Boring Details

This post is trying to get some boring details out of the way that should be written down sooner or later so I will try to make this short and suess. So I guess first is about how to get a hold of me there are two good ways and many other ways.
1. Email:ryanmgilpin@gmail.com
2. Call or text: 925 353 8366
a. Calls will be routed through google voice (9253538366), to skype (9252268083), to my cellphone (017632930841) and costs me about 20 cents per minute. You will pay whatever you need to call a 925 number
b. Texts will be sent to my email maybe someday I will figure out how to forward these to my cell phone.
c. Please leave a message because on my phone your number does not show up. To call you back I will probably need to wait until I am home at the right time in both of our time zones. And there are bound to be many problems with this system for a while.

Also, I will sporadicly post pictures on this site.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33101552@N05/sets/72157626216777652/

As of now, I do not know how to receive paper mail. I will work on that...

OK next topic is what I am doing and such. I am getting a Master's degree in International Nature Conservation. From what I have seen, this tends to be more ecology based than it sounds. This quarter I will take two ecology classes, one German class, one economics class, and maybe another language if I can decide where my internship will be in time. Currently I am in Goettingen, Germany at Georg-August-Univeristaet. It is right in the middle of the country in a 1000 year old city and 300 year old university. I live in a reasonably-cheap reasonably-crappy dorm on top of the hill about 1.5 kilometers from the main part of campus.

Following my time in Germany, I will go on an at least 12 week internship somewhere in the world which I am doing my best to research right now. I think I am going to try to do it in the Alps, Andes, or Himalayas, but I am a long ways from selecting a site.

In February 2012, I will start a semester in New Zealand's Lincoln University about 30 mins outside of Christchurch. Apparently the school was delayed for 3 weeks this semester because of the earthquake, but thinks everything will be fine for next year.

Following that I have 6 months to complete my thesis.

Right now I am in an intensive German Language program with a whole bunch of young study abroad people from all over the world. I might not be the oldest, but so far everyone I have asked is younger. Our conversations tend to drift between German and English with momentary explanations in Japanese, Polish, Czech, etc (I am the only American, but one Brit and several Aussies). Last night I went to a small dance club sort of place which was having a 90's night. Which meant that for the first time in my life I knew 90% of the words to every song. Including weird selections such as nirvana and rage against the machine for a dance club. I am getting ready now to go play some soccer and try to find the rock climbing wall with the fellow students. Hope everyone is off enjoying their weekend.

Ramblings on Travel in General

I think that instead of writing a typical what is different about Germany or awkward “I don’t know what is going on” story from my first few days in Germany. I will write a little bit about my thoughts on traveling in general which will probably in turn be related to my first few days.
1. Jetlag – Every time I have changed time zones the same thing has happened. Day 1 is really hard, and I go to sleep and wake up at a semi-reasonable time (5AM this trip) and go through the second day thinking that I am good to go. When I go to take a nap, sleep for 8 hours and wake up at midnight. It has happened almost every time. Actually I prefer this happening compared to the second time I came back from Europe landed at 8 PM but wasn’t tired, stayed up all night and struggled to stay awake until it got dark, and was stoked that I made it only to find that I couldn’t fall asleep until 3 or 4 AM.
2. Walking - I walk a lot when I am traveling. Maybe Americans just don’t walk much, but I probably walked at least 6 miles every day in Africa and have done the same here. I didn’t walk that much in Ecuador, but I walked a lot in Australia.
3. Eating - I almost always love the food when I am travelling. Except maybe Kenya. But I always have trouble deciding what to eat. I am not sure why I have such difficulty when food is on the line, but sandwich shops, bakeries, or shwarma places that have things in the window that I can point to normally win. Goettingen has 4 places selling salami hanging from the ceiling, my weakness thus far (see attached picture of over half my meals since landing). When cooking for myself I cook differently from when at home, but certainly also not like a local.
4. English – I speak a very different version of my English when I am travelling, and I don’t even know if it is easier for foreigners to understand. For instance I’ve noticed that I say “Something like this” instead of “something like that”. For example, “I am looking for a book about hiking in Germany, or something like this.” That is the example that comes to mind but my English changes a lot. My German has been sufficient in 95% of the situations not involving conversations with my advisor and getting better.
5. Independence – Traveling allows me to walk an interesting line between loneliness and freedom to do whatever I want. It is very freeing to be able to walk for hours through downtown with no plans, eat when I am hungry and sleep when I am tired and do whatever I want to do right at that moment. But it is also a strange feeling that no one will come and convince me to do go for a hike or get a beer. I don’t get lonely very often, but it is bound to happen in the following weeks so far from my loved ones.

