Posted by: andrewedwardmorgan | November 7, 2009

New Photos: Zanzibar and Tanzania

me, Pongwe, Zanzibar

Saturday 11/7/09  Gulu, Uganda

I just got back from a two week holiday in Zanzibar and mainland Tanzania.  The pictures from the trip are up on my Flickr page.  Check ‘em out here.

Enjoy!

roadkill in Lushoto, Tanzania

me in Lushoto, Tanzania

our hut in Pongwe, Zanzibar

Lushoto, Tanzania

me, Zanzibar

Pongwe

fisherman, Kendwa, Zanzibar

Posted by: andrewedwardmorgan | November 7, 2009

Captain Morgan’s Snorkeling Trip Off Mnemba Island

kendwa beach, stitched image----click for more detail

pongwe beach, stitched image---click for more detail

Above:  Two stitched images from Zanzibar.  Click on the images, then click ‘All sizes’ for more detail

Taken from my journal:  10/21/09  Kendwa Beach, Zanzibar

When I asked the stocky Zanzibari who sold me the tickets for the snorkeling trip what his name was, he smiled and said, “Captian Morgan.”  Before we parted ways, I tried to put down a small deposit to save our spots for the trip the following day.  Captain Morgan shook hs head and closed his eyes, incredulous.  “No, no.  No deposit.  If you give us money now, we’ll drink it all away tonight!  Pay all tomorrow.  Hakuna matata.”

The  next morning, a motley batch of foreigners filed onto a battered boat with a crew of muscled Zanzibaris.  Most of us tourists clutched cameras, bottles of water, and sunscreen in ways that made us seem vulnerable and fragile, like eggs rolling across a freeway at rush hour.  Even amidst all the sand and cerulean seas, despite the hammocks, naps, sundowners, and familiar Western meals, we still somehow seemed completely out of place and reliant on talismans and habits from home for soul support.   The Zanzibaris, most shirtless and all with the chiseled arms and sinewy hands of fishermen, joked and loaded things onto the boat for the voyage:  gasoline, coolers, two 10-pound tunas.

Our destination for the day was Mnemba Island, a tiny tree-shagged island cirlced by a wide, Saturnian disk of white sand off Zanzibar’s eastern coast.  The island, Captain Morgan assured me the day before, was famous for its fish-populated fields of coral.  The schedule he pitched me back on the beach went something like this:  Leave bright and early from Kendwa, snorkel at two spots off Mnemba, then head to the beach for an all-you-can-eat fish barbeque, returning to Kendwa by 3:00 pm.  Things went kind of as the Cap’ said they would…sort of, but for a trip that cost half of what the certified dive ships were offering, I couldn’t complain.

incredible water!!  near Mnemba Island, Zanzibar

Read More…

Posted by: andrewedwardmorgan | November 7, 2009

Sketches of Zanzibar

Stone Town

stone town corner, stitched image

Above:  Images from Stone Town.  Click on the bottom image to see it in more detail on its Flickr page.  Click ‘All Sizes’ above the image to see it in a larger size

Taken from my journal:   10/23/09   Stone Town, Zanzibar

Stone Town is the cultural and commercial hub of Zanzibar, a semi-autonomous island off Tanzania’s coast.  Known for it’s labyrinthine maze of allies that dices up the downtown area, Stone Town is a place where shadows thrive; where mosques cry out through the megaphone mouths of their minarets; and where veiled school girls walk home whispering amongst themselves, oblivious to the groups of camera-wielding tourists hunting scenes to shoot and take home.

The charm of the place lies in its close-quarters-ness—the tightness of its streets and the odd angles of its intersections—and the way afternoon light cascades down the faces of its buildings like half-frozen paint slipping down a fresh canvass.

scene from Stone Town

The doors in Stone Town are often so ornate that entering buildings seems pointless, for nothing found inside could stimulate the mind and eyes as much.  Kaleidoscopic designs punctuated with nipples of weathered brass form the doors’ edges, while handles rounded by the touch of a thousand hands bulls-eye their centers.

Everywhere Muslims—almost entirely of the Sunni sect—walk under cap and veil.  The men wear earth-toned, patterned cylindrical hats atop their heads, and women bury the contours of their bodies under ankle-length cloaks and bright head scarves.

The eyes of some women float down the street anchored in clouds of black fabric, two orbs of identity set against masks of flowing obsidian and coal.

Jewelers sell golden pendants and bracelets across from carpeted mosques and next to cluttered stationary stores.

Chef-hatted fish slingers sell kabobs of tuna, kingfish, and lobster for a buck a piece each night under bare light bulbs in the plaza by the waterfront.

night fish market, Stone Town

Fanny packs donutting the guts of toursts bob and stop and float down aisles of souvenir manifestations of African cliches and stereotypes—zebra-head-tipped pencils and banana-leaf-jacketed journals, for example—and occasionally these same fanny packs spill forth their innards of shillings and plastic to purchase some kitsch trinket or another.

