14 years ago
30 December 2008
Kids in the street
It is the dry season and is raining. It hasn’t rained in a long time, maybe a week or two. I am sitting in the house, working, listening to the rain and enjoying the smell of rain on dry ground. A group of kids is giddily singing outside in the street. It sounds like gibberish but the tune is familiar. I think it must be some rhyme from childhood until I listen closer and hear that the children are shouting Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” They don’t know English so the syllables are just syllables and not English words, but the tune and the beat and a letter or two here and there are right on.
28 December 2008
Dias de Fiesta (navidades)
A few nights ago, I went out to buy plastic cups. I stopped and talked to Blas (who you met in the post about the farm) for a while. I tried to buy plastic cups from his mother, who runs Abaceria Sen, close to the house. She didn’t have any but pointed me to another store, close to a green car. She meant the store with the kittens inside but I went past it to the green car and peaked inside. There were dresses. I went to return to the store with the kittens but the two women outside engaged me in conversation. They asked what I was looking for and I told them, plastic cups but I thought I had been directed to the store next door. They asked where I was from and we started talking. One woman owns the store, Candi and one woman, Juanita, owns a bar nearby. They offered me a beer so I sat and talked to them a while. After about an hour, and a few more beers, Juanita says, “come with me, you have something to buy?” I said “ yes, plastic cups.” And she said. “ok come with me, I will show you my house.” So I did. We first dropped off candles with her relatives – the power was out. Then we went to the store next to the grocery store. It was closed, but she caused a scene with a man outside who was insisting that it was closed but was not affiliated with the store. The men inside recognized her and opened the doors. She asked if they had plastic cups, I asked how much they were and bought them. Before we returned to the steps outside of Candi’s clothing store, we stopped at the supermarket so I could buy beer. When I told her it was for them she said, no no I’ll take you somewhere cheaper. We stopped at her bar, where I promised to take my students when they arrive, and she said to drink whatever I wanted, she would pay. I took the same cheap beer we had been drinking outside of Candi’s clothing store. She disappeared for a long time and finally came to collect me. She took me to some new construction where she had a long argument with one of the workers. She, and the construction supervisor, wanted him to stop and continue the next morning in the light. He did not want to work the next day (Christmas eve). I’m not sure why she brought me in for that conversation – maybe I was her exit strategy. Just before we left, she said I have to take this girl home (but in Spanish she said niña, which is like little girl, or daughter). She said I have hair like her mulatto daughter. We returned to Candi and her clothing store with the candles lighting it. Candi’s husband bought the next round but I had to bow out and Juanita walked me home. At the house we met the electrician who I have promised to pay for the air conditioners tomorrow. She told my watchman (who only speaks French) in Spanish to take good care of me. Then I baked chicken.
Farming in EG
A week or so ago I took a trip to visit a farm. This farm is an old cacao plantation. The family that owns it is planning to reactivate it as a farm. It was last operational during the Spanish colonial period. One family that worked for the Spaniards who then owned the farm has stayed on the land and are now employed by the EG family that is trying to make the farm profitable. Thier plan is to start by selling off the wood on the land and use the money from that wood to finance other projects. First on the list is fixing up the buildings and roads. They also have plans to do some processing of cacao beans on the farm. Other plans include aquaculture and growing a variety of other crops. We also ate a delicous lunch at Cuatro Ases in Luba, which may also be called Hotel Jones and went to the beach.
16 December 2008
City Adventures
Chicken in the Dean’s Office
I spend a lot of time waiting for E to sign things. One day I waited for quite a while – long enough to get bored. I talked to one of the secretaries for a while and tried to finish some reports on my laptop. At one point I looked out the door and saw a chicken poking around in the grass, looking for food. I watched the chicken for a while. Eventually it decided to investigate the office. For almost five minutes it stood in the doorway looking into the office and lifting one leg as if it was going to step inside and then putting it down again. Eventually it wandered back to the grass. And yes, this is my second post about chickens. They are everywhere.
