In transit

April 21, 2008 • Blog

World » South Africa » Johannesburg » O.R. Tambo international airport

Arriving in Jo’burg, waiting for my luggage to slide down the belt, a small, rather cute dog was being walked around by a minder, sniffing the bags. Sniffing mine, the dog stopped, sat down, at looked at its ‘owner’. Did I have any fruits or cheese? One apple indeed and, in my checked in luggage, two nice little cheeses, but I didn’t tell anyone that of course.
I was allowed to eat the apple on the spot. Then, when my luggage arrived, I made sure I skirted the dog, which was now sitting nearby, next to another traveler’s backpack.

Cairo airport is nothing like how I remember it to be from my last visit. Then again, I don’t remember it at all.

I bought the ticket for my last leg online, with Kulula, one of the three low budget airlines operating in and around South Africa. Kulula has its own airplanes, all pretty in fluorescent green. Not so for the flight to Harare, which is operated by British Airways, but flown using a plane from the American carrier Comair. Indeed, a bit confusing.

In Harare, the airport, still looking very fine, was very quiet and empty. Last time I passed through, I had to queue up extensively, joining the many foreigners in getting a visa. Now, the bulk of the passengers queued up in front of the counter for residents.

Harare, at first, seems to have changed very little, except for the quiet streets. Not empty, just Sunday-like. Not like you’d expect a Monday afternoon to look like. Public transport, the many white vans, combis, operating as shared taxis, seemed to have all but disappeared.
But petrol is still available, if you have the right connections to get the coupons required.

Work starts tomorrow but today, it was time to relax with Rouzeh.

Spead freak

April 20, 2008 • Blog

World » Zimbabwe » Harare » Small World Backpackers Lodge

The past week, visiting Holland, I’ve been running around more than the squirrel Hammy from Over the Hedge on a good day. Both work, HDN as well as my own, and then meeting old friends because, when you visit your home country once or twice a year, there really can be a lot to talk about.

Last year, a childhood friend tracked me down with whom I’m now in quite regular contact. Just a few weeks ago, a second childhood friend tracked me down. Obviously, these mega popular social networks are at least good for something.
In both cases, we’d hung out a lot, as kids, but lost track some 20 years ago. Twenty years! Obviously meaning that I’m really an old man, now.

What’s possibly more surprising, in both cases, is the ease with which communication and, I suppose, mutual understanding, was picked up again. Apparently, our early years have a strong effect on defining who we are as human beings. We might give shape to our values and our way of life during our teenage and early twenty-something years, but it seems the underlying emotional landscape acts on a more basic level and allows for stronger and more understanding connections.

Crab walk!

Taking a crab walk back to Bangkok, I’m flying through Johannesburg, threefour times, before heading back out east. First to get to Harare, then to get to Lusaka, then to get back to Harare and then back to Bangkok. I’m supposed to be giving trainings for HDN in all three locations, but will also spend some time on my own projects. Specifically, in Johannesburg, I’ll do some work on SACSIS.org.za, a social news portal, which is set to be launched on May 5th, Karl Marx’ birthday. And in Harare, I’ll do work for SAfAIDS.
And, of course, I’ll be visiting Rouzeh in Harare.

In Harare, I’m set to stay at the the Small World lodge. Indeed, the same lodge/hostel where we stayed in 2004. A night’s stay currently comes in at a respectable 2.000.000.000. Yes, that’s two billion Zimdollars.
Well, that was the price a week ago.

Meanwhile, in Zimbabe, they started to recount the presidential votecount yesterday. Mugabe seems to hope that, as the election process drags out, it will be given less and less coverage in the international press and he’ll be able to get away with whatever it is he’s planning for.
Which could be quite something, as a Chinese ship with arms, destined for Zimbabwe, ended up being stuck in Durban, South Africa, yesterday, after local dockworkers refused to offload the ship’s cargo.
So far, Zimbabwe has remained surprisingly calm. Let’s hope things stay that way.

In the ghetto

April 16, 2008 • Blog

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World » Netherlands » Delft » Bot-Boender residence

The past few years, I’ve been in cellphone hell. After my decent PDA got stolen in South Africa, I haven’t had a decent cellphone.
Last year, when Ismail and I won the Highway Africa new media award, I was happy for a few seconds, unpacking our prize, a Blackberry phone, until I realized the thing was nothing but a fancy looking piece of crap.

Later I got a basic Sagem cellphone which did the job but was starting to feel tired after only a few months of use. But still, I needed the two phones because, in Thailand (as in South Africa), I have to deal with both a local and a Dutch number.