Old men stew in groups of three and four on concrete ledges in the afternoon sunlight like lounging lizards, nodding at passerby and sipping spiced tea from plum-sized glass cups.

typical scene in Stone Town

Cats with matted coats that betray their bastardness lay sprawled across stoops and gutters like 3D smears of looming death, disease, and sadness.  I pay them no mind, but one man tries to spoon milk into one dying, emaciated cat’s mouth.  Too weak to swallow, the cat rejects his offering, puddling a white, watery halo around its fallen head.

kids walking in Stone Town

Posted by: andrewedwardmorgan | October 12, 2009

From Bracelets to Savings Groups

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Betty, 55, sits in front of the hut she paid for with money earned as an IC bracelet maker in Awer IDP Camp

***Below is an interview transcript I just posted on IC’s website.  Enjoy!***

Invisible Children’s Bracelet Campaign used to employ people living in IDP camps in northern Uganda to make bracelets.  When the Bracelet Campaign ended in May, IC dovetailed the program’s phase out with the start of a new microfinance program called the Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA).  Because bracelet makers were trained in saving techniques, it seemed only logical to use them as anchors for savings groups in northern Uganda under VSLA.

Ex-bracelet makers are presently helping their fellow villagers save money in 20 different savings groups.  With 20 people in each group, VSLA is a powerful program affecting 400 Ugandan households, enabling group members to take loans from communal group savings funds that they themselves generate.  I recently sat down to speak with Betty, an ex-bracelet maker and current leader of one VSLA group in Awer, Uganda.   Below is a transcript of part of our interview.

Read More…

Posted by: andrewedwardmorgan | October 7, 2009

Murchison Falls

Wednesday 10/7/09  Gulu, Uganda

When visitors come out for multi-day trips, I often take them to Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda’s largest national park.  It’s a beautiful expanse of rolling hills blanketed with high grasses and palm trees, populated with elephants, hartebeests, lions, buffalo, and hippos, among others.  The crown jewel of the park is a waterfall by the same name, a raging torrent of water that, night and day, pounds away at the walls of a narrow channel of stone.  The video below shows the IC roadies hanging out by the falls.

Posted by: andrewedwardmorgan | October 4, 2009

Malaria, Yes.

malaria meds

Above:  My last dose of malaria meds

Sunday 10/4/09  Gulu, Uganda

Last week I got malaria for the second time.  I had a sore neck at work that slowly morphed into an odd back-of-the-head headache.

When I went to the doctor, I told him my symptoms.  In addition to the achy neck, I explained, I had a few strange sores on my back and feet that refused to close up and heal.  For more than a week, five or six penny-sized sores had been annoying me.  Hearing this, the doctor paused for a moment and tried to think of an explanation for the symptom cocktail.

“It’s either syphilis or malaria,” he said finally.

I almost laughed out loud.  I didn’t know what to say.

One blood test and ten minutes later, the doctor entered the room and declared, “Syphilis, no.  Malaria, yes.”

“What about the sores?” I asked.  “The malaria doesn’t explain the sores.”

Again he thought.

“Have you touched any Ugandan children lately?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” I said, unsure of what he was getting at.

He went on to explain that children in east Africa often spread bacterial and fungal skin infections to one another.  Shaking hands with an infected child could be enough to spark transmission.  Unconcerned about the sores, the doctor said to wash them with soap and water, wait a week, and see what happens.

*****

I’m feeling better now.  Once again, though, I find myself reminded of how fickle health can be.  As hard as I try after each battle with sickness—be it big or small—I always seem to slip into a state of non-awareness in regards to my health, one in which I take my health for granted and rarely take a moment out of my day to be thankful for my ten toes and fingers, my functioning eyes, and my beating heart.

Posted by: andrewedwardmorgan | October 1, 2009

THIS is Awesome

Check this out.  It’s incredible.

This new page on Invisible Children’s updated website (www.invisiblechildren.com) shows real-time data as its collected by roving IC roadies, the folks who drive around the US for months at a time to screen IC movies .  When roadies sell IC merch on the road or add a new support school to a particular cluster of American support schools, data shows up on this webpage.  It’s set up to give a slow leak of data over 12 hours, so what  you see is happening in ‘real-time’ in the sense that it has happened in the last 12 hours.  Note:  The movement of the school clusters is arbitrary and only added to the page for visual effect.

Enjoy!

Posted by: andrewedwardmorgan | September 29, 2009

The Roadies Are Gone…

And that means that, after three and a half months, Invisible Children’s busy summer visitor season is officially over.  Now I can exhale.

I’m going to be busy in the next few weeks, though, creating content for the new IC website, which has a rolling blog as its main component.  Because the rolling blog needs frequent posts to keep it interesting (and keep readers coming back), IC Uganda has been asked to submit more weekly content than we’ve submitted to the blog in the past.   This translates into more interviewing and writing for me.  This shift from dealing with summer visitors to a more writing-heavy schedule is a welcome one—I was starting to feel worn out by the endless stream of IC guests that showed up in Gulu over the past few months.

