Rough Guide to Research

The above picture is a typical image of the Northern part of Namibia - sunset over the Oshanas (sort of like small lakes that are everywhere after the rainy season) and palm trees, usually lots of livestock running around and causing traffic as well... :)

I'm posting this very late - indeed this story was written about 2 months ago, but I wanted to keep you all updated. I left Central America in December of 2008 and returned home to Namibia immediately afterwards. I spent the holiday season traveling with my parents and looking for a job. This article focuses on short-term consultancy work I did for Integrated Environmental Consultants Namibia (IECN), for 8 weeks between February and early March 2009. Soon I will post a new entry about my current job.

I have mainly focused on the evaluation of a coastal awareness campaign, by undertaking a survey in all of the coastal regions of Namibia. Basically, my coworkers and I have gone around and interviewed approximately 250 local citizens and members of affiliated institutions -- such as the provincial Councils and environmental Conservancies -- to assess the impact of the campaign since its commencement a year and a half ago. As the entire western border of Namibia is the ocean, you can imagine the incredible distances that we had to cover in order to carry out the survey. In one week we went south to the small German-style port of Lüderitz, stopping at various sites along the way for the interviews. Then last week we headed out into the unbelievably remote Kunene Region with the IECN land cruiser packed full with jerry cans, food, camping equipment, 2 spare tires, a toolbox and more.


We experienced bad roads like never before. At times sandy; at times stony; at times wet, steep and muddy (or some unbelievably messy combination thereof). It seemed like our car had seen it all when we drove straight down a dry riverbed composed solely of boulders, racing to catch up with our translator-guide who enjoyed driving his Government-owned truck as fast as he possibly could. (I’m talking 75mph on gravel roads.) And this was just the first day. That night found us camped next to the beautiful Hoanib riverbed. We were up late because we had decided to blend in with local culture and slaughter a goat for dinner. By dinner I mean that we ate the meat for the next 3 days straight. We were unable to buy purified water anywhere, but beer was available everywhere so we drank that for 3 days straight too.

The food and drink put us in high spirits even after we discovered that our car battery had died when we left the lights on in the dark and we had no jumper cables. The next morning we found ourselves stranded in practically every way you can think of. Our translator-guide had woken up early in the morning, drove across the riverbed and gone to the nearest small settlement called Purros to find jumper cables. When he did not return we suspected the worst – if not dead or maimed then drunk and gone forever. But soon we realized that the dry river to Purros had flooded overnight so he couldn’t have returned even if he wanted. It is the flash-flood season in Namibia -- a country with no permanent rivers within its borders -- so in the rainy season dry riverbeds in the desert can suddenly fill with water from rainfall miles away.


Certainly, the Hoanib was no calm stream that morning! It had become a raging torrent about 100 feet across with rapids, rocks, unreliable sandbars – altogether impassable by any sort of vehicle. So that was how we found ourselves trapped on the wrong side of the river from where we had to go next: Our car battery was dead, the car petrol (gas) was low; there was no cell-phone service and we had no food as our goat-meat and pots were in the back of the truck that our guide drove, and he had gone awol.

Somehow, we made it out of there. With the help of some tourists also stranded at the campsite, we jump-started our car. A nice British lady fed us breakfast and directed us to a nearby lodge where we could buy petrol. And then there was nothing to do but wait for the water level to drop. Around 3pm we heard honking across the river and looked up to see our guide on the other side. He gestured wildly and somehow managed to communicate to us that we should go to another spot further downriver. We felt we had no choice but to attempt the crossing before any new afternoon rains could catch up with us. We put the Land Cruiser into 4-wheel drive and ventured forward. Churning that car through thigh-deep water was certainly a sight to behold: The roar of the engine clashed with the sound of rushing water, as she swayed perilously from side to side. Somehow she finally made it across and we were able to continue on our way towards the coast. We crossed several smaller rivers along the way as well, but by this point we were experienced - I climbed onto the Land Rover's roof-rack and took some pictures.


I’m pleased to report that we ultimately survived the trip. We journeyed along the coast through the famous Skeleton Coast Park (famous for shipwrecks and uninhabitability) and conducted interviews at Torra Bay - a small fishing town. We passed through gravel plains and never-ending ranges of dunes before we finally reached the ocean. We then continued south to do interviews for a few days in Swakopmund. The final report took a week and a half to write but we did it.

Look out for more desert research adventures upcoming!

Visa Run: Belize to Mexico

In Central America, things often do not turn out as planned. This was certainly the case on my recent trip to Belize…

I had initially planned an outing of a few days in order to renew my Salvadoran tourist visa. I chose the country of Belize because I was pretty sure I wouldn´t get a chance to travel there in the future, and also because I had never been to the Caribbean before. I was happily envisioning taking off an extra day for warm tropical waters and sunny beaches, but I didn’t count on the weather. It had been raining for a few days when I set out from San Salvador, but I didn’t quite realize the magnitude of the rainstorms from so far south. By the time I made it to the Guatemala-Belize border, a river, the water level had risen incredibly. Apparently, the bridge had cracked under pressure and they weren’t allowing any vehicles through. Everyone on my bus was told to get off, walk across the bridge, go through immigration and then wait (2 hours!) for another bus to pick us up.


