and, finally, the Alps...

You would think that after all that, I'd be ready for some rest. But no! Fear not! I then proceeded, after 36 hours in Amsterdam, to Geneva. First for a bit (2 days) of holiday with the family, and then for ECOSOC meetings.

Here, you see Albert and I standing inside of a glacier. Yes, inside. Yes, a glacier. Why? Because someone thought it would be a good idea to drill a cave into a glacier so people could go inside. Clearly. It was... cool. Sorry, I couldn't resist.

And here we are, outside of a glacier! Actually, the glacier is in the valley below; you can't quite see it. But, if we'd been there 100 years earlier, it would be poking up where the greenery ends on the mountainside behind us. It was truly alarming to see how quickly the ice is vanishing. Not that drilling caves in the glaciers helps much...

Finally, in the last stop on our Alpine adventure, we stayed in a charming town with charming cheese, both called Abondance. The only thing not charming was the fact that during dinner the river turned green. Not just a little green, but Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles green. For a while, no one knew why. So, we went on an expedition to find out. Still, we did not know why...

The next morning at breakfast, we were told it was a "test, water source test." Or, at least that's what we think they said, since our collective French is still not excellent. So it remains a bit of a mystery.

After that, I got to go back to work, at the ECOSOC Annual Ministerial Review. ECOSOC, by the way, is a UN body comparable to the Security Council whose mandate is to oversee all the economic and cultural bodies of the UN: WHO, UNICEF, UNAIDS, UNESCO (you know, World Heritage sites?)... all those agencies that are in the news all of the time are overseen by ECOSOC, the Economic and Social Council. The meetings were fine, with some good language about sexual health and rights included in the final declaration. It was a good experience, and gave me some things to think about for future years.

Now that I'm back in Amsterdam, I think I'm ready to stay (mostly) put for a while. Maybe a side trip to Cologne, but otherwise sticking around here until the EuroNGOs meeting in Riga, Latvia at the beginning of September. It promises to be a relaxing summer!

Off to Kenya

After I got back from holidays in the US, it was time to go to Kenya for work. Although we did do a lot of work in Kenya, we also had a very nice time.

Kenyans are still pretty into Obama (see top left, the sticker inside a taxi we took). I heard it was much more pronounced around the election, but it's still a big topic of conversation. Also, you see people wearing (and selling) Obama shirts, lots of cars with Obama bumper stickers, etc.

The place where we gave the workshop, at Lake Naivasha, was absolutely gorgeous. Here, you can see one of our giraffe friends wandering around.

This is Lake Naivasha. It's a bit hard to make out in this picture, but the photo shows a cart next to a pier that leads to the lake. Due to flower farming in the area, and a lack of rain, the water level in the lake has fallen dramatically, and they keep having the extend the pier.

The cart itself is actually quite ironic - every morning and evening, they hitch a donkey to the cart to bring it to and from the lake. What does it carry? An engine, for the tour boat that goes out on the lake. Nothing like modernity to get you donkey carts hauling engines...

This is one of the naughty monkeys that came into our conference room and stole candy off the tables. They really like to get into trouble. They are also not at all afraid of people, though still not terribly friendly. This little one was sitting on my balcony railing, less than an arm's length away.

Mid-week, we played a soccer match against the hotel staff (when I say "we," I mean the workshop participants...). It was great fun, and thanks to the staff lending us some star players, the game ended in a draw, 2-2. I think my cheering helped a lot.

This is our workshop room, and on the left, the coffee break tent. It was a brilliant place to give a workshop, except that in the middle of the day the sun beat on the stone building, causing it to become extremely hot. And monkeys stole our candy. Other than that, it was perfect!

First Harvest

Well, there are a few new posts coming. I've been traveling like crazy - at one point I was on three continents within 5 days. But first, a look in our "garden," i.e. the pots on the windowsill.

The first harvest brought radishes and lettuce. Unfortunately, I don't like radishes, and these were particularly strong and also a bit woody. But, pretty to look at!

The lettuce, on the other hand, was tender and delicious.

Then the second harvest, which was really exciting. Tiny, amazingly sweet tomatoes, and really nice sweet peas. Let's just ignore those radishes.

Unfortunately the garden did not particularly like being left alone for over a month... so we'll see what more we can coax from it. Maybe it's not too late to start some new peas? We'll see.