Hail from the S(W) most point in Africa!

For my last day, Michelle and I decided to check out the scenery. Thanks to Raymond and his family, we were able to get a driver for the afternoon to take us down to Cape Point. Sidenote: I had no idea just how much Raymond and his team had done for us; his entire business and extended family have been critical in making the SOTA run smoothly, not to mention the loads of side trips taken by USG, the TA providers, and the grantees.

We headed off down the coast toward Cape Point, which had been advertised to us as the southern most tip of Africa. Turns out, it’s the southwestern most tip. We drove along the water on our way down the coast, passing by beaches and homes that represented a lifestyle I cannot begin to fathom. For those views, I would settle in a thatched hut. (See last photo).

We stopped over in Simonstown, the naval port of South Africa. I saw a few sailors out and about and thought of navy bases back in the states. Not quite the same. We had a delicious lunch by the water, with more of the succulent calamari. It literally melts in my mouth and has a pleasant flavor, in comparison to the rubbery kind from home.

From Simonstown, we ventured to the penguin sanctuary, where the jackass penguins (named for their donkey-like sounds) were lounging on the beach. It was unquestionably the closest i have ever been to a penguin in it’s natural habitat.

Speaking of natural habitats- on our drive to cape point, we passed by a sign that read “Beware. Do not feed the babboons. They are dangerous animals.” I figured this to be akin to a “deer crossing” sign and figured I probably wouldn’t actually see babboons. Turns out, they weren’t kidding. We rounded the corner to discover an entire family/pack of babboons holding up traffic in search of food. One had climbed on top of a car belonging to some unsuspecting tourists who had climbed out to take pictures and was basically holding the car hostage. We pulled over and got out for photos, too. It was wild- they were literally running around at my feet. Our driver grew nervous and asked us to carefully return to the van (by carefully, he meant sans babboons.)

At the risk of sounding longwinded (hah) I’ll cut right to cape point. Holy moly, batman. Words don’t describe. I faced my fear of heights (again) and took the longer route from the lighthouse to the very tip of Cape Point (the sign on this route warns: dangerous route 1.5 hours. I would amend it to say 15 minutes and not good for small children or people in wheelchairs.) totally worth it.

I’m now at the airport waiting for my flight and enjoying one last glass of wine. Right about now, my roommates are finishing the pan mass and are boarding a ferry back to Boston. I cannot wait to see them at the airport tomorrow afternoon and hear all about the ride.

At the South(west)ern Most Point in Africa

Cape Point - Cape of Good Hope

Babboons Holding up Traffic!

This babboon literally crossed my feet

Storytown

Second to last day in Cape Town, so in our attempt to see the city’s more social and political landmarks, we ventured to the District 6 museum this morning. In short, the museum captures the effect of apartheid on “ordinary people” as the museum guide suggests. The museum is literally filled with personal stories and photos, which has a different effect on each person who comes thru; e.g. There were sections of the museum dedicated to different neighborhoods and streets, and former residents had an opportunity to embellish those parts of the exhibit. There was a clear sense of spatial ownership for those who lived there, much like driving past an old favorite home and feeling the rush of memories.

For those of us tourists who didn’t have the spatial nostalgia, the museum is a powerful, personal insight into a trying time in south African history. What is yet unclear to Michelle and me, as we later noted, is how the city is approaching reintegration. The process is apparently underway, but is not very successful yet. A talk with the manager of the museum’s cafe shed some insight on potential reasons, which turned into a fascinating social commentary/diatribe. Have I mentioned that I have loved listening to everyone’s stories this week?

The afternoon was spent bargaining at the green market. I am admittedly awful at it. I am able to negotiate down a bit on prices, but I get to a point when I realize that it’s probably 6 dollars for me, but these sales are a primary source of income for the women. I have a weird guilt complex in the bartering process.

A light tapas dinner of vegetables, cheese, and fish and a glass of wine were welcome after a long day of walking. I joined Philip and David for their dinner after, though just nibbled on some calamari myself and was treated to another fascinating international development storyfest. I’m getting spoiled.

Tomorrow I check out, then Michelle and I head for cape point for one last adventure before I depart.

Robben Island

The SOTA ended today. I think we all were anxious to see some real sunlight after being cooped up in paneled conference rooms lit by dim chandeliers reflecting off of smudgy mirrors on the ceilings. This week, we saw the great outdoors only when we were waiting for Raymond or cabs to drive us to and from restaurants. Thank goodness we took that walk on Sunday, less I would not have seen the sun in a week.

