An African Xmas Venting

I just need to get this off of my chest before it's too late.

In the office, I've heard some of my non-Kenyan colleagues complain that it just doesn't feel like Christmas here in Nairobi/Kenya. Even though the many malls here are decked out with fairy lights and Christmas trees and local school groups carol regularly in front of stores (very western, indeed), they just don't feel the holiday spirit. The only time that they say they felt the holidays were coming was when I recently baked sugar cookies.

I think I know why this is the case.

Even here in Kenya we listen to popular western holiday songs. With sleigh bells jingling in the background and words like "snow" sprinkled through all of the songs' lyrics. This can be really confusing to the mind while in Africa - even though I'm hearing snowy vocabulary being sung in songs, I'm surrounded by tropical plants on warm and sunny days. What's more - Kenya is extremely close to the equator, which means it doesn't boast the normal four seasons you find in the west. No snow, here. And for places south of the equator, its summertime right now anyway; case in point is Australia scorching in heat while the US is piled in layers and shivering.

Therefore, of course it wouldn't feel like the holidays to someone if they're relying on wintry music to fill their holiday playlist.

In response to this, I started looking for weather-neutral music (or even tropical music) that is Christmas focused for a new playlist. I've found a few songs that are neutral to weather for the holidays, like Wham's "Last Christmas" and John Lennon's "Happy Xmas (War is Over)". The only popular non-snowy song with a tropical twist (and was written by a band in a region outside of the west, sorry Tim Mitchen) I could find was (my mom's favorite) Boney M's song "Mary's Boy Child". It's a great example of something I can happily listen to in Kenya and start feeling festive. The only problem (for our African-situated and minded folks, here) is that they're a Caribbean band. I have struggled to find African holiday music.

I did go to a holiday festival last week that helped me somewhat scratch my itch for a tropical holiday vibe. A group of popular Kenyan singers sang regular Christmas Carols and wove fun local Kenyan songs into them, which gave the songs a cheeky flair. It was wonderful and brimming with holiday joy....but I haven't found much else that gives the holidays its own local feel to it.

I hope that African artists can start creating and popularizing their own holiday songs soon - it would help improve the tropical holiday vibe and increase the diversity of songs to listen to over the holidays that aren't rehashes of old classics that we keep hearing re-sung by new people.

Last note to share: I really resent the 1980s holiday hit "Do they know it's Christmas" nowadays, while I'm at it. Though extremely catchy, its lyrics are ignorant and pretty much underline all of the foolish things western folk say about "the rest of the world". The phrases "and there won't be snow in Africa this Christmastime" infuriates me every time - of course not because it's summer, you idiot!

An Indian Week

Please stop honking. Why are you honking?

I ended up going to India last week for a conference in Pune on the Sanitation Economy (aka nerdy toilet folks talking about how to make toilets more profitable). I had decided to pad my trip to Pune with a day at both ends with a stay in Mumbai since I had never been before and had heard so much about it (and since that's where I'd land).

I landed in Mumbai on Saturday and was reminded that India is hot. Very hot. I foolishly thought that Mumbai was going to be balmy and spring-like during the winter months. I was wrong. Mumbai was hot and humid like any other time I've been to India. I felt like it was jarring transitioning from the dry 78F/26C sunny days in Nairobi to the 97F/36C and humid heat of Mumbai.

Also, the air quality was pretty awful; while Nairobi at the time had an AQI of 9 (which is pretty good), Mumbai's was at 170 (which is really bad). And don't even get me started on the noise pollution in India (though this article is about Delhi) - it's honking all of the time, all day, every day, no matter where you are, and music is played in arbitrary places everywhere. It can give you a pretty big headache if you're stuck in the constant traffic on every street.

I was staying in the shopping street called Lamington Road and walked around Southern Mumbai for my day in the city. I walked to the beach area and strolled about 10 minutes before I relented and got a cab to drive me to India Gate...but in those few minutes of walking I saw run-down buildings  with humidity taking tolls on their external structures and dirty corners with questionable smells that I have come to associate with most major cities in the country.

I took a 1.5-hour boat ride to the Elephanta Cave, which is a UNESCO Heritage Site on an island off of Mumbai. While on the boat, I was dismayed watching the other riders; many of the people on the boat were eating bagged snacks and were (1) throwing pieces of food into the water to the seagulls then (2) discarding the bags and wrappers right into the water like it was a giant rubbish bin. I think if we're going to talk about saving our oceans and changing behaviors to manage climate change, we have a long way to go yet.

On the island, I hired a young tour guide to show me around the famous caves for an hour under the bleaching sun. We walked in the sweltering heat and climbed slowly up the 100+ steps to get to the caves at the top of the hill. It was pretty great once we got up there - there are several scenes of giant Lord Shiva's life carved into the cave walls, all intricately detailed. My guide explained that the cave carvings were around 1500 years old. Unfortunately, the Portuguese once stationed on the island 500 years ago and took to shooting at the carvings for target practice. The good news is that they're still amazing to see, even with a few bullet marks in Shiva's thighs.

