Passing through...

OK, so this is a gratuitious post just to show off the fact that my daughter Kim is working as an intern at NIST in Gaithersburg, MD. But it also allows me to comment on the phenomenon of "passing through." I am currently enroute to Nairobi, Kenya to join my student team. I've been trying to prepare myself for the mental shock of experiencing a new culture. But in order to get to Nairobi, I've been "passing through" other cultures as well. I've had the chance to visit Kim for about 24 hours and re-learn "east coast culture." This has not been too tough since I grew up in New Jersey. But, there are still differences. In Maryland, microbrew means Sam Adams - and I only saw about one mile of bike lanes in 100's of miles of driving. I'm now killing time in Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. (It's yet another story about how my expected 2-hour layover is turning into a 12-hour layover!) I know the beer here is Heiniken, and the bike lanes are more plentiful than in Fort Collins. But the culture is markedly different. The direct, matter-of-fact interactions (Yes, you have missed your flight. Have a nice day.) feel more abrupt and uncaring than I am used to at home. And yet, these are only "passing through" cultures. They offer no insight into what I will see, hear, and feel in Kenya. In fact, it is only by chance that I even traveled through Washington DC and Amsterdam on my way to Kenya - I could have taken many paths, and none of these paths prepare me for what I am about to experience. I'm just passing through.

The Adventure Begins Anew...

I see that I have been extremely remiss in blogging about my GSSE experiences. Here it is almost a year after my last entry. I am still active in teaching and working with my "social entrepreneur" students. In fact, I am just now departing for Kenya to work with the Running Water International student team pictured here. This team consists of four women - one from Iraq, one from India, and two from the USA - who are building a business to sell biosand water filters to rural residents of the Rift Valley near Njoro, Kenya. I continue to be awed by the enthusiasm and capabilities of the student teams from GSSE. I will try to highlight some of the significant events of this trip as the month progresses.

Make serendipity happen...

It's a very strange phenomenon. You can spend all day roaming Fort Collins and never stop to talk with anyone. Yet if you roam a city in a foreign country where you don't speak the native tongue, and few of the natives speak yours, you'll find you make friends in a hurry. While stopping for lunch in a restaurant, we had trouble telling the waiter to return after we had a chance to struggle through the menu. Four girls at the next table interceded on our behalf and bought us some time. The next morning as we tried to decide which bus to board for our tour of Turgen Gorge, we heard a young voice say hello. Sure enough, the 4 girls were planning to take the same tour! (3 buses later we finally found ourselves in the right bus - but that's another story.) We had a great visit. Two of the girls are Civil Engineering students at USC. We took pictures and encouraged them to email us - and offered them a place to stay if they could make it to Colorado. After only a few weeks we have "close" friends from Canada, Bulgaria, Virginia, South Carolina, and Kazakhstan. The oddity of finding someone speaking English seems to be enough to warrant a conversation. And everyone who speaks English is interesting! Is it because we are starved for companionship? Is it because those travel to faraway places are interesting? Is it because those who learn English as a 2nd (or 3rd or 5th) language are naturally brighter and more open? Or do we just need to start talking to more people at home too?

Switchbacks are for wimps - Part 4

OK, it finally happened. A truly enjoyable hike! As part of a bus tour (another whole story in itself) we took a trip to Ecyk lake. This lake bore the brunt of a massive mudslide in 1963 which broke the natural dam, dropped the water level dramatically, built up massive amounts of silt in the lake, and killed hundreds of people. The drainage looked much like Big Thompson Canyon after the flood or the alluvial fan of Lawn Lake. Up river from the lake is a nature preserve with a very pleasant *flat* hike. For about an hour we penetrated deeper and deeper into the hills and enjoyed stellar views of the mountain range. At the end of the hike was a Georgian designed mudslide dam. This massive structure built of concrete "timbers" is designed to hold back rock, soil, and silt, while allowing water to filter through. The hope is that this will prevent a repeat of the Ecyk Lake disaster.

A beach day always beats a work day...

The dean of the college used us as an excuse for a "team building" day at Kapshagay reservoir. The whole college staff tried to sneak off campus at 9AM - tough to do when you're riding in a 20 passenger van with the school logo and slogan on the side. Nothing could diminish the party atmosphere - not even the fact that the destination beach was closed due to downed electrical lines from the storm the previous evening. In good male tradition, the driver headed onward, never revealing that he had no idea where he was going. Sometime after loosing sight of water, a groundswell emerged to force the driver to turn back. This led us to take a promising looking road, which got progressively narrower, but ultimately led to a beach. For only a small fee, were were able to drive out onto the sand where we set up "camp" amidst the locals and the free-roaming cows (was I back in India?) For only a few more tenge we were set up with tables, chairs, and umbrellas. While the guys set out for a quick dip in the water, the women loaded the table with all sorts of food and beverage. (I know this sounds sexist, but it's the way it happened.) We had no idea that there would be such a great feast. Of course, we could have guessed when we stopped by a roadside fruit stand (of which there had been hundreds along the way) and purchased a few hundred kilos of fresh fruit. I just had not idea where all the bread, meat, cheese, cookies, vodka, etc. all came from. Other than the challenge of digging the van out after it sank quickly into the sand, it was an awesome day of fun and sun.

Switchbacks are for wimps - Part 3

You'd think we'd have learned by now. But we struck out yet again for a hike on the trails outside Medeo hoping for an invigorating hike with excellent scenery. We did get the scenery, but the hike was a bit more invigoration than we'd hoped for. Once again we found that the trails in Kazakhstan climb relentlessly - this time with over 1200' gain in about 1.3 miles. The views are stunning, and even the rain during the hike added to the overall beauty of the trail. We climbed a ridge line with Almaty to our right and Madeo to our left. We never did reach the promised meadow, but we were rewarded with beautiful views of the Tian Shen mountain range. Maybe we'll get that gentle trail the next time!

It's just a hut trip...

I love to spend winter weekends climbing a few thousand feet on tele skis to stay in a 10th Mountain division hut above treeline. The huts are quite rustic with outhouses, wood stoves, and no running water. Yet they feel extremely plush after a hard day's climb into the wilderness. It turns out that many of the "deprivations" of hut living feel quite luxurious in the context of a back county adventure. And so it goes for foreign travel. I got through many a night by saying, "Just think of it as a hut trip." When the heat became oppressive because the villagers closed in too tight during a focus group in Bangladesh, it was just a hut trip. When the hotel in Chennai, India had dirty sheets and hard mattresses, it was just a hut trip. When the hot water disappeared on Thursday morning, and was not back on by Monday night as promised in Almaty, Kazakhstan, it was just a hut trip. It seems that setting your expectations low leads to a might higher degree of satisfaction with those things that are going well.