Rwanda Is You and Me

A few days ago the GO team was having lunch in Muhanga. Costa (our host) gets up before the food arrives and wanders off. He shows up as we are finishing our food and sends his food back for something else. When that comes out he tastes it, tells them it is no good, and orders something not on the menu. That comes out and he starts eating, and we tell him that we are already late for our meeting with the mayor. When he finishes eating we walk to the mayor’s office, about 45 minutes late. Bart mentions on the walk over to the mayor’s office that it was “kind of a rock star move.” After thinking about it, Costa is absolutely a Rwandan rock star. Here are five illustrations of Costa's rock starness.

1. I am sitting in Costas living room, having never met him, but he invited us over to a graduation party at his house. Family members slowly trickle in and reassure us that Costa will arrive soon. We are shocked when Costa walks in wearing a cap and gown. Thirty family and friends sit in a circle feasting in the yard using various levels of English to converse with us. Costa tells stories in 3 different languages, translates many things for us and cannot stop smiling.

2. During a ten o’clock dinner, Costa tells us that he spent the day checking up on a recently placed orphan two hours away. The orphan has been put into a family as a week trial before Costa asks if they like the family. The orphan approves of the family, but Costa must be at the office at 8 clock the next morning (leaving at 5 AM) to get a stamp so that the adoption can be official.

3. While Eve and Denise tried to teach me how to do laundry and speak Kinrwandan (I cannot say chicken or get shoes clean), I learn that Costa’s wife is their older sister. They watched their mother be murdered in the genocide in 1994 while hiding above the ceiling. Two orphans live with the family, children of those who murdered the family’s parents. Costa met the orphans and upon noticing their struggles asked them to join the family in Kigali.

4. I wake up early, and Costa is frantically tying his shoes. He explains that his friend’s child is very sick and to tell everyone he would meet us later. Costa rides the kid to the hospital on the back of a bicycle. Then, he gets in an argument with the mother who is convinced that he is cursed, not sick. After the positive TB X-ray Costa convinces the doctors not to let the child leave until he is healthy. On the way home he calls a friend to go to the hospital and stand guard.

5. Costa convinces a friend who owns a mini-bus to drive for a family outing to a genocide memorial. Nineteen people fill the minibus; many have never been to this memorial and had families killed in the genocide. After many tears and emotional moments we pile back into the bus and drive to a soccer game. Bart, Costa, Kyle and I are thrown into the action and at the end Costa brings out 1300 pens, a trophy and a soccer ball for the kids.

Early in our friendship with Costa, he said that he was not the best man in Rwanda. I told him a few days ago that I have not met very many Rwandans, but it will take a lot to convince me otherwise. I find it hard to not support people doing amazing things for their community.

More blogs and pictures here.
http://groundworkopportunities.tumblr.com/

FOOD

When my sister came back from Nepal, we talked for the first hour about the food. So, before venturing into Rwanda I will comment on the food in Tanzania.

Best entire experience:
We had just showed up at the school to play with the kids when we realize we have 30 minutes until the kids finish their lesson. So, Kyle and i aimlessly walk down the threet to find lunch. In 3 minutes we walk into a local restaurant with meat on a little BBQ. Perfect.
Kyle: "Do you serve food?"
'Yes, you want meat?'
Me: "Yes"
'Ugali or wal?'
(Blank stare)
'Wal is rice.'
"Oh, yes rice."
'With rice, you want...?' She clearly cant think of the name.
Kyle: "Vegetables?" 'No'
Ryan: "Sauce? 'No'
Kyle: "Beef Stew" 'No'
Ryan: "Chapati?" 'No' "Beans?" 'Yes' Big smile.
"Yes, we would like beans"

We sat down, drank orange Fanta and watched the locals fill the restaurant. We got white rice, with a scoop of whole pinto beans in a thick sauce, a chopped green leafy vegetable, and a bowl of goat stew with squash and potatoes. I promptly dumped my bowl onto the rice and enjoyed the meal I have had several times in Tanzania.

Most Unique: Ethiopian platter
A spongy crepe with piles of sauces/meats/vegetables on it. Rip apart the crepe and scoop full of spicy concoctions Wash down with house fermented honey wine.

Staple: Chapati
Wile ugali is the staple (soft doughy flour biscuit), chapati (fried tortilla) I could eat every meal for the rest of my life.

Most Creative: Salomon
Our cook on Kilimanjaro wowed us with many dishes. Early in the trip we had half an avocado filled with a coleslawish salad. I told him it was the best thing I had ever eaten. Sorry mom.

Late night craving: Zanzibar pizza
After walking out of the pool hall and back to the hostel. You could not walk past a person cooking on the street without spending 70 cents of a Zanzibar pizza. Ground meat and vegetable mixture is dumped into a freshly rolled dough square. They then crack an egg into it, fold it up, and fry it. its served with hot sauce and a garlicy hummussy side. One night we arrived 5 minutes too late. Cried ourselves to sleep.