After about four hours of touring, I gave up on braving the heat and sought refuge in a beautiful coffee shop nearby with WiFi and worked for a few hours before grabbing some Persian food en route to the hotel for bed.

The next day a colleague and I shared a car for the 4-hour drive to Pune. I slept for this drive, so there's nothing for me to share.

Pune is different than Mumbai. For one, it's much cooler - about 10F/6C degrees less than Mumbai. Pune is also much cleaner and better planned than Mumbai, as Pune has a strong campaign to clean the city with the government's Swachh Bharat mission and use smart technology to keep the city running. They have clean public toilets on the sides of the street, as well!

Someone on my trip explained to me that much of Pune's residents are the wealthier people from Mumbai who tire of the city and want to move somewhere cleaner/nicer than Mumbai. They may still do their business in Mumbai, but they live and breathe in Pune. Honestly? I can't blame them.

I didn't see too much of Pune since I was at a conference most of the time, but I liked what I saw.

The conference was also lovely and went well. I was busy with networking and talking about new projects with sector partners. We also visited the Pune Smart City Control Center, which was neat.

A few conference attendees and I shared a ride back to Mumbai afterward. The hotel one of my riding partners stayed at managed to lose her bag for three hours. After the chaos, they sent us to Mumbai in one of their cars and with bags of food - all complimentary.

The next day before I went to the airport, I tried out a pleasant coworking space near the terminal for a few hours. I left in a rickshaw to get to the airport, meaningless waiting in the airport for 3.5 hours for my flight.

And now I'm back in Nairobi.

This trip helped me realize what I have loved about India in the past, and it's not been the cities. I love the natural beauty in much of India, and the rural areas are peaceful. The cities in India, though? I could do without them right now. Pune is better than many I've been to, but I'm still not that wild about urban India if I'm honest.

Employment in Kenya

Source: Kachwanya.com

Something I just want to note somewhere is my pile of thoughts about employment and capacity in Kenya.

I've been really impressed - and delighted - by the high capacity (or ability to improve capacity) in Kenya. My teammates are brilliant, the ability to innovate is strong, and people's ingenuity is remarkable. And my experiences with other professionals have been probably better than what I have had in many US towns (and even in NYC).

What breaks my heart is the gap for some to get jobs worth their abilities. Many different people have explained to me that lots of Kenyans take years (YEARS!) to get jobs after graduation from university because the job market is inadequate. I've met colleagues who were once between jobs and had to look for a long period of time to find their next gig. This is particularly true for the youth; while a third of the working population is youth, youth also make up over two-thirds of the unemployment market.

What's more - sometimes the jobs they can get in their trained professions don't pay enough to make it worthwhile to choose over jobs that don't require their skills. A lot of people take jobs with drive shares like Uber or SafeBoda because the gig economy is real and many find it to be better money than more stable office jobs.

Take my driver, C. He drives a couple of us every day to and from our homes and the office. He's a really sweet guy, and sharp. I just found out he's a trained lab tech - a job I think is too complicated and skilled for me to get my head wrapped around ever.

And yet, he chooses to be an Uber driver over a lab tech. Because there aren't jobs that he could easily commute to from where his family is. Because it doesn't pay well. Because the perks just aren't there to make it worth his life's commitment. So C is now my driver and talks to me on our car rides about fecal sludge management, the chemistry of alcohol, and the science of health products and everything. We pay him $15 daily to drive us in a 2-hour commute through Nairobi.

I remarked this to some of my work colleagues here and they were sympathetic. They told me that if they got paid a bit less or had a car, they'd make the same choice.

This means that there are a lot of Uber drivers available for my tedious trips across the city. And a lot of them have shared interesting conversations with me about sanitation and the economy.

I know there are similar issues in places around the US, but I was surprised in such a booming economy with so much growth and potential to suffer from these issues. It seems that part of the issue is that the population rate has been outgrowing the economic growth rate, and some businesses are trying to get leaner and take on AI that can make some people redundant - and that could spell more unemployment problems in the near future in the country, or more brain drain.

Hello from Kenya

A public toilet in CBD

Hello from Nairobi! I landed here two weeks ago and will be here working on a project for the next six months.

I haven't written much about my visit yet because, well, I've been pretty busy. I work all day on my local consulting gig and then moonlight on a separate consulting project that I'm finishing up remotely. Much of my first two weeks have been going back and forth from the office working to my house working more (hopefully without annoying my two roommates) and then sleeping. All in all, my current consulting lifestyle is pretty dull.

But I feel like I should try to put together something about my initial time here so far. Whatever I put together today will have to be small, but it will be something. I'll put it in a list so I can do it quickly and get back to my projects. More in December, I guess?

