SueBuntu

half-african princess, storm goddess

2012-01-25T03:58:00.001-08:00

Every time I've dyed my hair while living in East Africa -- given the limited options for "blonde" sold in stores, and by stores, I mean Nakumatt -- I end up looking like Storm from X-men, who is actually half-American and half-Kenyan!!! And for some reason, at first its really embarrassing, because even though I look relatively the same, I feel so... different, but then at some point, I still feel different, but it feels really badass...

all her women students are double majors

2012-01-18T23:09:00.000-08:00

The story that prompted the NPR interview...

“There’s a typical idea that it’s all about zeroes and ones, or it’s all about the hardware and knowing how to fix a computer. We actually don’t do that at all. Computer science is about working with data, which doesn’t sound very cool until you start thinking about it, and then it’s really cool. It’s applicable to anything and everything and is about how to do things most efficiently and effectively.”

Sprenkle said that she was particularly struck by the fact that all her women students are double majors, combining computer science with another subject such as journalism, math or physics. “Last year we even had a double major in computer science and classics,” she said.

“I think many of the women students are excited about what they do in the introductory courses,” said Levy. “I attribute a lot of that to Sara Sprenkle. She's been especially good at getting students involved in research and publications, and that’s important. Also, it’s been consistently observed that when you have women teaching a subject, you get more women involved in taking it as a major. Twenty-five percent of our computer science department is women...”

http://news.blogs.wlu.edu/2012/01/17/wl-women-in-computer-science-continue-to-buck-national-trend-2/

...left feeling very empty.

2012-01-17T01:38:00.000-08:00

"As someone who swings between her introverted nature and her extrovert’s life, I am frequently left feeling very empty."

http://fatmatters.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/getting-round/

a girl can never become a woman until...

2012-01-17T01:21:00.000-08:00

A girl can never become a woman, a true woman; until she finds the girl.

"Lawino has to sing in her strange melody, without chorus and accompaniment. Indeed hard to sing for a woman jilted, and an impossible song to orchestrate on stage—lawino’s song. Her lamentations, like the traditions that have been trampled by the new civilisation, cries that if you abandon your culture in one hill, then it will be expecting you on the next hill!"

Song of Lawino by Okot P’Bitek.

overplayed songs I never want to hear again...

2012-01-16T04:22:00.001-08:00

except the part about overplayed songs I never want to hear again...

lullaby

2012-01-16T01:15:00.000-08:00

I was getting coffee downstairs, which happens sometime around 11am, and I heard Laetitia, who's been hiding for 5 months that she's pregnant, singing in her office, and it was really soft, and sweet, the sound of the way she might sing a lullaby soon.

heart hangover

2012-01-15T23:06:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I woke up, not with my head pounding, just my heart pounding, and pounding. My mind was wandering Kigali city, running far from Rwanda, past the DRC, the CAR, past Nigeria, and Ghana, all the way across the Atlantic Ocean back to somewhere home. I spent too long in Joanne's bathroom at brunch, I was just sitting there, furrowed, sighing. And then when I came out everyone was making fun of whether its appropriate to take a long time in the bathroom at someone else's house, so I claimed I was pooping and that it takes awhile, and everyone laughed, and no one cared, and no one knew, all they knew was that I was really hungover after I initially walked into Joanne's apartment wearing dark sunglasses and didn't take them off. Then later I was outside and it was raining, and I was running late, waiting for the rain to pass, and I was sitting on the front porch wall, watching it rain, and Nic came outside and brought me an egg sandwich, and then he came outside and sat on the front porch wall with an egg sandwich for him, and we talked about relationships, and I cried a little after confessing that I'm a mess, and that when you're drunk and an idiot and decide to dive down a deep, deep hole of unprocessed processing, when you're sober you're stuck dealing with it, but sitting together outside, talking with it raining softly, the egg sandwich; sometimes its freshly-baked scones, sometimes its freshly-brewed coffee, its just how Nic sometimes nurtures the souls around him, I just didn't know that at some point I would really, really need it, like that quote from My So-Called Life: "Sometimes someone says something really small and it just fits into this empty place in your heart."

Today I woke up feeling dread, or dead, or feeling like maybe I should just pretend *he's* dead, but really, I need to consider that *we're* dead, that we died. Did I break us? Were we broken?

Is it like Nic's dog Root destroying the stuffed Big Bird animal in this ignorant bliss of euphoric ecstasy, only to realize all that's left is one lone, limp orange-and-purple-striped arm (or leg, they all look the same) to play with in the driveway.

I freaked out a moto this morning when I shook off my helmet revealing big tears rolling down my face, and then apologies spilling out, because I worried that he would worry about the girl crying on the back of his moto. He said sorry a lot and I said sorry a lot, and then I waited, standing outside the office, and I cried, and I kept saying to myself "ok, ok, ok..." and then I stopped staying "ok", and then I stopped crying, and walked the rest of the way up the steep driveway where the day guard was chopping away at the bits of grass that grow between the cobblestones, the same bits that the day guard at home was also chopping away at, and I went to work. And (thankfully) sometimes absolutely nothing here reminds me of him or home.

This writer from Kampala might be coming to Kigali at the end of the month, maybe this is the universe consoling me with some real-life Marie Calloway fantasy, maybe its just the universe mocking me by dangling some hypothetical Marie Calloway fantasy.

something Julie Delpy would say

2012-01-13T13:58:00.000-08:00

When I fall in love with my work, I fall a little bit more in love with my life.

The Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly

2012-01-13T00:29:00.000-08:00

There was an old lady who swallowed a fly.
I dunno why she swallowed that fly,
Perhaps she'll die.

There was an old lady who swallowed a spider,
That wiggled and wiggled and tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
But I dunno why she swallowed that fly -
Perhaps she'll die.

There was an old lady who swallowed a bird;
How absurd, to swallow a bird!
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider
That wiggled and wiggled and tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
But I dunno why she swallowed that fly -
Perhaps she'll die

There was an old lady who swallowed a cat.
Imagine that, she swallowed a cat.
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird ...
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider
That wiggled and wiggled and tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
But I dunno why she swallowed that fly
Perhaps she'll die

There was an old lady who swallowed a dog.
What a hog! To swallow a dog!
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat...
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird ...
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider
That wiggled and wiggled and tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
But I dunno why she swallowed that fly
Perhaps she'll die.

There was an old lady who swallowed a goat.
Just opened her throat and swallowed a goat!
She swallowed the goat to catch the dog ...
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat.
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird ...
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider
That wiggled and wiggled and tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
But I dunno why she swallowed that fly
Perhaps she'll die.

There was an old lady who swallowed a cow.
I don't know how she swallowed a cow!
She swallowed the cow to catch the goat...
She swallowed the goat to catch the dog...
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat...
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird ...
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider
That wiggled and wiggled and tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
But I dunno why she swallowed that fly
Perhaps she'll die.

There was an old lady who swallowed a horse -
She's dead, of course.

big mistake

2012-01-12T05:21:00.000-08:00

In the past 24 hours, my inner feminist dragon has officially been awakened and is breathing fire today...

It started with Penelope Trunk's crazy career advice:
blueprint-for-a-womans-life
what-women-can-do-when-theyre-young-to-be-happy-later-on
and, of course...
plastic-surgery-is-the-next-must-have-career-tool-maybe

and then followed by some bigoted Girl Scout Troop in California:

and then followed by indifference to the fact that not a single female showed up last night to KODEVE:
"The thing I like about KODEVE is that it's not a project with an agenda. It's just coders hanging out... and well things naturally happen. A few of the guys last night were making plans for a tourism app. And later we all got into a great discussion about why Eric's SMS app idea wouldn't work ;) [...] people will come if they are interested in coding. And if they're not... then I'm not particularly interested in them coming."

And as I was listening to Natalie Imbruglia's 'Big Mistake' I suddenly just felt like, why the fuck does it have to be so hard?

try not to

2012-01-10T23:25:00.000-08:00

Try not to fall in love with people you haven't met. -Michelle Orange's advice to Stephen Elliott

Also, Marie Calloway, how did I miss this?

I need to read/write/word more. Like, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more.

late at night

2012-01-10T08:48:00.000-08:00

I like working late. I like Kigali at night.

out of the lucy loop

2012-01-10T08:22:00.000-08:00

Lucille Clifton died 2 years ago around this time. Did I already know this? Did I forget? Anyways, it hurts, as though for the first time, but maybe hurts again. Because, she just... She mattered.

I listened to her read this poem aloud back in college, and as soon as I felt her death on the hairs of my skin, I instantly remembered her voice that night, and all of the tiny flecks of detail as she moved through it.

homage to my hips
BY LUCILLE CLIFTON
these hips are big hips
they need space to
move around in.
they don't fit into little
petty places. these hips
are free hips.
they don't like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top!

Lucille Clifton, “homage to my hips” from Good Woman. Copyright © 1987 by Lucille Clifton. Reprinted with the permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.

Source: Good Woman (BOA Editions Ltd., 1987)

I think I'm both

2011-12-20T02:34:00.000-08:00

There's always one person in the relationship that loves the other person more. And there's always one person in the relationship that needs to be loved more. But I think I'm both.

New country, new book, new poem...

2011-10-11T11:54:00.000-07:00

A Woman Young and Old
by William Butler Yeats
(1865-1939)

I
FATHER AND CHILD
SHE hears me strike the board and say
That she is under ban
Of all good men and women,
Being mentioned with a man
That has the worst of all bad names;
And thereupon replies
That his hair is beautiful,
Cold as the March wind his eyes.

II
BEFORE THE WORLD WAS MADE

IF I make the lashes dark
And the eyes more bright
And the lips more scarlet,
Or ask if all be right
From mirror after mirror,
No vanity's displayed:
I'm looking for the face I had
Before the world was made.
What if I look upon a man
As though on my beloved,
And my blood be cold the while
And my heart unmoved?
Why should he think me cruel
Or that he is betrayed?
I'd have him love the thing that was
Before the world was made.

III
A FIRST CONFESSION

I ADMIT the briar
Entangled in my hair
Did not injure me;
My blenching and trembling,
Nothing but dissembling,
Nothing but coquetry.
I long for truth, and yet
I cannot stay from that
My better self disowns,
For a man's attention
Brings such satisfaction
To the craving in my bones.
Brightness that I pull back
From the Zodiac,
Why those questioning eyes
That are fixed upon me?
What can they do but shun me
If empty night replies?

IV
HER TRIUMPH

I DID the dragon's will until you came
Because I had fancied love a casual
Improvisation, or a settled game
That followed if I let the kerchief fall:
Those deeds were best that gave the minute wings
And heavenly music if they gave it wit;
And then you stood among the dragon-rings.
I mocked, being crazy, but you mastered it
And broke the chain and set my ankles free,
Saint George or else a pagan Perseus;
And now we stare astonished at the sea,
And a miraculous strange bird shrieks at us.

V
CONSOLATION

O BUT there is wisdom
In what the sages said;
But stretch that body for a while
And lay down that head
Till I have told the sages
Where man is comforted.
How could passion run so deep
Had I never thought
That the crime of being born
Blackens all our lot?
But where the crime's committed
The crime can be forgot.

VI
CHOSEN

THE lot of love is chosen. I learnt that much
Struggling for an image on the track
Of the whirling Zodiac.
Scarce did he my body touch,
Scarce sank he from the west
Or found a subtetranean rest
On the maternal midnight of my breast
Before I had marked him on his northern way,
And seemed to stand although in bed I lay.
I struggled with the horror of daybreak,
I chose it for my lot! If questioned on
My utmost pleasure with a man
By some new-married bride, I take
That stillness for a theme
Where his heart my heart did seem
And both adrift on the miraculous stream
Where -- wrote a learned astrologer --
The Zodiac is changed into a sphere.

VII
PARTING

i{He.} Dear, I must be gone
While night Shuts the eyes
Of the household spies;
That song announces dawn.
i{She.} No, night's bird and love's
Bids all true lovers rest,
While his loud song reproves
The murderous stealth of day.
i{He.} Daylight already flies
From mountain crest to crest
i{She.} That light is from the moom.
i{He.} That bird...
i{She.} Let him sing on,
I offer to love's play
My dark declivities.

VIII
HER VISION IN THE WOOD

DRY timber under that rich foliage,
At wine-dark midnight in the sacred wood,
Too old for a man's love I stood in rage
Imagining men. Imagining that I could
A greater with a lesser pang assuage
Or but to find if withered vein ran blood,
I tore my body that its wine might cover
Whatever could rccall the lip of lover.
And after that I held my fingers up,
Stared at the wine-dark nail, or dark that ran
Down every withered finger from the top;
But the dark changed to red, and torches shone,
And deafening music shook the leaves; a troop
Shouldered a litter with a wounded man,
Or smote upon the string and to the sound
Sang of the beast that gave the fatal wound.
All stately women moving to a song
With loosened hair or foreheads grief-distraught,
It seemed a Quattrocento painter's throng,
A thoughtless image of Mantegna's thought --
Why should they think that are for ever young?
Till suddenly in grief's contagion caught,
I stared upon his blood-bedabbled breast
And sang my malediction with the rest.
That thing all blood and mire, that beast-torn wreck,
Half turned and fixed a glazing eye on mine,
And, though love's bitter-sweet had all come back,
Those bodies from a picture or a coin
Nor saw my body fall nor heard it shriek,
Nor knew, drunken with singing as with wine,
That they had brought no fabulous symbol there
But my heart's victim and its torturer.

IX
A LAST CONFESSION

WHAT lively lad most pleasured me
Of all that with me lay?
I answer that I gave my soul
And loved in misery,
But had great pleasure with a lad
That I loved bodily.
Flinging from his arms I laughed
To think his passion such
He fancied that I gave a soul
Did but our bodies touch,
And laughed upon his breast to think
Beast gave beast as much.
I gave what other women gave
"That stepped out of their clothes.
But when this soul, its body off,
Naked to naked goes,
He it has found shall find therein
What none other knows,
And give his own and take his own
And rule in his own right;
And though it loved in misery
Close and cling so tight,
There's not a bird of day that dare
Extinguish that delight.