I jumped at the chance to go on a bouquet mission this morning to the flower market around the corner. Though it was pouring out, Michele and I borrowed umbrellas from the hotel and headed for the markets. I spent the rest of the morning making 140 flash drives for our grantees, then taking 200 photos of grantees receiving certificates, using my phone bc my camera battery died, unbeknownst to me. I definitely do not think like a photographer yet. I check my laptop battery and my phone, but having used disposable cameras on the rare occasions when I wanted to take pictures, charging camera batteries isn’t a priority yet.

Because we weren’t involved in the logistics, Michele and I were basically done early, so we ducked out to go to robben island. On the boat, we ran into a number of other grantees who were also escaping the claustropobic feeling at the hotel. It felt so good to be on open water again. The tour at the island was quite powerful. Lead by one of the former prisoners, who let me record his stories ( so different from us museums), the tour was pretty impressive. I thought we were a bit shuffled around in large groups more than I would prefer, but it’s something I’ll never forget.

We walked around the stores at the waterfront on the hunt for FIFA jerseys, and even ventured into a woolworths (in capetown, it has a supermarket much like whole foods- eg i enjoyed a turkish rose flavored yogurt for a snack). Though we toyed with staying on the waterfront, we returned to the hotel area for dinner. A few of us ventured into malaysian muslim part of town for cape malay food. Still on my veggie kick, I had a delightful lentil kalai curry. Being veggie in capetown has some perqs- dinner worked out to about R80 ($10).

All in all, a pretty great day. Looking forward to more outside time tomorrow and Sunday before another 24 hour trip home.

On a random note, my roommates in Boston start the PMC this weekend. Join me in thinking good thoughts for them!

ImpaCt (with a capital C)

It seems that my Tuesday night blog didn’t publish, which, in retrospect, is probably for the best. For the sake of your stomach and mine, I’ll just say that I had an unfortunate encounter with some local cuisine, which gave me a unique opportunity to take a field trip to a South African health clinic. For the most part, I was really impressed, but I will note that the nurses’ nervousness about my lack of usable veins did lead them to come up with very loose interpretations of “vein”. 36 hours later, I am back to normal, save for the fact that I newly am a pescatarian (no more red meat or birds – at least until I can have my memory modified.)

Tuesday night, the technical providers went out for a wine tasting. I wasn’t drinking or eating yet, so I was enjoying only the scent and color part of the tasting. Admittedly, I was concerned for a bit that I had lost my palatte (everything smelled like dirty socks to me), but my dining mates determined that the wine selection was sub-par. We more than made up for it Wednesday night; we enjoyed a delightful tasting menu at Jardem, home to the 2008 best chef in South Africa. Eager for real food, I embraced my new eating pattern with a first course of mussels, steamed in a paper bag with lemongrass, coconut milk, and ginger. Second course was a potato gnocchi with greens. I finished with a delectable cheese plate, which made me think of wine and cheese dates from my new york days with my friend, Meghan. I find that there are so many parts of south Africa that I want to share and enjoy with friends from the US.

There has been much more to this trip than eating/drinking or not. I have completed 7 of 8 interviews/trainings. It has been such a learning experience for me (probably more so for me than for our grantees). I have positioned myself as a communications resource for them, and I hope in the two years remaining in this project that I have an opportunity to see some of these projects on the ground. I will return to the states on Sunday, eager to learn more about communications strategy for development, particularly demonstrating impact (not just outreach).

On that note, I had a delightful breakfast with a norweigian woman named Ingunn (she recognized my inner swede immediately!), who is working in vietnam right now. We were joined by another grantee, who is from Mexico, and one of our TWG reps (a fellow foodie, and the mastermind behind last evening’s gourmet feast.) our topic was measuring anc documenting impact, which stemmed from many discussions I have had with the grantees this week. It is a question I struggle to answer in my Web2.0 work; we raise all this awareness, yes, but have we really made a difference? If so, how can we measure it, and how can we document it? I still don’t have an answer.

Breakfast Table Mountain

At midnight last night, I finally connected to the Internet on my JSI laptop. I have no idea how it happened – perhaps the interweb gods decided to smile on me for a few hours. It was shortlived, though, as it crashed just as I was sending yesterday’s blog post live. Oh well.

I woke yesterday morning after a semi restless night with childlike curiosity about all that the daylight promised. I scampered (yes, scampered) to the window and threw open the shutters to take in the view… And wow. Where there was nothing but pitch black space just 2 hours before, Table Mountain was standing large and much closer than I had imagined. It reminded me of my first sight of McKinley in Alaska 13 years ago. Who would have thought that darkness and clouds could make such monstrous and beautiful mountains completely disappear?

Around 930, I made my way down to the lobby to a working breakfast with my JSI colleagues. Though I will play a very minimal role in the technical training and action planning part of this week, it was so helpful for me to be included in the planning session. I have a newfound respect for the senior advisors and international project coordinators at JSI, but moreover, I have a better sense of how I can work with the grantees to help target their communications around these technical areas.