• Leapfrog Modernity: I visited Nairobi for 20 years maybe 7-8 years ago. It's definitely changed a lot since the last visit. I landed into a much more modern airport; the one I had visited previously was one story and oddly riddled with potholes on the pedestrian walkways between gates, but the new airport looks like anything you'd see in Europe or the US. But there are other things that show how Nairobi (and other bigger African cities) are leapfrogging decades ahead from where they were a few years ago, thanks to the internet.
  My main form of transportation is Uber cars, which is cheap and fast...but Uber here also provides services for motorcycle rides (aka boda bodas), which is a staple form of transportation in any developing country I've been to. Boda bodas are cheaper and faster than cars (because of the traffic) but are a bit more dangerous (because of anything related to motorcycles), and they're now really easy to book without having to argue about prices (something I have hated to do).
  Not only do they have Uber, but they also have Uber Eats! I haven't used it yet, but my housemates use Uber Eats pretty regularly. It looks like most restaurants are offering Uber Eats in my area, which is convenient. I probably won't be ordering from KFC or Dominoes, but getting Ethiopian delivered sounds like a great future plan.
  Part of the modern leapfrogging also means that there are cashless places here that I've already stumbled into. Granted, mobile money has been a thing in Kenya long before we started hearing the word Venmo in the US, and many people here who aren't banked even get paid by their jobs via mobile money for their purchases and bill payments.
  And Nairobi is developing everywhere. I see highrises getting built all over the place (though some think that many of the empty construction sites are fronts for Chinese money laundering or something), and most of the buildings I go to that have restaurants I want to visit are still pulling the plastic wrap off of their windows, they're so new.
  And the roads are getting built better. The dusty roads are getting paved and there are even new overpassing highways across town. The rides are smoother than in other places, for sure.
  It's really amazing to see how quickly cities are growing outside of the Western world.
• Clean: I've been pleasantly surprised with how overall clean Nairobi is. I've been to other cities in other developing countries and have felt overwhelmed by the dusty streets completely drowning in trash. While there is some dust and some trash in Nairobi, and most of where I've been traveling around has been largely wealthy areas for ex-pats wealthy (probably mostly white) immigrants or the wealthy local population, I'm very happy to see that it's not so bad and some areas even have legitimate sidewalks (like my street). It smells better than NYC, too, which is a good thing.
• Good Events and Pretty Food: While I haven't been getting out much and have been subsisting mainly on eggs and the beans/rice lunches provided at work, I have gone out a few times. Every restaurant I've been to here so far has been really pretty and has tasty food. Last weekend I went to a new restaurant that has vegan/gluten-free/raw/veggie/dairy-free options (most likely they're catering to the massive ex-pat wealthy immigrant crowd), and it was as tasty as any health-focused restaurant I've been to in NYC. Right now (as I type) I'm in a popular Eritrean cafe and am eating a delightfully tasty veggie platter for $10. And the list of other places I've been told to eat at while I am here continues to grow the more days I'm here. Nairobi is booming with food.
  And I'm excited to get myself further immersed into the booming arts and theater culture here once I'm one contract down come December.
• Suburban Division: Nairobi reminds me of Brisbane, Australia in one particular way - it's divided up into separate suburbs that somehow loosely orbit around the Central Business District (CBD). CBD is where the government buildings are and I've seen a few public toilets (like in the picture) patiently offering busy bureaucrats easy on-the-go relief (though they don't have that many, they have probably more than NYC). I live in a mostly wealthy local and immigrant area called Kilimani, surrounded by other slightly different wealthy local and immigrant areas. We have sidewalks, sushi joints, and shopping malls. The only thing about the setup of the city is that it's not entirely walkable, so Uber is my best friend as I travel around the town. Otherwise, it's pretty easy.
• Traffic: It's bad. No matter what. There are cars for days, here. While there are public bus services and matatus that get you to different places while crammed into the vehicle with a lot of other people, a lot of people use the bodas and Ubers to get them around if they don't have a car themselves. This means there are a lot of cars everywhere, even/especially on new highways. Commutes to and from work take much longer than they should - my commute probably at least doubles most days to get to the office because of the traffic. Sometimes, just to keep moving, my work's carpool drives through the famous and massive  Kibera slum, which is harrowing on a different level because of its narrow roads and life spilling across them everywhere. I'm now learning to appreciate Audible so I can listen to books while I patiently sit in my commute's carpool for hours a day.
• Stable Weather: While the East Coast and Midwest start getting clobbered by snow and unpredictable daily temperatures, the weather here hovers between 60 and 80 every day, which is pretty pleasant. I wear a sweater in the morning to work, and on the way home I've got my hair up and am sticking to just a tee-shirt. I've stopped looking at the weather forecasts - the only thing I have to watch out for is rain, so I carry an umbrella all of the time. Otherwise, I'm pleasantly outside when I can. I do miss the pumpkin season, but it sounds like that season was shortlived at home anyway.

What am I doing in Nairobi? I'm working on an urban sanitation project. The organization I'm working with gets people living in informal settlements (aka slums) access to reliable and safe toilets that are regularly emptied and its fecal waste is safely treated to make fertilizer and animal feed. It's pretty damn cool, and I'm here helping them get better clarity about their data, measurements, and methodologies for assessing their performance and impact.

