I like Djibouti in the morning. I wake up early in the US, so jetlag throws my natural tendency into overdrive with a 3:15, 4:30, or if I’m lucky, 5:00 am wake-up call. I have spent the past week in Djibouti at a training conference for our new Somalia program. US Government restrictions on …
By Jett Thomason A few years back I got the chance to visit the Black Sea coast several miles from the Turkish border in a town called Batumi. Batumi has been a major port since the Russians won the land from the Ottoman Empire in 1877. This was the first port to begin shipping …
Oranges and Stalin on the Black Sea, Batumi, Georgia Read More »
By Jett Thomason “So what’s the food like in Canada?” I ask. Chris, environmental engineer and admitted Canadian, is telling me about his country at a Washington, DC winter happy hour. “Well, basically it’s pretty much the same as the States.” I knew it. “But there, we’ve got a great bar food that originated in …
Read Part I: On the Water in Guinea Part II We have been following the other boats. There is an art to seeing the schools of fish playing just below the water and on each boat men are standing tall, not even realizing their legs roll of the boat. There is an art to seeing …
By Jett Thomason Part I I’ve been living in Guinea’s capital, Conakry, for six weeks now. Conakry is a city built on a peninsula jutting into the Atlantic and it has long outgrown the French planning for the town. Two million people have been living poor and densely packed for fifty years in the limited …
By Jett Thomason Lamu Travel Lamu was to be the crown jewel of my East African coastal journey. I had read about the town and the imminent construction of a new port. After Mombasa, which is already at capacity, Lamu is the only natural spot for a harbor in Kenya. The construction of a port …
I recently had my first month-long work trip to Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi. The trip represented a number of firsts. First time to Africa. First time to be jetting around for quick site visits rather than long-term job assignments. And first time to be representing the US government in the field with the official passport …
My alarm clock goes off at five. It’s been about four hours since I fell asleep. I’ve woken up to go to the early-morning festivities for a neighborhood circumcision ceremony which is locally and collectively referred to as one of several Uzbek “weddings”. I have been a Peace Corps Volunteer in a small provincial town in Uzbekistan for more than a year now. The people of my town are exceedingly friendly and known to be the most festive in the country. If there’s a wedding to go to, it will be a neighbor of mine pouring the vodka and cracking jokes for the table.
I know I shouldn’t complain about business travel to Africa. It’s always a rewarding experience. But it’s also an exhausting one. For nearly three weeks I had been waking up at 6, cleaning out my work emails, and leaving the hotel by 7. We would be on the road all day seeing projects. With the sun long set, I would return to my hotel room, eat an overpriced and usually mediocre hotel meal, and crash. So when I suddenly found myself with a free afternoon in Burundi, I was thrilled.
The signature product of Moldova is their wine. The larger wineries have imported modern production techniques and are producing excellent wine at very inexpensive prices. Still, any Moldovan worth their salt has a large store of homemade wine from the massive barrel or two in their basement.
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