Got Elephants?

I stare out my hotel room window at the highway, enjoying the respite of air conditioning from the summer desert heat outside. My chocolate milk and snacks from the grocery store feel like delicacies, well earned after a long day of work. I'm trying to avoid the pitfalls of previous long work stints in the desert of Southern California - long hours, work frustrations, illogical decisions - although these can be said about most jobs. The days seem to blend together between working, sleeping, and eating. Its a strange exile at a forgotten airport, with carcasses of dying airplanes that seem to wilt in the heat and dirt.

Looking around, there is something lacking. I haven't been able to put a finger on it - until now. There are no elephants. Not in the hangar, not roaming the airport runways. Surely not in town - snacking on the shrubs outside the hotel. I would dare say their aren't even pink elephants to be seen - and there is surely no elephant in my hotel room to ignore (no large gorillas in the room to ignore either...)

When I have been able to escape to the mountains, I have been more worried about run-ins with scarce bears or mountain lions than a heard of roaming elephants, poisonous snakes, or ghastly spiders. A friend wears a bear bell for a trail run in an area with a bear sow with two cubs. I think twice whether the intent is to alert and scare or alert and entice - ala the dinner bell. When I emerge from my tent at night, there are no hippos to look out for and no lions to deter me from straying more than a few inches from my sleeping bag. I wonder more about how many hikers we will see on the trail and what is for lunch - not whether I will become lunch.

Its a different mindset. A different comfort level in the wild. Can it even be considered wild? Do you have elephants?

Life choices...

I've missed the mountains. I find them peaceful, grounding, and inspiring. I've spent most of the last month playing in the mountains after returning from Zambia, venturing places where you don't have to worry about lions when pitching your tent or look for poisonous snakes when hiking. I even got to play a bit in that divine white stuff - snow. I thought it would provide me with an opportunity to clear my mind and focus on a few upcoming decisions. Instead, I found myself paying more attention to the beauty of the location, hiking steep sections requiring concentration, or wearing crampons and trying not to (A) trip and fall in a _bad_ place or (B) tear a hole in my pants.

Not long before I left Zambia, a friend told me a story of his. It turns out, he used to be a monster rock climber, living for a few years in his car as he traveled from one hot climbing destination to another. He was even featured on the cover of Climbing magazine - for an article he wrote himself about a climbing trip. After a few beers, he regaled me with a story about how he had gotten where he is today, working for a renowned organization to improve the lot of the world's children. He was offered a position at a small software company in a mountain town where the focus was on morning ski turns. He was then offered a position with his current organization, living far from the life he had lived - and far from any good climbing. He opted for the more challenging, ambitious job over a more personally satisfying lifestyle. This is a choice that I consistently debate over, the pursuit of happiness or purpose. While you don't have to exclusively choose one over the other, both can have a significant influence over your path in life.

I find myself approaching a similar fork in the road (but without his dichotomous choice in career path). What is that next step for me? After Zambia, what comes next? Is it still across the pond and south a bit? maybe north a bit? Or is it something totally foreign - like staying put? I think it might be time to finally figure out what I want to do when I grow up.

Pictures are from Mt. Baker and Mt. Rainier - courtesy of my climbing partners.

Coffee and Elephants

I woke up last Sunday morning, rolled out of the tent, and started to boil water for coffee. The sun was warm, but not yet hot. Our tent was situated on a bluff overlooking a wide turn in the Zambezi river. As I finished making coffee I sat down to enjoy the morning and breakfast. An elephant on the opposite side of the river was doing the same, rummaging through the bush alongside the river, picking and choosing which grass to pluck or tree to taste. Its a rough life. And its a life that I will miss.

There is plenty about living in Zambia that I won't miss, but probably more that I will. There hasn't been a month here when one tree or another isn't in bloom. Right now there are bunches of hanging yellow flowers. The incessant buzz from bus stops, from bus 'pimps' vying for your business to the pop music blaring out the window. The serenity of the countryside and the smiles on children's faces. Shouts of 'How are YOU?!', quickly followed by 'give me money' or 'I want a sweet.' When I look back on this chapter in my life, I expect the pleasurable memories to remain, and the annoyances to fade away.

I could get nostalgic - but I don't think that's quite my style. But its not everywhere you can share your morning coffee with an elephant.

Teaser

I've been swept up in a whirlwind of activity in the past few weeks. The ruckus of site installs has abated, most work challenges involved with doubling the number of clinics we are working in have settled down. I even managed to take a vacation.

