Archive for travel

Pietermaritzburg-Final Day

Posted on October 28th, 2005 by

Hmmm, I think I might highlight Friday and from here on out because I’m running out of battery power on the laptop (forget writing this on an Internet-connected computer. I’m beginning to understand the difficulties that people have here with the Internet-either you don’t have access, you have to pay a lot for a few minutes and/or it’s extremely slow. Even at UKZN, in the short times I had between appointments I had time only to check and send a few e-mails because of the time it takes. And without a proper adapter for the electricity, battery power is an issue (and getting an adapter would have been a journey of Fee hadn’t located one I could use) So right now I’m in Jo’burg racing against battery failure)

So Friday we did a review of where we are and target setting for the future with Walter, another lecturer Rob, and Beulah. I think we all came to some agreements and I have a lot to bring back to Mann to talk about and hash out for the future. I also met with Sheryl Fredericks who runs the Food Security program. I showed her and John Derera AGORA and then Sheryl took me to lunch at a local café and discussed her program which trains Master’s students in food security (specifically all aspects of organic farming for three South African communities) and is looking to start a pan-African food security centre at the university (which, to the interest of anyone in the library and information field, may also include a subject-based repository for information on food security). We also talked about genealogy and our travels. She was also kind enough to drop me off at the clinic next door so I could get antibiotics and then get me back to the university.

And Rosa Stella, one of the 2004 cohort, generously took time out of her busy schedule f getting ready to go back to Namibia for fieldwork not only to get me the name of a walk-in clinic but also to track me down during my up-in-the-air wanderings and give me a tour of howick Falls and the surrounding countryside, along with her brother Paulus and her two adorable kids. With them I got to see the surrounding countryside and my first glimpse of the townships. I so wish I had brought my camera because it’s hard to describe unless you see the houses, basically shacks by the side of the road, with outhouses and extra shacks for rent in the back. There’s no infrastructure—no electricity, no plumbing, no roads even—and there isn’t likely to be for some time Rosa Stella says since the government can’t afford to install it all without charging fees to the residents who can’t pay them since unemployment is so high and wages are so low. General economic improvement is the only hope is what she said and is a theme I would continue to hear from many people throughout this trip.
There were other townships as well which were better off—solid construction rather than recycled metal and materials, solid outhouses, actual roads—and neighborhoods with the mod cons. But seeing those in relation to my lovely B&B in the neighborhood with the high walls, dogs, and security systems was quite a change.

We stopped a Howick a pretty little town with Howick Falls. Now, as an Ithacan, even a recent one, I’ve seen waterfalls before. But this one put all the ones I’ve seen before to shame. Imagine Taughannock but nestled in this wide Irish green swathe of land with cliffs rising in a valley bowl to each side and things in the distance fading to mist and clouds. It was quite beautiful.

We then went for tea at Rosa Stella’s and talked as we had the whole trip up about the black communities in S. Africa, Namibia and the US; the different histories but how similar some responses have been, about the persistence of racism and about changes for the future, about men the world over, and about kids (having them or not). It was a great visit and I really appreciated her kindness in taking me around.

In fact I appreciated the kindness fo everyone at ACCI—from Walter and Tongo who took me around, explained the program and took me out; to Beaulah John, who despite a hospitalizing bout of bronchopneumonia, helped plan my visit and came in while I was here to meet with me despite not being 100%; Fee de Stadler and Lesley Brown, who not only helped set up my visit but helped me so much logistically and personally while I was there. And this is not to mention Sheryl, Lindwe, Rob, Carol, Pravesh and all the others who took time out of their busy schedules to meet with me, shepherd me from here to there and generally made the experience such a positive one.

I had a final dinner with Walter and Tongo that helped cap off the good time I had had so far—good food, good drink and good conversation in good company. I will certainly look forward to returning to Maritzburg in the future and hope that others from Mann (and ACCI) get to go too.