Trip to the police station
I went with GB to the police station to get his fingerprints put on his residencia. C came along to speed the process. The outside of the police station is being refurbished. There is scaffolding all over the front and sides of the station. The entrance is cool and dark. The floor and walls are made of stone. I think its is an old Spanish colonial building. We walked down a narrow dark hallway off the foyer. To the right was a man at a typewriter behind a desk. With him in the office were three or four other men sitting and standing on the other side of the desk. On the left, windows into a dark office. After the man at the typewriter, the hallway opened onto a courtyard, but only on the right side of the hallway. On the other side of the courtyard were arms and legs pushed through metal bars. I did see some faces at the window as well. We turned to the right and walked into a long dark office. There were two computers, several typewriters and leaning stacks of yellowing paper taller than me. There were some file cabinets. There was barely enough room to pass behind the line of people to get to the fingerprinting station. There were stacks of passports laying around on desks and ID cards floating around everywhere. I think there was air-conditioning but I don’t think it was effective.
My students have left so I may have time to catch up on the blog a bit. I'm hoping to write more about the market and my picante buying adventure. But that will be another post.
I spend a lot of time waiting for E to sign things. One day I waited for quite a while – long enough to get bored. I talked to one of the secretaries for a while and tried to finish some reports on my laptop. At one point I looked out the door and saw a chicken poking around in the grass, looking for food. I watched the chicken for a while. Eventually it decided to investigate the office. For almost five minutes it stood in the doorway looking into the office and lifting one leg as if it was going to step inside and then putting it down again. Eventually it wandered back to the grass. And yes, this is my second post about chickens. They are everywhere.
Trip to the police station
I went with GB to the police station to get his fingerprints put on his residencia. C came along to speed the process. The outside of the police station is being refurbished. There is scaffolding all over the front and sides of the station. The entrance is cool and dark. The floor and walls are made of stone. I think its is an old Spanish colonial building. We walked down a narrow dark hallway off the foyer. To the right was a man at a typewriter behind a desk. With him in the office were three or four other men sitting and standing on the other side of the desk. On the left, windows into a dark office. After the man at the typewriter, the hallway opened onto a courtyard, but only on the right side of the hallway. On the other side of the courtyard were arms and legs pushed through metal bars. I did see some faces at the window as well. We turned to the right and walked into a long dark office. There were two computers, several typewriters and leaning stacks of yellowing paper taller than me. There were some file cabinets. There was barely enough room to pass behind the line of people to get to the fingerprinting station. There were stacks of passports laying around on desks and ID cards floating around everywhere. I think there was air-conditioning but I don’t think it was effective.
My students have left so I may have time to catch up on the blog a bit. I'm hoping to write more about the market and my picante buying adventure. But that will be another post.
07 December 2008
November quick update with organized pics
At the end of October we celebrated Halloween and Demetrio’s birthday. We were invited to a Halloween party at MEGI.
November has been a full month. We celebrated Caitlin’s birthday several times.
Caitlin, Amanda and Sarah have been visiting a school two blocks from the house. They go every Tuesday and Thursday for about an hour and have been teaching English classes. The teachers in the school do not speak English. Their lesson plans have included the alphabet, numbers, colors, days of the week and, parts of the body, and seasons.
The students are quite young. The students in the youngest group are about three. There are also some very young children in that class, around a year old, who may be children of the teachers. Many times the youngest group’s lesson becomes a game. The other two
classes are for students who are slightly older four and five year olds and six and seven year olds.
Sometimes the students have no teacher but still sit in their classroom during the time they
are supposed to be in class. One day the teachers all had to go to a meeting off school grounds. They left the oldest students, probably nine-year-olds, in charge of the class. The older students maintained classroom discipline by hitting students who moved with sticks.
The school has very few resources. The students don’t get much practice writing because while there are blackboards in the classroom, there is little chalk. There is no paper. There
are no pencils. Caitlin and Amanda have started working on a plan to get regular donations of school supplies from the US to the school.
The students had a 12 page paper due at the end of the second week of November for Natural Resource Economics. They worked really hard and everyone finished on time. We went to several barbeques.
