The Men in Black

And now from the Monitor, a bit more detailed account of the incident with the Men In Black

It's Official: Museveni Not Going Anywhere

Wow, so they finally convinced Museveni to run for president again. Never would have guessed that announcement was coming. It is nice to see him willing to make the sacrifice for the good of the nation. I am quite sure the long-term results will be in the best interests for Uganda.

And those guys in black shirts that surrounded the courthouse as people were being granted bail? It was the Black Mamba’s Urban Hit Squad/Joint Anti-Terrorism (JAT) Unit!!!! (Both links from the New Vision in Uganda, the state-run paper)

Commentary from Uganda

Commentary from the Monitor: Arresting Besigye Can Only Delay Museveni’s Departure

CNN's Coverage of Uganda

CNN’s reporting on the current situation in Uganda here
And from earlier here

In-depth reporting and insight it is not.

So CNN is repeating the government of Uganda's line that Besigye is part of the LRA without even a minimal attempt to find out if that claim could possibly have any merit. My feeling is that anybody with even a minimal understanding of the LRA and the conflict in northern Uganda would tend to assume the claim is false.

But I guess if there is a rebel group active in the country they MUST be involved, especially if the government says so. PRA, LRA, they are both rebels (is the PRA real?) so they must therefore have links and of course it is logical that Besigye is involved with both.

Museveni: Africa's Next Tyrant?

Another article from Uganda, Museveni Warns Diplomats (from the Monitor via Allafrica.com) that is interesting and demands some comment, I think. It goes back to the over 50% of the budget being provided by outsiders.

This is from the independent newspaper in Uganda. If you compare this reporting to that on the BBC (link is from a previous post), there is something missing from this one… Why were the bail proceedings interrupted? Well, mainly because there were lots of armed thugs outside the courthouse waiting for Besigye to emerge. This brings back memories of when I was there and discussions were just starting on whether Museveni would change the constitution to stay in power. Thugs just happened to start busting into meetings with opposition leaders and beat the hell out of them. Now those thugs have been given guns by the government (and guns are supposed to be very illegal in Uganda unless you are a guard, so minivans full of youths in black shirts with assault rifles pretty much have to have the support of the government. Oh. And the guns the guards have tend not to be the highest of quality, often missing stocks and from about the 1940s).

So the apolitical political approach. I am not all that interested in going through the whole history. If you are interested, Peter Uvin has a great book called Aiding Violence: the Development Enterprise in Rwanda that goes into a lot of detail (not that I am entirely unbiased. Professor Uvin is my thesis advisor). The basic claim is that by claiming to not get involved in local politics by pulling funding when shady stuff started happening (there were quite a lot of “small-scale killings” of only 10-20,000 in the years before the genocide), the international community was complicit in creating the environment that allowed it to happen. Is that the path that is going to be followed in Uganda?

How can the international community even claim to be apolitical and uninvolved in local politics if they are dumping loads of money into a government? Doesn’t that imply tacit agreement with what is being done?

Then there is the question about what the results would be if funding were withdrawn. Museveni would be gone very quickly, and I would think it would be followed by yet another bloody succession fight in Uganda.

But isn’t that where Museveni is leading the country anyway? By demonstrating that the only way he is leaving power is if he is forced, Uganda will yet again avoid the potential for a peaceful transfer of power. Even if fighting is avoided in the short term, it will be the end result.

It is sad. Museveni has done a lot of good things for Uganda (assuming you are not Acholi) and had the potential to become a great African statesman, something that is seriously lacking and needed. Instead, it would seem that he would prefer to be the next Mugabe (president of Zimbabwe, who at one time was quite respected internationally, and is now not so much).

Note from Kampala

Another email from Dawn about the situation there:


Holy crap, who the hell knows!  This place is falling apart.  I hadn’t heard about this yet, but I’m sure we will see the story in the paper tomorrow.  Where did you see it? 
 
