Angeli in DC

A Chance to Help and Holiday Shop...

2007-11-06T11:47:00.000-05:00

Pwof Ansanm, the NGO I went to Haiti with two years ago, is running an online auction. The funds will support the organization's educational work, which includes teacher trainings and curriculum development, with a special focus on capacity building and cooperative efforts between Haitian and foreign educational institutions.

There are four ways that you can help:

1. Start your holiday shopping by bidding! Bidding started Sunday Nov. 5 and will run for two weeks. Please take a look at the auction website: www.pwofansanm.cmarket.com.

2. Even if you don't bid, consider registering. The more people who sign in, the more donationed items Pwof Ansanm will be able to collect in the future.

3. Donate an item to the auction. There's a link on the left side of the page.

4. Pass the word along to anyone you think might be interested in participating! Feel free to forward on this message, or there is a link on the website to refer friends.

(If you have questions, you can refer them to Raven Travillian at ravensar@myuw.net.)

You may also want to check out Pwof Ansanm's website: www.pwofansanm.org - they do really great work!

Lighting Africa Competition

2007-08-29T11:20:00.000-04:00

I love the World Bank's Development Marketplace Competition - what a great way to encourage innovation! This year's theme is Lighting Africa. Check it out, and if you know of anyone who might be interested in or good at this sort of thing, pass it along. And if there's some way I can help, let me know! The preminary proposal deadline is October 31.

I'm so ready for spring

2007-03-17T08:25:00.001-04:00

I'm so ready for spring

Okay, this is from a few weeks ago, but it snowed again last night after hail earlier in the evening. It was 70 degrees a few days ago! The Japanese magnolias are blooming already. Seriously. No more winter, please!

You know he's used an online translator when...

2007-03-16T16:58:00.000-04:00

expensive Angeli,

I am very happy as soon as you let me know of your news. I am very well also and I am always at Port -AU-Prince . Angeli, I think of you so much . finally all my friends are sent greetings for you. then when you go from return to Jeremie.

YOURS,
#######

And she's back!

2006-12-02T17:00:00.000-05:00

It's been nearly a year since I've written, but taking a holiday to Egypt via NYC and London has provided some new material and the blog seems to be an easy way to tell the story and post some photos we took. As far as possible, I'm trying to postdate entries to match approximately the relevant days, even though it puts everything in reverse order... For the entire trip, start with the entry dated October 30 "Take-off point: NYC." To cut straight to Egypt, start with November 4.

I'm posting more photos through Flickr, so if you're interested - or if you'd rather just skip the text - you can click through my sets at: www.flickr.com/photos/angelikirk

*Disclaimer: Please note that picture taking was a collaborative effort - many of photos here and posted on Flickr were taken by J's hand. He is more of a purist about his art than I am (sometimes I'd just rather see the images the way I remember them), however, so the blame for any shameless cropping, etc, is purely mine.

Finally, the Pyramids

2006-11-21T22:00:00.000-05:00

Yes, we did eventually make it to the pyramids, on our second-to-last day in Egypt:

I must say, with the first glance as we were entering the pyramid complex, I felt a little like we were entering an amusement park - some addition to Universal Studios, I suppose.

It's not until you're right up against them that you really get a sense of how massive they are. And you're simply struck for a moment. Wow.

And then you turn the corner and you see the self-proclaimed "Dr. Photo," who looks suspiciously like an armed policeman holding both a large weapon and a camera, as he directs a lady, "Okay, move your arm a little higher, higher, there. Now smile!" And you have to wonder if she's really going to have a photo of herself touching the top once she gets the roll developed...

We were lucky to get into the pyramid complex just before it was technically open, such that we were allowed to climb into the Great Pyramid without the typical claustrophobia-inducing nightmare of inching up the tight shafts behind hundreds of other crouched and inching tourists on the way to the main chamber.

After taking a round of photos in front of it, we worked our way to the second pyramid and hired a camel named Columbus out to a hill with a view of the pyramids nicely aligned. J was trapped into buying some soft drinks and the camel driver didn't exactly get us all the way to the Sphinx as promised, but we checked the experience off our lists and were thankful the ride hadn't been much longer.

I'm still not sure what to make of the Sphinx, and it seems I'm not the only one- no one really knows why it was built. It's really an odd sight to see - interesting, impressive, and a bit bizarre (and maybe even a little kitch?) all at the same time. It's much closer to the pyramids and smaller than I had imagined.

