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 It's not a loom, it looks more like a keyboard except the keys have been replaced by a bunch of loops which allow the user to make fairly complex items.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.