On the 15th of November we went to the opening game of CAN Feminina, the African Women’s Cup. We arrived well before the start of the game and saw over an hour of opening ceremonies. The opening ceremony included traditional dancers, a rap artists named Tu Face, a marching band, and children presenting both the soccer players and the flags of their countires.
Equatorial Guinea won the opening match against Cameroon. Equatorial Guinea has several new players on their team from Brazil. The stands were not full at the beginning of the game but
were packed by the time the game was over. The president opened the gates for free after the game started. We had already bought tickets.
At half time, Cait and I tried to go to the bathroom. The mens’ bathrooms had all been closed. There were two toilets in the women’s bathroom. One had a long line of men waiting at it and one had a line of women.
The second game of the day, between Mali and Congo, was not as exciting and included a lot of injury time. Between the two games the on field entertainment was school kids jumping through a hoop while doing a flip and landing on a mat on the other side. The crowd was excited and cheered when the kids made it and booed when they missed. We left in the middle of the second half, during the only goal of the game.
There is a machine gun strapped to the back of the man on the left side of the picture. The police on the field were also armed. Later in the month we went to the final between Equatorial Guinea and South Africa. We arrived after the game had started but half an hour before the time published on our ticket for the start of the game. The President was rumored to be at the final and there were many armored cars with guns mounted on their roofs outside the stadium.
To get in with our tickets we had to ask the armed police man outside to help us make a path through all the people trying to get in with out tickets. He raised his billy club and looked like he was going to start hitting people, hard. The crowd backed away and we were allowed to enter. Because of the unpredictable nature of crowds we agreed that if EG was loosing with 20 minutes to go, we were going to leave and that if EG won we would leave shortly after the end of the game, which we did. On the way from the game to UNGE, we stopped to eat at the restaurant across from the school. We watched huge numbers of people and cars (with and without guns, one probably carrying the President) parade down the street. Many of the official vehicles were occupied by men in black suits with guns. People were shouting and dancing and celebrating all the way down the street. While we were eating dinner a huge group of dancing, celebrating, soccer fans came into the restaurant to eat and bought us a round of Fanta. We returned the favor by buying them a round of San Miguel.
On the 16th we drove up Pico Basile. It was a cold cloudy day so we couldn’t see much
from the top. We did visit the statue of the Virgin of Bioko (Bisila). We also visited the mark for
the highest point and looked around the radio tower. The change in vegitation from Malabo
where the plants are large with large leaves to more scrub-type plants was apparent, even
through the cloud. It was cold up there so we ate lunch when we came back.
We had two guest lectures this month. Noelle Kumpel spoke to us about the bushmeat
market in Bata. Alexandra Gilles spoke to us about the effect of natural resource extraction on
developing economies.
On the 24th we went to Bata. It was a shorter trip than we had planned. . We wanted to spend a whole weekend on the mainland but were unable to make that happen this time around.
Despite the short length of our stay, Hess hosted us wonderfully. They aranged transportation to and from the airport in Malabo and helped with the flight details.
Freddy, Lucia, Mary and Demetrio joined us at the student house at 5:15 am. The Hess bus picked us up at 5:45 am for a 7am departure from the airport in Malabo. We were asked for proof of our yellow fever vaccination upon entering customs in Bata. Several of us had only brought our passports but we were able to convince them to let us in anyway. We were picked up at the airport in Bata by the Hess bus. The driver identified him self and knew to look for us.
The drive to the compound was about an hour long and we passed through part of Bata and some surrounding countryside. We had a safety orientation first and discussed our plans for the day with the head of the drivers. We got a tour of the Hess compound on golf carts.
By this time it was around 10:30 in the morning. We spent some time on the beach.
The water was warm and Cait and I went sea kayaking.
Hess provided a wonderful meal in their employee cafeteria. After lunch we played some foosball and watched rugby on television. The driver took us to the market around 2pm. We also saw the church and the soccer stadium. We tried to visit Freddy’s father, who lives in Bata but he was away. We got to the airport around 5pm for a 6pm departure back to Malabo. Freddy’s sister and her daughter joined us while we waited for our flight.
