Happy New Year
I started writing this on December 31st the last
day of 2013. I've been spending the last week or so in India visiting with my
family in India. Earlier posts to this blog talk about my trip to India in 2011
and staying in Delhi. More on India later…
First phase of my work in Tanzania finished around Dec
20. We imaged over 4500 computers and thousands of communication devices and
servers. The next part was training 24 ICT (Information and Communication
Technology) people on the equipment that included how to install, test, and
troubleshoot.
The training took place in the same warehouse we did the
imaging. The only difference was it got hotter. One day I recorded 99 degrees,
with 50% humidity, that comes out to about a 118 degree heat index working from 9am-5pm,
it was brutal. That night I sat in my air conditioned room for 2 hours before I
stopped sweating. The next day I moved the classroom part of the instruction to
an air conditioned boardroom and had the lab in the warehouse.
I will be back in early 2013 to start my next phase which
includes going into the field with the 24 trained people to support and check
on the installations. Hopefully no more warehouse work!
2012
2012 was a good travel year. In February I left for
Panama where I embarked on Operation Reckless Cobra. Turning 50 this year I
decided to do something stupid, reckless, and immature. So I went to a small
island 90 miles south of Florida to see the sights, listen to awesome music, drink a
bunch of Rum, and have a cigar, and travel around in 1950’s cars, it was a
great experience. I returned back to Panama where one of my friends who worked
at Inveneo asked me to come to Haiti to help on a project, Inveneo manages the rural internet backbone and installed computers in remote schools,
of course I said sure. At the time I did not realize this project would launch
me back into a role in network and computer engineering and send my back to
Africa. You can read more about Haiti in my past blogs.
I spent three months in Haiti and got back in July, just in
time for fireworks and the start of 75 days of sun and no rain. On my return I
was asked by Inveneo if I would like to go to Tanzania for a few months to work
on another project, once again I said yes. It took a few months, but now I’m in
Tanzania.
On a down note, 2012 was the final year of my marriage to Yvette. Yvette has recently moved to Beijing China for a job with Microsoft and I wish her great success. On Jan 7, 2013 the house will close, which will make me homeless, but in a good way. Not sure
where I will be moving when I return to the U.S. after this project.
Christmas and New Year in India
During the holidays no one was working on the Tanzania project so instead of going to the US, I decided to head back to India. and stay with my
Indian family, Mama, Papa, Hanumant and Divya (and their kids). It was a great
time. The first weekend was Mama and Papa’s 50th wedding anniversary
party. A party of over 100+ people, great time, great people and Indian food. I
was able to catch up with many I had not seen since my visit to India in 2011.
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| Mama and Papa at the party, 50 years |
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| Divya and Ken |
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After the party it was off in the car to Rajasthan India in
a Chevrolet Tavera, three in the front, three in the middle and 2 in the bag
with a bunch of luggage strapped to the roof. First stop was Alwar, it was only
160km away, but took about 5 hours, we were using Bing maps because I had an
unlocked windows phone, what a crazy drive on some really interesting roads,
but we got to see parts of India no tourist (or most Indians) ever see. When
we got to the hotel the road in front was under construction, we had to
drive over a large sinking dirt pile to get into the hotel, but we made it.
The next morning, Christmas morning, it was off to Sariska
Tiger Reseve. We all jumped into a cantor, no relation to Eric. This is a large
open vehicle with high clearance and 4 wheel drive. The road is really rough,
dirt and filled with pot holes. There are also small low clearance Suzuki’s
going on the same road. Our driver was a maniac and drove fast honking and
passing all these vehicles and kicking up some major dirt. I thought how are we
ever going to see animals, when we asked the driver to stop he seemed to drive
faster. Then I learned you drive to the temple in the middle of the park, take
a break and go see the animals on the way back. Wish I knew that before we left.
We spent an hour at the temple, and another 30 minutes trying to find our truck
in the mayhem. We were then off on our way. The cantor can hold 20 people so we
were with two other families. One of the fathers was fascinated with my
sunglasses and asked to borrow them so he could have a picture with my
sunglasses, he was now my new best friend.
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| Riding in the Cantor, my new best friend is in the white |
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| The sunset over the lake in the reserve |
We than took advantage of the off road part of the cantor
and headed into the reserve. Sadly, we did not get to see any tigers, but we
did see prints in the road of some of the big cats. Guess a 20 person big diesel truck with loud people is not what the animals want to come out to see. I
thought about strapping one of the kids on the side as tiger bait, but heard a
few objections so I abandoned my efforts.
Christmas
In India you don't see a lot of signs of Christmas, few
lights, decorations, and NO Christmas commercials and sales. But at the hotel
we were staying they decided to take it up a notch by putting up a xmas tree
and having Santa visit. As you can see in the picture, Santa is not a big jolly
man here, but a very thin Indian man wearing a suit and a face mask that you
would expect to see in the Walking Dead. If I was scared of Santa, I’m sure
these kids will be naughty the rest of the year so he will not come back to
visit. So Santa gives out these clicker toys, kind of like the ones you use to
train dogs. So we’re eating dinner and all you can hear is click, click, click.
I was ready to go have a word with Santa and take away his toys. But at the
end, I just gave my clicker to one of the kids and told them to go crazy with
it on their car ride home, Merry Christmas.
The next morning we headed out to the beautiful Pink city of
Jaipur. This along with Delhi and Agra (home of the Taj) make up the “golden
triangle”. Don’t worry this is not the opium golden triangle, but the India
tourist golden triangle.
