Gone Wandering

I’ve started getting back into 3D modelling with Cinema4D for fun. I really enjoy the lack of limitations and the ability to explore concepts with a 3D program. Playing with my initials seemed like a cool thing to do first. Here’re a couple renderings.

Living in New York is refreshing. The city is built around highs and lows, and living there, constantly beating the tough moments or stumbling into new ones, has been one of the most rewarding things I’ve done.

There are places that deceive you. From the outside they look beat up, dented, sodden, but when you get close you realize, like opening a dusty rock to discover a glittering geode, that the grit is a front, intended to disguise the intricate details that are hidden within. The southern coast of Mexico is one such place.

Thanks for visiting Gone Wandering. This is my personal blog, and will hold a combination of tech, travel, and design posts that I’ve done, and will do in the coming months (and years).

Close your eyes for a moment and picture the most memorable occasion in your life. The day you graduated from college, maybe? Or, when you got your first house? Chances are whatever it was, it stands out because of friction.

First of all, I did not come up with this workout. I got all of my information from a NY Times article (link), that in turn got the idea from the American Journal of Sports Medicine. The real kudos go to them.

I have a good friend who is doing his first startup. He is ambitious, young, and willing to do anything for his idea. He’s taking huge risks. He has no savings, has lived for a year on credit cards and top ramen, and is going to keep going until he makes this work, or dies. He doesn’t understand risk.

Just a short note. Sorry I haven’t updated this more often. I’ve been so busy meeting with UN staff, typing reports etc., that I haven’t gotten around to it.

I went to a very small, very local, bar last night to get a drink. It was really interesting to sit among all of the Rwandans there and watch them interact. Once they’d gotten used to my presence they went back to conversations, arguments, and discussions in Kinyarwanda. I couldn’t help but wonder who in that bar was hutu and who was tutsi; if anyone there had killed during the genocide; and which of the patrons had lost close family and friends.

These questions are very relevant in Kigali. The signs of this country’s violent history are more evident than in any other country to which I’ve been. People’s attitudes, their faces, and even how the city is laid out express this feeling.

I’m just finishing a book about the events by New Yorker writer, Phillip Gourevitch. It is a hauntingly sad description of the genocide, and has stayed with me as I walk along the streets here in Kigali. It’s hard not to imagine the checkpoints, the dead and wounded, and the feeling of hopelessness that abounded for the tutsi minority in this city.

I hope for the sake of these people and this country that the force that drove so many people to kill so many others has moved on and disappeared, but I can’t help but wonder: Has anything in Rwanda really changed? Are the world powers, ‘the donor countries’, ready to stop this kind of horrible catastrophe from happening again?

Rwanda, the Land of 1,000 Hills, wears its description well. The earth here is incredibly curvaceous, tensing up in places and relaxing in others to form a landscape somewhere between the peaks of a meringue pie and the swells that roll against the shores of California. And, like the waves in the pacific, the hills of Rwanda wander into the distance, forming a futuristic skyline that glows green in the sun.

There is a downside to this ethereal landscape. It is best viewed from afar; not meant for people, it makes walking and driving downright treacherous. The Rwandan road system, evidently designed using the same thought-processes that made Jackson Pollick famous, tilts and whirls along the hillsides. Blind turns, badly graded roads, and crazy motorcyclists make walking dangerous, and driving eye-opening.

Despite this, I have been exploring the city more and more. The hills act as curtains, revealing new neighborhoods–new cultures at every turn. This weekend I wound through one of the poorer sections of town, down through a valley, and up a dirty hill covered with goats, mud-huts, and dusty vans, to one of Kigali’s food markets. Inside, vendors sold everything from zucchini to Bluetooth headsets. The stalls and tables were built into the concrete walls, and the contrast of the darkness of the vendor-areas with the bright light of the walkways made it all the more mysterious.

My job here at the UN is getting very busy. The projects that I am supposed to be championing are huge, messy, and require support from people at more than ten different UN agencies. So, I spend most of my days taking big UN SUVs from one office to the next, meeting with people, trying to get paperwork, and pushing the project forward.

I haven’t had time to take many pictures, but will hopefully get some good shots this weekend.

It’s Saturday now and I’m finally getting a few minutes to take a breath. Since I last wrote, I’ve had a major upgrade in both house and office. I’m now living with a coworker at the UN Development Program in a small house within walking distance of our office. He’s Belgian, has been here almost two years—eons in Kigali’s expat culture—and has a large circle of friends in their late twenties and thirties. Owing to the lack of European food in Kigali, he has taken to buying cheese and wine every time he goes to Nairobi, and on Thursday he threw a great party to eat his most recent purchases and to introduce me to some of the other expats. My first lesson on Rwandan expat life was that they drink.. A LOT. The group of ten went through five bottles of wine, a bottle of vodka, and several beers.