Although I’ve been eying one of those GPS enabled cellphones for a while, you know, so that I can shoot automatically geotagged photos, which I can then immediately upload and display on, say, a Flickr or Google map, my dual-cellphone struggle (and the price of the Nokia N95 8GB) won out in the end.
Last Monday, I got myself a Samsung D-880, special because it carries two sim cards. That’s two cellphone numbers, for the less initiated. Very handy. Really.

One of the blogs I keep track of is Afrigadget, ghetto hardware hacking, if you will. In Africa. All very nice and interesting. And today, they carried a story on a hacked dual sim cards which, supposedly, allow regular phones to use two different carriers. It sounds awfully cool, but I’m extremely skeptic.

65

April 13, 2008 • Blog

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World » Netherlands » Noordwijkerhout » Beach

Nico, my stepdad, turned 65 two days ago and we celebrated his birthday at a restaurant just on the edge of the Dutch dunes near Noordwijk. Over 20 extended family members were there, including my mum’s siblings whom I haven’t seen for years.
For dinner, I had a pancake called ‘Boer wat vind je van mijn koeien’ (Farmer, what do you think about my cows), a play on an old Dutch nursery rhyme.

During the day, we went for a walk to the beach. Holland’s wide beaches, the sea, the clear blue sky and the raging sun made for a very pretty picture.

Indeed. This means I’m in Holland. But only for a few days…

Elephant polo

April 09, 2008 • Blog

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World » Thailand » Chiang Rai province » Anantara lodge

We had a lovely visitor in Chiang Mai these past two weeks. Rouzeh, Zimbabwean but of Persian blood, working for an important partner of HDN in Zimbabwe, SAfAIDS, stopped by on holiday. I showed her around town, but not just that, as her stay included visits to Doi Inthanon, the highest peak in Thailand, not too far from Chiang Mai, and a visit to a game of elephant polo in Chiang Rai province, right on the Mekong river, bordering both Laos and Myanmar.

Going in search of these playful elephants, taking a bus up to Chiang Rai, we passed a police check point. Neither of us had a proper ID with us. I smiled and showed the copper my Thai bank card. Rouzeh smiled even more and showed the man a torn Zimbabwean A4 piece of paper which had a vague resemblance of being something identity related.
The copper smiled back and walked away and we sighed a sigh of relief.

Elehpant polo was on the grounds of a pricey resort. Walking into the compound, we could hear the commenter in the distance, emanating the excitement of a horse racing presenter. Coming closer, actually seeing the polo in action, the elephants simply seemed to stroll from one end of the field to the other, without any sense of urgency.

Rouzeh and I know each other through Facebook, well sort of. A few of my colleagues at HDN are actually ex-colleagues of her, so we had mutual friends. And then it’s quite something when you find there’s another Iranian working in the same sector/branch, and only a few clicks away.
We got on pretty well, online, and then, when her planned trip through Thailand and Japan got rerouted due to not getting a visa for Japan, just visiting Thailand seemed a sensible choice. And since there’s a lot to see and do around Chiang Mai, it’s easy to not get bored.

Photos will follow.

Not the seven year itch

April 07, 2008 • Blog

World » Thailand » Chiang Mai » Baan Chinnakorn

Betsy and I have broken up. Ja ja, these things happen.

I’ll leave the gossiping to you, tender reader.

But seriously; breakups are seldom nice or neat.
We’ve been together for quite a while, which sometimes is considered reason enough to stay together. But not always.

Cosplay in Chiang Mai

March 23, 2008 • Blog

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World » Thailand » Chiang Mai » Pantip plaza

Cosplay, short for costume play and pretty much a Japanese invention, was ‘on’ in Chiang Mai this weekend. Teens and tweens dressed up as their favorite comic book and video game characters. All very lighthearted, but so many of them were so sweeeeeet.

I didn’t recognize any of the characters, except for perhaps the babe with the sword. Final Fantasy, perhaps?

legal snapper

It’s a contended issue and finally I’ve stumbled upon decent information on what is and what is not so much legally allowed in relation to photography in public places. Photojojo wrote an article about it, the information for which they culled from the excellent The Photographer’s right.
Granted, these rules apply to the US, but Photojojo also links to similar documents for some other English speaking nations.

Probably the best bit: Anyone in a public place can take pictures of anything they want. Public places include parks, sidewalks, malls, etc. Malls? Yeah. Even though it’s technically private property, being open to the public makes it public space.