X
MEETING

HIDDEN by old age awhile
In masker's cloak and hood,
Each hating what the other loved,
Face to face we stood:
"That I have met with such,' said he,
"Bodes me little good.'
"Let others boast their fill,' said I,
"But never dare to boast
That such as I had such a man
For lover in the past;
Say that of living men I hate
Such a man the most.'
'A loony'd boast of such a love,'
He in his rage declared:
But such as he for such as me --
Could we both discard
This beggarly habiliment --
Had found a sweeter word.

XI
FROM THE 'ANTIGONE'

OVERCOME -- O bitter sweetness,
Inhabitant of the soft cheek of a girl --
The rich man and his affairs,
The fat flocks and the fields' fatness,
Mariners, rough harvesters;
Overcome Gods upon Parnassus;
Overcome the Empyrean; hurl
Heaven and Earth out of their places,
That in the Same calamity
Brother and brother, friend and friend,
Family and family,
City and city may contend,
By that great glory driven wild.
Pray I will and sing I must,
And yet I weep -- Oedipus' child
Descends into the loveless dust.

from Kampala to Kigali

2011-10-08T05:26:00.000-07:00

from whence 7 Hills turned into 1000...

"we're 3 years to 30...weird, right?"

2011-07-11T09:00:00.000-07:00

happy crazy ugandan birthday!

i love you to the moon and wish you so much joy. keep living it up.

and here's a good reminder from rilke:

...I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903
in Letters to a Young Poet

love of the forever and always kind,
karis

stay hungry, stay foolish

2011-07-07T04:19:00.000-07:00

stay hungry, stay foolish

"I’ve seen people come and go, I’ve shared my dreams with them, I’ve given my all to see the companies grow and blossom, even at the expense of “a life”, but somehow, everytime, at the end of the day, it’s just God and I left standing. I know He brings people in our lives for a purpose, and when that purpose is fulfilled, they leave. Their work in your life is done, and your work in their life is done.

But, like I told some team members at Node Six, it is a very lonely place, being at the leader of any organisation. You watch the tides turn, you watch the storm come in and you watch the waves rise. Everyone else is allowed to react naturally, to flee the impending disaster, but not you. Nope, like the captain of a sinking ship, you stand at the bow, and face the storm. You stand your ground, and let the maelstrom destroy everything around you.

When it’s all over, you huddle in a miserable water-drenched pile in a corner and cry a bit.

And that’s when God taps you on the shoulder and says, 'Dude, whatagwan? I’m still here.'"

Whether there is a God, or there isn't, and there are undoubtedly lots of gods to choose from, they're either here or they're not, and believing they are, or believing they're not, is just a choice. You choose beliefs, for as long as those beliefs serve a purpose, and when that purpose is fulfilled, you choose, that choice is still (and always) there.

taxi strike and nursery rhymes

2011-07-07T02:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I worked in the morning, but then I ~~blew off work~~ had some things to do in the afternoon, but there was a taxi (matatu) strike. I got a call from Alex, through a surprising (because we both have MTN, a giant telecom in Uganda) and yet unsurprising (because MTN is a giant telecom in Uganda) amount of static, saying that I'd have to take a boda to Makindye. The cost of a taxi is 2,000/=, and the cost of a boda is 4,000/=, and while neither are expensive, boda rides can add up, and they're more dangerous. But danger being relative, when I got off the boda, to my right just down the street were about 15-20 men banging on the sides of the empty and unmoving taxi, and by that time it was around 1pm, so I don't doubt they were not only angry, but some of them were probably also drunk. Makindye is a suburb south of Kampala, and it has a little bit of everything, from impoverished slums and crowded orphanages, to lower class Ugandans, up to middle-upper class Ugandans, and all the way up to (relatively upper class) muzungu families. But Ugandans heavily rely on taxis, so a day without transport means a day without work, and a day without work can mean a lot of different things for a lot of different people, so when taxis go on strike, it is something that is truly felt.

Luckily, taking a boda on a day when there is a taxi strike means there was no (traffic) jam. The extremely ambitious plan (for an afternoon in Uganda) was to go and meet a lady --- who knows Sapheen, who is Ramadan's mother, who is Alex's friend, who is my friend --- who works at a bead factory. When I arrived I found Alex, Gerald, and Jamil as I usually do, Alex listening to music on my iPod (and singing or dancing, often both), Jamil scrawling in a notebook, often writing a letter or drafting a document to raise money for the Makindye Ultimate Frisbee Club or in hopes of starting a business, and Gerald, today looking on as Jamil wrote, but often aligning himself with one or the other according to his mood. I was greeted by being enveloped in a hug from Alex, continuing to dance and persisting to sway me with him before he let go to tell me that because of the strike, the woman at the bead factory might not be there, and the bead factory might be closed. I felt stupid for not connecting the dots (no taxi, no factory, no beads), but that being just 1 of 3 things planned for the afternoon, I told Alex's mom for months, who runs a kindergarten, nursery school, & day care, that I would visit her class and teach the students some new songs, we headed over to Alex's house. I had thought the night before about what to teach such a developmentally broad range of kids (ages 1-5), but capacity building is such a core fundamental at IDI, and in Uganda as a developing country, that I didn't worry too much as some of the older students that learned more quickly could teach the others and the younger ones. It made me think of summer camps songs I used to sing, as a microscopic sting of sadness swept through my consciousness that I don't really remember any songs that I used to sing back when I went to nursery school. (Note to self) I remember more the songs that my parents used to sing and teach to me, and even more the ones that my grandparents used to also sing to me, like the one involving my feet, and going toe by toe (technically called fingerplay by the experts) singing: "This little piggy went to the market, this little piggy stayed home, this little piggy had roast beef (you know you've been in Uganda for too long if, when you fail to remember the words roast beef, you substitute gold teeth), this little piggy had none, and this (the pinky toe) little piggy went wee wee all the way home." I didn't want to deal with feet though, so I settled on 3 songs: I'm a Little Teapot, Johnny Whoops, and The Princess Pat, the last song of which I could only definitely remember the first 2 verses, which equals a total of 4 verses, but the first 2 songs proved to be more than enough material, and so that was my injection for the day, steeping some Ugandan children in some American culture with nursery rhymes!

[insert video here]

Dream, Child

2011-07-07T02:20:00.000-07:00

Dream, Child by Solomon King

Dream. Like never before.

Dream, child. More fiercely and wondrously than the dreams of yesteryear. Dream and listen not to the taunting voice of careless mistake past, but rather, heed the cheer of lessons learned and a path well troden.

Dream of the impossible. And dream of the insane. Dream of crimson skies blazing with a thousand cold suns. Dream, the fiercest heats of numbing cold. The blinding clarity of the scent of zero.

Dream.

The kaleidoscope dances of midnight rainbows. Dream the whispers of thunder and the roar of silent laughter.

Remember the dreams that filled and gave purpose to your yearning soul. Remember the dreams that woke you up to furiously scribbled midnight epiphanies.

Remember those dreams, and remember well. Gossamer wings and scarlet flight. Inky space and time’s turbulent ordered chaos. You remember don’t you?

Those fleeting dreams, child… those dreams that you rejected so carelessly… they were the first rays of a brilliant dawn.

So. Dream, child.

Again. Like never before.

These are my names in Uganda

2011-07-06T13:30:00.000-07:00

14. Susani (pronounced Suse-ah-knee)

15. Susana (Luganda for Susan)

16. Suzela (as in vuvuzela)

zits in Uganda

2011-07-06T02:01:00.000-07:00

If its not dairy, then its drugs, and if its not drugs, then its dust.

Oh, and if its not dust, its deep fried.

wasting water

2011-07-05T00:39:00.000-07:00

"We've started to run short of water, for instance, because there are 6 billion of us who want to drink it and wash in it and use it for irrigating crops in places where they wouldn't otherwise grow (and where we need them to grow, precisely because there are 6 billion of us)." -Bill McKibben, Deep Economy, pg. 22

So this morning, I took a bucket shower. I know myself, I take long showers, and I waste SO MUCH water, here, at home, in hotels, the world is my water wasting oyster. I filled a small bucket, used about 3/4 of it to wash everything, and used the rest to wash my feet (they get so dirty here!).

Pouring a cup of water over my head created a surprisingly adequate amount of water pressure, making me question the extent to which people spend so much money on expensive plumbing, and here's my simple advice, grab a cup and pour, finished. If you're doing dishes, do them with a friend, you pour while they wash!

Now if I can just figure out how to deal with cold water...

muzungu 3rd of july, ugandan 4th of july

2011-07-04T13:39:00.000-07:00

I coughed up 25,000/= (~$9.25, using the crazy recently inflated exchange rate) and watched as muzungu expat families communed over hamburgers, hot dogs, popcorn, cotton candy and fireworks Sunday night celebrating July 4th on July 3rd at the American Recreation Association (ARA). I grabbed a hamburger and a Coke right as the fireworks started, and plopped down on the grass with a German friend I was surprised to find there, but then again, I wouldn't be surprised if non-Ugandan holidays celebrated by Ugandan expats get lumped together into a set of "expat holidays," and this seems even less surprising being that Uganda has one of the world's highest per-capita consumption of alcohol, so more holidays means more reasons to party.

The fact that the ARA even exists made me realize that Kampala is a really expat-family-friendy African capital city (weird). A lot of female expat senior management I work with at IDI are married with kids, and I catch myself wondering about what their life is like to be a wife and mother abroad, on top of living and working abroad. Also, among the crowd there were definitely 2 stereotypical expat families: the broods of Christian missionary expat families, and the adopted Ugandan children expat families. But I was nonetheless curious about what had brought everyone to Uganda, and I only wish that I had gotten there a bit earlier before the sunset and the fireworks to make it a bit easier to meet and talk to some new people.

Being around such a small, dense gathering of muzungus, at a place like the ARA, satisfies a curiosity I'll always have about an expat community if I'm abroad, and a need to touch base from time to time with it, but day to day, its like when I go out and find myself at a club where its "80s night" and I think, wait, didn't I fly halfway around the planet to Uganda? Yeah, I thought so, too. The whole thing also randomly made me think of Shell, WY, a microscopic US city my family passed through on a road trip out west. We stopped there to eat dinner and gaped open mouth in disbelief as the waitress talked about growing up in such a small place and described her K-12 class consisting of 5 kids total, and 1 of which I think she said was her brother. The expat community can often feel really small, and dense, but also really isolated and disparate, with different pockets of expats within the community, although everyone, of course, loosely knows each other, or knows someone who knows someone, and so on.

Its a community I've embraced for building professional networks, as I've realized how important it is to have a professional network to share successes and struggles with, and especially with ICT in Uganda being new and different from ICT in the US. Back in Boston I was so spoiled, I was immersed in an office and I was never short on people that I could talk about code and life with in the same sentence. But it made me really complacent, perhaps even lazy, and I didn't venture out nearly enough to meet the hundreds of other software developers in the Boston area as I've done here in Kampala. In Boston, work and life had lots of overlap, which has its perks, but here in Kampala those two things don't, which has its perks.

The ARA has a trampoline, and yes, I jumped on it, and then after I climbed down, I realized my phone fell out of my pocket, and when I climbed back up to get it, I jumped on it some more.

The next day, I celebrated July 4th, and in the morning, slept in, drank tea, learned (for like, the millionth time) how to make a Rolex, learned (for the first time) how to cut a Ugandan's hair, (a Ugandan male's hair, as I'd need months if not years to learn how to do anything aesthetically pleasing with a Ugandan female's hair), and worked in the afternoon. Then, in the evening I watched a few episodes of The West Wing, drank a Nile Special Lager, and ate half of a Mumbai Special pizza from Zinello's, a takeaway that sells pizza and ice cream (and the lack of dairy in my diet, well... you do the math).

I had a conversation over the weekend with a friend from frisbee, Sheila, who moved from Uganda to the UK when she was 9, and stayed there until she graduated from university, and then came back to Uganda to work. I asked her why she came back, and before I could even finish she said, because this is my country, its as hippie as that, this is my home.

Happy birthday, America! (aka 'merica aka my home :)

bathroom etiquette

2011-07-04T13:17:00.000-07:00

Have you ever proposed to someone while peeing? Yeah, me neither.

Have you ever been proposed to while someone was peeing? Didn't think so.

unbecoming muzungu dinner

2011-07-04T07:00:00.000-07:00

It was 10pm. We were all hungry. We sloped down the street to grab some cheap pork, but it was late, and pork was finished. They had the usual stuff, but because it was a popular pork joint, it was at the usual jacked-up prices. We walked a bit further and found a small unbecoming restaurant & takeaway, presuming unbecoming meant the food would be cheap. It wasn't, or at least, they were attempting to bank on their proximity to the pork joint, which we should have known. But it was late, and Alex and Gerald easily bargained down my plate of "chips chicken" (a plate of chicken, fries, and in this case, rice) from 8,000/= to 5,000/=. Then they got quiet. They weren't ordering. They weren't eating. I asked them what food they were getting, no answer. I asked them then why are we here, no answer. After a short pause, Gerald said, because you need to eat.

I said I could eat anything, we could go anywhere. When we left the pork joint with no pork, I said let's go somewhere else, somewhere that's cheap. I squinted to conceal my anger in silence for a few moments before speaking. I told them they should know that I'm not OK with getting food, if they're also hungry but can't get food. I told them they were treating me like some muzungu they had only known for a few days, and not a friend they had known for 7 months. The latter felt worse.

They only had 2,000/= to share between the two of them. They said they wanted to buy chapati off the street, but it was late, and chapati was finished. I asked them, why didn't you just tell me, why don't we just do that, no answer. After a shorter pause this time, Gerald said, because you need to eat, because a muzungu taking chapati for dinner was an ironically "muzungu" concept to them, even after I'd spent the past 7 months eating everything they'd been eating, and with abandon, or maybe the chapati was a lie and with only 2,000/=, they already knew they'd have to go without taking dinner. Which is why I was surprised when Gerald, out of some unfounded feeling of obligation, ordered 2 sodas, 1,000/= a piece, with Alex rolling his eyes in disgust at Gerald wasting their money. My plate of chips and chicken followed the sodas. I told them what's worse than getting food, if they're also hungry but can't get food, is having to eat it alone in front of them. They mustered two blank stares, but with a flicker of mild amusement concealing what I really knew to be hunger.