I know I have been quite vague about my role here. Some more information: the New Partners Initiative is a PEPFAR experiment supported by AID, CDC, and HRSA to expand the number of local partners in PEPFAR countries to address the HIV epidemic. Rather than throwing large sums of money at these new grantees, USG has hired two technical assistance provider firms ( JSI and AED) to provide all kinds of administrative support. I am here as a communications specialist to help one group of the grantees better utilize tools to connect with partners and donors. The help I provide depends on the grantees’ needs and initiatives. I’m definitely excited.

Following another meeting with our technical advisor cohort, several of us decoded to take a walk. We originally hoped to go up Table Mountain, but we learned that the cablecar to the top is closed this week, so we settled for an uphill walk to the base of the mountain. Two hours later, and several San fraciscan-like hills later, we veered off the road and climbed up to a ledge to the right of the mountain. With the mountains above us and a great spanse of waterfront below, we sat for a brief respite, then took note of the cries of our rumbling stomachs and headed back down toward the waterfront for lunch.

As we decended, we walked along a narrow path lined with barbed wire fences. The fences were protecting houses with such cool, mod architecture. My roommate would have loved it. It was starkly different than the scenes we saw on the way up, when we had several subtle reminders of the poverty in south Africa ( it can be easy to overlook when you are staying on the 27th floor of a glitzy hotel next to a woolworths.)

It turns out the waterfront was further than it appeared from our ledge. After another hour of walking, we gave up on our intentions to be healthy and hopped in a cab to the waterfront, where we treated outselves to oysters, seafood plates, and white wine. Once again, I thought back to Alaska, where my initial affair with seafood began. I was told then that i might never taste seafood quite as fresh, but I think it’s fair to say after yesterday’s lunch that Capetown gives Seward a run for it’s money.

I had another meeting early in the evening to map out my communications plan for the week. I retired to my room for a while, where I fruitlessly attempted to connect to the interweb, but after an hour of wishing ill to the laptop, I decided to take a power nap, as I was basically running on fumes.

An invitation to savor another glass of wine in the hotel bar with a current and former colleague easily lured me from my insta-slumber. Downstairs, I was treated to a host of stories about life in international development. I felt a bit embarrassed that prior to this trip, my international experiences were limited to the more mainstream European countries. I didnot have much to add to a conversation about international schools in India and guatemala, but it was fun to listen. As more people joined us, the stories of hippos, crocodiles, and cape buffalo rolled out. I cannot do any of them justice in this format, but I will leave you with this take home message: do not go kayaking on a crocodile infested river in Zambia with a stranger at dusk.

Waiting for daylight

The next leg of my journey began quite positively. I was able to get into the Rijksmuseum and enjoyed their current display of bird paintings. Truth be told, my favorite piece had nothing to do with birds, but rather was a beautiful old ship, like the ones that were in Boston 2 weeks ago, painted on Dutch tiles.

I conveniently bumped into my colleagues en route to the gate and enjoyed another cappuccino with them before going through security for the next flight. I was asked to step aside and immediately began reaching for the 7 million medical documents I have on me, assuming that was the issue. Much to my surprise, I was bumped up to business class – a first for me! It was a delightful flying experience, and it made the twelve hour trip infinitely more bearable.

We were met at the airport by Raymond, our driver, who gave us a “tour” of the city. His tour was more pointing out where fun landmarks would be if it were daylight. Raymond has lived here for his whole life, and clearly his time here has given him unique night sight in this city.

Checking into the hotel was a bit of a mishmash. Lots of details, mental conversions from Rand to dollars, etc. Despite my best attempts to get a room on the same floor as my colleagues, Michele and Kumkum, I wound up four floors down on my own. I started the process of unpacking after skyping my parents to tell them I had landed. As I opened a drawer to the dresser, I saw bugs scatter. And by bugs, I mean roaches. I immediately called the front desk and requested a new room. The new room is 11 floors up and apparently has a mountain view ( I trust I will see that in daylight too.) I have unpacked by sorting my clothes between the various bags I have. Maybe I’m being overly paranoid, but if my mom has taught me nothing, it’s that it is a costly venture to get rid of roaches once you bring them home. Though I have seen nothing yet in the new room, this is one lesson I don’t want to learn the hard way.

I am kicking myself for not bringing my mac here. We paid for a weeks worth of wireless connection at checkin. My phone connected immediately, but I am still unable to get my trusty JSI Dell to recognize the wireless connection. This will make Internet connectivity with group wise tricky this week. Again, I will try again in daylight.

Though I love travelling for work, I find big hotel rooms lonely. In an effort to make the room seem less quiet and big, I leave lights and tv on. I am eager for tomorrow and for the sota to begin. I trust that later in the week, I will be busy enough and ultimately tired enough to fall asleep.

