Shajara @worthbak - Tumblr Blog

drcairns:

So, Steve Jobs has left his role as Apple’s CEO. Like, for good this time. It’s a shame, but it was inevitable, and it sounds like everything’s running pretty well down in Cupertino anyway.

For the purposes of this anecdote, it’s worth noting that I grew up in a house entirely surrounded by Macs....

Excellent article discussing the confusing incentives involved when we try to help feed the world's poor.

We often see the world of the poor as a land of missed opportunities and wonder why they don't invest in what would really make their lives better. But the poor may well be more skeptical about supposed opportunities and the possibility of any radical change in their lives. They often behave as if they think that any change that is significant enough to be worth sacrificing for will simply take too long. This could explain why they focus on the here and now, on living their lives as pleasantly as possible and celebrating when occasion demands it.

Source: ForeignPolicy.com

Here's a turbo-post on something that just happened. Get ready.

So about an hour ago, I was sitting on my bed in my homestay-house, reading a book (The Social Animal by David Brooks, by the way - I can't tell you how hooked I am), when suddenly a boy appeared in my doorway. His name was Mohammed (of course), and he's the nephew of my homestay mother, who is apparently watching him and his sister, Hadija, for the evening. They didn't quite know what to make of me (I'll bet they didn't expect to see some big white dude reading an electronic book on a bed tonight), and I was really into my book, so I let them rummage around my room for a bit.

Eventually, they settle on my laptop (no surprise - the thing looks like a metal spaceship). Laughing to myself, I open it and fire up PhotoBooth, and they squeal when they see their faces contorted, blown up, and squeezed down on the screen. We had some fun messing around with the different filters (see the photo above), but one thing struck me about the experience.

I figured that neither of them had had much experience with a computer before, much less a new(ish) laptop. So, imagine my surprise when Mohammed, ignoring the keyboard out in front of him, started grabbing and reaching for the screen. He'd arrange his face for a photo, then try and tap the big red shutter button in the window. I wasn't sure how to explain the computational abstraction that is the mouse/cursor combo - he was just confused as to why touching something didn't make it do something.

Anyhow, I thought this interaction was pretty funny (eventually, he ascertained that touching the screen does nothing, that touching the trackpad makes the little black arrow move, and that, for some reason, the little triangle shapes on the keyboard make Kanye West sing). But it also just gave me a perfect example of why I think (along with the rest of the world, apparently) that tablets like the iPad are absolutely the future of computing.

Had I shown Mohammed and Hadija PhotoBooth on an iPad, I'd bet I could have just sat back and watched while they touched, dragged, and manipulated the image with their fingers, not having to deal with any abstraction whatsoever. It's that sort of intuitive computing that I'd say will be the norm in five or so years.

And I think, under that new status quo, what traditionally has been thought of as "computing" and who traditionally has been thought of as a "computer user" will both undergo a fundamental change.

Isn't that exciting?

Oh, Hello Internet.

So let me start off by apologizing for the black hole this website has been for the past month (actually it's been over a month since my last legit post - whoops). I could make excuses, saying that we travelled to Tanzania and my 3G modem didn't work over there, or that staying on Pemba island was too dull to bore you with, or that nothing interesting enough to blog about has happened in the past month (ok, only the first two are actually true). But I won't do that. I'll just say I'm sorry, and that it won't happen again.

Or, rather, it can't happen again. Why? Because I only have 24 days left in Kenya, and, as you math majors out there already figured out, that is less than one month. Ah! Where did the semester go?!

Truth be told, this has been an amazing semester, and I'm not surprised at all that the time has flown by. These past few months have been a wonderful time of introspection for me. Due to a relaxed workload (don't tell Middlebury), I've been able to devour books, have some seriously awesome conversations, and, most importantly, just breathe a little.

It's crazy how asphyxiating American culture can feel a times. The constant barrage of politics, news, and predictions of our impending doom (see this XKCD comic for way too many examples) have made it increasingly difficult to acquire any significant amount of perspective on current events. And, fortunately, that's exactly what I feel like I've found (and am still finding) this semester: a bit of perspective.

By stepping away from America for a bit, I feel like I've been able to nail down both what I love about our country and what frustrates me about our country. I also feel like I've been able to reveal a little more of both what I love and what frustrates me about my own life. I'm still pretty unsure of where the future will take me, but after these past few months, that fact doesn't do anything but excite me.

