here's a little collage of pictures in motion from madagascar with music from the xx.

street life

over the past couple of months a canadian public health student named lonnie has been doing some great work with tumaini. she took eight street boys through eight weeks of a drug education class in which the reward for completion was the chance to use a camera to document street life in eldoret. last week i helped to pick out the twenty best photographs that will go on display at an exhibition on august 14th to raise awareness about these children and the efforts underway at tumaini. this is just a small sample and hopefully i will be able to post more of the photographs soon (and credit the photographers).

incredible juxtaposition.

now you can see what it's like with the glue. and that's pretty much an every day, all day thing.

street kids can make a little money selling scrap metal that they scrounge around town. pretty sure it's scrap that's in the bag.

the idea for this project stems from 'born into brothels', which i still need to see. i am really impressed with the results. good stuff from lonnie and the boys.

it has been a while, my friends. thought i'd put up another poem from my journal. this is an old one that i reworked recently. i think it began aboard a boat.

take what you want

i want a purpose. spontaneously found.

something to make my heart swim 'round

and open my mind until unbound

so that i may hear the song when there is no sound.

i want to swallow the world and for it to swallow me.

to be lost in the swell of the great big sea

then found dancing atop the limbs of a tree.

i shall wander with wonder wherever i'll be.

...

in other news - i have been nominated for the peace corps. my potential placement would be at a french speaking post in sub-saharan africa working in an agro-forestry division beginning in december 2010. that's about all i know at this point.

i have accepted the nomination and now have to complete some medical and dental tests before my final placement goes through. once there, i'll know exactly what country i'd be going to and what specific work i'd be doing. so i'm waiting until then to decide.

i was hoping to go to an asian country, preferably somewhere tropical and near the sea. i'm a little hesitant about coming back to africa, but whatever country i get will almost assuredly be totally different than kenya (which is a good thing, as i want something new and fresh).

plus the people would be speaking french which is both terrifying and exciting. i don't speak much french and i would have to learn in a big damn hurry. anyway, we'll see what country i get (signs point to cameroon or guinea) and then reexamine my situation. i'm leaning towards accepting the offer, but who knows what'll happen in the next few months.

all in all, i guess planting trees for the next couple of years doesn't sound too bad.

panoramic views from andringitra park, south central madagascar.

i came here a few days after i found out that my friend mikey had passed away back home. mikey was with me throughout my stay at andringitra. it's a beautiful place, isn't it? i miss you man.

on top of the tsara nora cliffs.

rice growing in the valley. i love the colors here.

massimo, my italian hiking companion through andringitra.

a mountain meadow.

a view from chameleon peak in andringitra park.

"tsingy" limestone formations up north.

fried frog. it's what's for lunch.

do you see the little lemur profile?

in the rainforest in ranomafana park.

one of the beautiful bays. good snorkeling. i also did a dive not far from here. man i missed the ocean.

on the "3 bays" walk near romena in the far north.

nosy komba is a good alternative to nosy be. it's nice going a few minutes without seeing a decrepit 80 year old frenchman with a beautiful 20 something year old malagasy girl.

a view from nosy be looking towards mainland mada.

a crazy colored chameleon crawling along.

a friend from the journey. definitely held him for a while.

traveling by road in madagascar means le taxi brousse - where 25 people fit into a bus meant for 12. each ride is special in its own way, and almost all are horrifying. vomiting amongst passengers is not infrequent. there is usually a rooster calling from the trunk. it takes 5 hours to travel 100 kms. you get the idea.

sunset view from a park in isoraka, tana.

the big staircase; or where you can buy just about anything imaginable. annika warned me not to go here at night. the vendors go home and the prostitutes come out.

tana is surprisingly european.

soon i'll be taking a holiday from my holiday (it's a tough life, i know). i will be in madagascar from april 14 - may 28. i have no significant plans and, for the most part, will follow the breezes that blow and land where they take me. that said, i am meeting my three french friends from rodriguez and mauritius and i'm sure they'll have some idea of where to go and what to do as they've already been on the island for a month. either way, i'm keen for another sojourn into the beautiful unknown.