Did you tell Ian about Kampala yesterday?  Ian, I have never seen Kampala like this before.  A Tuesday evening at 5pm and it was a ghost town!  It was really eerie.  I went walking down towards Kampala road looking for an MTN store and to just check out the city.  There was no one and nothing open.  I swear in my walk from Speke down past Standard Charter to Kla road, towards Nando’s and back up to Speke I saw maybe 5 taxi’s total and 15 people.  It was freaky, and then I saw trucks and trucks of military and that is when I decided to go back to the hotel. 
 
Today is better, it is calmer downtown.  I guess there are still a lot of people around the courthouse and police station, but people have mellowed since the large numbers of military has shown up.  And we all know how disciplined the military here is.  It is still tense.  Lots of people bent over papers, whispering and discussing. 
 
Besigye is in jail now.  Refusing to eat for fear of being poisoned, so he’ll just die of starvation instead.  Then people will really be pissed.   Museveni has threatened the other leaders of FDC.  People are convinced this can only get worse.  I was talking to a few people about it today and they all believe there will be another coup soon. 
 
I had dinner with Richard and Dora this evening.  That was so nice!  It was great to see them.  I got all the new gossip on the new PC (ed: Peace Corps) groups.  I guess the 2 new groups, especially the latest ones, like to ET (ed: early termination, i.e. quitting and going home).  I think Richard said a 30% ET rate.  What the hell?  But he did confirm that no other group has ever been like ours!  We of course were the best! 
 
Well…I will keep you updated on the happenings!
 
Dawn

Another Article on Uganda

Armed Men disrupt Ugandan Court from the BBC

Yikes... is this really where this is going to go? A question: What will the international aid community's response to the current situation be? We provide over 50% of Uganda's budget. Are we going to revisit the very political "apolitical" approach that was so very succesful in making sure the genocide in Rwanda did not happen?

The Banana Republic of Uganda

I just got the following email from a good friend that was sent to Uganda on very short notice, so has been there for the recent excitement. I will include some links on the recent events from the news after the email.


Greetings from Uganda!
 
I’ve only been here a couple days, but I thought I should update you all on what’s going on here.  I don’t know if any of you have seen Uganda in the news these past couple of days, but the tensions are high here.  I think you all know that Museveni changed the constitution so that he could run for a third term (elections in March), this has pissed a few people off.  Besigye, who was Museveni’s friend  and doctor at one point in time, then was his opposition in the 2001 election (came in 2nd) returned from exile last month to run against Museveni again, stating “It was time to return and take on the dictatorship”.  Yesterday as he was returning from a rally in Mbarara he was arrested and brought to Kampala under charges of treason and rape.  This did not turn out good for Kampala.  Riots broke out in the center of the city surrounding the Police Station and the State House.  I am staying at the Speke Hotel, somehow in the middle of all this, and managed to sleep through all the shooting, car burning, looting, tear gassing, etc.  Jet lag is a killer!  I awoke this morning to the debris in the streets and the pictures and stories on the papers. 
 
So today is another day and more riots are occurring in the city center.  The Peace Corps office is closed for security reasons.  I am stuck in an office in Nakasero and when the driver takes me back to the hotel I have to stay inside.  So much for going shopping and exploring, good thing I’ve already experienced Kampala! 
 
On the bright side, Museveni is trying to make some people happy and cover up his wrong doings by announcing today that he is going to make Secondary School free.  Yay!  Although when you read into the story...the program will start with students entering S1 and the Govt will only cover 15,621 UGX per student per term (what secondary school costs only $8???).  Oh well, it’s a start I guess.  
 
So anyways, it is great to be back, aside from the rioting and politics.  It feels so normal yet I keep noticing small details of things that I had forgotten over the past year and half.  I have easily remembered though how much I suck at Luganda, oh well, it’s appreciated even if I can just greet, right?! 
 