On Wednesday I also moved into the UNDP. My new office is located on the fifth floor of an old building high on a hill above the city and has spectacular views and a nice breeze. From the big windows I can see both the city below and the all kinds of birds above. Yesterday I saw an amazing white spoonbill of some sort fly right by my window.

I’m still trying to get used a lot of things here. First and foremost are the service-people. They’re everywhere. In my office there are four women who roam around scrubbing, mopping, and sweeping, constantly. The minute I get up to go somewhere they’re in trying to neaten up papers, wipe off my desk, and dust my windows. It makes me feel like a slob. In addition, there are drivers that take us to our meetings, gardeners who keep the walkways and gardens spotless, and a whole contingent of guards who stand around looking ominous and opening doors and gates.

Our house is similar. There’s a cleaning lady who comes every morning to wash dishes, make beds, and straighten everything, and I mean everything. Then there are three guards who take turns opening our gate, patrolling the premises, and watching us through the windows. This situation constantly reminds me of how different the culture is here, and I’m still trying to adjust.

The other bizarre thing about Rwanda is the food. Kigali is land-locked, and they have yet to develop good trade routes to the ports in Kenya and Tanzania. This means that the only things for sale at reasonable prices are those grown locally. Most expats are living on large stipends and are willing to go to great lengths to get the things they want. A few local grocers cater especially to them, and most of their goods are flown in from Europe or the Middle East. At the store yesterday I found several jars of pickles for over $15 each, crackers and cereal both for around $8.50, and Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup for around $6 per can. Luckily things like pasta, meat, and vegetables are cheaper, and I’ve already started cooking for myself.

At Eight PM, after having missed my flight from London to Nairobi, I went searching for a hotel in London Heathrow. Lucky for me, Heathrow is a big place (see below), and they have several choices in the ‘in-terminal’ hotel area. I ended up staying at an amazing place called Yotel, a local concept that takes the eastern sleep cube, and adapts it for tall snobby westerners. Although each room is only 10’x10’ they have all of the amenities of a much larger hotel; comfortable bed, internet, shower, and room service. On top of this was the fact that the rooms were lit by your choice of black light, blue light or ‘full-sun’.

After spending a restful day in the Yotel, I boarded my flight to Nairobi at 8PM the next night. The 24 hours after that are a blur and I won’t go into details, except to say that I made it to Kigali with all of my bags.

For my first and second nights, I’m staying in the house of the chief of operations for UNICEF. He’s French, his family lives in Nairobi, and he has absolutely no furniture. He also goes to bed at 8PM and gets up between 2 or 3AM to roam around the house doing who-knows-what. The electricity in the house is spotty and it’s a little creepy, but I’m moving to another house on Wednesday so all should be well. </p>

The adventure begins… I left the Bay Area on Friday afternoon on a non-stop flight to London. Fortunately the flight was nearly empty and I was able to procure a row of seats that were almost long enough for me to lie flat on.

The only negative aspect of this set-up was that I had either to put my hands or feet slightly out into the aisle to be completely comfortable. Today’s planes, as efficient and well designed as they are, are not built for this type of arrangement, and I nearly lost two fingers and a toe to the scalding hot beverage and food carts that rolled by in the middle of the night. I’m already planning some sort of solution for my next flight akin to the road-spikes police lay out to stop fast moving vehicles.

In London I met up with Karina Scalise, my ‘old’ roommate from the Rose, and we set about to see the city. My main goal while there was to have a meat pie, but after airline food and no sleep for 24 hours I decided to eat something healthier–one of London’s famous chicken sandwiches (insert sarcasm here). It was basically just a boiled chicken breast on a bun, with mayonnaise, pickles, some sort of weird red sauce with onions, and a funky piece of lettuce. Well we knew the Londoner’s weren’t exactly famous for their food.

Everything was going well up until I headed back to Heathrow. This airport, for those who have not had the privilege, is the size of a small universe, complete with several solar systems of terminals each with their own satellite hubs. Before my flight to London the kind people at British Airways in San Francisco took the liberty of directing me to Terminal One for my evening flight to Nairobi. After arriving at the British Airways desk in Terminal One two hours early, I was told that no, in fact the flight was leaving out of Terminal Four, and that I would have to walk 300 meters, take a train, and then a shuttle to get there. No kidding, I’m pretty sure the distance accross Maryland may be less than that from Terminal One to Terminal Four in Heathrow Airport. So I headed off, only to be told when I finally ran up to the desk in Terminal Four that I’d missed my flight.

Good things often come out of bad turns though and I found an amazing hotel in the airport. I’ll write more about it tomorrow.</div>