Right, as usual, it’s been ages since I’ve written. I mean really, it’s only interesting if I’ve been up to some good high jinx! So, after my debacle getting home in December, I returned to Addis and resumed my normal life. Nothing too interesting there. I requested to take a one-week course at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (on infectious diseases and humanitarian emergencies—because well, frankly, it’s cool!) and after copious approvals and a quick “we’re full—no we have a spot!” I headed off to London for a week after a quick visit to my sister and her family in Tanzania.

I arrived in Dar on a Thursday afternoon and just started sweating. Now Addis, climate-wise, is an ideal location. It’s generally in the upper sixties or low to mid seventies. And at night I get to snuggle into my comforter. But Dar in April is heat and humidity central. By the time I got to my sister’s office (after being stuck in traffic for some time) I was essentially soaking. After a day in Dar we headed off to Zanzibar. The boys promptly started a race on the beach and I think the pictures are telling of how much fun they were having. Graham is the younger one—and more victorious, but Miles still looks like he’s having fun. After some more time back in Dar, I headed back to Addis and was on another plane to London less than 24 hours later.



After a few nondescript days in London, news of the Icelandic volcano eruption was the news. Since my flight didn’t take off until Monday, I figured my dreams of an extra day in London weren’t going to become a reality. So I empathized with my fellow classmates—especially the one trying to get to his brother’s wedding on Saturday in the US—and didn’t think much about it. On Saturday, I took the train to Bristol to visit a friend from Ethiopia who is on maternity leave. Nine-day old babies are cute!! And as usual per my visits to England, it was beautiful weather. Kids were running around in the fountain in their bathing or birthday suits!

On Sunday, I figured I didn’t have a chance of flying out but I needed to head back to London to try to make plans. I emailed my office on Sunday night and said I had two options: stay in London and wait or try to make my way to Rome where flights were taking off. And there’s a daily flight between Addis and Rome on ET plus a few others.
On Monday, the decision was—get a move on. So I booked in for another night at the hotel (it was quite nice really—I recommend the Montcalm near Marble Arch) and headed to St. Pancras Station which I mentally refer to as “pancreas”. I mean—it’s not that hard a switch to make right? I got to St. Pancras and walked a least half a mile from the tube stop to the actual terminal, where of course I found the queue.

Eurostar, being one of basically two options out of England to mainland Europe, was quite popular. I joined the queue and listened to other people’s chatter. The woman behind me worked for a publishing house who was trying to get a very old author who only had one shirt with him back to his house in France. The woman behind her was traveling from South Korea and wanted to get back to her planned trip. A very loud man much further back in line but who insisted on talking to any other Italian in the queue—despite the distance—was talking about what I assume was a family emergency and why he should be able to skip to the front of the line. (At some point he disappeared from the line so maybe he did manage to convince someone though not the people he was trying to cut in front of—including me—yeah right, I live in Africa so I know how to be pushy and queue). And the stories went on and on. After a mere three hours (and even in Dansko clogs your feet will hurt) I got to an agent. Oh—I forgot to mention that the Eurostar website was down because so many people were trying to buy tickets! So seeing a friendly agent was very exciting. Of course, like many people in the queue, I wanted to go to Paris. Was I able to go the next morning?? Well yes, I could. So I purchase my (expensive) ticket and headed into the planning the next phase of my journey. Of course, everyone else had the same idea so the queue at another office for European rail travel was extremely long; and after 3 hours in the first one, I just couldn’t handle it.

So on Tuesday I checked out of my hotel and headed back to “the pancreas” for my Eurostar trip. It’s all very civilized I must say as you jet through security (beverages allowed), get your passport stamped, and wait with your fellow rail folk.
After a mere few hours we were deposited in Gare du Nor in Paris. There I promptly queued up, yet again, for a ticket from Paris to Rome. Fortunately, that queue wasn’t more than 1 hour and I got a ticket for the next night. That’s right—a night train. Fortunately it was straight through from Paris to Rome without stopping. Unfortunately that meant a 15 hour + train ride. Now I like trains, but 15 hours is a bit much even for me. But before I bored my express to Roma I met up with a friend from the US who is now back in France. Pictures below are of my walk around Paris and looking at lovely blooming flowers and having lunch with Solene and Livi.