Nsubira muli bulungi!  Ogamba ki?
Dawna

Here are the promised links to articles on what Dawn was talking about:
Besigye Riots Continue from The Monitor via AllAfrica.com
Museveni Assures He Can Contain Riots from The Monitor via AllAfrica.com
Museveni Backtracks on Succession from the BBC
Police Kill Rioter from the BBC

Owner of Red chili Guesthouse Killed

A sad day from the conflict in Northern Uganda with the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). I just received news that the owner of the guesthouse I always stayed at in Kampala, Steve Willis, was killed in an ambush in Murchison Falls National Park as he was rescuing some stranded rafters. He leaves behind a young wife and 2 ½ year old son.

Hopefully some day soon the conflict in the North will be over, though as it has been going on since 1986 or so, I am not holding my breath. There have been over 20,000 children kidnapped by the LRA over the course of the conflict, with about 10,000 of those in the last 4 years. There are approximately 1.1 million people who have been displaced internally within Uganda by the fighting, leading to the complete devastation of their livelihoods. Of late the LRA seems to be targeting more expatriates, so it is possible that it will start to gain some international attention and a resolution can be found.

On final thought on the conflict... Something has changed it seems to me. The LRA does not have a history of attacking foreigners, but in the last month there have been 3 aid workers killed in addition to Steve (and at least 4 more injured). The only thing that I can think of is the International Criminal Court (ICC) handed down indictments against the leaders of the LRA last month. Did that action convince the LRA that now was the time to start targeting foreigners and escalate the conflict? It seems plausible.

Here are some links of recent articles involving the LRA and Uganda:
EU calls for Protection of Civilians
Northern Uganda is a Disaster Area
Information on Conflict from Wikipedia

Puppy Pictures

And changing the topic completely from the previous two posts, here are some pictures of a really cute puppy (Reuben). Enjoy. He is a total sweetheart and about 3 months old.

Some Pictures from San Salvador

Hi there everbody

An update on Hurricane Stan and its aftermath. I received some pictures from San Salvador via an NGO that Molly used to work for.

Hurricane Stan and the Media

OK, so I have a little axe to grind about news networks. And no, this is not going to have anything to do with complaining about their coverage of politics, believe it or not. It has to do with hurricanes. Specifically, with hurricane Stan, which recently paid a visit to Mexico.

I was watching CNN on 3 October at about 1pm, when the weather came on and the weatherwoman started talking about what was then tropical storm Stan. She stated that everybody should be happy because the storm is going to continue heading west and would not threaten the US, at which point she pointed straight at two Mexican coastal towns, and commented about how lucky this is. (She did not state that she was happy that it was going to hit Mexico, but there were clear implications of “better them than us”).

So I woke up this morning and Molly sent me an article from the Financial Times, which was discussing the results of hurricane Stan in the region. I had read this article from MSNBC in the morning, which buries any mention of the hurricane until the very end. While it is nice that MSNBC even has a report on the storm, it is reported as just that. There is a mention of the fact that this was a hurricane (buried at the very end) that came through some days ago, but it is up to the reader to figure out that this storm is in fact the hurricane, which has killed all these people and was the cause of the damage they are now facing.

So what to make of this? I am not sure, but I was appalled at the statement on CNN. And I am not sure what to make of the MSNBC bit (is the fact that the Financial Times is British important?)

Anyway, just some food for thought.

Good Night and Good Luck

So I am sitting here brainstorming ideas on what to write a paper on for Managing NGOs (non-governmental organizations), and I thought that maybe posting this would help. I doubt it, but one never knows.

So what is new with me here? Well, Molly and I have now officially been together for over one year. We had a nice dinner at an Afghani restaurant in Boston. The food was really good, though there were some issues, which ended in our (ok, my) favor. We ordered our food, which was pretty random since neither of us is familiar with the food. So we wait and eventually it comes. I looked at my food and thought “hmm, this is not what I was expecting.” And Molly looked at my food and exclaimed “that looks like what I was hoping for.” Neither of us having any real idea of what we ordered, we just started to eat, trading plates half-way through the meal. It was very nice and I was very happy. Then suddenly the waiter swoops down, takes my plate literally 2 seconds after I finish and puts another in front of me, explaining that he had brought the wrong food. So I ended up getting another very nice meal out of the dinner.