Hope all is well back home!

P.S. Below is a shot of me and the group I've been with this whole time (minus one, who was eating octopus or something at the time). Love these people.

#Kenya #mombasa

As for Obama, only the U.S. president could spend the week touring Latin America, ordering airstrikes in Libya, coordinating a relief effort in Japan, and being briefed on a war in Afghanistan, all while being criticized for ignoring foreign affairs.

March Madness: Democrats vs. Dictators | Foreign Policy

Hilarious.

If you ever wonder why I find the technology industry fascinating or exciting, take a look at this picture. The past ten years have been ones of incredible and swift innovation. Just imagine what the next ten years will hold.

(I know comparing an iMac to an iPhone is sort of apples and oranges, but the larger points stands)

By the way, we're still in Mombasa, and will will be leaving for Zanzibar/Pemba later this week. Still have a great time, still hot as ever (the weather, that is), still missing all of y'all.

Peace!

I was going through some old photos this evening (ones from my first safari in East Africa with my dad two years ago) and I figured they were worth sharing. Which is interesting, because in the two years since I got back, I've done exactly nothing with these photos.

Until now.

Hope y'all enjoy!

Changing the World, One Kindle at a Time

Earlier this week, I got an Amazon Kindle. In short: I love it. I won’t spare too many words singing the Kindle’s praises (mainly because they’ve been sung many times before), but I will say that it’s crazy thin and light (about the width of a pencil and the weight of a paper-back), the screen is fantastic, and the idea of carrying around hundreds of books on the thing is wonderful. It reads just as well as a real book (thanks to the awesome e-ink screen), and in some situations it’s actually a big improvement over the classic, printed-page book design. If you like to read, you’ll love a Kindle.

My mother will bemoan the loss of physical paper, the rich feel of a well bound hardcover, the proud display of books previously consumed. And, in many ways, she’s spot-on. I love the feeling of turning over the final page of a book, closing its worn cover, and placing its cracked spine on a crowded bookshelf. However, that those warm feelings aren’t what give books value. Rather, it’s the ideas held within the covers that give a book its worth. By wrapping those valuable ideas in an expensive paper cover, we keep them out of the potential hands of many, many people who deserve access as well.

And that is why the Kindle, or, rather, the e-reader in general, excites me. In it, I see an opportunity to spread the world’s mass of literature beyond the developed West. And that is incredibly exciting.

Harding Academy, the elementary school I went to as a kid, has a pretty sizable library collection for a K-8 institution, currently at roughly 18,000 books. However, one Kindle can store about 3,500 books, meaning that the entire Harding library could be replaced with just five e-readers.

Of course, that would be utterly impractical - the value of Harding’s (or anyone’s) library is that it can be accessed by many children, not just five. But I’m not thinking about using e-readers in the (relatively) wealthy schools of the West, at least en masse. I’m thinking about places that have historically had little access to literature, of schools that don’t have a library at all, let alone the 18,000 volumes Harding Academy boasts.

Think about a rural Kenyan village, much like the one we visited in Taita last month. That community has at least four schools (that I counted) of different age levels, public and private, and of the two that I visited, neither have a library. Students are often made to share textbooks, leading to a situation where memorization, not comprehension, is the goal. This is not meant to be a damning of the Kenyan school system, but, rather, simply an acknowledgment of a saddening status quo. Certainly there are communities and countries in Africa and on other continents (including our own) where the situation is much worse.

Now, imagine a community like that receiving twenty e-readers (customized, of course, to fit the environment) packed to the gills with everything from Shakespeare to Dr. Seuss (translated if necessary). Imagine the impact on not just the school, but the whole community, who would then have access to the world’s greatest minds and the wonderful ideas they created. In reverse, imagine your childhood without abundant access to books, and think of the possibilities here.

Of course, there are many logistical questions that have to be answered before the dream can become a reality on a large scale. Twenty e-readers may be a big enough quantity for one class, but sharing those among a whole student population (or a whole community) would get tricky. Figuring out the best way to distribute the devices is a hurdle as well (I’m in favor of selling things like this to communities instead of just donating them - the act of buying something is a subtly empowering one, and by setting aside resources to purchase devices, a community would confirm an actual need for the solution). Working out licensing for all the books would take legwork as well (and likely serious donations from publishers). Also, the current hardware cost is prohibitive - the screen of a Kindle, the component that makes it so much like reading a real book, even in the sun, costs $60 on its own.

