Month: February 2017

Life here has sort of settled down, and even though work can be quite hectic and discouraging at times, my daily routine is rather boring. I do not have much to report other than nearly colliding with a huge SUV in a parking lot (not my fault) and crashing a tuk-tuk (entirely my fault) in the space of two days. My days in the afternoons are rather boring and I spend a lot of time investigating life however one wants to define it. Below are latest of my contemplations, reminiscences and general ruminations…

My gran is a very simple and humble person now in her eighties. She received only basic education in a German school during WWII and her jobs in life were simple and many required physical work. She led a simple and quiet life mainly caring for her family. Her subversive characteristics cannot be undermined though. When she was young lent was something that everybody observed. During that time no meat was consumed and no animal derived products were used. They were all sored in pantries and as she recalls the frying pan was hung on a hook and not used for a few weeks. This is how religion was important to people at that time. But my gran was rather a curious person. She sneaked in to the pantry just before Good Friday and got herself a large chunk of something similar to Scottish Haggis, ate it and waited for God’s Wrath! As you can imagine the god did not budge a finger… She sometimes tells us the story and always laughs at it…

I guess many of us like to put to test the theories we are taught. When I was at school, in my early biology classes, we were still taught that the taste buds on our tongue were arranged in a certain fashion and a particular part of the tongue was responsible for particular flavours. It was one of few facts I remembered from school and was eager to experiment especially that sometimes I had to take medicine that was rather bitter and I hated the taste. So I thought that if I placed it strategically on my tongue so the bitterness would not be detected and swallowed quickly I would cheat the tongue and would not taste the bitterness. How disappointing it was to always fail this! Having tried many times, I did have the fleeting thought that the books were wrong. I kept repeating the experiment with different tastes but the outcome was always disappointing. Somehow though I always managed to persuade myself that I was doing it wrong. I could not question the written word of the books, could I? I did not even share these findings with anyone as I assumed I would be laughed at. After a while I gave it up and forgot all about it until a few years later when I stumbled across some write up somewhere that this theory of structured taste buds was no longer valid! See, a curious kid could prove a theory wrong but because authority has been so much hammered into our heads we would not dare questioning the written word. Now I wonder if any of my teachers had tried this simple test at all, or did they just take it for granted and regurgitated the fossilized rubbish as science? Or did some of them have their doubts but for the sake of their own safety in the job they decided to stop any independent investigations…

I have recently come across ideas that contradict everything that we learn at schools. I cannot say I buy it all but they seem to have some valid points. Now, I am talking about contradicting the VERY fundaments of our knowledge we learn at schools. Simple experiments are carried out and videos posted online and they seem to question all we know. Now, try to imagine that: a few people just like me in my younger age play around and get results significantly different from what is generally thought to be correct. They do it repeatedly! Repeatedly they get consistent results. As they post their findings, the majority is just laughing at them calling them names. I was too scared to even talk about my findings about the taste buds, now the technology makes it possible to share your findings more or less anonymously but the ridicule is still there. Why is it so hard for people to step out of the comfort zone and see for themselves? Majority often say that the minority is so stupid they get everything wrong because science has proven this or that and it is a fact. Yet, the majority is often too lazy to get the real grip on basics of science. Well, if there is a simple experiment to confirm what we question and if it repeatedly confirms that we have solid grounds for doubts, shouldn’t this be investigated seriously rather than just simply mocked?

In year 9 we are discussing the human body now and the respiratory and circulatory systems. The students get amazed when they hear that the lung surface is as large as that of a tennis court, or that our blood vessels have the total length so large that they could go around the earth 2.5 times. I thought it would be a fun thing to make these calculations to see it ourselves. I myself have always taken them for granted so I thought it would be fun to go through the process. When I started my google search to find it, all I got was the numbers simply repeated and taken for granted. Maybe I did the search wrong (silly me again!)? Whenever something more promising regarding the calculating process popped up, before it even introduced the topic, I was asked for the subscription payment. I gave up the whole idea quite frustrated and angry. We repeat these numbers in good will, but they are only empty words if there is no evidence to go with it. I am not saying these numbers are wrong but I simply ask to be shown the calculation method. I might try to find it again when calm down…

Another thing getting me angry is the branding. Many international schools are proud to be Apple schools. This means that all staff and students have Apple devices for their education purposes. The younger ones usually are given ipads, the older one the airbooks. What a clever marketing strategy!