Last week we also went to an early showing of “Good Night and Good Luck”. The movie is about Edward Murrow and his battles with McCarthy back in the early 1950s. It was absolutely phenomenal. I highly recommend everybody to see it. It comes out on October 7th, I believe. The Fletcher School is the archive for 95% of the documents of Edward Murrow’s life and work, and thus the fact that the movie was shown at the school. The night also included a panel with Casey Murrow, Edward Murrow’s son, and the actor who played Edward Murrow, David Strathairn.

So what else… Not too much. The weather is finally feeling like autumn, and some of the trees have begun to change, which is nice.

And So It Begins

Hi there everybody

Well, school is now getting back into gear. Classes are getting to the point where they actually occasionally want us to hand stuff in and all that. But such is life.

So not much has been going on here other than classes. I met with a couple professors last week and convinced one to accept me as a thesis advisee (the other also agreed, but said that he did not feel qualified to advise the topic since he has not background in peace theory, only development economics). I do not have a definite question yet, though there is a larger issue that has been settled on, which is the "Role of Agriculture (or insert more specific/ another word relating to stuff in rural area) in Post-Conflict Peacebuilding". Dr Uvin's first response when I proposed it was "that is an absolutely fabulous PhD dissertation. Unfortunately you are writing a MALD" The reason this is the case being that there is no literature addressing this topic and it seems to be an up-and-coming field of study. There is currently a project being run out of UN University on this topic, which is going to lead to a book being published entitled "Agriculture for Peace". But it is not much use to me.

So I need to narrow the question and make it a little more manageable for a MALD (Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy) thesis.

On a much more fun note, I had dinner with Molly's aunt and uncle last night. They have a new 11 week old puppy named Reuben (I think he is named after the sandwich, but Molly disagrees, and we failed to ask last night), part black lab and part "other". Unfortunately I left my camera at Molly's about a month ago, so there are no pictures at the moment. But he is very very cute.

So that just about wraps it up. I officially received my first auto-generated comment the other day on the previous post. So if you look at it, don't click on the link. It is blog spam.

So cheers all and I will be in touch.

Back to School

Well, it has again been a little while... So what is new at this point in my life? Well, as the title of this post would seem to imply, I am back in beautiful Medford, MA and starting another year of school. But I will go back to what all has happened since I returned from Singapore.

I came home and headed down to Oakland to see my parents and grandma, which was nice. I guess the biggest news from that end is that each day is now a "CSI" marathon as opposed to the more traditional "Law and Order" marathon that I remember.

I then met Molly up in Portland to begin the drive East. The first stop was Moscow, Idaho to see Chris, which was as much fun as it always is. We then stopped to camp in Glacier National Park. The first half of the drive through the park was beautiful, heading for our campsite on the East side. As we were winding our way up to the continental divide, Molly pointed out all the clouds pouring through the pass. Well, when we got up there the temperature dropped by about 30 degrees and we could see maybe 10 feet, the clouds were so thick. It was also drizzling up there. But we made it down to the campsite, if slowly, and set up the tent. It then drizzled all night and was about 40 degrees in the morning. It snowed about 300 feet above us. Needless to say, we did not see any glaciers. But I did become friends with the hand blower in the bathroom while I tried to get feeling back in my fingers from putting away the wet tent at 6:30am in the cold.

It was then into the great wild that is Canada. The weather at first was not too good. It rained all morning and the wind was blowing so hard that the rain was trailing at a 45 degree angle up the windshield, even though we were doing 65-70mph. It the became beautiful for the rest of the way across Saskatchewan and Manitoba, which are about as exciting as Nebraska and Iowa, and 100 times more desolate.

We eventually made it to the north shore of Lake Superior, where we had plans to camp and hike and stuff. It rained and was foggy the entire time we were there. So from the 10 meters or so I could see off the highway, it looked really beautiful. But anyway, we did not camp and we did not hike and we were very disappointed. But we did make it to Montreal a day early to see one of Molly's friends.