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Pietermaritzburg Day 2

Posted on October 28th, 2005 by

I can’t believe I’ve let so much time pass without updating and now of course it’s playing catch up trying to remember everything that’s happened. So Thursday I met with the library folks as well as the 2005 cohort. Walter introduces me Lindiwe Soyozkapi and she took me on a tour of the Life Sciences Library. The have a sizeable collection and access to a number of databases (the standards like CAB and BIOSIS, PubMed and Medline, as well as some we don’t have (CSA’s Illumina collection and Sabinet, a collection of South African resources). I’m bringing back a list of the non-overlapping databases to see if we have coverage in a similar area. Also they have a sizeable collection of research (particularly theses and pamphlets) in African agricultural research (including beer brewing!), which may be interesting to Mann students. In talking Lindwe and I discovered a number of commonalities—rising costs of scientific journal literature, difficulties in getting students in the habit of database searching instead of just Googling it, making sure that they evaluate websites, the use of offsite storage and scanning, learning on the job as an “accidental” life sciences librarian and the fun of it, job shortages and lack of entry-level opportunities and the need for more diversity in librarianship among others. The differences—Dewey vs. LCSH, collection development primarily by department with subject librarians filling in rather than vice versa, lack of remote access (though this will change soon)—were not so much in comparison. It was great fun getting to talk to her and I learned a great deal.

We went back for tea and talked to Walter and Tongo about complementarities with the library and I also had another good talk with Beulah John about student support and literature reviews. Then I gave a presentation to the students in the 2005 cohort which went off OK despite my technical difficulties with help from Beulah and Fee,

Lindiwe then took me to the main library in the afternoon where I met Carol Brammage and Pravesh who direct the Main Library. We talked about similar issues as well as the move toward remote access and the work toward an interuniversity consortium between and their move to a new catalog. I’m planning to keep in touch about our plans for reaching the distance education students (they are hampered by the same concerns and difficulties with Internet and e-mail access and the unreliability of the postal system as well and haven’t really reached out to distance students much). Lindwe took me on a tour of the main library as well which was packed with students (it’s exam time) and she pointed out the shrinking study space. I told her about the info commons concept and the replacement of books in the UT undergrad library, which blew her mind.

I did a little shopping at the Scottsville Mall since it was clear that something I had eaten really didn’t agree with me and that an unfortunate side effect of the summer weather and blooming jacarandas was a sinus infection. I also needed to look for an adapter that worked for my electronic equipment (mine was just a hair too small) as well as a cell hone since the one I borrowed wasn’t working.

Later that evening, Tongo and John Derera took me out to Spurs, a steakhouse in Liberty Mall in the suburbs. It was trippy to go to a mall bigger than Pyramid in Ithaca with shops that had different names but sold the same things and more and eat in a steakhouse which, though it served gammon steak and burgers with monkey gland sauce (a kind of chutney, not what it sounds like), also did that chanting happy birthday thing and played Evanescence.

John and Tongo talked plant breeding (which was interesting, but like the Far Side cartoon with the dog listening to his masters, went “wah wah Camille wah wah hybrid wah wah wah Camille wah wah wah corn and disease resistance” for me) and they told me about the current situation in Zimbabwe (grim). Apparently you can get foreign currency in and change it to ZAR, but there is no official trading so there’s a huge black market. It’s a crazy situation. We also talked about the differences between what I was seeing in South Africa and what was going on in the rest of black Africa, which is great. It’s hard for me to grasp but I think I’m starting to get an idea. After all of this talk of leadership in Africa and plant breeding, they took me on a short tour of the city and then John and I went back to the hostel and had coffee and talked about TEEAL and AGORA and his thesis. He’s an absolutely brilliant student, extremely focused, motivated and organized. He’s finishing his Ph.D. a year early and in the midst of it, giving a presentation at a conference in Uganda. And by all reports from Tongo and Walter his research is outstanding. It was a pleasure to get to talk to him.