I had almost no appetite, but I poured the chicken broth onto the heaping plate of chips and rice, and forced myself to eat half of what was on the plate, attempting to convince myself that I was hungry, that it was my dinner, that I was paying for it, that it was respectively, their choice, my choice, that they were OK with it, and that I was making it worse by not just also being OK with it. And while some part of me wanted to believe all that, I didn't, because it was based on the idea that we could both afford "choice" that night, or that this food was "mine," and the fact that this food "wasn't mine" was not entirely untrue.

By then it was 11pm. I felt like an idiot. I know Alex and Gerald have gone many uneventful nights without taking dinner, but without any hesitation or reluctance, they walked with me for over half an hour to the pork joint with no pork. They continued walking with me, after discovering there was no pork, looking for a restaurant where we could eat. Then they bargained down the price of what I wanted to eat, speaking for me to the waiter in Luganda, and shaving 3,000/= off the cost of the plate. So the price now being 5,000/=, was it not true that 3/8 of the meal they had technically paid for, or at least, 3/8 of the meal that I wasn't having to pay for? And the sodas, shared, was another 2,000/= I wasn't having to pay for, making for a bill which would have originally totaled 10,000 shillings: 5,000/= of which I paid for, 2,000/= of which they paid for, and 3,000/= for which they bargained and none of us had to pay for. Did I mention that I felt like an idiot? I slid the plate across the table, and I told them, gwada (have), because you need to eat.

(animated)gifs...(dot)net

2011-06-30T05:23:00.000-07:00

This is why Uganda can't have nice things:

and

*sigh*

This website came highly recommended as a great resource for finding multimedia by the 3 facilitators teaching the 2-day E-Content Quality Assurance Workshop I attended, one of a series of workshops over the past several weeks held at Makarere University's School of Education Curriculum Department's e-Learning Lab.

I walked out of the workshop on Friday with Abigail, Immaculate, both Makerere University professors, and Margaret, my old co-worker, and I felt this crazy notion of sisterhood among these 3 strong, ambitious, and youthful women I was talking with about technology and education. They were laughing and so full of as much energy as the 20-30 schoolgirls I walked by on my way to the workshop that morning. And then later, I felt sad that the feeling was so palpable for being rarely felt enough.

(In 2002, the average age of marriage for a Ugandan female was 17, and the average age of first birth for a Ugandan female was 18.)

It didn't occur to me until I was living and working in Kampala, how hard it is for women in developing countries to choose a field of study like Computer Science or Engineering, and how unequivocally amazing they usually are, and how surprisingly easy it is to relate to one another. There's subtle indicators like this everywhere, like when Janepher, the doctor at IDI who sits next to me, joked about buying a "boda" (motorcycle) to drive herself to work, but then quickly added that she can't because of "public opinion," or when Mariam, one of IDI's IT staff at the Learning Hub, matter-of-factly stated that men don't want to marry a woman that's too educated or intelligent, for fear she won't respect them.

And like animated gifs, what Ugandan culture demands from a Ugandan woman, food preparation and cooking, sometimes on a charcoal stove, sometimes fetching water in jerry cans, sometimes hand washing clothes, the power outages, the lack of computer resources, and insanely expensive Internet, its all just so... distracting.

menstruation and matooke

2011-06-22T00:43:00.000-07:00

I think I've found the cure for cramps, and it is...

*drum roll, please*

Matooke!

So now I obviously have to either: 1) live in East Africa forever, or 2) locate a matooke supplier (aka a "matooke guy"... or girl!) back home in the US.

***

Not to mention produce obnoxious feminine hygiene product ads from which I will reap untold billions.

Free to be the Internet and Me

2011-06-17T05:48:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about creating a website, which of course, means I've been thinking a lot about choosing a domain name. [Insert mixed emotions here], the possibilities!

A quick Facebook API request consisting of https://graph.facebook.com/me/friends?fields=name,website&access_token=accessToken and I had a JSON array of every Facebook friend I have along with every website listed on their Facebook profile. Yes and yes, to whatever you're thinking. :)

After a quick check on who.is, I happily breathed a sigh of relief that both susanmlister.com and suebuntu.com are currently available (for now), and although I should probably wait before I take the plunge and sink *gasp* $9.99 each into buying them, I might just go ahead and do it.

Frenglish

2011-06-15T01:01:00.001-07:00

So after 6 years of Spanish in middle school and high school, and 3 whirlwind semesters of Italian in college (*sigh* mi piace molto la lingua Italiana), I might have to learn some French.

Bonjour!

My Samsung GT-E1087T mobile phone has a Qiblah direction app

2011-06-14T08:52:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, in the evening, it gets really quiet in Kampala, just enough that you can hear the faint call to prayer, mixed in with the crickets and birds and the sporadic bursts of children squealing in tears and laughter.

My Mother In Three Photographs

2011-06-14T08:44:00.000-07:00

My Mother In Three Photographs by Susan Kiguli

Her face looks out
flawless
her sexuality electric
in a mini dress and sheer satin stockings
the girls of the 1960s
beautiful beyond belief.
She is looking through the camera
like her space is here and beyond
enchanting and enchanted
by the times when dreams of freedom were young
the fortunes of Uganda
hot and sizzling.

My mother in the 1970s
More sombre but her skin
Still flawless
The abrasive years gentle on her youth.
Her body wrapped in a long nylon dress
stopping her ankles and
full sleeves touching her wrists
hooded sorrow in her posture
the flowing dress
is not because
she is a widow (which is by government action)
but it is a government decree.
Her magnificence and elegance
Seems to support the given name of the dress
Amin nvaako.*

My mother in the 1990s
neat short hair
luring in its intricate curls.
She wears a busuuti
a sign of the times
a return home, a finding of
uncertain peace
a maturing of a woman and nation
an endorsement of a recognition of the troubles
she has weathered
a sitting down to count her losses and blessings
and a hand over of the future.

*Amin Nvaako means Amin let me be or Amin leave me alone.

It is with words as with sunbeams. The more they are condensed, the deeper they burn. ~Robert Southey

2011-06-13T23:30:00.000-07:00

I will admit, when I first got here, and I had no life, and I had no friends, I was reading for hours every day after work on the balcony. I was averaging at least 1 book per week, and I loved it! My mind felt so nourished here in UG in a way that was such a welcome and complete contrast to the way in which my brain felt constantly attention-deficit and depleted back home in the US, working long hours, drinking away late nights, micro-tasking and multi-tasking, and most often, hours and hours of time in which I couldn't account for or recall actually doing anything. I felt like I had re-discovered some seriously long-lost duende. But after a few months of settling in, getting a life, making friends, it was happening again. It wasn't obvious at first, but the queue of books that had quickly sublimated seemed to be just as quickly evaporating. I didn't really understand what had triggered slipping back into a mode I associated with being my usual lazy workaholic self in the US, because I wasn't in the US, but being a software developer, it seemed to make sense. I had madly spent my last 2 years of college writing code, and had spent the last 3 years working and writing more code. If you were to blur the words of one of my first poems, and if you were to blur the words of one of my first C programs, I think they would look roughly the same, give or take some punctuation.

It is with words as with sunbeams. The more they are condensed, the deeper they burn. ~Robert Southey

Late nights of sipping tea and writing poetry in a journal had been replaced by late nights of drinking coffee and writing code long ago, but as I was packing up my bookshelves into boxes preparing to leave Boston for Kampala, I remembered selecting a few books to keep aside. Some books I'd already read, and read again, and read again, one of those being "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" by Jean-Dominique Bauby, but some books I had added to my bookshelves so many years back, and had not more than touched except to pack and unpack as I moved from place to place.

I chose a few of these books that I truly vowed to read which, as I stood at the Delta Air Lines check-in counter, I promised to make worth the extra weight in my bag hovering dangerously close to the 50 lb. limit. One of those books was "The Selected Levis" a collection of poems written by Larry Levis, which I had put on my Xmas list one year after briefly studying his work in college, a muse to Prof. Alex Long who taught the Introduction to Poetry class I took that Fall semester.

So a few Saturdays ago, waiting for my Luganda tutor Francis to meet for a Luganda lesson at the Makerere University Guild Canteen, I wandered into the Makerere University Bookshop, which at first seemed almost like an after thought of space leftover and unused by the canteen. The bookshop consisted of a small room lined with just 10-15 bookshelves, mostly academic, and with enough space to hold 2 more bookshelves and 1 large table mosaic'd with books with the covers facing up. I asked if they had any poetry, and was planted in front of the English Department bookshelf, which contained mostly novels, short stories, plays, and of course, just as many if not more books filled with literary critique, criticism about books I'm sure were probably not even on the bookshelf. I was starting to feel the sting of disappointment until I spotted a single paperback with "Love Poems" on the spine, yes! I plucked it off the shelf, and looked at the cover, it was a contour caricature sketch of an ambiguously Muzungu male, who I assumed to be its author Brian Patten, and slightly deflated, thought to myself, "Umm, I'm pretty sure that dude is not Ugandan."

One of the many things a poem can do / Is remind us what we forgot we knew -Brian Patten

I flipped through the book anyways to a poem about making love at 4am and immediately knew I wanted it (I went back and bought it, along with a whole anthology of Ugandan poetry, the next Saturday). The poem was reminiscent of Bukowski... that is, the Bukowski that can spin romance out of his lover's fart as she bathes in the tub just after they've had sex, but much softer, and less offensive, and with more use of meter and rhyme. I felt the urge to read more, the whole collection of poems was so succinct and inviting, I could probably get away with reading half of them just standing there without even buying the book, but then I heard myself think no, put it back! And the thing is, I really went in there to find a book of Ugandan poetry, and even before confirming my suspicions that Brian Patten is European (Liverpool, England), I was determined for my first book of poetry to be written by a Ugandan. I looked some more on the shelf near where I'd found Love Poems, and after a few more minutes, and 1 foreboding book of religious poetry that definitely wasn't my kikopo of cai (cup of tea), I pulled out a paperback from a row with a set of unmarked light blue spines, and found "African Saga" by Susan Kiguli. Susan is not only an award-winning Ugandan poet, but also a female poet, and a professor of poetry at Makerere University. I've been working my way through "African Saga", writing that is such a vivid and deeply personal perspective of Uganda, and feel once again, nourished, like I'm doing this right, especially when daily life in Uganda simply doles out surprise chunks of time in which you just have to have patience, when you find yourself waiting, for a friend, for a taxi, for water to boil, for the power to come back, these can sometimes be the best moments folded within a day, moments of simply just being. I recently even also started reading the non-fiction book "Deep Economy" by Bill McKibben, and I've been taking both of these books with me, like 2 favorite stuffed animals, wherever I go.

Crazy Peter Prattes

So what is the hullabaloo
About the minister's ailing son
That he makes boiling news?

How come it was not even whispered
When Tina's hospital bed craweled with maggots
And her eyes oozed with pus
Because the doctor's lacked gloves?

What about Kasajja's only child
Who died because the man with the key
To the oxygen room was on leave?

I have seen the queues
Of emaciated mothers clinging to
Babies with translucent skins
Faint in line
And the lioness of a nurse
Commanding tersely
"Get up or leave the line".

Didn't I hear it rumored that
The man with the white mane
And black robes
Whose mouth stores the justice of the land
Ushered a rape case out of court
Because the seven year old
Failed to testify?

Anayway I only remember these things
When I drink
They are indeed tipsy explosions.

***

The Head Tie

I wear a head tie
A legacy from mother
The centre hold of my being.

She covers the scar
On my temple
Where the police fist
Dashed me acrosst the wall.

Sometimes I tie her
Around my waist
To mourn the dead
Lest sorrow robes me
Of my only possession
And upright frame.

She is my next of kin
She houses the blood
Of my old father
Which was vomited
By his protesting chest
Against a bullet.

She is my baby's cot,
The shelter
Against wet or dry,
The nipple which baby gnaws
When hunger wakes up dawn.

***

From Susan Kiguli's African Saga (Kampala: Femrite Publications Limited, 1998).

The other day my co-worker Sheila was telling me about how her sister Beverly and some friends started the Lantern Meet of Poets, a community of poets in Kampala, and then she casually said, "You know, I think Beverly knows Susan, you could probably meet her." Heyo!

Vote Issues NOT Wolokoso

2011-06-01T23:31:00.000-07:00

During the elections, the Citizens’ Coalition on Electoral Democracy in Uganda (CCEDU) distributed bright orange vests to be worn with "Vote Issues NOT Wolokoso" printed on the back. The boda I took to work this morning was wearing one.

I asked him what "wolokoso" means before hopping onto the back of the boda, and he said "words," which makes sense, vote issues not words.

So where did he get the vest? I don't remember noticing them at all back in February! Were they distributed to boda drivers during elections? To electoral workers? To volunteers? Did he score the sweet vest while shopping last Friday at the Kamwokya Market??? I hope I see him tomorrow (I know his boda, it's the one with the beige snake skin seat, with the pink piping and fringe) so that I can ask.

Update: I asked him, and he told me that police distributed the vest to boda drivers during elections.

The article below is from back in early February, a point of reference for when "vote issues not wolokoso" became the slogan flavor of the week, and is also a hilarious rundown of all 8 presidential candidates!

Pablo: Presidential candidate's pros and cons

"Honour your vote. Vote issues not wolokoso" is the latest slogan plastered everywhere. But what is wolokoso?

My nine-year-old niece thought it was one of the presidential candidates. Unreliable sources confirm that wolokoso means things that don’t make sense.

Eight candidates are competing for the post of President in the upcoming elections. They all claim to love this country more than their birthday. Allow me to express my opinion on why I would vote or not vote each candidate.

Why I would vote for President Yoweri Museveni.
I would vote for him because he’s my OB. Who wouldn’t want to have a former schoolmate for president; a rapper at that?

Why I wouldn’t vote for Museveni
His speeches are mostly based on remembrance. We have remembered, remembered and remembered things that happened in 1986. Those who were born after must be wondering whether the events are based on true life stories or from Harry Porter scripts.

Why I would vote for Bidandi Ssali
Bidandi would get my vote because he’s my neighbour in Bukoto. I’m sure security would be beefed up in Nsimbiziwome, that’s if they don’t evict us for being a security threat.

Why I wouldn’t vote for Bidandi
The choice of a lantern as a party symbol brings back bad memories of poverty. It reminds me of the days when we didn’t have paraffin. Bobi Wine’s song Kataala makes it even worse.

Why I would vote Kizza Besigye
Besigye is a hunk. I would vote for him because we attended a wedding together. He reminds me of the legendary wrestler Hulk Horgan when he speaks.

