Food!

Been out for a bit. I met my mother and brother for a trip through Jordan and Lebanon to trace roots and reconnect with a lot of family that my mom hasn't seen in many years.   I can't decide if I'm going to blog about my trip to Jordan and Lebanon. The thing is that I don't have enough photos to accompany the funny stories I would tell on this blog - and I don't want to just do a trip recap because that is boring for people that didn't go on the trip (c'mon admit it, reading about other people's trips is not so fun - i totally agree). The fun part is the stupid but hilarious stories that come out of these trips.  A lot of funniness and ridiculousness went down between my brother and I - it was just like old times - so fun!

So, completely off the subject, this post is about some good cooking that took place on Saturday.  I haven't seen my Nairobi friends in a while since I've been out of town for various trips so we had a few people over for dinner on Saturday.  The main dish - RIBS.  Now, I don't normally think about eatting ribs - to be honest, it's messy, there's not a lot of meat on them, it's a lot of fat, and it's a little cavemanish to think about nibbling on the bones of an animal - but my friend Candice made some AMAZING baby back ribs about a month ago and I haven't been able to stop thinking about them since!  Her recipe is simple (even a caveman can do it ;-) and they are SOOOOO GOOD! Sergio was the one that cooked them up for us on Saturday and it turned out just like the ones Candice served.  They looked like this (forgot to take a real photo)

Candice's amazing baby back ribs
 First you rub brown sugar and grilling spices over the ribs - any grill spice blend you have on hand. Then pour Jack Daniels over them, wrap them up in foil and then put them in the oven at about 330 or so for 2 hours. Then take them out of the oven, baste them with any BBQ sauce you have and grill them for just a little bit to get them a little blackened on the outside. They will be mostly cooked from the oven so they don't need much time.


Then, I made some Lebanese potato salad, which was really good.
Recipe - Peel and boil potatoes, chop them up into little cubes. Mix them with chopped parsley and spring onions.   Pour olive oil, lemon juice, and salt over it until it tastes good to you.

example - but this one looks like it's missing parsley.

Lastly, I made strawberry spinach salad, which people always love and ask me for the recipe.  Beware - this thing has TONS of sugar in it..so it's not so healthy of a salad  - but it is really good.

The Salad

• a lot of fresh spinach
• a lot of sliced strawberries

Salad Dressing

• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon paprika
• 2 tablespoons sesame seeds
• 1 tablespoon poppy seeds

Mix the dressing ingredients and pour it over the salad - top with some almond slices if you want. SO GOOD

Fitness on the Road

If you are like me, missing workouts while traveling can really effect your weight and bug you mentally.  I've been working out for so long it feels like a natural part of my life. In fact, I've been trying to lose weight through exercise for over 20 years now - since the days of....



I loved that dang ribbon baton thing - Wish my workouts these days still involved a ribbon baton.


Mostly when I travel I try to make sure I am booked at a hotel with a gym since running outside in African cities is usually not a pleasant option. However, it's not always easy to find a hotel with a gym in some cities. So, this blog is about what I do if I don't have a gym AND actually about my home workouts right now since I don't belong to a gym in Nairobi anymore. The best thing about working out in your room or at home is you can wear your ugly work out clothes and not worry about it ;-)

1) I have invested in a nice library of work out DVDs.  Many of them you do not even need equipment for. Here's a list of my favorites:

• Jilian Michaels 30 Day Shred
• P90X series (I don't do the full program, I just use the DVDs to enhance my workout since minimal equipment is needed).  The YogaX, Kenpo, and Cardio DVDs are really good for hotel room work outs.
• 20 Minute Windsor Pilates
• Personal Training with Jackie Warner (You need hand weights)

2)  If I know I'm going somewhere with no gym, I bring my resistance bands. They are easy to pack and carry with you and you can find suggestions online for various workouts using the bands.