Everybody knows that Apple interface is completely different from any other system. Everybody knows that the habits you develop in your formative years are the hardest to eradicate. So, from a very early age you get used to the Apple way of doing things, you reinforce it daily until you cannot be bothered to go to any other system. You have been sold this system for life! And you are proud to be an Apple user! Well done!

This marketing from birth process has been at work for about a decade now and the results are already visible. The young pupils just love the distraction of ipads. Handwriting is still being taught but in a much lesser capacity. It is worth noting that Ipads rely mainly on screentouching and are not great for typing. Trying to learn to type comes in later when they leave primary, but by then their habits are already formed. I watch many students in secondary schools holding their pens in some ridiculous way that impedes their handwriting. Nobody seems to care about it. Ok, if their ability to hold a pen is superceded by the ability to touchtype then at least they have some skill. But they cannot touchtype properly either! Handwriting is painful for them (physically) so external exams are a horrific prospect! I suspect that writing a few pages of text in English exams in a single stretch of time is probably the first time they have to do this for many of them.

We are starting to steer away from paper textbooks in schools too. It all seems to go online: resources are posted online on school servers or education websites are used directly. Isn’t it a bit suspicious that we are all getting to use all these resources for free? Who is being so kind to us to let use their servers free of charge? Not long in the future I predict all good/useable information will be only accessible online through paid subscription. One day, sooner rather than later, it will all be unavailable unless you pay first.

Only recently have I discovered that there is an agnostic part of the Intelligent Design (ID) movement. I always thought (wrongly) that ID equaled creationism. It turns out than more and more people question both creationism as seen by major religions and evolution. However, the general perception of majority who do not research the field is that it is either god as the creator, or evolution at play when it comes to life origins.

In my education I was exposed to both views and neither made much sense to me. Organised religion repulsed me from the very beginning even though I could not really explain why. When I think of it now, the things I oppose most strongly to are the fear it instigates in people and the idea that you come to this world as a sinner.

Evolution is also a concept I cannot buy. One of the major problems I have with it is sexual reproduction. Let’s assume that macroevolution does happen and results in biodiversity. Sexual reproduction requires two organisms of the same genetic make-up meeting at the same time at the same place. Now, can you imagine how immensely unlikely it is? For the first sexual act ever in the distant history, it means that two separate organisms had to undergo very complex evolution process in the same direction to achieve 100% species compatibility of a male with a female on the way developing fully working opposite sex organs so that they could meet completely by chance and to be successful at producing offspring. But this is not the end of it for we are taught incestuous breeding limits the gene pool creating all sorts of genetic deficiencies in the resulting progeny. How come then that the two initial organisms are able to achieve the genetic variety we see now and that even now with all the variety present close cousins are discouraged from procreating. How is this all logical? But it is never brought up when discussing the subject. Very few questions are asked and it is presented as scientifically sound theory and nobody bothers with the ‘theory’ part of it.

I am not saying I know it all; all I am saying is that I am utterly confused.I suppose this confusion might be generated on purpose for the ‘wiser’ to say that you were not paying attention and that the simplest facts escape you.

I am overly not mathematically gifted, but as long as the numbers stay relatively real I cope ok. However, when the numbers become too large I get lost and I lose interest no longer wanting to investigate anything. The same goes for numbers too small: I just get confused and things stop making sense.

I would say the same is true about any subject: if you convolute any topic badly enough people will become disinterested and will take your word (as the teacher) for anything without any further verification.