side note: i'm landing in antananarivo and the girls requested that i meet them in nosy be (way to the northwest). long distance travel in an undeveloped country pretty much assures me a healthy dose of adventure right off the bat.

after mada, i plan on returning to kenya and staying for another couple of months. following that i may be indiana bound for a stateside stopover before (hopefully) peace corps placement.

below you'll find part of an essay i sent in with my peace corps application. i'm hoping to be involved with agriculture and/or youth development in asia. the placement process seems pretty up in the air though, and there are no guarantees regarding the pertinent when/where/what scenarios.

i am now volunteering four to five long days a week at the tumaini street children centre in eldoret kenya. i have been working with the program since its inception in early january of this year. every week on monday, wednesday and friday we provide street kids with nourishment, basic healthcare and a safe place in which to rest, learn and play. my main priority has been the establishment and upkeep of a small-scale vegetable farm that neatly functions as both a method of teaching the children an important skill and a way to feed them in a sustainable way. i have also been involved with the introduction of an arts and informal education room at the centre, the construction of fences, signs and storage pens in addition to participating in countless soccer games. after three months tumaini is running as smoothly as we might have hoped and we have a core of fifty to sixty kids that regularly come to participate in what we have to offer. slowly but surely the initial dazzling effect of my whiteness or general otherness has faded and the kids now scream “mark!” instead of “mzungu!” (white person) when we meet.

my work here is challenging yet enjoyable. it is rewarding while frustrating at the same time. spending time with the kids is almost always fun. many of them are full of jokes, enthusiasm and energy. it is often hard, however, to get them to cooperate and help me with any number of work related projects i have set up for them. however, it is rewarding, when it does happen, to see them hard at work tilling the land or building a shed. then again, i am often frustrated when after they have spent the day with us learning how to farm or to do math, they go right back to huffing glue and quite literally laying in the gutter. i understand that my work here is not a quick fix. It will take many more months or even years to turn just some of these kids around. this in itself is motivation rather than a hopeless situation for me.

it is my understanding that this kind of work environment closely resembles the type of assignment a peace corps volunteer may be asked to undertake. i know now that I could handle such an assignment and would relish the opportunity. i want a chance to help, and become a part of another community in need. during my travels i have seen destitution from the caribbean to oceania to africa. clearly, there is so much work to do in so many places. i feel that i have been exceedingly lucky to have had a relatively comfortable, healthy and stable life up to this point. i want to help people less fortunate achieve some measure of such peace and stability. additionally, on a personal level, just as my current travel is doing, i think the peace corps will offer me a chance to grow as a person and further prepare me for graduate school and a future career. i have as much, and probably a great deal more, to learn from a host culture than it does from me.

who i spend my time with these days.

bike ride safari.

meandering through the gorges at hell's gate.

much closer to hippos than is advisable.

this is a little video my friend lauren made showcasing our weekend excursion to hell's gate national park. some of the backdrops for the lion king were drawn from this landscape. in honor of that, the video has been set to a remix of the movie's theme featuring lil wayne. no joke.

we just planted this area. it's maybe a quarter acre all told. and we're expanding!

soon our little baby veggies will be reaching towards the sunshine.

we plow our fields by hand damnit. and we like it!?

this small scale farming endeavor is my main priority at tumaini right now.

the sooner we are harvesting vegetables the sooner we'll be able to spend less money when feeding the kids and put those shillings towards other needs. sustainability in action.

michelle sometimes refers to me as her mzungu (white person). her dad is our program coordinator and his rapport with the street boys is what brings them to tumaini.

poem of the day

(courtesy of my valentine's card from jus)

foreign lands

written by robert louis stevenson

up into the cherry tree

who should climb but little me?

i held the trunk with both my hands

and looked abroad in foreign lands.

i saw the next door garden lie,

adorned with flowers, before my eye,

and many pleasant places more

that i had never seen before.

i saw the dimpling river pass

and be the sky's blue looking-glass;

the dusty roads go up and down

with people tramping in to town.

if i could find a higher tree

farther and farther i should see,

to where the grown-up river slips

into the sea among the ships,

to where the road on either hand

lead onward into fairy land,

where all the children dine at five,

and all the playthings come alive.

garden picket fence at tumaini.

greens for the kids.

