Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire

I'm in Abidjan for the African Water Congress, and my employer (Aquaya) is supporting 18 of our partners from 6 countries to attend - from Zambia, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Senegal, and Guinea. And for some of these partners this means getting passports and worrying about having to eat different food for the first time. Should be interesting.

When I arrived yesterday, I realized that Cote d'Ivoire is one of the countries that requires Yellow Fever Vaccinations. If you don't have yours (or if you're missing the certification papers), they usher you into a room and give you the vaccine. No other options. So I'm prepared with my vaccine certificate, but what about our partners? Is anyone going to be offended if they have to get the vaccine, especially if they already had their injection and just forget the paperwork? I should know in the next 24 hours.

What else has happened in my first day? I went for a glorious walk yesterday evening, hoping it would be a little cooler than during the day (it wasn't - it's 8am and 82F/28C and 89% humidity). I looked up and there were flocks and flocks of birds. Their squawking almost reminded me of insects, just a constant buzz.

Then I looked closer and realized that they were not birds but BATS. Thousands and thousands of bats, in all types of trees downtown Abidjan, even palm trees. Crazy. I later read that Abidjan has 1 million bats and 3 million people. This is especially dramatic against the backdrop of an interesting church on the hill:

I saw the bats again this morning on my run. Another thing I discovered while running is that it is customary to give the other runners you see 2 or 3 claps.  It took me maybe the first 5 runners to get this but by the end I had it down. Awesome.

Dessert and Wine Party

 Last night we hosted a dessert and wine party. Mmmmm! Here is the spread:

Starting with the kiwi tarts, going clockwise:

• Kiwi and strawberry tarts (also raspberry tarts but these are hidden in the photo)
• Chocolate tart
• Pear and chocolate cake
• Gingernut log (Julian's family recipe)
• Cheese plate
• Mango clafoutis
• Fruit salad with vanilla cream (Sanni's grandmother's recipe)
• Chocolate cake
• Strawberry sauce
• Fresh raspberries and plums
• Chocolate covered strawberries (center)
• Pear and cheese cake (came later!) 

Masai Mara, Kenya

Another awesome travel adventure... Masai Mara. (We're a bit behind on our blog posting!) It was great to have my father-in-law Alan visit and go on safari.

The entrance to the camp

Home sweet home!

Yes those are lions!

Lazy lions

The Great Migration

Swim baby wildebeest swim! Don't get eaten by the crocodile. 

Great Migration in Action!

Awesome to see but glad that wasn't us. 

Safari walk

Love this photo. Africa today. 

Hyenas start eating their prey before they are dead. This was amazing and painful to watch. 

Florianopolis Brazil

This has got to be one of the most awesome work trips I've ever been on. A water conference in Brazil, on an island, at one of the best surfing spots in the world.

AND, even better, one of my best best friends in the whole world, Heather was there too! AND it was her birthday so we celebrated by windsurfing, hiking, and eating delicious food. I can't believe I get paid for this. Did I mention I love my job?

Is she ultraviolet?

Things have come full circle, it was 10 years ago when I was in Haiti working on UV water disinfection. And now in Nairobi we finally got a water purifier (filtration + UV disinfection). It only took 10 months for two water engineers to sort this out. Here is our fancy new purifier:

Paul cannot wait to get some of the great water! 

     


And, it has a music button and plays 'it's a small world.' Such a happy water filter.

(Also, not sure if anyone got this, but 'is she ultraviolet' is from a green day song .... which I admit I only know because of chemistry class reference.) 

It is beginning to get dark and big spots of rain are beginning to fall. I am trudging barefoot through  ankle deep sticky clay mud, following the feint outline of my colleague Fidel ahead. For a brief moment the sky is illuminated by a bolt of lightning and I can't help by smile.

We should have been back at base by now but the route was worse than expected and after 20 mins of skidding though the countryside in our 4x4 we finally had to leave it and go the last km on foot. I went gingerly at first trying to keep my feet and my shoes dry before building up and inch of clay on my shoes and deciding to join my colleagues and discarding footwear entirely, plunging my feet into the cool mud and enjoying the cool thick clay satisfyingly squelching beneath my feet and between my toes.

A quick visit to the clinic we thought, assess their water and sanitation needs, turn around and come back. Someone forgot to tell the local chief though. Many handshakes, lots of introductions in arabic, a lot of requests and a lot of other arabic conversation I could not even remotely follow. I won't say it was a waste of time, since we can only work there with his permission, but let's just say it would not be dark now and it would not be raining if we had not been delayed by 45 mins. I will also confess that in the back of my mind I know this is the only pair of trousers and the only shirt I have with me since most of my luggage did not fit in the plane.

So... I'm not entirely happy about the situation. But I can't help but smile! Isn't this part of the reason I decided to give up my desk job in London, isn't this the kind of adventure I wanted?

Welcome to Tchad

On Wednesday I considered writing my first Chad blog but other than arriving in Chad, going to the office and spending a night in a hotel there was not much to report.

Thursday, however, was a different matter. My day started with a flight to Mongo. At the airport I was surprised by a strictly enforced 8kg limit (Including hand luggage) and had to leave most of my things behind. It all became clear why though when I saw the plane. A 6 seater plane that was exactly that, A plane with just 6 very small seats, no room for luggage and barely any room for our legs.

Photo to follow

The plane ride was fantastic! A flight over beautiful green plains dotted with tree, sparsely populated with very few signs of life from the air. On nearing Mongo the flat landscape suddenly isolated rocky hills began poking out of the plains. As they began to get more frequent we buzzed low over the airstrip to see our car on the ground to clearing it of cows and  before safely landing on the dirt airstrip of Mongo.

Video to follow?

From the airstip we headed straight to the local hospital where my organization is working to provide care to malnourished children. The centre hospital acts as a reference centre from the surrounding area for severely malnourished children also suffering from another disease, malaria, diarrhea of respiratory infections mainly. It’s rare for me but I was shocked! I was not just shocked by some of the severely malnourished children I saw but by the numbers. The centre receives 400-600 cases a month and there were around 100 in the centre as we visited. A recent study of the area had just shown that diarrhea (and therefore water, sanitation and hygiene) was a major underlying cause of malnutrition here and so it was a stark reminder of why the work my organization does is so important for so many people. With tears in my eyes I wondered if our planned program to make water and sanitation improvements really would help reduce these numbers.