The ice storm over the weekend wreaked havoc with travel and cut power to thousands of homes...but so beautiful!

I just want to say to all my friends and colleagues around the world: I did not vote for that guy!

CLT: 5 minutes 53 seconds but no security check and on a domestic transfer so its not really comparing apples to apples. In any case this is the shortest time yet.

Still need to find a way to post this in table form.

Conference is over. I think it went ok. At least we've had lots of positive feedback on our presentation. Always hard to tell though if people are just being polite. But I actually think it did go well. Tomorrow I'm working on some data collection stuff with some of our staff here, and then Sat-Sun, I've booked myself into an all-inclusive. Got some super cheap prices in the internet. So I'm looking forward to just relaxing for a couple days. 

A sneak preview of our presentation at the ECHO conference this week. This is a map showing to of the important watersheds on the island of Hispanola, the Artibonite watershed and the Enriquillo watershed. The grey line in the center of the map is the Haitian/Dominican border and you can see in  the case of both watersheds that they are partly in both countries. This underscores the complicated nature of the ecological relationship between the two countries and how the people of this island are linked in multiple ways. In fact it is hard to find  a map like this and the few watershed maps out there tend to show these river systems essentially stopping at the border, as if nothing existed on the other side. But the reality is that people living in the border regions depend on each other regardless of nationality, often more than they rely on their fellow citizens in distant capitals.

From arrival at airport to my departure gate in 15 minutes. I'm pretty sure thats some kind of record. At the very least a personal best. Maybe i'll even start timing my check ins. l am fully aware that no one is going to care about that except for me.

And this is the canyon where those trees will be planted--either in or around. I'm pretty sure I've posted pictures of this before, but it's just one of those places where you feel compelled to take pictures. Kind of like Kilimanjaro. I swear every time I see that mountain I want to take my camera out.

We've started a new project to help protect a watershed area called Nyakazu. This is a priority area for the country since it has value both for it's biodiversity and for tourism. There's a spectacular canyon which I've talked about before where there is a residual native forest. A community nursery was recently started where local people  went and gathered tree seed from the forest and are trying to propagate them here. Below is one of the species, called Umuvyiro (still looking for the scientific name). This is one of the few times this has been tried and it's really an experiment to see what will grow and what will not. So I'm  very excited to see these leaves pushing through after 6 weeks in the ground. Makes me want to move here and just work on getting native trees to propagate. In a few months time these trees will be planted in and around the canyon area--the community (and our) first attempt at native tree propagation.

this is one of those moments when work doesn't feel like work. Sunday evening sitting on the beach. The band just finshed a pretty laidback version of Hotel California. Sorry i can't share that too

the recently painted mural at the hotel where i'm staying the next couple days. i think the artist has done a good job of capturing the look and feel of the Burundian countryside

breakfast on a travel day. todays journey is kilimanjaro-nairobi-bujumbura

It's the equivalent of spring here. Being 3 degrees south of the equator means the seasonal change is not as obvious, but still distinct. Lots of plants and trees flowering, birds of all kinds everywhere. This is a hanging plant in the hotel garden.

This is a classic agroforestry plot in Kilimanjaro Tanzania. A mixture of banana, avocado, some timber trees, and annual crops (at this moment, maize). There's also one sad, spindly looking coffee plant (sort of in the middle of the picture, slightly to the left of centre). The groups with whom we work here have done significant tree planting and recently I was able to do a quantitative analysis of whether all that tree planting has resulted in any measurable change or not. The graph below shows the change in vegetation--measured as an index called NDVI--over a 3 year period. What it shows is at locations where there are groups working to do tree planting, there has been an increase in vegetation over time. As you move away from the centre where the group is located, there is still a positive influence but less so with distance. At about 5 or 6 kilometres away from where these groups are located, the change in vegetation starts to become negative. This is shown in the green line. The yellow line shows what happens around a typical village in the rest of the same watershed. You can see that change at and around these villages is negative over the three years, and gets worse further away from the village.

the Nairobi airport. which frankly doesn't look

that much different since the last time i was here (when was that? i guess i should check my blog). You may remember there was a big fire here a few weeks back and there are definitely sections that are closed off for repair but things appear to be working more or less OK. In fact i got my transit ticket printed off faster than ever. So fast I thought maybe they'd made a mistake.

There is a subtle smokey aroma in the air

It is slightly less hot this evening. Or less humid. Plus I had fresh mango and passion fruit juice. So life is good.

One more day of meetings tomorrow. These have been interesting, but with some intense moments. When I'm in listening and translating mode it's always a bit draining for me even if the discussion itself is fairly tame. Internally my brain is going a hundred miles an hour to try and keep up with the conversation. It's a good feeling though. Tiring but kind of like the tired you get from a good run.

shouldn't talk about the weather, but wow it's hot here. The temperature isn't so high I  don't  think, maybe 32 or 33 C, but it's like 99 % humidity. Feels like you're standing in a greenhouse. And it's 9 pm, when it's normally cooler, but I'm feeling no relief at all.

