote anymore, says that still too many people sell their vote for money in order to buy food and the other half of the voters vote along tribal lines versus voting for any real issues.
Over the past three weeks there have been weekly talks on various topics pertaining to the people of Jordan. the topics for the seminars were: Islam in Modern Jordanian Society, Women’s Rights in Jordan and Water Rights in Jordan. The first two seminars were inclusive in providing any real answers or solutions to problems (or even identifying problems at that). It seemed as though the key slogan for the politicians and religious leaders at these seminars was that any problem could be solved if “Muslims would go back to the ways of Islam.” I agree that this is most likely true, but so far I have not heard any practical steps to reach this harmony between faith and action. And it seemed to me as though the politicians and religious leaders were putting most of the burden for change on the people versus taking any responsibility for leading this change.

But I do not want to sound as though I have lost hope in Jordan. I think that the society here is fascinating in that it is a relatively new thing to be called a Jordanian and yet there is this sense of harmony here. Women pass each other in the street, some wearing the head coverings and others wearing “clubbing” clothes. Both of my arabic professors (one chooses to wear the head covering) and the bulk of my colleagues at the NGO I work at are female and are all highly educated. So it appears as though women enjoy a certain level of freedom in Jordan that might or might not be present in surrounding countries. Also, there are churches and mosques right next to each other. The family that owns the apartment I live in is Arab-Christian and host their priest weekly for tea and private bible study. It seems as though Jordan has been able to capture a relatively balanced sense of harmony between Christians and Muslims.

There is one thing which I have found most Jordanians split on, the environment. It seems to me that the government is trying to work towards changing environmental policy and towards correcting past mistakes in water pumping. But when I walk home in the evening I see countless piles of trash on the side of the street and numerous Arab youth throwing their trash wherever they happen to be at the time. So there is yet to be a grassroots campaign for environmental change. It is almost the opposite of what we have in the states, where our government is concerned with a non-renewable and high polluting resource whereas a portion of the people are concerned about the future of our environment.
I have some of my favorite pictures from the semester pertaining to government or mostly to the environment....I hope you’ll enjoy them and possibly the message they carry...
:: Joshua

Ugandan R&B singers, patriarchal humor, jungles (again) and highly successful hummus

It's been a while since my last blog - I've been hard at work on my independent study project. As I mentioned before, I have been working with the Agency for Cooperation and Research in Development studying water policy. My internship with ACORD is mostly research-based - I'm evaluating domestic and international policies relating to water and sanitation (though I'm mostly focusing on potable water). However, we do go to the field sometimes. Last week, for example, we went into a village called Kabwohe in Bushenyi district and met with political officials of the area. We are promoting sustainable implementation of current Ugandan water policies regionally in these sorts of activities. Within the committee, we assigned various duties to the various officials there, coordinated and specified our areas of interest and concern, set deadlines, and helped create long-term strategies for water and sanitation in the village. The town officials had been concerned about low levels of maintenance on water sources and certain areas within the village that were without clean water coverage. Ugandan public policy mandates that individuals living in rural areas have a clean water point within 1,500 meters of their homes. Even though this a huge distance (especially to me - I've never had to walk more than 25 feet for clean water), most Ugandan districts are unable to provide water sources this close. This leads to many Ugandans, in the name of saving time for more profitable activities, using unclean water sources such as lakes and streams.

I'll back up a little bit, though, to cover my Ugandan adventures of late. First, though, some pictures from things I wrote about earlier.

A Ugandan traffic jam in Kabale.. also known as a herd of Ankole cattle.

The sign at the entrance of Bwindi.

A little boy carrying firewood near the entrance to Bwindi.

A little girl at a village near Bwindi. She's the same girl in the earlier picture holding my hand. Possibly the cutest kid I've ever seen.

2 of my roommates and I in our raingear penetrating the Impenetrable Forest.

And now, the new stuff.