When I downloaded these photos, I still had the ones from my December stranding so you get both Copenhagen and Paris!



Now for those of you who haven’t been in the 15-hour version of train’s economy class, I must say it’s better than I thought it would be. The little cabin had two benches facing each other—each with three seats. Of course, all seats were full. Then later at night you convert the seat to beds. One hangs down from the ceiling at all times, the middle bed is created from the back of the seat and the bottom bed is from the bottom of the seat but is further lowered. I had the bottom couchette and must say that I slept pretty comfortably. We didn’t have any big snorers and even though the Italian couple with colds managed to keep the sniffles in.

So we arrived in Rome late—for some reason we stopped for about half an hour around 11 pm and then I think there was another delay. But I hopped into a taxi and headed for what would be my 5th and last hotel of the trip. A mere 10 hours later I was on a flight to Dubai and after many lines at the Dubai airport between flights—which I somehow managed to avoid—I arrived back in Addis.

Of course, since I was in Europe for an extra week I’d lost some time. And my desk officer was arriving a few days later…so it was back to the grindstone. Sorting through emails, planning one trip, preparing for another that was already planned for later that week. Yikes. But we headed down to SNNP—less than a week after I’d been back—to visit a few projects. While I’d been to these areas before, I hadn’t seen these projects and it was interesting. Then we headed back to Addis for a day, and then off again to Jijiga—the capitol of Somali Region. I hadn’t been to JJ either and due to excessive recent rains it was quite lush and green—whereas I’d been expecting a desert–like environment.



In between the two trips I managed a quick trip out of Addis to visit Safia. If you don’t know what I’m talking about read my earlier posts. Safi is doing well in her temporary home and now has some cheetahs in nearby (but she can’t see them) cages. I’ve also been informed that a male lion will be brought out and then will get to hang out together. Safi gets something like norplant before that happens!! And then others will move there too. So her new home is starting to shape up. I don’t think she recognizes me, but I think she growls less at me than at others so I pretend. I’ve ordered her a new toy so she has a little more mental stimulation (though she has one now) and I think she’ll have a good life. Not the same as being free, but better than being dead which I think is the reality we’d be faced with if James from Born Free hadn’t gone to get her. I’ve also learned, from some 6 year old Daisy Scouts, that I’m in a video that Born Free uses to teach kids about what Born Free does, how animals are treated in Ethiopia, etc. So to at least a few 6 year olds in Addis, I’m pretty cool.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Jane in Rwanda January 2010

Hi all,

Just after I got back from Christmas this year, I went to Rwanda for a work conference. After the conference ended, I took a few extra days to go visit the gorillas in Volcanoes National Park and the genocide museum in Kigali. It's something I've wanted to do since I was in high school and I'm so glad I had the chance to go. Here are some photos of my hotel in Kigali--the famous Milles Colline (of Hotel Rwanda fame), the drive to the park and of course the gorillas. You're not allowed to use a flash around the gorillas so some of my pictures are a little blurry due to a slow shutter speed, but I think there are some good ones, and even the blurry ones are pretty cool!

It was definitely worth a trip!!!!