Three years after the Haiti earthquake and I'm still  learning about things that happened  during  those few seconds. One of the staff here who drives for us was telling  me about how his wife was trapped in a building  and had  her leg crushed. It was several days (I'm not entirely clear on exactly how many),  before they could get her to a  functioning hospital that was in any kind of shape to look after her,  and by then  it was too late. Infection  had  set in  and they  were forced to amputate below the knee. My co-worker said one of the worst  things was that he and his wife were  in desperate need but everyone they turned to was in the same situation. Fortunately my co-worker has family in the US,  and  they were able to get his wife there where she received a prosthetic limb.  Then my co-worker asked  me where I was during  the Haiti  earthquake.
"At  home reading the news on the internet."  my pathetic reply.

I think both of us at  that moment were  thinking about how life is horribly, brutally unfair, but nobody said  anything.

Agroforestry is biodiversity!

I'm in the Vienna airport. The layover was only 5 hours and I kind of thought it would be better to just sit and relax. But I sat there thinking about it for about a half hour then grabbed my bags and headed through customs. There's a direct train to the city centre that takes 16 minutes. I didn't really have a plan and didn't have long anyways so it was really just a stroll around the city centre. I passed a couple of nice cafes that I should have stopped at but kept thinking I would find a nicer one. Which was a mistake since I never did and had to get back on the train without drinking Viennese coffee. Next time Vienna!

There are many communities here that have extremely uncertain land situations. They may have been living here for 20 or 30 years, but new national parks and forest reserves keep getting established, the laws are unclear, and generally people's futures are just up in the air. You can see it in people's eyes when we are talking to them. They just don't know if they might get kicked out of their homes tomorrow. But a good news  story: one of the villages we visited has recently struck an agreement with the local authorities to implement agroforestry plots on forest reserve land. The first photo shows a young agroforestry plot started by one farmer. This has rattan,  fish tail palm, fan palm and several other species that are at the same time forest species but also can help families feed themselves and make a living. The owner of the plot is eating and selling food products as well as shingles made from palm leaves. The forest dept took notice, and after some negotiation, has agreed to have villagers try out these innovations on about 3 hectares of reserve land. The second photo shows part of that area where this will soon be happening. It's the classic win-win scenario. Farmers get to feed and cloth their families, and the park gets greener, better protected land.

Pigs are an excellent way for a family here to supplement their income and diet. Lots of small  scale farmers do raise pigs, but there area couple of  interesting things that UHDP (the organization we are partners with) does to help farmers with that. One is that they loan a sow to a farmer.  When there are piglets, the farmer has to pay back the program with two pigs for the one he or she receives. This  is a popular animal loan  model originally  developed by Heifer Project, but now used by programs around the world. In this way, the farmer gets a pig for very low cost, and the program gets to keep distributing more animals. The second thing is that UHDP  promotes composting pig pens.

Yesterday we visited a village where two microhydro generators have been installed. This project was actually sponsored by another organization, but we were the ones who provided the idea and the training. The connection is kind of convoluted since this other organization and ourselves are part of the same network. So the research we did on microhydro gets out to another organization, who sets up an exposure visit to our Farm Research Centre, and farmers from this village get the idea to install hydro generators, which they do. Now two 3 kilowatt generators are running full time on river power through that blue pipe you see, and providing light to 30 homes. a daycare centre and the local  church. It's sort of the butterfly effect in that a seed of  an idea eventually switches on  lights in people's homes.

The unthinkable happened. i was sitting waiting for my flight to thailand and a big new airbus 380 pulls up to the gate. so that was good because the 380 is cool. But looking around at the gate I didn't see a whole lot of passengers--maybe just scattered around I thought. I boarded and sat there waiting for more people to get on. I kept wondering why it was taking so long to load this plane. At some point I came to the realization that the flight was far from full. My seatmate in the aisle realized this too and had the presence of mind to stake his claim on an empty bank of seats leaving me with aisle, mid, and window to myself. Plus 3 pillows. I am living the dream now. I got to lie down and have a real sleep like a civilized person. You have to understand empty flights rarely happen anymore. With all the codesharing and fancy scheduling technology even having 1 empty seat beside you is unusual. Even this flight was shared between 4 airlines and they still couldn't fill it. Couldn't have happened at a better time though.

This is it. The last trip for a while. Well, actually I have another trip next week, but that one is vacation. I have already decided the first 2 days of that trip will involve absolutely nothing. I may not even leave my room. But right now I'm focused on Thailand. This I expect will be a relatively easy trip thankfully. Mostly community visits, a chance to talk to farmers and take pictures. Plus it's a known quantity. So less surprises. Someone asked  me today how many times I've been to Thailand. I'm not sure really, but I  would guess at least 20.

