Jordan in One PIcture

yeah

Keepin' it Kenyan

Mambo vipi rafiki!

From sheng, the youth slang of Kenya, that roughly translates: what's up my friend!

Ellen, China sounds incredible, especially the Shanghai expo, and getting to see Heatherwicks seed cathedral! I was working for a metal company this summer and ran across his work while digging for clients and it's great, but most of it's in the uk. I ran across these air vents of his (pic on the left) in June in London.

But that was then, and now is now, and I'm in Mombasa with an oddly free night following finishing our fourth paper (and third to last; apparently we have to work for 2 credits in six weeks) of the East African History & Health Class. As everyone else is still trudging away through colonial medical files - terribly exciting - and with Clementine, the last tder left in Mombasa, having left today for Chicago, now seems the perfect time to write a post.

Apart from the work, and there's plenty of that (frighteningly, I actually used the 5am call to prayer as an alarm clock two days ago to wake me up in time to finish my last paper), life here in Mombasa is fairly idyllic. Our class is housed in three locations throughout the old town (also referred to as stone town) of the city; as of the last three days I've got a single with an immense four post bed to myself off a suite three of us are sharing on the third floor of a former house of the sultan of Zanzibar. With the Indian Ocean literally at our back steps, if the tide is in, when out it's a scruffy beach, life ain't so shabby.

However, we've only been back in Mombasa for a few days now after taking a two week spin around the highlands of Kenya. For the most part our location is decided by the subject we study. Accordingly, our first two and half weeks studying everything from arab traders to early 20th century Indian protests were spent here in Mombasa where we can conduct interviews with individuals who's family may have come centuries ago but is still connected to Yemen and Oman, explore Portuguese forts and see where the East African Indian Nationalist Congress led its protests.

We then spent two weeks in Nairobi, on the slopes of Mt. Kenya and on safari (although safari really refers to any kind of trip) where we could see the Norfolk hotel terrace from which white tea sipping (and pistol carrying) settlers took pot shots at African protesters, interview former Mau Mau guerilla fighters at a goat roast and learn from ranchers about how destructive elephants are, but they can't do anything about them because they're preserved for the sake of a western tourist's camera (which makes me feel guilty for not having taken a photo of one).

After all that though we're now back in Mombasa for the rest of the trip, apart from getting whisked off to an undisclosed 'retreat' for our finals, which doubles as a refuge from potential post-constitutional referendum violence (the vote is on Aug. 4 - the last vote in Kenya in 2007 left over 1500 dead) and as of today a few of us are planning on making a jaunt up to Lamu, another Swahili island city to the north, for the weekend.

Tomorrow is class in the morning followed by a tea auction (Kenya's exports some damn fine tea and Mombasa's the gateway to Kenya), taking some dugouts out for a paddle in the old harbor (they rent for a dollar a day) and clubbing in celebration of another paper done.

Sand castling on Mombasa's north beach

Zebra watching/Train tripping to Nairobi

And yes, even paper writing.

In summary, all is well here in Mombasa. I hope all is well for you wherever you may be.

Ashe

Keepin' it Commie

Continuing with the theme naming, here's a report from the land of China!

Well, technically I'm not in China anymore, but Blogger, like most other social networking sites, was blocked there.

I spent most of my time alternating between Shanghai and parts of Southern China. The contrast between highly urbanized areas like Shanghai and the mostly undeveloped, rural areas I visited in Southern China is striking. They both have their beauty, charm, and drawbacks, but it is interesting to see just how different they are.

Shanghai is fast becoming the most globalized city in China, even more so than Beijing. Small wonder it was chosen as the host of the World Expo this year, to the excitement of its residents and travel agencies. The whole city is plastered with ads for the World Expo, and it seems to be all people talk about. The mascot shows up everywhere; from subway walls to TV ads to toilet paper.

<--Looks a little like sentient toothpaste if you ask me

The expo itself is pretty impressive; it spans over two square miles of prime real-estate across both banks of the Huangpu River with literally hundreds of buildings. Crazy!
Wikipedia: Organisers called the outdoor show "the largest searchlight display in history, the largest collection of multi-coloured laser firepower ever assembled in one place, the world’s largest LED screen, one of the largest dancing water fountains ever, and the “largest light show ever attempted”.

That's a lot of largest-evers.

Of course, with something so large, it'd be a shame if no one showed up, but they don't seem to be having that problem at all. The lines are incredibly long, and make you feel like you're playing 3-hour games of Snake. The worst offender is probably Saudi Arabia, who had the most expensive (and thus more popular) building, with an average of 8 hours of lining up. To spend any less than 3 hours in line, you have to get up at 5:30AM, line up in front of the Expo gates until it opens at 9:00AM, and then make a mad dash of 1km to where the line is. Even elderly people with canes are attempting to run there, it's ridiculous.



The line is around a mile away from the building and takes about 7 hours at this point, counting all the switchbacks. That means you're going at 12 ft/min, or .2 ft/sec.