On the road to Belize City we saw more flood evidence – our bus crossed dangerously through some rather large streams, and we passed by some buildings that were rapidly being consumed by water. But the clouds seemed to be clearing up slightly, and I arrived in the city to welcome sunshine. I walked around for a little while and realized that I had left behind the Central America I was used to. The most obvious change is the use of English, but it was still a foreign-sounding English to me, a mixture of Creole and Jamaican-style pronunciation that I found hard to understand at first. Unlike El Salvador, Belize has both a large black population and a large indigenous Mayan population, which makes for a diverse cultural mix. Belize City itself is not that impressive. The coastal city is pretty small in size with run-down buildings, unpaved streets and a reputation of being dangerous at night. I decided not to wait for that time period and took the touristy option – I caught a boat to nearby island Caye Caulker.

Home to the second largest barrier reef in the world, it is easy to see why so many tourists visit the Cayes - a string of islands east of the Belizean coast – to go snorkelling, diving, kite-boarding and numerous other ocean-related activities. When the night rains let up in the morning, I was greeted with a tropical island paradise: crystal-clear turquoise waters, white sand and palm trees. The view was right out of a travel magazine. [Trivia: Nearby Ambergis Caye is the subject of the Madonna song “La Isla Bonita”.]


I booked an all-day snorkelling trip and found myself on a sailboat with a few other tourists, heading out to the reef. We made several stops to snorkel in the Hol Chan Channel, the Shark-Ray Alley and the Coral Garden. The water was so warm that we didn’t even notice when it started pouring rain again until we were shivering back on the boat. Our dread-locked guides were knowledgeable and lots of fun. They threw bait into the water to attract Nurse Sharks right up to the boat, they fed us ceviche and rum punch, and they pointed out different fish species as we followed them through the corals. I saw yellow Sergeant Major fish, Groupers, Spotted Eagle Rays, Moray Eels and Sea Turtles, among others. By far my favourite and luckiest sight though, was a view of a fascinating marine creature: a Manatee. Long thought to have given rise to the myth of mermaids, these gentle animals are now on the verge of extinction worldwide. Belize is home to a relatively large population of manatees, now protected in designated wildlife reserves. I want to try to describe what I saw but I don’t have anything to compare it to. The most noticeable thing was the tail – thick and fish-like, yet the creature was distinctly mammalian. [Trivia: Manatees’ closest relatives are elephants and hyraxes – yes, the little guys that live in our backyard in Namibia!] Manatees graze on sea grass, a fact that probably gave rise to their nickname “Sea Cow”. At night they sleep underwater, unconsciously rising to the surface once every thirty minutes to breathe. In order to learn to survive, young manatees must live with their mothers until the age of 5, one of the reasons why they are so vulnerable as a species. Also, their only natural defence mechanism is to swim away, which is exactly what the manatee did next. One of the guides later told me that the trick to swimming with manatees is to never swim directly towards them. Instead, you have to turn your back and pretend to do something else. The manatees get curious and approach for a look!


The next day, I returned to Belize City and more water. As happens normally on the Carribbean coast once every hurricane season, the whole region flooded on account of the seemingly endless tropical storms. I was told that the Guatemalan border was completely closed due to high water levels, blocking my return route to El Salvador. I was left with no choice but to head north, travel by bus overland through Mexico, circling around all of northern Guatemala, in order to reach a dryer border post. All the way to the Mexican border I witnessed the destructive force of flowing water. It was scary. My bus passed by houses flooded up to the second floor, people swimming in their driveways looking for belongings, and on both sides of the road, a seemingly endless stretch of giant puddle. I was so distracted, it didn’t occur to me to take many pictures.


Finally I crossed the border and arrived in Chetumal, Mexico. Now I knew I had really left Central America. I saw strip malls, clean and well-paved roads, and fancy cars. All the tourism to the beaches of Cancún and other parts of the Yucatan Peninsula has brought much infrastructure, luxury resorts and Western shopping habits to the area.
In all the watery excitement I hadn’t had a chance to plan the next step of my travels. Luckily, my handy Lonely Planet Guidebook directed me to take an overnight bus to Palenque: time to take advantage of my new travel route and see some sites along the way.


I had heard a lot about the beauty of the Palenque Mayan Ruins, but I don't think I was prepared for the element of surrounding beauty. The main plaza is a large open clearing from where the trail leads up a hill to an overlooking temple, down a bend past cheerful waterfalls and winds through multiple smaller ruins rising up out of the jungle. I loved the main palace – a maze of corridors, courtyards, arches and creepy steps that vanished into the darkness of underground chambers. This building and a few others were completely open for visitors to scramble around and explore all of the nooks and crannies. I loved wandering through the trees with the sound of rushing water nearby and imagining what the buildings used to look like. The architecture is almost completely intact on many of the larger buildings though many of the carvings and sculptures seemed to be fading.