A Holiday in Jordan

Quintessential Jordan picture:
Petra's Treasury

I just got back from a wonderful 8-day trip through Jordan. I had originally just planned on going for a 3-day conference about water management, but I decided to road trip across my first Arab (and Middle Eastern) country. I ended up having a really interesting and peaceful week.

I didn't see all of the popular spots in Jordan, like Aqaba or the Baptism site, and I didn't walk through Jaresh (I drove by it), but I do feel like my trip was perfect for me.

I hired a Jordanian company called Dry Ver Jo to drive me around the country while I was there. It was one of the best decisions I made because I never worried about how I was getting anywhere, and my driver(s) showed me around the country's back roads and took care of me when I got my typical trip's food poisoning. My main driver was Abdullah; he was fantastic and made me feel like I had a best friend in Jordan driving me around and even brought me out for dinner on my last night.

Days 1-2: Dead Sea
I started my trip near the Dead Sea, for the conference. It's a hot and humid place, which isn't surprising as it's one of the lowest points on Earth you can visit without getting into the ocean AND has heaps of salt on the surface of both soil and water.

The first thing I did after arriving was to make my way to the Dead Sea, a 7-minute walk from the hotel I was staying. I could see clearly the lake's recession as the hotel's path to the water was riddled with derelict beach areas when the water was once much closer to the building; I found this very sad. The sea is receding about a meter annually because its tributary (the Jordan River) has been diverted too much by countries further upstream (which has also led to a lot of sinkholes in the dregs of the dying sea).

The sea is definitely saline, and when I finally made it to the waters, I floated like a rubber ducky and made the mistake of putting some of the water far too close to my lips (it tasted like nasty salt).

For the rest of my stay in the area, I was mostly in a conference room listening to academics talk about the history of water reuse. It was a fine conference, albeit small and a bit "aged". I was very jetlagged during the conference, but I forged through it and met some interesting water historians.

Days 3-4: Wadi Mujib & Petra
Part of the conference included a day trip to Petra to look at ancient water systems. We piled into a tour bus and drove three hours south to visit the famous site.

I have to explain something: I have never liked being part of tour groups. I find them too restrictive when exploring. This day trip reminded me how much I don't enjoy being part of groups - much of the conference attendees were slow to move and were interested in capturing pictures while a guide patiently tried to usher us from the Petra Museum (with a lovely exhibit describing the culture of the people who built Petra - the Nabateans) and through the Siq. About two hours into the tour, I grew impatient and asked to break away at a faster speed so I wouldn't miss out on seeing the rest of the site (at their speed, we'd only get to the Treasury and would have no time to see the rest of the place).

Petra is beautiful and fascinating; there's a reason why people flock to see this archeological location. The buildings were expertly carved out of the canyon's soft sandstone for different purposes - an amphitheater, tombs, monasteries, homes, etc. It was hot when we were visiting and Petra doesn't have a lot of shade, but I pushed forward and was awed when I got to the Treasury. It's the most famous (and photogenic) aspect of Petra, and with good reason; the carvings are still very much defined, and it's a brilliant view when you reach it from the Siq.

I also walked down the main thoroughfare and saw the panoramic sights of the city of Petra, with the smaller carved-out houses in the rock (and donkeys inside to seek shade), the tombs and church further up flights of precarious steps, and through the sandy old road. I was due to meet the tour group shortly after I broke away, so I didn't have time to climb up to see some of the tombs or monastery up close, but I didn't mind (I liked looking from afar just as much).

One of the incredible things about Petra and the Nabateans is their sophisticated water management systems from such an early time. Jordan has always had water quantity challenges, but they had perfect water piping systems and cisterns that stored and reused water within their habitats. Some of those systems could probably be adopted in parts of the world still. So neat!

A bummer of Petra (for me) was seeing the sad animals being overworked. The donkeys drag carriages up and down the rocky hills of the Siq. These donkeys are prodded to go fast and trip across cobblestones until they are heaving and clearly distressed. It was really sad to see them zoom back and forth in the site and even sadder how many people were willing to pay for their use. A suggestion: don't use the donkeys in Petra.

The tour group drove back to the Dead Sea for the night. The next day I made my way back.

Along the way, we stopped at Wadi Mujib. Before I showed up, I didn't know much about Wadi Mujib other than it was supposed to be a beautiful place in a canyon and a fun side adventure while in Jordan...so I got there and asked the admission's fee. The entrance guy looked at me in my linen pants and politely asked me if I was ready to swim, climb, and crawl through the canyon. Clearly not sure what I was getting myself into, I changed into some more "athletic" gear and headed into the canyon with a tour guide.