A scarf in the colours of the Tanzanian flag hand made by a member of one of the savings groups here. Well hand made using one of those weaving machines. It's not a loom, it looks more like a keyboard except the keys have been replaced by a bunch of loops which allow the user to make fairly complex items. It's kind of one step between handmade and automation I guess. Pretty cool technology which I've seen in some pretty remote places. Allows a rural business person to compete on a larger market. I sat in the shop where these are made and sold for maybe a half an hour while one of our staff met with the owner. It was kind of fun to watch actual customers approach, look at wares, and negotiate. I even saw one purchase. The owner gave me this scarf if I promised to promote her product. So if you're  interested let me know. She's willing to accept orders.

The last two days have been the training in how to do research, a boiled down version for farmers. The end  of the training was the trainees, taking their new knowledge and sharing with a group of farmers. I have to say it's a little scary to see the words that recently came out of your mouth being repeated by someone else. I wonder how many instructors get a chance to see that in such a direct way. It's a little surreal.

Sorry that this had degraded into my health diary. I decided late last night to take what the doctor prescribed, 1 g of secnidazole--for those who care about that kind of thing--and it seems to be working. I was at a meeting all day today, and never once had to rush out of the room or even felt any discomfort in any way. I ate a full lunch today for the first time in 5 days. I'm still feeling pretty wiped out, but at least my stomach  is not complaining. So things are looking up.

Today was a training day with pretty much all of our field staff here, about 25 people from all the different districts where we work. The topic was research methods for farmers which is a pretty tough topic because it tries to bring together the tightly controlled world of scientific research, and the wildly chaotic world of subsistence farming. But where those worlds collide, exciting things can happen and you have no idea what. Maybe this world has been explored from end to end,  but there's still lots to be discovered.

The last 4 days sadly, have been mainly focused on my digestive system. It is cruelly ironic how some invisible microbe can change your perspective from this great green earth, to a tiny knife-like pain in the pit of your stomach. What ever it is, it`s not your standard traveller`s bug, which I`ve had numerous times and generally goes away on it`s own after a day or two, a mere coma in the standard travel narrative. No, this is more like tearing pages out of my travel diary. I finally gave in today and went to a doctor, who I don`t think was really sure what I have either, but used the shot-gun approach and prescribed multiple treatments. Plus a little background research of my own tells me that they prescribed twice the dosage for one of the treatments. So I may try one dose of one thing, and see how that goes before I double or triple up with the chemicals.

Just to show you that I'm not making this stuff up:

There's a sign with flashing  lights in the hotel where I am staying that says "Welcome to  Sheng Kun".  Speculation on why as sign in  Bujumbura  would  say that yielded  no  clear  answer. I  asked on of the waiters but he  also  didn't  know. My guess is that either a) the sign  was there before and had been  programmed  by the previous owners,  or b) the hotel bought the  sign because they liked the fact that it was flashing and  also said  "Welcome".  

I was excited today to learn that our staff here in Burundi are testing a herb species called Tithonia diversifolia, aka. Mexican marigold, which can be planted in farm fields and has the ability to add significant amounts of phosphorus to the soil. Lack of phosphorus or lack of access to phosphorus in tropical soils such as those found in Africa is a big limitation, and typically cost of chemicals to fix the situation is challenging for small farmers. I'm excited about this because, a) it's a low cost, natural solution that not only adds an important nutrient to the soil, it also adds critically important organic matter, essential to soil health, and basically the plant does most of the work b) I learned about this from our staff here, who learned about it because of their collaboration with the government research institute--the fact that our staff here are trying new things, is just greatly rewarding somehow. I would  post a photo of Tithonia from the web, but that seems like cheating. I just learned about it in conversation today. As soon as I have my  own photo, I send it.

Sorry about the not blogging. It's partly to blame on poor internet but also exhaustion. Hopefully I can get back to more regular posts for the next few days.

My new tent, which I got through a friend in California. Not a true field test, but it will have to do for now.

As expected, nothing unexpected so far at the conference. It's been great. So many great ideas, and technologies that are are will soon be. It kind of boggles the mind a bit, and leaves one a bit overwhelmed. But the schedule is predictable, and calm, and I think I'm catching up a bit on my rest.