We got a tour of the palace that is under construction across the street from our
house. We toured the side with the offices, courtesy of one of the architects and were on
our way to tour the residential side (closer to our house) when we were politely asked to
leave by the other architect. We did not take any pictures inside the palace. The floors are
entirely made of marble with intricate designs in black, brown and white. The doors are
huge and dark with large brass knockers. There is a conference room for all the ministers
with approximately 60 large dark leather chairs. There were paintings sitting stacked
against all the walls on the upper floors. There is a huge shower between the conference room and what is probably the president’s office.
After the palace tour we saw some locals cross-dressing and being unaware of the Bubi
wedding tradition, were curious. We followed them to the cathedral where we asked about their dress and posed for a picture. The men dressed as women give the bride away, while the women dressed as men give the groom away.
On the 27th we hosted about thirty people for Thanksgiving. When we made the plan back in September we were going to host the UNGE students for Thanksgiving as a cultural experience. However, as we got into the planning process, we realized that we could thank some
of the people who have generously helped us out through out the quarter. Our guest list soon
grew to around thirty people. Many people brought food or drinks and Mary cooked the
turkey at her house. We cooked two chickens, 5 or 6 kilos of potatos, several pumpkin pies,
homemade soda, huge pots of rice (two kinds), and about 4 kilos of eggplant. We saved
money out of our communal fund to pay for the food. We even decorated the walls with
turkeys.
On the 28th we had our poster exhibition at UNGE. Clearly we were short on time,
despite having had many meetings with Esara about logistics for the exhibition. We had
to buy an adapter for the speakers again this year. Demetrio and I hung a sheet for the
projector to project our slide show on. I had bought it in the market earlier in the week.
Once we hung it I learned that it was not a sheet I was supposed to be procuring, as I had
been told, but a projector screen that I assume is somewhere at UNGE. Also when I
bought the sheet I did not see the width. It was too narrow so we had to use some
creativity to make an area on the wall suitable for projection.
The exhibition went well. We had some leftover food at the end of the day but could have
used more variety of food. We had no soda left over but people were asking for juice and
water, which we were sure to buy for the next poster exhibition.
On Saturday the 29th we left for Moka so we could start hiking early in the
morning on the 30th and arrive at Moaba at a reasonable hour. Although the porters had
been arranged for 6:30am we did not find them until 10:00 am. We sent the students on
ahead with Moritz and Bosco, but not early enough.
The slower group stopped for lunch at the larger river at about 1400. The first group to arrive at the beach arrived after dark. The last group to arrived did so just before midnight. Heidi made sure there was spaghetti waiting for Amanda, Bosco and me when we finally got to camp. Bosco came back down the trail to lead us in. He encountered us about three kilometers from the beach. It took us four hours to cover the remaining distance to the beach. Bosco’s arrival allowed the porters who were still with us to borrow my headlamp and run to the beach. They found Cait along the way and made the journey in about half an hour.
The southern beaches were gorgeous.
November has been a full month. We celebrated Caitlin’s birthday several times.
Caitlin, Amanda and Sarah have been visiting a school two blocks from the house. They go every Tuesday and Thursday for about an hour and have been teaching English classes. The teachers in the school do not speak English. Their lesson plans have included the alphabet, numbers, colors, days of the week and, parts of the body, and seasons.
The students are quite young. The students in the youngest group are about three. There are also some very young children in that class, around a year old, who may be children of the teachers. Many times the youngest group’s lesson becomes a game. The other two
classes are for students who are slightly older four and five year olds and six and seven year olds.
Sometimes the students have no teacher but still sit in their classroom during the time they
are supposed to be in class. One day the teachers all had to go to a meeting off school grounds. They left the oldest students, probably nine-year-olds, in charge of the class. The older students maintained classroom discipline by hitting students who moved with sticks.
The school has very few resources. The students don’t get much practice writing because while there are blackboards in the classroom, there is little chalk. There is no paper. There
are no pencils. Caitlin and Amanda have started working on a plan to get regular donations of school supplies from the US to the school.
The students had a 12 page paper due at the end of the second week of November for Natural Resource Economics. They worked really hard and everyone finished on time. We went to several barbeques.