Link to the album:

Rwanda Jan 2010

What you'll see:

Safia update

Hi everyone,

I was just doing a little look at Born Free's website and found the following update. Thanks to those of you who've supported my little lion!! I'll see here when I got back to Addis and will keep you posted!

http://www.bornfree.org.uk/campaigns/big-cats/big-cat-rescue/safia-rescue/moving-safia/

Happy New Year!!!
Jane

My holiday travel experience

As some of you know, I had a hard time getting home for the holidays this year. I left Addis Thursday the 17th on the KLM flight that travels to Amsterdam via Khartoum. In Khartoum there was some issue (it was 1ish in the morning so I’m not clear on what the problem actually was but there was a delay in loading passengers and then they had to take all of the luggage off and match it with the passenger list and then reload). This delayed our arrival into Amsterdam for 2+ hours. Normally, flying to Dulles this wouldn’t matter, but I had chosen to fly to Detroit and then into Baltimore—which is a much shorter connection—and which I missed. I then spent two nights in Amsterdam and one night in Copehagen while I was routed and re-routed to Dulles (as Baltimore was too difficult). Ugh. So while I left on Thursday night and should have arrived on Friday, I actually arrived on Monday afternoon. While I was roaming around the airport, freezing cold cities, sitting on stalled trains, and enjoying my hotel, I wrote down a few things that I would tweet, if I was on twitter. So to recount the tale of my journey, I bring you my tweets below.

I did finally get home and with my luggage (though it arrived 30 minutes later on a different plane) and have since spent a little under a week in Phily with my sister and her family and the holidays with my mom, dad, sisters and families and my younger half brother and sister (and two dogs and a cat). Now I’m back in Baltimore for a few days and then to DC before heading back to Addis. Good times.

Anyway—here are my tweets: (BTW—care of Veronica Mars I’ve learned the Battlestar Gallactica cuss word of frac which I now use liberally)

• Sleeping on the floor of the plane during KLM delay—better than the seat!
• Sweat! Booked on a new flight and bumped to biz class!
• Sorry my flight is when? Oh, frac.
• Could this line be any longer?
• Why yes it could!
• I’ve just met the most helpful man in all of schipol. Hotel, vouchers, care kit? Sweet.
• I guess my room’s not that bad.
• Dinner is that bad.
• Oh frac that storm on the east coast.
• I’m going where?
• Would this woman just SHUT UP?! That is NOT helpful and frankly, I don’t care. None of us do.
• Well, this is a nicer hotel than last night. And another "care kit". I think I'm starting to hoard.
• Train into Amsterdam success!!
• What a lovely canal boat ride!
• Frac it’s cold!
• All set for the cold with my new (very expensive) hat and gloves.
• Now too tired to explore anymore.
• Train back to Schipol successfully boarded!
• Um, why are we stopping?
• Crazy man on the train tracks in the tunnel up ahead.
• Now police are coming.
• Now police are calling in the special police.
• Seriously? A suicide? I’m totally transportationally cursed.
• No I don’t speak French (said in French) so they keep trying to talk to me.
• Shared a cab to airport with other strandees—so that makes plane, train and automobile.
• It’s like the Amazing Race---but not fun.
• Please let Sunday be my luck day…cuz Saturday sure wasn’t.
• Who’s heard of SAS??
• Biz class in a small plane = middle seat empty. Boo.
• If KLM pawns me off to SAS and that flight is delayed—who takes care of me?
• It’s fracing snowing in Amsterdam. You’re kidding right?
• Next year, Christmas on a beach please.
• How can people bike in this cold?
• We’re almost ready to take off. Copenhagen here I come!
• After Schipol, Cope feels like I’m in the Toledo Airport of EU but with good shopping.
• My flight is what?!?!?!
• Canceled in case you couldn’t guess.
• I think I might cry.
• How the heck do I get out of this airport?!?!
• Oh. Cute dress.
• Copenhagen is cool—just freezing.
• People are jogging? Total nutters.
• Ugh—that guy's breath is rank.
• Me and one other woman in the hotel bar? Not a good sign.
• Misery loves company.
• Brittany Murphy died?
• Ah---on to London. Long live the Queen.
• Oh, you’ve been stuck since yesterday? So what?! I’ve been wearing this outfit for 5 DAYS!!!
• Ah London, good to be back.
• What’s the I see? A departure time???
• Holy crap! The Virgin Atlantic lounge is sa-wheet!! Pool table, food, bar, barber, kids play area?? Crazy!
• Boarding a plane to Dulles---yippee!!!
• “Upper Class” on VA is SA-WHEET!!! There’s disco lighting and my seat turns into a bed. Yeah!!
• Through customs in a breeze.
• My luggage is where? No I don’t mind waiting another 30 minutes.
• Madeleine Albright just left Dulles---didn’t see her. Bummer. I love her!
• Reunited and it feels so good!
• Ah the DC beltway. What joy.
• Home at last!!!