Wadi Mujib's adventure is a great and safe experience, but it's also hard. I found myself in a canyon with a stream-cum-rapid that I was wading through to get to the big waterfall at the end of the 2-hour hike. The further along you are, the deeper and faster the water gets. My guide made the trecking a lot easier; we'd watch people in front of us struggle and he'd respond by showing me a much simpler method to get past a rapid that saved me time and energy (thank god I paid extra to have him join me!). It was still a tough course to get through, though, and there were moments where I slammed into rocks or had to drag myself up a pile of rocks with a rope and felt myself pull one of many muscles along the way. I also accidentally got a lot of water in my nose and mouth at different parts of the journey, which I suspect gave me the sickness I had a day later. Sadly, my fear of heights kicked in strongly about 2/3 into the trek, and I made my guide turn around after forcefully shouting at him "NO!" in Arabic (rather, "La!" / "!لا").

I'm glad I did it, but I felt the pain from that adventure for a few days after.

En route to my next stop, Abdullah brought me to a tea shop on a cliff in the mountains near the Dead Sea. I got some sugary tea and enjoyed a gorgeous backdrop of rolling hills and distant views of Palestine. An old man was sitting at the tea spot and started talking to my driver about me. The old man informed us that he was a fan of Trump (much to my dismay and Abdullah's confusion) and was a proud veteran of the Jordanian Army. He pulled out of his wallet a medallion from his service and asked me to wear it for one of my pictures. I was touched and honored that he shared such an important thing with me for a few minutes.

After that adventure, we drove on to Wadi Musa, where I had arranged to stay at a Bedouin camp for a few nights. The camp I stayed at was in the middle of an empty desert area near Little Petra, so it was beautifully quiet. At night, they lit a campfire to warm up tea and one of the nearby rock formations lit up with twinkling bags of light they had placed in its crags.

Day 5: Little Petra
The next day I woke up feeling like I was in an otherworldly place - the camp felt like it was some outpost on the moon!

I had decided to spend most of the day reading quietly and relaxing - it was my vacation, after all. Before sundown, though, I wanted to walk 30 minutes over to Little Petra for a while. Way back in the day, Little Petra was likely the suburb of the popular Petra, and important people I think would "park" their camels and caravans at this place.

Honestly, I liked Little Petra a little bit more than the other one. It was quieter (most tourists don't bother visiting), it was shaded, it had some preserved ceiling art, and I could more realistically envision people coming into this area and living there.

One of my favorite parts of visiting ancient sites is visualizing people back in the day living there normally - it makes the place feel more real to me.

A younger shopowner at Little Petra showed me around the area, and I happily followed him knowing I'd pay him afterward. With my Wadi Mujib injuries, he helped me safely climb up and down steps in the area and showed me places I wouldn't have bothered looking into if he weren't with me. He was concerned about my limp and showed me a local tree that apparently people use to help soothe muscles. He then invited me to apply it on my leg in his cave a few minutes' away.

For the record, this man lived in a cave. The cave had carved out pillars and was clearly old (with some new carpets and mattresses lining the floor). Essentially, he appeared to live in a Nabatean-built cave and modernized the place a little bit. I was floored! Apparently, much of the Nabatean caves that were part of the Petra civilization are not completely what the tourists see, and some people are still using these caves to live (and others probably have still yet to be fully discovered).

I put on my homemade ointment (that may have helped a little bit) and hobbled my way back to my camp for the night.

Day 6: Wadi Rum

Early the next day I got picked up to drive even further south to the UNESCO-protected desert in Jordan - Wadi Rum. This was the place they filmed The Martian and Lawrence of Arabia. I got to the desert village a little after midday and my bedouin camp in the desert picked me up for my five-hour Jeep tour through the protected area.

The Jeep tour was incredible - it was as if we were driving through Mars for much of the trip. The Bedouin man who was driving me around showed me some breathtaking sights and took me all over. We started in an area that had prehistoric petroglyphs carved into the stone walls, climbed a number of red rock formations so I could hover over a natural arch, then he drove me far away from any other living beings, in absolute silence and desolation. He showed me how the desert has two regions: red and white. The red region is where the camps are and is better traveled by tourists; the white region is furthest from any road and is not allowed to have any camps built in it. There were camels hanging out all across the desert; some had tourists on their back, some were just hanging out as if life was mellow and they were just along for the ride. My guide drove around the desert as if there were well-marked streets through the barrenness of the desert that I just couldn't see for some reason. I'm still baffled.

The camp where I was staying for the night was the last camp in the desert and the closest to the white desert and without any internet or connectivity. I also happened to be the only person there for the night. They asked me if I wanted to change my camp to be with other people, but I was excited about having a very quiet and alone evening in the middle of nowhere. I had the whole night to myself (and three guys running the camp) with the dunes and starlit sky. One of the camp staff brought out an oud and played some traditional music just for me. We sat and talked quietly over a small campfire, and I watched shooting stars.

I was very much alone in a lot of ways that night, and I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed being the only person using the bathrooms and the silence echoing in the stillness of the desert. What I did not enjoy was a night in and out of the bathroom with some medium-level food poisoning (most useful in Arabic during my stay - "Ana murad"/"انا مريض"/"I'm sick"). The camp staff guys were concerned about me and, with limited ability to speak with each other, helped me decide that the next day I'd go see a doctor in Amman while I started taking some Cipro I had carried with me "just in case".

