From South Africa

19-10-10

On the plane over here I was grappling with the dilemma of whether or not I should go back to work at my most recent job, at Safeway, when I return to Australia in February. The job pays as well as any at my age and job searching is always a hassle. But then, change is sometimes good for you and it helps to keep life interesting.

I was unable to come to a decision and neither was Greg, a Zambian I met on my second night in South Africa. We got talking at a hostel in Pretoria and he told me about the decision he faced with his job at the moment: a two-year contract he was on with one of Zambia's biggest TV stations had ended and to continue with the job (after close to five years there), he must sign a new 25-year contract.

Greg, 30, was a nice guy, went to Uni in London and had parents who were very well off by Zambian standards. A country where nearly 70% of the population live below the poverty line, making it one of the world's poorest.

The terms of Greg's new contract said that if he quit his job in the next 25 years, his pension would go back to the government. If he dies, he forfeits it as well (Zambia's life expectancy is 37, a point that Greg kept bringing up).

In the few days we spent together at the same hostel, I could never gauge which way his mind would go. At times, he treated it like his only option and he was fully aware of the importance of a stable job in his homeland, even without the freedom to quit without a significant sacrifice, especially if he wanted to start a family any time soon. Other times, he wouldn't stop talking about travel and all the places he might go to try his hand at a new career.

Anyway, I found it to be an interesting bit of perspective - from my first few days in Africa.

My travels

01-10-10

While in Ghana, I'll be doing a 3-month journalism internship through projects-abroad, a for-profit volunteer and internship organisation that enlists thousands of participants every year.

After a 5-day stop over in Johannesburg, I arrive in Ghana to spend two months at the Business and Financial Times in Accra, Ghana. The newspaper is published on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and "provides in-depth coverage of the relevant issues in major sectors of the economy". This coverage ranges from mining to stock markets to aviation. I will be shadowing professional journalists and my overall responsibilities will depend on how well I prove myself while there.

I'm looking forward to this. The problems synonymous with Africa, from disease to poverty to corruption to civil conflict, are inexplicably tied into economic leadership and business is increasingly becoming the focus in many African nations, especially Ghana. The B&FT promotes itself as being the "longest-running and most authoritative business paper in Ghana". I hope that by working there, I'll learn how the business echelon of Ghanaian leadership operates and what it sees for the country's future, as well as the rest of Africa.

Once my business paper stint is up, I spend a month with the sports department of the TV3 Network, also in Accra. Again, I know Soccer to be very big in Ghana and I hope that my time here will provide a more social look at the country's direction. The Black Stars performed well in the World Cup too, so I expect the mood will be an excited one that I will be able to learn a lot from.

After my internships are over, I travel independently around East Africa for 4 weeks. I start out in Nairobi, Kenya and beyond this, I don't know yet, but I would love to see Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania.

Sydney and lost belongings

21-09-10

I lost only one thing in Sydney over three days. As this was my first trip anywhere far away in a long time, I was pleased with this result. Coming home, I thought to myself, how good would it be if I could achieve that while in Africa?! Well, after some calculations, I'm not so happy about it anymore.

Numbers of items I lost: one, my return sky-bus ticket.

Numbers of items I took to Sydney: approximately 30 (Clothes, books, travel documents, toiletries, a pack of cards, wallet, mobile phone, etc - all together it weighed less than 10kg and fit into one backpack).

Number of days I spent in Sydney: three

1/30 is 3.333 items per hundred. In Africa, I'm hoping to travel light but it's a much bigger trip and so I expect that I will carrying close to 60 items.

The math: With a losing rate of 3.33 items per 100 every 72 hours, I'll lose 60
items or all of my belongings by day 100 of my trip. This is the 22nd of January 2010, which just happens to be the day I finish up in Ghana and fly to Kenya to start four weeks of independent travel.

I panicked after coming to this result, as the prospect of traveling around East Africa with nothing except for the clothes on my back(I didn't count them in my calculations - they're very hard to lose) is a frightening one. However, I pride myself on being able to solve any problem, from easy soduku to the hodge conjecture to difficult soduku. So, I came up with a solution. There are two parts to it.

The first is a losing schedule. Rather than lose items randomly that might be integral to what I want to do on a particular day of my trip, I'll devise a schedule for which item I'll lose when.

I've written up a quick summary of what such a schedule will look like:

October 2009

13th: Fly out from Australia
16th: Leave my toothbrush in a Johannesburg hostel
19: Forget to take a book I'm reading out of the seat pocket in the plane.
21: Leave my mobile phone on a bus.

... and so on.

It might look a little bleak but if I know what I'm going to lose when, I can plan accordingly, minimizing the overall harm to my trip.

The second part of my solution is something I'll term Focusing my losses. As I lose my belongings, I'll buy cheap replacements so that I am not left with a situation where all I have left to lose are my more expensive items, i.e. my Passport.

If I lose my toothbrush, I'll buy a new one that day. Same goes for socks, pens and books. I'll roster these replacements into my losing schedule right away, along with the occasional bigger item, like my mobile phone, and if I'm lucky, my forgetfulness will fall for it.

If I'm successful, when I return home on the 20th of Feb 2010, I'll be carrying the same passport, wallet and laptop that I left Melbourne with.

Wish me luck!

A Space Story

13-09-10

Flying, lions and 4 weeks until I go

13-09-10

For a long time now, my deepest fear has been the one of my plane going down in the jungle and I survive, only to be eaten by a lion. Small chance I know, but in a way that only makes it worse, because if the scenario actually occurs, it will be even more horrifying from the shock of such long odds being realised.

If I try dissect this fear, I'm left with a common fear of flying. From a quick google-diagnosis, I can quite safely say that the media has instilled it in me. I never used to hate flying, but then I never used to expose myself to news like I do nowadays. Plane crashes always get reported on, by all the big outlets. A few months ago, after yet another big crash, it occurred to me that I'd lost count of how many plane crashes I've read about in the last couple of years. I wondered if it really was a lot, or if it just seemed like a lot because of how much attention I gave them. Not a problem, it turned out, as along with its coverage on this crash, CNN churned out an article chronically all the big ones of the decade. I think they missed some.

It's definitely the media's job to report on crashes – they are huge tragedies that capture people's attention - so I don't take issue with that, but I would prefer it if they could at least include a footnote with statistics about the planes that do land, day in, day out, at the bottom of crash pieces. It would be a nice gesture for people like me, on whom the logic of why penguins can't fly but planes can is lost. It would be token-ish, sure, but no different to having a life jacket under your seat.

I don't really know how to overcome my fear and it's big enough that I can't justify watching Doctor Retired Pilot or whoever on YouTube to try to fix it. If my plane was then to go down, my misery would be far worse, as I'd feel like I'd wasted my short life on YouTube. It's a tough spot to be in, but I expect by February next year, after fours months of travel around Africa, encompassing more than ten flights(1), in which time I'll be avoiding Safari fervently (I see enough lions when I go to sleep), I'll be cured.

Welcome to my blog: a home for my many anxieties and failures, between now and the end of my trip. I will post up stories, articles and the odd photograph as well. Thank you for visiting and I do hope that I get to write more!

(1) http://www.heraldsun.com.au/travel/news/dangers-of-flying-change-according-to-destination/story-fn32891l-1225915160553