Why I wouldn’t vote for Besigye
I envy his courage to dance but I don’t admire his dance strokes. He should get some training from bazungu expatriates. Their dance strokes entirely depend on the weather, not the music playing. I wonder why they are always in a hurry even when dancing to slow music.

Why I would vote Beti Kamya
Kamya is a beauty. It wouldn’t take her lots of time convincing donors to give us money. All they need is to take photos with her and keep them in their albums. That would save us from writing a bunch of proposals.

Why I wouldn’t vote Kamya
Her poster is like that of an inspirational speaker or an upcoming pastor. I don’t know why she chose a giraffe as her symbol. Ugandans have nothing to do with giraffes. It would make sense if they were edible.

Why I would vote Norbert Mao
I would vote Mao because he’s my friend on Facebook. Who wouldn’t want to poke or chat with the president directly without signing ten visitors’ books before reaching him?

Why I wouldn’t vote Mao
I wouldn’t vote for Mao because of his wife. She’s so beautiful that she would steal all the attention from the president.

Why I would vote Abed Bwanika
I would vote Dr Bwanika because of his recent martial arts antics exhibited on his campaign trail when some security operatives tried to stop the man of God from campaigning.

Why I wouldn’t vote Bwanika
What will happen to his church if he deserts it for presidency? I only get to hear of him when it’s time for elections. Where does he spend the rest of the years after elections?

Why I would vote Sam Lubega
I would vote for Lubega, because I don’t know him, never heard of him, and I don’t know his plans for the nation.

Why I wouldn’t vote Lubega
I wouldn’t vote for him because I don’t know him, never heard of him, and I don’t know his plans for the nation.

Why I would vote Olara Otunnu
Otunnu is the first Acholi I’ve seen who talks in slow motion. He gives you an impression that he wouldn’t harm a fly.

Why I wouldn’t vote Otunnu
His attire is always undecided. It’s hard to tell whether it’s a shirt, a kanzu or a night gown.

-The Observer

Where I work!

2011-05-31T23:49:00.001-07:00

"Training hundreds, to train thousands, who care for millions."

I really like that.

Who I work with!

William, Ziadah (pictured below), Margaret, Virgin Mary (pictured in the background), and Janepher

The steep road leading down to the Learning Hub office...

past the bananas, cassava, and sugar cane...

almost there!

The Learning Hub!

The view from my desk on the 2nd floor (to the right is where we take lunch)

The office... fancy!

and no office would be complete without signs in the bathroom!

(Yes, and yes, to whatever you're thinking.)

AND no modern office would be complete without emails like this!

________________________________________
From: Milly Xxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, June 01, 2011 2:59 PM
To: Martha Xxxxxxxxx; Training Department
Cc: IDCAP Team; KCC; KKP Staff
Subject: RE: Telephone Extension at Reception

Congs Martha.

________________________________________
From: Martha Xxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, June 01, 2011 8:12 AM
To: Training Department
Cc: IDCAP Team; KCC; KKP Staff
Subject: Telephone Extension at Reception

Dear All,

I am writing to inform you that a phone has been installed at the reception.
My extension number is 434.

Kind regards,
Martha Xxxxxxxxx

I just...

2011-05-30T22:10:00.000-07:00

I just barfed 20 mins after taking my doxycycline without food. Lesson learned, "take with food" is actually not a suggestion.

WTF...

2011-05-30T07:17:00.000-07:00

... is what I mistakenly read whenever I see WFP (World Food Programme) emails in my inbox. Yikes! They should really rethink that.

Vintage Mzee

2011-05-30T06:20:00.000-07:00

That's quite the Dictator 'stache, M7!

Evoking Duende Somewhere between Blue and Green

2011-05-30T02:35:00.000-07:00

To live in the borderlands means you
are neither hispana india negra española
ni gabacha, eres mestiza, mulata, half-breed
caught in the crossfire between camps while carrying all five races on your back
not knowing which side to turn to, run from;

To live in the Borderlands means knowing
that the india in you, betrayed for 500 years,
is no longer speaking to you,
that mexicanas call you rajetas,
that denying the Anglo inside you
is as bad as having denied the Indian or Black;

Cuando vives en la frontera
people walk through you, wind steals your voice,
you’re a burra, buey, scapegoat
forerunner of a new race,
half and half–both woman and man, neither–
a new gender;

To live in the Borderlands means to
put chile in the borscht
eat whole wheat tortillas,
speak Tex-Mex with a Brooklyn accent;
be stopped by la migra at the border check points;

Living in the Borderlands means you fight hard to
resist the gold elixer beckoning from the bottle,
the pull of the gun barrel,
the rope crushing the hollow of your throat;

In the Borderlands
you are the battleground
where enemies are kin to each other;
you are at home, a stranger,
the border disputes have been settled
the volley of shots have shattered the truce
you are wounded, lost in action
dead, fighting back;

To live in the Borderlands means
the mill with the razor white teeth wants to shred off
your olive-red skin, crush out the kernel, your heart
pound you pinch you roll you out
smelling like white bread but dead;

To survive in the Borderlands
you must live sin fronteras
be a crossroads.

From Gloria Anzuldua’s Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, I987)

Somewhere between Blue and Green from Evoking Duende: Travel and poetry from an American writer in Andalucía

how to rip Ugandan VCDs: part 2

2011-05-27T11:35:00.001-07:00

So after downloading a bunch of free trial versions of software that converts .dat files into .mp3 files, I gave them all a spin and found a free trial version of ImToo that converts up to 5 mins of video into audio, so I was finally able to rip the overgrown pile of VCDs sitting on my desk borrowed from various Ugandan friends. Yay!

I ALSO found a way to download streaming videos as .mp4 files using KeepVid, which is a program that uses some JavaScript that essentially creates a link on the fly for downloading videos from websites like YouTube, TED, Facebook, etc.

I love how the phrase "on the fly" references the exact same concept across my two totally unrelated careers: my VERY short-lived career in the service industry (possibly short-lived due to it being spent working at the Macaroni Grill), and my current career working in software development.

I was definitely into piracy before I came to Uganda, but since I've been here, I think I've become pretty good at it.

how to rip Ugandan VCDs: part 1

After being here for 6 months...

2011-05-27T07:32:00.000-07:00

After being here for 6 months, I finally had the opportunity to get pick-pocketed at the Old Taxi Park! I was walking with my friend Marika, and I just felt the slightest sensation of someone unzipping by bag, and instead of turning around to find my zipper just a little bit unzipped with no one in particular to claim the credit (a frequent scenario amidst the chaos at the Old Taxi Park, especially at night), I found not only my zipper completely unzipped, but I also found a guy in a maroon button-down shirt reaching his hand down into my bag and removing my wallet.

The Old Taxi Park

(this is actually the very first picture I took in Uganda)

I don't actually remember having any thought process in my mind about what might happen in the next few seconds, but I immediately spun around, my eyes flickering up just enough to catch his face and his eyes before completely focusing my eyes on my wallet. In the same moment, without even thinking, I lunged at the guy, digging into his forearm, preparing to hold on as tight as possible, and absolutely not let go, even if it meant getting dragged with him a few steps down the street, and I totally (dropped the f-bomb, sorry mom, and) yelled "give me my fucking wallet!" The guy, caught by surprise, immediately dropped my wallet and ran away, which was a wise choice. Stealing is really serious here, and similar to in India when there's a car accident, everyone gets involved, and there are constantly stories about people getting chased down by a spontaneous mob formed by everyone within range of the crime, and getting beaten, sometimes to the point of death.

I only had ~40,000/= in my wallet, which is less than $20, oh, and a photo ID debit card (not much use to a male Ugandan), a photo ID NJ driver's license (also not much use to a male Ugandan, but high in NJ sentimental value), along with a few business cards. A lot of my Ugandan friends actually only make between 5,000/= and 10,000/= per day. So yes, let's go there, that's 5,000 = $2 per day, 25,000/= per week, 100,000/= per month, and 1,200,000 = $500 per year. And just for fun, let's compare, by throwing in the fact that the frisbee team recently registered for the World Championship Beach Ultimate 2011 tournament in Italy, which incidentally only happens once every 4 years, and will cost ~$2,000 per player. So while the danger of getting caught stealing in downtown Kampala is very real, it's completely understandable that an opportunity to pick almost 1 week's worth of salary off a muzungu in less 30 seconds stands to be legitimately tempting, if you don't get caught. ;)

And after being here for 6 months, I ALSO finally had the opportunity to schmoooooze at an Accordia conference at the Kampala Serena, Accordia being one of the partners, along with Pfizer Inc, the Academic Alliance, and Makerere University, that founded the Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI), where I work, and of course, the Serena being the most shamelessly ostentatious hotel in Kampala.

The Keynote Lecture

(in the ugliest conference room with the worst lighting)

The Cocktail Reception after the Keynote Lecture

(with the best Australian wine, beef kebabs, and smoked salmon)

And although it was all very exciting, I also discovered, more importantly, that I am the WORST offender of obliviously wearing my name tag for HOURS after a conference. Whoops! I had been kind of suspicious of this about myself for some time (but how to confirm such a thing?), and as I walked from the hotel to Centenary Park to meet up with a friend, I didn't realize until I was almost there that I had been wandering around in public once again with my full name plastered across my body, this time it was the lower right side of my stomach. I ran my hand across my hip and felt along the edges with my fingers before quickly ripping it off, shaking my head in disbelief, but at the same time amused with myself over my obscure inside joke... with myself.

The return of the coffee mug cake

2011-05-23T09:19:00.000-07:00

The pumpkin coffee mug cake was inspired by my cuddly couch crasher Marika, a student at Kenyon college that I play frisbee with who's sticking around in East Africa for two extra months to travel!

She made dinner for Meg and me this past Saturday night, as a thank you for letting her stay at our apt this week: homemade ravioli from scratch with pumpkin filling consisting of pumpkin, garlic, onion, carrot, and parmesan cheese, topped with a spinach and garlic cream sauce. I made a Ugandan salad of tomato, onion, cabbage, and green pepper, tossed with a homemade balsamic vinaigrette. Meg said that balsamic vinegar is good for killing stuff, which I guess kind of makes it the Coke of salad. We busted out a bottle of Robert's Rock red wine, and since we only needed 1/3 of the pumpkin for the ravioli filling, and used the extra we even had from that 1/3 and made pan-fried pumpkin pancakes, I now have 2/3 of a freshly cooked pumpkin in the fridge. I found and considered a Paul Deen Pumpkin Bars recipe (shameless!... and sans the icing), but that would require turning the oven on in our apt, which is the equivalent of shooting fireworks inside the oven in our apt (but which is nothing compared to when the power line falls across the street from our apt), so it will probably be slowly and steadily consumed cup by cup, destined to a fate as pumpkin coffee mug cake.

The (redemptive) dinner retrospective:

Making the pumpkin ravioli (and making impromptu pumpkin pancakes, which ended up being my favorite part of the meal!)

Chopping the nakati (Ugandan spinach)

ZOMG cheese!!! (The cheese easily cost 1/2 of the entire meal!)

South African wine

Dinner (Miles Davis "Kind of Blue" playing in the background not pictured)

I know, I know, you're all judging me (and conveniently, last Saturday was May 21st, 2011, the revised prediction for the date of the Rapture), but my apt has a microwave, so it was inevitable!

Pumpkin cake:
4 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons cooked pumpkin
4 tablespoons milk (or water)
1 teaspoon cinnamon (or allspice, or whatever)
-adapted from Problem Solvin' Mom, with the utterly "apt" for being utterly generic tagline "because life provides plenty of opportunity for creative solutions"

Chocolate cake:
4 tablespoons chocolate (or vanilla, or whatever) cake mix
3 tablespoons milk (or water)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
(sometimes I add 1/2 tablespoon of coffee)

Microwave on high for 1 min or so, and enjoy!

Luganda linguistics lesson

2011-05-18T14:21:00.000-07:00

OK so I've only met with Francis a handful of times in 3 months (5 times exactly), partially due to our busy schedules, partially due to the protests, but he's a natural Luganda tutor, his enunciation is beautiful (people either speak too fast or mumble, and sometimes both), his spelling is impeccable (people spell stuff in Luganda all sorts of ways), and we meet at the Makerere University Guild Canteen cafe, which has the best, puffiest, sweet-but-not-too-sweet chindazi (Ugandan donut) and African tea. African tea is just milk tea, even though Ugandans mostly drink their tea black.

The Makerere University Guild Canteen cafe

The Alphabet

The letters q and x don't exist, and there is an extra letter that looks like a script j and sounds like a soft "nj"

The letters h, i, p, r, and u don't start words but are used in words

The word for home = waka (tsamina mina eh eh, waka waka eh eh, tsamina mina zangalewa, this time for Africa...)

Ugandans know the word for cooking oil = butto, but the word for butter = siyagi, is never used and nobody knows it

Family

A mother's sisters are all called mother = maama, a father's brothers are all called father = taata, and an older brother or sister = baaba (that means father in Mandarin!)

If a female is speaking, there is no way to refer to a wife's family (because there is no way for a female to refer to a wife), and if a male is speaking, there is no way to refer to a husband's family (because there is no way for a male to refer to a husband)

Time

The word for mid-morning = kalasa mayanzi, which literally means "grasshopper's playing," and late afternoon = kawoza masiga, which literally means "cool down"

There is a difference between times at night, evening to midnight = ttumbi, and midnight to 4am = kinywa mbogo

Size Matters

The verbs kufirwa and kusuula both mean to lose something, but the first refers to losing something valuable, and the second refers to losing something regular

The verbs kutema and kusala both mean to cut something, but the first refers to using a large machete, and the second refers to using a small knife

Verbs, Nouns, Etc

The verb prefix ku is used to indicate the "to" form of a verb: kulya = to eat, kunywa, = to drink, kumanya = to know, kugamba = to say

The word ku means some: ku mmere = some food, ku mazzi = some water

The verbs to feel (physically/emotionally), to hear, to smell, and to taste something are all the same = kuwulira, but the verb to see/to meet someone is different = kulaba

The verb to choose/vote = londa, and the verb to wait = linda

The word for a story or a conversation = nboozi

There are 3 ways to say and = era, ate, and kyokka (I use ate, as in "ate gwe?/and you?" in response to someone asking "oli otya?/how are you?")