From Giza we moved on to Sakkara to see the Step Pyramind (precursor to the pyramids),

and from there to Dashur for the Bent and Red Pyramids. Dashur is something of a military zone, and so we had a miliary escort in the vehicle with us. The Bent Pyramid, which I was perhaps most interested in seeing, is off limits, so we had to take our photos from a distance. It was something of a"practice" pyramid. You can see the base that was built at a steeper angle than the rest. As far as they can tell, it didn't seem sufficiently stable, so the angle was adjusted to that of the top half. The second angle was then used for the Red Pyramid - the first of its style - and then the rest of the pyramids.

Palm Trees and Seashells in the Desert?

2006-11-19T21:30:00.000-05:00

Looking back now, I can't believe I ever even considered skipping the Siwa Oasis, worrying that it was too far away and that we wouldn't have enough time there to make it worth the distance.

I think the day at the Siwa Oasis was probably my favorite day. The previous morning we got an 8:30am bus from Alex that followed the coast of the Mediterranean until Marsa Matruh and then made a left turn South toward Siwa. The landscape between Marsa Matruh and Siwa was not much to speak of until we were quite close, when suddenly mountains of sedimentary rock would appear here and there. Just after sunset, there was no doubting the fact that we were in the middle of the oasis and its 330,000 palm trees. After finding a hotel and dinner with a pair of new Japanese friends, we went quickly to sleep. Up early, we headed first to the tombs at Gebel al Mawta. We hopped on the back of an already-overloaded pick-up truck, greeted by locals trying to discourage us. One of us was quite hesitant in the matter (I’ll let you guess which one!), but we were able to hop off at the tombs without any problems.

Then for the rest of the morning, we hired a donkey cart and the three boys that accompanied it. Enjoying the day off of school, it seems that the father of one them lent them the use of his slowest donkey to earn a little cash. Fortunately, we were in no hurry, as the only time the donkey seemed to move faster than we might have walked ourselves was when the shade was quite close in front of us.

Stop One was the Temple of the Oracle, where Alexander the Great himself had come to consult the oracle and enjoy a little rest and relaxation- not too much left to see at this point.

Next we headed to what I kept understanding as "Kilbatra." I'm embarrassed to admit that not until I actually saw the sign for "Cleopatra's bath" did I realize what they were saying. The boys quickly jumped in, and J and I were quite content to sip some Karkadee tea and watch.

Finally, we headed up to Gebel Dakrur. The mountain was a what was left of the wind-eroded sedimentary rock, and the most common sight on the way up was the boys shouting down at me, "Come on, Angeli, come on!"

Still, every effort was worth it once we could see the entire oasis from the top. As we made it to the second peak, the smallest boy brought me what looked like a handful of rocks. On closer inspection, they were clearly fossils of seashells, and they could be found all over the top! Who would have guessed that we were climbing up to what had once been on the ocean floor?

The afternoon presented us with a safari in the Great Sand Sea. With nothing but giant sand dunes as far as the eye could see, our driver quite successfully did his best to elicit squeals as he took us up angles I was sure would leave us tumbling backwards (okay, only one of us was squealing...). So much fun! J, always braver than I, rode up on top of the vehicle for a bit. After I saw that it didn't kill him, I joined him for a while and really enjoyed it. We stopped once for a chance to run, leap, scramble, and dive down the dunes and again later to catch the sunset. If I hadn't already covered my pants in tar in Luxor, I might have been more concerned about the large amounts of sand that I just couldn't seem to get rid of...

Other treats on the trip included both a cold and a hot freshwater spring, and another heap of fossils seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

That night we climbed through the ruins of Shali (top photo), an old salt-and-mud built fortress that hadn't held up well to heavy rains in the 1926. Mother Nature accomplished in three days what invadors hadn't in six centuries. In the main square, however, there is a rendition of what it was said to have looked like:

Alexandria

2006-11-16T21:30:00.000-05:00

On our way from Dahab to the Siwa Oasis, we stopped a day in Alexandria. Much less touristic than anywhere else we visited, Alex is definitely a city with an eye on business. Famous for its ancient library, most of old Alex is six meters beneath the current city. When materials of interest are found during rebuilding projects, archeologists must fight to be allowed time to explore or preserve, and so much of the current excavation occurs in the Mediterranean Sea.