Two weekends ago, I went to Kibale National Forest right outside of a beautiful southwestern Ugandan town called Fort Portal. I'm not really sure why this place is called Fort Portal because no other towns in Uganda have English names and I don't think there's a fort.. or a portal. Despite the misnomer, it's a beautiful area at the foot of the Rwenzori Mountains and surrounded by more than a dozen volcanic crater lakes. The top picture is a photo of a grass-covered staircase.. anticlimactically leading to the toilet. We paid an exorbitant (at least by Ugandan standards) amount of money to a tour operator to take us around and pay our park entry fees. Though feeling guilty about how tourist-y we were being, we quickly dealt with it and began enjoying ourselves. We first took a tour of several of the crater lakes outside of the forest. The monkey and her baby were seen here. The lakes were absolutely incredible - the water was very pure because it has no contact with soil and the rock formations were beautiful. We were able to go to the summit of the highest hill in the area, a place locals call "The Top of the World." The picture on the left is a photo from this view.

To go to Fort Portal, six friends and I took a matatu. They are vans working as taxis designed to hold 14 people. There are 4 rows that hold three people each and the front seats can hold 2, including the driver. Although it is common practice to overfill them, this time it got ridiculous. We lost count at 27 people in the matatu at once because we could not see well enough to determine if more people were getting on. This in addition to a huge basket of vegetables, a baby that got (inexplicably) handed back to us, at least one live chicken (although I'd almost guarantee there were more), and a big-screen television.

After we left the crater lakes, we headed to the actual rainforest for which Kibale National Forest is named. We strapped on our rain gear and headed into the jungle - to track chimpanzees. Oh yes, chimpanzees. This jungle was a bit more challenging than the "Impenetrable" forest of Bwindi. There were no trails whatsoever; we simply did our best to not run into trees and keep up with our quickly-moving guide. We found chimpanzees after about twenty minutes of walking and were able to observe them for an hour in their natural habitat. The first picture of us looking up is us trying to see the chimps. They were very high up in the trees so my pictures aren't as great as I wish they were but it was an amazing sight. The one on the left is one of the better ones. They collected figs, slept, played, and all sorts of other things that seemed remarkably human even though they've never had direct contact with our species. On the ride home in light of what we had seen, we reflected on how sad it was (in our opinions, of course) that there are currently seven contenders for the American presidency who do not believe in evolution.

Although I never write about this, during the week I spend my time doing schoolwork or avoiding doing schoolwork. There's just not much novelty in that for anyone who has been in college before.

The next weekend found us staying in Mbarara and hanging out with two friends who came to visit from Masaka, Angela and Matt. Matt is working in Rakai - the place where HIV/AIDS in Uganda and possibly HIV/AIDS in human beings in general began - studying the effects of HIV/AIDS on the local population. Although official statistics are much lower, some doctors at the hospital he is studying at estimate that as much as 35% of the local population is affected. 80% of the patients these doctors see are sick with AIDS-related illnesses. Angela is working with street children in a nearby school, teaching and analyzing the support systems with which they are provided. It was very good to see them and a much-needed break for all of us. We headed out on Friday night to an awesome local club called Vision Empire. As usual, we paid the three dollars it costs to get into the "Executive Suite," a title we always laugh at. We hung out with some Ugandan friends (as well as our Danish neighbors from my apartment building) and had a great time. We met a famous Ugandan through one of my roommates - I'm coming back to that later. The next night, we watched Sex and the City. It was nice to have some mindless entertainment as opposed to our usually depressing weeknight chats about the failures of development in Uganda.

The next night, our famous Ugandan singer friend (stage name - Dr. Shay Sho) came to visit unexpectedly - with his pet monkey Shanique.

Yes, that's right.

She and I got along very well after a little initial disagreement where she took a little nip at my hand. I do not want any emails about rabies, ebola, or any of these things, please (family, I'm talking to you). She's vaccinated against rabies and, apparently, ebola comes from bats. I don't have any friends with pet bats. Shay, who is not actually a doctor as his stage name implicates, nevertheless was very reassuring. His music videos are frequently on Ugandan television and he's often featured in the local tabloids so that gives him some sort of credibility. We're all secretly hoping to have articles written about us in the Red Pepper, the most popular tabloid, which often reports on famous Ugandans when they have mzungu cohorts. 

