Wednesday September 24, 2008

Woke up at 3:30 again and couldn’t get back to sleep. So I did some reading, writing and talk prep until 6 and then made my way down to the gym. The hotel gym is excellent though it took me a little while to do the lbàkg conversion on the free weights. The gym was packed at 6am. I was a little surprised that I was struggling more than usual on the treadmill until I realized that we were 5450 ft above sea-level. That is the same elevation(ish) as Denver and Kathmandu. ‘Mile high.’

This morning 4 unfamiliar white guys showed up at the class. Turns out they were big wigs. Army commanders and captains. One was in charge of the Horn of Africa program that brought us in and another was in charge of ‘engagement’ (their word for proactive development to avoid future conflict) for all of Africa, trying to figure out what is working on the horn that could have broader application. They are intense, self declared, type A’s that want to do good work but want to do it as soon as possible which does not necessarily synch up with African culture or US Development culture (this is their description but it aligned with my observations).

I am understanding the politics of American development in Africa. It is a bit dry, so feel free to skip to the next paragraph. But I am finding it fascinating, particularly because we have not given up totally on a long term future in development or, at the least, continued sporadic involvement. US AID has a better understanding of the needs and social implications of development projects. And everyone is suspicious of the military. But they do not have the technical water expertise. Federal water experts like me are employed by the Corps of Engineers. It doesn’t make sense to most people (including me most of the time) why water engineering is under the military umbrella in our country, but that is just the way it is. For the development folks to tap into technical expertise it would behoove them to warm up to the Military who has money, experts and interest and seems more than happy to be subordinate to the AID agenda (if not the pace) as long as it encourages stability. Seems like they could learn a lot from the Kabul model here where the USAID office is composed of ~50% Hydraulic Engineers borrowed from the Corps of Engineers.

I gave the soil loss method lecture this morning. This is my favorite lecture in this class because it is more in my areas of expertise of soils and ground water. But it was a pretty technical lecture and I’m not sure how into it they were. The professors were scribbling notes and had good questions that indicated they were tracking but it might have been too intense for the other students. I guess if anyone was going to get something out of the lecture it should be the professors b/c they will propagate it to decades of future practitioners without the crazy American accent and antics. I think I should take notes from Matt’s lecture style. He takes his time and is careful to speak clearly. The workshop went quite well. Those are always fun because you get to interact with the students.


One of the professors in my class was an Olympic athlete many years ago. He ran the 400 hurdles (a blistering personal best of 49.0 s). He now helps oversee the training of the middle distance runners for the Kenyan team. He said that most of the tea plantations in the east are owned by ex-athletes. It is the quickest way to ascend to the highest social class.

Another one of my students brought in some rain gage data. It was in a strange format so I wrote a program to process it during one of Matt’s lectures. Here is 30 years of rainfall data (below). Apparently 1962 was the flood of record…and it was 3X bigger than the next one. They were telling me stories about it. Entire houses disappeared. If you think about it, that is more than 15cm/hr for 24 straight hours. They say that Lake Victoria raised 5 m and is still higher than historic levels, as the result of that storm 30 years later. Several of the students are getting data together so we can help them build models next week. We could get several models of Kenyan watersheds with water issues started before we leave.

Matt and I booked a Safari today for Saturday and Sunday. Since we get money for food and a hotel those days anyway it turns out to be very affordable. I think I am more excited about seeing the Rift Valley than the lions and elephants, but they will be cool too. Tonight we are going to try the Indian restaurant in the hotel.

Amanda e-mailed me about new tricks that Charis is doing. It is a lot harder to be away with a toddler. She just changes so fast. At least she hasn’t forgotten me. Amanda said she saw a picture of me and said da-da. I am excited that they have decided to come on my next trip with me. I am going to Portland to take part in an interagency meeting on Dam Removal (my dissertation topic and something I am really interested in) 10 days after I return. It is a 1 hr direct flight, so it won’t be a big deal to bring Charis. And downtown Portland is very fun.