Groeten uit Amsterdam!

My phone seems to think it is still on Boston time, when in fact I am really sitting in a wifi lounge in schipol enjoying a delightfully strong cappuccino as I kill time before the next plane leaves for capetown. It’s been years since I was in Europe, but I still remember vividly my first sip of “real” coffee. Before that sip, I was a starbucks junkie, and as far as I was concerned, the sweeter the better. A single latte in Amsterdam near or on my 21st birthday forever soured me on the saccharine syrups and caramel drizzle I had once requested in excess.

Last night’s flight marks the first overnight flight when I successfully slept. Now I’m jonesing to go out and explore the city; though, I would prefer to do so with my companions from my last Amsterdam adventure or perhaps with any of the many folk to whom I have since promised a future trip to the Netherlands. Instead, I have another 12 hour daytime flight to capetown ahead of me. How I will stay awake on the flight and not mess up my good track record so far is yet to be determined. I wish the rijksmuseum could be open so I could get even a hint of the splendor outside the airport while I kill time.

As we were flying over the Atlantic last night, I looked out to see one of the most incredible sunsets i’ve ever seen: literally bands of red, orange, yellow, fading into a soft blue and glorious lavendar. I looked down to the water and saw ships – navy ships, I imagine, lit up in what seemed to be Christmas lights from my vantage point. It made me think of a friend who returned from deployment a few months ago with his naval SAR squadron. If those were the kinds of sunsets he saw regularly while traversing the Atlantic on his travels, I’m admittedly jealous.

I’m excited for South Africa, though I can already tell that I will be in crazy mode during the sota. This being my first international trip for work, I’m anxious because I want to do stellar work, but I’m still feeling a bit foggy on the details, which makes me nervous. My colleagues remind me that I “know this stuff,” and I’ll be fine; I guess I still need to work on going with the flow a bit. Maybe I’ll just read through those grantee reports one more time on the flight over…

Hello world!

Yes, I realize that “Hello, World!” is the automatic first title of every new WordPress user’s blog, but in this case, it’s quite fitting. You see, I commence my blogging adventures from the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC, where, in the past 36 hours, hundreds of public health’s masterminds from around the word have converged for the 36th International Conference on Global Health, hosted by the Global Health Council.

It has been quite incredible to see this conference come together right before my eyes. I decided to come down to Washington, DC a few days early to visit with old friends and enjoy a brief respite from home. Because I was lugging an enormous suitcase (2/3 my body weight!), I elected to keep this trip simple and made a separate reservation at the Omni for myself for the weekend. The hotel has been incredibly accommodating and has allowed me to stay in the same room the entire time!

It being Memorial Day weekend, the Omni was home to both glamorous weddings and Harley Davidson riders in town for Rolling Thunder 2009. You can only imagine the company and conversation I enjoyed in the elevators. By Monday, as the last of the wedding parties swept out the front doors and the handsome Harleys I’d been admiring from the balcony in my room peeled out in the pouring rain, the hotel started to come to life with signs of what was to come in the next few days. At first, it was a TV by the elevators, then a token conference sign, but by Monday night, I returned from dinner to find a hotel lobby buzzing from chatter in many languages and alive with international color. (I don’t know how to describe that any better, save to encourage you to imagine the difference between biker pants and bridesmaid dresses and stunning saris and wraps.) Needless to say, quite the transition.

I walked down to the lobby early Tuesday morning to discover that some of the beautifully-dressed people I had seen in the hotel the night before were my own colleagues from John Snow, Inc (JSI), in town from our field offices to present outcomes from some of our projects. That is one of the parts I love about this job. I am a Communications Coordinator for JSI, which means… well, that kind of depends on the day. My friends in Boston equate me to Chandler Bing, from the TV show, Friends, as no one can accurately describe what I do, including me, sometimes. In one capacity (and the one that is relevant to GHC), I coordinate JSI’s presence at the larger public health conferences, including GHC, APHA, and the International and US Conferences on AIDS.

Lately, I have been piecing together JSI’s social media strategy, which is somewhat of a tricky endeavor, given the wide variety of projects and topics we undertake, both domestically and internationally. For those interested, the elevator speech I gave to the bridesmaids and bikers this weekend was that I work for an organization that designs, implements, manages, and evaluates public health initiatives around the world, and that’s just the outer layer. (I added that last part because these elevators move surprisingly fast when you’re trying to describe public health work!)

In short, thanks to some encouragement from friends at GHC, I will be blogging about the conference and about JSI’s participation in it this week. I am also tweeting for JSI on @JSIHealth, so follow us on twitter or on the hashtag for this conference. I have a second blog post in my head from Tuesday, which I will try to write in my spare time. Highlights include: the passing of the torch, PAIMAN’s success, and other such adventures.