Hello from Boma!

Mambo Jambo!

Scott and I have safely arrived to the Hai district of Kilmanjaro, Tanzania. Our village is very small with all dirt paths and a large market two days a week. We have very modest accommodations at our Cross Cultural Solutions site – a bunk bed with mosquito nets, an open bathroom with a drain and some hot water, and a small closet for our clothes. There are about 15 other volunteers on site with us, most from the US with many in our recently graduate college, and about six others in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. We receive three meals a day with food from the local market prepared by local chefs, so far the food has been great.

The village is great. Our group is also the only michanze – white people in the village -- so our language, clothing, cameras are quite the hit. The people are very kind and always smiling. Trash is burnt on the street and it is not uncommon to see 30 people on a mini-bus.

Although I thought I would be working with women’s rights and Scott expected to be working with a micro-finance organization, we discovered once we got overseas that I would be working with at an orphanage and Scott would be working as a teacher in a primary school. Although we were expecting different placements, it seems that is where the immediate need is in our village so we are keeping a very open mind.

Yesterday was our orientation so we finished up all of our immigration and working permit paper work, took a tour of our village, and took an intro course on Swahili. Our program leaders seem great and that they are going to take great care of us.

Scott has become a very big hit with all of the local boys at a nearby soccer field. They have been playing almost daily and he returns covered with dust and a huge smile. The field is very rocky so it adds a whole new level of difficulty to the game. The goals are also two sticks with a string across the top.

Our first day at our placement sites is tomorrow, so we'll hopefully be able to post again soon with more details and first impressions!

PS I would like to report (thank God) that I do not have a paisley and flower scar on my right hand.

Jambo Jambo! (that means hello hello in Swahili)

I have to say, I LOVE the Swahili language. I am picking it up faster than my high school Spanish. It is such a fun language and there is so much happiness in people’s voices. On Monday morning we arrived from Cairo into Dar es Salam, Tanzania and took a ferry boat ride over to the island of Zanzibar, which is known for its amazing spices, island people, and beautiful beaches. We love it! Zanzibar has some of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen. The people are wonderful as well – everywhere we go, we seem to experience magic.

We are currently in Stonetown, which has been amazing. The town is an eclectic mix of Arabic, Indian, Asian, and African cultures -- the history, architecture, food, music, and people all reflect this. Today we just wondered and let ourselves get lost in the alleys of Old Stonetown. It was amazing – we discovered the local markets with fresh meats (aka a cow hanging by a coat hanger), spices (spice capital of Africa),traditional meals, and lots of fresh vegetables and fruits including MANGOES (I LOVE mangoes!).

We also toured a a former slave market chamber in what is now a Christian church, which was where most slaves were kept before they were sold during the Slave Trade. It was a very horrific and moving walk through their chambers with five foot ceilings, uneven floors, all concrete and no windows. This was the world's last open slave market where slaves from East and Central Africa regions were bought and sold. Then we went into a Cathedral which was built a few months after slavery was abolished in 1873. The high alter was erected in the same place as the old slave whipping post.




At the end of our afternoon, I decided to get a henna tattoo on my hand. I thought it would be a nice hippie addition to my new cute nose ring. When they lady pulled out her ‘henna ink’ I noticed it was in a black bottle, which made me a bit concerned because I slightly remembered reading that natural henna was only supposed to be brown or red. After discussing my concern in Swahi-glish about black henna being dangerous the artist calmed my fears telling me black henna was very safe. So I finally gave in and let her draw a super cute flower and paisley design down my left pinky and past my wrist. When we got back to our room, I decided to go with my gut and google ‘dangers of black henna’. I was right!! She put poisons on my skin! I felt so dumb for not trusting my gut instinct that it had been very dangerous. Black henna is made with a hair dye that burns the skin chemically—whaaa!! (that is why it is illegal to use in most countries and I now have black hair in various spots on my arm…) So I immediately started scrubbing my skin practically raw to hopefully remove these chemicals from scarring my skin permanently or giving me more skin allergies than I already have. I was very worried because I already have very bad skin and food allergies so I have to carry an epi-pen. Please say an extra prayer that I do not wake up with a flower and paisley rash or scar on my right hand tomorrow.
Anyway on to a more positive subject, tonight we sat on the roof of our hotel playing cards and enjoying delicious fruity cocktails while watching the sunset over the ocean. Then we noticed some festive music and lights coming from a garden next to our hotel, so we decided to go explore. It was a huge festival of local cuisine! We enjoyed numerous meat skewers, fresh sugar cane juice, and a chocolate-banana pizza to finish it all off. Scott loved this because all of the skewers of meat were less than 20 cents.