On the 15th of November we went to the opening game of CAN Feminina, the African Women’s Cup. We arrived well before the start of the game and saw over an hour of opening ceremonies. The opening ceremony included traditional dancers, a rap artists named Tu Face, a marching band, and children presenting both the soccer players and the flags of their countires.
Equatorial Guinea won the opening match against Cameroon. Equatorial Guinea has several new players on their team from Brazil. The stands were not full at the beginning of the game but
were packed by the time the game was over. The president opened the gates for free after the game started. We had already bought tickets.
At half time, Cait and I tried to go to the bathroom. The mens’ bathrooms had all been closed. There were two toilets in the women’s bathroom. One had a long line of men waiting at it and one had a line of women.
The second game of the day, between Mali and Congo, was not as exciting and included a lot of injury time. Between the two games the on field entertainment was school kids jumping through a hoop while doing a flip and landing on a mat on the other side. The crowd was excited and cheered when the kids made it and booed when they missed. We left in the middle of the second half, during the only goal of the game.
There is a machine gun strapped to the back of the man on the left side of the picture. The police on the field were also armed. Later in the month we went to the final between Equatorial Guinea and South Africa. We arrived after the game had started but half an hour before the time published on our ticket for the start of the game. The President was rumored to be at the final and there were many armored cars with guns mounted on their roofs outside the stadium.
To get in with our tickets we had to ask the armed police man outside to help us make a path through all the people trying to get in with out tickets. He raised his billy club and looked like he was going to start hitting people, hard. The crowd backed away and we were allowed to enter. Because of the unpredictable nature of crowds we agreed that if EG was loosing with 20 minutes to go, we were going to leave and that if EG won we would leave shortly after the end of the game, which we did. On the way from the game to UNGE, we stopped to eat at the restaurant across from the school. We watched huge numbers of people and cars (with and without guns, one probably carrying the President) parade down the street. Many of the official vehicles were occupied by men in black suits with guns. People were shouting and dancing and celebrating all the way down the street. While we were eating dinner a huge group of dancing, celebrating, soccer fans came into the restaurant to eat and bought us a round of Fanta. We returned the favor by buying them a round of San Miguel.
On the 16th we drove up Pico Basile. It was a cold cloudy day so we couldn’t see much
from the top. We did visit the statue of the Virgin of Bioko (Bisila). We also visited the mark for
the highest point and looked around the radio tower. The change in vegitation from Malabo
where the plants are large with large leaves to more scrub-type plants was apparent, even
through the cloud. It was cold up there so we ate lunch when we came back.
We had two guest lectures this month. Noelle Kumpel spoke to us about the bushmeat
market in Bata. Alexandra Gilles spoke to us about the effect of natural resource extraction on
developing economies.
On the 24th we went to Bata. It was a shorter trip than we had planned. . We wanted to spend a whole weekend on the mainland but were unable to make that happen this time around.
Despite the short length of our stay, Hess hosted us wonderfully. They aranged transportation to and from the airport in Malabo and helped with the flight details.
Freddy, Lucia, Mary and Demetrio joined us at the student house at 5:15 am. The Hess bus picked us up at 5:45 am for a 7am departure from the airport in Malabo. We were asked for proof of our yellow fever vaccination upon entering customs in Bata. Several of us had only brought our passports but we were able to convince them to let us in anyway. We were picked up at the airport in Bata by the Hess bus. The driver identified him self and knew to look for us.
The drive to the compound was about an hour long and we passed through part of Bata and some surrounding countryside. We had a safety orientation first and discussed our plans for the day with the head of the drivers. We got a tour of the Hess compound on golf carts.
By this time it was around 10:30 in the morning. We spent some time on the beach.
The water was warm and Cait and I went sea kayaking.
Hess provided a wonderful meal in their employee cafeteria. After lunch we played some foosball and watched rugby on television. The driver took us to the market around 2pm. We also saw the church and the soccer stadium. We tried to visit Freddy’s father, who lives in Bata but he was away. We got to the airport around 5pm for a 6pm departure back to Malabo. Freddy’s sister and her daughter joined us while we waited for our flight.