I'm tired, I have a headache, and my butt is sore from what is now literally days of sitting on planes. You might have noted that I just got back from Burma a few days ago. That was followed by a weekend at home in bed with travellers diarrhea. I did manage to get my laundry done, and throw a few things back into my luggage and pile into another plane this morning. After the doors closed I discovered that the Toronto airport as part of their 'noise abatement' strategy, does not allow planes to take off before 6:30 am. But my flight was still scheduled for 6 am? How does that make any sense? So we sit there for a half hour until the pilot can get permission to take off. This made me even grumpier thinking about how I had to get up at 2:15 this morning so I could sit on the runway for the sake of noise abatement. Every so often I run into someone who tells me how they love what I do, and really wish they had a job like mine. And true, in the grand scheme of things, I love my job, and appreciate very much the privilege it is to do and see the things I get to do and see, but this is one of those days folks. One of those days. At least I'm going to a conference, where there will be nothing unexpected. No crazy third world schedule changes, no failures of electricity, no menacing microbes in the water, no scary unstable governments, no threat of mugging or car-jacking, no deadly mosquitoes floating around in the dead of night. The worst thing I will have to deal with will probably be too much air-conditioning.

Watershed training was the main activity that I was here for although there was plenty else going on during the week. This is a workshop participant sketching a map of his watershed. Everyone was divided into groups by watershed and worked the entire time together. In the end each group came up with a plan for their area as a practical exercise. So much could and can happen in this country in the next few years. It's kind of chaotic and a bit scary to me, but hopefully when everything settles out things will end up in the plus column.

Gold mining has become a big deal apparently in the past 5 years or so. Mostly companies although some local prospecting also takes place. Local folk get little benefit, and only seem to have to cope with the ensuing evironmental fall-out.

A village in Mon State on the eastern side of the country. Just one year ago or so, this was a restricted area due to fighting between local rebel groups and the army. One of my Thai colleagues said it's like Thailand 40 or 50 years ago. It's kind of like this place has been frozen in time and now they're thawing out in the summer heat. Speaking of heat, did I mention how hot it has been here? 35-40 degrees. I've been drinking water like crazy, litres and litres.

Close call this morning. When I  went to grab  my toothbrush, I knocked the toothbrush holder out and it started to fall into the toilet. I thought, "Oh man, that's the end of that holder." But then it bounced off the edge of the seat, and bounced across to the other seat, and then miraculously bounced back up into the air where I was able to snag it. Phew.

Early day today. Up at 4. Will be on the road at 5. I am told it is a 5 or 6 hour drive to our destination and I'm warned that part of the road will be quite bad. "Jungle road" was the exact term used. I don't get much occasion to travel jungle road, but I've had numerous trips where I was warned about the road, and it turned out to be not so bad. I've seen a lot of terrible roads. My standard is still a road in the central plateau of Haiti where every time I drove it, there was a point where I would stop, get out of the vehicle, look at the rocks in front of me and ask myself if I had ever driven over this before and why. Still I'm excited about jungle road.

I am here! Didn't think it was going to happen this morning. Long story. Anyhow lots of exciting things happening here. This I think is really the place to be right now as this calender in my hotel attests to. For lack of a better way to put it, it's a great time to be alive I think.

Two great things about Thailand (there are many): chillis and ice coffee.

If you haven't been here, chilis appear in just about everything. You know how in Toronto if you ask for something spicy they might put maybe a half a green pepper in something and you still have to add hot sauce? If you're a pepper addict you know what I'm talking about. Well here, spicy is just about regular and if you ask for something spicy it might put it over the top. Plus on every table in every restaurant there's a container with chopped green chilis in vinegar, chopped green chilis in fish sauce, crushed dried chilis. Really it's a dream come true.

The other thing is iced coffee. I know that in the past few years iced coffee has become a thing, but it was a thing here long before it was a thing everywhere else. Plus it's dispensed on almost every corner. Between capsaicin and  caffeine, I spend most of my time here in a state of over-stimulation.

Last night I went the the famous 'night bazaar' here, which is one the biggest and best craft markets I have seen anywhere.  You can get just about anything you want from cheesy  t-shirts, to exquisite wood carvings. This time I also noticed a booth selling real estate. I barely buy souvenirs anymore unless I see something really great.

Well today is a  big travel day. To an uncertain destination. I suppose I am speaking metaphorically, but I also mean this geographically. If I was speaking metaphorically I could probably say that every day.

It's hot. So hot locals are saying it's hot. So hot the water coming out of the tap is hot. Not desert hot I suppose, but warmer than I would like it. Luckily I'm staying in a place for the next couple of nights with some sort of A/C which is bringing the temperature down from 'sauna' to 'just-slightly-more-than-comfortable'.

I'm in an airline airport lounge drinking free espresso and working on my laptop. Which pretty much everyone else around me is either on their smartphone or some kind of tablet device. Just 2 or 3 years ago, most would have been on laptops with a handful on phones in a similar scenario. Now I feel like some sort of brontosaurus pounding away on my keyboard with large hoof-like appendages.

I'm a little bit nervous about this trip, for reasons that I can't get into in much detail. If I tell you it's a question of paperwork I hope that will suffice and that I am  hoping it is favourably resolved soon. I will keep you posted as much as I can.

On a different note, when I was passing through customs in Europe, the officer said very little except,
 "Travel a lot?"
"Yes." my somewhat weary answer.
And  that was the entire sum of our conversation.

