Home away from home

I have been to Addis so much in the last year that it is starting to feel like a second home.  

Know how to get from the airport to my bed?  Check

Know how much it should cost to take a cab?  Check

Know that I am getting ripped off by a cab even though I know where I am going?  Check

Sitting, pretending to listen to people but really not hearing a word they are saying?  Checkmate

I have been here so much and worked with the same people for so long, that it is comfortable coming back.  As comfortable as one can be without sit down toilets at work.  OK, sure, apparently squat toilets are more hygienic but I don't care.  I'm an American and I like to sit down when I pee.  Luckily, I got upgraded at the hotel I am staying at.  When I checked in they gave me the key to a room that was deadbolted when I tried to get in (was someone else staying there? Possible.  I don't think so though.  I think it just somehow magically bolted itself from the inside.).  Since no one could get in, they gave me the room next door.  Which is basically a suite.  It is legitimately the size of the apartment I lived in for four years during my PhD.  Jacuzzi tub and a sit-down toilet.  I mean all the toilets are sit-down in the hotel, but not every tub is a jacuzzi tub.  Upgrade!!  So I am quite comfortable this time.

Something that throws me off though is that I am getting used to not understanding a word that anyone says, since everyone speaks in Amharic.  And since I don't understand a word that anyone else says, I forget that they can still understand what I say.  At least some of it.  So yesterday when we were in the cab (with a lovely driver who was not ripping us off), and I was complaining about something (hopefully nothing to do with Ethiopia), it surprised me when the driver started talking to us in perfect English.  Turns out he has two degrees from Addis Ababa university.  And it threw me off, because I have to admit that one of the things I have grown used to with travel is the language bubble.  So much of the time, you can say whatever you want, because no one will understand a word that you say; its like walking around in a little impermeable bubble.  If you are in a bad mood and want to complain about the fact that the person next to you really needs to take a shower, you probably can.  If someone is wearing a cropped t-shirt when they should be not wearing a cropped t-shirt, you can probably note it.  If the waiter is really cute, you can probably point it out.  Buuuuut, then something will remind me that maybe you better not do that.  Because maybe the taxi driver understands you, and maybe the man who needs to shower understands you, and maybe the crop top understands you, and almost certainly, the waiter will understand you.  So probably, its better to remember that the bubble is more like a screen door.  Some stuff gets in, some stuff gets out, and if you aren't careful it will hit you in the ass.

Good thing I wasn't saying that the cab driver was cute (although he was) or that he drove like a maniac (which he did).  

New blog name

I decided it was time to change the name of the blog.  The stories of the Littlest Linnea had a time and a place, but since lately my postings are more about my personal reflections on the world at large and less about specific adventures, it seemed like I needed a change.  Worry not, the blog won't change much.  I won't post more than a couple of times a year, the postings will largely be the ravings of an overly educated professional traveler, and my pictures will still mostly be of buildings with the occasional circumspect people shot.  And probably I will change the name again soon because I didn't really think too hard about this one.

I chose it for a couple reasons.  One, I wrote my dissertation on indirect demographic estimation techniques.  Don't worry if that doesn't mean anything to you.  Its just the idea of trying to estimate something without having all the information that you would really like.  Sort of a general metaphor for what I do, what we all do, really.  It would be great to have all the facts all the time, but since we don't, we do the best with what we can.  And of course transit, because it seems like I am traveling as much as I am home.  Always in transit, somewhere.  And since there are very rarely direct flights from point A to point B, in travel or in life, it seemed like a fitting name.  And so, for the next hour or day or year or however long it is until I change the name again, Indirect Transit it will be.

And I might even update this soon because I am probably going to Ethiopia in a couple weeks.  And on the way back I am going to try to swing by Istanbul.  So hopefully I can update with some new photos and adventures from a whole new part of the world! 

Nigeria

So some of you may know this and others don't, but I just got back from Nigeria.  I contemplated posting something while I was there, because when I am traveling that is usually the only time that I post things, but decided against it.  The reason being that if you didn't already know, you would have no reason to worry.  And if you did already know, I was emailing my mom to let her know that I was fine.

Why would you worry, you might ask?  Well, if you read the news or watch the news or just have general access to the media, you might have heard of ebola.  Which is running rampant in West Africa right now.  I mean according to the media, ebola is practically already here.  Outside your door.  Just waiting for you to open your door and walk right into a big cloud of ebola...

