Last thoughts: Belize it or not!

Today marks the end of my stay in Belize.  It was a bittersweet good bye since Belize City was Belize Shitty.  That's actually what the locals call it, no joke!  One weekend there was a shooting on the street where the shooter knocked down an 8 year old boy and shot him in the face and body 5 times!!!  Yes, I said 8 year old.  I think the scariest thing about this place is the fact that there is no clear delineation between sketchy neighborhoods and nice ones, it’s all just sketchy.  Here are some pictures of the neighborhood.

Cave Tubing- Primary Research

Altun Ha - More primary research.  It's hard work out here in Belize!

Street in Belize Shitty

Renaissance Towers where MBAs Without Borders put us up for the month

On the other hand, the project we worked on was extremely interesting.  We got to meet some really cool local artisans and also got to interview a lot of cruise passengers.  The people we worked with were extremely supportive and we actually got to use the skillz we learned in business school, which is always a bonus! 

Me presenting part of our final presentation

Final group picture!

Next stop: San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua!

Diving the Blue Hole: Un-Belize-able!

130ft under the sea! This at the inside of the Blue Hole on the southern end.  We are on our way to check out the underwater stalactites 

More of us heading towards the stalactite wall.  At this point I was feeling a little of the nitrogen narcosis from being so deep! :)

That's me in the yellow flippers, yeah that's right I'm soooo fashionable

Bull shark in the distance! Since it was so deep the visibility was poor so you literally could not see the shark until it was RIGHT THERE! And yes, that's a BULL SHARK

Yup, he got closer! Good thing the dive master clanked his tank and scared the shark away.  I was hiding behind the dive master.  Made for an awkward conversation on the boat when the DM was like "Yeah I KNOW you were using me as a shield" haha, my bad!

I love fishes 'cause they're so delicious! Juuuust kidding, I didn't eat any of them!

Half Moon Caye by the Blue Hole.  This is also a World Heritage site.  We stopped by here for lunch, it was absolutely amazing!

Me on the boat leaving Half Moon Caye.  

I got to ride shotgun in this small commercial flight from Belize City to San Pedro, or "La Isla Bonita".  It was a pretty sweet ride! Unfortunately it was on autopilot so I didn't get go drive :D

Here's a picture of the team that I'm working with in Belize City.  This is us at the Caye Caulker lobster fest along with Fran (who owned a stand at the lobster fest and made the BEST grilled lobsters).  They were totally going to enter me in the Miss Lobster Fest pageant but unfortunately we missed it by a weekend!  Apparently a little 12 year old girl won, I TOTALLY would've been able to beat her!

From left to right: Fran's helper, Ryder (team member from DC), Cameron (team member from DC), me (duh), Fran (seated because she was tired from grilling lobsters all day), Anand (team member from NY) 

Flight Back to LA

Of course it is only fitting that there would be an incident on my flight back to the states.  Halfway through the flight the flight attendants came on the loud speakers asking for a doctor on board.  Since this has happened to me on multiple flights I didn’t think too much of this.  When we landed in LA we were then asked to stay in our seats while the medics boarded the plane, again this seemed pretty procedural to me.  When it finally came time for me to leave the plane I walked past a person who was laid out across the four middle seats completely covered in blankets to which I thought to myself “dang, that person is passed the fuck out!”  As I continued walking I passed 3 seats and a blanket or two that were completely covered in what looked like ketchup.  I thought, “Wow these people were inconsiderate ruining their seats like that!”  As I went through customs the customs guy looked at my immigration form and said:

“Oh! Flight PR102, didn’t somebody die on that plane?!”

”Um, WHAT?! What happened?!?!?!”

“Yeah they were saying something about how they couldn’t stop the bleeding”

Yup, that was a dead body that I walked by and that was NOT ketchup.

Cambodia - More Amazing Than Advertised

No words can describe how amazingly beautiful Cambodia was so here's just some pictures.

Angkor Wat

In the center of Angkor Wat

Famous face temple

Ta Prohm Temple

More Ta Prohm

Even More Ta Prohm (You can guess which temple was my favorite)

Crazy Pho Vietnam

The most creative pick pocketing situation I have ever heard of happened to Chris and Kevin in Vietnam.  Our last night in the city Chris and Kevin decided to stay out later and continue to bar hop.  On their way there a man and his lady pull up in front of them on his scooter.  She jumps off the scooter and comes toward the guys and begins to aggressively proposition for sex.  She grabs their “junk” and asks to see if they’re interested.  Apparently this is where she sneaks the wallets out of the front pocket of the male victim.  Only after they fly off on their scooter did Chris and Kevin realize they’ve been pick pocketed.