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Pietermaritzburg

Posted on October 26th, 2005 by

So I have passed my first day and half in Pietermaritzburg (PMB) and have learned more than I could in a month of explanations. There really is nothing like being onsite to see things and see how they go. Walter (Prof. de Milliano) picked me up yesterday and took me to the Golden Dragon for supper after a quick stop by UKZN to meet some of the staff (Fee de Stadler and Lesley Brown who had helped set up my visit). We had a good long talk over dinner about the difference between help and empowerment, which totally harked back to my Training and Development in Sustainable Agriculture class (thanks Margaret Kroma) and the idea that development has to be driven from the goals and the needs of the participants to be useful, not just coming into help by giving inputs of money, equipment and the like that aren’t sustainable and that don’t empower people to act for their own contexts. More on this later but I’ll just point to my previous blog entries on Edutaining Myself to Death at some point. And hearing the conditions that people are actually working under, it’s amazing what they have accomplished. In one or two years the students in the ACCI program have learned and brought themselves to a level that people in the field 20 years have accomplished and held their own. By all accounts the students are succeeding brilliantly and are prepared with the best of the best. One student from the first cohort is finishing a year early. Others have compared well against people who have been in the field for years. Most all of them are doing cutting edge research in the sense that though it is not new in some parts of the world it has not been done in Africa with traditional crops or in the sense that it deals with biotechnology applications for better disease resistance, food security, combination of locally desirable traits with better nutrition and the like. It’s research that will make a practical difference in people’s lives.

And we’re a part of it, can contribute to it, and especially can learn from it. This has been a good lesson in partnership, in what we can learn from our partners as well as what we can contribute.

Wednsday began my first whole day at ACCI. I managed to get lost in the short distance from the UKZN gate and the ag building but a very nice young man who had studied abroad in Michigan helped me out (and I do believe that he called me ma’am which in addition to the getting lost made me feel about a zillion years older instantly but that’s neither here nor there).

I first met with Tongo (Prof. Pangirayi Tongoona) who took me on a tour of the building and the greenhouses which was very enlightenting. I now know what things look like when they are talking about pearl millet and finger millet and the whole greenhouse set up is just ingenious. They’ve got a greenhouse that is heated by water coming from sunwarmed tanks—the whole thing is very efficient. And Tongo is clearly a man who know his plant breeding as well as his students, as his tour and later conversation proved.

I also spoke with Ms. Beulah John today who has been teaching students reading and writing skills, some searching and literature review skills (along with the librarians whom I will met tomorrow). She has a sound grasp of educational theory and a love and support of the students that is truly remarkable. She not only teaches them the above skills but also grant and proposal writing, financial and project management and a host of other skills that I wish all of our graduates got. She and the folks at ACCI do not believe in sink or swim. They take into account language difficulties, personal problems, and disabilities. They do not excuse poor performance but nor do they cut people loose for not performing to an unsupported standard. They believe in empowering students to reach their goals and potential. It’s truly inspiring.

I also got to meet with the 2004 cohort who are a bright and ambitious group. They are about to go out for their field research and I talked to them about the services they have received—some of the have used our ILL. And I talked to them about what has and hasn’t worked well. They are a clear-eyed and ambitious group and they had excellent suggestions about our current and future plans (especially what might work on the SMS project) and were interested to hear about TEEAL and AGORA. I hope this will be the beginning of an ongoing conversation when they are out in the field.

Walter and I went to dinner at this excellent Italian place called Pesto, where I promptly threw out every food regulation I had been set and had melon delicatezza, beef carpaccio and an excellent butterfish with two glasses of wine. We talked about development, Walter’s study abroad experience, the program and a number of other things. A great time all in all. Our waitress cam up afterward and asked us if we were South African; we said no and she said she could tell by our attitude. Interesting.