Shanique (and her owner) came over last night as well and sat on my curtain rod while I prepared dinner for my roommates. This was the most ambitious meal I've ever prepared .. which maybe isn't saying much since I learned how to cook while I was here. We had hummus, baba ghannouj, guacamole, and queso dip with fried chapati chips and some Indian crispy flatbreak. I am very proud of my own ingenuity for being able to make these things with the absolutely bare-bones minimum selections at local supermarkets. Try to find tahini in sub-Saharan Africa. Just try.

I intended to go to the field today with my co-worker Edith, a very pregnant Ugandan woman with a very difficult last name, and drug myself out of bed and onto a boda-boda (motorcycle that works like a taxi) at 8 a.m. I got to the office and found out she delivered in the very early hours of this morning - a boy. This was Edith's first child and she was very excited. The point of this story is to describe the language Ugandans (and East Africans generally) use to describe maternity. When I asked Edith a week or two ago if she had had any children prior to the one currently under construction, she replied "No - this is my first child. I am about to produce!" Although I had heard many Ugandans use the word produce as a verb describing what a woman does in regard to a child, I had never heard (or noticed, at least) a woman use it this way. Although the United States isn't exactly a shining star in the field of promoting equal rights, I do think we would be a little more reticent about that particular word choice. It was very funny, though, to hear this very excited Ugandan woman with a very thick accent squeal about her impending "production" - I imagined a baby in some sort of 1920s Ford assembly line. She texted me later in the day after she had given birth and said, I quote: "Thanks Michael for your prayers. I have had a normal birth and I'm ok. Thank God that I didn't produce from the field with you!"

That brings me about up to date. I only have 23 days left in this country - I can't believe it. I'll close with a list of things I'm ready to come back to and things I don't want to leave.

I will miss..

1) Using motorcycles for my main form of transportation

2) The verb "produce"

3) Shanique

4) African taxi drivers asking me questions with no logical basis. "Mzungu, are you going to Kasese?" "Nedda, ssebo, and I have not given you even the tiniest hint that I have any desire whatsoever to ever go to Kasese."

5) Buying fresh vegetables and fruits every day at the market

I'm ready for..

1) Seeing my friends and family

2) Good cheese that is not gouda (I'd also like to know why Africans only eat gouda)

3) Fast Internet

4) Not having to boil water for drinking.. ever again

5) Showers that have drains. Africa has not figured this out yet

I was baptized....attacked by a centurion....and nearly fell off a castle or two.....

So I have just realized that I have not written a blog in nearly over a month. I apologize, but it seems as though I am adjusting to what they call the “arab sense of time.” If you have never heard of this then I will try my best to explain it fairly. No doubt you have heard of the arabic word insha’allah. The word means “God willing,” and is a perfect example of the arab sense of timing. I have yet to go a day without hearing this word from a complete stranger or most often from taxi drivers. This word has come to mean for the most devout Muslim that nothing happens or will happen unless it is the will of God, which is a beautiful and poetical way to live. But for the average arab I dare say that the word has become an excuse to show up a little late or to “play solitaire on the computer versus working on a report” (unnamed source). Too often I have observed (emphasis on "I") that the use of this word does not correspond correctly with its historical or religious meaning but instead is used as a way of saying “I’ll get to it when I get to it.” So insha’allah, I am finally writing this blog.

Well besides learning the insights of the cultural phrases as mentioned above, I have been very busy the last four weeks with classes and with extracurricular activities. And in fact I am in the middle of preparing for my mid-term in arabic. It is strange to think that I am going to take this mid-term and then in three weeks I'll be preparing for the final. But the actual classes at the university continue through December and part of January, seeing as they don't have to worry about a Christmas break. But besides classes I have been able to see quite a lot of historical and touristic sites here in Jordan during the last four weeks. The CIEE program here in Jordan plans a total of six optional day trips during the semester. The day trips are all educational and are intended to cover various historical and cultural topics of the area. Each student is allowed to sign up for at least four of the six trips. I just finished my fourth day trip, and just in time for my weekends to be occupied with my internship and with academics. I was able to go on the following four trips: Biblical Jordan, Roman Jordan, Crusader Jordan and Western Desert & Ummayad Architecture.