The city was very nice, and some more time there would be appreciated some day. We were only there 2 nights, so we didn't see all that much, though we did take a nice walking tour. One comment about it though... I have rarely been in a city where street signs and directions on the highway are more worthless than they are there. And it was not the French thing at all, since it is pretty easy to figure out what the signs say (and Molly speaks French). It is just that the signs are not very useful, and often downright detrimental to trying to navigate the city.

Anyway, it was then back to civilization for one more day in the car and our heralded arrival in Medford. There were trumpets blaring and people lining the streets to welcome us back from our adventure into the wilds that is Canada. It was very touching.

So then I moved into my new apartment. It was of course a couple days of hauling boxes, which was fun. But I eventually got my stuff into the apartment (ok, it was about 2 trips in a Toyota Corolla, so maybe the moving process was not all the epic). And when I arrived I was pleasantly surprised to find a bunch of abandoned furniture in my room (no big surprise there since this is very much a college area). There were no personal belongings in my room.

So I moved in and was almost completely unpacked when I got an email saying something along the lines of "Hey ******* (previous tenants name), get your stuff out of the room. I think Ian thinks it is abandoned." So to make a long process into a sentence, I had to repack almost all my stuff and the guy came to collect all the furniture. I was pissed. Especially since classes started in 3 days and I wanted to be able to relax a bit, and now I was back to square one.

So the guy came to get the stuff, and I used all my new-found diplomacy skills to basically tell him "you're an ass" and "this is totally unacceptable." The end result being that he paid me for 3 days' rent, which still did not change the fact that it was terribly inconvenient for me.

So now classes have begun. It is strange to think that there are only 2 more semesters and one thesis left. I am excited about my classes, which include lots and lots of economics. I am taking classes on "Agriculture and Rural Development," "Managing Economic Reform in Low-Income Countries," "NGO Management," and "Law and Development." It should be fun and I will be seeing professors soon on getting a thesis topic approved.

Cheers all.

Send my Teacher to School Project

Hi there everybody. I am going to try and run a bit of a fundraiser for a very good friend of mine. My Runyankore teacher, Richard, is trying to raise funds to get his master's degree. I agreed to see if I can get people to contribute $10 or maybe $20 to this endeavour. He was absolutely essential in helping me during my time in Peace Corps, first and foremost as my language instructor, which I eventually used to pass my language proficiency test at Fletcher. As well, he was a fabulous resource for me when I had questions about different things that I would experience and see that I found confusing.

Here is a little that I had Richard write about himself:

Most Ugaphilles, as Paul would call you all who have ended your Peace Corps service in Uganda probably know or remember me as 'Richard of the Runyankore Krew'. But actually, my real name is Richard Nuwagira. I am heading to school to pursue an MSC in Population and Reproductive Health (PRH) program at Makerere University in Uganda for two years. It is a new course at this prestigious University that seeks to create a cadre of well trained "value chain creators" capable of participating meaningfully in reproductive health service extension and related public health programming in the country. I could not choose a better skill and information packed course anchored in real world practicum.

He is trying to raise about USD800 in total for his fees, but every little bit helps. So if anybody can spare a little bit we will see what we can do to assist in this endeavour.

If you have any questions or would like to contribute, please drop me an email at: eitumba@yahoo.com or my other email account, which I don't really want to post online here. I can also put you in contact with Richard personally if you want to communicate with him directly.

Thanks everybody:

Ian
Co-sponsor: Paul, RPCV Uganda

Back in the States

Well, my time in Singapore is done. I came back to Oakland on Tuesday after a decidedly unpleasant flight, but it is over. I will be out here for a couple more days and then Molly and I start driving back to Boston, which I am really looking forward to. We are going to take the trans-Canadian highway, which I am told is really quite a beautiful drive.