A new library was built in 2002, a tribute to the ancient one:

Mount Sinai

2006-11-12T21:30:00.000-05:00

The traditional way to visit Mount Sinai is to trek up in the wee hours to catch the sunrise view. So we piled into the minibus with our posse at midnight, trying to sleep just a little during the two-hour ride. When we arrived, we met our bedouin guide Hassan, who insisted on calling us "Dahab Group" despite our best attempt to go by "Killer Cobras." We would follow the "camel path," the gentler of the two ways to the top. J and a few of the guys initially wanted to hire camels for the climb, but we talked them out of it, and a 30-minute ride later in the trip proved it to be the wiser (less painful) choice.

I think the climb took about three hours, though I really lost track of time. As it got colder and colder (between elevation changes and desert climate), I wished I hadn't forgotten my sweater in Cairo while feeling thankful J had loaned me an extra shirt, but they cheered me on with the promise of blankets available for rent up at the top. In retrospect, the ideal system would be to wear several layers (and gloves!) starting in the beginning, shedding most of them after warming up with the hike to avoid sweating, and adding more again as it gets colder, especially at the top.

Have I mentioned the killer cough and insufficient clothing enough? And J wasn't feeling so well either. We were quite a pair, neither of us certain we would live to post pictures of the event. Still, our twenty-something-ness got the best of us, and for the sake of not having to wait for the seventy-somethings, more than a few times we were scrambling up places not really meant for scrambling up. All the while we were calling out "Dahab Groub? Killer Cobras? Killer Cobras!"

Nearing the top, we enjoyed a hot tea, rented a blanket and a pad to sit on, and moved toward the top to find a spot with a good view. And then we waited. And waited. And dozed. And coughed. And waited. And even with the blanket, I thought I was going to freeze to death. Then the sun started to come up from behind the rows and rows of mountains, and the view was enough to make me forget that I couldn't feel my fingers or toes.

On the way down, we took the second path - the Steps of Penance - set by a monk at St. Kat's Monastery and definitely steeper than the camel path up. Taking the road less traveled offered the advantages of fewer crowds and the ability to set our own pace, though fatigued muscles led to a few slips and trips by the end. Reaching the monastery at the bottom, we went inside to see the burning bush*, which - if I may say so - was a little underwhelming but still not to be missed if you're going to the trouble of climbing up and down the mountain.

*Disclaimer: said bush claims to be a descendent of the original burning bush. Note that the bush, pictured here, is not burning, nor does it change colors, nor do much else of interest. One hopes that said bush may bloom red, orange, and yellow at some time of year, but the present visitor witnessed no such phenomenon.

Transportation Bingo

2006-11-12T11:00:00.000-05:00

As I'm standing in the women's line for subway tickets, you can see here the beginning of what we would eventually begin to call "transportation bingo."

By the end of the trip, we had gone by airplane, foot, flippers,
subway, car,

pick-up, Jeep, taxi (including one with a meter), bus,

minibus, microbus,
train, tram, rowboat, sailboat,

ferry, cruise ship, carriage, donkey cart,

and camel.

Seeing the Red Sea

2006-11-11T21:00:00.000-05:00

Finally temple-saturated, we opted for a change of pace, and oh-so-mellow Dahab was the perfect location. Situated on the Red Sea to the north and east of Sharm El Sheik, Dahab is much less of a high-end tourist destination than Sharm while still boasting great opportunities for underwater exploration and endless excursions.
The day or two I thought we'd spend there quickly turned into four or five, as Dahab became our comfortable and practical home base for snorkeling/diving and our trek to Mt. Sinai.

Dahab was also the place of making and leaving friends, as nearly all who had traveled with us up to that point ended up there for at least a few days before splitting off in their own directions. We also met a great new group during our various activities, and a "the more the merrier" policy led to a very merry time.

I did two snorkeling trips - to the Blue Hole and a few other spots. The fish and coral varieties were amazing, but I could only stay in for so long before jumping out for some hot mint tea. It's a bit chilly in November! J took some longer dive trips, including an overnight to Ras Mohammed National Park, rated the 2nd best diving in the world. I should have read up earlier and gotten my certification!