The cost issues will likely be alleviated over time (and can also be mitigated with a clever subsidy-based business plan - think TOMS shoes, but less ineffective), which may also help with the quantity issue. Luckily, there are already plenty of smart people working in this field (check out the OLPC project at http://laptop.org, it’s pretty cool), which is very encouraging.

This particular idea may be flawed (though I personally think it’s OK), but my point is this: it’s pretty easy to go to a Best Buy or an Apple Store today and only see electronics that can amuse the wealthy. However, the technologies that power the Kindle, the iPad, and the like are applicable outside of the West. There’s a vast market of people out there who want and deserve the hope of a better life, and we as a global community need to get creative if we are to help them achieve just that.

I can't think of a much better place to start than in education.

#technology #kenya #developing world

Changes

Over the past six weeks, I’ve mainly used this blog as a platform for communication. I’ve detailed some of the minutia of our trip, letting “Shajara" serve mainly as a travel-log of our experience in coastal Kenya. And, honestly, that’s OK - I know that many of you reading are people like my mom (hi momma!) and are just trying to keep up with our crazy adventures. However, despite being the main focus of this blog, the details of this trip aren’t what I find myself wrapped up in. They aren’t what I lay awake at night thinking about.

So, as we swiftly approach the halfway mark of this semester abroad, I’d like to propose a change in the focus of this blog. Most of the trips we were scheduled to go on are behind us (most of us will be in Mombasa for the remainder of our time in Kenya, except for a two week stay in Zanzibar and any independent study traveling we’ll have to do), and as such, I’d like to start focusing on my thoughts regarding Kenya, East Africa, Swahili culture and language, foreign aid/US foreign policy, technology - basically, the things that interest me.

Why announce the change? Well, I just figure it’s a good idea to let people know what they’re getting themselves into by keeping up with this blog (and with me). Over the past month and a half, I’ve seen a lot, talked a lot, listened a lot, and read a lot, and I’d be doing myself a disservice if I didn’t reflect deeply on my experiences. I’d love to share those reflections with those interested in them.

So, anyway, that’s all I’ve got today. This subtle change is something I’m excited about, and I hope that some of you will enjoy the thoughts of a twenty-one year old American college student in Kenya.

Hm. When I write it like that, it doesn’t sound very interesting at all.

with sarcasm and blind optimism for all,

-Worth

#shajara

God kveld! (That means "good evening" in Norwegian. Rejoice.)

So we've finally returned to Mombasa. Over the next three weeks, we'll all be staying with Swahili families, mainly in Old Town, while commuting every day to the SIT office for a series of lectures on coastal Kenyan culture, history, and politics.

During my commute this morning, it occurred to me that, despite the many pictures we've uploaded for your viewing pleasure, what Mombasa/Old Town actually feels like probably has escaped most of you. So, in my infinite genius, I decided to turn on my camera and hold it out while walking from my house to class. What came out was a shaky mess, but I tried to clean it up a bit, throw a beat behind it, and chop it up in a serious way.

So, with that, enjoy this little video (and please don't get sick!). I'll post more soon about my family, our lectures, etc.

Kwa heri!

Live from my homestay, here's a crappy iPod touch photo for your viewing pleasure. For my homestay, I'm staying with a small Muslim family - just a mother, her daughter, and a cousin (we share a room, but he drives a tuk tuk - think motorized rickshaw - and only is here at night). I'll post more about the family soon - just a glimpse of us watching the news for now!

Maulidi

This past week, Lamu held a celebration for the Islamic holiday of Maulidi, which celebrates the birth of Mohammad. Every year, thousands of Kenyans (and hundreds of international tourists) flock to Lamu, which holds one of the liveliest Maulidi celebrations on the East African coast. The island town raises prize money and hosts competitions for swimming, dhow (see above), and donkey races, bao tournaments, henna contests, and even a greased pole walk.