We got a tour of the palace that is under construction across the street from our
house. We toured the side with the offices, courtesy of one of the architects and were on
our way to tour the residential side (closer to our house) when we were politely asked to
leave by the other architect. We did not take any pictures inside the palace. The floors are
entirely made of marble with intricate designs in black, brown and white. The doors are
huge and dark with large brass knockers. There is a conference room for all the ministers
with approximately 60 large dark leather chairs. There were paintings sitting stacked
against all the walls on the upper floors. There is a huge shower between the conference room and what is probably the president’s office.
After the palace tour we saw some locals cross-dressing and being unaware of the Bubi
wedding tradition, were curious. We followed them to the cathedral where we asked about their dress and posed for a picture. The men dressed as women give the bride away, while the women dressed as men give the groom away.
On the 27th we hosted about thirty people for Thanksgiving. When we made the plan back in September we were going to host the UNGE students for Thanksgiving as a cultural experience. However, as we got into the planning process, we realized that we could thank some
of the people who have generously helped us out through out the quarter. Our guest list soon
grew to around thirty people. Many people brought food or drinks and Mary cooked the
turkey at her house. We cooked two chickens, 5 or 6 kilos of potatos, several pumpkin pies,
homemade soda, huge pots of rice (two kinds), and about 4 kilos of eggplant. We saved
money out of our communal fund to pay for the food. We even decorated the walls with
turkeys.
On the 28th we had our poster exhibition at UNGE. Clearly we were short on time,
despite having had many meetings with Esara about logistics for the exhibition. We had
to buy an adapter for the speakers again this year. Demetrio and I hung a sheet for the
projector to project our slide show on. I had bought it in the market earlier in the week.
Once we hung it I learned that it was not a sheet I was supposed to be procuring, as I had
been told, but a projector screen that I assume is somewhere at UNGE. Also when I
bought the sheet I did not see the width. It was too narrow so we had to use some
creativity to make an area on the wall suitable for projection.
The exhibition went well. We had some leftover food at the end of the day but could have
used more variety of food. We had no soda left over but people were asking for juice and
water, which we were sure to buy for the next poster exhibition.
On Saturday the 29th we left for Moka so we could start hiking early in the
morning on the 30th and arrive at Moaba at a reasonable hour. Although the porters had
been arranged for 6:30am we did not find them until 10:00 am. We sent the students on
ahead with Moritz and Bosco, but not early enough.
The slower group stopped for lunch at the larger river at about 1400. The first group to arrive at the beach arrived after dark. The last group to arrived did so just before midnight. Heidi made sure there was spaghetti waiting for Amanda, Bosco and me when we finally got to camp. Bosco came back down the trail to lead us in. He encountered us about three kilometers from the beach. It took us four hours to cover the remaining distance to the beach. Bosco’s arrival allowed the porters who were still with us to borrow my headlamp and run to the beach. They found Cait along the way and made the journey in about half an hour.
The southern beaches were gorgeous.
Text only October update
We tried to laminate some passport photocopies and some replacement UNGE (the national university) ID cards but the laminator broke. It is useful to have an official university ID here. When we get stopped at road blocks the UNGE IDs work magic. No hassels. We took the laminator apart to fix it and found that the laminating sleeve had melted to the laminator.
On Saturday 11 October, we (Drexel and UNGE students) met in Aula 5 for the students to give and receive help on each other’s posters and reports. The field methods course met for a lecture on wildlife monitoring techniques and an activity using software to analyze pre-recorded animal calls. The software is available for free at http://www.soundruler.sourceforge.net.
That evening we went to a BBQ at Slumberger hosted by Dominick Choo. Some of the men who helped with the work day at Moka were there. After the BBQ we went to a bar near the Slumberger compound that some locals run out of their house. There was lots of loud local music. On Sunday we relaxed at Mary and Pete Johnson’s house in the Exxon-Mobile
compound all afternoon. We ate dinner and watched Last of the Mohicans.
Since independence day was at the beginning of the week, we did not start classes until mid-week. We got invited to the ladies card game at the Marathon compound mid-day on Wednesday, with the promise of fresh vegetables. When we got their the hostess told us we could all just go play in the pool instead if we chose to – and that she would do that if she wasn’t hosting.