With Jaimy… you never know

After I discovered that an old friend of mine who has since married and divorced was on Hyves, I had to check it out. Seriously, it is the worst social network I’ve seen so far. But, as these things go, even bad social networks do well.

A good friend of mine recently joined and he left me a testimonial, after which Hyves sent me a message:

Hi Babak,
Jaimy has written a new testimonial about you. And with Jaimy you never know, so you better check it out here: …

For those who know Jaimy, they know that, indeed, with Jaimy… you never know…

The babes of Twin Peaks… where are they now?

March 16, 2008 • Blog

World » Thailand » Chiang Mai » Baan Chinnakorn

I was quite mad about this groundbreaking series by David Lynch when it was released in 1990 and played for only two season through 1991. Directed by David Lynch, who shot his first movie in 1966, over 40 years ago, and who has been responsible for gems such as Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, and, after Twin Peaks, classics such as Lost Highway and Mullholland Dr.

Recently, I watched both season 1 and season 2 again. If you ever watched the series, you noticed the can of babes which Lynch pulled open. It seems, now, that most if not all of those babes disappeared into obscurity shortly after. Or did they?
The obvious question I set myself to answer is, those babes of Twin Peaks… where are they now?

Sherilyn Fenn

What I thought the hottest babe of the series, Audrey Horn, played by Sherilyn Fenn, was also the oldest at the time of shooting Twin Peaks, a whopping 25 years, having had her first acting gig in 1984 in the movie The Wild Life, opposite Chris Penn, brother of Sean Penn, and playing bit parts in the TV series Cheers in 1985 and 21 Jump Street in both 1990 and 1987, while being engaged with Johnny Depp. Her first starring role was in the erotic thriller Two Moon Junction, by director Zalman King
Fenn comes from a family of musicians, the most famous one being her aunt, singer Suzi Quatro. She’s of rather mixed heritage, probably explaining the apparent beauty of this actress, mixing Italian and Hungarian blood from her mother’s side and Irish and French from her fathers.

Sherilyn Fenn c. 1991 and, with Alix Kermes, in 2004. Sources: [1], [2].

Twin Peaks landed Fenn an Emmy and a Golden Globe nomination.

Since Twin Peaks, Fenn has been prolific, appearing in 59 mostly made for TV movies and TV series, but turning down an offer for an Audrey Horne spin-off series, including Gilmore Girls, CSI: Miami and a once off appearance in The 4400 (but in season 2, meaning I did not spot her myself). Her most constructive gig since Twin Peaks was probably playing the role of Billie Frank in the TV series Rude Awakaning, in which Fenn could be seen for 47 episodes.

After Twin Peaks, she played in a series of films which gave her a higher profile. The first one starring in Diary of a hitman, opposite Forest Whitaker, recently in the spotlight for his magnificent starring role in The Last King of Scotland.
The second being her part in Ruby, in which Fenn starred next to Danny Aiello, who played Jack Ruby, “the man who shot the man who shot JFK”, as the tagline of the movie read, and which came out around the time of Oliver Stone’s JFK.
The third film which gave Fenn some prominence was her role as Helena in the aptly named Boxing Helena, from 1993. The movie was considered very far from being a masterpiece, but rose to notoriety for it’s plot, an obsessed surgeon cutting off the limbs of the woman he once had an affair with to keep her in his mansion. Boxing Helena was directed by David Lynch’s daughter Jennifer Lynch.
Fenn also played the starring role in Liz: The Elizabeth Taylor Story and had an important part in Gary Sinise’s Of Mice and Men and was considered for the title role in the remake of Barbarella, which eventually didn’t come off the ground.

Fenn gave birth to a son in 1993 (and a second son only in August last year) and, after that, started to lose interest in Hollywood, probably partially because she also wasn’t being considered for the bigger roles. She moved to more independent productions and also returned to television.
Last year, after doing a bit part in dubious The Dukes of Hazzard: The Beginning, she stepped behind the camera for the first time, directing a documentary on a “child enrichment program”.

Fenn lives in LA. Her most obscure claim to fame is probably having a Norwegian rock band named after her character in Twin Peaks, which was formed in 2002.

Lara Flynn Boyle

Boyle played the part of Donna Hayward in Twin Peaks. Laura Palmer’s best friend and love interest of James Hurley. Boyle was 20 at the time Twin Peaks first aired.
Before Twin Peaks, she was in Poltergeist III, the mini series Amerika as well as in deleted scenes in Dead Poets Society and the classic Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Since the TV series, she played in 41 movies and TV series.
Boyle is of mostly Irish descent, but has an Italian-American great-grandfather and was named after a character in the Boris Pasternak novel Dr. Zhivago.