Salzburg, Austria, which is about 2 hours by train from the Munich airport. I had an all day layover so decided to try to add another country to my `collection`. The woman at the information booth laughed when I said I wanted to go to Austria, and told me it couldn`t be done with the time I had before my flight. So I went immediately to the train station and purchased a ticket. Granted I didn`t have a whole lot of time there, but had a chance to walk around, get someone to take a picture of me with the Austrian flag, and had time to stop for dinner in Munich on the way back (some sort of schnitzel type thing--not that great but local, and ordered in some restaurant where they didn`t speak much English.

I feel like I could learn German. It just sounds familiar somehow. That`s what they taught us in school anyway, that German and English were two of the most closely related European languages. I had to learn what Flughafen meant for sure, (airport) so I could find my way back. In the end I made it back with plenty of time to spare. I sort of felt like going to the information booth and telling them, but I wasn`t sure what the point of that would be.

This is Hohensalzburg Castle. I did not actually have time to go and visit, as per the airport information booth advice.

Due to an unfortunate incident involving automotive fluids my travel bag of many years is no longer useable. Last weekend after an extensive search, I got a new one which seems to fit most of my (some would say excessive) criteria. I won't really be able to approve until I've  got at least one whole trip with it but so far so  good. One thing I've noticed is that I travelled so long with the old bag it almost became an extension of my body. I knew exactly where every pocket was and could sling it around virtually unconsciously. With the new bag I'm having to think about it. The pockets the balance a lot of little things.

Driving in Port au Prince is a nightmare. It is actually possible to run out of gas in a traffic jam. I sat stuck in traffic on a narrow street, basically one dirt track for about 45 minutes while two large dump trucks tried to make their way down this passage with  and  against a two way flow of regular traffic. Part of the thing is that some drivers drive right up to each other from opposing directions so that neither one has anywhere to move, and everyone behind them is bumper to bumper so then there's no where to go. Then everyone sits while that works itself out. Multiply that by two dump trucks and you get the idea. I would have taken a picture with my phone but several people have warned me that armed robberies are on the rise in town and smartphones are one of the things being targeted.

This is the Artibonite watershed. As you can see it straddles the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic with the source of the watershed being in the DR and the endpoint in Haiti. It is a critical river system in many ways, one of them being it is a major source of agriculture for Haiti. Proper management of this watershed would obviously require cooperation between the two countries. Funny thing is, it is even hard to find a map that shows the entire watershed. Existing maps I have found tend to show either the Haitian portion or the DR portion. It is as if the other half didn't exist or something. I had to create this map myself, such as it is. The little green triangles indicate the communities on both sides of the border where we are working.

Three days of training and practice in field research. This is a plot with bagasse compost as a treatment. Comparing it to rabbit compost and no compost at all.

I'm not sure, but I don't think there are many things quite as humbling as someone bringing you  a  bucket of water to bath in. And there's not a whole lot you can do  but say thank you. There is a shower here, but it is of questionable value, even when  it is working, and this morning it stopped working altogether. Bucket showers of course require a completely different strategy since you are required to wash while at the same time pouring water over yourself. If you haven't tried it you really should. It's kind of like driving and texting at the same time. Or what I imagine that would be like.

Last night there were June bugs everywhere. Or the Caribbean equivalent of June bugs. Sorry I can't tell you if they are different. But just like Canadian June bugs they were recklessly slamming into everything before falling to the ground and struggling helplessly on their backs. During the night they kept crawling inside my shirt and a few times I rolled over  on  top  of one to an unpleasant crunching sound. Fortunately  they  don't bite, and as far  as  I  know they  don't carry disease. They're like the insect equivalent of the lemming, harmless, but a little hard to understand. 

I'm sitting in our office waiting for a training to start. It officially starts at 9, but probably about a 3rd of our staff a going to be late, because of some demonstration which blocked traffic on the highway. Protesting a lack of work or something. Such is life here. Waiting. I wonder what percentage of my life has been spent waiting.

this is an historical moment for me and my blog. The first time i've posted from my phone. Admitting that I suppose only betrays how far behind the times I am although tapping an entire paragraph out on this tiny keyboard doesn't seem terribly efficient to me. On the other hand I have an entire hour and a half to hen peck out whatever nonsense I want so what's my hurry?

I'm wondering how many times I sat here at gate A9 of Terminal 3. A bunch, maybe 40 or 50? Enough times to figure out how to be the first one here in the morning. It's like getting to the office early.