Classes went smoothly except for Spanish, which was a disaster. The first class
started late because I forgot the keys to the classroom. Luckily Santi was still at the
university and was able to let us in. We were all at Aula 5 (our classroom for the quarter) about half an hour early so Bina could have her extra Spanish class and we could all get a quick grammar review. Since Bina’s Spanish language skills are minimal, she had arranged with Cesar (our Spanish professor) to have a half hour mini-class before the regular class one day
a week. This left us with ten minutes for Bina’s class. In addition, the electricity was intermittent. For most of the class we sat in the dark or with flashing fluorescent lights that looked like they were about to come on for good.
Twice the lights came on for five or ten minutes. Several times I left the classroom to try
to get the lights on. Once I ran into Miguel Angel (our Society and the Environment professor) who tried to track down Santi to fix the problem. Santi told Miguel Angel the generator was out of gas, however lights were on in other parts of the university. The lights came back on by themselves for a few minutes. In addition, we had a miscommunication about Spanish levels so the professor, Cesar, and the students were frustrated. Cesar thought the students were not interested in learning Spanish. The students got the feeling that he disliked them and thought they were stupid. Luckily both Cesar and the students have revised their opinions of each other. The students even thought the class that was held during the conference call on the 29th was
fun.
Oliver, who works at the American Embassy with Cesar, is sitting in on our
Spanish class and offered to host class at the embassy. We accepted and have had an
opportunity to meet Anton, the man in charge of the embassy while there is no
ambassador.
Currently the Natural Resource Economics class requires the most time outside of
class and meets for the full two hours. Although many of the students are intimidated by
economics, they are enjoying the class and learning. Although the lecture is in English
the UNGE students seem comfortable asking questions in Spanish when they don’t
understand.
On Friday evening we went to a BBQ at FMC and went dancing at Bahia club afterwards. Saturday we went to a BBQ at Certex because their chef had made it in from South Africa. After the BBQ, we went dancing. On Sunday, in addition to hanging out with Mary all afternoon, we went to our first hash. The route went around the stadium through some interesting villages and across a stream.
Saturday we went to Moeri. We did not have a GPS unit and I was unclear on our purpose – which I now know was to census. We had our Field Methods class, minus the practical session with the GPS unit, which we will make up before we go to Bata. We walked around the village and found some kids making cane juice to ferment. We did not find Bosco’s uncle, who was in Luba, but we did talk to the mother of a friend of Bosco’s. We ate lunch and came back to Malabo.
For the most part, we have remained healthy. Last week one of the students and I took the first
trip to the clinic. Her eye was red and swollen and weeping clear liquid. We looked up
her symptoms on the internet and decided she probably had pink eye caused by a virus.
We went to Clinica Esperanza so someone could look at her eye. The clinic was clean and the doctor said she had conjunctivitis caused either by dust, allergies or bacteria and told us to buy antibiotic eye drops and an antihistamine. We had some antibiotic eye drops at home and used those instead. She got better. Everyone had stomach problems this week so we took an evening off from class. Luckily Raúl was sick that evening too and was not upset when we called to cancel.
Saturday night we went to a BBQ at Hess and later watched the third world series game at FMC. On Sunday, Wayne, the man in charge of the Exxon-Mobile compound, and his wife hosted us for lunch at the Exxon-Mobile pool. We hung out at Mary’s all afternoon and went to dinner at Wayne and his wife’s house. Classes the third week continued uneventfully with the exception of the class we missed mid-week for sickness. This Friday is Demetrio’s birthday and Halloween, we will celebrate both events.
On Saturday 11 October, we (Drexel and UNGE students) met in Aula 5 for the students to give and receive help on each other’s posters and reports. The field methods course met for a lecture on wildlife monitoring techniques and an activity using software to analyze pre-recorded animal calls. The software is available for free at http://www.soundruler.sourceforge.net.