Besides the pick pocketing incident Vietnam consisted of visits to the War Remnants Museum, Cu Chi Tunnels,  and the Cao Dai Temple.  It was amazing how much anti American propaganda still existed in those places (minus the temple).  For example, they showed a video at the Cu Chi tunnels  that showed a girl who’s parents were killed by Americans.  She then killed eight Americans and became “American Killer War Hero”.  Awesome. 

Mid-Southeast Asia Adventure Update!

Singapore- Good for the food baby!
Arrived safely to Asia sans checked bag thanks to Phillipine Airlines!  Luckily, I had some "emergency medication" that I absolutely needed from my bag; magically the bag then appeared at the hotel 2 days later :D Three whirl wind days in Singapore = lots of eating yummy Singaporean food!
Memorable moments:
1. Fish spas:  You sit with your feet in a tank and the fish "feed" off of the dead skin on your feet.  It was the oddest thing I have ever experienced, although I highly recommend that everyone should at least try it once, kind of tickles
2. Kevin spitting: Yup Kevin broke the law and spit right after which he realized what he had just done and nearly crapped himself.  No joke.  It was awesome.
3. Casinos do not allow people in wearing tank tops, shorts and flip-flops. Check, check and check, thanks to me we couldn't get into the casino, oopsies!  Although there is a super sweet looking casino that is three buildings and a boat that sits on the roofs and connects the buildings together, check out the pics!
4. London Eye, or is it Singapore Eye?  Giant ferris wheel that goes reaalllllly realllllyy slow but you can see the whole city on it.
5. Being yelled at by the locals for not knowing that its ok to drink on the street because they thought I was Singaporean.

Sipadan, Malaysia = SipaWOW!
Travelling to Sipadan is definitely tricky.  We caught a flight to Kuala Lumpur, then another flight to Tawau and finally an hour and half car ride to Semporna.  The next day we took a boat to Mapul; this is the island that people stay on when visiting Sipadan since people are not allowed to stay on Sipadan island.  Mapul itself was absolutely amazing, the water was so clear you can see to the bottom in the shallow parts.  Sadly the locals are polluting the water and after a rainstorm you can see the plastic bottles, bags, etc floating in the water.  I HIGHLY recommend the place we stayed at Sipadan.com, the people were extremely friendly and the dive masters were awesome!  Since the shower there was outdoors and drained directly into the ocean, I spent 3 days not showering with shampoo and soap out of principle, I smelled delicious! (Eric will be proud of my tree hugger ways!)

The diving in that part of the world was by far THE BEST I have ever seen.  Some highlights include:  TONS of turtles, white tip reef sharks, beautiful coral, cuttle fish, sting ray, a HUGE school (it looked like a wall) of jack fish that you can swim through, another HUGE school of barracuda that you shouldn't swim through, and a FLAMBOYANT CUTTLEFISH! these fish apparently are the rearest to see when diving, many of the dive masters there with hundreds of dives have never seen one.  When it got aggravated with us the FC walked along the bottom of the ocean floor and was changing colors, it was unbelievable. Photos to follow.

Travelling Part Deux

Yay! It's that time of the year again, time to hit the old dusty trail! :D  Since I am unemployed until mid-September I figured the best use of my time and money was to go travelling!  The agenda so far is as follows:

June 15-30: 3 days in Singapore, then 5 days diving in Sipadan, 3 days in Ho Chi Minh, 2 days in Siem Reap.  This should be an awesome trip minus the fact that I'm going to be travelling with the brothers (Kevin and Neal) and Kevin's friend Chris and Akari (Akari's there for only 4 days).  So basically it's going to be the guys getting drunk and me being like "aw come on guys, really? what did you eat?!"  Ah, good times had by all.

July 2-30:  Belize.  I'm doing an MBA's Without Borders project there (yes, MBAs have hearts too, not just doctors!).  I'm super excited about this project since it'll be working with 3 other people who are also going to be working for the same company in the fall.  As per usual, I'm not sure what the details of the project are but will update when I figure it out!

August 1-16:  Solo travelling in Central America!!! YAY!! Um yeah, that's the extent of that travelling, I was thinking of Nicaragua but then my brain started hurting from any more planning than that so I guess I will figure this portion out when I'm in Belize.

August 16-25:  Los Angeles! Yes it's the most exotic place ever! You can see all sorts of creatures with crazy botox :D  Actually the girls are coming into town for a fun filled week! Can't wait to see everyone!!!!! It's been too long!

August 25-early Sept: I'm still trying to figure out whether it will be Croatia or Machu Picchu

Early Sept - when my life is handed over to the man: Barcelona!  Yep, I've never been to Spain before. Yes it's embarassing, but this will soon be rectified! Also, let's hope that Greece continues to suck so I can go to Barcelona and be the rich American!