Biblical Jordan:
 We visited Bethany beyond-the-Jordan (claimed baptismal pools of John the Baptist), Mount Nebo (place where Moses took his first and last look at the Promised Land), Mukawair (where John the Baptist lost his head due to some little girl’s dirty dancing) and Madaba (home to the one of the most detailed mosaic maps of the Holy Land).

Roman Jordan:
 Jordan is very unique in that it houses the majority of the decapolis (roman set of 10 cities used to protect trade routes). Firstly we traveled to just south of the Golan Heights and Lake Tiberias to Umm Qais. Then we traveled to Pella and then to Jerash. Jerash is one of the most excavated Roman cities in the Middle East. It is a relatively small city compared to surrounding cities, but the fact that its ruins are for the most part intact bring it regional fame. We were able to see a working hippodrome, market area, two ampi-theaters and a colonnade street.

Crusader Jordan:
 I am sure that many people have seen movies with impressive medieval castles defending off hordes of barbaric arab soldiers. Well these were probably filmed somewhere other than where they actually took place. Most of the crusader castles in the area, especially those in Jordan, were built on the top of steep hills and used the surrounding geography to make any large besiegement unsuccessful if not impossible. We visited two very large castles in the south of Jordan, Karak and Shobak. Both castles had numerous halls and passageways excavated and begging for any willing explorer with a flashlight to enter them. At Shobak we were able to catch the sun setting on the oldest church with any part of its roof still attached in the Middle East. The sunset made for quite the moment of reflection and contemplation as I sat on top of a castle wall with a 200 foot shear drop in front of me.

Ummayad Architecture:
 During the Islamic period various officials from Damascus had resorts built in modern Jordan’s western desert. These resorts were used for hunting, turkish baths, feasts and anything else an influential politician could want to do. Most of the castles are either falling apart or in the middle of being reconstructed by the Spanish government. But Castle Azraq (where Lawrence of Arabia stayed during a part of the Arab revolt of 1919), Castle Amra and Castle Kharaneh are all worth seeing if you could imagine yourself being fascinated by frescoes, traditional ummayad mosques and towering columns.

Well needless to say I almost have an excuse for not writing a blog in the past couple of weeks, because I have been very busy enjoying myself on these day trips. But it was either now or never for me to write this blog. Becaue in the next few weeks I'll be very busy at my internship. Starting this Saturday People in Need will be conducting training for Iraqi and non-Iraqi personnel in the methods of civic engagement and community building. I will hopefully be very busy with this. And when I'm not at these trainings or in class or working on papers, I'll be attending nightly showings of various films in coordination with the 19th European Film Festival. This is a 16 night showcase of some of the best European movies from the last year.

Well other than that I am just trying to savor my last four weeks in the country. I am trying to avoid doing homework and preferring to see the sights of Amman.

Chao (it's what all the locals say when they learn you're not arab...haha)
:: joshua

ps: here's an explaniation of the pictures....
* woman picking olives near the Syrian border
*Jordan's Antiquity Department's method of keeping locals out of the archaeological sites to collect usable stones for building their homes
*Moses' "cross" (it's really the christian cross with his serpant/staff wrapped around it)
*some corinthian columns at Jerash
*Shobak castle
*Bedouin child hanging out
*Castle Hamarah (one of the desert castles used by Islamic officials)
* and that's me to the left trying to decide which way to go.....we went left.......and then came back after seeing some castles down that way.

Venice x3 and a Soccer Game--Italian Style

Adrienne Hamm--CIEE Language and Culture, Ferrara, Italy

Venice x3

Between Venice and Ferrara lies a two-hour train ride.  I can't believe I live only two hours away from Venice with its beautiful canals and romantic atmosphere!  Given the close proximity, however, I made my first trek there only three weeks ago.  Then, two weekends ago, I went again, and this weekend, I went yet again!  Three weekends and three trips to Venice.  It sounds crazy and maybe a little over the top, but each journey held its own story, completely different from the other two:

Venice #1

Three weekends ago, two girls from the CIEE program (Kelly and Carly), our friend Beatrice (a native Ferraran) and I took a day-trip to Venice.  Neither Carly nor I had been yet, and though I was excited about our trip, I was slightly apprehensive about Venice--I'm always wary of tourist spots and I was expecting Venice to be another overrated tourist destination.  Venice, on the contrary, completely captured my heart that day.  The city is stunningly beautiful.