But here is the thing, its actually pretty hard to get ebola.  People are most contagious right before and right after they die.  So unless you are taking care of someone on the brink of death from hemorrhagic fever, or are taking care of someone right after, you aren't likely to get it.  Doesn't mean its impossible, of course, but its not airborne, you can't get it from mosquitos, and since I don't meat, I can't get it from undercooked meat.  And since I went with public health instead of direct patient care, I am also not getting it from actually helping people.  Gross.  Helping people...

Ebola is real and its an epidemic and the infrastructure of West Africa is not suitable to deal with it. Social customs and financial constraints are absolutely leading to a public health emergency (things like this certainly don't help ((https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/166257-ebola-sparks-panic-across-nigeria-as-citizens-scramble-for-salt-water-bath-remedy.html#sthash.Y1En3Jko.dpbs)).  But its important that it not be blown out of proportion so that fear mongering takes over.  There are congress people advocating for closing the borders to foreigners from West Africa (here is a tip to those semi-racist congress people... American residents who travel to West Africa can also carry the virus.  Letting them back in when you are excluding everyone else isn't really going to solve the problem).  Screening everyone, no matter their country of residence is probably a better way to go.  Isolating people suspected of having the disease is critical.  But the random dude next to you at the supermarket who coughs, probably doesn't have it.  Remain calm.

There can and should be more done to control the epidemic.  Most countries (and I dare say the US is one of them) is ill-equipped to handle the kind of emergency being faced by Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Guinea today.  Being educated, being compassionate, and being rational helps though.  Educating the public instead of frightening them might also help.  At the risk of sounding a little farther to the right than I am comfortable with, there is something to be said for being frustrated with the "lame stream" media (God.  I said it.  I hate myself a little bit).  Sensationalism doesn't help people.  Facts and objective reporting might.  Since it seemed rather unlikely that that philosophy would suddenly infiltrate the media while I was gone, I figured I would let you all know that I am safe and sound and healthy when I got back.  And not have you worry overmuch while I was gone.

And because no soap box speech is complete without some pictures, here are some pictures I took of my time in Nigeria.  Please note, there are no bodies or hazmat suits anywhere.  Just some pictures of my very talented Nigerian co-workers.  And some family planning advertisements we saw.  Yay!!!

Venice at night

As you may or may not know, I am perilously close to finishing my doctorate.  Perilously because, as excited as I am to finish, it means that I am about to close one chapter in my life and face the whole rest of the unwritten novel.  Which is daunting.  But its also worthy of celebration.  And because I have the single greatest best friend in the whole world, she decided to get married just when I was finishing and to do it in style in Italy.  Was that really for me?  No, not at all, but still... great friend.  So here I am.  Celebrating two wondrous events with a two week vacation through Italy. And because my mother likes adventure and "wants to see Venice before [she] turns 66", she is adventuring with me.  But today it was just me.

I have to admit I was a little lame today.  I flew into Milan and then hopped a shuttle bus and a train to get to Venice.  While I am glad that I came first to Venice, I was too tired to try to take pictures of anything and when I got here, I crashed.  I am so envious of people that can survive on four hours of sleep.  That is not me.  I need eight.  Or at least six.  And when you are flying, even when you luck out and score the only seat on the plane without a neighbor and "sprawl" out on the luxuriousness of two seats, garnering mad-dog envy stares from everyone else around you, well, newflash, you still dont sleep that well. So when I got into Venice, I just crashed.  I mean, I took the public boat through the grand canal and wandered the streets for a while trying to find my hotel, but THEN I crashed.  I woke up in time to wander the streets at nightfall though and here are some of the photos I took.

Venice is a different city at night.  During the day, there are people EVERYWHERE.  Although as the waiter at the restaurant I ate tonight said, its nothing compared to high season.  I shudder.  But at night, its quiet.  The streets are empty, even the piazzas.  And its beautiful.  Venice is beautiful in the day too, at least from what I could see on the public taxi sitting next to the Spanish couple that argued for twenty minutes with the ticket collector about whether or not they should have to pay a fine for not purchasing the correct ticket (at least I think that is what they were arguing about since the ticket collector was arguing in Italian and the Spanish couple in Spanish and I was just trying to stare uncomfortably anywhere else because I was stuck right in the middle).  But what I could see was lovely.  It truly is a marvel of engineering.  You dont even realize that you are literally walking on water until all of a sudden the street you are on dead-ends into an alley of water.