So here's a preview of what's to come.  I met an old, white guy (yes I am still specifying his race Chase, deal with it), let's just call him "Uncle Ray" who was telling me about how he was going to the Phillipines to meet his fiance.  It turns out it was actually just his pen-pal who he was hoping was going to become his fiance on this trip out.  That's when I graciously backed out of the conversation.  Lucky for me though, he ended up sitting next to me for an AMAZING 14 hour flight where I was stuck between him and another big old guy (note to self, check in online before hand to get a window or aisle seat).  First he sits down and was like "hey didn't I meet you in line? you can't imagine how much I had to bribe the ticket people to seat me next to you".  Yup, he managed to out-creep himself. So during the flight the attendant had Ray reach over to wake me up for a meal to which he replied "I know she's beautiful, but she's not my wife", imagine waking up to hearing that?! I proceeded to vomit into a paper bag. Again, Ray, you've out-creeped yourself, bravo! Just to up the ante, other fat guy on the other side of me started asking me about whether I had a boyfriend or not and how he would love to introduce me to his daugher, yes daughter.  Riiiight.  It was a happy flight for sure!

That's all for now! I'm going to try to soak myself in bleach to wash the creep off my skin.
 

Soweto is Sa-sweeto!

This past weekend I was able to fit in the last of my travels around Jo'burg.  I went on a bicycle tour around Soweto (short for South West Township), which is one of the largest townships, certainly the most famous in South Africa.  Soweto is the famous site that District 9 was shot in, although its anything far from it.  I thought it was one of the most "vibey" places I've been to in Jo'burg and I would highly recommend anybody to go visit it.  The townships were developed for the non-whites to live in.  Although Soweto has a bad reputation of being dangerous, being there it was far from it.  In fact, one of the girls I met at the hostel told me about how she ventured into Jo'burg and got mugged!  In addition to Soweto, I visited the Sterkfontein Caves in the Cradle of Human Kind (second world Heritage Site I've been to in 2 months!).  Being the dork that I am I had to visit the caves because this is where they found one of the earliest human fossils, it was also referred to in the book "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson.  Ha, yes I am a dork!  Anyway, here are some pictures from the trips and around Jo'burg.  Since today was my last day of classes, I am off to travel for the remainder of March.  Here's what I have planned so far: safari in Kruger National Park, diving in Sodwana Bay, party in Cape Town, surfing the Garden Route and then back to Jo'burg! Please feel free to give me advice!!

Dolphins in Durban

Italian with the Italians

World Cup Stadium-Jo'burg.  This is where the opening and closing ceremony will be, and yes that is massive construction outside...

Entering Soweto

The tall lamp post was used as curfew lights

Stopped for a drink at the local "shebeen" or drinking place in the township

Thirsty!

"Cow Head Meat" Yummm

Plaque at Hector Pieterson Square remembering the student uprising (protesting the teaching of Africaans in the black schools) in Soweto where 13 year old Hector Pieterson was shot dead along with many others.

Plaque outside Nelson Mandela's house that was converted into a museum in Soweto

Bunny Chow in Durban

Bunny Chow in Soweto

That Anna's so hot right now

Speaking in Clicks with the Zulus

Classes I am taking at WITS: Storytelling, Strategic Finance, and Negotiations. Yes it's a hard schedule. What makes it harder (that's what she said) is the fact that I have classes for like 3 days straight then no class for a week to recuperate! :-D Anyway, as a result of this awesome schedule, I get to take the whole month of March off to travel. Hooray!

Anyway, so far Johannesburg has been absolutely amazing! It really does remind me of living in Australia, at least with all the partying! Although it is very interesting the way the clubs work. The clubs that we have gone to have been either predominantly white (~95%) or predominantly black. Even after the end of the forced segregation it seems that the people still segregate themselves. We went to a predominantly white club recently and our friends (who were black) had a hard time getting served by the bartenders because of their skin color. Yes, race is still an issue here. One of the white guys in our storytelling class was telling us that his dream is to buy a farm eventually but he doesn’t know if he wants to do that since his farm might get taken away from him.  Guess it affects both sides somehow.

This past week we took a vacation and went to Durban, which is a beach town five hours away from Jo’burg. The town boasts to have the largest Indian population outside of India. We took a walking tour of the city and it was interesting to learn that back in the day, there was 4 basic separations: whites, coloreds (black and white mix), blacks, and Indians (no group for Asians since there wasn’t that many of us here!). At the end of Apartheid, the Indians was given rights first over the blacks and as a result a lot of the shops in Durban are owned by Indians. Some of the Indian guys in our class were saying that they didn’t get to meet people of other races until they went to high school and that was the first time they got to interact with them. How crazy is that? Our tour guide was Zulu so she taught us some Zulu words which involve some clicking, it’s the hardest language I’ve ever had to learn!

