Archive for the Places Category
I needed another pair of pants. I came for about 30 days and brought one pair of work pants. Not only are the people in the office getting bored with my drab, monotonous wardrobe, I’m tired of wearing the same slightly itchy polyester pants day-in, day-out.
So yesterday, I went on a mission in Harare to find a new shirt and a new pair of pants. I thought I might pay $5 to $10 for pants and about $5 for a shirt. No, try $15 for each. You want a short-sleeve polo shirt? Try $18. All the stores offered their wares for about the same price.
Well, that’s what you get for high-quality, Zimbabwean made textiles. Not so fast. These prices are for the cheapest, Chinese imports available. My friend told me Zimbabweans usually go to South Africa to buy clothes where prices for the same exact brands are about 1/5 the cost of Zimbabwe.
Another eye opener from Zim-land. Think about how far $15 goes at Old Navy, TJ Max, Ross, or the thrift shop. Then think about earning just a few hundred a month for a family. So, yeah, it’s expensive. You either pay in money to have the convenience of shopping in Zim, or you spend your time on a bus to South Africa where everything is cheaper.
And remember, $15 may still not seem like much, but the government workers here earn about $100 a month. Some nonprofits pay $400 a month. Then you need to pay rent ($100 – $250), utilities ($50), gas if you drive, food (minimum $100) … not much left to buy a $15 pair of cheap trousers.
I’m not quite sure what drives these high prices. Are there import restrictions, high duties, high demand, low supply? What? It’s probably a combination, but the government recently suspended duties on all products imported into the country, effective immediately. Hopefully that relieves a little pressure on the cost of goods; I still need to buy a shirt!
So, at around 8.50, I received a text message asking for help. A friend ran out of petrol (gas) in a dark area (as in, there were not many light) in the city center (Harare). (Do you like the parenthetical inserts?)
Everton and I jumped in the newly repaired Rasheen. What’s that you ask? It’s looks like a poorly miniaturized Jeep of some sort that Nissan made for right-hand drive countries. Luckily, they don’t exist in the States, but we do have equally, as well as more, ridiculous looking cars named the Aztec, the Rav4, and the stretch Hummer limo.
Now that you know what the car is, you should know it’s had trouble working. The mechanic assures SHAPE that it’s fixed, but a quick drive resulted in at least one stall, erratic engine RPMs, very low idle RPMs, and trouble shifting gears. Mint condition.
It’s into this beast, we jumped to rescue our friend. And, I was driving. Not really knowing rules of the road in Zimbabwe, I made a left turn on red (that’s the equivalent of right on red in the States) and Everton laughed a nervous laugh and said I couldn’t do that. Anyway, we made it there with only one stall the gas station. Did I mention this is an automatic, so there are no gear shifts for me to botch.
Amazingly, we had a real, spare gas can. It had a flexible nozzle, a rubber gasket to create a seal between the flexible nozzle and the hard cap, as well as a rear air vent to allow the gas to flow into the thirsty tank. Our friend was also shocked to see a real gas can.
With 5L of gas, he was ready to go. Except his car wouldn’t start. We didn’t have jumper cables. So, we ran down the street pushing the car that wouldn’t start. No luck. Hmm. Maybe our Rasheen could push the car somewhere. Let’s try … turn the key in the ignition … and … all power in the Rasheen is lost. Completely dark. Luckily the friend knew what he was doing and quickly reseated the terminal on the battery and the Rasheen was up and running.
Then, he took our battery, ran it to his car, started his car, put his battery back in, then put ours back in and it’s all good.
So, that was a fun evening and something a little out of the norm for me, but something that’s probably a not-so-uncommon occurrence here.
I arived in Zimbabwe a few days ago. Shep met me at the airport and I was wisked to the SHAPE International Offices. After quick introductions to the staff, I headed to my host’s home. Bleary eyed from a long flight to Harare, it was all really a blur.
Over the weekend, SHAPE had some student musicians in the recording studio for an upcoming album release. Brilliant! Their voices were great. If I had a cord to download the video from my camera, I would upload it to YouTube and post the link here. In the meantime, text will need to suffice.