Jaipur is home of the King of Rajasthan and has some of the
most amazing palaces and forts in the world. They built these forts to protect
the royal family and the King. Good news is they did not need them much since
they partnered rather than fought over the years and things were mostly peaceful.
The next day was off to the City Palace http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Palace,_Jaipur.
This is where the current King lives and we could tell by the flags he was in
the palace. I wanted to ask for an audience, but I’m sure I would have gotten
the response of “Ken who?”, so I decided just to be a tourist. We then went up
the winding road to see the largest cannon in India, it was at a fort called
Jaigarth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaigarh_Fort.
Jaigarth sits high on the mountains with a great view of the area and we were
shown around by one of the royal guides. Since it was close to sunset so the
views were outstanding.
The next morning we went to Amer Fort http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amer_Fort,
this is the biggie and is shared by a secret passage with the much higher
Jaigarth Fort. So if the King was over run he and the family could escape to
the higher and more secure Jaigarth Fort.
Jaipur is great city with its history, palaces, and forts.
It also has camels and elephants that roam the streets. The camels are used to
transport goods and services between companies. The elephants are mostly used
around Amer to shuttle people to the fort entrance, but they make some big
messes on the road. There are monkeys all over too.
By the end of the day we were Palace and Fort exhausted, so
time to head back to Delhi. Everyone told us that this would be a 3 hour drive,
cool back by 5pm for some Kingfisher. We got home closer to 8:30 that night
after a demanding drive that included several diversions and I shouting match
with some local Rajasthan police officers.
So maybe it’s time to better explain myself about the
Rajasthan police, since I got to meet them on 6 different times in a 48 hour
period. Let me give you some background first. We are driving around in a Chevy
Tavera, a truck that is used a lot as a taxi. The Tavera belongs to one of
Hanumant’s friends, he uses it for his business and he loaned it to us for the trip,
thank you Tarun! Then you have Hanumant driving, Ken is the navigator (that is
a story all by itself) and Hanumant’s son Kedar sitting between us. Since it is
a bench seat there is only one seat belt for Kedar and me, so we are sharing.
The first time we get pulled over is in the city of Jaipur
because I’m not wearing my seat belt, I was. I happened to have the chest strap
under my outside arm because of my navigating and Kedar had been pulling on it,
but the lap belt was always on, Hanumant 1, cops 0. A few minutes later we get
pulled over for running a red light. This was harder to get out of, but
technically it was not red. So after a somewhat heated exchange and threats to take
away the car we used the ole excuse “the kids are sick and need to poop”, we
were again on our way. Hanumant 2, Cops 0. Were stopped a few more times for
seat belts and such but never got a ticket. On the way to Amer Fort we once
again get pulled over, this time the cop thought Hanumant was a taxi (Delhi
license plates, Indian driver and 2 white guys in the front seat, luggage on
the roof), when Hanumant shows him a Washington State driver’s license, the cop
was embarrassed and turned to going through our paperwork with a fine tooth
comb, nothing, Hanumant 5, Cops 0. Finally, on our way back to Delhi, three
guys on a motor bike were being asses. We honked, which everyone does in India,
they slammed on the brakes, we almost hit them and had some choice words about their
behavior. They continued to be a pain and we had to go around them somewhat
aggressively, the cops pulled us over, WTF, guess they did not see the moto’s
actions. With the moto behind us we immediately and loudly in both English(me)
and Hindi(Hanumant) begin to yell at the cops telling them it was them not us.
In the meantime the moto gets away and the cop not wanting to deal with the two
of us yelling at him sends us our ways. Hanumant 6, Cops 0.
We spent the rest of the holiday in India visiting with
friends, shopping, cooking/eating (I learned to cook a killer mutton on the BBQ for
new years) and just hanging around. Oh, maybe a few kingfishers too.
I once again found my most favorite Ice Cream in the world,
Mother Dairy Chocolate. I tasted it for the first time in early 2011 in my first
visit to India and immediately fell in love with this ice cream. What is great
about traveling is you get to find these really cool things and great tastes
you can’t get in the US. It makes the tough times of traveling so much more enjoyable,
thank you Mother Dairy.
Ken’s commentary:
While I was in Delhi there was a
story of a 23-year-old female student that was brutally gang raped and left for
dead, she lived, I’m sure in a great deal of pain, for several days. If she
would have died, I’m guessing it would have been a 3rd page story
and nothing would have changed. But she lived and the brutality of what these 6
men did to her is beyond what I though any human is capable and the story got
out to the people. This started a large protest in the city of Delhi and across
all of India. I’m sure many of you have heard about this story. It, rightly so,
shut down major portions of Delhi. She died several days later after being
flown to Singapore for treatment. I truly hope her life and suffering do not go
to waste and that we see some changes in India, tougher rape laws, and
around the world on the treatment of women, it’s needed.
Its’ now Jan 4, I’m back in Dar es Salaam, sitting at the
local food and beer hangout having a beer and kebab. I learned last night they
want me to go to Uganda on Monday morning to work on a different Inveneo
project, I’m really excited. Since my project in Tanzania is once again in
delay it made no sense to fly back to the US. So I leave for Kampala on Monday,
will be there a few days, then up to Gulu, in the north by Sudan to work on
this project, project should be a few weeks. I hope the delays are over when I get back.
Next report will be from Uganda...
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