Tomorrow morning we are planning to take a taxi across the island to a more ‘beachy’ area where we will be able to swim with the dolphins, snorkel, and enjoy the beaches before we head to our volunteer site.

Thank you for all of your many comments and emails. We have greatly enjoyed receiving updates on everyone’s lives!!

At a fort in Alexandria along the Mediterranean Sea. Alexandria was beautiful! And the breeze across the water felt wondeful.

Audrey is really happy that she found an iced tea! Its pretty darn hot and ice-cold drinks can be hard to come by...

Audrey with one of the statues of Pharoah at the Luxor Temple

At the last temple we visited in Luxor at the end of the Nile Cruise

At the "Valley of the Kings"

A whole row of miniature sphinxes outside one of the temples.

Coptic Christians plastered over some of the Egyptian hyroglyphics in this temple and painted what is believed to be a scene from "The Last Supper"

Another temple in Luxor

cruising down the Nile. The contrast between the land along the Nile and the desert was pretty amazing

The first temple we visited in Aswan.

June 18th, Scott

We’re on a plane now, headed back to Cairo from a fantastic three nights on the Nile. The stark contrast between the plush, green, fertile land along the Nile and the barren desert just a few hundred yards away is really amazing. The coolest thing about a “cruise” on the Nile is that, in Egypt, everything really is built along the river so you can basically see everything relevant in the whole country in just a few short days along the river. On a typical day, we’d get up around 6am for breakfast and leave by 7am to head to our morning site (a temple, tomb, the High Dam, etc.). We always left early to try to avoid the mid-day heat. Then we’d return to the boat by lunchtime, when it would launch for a few hours—we’d usually hang out on the upper deck while the boat was moving; reading a book and taking in the site. I just finished Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, Outliers. I’d read Tipping Point and Blink and this was the most recent in the “series”. I really liked his other books and I found Outliers to be equally thought-provoking. There is a really interesting chapter on KIPP—a network of really successful charter schools founded by a couple TFA alums—that was worth the whole read by itself. I’m starting “Blue Like Jazz” next which was recommended by Jon Weece and a few other friends so I’m really looking forward to that as well. Back to the schedule—the boat would usually dock again around 4pm and we’d head out to see another site at the next city before dinner. Then the boat would travel a bit further after dinner and dock for the evening. The pace of everything has been great—I feel like we’ve seen a ton, but there has also been plenty of time of downtime so I’ve always felt rested enough that I could really enjoy and appreciate the various sites.