We spent most of the day getting lost, wandering the streets of Venice.  In fact, I highly recommend getting lost in Venice.  The streets wind and criss-cross and basically create a maze with beautiful nooks and crannies for the adventurers to discover.

  far left: getting lost; left: one of the nooks and crannies

Venice does have its downside, though:  The pigeons.  They fill Piazza San Marco (The main square of Venice).  They're unavoidable and audacious does not even begin describe them.  One must enter the square with extreme caution.  If the birds smell food on someone, they swarm and cover the person.  Some people enjoy having pigeons land on them (see the picture below).  I, on the other hand, do not, and I spent most of my time in San Marco avoiding the birds.  The pigeons, however, are a minor detail in the grand schemes of Venice and they certainly do not detract from the city's beauty.

The pigeons and those who love them.

Venice #2

After my first weekend, I didn't think I'd return to Venice anytime soon but I was proven wrong very quickly.  Another girl in our program, Kate, has some family friends who live in Mestre, a small city just outside of Venice.  They invited us to come stay with them for the weekend so Kate, Katie, Kelly, and I headed to Mestre/Venice for an absolutely wonderful time.  The Thompsons, though American, have lived in Italy for over twenty years and they welcomed us into their home like family.  We ate meals with them, watched movies with them, went to church with them, even made doughnuts with them!  With classes in full swing and half the semester gone, each of us felt in a rut and a little homesick but spending time with the Thompsons proved to be such a blessing.  We got just enough of a taste of home to revitalize our spirits and make us ready to conquer Italy once more.  While staying with them, we also visited the island of Morano in Venice.  Celebrated for its glass, the island contains streets filled with glass shops.  Some sell jewelry; some sell home decorations; some sell everything in between, but each is unique and the glass is absolutely beautiful!  In order to get to Morano, we had to take a Vaporetto.  It's basically a floating bus that rides through the canals.  It was quite the adventure and definitely a one-of-a-kind experience!

making doughnuts

Venice #3

I didn't plan my last visit to Venice.  In fact, it came as quite the surprise.  Some of my friends in the program had plans to travel to Paris this past weekend and were flying out of an airport in Venice on Thursday.  Around 4:10 in the afternoon I got a call from one of them.  She was in Mestre waiting on their connecting train when she realized that she had left her passport in her apartment!  Not the best item to forget if one is leaving the country!  Therefore, her roommate and I quickly got ready and headed to the train station.  By the time we got outside our apartment building it was 4:18, the next train to Venice left at 4:29, and it's a 10 minute walk to the train station.  So, we ran.  We got in line to buy tickets from the electronic ticket purchasing machine at 4:25 but the lady in front of us didn't understand how to use it and we didn't understand enough Italian to help her so we missed the train.  The next train didn't leave until 5:29 so we relaxed for an hour, bought our return tickets, and even put more money on our pre-paid cell phone.  We got to the Venice-Mestre train station at 6:50 and successfully handed over the passport!  Whew!  We had 30 minutes until our return train left and since we were hungry, we ordered McDonalds.  Unfortunately, we had misread the timetable and the train left 10 minutes earlier than we thought.  Oops!  We ran to our train and waved goodbye as it pulled away.  Well, we had another 40 minutes to kill, so we leisurely ate our cheeseburger Happy Meals outside the train station.  Eventually, we made it back to Ferrara, but only after 5 hours of travelling, thanks to our luck in catching trains.  As crazy as the afternoon turned out to be, it was a fun adventure and our friends caught their plane to wonderful Paris :)

An American Perspective on Italian Soccer

You may not know this, but Italians love their soccer with a passion unseen in the States.  Thanks to CIEE and their amazing staff in Ferrara, we CIEE students got to witness first hand the Italian love for soccer, but before I get into the details of the game, let me first explain how important soccer is here.  Soccer is super popular here. Everyone lives for soccer here (ok, slight exaggeration). On Sundays (game day) all the radio and TV stations play soccer games. That's it; nothing else is on. There are horror stories of fans beating each other up. Fans are separated by nets during the game. They have different parking lots with different entrances. It's insanely intense!!! A couple of weeks ago (in fact, the same weekend as my first excursion to Venice), CIEE somehow managed to get all of us tickets to a Milan AC-Roma soccer game in Milan.  Such tickets are not easy to come by.  These two teams are two of the best in the nation.  We rode with the Milan AC fan club of Ferrara and used the season tickets of members who weren't attending this particular game.  For transportation, two meals, and the ticket, we each only had to pay forty euro--what a steal!! 