There isn't actually a way to say "I'm busy" in Luganda

Possession

Francis had to stop the lesson entirely because possession (mine, yours, his/hers, ours, yours, theirs) is so nuanced that he sat for a solid 10 mins thinking about how to explain it to me, and came up with nothing. We have yet to revisit this topic.

And just like that...

2011-05-11T03:36:00.000-07:00

And just like that, police are spraying protesters bright pink.

"On Monday, at least nine unarmed people are believed to have been killed – including three shot in the back as they fled.

The tactic of spraying paint at protesters fairly common in Uganda and elsewhere in the continent.

It was used during the Apartheid era in South Africa, most famously in the 1989 Purple Rain Protest in Cape Town.

Spraying protesters a distinctive colour is carried out by such regimes because difficult for people to escape the police’s clutches while out of the demonstration zone.

The protests have sparked violence in the capital Kampala and several other towns for nearly a month.

But the protests show no sign of dying down..."-Reuters

Splash of anger: Police spray Ugandan protesters with coloured water during demonstrations in the capital Kampala

Pinked: Ugandan opposition politician Olara Otunnu is shielded by his supporters during the attack

Overcome with emulsion: Spraying tactics are the latest desperate tactic of disputed President Yoweri Museveni

Makeing their mark: The paint is used both to humiliate protesters and make it easier for police to track them down

And just like that...

2011-05-10T05:51:00.000-07:00

And just like that, there's a "Walk-to-Work" Protest DVD already out.

The Letter M

2011-05-10T01:42:00.000-07:00

M7 - President Museveni, comes from Mzee (pronounced "mzeh") and means "an old person, advanced in years" in Swahili

M$ - Microsoft, comes from a Uganda LUG thread today about buying Skype for $8.5 billion

I don't want to raise my kids...

2011-05-09T15:33:00.000-07:00

I don't want to raise my kids in a place with too much aid, or too little development.

(But I do want them to experience it)

I don't want to raise my kids...

2011-05-09T15:30:00.000-07:00

I don't want to raise my kids in a place that doesn't have Halloween and more importantly, trick-or-treating.

(Well, I at least want them to experience it, like, once or twice)

like when Mary Lennox first found the Secret Garden and it was a hot fucking mess...

2011-05-09T08:28:00.000-07:00

a guide to the international development blogosphere

2011-05-09T06:47:00.001-07:00

I was at first pretty overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information flowing out of this community, and intimidated by the fierce sophistication of both the data and ideas being discussed (picture that scene in Clueless where Amber remarks that her plastic surgeon "doesn't want me doing any activity where balls fly at my nose"). And at first I thought I'd need to go into battle with some pretty tough skin to combat the snark and cynicism, but I've found the community to simply be a really honest bunch, extremely candid about (often personal) stories of success and failure, willing to own (to a suspiciously enjoyable degree) any and all of the contradictions that come with working in the field of international development, whether its a post calling bullshit on some article, or a comment completely blasting some post.

I've pared down this list of international development blogs (which is apparently kind of a big deal) to the ones that have really sustained my interest and focus. I stumbled across the list when I first started my Global Health Corps fellowship with the Infectious Diseases Institute, and its been a great way for me to dive into the world of international aid, development, ICT4D, public health, relief, sustainability, etc, and after the initial shock, although being American, you'd think lots of choice wouldn't induce all that much shock, I've got what I feel is a balanced diet of thoughts, words, and ideas:

ict4d:
ICTWorks
Google Africa
SciDev.Net
TechCocktail

aid and development:
Aid Watch
Find What Works
Good Intentions Are Not Enough
How Matters
Roving Bandit
Tales From the Hood
wronging rights

I read other blogs, too, and those also fall into two categories: friends, and other miscellaneous stuff (cooking, poetry, software development, etc).

These are my names in Uganda

2011-05-09T06:45:00.001-07:00

13. Marie

Sue, are you OK over there?

2011-05-06T02:38:00.000-07:00

I've been getting this question a lot, and so in answer to this, and in so many words, I'm very OK over here. :)

I think there are two worlds that I live in, one of those world's being comprised of Kampala, and Uganda, and all of the ideas that get funneled into what people think of when they think of a person living in Sub-Saharan Africa, especially given the protests happening in Kampala and other parts of Uganda, and also especially given the media coverage of the protests happening in Kampala and other parts of Uganda.

But the other world is comprised of my daily life, and living in Kamwokya, and working at the IDI Learning Hub, and shopping at the market for fresh fruit and veggies, and on Fridays when the Kamwokya market becomes overflowing with clothes, shoes, jewelry, toys, electric kettles, ceramic stoves, plastic cups, bowls, and plates, and becomes this miniature neighborhood version of Owino Market, and playing frisbee twice a week at the Lugogo cricket fields and on weekends at the Makerere University Business School (MUBS) fields, and nerding it up at monthly MoMoKla events and Uganda Linux User Group (LUG) events and Kampala Google Tech User Group (GTUG) events, and meeting Francis on Wednesdays and Saturdays for Luganda lessons at Makerere University's Guild Canteen cafe, and watching the MTN Heathens beat every team they play at Kyadondo Rugby Club or Lugogo Rugby Ground over beers and pork, and spending public holidays at Aero beach all day and eating fresh, whole Tilapia with chips for dinner overlooking Lake Victoria at night, and stopping for Rolex in Wandegeya after a night at Iguana's or Steak Out, and watching bootleg movies for 2000/= (< USD $1) and listening to 100+ popular Ugandan songs on burned CDs for 5000/= (< USD $2.50), and spending Sunday mornings at the Baha'i Temple, and spending Sunday afternoons learning how to cook Ugandan food...

Actually, Nicholas was telling me Makerere University is notorious for its student riots, that there's riots almost as often as graduation. Once or twice over the past month I've actually had my Luganda tutor Francis cancel our lesson as a precaution against getting caught in any political activity on campus incited by the protests, but so far, there's only been a day or two of student rioting, and a 1-man hunger strike. In general, there's only been a day or two of rioting in Kampala (the same two days) where it became necessary to avoid downtown, but because I live and work slightly north of downtown, and because you really have to be within a certain range of the protesting (and I don't participate in the protests), I've luckily been outside of that range, and I've been relatively safe and out of harm's way.

Makerere University LC5 councillor Bernard Luyiga camping with his mosquito net outside the Main gate on hunger strike:

Unfortunately, Luyiga was hospitalized on day 2 of striking after he collapsed outside the Main gate and was rushed to the Makerere University hospital.

But inspired by Luyiga (I swear I had nothing to do with this :), students are proposing to streak in protest!!!

"We’re ready to move about naked and protest against this government’s brutality," said Joseph Kakooza, the IPC chairman at Makerere. -The Observer

These are my names in Uganda

2011-05-06T02:28:00.000-07:00

11. Internet Girl

12. Sue-Sue (I guess it was just a matter of time)

"go west... or else I'll stay up all night writing to you like a long distance sleep over."

2011-05-05T23:37:00.000-07:00

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

-e.e. cummings

***

Spark by Karis Rose

The mission was to become what we are
and I do not know if I am a dog, a chemist
or a silk screen. If I am lonely I need only
the soft tapping of tonsils, the stock
exchange, the hustle.

It is ludicrous what they ask us to be.
It is lucrative. Conditioned in captivity
but I do not know if I am captor or
captive. I read somewhere the God-
Force is the tension between the polarity
in every cell. A spark burrowed in
the atom could not decide if it was
positive or negative, if it was meant to
infiltrate an eccentric haired genius, tack
its potential to nuclear weaponry or just
meditate. I am the fallen star and the rising
sun, both. I do not negotiate the differentials.

I did not start the engine but I did ask
to be born and stumble, startled, on.

This is what Alex is singing right now

2011-05-03T11:20:00.000-07:00

"War and Crime" by Lucky Dube

"Telephone" by Yoyo

These are my names in Uganda

2011-05-02T07:58:00.001-07:00

So in honor of Ugandans having no less than 5 names to their name, here is a list of some of the names people lovingly use to refer to me:

1. Susan

2. Sue

3. Sanyu (pronounced San-yo)

4. Lister (pronounced List-ah)

5. Susie

6. Ms. Pretty Pretty Wow

7. American Queen

8. Prom Queen

9. Gwe, which just means "you" in Luganda, but which is how people get each other's attention, and is used so often that I included it

10. And, of course, "Muzungu!"

If you're not a family/friend/colleague from college or Boston, you might not know that some people back home in the US call me by my nickname Sue-Sue, which is prominently absent from this list.

The reason for this is because soo soo is onomatopoeia Ugandans use to refer to pee (or pee pee), e.g. a parent will ask a child "Do you need to go soo soo?"

I first encountered this while traveling in India (almost a year ago!) with Ming-Jay, his co-worker Ethan, and Ethan's girlfriend Shannon. We stayed with Tinku Ray (an amazing opinionated woman!) and her family when we were in Delhi, who is Shannon's former co-worker from when they both worked together at NPR, and as we were all talking one night it came up when she heard Ming-Jay refer to me as "Sue-Sue," and after she finished laughing, she explained to us that Indians likewise use the phrase for a similar purpose.

This is what Alex is singing right now

2011-05-02T07:09:00.000-07:00

My friend Alex is constantly singing, so instead of saying "this is what I'm listening to" right now, it would be more accurate to say "this is what I'm listening to Alex singing" right now (in reverse chronological order).

"Speaking in Tongues" by Baboon Forest

"I Know" by Benon & Vamposs

"Strong Woman" by Blue 3

"Number One" by Bobi Wine

Easter, Mombasa, Riots, and Street Food

2011-05-01T22:40:00.001-07:00

So what do you do on a Friday night when there's riots in Kampala? Well, as I'd been following the #walk2work tweets all day at work, and listening to the frequent trio of blasts, gunshots, and sirens every 20 mins or so, there was at one point, a joke tweeted about expecting Ugandans to still be going out tonight.

I had plans to meet up with my friend Haywood who was leaving Kampala the next day, but ended up with some surprise visitors that needed a place to stay Friday night. My surprise visitors were two Ugandan friends that I play frisbee with, Alex and Gerald, who stay in Makindye, a nearby suburb south of Kampala, who had stayed at my place the previous night after the team had gone to Bubbles for Thursday quiz night, an Irish ex-pat watering hole which is really close to where I live.

We all woke up that morning, with only Alex a bit hungover, to the promise of a full weekend of celebrating the wins of both Uganda A Team Rolex (1st place champs!) & Uganda B Team Boda Boda (2nd place champs! And which I was a co-captain!) at the Easter weekend FEAST tournament in Mombasa, Kenya with a frisbee party Saturday night, and plans for a trip (my third!) to the Baha'i Temple, a street food cooking lesson (my second!) with Line, a student from Denmark writing her Bachelor's thesis, and her friends Louise and Iben, medical residents also from Denmark who just finished up 3 months of delivering babies deep down in the village of Busolwe, and of course, frisbee practice (my... 8,002,753th!) after that, on Sunday.

Alex and Gerald pushed (walked with) me to the top of Kitante Close, a short but steep and windy road off of Yusuf Lule Rd, and when I left them they were on their way to town to make their way back to Makindye. But I knew there was trouble when I started hearing the blasts, gunshots, and sirens from my office, and at around noon, I got a confusing call from Gerald who told me he and Alex were stuck near the Lugogo Shoprite, a huge shopping mall which is just east of town, after getting tear gassed, but that they couldn't stop and take refuge at Cricket Oval, the concrete-enclosed cricket fields where the frisbee team practices on Tuesday and Thursday for free, which is normally open to the public. He told me that they were headed further east, but that he was really worried about Alex, who wasn't feeling well and falling asleep, and asked me if I could find some Panadol (generic pain reliever/fever reducer) and meet them somewhere to bring it to Alex. Obviously, it wasn't safe for me to embark on a wild rescue search for them, but I hoped in the back of my mind that they had found a safe place to stop and rest.

At work, after others had filtered out and gone home for the weekend, my co-worker Jannipher actually came over to my desk as it was getting towards 6pm and told me with a gentle but stern tone that I should probably leave the office and get home before it got dark. I've come to know the nuanced shades of concern about safety in Kampala based on the reaction of my Ugandan co-workers to events leading up to and during the presidential and local elections and the ongoing protests that had just passed the 2-week mark on Thursday, but this was the first time someone had ventured to really let me know they were concerned which I knew was an indication that today was a bit different.

Marika, a student at Kenyon College studying abroad for a semester in Kampala that also plays frisbee, came over for dinner that night; she excitedly agreed to Royal Wedding iterations on E! (randomly 1 of the only channels we get in our apt) and a fresh bowl of Ramen with carrots, garlic, onions, mushrooms, and spinach as she'd been sick for a few days, and I had just returned from Mombasa with lots of Ramen! Ramen is expensive in Kampala, upwards of $.50 (1,000 Ush), and while it was still expensive in Mombasa, it was half the price at only $.25 (20 Ksh).

So what else did I bring back from Mombasa??? Just the essentials: two 250ml bottles of Kenya Safari gin, 20 mangoes fresh off the street (2 ripe and 18 unripe), and 8 packets of Ramen!

We talked together in the kitchen about the day as she minced and I chopped and water boiled, and just as we were about to saute the veggies and drop 2 eggs into the pot of noodles, I got a call from Alex saying he and Gerald were downstairs. I had the foresight to make a double portion of noodles because I knew Alex and Gerald were coming over, and I assumed they hadn't eaten all day judging from Gerald's description, but was really surprised that they came carrying chapatis to make Rolex. Rolex is made by rolling an egg omelette in a chapati, and the omelette is usually made with a minimum of tomato and onion. When Alex comes over, I usually buy all of the ingredients and he makes the Rolex; Alex and Gerald in general don't have much money to spend, that would require having employment opportunities, which most Ugandans in their 20s struggle to find, so 3 out of 4 was really impressive, especially given the circumstances.

Even through their laughter and finishing of the other's broken sentences, the full story of what it was like being in the cross-fire of riots and tear gas (and triggering the recent memory of being in the cross-fire of riots less than 2 years ago) wasn't completely lucid or coherent; Marika and I knew to not press for too many details because it was apparent they were pretty shaken up.

So back to my original question, what do you do on a Friday night when there's riots in Kampala? The answer: Ramen, Rolex, and the Royal Wedding!

