Some older pictures: Swaziland and Botswana

In each of our stops, we've barely had time to post pictures and descriptions. Today we're in Nairobi, but I've finally made it somewhere with free and fast internet access. So, here are the photos I meant to post last week.


In Swaziland, I saw fields and fields of pineapples (a little hard to see in the photo)...

...and a reminder of home:


In general, it was a beautiful place.

Here's the main bus terminal in Mbabane:



I like this photo because the smoke on the hills is beautiful. It looks like early morning fog or even clouds, but actually it is smoke. Someone was probably clearing the land or burning trash.

I like this photo (below) not only becuase the light at dusk was so beautiful, but because it shows the amazing infrastructure in Swaziland!

In summary, Swaziland could be a great fit (as could any of the four places we're visiting). In a nutshell, the upsides are: it's beautiful, safe, and quiet. Downsides are: the HIV/AIDS problem is staggering (one estimate I read put the prevalence at 32%), it's small, and the most remote of the four places we're considering. Of course, the most important factor (where I find the best job) is still up in the air, too.

I found the middle class-ness of Botswana both attractive and boring. One morning, we tagged along with one of Peter's prospective colleagues to the Gaborone stables, where he was taking his daughter for her riding lessons. Riding lessons!??!?! Where am I?

On one hand, it's very safe, quiet, and prosperous - i.e., lots of great supermarkets where we can buy whatever we need. On the other hand, it might not be quite as interesting / challenging as the other three. In the US, I can't imagine living in a sprawling house with a yard in a quiet suburb...but we're older now, and suddenly that big yard doesn't look so bad.

Botswana, cold, sunny desert

After another short flight, we arrived in Gaborone Thurday evening. Friday was cold, clear, and sunny. In general, it looks like a southern Californian suburb, transplanted into Africa.

More pictures to come...

Mini-California

If Pretoria seemed like Palo Alto, Swaziland seems like the hills outside L.A. No time for a long post now, but here are a few pictures to help explain. Briefly: downside of Swaziland is that it is tiny, and a flight away from Jo'burg (thus, two flights away from the US, rather than one). Because it is tiny, it might be harder for me to find a job that I want here. Upside (and this is a big upside): it is clean, organized - and most importantly - safe.

Lots more to say later...

If you want Skippy peanut butter

Yesterday was great. We both met with our prospective employers, and then some of Peter's potentially-soon-to-be colleagues showed us their houses. Most of them live in 2 or 3-bedroom homes in gated compounds, surrounded by high concrete walls topped by a few feet of electric fencing.

It's clear that life in Pretoria would, in many ways, be very easy. Everything is modern, and apparently, we'd be able to get whatever consumer goods we'd need. As one of the Americans put it, "If you want Skippy peanut butter, you can get it."

We topped of our day of touring with dinner at Kream, a very fancy place in an upmarket shopping complex. Our starters were fabulous: arugula (called rocket here) salad with salami, parmesan cheese, and balsamic vinegar; seared scallops in butter and garlic. Dinner was good, but a bit heavy: filet with bone marrow and sauteed mushrooms, and kudu (antelope) kabob with roquefort sauce. Delicious red wine to wash it all down, and I think the whole thing only cost $40.

However, life here does seem a bit divorced from reality. People zoom around in new cars, on freshly paved roads, to modern supermarkets. We've seen hints of poverty, but unlike in Liberia (or anywhere else I've been in Africa), here the poverty is almost hidden - at least in the neighborhoods we visited. Occasionally we saw day laborers hanging around, waiting for jobs. A couple times we saw black South Africans peddling apples or candy or other assorted items on the side of the road. Poor neighorhoods tend to be quite far from the wealthy ones - so far that the housekeepers employed by rich people (here, that includes us) live in Pretoria during the week to avoid traveling two-hours each way every day to get to work. Apparently there are still many homes with "maid's quarters." Seems a bit outdated to me, but it's what works.

So life here would be very Western- very close to life at home. But is that really what we want? It'll be a hard decision...

First stop: Pretoria

We interrupt our regularly scheduled program to bring you snapshots and sound bites from our 12-day, 4-country Where-Should-Peter-and-Callista-Move-Next??? Tour.

First stop: Pretoria.

Left Monrovia at 17:30 on Saturday, landed in Accra by 20:00, in Nairobi by 5:30 local time (Sunday morning). Two hour layover, and then off again to Johannesburg, where we landed at about 11:30 local time.

On our way to Pretoria, we drove through gently rolling hills, recently harvested of corn and perhaps wheat. Gorgeous sunshine, clear air. Maybe 70 degrees or so.

First thought: Am I back in California?

Second thought (after arriving at the guesthouse): Are you sure we're not in California?



Third thought: When are we moving here?

Already had a nice walk in the bird sanctuary down the street, and a great lunch with springbok (!) carpaccio. Apparently we are having Thai food in a neighborhood called Brooklyn tonight!

A typical drive to work

This morning on the way to work, I was stuck in a traffic jam. When I got to where the backup had started, in front of the Executive Mansion (where the President works), I saw that it was because someone had dropped a pineapple on the ground. As I was driving our very tall SUV, I figured I could drive over it without damaging it. But as I was maneuvering to get the pineapple between the wheels, a man came running toward the car, holding his hands up as if to say, “STOP!!!!!”

He carefully stooped down, rescued the pineapple, and scurried back to his car. Traffic then moved along.

As usual, I passed two or three cars that were being pushed by their erstwhile occupants, and a pickup with its hood up (and one guy peering into the engine) in the middle of the street.

Cocoa, part 2

The next day, we visited a Farmer Field School. Basically the school teaches small scale farmers techniques for improving their farming yields. The one we visited was conducted in Mandingo, one of Liberia's fifteen languages, but many of the participants also spoke English. That day, farmers were learning about cocoa, but schools also teach farmers about rice and cassava.

During our visit, several participants took turns standing up and talking about last year's harvest. Unfortunately, each person's testimony was along the same lines:

"Last year, I only harvested 100 kilos. I carried on my head to Guinea, where I sold it for 80 Liberian Dollars per kilo."

Right now, 80 LD is about $1.20. Unfortunately, I don't know that much about cocoa, but I'd be willing to bet that Liberian farmers are neither growing the best quality nor getting the best price. A very quick Google search turned up this article about the cocoa industry in Trinidad, where farmers are earning $18.00 per kilo. Although not everyone was in attendance that day, the group consists of 30 farmers, including 7 women. For some reason, only the women spoke in Mandingo when they stood up, even though they seemed to understand some English.

Walking to Guinea probably takes these folks half a day, at least...with the cocoa ON THEIR HEADS.

More to come...