Day 7 - 8: Amman (and North)

The next day my driver friend picked me up early at a nearby tourist rest stop and drove me (slowly, at my request) from Wadi Rum to Amman. One of the local women at the conference had helped me find a GI doctor and I had booked an appointment for early in the afternoon to make sure I hadn't picked up those irritating parasites (that I'm prone to getting while overseas).

The GI doctor was very helpful and well-informed. He checked out my gut, got me to leave behind a sample for testing, and instructed me to get a second opinion about some of the treatments I am taking for other more chronic GI issues. With his visit and the lab tests he ran, the tab ended up being $100...without any insurance. In the US, that bill would have been the same WITH insurance. And the healthcare in Jordan felt more personal and less like a factory. If you ever get sick in Jordan, rest assure there is really great, affordable care out there.

My hotel in Amman was fine. The hotel manager had very limited English but tried to talk to me anyway about things that strangers shouldn't ask guests in their hotel. I kept to myself and avoided him as much as I could.

The next day I went for a tourist jaunt across the city. It was a jarring experience - not just because I had just spent the last 3 or 4 days in very quiet, secluded areas of the country and I was accosted by the noises of urbanity suddenly, but also because the people I encountered were less kind and less helpful. It was a helpful reminder that people in cities are not good reflections of the rest of the country I'm in. I mean, I knew this already - I'm a New Yorker, after all.

I started the day at the Amman Citadel. It resembles a Roman ruin but dates back much further than that. I slowly walked around the fort and admired some of the ancient water storage sites they had built so long ago.

After I was finished, I made a mistake. I agreed to let the first taxi driver I met to drive me around the city for two hours. The guy was a creep and talked to me all about his taste in women and asking me all about my weight management (ugh). He ended up stealing about $20 from me on top of what I had originally agreed to pay him, and he pissed me off a lot. It was my fault, I know, but it was another reminder that city people are not always the best people in the world. That's what I'll say about him.

I visited the Amphitheater and its two museum exhibits about traditional cultures in Jordan. They were interesting to see and I do recommend people to visit at least for a little bit.  The remains are quite well preserved and are neat to walk through, as well.

The creep taxi man also made me go to the King Abdullah Mosque in the city. It's not a particularly old mosque - it's not quite 40 years old yet, and I was honestly unimpressed by it. Don't get me wrong, it was nice; it was just like going to any other modern building in use with stained glass windows, which I was not interested in. There was also a tourist shop under the mosque that I was pushed to visit and I decided to at least make the stop useful to finish up my Xmas shopping, so I spent too much on some nice souvenirs. Much of it was soap (spoiler alert?).

I also went downtown to buy 1.5 kilos of spices (za'atar and sumac) and ditched the creepy cabbie to get some lunch. I stopped at the famous Al Quds for lunch and ordered some delicious mansaf, which is a rice dish with a tangy yogurt sauce, nuts, and chicken. I also sacrificed my glutenfree health to give knafeh a try (a popular local dessert with unsalted cheese and a honeyed pastry top)...and it was very much delicious and probably worth the pain I will deal with for the next few weeks.

By this time it was sunny and 95F/35C out, but I wasn't ready to quit my tourism quite yet. I walked uphill for about an hour to see Rainbow Street, which is apparently a popular and swanky tourist spot. Much of the uphill walk was a multi-story staircase that felt like it was going up forever; I trudged my way up and took my sweet time, panting and sweating bullets. By the time I got to Rainbow Street, I was far too hot to enjoy it and opted to double fist iced sodas for a few hours at a local shop before I made my way to my evening dinner.

I had booked my dinner plans as a cooking class at Beit Sitti (Grandmother's Kitchen). The place is a great cause - they hire older women who are refugees from local countries to teach tourists common Arabic dishes for a few hours. The class was lovely and in a small house with a beautiful balcony for us to enjoy our class's output. We cooked a one-pot rice dish called maglubah and some eggplant dish like baba ghanoush. 

The next day was a searing 100F/38C, so I decided to change my trip plans with Abdullah. We were scheduled to visit Jerash (a well-preserved Roman city) in the north for the day; instead, we agreed to drive around it a few times in the airconditioned car and eat more knafeh at the gorgeous Ajloun Nature Reserve. I gazed down over a balcony at the reserve center at a sea of oak trees before we hopped back in the car and got dinner in Amman.

For my final dinner in the country, Abdullah brought me out to a local restaurant that specialized in more generally "Gulf country" food. I got fish, rice, and a bowl of delicious lentil soup that I plan on trying to cook for myself sometime. It was a wonderful send-off from a friend before I passed out in my airport hotel for an early morning flight back to NYC.

Last Thoughts
My trip was rejuvenating and fascinating. As usual, here are some overarching things I wanted to mention about the trip.