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On to South Africa

Posted on October 25th, 2005 by

Thanks to intestinal difficulties and insomnia, I spent most of the flight from London to Johannesburg awake and watching Mr. and Mrs. Smith (fun and cheesy), Batman Begins (fun and a little dark) and half of Kung Fu Hustle (totally fun and extremely cheesy, esp. if you like parodies and kung fu films as much as I do). So I set foot on African soil with that glazed surreality that comes from too many hours awake and stepped into the maw of customs lines. I had hooked up with a Scottish grandmother who was very nice and had the stamina of a mule. She shepherded me out of customs and through to the Durban flight with more pep than someone half her age (namely me), all the while texting her family (you’ll be happy to know Nan). I hit Durban and got a cab ride from a guy extolling the joys of long haul driving. I stayed at the Glenmore Pastoral Centre, which was pastoral in the sense of being a retreat for Christian meditation as well as a conference center and in the sense of being way out in the sticks, both of which senses I had somehow failed to grasp while I was booking it. It was very nice though and quiet (except for some animal that kept making a sound like hot water radiators make when they heat up or cool down—this intermittent ping-ping-ping sound). I crashed immediately, got up, showered, gave up any plans for a dinner out on the town and went back to sleep off and on until morning. When I finally levered myself out of bed and showered and repacked, it was a few hours until the bus so I got a cab into town with a guy who showed me why “yehbo” (sp?) was such a catchphrase, where I learned that it was not really stereotypical to see women carrying things on their heads (Larry!) and where I learned that life, though difficult, has certainly gotten better in South Africa and that there is a good deal of hope. As my second cab driver pointed out, black people all over (including those recovering from Katrina) know what it is to go through hard times and continue on with life, because that’s just what has to be done. I also managed to see a bit of the Old Courthouse Museum (with an odd assortment of vintage and traditional costumes, model cars and ships, and replicas of turn-of-the-century businesses) as well as the KwaMuhle Museum (which had excellent explanations of the apartheid era “Durban System” and those who fought against it, as well as information on places of historical note in Durban such as Grey Street). I nearly missed my bus because of the museum outing but managed to make it just in time, thanks to my cab driver. A quick trip through the green and misty countryside and I was in Pietermaritzburg, where I was collected by Prof. Walter deMilliano and got a lovely welcome by everyone, including Ms. Lesley Brown and Ms. Fee deStadler, two of the staff at ACCI who helped plan my visit. I was distressed to hear that Ms. Beulah John, the scientific information specialist at ACCI and another one of the primary planners of my visit, was still ill but I’m hoping that I’ll get a chance to talk with her at least before I go. The folks at ACCI have set out a great schedule, where I’ll get to meet with both the 2004 and 2005 cohorts of students as well as the staff at ACCI and in the university libraries.

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West End Girl

Posted on October 24th, 2005 by

The flight to London was uneventful, just the usual awkwardness of strangers packed together in a small space. I managed to get my one huge bag checked all the way to Durban and put my three bags o’ technology (camera, laptop and LanTEEAL hard drive) in Left Luggage (a misleading term) and trotted off to London for the day. I went to the Tate Modern, which I’d never seen before. I’m usually not a contemporary art fan (nor very knowledgeable about art at all really) but for some reason I decided this was the one thing I wanted to see (partly because I’d already taken pictures in front of Buckingham Palace and ridden a double decker bus on my only earlier trip to London 10 years ago). It was a great museum. I liked the way they juxtaposed pieces around themes like Still Life/Object/something. I took one of the tours and saw one of the reproductions of Marchel Duchamp’s “Fountain,” which is basically a tipped over urinal. I think the discussion of what was art or not—whether someone taking a ready-made object and through a simple repositioning, calling it into question, was art made the rest of the museum and my qualms about modern art a lot easier to understand. Plus the lengths people go to is funny. Duchamp had got rid of the original after the first exhibit (which caused such furor) but then he decided to recreate it but the urinal style he’d used was no longer being produced. So he had to get it made again (at great expense—but then the reproductions are worth gazillions now anyway). A lot of it seems to be a lot of work for a point. I did see some cool abstract pieces though, like Matisse’s “The Snail,” this untidy spiral of blocks of color. And the installation in the main hall on the first floor which was a lot of polyurethane boxes all stacked into walls and mountains and mazes. It looked like sugar cube mountains or warm and really regular icebergs—this was a piece called Embankment by Rachel Whitbread. And to be shallow–“Waterlilies” was pretty—what can I say? I’m simple. Rothko’s big canvases of maroon and back rectangles and boxes were originally intended for a trendy restaurant but he pulled the commission after he decided they were going to be too depressing; he was going for oppressive and boy did he hit it. I like maroon and black (as most of you know) and don’t consider them to be naturally depressing colors but I sat there in that room with the dark grey walls and big maroon and black canvases and just felt a bit sad and disturbed. I like the collections of objects found in the riverbed at Bankside (where the Modern is located) and the site of the Tate Britain (Bankhead?). The artist had volunteers dig up stuff from the riverbed and then he categorized it all (plastic stuff, broken bottles, iron stuff) and arranged it by category in this big cabinet with all the stuff from Bankside on one side and all the stuff from the other on the reverse). I just like curio cabinet kind of things. Also there’s something to be said for obsessive collecting and categorizing. What can I say? I’m also a librarian.