On Sunday, I rested! Thankfully. I met some of my host’s friends on Saturday evening. We played a game of 30 Seconds until 3am. I still can’t think of what the game is called in English, but you have things you want to get people to say, like garfield or To Kill a Mockingbird, and you can use any clues you like except sounds like and saying the answer. People guess. And, you guessed it, you have a maximum of 30 seconds per card to guess all five. Needless to say, at 3am after a long day, long flight, and little sleep, I was knackered.
Now it’s Wednesday and I’ve had my first few discussions with folks about work in the office. Looks like fund raising, information & communications technology, and some basics in management are the main areas to help with. The next step is to set them up with a few, free Internet-based resources to start organizing their contacts, their volunteers, and their donors. I also have a few management tools in mind. Ever since I was introduced to Salesforce.com, I’ve been a big fan. I set up the resource for HOGC, for myself, and am now in the process of setting it up for Hands on Zimbabwe (aka, SHAPE Int’l).
I have talked with a number of the staff about their individual project areas. There is a real need for project management training, information technology training, and some old-fashioned computer networking. Anyone have old routers or two and a server they’d like to donate and ship to Zimbabwe?
Everyone is quite appreciative of the advice I’ve provided and I hope they feel the same way when I leave.
My first impression off the plane was – flat. Then I felt the temperature – cool. Then I saw the airport – am I in Zimbabwe? I ask, because this airport looks so much better than the one in Delhi. I sailed through customs and was met by Shep, Sisa, and Chenge at the airport.
Driving into town, I was at first reminded of Ethiopia. There was a smell of burning wood in the air, along with the browning grass, and gnarly trees that brought back memories of my first experience in Africa. The more I drove around, though, my thoughts turned to China and Kyrgyzstan. Both of these places had infrastructure before the neglect set it. Kyrgyzstan more so than China, I seem to recall. The houses all have walled in yards. Glass is often cemented atop the wall to discourage unwanted visitors from just hopping over when no one answers the gate buzzer. These aren’t just houses for the rich, but the middle-class.
I learned, though, that houses cost $150 – $300k, depending on the area, so few Zimbabweans actually own them. They simply rent. In some areas, you have million dollar homes. In Zimbabwe? Are we talking about the same country? Who knew? At least rent is cheaper than New York. They are stunned when I tell them how much my rent is.
Food, is not cheap, either. There are no coins for change, so there’s dollar-rounding on your food bill. By that, I mean what ever the final price is, it’s rounded up to the nearest dollar, or you get a bunch of candy as change. You can expect to pay about $3.50/lb for chicken or beef, unless you go to a butcher, where you could get the beef for about half that per pound. A 2L bottle of water costs $0.80. A 1lb box of instant, Nescafe coffee cost about $6.50. Shocking.
Doubly shocked when you think about how little folks make and how high unemployment is. So, even though it’s better, it’s still not a cake walk. But where is it a cake walk? I can go a few blocks away from my Park Slope apartment to find folks struggling to make ends meat. It’s not any easier in the US.
And gas? How about $1.50 per liter. That works out to about $5.70 per gallon. And, this is a city with unreliable public transportation. You ride minibuses, you catch lifts, you walk. Unless of course you have a car and money to continually fill the gas tank to drive along so-so roads, many of which are riddled with potholes. Cars are mostly older models of Toyotas, BMWs, Mercedes, trucks, even Pugeots.
Still, this place is nothing like I expected. If you read the US State Department’s website, you’d think setting foot in the country is tantamount to either a jail term or death sentence. Far from it. I know there are shenanigans that go on here, but the people are friendly. I’m amazed by how many Shona say that they are a peaceful people, not like those South Africans. So, despite the high prices, the pollution, the power cuts, and the lack of running water – all things that I pretty much anticipated (except the high food prices) – Zimbabwe has refreshingly It’s much better. Much better.
I spent my morning at PS 270 with a group of 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders who signed up for the Photography Explorers enrichment class. I don’t know all the details of how the program started, I just signed up through New York Cares’ website for the project. I arrived, without a camera of course, early and awaited Francine the coordinator.
When Francine arrived, she briefly explained what was going to happen – take the kids outside with cameras, let them do their thing, then come back inside to print out a single photo. During the explanation, kids and additional volunteers began to filter in. By ten after ten, we were outside on the playground taking photos of kids on the swings, on the playground gear, pretty much anywhere.