Marika and I feasted on Ramen, Alex and Gerald made Rolex, and I grabbed 2 more mugs to make all of us tea, for which Marika and I would drink black, Alex and Gerald would drink with no less than 2 heaping teaspoons of sugar. We all gathered in my living room to watch the competing global event of the day, the Royal Wedding! Marika's study abroad program director was really concerned about the students' safety, so she left a bit earlier, around 9pm, and Alex, Gerald, and I stayed up the rest of the night, with Alex spinning the music off my freshly-burned CD with 100+ new Ugandan songs to listen to (originally intended for the 18+ hour bus ride to and from Mombasa), drinking Kenya Safari gin mixed with pineapple juice, and teaching Alex and Gerald how to play Spit, the two-person card game I learned how to play from my cousins when I was really young, and which I don't think I've played since summer camp!

Since Ugandans don't riot on the weekends, Saturday was spent as planned, saying goodbye to Haywood and sending him off properly, with a mango from Mombasa, a 200ml bottle of Uganda Waragi, and copying 500MB of Ugandan music onto one of his flash drives. I met up with him in Muyenga, which is a neighborhood in south Kampala, and I met his soon-to-be-former roommates Roey and Aneri, the new roommate taking his place Julia, and his friends Desta and Dow-li, both roommates who also live in Muyenga down the street from Roey, Aneri, and Julia. Haywood and I met at Mobile Monday Kampala (MoMoKla) and ended up hanging out a lot in the 3 months he was here. We spent a weekend in April running around Kampala like tourists eating Rolex and Kikomando (pronounced chikomando) and seeing all of the sights together, which included my first trip to the Baha'i Temple, as well as the Uganda Museum, the Kasubi Tombs, and tours of the Kabaka's Parliament and Palace. Along with Madeline aka Mad-dog, a Watson fellow who also played frisbee, that I had become close with, and who had just left for Indonesia a week and a half ago after 3 months, he was another goodbye that made it hard for me to say. I crashed lunch with his friends at Abinet, a small and cheap Ethiopian restaurant in Muyenga that they frequent, and then parted ways to head home and do laundry before the frisbee party that night.

Sunday was also spent as planned, with a poorly bargained boda to and from the Baha'i Temple (it seems to be harder to get a good bargain if the destination is anything remotely for sight-seeing or tourists). The service starts at 10:30am, and only lasts about half an hour, so with the frisbee party going late into the night before, and with only Line a bit hungover, Alex, Line, Louise, Iben and I arrived at the temple around 11:30am, with just a few of the congregation left lingering as we explored, and in which Alex compared Louise and her walking stick to his 127 year old grandfather who lives in Masaka. We spent the rest of the afternoon at my apt after a quick trip to the Kamwokya market to pick up some remaining ingredients. Line, Louise, and Iben learned how to make pancakes (my favorite!), chapati, and 2 kinds of samosas, one with a potato and carrot filling, and the other with a french bean and pea filling. The pancakes and chapatis were especially delicious because Alex mixes lime zest into the pancake dough, and garlic, onions, carrots and green peppers into the chapati dough, both recipes that convinced Louise, and Line and I agreed, that Alex should open up a restaurant. Being the youngest of a mix of siblings and cousins and cooking for everyone (and the rule "if you feeling like eating and you're cooking, you better be cooking for everyone") is lots of practice!

The rain is pouring outside today. I can hear the infrequent squeals of children emanating from the unusually quiet streets of my Kamwokya neighbors, undoubtedly forced inside from the rain, and I'm home sick with a sore throat. I was feeling a bit rundown Saturday afternoon, but didn't really give in to the fact that I was sick until I felt dizzy and light-headed at practice Sunday night. I also think my consumption of dust and pollution surpasses a certain threshold (and perhaps a diet of beans and chapatis, along with plenty of late nights and a lack of sleep), and the result is a cold that wipes me out for a day or two. But when it rains the mosquitoes always come out in full force, which means if I don't use my mosquito net, I'll be covered in mosquito bites tomorrow and attacked tonight!!!

I can't believe it, but I'm down to the last 3 months of my fellowship in Kampala!!! I actually have to decide in the next few days to book my flight at the beginning of August, which seems like one huge detail among lots of other huge details on the horizon in these next 3 months. Stay tuned!

I should be writing. So I'm writing.

2011-04-28T23:34:00.001-07:00

I heard two large blasts yesterday which I instantly knew had come from the Mulago Hospital roundabout. Running late to work (as opposed to just feeling lazy), I took a boda boda around 9:30am and saw 2 or 3 large police trucks and what looked like about a taxi's worth of people, somewhere between 14 and 20, gathered around the roundabout looking on. I thought maybe there had been a car accident, but a stand-off between police and the white SUV they were surrounding containing Besigye was underway. Anywhere from 5 mins to a 1/2 hour after I rode through the roundabout, police arrested Besigye for the 4th time this month, smashing the windows of his car, firing tear gas, dragging him away and hauling him onto the bed of a police truck.

The "walk-to-work" protests started April 14th over rising fuel and food prices, and have been marked by clashes between protesters, the police, and the repeated arrest of political opposition Dr. Kizza Besigye. -BBC News

Uganda's inflation rose in April for the sixth straight time, and jumped to 14.1 percent in April from 11.1 percent in March. Food crop prices rose 39.3 percent in April from the same month a year earlier, up from 29.1 percent in March. -Reuters Africa

Museveni, in power since 1986, blames drought for high food costs and soaring oil prices for surging local fuel costs, and has warned Besigye that his protests will not be tolerated. Besigye lost a presidential election to veteran President Yoweri Museveni in February for a third time and has vowed to continue campaigning despite repeated detentions during the protests that had killed at least five people before today. -Reuters

The TV networks have been banned from live coverage by the UCC, but interestingly, NTV and UBC are broadcasting the Royal Wedding without disruption. Here's a YouTube video of Besigye's arrest yesterday.

This morning I walked to work, which is what I do every day (if I'm not running late or feeling lazy, or both). I've been hearing frequent sounds of gunshots and tear gas, about every 20 mins, varying in distance, and followed by ambulance sirens. And at Mulago Hospital, where the main building for IDI is located, colleagues have been describing the stream of casualties flowing in from the protests. There was supposed to be a press conference today over the protests at 1pm, but its been pushed to 3pm, if it actually happens at all.

I received the requisite email and SMS from the State Dept. arriving in each respective inbox this morning advising on minimizing travel and monitoring the media. And the Daily Monitor and the Red Pepper, two of Uganda's major newspapers, as well as Facebook and Twitter, have been buzzing with almost up to the minute information about the demonstrations happening as they've continued to progress and spread through Kampala and out to the suburbs.

And in true form of swift (and brutal) Ugandan justice, the possessions belonging to Gilbert Bwana Arinaitwe, seen in the video smashing the window of Besigye's car, who people quickly began referring to as Besigye's "key tormenter," have already allegedly been set on fire by angry crowds, and his house almost burned down, spared only by the landlord pleading for mercy!

who I am

2011-04-27T02:18:00.001-07:00

I think I know who I am (whoever that is), and I think I want to be that person with you (whoever you are).

mazima (truth) aka My Best Friend's Wedding quote

2011-03-17T04:11:00.000-07:00

"If you love someone, you just say it, you say it, right then, out loud.
Otherwise, the moment just...
passes you by.
passes you by."

graduate school???

2011-03-10T01:53:00.000-08:00

This is a post by Kelechi Anyadiegwu of ICT4Change - Being the Change the Best Way I Know How.

For about half of a year now, I have been researching graduate schools. I realize that the best way to enter the field of ICT4D is to learn from some of the best ICT4D researchers in the world. One thing I realized with the field of ICT4D is that it is not about finding degrees in ICT4D it is about finding you niche and making a contribution to the ICT4D field. ICT4D is a broad field, there are many sectors with the field (m4d, health informatics, agriculture, etc) My contribution is HCI!

Here is a list of schools with great ICT4D resources in the US. Please suggest more if you know any!

Georgia Institute of Technology – Michael Best is world renowned for his work with sustainability and human computer interaction in the ICT4D context - http://mikeb.inta.gatech.edu/

University of California, Berkeley – Name should say enough, quality school =quality education! Within the iSchool there is the ICTD center. - http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/centersandclinics/ictd

Carnegie Mellon University – TechBridgeWorld @ Carnegie Mellon University does some great work - http://www.techbridgeworld.org/

Michigan State University – Kurt Demaagd, Jenny and thier work in Tanzania - http://tc.msu.edu/ict4d

University of Colorado, Boulder – A degree in ICTD - http://www.colorado.edu/atlas/
Indiana University – Purdue University, Indianapolis – Currently working on an Open MRS project - http://informatics.iupui.edu/

University of Michigan - Graduate degree’s with specialization’s in Community Informatics (ICT4D) - http://www.si.umich.edu/

University of Washington – Technology and Social Change Group - http://cis.washington.edu/

And there are many many more schools that offer ICT4D resources. I’m still searching myself. There are many more schools outside the US as well! I will post as I find.

My professor once told me that as long as a graduate program has ONE class related to ICT4D, the program was worth researching. Here is a list of ICT4D classes compiled by Revi Sterling of the ATLAS institute.

how to rip Ugandan VCDs: part 1

2011-02-13T03:07:00.000-08:00

04 Sep 2002 @ 19:44
wonderboy
Suspended due non-functional email address
"more simpler way browse the cd to the folder mpegav. If you cant see any files click files of type and select all files. Your movie will look something like Avseq01.mpg or Avseq01.dat.
it should most likely be .dat so drag and drop to your hard drive and rename the extension to .mpg ta daaaaaaaaaaaaa"

Thanks, wonderboy! Although I am regretful to hear of your non-functional email address suspension.

http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/7033

Now all I need to do is figure out how to convert the .dat into an audio file format, because renaming the extension to .mpg doesn't work.

once I'm back in the US

2011-01-31T00:14:00.000-08:00

"... once I'm back in the US, I'm pretty limited to other people in the US, the news, and surfing the Internet, there just isn't the same quality or amount of unfiltered information I can get from being here and seeing the mobile network billboards, the electronics stores, cell phones, the SIM cards, the laptops, the internet cafes, the price tag for all of these things, and the ways in which that all fits and doesn't fit together with the way people live day to day and the opportunities they have."

online, but offline

2011-01-31T00:03:00.000-08:00

"I constantly find myself ultimately facing the task of accomplishing what ideally everyone SAYS they want to move to "online" aka IDI's training courses, and having along the way to concurrently create a completely substitutable and parallel solution for doing it all "offline" aka distributing all of the course materials with website screenshots in hard copy form and specifying deadlines for online submission of periodic assignments OR distributing CDs or flash drives with an offline version of the training course website and specifying deadlines for syncing up via online submission of assignments and feedback OR distributing smartphones or laptops with individual dedicated connectivity (USB modems) for directly accessing the training course website... and in the end, there's no underestimating the technology education a student is inherently getting if they opt for the distance learning online course format, even if those formats are technically offline."

from Boston to Kampala

2011-01-12T00:31:00.000-08:00

Life in Kampala, Uganda aka Deep in the Sahara, listening to "Feelings"

Perhaps it’s a sign of ambivalence about Development that one periodically wants to flee the most developed places and go to the least developed place on earth.

Of course, the forces of globalization are not stopped that easily. The Tuareg guide wears Nike sneakers. Toyota 4WD Land Cruisers can bring even the least mobile tourists to see the rock art. And one guide has brought along a tape of Western pop music played over and over again at camp every night, including the official Worst Pop Song of all time mentioned in the title.

-William Easterly

lazy loungy Boston weekend

2010-11-07T15:18:00.001-08:00

I am suddenly unable to begin explaining how much I'll miss Boston.

another myopic realist

2010-10-14T08:25:00.000-07:00

"I have never met anyone who was as _______ as they claimed.
[... and] I need new glasses."

-random OKCupid profile

fixed ExpertPDF caching my pdf.css file

2010-07-21T10:48:00.000-07:00

This drove me nuts so I was one happy camper when I figured out what was happening!

I appended a "?ver=<%= DateTime.Now.ToString() %>" to the link tag href value.


<link id="lnkPdfStylesheet" runat="server" href="/css/pdf.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="all" />

ExpertPDF and Caching of URLs

execute Javascript inside ASP.NET UpdatePanel

2010-07-14T10:04:00.000-07:00

inside the Page_Load:


//upnlControl is an UpdatePanel defined in the .aspx
ScriptManager.RegisterClientScriptBlock(upnlControl, 
upnlControl.GetType(), upnlControl.ClientID,
"$(document).ready(someNamespace.init);", true);

inside the js file:


// namespace
var someNamespace = someNamespace ? someNamespace : {
   /*
    * handleSomeClickEvent
    * handles some click event 
    * when something is clicked 
    * inside the update panel 
    */
    handleSomeClickEvent:function() {
       alert('Wow! This runs every time the element is clicked!');
    },     
   /*
    * Init
    * Initializer that will run 
    * on each page load.
    */
    init: function() {
       // setup event handlers
       $('.someSelector').click(someNamespace.handleSomeClickEvent);
    }
};
// kickoff someNamespace.init when DOM is ready.
$(document).ready(someNamespace.init);

birthday resolutions

2010-07-08T10:00:00.000-07:00

MUST DO
1. bake red velvet cake
2. study for the GRE (to take in August and in October if necessary)
3. take an anthropology class this fall
4. remember to send cards on time for each immediate family members' birthday, anniversary, mother's day, and father's day

TO DO
1. talk more to MJ... in Zhōngwén!*
*saying something cute is sometimes the only way to get him to correct me or talk back
2. sew more... pajama pants, skirts, etc
4. take winter yoga class
5. visit a friend living abroad

I just got back from VT...

2010-07-07T10:40:00.001-07:00

and that pretty much sums it up.

I'm reading Mountains Beyond Mountains. I'm at the part where Ophelia, with the inherent task in life of being Roald Dahl's daughter, is experiencing the fortune, and eventual misfortune, of falling in love with Paul Farmer.

Its the second book I've read in a really long time. Which makes me happy about my current state of affairs.

I suddenly got weirded out about being 26. Today I ordered the best crepe on the menu at Mr. Crepe, after 1.5 years of visiting Boston, and 1.5 of living in Boston (Fresh tomatoes with scallions and cilantro with brie). Then I also suddenly got weirded out by people leaving: some for a short while, some for good, some already gone. Maybe its empathy for getting left behind, because I've started feeling like maybe my time might be coming, too.