My departure from Zambia is imminent. I don't know when, or if, I will be back. I think so. I haven't quite come to grips with leaving Zambia yet. As I sit and attempt to type, words fail to come. I instead look at some pictures...

Dried fish sold on a roadside stand.

Some of these speak for themselves...

We were stuck behind this truck going uphill for some time.

And then had to deal with a road full of potholes like these.

Ah, and there are so many more...

Resource Allocation and Sustainability

One of my favorite parts of work in Zambia are the trips to the field, installing or fixing hardware in rural clinics. We install a low power computer system for data entry, and train people how to use touchscreen computers that utilize the cell network to transmit data. Half of the sites that we work in are off the grid, and require a solar power installation. We also give community workers cell phones and a custom application, so that data can be passed between them and the clinic. Working with my hands, seeing tangible benefits from a days work, and the 'thank you's' make the job rewarding.

I've just come from one of the remotest of the sites in which we are working. There is no cell coverage. There is a small hill a half an hours walk away where you can get half a bar of service, sometimes, on some phones - but that isn't going to help our data connection at the clinic. Using the cell network to transfer information thus far has been relatively easy and affordable. However, this option wasn't available this time. After surveying a number of options, the time vs money vs schedule dilemma forced us down the path of satellite internet. This wasn't just the shotgun approach, but the golden-plated shotgun approach. Furthermore, the community health workers, without good cell coverage they can access, are given phones with a wifi connection which they can bring to the clinic and connect through the satellite internet to send data.

Think about this for a moment. Rural Africa. Mud huts with thatched roofs sparsely populate the only access to the clinic, a bumpy dirt road. Naked children running around barefoot. Water comes from a river a 45 minute walk away. No electricity. Most people here don't have a cell phone because the service is so poor. The Zambian team I'm working with jokes that the people here aren't even Zambian - they don't know who any of the last four presidents have been. If government services never reach a remote location, that location isn't given any say in the government, and not much has changed since 1) independence 50 years ago and 2) since the country was arbitrarily drawn by colonists a few centuries back, I don't know if I would consider myself a Zambian in that situation either.

But I digress.

Go back to the picture painted of rural Africa. Now add solar panels and a computer. Not too bad. We installed a few light bulbs as well. Now, add a satellite dish and a wifi hotspot. Is this sustainable? Is this the right use of resources? I went home after beginning the installation feeling that no, this wasn't quite right. Yes, the data arm of the project is a main support for the medical intervention that is aiming to drastically reduce mortality rates. A slightly inebriated local regaled me during a work break:

'We need help. we need water, cell coverage, medicine. Can you help?'
'I am trying to help'
'No, we need help. Can't you just send in an application?'
'Um, to who?'
'Just send in an application. We need help.'
Ah yes, just send an application to Bank Mzungu, and all your problems will be solved.

Most of the clinics I have been to have had solar power installations before. None of them work anymore. A cousin decided to plug in his TV and DVD player. Lightening struck the inverter. They ran out of light bulbs. They plugged DC items into AC circuits or vice versa, stole the batteries, abused the inverter, or threw rocks at the solar panels (haven't seen this one personally, but have heard LOTS of stories).

Upon returning to the clinic the next day to finish up, the in-charge was back to complain that we were only installing a few lights, and not lighting the entire clinic or providing electrical outlets. I tried to explain that the system we were installing was minimized for price and functionality. The wiring for lights and sockets had already been installed and at one time they worked - this was the DVD abuse case. After the inverter broke, the battery was stolen, and the system fell into disrepair. When taken to a dingy, dirty store room, there was a 6kVa UPS still in plastic, donated by an NGO. This is used to take AC input, clean it up and store it in a battery, and plug fancy electrical equipment into it, which can be powered for some time after the AC input dies. This was the biggest one I had ever seen, by far. There is no AC input and no fancy electrical equipment. This single piece of equipment is probably worth tens of thousands of dollars - and is sitting, unused, unable to be used, in its wrapping in a corner of the Zambian bush. The jungle will overtake it sooner or later. Then she showed me a large generator, also sitting in a room. She also mentioned that she had eight solar panels sitting at her house if we wanted to wire them for her. Ah yes, and when a woman came into the clinic in anaphylactic shock from a scorpion bite, they didn't have the proper medicine to treat her.

I wired the clinic to run off of the generator, taking the burden, and hopefully the temptation, off of our solar equipment. I was satisfied to see visible progress. The lights and the sockets will now all work - as long as the generator can be maintained and fuel provided (not too much of a hassle, actually). We parted ways, and as we left the clinic, I spied the egregious satellite dish. All I could do was sigh, and shake my head. On to the next clinic.