Egypt is the first “emerging” country I’ve spent much time in and it’s been really fascinating for me to learn about the recent history of the country (along with the obvious B.C. years of pharaohs and pyramids that everyone comes for). They were a monarchy until the 1950’s, when the king was overthrown by a military coup and a republic was established. Since then, they’ve taken a lot of well-intentioned steps toward developing as an industrialized nation. They started a stock-market soon after the founding of the republic, but then it folded after a couple decades. It was re-opened about a dozen years ago but is still not widely utilized. Their infrastructure has expanded well past travel up and down the Nile, and they have a relatively efficient network of airports and even a cross-country railway system (which was developed under British influence, but has been maintained by the Egyptians). At the same time, though, they have no lanes on the roads, few traffic lights (and those that are in place are ignored), and crossing the street feels an awfully lot like a real-life game of the old Atari classic “Frogger”. Interestingly, they are surprisingly few wrecks, which our cab driver attributed to fact that no one has auto insurance. Drink the water, and you’ll enjoy the infamous “Niles Piles” for a week or so… They have a progressive tax system with tax rates that vary between 10-30% based upon income. Interestingly, they publish a list each year of “Egypt’s Highest Tax Payers”, and it’s actually an honor to be listed on it—for them it speaks to their honesty in abiding by the rules of country. They have had a property tax in place for years, but no one ever paid and it was never enforced so they reauthorized it last year and it seems to be off to a good start. There is no welfare system, but everyone has healthcare; either through their employer or the government. Rent controls have kept rents in the city very low ($20-30 per month for a family home), but they reset after a generation so there are concerns about what the current generation will do when their grandparents pass away and their rent resets to current rates which are about ten times higher. The Egyptian Pound was artificially deflated to maintain a set 3-1 conversion to the Dollar, but was allowed to “float” a few years ago and has hovered around 5.5 to 1 since then—definitely a positive step for them. Libraries are being built, education is improving, and national security is a high priority. Women still aren’t allowed to leave the country without written permission from their husbands, but the younger generation wants to strike down that and other oppressive regulations and the parliament is even designating specific seats for women to try to achieve a more diverse representation. Audrey is laughing at me for writing all this and our tour guide probably thinks I’m crazy for asking so many questions about modern Egypt, but I have just found it fascinating to see/hear what it looks like in modern days for a country to transition to Democracy. I can imagine that America had some similar “guffaws” in its early years (and still plenty now) and seeing Egypt has given me a more realistic perspective of the patience and appropriate expectations that we should have for countries as they make that kind of transition.
Happy Birthday Mom!

Cruisin' the Nile

First off, I need to take back my judgmental comment about the Nile looking a bit like the Ohio River. When I saw it in Cairo it really wasn’t the most beautiful body of water I have ever seen, but then we boarded our Nile Cruise. We ‘cruised’ from Aswan (southern Egypt) north to Luxor for four days and three nights. The Nile is absolutely beautiful!! It is very interesting because you are surrounded by desert except this beautiful river and maybe 200 yards of fertile land around the river which is used for crops. We were also able to sit on the top deck and watch the various towns come and go. We saw many fishermen in their boats, men on camel back climbing the desert hills, young boys herding their goats, and little kids playing in the water.

During these few days aboard the M/S Giselle (nothing like an American cruise ship but it by far exceeded our expectations—clean and safe, all you can ask for over here), we made stops in Aswan, Edfu, and Luxor.

When our boat was docked in Aswan we took a traditional Nile felucca (sailboat) around Aswan’s Botanical Gardens. Then throughout the next few days we visited four temples which were each distinctly different. It was also about an average of 105 degrees in mid-day. Egypt has the driest heat I have ever experienced, yet luckily no one has passed out yet (I am referring to myself, the avid passer-outer). Today we visited the Valley of the Kings which was extraordinary. We saw three tombs—Ramses IV and Ranses IX, and another whose name was harder to remember. They were unbelievable and in the middle of nowhere. The kings started planning their burials as soon as they took office and the tombs many times had 7-9 chambers inside all with hand painted walls and ceilings telling stories about their lives so they had no trouble finding themselves again in their afterlife.

We are currently in the airport flying from Luxor back to Cairo where we will stay tonight. Tomorrow morning we drive north through the desert to Alexandria, which I have been really looking forward to. Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great in 322 BC, it is where the Nile meets the Mediterranean and it is supposed to be breathtakingly beautiful. It is also where Cleopatra is said to have been born (I have been studying my Fodor’s). After a night in Alexandria we head back to Cairo and then fly south to Dar Es Salam to start our journey in Tanzania. I believe Scott is going to try to post soon as well, he will probably remember much more of the ‘important’ historical facts that I didn’t seem to soak in. I do hope to have time later to post about our discussion about the clothing and women’s rights in Egypt… very interesting topic.

Oh yeah, and all the Egyptians want us to tell all the Americans who voted for Obama that it was a great decision. They love him. They even ask us if we liked Bush when haggling -- if you say no, they give you a better price… priceless.