Mangrove, as you may know, is an important habitat in the Caribbean and many tropical, coastal regions. It's a breeding zone for many fish species, supports unique birds and plants, stabilizes shorelines, purifies water--all in all a critical global ecosystem. The problem with mangrove is that it occupies the same kind of space that also happens to be ideal for tropical paradise hotels and resorts. If you've stayed in beachfront all-inclusive, you've probably been sleeping right on top of former mangrove swamp. Millions of hectares of mangrove have been chopped down, bulldozed in, and otherwise removed for the sake of tourism. I don't have anything against beach hotels--I have to admit I'm quite enjoying my stay here. This particular resort at least has, within their property, preserved a small area of mangrove as a nod to environmental responsibility. You might be able to tell that this particular mangrove is not the most spectacular ever, but it's something, and far ahead of what most resorts are doing. This morning, when I was taking these shots, I saw many guests walking by this small preserve, sadly unaware of what it might represent. I suppose that mangrove and tourism can co-exist. And I know there are folks working for that. But historically as we all know, dollars trump, well, everything. Maybe that's changing. One can only hope.

I think this boat was scuttled on purpose in front of the resort beach for the appearance and I suppose for snorkelers and divers. It gives you something interesting to look between naps.

Now and for the next few days at an all inclusive with my brother and his family. First time ever for me at an all inclusive. In fact my brother just offered me a drink from the mini fridge and at first I protested because of the charges to the room. Still not used to the all inclusive idea. There may not be many photos over the next few days. For those of you who take local transport, the way to get here is Expresso Bavaro a bus that runs from Santo Domingo to Punta Cana in about 3 hours, maybe 3.5. Don't get off at the Punta Cana airport though, like I did. I thought I would be able to take a shuttle from the airport straight to the resort, but no such luck. Instead I ended up taking 4 different local buses and spending about 2 hours to go 25 kms. Total cost 90 pesos or about 2 USD. I could have taken a cab direct for somewhere between 25-50 USD. The thing I should have done is take the Expresso Bavaro bus right to the end of the line, Friusa, and then one local bus to the resort.

I should probably mention that I think I had malaria. First time ever, at least as far as I know. And I'm not completely certain that I had it this time either. But Thursday during the day, I started feeling really tired. I didn't eat much lunch, and went home early from work. As the evening went on I was feeling progressively worse, with a fever and chills, headache, nausea, and diarrhea. I lay in my room in the dark, feeling terrible, and spending what little energy I had debating whether I had malaria or not. Finally I decided that it probably was. It was an important decision because I try to always carry an emergency dose of anti-malarial medicine with me, for exactly an occasion like this. So I dragged myself out of bed, got a glass of water (not that easy believe me), and started the treatment. The idea is that you take a whole bunch of medicine on day one, and knock out the parasite. This is followed up by several days of more mild doses to completely eliminate (hopefully) any residual bugs lurking in your blood. Maybe it was just psychological, but within minutes of taking the first dose, I started feeling better. The next day I was back at work, although still feeling a bit queasy, but by day 2 I was almost 100%. Today is my last day of drugs. Good thing I'm on vacation.

Whales in Samana Bay. Humpbacks I suppose. I'm a bit embarrassed to say I don't know for sure. One of these actually jumped out of the water, very spectacular I guess. Too bad I was looking the other way when it happened. All I saw was the green swirling pool of bubbles where it landed. I could have taken a picture of  that but decided not to. Still it was pretty exciting just being around them. And I have lots of shots of them doing less exciting things like this. 

And this is me actually on vacation. I  know this shot is totally cliche, but I can't resist. Samana is on the eastern part of the island, and while still a tourist destination is less developed than some other locations. Tomorrow we hope to go out into Samana bay and see whales which come here to mate in the winter. 

Some of you I know, think I'm on permanent vacation, so here's a picture of me doing something. We wanted to know soil depth in this field.

Part of the workshop over the last couple days has included meeting with a small group of farmers (about 10) and asking them to identify soil problems in their community. The post it notes below show their perception of soil problems ranked by importance. The top one you see there is burning, ie when farmers burn their fields before planting. There are a bunch of reasons why farmers do this, but the end result is they get a short term increase in crop yields, and a long term and permanent loss in soil productivity. The photo below shows a couple of fields (upper right) that have been burned. I think if you take a closer look you can see how it leaves those fields, vulnerable to erosion. There's a long list of reasons why burning fields is not a great practice in the long run. The objective of this week, as it has been in other countries, is to help farmers think about how to resolve these problems through their own observation and ingenuity rather than us as an organization swooping in with all the supposed answers. Easy to say, not so easy to do. A three day workshop  such as this is only a step in the journey. I wouldn't even say the beginning because we've been working at this a  long time. Slowly but surely we try to improve. Poco a poco.