I had a wonderful time in Singapore and I really learned a lot. I got a much different view of the region than I did when I was in the area back in 1999 and 2000. So thank you to all the people at SIIA for everything.

So not much else. I doubt there will be much posted here until I get to Boston, as I will be on the road.

Cheers

Reality of the Future?

So life here is pretty slow at the moment, and a message came through on the Fletcher Social listserv from a graduated student, along with a picture of "what he will look like in 40 years." And I thought, well, his came out ok, so why not give it a shot? If nothing else, this should help keep me safely un-married....



Me in "10 years"











Me in "20 years"











Me in "30 years"











Me in "40 years"









As you can see, I am not predicted to age well.... Hope you all are having fun. In case you want to torture yourself, the link is here.

Peace Corps and the Military

Wow, two posts in one day. I want to weigh in here on my views on the recent stuff about the military inducing people to sign up by telling the recruits that they can join the Peace Corps for the last two years of service. The fact that we are having this debate is absolutely crazy. The Peace Corps is well-respected throughout the world, and I think that it does in fact further the goals of the US government. And I think that there are certainly people in the military that would make good volunteers, but there are certain choices in life that make others not possible, and I really think that this is one of them.

While living in Uganda, I was told constantly that my entire security was based on my relationships that I built within my community, and it was most certainly true. If there was a problem and I needed to speak with the office, the first thing I needed to do was find a hill or really tall tree to climb to get a signal for my phone. Then it was a good 4-hour plus drive out to my place so long as everything went perfectly for the vehicle. This is important, since it is the situation of every volunteer. Now, we start letting active military (I am counting reserve duty as active here) serve in the Peace Corps. What will happen for people that want an excuse to harm volunteers? And when the volunteers are asked if there are any ties to the military or intelligence and they have to say "yes," what will happen? Or do we tell them to lie to their neighbors about the nature of the program? It will cast a shadow of doubt on everybody, and the end result will be volunteers being killed.

President Bush has made statements over and over through his terms in office about using the Peace Corps for this and that. We are going to send the Peace Corps to Afghanistan even though there is an active war going on because "everybody loves the Peace Corps." Or we are going to "start targeting Muslim countries with the Peace Corps to build understanding." Statements like these start to build the idea we are CIA, and making it official policy to allow people with ties to that establishment (or the military. I personally don't think any distinction will be made by people) in is insane.

I could write a lot more, but I think my basic feelings on this are pretty clear. I personally have already written my various representatives voicing my opinions on this topic. If you want to save Peace Corps, please do the same. I love the organization and do not want to see the harm come to it that this will cause.

Thanks everybody.

Here are some links on the topic:

An interview on MSNBC
From the Washington Post
There is a page on the Returned Peace Corps Volunteer website about this with links to further information

Doing the Tourist Thing

Well, so Dawn came last week and we did a whole bunch of the tourist-type things around here. But first I will address some questions/ implications that I have been getting... As for smoking the hookah, it is perfectly legal in every country of the world that I am aware of (Bhutan could be an exception to this, as I remember hearing something about them outlawing smoking in all forms, including cigarettes). So if you want, I am quite sure that you can go and find a hookah bar somewhere near you.

And then the name of the blog... If you google the word "eitumba," you will get something along the lines that it means "time of great famine," and possibly "rainy season." While both of these are accurate in their own way (rainy season is the most common use), it can also be translated as "winter," which is the use that is being implied here. My cat in Uganda was named Eitumba from the use of the term as winter.

So for Dawn's visit. I am just going to put in some pictures and then some explanations near them.
This was in Little India where we had dinner the first night she was here. The dinner was really nice and I had been telling her about the packs of Chinese tourists I had seen there last time I was in the area on tours in bicycle sidecars, and lo-and-behold, packs of them started riding past.





This is Singapore from the cable car that heads out to Sentosa Island. I had been hearing about Sentosa since I arrived as the "must go" place that has nice beaches and lots of fun stuff to do. So I was interested to finally see the place. The cable car was pretty cool, even if it only was about 3 minutes. From there, things quickly went downhill. It was really expensive (we didn't do any of the expensive stuff).