Anyway, once I woke up, I took some pictures of Venice at night and here they are.  For those of you who might come in the future, follow Rick Steve's advice and take a break during part of one day, take a rest, and wander at night.  Totally worth it.  Plus you get to sleep.  Aces...

In case you wonder what I do

Here is a little taste.  The first is an article that I helped write that was recently published.  The idea is to quantify how much gains could be achieved in life expectancy if maternal mortality, one of the most preventable forms of mortality, could be achieved.  The second one I had absolutely nothing to do with but it very much speaks to why I have chosen to go into a field that studies and advocates for family planning and reproductive health.  For so many reasons, family planning is one of the most important keys to improving health, development, wealth, education, and other opportunities for women and men all over the world.  We are so lucky that women in our country have the ability to control when and if they want to have children and the freedom to take advantage of that (although there are so many, many people who would limit that right).  The ability to control the number and timing of children can allow women to receive more education, participate in the labor force, regain health between pregnancies, and limit their risk for maternal mortality (bringing these two articles together).  Even when I am worn down from work and dissertation, articles like the second one remind me how important it is that women be allowed to choose their reproductive destiny for themselves.

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0086694

http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21598646-hopes-africas-dramatic-population-bulge-may-create-prosperity-seem-have

Taking photos when traveling

As you may have noticed, most of my pictures do not have people in them.  I would much prefer to take and look at pictures with people because people are endlessly fascinating.  But having been lucky enough to travel to so many places and having been lucky enough to be raised in an extremely picturesque place myself, I have now come to realize how strange it is taking pictures of other people when they are just going about their daily lives.  Taking pictures of them makes me feel like I am treating their real lives the same way I would treat animals on a safari.  Now that doesn't hold for festivals or public events, when the whole event is sort of one big picture taking opportunity.  But when it is just people going about their lives, I usually hesitate to shove a camera in their face.  Doesn't mean I won't subtly try to take a picture of something that brings a smile to my face, but I try not to be too much the ugly American about it.

So here is a picture I tried to subtly take by turning my head in the complete opposite direction and pretend I wasn't taking any pictures at all.  I just loved the color that this man was painting his house.  I think we need more over the top, cheerfully painted houses in the states.  Who could stay in a bad mood if they passed a house painted the color of a sunflower?



Oh and not to have a spoiler alert or anything, but tomorrow is a big festival in Ethiopia and I am really hoping to get a few pictures of the festivities.  Not everything needs to be ruined by my constant fear of cultural imperialism.  Some things can just be appreciated, even by me.

Back in Ethiopia

This 365 day challenge is, well... it's challenging!  At first, I thought it would be fun to take a picture every day but after a few days, it started to get harder.  I started to think that maybe people aren't really all that interested in seeing a picture of my life every day and its a little self-aggrandizing to think that they are.  But then I remembered, that if they don't want to see it, they don't have to and for the most part I am trying to put pictures of beautiful things that make me happy.  So how can that hurt anyone?

What I am realizing is that this a great challenge to help with creativity and with seeing the beauty in the world.  When I was in Belize, where it is gorgeous and picturesque every day it isn't too hard; turn around and there is a photo opportunity.  But today (and yesterday) I flew from Baltimore to Ethiopia.  And when you are on a 13.5 hour flight and spend four hours in the airport on top of that, there aren't that many opportunities to take a picture.  So it starts to make those creative muscles work, trying to think of something that you can take a picture of that isn't a selfie or a picture of food (both of which I am guilty of).  Some days it is a bit of a loss, like today.  I took a picture but it was just from my hotel room at sunset because I had slept for most of the day, completely ruining any chance I had of not having jet lag, and wasn't feeling up to wandering around the neighborhood trying to circumspectly take a photo of someone's food stand or something.  But other days, instead of seeing something beautiful and thinking "oh, that's nice, I wish other people could see that" and going along on my way, I stop and I take a picture and I share it.  Or, instead of focusing on all the ugly things there are in the world, I have to force myself to see the beauty in things.  Or to focus on the things that make me happy so that I can capture those and share them.