Oh yeah and did I mention that there are four school teachers from Ashland, Kentucky on our tour… random.

A Few Quick Pictures

Scott at the Spinx. This is one of the crazy pictures that the young girls showed us how to take. (or more so, forcefully put us in the positions and took our pictures)

Audrey at the medium pyramid. This is also the one that Scott crawled through inside.

Cairo at Sunrise -- population 20 million

Picture of another market on a Saturday afternoon. Our cabby said this wasn't even busy.

Some neat finds at the market. Beautiful handmade goods. We are still trying to figure out how to carry some exciting things home.

Obama Obama Obama... everyone loves Obama :)

Scott at the market

Some of the local 'ahwas' -- coffeehouses. This was near the "Khan a Kali" market

A Few Highlights from Scott

Audrey has been a big hit everywhere. Walking around the market yesterday, I was called “lucky man” ten different times, and today at the pyramids, one of the locals offered me 2000 camels in exchange for her J. Don’t worry Tom and Kathy; 2,000 smelly, spitting camels was a tempting offer, but Audrey is still safe with me.

Seeing the pyramids and sphinx in person today was pretty incredible. After some 5000 years, countless wars, earthquakes, and other threatening events, it’s pretty amazing that they are still in such great condition. The craziest thing was going inside one the pyramids. I walked (more like crouched—the passageway was only about 3.5 ft high) through a tunnel that was about 300 yards long. At the end of the tunnel was a 500 square foot room with an empty box where a pharaoh’s mummified body was once stored. And then that was it. Maybe I didn’t watch the discovery channel special closely enough as a kid (or I paid too much attention to The Mummy), but for some reason I was picturing that underneath a 450-foot tall pyramid I would find an intricate network of passageways, rooms, tunnels, etc. Finding that the entire pyramid was built covering just one small room like that was pretty interesting.

After visiting the pyramids (we got some great pictures! And will post them as soon as we get out the cables to upload them) we made a short trip over to the Sphinx. There are Egyptian vendors EVERYWHERE around these tourist spots, selling headdresses, statues, models of the pyramid, postcards and dozens of other trinkets. We learned to politely say “No Thank You” in Arabic, and they are generally pretty respectful of that. But others who didn’t pick up on that so fast had people following them all around the pyramids trying to sell them stuff. Anyway, at the sphinx we ran into two really cute little girls selling Egyptian bookmarks. We started talking to them (their English was pretty impressive for 6-7 years old!)—quizzing on their alphabet, numbers, etc. and they just loved it. They could count in English, Arabic, and Spanish, and knew their full English alphabet. They gave us a list of the Egyptian hieroglyphic letters and told us we should practice. Then they had us do some really funny poses near the sphinx—I’m not doing the story justice, but we’ll post them and you’ll get the point.

Everyone in Egypt has been incredibly hospitable—truly some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. Most speak a little English and are eager to try to use it when talking to Americans. The locals often ask where we are from and when we say “America” they reply “Ooh, OBAMA, OBAMA! America Good!”. So apparently his speech went over well in Cairo last week…
The cultural differences are interesting to note—being a big breakfast guy like I am, I was quick to realize that I wasn’t going to see any bacon or sausage for awhile given that pork is forbidden for Muslims. I’m also having to get used to wearing long pants and long-sleeves everywhere, despite the 90 degree heat.

FYI the exchange rate here is 5.60 Egyptian Pounds per dollar, and, in general, most things are relatively inexpensive. We stopped at an “On-The-Run” gas station/convenience store to grab snakcs with our tour group before the pyramids. They had Egyptian Doritos for 1.25 Egyptian, or American Doritos for 28.00 Egyptian. Egyptian sour Skittles were 2.00 Egyptian and American sour Skittles were 12.25 Egyptian. I bought the Egyptian version and they were great—just found it really interesting the premium built in for the American ones.

We’re getting on a ship tomorrow morning to head South down the Nile to see some other parts of Egypt. I doubt we’ll have internet access during that time, but we’ll certainly leave an update when we get back! Hope all is well with each of you!

