Richmond

So sad, but we had to say goodbye to the bird today. We left her in good care at Nate and Amanda's house in Richmond amongst 5 other happy birds though, so she'll be fine. I'm mostly worried about Ruth! Look how sad she was for the entire drive there. Nate and Amanda and their birds wake up at 6am every day which is going to feel like the Army bootcamp for little sleepy Georgia. She's been on California time since she came out here with me, and before that she was on Hawaii time.


Now that we're back in Durham, and we've moved out of our house, we're staying with our friends until Ruth completes her Thesis defense. This still hasn't been scheduled, so we don't know exactly when we'll be flying to Tanzania, but I suspect that it won't be for at least 2 more weeks! It's been almost a month since I left work, so I'm starting to get a little antsy. I've been spending most of my time reading blogs and news about the downwardly spiraling economic situation and reading books (all while drinking large quantities of coffee which makes all of this information seem more immediate). One wonders what the US will be like in one year. Also, of course, what it's going to be like in Africa now that global trade and investments are taking a nosedive. Perhaps, in the area of Tanzania that we will be, where most of the food is grown locally and there is very little $ to begin with, there won't be much change. In the big cities, both in Africa and the US, I expect there to be a more dramatic shift.
So is leaving my great job and going to Africa wise at this time? Who cares? What's more important is that I will be able to help Ruth with her project, we'll have lot's of fun and adventure in the African jungle and we might even learn how to live off much less than we are accustomed to here in the U.S. Vital preparation for the apocalyptic scenarios- prepare for the worst hope for the best right?

What to do with Georgia?

This is The bird-



We hate to have to leave her behind.
But she definitely can't come to Africa with us. Sometimes it seems just keeping this bird alive has become a full time job for Ruth and I. The vet tells us that she's 'geriatric'. Although she is only about 34 years old, she has been on a terrible, mainly seed, diet for most of those years and so she has aged prematurely. Birds can live quite a bit longer when fed properly. We didn't find this out until 2 years ago, and we've been trying to coax her to eat dried green pellets and fruit ever since. It seems that we are finally having some success and this month Georgia sprouted a whole bunch of new feathers and bulked up!
Georgia spends most of her time sitting on Ruth's computer preening and squawking. She likes to climb down from the cage and walk around a bit, following us into the kitchen or the bedroom and she loves to hang out on the shower curtain. She is a fanatical spelunker and considers just about any blanket crease a good place to hunker down and make weird tiny squeaking sounds. She's smart enough to go for bike rides and hang onto my glasses but her vocabulary consists of only like 6 words. Whoever says animals don't feel emotions or have memories or can't reason has never lived with a parrot. She's like a tiny little person and she will be really sad when we leave.
Luckily, Ruth's friend Nate is going to take care of Georgia for us. He has 6 smaller birds already and we hope that Georgia will make some new friends.

Time capsule

Out of curiosity I'd like to make a few predictions for the year, then see how accurate they were when I come back from the trip. These are primarily in regards to the economy, as I am currently trying to determine what might be a safe haven for my savings and also because I'm interested in how things are going to play out for the US. My guess is that Obama is going to pass a watered down stimulus package with way too many concessions to the republicans. It will have too many tax breaks, not enough educational funding, too much new highway $ and not enough mass transit and alternative transportation funding. This is easy to predict b/c these are subjective measurements. However, the result on the economy will be mostly short term, resulting in greater US debt, and a spike in inflation beginning sometime in the next 6 months. Inflation will drive up the price of gold, oil and some other commodities. So in a year, I would expect oil to be back near $100 a barrel, and gold to be sky high ($1,500 per ounce?). Declining global oil supplies, due in part to reduced new drilling investment b/c of the current dramatic price drop, will help drive up the price of the barrel. This increase in the price of oil, along with new government alternative energy stimuli, will cause solar stocks to rise once again! I would expect their value to approximately double this year.
On the political front, things are much harder to read. I think Barak Obama wants to change our foreign policy towards a more balanced and diplomatic effort, but I suspect that he might fall into the same traps that previous presidents have. Unless he takes a more controversial (in the US), even-handed, approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict we'll continue to watch as this spreads virally into and destabilizes so many other international relationships. Finally, as it becomes apparent that a global economy may be more fragile and dangerous than predicted and countries like China and India begin to feel the pain from the recession, there will be increased tensions from isolationism, trade imbalances and currency manipulation.
Will there be criminal proceedings to hold some of our previous administration accountable for violating the Geneva conventions and other treaties by torturing? Yes, I think so. At this point, there are too many admissions of guilt and it's been stated by the A.G. that he is opposed to the old policies. Will there be criminal proceedings for unconstitutional domestic surveillance? Yes, I think that there has to be some judicial proceedings on this topic as well. First, there will be a trial which examines the constitutionality of the recently passed FISA bill. Then, if this is repealed, there will be some persons held accountable for violations. Perhaps this won't happen in a year though.
Will there be a zombie apocalypse while we're in Africa? No, won't happen. However, I think that there might be a sweet new movie based on the book 'World War Z' coming out that I dread missing.
So where's the good news? More bikes on the road, more renewable energy, less pollution, more locally grown food, stronger communities, manufacturing moves back to the US due to high transportation costs. Don't know what other surprises and delights might be in store, but life goes on.

Lazy days

Testing, testing-

This is the first blog post. My leave of absence from work began on Friday! I'm still in Durham, sitting around on my lazy butt and threatening to begin making 'to do' lists for the big trip. Ruth is busy typing away at her desk, preparing her thesis proposal while Georgia sleeps on the top of her computer. This is the last tie that connects us to Duke. Once she presents this to her department we begin packing and preparing in earnest. First, we'll need plane tickets then we'll have to purchase rain gear, a first aid kit and other odds and ends. Then we store our massive amount of useless 'stuff' and we're off! We expect to depart by the end of February.
OK, maybe it's too presumptuous to be calling myself junglejack already. But this is a blog about Africa and what we'll see there and how it's going to affect us. We'll be spending a lot of our time in the forest watching monkeys mate and slapping away mosquitoes and army ants, so I am taking the liberty of assuming that by some point during our stay we'll be jungle-y.
During the late morning hours of my sleep, I sort of half dreamed and half thought about the idea of bringing our movie projector, a white sheet and laptop/speakers along with us so that we might be able to show movies to the locals. We purchased a 1 terabyte external hard drive for 100 bucks yesterday, which can hold almost 250 full length movies. Using this simple set-up we could create a portable movie theater which we could set up wherever there is electricity. It sounds at first like a great plan, but I need to think more about it. Perhaps it's not so cool to be exporting Hollywood culture to a place where the average income is about 2 dollars a day. Plus, once you set yourself up as a movie promoter, there's probably no going back.
Final test! Here's a picture of Ruth during the recent snowfall (BA- 1month)-