For those of you who are unclear on what exactly the World Expo is, it is essentially countries building edgy modern buildings to show off how awesome they are. Nowadays, that amounts to using a lot of projector screens in creative ways and showing lots of promo videos. Sometimes I walk into a building, go "oooh, aaaah", and then walk out having no idea of what I just saw.

Some cool buildings:

I spent most of my time in Southern China traveling to different scenic areas, many of which are very rural. It was a huge contrast with Shanghai, and a very different kind of beautiful from the gleaming glass and steel.
Some photos from scenic areas:




Whoops, don't know why he's not rotated

Sadly, though, these places have become tourist hotspots for their natural beauty, which is doing a number on the environment and adversely affecting the areas.

Other than traveling, I've been doing art as usual. In my spare time, I've been designing t-shirts, some of which may or may not be TD themed. I'll throw them up here if I manage to make some I like.

ASHÉ (and apologies for the excessively long post).

Keepin' it... Musical?

So I got a nice lil' postcard from Amelia the other day, and it got me thinking about new song ideas. Here's the result - hope you enjoy, and I'm looking forward to seeing you all in about a month :]

Keepin' It Renaissance

<----- Sheeeeeeeeeit!

I’ve been in Florence for over two weeks and I’ve officially become a regular at Corona’s Café (gelato) and Yellow Bar (pizza). When I’m there with my waitresses, I’m family. But not the mafia kind and, obviously, neither as good nor as greasy as Olive Garden.

Florence is an incredible city. Every night there is something different going on in the streets: from a brass orchestra to an opera concert, from ballet to American Indians drumming. Unlike Rome, Florence is pretty tame and, on non-World Cup nights, quiet: Florentines aren’t lushes (in sharp contrast to the American I watched vomit all over the Baptistery), and, after the music stops around midnight, go to bed. This, of course, signaling the tourists’ takeover of all the piazzas (see previous example).

Apart from the unplanned TD 2013 reunion at the Ponte Vecchio, I’ve been in and out of museums, up and down bell towers, and to and from churches searching for pieces by Andrea del Sarto and Lippo Lippi. I’ve been strolling through the Tuscan hillsides and gardens, lounging in Robert Browning’s study/reading on his sofa (baller!), and staying up late reading the adventures of George Smiley.

The majority of my time, however, has been devoted rather unashamedly to people watching. And I was granted that rarest of people watching pleasures: I witnessed my object (quarry? prey? too creepy?) evolve.

Down the street are some Italian grandparents who have been trying to teach their grandson to ride his bike and, just yesterday, he took off down the street without them walking alongside and pushing him. It was really cute, but also really creepy because I have photos of him in various stages of his biking career.

Talk with y'all soon!

Georgia On Your Mind...?

<---These are tomatoes we've planted in our front yard. Woohoo for sustainability. Too bad they haven't produced anything yet...

I'm not the Devil, though I did go down to Georgia. However, I'm not looking for a soul to steal.

Anyway, enough of that! Like I said, I'm down here in Georgia, just chillin' at my residence, cleaning up, getting some art done, and the like. I've spent a lot of time just hanging out in Atlanta, a little bit of time with Glorili in Savannah, and some time in other areas in Georgia and South Carolina. Two of my siblings and I went on a triple date to Monetta, South Carolina. Never heard of it? That's probably because some of Yale's residential colleges probably have more people in them. But the reason we headed there was to go see Skrek 4 and Iron Man at the drive-in movie 'theatre' there. 'Twas good, ole-timey fun. Seriously. I've been visiting family and high school friends a good bit, though I've spent most of my time at home. Now for picture time! This here is a project I was working on for a commission that I just finished a few days ago. It's a painting of various scenes of the Plains Indians (namely the Crowe).

It's on a plaster casting of a buffalo skull.

Besides the arting, I've been spending a good deal

of time with my puppy/dog, Abbie, who somehow grew to twice the size she used to be while I was away....

The last thing of note about my summer is that my dad and I have been trying to get his Checker back on the road. I've got a blurry picture of it here. The only thing keeping it from running is a busted carburetor that a friend of his is fixing up right now. I've got my fingers crossed that I'll get to drive it again before the summer's up.

Keeping it Desert

We've been in Amman for only a week and a half and have already managed to acquire gratuitous amounts of Arab money.



Here's the low down on Jordan: there's lots of Hummus, really good Falafel (forget Mamoon's), Fanta, Sand, Sweat, and Roman ruins. It's awesome. My home stay is great; the family has all these little children running around and they're wonderful.

Another photo for the sake of Griffin, who hates pictures, just so you all know he's still alive.



Waiting to hear from the rest of you!

With sunscreen, couscous, and Ashétic love,

Sumi

FIRST

Summer is coming up and it's time to leave beautiful TD - and worse yet its beautiful inhabitants. Though we will be scattered across the globe (Brazil, South Dakota, Europe, Jordan, Japan, Mordor etc..) our bonds of ashe will never be broken.

I think it would be cool to have a blog where people could post updates and photos of our summer experiences.