Pledge my TRI!

Dear family, friends and other random visitors to the blog,

I need your help. A few weeks ago I decided to register for an olypmic distance triathlon with the hopes of being able to use this to raise money for great project that empowers the mamas in Matipwili village to earn a living through sustainable agriculture. Matipwili village borders on Saadani National Park along the coast of Tanzania (bush meets ocean!).

The project aims at increasing the production of vegetables through sustainable and organic farming techinques. By increasing production, the mamas will be in a position to sell their produce to nearby lodges and other villages. Gaining access to these markets is an important economic step, giving the women a opportunity to earn an income and benefiting from the tourism sector in their backyards.

With a successful pilot phase, led by Thomas Wouters, and agromist from Belgium, SANA is now hoping to scale up the project but needs funds to be able to do that. And that's where you can help. By visiting our fundraising page and then clicking on the donate widget, you can pledge my first ever triathlon attempt (remember jump rope for heart, etc, it's like that) and help me support Saving Africa's Nature. It's set-up through paypal so it's a safe way to send money and you can either send money though a paypal account of by debit/credit cards. Anyone who donates $25 or more will get a postcard from the event in August.

I've got plans to go up an visit the community soon and will share photos. In the meantime, you can watch this video put together by my friend Tende. He runs an adventure company, is a volutary board member for SANA. SANA is doing lots of great things with the communities around Saadani to make sure they are benefiting from the tourism sector which runs in their backyards. The video is mostly about Miseni Eco Retreat, but you get to meet some of the mamas involved in the pilot phase of the Bio Agriculture project an introduction to what they're doing.

This is...

Ugh. Again, super slacking in the blog department. And that awesome audio piece I promised you from my trip back to Dire Dawa is still in the works. I'm trying to get my butt in gear.

Earlier in May I spent 8 days in Kenya at a work thing in Naivasha, which is in the rift valley floor. It was mostly work, no play but on the Friday we did get to go for a boat safari on the lake. Below are a few snapshots.

Ever wondered what the drive into Nairobi city centre looks like? Well lucky for you, I filmed the last 10 minutes or so on my phone and compressed it into this little video of our drive into Nairobi city center on Saturday at noon. Apologies for the cheesy music, but I did warp it a little bit to increase the funness. This is Africa. I should say there was suspiciously little traffic chaos on this particular day. 

Foundations - happy dog stuff

So after a short break here at the DSMC, we're back with a dog training update. I had my super awesome friends Steph and Erik visiting me for just shy of two weeks. Amazing that they came all the way from Canada to hang out. I dare say they got the full TZ experience, complete with lost luggage on the way here, tea plantation delights in the Usambaras, an ENTIRE day at the airport because their flight had technical problem (they found this out AFTER they were airborne and the flight had to turn around) on the way to Arusha, a safari delight in the Ngorongoro Cratee which came with the unfortunate bonus of some sort of food poisoning and/or parasite, and then a relaxing weekend (well more like a day) overlooking the ocean from Zanzibar.

 Now, alas, they're gone and I'm back to the grind. I've been sick too, some sort of flu is the best guess I got from the clinic after being out of commission for the better part of this week with intermittent fever and muscle/joint aches.

After my lovely visitors left I got back on the dog training bandwagon and the girls are loving it. This new, everything-is-a-game thing is a hit and we're in our 8th week of lessons. It should like a lot and it us, but we've only had 4 topics to far. The two weeks practice time is great to work on our skills (both dog and human) but it still feels like we've blown through it (the 1.5 week haitus on the lesson I need the most practice on is probably partly to blame here).

 Anyway, we started on heelwork this Monday and the doggles were lucky to get a day or two in before I confined myself to the bed. We were back at it last night, poor girls haven't been a walk in weeks and have loads of energy - unlike me, and Natasha is doing swimmingly. Shaki's uptake on the lessons is completely different. We still haven't mastered the tug together yet but she's much more into the shaping that Natasha. On heelwork Shaki's super excited and Natasha is at a good level. And their self-control is great - in sessions - but outside of that, like when the door to the cat's dinner room is open by mistake, the self-control is not tops.