Also, based on my personal experience, unless you are really interested in a topic no matter how much a teacher will push you to learn something you will not retain the information. So I find it laughable when the school managers try to push for the crosscurricular links and the interdepartmental planning making teachers work much harder than the students at making learning happen. If students are not devoted to a topic, the teachers can bend backwards but will not achieve results. But we live in a society where blame must be put on someone for unfulfilled goals. It just so happens that teachers have been in schools for so long that they have lost their backbones. It happened because schools are not interested in education but mainly in crowd control.

As I first arrived here and saw my apartment I did not like it very much for a variety of reasons. Now, I have come to appreciate the space and its general location. There are a few things that are minor annoyances but nothing major to report. Having seen a few other places where my colleagues live I decided this is the best possible apartment I could get. I have an unobstructed view of the outside with no other buildings facing me directly; the major balcony is rather spacious and I have bought a mat that can lie down on to soak up some sun from moderate shade. Most of all though I like the fact I can observe the locals in their households and they can do nothing about me taking pictures often being unnoticed from the comfort of my home.

I often look at the life unfolding in the four households at the ground level. There are no excitements in general and people just go about their daily business. I cannot put a number on how many children there are in each family but there are a fair few and generally they all get along. The other day I saw a boy of about 10 years old who was washing clothes in a metal basin. I marveled at the sight as he seemed to be enjoying it, or at least there was no resistance on his part to carry out the chore. I am not sure these households have any tap water and even if they do washing machines are a luxury that few of them dare to dream about. Most commonly laundry is done in wide, shallow, metal basins. I have seen men do it as their business. My young neighbour spent some time doing the laundry and then disappeared somewhere. He made me think about teenage issues that we are so often exposed to back home and that are a source of many domestic battles.

During my first week at school here we were shown a video trying to sensitise us to the needs of the youths. It was a very loud and rather patronizing clip from some American show where parents anticipated their child 13^th birthday: the day when they officially become teenagers. As midnight struck the child went through a drastic metamorphosis from being a sweet little person to a nasty monster. What followed was an animation (no presentation is ever complete without an animation) of changes in a teenage brain. Apparently the hemispheres cannot decide which one takes over and they constantly battle and as a result we get the atrocious adolescent behavior.

When I was much younger I remember my grandparents reminiscing about their childhood. They were all about 10 when the war broke out; our area was not badly affected but everybody was poor. One of my grandfathers always talked about how they had to go find work to help feed the family. My gran was taken to her distant family who were farmers to work the fields all day long just to be fed. Did they have conflicted hemispheres? Did they rebel against their parents? I don’t think this concept ever entered their apparently batting with itself mind. Or if it did it would have been ousted by cane or belting before it could settle. No evolution scientist in their right mind would say that the change between then and now is due to evolution at play; the time is just too short. What is it down to then?

I am a keen observer, and now living in Africa and I often think about tribal societies living here. They also have people of all ages, including teenagers and I wonder if many of them go against their parents’ or their elders’ advice? My suspicion is that maybe having a conflicted teenage brain is only reserved for youths in developed countries where they are allowed to act the way they do as soon as they reach puberty.

I fear that research can be doctored to prove any point, including contradictory ones, by looking at the same statistics. What would be the agenda behind promoting ugly adolescent behaviour? What would be the agenda behind stopping to teach facts? Or am I simply being paranoid?

Another pet peeve of mine is the child protection section in any modern school. All sorts of policies are implemented all in the name of child safety. What is it that makes teachers silently agree to the scrutiny of the police checks and other tools apparently to help weed the garden? Since when has the profession been infested with pedophiles? Why is it that the schools assume the role of the policeman and tell the parents what to do and what not to do. This is particularly pertinent to schools accredited by international organisations. As a parent of a child in such a school you not have the right to choose what punishment to use for your own child! If corporal punishment evidence surfaces you will be reported to the police or threatened with the child’s expulsion. And why is it that we, the people from the Western (obviously uber or even superuber) developed countries are usurping the right to know everything best? What gives us the right to go and meddle with other peoples’ ways of bringing up their young generation? Many international school counselors will say: in this culture child abuse happens frequently but the issues are swept under the carpet so we must be supervigilant to spare the children the harassment and violent treatment. The whole list of suspicious things to look out for will follow. If this is their country and their culture why is it our role to interfere with this? I do not condone maltreating any creature, children included, but corporal punishment was applied to me when I was younger and while it hurt I do not think it left any scars on my psyche. Well, who I am to judge but I guess you catch my drift…