I worked with Crystal. She led me around and took photos of me doing silly stuff on the monkey bars. I, in turn, tried to get her to take photos of flowers or photos of people at interesting angles. She wasn’t interested. She got some great shots and I got some great shots.
Just before we headed in, I showed her the fountain. I hit the on button to release a small stream of water. I told her to take a photo. She missed the stream a few times, so I showed her how to time it. A couple other people came over to have fun with the fountain, too.
The girl, Mioshi, said she really enjoyed taking photos. She thought she was going to be a photographer when she grew up. When she printed out her photo, it was of a woman pushing a shopping cart on the sidewalk. She snapped the shot while the woman was unaware, so it was a very honest expression on the woman’s face – determination and tiredness.
Mioshi titled her photo album page with “Mioshi Documents Brooklyn”. I don’t think of 3rd, 4th, or 5th graders using a word like document, but she did. I was impressed. She went on to describe the woman and where she met her.
The last time I volunteered with kids, I was trying to read to kids in a domestic violence shelter. Not the best first experience. I haven’t really wanted to work with kids since then. After this morning, I have at least one positive experience to balance the reading experience..
Dogwoods on 5th Ave
I started this blog entry a couple weeks ago when Spring really was arriving. It has come and gone. I was struck, more than once, by the tiny buds that appeared on the branches of trees one day, then exploded into beautiful white or pink blossoms the next.
Park Slope is a beautiful place. But the winter turns it into a rather barren landscape. The approach of warmer weather has caused 5th Avenue to transform their nakedness into a lively ensemble of delicate blooms that entice everyone to come out to enjoy their beauty.
From the kitchen window, the ivy has been dormant since late October. In the period of five days, it went from no leaves to fully covered. I tried keeping track of the transformation each day, but I didn’t do a great job. I have a few photos of a barren wall, then a photo with it fully covered. Oh well. Perhaps next year.
The Spring has also brought the rains. There have been a few gorgeous days, a few hot days, and many rainy drizzly, slightly dreary days. I do enjoy the rains, though. I love to here the tires of the incessant traffic roll through puddles and along the slick road. I love to hear the rain hit the roof, the windows, and see the occasional raindrops come down the chimney.
I just returned from the Gulf Coast. It was Spring Break 2009 and I had a wild time. I went shopping for Cheerios with my Grandma, ate curry chicken sandwiches at Le Bakery, and met with the ladies of El Pueblo to discuss their website. I know, most of you are blushing and wondering how I could publish even these brief descriptions of activities on the web. Still, it’s my style to say it like it is.
Seeing Grandma was my main goal. I love y’all – Caitlin, Bootsy, and the rest of the Gulf Coast crew – but Grandma’s family. The last time I had been down to see her was August 2008, when I had my follow up visit with the surgeon. Although she’s pretty feisty as an 86 year old, each visit more clearly shows the signs of her aging. I think if I were to live there, the changes are gradual enough that I might not notice them. With the longer snapshots of time between visits, they’re hard to miss.
The big thing that seems to be going is her short-term memory. We were in Big Lots looking for Cheerios. We didn’t find the kind she wanted. Five minutes later we were close to the same aisle and she said, “We didn’t look for Cheerios yet.” ”Yes, we did Grandma.” ”Are you sure?” “Yes, Grandma.” That’s just one example of many. Her long-term memory seems to be going, too. She doesn’t remember how to make the bread pudding she always used to make. She has a hard time remembering peoples names.
Her driving (off road) scares me most. A couple months ago, she apparently took a turn a little too wide near a construction area that caused her to land in the soft mud. She had to get a tow truck to pull her out. That incident came on the heels of her being pulled over by a police officer for driving too slow. Apparently, another driver called the police and complained about her. She was shaken and her confidence broken.
Although it’s scary for her to be on the road, it’s scary thinking about her trapped in her house. The closest store is Walgreens, three miles down the road. Her son, my uncle, Brian and his wife live about 5 miles away. For the rest of us, that’s no problem. But at 86 with the increased traffic and new road construction, it’s a nightmare for Grandma. She already spends most of her day at home alone. Phone calls help, but she is used to seeing people all the time. Just before Katrina hit, two of her sons – Peter and Denis – still lived at home. So there were people around, even if they lived their own lives.