Lara Flynn Boyle in 1990 and 2007. Sources: [1], [2]

Like Sherilyn Fenn, Boyle did not return for the prequel Fire Walk With Me and she spent most of the 1990s trying to build up a reputation, with mixed success with roles in the movies Wayne’s World, Red Rock West, opposite Nicolas Cage and Dennis Hopper.
More recently, Boyle had a lead role in MIB II and starred as Monica, the new hotel owner, in the TV series Las Vegas, with James Caan. I followed Las Vegas while living in South Africa, and never even realised it was Boyle playing this part.

Boyle is dyslexic and lives in Beverly Hills.

Maedchen Amick

Maedchen Amick, like Lara Flynn Boyle, is from 1970 and was one of the hotter babes on Twin Peaks, even if playing the waitress Shelley Johnson, missing one or two strokes in the intellectual department.
Before Twin Peaks, Amick had bit parts in the TV series Baywatch and Star Trek: The Next Generation. Since Twin Peaks, she played in 40 films and, more recently, TV series.
Although born in Reno, Nevada, Amick’s parents are both German. Hence her first name, which means ‘girl’, in German.

Maedchen Amick in c. 1991 and 2007. Sources: [1], [2]

Amick has recently played in a series of TV series, including Kidnpapped, Law & Order, Freddie, Joey and ER, none of which I follow.
Notable appearances have included the Stephen King horror movie Sleepwalkers from 1992 and a role in Dream Lover in 1994, opposite James Spader.

According to a biography on a fan site, Amick can actually tie a knot in the stem of a cherry, with her tongue. Something the character Audrey Horn in Twin Peaks, played by Sherilyn Fenn, actually does in the series.
Amick is married with two children.

Sheryl Lee

Sheryl Lee, of course, played both Laura Palmer and Palmer’s cousin Madeleine Ferguson. Around the time of Twin Peaks, Lee also had a part in David Lynch’s Wild at Heart. Lee is from 1967 and grew up in Boulder, Colorado, but was born in Augsburg, then West Germany.

Sheryl Lee in 1991 and in a seemingly more recent but undated photo. Sources: [1], [2]

Since Twin Peaks, Lee has been in 39 TV series and movies, most not very notable, except perhaps playing Astrid Kirchherr in the 1994 Beatles bio-pic Backbeat.

Lee is divorced from Jesse Diamond, son of Neil Diamond, with whom she has a son. Lee is an avid member of PETA, for which she’s done several photo campaigns.

Virtual bottle post

March 14, 2008 • Blog

World » Thailand » Chiang Mai » Baan Chinnakorn

A javascript based hosted applet for websites which, hooked up through a centralized server, operates as a small window onto a network along which targeted but undirected messages float.

Say you’ve got one of those applets running on your website. Any visitor to your website can throw in a message and decide to direct it to someone, or not.
Because the applet is hosted and javascript based, the centralized server can know the IP address of the website/server on which your applet is located. Through a geographical IP address locator, it’s possible to determine the physical location of your server as well as the locations of the nearest, say, 100 applets. That is, websites with the same applet.

Then, after a certain time, say a random time between 10 and 60 seconds, the message your visitor threw into the applet on your website, is moved on to another applet, randomly chosen from the nearest applets, with the chance of the message ending up at any of these applets being inversely proportional to the distance of these neighbors to your applet.

At the next applet, the message will stick around for a random time between 10 and 60 seconds again, before moving on to the next applet.

At any applet, the messages currently present at that applet are shown and dynamically updated. A visitor of a particular applet can pick up a message, read it, and throw it away. Or put it back in the applet.

The end result are many messages moving around randomly on the web which, if a user stumbles upon one, can be opened, read and thrown away or put back. Just like old fashioned bottle post.

Doe Maar

Doe Maar is doing a few reunion concerts, eight years after their previous series, in July, both in the Netherlands and Belgium. Shortly before the end of my contract in Thailand. Damn.

Expensive shit

March 09, 2008 • Blog

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World » Thailand » Chiang Mai » The Chedi

Thailand is cheap, at most standards. Dinner, I often get for some 50 eurocents or less. A coke is 20 to 30 cents. A big western brunch won't cost more than 3 euros.

