Wow, been a while, huh?

I was recently standing outside a friend's gate, waiting for her or her guard to let me in. She hadn't heard me knocking, so I ended up waiting for a few minutes. In that time, a couple of people walked by and probably looked at me a bit funny because I was a firenge (foreigner) on a bicycle (somewhat rare in town).

After a while, I started contemplating climbing over the gate to get in and make sure my friend was alright. As I thought about it, I wondered if her neighbors would have done anything. Would they just think 'she should have put up razor wire'? I have difficulting imagining anyone in Addis coming to the aid of a neighbor in that situation. They tend to keep to themselves. Or do they?

The bulk of firenge (and most Ethiopians wealthy enough to do so) in Addis live in walled compounds with a locked gate at the front. If they own a car, their feet rarely if ever see their own street close up. Some of it's a security thing, some of it is convenience, but the fact remains that people voluntarily cut themselves off from their neighbors. It feels like everyone is saying 'you take care of yourself and I'll be responsible only for what is inside my walled compound.'

Standing outside my friend's gate, I wondered if this was the case before the expats moved to Addis. Living in a new place can make people paranoid, particularly about security. I haven't found anyone to ask about what life in Addis was like before the famine in the '80s (that's when the expat aid population here exploded), but I like to think there was more trust within communities at that point. Perhaps a bit less fear. Personally, I have trouble imagining it, but maybe that's because I'm not part of a community here... I'm part of the walled-compound culture (even though I live in an apartment).

p.s. - I ended up calling my friend and she let me in, so I didn't have to scale the wall. :-) On to the photos!

Field trip

The Workshop

Random Addis things

On the way

For Father's Day and my brother's birthday, I took my family on a motorcycle ride into the mountains.

At work, we've been partnering with a Stanford University course for the last few years. This year, their presentations happened to fall during the time that I was in the US, so I went out to Palo Alto, California to see them and meet with the students.

THE REAL REASON FOR MY TRIP

Frustrations...

By the time I got back to Addis, it had been almost six months since my bike had been out of Ethiopia. That meant it was time for another run for the border. This time Jason wasn't able to come with, so our friend Jon joined me on Jason's bike. WARNING...LOTS OF GRATUITOUS MOTORCYCLE PHOTOS AHEAD!

A bit more motorcycling...

Parting shot...

Ethiopia holds elections today, Sunday 23 May. For a long time I was looking forward to being in Addis during the elections... to be there and see what is to be seen. I was in Nepal when they finally held their elections (after two failed attempts) in 2007. I can't say that I saw very much, but it was still overall an interesting time to be there.

As it turns out, I left Ethiopia Friday night to fly to Germany, then on to the US for my mom's PhD graduation. So I'll miss the elections, but to be honest I'm not sure I really want to be there right now. Nepal's politics had somewhat of a bumbling affability to it as they tried to get the three main parties to agree on election guidelines and not walk out on parliament. I got the impression of a genuine interest in political process and fairness. Ethiopia's political players, on the other hand, give off a more sinister vibe. From the handful of allegedly politically-motivated deaths in the last few months to the government's continuous clamping down on journalism, telecommunications and travel, sometimes it just feels like the opposition has to be correct when they decry the validity of the elections even before they happen. Here are a couple of articles about the elections. Particularly interesting is this one which has an interesting quote: "Yes, the OPDO [government's party in the Oromia region] have been developing Oromia," says an old man who has watched the commotion. "But it's development and repression at the same time. They can build roads to the moon but I won't vote for them until we're equal."

In other news, I've decided to stay in Ethiopia until November and start grad school at MIT in January. I'll write more about that decision in my next post. On to the photos...

Since it took so long for me to get Horse running again, I really wanted to do some riding. There is a ridge separating two of our project areas, with no paved roads going over it. I was doing a tour of the two project areas, so decided to take the more direct route (to go from one are to the other via paved roads would have required going all the way back to Addis and then out again). The road was actually in great condition, and turned out to have some really nice scenery on the way.

A bit less than a year ago, my friend Sean was visiting and we went out to the Ziway project area and installed a prototype treadle pump. I'd been meaning to visit it for a while, and had heard that it needed repairs, so I went out to take a look...

Ali and I rode down to the town of Awassa (~5 hours from Addis) for a road race.

I think I'm developing a name for myself or something. Ali co-directed 'The Vagina Monologues' this year, so I got to help out with lighting.

Parting shot...

A friend and former colleague once gave me the advice: "Be careful what you do a lot of... because you're going to do a lot of it." That was shortly before I decided to take the plunge and move back to Germany to work for IDEO. Since that time (late 2004), I've worked for three different companies on three different continents. Now that I'm planning to head back to grad school (either this September or next January), it feels like the thing that I'm "doing a lot of" is actually "changing what I'm doing." At least I'm consistent. ;-)

So what is it about transitions that make them so difficult, yet so attractive? The excitement of something new is certainly a factor, but I've also changed and refocused my goals as I've learned more about the world. Around the time that I graduated from high school there was a statistic floating around that people in my generation would go through five different careers over the course of their life. Not just jobs, but careers. It seemed ridiculous at the time, but maybe I just didn't know how wide my interests were.