In Durban we also got to going out to the shark nets with a boat to tag the sharks that have been caught in the nets.  I guess Durban is one of the few places that have shark nets to protect the surfers and other beach swimmers (no we did not get to go surfing because the blue bottle jelly fish were being blown in and they were EVERYWHERE).  On the boat we learned that there was a recent shark attack at Cape Town where a guy was just standing in the water and the shark came up and ate the whole person, like it would a seal!  They were saying that the reason there's more shark attacks is because of all the shark cage diving that happens here.  Since those boats feed the sharks and then the humans get in, the sharks begin to associate human heartbbeats with food, hence the attacks.  I was originally planning on going shark cage diving but after learning about this I'm not sure if I want to.  It sucks then the sharks get hurt because we humans trained them to attack us!

New Friends

My New Pet Simba

Yes, the giraffe is licking my hand

House Picture! There are 9 of us here from the US, Italy, Switzerland and Nigeria, we're so international!

Johannesburg, South Africa: Initial Thoughts

So I've been in Johannesburg for 4 days now and I thought I would write about my first impressions for my one reader, my mom, oh wait she can't read English.... :-P  First of all, it's definitely not as dangerous as people say it is.  There are definitely sketchy areas but also some really nice areas.  I am living in the dorms in one of the nicer areas (Parktown) , although it does border the most sketchy area in Jo'burg (Hillbrow).  The campus is a gated campus with a guard at the front so no need to be too concerned about muggings and what not.  There are nine of us exchange students here which makes for a crazy good time every night. The first day, and I guess every night since, I've been in town we went to a dance club around here which was awesome (my liver has been very angry with me)! I would say Jo'burg clubs and the city remind me alot of California, including all your modern conveniences with the addition of some very attractive people (male and female).  I am pleased to say that even the guys in the group love going dancing :) It is very refreshing that the clubs here have such diversity of people, with a healthy mix of white, black, and other, which is another difference between here and Cali.  Although I must admit the whole "western" culture is taking some getting used to.  People have said that South Africa is "Africa Lite" which seems to be very true to me.  I do miss the simple life in Ghana and how down to earth everyone was there, even all the travelers I met.  Anyway, pictures of the apartment and people to come! 
 

Goodbye Ghana!

So I have just arrived to South Africa and thought I should put a quick post on saying goodbye to Ghana and list some of the things I have learned while there.  Throughout the project I have always wondered how much profit the beneficiaries would be making with selling the Gari that they make out of the casava and how those profits compare to selling oranges or other goods.  I was finally able to speak to the NGO's finance officer from whom I learned alot about the donation process. 

Essentially, the cost benefit analysis was never done for this project or, for the most part, typical NGO projects.  The way it works usually is the donors ask the communities about what they need then sends out a request for proposals to the various NGOs in the area to see who can implement it.  So in this case the French Embassy went to the village and found out the number one thing they would like to have is cassava processing equipment.  Then HFFG won the bid to then implement the project.  No where along this chain of events is the cost benefit analysis, or other analyses, done to ensure that this project is the most beneficial project for the community.  So in the end the machines are put in place and the ladies end up not using the machine because either some of them have to travel further to process cassava now, some of the communities don't get along with the other communities, or they don't want to work as a "team" to produce the gari to sell. 

However, the other side of the story is that even if the analysis was done and it was determined that the best thing for the village would be to sell orange juice, the project would also fail miserably.  The reason is if its not the idea of the village, even with much education of the benefits, the majority of the people would not understand and would dismiss the solution.  There was even one instance of a village that complained about walking for an hour to the river to get water.  So in working with an NGO the village put in a pump where they can get the water.  After the installation the village ended up still going to the river for water.  The reason? The water from the well tastes funny. 

Through my experience here I have definitely learned that all the business stuff you learn in school don't always apply in real life.  The ladies are not always motivated by the idea of making more money and sometimes don't understand the concept of long term planning.

The people I have met in Ghana have been extremely generous and hospitable and I will miss them tremendously!  Although, my first hot shower in a month did feel AMAZING.  On a side note, I went to meet up with Micheal in Accra on one of my last days there.  On the way there I was lost and asked for directions to the tro-tro station from some strangers on the side of the road who then offered to take me to the meeting place.  "Ok, strange men, I will jump into your mini-van, thanks for the ride!" Hahaha.  In retrospect, I could be dead. : )

Asiamah and I at the Wli Waterfalls in the Volta Region

PS.  Yes it is true what they say about guys in South Africa, that and they have faux-hawks.  I'm never leaving here :-P

 

Pictures!!

 

The Ajumako Office

 

Benchmarking Meeting

Cape Coast Castle

 

Door of No Return

Fort Overlooking Cape Coast and Friend Michael

Elmina Castle

Obamania! (Hanging inside a tro-tro)

One of these don't belong

Need a Crocodile Machete? It's been tested and strong!

 

Fufu!

Outside of the House in Ajumako

Roommate Mona

Greeting the Chief (done before meeting with the community members)

Typical Community Meeting (this one was for the Abor community)