She still has her wit and her smile, she’s just slowing down. When people are at the house, she is very chatty and very active. It was so sweet to see her with her second newest great-grandchild. Elizabeth was born in September 2008. Grandma loves to hold her, smile at her, and make eyes. She is transformed. I suspect she loves babies. More deeply, though, I also suspect it connects her with her youth. As a mother of eleven boys, there was almost always a baby in the house for twenty years. Although tough times, I know she looks back at those times with fond memories. Through the newborns, she reconnects with the family history that seems to be fading for her.
When I see her, I wonder what I will be like in 50 years. Will I be as healthy as she is? Will fate be as kind to me as it has been to her? So much of what is important to me is being physically fit, moving, and (trying) to keep my brain sharp. How will I handle the loss of muscle, the loss of memory, the loss of loved ones? These questions come unbidden to my mind when I see her. I worry about her. I worry about me. I should take solace in the fact that I have her hearty Scots blood in my veins, but the solace doesn’t keep me from wondering. I try to thoroughly enjoy each moment I have now, knowing that it will fade into a memory, which in turn will fade.
In the end, I will learn the answers to these questions. Everyone does. It’s part of living.
I participated in the New York City annual survey of the homeless. It’s called Homeless Outreach Population Estimate, or HOPE 2009. You can read more about it on the HOPE 2009 website, but in a nutshell, the survey takes a point-in-time look at homelessness on the streets of New York City. It gives the mayor a way to track progress toward his goal to reduce the homeless population by two-thirds in 2009.
My piece of the puzzle was to go to Coney Island and walk with a group of folks, who also volunteered, to canvas three sections of Brooklyn. They gave us maps with the routes we needed to walk and an orientation to the methodology for approaching and interviewing people on the streets. After the interview, we would need to decide whether we think the person is homeless.
We had a room full of people, probably about 50 volunteers and about 30 or so police. Because of the area my group was assigned, we didn’t need police. We might have, actually, but not because it was a rough neighborhood. Quite the contrary.
When we arrived at the first location, the BMW’s, Lexus’s, and Mercedes, in driveways no less, all gave a clue that we would be the ones out of place. No homeless to be seen, but the cops on patrol did look stare at us a couple times wondering why we were on the street at midnight.
That’s the other thing, the survey started at 12:15am and ended when we were done or 4am, which ever came first. It was a chilly January night, so you can imagine that we were anxious to talk to people or get our survey done.
The first survey block led to no encounters. Upon arrival at the second, the houses, their condition, and the kind of car sitting out front, or in the drive way, again said we wouldn’t find homeless people out here. There were very few people on the street at all.
It didn’t take long for us to realize we were on one of the control group areas. If we were to find homeless people in a rich neighborhood, you know the City would have real problems. As it was, we chatted amongst ourselves. One of the volunteers was a computer programmer, another ran a homeless outreach unit, and the fourth ran a marketing business. All very nice folks.
We ended the evening after having walked about six or so miles according to my trusty pedometer. I went home and promptly crashed.
I’ll be interested to see the results of this year’s survey. I don’t know how long it takes to crunch the data and massage the results, but I’ll make a second post. In the mean time, it felt good to help the City, even if I personally didn’t see anyone to help.
Today was a delicious day. It began with a peanut buttered flat bread and coffee for breakfast. Although not necessarily considered one of the world’s greatest culinary delights, I thoroughly enjoy it as a morning starter.
The real fun, though began with the food tour. In October 2008, when my mom came to visit, I signed us up for a food tour through the UVa Club. We did a dessert and wine tour around the 70s on the Upper West Side. The company that provided the guides and was City Food Tours. We enjoyed it so much, I thought it would be great to go on another.
Fast forward to today and I’m on a tasting tour of the Lower East Side. It’s the place of immigrants. Early in the history of the city, it was farm land, but soon after the Revolutionary War, it began to become a merchant’s district. In the mid 19th century, the successive waves of immigrants seemed to find their way to the dilapidated tenements that characterized the area and left their ethnic imprint.
Although we saw quite a bit of Chinatown’s spillage into the Lower East Side, Nicole pointed out quite a few Jewish places that show the Old World past of the businesses and neighborhoods.