Last week, Felicia struggled past yet another 29, which needed to be celebrated. And we did so at the Chedi, possibly the classiest hotel in Chiang Mai.
The venue, right on the river bank, is quite nice, the food wasn't bad and the wine was good… at 50 euros a bottle. Indeed, we walked away, 55 euros lighter. Each. Indeed, we had dinner and drinks, but nothing over the top, in Thailand for 55 euros a head. Expensive shit.

Oh we also had live music and a birthday cake. On the house.

Fun stuff

I've come across a few good memes on the web recently. Today is the day, a messed up orange, things that Rick Astley would never do, relgions' golden rule and two nice videos. The first on Americans being not stupid, the second a music video clearly endorsing Obama. In Bollywood.

I also realised that Rick Astley and my friend Michiel Roesink (right) were separated at birth.

http://www.youtube.com/v/fJuNgBkloFE

http://www.youtube.com/v/sA-451XMsuY&rel=1&border=0

Bonus: Motivational posters.

Don Quixote speaks

March 01, 2008 • Blog

World » Thailand » Chiang Mai » Baan Chinnakorn

“Life as it is. I’ve lived for over 40 years and I’ve seen… life as it is. Pain… Misery… Cruelty beyond belief. I’ve heard all the voices of God’s noblest creature. Moans from bundles of filth in the streets.
I’ve been a soldier and a slave.
I’ve seen my comrades fall in battle or die more slowly under the lash in Africa. I’ve held them at the last moment. These were men who saw life… as it is. Yet they died despairing. No glory. No brave last words. Only their eyes… filled with confusion. Questioning ‘why?’. I do not think they were asking why they were dying… but why they had ever lived.
When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams, this may be madness. To seek treasure, where there is only trash. Too much sanity may be madness.
And maddest of all: to see life as it is and not as it should be.“

By Miguel de Cervantes, a quote from Don Quixote, a book I sort of read but, obviously, missing this quote the play I, Don Quixote by Dale Wasserman, made into the movie Man of La Mancha with Peter O’Toole in 1975. So beautiful a quote, it’s painful.

The quote also makes an appearance in Hephaestion‘s mix Ambient Nights – Life as it is.
I’ve been a long time fan of Hephaestion and recently downloaded (legally, from his own site) a series of his albums, including the aforementioned one which starts with the above quote. The albums are good, the quote is stellar.

Red belly

Sitting at restaurant Lek’s corner, shortly after a short monsoon swept away unlucky individuals out on the street, a sizable Indian elephant stopped by to be fed. It’s not that elephants are as common a site here as, say, cars, but they’re not too much out of place. The ones that walk the street are often chaperoned by a mahout and one or two touts, selling sugarcane to, mostly but not only, tourists, to feed to the elephant. It’s known that many of these elephants are treated very badly to domesticate them, but this one was so sweet, we couldn’t stand it and bought Tong Deng, Red Belly, some snacks.
The sugarcane is packed in plastic bags. You take the sugarcane out and hold it towards the elephant, who’ll pick it up with his trunk and put it in his mouth. Afterwards, you can also hand him the plastic bag which he’ll pass on to the mahout, the ‘driver’ on his back.
When we were done feeding the beast, he thanked us by trumpeting a few times, raising his trunk to his forehead and flapping with his ears. Shortly after, he strolled off again, in the dark, notifying traffic coming up to him from behind with a red light tied to his tail.

Mac stuff

I’ve upgraded from 1GB to 4GB of internal memory and also moved from Tiger to Leopard. That’s Mac OSX 10.4 to Mac OSX 10.5, for you infidels out there. All went quite smoothly.
During my wait, I had a very good palak paneer at a nearby restaurant while thoroughly enjoying one of the cigars Betsy sent me and also lounged on my bed while Vlekje (‘my’ cat) was grooming me.

Ruined out

February 22, 2008 • Blog

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World » Thailand » Si Satchanalai-Chaliang Historical park

If you like ruins, Thailand will be your favorite destination.
Today, we drove up to Si Satchanalai-Chliang Historical Park, this one reminding me strongly of Prasat Meuang Singh Historical Park, close to Kanchanaburi.