Maybe it is self-aggrandizing and maybe no one in the whole huge internet universe really cares about another sunset I saw.  But the fact that I made myself get out of bed so I could capture the gorgeous colors in the Addis sunset and appreciate the fact that there is beauty everywhere, even if I am too grouchy and jet lagged to want to see it,

made the challenge worth it today.

I might just turn this into a photo blog

There are million photo sharing sites out there but I just can't seem to figure them out.  Other than instagram, I just get confused.  So while I can't promise to update this any more often than I have in the past, I was thinking if I just try to add a few more photos from time to time, it might make it easier on me.  Anyway a picture is worth a thousand words right?

If that were true, I could just turn in 20 pictures and my dissertation would be done...

Anyway, here are a few of my favorite pictures from my Belize trip so far...

Temple 1 through the trees in Tikal, Guatemala.  Tikal is a world heritage site that has a huge array of Mayan ruins that span hundreds, maybe thousands of years of Mayan history.  If anyone is in Belize or Guatemala, its a must.

The view from the top of Temple 4.  Getting Dad to smile is always a challenge but he almost made it here.

This is the view from the Singing Sands Inn in Placencia.  Its not the most perfect panorama but you get the idea.  It was a beautiful sunset with Dad and I sitting on the dock watching the world go by.

The sunset on Caye Caulker.  We walked past a dock full of people just watching the sunset.  The golden sunset was too much to pass up.

If that code works, this should be an instagram picture of the horizon as I waited for the scuba boat to pick me up this morning.  Its obviously a little blacker than it should be since I was taking the picture into the sun, but it really isnt too off color.  There was a big storm front coming in and it made the whole horizon this beautiful, monocramatic color.  Not the best for scuba (it was canceled, it turns out) but still beautiful.

Mom and Dad and I went for a walk yesterday and watched the storm front roll in in the afternoon.  I loved the sun on the hut with the front rolling in behind.  We barely made it back for the rain came, but it was worth it!

Also, I just realized I have a predilection for shots of the horizon.  I will mix it up more in the future!

I posted a picture on instagram today, where most of my pictures will be, but Caye Caulker nicely gave me a few photo ops today so here is another one or two.

And just because photo manipulation is fun...

14 in 2014

I don't really do resolutions.  They always just seem like an opportunity to set yourself up for disappointment.  "Hey, here is a thing that I feel bad about.  I am going to fix said thing about myself.  Surely, when I inevitably succeed at this, I will feel so much better about myself..."  Except that it never happens and I just end up feeling bad about not only whatever I resolved to change but also about how I failed to change.  So, instead of doing that, in 2012 I came up with 12 new things I wanted to do before 2012 ended (and by extension before the world ended.  I guess the Mayans got that one wrong).   There aren't really any rules other than they are things I want to do and things I haven't done before.  I didn't make the whole list that year although I did get a couple big ones checked off, but I am going to resurrect the list this year.  It's not really a big deal if I finish them all or not, but just having the list makes me try new things

So, the 14 things that I want to do in 2014 are...

1. Finish my dissertation (This is non-negotiable and completely boring)

2. Scuba dive (doing this tomorrow with my Mom.  Checking one off right away)

3. Bike trip in Italy.

4. Take a picture every day.  (This is probably the closest thing to a new year's resolution.  Most of the time it will be on Instagram and certainly I wont be able to post every day when I am traveling but I will catch up if I miss a day.)  Here is #1 off the coast of Caye Caulker in Belize.

5. Go rock climbing

6. Go to a concert at the Bowery Ballroom

7. Take a cooking class

8. Try reiki

9. Go to the American Visionary Art Museum

10.  Go to a college or professional football game (I can't believe I STILL haven't done this.  That's what I get for going to small private schools)

11. Muddy buddy.

12. Go to Paris (This will either be immediately before or after #3)

13. Go to Club 342

14. Korean Karaoke

Many of these wont mean anything to people not in Baltimore.  But thats ok.The idea is just to try new things or finally do those things that I keep saying I am going to do and never getting around to.  It doesn't really matter how big or small or silly they are, as long as its something that I can look forward to and something that will give me a new experience.

Cheers to 2014!  A year for adventure!