So fun dog stuff starts with Shaki and her super enthusiasm for shaping work. She's just so much fun that we're shaping these silly behaviours. This is joy!

And two clips of Natasha.

This is from our second day at trying to shape her walking backward. The first day was a bust (I kept rewarding too late and getting sits and lying down. This is where the class helped enormously so after feedback from Thomas and Fanny, I took a new approach on day two and we got some where! This is the fourth of 4 sessions on shaping backing up that day. I this I saw a lightbulb flash toward the end.

Then we have last nights sessions of heelwork. Interesting technique to shape a perfect (or as close to it as possible) is to start by walking backward and the dog follows. Eventually I'll add a slight right step and walk forward and she should spin her butt and be in a perfect heel.... of course this is easier said than done and we have a few steps between this and that, but we're having fun.

Okay, enough dog-blog for today!

Jane Goodall - If you had the chance to do anything differently

I'm just back from a short hop to Nairobi this week. We had an event for work on Friday which I was asked to attend so I combined it with a few days based in our Nairobi office.

Didn't have much chance to enjoy the city, but I did have dinner with some friends I met here in Dar es Salaam who have since been moved to Nairobi. Amazing to share time with friends even after they've left. It's the one major occupational hazard (or personal?) that comes with choosing to work internationally, your friends are constantly on the move, just like yourself. Someone is either coming or going, and it's never certain when or whether you'll see them again.

My second night I had the chance to get together with a former roommate from Copenhagen.d.

Add that to the friends I met in the airport both on the way out of Dar es Salaam on Wednesday, and at the airport in Nairobi yesterday, and I've had a nice half week full of meetings with friends who've come and gone (or friends who've stayed in the same place, and I've come and gone.

Anyway, as a hazard of this kind of lifestyle, I was thinking, if I could do things differently than I am now, would I? I don't think so!

Here's a clip from the lecture by Jane Goodall on the topic.

Foundations - after 3 weeks

That's right, time for another dog training update. I'm still working on that audio extravaganza from my trip to Ethiopia now two weekends ago. My audio editing powers were severely hampered this weekend with 7+ power cuts during the day on both Saturday day and Sunday day.

I also have a Jane Goodall treat for you coming up in the near future, just need to get an internet connection that doesn't block Soundcloud.

In the meantime, Shaki was super excited to play self control games yesterday and finished off with a great "dead dog".

Natasha closes this session off with a stellar hand touch that require her to jump to hit the target. We also learned that while dogs will do almost anything for a piece of cheese, using small cubes of cheese in this heat leads to sticky-cheese residue-y hands. 

I'm sure if Shaki and Natasha could sing the I love Cheese song, they would.

A glimpse into our improvement in tugging. You see that some socks have been reincarnated as dog tugs. My dogs love socks, so I thought this was the perfect thing to create a motivating toy out of.

Foundations - week 2 self-control

For those of you who were hoping that this wasn't going to become a blog about me training my dogs, you'll have to put up with me for a few more weeks.

But to keep you interested, you should know that I was in Ethiopia last weekend, revisiting "home" in Dire Dawa with my awesome ex-housemate and friend Kaja. We cooked up a scheme when she was on her R&R in Tanzania about two months ago, to go back to Dire Dawa for the weekend and re-live our old weekends. It's been 1.5 years since I left Dire Dawa and longer for her. We wanted to see what's changed and what's stayed the same.

These boys offered to pose for a photo while I was taking a picture of the sieves behind them.

I documented (or tried to) a good deal of our weekend with my handy Zoom. Now I'm sorting through the tape and putting together a pak on our trip so stay tuned for some audio gems from our weekend to DD.

But back in Dar, the second session of our dog training course had begun and we have a new theme - self-control. This is one of the areas where we will definitely benefit. Hopefully taking the baby steps of "leaving" the treats until they've been offered will also translate into less cat chasing (poor Cicero does get a a few good runs in every day) and not "mugging" the cat food bowl (which is basically like hitting the jackpot since cat food is one of the primary food rewards I use with them.

Foundations - after week 1

So, we're one week into our Foundations class with Fanny Gott. We've been playing in short session every day - short sessions in the morning and also after work.

In case you want to see how it's going.... here it is.

If you're really bored, there are plenty more on youtube.