Mt. Kilimanjaro

I managed to sneak in to a trip up the tallest mountain in Africa as a fund/awareness raising venture for GO (www.groundworkopportunities.com). We set off on an exciting bus ride early in the morning. Our bus is packed with porters, which we think is probably the most efficient way of getting a bunch of different groups up on the mountain. No. We have 16 porters, a waiter, a cook, and 2 guides. Which seems a bit excessive. But we are supporting the local economy I suppose. We go up the Rongai Route and day one is very easy. We pick up some porters bags (they each carry a backpack with their supplies and no more than 20kg in a bag on their head) and while we can carry them, it is hard to imagine carrying it all the way up to the last camp. The cooking on the trip was incredible. We had a mess hall set up for us every camp with a table, chairs and a 3 course meal. I felt like a general in a war a few hundred years ago. The guides taught us 2 new card games which we would play with them every night.

Day two was also fairly easy as we are starting to get into the groove of walking and hanging out at camp. Getting acclimated mostly involves going much slower than you want to, but it was nice to take our time. By the end of the second day we were above the cloud layer and would wake up to watch the sun rise over the clouds. Pretty average.

Day three we decided to change our itinerary and made it much longer. We climbed up a ridge and then back down to the same elevation on the other side of the mountain. Doing a big day three allowed us to finish our 1000m ascent on day 4 before lunch. We napped for the rest of the day and woke up at 11PM for summit night.

At about mid-night we set out for the summit. We rapidly pass most of the others who have set out a little before us. There is one group where many of the guides are singing songs in Swahili, I really liked walking near them. After about half the way up, we start moving very slowly. Bart and I got drunk from the lack of oxygen and Kyle got nauseous. All of our water froze so we were probably quite dehydrated as well. We got up to the summit, snapped a couple of pictures, and started down. Kyle vomited on the way down and I was very dizzy until we got a few hundred meters lower. It is crazy how elevation effects different people.

It takes us two days to get down to the bottom. After a day to recover, tomorrow we start helping with a school being built about 30 minutes away from Moshi. I am very excited to see what this will be like.

Peace Corps Test

Here is my post on Nic's peace corps blog after spending a week with him.


Hello, my name is Ryan, and I have known Nic for about 18 years now. I applied to the Peace Corps and have been waiting to get my assignment. I am not sure that the Peace Corps is in my future, but I was interested enough to apply and spend a week with Nic in Kenya. I am incredibly luck to have this opportunity and cannot thank Nic enough for letting me interrupt his life for a while week.
I do not know what to say about my time in Kilisa Village. I have done my best to not try to interrupt what is going on here while being whatever help I can to Nic and the community. I have done lots of water pump trouble shooting and discussing economics with Nic.
I cant imagine have been raised in Kilisa Village. Being breast-fed in the meeting room of the KVDC, building forst our of bricks in between shops, and going to school for 10 hour days are normal life here. The people are beautiful and I will remember the smiles and brief conversations with those who are willing to speak english, which greatly outweigh the unwelcomness that I have also received.
Nic is much stronger than I am in the difficulties that he has dealt with in this project. I do not envy his position. It is great to see someone put their heart and soul into a community that is struggling. Struggling may be the wrong word. Life is harder here.
As I explore, I become less sure about everything. I hoped that by the end of this week, I would know that I definitely wanted to join or avoid the Peace Corps. But, I still find myself totally unsure of what my future will hold. I plan on visiting Nic in a month again, but in that time I doubt I will have reached any new conclusions. Then I will go to Europe, will I find what I am looking for there?

Now I am in Tanzania preparing to climb Kilimanjaro. Check out GO's website for what I will be doing for the next 2 months http://www.groundworkopportunities.org/kilimanjaro/index.htm

Every Continent (Almost)

So I still have not been to Antarctica, but I now have been to Africa for a few days. Everywhere I go, things are very different from everywhere else I have been. I spent two days in Nairobi at a cool little hotel. I applied to the Peace Corps and am in Africa to visit a friend in the field and do some volunteer work. At the hostel we had a 4th of July party and I met about 15 peace corps volunteers. It was great to get about 12 one-on-one interviews, very productive and fun stay.

I am currently on my peace corps test. Nic (a friend from Pleasanton) and I spent 4 hours crammed into a matatu (bus) to go to his site. He has no power, pays someone to bring water, and has a small kerosene stove. This place makes southern Utah look lush and wet. Everything is red from exposed soil and everything is covered in dust.

I am helping Nic with a water pump to bring water from a subsurface dam to the village. Nothing is working. It is interesting and I am using some of the boring parts of firefighting to help. I think that I have a more lucid idea of what the Peace Corps has to offer, but every country and project is so different that there is no way to know what I might be getting into.