The Doughnut Plant
We began the tour with the Doughnut Plant. I’m not really a big donut fan, but these are made with fresh, organic, homemade ingredients. Apparently the creme brule donut is to die for. The owner spent a couple months perfecting the donut. We had pistachio donuts and cranberry jam filled donuts. They were light, sweet, and delicious. When we finished, I didn’t have any of the heavy feeling I usually get after thinking about eating a Dunkin Donut.
From there, we moved to the Bialy place, Kossar’s. I’d never heard of a bialy, much less tried one, before I moved here to New York. They are similar to a bagel, but not quite. They are not boiled before they’re baked, they don’t have a hole in the center, and usually there is a sprinkle of real onion in the middle. The result is a tasty treat – when well done – that hits the spot. Not too heavy, not to light.
Pickles!
Next stop was the Pickle Guys. I’m not really a pickle fan; I enjoy a good relish like everyone else, so I wasn’t terribly excited. Still, how do you expand your horizons without trying something new? Nicole, our guide, gave us three varieties of pickles – a new pickle, a sour pickle, and pickled carrots. The carrots were soaked in vinegar and had a heated kick to them. They were my favorite. The pickles were cucumbers soaked in the brine solution for varying lengths of time. The full sour pickle has soaked the longest and tasted, well, sour. Imagine that. The new pickle tasted more like a salty cucumber.
We wandered north, toward Houston Street, where we stopped for a coffee at the Roasting Plant. There a former Starbucks executive, and manufacturing engineer, had designed a machine to roast, grind, and brew your coffee to order. Guatemalan coffee too light and the Yirgacheffe too bold? No problem, just ask the staff to mix them to your preference. The system looks like a 1980′s sci-fi mail chute with the vacuum tubes that connect the roaster to the storage spots to the grinder. Still, you have to admit, the coffee was delicious. I would highly recommend a visit, paired with a tour of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, to kick start your day.
Coffee!?!?
After the Roasting Plant, we went to Piada for a sandwich. I had La Dolce Vita, which is bresaola, parmigiano, and arugula. There was also a balsamic vinegar to give it a little umpf. Delicious. No two ways about it. Simple and delicious. We chased the sandwich with a chocolate bon bon from the Cocoa Bar.
It was a great morning with beautiful weather – sunny and mostly above freezing – that complimented the gastronomic delights we sampled. I highly recommend this tour – Nicole was a great guide – not only for the food, but also the wander through the ancient history of New York.
January 4th, 2009 in
Food,
New York | tags:
Food,
tour |
1 Comment
This week, I began a temporary job with New York Cares. I’m the Warehouse Coordinator for their Winter Coat Drive. For the month of December, New York Cares collects coats from all across the City. This year is the 20th year of the coat drive. Last year, the collected and distributed over 90,000 coats. This year, we hope to do better, but we’ll see how the economy works its hand at New Yorkers’ generosity.
To collect the coats, they have set up collection points at police precincts in all the boroughs as well as the transportation terminals – Penn Station, Grand Central, Port Authority. To get coats from the precincts and transportation terminals, UPS and Avant pick up and deliver bags of coats every day. Individuals and other organizations can also drop off coats at the warehouse – 250 Hudson St.
The building on Hudson St used to house a printer. Now it’s being renovated for office space. We have a dusty floor all to ourselves. It is in this place that we break down the deliveries, sort them into mens, womens, kids, and infants coats, then rebag them – five coats to a bag – and put them in a big pile. The coats are given to agencies that submitted applications to distribute coats. It’s a first applied, first served situation. We start calling the first applicants to come pick up coats for their works.
Many of the agencies are churches. It’s unfortunately there are so many applicants – indicating the great need in New York – but it’s great that we can help out.
So far, we’ve sorted about 300 mens coats, 360 womens, 60 kids, and 30 infants. The bags of delivered, unsorted coats have piled up, awaiting the tender labors of volunteers who want to help sort them. That process begins next week. It should be good. In addition to the bags from the police precincts and the transport terminals, Sing Sing Prison made a few too many coats for the prison guards. We have about 1850 additional unisex coats to handout.
Although the first week is slow, I’m told that it gets hectic and crazy. I enjoyed the laid back first week and I look forward to some of the ferocious intensity that characterized the early days of Hands On Gulf Coast life.