We rearranged our trip to Kiwayu in order to attend, and I gotta say, it was pretty worth it. The whole town becomes much more lively with the addition of so many more people, and the events themselves are a blast to attend. Above is a snap of the greased pole competition. It is what it sounds like - the organizers stick a log out from the main pier in Lamu, grease it up, andmen compete to grab a flag from the end of the pole. It’s hilarious to watch people wipe out (hard, sometimes) over and over again. I definitely see Olympic potential here.

Maulidi was a blast, and a great way to cap off our time in Lamu. Today is our last full day in Lamu (also, today we have our final Swahili lesson with Reuben, our freakin’ fantastic teacher) - tomorrow we head back to Mombasa for our second homestay. While it will be nice to head back to a major city, these past few weeks in Lamu have been fascinating. Lamu is one of the more unique cities I’ve visited (and I’ve visited quite a few (GTROT)), with a flavor and culture totally unique to the Swahili coast. It’s narrow alleyways and surprisingly large donkey population are pretty foreign to my Tennessee roots, but the time we spenthere honestly just makes me want to come back.

However, next time, maybe I’ll stay in a place that has hot running water.

That’s all from Lamu - I hope all is well back home!

#kenya #lamu #maulidi #study abroad

Kiwayu

Hallå från Kenya! (That means "Hello from Kenya!" in Swedish. Cause this is a classy blog, with different languages and stuff.)

Tuesday afternoon, we returned from our three day dhow excursion to Kiwayu, a small island just off the coast of Kenya. It was a fun little trip, really more of a vacation than anything - all we did was chill on the boat, chill on the beach, play soccer, snorkel, read, and sleep. Not a bad way to spend three days, right?

Chilling on the dhow.

I'll dive a little deeper into what we did below. First though, here's a link to a map I made that details our route. We sailed (and by sailed, I mean we used the motor until we ran out of gas, then we sailed) about 40 miles in total, and it was 8 hours each way. That's right nerds smart mathematician readers, we were doing an average of 5MPH. I could have jogged and gotten there faster. No worries though - I plowed through like 200 pages of my book (I'll be talking about that later).

Our little camping spot on the west side of the island.

After our long boat ride, we reached the island in the later afternoon, and immediately headed across the island to a massive, gorgeous, and empty white sand beach. Kiwayu has a population of just a few hundred people, so we had this huge beach all to ourselves. We swam for a bit before the girls took off on their own (for a description of that mess, check out Carly's blog), and we pulled out the soccer ball to screw around with. Some locals showed up eventually, and we enjoyed a little pickup game (we lost 5-3, which ain't bad for 5 tired Americans). Eventually, we headed back, rocked an awesome sunset, ate, and slept.

The next day, we woke up (too) early for a little snorkeling excursion on the east side of the island (the Indian Ocean side - BRING IT SOMALI PIRATES). We had a blast and saw some pretty sick fish, and tired ourselves out good enough to do jack-diddly for the rest of the day. I'm OK with it.

The next day, we were up early (don't really know why - we didn't leave for like two hours), and left the island. Eight (EIGHT) hours later, we pulled into the Lamu port, and we were all wrapped up. Gotta say, it was a very relaxing trip.

Before I go, a few logistical details. First, the shared Flickr account I wrote about a couple of weeks ago appears to have been a failed experiment - long story short, Yahoo! makes it extraordinarily hard to share an account, so we'll have to either find a different solution or abandon our plans for shared photo awesomeness. Second, sorry my posts have been sparse over the past few weeks - I know it's cliche for a amateur blogger to apologize for rare posts, but in this case I think it's warranted. I know there are a lot of you who care deeply for myself and for the students I'm sharing this experience with, so I'll do my best to keep things more up-to-date. Hopefully posting will return to normal (i.e. more than once a week) when we get back to Mombasa this weekend.

So, kwa heri for now - I'll post soon about Mawlid, a major Islamic holiday that Lamunians go crazy for. Hope all is well stateside!

P.S. Here's a link to a gallery of photos from our time in Lamu/Kiwayu: Flickr Set

#kenya #lamu #kiwayu #study abroad

Hello from Lamu!

Again, sorry for the lack of posts (Carly's grandparents...), but I thought I'd throw a quick up a quick post to update y'all on our status. We've been living the life over here in Lamu, enjoying the fantastic weather, rocking some serious Swahili lessons, and downing some delicious (and totally varied) rice and chicken based meals.