I was slightly concerned, however. Ever since my trip to Rome earlier in the semester, I've been a Roma fan. Rome has two teams, Lazio and Roma. Lazio is the team of the elites. Roma is every man's team, the team of the people. And the teams hate each other. Well, of course, I want to pull for Roma so while in Rome I chose Roma as my team (I also like Inter, Milan AC's nemesis so that gave me another reason to pull for Roma). Maybe by now you've figured out my predicament. I'm a Roma fan on a bus full of Milan fans. what do I do??? Secretly pull for Roma. I really wanted to wear my Roma jersey but that didn't happen. It's ok though, I was wearing it in spirit. 

The bus ride there was pretty sweet. They gave away door prizes (I didn't win a thing).

The game was super awesome. The stadium in Milan is famous (at least in the soccer world, haha) and we had great seats. We were surrounded by Milan fans. They get mad really easily and have no problem obscenely gesturing to the Roma fans.

Honestly, though, the Roma fans were much cooler. They had chants and were totally into the game. The section we were in was pretty quiet. They only got riled up occasionally. I was hoping to learn some cheers from the Milan fans, but apparently that wasn't their style.

The game was action-packed. Many, many attempts to score were made, and most of them were really, really close. Most of the game remained scoreless but it wasn't boring at all. and the best part (drumroll, please)...ROMA WON! 1-0. It was great :-D

The bus ride back was pretty sweet too. They gave away more door prizes. I still didn't win anything.

Overall, I loved the whole soccer game experience.  It was sooo awesome getting to experience firsthand such an important aspect of Italian culture!

far left: milan in red, roma in white; left: angry fans

Toussaints Vacation!!

Hello all! France is still lovely. I'm sorry that I haven't written in a couple of weeks, but all is well here in L'Hexagone. Since October 24, I haven't done much in the way of traveling. I've mostly been just studying and exploring Nantes a little more. Last week was All Saints holiday for Les Français, and for some it is continuing into this week as well. Some of you may remember that Halloween has its origin in "All Hallows Eve," so in France the night of Halloween marks the beginning of each year's several-days-long celebration of all who were "Hallowed" or holy..saints! It is a Catholic tradition that not very many people recognize in the United States. Last week we didn't have classes at IES or the University of Nantes. Vacation!! My parents and my aunt came to see me last Tuesday. We rented a car and headed to a small town outside of Nantes called Le Pallet. There we stayed at a little chateau/vinyard called Le Chateau de la Sebiniere, where a very French man named Vincent took very good care of us. Really, it was just a two-story bed-and-breakfast in the country. It was just what I needed! Living in the city, which is something that I'm not really accustomed to for long periods of time, has a tendency to make me feel really "walled-in." I live in the IES center, on the 4th floor, and though that has its advantages as far a not needing to commute goes, I don't have much reason to leave the building. I do take four classes out of six outside of IES, but when I'm not at the Univeristy or the Ecole des Beaux Arts for my painting class, I'm in the IES building. By the end of the week, I really begin to crave open space. At Le Chateau de la Sebiniere, I was able to get my dose of fresh air...and there were dogs! Monsieur Obie (and the "Monsieur" was absolutely necessary, if I didn't call him by his proper name he would simply ignore me) and Ogre, yes the owners of la Sebiniere named one of their dogs after a very nasty fictional creature, were there to play with me. My parents, thank goodness, actually got some rest. We took little afternoon trips to Angers to visit some of my aunt's French friends and to Clisson to show Mom and Dad the castle and the Italian Garenne Lemot house. Unfortunately, because of the holiday, we weren't able to visit the castle or the famous tapestries in Angers. Hopefully I'll get back to see them before I leave.