• Deserts are Surreal: Drying through the country meant mostly being in a desert. I found it unreal driving through it because the color palette of the region was monochromatic and meant that everywhere I went was very hot and super dry. This isn't particularly poignant, but it was a new experience for me and I felt it very differently compared to most other experiences I've had. I'm not sure if I liked it or not.
• Jordanian Hospitality is Awesome: Barring a few unpleasant encounters in Amman, everyone I met in Jordan was extremely nice and hospitable. People were eager to help me get oriented, travel, eat good food, and feel better after my bout of diarrhea. Sometimes I was shocked at how people didn't often seem interested in taking money for helping me, which made me feel even more awe for their compassion and kindness to a stranger. It humbled me.
• Solo Traveling is Safe: Most people I met (especially other tourists) were particularly concerned about me being alone and going through Jordan mostly solo. People kept asking me if I was safe or if it was "wise" to go to XYZ area alone...but I found being alone was a super way to really experience the area without having to manage others and their expectations in my travels. The one day I toured with others reminded me how my pace is so different from others, and Jordan people's kindness and interest in my well-being made it okay for me to be alone. Even being completely at the mercy of the camp staff in the desert with no communication with the outside world felt completely normal and secure. I don't feel this way at home, usually.
• Arabs Have Opinions about Arabs: Jordanians have a lot of opinions about other Arabs, which surprised me especially given their hospitality and generosity. Some Jordanians I met warned me about Syrians, others felt very poorly towards Saudis, and some went on about the corruption of all Egyptians. And so on. I was slightly sad to hear that Arabs apparently fiercely judge against each other, especially while the rest of the world judges them at least as harshly.

A Ghanaian Funeral

I didn't go to this funeral.

I was just in Ghana for a few weeks working in the field on a project. During my stay, I was asked to join my team to attend a funeral for one of our colleagues who had passed away, over the weekend. Of course, I agreed to join....but it was clear during the experience that I was wildly unprepared and still prone to culture shock.

According to my Ghanaian colleagues, weekends are for funerals. You attend lots of funerals, here - for people you know or people you knew of from others - so that eventually you'll have a sizable gathering for your own funeral. Because in Ghana, funerals are big deals - much bigger than weddings.  I mean, they're big enough to the point that some think they can be a bit excessive.

Perhaps you've seen on social media one or two videos from a Ghanaian funeral? You know, one of the pallbearers dancing with a coffin bouncing on their shoulders?

I find it almost impossible to explain the Ghanaian funeral I attended by comparing it to anything we have in the US...but I found myself comparing it a bit to Indian weddings. It had a lot of pomps and circumstances (like an Indian wedding) and it was long. And apparently, by Ghanaian scale, this funeral was a very small one.

But I'm ahead of myself.

The funeral was in the Central Region - about a five-/six-hour drive from Accra. My 60 Ghanaian colleagues and I sleepily piled into a VIP bus at 2am (!) on Saturday and started our journey. If you've ever driven down Ghanaian roads, you may recall that speeds are managed via ample speed bumps and potholes (every mile or so?). Sleeping on the bus was difficult.

A few towns before we reached the funeral, we stopped at a guesthouse to dress for the service. Ghanaian funerals are formal events - no jeans or sneakers! The standard colors are black and red (with a few exceptions for those in church groups with costumes - yes, costumes - and etc.). Women wear tailored outfits with a flared blouse paired with a mermaid skirt, while men wear smart kente shirts or elaborate "togas". Apparently, in the Ashanti region, funeral attire is so strict that one can be refused entrance if the outfit isn't up to code. Luckily for me, we weren't in Ashanti and I was allowed to wear simple black pants and a modest shirt.

When we arrived, we had to line up and start a procession to the funeral (women in the back, of course) and around the corpse of our late colleague before sitting down.

Okay, so this is when the culture shock for me started during the funeral. There much to unpack in my culture shock, so I will explain the uniqueness in my favorite format - a list:

• The (dressed) corpse was laid out in full view on a table in a clear tent. I was not expecting the body to be on display as fully as it was. In Western funerals, *if* the body is on display, it's only from the torso up. This body, however, was not covered at all - I saw the rigid legs leading to the stiff upper body of someone who has been moved into position after Rigor mortis set in. There was no way to deny death at this funeral, for his body was so clearly visible to all who attended at all vantage points.
  
• The corpse was a month old. In a country that is hot and so very near the equator, I was baffled to see the body in such a well-preserved state...and that they had taken so long to bury the body. My colleagues explained to me that burial customs in Ghana sometimes prohibit bodies from being buried for quite a long time, which means families and morgues will do what they can keep bodies on ice if there are delays.
  Why would there be delays? One example I heard was that if a local royal died before your loved one, you can't bury them until the royal is. And, since funerals are such big deals in Ghana, funerary ceremonies for royals can last weeks/months/years! Which means you just have to wait to mourn your loss until the royals are buried. I'm not entirely sure why this funeral was a month late, but it was - and that was not abnormal to anyone but me.
• There were hundreds of people at this "small funeral". In the West, a large funeral may have 100 people or so; in Ghana, large funerals have more like a few thousand. I was in awe that so many people turned up at the funeral, but was even more surprised when I was told that it was a tiny funeral. The reason why thousands of people didn't show up was that my colleague died rather young and before his parents - in Ghana, burying a child requires a smaller, not-very-spectacular funeral.
  