I had forgotten that this week is Mardi Gras/Carnival. Which means a lot of people here are in a partying mood. It's pretty quiet in this little town right now, but the owner of the house where I rent a room has a grandson who takes part in the carnival parades. I asked if I could take a picture of the just the mask, and instead she made her granddaughter put the entire costume on. The more I look at this outfit, the scarier it looks to me. It's tough to see maybe, but the eyes are bloodshot, and there's two crocodiles squirming around on the side of the face. Not to mention the big shiny teeth. I'm not quite sure how the religious significance of this all works. Frightening spirits wander the world until Lent, when they disappear because it is such a holy time? In any case I hope that no such spirit is hanging around in the house tonight! Or ever for  that matter.

It's raining here. Which is only notable because Jan-February are usually dry months. So while getting rain in February is not 'freakish' weather, it does seem consistent with my experience of the last couple weeks, where rain in Tanzania was totally unexpected, we had a big and these days somewhat unexpected snow fall in Toronto, and now rain in the drier season here. Three anecdotal data points collected by me, a random traveller, do not a comprehensive climate study make, but it sure seems like something unusual is going on at the moment on a global level. Who knows, maybe the rest of the world is getting normal weather. Maybe rain and snow are actually following me around. Which would be really disappointing considering I'm actually taking vacation time next week to enjoy the Caribbean sun.

I have to say, I love the DR. It's true that, and someone accused me of this the other day, that I say that about every place I go. Which makes my statement seem somewhat less meaningful perhaps, but there's lots to love here. Beautiful weather, especially this time of year, hot, but not unbearable, beautiful people, lots of green trees, mountains, beaches, rivers, waterfalls, birds. Next week, when I take actual vacation, I'm hoping to see some whales. I'm excited about that since I've never seen one not in museum or aquarium. There's a list of animals I hope to see someday which includes leopards, crocodiles, gorillas, and chimpanzees. In the wild that is. Seeing them in captivity doesn't count. But, my week of work begins now. I hear someone at my door to pick me up.

One trip ends and another begins. Lately it seems I travel more than I stay in one place. Today's journey begins in Toronto and ends in the Dominican Republic. Work of course, but purely by coincidence, my brother and his family will be vacationing in the DR next week. So, I'm going to take a few days vacation and try to track them down at their resort. I'm looking forward to it, but tracking them down may not be straightforward, since there is no direct transport from where I will be on the island to where they will be on the island. Advice on the internet tells me I can take a series of local buses (guaguas) that will get me there but that remains to be seen. I will let you know how that goes. In the meantime, I'm focusing on the upcoming week which involves discussion with local staff of sustainable agriculture and research. Also will let you know how that goes.

But this morning my main objective is to nap on the plane.

Last installment for this trip, and another in my series of 'micro-vacations'. That is instead of wasting 6 or 8 hours sitting in an airport, I waste the same amount of time somewhere outside the airport. Sometimes that turns out to be interesting or fun, and sometimes, like today, it ends up with me wandering around aimlessly in the rain/snow without a proper jacket until I get so cold I decide to go back to the airport. This flight got into Amsterdam at 5:30 am for starters, and at this time of year, it doesn't get light until about 8:30 or so. Which means I also spent a good deal of time walking around in the dark, on mostly abandoned streets. Still, it wasn't a total loss. I managed to see about a dozen canals, 5000 bicycles, 3 cheese shops, 4 Starbucks, 5 shwarma places, and 6 McDonalds. 

I should also say that the train system here is quite good (this is well known), but I really think that the train system in Kuala Lumpur still wins for ease of use. I should start another blog just rating train systems. I've seen a bunch, and generally they're all really good, but I think the ticket machines in Kuala Lumpur win in the most user-friendly category, plus signs are available in 3 or 4 languages including English, which makes getting around pretty obvious. I did notice that Amsterdam also uses Bombardier trains. I guess trains is something Canada does well, I just never knew, because we seem to send the cool trains overseas. Too bad.

Some advice on staying healthy in the rural tropics. Do NOT do what this guy is doing, ie, going barefoot. Walking around in bare feet is a good way, among other things to pick up soil borne parasites. In this case, the individual in  the photo ignored such sound practice because  it was extremely muddy and he didn't want to wreck his shoes while trying to get his vehicle unstuck, calculating that in a low traffic area with few animals around he might be OK. Still not advisable. Such a person would be best advised to monitor his health carefully, and  possibly get some basic lab tests done upon arriving home.

Maybe this doesn't look like much, but this is a plot where farmers are doing their own experiment (Farmer Field School). This particular experiment happens to be about Conservation Agriculture, a type of tillage and soil management system where farmers try to disturb the soil surface as little as possible. Here you can see a plot where farmers have used a 'ripper' which basically cuts slices into the soil to allow moisture to be absorbed. Anyhow, the point is that farmers are trying several different conservation ag treatments on this same piece of land in order to figure out for themselves which one is best for their situation. Every week they meet and visit the plot, make observations and discuss/analyze what they've seen. This was really the purpose of the  visit to Tanzania this  week (like Burundi), not getting into various bad  situations with vehicles.

