it doesn't get cooler than this

only a goat...

as a follow-up to a previous post...

told ya south sudan was beautiful!! (and these were taken with a camera phone!)

no, i did not stick my hand into a socket...

...it's just that the water in somalia is/was shite. all these years in the field have taught me one invaluable lesson that i will carry with me always: it doesn't matter the price or the quality of the products you use on your hair if the water you are using is shite. 

case in point:

so a bush chicken flew into our windshield..

...and this was the result:

oops!!

your obedience is always appreciated

taken at a hotel in south sudan.

when pimples are cool

hey! it's a pub AND a club!! 

riddle me this: what do coffee & love have in common?

answer (picture taken at a coffee shop at the bangkok airport):

bathroom stories

"it all started with a latrine...," a colleague, speaking about how a professional relationship with a partner NGO started to go sour.

heard on the phone

in south sudan: 'yes yes, i'll talk to him, then i'll feed you back.' 

in somalia: 'speak up, you're breaking down!' that would, of course, be in lieu of 'breaking up'.

work?

travelling between field offices during the rainy season requires a 4-8 hour boat ride + a 4-8 hour car ride (and yes, travel times DO vary that much based on weather - consider that the same journey in the dry season is 6 hours tops - and only requires a car!). it can be very uncomfortable (especially when it starts to rain on you), but with a yoga mat and a life jacket as a pillow (a life jacket that the senior ops manager keeps insisting that i use as a life jacket for some reason - something about it's ability to save my life or something), life is good! :) seriously though, sometimes i can't  believe that this is work, that i'm here...boat riding down the nile, watching the sun set over the horizon, taking a 5 hour afternoon nap, sun bathing, savoring the beauty of south sudan, all on the clock. wow - who's lucky, eh?

formula for happiness =
yoga mat + life jacket + good music + african sun

the sun sets on the nile

goats on a boat learning how to float

BIG oops!

adventures in cooking

the other day, with every intention of turning the burner on to cook, i took a match, turned the dial on the stove to turn on the gas, and tried to light the burner with the match. it didn't work - i wondered why for a good 30 seconds before i realised that the reason the burner didn't light up was because i had not lighted the match!

after i made the shocking discovery that to turn on the burner, you need a lighted match - i managed to turn the burner on. after that, i put the pans (yes, making more than 1 dish! hallelujah!!) on the lighted burners only to realise that i had not actually cut up anything at all to put in the pan. so with a deep sigh and many laments about why in god's name i was cooking to begin with, i turned the burners off and put the pans away and started to cut up the onions.

hello, can you hear me?

one cold night in somalia, i had a conversation with my project manager that went a little something like this:

me: i think we should get heaters!

project manager: what?

me: (loudly) heaters!!

project manager: mosquitoes?

i don't quite know how you go from heaters to mosquitoes, but it sure was a good laugh!

coming soon!

i've no idea what any of this means, but apparently, whatever it is, it's coming soon!!

it's not just a condom

it's romantic love rubber (don't ask me why the picture is upside down).