The type of resistance bands I use

3) Use of the internet.  I use the internet a TON for my work outs. There are loads of youtube videos that are like mini workouts that you can do at home or in a hotel room. I also make use of an Online Interval Timer that I found. It helps for doing bootcamp interval workouts.
My newest obsession is this eastern european muscle naughty chick named Zuzana that posts work out routines almost every day. Her American husband, Freddy, films her doing an intense bootcamp style work out and then she takes you through each move and motivates you to keep "bodyrocking".  She actually has a ton of fans and I do make fun of her, but I actually truly love her and her slutty workout outfits because in sort of gives me something to work towards. Visit her site - BodyRock TV.  Best of all it's free, her workouts are usually less than 20 minutes, and they are so hard they will make you beg for your mommy and a diaper change. Serg and I laugh every time I play her workouts cause she starts every video by saying "Hi botyrokas!".  Or at least that's how it sounds with the Czech accent.

This is BodyRocker Queen Zuzanna

4) Improvise.  You can usually create work out equipment with stuff laying around your house or hotel room. For example, the bodyrock work outs often use a big sandbag weight.  So, I was in the middle of no where in Senegal trying to get my work out in. I filled up a few empty 2 liter water bottles that I had and stuffed my backpack with them and it worked out perfectly. It was like 20 pounds of weight. I put the back pack on and did lunges and I used it to do dead lifts and bent over rows. It worked pretty well. Some of her work outs also call for a bosu ball. I don't have one but at my house I have a semi deflated soccer ball that I was able to use for push ups and other exercises. Here is an example of using stuff you have laying around as work out equipment:

Homemade pull up bar and bosu ball

I did squats over the rump of Ellie the Elephant

Okay, so now you have no excuses! Enjoy your workout - The sooner you start the sooner it will be over!



Weight Loss Accountability Update

Today I actually have GOOD NEWS that I wanted to share! I dropped a few pounds while I was in Senegal! Senegal made it easy for me -  I did a lot of running since my hotel was on a great flattish beach side highway with awesome sidewalks and views of the ocean.

La Corniche offered a nice clean place to run in Dakar

It was also great for me that the city is big on physical fitness - EVERYONE jogs and does boot camp style drills along the beach in Dakar. It's mostly men out there trying to train for playing soccer on the beach. Literally hundreds of guys jogging all the time. You don't find that many places. In most African cities, like the one I'm in now, Kigali, if you go for a jog, people stare at you like you are an alien flying by in a UFO. Plus, as in Kigali..AND Nairobi, it's not so easy to find good running areas since places are often congested and full of cars and no sidewalks, etc. It's just not pleasant. Dakar was AWESOME for running.

So, between running around 25 miles per week, trying to eat a more primal style diet (low carb, no processed foods), and doing some body weight exercises in my room, I managed to lose around 6 pounds!  I was actually nervous to get back to Nairobi in fear that as soon as I fall back into my home routine and additional work travel, I would regain some of what I lost. Our gym membership expired and we are not renewing due to how expensive it it - AND like I said before, running outdoors is a challenge in Nairobi and the other countries I work in.  So far, I think I've done okay keeping it off..I may have gained back like 1 pound. I think that's expected considering I went from running a lot consistently to working out at home and very short runs in Nairobi. Here in Kigali, I have a great gym at the hotel I'm staying at - It's been great.  I even did a spinning class with like 6 Germans, a Nordic instructor and African music playing. Good stuff!

In case you are interested - the "diet" I'm trying to stick to more or less is called Primal Blueprint Diet.  It's more of a lifestyle (annoying I know). But it's good and it makes sense.

Senegal Diaries

A month is enough time to start to understand a place....IF YOU SPEAK THE LANGUAGE AND DON'T WORK 15 HOUR DAYS.  So, needless to say, I spent most of my time in Senegal working and trying to communicate or trying not to have to communicate.  I spent a couple of my weekends traveling to field sites outside of the city and a couple weekends in Dakar.  Any free time I had in Dakar was devoted to jogging along the ocean drive or laying by the pool at the hotel.  However, you should know that there is a lot more to see in Senegal. I've done most of my sightseeing in previous trips so I didn't do any intense touristy stuff this time. But Senegal has a lot of historic places to visit.  For instance, Goree Island - a small island about 45 minutes away by ferry where slaves from around Africa were processed and held before transporting across the Atlantic. You see some really really sobering stuff there. I remember seeing a tunnel/doorway that opened to the steep cliffs and a huge drop to the ocean below. That is where the would throw the weak or disabled people out to die.  That really struck me. It's important to pay respect to those sites..but seeing it twice was too much for me. So I skipped it this time around and used my free time to relax.  Which was easy to do where I was staying - Have a look below - and yes, you will feel little pangs of hate for me because this place was pretty nice but I promise to balance it all out by showing you some photos of the crappy places I stayed when I was in the field, outside of Dakar. So, first the good:

ill

I was first in a room like right across from where the band played EVERY NIGHT- so I did some mega complaining and got an exec suite with a wrap around balcony for half my stay there ;-))

You could get to said balcony from my bathroom or bedroom area. Nope, nothing to hate about this set up.

Breakfast Room

Chilling was pretty much my job on Sundays. I actually named my chair..that's it on the end.  Chairy. Creative, I know.

Sorry, back to my room - this was my bathroom. What you cannot see is the shower facing the ocean. I made myself take turns using the two sinks and the bathtub was my washing machine. I had clothes hang drying all over my balcony and room. I definitely downgraded their luxury status while I was there.

This was my second favorite part of the trip...#1 favorite being having a beach front hotel. It's MANGO!! What?! AFRICA?! They also had Benetton in this mall. AND it was attached to my hotel! It's like seeing double rainbows - that's how I felt then and I still get butterflies thinking of when I first walked in ;-)

Okay - so you've seen the GOOD....Now for the bad and the ugly.  I actually don't have many photos of the other places because it was depressing and I wasn't feeling inspired to take photos.But this is what I have for you:

 

Squatting toilets - The type I used during my days in the field. It may not look horrible to you but you didn't have to smell the stench of uncleaned urinal and get your pants all wet from the floor because some people have bad urine-squat coordination.  Not pleasant...oh and the flies sucked and there is no hand washing - I never go anywhere without baby wipes..just an Africa packing tip for you.

Okay here is the view of my little room in small town Senegal. The photo actually makes it look nice. But imagine Alcatraz, add a prayer rug, a TV that plays 1 Wolof speaking station, and one stinky stinky mini fridge that is growing moss inside. And this is actually really nice living conditions for where we were. So, in actuality I'm not complaining here, I'm just describing. I kept Sergio updated by sending him real time photos of where I was - he called the chair area "the hotel restaurant", which made me laugh.

And now for some other random photos that I snapped while being in Senegal:

Awkward arms-at-your-side photo of me and the office driver

Another Double Rainbow Moment for me- The sun was like a spot light in the ocean coming out of an otherwise dark and murky sky.

Monument De La Renaissance Africaine

Little Khalil Shop - We sell snacks, beverages, prayer rugs, incense, charcoal, and pirated DVDs

Very cool looking Mosque RIGHT on the beach

I love these Painted Fishing Boats -

Lastly.....the flight home:

7am - Breakfast.

This kid was traveling alone so I let him listen to my IPOD..then he destroyed my IPOD.

THE END

Pret a Porter

Well I am just embarrassed.  I can only imagine how many times you have come here, looking for a new post only to find old news.  You're hooked aren't you? And I left you cold turkey....forgive and forget?

I'm writing to you from Kigali, Rwanda - on another work trip - and I finally have some time to myself to update you on my recent activities. Okay, so in the last episode, I was getting some clothes made in Senegal. It's been almost a month since I left there. Now, for my big REVEAL! Overall things turned out well. And if they didn't, you wont see the photos here - just that means my hips don't lie and i couldn't get the thing pulled on.
EXHIBIT A

The MODEL

The LENSTA

EXHIBIT B

The MODEL

The LENSTA

Exhibit C

The MODEL

The LENSTA

So, what did you think??! Which one do you like/hate the most? And answer me this: where the HE-EL am I going to wear any of this? I mean the skirt okay..but the dresses? I  guess this is part of getting my groove back...wearing nice stuff for no reason.  Who's with  me?!