Hope everyone had a great holiday and here's wishing you a Happy New Year!!!

Some photos from South Omo

Hi everyone,

I went to South Omo Zone with a colleague to monitor some programs and so I could check out the situation.

Here are some photo highlights:

Trip to South Omo

Thanksgiving weekend—a lot to be thankful for, especially for one lioness.

As you may read already, when traveling to southern Ethiopia to monitor programs I learned of and saw a lioness cub and then worked with James at The Born Free Foundation in Ethiopia to bring her back to Addis in a safer, healthier environment. While James was able to quickly bring Safia back to Addis, the issue of where to keep her remained. Safia spent a few weeks at James’ house (eating lots of meat and a whole chicken!) while he worked to establish a new temporary home for her on the new BFF land.

The Born Free Foundation (BFF) has been able to get 73 hectares of land about 25 kilometers from Addis Ababa from the Government of Ethiopia to use as a new wildlife center. The perimeter has been staked out and BFF now has trained and uniformed guards patrolling the area while BFF works on installing the perimeter fencing.

This weekend, I got to help James and the vet move Safia to her new home. It’s a temporary enclosure where she’ll live for a few months while the perimeter fencing and a larger permanent enclosure is built.

I arrived at James’ house in the morning and while we waited for the wildlife veterinarian I said hello to his other animals. BFF currently cares for a number of lions in a zoon in Addis, several additional lions and a cheetah currently living at the President’s house, and some animals residing with James. They include a cheetah, an owl, and several tortoises of varying sizes. The cheetah, Menelink, has a few toys that she likes to bring over to you and likes to be pet through the fence. Amazing!!!

Once the vet arrived, she got down to business. First up was darting Safia with anesthesia so that we had better access to her and she could be moved. From upstairs we could hear her growling. I thought it was cute…others found it a bit more intimidating. Once Safia was asleep, we brought her outside, got her weight (27kg), took her temperature, listened to her heartbeat, checked her stool (she has worms), and looked at her front left paw which is at a bit of an angle—though useable. I was also given the honors of cutting off the chain which has been around her neck since she was at the village where I first saw her.

Once the health check was over, we loaded her into a dog crate and headed out to the new site and she was transferred into her new quarters. We waited a while and she slowly started to come out of the anesthesia. If she focused on us close to her (but on the other side of the fence) she would growl. She eventually was able to shuffle herself around a bit and got herself into the corner of the room (she seems to like corners!).

A bit later James put in her dinner and she seemed to perk up a bit. I mean, who wouldn’t get excited at 1.5 kg of raw meat (plus a deworming pill and some calcium powder) in close proximity? Kidding aside, the instinct for meat was really strong. So she shuffled herself over to the meat and ate a bit…but it was like watching a little kid who wants the food but is so tired they can’t stay awake. And she kept up the growling when we moved around so that we wouldn’t get too close to her meat!


After a bit of the meat, her curiosity got the best of her and she drunkenly made her way over to the gate outside. The set up is similar to that of a zoo in the states where there’s the indoor enclosure where she’ll be at night and then a gate that can be opened so she can be outside or inside as she chooses during the day. She needs to be inside at night because there are hyenas, baboons and other animals that might find her—say we say interesting?—and she’s still quite young and can’t really defend herself. Another perimeter fence will be built with barbed wire and that will help as well.