Temple Trail

2006-11-09T22:00:00.000-05:00

Most of the first week we devoted to the cities with all the temples and tombs - the famous parts of ancient Egypt short of the pyramids. I left this section to last, and it seems I've run out of steam... But the short version that won't communicate amazing I found it all to be:

From Aswan the first night, we caught the police convoy (no other choice) at 4am down to Abu Simbel near the Sudanese border, and by early afternoon we had come back to the island of Philae near the Aswan Dam. The temples at both locations had been moved (no easy task) when the dam caused their original sites to be submerged by Lake Nasser. After a couple of days in Aswan, we took an overnight felucca cruise up the Nile to Kom Ombo (more temples), and a bus to Luxor - the old Thebes (many, many more temples and tombs)...

Photos from Abu Simbel, Philae, Kom Ombo, and Luxor...

Aswan: Dams, Tombs, and Nubian Villages

2006-11-06T20:00:00.000-05:00

Our first destination was Aswan, with our first real view of the Nile. Among the treasures in Aswan are the Nubian villages on Elephantine Island, the Botanical Garden, and the Tombs of the Nobles.

Art in one of the tombs:

Among requite stops was the Aswan Dam. Now functionally less important than the High Dam, it is still quite impressive. The dam has completely changed the flooding patterns and left large areas submerged beneath Lake Nasser.

The Land of the Nile!

2006-11-05T19:00:00.000-05:00

We decided to save most of our time in Cairo for the end. Arriving in the middle of the night, we bought tickets first thing in the morning for a 12-hour sleeper train down to Aswan. To pass the day, we hit the Egyptian Museum thinking that surely guidebooks’ suggestion of two days there were exaggerated by at least 1.8 days…

As it turns out, the books were right. I thought the highlight was the Nemes Palette from 3100 BC, when Nemes joined upper and lower Egypt for the first time, UNTIL we made it to the second level. Two rooms house something like 15 mummies in varied conditions – generally Pharaohs and a few queens. The most interesting were probably *** with manicured black hair and *** who was clearly mangled from battle. Many died quite young, some from mysterious wasting diseases. *** was an exception, and you could tell you were looking a an old man, complete with some fluffy white (yellowing) tufts of hair. After the mummies, we rushed to see as much of Tut’s treasures as we could fit in. They say he was relatively unimportant, ruling for only nine years, but the treasures they’ve found in his unraided tomb (thanks to a lucky position hidden by the rumble of another tomb that hadn’t fared so well) have shot him into the spotlight permanently. Even with all of the buildup, the collection did not disappoint. Display after display – jewelry and other adornments, sarcophagi, golden chariots and beds, and a gold and jewel-encrusted death mask – presented some of the most beautiful craftsmanship I’ve ever seen. I am definitely glad we saw the collection before visiting the tomb in Luxor almost a week later.

After the Egyptian Museum, we got a bite to eat and took a little stroll around downtown. Suddenly we realized we should be at the train station already. We jumped into the first cab we saw, only to find that we couldn't communicate with the driver. Fortunately, we were headed in the right direction, and naming all the kinds of Egyptian trains we could find while flipping through the guidebook managed to convey our desired destination. Looking back, I'm not exactly sure why we couldn't find "train station" in the book...

Stopover, part B: London

2006-11-02T20:22:00.000-05:00

Two days later, we took the bus back to London. I was able to see UCL (Thanks, N!) and LSE and wander around the city a bit (It was my first visit!).

[Big Ben and Westminster Abbey]

No one told me ahead of the time that the London Bridge wasn't really so much to see:

At least the excursion did give me a (somewhat distant) view of the Tower Bridge, which was what I was actually looking for:

Ironically, London provided my first preview of Egyptian treasures, as the British museum has quite a large (stolen?) collection.

In the British Museum:

. [the Rosetta Stone!]

D, one of J's travel companions in Brazil, took us in and showed us a good time his part of town (Thanks, D!).

London would definitely be a lovely place to live for a while!

Stopover, part A: Oxford

2006-11-01T07:00:00.000-05:00

A six-hour flight (British Airways) and one-hour bus ride brought us to Oxford. We stayed with the lovely S (Thanks, S!), though not before a requisite stop at Kebab Kid (J spent a summer at Oxford and got a kick out of revisiting his old haunts). Such a quaint town provided a great chance to unwind a little and enjoy time with friends.