What makes our egos so inflated that we feel it is our responsibility to go to other places and tell people how to live? I find this particularly unsettling in the current climate of all the changes happening back in Europe. Do we really have our life sorted? How can we say with a clear conscience that our way of life is the one to promote when we have crime rates on the rise, employment opportunities in decline and housing prices skyrocketing leaving many families in torment?

I met a person here who sympathises for and tries to help the IDPs. So I ask who are IDPs? Internally Displaced People. In other words: migrants. Economic migrants. So many politically correct terms for people going to other places looking for a better future. But us here: aren’t we Displaced People as well? And what gives us the right to go and say: “Here, let me help you coz I think you need my help. Let me buy you a football and a pair of sneakers”. After all are we not here just because our job brought us here? OK, our earnings are so disproportionate to the local wages there is virtually no scale to compare them but why is it that we look down on others thinking that a little handout will serve them? Are we not doing this to silence our guilty conscience? Am I being selfish not sharing what I have with the more needy? The ancient tribes have survived here much longer than we have. We have developed much faster than them, but maybe what we are doing is our own destruction? Maybe it is them who hold the secret to survival and we are doing them a huge disservice by trying to make them imitate our ways?

They leave us alone, why can’t we let them be?

I keep thinking about the mother dove on my balcony as she keeps coming here quite often. She has been temporarily released from her duty of being a mother. Maybe it is a rest she needs and some creature did her a favour by taking her young away. I could have left food for her on the balcony but that would be interfering with the nature. In fact, I destroyed the nest and I rearranged the stuff on my balcony. I want her to change her nesting spot. This one is just not safe. Am I doing it for her good or do I protect myself from another unpleasant experience? I myself am interfering with the nature meanwhile trying to persuade others not to. Am I a hypocrite?

Would you ever consider employing a visually challenged person to work as a cashier in a busy supermarket? Well, some may argue it is not exactly the case but consider this: a Muslim woman, fully covered, long dress, headscarf covering her whole head and in the place where normally you have the opening for the eyes she has a black net sewn in so absolutely nothing of her body is exposed. She is working all day long looking at a checkout monitor and handling money looking through something that is rather opaque! Now that for me is a joke.

I am told covering women’s face serves a modesty purpose. But then why would any women above a certain age (I don’t want to arbitrarily assign a number here) still cover their faces?

Another joke: all you see is the statuesque female bodies all around you so you get the idea that private things remain private. However, when you go to a local market for your daily supplies, the only shop assistants are males! So, if you need a pair of knickers, tights or a bra you need to speak to a male! How does this make sense is beyond me. I consider myself a fairly liberated person but I do not want to buy my underwear from a man! And a Muslim man even less so!

At the stalls you see underwear piled up high and you also see bikinis, or stuff made with lace so this whole modesty is just a front. I have to say I do not mind not being exposed to girls’ midriffs or their cracks due to low sitting pants. however, this level of covering your body is too much to take especially in the oppressive heat of a desert climate.

In the Science office when another class was due a colleague said to me: “I Really don’t feel like covering the reproduction topic with my year 13s…” When I questioned him a little he said he just wasn’t ready for their inquisitiveness which he worried would be similar to that of last year when he was covering sexually transmitted diseases. He said that last year after very detailed questions pertaining to how STDs are transmitted he came out of that class with quite a vivid image of their sexual experiences and they are in Y13 in an Islamic country!