What's all this mean on a larger scale? It means more stress, for one. Anybody who has seen me go through deciding what next step to take knows that it's never taken lightly. But, in a larger sense, it means more specialization and more adaptability of the workforce to the needs of the economy. From the dotcom bubble to the recent recession, the more people are willing to learn and change to make themselves more marketable in a changing economy, the better of the country (and world) is as a whole.

There's something in here about the difference between changing yourself to be marketable in a changing economy and changing yourself to become and to do what you want to be and do, but there are a lot of pictures in the post, and I don't want the text to be too long. Feel free to add comments below!

On to the photos (I'm all caught up! Woohoo!)

Some random, non-work, life-in-Addis stuff...

I did lights for the latest production from Addis Stage, the local English-language community theater group. Lots of fun, but lots of work. We effectively built a theater out of an unfinished building site. I think it worked pretty well for the show, "Road" by Jim Cartwright, described as a "gritty portrayal of urban decay in Thatcher-era England."

Work stuff...

And, the last of my catching-up photos! These are from my crazy trip back to visit family in Denver over Christmas...

Parting shots...

If you've traveled internationally, then you've more likely than not walked through a duty free shop somewhere in the world. Most new airports even force you to pass through the duty free shop in order to get to the gates. The classic assortment of liquor, chocolate, expensive watches and jewelry is pretty much the same worldwide. But what about the staff?

On my way back from a conference in Hyderabad a week ago I was funneled through the duty free area, and was approached by three separate salespeople with valuable information about a sale and recommendations for what to buy (a watch, since they're 20% off, or jewelry for my wife for Valentine's Day). What struck me is that I've always found duty free shops to be very low-pressure sales environments, but these salespeople made it feel like I was on the street in Delhi being accosted by the merchants there. Having survived the gauntlet in Hyderabad, it was almost a relief to arrive in Dubai where the duty free shops are relaxedly silent and the staff only speak when spoken to.

But what was it about the shops in Hyderabad? Was it the salespeople under pressure from their managers to generate more sales, and so they tried to increase sales in the way with which they were familiar? Or was it that the management wanted to remind potential customers that they were still in India and encouraged their staff to sell hard? I didn't buy anything there, but the experience certainly left an impression.

Alright, on to the photos. I'm still catching up from last December, but I threw in a few shots from my trip to Hyderabad as well.

A few shots from the actual conference...

And now for some catch-up. Jason and I still have our motorcycles in Ethiopia, but they're only allowed to be in the country for 6 months at a time. That meant... oh darn... that we had to take them out of the country last December. If you have to cross a border, then why not ride to Kenya for lunch? ;-)

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Parting shot...

I was in in Kenya in early December for a conference put on by a part of the UN Development Program. It was my first time in Kenya, so of course I was fascinated on the ride from the airport to my hotel. The biggest thing I noticed was the consolidation of stores of a particular type right next to each other along the street. A string of fruit vendors followed by three used car lots (something I've never seen in Ethiopia... can't quite figure out why), followed by five (I think) distinct stalls selling the same overstuffed couches.

I have to assume that some balance has been struck over the past decades of market activity in Nairobi. If you set up a furniture store too close to too many other furniture stores, then you're going to constantly compete on price, and therefore not have as high a margin. But if you go solo and set up your shop far away from other furniture stores, then (unless you're very lucky and hit a wholly untapped market) people won't know where you are. If I ask where to go furniture shopping, a helpful Kenyan would rather send me to a place with lots of choice than the one shop off in the boonies (unless, of course, his brother owns the shop).

So is there another way to consider this balance? Everything is in flux as markets go up and people have more money (and buy more furniture) or they go down and people make do with what they have. So what's the lag time of furniture store density along the ring road in Nairobi? It all depends on turnover and the amount of capital the furniture shop owners can have sunk in their stock of overstuffed couches. You're not going to find any answers here... just musing questions. Anyone want to set up a research project?

It's been a while, and I have lots of photos, so I'm breaking them up into three posts. Here's the first set, up to about the second week of December, 2009. On to the photos...

Parting shot...

My name is Mark. I was born near Chicago, have lived in the US, Germany and Nepal, and am starting a new job and a new adventure in Ethiopia. This site is a way for me to keep friends and family updated on my progress, share some pictures, and perhaps offer a bit of reflection along the way. Please look around, and enjoy the ride!

Herumwandernder Cavetroll... heisse Mark. Ich habe in den USA, Deutschland und Nepal gewohnt, und jetzt geht es weiter nach Äthiopien. Mit diesem Website halte ich meine Familien- und Freundeskreise informiert über wie es mir in meinen Abenteuern geht. Schau mal 'rum, und viel Spass dabei!

-Mark, September 2008