MJ: the 5 - 10 year travel list http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/06/21/postcards_from_hell?page=full
MJ: but seriously
MJ: are there any countries that you'd rather see?

fixed my missing HTTP Response Content-Type Header in Firefox

2010-06-23T11:36:00.001-07:00

And so I posted to the Aspose forums to help a brother out!

http://www.aspose.com/community/forums/245095/response.flush-clears-content-type-header-in-documentation-example-for-aspose.slides-for-.net-.sa/showthread.aspx#245095

"In IIS7 integrated pipeline mode, a call to Response.Flush causes the response to be sent without the content-type header unless a content-length has also been specified. In IIS6 or classic pipeline mode, the content-type header is sent as expected."

Posted by richard_deeming on 8/4/2009 at 7:44 AM
The issue appears to be in the internal HttpResponse.UpdateNativeResponse method:

if (((this._contentType != null) && this._contentTypeSet) && ((bufferedLength > 0L) || this._contentLengthSet))
{
HttpHeaderCollection headers = this.Headers as HttpHeaderCollection;
string str = this.AppendCharSetToContentType(this._contentType);
headers.Set("Content-Type", str);
this._contentTypeSet = false;
}

If the content length has not been set and no content has been generated, the content type header will not be sent.

In contrast, for IIS6 or classic pipeline mode, the WriteHeaders method calls GenerateResponseHeaders, which has:

if ((this._statusCode != 0xcc) && (this._contentType != null))
{
string str2 = this.AppendCharSetToContentType(this._contentType);
headers.Add(new HttpResponseHeader(12, str2));
}

Posted by Microsoft on 8/5/2009 at 2:55 AM
Thank you for your feedback, We are currently reviewing the issue you have submitted. If this issue is urgent, please contact support directly(http://support.microsoft.com/)

Posted by Microsoft on 8/6/2009 at 8:13 PM
Thanks for your feedback.
We are rerouting this issue to the appropriate group within the Visual Studio Product Team for triage and resolution. These specialized experts will follow-up with your issue.
Thank you

Posted by Microsoft on 9/23/2009 at 10:16 AM
This issue will be fixed in the next major release of the ASP.NET and the .NET Framework.
Thank you for submitting this issue on Connect.

http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/480689/response-flush-clears-content-type-header

I just got back from India...

2010-06-04T08:26:00.001-07:00

and that pretty much sums it up.

I'm reading Three Cups of Tea.

Its the first book I've read in a really long time. Which makes me both sad and happy about my current state of affairs.

C# Dictionary, Hashtable, and HashSet

2010-06-04T08:15:00.000-07:00

C# Data Structures: Dictionary, Hashtable, Set

Dictionary<>

The Dictionary C# data structure is extremely useful data structure since it allows the programmer to handle the index keys. What does that mean? Well an ArrayList automatically makes its "keys" integers that go up one by one, 1, 2, etc, so to access a value in an ArrayList one goes like: myArrayList[2];

So what the C# Dictionary data structure does is let us specify the keys, which can be any type of object. For example:


Dictionary<string, int> myDictionary = new Dictionary<string, int>();
myDictionary.Add("one", 1);
myDictionary.Add("twenty", 20);

Retrieving a value is pretty straight forward:


int myInt = myDictionary["one"];

Notice how convenient the Dictionary data structure is, in that there is no need to cast between types. Also there is nothing stopping you from creating a Dictionary like so:


Dictionary<int, Dictionary<string, int>> nestedDictionary = 
            new Dictionary<int, Dictionary<string, int>>();

That is a nested Dictionary C# data structure and it is fair game.

I understand that it can be confusing on how to go about getting all the values out of a Dictionary data structure since we have no way to knowing the pattern in the keys. Luckily we don't have to, here is the code to transverse a C#.Net Dictionary:


//List<[same type as index]>
List<string> keyList = new List<string>(myDictionary.Keys);
for (int i = 0; i < keyList.Count; i++)
{
    int myInt = myDictionary[keyList[i]];
}

Hashtable

The C# Hashtable data structure is very much like the Dictionary data structure. A Hashtable also takes in a key/value pair, but it does so as generic objects as opposed to typed data.

Values are then stored in order according to their key's HashCode. Meaning that the order in which items are added to a C# Hashtable is not preserved. On the other hand, the Dictionary data structure does keep items in the same order.

The reason is speed. A C# Hashtable stores items faster than a C# Dictionary, which sacrifices speed for the sake of order..

(For those Java programmers, a Dictionary is more or less a TreeMap and a Hashtable is a HashMap).


Hashtable myTable = new Hashtable();

HashSet

The HashSet data structure was introduced in C#.NET 3.5. This particular C# data structure very strongly resembles the List<> data strucuture.

So what is the difference? A HashSet has the very important characteristic that it does not allow duplicate values. For example:


HashSet<int> mySet = new HashSet<int>();
mySet.Add(3);
mySet.Add(5);
mySet.Add(3);
mySet.Add(10);

List<int> myListFromSet = mySet.ToList<int>();
int myInt = myListFromSet[2];

If mySet were a regular List data structure, the index 2 should return the value 3 (count it out). But if you run the example you will see that myInt actually returns the value 10. This is because the HashSet C# data structure ignored the duplicate addition of the value 3.

You might wonder what is the point of this. After all, you could achieve the same behavior with a List data structure. Something like:


if (!myList.Contains(element))
     myList.Add(element);

The result is indeed the same. But what is not apparent is the speed at which this happens. When an element is added to a HashSet, internally the same thing happens: the data structure makes sure the element doesn't already exist. However a HashSet is not a simple array, it is specifically designed to allow fast search times which dramatically improves the performace of checking whether a new element is a duplicate or not.

to be read backwards

2010-05-11T08:26:00.000-07:00

lol

SJM: Wait, is this the same guy who called you a firecracker?

LS: RP is the new guy who was at training yesterday.

HP: FYI - no idea what this means. Beware men with long ponytails.

RP: Yes and yes.

HP: Are you serious???? Can I tell Sue that? Is it the guy with the long ponytail?

RP: The trainer just called Sue a “wildcat” and a “wild mare”.

Awkward.

JavaScript Sorting

2010-05-05T10:53:00.000-07:00

Many of you are aware of the built-in sort function for sorting JavaScript arrays. But you might not realize the true power of this function. This tip will talk about how this built-in function can be used to sort multi-dimensional arrays.

If you have a one-dimensional JavaScript array, then calling the built-in sort method on the array will sort the array in ascending order. But what about the case where you have an array of first names, an array of last names, and an array of ages? You may want to sort the array of first names, but keep the corresponding positions in the last names and ages. This is done by setting up a multi-dimensional array and sorting the proper "column" of the multi-dimensional array.

First, setting up a multi-dimensional array is pretty easy. If you know the values ahead of time, they can be specified in your javascript code:

var myData = new Array();
myData[0] = {FirstName:"John", LastName:"Doe", Age:40};
myData[1] = {FirstName:"Fred", LastName:"Smith", Age:41};
and so on.

If you don't know the values ahead of time, then the easiest thing to do is to build a "constructor" function:

var myData = new Array();
function person(firstName, lastName, age) {
this.FirstName = firstName;
this.LastName = lastName;
this.Age = parseInt(parseFloat(age));
}

Then, to add a new entry to the array, it's just a matter of creating a new person object:

people[people.length++] = new person(form.FirstName.value, form.LastName.value, form.Age.value);

(The example has the values coming from user input on a form).

To sort the array, we need to tell JavaScript how to sort. This comes from a function that returns -1, 0, or +1 as a value. -1 will put the first value before the second in the sorted array, +1 will put the second value before the first, and 0 means the values are equal. For example, if we want to sort by the first names, here is a function that can be used:

function sortByFirstName(a, b) {
var x = a.FirstName.toLowerCase();
var y = b.FirstName.toLowerCase();
return ((x < y) ? -1 : ((x > y) ? 1 : 0));
}

Two values are passed to this function. The values are array objects. If the first name part of the first object is alphabetically less than the second, -1 is returned. If the first name part of the first object is alphabetically greater than the second, +1 is returned. Otherwise, the first name values must be identical and 0 is returned.

But where does this function come in to play? There's an optional parameter to the built-in sort method that can be used. If you pass in a function name, that function name is used to compare elements in the array for sorting purposes. So, using this javascript call:

people.sort(sortByFirstName);

the array will be sorted in ascending order by the first name part of each array object. Similar functions and calls can be created to sort by the last name or by the age.

Note that JavaScript sorts in ascending order by default. But our function returns how things should be ordered. If we changed +1 to -1 in the function (and vice-versa) then the array would sort the first names in descending order. This is how you can sort by descending order.

JavaScript Sorting

day 43 and I write poetry

2010-04-30T08:49:00.000-07:00

today (in particular)
I miss speaking the language
that we created,
learned,
and in which only we are fluent,
the one comprised of sound effects, hand effects,
the one reserved for perfectly communicating
thoughts that are like
unfinished sentences, tongue clicks, stuffed animal psyche,
a language like a try/catch block,
collecting thoughts mildly ignorant, conjecture and insecure,
unspeakably offensive and intoxicating,
(but today, its)
a language that feels like
a short-term memory, like
being stuck
(without you)
in a jar of peanut butter
(with which to speak it)

how to query duplicate records in SQL

2010-03-17T13:26:00.000-07:00

SELECT *
FROM Person.Address A
INNER JOIN (SELECT AddressLine1, City
FROM Person.[Address]
GROUP BY AddressLine1, City
HAVING COUNT(*) > 1) AS A1
ON A.AddressLine1 = A1.AddressLine1
AND A.City = A1.City
ORDER BY A.AddressLine1, A.City, A.AddressID

how to get a list of tables in a database using C#

2010-03-01T15:11:00.000-08:00

Unsurprisingly, if a table doesn't exist in a database, you can't use a select query to determine whether it exists. But using GetSchema() with no parameters, you can obtain a schema table, which is essentially a list of tables you can specify to get more specific schema information. In this case, I wanted to get a list of tables in the database. After transforming the results into a list of strings, I could then safely search the list to determine whether it exists.


SqlConnection con =
new SqlConnection("connection_string");
con.Open();
DataTable tbl = 
con.GetSchema("Tables");

Schema and metadata retrieval using ADO.NET

this also works, depending on whether you need these extra parameters, but its a big uglier:


DataTable tables = 
con.GetOleDbSchemaTable
(OleDbSchemaGuid.Tables,
new object[]{null,null,null,"TABLE"});

Get all table names

fixed my "Restore failed...The file cannot be overwritten. It is being used by database..." error

2010-02-24T11:42:00.000-08:00

The "Database -> Restore Database... -> Options pane -> Restore the database files as" file names in the "Restore As" fields were not "Test1Copy1" as entered into the "General pane -> Destination for restore -> To database" field as the database restore destination. The file names were in fact "Test1," the same name of the "General pane -> Destination for restore -> From database" field. Basically, the file names should be Test1Copy1, but for some reason default to Test1.

The... error is resolved by clicking into the "Options pane -> Restore the database files as" file names in the Restore As fields and manually changing the file names...

FROM: Test1.mdf
TO: Test1Copy1.mdf

and

FROM: Test1_log.ldf
TO: Test1Copy1_log.ldf

This could be a SQL Server Management Studio bug, but it is just as likely a misunderstanding by a user who is just realizing he not only doesn't know his @ss from a hole in the ground; he didn't even know there was a hole in the ground ;-)

<%= Clinton Gallagher

Slightly scathing at the very end, Clinton Gallagher, very sneaky, but I do appreciate the apparent concern for my virgin eyes and for the bug fix :-P

http://www.sqlnewsgroups.net/group/microsoft.public.sqlserver.server/topic12008.aspx

fixed my " TypeLoadException: Could not load type from string value" error

2010-02-18T09:14:00.000-08:00

3.2.4.1. Object creation of generic types via constructor invocation
The following examples shows the definition of simple generic types and how they can be created in Spring's XML based configuration file.

namespace GenericsPlay
{
    public class FilterableList<T>
    {
        private List<T> list;        
        private String name;

        public List<T> Contents
        {
            get { return list; }
            set { list = value; }
        }

        public String Name
        {
            get { return name; }
            set { name = value; }
        }
        
        public List<T> ApplyFilter(string filterExpression)
        {
            /// should really apply filter to list ;)
            return new List<T>();
        }
    }
}

The XML configuration to create and configure this object is shown below


<object id="myFilteredIntList" type="GenericsPlay.FilterableList&lt;int&gt;, GenericsPlay">
  <property name="Name" value="My Integer List"/>
</object>

Chapter 3. Objects, Object Factories, and Application Contexts

2010-02-08T12:44:00.000-08:00

MJ
3:41 PM
I am actually surprised
3:42 PM
because I realized over the weekend
3:42 PM
it would be really nice to live with you

how to add a Global.asax code behind file

2010-01-08T09:30:00.000-08:00

One of the subtle differences I've found while working with web projects in Visual Studio 2005 is the Global.asax code is placed in script tags within the actual .asax page, not a codebehind file, as it was with .NET 1.1. This article describes how to set up the Global.asax file to utilize the Global.asax.cs codebehind file.

First off, go to files->add new and select the "Global Application Class" file. You'll notice right off the bat that the option to put the code in a separate file is grayed out. Ignore this and click "Add".

Next, go back to files->add new and select a "Class" file. Type in the name "Global.asax.cs" and click "Add". Visual Studio will prompt you to add this file to the App_Code directory, select "Yes" and continue.

Now that the files are in place, we need to do some slight manipulation of the existing code to get this solution to compile.