That evening we went to a BBQ at Slumberger hosted by Dominick Choo. Some of the men who helped with the work day at Moka were there. After the BBQ we went to a bar near the Slumberger compound that some locals run out of their house. There was lots of loud local music. On Sunday we relaxed at Mary and Pete Johnson’s house in the Exxon-Mobile
compound all afternoon. We ate dinner and watched Last of the Mohicans.
Since independence day was at the beginning of the week, we did not start classes until mid-week. We got invited to the ladies card game at the Marathon compound mid-day on Wednesday, with the promise of fresh vegetables. When we got their the hostess told us we could all just go play in the pool instead if we chose to – and that she would do that if she wasn’t hosting.
Classes went smoothly except for Spanish, which was a disaster. The first class
started late because I forgot the keys to the classroom. Luckily Santi was still at the
university and was able to let us in. We were all at Aula 5 (our classroom for the quarter) about half an hour early so Bina could have her extra Spanish class and we could all get a quick grammar review. Since Bina’s Spanish language skills are minimal, she had arranged with Cesar (our Spanish professor) to have a half hour mini-class before the regular class one day
a week. This left us with ten minutes for Bina’s class. In addition, the electricity was intermittent. For most of the class we sat in the dark or with flashing fluorescent lights that looked like they were about to come on for good.
Twice the lights came on for five or ten minutes. Several times I left the classroom to try
to get the lights on. Once I ran into Miguel Angel (our Society and the Environment professor) who tried to track down Santi to fix the problem. Santi told Miguel Angel the generator was out of gas, however lights were on in other parts of the university. The lights came back on by themselves for a few minutes. In addition, we had a miscommunication about Spanish levels so the professor, Cesar, and the students were frustrated. Cesar thought the students were not interested in learning Spanish. The students got the feeling that he disliked them and thought they were stupid. Luckily both Cesar and the students have revised their opinions of each other. The students even thought the class that was held during the conference call on the 29th was
fun.
Oliver, who works at the American Embassy with Cesar, is sitting in on our
Spanish class and offered to host class at the embassy. We accepted and have had an
opportunity to meet Anton, the man in charge of the embassy while there is no
ambassador.
Currently the Natural Resource Economics class requires the most time outside of
class and meets for the full two hours. Although many of the students are intimidated by
economics, they are enjoying the class and learning. Although the lecture is in English
the UNGE students seem comfortable asking questions in Spanish when they don’t
understand.
On Friday evening we went to a BBQ at FMC and went dancing at Bahia club afterwards. Saturday we went to a BBQ at Certex because their chef had made it in from South Africa. After the BBQ, we went dancing. On Sunday, in addition to hanging out with Mary all afternoon, we went to our first hash. The route went around the stadium through some interesting villages and across a stream.
Saturday we went to Moeri. We did not have a GPS unit and I was unclear on our purpose – which I now know was to census. We had our Field Methods class, minus the practical session with the GPS unit, which we will make up before we go to Bata. We walked around the village and found some kids making cane juice to ferment. We did not find Bosco’s uncle, who was in Luba, but we did talk to the mother of a friend of Bosco’s. We ate lunch and came back to Malabo.
For the most part, we have remained healthy. Last week one of the students and I took the first
trip to the clinic. Her eye was red and swollen and weeping clear liquid. We looked up
her symptoms on the internet and decided she probably had pink eye caused by a virus.
We went to Clinica Esperanza so someone could look at her eye. The clinic was clean and the doctor said she had conjunctivitis caused either by dust, allergies or bacteria and told us to buy antibiotic eye drops and an antihistamine. We had some antibiotic eye drops at home and used those instead. She got better. Everyone had stomach problems this week so we took an evening off from class. Luckily Raúl was sick that evening too and was not upset when we called to cancel.
Saturday night we went to a BBQ at Hess and later watched the third world series game at FMC. On Sunday, Wayne, the man in charge of the Exxon-Mobile compound, and his wife hosted us for lunch at the Exxon-Mobile pool. We hung out at Mary’s all afternoon and went to dinner at Wayne and his wife’s house. Classes the third week continued uneventfully with the exception of the class we missed mid-week for sickness. This Friday is Demetrio’s birthday and Halloween, we will celebrate both events.
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