Back East

First leg of the journey accomplished. Flew back east, a general term that is used in the Western United States to refer to anywhere really east of the Mississippi. Back east for me means the Northeast - a combination of the greater New York metropolitan area and New England. I love this place. The people, the smells, the chaos, the beauty, the ugly. There's no place like home.

My plane landed in New York and my sister Elizabeth and her man Ramiro collected me, my cat, and my luggage. It is hot and humid here, but not unpleasantly so. Once settled and expressed, we all had a slice in Elmhurst, Queens. My sister just moved to a new place last week. The neighborhood is vibrant, full of little kids and puppies and restaurants, and safer than her previous place in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn. We waited until after rush hour then drove erratically at 100 miles an hour north on I-95 in Ramiro's supped up Jetta. I fell asleep in the backseat curled around FC, my cat, in response to stress avoidance and total travel weariness. Eventually I woke up in Connecticut and we arrived in New Haven and enthusiastically breathed in the east harbor's smell, opening the windows to inhale the mix of ocean and petroleum.

I unloaded and tucked into a bowl of homemade corn chowder, caught up with my friend Paul and his daughter Sasha, and introduced FC, the cat, to his new world. From his initial reactions, I have hope that this will work out well. I am also reminded again that I have become remiss on the important things in my friend's worlds - birthdays, funerals, weddings, life. I must do something about this.

After the house settled into sleep, I started to take stock of my gear. This is it for the next year - two bags and a backpack. Tomorrow morning, I head back into New York to the Ethiopian Consulate to submit all forms and paperwork for a visa. I hope this will be ready before my flight on Tuesday.

Ethiopia arrangements materializing last minute...

Update as of this morning is that I received an offer to be hosted at the International Watershed Management Institute (IWMI) offices in Addis Ababa. I have been in loose communication with their offices since fall 2011. This is very good news as up until now I had no affiliation with any agency or office in Ethiopia and was not sure how gaining access to officials or identifying appropriate communities was going to pan out. Aside from a very nice Peace Corps volunteer who lives some hours south of Addis and an Ethiopian Parliamentary member I met in Oregon, I have not had consistent communication with anyone in Ethiopia. My research in the Lake Ohrid watershed (in 2003 & 2004) would not have happened had I not met wonderful local staff at the World Bank and UNDP lake project offices.

I've also been put in touch with another PhD student out of McGill University in Montreal. She's been working in Addis this year and has offered to look into housing situations for me with her friends. We have a Skype date on Monday to discuss logistics and to get acquainted. We will both be working out of the IWMI offices in the fall.

Tuesdays are good days for good news.

Critique from International Rivers Network on large dams

My advisor sent on this report from the International Rivers Network. Critique of the efficacy of large infrastructure for the community at large, big dams are the focus. Note the portion on Inga dams - a project touted as a solution for pan-African energy issues. The siting on this dam is at super high potential section of the Congo River in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The dams in the plans could generate enough energy for almost the entire continent...

http://www.internationalrivers.org/files/attached-files/infrastructure_for_whom_report.pdf