Watching Safia go outside was really cool. It was the first time she’d been in the sunlight or felt wind for months. She tentatively stepped off of the concrete to the dirt and then went back inside. She came back out, took a few more steps off of the concrete and again went back inside. After another 15 minutes or so she managed to walk down to the far corner of the enclosure. By the time we left, she’d walked about halfway back up and had settled in a semi-sunny area to bask.

Needless to say I think she’s quite happy. I’m going to go back out on Friday to say hello and see how she’s getting on in her new home. I’m glad I told James about her, but I’m really glad that BFF has been able to set her up so nicely and so quickly. She really is a bit free now and will have a much better life. I’m going to try to keep supporting BFF and Safia in particular while I’m in Ethiopia. Maybe I should start looking for work in the conservation field???

A big thanks from Safia, James and me to those of you who’ve helped out and supported the costs for keeping her. The ones I know of are Stephen F, Eyerusalem H, Jamie S in Ethiopia (or by way of a staff person in my office) and Michelle S, Johanna O, Stef H and Sarah G in the US. Your contributions are making a HUGE difference!!!



To view the photos, click here.

Born Free and Safia

Abrazos to all,
Jane

To contribute for Safia:
http://bornfree.wildlifedirect.org/category/born-free-ethiopia/
http://www.bornfree.org.uk/campaigns/further-activities/born-free-ethiopia/

(Let me know of your contribution and I'll tell James...you might get a shout out like Michelle S!)

If the link doesn't work, this slideshow will show you the same:

Help me help a lioness

Hi all--

Most of you know or remember how much I LOVE animals. Here is Ethiopia it's particularly hard to see the goats/sheep on the side of the road for sale, the donkeys carrying ridiculously heavy loads back and forth, the sad and hungry street dogs. It can be overwhelming. But I've recently found a small way I can make a difference and I'm hoping you can help me.

When on a site visit with one of my NGO partners, I went to a town where there was a man with a lion cub in his back room. I asked to see it and took this quick photo while I urged them to give her to the "proper authorities" as she would grow so quickly. I didn't know who the proper authorities were, but when I got back to Addis after a few other trips, the deputy of my agency had just visited the new program manager of the Born Free Foundation in Ethiopia. I emailed him and he followed up with a phone call and he was heading out for the two day drive a few days later. I've never seen anyone move so fast.

He got the local authorities and the lion "owner" to give her up (as they'd realized they really couldn't afford to feed her) and has brought her back to Addis. She's in a temporary enclosure while BFF sets up the permanent animal sanctuary outside of Addis. I've offered to volunteer with James to both try to get work crews together for the new site, but also to help out in whatever way necessary. Needless to say we're happy that he was able to rescue her from the stick hut where she was chained up and being poked and teased by kids.

Right now Safia is eating about $10 of food per day and that will more than double as she grows. I've attached a picture of her from later September. I'm hoping to see her again this weekend and will send out a follow up to those who are interested. The enclosure she's being moved to here in Addis while they set up the permanent center will cost about $600. James is looking for people to sponsor Safia as right now BF is paying for all of the food and other costs (for Safia, the two cheetahs he's got, the owl and the tortoises!).

If you're interested in making a donation to something really worthwhile and which I can provide updates on, it would be much appreciated. If you're in Addis, see me. If you're elsewhere and want to help out, go to one of the sites below and you can either donate for Ethiopia or just in general as they're now paying all costs. Just put in a reference to me and Safia (the lioness--we've discovered) if you can so James knows who sent you.

Sites: http://bornfree.wildlifedirect.org/category/born-free-ethiopia/
http://www.bornfree.org.uk/campaigns/further-activities/born-free-ethiopia/

This would be a great Christmas present for someone who loves animals!!! It's also tax deductible :-) !!!

Please pass this on as you see appropriate.
Jane