our first endeavor into carpentry crafting.

elephant's bluff. looking up from our campsite in mt. elgon national park.

view from atop the bluff.

looking down on the world.

eldoret kenya

so i’ve been in eldoret kenya for almost two months now (daaamn, really)!? i like it. as most of you (whoever you are) know, i’m staying with matt, justyn and their kids (bella, ava, basil and clementine). in the past i’ve had to limit stays with my brother's family to a day or two. now that i’m a part of the fam i get to experience all of those little things that i have had to miss out on in the past. now, for example, i get down on my fair share of finger painting with the kids (one day justyn and i were like "hey that looks awesome! let's give 'er a try"!) it’s kind of my thing now. i also have a great time speaking in mimi-isms as much as humanly possible. "mimi-isms" are clementine's go-to phrases, by the way. mimi and i are often heard shouting “top it!” -- as in “stop it” without the s -- back and forth until one of us gives up. "no, you top it!" others include: "i got it" (when she really doesn't), "no wait" and the oft imprudent "mama said." it's the best when mimi justifies something to justyn that she obviously wasn't supposed to be doing with the line "mama said!" "mama didn't say mimi, i am mama!!"

i also am able to do “book time” with basil on a regular basis. “uncle mark it’s book time” comes the call. ava and bella have started to join so it’s even more of a family affair of late. and matt now often reads to them as well. i’m told it wasn’t really his thing before. so basically i’m just pointing out what a good influence i am as a younger brother. we’ll just forget about that one time when I threw up at his medical school graduation the afternoon after my junior prom.

seriously though, it's great to be here and be a part of all the ups and downs that come along with a four kid household (some may argue i make it five). oh how i do enjoy the mountainous mess of mealtimes, the predawn wake up calls, and the emergence of mimi's destructive stage. even when it's "bad" it's good and i often find myself unable to stop laughing at such beautiful chaos.

justyn handles the madness unbelievably well and i love watching her perform motherly magic each day. it has been so good to get to know her better since my arrival. night time is often our time and we are usually found glass of wine in hand for movies and chatting. she is trying to convince me to stay here forever (well a long time anyway) and it just might work.

they'll be here another year and a half as my brother has decided to extend his contract here. you may be asking yourself, what does matt do in kenya? a lot. he is in charge of the oncology department here, runs multiple clinics, and is a team leader who makes sure all of the exchange students are on task and where they need to be. badass? apparently. i went to a clinic with him one day and sat next to him for five hours as he saw one patient after the next until he had seen all twenty. almost all of them had both cancer and hiv. a little intense to say the least. i am so impressed with his kind and gentle demeanor when dealing with such sick people. the sheer amount of stuff in his head is equally impressive, and i am perpetually amazed at the facts that stream forth. he's also a pretty funny and cool guy though i often call him either "nerd" or "spaceboy." but hey, that's my brotherly role. this is such an opportunity to bond and get to know each other better. i am grateful. thanks, brother and sister of mine.

okay i am losing steam here so i better tell y'all a little about what i'm doing here. i keep myself fairly busy. i run almost everyday and am acclimated to our mile high conditions by now. i have been studying for the gre of late and have been researching potential grad schools. it's down to nautical archaeology, anthropology, law or the peace corps. any ideas people?

my main thing here has been volunteering. i try and go to the children's ward on the hospital to spend time with the kids there at least once a week. i also work at tumaini - a street children center - twice a week. the center is brand new and i've been with it from opening day. the kids come in all day on monday and wednesday to get off the streets. we play games, create art (hopefully wood sculptures soon), garden and hopefully learn a little (math and english for the moment). they'll continue to teach me swahili as we go along. as ever, i need all the help i can get with foreign languages. i've also done some farm work and written up case files for orphans whilst staying in eldoret. it feels good to be somewhat busy again and have some obligations. i have been so untethered for so long i almost forgot what life away from holidaying is like. that said, i'm still on holiday technically. looks like it'll stay that way for some time to come. world cup?

so most of the kids are 13ish and it's fun for me to pretend i'm really good at soccer.

art class under a tree. we also do a lot of math. i probably shouldn't be teaching anybody maths.

some of the kids at tumaini.