At the nearby museum, I found out about the biggest finding at Palenque: an emperor's tomb that was buried at the centre of a temple built specifically to house it. The tomb was really big, it filled up most of a large room and was decorated with inscriptions along all of its faces. A short movie described how archaeologists excavated the tomb – it took 24 hours to lift it from deep inside the temple using a winch. Inside the tomb was the body along with incredible treasures – face-masks of jade, jewelry, and small sculptures. Buried treasure!


My last stop before re-entering Guatemala also took longer than planned. I arrived in San Cristobal de las Casas in the evening. The city is up in the mountains and I found myself shivering in my raincoat, which was the warmest thing I had brought in anticipation of Belize weather. The city has wide streets and colonial architecture that are beautifully lit at night. I found a very cheap hostel nearby the main square. The area was quite touristy but that didn't seem to distract from how nice the city is. I found trendy restaurants, internet cafes everywhere, tourist agencies offering multiple adventure options, bars playing live music every night and incredibly sculpted churches. San Cristobal is also known for the famous Zapatista Revolt, where a leftist pro-indigenous (mayan) rights revolutionary force took over the city in protest of Mexico signing the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994. The only evidence of this past that I saw however were people selling Zapatista t-shirts, postcards and dolls, and lots of political graffiti.


It was also during my first night that I realized that I was supposed to pay my “foreigner-fee” not at the border when I left Mexico, but at a bank. Conveniently, the banks opened later than when the bus I needed left for Guatemala. Given an extra day in an exciting place like San Cristobal, I wandered around quite a bit. I went to a fascinating museum about traditional Mayan medicine that focused on the mix of Christianity, herbal remedies and Mayan spirituality that are central to Mayan traditional healing as practiced in San Cristobal. In the late afternoon I walked up to one of the many colorful churches, this one on a hill overlooking the city to watch the sun set over the mountains.


All in all it turned out to be a great trip, even (maybe especially) with all of the delays and travel crazyness. I certainly spent a lot of time on buses hoping that it would stop raining. It took me a full day to get back to Antigua, Guatemala, and another to get back to El Salvador, which meant that I ultimately missed a whole week of work. It sounds like a lot of time, but then again, it's not that long in Salvadoran time. Also, I recommend organic Mexican coffee as a gift for coworkers and housemates.

Work Update (PART 2)

As often happens when I´m at the office, I arrive, I get focused, I start computer work… and then I get distracted.  My coworkers stop by my desk to talk, visitors are always walking in and out, or I visit my counterpart´s office and we end up having long crazy conversations.  This might sound highly unproductive to the average Westerner, and it certainly felt that way to me at first.  But once I settled into the laid-back rhythm, I realized that I very much enjoy the extra interactive personal time that is an essential part of Salvadoran work culture. Don´t get me wrong, I definitely get my work done, but at my office, there is always time for another coffee break.

The second big project with which I am involved focuses on many aspects of sustainable agriculture. I and my coworkers give technical trainings on organic alternatives to the purchase and use of chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, as well as discussions about community organization. We meet with community leaders, who then pass on the trainings to members of their communities. The over-arching goal is to achieve food security in the area.

 At the moment we are teaching about different ways to fertilize soil organically.  One technique, that we put to use at our demonstrative corn fields, is the addition of gallinaza, chicken droppings, to the soil. I have also been researching and writing a manual about composting techniques, and will be giving a training on that topic in the future.  Hopefully we will be able to construct some compost piles soon.  We have also been giving trainings about Legumes. 

Legumes are the family of pod-producing plants that include beans, peanuts, and lentils. In the world of organic agriculture, they are known for their ability to add Nitrogen to their soil environment, an essential nutrient for all plants.  At the moment we are trying to integrate the use of Jack-bean or "Canavalia" into local agricultural methods.  Though we had read that Canavalia is able to fix about 65 lbs of Nitrogen into an acre of cornfield, we still had no idea how many plants we would need for that acre, nor did we know how long this process would take.  

One day, after discussing this lack of knowledge with my counterpart at work, I found myself attending to the tiny garden at the back of our office.  Some coworkers had tried to grow corn there, but only a few scraggly plants persisted in the poor soil, along with a scraggly lemon tree.  As an experiment, we planted 10 Canavalia seeds around the lemon tree.  We intend to observe any changes in lemon quality and overall tree health as a way to measure the effects and timing of the use of Canavalia.  And after the planting, we collected lemons together, took them to the office kitchen, and made lemonade.  

 This story really demonstrates my office atmosphere – we can take the time to plan and execute a little science experiment and afterwards take a pre-lunch break to make lemonade.   It also reminds me of so many things that I´ve enjoyed about working in the agricultural field:

1. the hands-on work is just as important as the computer work, and way more fun
2. farmer innovation is amazing
3. agriculture facilitates crucial cross-cultural bonding, especially when
4. there is always food involved