While the rest of the group was staying out for two more days of fun, I returned to Chiang Mai to spend the weekend working, taking a public bus from Sukhotai to Chiang Mai, a ‘mere’ five hours away.
Immediately, when pulling out of the bus station, the packed vehicle raised my concerns when the clutch made very clunky and unhealthy noises. A good 20 minutes later, having forgotten about it and immersed in a book, the conductor had come up to me to check my ticket. Then, I noticed the alarmingly slow speed at which we were moving ahead.
Minutes later, the bus completely broke down, less then four kilometers away from where we’d stayed the previous night and where the rest of my group was now enjoying good food and drinks.
A good while later, a replacement bus, actually bigger than the one which had given up the ghost, showed up and drove us to Chiang Mai. I finally got to bed at 3:30am. My favorite cat, Vlekje, came up running the moment I put the key in the front door lock.

Ancient capitals

February 21, 2008 • Blog

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World » Thailand » Sukhotai » Orchid Hibiscus Guest House

Thailand seems to have more former capitals than some countries have former heads of state. For reasons not completely clear to me, Thai seem to have enjoyed shifting their capitals around every 100 years or so.
Sukhotai, one of the more prominent former capitals, isn’t one of the newer ones, at its peak from the mid-13th to late 14th centuries. In the early 15th century, the kingdom with Sukhotai as its capital was absorbed by the kingdom of Ayuthaya.

Sukhotai, I’m told, still is the main center in Thailand for Loy Krathong celebrations, which Betsy and I attended in Chiang Mai last year.
Now, today, saw another Buddhist holiday, Makha Bucha, which remembers that faithful day, some 2500 years ago, when, unannounced and without prior agreement, some 1250 disciples of the lord Buddha himself suddenly showed up at the same time to listen to the man preaching.
We were hoping to experience some special religious services and, we had been told, hordes of people walking around the wats (temples) with candles. We got busloads of kids posing for photographs.

At some point, walking around the ruins of a many columned wat, I involuntarily had a flashback to walking around the ruins of Persepolis a few years back, even though the resemblance with Ayuthaya is much more obvious and stronger.
Then there are the stone slabs at many wat entrances, reminding me of the stone slabs dotting the Mongolian countryside.
And to top things of, the next day, in yet another temple, inside the main stupa or chedi, we found a richly decorated man-sized white protrusion. I immediately thought of an omphalos, the Greek naval stones representing the center of the world (not too strange, perhaps surprisingly, as the Wikipedia entry on omphalos actually mentions the city of Chiang Rai, just north of Chiang Mai).
It was only on second thoughts that I figured the thing more likely represented a lotus bud, which was also Pascal’s assumption. Felicia’s immediate response to my questioning her what she thought the thing was was slightly more Freudian: “A penis”.

We were traveling with 5 people in Pascal’s “Sherman”, a bakkie or pick up truck with a bunch of cushions in the back for comfort. Originally, we were expecting to travel with 9. Luckily, we didn’t have the extra four to fit in the truck, sardines as we are not.

Bits and pieces

HDN has used a photo of mine on the cover of a promotional card. And I ate a double Big Mac. The thing was almost impossible to handle, falling apart in my hands.

Strep!

February 17, 2008 • Blog

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World » Thailand » Chiang Mai » Central Airport Plaza

On my last day in Uganda, I started to get an irritated throat which hasn’t gone away since. I tend not to be one for drugs and doctor visits, but ended up going today anyway. In stead of getting better, the pain was getting worse and I had started feeling more and more sick.
Turns out I’ve got strep throat (in Dutch: Tonsilitis, keelontsteking). I started my antibiotics cure today.

My week’s been very busy. Besides a full schedule at HDN, I’ve also run into a series of outside projects which I didn’t really expect to end up with. Downside: little free time. Upside: a year of relative riches.
Felicia said it well earlier in the week that, as a freelancer, it tends to be “feast or famine”.

Persian blogs

I do not claim to run a Persian blog, but I do claim that Kamangir’s list of 100 most popular Persian bogs/sites is rather odd. The BBC website tops the list and DW as well as a series of other websites, obviously not Persian, not even with a Persian bias, make the list.
The list seems to be compiled based on linkage. But if we look at Alexa ranking, a quick search didn’t reveal one site, except for the obviously non-Persian ones, which was more popular than the one you’re now reading.

Perfect

I met miss teen Thailand 2007. Soooo cuuuuute. And I don’t even think it was a guy!
And I touched the MacBook Air. I almost creamed my pants.

A Sunday out

February 03, 2008 • Blog

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World » Uganda » Jinja » The source of the Nile

On my one day off, Sunday, I still had to work, but only half the day. In the morning and early afternoon, we took a taxi to (one of) the source(s) of the Nile. This one starts at lake Victoria and is already quite impressive.
We took a small boat out on the water, visited the Speke monument and then went on to Gujabali falls, a series of rapids close to the source.
Speke is the character who ‘discovered’ the source.