To be fair every school I have been at had stories about sexual escapades of the students either at school or on school activities, so I am not surprised that it happens. Rumour has it that here it also happens even though the general public is somehow naively led to  perceive the Islamic countries as ones where this would not be occurring. Another example of being fooled by the image created by superficial media reports…

At the end of my second week, and even in my first week people were asking me how I am liking it here. There has not been much chance for me to explore the place at all. I have a car, but I am a lousy driver, and driving here can be unnerving. Plus the signage is nearly non-existent and maps out of date. Google maps is probably only available on VPN but it is hard to get your data to work on the phone. The roads are dirt tracks most of the time. It is a little too hot for leisurely walks and I am slightly intimidated here.

You can not really see that many people on the streets, but when you do see them they are either women walking with a purpose or groups of men loitering underneath low trees. The kids can be seen playing football barefoot in dusty, unused empty spaces. The women here quite often wear colourful clothes, many choose saris with wild, African pattern giving the place its unique flair. It is not just the dark tones of typical Islamic hijabs, but more of African heritage is seen in their clothes. They often carry heavy loads on their heads as if gliding along the dusty paths. The men either don their whitish robes and scullcaps or just wear typical western clothes. You often see them in groups just sitting under trees or walking aimlessly.

The one big difference between living in China and here is the wildlife and domestic animals. In China you would see dogs. Loads of them. Usually tiny ones. There is a law there that in cities dogs larger than a certain height cannot be registered. Some breeds are completely banned because they are seen as dangerous. So the Chinese usually have what I call little anklefuckers. U see them wearing clothes. Wearing shoes. Straight out of grooming salons with their manes and tails dyed. Utter canine abominations. You could see cats sometimes. Sneaking around and scampering away when spotted. Few birds. Once I saw a hedgehog! It was quite a sight so I just watched the poor creature patter away. Some mosquitoes, but not many because all greenery is sprayed with DDT. No moths, few butterflies. That was it.

Here the whole area, as barren and arid as it is, is teeming with life! I had the chicks on my own balcony. Then there are the donkeys pulling carts everywhere. One mud brick household downstairs from me has one so I see and hear it every day and every night. In another household there are goats and chickens. I see them from my windows. Just outside our perimeter wall there is a whole litter of kittens playing around. I have a little wall lizard in one of the rooms. Birds chirp all the time and there are many species of many sizes. So you do not see a lot of foliage but there is life all around you. Only now do I realise how much I like having animals around just to look at them. With the exception of flies! The flies here are something else. It seems the sole purpose of their existence is purely to annoy you. This is true of all the flies all over the world, but the ones here are particularly persistent. They are rather small and partly lethargic but with enough wits about them to almost always escape the swatter.

A big day for me on Saturday! After Friday laziness and lethargy I arranged for a friend to go with me to the market again. This seems to be the only outlet of activity for a person like me here. There are only two small lanes with stuff for tourists who want to buy some souvenirs and the selection is extremely limited. The other parts of the market offer daily necessities mainly made in China. There is also a jewellers’ section. Shops full of gold and silver stands seem to be congregated on the outskirts of the market. You see bench jewelers stationed outside bigger shops at a little portable counter with their torches mending gold and making silver pieces.
One area has loads of men sewing bedding and clothing; they are all hunched over their machines but always lift their heads when I appear. There are not many tourists in this section and they are all curious.