Really bad luck with vehicles this visit. I was driving this one when the wheel dropped right off the vehicle and went rolling ahead into the ditch. Fortunately this happened in a flat spot and in a populated area so we weren't stranded and the vehicle didn't end up anywhere disasterous. No one was hurt either in the car or passers by. Furthermore there just happened to be a guy (in the blue suit jacket) standing around at this intersection, on a Sunday who was knowledgeable about cars (may or may not have been a mechanic, I'm still not sure). So we spent the afternoon sitting/standing around until the wheel was back on, and then droving, rather tentatively back to our point of origin. Again fortunately we had only gone a few kilometres, and even in that distance we had to stop twice to re-tighten the lug nuts. 

Tuesday, we went to visit another organization to learn about their experience with Farmer Field School. We got out to a community and had a chance to talk with one farmer and then it started to rain. She invited us into her house to wait out the rain, but it continued to pour for sometime (incidently that kind of rain is totally unexpected this time of year). When there was a bit of a break, I suggested we move on since we had other sites to visit. However the road was slick and with absolutely no traction we ended up careening off the road and into was was essentially a mud pit. Our attempts to get out by spinning the tires only dug us in deeper until we were buried up to the axles. We tried all kinds of things to get out, collecting rocks to put under the tires, digging, even jacking up the truck so we could get rocks right under the tires (at which point the jack broke). Finally after about 3 hours and 20 metres of getting stuck and unstuck repeatedly, we finally got ourselves onto dry land and safely back to a paved road. Everyone was exhausted and cold since we were soaked from the rain which continued to pour and make the job more challenging. Below is me making my contribution to getting us free. Even the farmer we had talked to came and helped.

This week in Tanzania the main topic is Farmer Field Schools. This is a method of training that puts the emphasis on farmer knowledge and farmer participation in learning. By definition it also moves the emphasis away from the organization and organization staff. In a sense it sort of levels the playing field. FFS is not new, but we are just starting to try it out. Below is a table based on an experiment run by farmers which compares the traditional flat vegetable production bed to the double dug bed which takes advantage of several ideas to improve production such as closer spacing, use of compost, and natural insect repellants. All of these are low cost measures which even the poorest farmer can use. You can see in the results below that the double dugs outperform the traditional system, and not only is the yield more than twice as much, but the production season is almost twice as long. Again, this is not new in principle, but this is data collected by farmers that actually work with us, and helps both them and us learn more. Maybe for some this is just a boring table, but I think the content is pretty exciting.

SN	Item description	Double dug	Flat bed
1	Area size	1m x 6m	1m x 6m
2	Crop planted	Kale	Kale
3	Fertilizer	Compost	Cattle manure
4	Spacing	23cm x 23cm	34cm x 34cm
5	Number of plants	90	55
6	Plant repellants	applied	NA
7	Rate of pests and diseases infestation	Very low	High
8	Production period	5.5 weeks	3 weeks
9	Production in bunches	105 Bunches	46 Bunches

Sorry these posts have been late and the last three have actually been in reverse in terms of timeline, as I've been catching up from last week. I'm now in Tanzania, and will hopefully post something more current later today.

The waterfalls (one of several) at Nyakazu Gorge. This place we hope has the potential to become a major tourist site for Burundi, and the Ministry of Tourism has designated it as such. We hope to be involved in helping the surrounding communities to protect it while also benefiting from it. So beautiful here. In fact it has occurred to me that if you want to help a country like Burundi, just come here for a visit. You don't have to do anything more than enjoy the beauty of it, but try to travel in a responsible way. The business that your visit may generate, and your interest in natural areas such as this can really help. 

I managed to catch this guy on the bicycle just as he disappeared around this corner at an impossible speed. He whipped past us in a car and I barely had time to get my camera up and take this shot. This is a long and very steep hill that drops about 500 metres from the countryside above to the town of Bujumbura below and bicycle taxis like this make this journey with two or three huge sacks of charcoal tied to the back. Braking seems to be done with one sandal actually made out of a car tire while the other foot is actually bare. I don't think it's actually possible to stop on this grade and at the speed we saw him go by. I'm guessing that if something happens he just throws himself clear and hopes for the best. One bag of charcoal can be bought in the country (top of the hill) for about 7 or 8 dollars and  sold in  town  (bottom of the hill) for 12-16 dollars

I left Bujumbura this morning to this sight. I am told that some kind of electrical problem started this fire, which is in the central market downtown. People were very upset and the fire department seemed unable to do much, I guess because of the electrical. The fire started around 7 am--I know this because I was eating breakfast at my hotel and I saw the first burst of smoke rising up a few blocks away. A few minutes later, I grabbed my camera and headed in that direction as were hundreds of other people. When my plane took  off a few hours after that, the plume of smoke was easily seen rising up in the centre of town and the fire looked like it was not showing any signs of slowing. A tragic day for the town and for the country