There’s a good writeup on the discovery of the source at Wikipedia. Interestingly, the first time the whole length of the river was traversed was only a few years ago.

Back in Kampala, my coworkers went back to work, while I gave myself a little bit more time, visiting one of the, globally, few Baha’i houses of worship, just on the edge of town.

There’s a brand of cigarettes called ‘Sportsman’. Meanwhile, I haven’t seen anyone, except a few mzungu (farang) smoke.

And then, like in many other countries, using a cellphone while behind the wheel of a moving car is not allowed in Uganda. However, surprisingly, whenever our driver, which we had for most of the first week, would get a call while behind the wheel, he would actually stop the car before picking up the phone!

Business not so usual

February 02, 2008 • Blog

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World » Uganda » Kampala » Hotel Equatoria

I’m in Uganda on a business trip. Yes, worse things happen.

Testing the quality of the connection and the computer in the internet where I’m going to give a training later in the week, two white missionaries came in to check their mail. Really, do Ugandans need to be converted?
85 percent of the population is christian, 12 percent is muslim. To illustrate this, we started Thursday’s partnership meeting with a prayer by reverent Sam.
Perhaps to illustrate this again, minutes later, a cockroach crawled into the bag of the participant next to me.

Surprisingly, there are lots of motorcycle taxis in Kampala. I almost feel like I’m in Thailand. Likewise, quite a few people mix up their ‘l’s and ‘r’s.
Really, where am I?

Statues

In other news, it’s good to see Beeldenstad has inspired a copycat.

Dance Dance Revolution in Thailand

January 27, 2008 • Blog

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World » Thailand » Chiang Mai » Kad Suan Kaew

There's one place in Thailand where you'd expect even a plethora of DDR machines: MBK center in Bangkok. But, no.
In Chiang Mai I had already given up long ago on me actually finding a machine.

Today, Betsy and I went over to Kad Suan Kaew, one of the two major shopping malls in Chiang Mai, to look for slippers. Killing time, we strolled into an area we hadn't been to before. To bump into Stepping Stage (watch a slightly disturbing video), a DDR clone I had never even heard of. The machine wasn't in the best of shapes, but helped to alleviate my structural lack of DDR over these past months.
Some twenty minutes later, we walked on. Only to bump into an actual DDR machine. Let me reiterate.

There is a DDR, Dance Dance Revolution, sometimes called Dancing Stage, machine in Chiang Mai, Thailand. It is in the mall Kad Suan Kaew, just off the northwestern corner of the moat.

It's a bit of an odd machine. Although some texts on the machine say "Dance Dance Revolution", the machine seems to be called "Dancing King". The handle bars, at the back of the dance mats are small and look dangerous. It's impossible to hold on to them and they actually look like you could fall over them backwards.

Gay pride in Chiang Mai

Saturday saw the first ever gay pride parade in Chiang Mai. Of course we had to check it out. And I even learned a new acronym: LGBT, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender.

Alone

Betsy has left Thailand. I'm all helpless and alone for the next five and a half months.

Dancing shrimp

January 20, 2008 • Blog

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World » Thailand » Chiang Mai » Canal road, near city hall

These people. Fried insects are one thing, live jumpy shrimps another.

Just to the north of Chiang Mai, on the shores of a small lake, it’s nice to spend a relaxing afternoon under the canopy of a small hut, enjoying freshly made food and cold beers. Or sodas as I’ve significantly lowered my alcohol intake since my bleeding headache on January 1.

The thing to eat, here, are the dancing shrimps, kung den (or gung den). No variety show, they’re small shrimp served in brine with chillies and herbs.
Of course we ordered them and, shortly after, were served with a small clay pot, with a lid.

Curious, opening the lid, the shrimp jumped in all directions, trying to escape. Quite startled, Betsy was the first to brave one down.
A few live ones later, we decided to let the ones that still moved go. The rest, some of them we ate. Or tried to.

The days of our lives

January 18, 2008 • Blog

World » Thailand » Chiang Mai » Baan Chinnakorn

With my three months under the belt, my ‘new’ contract has gone in effect, seeing me staying in Chiang Mai for another six months. On my timeline, that’s just slightly less than eternity.
I’m working on interesting stuff, however, deploying a social news network, HealthDev.net around the globe. The bulk of the work will be moving existing users from a legacy system to this new environment. Some 25.000 of them. To get things going, I’m currently planned to go to Uganda in a few weeks time. After that, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Cambodia, Vietnam, India and more might be next.
Maybe six months are going to be manageable.

