NYC - Kennedy Airport

Northwest uses Terminal 4 at JFK, specifically the 'A' gates. This is the main international terminal. This has made things really easy for me as my KLM flight is right next to where we came in.

Of course, the ramp service folks at Detroit couldn't get their act together and move a stray luggage cart for 15 minutes, so our arrival at the gate in Detroit was delayed about 15 minutes. That left me with about 45 minutes before we departed for NYC and unfortunately, I didn't have enough time to grab a bite to eat. I did get out into the airport for a few minutes though to use the restroom and generally check it out since I've never seen the new airport. Since I usually fly United, my Detroit experience has been limited to the old crappy terminal.

We couldn't depart Detroit on time either. We boarded the plane on time, but there was still a lot of luggage to load. I was pretty annoyed because I was really hungry and now here I am in NYC spending $25 for a burger, some chicken fingers, and a soda. We arrived at the gate in New York at 3:40, ten minutes late. If I leave the 'A' gates, I'll have to go through security again (and since I have a lot of electronics packed, they had to do some extra screening in Chicago).

I'm looking forward to the trip at any rate, but I'm still feeling bouts of nervousness. I just met some people at the airport bar who are headed to Ireland and so that has helped buoy my spirits. I guess the lack of food in Detroit probably added some to my previous pissy mood.

I'm planning to sleep for the JFK to Amsterdam flight as that will somewhat closely match nighttime in Tanzania. I want to stay awake for as much of Amsterdam-Kilimanjaro as possible as well so that I can minimize the effects of jet lag. Getting some sleep will surely help me feel better too as I didn't get much sleep last night.

I don't know what life holds in store for the next three and a half weeks. After Phil picks me up from the airport on Wednesday evening, the next thing set in my itinerary is the trip to Rwanda, but that isn't until the first weekend of June, and I honestly don't know too many details yet. Clearly, I don't fully know what to expect. You might say that the fact that I'm stepping into the unknown is admirable. The fact is, I'm not very good with such ambiguous circumstances and I'm way outside my comfort zone--It's hard not to think of all of the potential bad things that could happen. I've set myself up to expect almost nothing for modern conveniences. With Phil and Alison already on the ground and surviving, I'm comforted that I won't be stepping into the unknown alone.

So since I doubt that I'll be able to post for a few days at least, I'll leave the blog for now with this note of thanks: thank you to everyone who has contributed time, materials, or money to help me fulfill my mission at Amani Children's Home. I am very thankful to have so many generous friends and colleagues. Together, we can all help make the world a better place, one step at a time. Even though I'm flying halfway around the world into one of the poorest areas in the world, we can all find people near our homes that need help just as badly.

In the airport

I'm currently in the Chicago airport about to catch my flight to Tanzania. The itinerary is pretty crazy--Northwest for Chicago to a stoppover in Detroit, then on to New York City (JFK), transfer to KLM and fly to Amsterdam, then catch the flight to Kilimanjaro. My flight leaves in about a half hour, and I will arrive in Tanzania at 8:30 pm Wednesday there, which is about 12:30 PM here in Chicago, also Wednesday.

I'm a little nervous about the trip. I hope I got everything packed.

One of the amazing things about technology-- Phil just sent me an IM. "See you in 26 hours!" he says.

Tanzania/Rwanda

So here's the first post about my trip to Tanzania this summer. I have set my vacation time at work: May 22 - June 16. No plane ticket yet or other details. I need to call United to see if there's some way I can use some of my 280,000 (and counting) frequent flyer miles.

Phil sent me an e-mail last week indicating that during my time there, he and Alison would be taking a trip to Rwanda to "see the gorillas." So yes, of course I'm in for that.

I've picked up a few books from the used book store down the street and am currently reading Hemingway's "The Snows of Kilimanjaro." Also, I bought a lot of books and DVDs from Amazon today to help me understand what I'm getting into. I'm also doing my best to learn some Swahili, although at the moment, the only words I remember are 'ndege,' which means 'plane,' and 'mbwa' and I don't remember what that means.

Asian Languages

Asian languages are interesting. The character set is entirely different -- Chinese uses pictures as the base for the character set and Thai has a gazillion vowels but fewer overall characters thankfully.

Not all phrases translate directly. For example, the Chinese phrase "ni hao" is used in the sense of "hello" but literally translates to "I'm good."

Asian languages are also tonal. Similar to how English uses tone to establish emotion, Chinese and Thai use tone to establish the actual word being spoken. If an incorrect tone is used, the meaning of what was said can be entirely different.

Also, word structure uses some simple prefixes to change meaning. As an example, in Chinese, appending the latin sound "bu-" to a word generally negates what was said. "Bu hao" would translate to "not good."

Conversationally, I was surprised that the courtesy of saying "please" is not really used. I don't know enough of the language to say how respect is conveyed.

Chinese New Year

The Chinese New Year was celebrated on January 29 this year, and surprisingly, there's not much that goes on. In fact, Beijing pretty much shuts down. The closest thing I can equate this holiday with in the US is Christmas, but without the same level of commercialization. Granted there's plenty of people buying little paper dogs and other various decor.

For the most part people travel to their homes to visit their families and the company I have been consulting for shuts down for a week. Apparently that's pretty common.

One of the most classic examples of Chinese New Year is the lantern. I visited the lantern festival in Chaoyang park this week and took a bunch of pictures. Some of the lanterns are as large as a parade float!! Traditionally, the lanterns would have been lit with candles, but that's quite dangerous this day in age, so they're all lit with light bulbs nowadays. One of the coolest lanterns was themed on the 2008 olympics. There was even a dog playing baseball!

Pollution

Beijing is seriously polluted, and for the most part, I've already adjusted to it so I don't notice the smells anymore. However, when I wake up, I usually have to blow my nose to clear things out. As I do this, the burning smell of the pollution overtakes any other scent in my room. I can only guess that my lungs are not happy to have this nasty air in them.

Working in Beijing

Spending time in Beijing as a tourist is different from spending time in Beijing as a businessperson. I've met a number of interesting people who are also here on business, perhaps temporarilly like me, or perhaps permanently.

One of the interesting things I clued in on this week was in the China daily: President Bush: is amazed with China. This country needs to create 25 million jobs a year just to stay even. Given the current stress over the economy and job creation in the United States, I'm wondering if we will be able to keep up.

Still, many of the jobs here are unskilled. It seems like every streetcorner has a soldier standing guard. There are plenty of people working at the hotel to attend to my every need. It seems like things that could be done with a machine are done by hand, simply because someone needs a job.

Of course, the best perk about being here on business is that I can interact with the local people and learn more about how they live. A lot of it is just day to day stuff, like the wife of the main contact at client I am working for just had a baby, so there's some excitement about that. Everybody has been talking about the holiday and asking me how I enjoyed my trip to Thailand. All around good times.