I’m headed to Zanzibar and Tanzania with a co-worker at the end of October for a two-week vacation.  Snorkeling, journaling, reading, and riding trains are in the cards.

patiko view

Above:  Roadies take in the view from atop the mountain of granite at Ft. Patiko, just outside of Gulu.  The fields, colored a shade of electric green, are lush thanks to the consistent rains we’ve been having in the past month.  This is a stitched image—click on it, then click ‘All sizes’ to see it in its original size for more detail.

IMG_0076

Above:  Roadies mid-flight at St. Joseph’s College Layibi in Gulu

IMG_0171

Above:  Roadies check out Murchison Falls, the most powerful waterfall in the world at the height of Uganda’s rainy season.  The falls are located about three hours from Gulu, in northwestern Uganda.


Posted by: andrewedwardmorgan | September 23, 2009

Examiner Interview

getting ready to start the climb from the bottom of Chicamocha Canyon

me, more blue

Above:  Stefan and I take a break before starting the long climb out of Chicamocha Canyon in Colombia.  Me in front of one of the colorful balconies in Villa de Leyva, Colombia.

Nancy Vogel, mother and cyclist of Familyonbikes.org fame (she’s cycling with her two young sons and husband from Alaska to Argentina on a multi-year trip), recently interviewed me via email for an article that she’s writing for Examiner.com.  Below is a copy of the questions and answers we exchanged.  For those of you not interested in cycling, be forewarned:   The interview is mostly about bike-related stuff!

Here’s an excerpt from the interview (which, along with lots of other interviews with bike travelers, can be found here):

Nancy: Any special tips or advice to wannabe tourers?

Andrew: Jump.

Don’t get caught up on gear worries and route worries. Don’t fret about running out of cash—bike travel is incredibly cheap. Save up enough to travel on a $5–10 US per person per day budget, read some blogs, train for a few weeks, and leave. Just go! Sort things out on the road. Bring zip-ties. Bring camping equipment so you give yourself more options. Travel with an objective in mind—have a purpose for your trip. Don’t mess around with cheap wheels and tires—have a bike shop make some wheels for you with Sun Rhyno Lite rims. (I’m still waiting for my first broken spoke!) Use Schwalbe Marathon XR tires. Talk to people. Make yourself vulnerable. Get lost. Camp behind police stations, in firehouses, and in farmers’ fields. Try the street food. Journal. Embark on your trip as a hungry learner, as someone lusting for information. With this mindset, you’ll radiate a certain type of energy that will protect you throughout your travels. Don’t wait until Costa Rica to use your little chain ring on climbs—despite what you might think, it’s not worth saving an entire cog for the Andes! Even little climbs deserve low gears! With that said, push the bike when cycling is impossible—don’t be ashamed to get out of the saddle and walk. Contact other cyclists before you set out on your ride to ask questions. (My email is andrewedwardmorgan@gmail.com—ask away!) Use maps and advice from locals to figure out your route as you ride. Go to Bolivia if you want to ride through the best scenery in South America. Stay present—don’t fantasize about pizzas you’re going to have with friends in the future or pizzas you’ve had with them in the past. Stay focused on your pedal strokes, on the wind, on the sun on your face, on the llamas crossing the road. Don’t quit before you’ve cycled for two weeks—it takes this much time to break yourself into the cycling routine.

Go!

Read More…

Posted by: andrewedwardmorgan | September 4, 2009

Pics

IMG_9753

Above:  A man carries jerry cans to the water at sunset in Adjumani, Uganda

Friday 9/4/09   Gulu, Uganda

I just battled the internet and won…kinda:  I managed to upload most of the pictures I was trying to upload today.  Even little victories count for something!

Fast internet is still far out of reach for folks here in Gulu.  I read the other day that Uganda’s attempt to get broadband cable run out to the country from the Kenyan coast has been stymied because politicians don’t feel like they’re getting the same deal that the governments of Rwanda and Burundi are getting.  (Apparently similar lengths of cable are slated to be laid in all three countries, yet Uganda alone is scheduled to pay an exorbitant price for it.)

Anyway, here are some new pictures.

IMG_9712

Above:  Flowers by a place called Jesus Town that is on the way to Adjumani

scholarship award ceremony----Jolie awards 100 girls with new university scholarships.  yeah!

Above:  When Jolly gives 100 new university scholarships to girls in northern Uganda, it looks like this!  (Stitched with Autostich.  Click for more detail)

pano

Above:  Beautiful sunset over the Nile in Adjumani.  Went camping for the weekend and was treated to this view from the tents! (Stitched with Autostitch.  Click for more detail)

IMG_9784

Above:  Flower spotted near the water’s edge in Adjumani

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