Then I went to the Globe Theatre and was just a bit too late to take the last tour of the day, so I walked across the Millenium Bridge and went to St. Paul’s. Magnificent! If you’ve seen cathedrals then you know what I mean and if you haven’t go now (at least virtually, www.stpauls.co.uk )!

And now it’s on to Johannesburg and Durban!

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Escape from New York

Posted on October 23rd, 2005 by

So as I set off on a rainy Saturday afternoon, one thing became abundantly clear. My luggage would have to change. You know how you pack and you think oh I packed so light; this’ll be no problem. Well, not so much. With the third time in two blocks that my duffel bag had tumbled off its precarious perch on my rolling suitcase, I knew something would have to give and it would probably be my sanity somewhere halfway across the African continent. I was not going to let the bag win!

But minor starting difficulties aside, I immediately knew I was setting out on an adventure when I heard a woman in the bus station talking about her travels, in which she’d seen a man get mugged and have to have his eyes stitched (yes, I think this is what she said, though it was early).

I set off on Greyhound through the rainy fall weather, wishing I could take a picture with me on my travels to show people what a quintessential October day in the Northeast was like. I rolled into NYC, met up with my friend Leigh out at his place in Jackson Heights. Whenever I come to NYC I know what it feels like to be run through with live current (for better or worse) since I always feel like I’m suddenly plugged into this hum and pace. I also forget that there’s so much individual style (which you’d think would be difficult in Ithaca since everybody seems to have their own thing going on) but it’s a very different, sharpish kind of style. (I noticed this in London too.) I also had to re-master the “subway stare,” that way of pretending you’re really not looking at anybody on the subway (or Tube or T or whatever you call it) while really everybody is just so varied and diverse and interesting and sometimes just crazy and singing that I really want to gawk like the tourist I am.

Also, Leigh’s neighborhood in Jackson Heights reminds me what I miss about the city. It’s primarily a South Asian and partly Hispanic neighborhood. Lots of little mom and pop stores, Indian groceries and restaurants and sari shops, pizza and Afghan restaurants check by jowl. Plus one of those everything stores (microwaves and luggage all piled in boxes) where I got one huge suitcase to combine my two smaller annoying ones for only $40—one of those great bargains that makes you feel like you win at life. We had an excellent Indian dinner at the Jackson Dinner with huge families in traditional dress (Hindu and Muslim) and hipster kids from the city all together. I had the best lamb korma and we shared samosa and huge piles of fluffy fragrant garlic naan. Mmmm. Then we popped into the Indian grocery a few stores down and got fruit and pistachio candy. Then I bid Leigh adieu (and good luck on his travels in Costa Rica) and headed off to JFK.

There’s not much more surreal than airports late at night. The overhead sound system was playing some pop ballad and nearly every security guard I passed was singing it—either, as with the first ones I met, heartfelt like she was on American Idol for her co-worker) or, as with the last guy I say with a vacant zombie stare. I watched the airport security guy run my baggage through the machine. I’d never seen it from the other side and it’s an oddly pop art (?) kind of display. He can successively peel back layers or make them more opaque and all in the oddest colors (orange and brown and pink and other colors all melded together into a strange electric no-color). It was like some strange guessing game—were those bowling pins or wine bottles? And even knowing what I had I was stumped. I was tempted to try yelling out guesses and clues but in this post-9/11 world I figured I’d keep my mouth shut and move on. Plus, I was distracted by the cleaning lady after me getting her ladder x-rayed. Then came the drama of the three women who had been bumped off a flight and then closed out of the other flight they had been promised would be held.

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Bon Voyage!

Posted on October 22nd, 2005 by

Hi everyone! Welcome to my travel blog. Here’s where you can keep up with me as I head off to Africa. I’ll record my travels and adventures (Internet permitting) as I set off on my van Tienhoven Award trip. (Picture the little plan crossing the map in dotted lines as Indiana Jones music plays.) Today I set out for NYC then hop to London then Johannesburg and make my first stop in Durban on Monday (Sunday your time) for a quick breather and some sightseeing. Then Tuesday (Mon. your time) it’s on to my real first destination–the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. This blog will eventually take you to Johannesburg and then to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Enjoy the ride and tell me what you think in the comments!

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