Generally you do not see any women working here. I have seen very few exceptions. The merchandise is very limited and all shops sell the same stuff. The thing I am interested in are the coupons of fabric; the women wrap it around their bodies. Some of the patterns are fabulously wild and I have bought some on the first occasion I had. This is what I like about Sudanese culture: the women are wrapped up head to toe but there is a certain charm about it and the patterns are incredibly vivacious and add a real character to the place.
People re generally very nice and curious about visitors. I am a bit shy though about taking pictures and socializing. Barrier number one is the language; I really feel incapacitated, as their English is rather limited at the local stalls. Maybe I should try Chinese? As I walk by with my Asian friend some vendors shout “Mi Hao” at us. I am completely perplexed thinking: how do they know I speak Chinese? My friend explains it quickly saying it was addressed at her. We laugh. So yes, maybe trying Chinese would get me somewhere?
The place is full of Chinese; they have built a few hotels and lots of other buildings. You see them at the market and in shops. There is no escape…
Another thing to marvel at is the taxi stand. It is a huge dust field with haphazard lines of cars in a bright canary colour. Most of them remember three regimes past I reckon. Some have bullet holes through, some have just marks of a hundred collisions dating back to just after when the car was manufactured. They must have been all painted recently and it is a funny sight. I always laugh seeing one get past me. You have them just as people carriages or for cargo as well. Incredibly, they are in two separate lines.
You also see families or friends congregating in shaded areas, always in a circle and usually sharing some food. It all looks unbelievably scruffy but everybody seems rather happy.
There is a lot of activity at the local part of the market but their mentality is miles apart from ours. Often the clothes on offer are stained or faded and usually all they have is displayed on the racks. They do not seem to have much stock. Some of the robes are so incredibly tattered that in my mind there is really no point in hanging them to attract anyone. Apparently, the stains can be washed and nobody really cares much for quality.
There are tea ladies at corners or in narrow corridors, making it hard to pass. They offer hot tea and coffee in local flavor. They seem to be rather popular. The stands are mobile, like everything here, and they consist of a base with a large tray on it holding the kettle, jars with spices and little glasses. Next to it there are two or three buckets: one for coffee grounds or tealeaves, and one or two for rinsing the glasses. It is all rather grim and I can only imagine the colonies of bacteria germinating in these moist and warm reservoirs. One glance puts me off completely. But the locals do not mind and the ladies seem to have quite a bit of business. You see quite a few people sitting on little plastic or wire stools sipping their freshly made hot beverages. I sometimes envy their their ignorance and simple way of life.
That said, when a driver took me to one of the markets he felt he had to come with me to ensure my safety. At a certain point he asked if I was hungry and I was so, he found a little fast food place serving a Sudanese burger equivalent. With the burger in hand I was looking around the place. The walls were blackened from the ubiquitous dust, the seats were plastic chairs misshapen, beaten and discoloured, the drinks fridges were ancient and filthy and the people there were just having their food. Many of them women. The most orthodox one had to lift her face cover for every bite so I could get an idea what she looked like.
I wondered how later on I had to pay in physical discomfort for this culinary folly. Astonishingly, nothing was wrong with my stomach that day!

It was a big day as I decided to drive to the market myself. I had my friend for moral support. I knew Saturday would be busy and the market area would really be rather mad. I knew the way roughly but around the market many street are only one way so it took us a bit to get to the right place but it was not too complicated. Getting out was easier geographically but there was much more traffic in the afternoon. The roads have all sorts of potholes, unexpected humps, and other obstacles of anthropogenic origin. Additionally, the drivers do not use their indicators and they seem unfamiliar with basic rules of traffic. The craziness is compounded by the tuk-tuk drivers, who do not seem to have any sense of cooperation with other users of the roads. Add to this the donkey carts ofren driven by emaciated 12-year olds and you are sort of getting the picture of what driving through Khartoum is really like. Oh, and the pedestrians do not make it easier either. When they decide to cross, that is when you have to watch out for them. Once they are on the road they seem to believe they have the full right of way even though they are un-vehicled! I have to confess: I jaywalk. A lot. But when I do this I plan it carefully. I do this only where it is really necessary and if there are any cars in my field of vision, I simply run across to the other side. Here nobody is in a hurry. People are slowly shuffling down the road right in the middle of busy traffic. Infuriating. Frustrating. Silly.

Amazingly though, with all these difficulties, I made it home safe! This was like a baptism, the kind of sink or swim kind of initiation. I do not want to feel overly victorious as this would build my confidence to ignorant levels that might only end up in a sorry situation for me. Driving here requires constant undivided attention, which was confirmed only a few days later when I had to cover one of my Sudanese colleague’s classes as when he was driving to school in the morning he crashed his car and totally wrecked it…