Stella (Lenna) gettin her grooove back

Ever since moving to Nairobi, I have definitely fallen into a bit of a fashion slump.  I don't really care about what I wear or how I look at all. Given the option of looking fashionable or looking casual/comfy, I have been picking the latter for a while now. My little jaunt to West Africa has been changing me! These women wear beautiful floor length, fitted, vibrant, traditional ensembles daily...not just on special occasions or when going somewhere after work, etc. They wear them just because it's time to get dressed. The streets are filled with women in differnt patterns and colors and designs walking through the streets. It's inspiring. I mean, i keep thinking, "well, in Nairobi..or especially in DC, i can't just leave the house in a big bright orange ruffly floor lentgth get up with matching head wrap" - but then I think "but, maybe I could". I mean, maybe I could have someone make me something that isn't exactly the traditional ruffly, floor lenghth look, but still vibrant and fashionable and alive. Something not black pants and white shirt.  Here is something I would normally wear to work:

My pose is sassier than the outfit

 

So, I took the photos of the designs I wanted (found on the internet) and went with my co-worker, Venus, who is the model West African woman, to shop for material and meet with a tailor. Everyday that girl is wearing something more fabulous than the day before. I wish I would have taken more photos of her on various days..but here's an example for you of one of my favorites:



Venus with her superstar dress!

Here are some photos of a few things I wanted to get made - sort of a blend of African chic and white girl:

         

First we first went to this "nice" shop where they make custsom clothing. There are a TON of shops like this in Dakar. Like I said, everyone has their clothes custom made. If it is a ready-to-wear shop..it will say so..Pret a Porter..right on the front door. The shop wanted WAY too much for what I wanted. Plus I started thinking...if their idea of tailoring to fit is that yellow suit that the owner was wearing (see below photo)...i'd rather go elsewear.  She forgot to factor in her mid-section before cutting that fabric!

Me and a couple of ladies from work at Aldo Allure Boutique (Venus in the middle)

So we left the shop and went to the fabric market. The place is awesome! It's an area of a larger marketplace but it's just fabric stalls one after another..and they get really good stuff. There are batik wax fabrics from Ivory Coast, nice died cotton and lace type stuff from India..lots of eyelet fabrics in all colors, I mean really anything you might want in really cool designs and prints. For all the clothing I wanted, we needed the wax fabric and Venus knew where to get the good stuff..like anything else, there is good stuff and bad stuff. So, we met up with Venus's tailor..a young guy named Alla. Alla is awesome.  And I dont mean GOD in this case..I mean...Alla.  He can make ANYTHING and it looks like a million bucks when he's done. the finishings, the linings, the hems..he is amazing. He could easily win Project Runway, blindfolded without index fingers. And imagine how many people like Alla there are in Dakar...tons of amazing self taught tailors.  I wish i would have thought to take pictures of shopping for fabric..I was in this tiny tiny tiny little stall in the crazy heat for like 45 minutes undecided about which fabrics to choose...My clothing was literally drenched with sweat..the stall owner was fanning the hell out of me..i could tell she was like.."this white girl is not going to pass out in my stall on my watch". Alla ran for water thinking i was dehyrating. I tried to explain that it's sort of normal for me to look like a swamp monster in 90 degree weather. They relaxed when they saw I was laughing about it. The scene would have been an awesome photo opp. I try to not whip out my camera all the time though..I feel like it sort of creates a divide between me and the local peeps when i'm trying to just be one of them for a few minutes. But i do miss a lot of great photo opportunities...the memory is in my head to enjoy though..right?

So $30 bucks later, I had myself 18 meters of cool fabrics..different kinds for making my new West African wardrobe.  I'll do another post on how my clothing turned out..but here's a sneak peak of a wrap shirt thing that he made me:

Cute right? I wouldn't have picked white eyelet lace for the edges..but I think it looks great overall

Also just wanted to show you this awesome hand-made leather bag I bought today. I was running the other day and saw this guy tucked away in the corner of this street making stuff and I stopped to attempt to talk to him about what he was making...and he had these awesome bags he was making out of really nice leather and then sewing them together. Here is the one i bought..it wasn't so cheap. I didnt' bargain too hard because the guy was clearly down and out and I didn't want to exploit his need for money..so i paid the second price I got out of him...around $38..but it's really thick nice leather and it's treated/tanned so it smells good..unlike some gross leather items i have bought in african markets. I think this bag will easily add a shot of HELL YEAH! to my outfit..what do you think?