On Saturday night, we drove back into Nantes to have dinner at La Cigale, the most celebrated restaurant in Nantes, with my host family. It was a little taxing to play translator for two and a half hours, but for the most part, parents seem to understand each other, even when they are from different countries, speaking different languages. I think that there is just something universal in the love that parents have for their children, and sometimes understanding that goes farther than words ever could. Let me explain. My parents explained how much they appreciated my host family for taking care of me, and of course I was trying to translate all that they were saying into French for my host family. Well, my host mother held up her hand, and, a little tearful, said (in French) "That's ok Jordan, I understand completely. You don't need to translate that. I understand." Humanity is truly a language of its own. I would have to say that dinner at the Cigale with both of my families is one of the neatest experiences that I've ever had.

My parents left on Sunday, and I'll admit that I was a little sad to see them leave. However, I guess I have grown a little since I've been here, and I am more comfortable with the idea of being on my own. Being physically separated from my family, my friends, my homeland has really taught me to appreciate more the comfort of being surrounded by them, but I know now that I can survive without them there all the time. I guess that one part of growing up, as cliché as all of this sounds, is about learning how to build one's own support networks when the ones that were there from the beginning aren't directly available. I only have six more weeks left anyway...If it were six years perhaps I'd be less sure of myself.

So, this week has been a little unusual. There is yet another strike going on here in Nantes, and it is directly affecting my life as a student in this city. The students associated with the Humanities departments at the University of Nantes have decided to take political action against another decision made by President Sarkozy (who was actually in the US this week visiting President Bush). Basically, Sarkozy is trying to decentralize education enough to allow individual universities to decide where funds will be directed and what classes/credits to offer. The problem, as I understand it, is that some universities are more funded than others, and some students, dissaproving of the idea that their tuition might be raised from 200 euros to perhaps 250 euros (or something like that), believe that education should be free alltogether. So, they have blocked all of the classrooms at the univeristy with piles of desks and chairs, and the president of the University of Nantes has canceled classes for the rest of this week in the Humanities departments (not for the Science/Math department...the students aren't striking there). If the students continue to strike, we may not have classes at all next week too. Thankfully though, the IES director has moved all of our exam locations to the IES building. Whew!

I hope everyone is doing great!
~Jordan Rawl

Impenetrable forests, crater lakes, and surviving the rainy season.. with new photos

So I've just come back from the Ruhija side of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest yesterday. This is a huge national park outside of the western Ugandan town of Kabale. The journey was a fairly treacherous one - we rode for close to 100 kilometers on a very bad marram (dirt) road winding around the mountains that surround and include Bwindi. There are no guardrails and our taxi driver left a lot to be desired in his driving. However, we luckily were able to avoid plunging the hundreds of feet into the valley below and got to the forest (relatively) unscathed. We also were able to pick up a little Ruchiga, the local language of the tribe most common in Kabale.

Once arriving at the park, we were taken on a nature walk. This took us through several of the different botanical zones of the forest - bamboo, fern, etc. - and then on another path to track several different types of monkeys. While on the first path (a very narrow, twisting, difficult hike), we learned that a herd of elephants had come across the nearby Congolese border into the forest. We were able to see their tracks in one section of the trail which were enormous. They are among the only savannah elephants in the world to take up residence in a forest - usually the elephants found in forests are forest elephants, more adapted to that sort of living and smaller. While tracking monkeys, we were able to see a group of about 30-50 black and white colobus monkeys. They were relatively unafraid of us and we were able to get quite close. Bwindi is also home to half the world's mountain gorilla population with more than 300 - the only other large group in the same forest but on the Rwandan side of the border. Tracking mountain gorillas is $500, however, and that was quite a lot to our small posse of mzungus.

We survived the return trip as well, possibly more shaken up than we were on the trip into the forest, and headed to Lake Bunyonyi. Lake Bunyonyi is the the deepest lake in Uganda and the second deepest in Africa, after Lake Tanganyika. It was absolutely beautiful and we made some new European friends.