This is a fountain we found on the island. It was about 50 meters long. As far as I can tell the theme of it was "intestinal worms of the Asia region," since that is what it looked like. But as far as fountains made to look like intestinal worms, it was pretty cool. Now, a couple comments on the island... We took the cable car over, which is the expensive way (there is a bus for about $1, the cable car cost $15), but the maps they had available had none of the paths marked, only general locations of things to do (we eventually found a map with paths inclued at the bus entrance. I guess there are benefits for being cheap). There is also a very big "land luge" being built across the island, so it is blocking taking any direct paths. This was rather confusing and frustrating. But not nearly as frustrating as finding a sign that says "Merlion, this way" pointing to the left. So we follow the sign and a hundred meters later find a sign pointing for the Merlion in exactly the opposite direction, with no paths in between.

So this is the Merlion. And it is not only for some random exhibits that this problem of directions was found.... It was for everything. Eventually we found one of the busses that drives around the island and got on to go to the beach. Everybody is always talking about how beautiful the beaches are on Sentosa, but I was wary. We were not going to go swimming, but we were hungry and tired. The average temperature here hovers around 250 degrees during the day with at least 185% humidity.

And my wariness was not without foundation. Singapore is one of the world's busiest ports. And Singapore is very, very small. So I thought "I bet there are ships all over the place" and that the water is not exactly nice, especially compared with lots of other places in Southeast Asia. So my advice... if you are looking for some relaxation in the tropics on a beach, don't come to Singapore.

A day later I met this girl on the subway. I thought the shirt was pretty funny, though she had no explanation for why she wanted to kill Molly.






We also took a walk in one of the nature areas here. This has been one of the biggest surprises. There is a ton of green. I expected Singapore to be one big block of concrete, but there really are efforts being made at bringing back living things. So we heard about this "tree-top walk" where there was a suspension bridge through the trees. So we headed out. The first order of business was finding a taxi. Easy enough. We got in and told the driver where we wanted to go, and I tried to show him a map. He wanted nothing to do with it. So we are driving and driving and driving and going in circles, so I start asking him if he knows where we are going. He assures me he does as he pulls into a residential area and starts looking at his maps. Eventually he brings us to a random parking lot and tells us we are at the reservoir. We are skeptical and start talking to him about where we want to go. He eventually takes us to the entrance to the reservoir. So we get out and there is no sign of people. A bunch of buildings, but we are baffled. Dawn eventually found the security office and got photocopies of a map for us. The security officer explained that the tree-top walk is about 5km away. Ugh. So we walk. And walk. 5km in a park in the US is not so bad. Here it is awful. But we were assured that once we got to the tree-top walk we can go across it and turn back, without doing the whole loop. Well, we get to the walkway and there is a big sign that says "one way, no turning back." And the guards told us we should "report"' the woman who told us we could turn back. Anyway, after about 7km we found ourselves on the road. EXACTLY WHERE THE TAXI HAD TRIED TO DRP US OFF!!! Now one question I am really wanting to have answered about Singapore. This country is well-known for being organised and efficient. So why can't they make signs that are useful? We eventually did find some signs for the treetop walk. There were about 1 foot off the ground and in front of all the parked cars in the parking lot. But we then took the advice of a person from work and went and had some margaritas, which made it more or less all ok.

This sign seemed pretty clear, though. Don't feed corn-on-the-cob to the monkeys.


Well, so that is a brief overview of doing tourist stuff here. This whole thing is not meant to make the visit or life here seem too awful. I am just feeling a little bit sarcastic. The visit was awesome. We had a lot of fun and it was nice to see Dawn. For those who don't know Dawn, this is her. We were in Peace Corps together in Uganda and she lives about a half-mile from me in Medford, MA with Paul, also of Peace Corps and a classmate at Fletcher. So Dawn, thanks for visiting. It was a lot of fun.