To start, the Global class in the Global.asax.cs file needs to implement HttpApplication.

public class Global : System.Web.HttpApplication

Next, move the code within the script tags from the Global.asax file to the Global.asax.cs file -within the Global class.

void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// Code that runs on application startup
}

...snip...

void Session_End(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// Code that runs when a session ends.
}

Once the code has been moved, remove the script tags from Global.asax:

Add the following to the Application directive at the top of the same page:

CodeBehind="Global.asax.cs" Inherits="Global"

The entire contents of the Global.asax file should look like:

<%@ Application Language="C#" CodeBehind="Global.asax.cs" Inherits="Global" %>

The solution should compile and the Global events should fire correctly as well.

http://www.xerratus.com/2006/10/20/NET20GlobalasaxCodeInSeparateFile.aspx

Programming and Software Development Quotes

2009-12-30T08:55:00.000-08:00

Some of my favorites from some of his favorites:

“Good design adds value faster than it adds cost.”
- Thomas C. Gale

“Better train people and risk they leave – than do nothing and risk they stay.”
- Unknown

“Think twice before you start programming or you will program twice before you start thinking.”
- Unknown

“Debugging is like farting – it’s not so bad when it’s your own code.”
- Unknown

“Confidence, n.: The feeling you have before you understand the situation”
- Unknown

“Good judgement is the result of experience … Experience is the result of bad judgement.”
- Fred Brooks

“Your code is both good and original. Unfortunately the parts that are good are not original, and the parts that are original are not good.”
- Unknown

“Now I’m a pretty lazy person and am prepared to work quite hard in order to avoid work.”
- Martin Fowler

And the last one is actually someone I work with!!! Well, its a guy with the same name as the guy I work with and who is often mistaken for the great Martin Fowler!

http://daipratt.co.uk/programming-and-it-quotes/

Evolution of the Hispter

2009-12-14T14:48:00.000-08:00

The skulls on her tour-only Death Cab tee don't match the skulls on her Vans, so it's not like she's trying too hard.

great article on hasLayout with IE bug CSS hacks

2009-12-11T11:44:00.000-08:00

On having layout -- the concept of hasLayout in IE/WIN

fixed and smoothed my fonts in Firefox on Windows XP

2009-11-20T11:01:00.001-08:00

I use Windows Vista at work, and although I'm about to upgrade to Windows 7 (yay!!!) I wasn't sure how to smooth the fonts in Firefox given screenshots of a website in Firefox 3.5.5 and IE 8. The client pointed out that the fonts looked better in IE than in Firefox. What?! This never happens! So with a little searching, I discovered that Firefox displays fonts based on the user's operating system settings. There's a display setting called ClearType that you can get to from desktop Properties -> Appearance -> Effects. In Windows XP, the default is Standard, not ClearType. In Windows Vista (and I assume Windows 7) the default is ClearType.

How to make font render smoothly in firefox just like safari and IE7

How to evaluate and change Windows font smoothing or ClearType

(although I'm sure this is condemned as browser hijack)


[DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError = true)] 
static extern bool 
   SystemParametersInfo(uint uiAction, uint uiParam, 
                        ref int pvParam, uint fWinIni);

/* Constants used for User32 calls. */
const uint SPI_GETFONTSMOOTHING = 74;
const uint SPI_SETFONTSMOOTHING = 75;
const unit SPI_UPDATEINI = 0x1;

private Boolean GetFontSmoothing()
{
  bool iResult;
  int pv = 0;
  /* Call to systemparametersinfo 
     to get the font smoothing value. */
  iResult = 
     SystemParametersInfo(SPI_GETFONTSMOOTHING, 0, 
                          ref pv, 0);
  if (pv > 0)
  {
    //pv > 0 means font smoothing is on.
    return true;
  }
  else
  {
    //pv == 0 means font smoothing is off.
    return false;
  }
}

private void DisableFontSmoothing()
{
  bool iResult;
  int pv = 0;
  /* Call to systemparametersinfo 
     to set the font smoothing value. */
  iResult = 
     SystemParametersInfo(SPI_SETFONTSMOOTHING, 0, 
                          ref pv, SPIF_UPDATEINIFILE);
}

private void EnableFontSmoothing()
{
  bool iResult;
  int pv = 0;
  /* Call to systemparametersinfo 
     to set the font smoothing value. */
  iResult = 
     SystemParametersInfo(SPI_SETFONTSMOOTHING, 1, 
                          ref pv, SPIF_UPDATEINIFILE);
}

More on ClearType:
Microsoft Typography
Microsoft ClearType FAQ
Technical Overview of ClearType Filtering

How to: Register HTTP Handlers

2009-11-19T15:00:00.000-08:00

To register an HTTP handler for IIS 7.0 running in Integrated Mode

The following example shows how to map all HTTP requests to files with the file name extension ".SampleFileExtension" to the SampleHandler2 HTTP handler class. In this case, the handler code is in the App_Code folder, so you do not have to specify an assembly.

<configuration>
   <system.webServer>
      <handlers>
         <add name="SampleHandler" verb="*" path="SampleHandler.new" type="SampleHandler, SampleHandlerAssembly" resourceType="Unspecified" />
      </handlers>
   <system.webServer>
</configuration>

fixed my content disappearing in Firefox print preview

2009-11-18T10:53:00.000-08:00

Problem

You wrote a web page which the customer will want to print out, which takes 2 or more pages of paper to print. Everything works fine in IE6, but when you go to print it in Firefox, only the first page comes out! The rest of the web page is simply missing from the printer.

Solution

Do you ever get the feeling that these Problem/Solution tricks I write about are from my own experiences as a web developer? You bet! This one took me quite some time to figure out.

The problem was in the style settings of the container of the web page content.

I was using a DIV tag to surround the entire body of the text of the web page to be printed. That DIV tag referenced a CLASS within my CSS that happened to have the element:

overflow: auto;

Removing that little bit from the DIV tag's CSS class completely solved the problem.

I actually didn't need to remove it, and instead I changed the setting to visible.

http://www.fastechws.com/tricks/web/printing-web-page-has-missing-pages-in-firefox.php

How to convert object[] to List in one line of C#?

2009-11-02T16:44:00.000-08:00

If you're using LINQ it's a piece of cake!

List fields = values.Select(i => i.ToString()).ToList();

fixed my "...base class includes the field XXX but is not compatible with the type of control XXX.ascx"

2009-11-02T11:29:00.001-08:00

Nested Master Pages

2009-10-27T14:55:00.000-07:00

I have two master pages, one that uses a two column layout, and one that uses a three column layout. So instead of duplicating the entire file (ASP.NET file tags, XML file tags, script tags, css link tags, header and footer controls, etc) I did some googling and discovered that you can build master pages from a base master page (the derived master pages = nested master pages), much like you can create a base ASPX page and use the content place holder control as a template to vary the content. Yay!

One important detail though, is that the nested master pages need to inherit either from the vanilla master page class or a custom master page class (not the base master page class!!!), and the base master page should inherit from the vanilla master page class or a custom master page class

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/x2b3ktt7.aspx

This is the parent master file:
<% @ Master Language="C#" %>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML
1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
<html>
<head runat="server">
<title>Untitled Page</title>
</head>
<body>
<form id="Form1" runat="server">
<div>
<h2>Parent Master</h2>
<p style="font:color=red">This is parent master content.</p>
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="MainContent" runat="server" />
</div>
</form>
</body>
</html>

This is the child master file:

<%@ Master Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/Parent.master"%>
<asp:Content id="Content1" ContentPlaceholderID="MainContent" runat="server">
<asp:panel runat="server" id="panelMain" backcolor="lightyellow">
<h2>Child master</h2>
<asp:panel runat="server" id="panel1" backcolor="lightblue">
<p>This is child master content.</p>
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="ChildContent1" runat="server" />
</asp:panel>
<asp:panel runat="server" id="panel2" backcolor="pink">
<p>This is child master content.</p>
<asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="ChildContent2" runat="server" />
</asp:panel>
<br />
</asp:panel>
</asp:Content>

And finally, regular page that references the child master file:

<%@ Page Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/Child.master"%>
<asp:Content id="Content1" ContentPlaceholderID="ChildContent1" runat="server">
<asp:Label runat="server" id="Label1"
text="Child label1" font-bold="true" />
<br />
</asp:Content>
<asp:Content id="Content2" ContentPlaceholderID="ChildContent2" runat="server">
<asp:Label runat="server" id="Label2"
text="Child label2" font-bold="true"/>
</asp:Content>

Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization

2009-10-23T13:17:00.001-07:00

We are a lost generation, desperately clinging to anything that feels real, but too afraid to become it ourselves.

awesomely simple explanation of javascript:void(0)

2009-10-23T10:11:00.000-07:00

http://www.tizag.com/javascriptT/javascriptvoid.php

JavaScript Void 0

Hyperlinks like this one entice visitors to click because they know clicking it will lead them to a new page. However, sometimes when you are making a script, you would like to add functionality to your website that lets a hyperlink to be clicked and perform a useful action like update the sums on the webpage, without loading a new page.

It's these types of programming solutions that will utilize the JavaScript Void 0 programming tool. This lesson will teach you some of the reasons to use the JavaScript Void 0programming strategy in your scripts.

Directly Executing JavaScript in a Browser

Web browsers allow you to execute JavaScript statements directly by entering JavaScript code into the browser's URL text field. All you need to do is place a JavaScript: before your code to inform the browser you wish to run JavaScript. You can play around with this right now by typing something like

JavaScript:alert("I'm learning at Tizag.com")

into the browser's URL text field and pressing Enter.

This is useful to you, the JavaScript scripter, because you can now set your hyperlinks's href attribute equal to a JavaScript statement! This means you can remove the hyperlink's ability to load a new page and reprogram it to do your "complete some actions directly on this page" bidding.

This practice can be seen in services like Gmail (Google Email) which does a great deal of interaction with hyperlinks, but has very few new pages loading. Here is an example link that does not load a new webpage.

JavaScript Code:


<a href="javascript: alert('News Flash!')">News Flash</a>

Display:

News Flash

This is interesting to learn, but it isn't much more than a gimmick. The true power of direct URL JavaScript statements is only unleashed when you use it to return a value. This is where void 0 comes into play.

JavaScript Void 0 Explanation

Web browsers will try and take whatever is used as a URL and load it. The only reason we can use a JavaScript Alert statement without loading a new page is because alert is a
function that returns a null value. This means that when the browser attempts to load a new page it sees null and has nothing to load.

The important thing to notice here is that if you ever do use a JavaScript statement as the URL that returns a value, the browser will attempt to load a page. To prevent this unwanted action, you need to use the void function on such statement, which will always return null and never load a new page.

Simple JavaScript Void 0 Simple Example

void is an operator that is used to return a null value so the browser will not be able to load a new page. An important thing to note about the void operator is that it requires a value and cannot be used by itself. Here is a simple way to use void to cancel out the page load.

JavaScript Code:


<a href="javascript: void(0)">I am a useless link</a>

Display:

I am a useless link

Simple JavaScript Void 0 Useful Example

This example shows how you would return a value using the void operator. myNum is a variable that we set to the value 10. We then use the same variable myNum in an alertoperation.

JavaScript Code:


<a href="javascript: void(myNum=10);alert('myNum = '+myNum)">
Set myNum Please</a>

Display:

Set myNum Please

Things to Learn

2009-10-20T11:37:00.001-07:00

XPath

fixed my IIS "page not found error"

2009-10-16T13:46:00.000-07:00

My local development environment uses IIS7, which has a different interface for managing HTTP handler mappings, and which uses different web.config settings to detect those mappings from IIS6. Some pages on the site require URL path rewriting to load pages that live in a non-root directory, but give the user the ability to navigate to them by creating the illusion that they live in the root directory. But the same site on a staging server using IIS6 was resulting in a page not found error. Because the error was happening before IIS could serve up the custom 404 page, the error was suspected to be a missing or bad setting in IIS.

Although this solution wasn't voted the highest or as "the answer" to the OP's question, it seemed to fix the problem and get rid of the error!

"If I understand the problem correctly, it sounds like you need add a "Wildcard Application Mapping" for your virtual directory. In other words, you want to forward all requests to any file extension to ASP.NET's ISAPI extension.

To do so, open the properties of your virtual directory. On the Virtual Directory tab (Home Directory tab if it's a web site), click the Configuration... button. Click the Insert... button next to the bottom list box in the dialog that shows up. In this dialog, choose "%SYSTEMROOT%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_isapi.dll" as the executable and make sure to un-check "Verify that file exists" checkbox, since the files to be requested don't live in your virtual directory."

Things to post about:

2009-10-15T14:46:00.000-07:00

Using USPS Web Tools
Learning just enough XQuery to query XML data from a SQL Server database

ASP.NET Ajax Web Services [ScriptMethod(UseHttpGet = true)]

2009-10-08T08:57:00.000-07:00

HTTP POST Is Slower than HTTP GET, but It Is Default in ASP.NET Ajax

ASP.NET Ajax, by default, makes HTTP POST for all web service calls. HTTP POST is more expensive than HTTP GET. It transmits more bytes over the wire, thus taking precious network time, and it also makes ASP.NET do extra processing on the server end. So, you should use HTTP GET as much as possible. However, HTTP GET does not allow you to pass objects as parameters. You can pass numerics, strings and dates only. When you make an HTTP GET call, Atlas builds an encoded URL and makes a hit to that URL. So, you must not pass too much content that makes the URL become larger than 2048 characters. As far as I know, that's the max length of any URL. In order to enable HTTP GET on a web service method, you need to decorate the method with the [ScriptMethod(UseHttpGet=true)] attribute:

[WebMethod] [ScriptMethod(UseHttpGet=true)] 
public string HelloWorld()
{
}

DZone The heart of the Java development community

2009-10-07T10:39:00.000-07:00

I'm following DZone on Twitter after getting an email today from a grad student at Delaware I worked with as an undergrad the summer I did research. He's contributed a few articles, and even though I don't code in Java on a daily basis, I did come across a different article that raised some good questions about what it means to be a software developer, and specifically, what responsibility comes along with the "developer" part of that, Staying Current: A Software Developer's Responbility. Two questions that he asks (and looks for in potential teammates) really stuck out to me:

* What language(s) that are gaining popularity, but not yet mainstream, have you written Hello World in?
* Do you read books or blogs looking for new ideas at least (on average) once every two weeks?

I've discovered for myself that the idea behind the first question is an essential part of the job, and that discovery on a daily basis is key to learning "Hello World" knowledge about new stuff. Although I haven't actually written Hello World in a new language, there are definitely basic things I've learned everyday about new technologies I didn't/don't know anything about, but which help to nudge the door open and keep it open for them. But I've definitely realized the benefit of examining a problem thoroughly, perhaps even excessively, if there's something in it for me, especially if it concerns something in particular that's in my blind spot as a gap in my knowledge; its crucial that I'm assertive about honing any missing fundamental knowledge, and even more crucial about gaining new knowledge.