• The service had lots of emotions expressed. I'm used to funerals being somber, sad events. Ghanaian funerals have (potentially professional?) wailers and sobbing/moaning family members, of course, but there was also a lot of singing and dancing. The church that ran the service brought the chorus. They banged tambourines, sang joyfully to songs about Jesus (I think? It was in Twi, but "Jesus" sounded the same...), and danced in a parade around the center of the funeral grounds - sometimes even around the body. At some point during the funeral, the corpse was moved discreetly into a coffin, which was then placed in the middle of the compound, and more dancing circled it. Some periods of the funeral had rowdy songs juxtaposed with people crying loudly. I didn't really know how to process the information during this service because I felt overwhelmed with emotions at the moment, but I think I was glad to have some levity in what normally is a dark event...even if the contrast was so stark.


• The service was quite long. In my world, funerals are for about two hours. Max. We ended up staying at this funeral for six hours before hopping back in the bus to return to Accra...and we had left early! Once again, funerals can last a long time, and apparently, I only got a taste of all that would be included in the ceremonies. To me, it was extremely long; understanding only a smattering of words - mostly being "Jesus" - probably made it feel even longer.
  
• We had to go through a lot of formalities. So much of the funeral included people moving around, shaking hands of everyone else attending the funeral. And much else of the funeral were different people making speeches (again, in Twi) in what appeared to have been normal standard operating procedures. I'm not sure most of what happened, but there seemed to have been some kind of formula to go through for the event. We did a lot of standing and sitting for songs and other parts that I didn't understand, as well.
  There was one part of the ceremony that was in English: the eulogies. And it was heartbreaking to listen to several people read out their written eulogies in between sobs.

After the initial religious part of the ceremony and people moved around the coffin a few times, it was time for the pallbearers to lead the hundreds of attendees to the burial. We were in a rural community, so everyone piled onto the road and slowly walked to the cemetery off on the shoulder of the road, at the end of the village.

Did I mention that it was hot out in rural Ghana? It was probably 100F/37.8C outside and as the sun climbed the sky, all of my colleagues and I started to pour sweat (I won't lie...I was comforted to see that I wasn't the only one sweating). There was a point during the day where I wasn't sure my clothing would ever come off again from my sweaty body. I wasn't sure if I'd ever know what it felt like to be cold again, either. There was some cooling wind...but not much.

At some point after the burial, I realized I had an urgent need to urinate. A few of my lady colleagues helped me find a village toilet, which was harder than it sounds as Ghana is known in my sector as having low sanitation coverage. Anyway, somebody showed us to a roofless structure with walls that wrapped around like a spiral and told me to have at it. I walked cautiously through the spiral to find a stained floor and a small hole in the side of the wall that outputted into a divet near someone's home. This was the only toilet in the community apparently, so I took off my pants and squatted...and proceeded to urinate openly and indiscriminately. It was so hot out I couldn't tell where my urine was going, but I would be lying if I said I didn't get any of it on my person. Oh well.

The happenings continued.

Our organization wanted to donate some money to the bereaved family, which meant the formalities continued for us. All 60 of us were ushered into a family compound where we sat and waited for the bereaved family members to greet us. My understanding is that we first had the widow's family leaders come to greet us and asked us our intentions, to which someone on our team represented us and stated our intention to donate money. The widow's family left, satisfied. Afterward, we waited for a while until the bereaved blood family joined us and we went through the same formalities again. Each time a new group or family came to go through this process with us, there was handshaking. Everyone had to give each other handshakes. Which meant I shook a lot of people's hands that day. Many of them seemed quite pleased to have shaken the hand of a foreigner at the funeral - it appears I added some prestige to the funeral and showed that our colleague had had an international network.

Once the handshaking ended, we then had to do the process all over again, this time in public at the official ceremony where donations were publically announced. Again, someone had to state our intentions to give money to the family, and we had to shake hands. The difference with this version was that afterward our team had to dance around the altar that replaced the coffin before we were able to leave the funeral and head home. 

We finally got back to Accra around 9pm - about 20 hours after our days started. But, of course, not without me peeing on myself one last time (this time at a gas station) while we headed back.

Overall, it was a fascinating experience. I wish I had thought to have read up more in what a Ghanaian funeral would entail, and I wish I had prepared myself better to deal with an overwhelming cultural experience in blistering heat. But it is still a memory that I will not forget and is giving me food for thought about my own future funerary experiences and last wishes. I'm sure I got some of the details mixed up or misunderstood, but based on my understanding of what happened that day, the Ghanaians hold their deceased in the highest of esteem and respect.

One last note: I found this article about how some of the funeral calls in Ghana can be quite comedic - enjoy!