In Cairo Safely

6-13-09 9:10 AM (been awake since 4:30 AM)

Hi Family and Friends!
Scott and I made it safely to Cairo yesterday after our 12 hour flight. The flight actually wasn’t that bad, and the food on the flight was surprisingly good. Once we arrived in Cairo we were greeted by a majority of people in the airport wearing flu masks, then we were each scanned for H1N1 by this weird camera thing. Thank goodness we were cleared but after reading the Cairo Daily Paper this morning someone from a US flight yesterday morning was quarantined and the rest of the passengers are being notified to be tested – we haven’t been notified yet, so we will hope for the best!

After getting our packs we stepped out into the dry and dusty heat to grab a taxi. It was such an eventful ride. My pilates instructor had told me that when you crossed the street it was like the game ‘Frogger’ and she was so right! People drive CRAZY here!!! And people walk across and down the middle of the street without a care in the world. There are no street lights, lines in the road, and drivers do not use their signals, only their horns. We sat watching traffic at an intersection for over a half hour while eating breakfast this morning and we were so entertained. These little, dirty taxi vans were driving around with the doors open and people just hopped in while the van was still moving and jumped out with it still moving (at busy intersections!) It was insane. I am so thankful we have a tour and do not have to worry about catching these crazy taxis.

We haven’t left our hotel yet, we are still trying to get used to this time change, but we did lay out on the top of our hotel yesterday which overlooked the Nile. Not to be rude to the longest river in the world but it looks a whole lot like the Ohio River in Louisville… After a nap yesterday, we went downstairs to find the main restaurant was also a hookah bar, so the entire room was filled with smoke! Smoking seems quite popular here, many smoke cigarettes, cigars, hookah, and I am sure a few other things as well. (Many people that know me well know that I cough when a cigarette is 100 yards from me, so I am trying hard to adjust to the smoke without being too overly dramatic.) After eating a bit in the smoke filled room, we walked towards music in another part of the hotel – it was a traditional wedding! It was so neat to watch the celebration with dancing, music, and traditional dress.

Our tour does not start until tomorrow but we are off to go explore until then, just not sure where yet. We will try to post again soon, maybe in our next city.

And dad and Chris, unfortunately I did not get to watch game 7 last night, but I am very sad that the Red Wings lost.

I Love My iPhone

I have an exciting update. I have just gotten off the phone with Cingular and discovered all of my exciting 'international iPhone features'.

Please email and text us as often as you would like because it's FREE (with my $20 added feature :) but worth every penny)!! However, it will cost me to text back. I am so excited that we will now have a much easier way to communicate with all of you! Please text us about fun things going on in your lives--it will be so much fun to keep track of everyone!

Audrey's cell: 415.254.9682

email: Audrey.B.McIntosh@gmail.com
Scott.C.McIntosh@gmail.com

Departure in 1.5 days

It's getting closer :) Now it is just time for cramming everything in our backpacks and catching our flight!

This last weekend we saw my parents and brother on Saturday, celebrated our one year anniversary on Sunday, and today I have been packing up our apartment to put some of our personal items in storage so we can rent it out to one of our friends. Scott's last day of school is tomorrow so today was 8th grade graduation and tomorrow they are having a big party at Candlestick Park (the Giant's old stadium/ now where the 49ers play).

Early Wednesday morning, we are flying out of SFO to the Big Apple! We are staying the night in NYC before heading overseas to Cairo. On Wednesday we will be visiting my cousin Lisa who lives in NYC and one of our friends who used to live in San Fran with us. We are so excited to visit some of our far away family and friends!

Hope everyone is having a great Monday! Our next post may very well be from Egypt!!

First Post from San Francisco

It is only a little more than one week away before Scott and I pack up and leave our home in San Fran to head to Egypt and Tanzania.

Many family and friends have asked how they will be able to keep up with our travels so I have started a blog. We are still unsure how much internet access we will have but we hear wireless is sometimes more common than safe drinking water!

Please stay tuned throughout the month of June and July to hear about our adventures and mis-adventures traveling across the world to these foreign lands!