It wasn't completely unproductive, either. I got a chance to check out the economics department at the university, including sitting in on some classes and chatting with one of the advisors for the Economics for Development program for which I'm thinking of applying (again- thanks, S!)

Take-off point: NYC

2006-10-30T17:00:00.000-05:00

I took a Chinatown bus from DC to NYC, where N and her flatmates generously put us up (Thanks, N!). J flew in the next morning, and we met up at the newly renovated MOMA.

[This is our hungry new friend R.]

Adventures in Laundry

2005-12-04T10:31:00.000-05:00

The income restrictions of grad school life make you a bit more creative, I think...

The rate of water flow into our washing machine has slowed to a trickle, meaning it can easily take two hours to do one load. I'm rarely here for two hours straight (plus drying time) during waking hours (and we can't do laundry during sleeping hours because the thin wall between the washer and Jennifer's room leave Jennifer surrounded by noise comparable to a train passing by...), so I just don't do laundry more often than every three weeks.

Alas, today I hit very close to the three week mark, but had to leave sooner than two hours after Jennifer was awake. My solution? Help the washer fill faster! But having no buckets or empty gallon jugs, I pulled the top out of the Brita pitcher. 10 pitchers from the wash basin later, the washer was ready.

We really need to call the landlord.

Maybe a Sports Fan After All?

2005-11-30T23:10:00.001-05:00

Thanksgiving offered a MUCH needed break. For a few days I actually forgot about how much I still have to do before Christmas break. Wonderful, really. I spent time with my parents and got to see some of my best friends in Atlanta. And J kept me well entertained. He took me to another hockey game, this time right on the ice. I jumped more than once when the players slammed up against the wall right where we were. And the Thrashers won, which added to the fun.

In the same night, J's magic got us into the Georgia/Georgia Tech football game at Tech, which is, of course, THE GAME at home. I grew up HATING football (Sorry, Dad), but in recent years I've learned to enjoy it, and it was a lot of fun to watch. It was a close game, but Georgia managed an interception at the end that gave them the win. My dad and brother were of course thrilled. J wasn't so pleased.

Tuesday

2005-11-22T23:31:00.000-05:00

I have just turned in the paper. It may not be a masterpiece, but I have survived it, and it is turned in. Now, to pack, and then a few hours of sleep to add to the 1.5 I got this morning from 8:30-10...

It will be so good to be home!

Happy Thanksgiving.

Monday

2005-11-21T18:38:00.000-05:00

Bridging the Digital Divide

2005-11-14T23:42:00.000-05:00

Three cheers for technology that advances international development!

Sub-$100 laptop design unveiled

One MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte has developed a laptop that costs less than $100. Why? Because children in developing countries can't afford them at current prices. And because many children even here can't afford them. The "digital divide" means faster and faster progress for those who have access to technology, while those with no access are left ever-further behind. So much for convergence theory-until now. Expected to come out in late 2006 or early 2007, these laptops will not be available for sale but will be distributed directly to schools through government programs, domestic and internationally.

The laptops are highly portable and will have a handcrank for locations without electricity. They will be enabled for "peer-to-peer" networking and wifi internet connectivity. The low price is possible because of technology developed to create a display that can be produced for $35-an incredible reduction. They are also designed to be adjusted for viewing in a range of lighting conditions.

You can check out the design plans here:One Laptop per Child

Bad Joke of the Day

2005-11-14T15:00:00.000-05:00

Q: When is it bad luck to meet a black cat?

A: When you're a mouse.

*This Bad Joke of the Day has been brought to you by Laffy Taffy.

Angeli in Haiti

2005-11-10T23:30:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to mention that I've been updating my other blog Angeli in Haiti a little bit lately. I'll try to do more as I manage more of the data. Teachers have been emailing the program, and the director Joy is going back in a week, so we're getting a better sense of what's going on there....

Decluttering

2005-11-09T22:30:00.000-05:00

In an effort to reduce clutter...

I just finished changing the last of my bills to online billing. That's how I pay anyway, so I end up not even opening the bills when they come in the mail, and it's more to had to get rid of. Then I unsubscribed to most of the random email lists I've ended up on. There's a little sense of relief in the process.

I also called to disconnect our home phone; we don't use it anymore now that Jennifer's cell gets reception in the apartment.