I'm back baby!!!  The Lensta is back.

Staying Safe While Traveling Solo

Okay I finally wrote a post for my Africa Travel Tips Page on this blogsite. Here's the post:

Minimize your risk of this happening to you!

Staying Safe While Traveling Alone in Africa..or anywhere really.

For 10 years now, I've had jobs that send me on international travel alone. I have worked and lived abroad in Central and South America and Africa...but also in Europe, where surprisingly more negative things have happened to me than anywhere else! But from traveling around without anyone to rely on for safety, I've learned a few things about how to minimize risk but enjoy being somewhere at the same time. For women readers, you are automatically more vulnerable than men and it's important to be aware of that, regardless of how powerful you feel or how travel savvy you think you are.



1. For US Citizens - Before leaving on your trip, go the website of the US Embassy for the country you are traveling to and register your travel. This will allow the Embassy to have your email address and other contact information in case there is an emergency. Often the US Embassies abroad will send out periodic updates regarding any political or social turmoil going on in the country. You will recieve pertinent notices for areas of danger or risks to the safety of American citizens abroad.



2. Before leaving, make a contact sheet with names, addresses, and phone numbers of hospitals, the police, the US Embassy, and the hotel you are staying at.



3. Make a photocopy of your passport and put it in your suitcase - in a separate place from where you keep your actual passport for travel.



4. Once you arrive at whatever airport you are at, see if there is a place to buy an unlocked phone if you don't already have one. Often airports have a shop that sells them and you can get a cheapo for around $25. Then buy some phone credit - They usually sell this at the airport as well. Just by having a means of communication you are already better off.


5. If you are traveling alone especially, use the hotel's taxis until you find a regular taxi you can establish a relationship with and call each time.

6. When in taxis or any vehicle, ensure doors are locked at all times and if you don't know your surroundings, do not roll the window down. Never ride with your arm out the window or hands close the window in traffic - People are willing to do almost anything to take your jewelry or cell phones..do not forget that. And don't travel with any jewelry that you would be upset about losing. Having flashy jewelry is just tempting someone to try and take it if you are in the wrong place.
7. If you are traveling alone especially, try to be back at your hotel or sleeping location by 9 or 10pm at the latest. Do not go out alone late at night if you are a woman traveling in Africa. It's just not smart. Depending on the country you are in, there are many different beliefs about women being alone.
8. If you are a man, there is a good chance that local women alone at bars at night are selling services..in one way or another. So, you can be flattered, but it's safer to not get too involved.

9. Do not be overly friendly with random people. Your good nature will want too, but in many countries where life is difficult and money is scarce, alterior motives are rampant. Do not believe every sad story you hear and even if you believe it, do not allow yourself to get involved unless you know the personal personally or someone you know knows the person.

10. This is discretionary, but I always travel with pepper spray. I haven't figured out what I would do with it yet...but I have it!!

11. Use your 6th sense. If something does not feel right, it probably isn't. Do not be as liberal as you are at home....Allow yourself to have a good time and explore during the day, but still be aware of your surroundings and do not go into isolated areas. Do not get lured into places that are not public.

12. If you travel with a purse, have one that be clutched up under your arm and has a zipper. In busy areas or market atmospheres, keep the zipper zipped and in the front of the purse and keep it clutched under your arm with your hand holding on to the strap.

I hope these help - I may come back to this and clean it up a bit and add or subtract a thought or two. But, all of these are things that I consciously practice each time I travel. Remember to have fun and see things and don't let traveling solo keep you from having great experiences. But consider safety first and foremost so that when you go home, great experiences are the only kind you taking back with you.