The rainy season is getting increasingly bad. It rained for three days straight until yesterday without taking a break at all. It has been raining for at least 2 hours every day for the past several weeks. November is one of the wettest months of the year; many districts are expected to flood. These floods are a huge problem; Uganda has already had several districts in the North and Northeast, most notably Teso district, affected by floods this year to a great deal of American media attention. These floods destroy livelihoods, years' worth of work in agriculture and livestock, schools, sanitation systems, water sources, and inevitably cause huge outbreaks of malaria (due to the increased mosquito population), cholera, and other water-related diseases. The government is particularly concerned due to Queen Elizabeth II's upcoming visit for the Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) meeting.

I'm posting some pictures both from things I've done earlier and a few from this past weekend. The weekend coming up should yield some more excellent pictures, hopefully, so be on the lookout for those.

Me crossing the border into Kenya. The border is completely unprotected. The woman in the photo is one of the wives of my rural homestay father. Her name is Helen. She was great, despite her constant complaints of her "mzungus not knowing how to eat."

The Hotel Des Mille Collines in Kigali, Rwanda. The name of the hotel means "Hotel of a Thousand Hills." This is the film Hotel Rwanda was based on, although the film was actually produced in South Africa. Paul Rusesabagina, the former manager of the hotel portrayed by Don Cheadle in the movie, has become an active figure in African politics. Rusesabagina became known after the genocide for protecting, with very little help from Romeo Dallaire or other outside agencies, hundreds of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in this very high-end hotel during the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

A Rwandan ethnic identity card seen in a genocide memorial site outside of Kigali. Instituted by the Dutch, the government of President Habyaramina (in power prior to the genocide) made these highly important markers for Tutsis and Hutus. It's difficult to see in a picture of this size, but the dead owner of this ethnic identity card was a Tutsi. Current Rwandan president Paul Kagame (leader of the RPF forces that ended the genocide) has made these illegal.

Exploring a cave formed by one of the waterfalls at Sipi Falls in Eastern Uganda. The other guy in the picture is Chase, one of my best friends here. Chase is a senior at Emory University. Note the headlamp - in a country where power goes out constantly or, oftentimes, doesn't exist at all, your headlamp is never far away. Ugandans find headlamps, or "torches" as they call them, hysterically funny.

Sitting around on a mountaintop on Ugandan Independence Day. This gathering involved lots of singing of folk songs and drinking of millet beer by the locals, which is what you see here. The bucket is where the millet liquid is and the yellow container is filled with hot water which is used to dilute it. We also sang a few American songs for the locals at their request.. mainly consisting of Frank Sinatra.

My friend Janet and I at our impromptu Halloween party. We are eating live ants. They are widely sold during the rainy season (which we are now very much in) and are considered a delicacy. The ants are very large. They're crunchy and are sort of tangy They're sold by the hundreds wrapped in banana leaves along the roadside. My costume is the result of four of the program's guys (including myself) deciding to go for a Peter Pan theme. Chase (seen above) was Peter, Matt was Hook, Mike was Wendy, and I, of course, was Tink. Janet is the rapper Nelly.

The cutest little girl I've ever seen and I on a mountaintop village just outside of the jungle.. literally. As I mentioned earlier, we visited the Ruhija side of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. After some hiking, we visited a very rural and remote village, bought some crafts from a local market, and talked some with local children. This little girl spoke English unlike most of the locals (who only spoke Ruchiga) and immediately came up and grabbed my hand. I don't have any photos of the actual jungle itself right now (they're still on my camera) but I plan to upload some soon.

A young mother in Kigali, Rwanda. This is the way that all African women carry around small children. This is a very typical scene for East Africa in another way: in the background you can see an advertisement for the MTN cell phone network, the biggest taxpayer in Uganda and the owner of extremely visible advertising in the biggest cities down to the most remote villages.

Lake Bunyonyi. This lake is near Kabale in Western Uganda. It is a crater lake formed from volcanic activity in the area. The water is also free of schistosomiasis which seems to be fairly rare of a Ugandan body of water.

One of the single mothers served by the Single Parents Association of Uganda. I have mentioned this organization in earlier blogs and the last blog I posted included a picture of one of the children living in this woman's compound.