Tomorrow morning (at 6AM - ugh) we'll be departing for a three day dhow excursion to some remote Kenyan islands. As such, no posts for the next few days! But we should have an awesome time sailing and enjoying the sun - don't you worry about us.

In the mean time, hope all is well in America - will post some awesome photos when we get back (if it can get more awesome than me riding a DONKEY).

Lamu

Hamjambo!

We've spent the past few days getting settled into a routine here in Lamu. Things have been pretty busy, (hence the lack of any new posts since we left Voi), but I do think we're all enjoying this town quite a bit.

Lamu is a small island just off the eastern coast of Kenya, one that has been a center for Swahili trade and cultural interaction for centuries. The town itself is made up of a complex maze of alleyways and stone buildings, all of which are too narrow for any car to pass through. So, instead of cars, the people of Lamu (Lamunicans?) have employed the use of hundreds of donkeys to transport goods and such around the island.

I really like Lamu. The maze of alleyways I mentioned above gives it a real old world vibe, and as you duck between broad stone porches and narrow street gutters on your way to the lively waterfront, you get a sort of sensation that I've only ever felt in places like Venice, Italy.

So, Lamu is awesome. What have we been doing here? Well, for much of our three week stay, we'll be intensive Swahili lessons - every morning from 7am to roughly 1pm we're learning or drilling the language (don't worry mom, we get a break for breakfast), and then, in the afternoons, we've been meeting with a native Lamunican (I don't care if that isn't the right term, because it's obviously better than anything else), mainly just to hang out and practice the language.

My tutor is a man named Ali. He lives with his family near the end of the waterfront, about 10 minutes away from our guest house. I've really been enjoying our meetings together, mainly because we've spent much of it playing a game called Boa. Boa is a traditional East African game similar to Mankala, but quite a bit more complicated. There are four rows on the board (two for each opponent), each with eight places to put stones or seeds. The object of the game is to clear out your opponents first row by systematically picking up and dropping seeds along each row. It may sound simple, but it has my head spinning - the strategy lies in calculating (with math and stuff) what moves you will make, as well as what you want your opponent to do. To me, it's like an complex form of mathy-chess. I suck, but it's fun.

Well, I think I've rambled on long enough. Needless to say, I'm quite comfortable here in Lamu for the time being - I hope all is well back in the states!

Kwa Heri!

P.S. Because it's been a while since my last post, I'd love to field some questions - leave them in the comments and I'll respond as I see them! Also, all of these photos should be on flickr soon. Also, sorry for the weird way this text is aligned, the photos make it wonky.

Photos

Hamjambo from Lamu!

Here's some quick news about photos. All of us over here have cameras (some of them quite nice), and between the eight of us, we're photographing the snot out of this semester. So, we figured, why not share the love with everybody?

We made a shared account on Flickr (a photo sharing site) where we all plan on posting our favorite shots from the trip. It will be, hopefully, a definitive photo history of our spring abroad. The account name is SITMombasa2011, and here is a link to our photostream. Each photo should be tagged with the name the person who snapped the photo (if you know what that means), so keep an eye out for new photos, and enjoy!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sitmombasa2011/

Hamjambo! Sorry for the radio silence over the past few days - we've been quite busy.

First off, we left Taita early yesterday morning. It was sad to leave our homestay families behind, but, let's be honest, I think we were all a little relieved to get back to the land of running water. We rode down the mountains from Taita to Voi, a town situated on the entrance to Tsavo National Park (a wildlife reserve roughly the size of Israel). We stayed at a fairly swanky safari lodge (above-ground pool, check) and went on a little drive through the park yesterday afternoon. We had a nice dinner outside, then a few of us headed into town for a drink. Solid night.

We had another early morning today, getting up and riding (for some four hours) through the park on our way to Malindi, a small beach town on the coast of Kenya. We grabbed some food and headed right to the beach, where we got to snorkel a bit and check out the fish living in a coral reef just off the shore. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon.

We (read: the guys) played a little soccer with some other locals on the beach before heading back to the inn, where I currently find myself exhausted (lack of sleep + sleepless car ride + snorkeling + soccer = tired Worth - who knew?).

So, anyway, that's a little catch-up for you. I hope all is well in your lives - more to come soon!

Kwa heri!

#kenya #malindi

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