Random Observations

- Serengeti, a beer brand, is genius. It appears that they are giving bars willing to serve their beer a bright yellow sign on a metal pole advertising the beverage – upon which the bar can put up a sign naming the bar. As in, while there are still no addresses, yellow signs now punctuate the streets and are an easier way to know where the bars are. Works for me.

- I was running the other day and a Maasi warrior laughed at me – as in, we passed and he was laughing. He’s probably killed a lion with his bare hands, so fair enough.

- Sadly, there are fake Maasi. Due to the desired status of real Maasi – many local Tanzanians will don the purple / red scarfs and stick and get jobs guarding cars in the parking lots or watching the outside of shops for tips – except they aren’t really Maasi. You can generally tell b/c they are too short or have too much meat on the bone. It is very cool to see a real one w/ the multi-pierced ears and proper dress.

- The search for a bicycle is likely over. I surveyed a lot of people and it was deemed a likely dangerous idea with some pretty solid evidence. It’s too bad, but I’ll get over it.

- Generators here, for power outages, sound like lawn mowers. So when there’s a power outage (rather frequent) and it’s long enough that people start up their generators, it’s quite a cacophony. I like to think of it as the sound of development – but its really the sound of haphazard development.

- When I search google, its via the Kenya site – google.ke the websites are in Swahili, which is pretty cool – and a good way to learn basic vocab.

- My Swahili is coming along very slowly but with a patient teacher – I have learned greetings, how to introduce myself, sentence structure and basic verbs. It sounds like gibberish but is rather logical to learn.

- If I lived here full time, I would purchase the land along the water, privatize it somehow with security and let people enjoy it. Seriously, its ridiculous property that goes to waste due to security threats.

- The US embassy is truly a compound and set back from from the road (due to the legacy of the 1998 bombings) – but it isn’t exactly inviting – though people here are psyched about Obama!

- “American Garden” is a private label brand you can find across many of the grocery stores. It is a well-priced generic but I think they would sell more to the local population if it also had a smiley photo of Obama on it.

- “Addis in Dar” is a local Ethiopian restaurant that I went to this past week with a friend and his girlfriend from the Kennedy School. It’s likely the only time I will be rather close to Ethiopia – and still think that Addis Red Sea on Tremont Street actually tastes better. It was good to at least be on the same continent.