One of Betsy’s classmates in her Thai class, Khunjamon (well, her real name is Anja), does an internship at Citylife, a local monthly full color English language magazine. A while back, we also visited a lomography exhibition here in Chiang Mai. I saw an opportunity and sowed the seeds for the first Chiang Mai photomarathon.

All went well and, last week, with the director of Citylife, we gave the go ahead to the Chiang Mai photomarathon. Prizes and sponsoring were going to be sourced through Citylife’s business network and were going to be plenty. Then, this week, Canon called Citylife, asking for a one page ad in next month’s magazine, advertising for the ‘Chiang Mai photomarathon’, four weeks before we had ours planned.
Ain’t that a bitch.

What I find most annoying is the fact that the Canon photomarathon isn’t a photomarathon at all. The details are still very sketchy, but Canon’s earlier activities in the region, which were called photomarathons, actually consisted of three tasks or themes over an 8 hour period. Marathon? More like a leisurely walk.
Now, we’re going to wait and see what happens. Most likely, our event will be postponed by a few months.

But every downside has its upside. I’m bloody busy with work as well as a few other clients. Not having to work on the website for the Chiang Mai photomarathon does save me some time.

A funny note

Generally, I’m not impressed by stuff other people forward me through email. I’ve had enough of chain letters, dying children, Microsoft giving away billions and whatnot. Then a colleague of mine sent me this…

With seasonal depression here, we find now that even mental health systems are affected by out sourcing.

I was depressed last night so I called Lifeline.

Got a call center in Pakistan.

I told them I was suicidal.

They got all excited and asked if I could drive a truck.

Technology in Thailand

January 10, 2008 • Blog

World » Thailand » Chiang Mai » HDnet office

First in June 2007 and then from October 2007 with a planned wrap up in July 2008, Babak Fakhamzadeh was and is in Chiang Mai, Thailand, to build and extend the IT capacity of Health & Development Networks (HDN).

Here’s what HDN has to say for itself:

Health & Development Networks (HDN) is a leading facilitator of information, dialogue and advocacy approaches on HIV and TB. Established as an Irish non-profit organization in 1998 and as a Thai Foundation in 2003, HDN is known for its independent role in ensuring civil society perspectives, priorities and needs are given the attention they deserve.

Initially, work was focussed on upgrading the HDN website, creating an environment more in line with today’s expectations.
Besides a visual rebranding in line with the organization’s new visual identity, online environments were created, allowing for direct distribution by staff of news, publications, events and photos.

Focus was, mostly however, on two important tools which HDN deploys to disseminate information on TB and HIV/AIDS. The first is TheCorrespondent.org, a place where Key Correspondents (KCs), comparable to citizen journalists, are given a soapbox to air their views and experiences.
The second platform is HealthDev.org, an online interface for a typical collection of classic mailing lists, all on certain aspects of TB and/or HIV/AIDS. Over the past ten years or so, using the underlying list manager software, HDN has built an extensive network of over 20.000 subscribers, many of them participants, to these mailing lists.

The result of this focus was a new platform which is set to replace both TheCorrespondent.org and HealthDev.org. HealthDev.net is, in many ways, a Digg clone (actually more a Plime clone) with dashes of Newsvine and Facebook thrown in. Literally a social news network.
In effect, users can post their own news, comment and vote and edit other people’s postings. The immediate advantages of HealthDev.net are as follows:

  • Content driven: Interesting news ‘floats’ to the top of the frontpage.
  • Strong user interaction: (Any and all) users decide what articles are interesting.
  • Highly customizable: Users can stay up to date on very specific subjects without the need of sifting through unrelated information.

The last point above is particularly interesting as through a very extensive and highly customizable collection of RSS feeds users can easily stay up to date on just the subjects they’re interested in.

The next six months, from January to July 2008, will be spent on deploying HealthDev.net throughout HDN’s network of country-specific partners and eForum users. A network of, literally, many thousands of users.

To all the techies out there, the point of HealthDev.net is not to build a state of the art technological solution, hence the absence of, say, OpenID and many sophisticated features. This is not because these features won’t, eventually, benefit the end users, but simply because the technological jump which existing users have to make needs to be cushioned to get as many users on board as possible. Then, over time and if required, the feature set can be expanded.

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