May 23, 2007

Dear friends and family,

We are pleased to announce our safe arrival in São Tomé and Príncipe (STP) last weekend. In the hubbub of arrival, I have not had an opportunity to write sooner, but our lack of communication does NOT mean that we are stuck in Lisbon.

Our first full week in STP has been overwhelming, but good. Our flight arrived before dawn on Saturday morning, May 12. We did a flyby of the island of São Tomé in the pre-dawn light, and I could've sworn it was Príncipe. It looked too small to be our new home! But indeed, it WAS São Tomé. Upon stepping off the plane and walking into the airport, I was immediately struck by two things: how much STP did not resemble the Africa that I know, and how much it DID resemble the Africa that I know. It is definitely Africa, insofar as the warm, tropical climate, the roads badly in need of repair, the sudden, torrential rains that disperse as quickly as they came, and the lush jungle vegetation typical of coastal Africa (at least, West Africa). But it is definitely not the Africa Kristi and I know, insofar as the airport experience: people who stand in line and wait their turn? customs officials who gently stamp your passport instead of attempting to launch it to the center of the earth with the force of their slam? hotel and taxi solicitors who respectfully stand behind the line painted on the ground, and who do not jostle or cajole you into going with them?! no one trying to snatch your luggage from your hand as soon as you take it off the conveyor belt?! What kind of a paradise is this?! "Leve leve" is the attitude here: take it easy. Leve leve permeates the São Toméan persona.

Beyond the airport, we found STP to differ from our previous experiences, too – there are few pesky insects at all (a Taiwanese development project sprays every house in the country every 6 months), the diet relies much more heavily on fish than on a starchy staple (corn, millet, cassava) with sauce (fried tomatoes, cassava/pumpkin/collard greens, beans) like other parts of Africa that we know, and the inhabitants seem to have assimilated Portuguese customs and language much more than other former European colonies on the continent. This latter observation may be due to the fact that STP was uninhabited until the Portuguese brought in waves of slaves from enormously diverse regions of the continent, starting in the 1400's; the only unifying factor anyone had for hundreds of years was Portuguese influence.

Emanuel Costa, the ADRA country director and my new boss, met us at the airport and expedited us through customs. ADRA has a good reputation in this country, so we were treated well. Our only scare was when we discovered that neither Zachary's nor my yellow books (international certificates of vaccination) had our recent yellow fever shots recorded in them. A yellow fever vaccination is required before entering STP. A counter staffed by eager-looking people in white lab coats holding vials of serum stood between us and freedom. Luckily, Kristi discovered the omission before we reached the counter, and while I kept an eye out for nosy airport employees, Kristi wrote our vaccination entries into the yellow books. I assured her that it was ethical because a) we actually really did get the shots – they were somehow not recorded; b) our lives might be endangered by getting the shots again too soon after a recent inoculation (I had an active reaction to the shot); and c) my father is an ethicist, so I can't be wrong!

STP is an incredibly beautiful place. Our house is halfway between the international airport and dowtown São Tomé on a little side road, and we hear a car maybe once an hour. Distances are really short, as the population of the city is less than 50,000, and Africans tend to live on a whole lot less real estate than Americans (who needs a lawn, a garage, or any personal space at home?!). Even here in the capital city, beautiful beaches line the waterfront, clean colonial- and modern-style buildings rise from the low skyline, mini-gardens flourish outside homes and businesses, and even the weeds and wild plants come in a stunning array of colors, shapes, and blossoms. New construction is popping up everywhere, as the outside world is starting to discover that STP exists and wonders why it didn't come knocking sooner. The discovery of offshore oil is another lucrative factor in recent investments of real estate (gated communities, casinos) and hotels. Our apartment unit is one of four in our building overlooking one of the two bays of São Tomé. We are on the ground floor, so our view is not that great, but we can still see water if we look out our windows. And with a brand-new white Toyota Hilux 5-seat 4WD pickup truck at our disposal after working hours (it belongs to the project I direct), we can easily take little outings in our spare time. Our apartment is in pretty good shape, and it comes with furniture and a really attentive and fair landlord, so we can't complain! Thankfully, we haven't seen too many house-eating crabs around our property. I don't know their official name, but these are huge land crabs (think of a baseball catcher's mitt) that burrow under houses and pock the earth so full of holes that walls suddenly collapse! Landlords do a good job of making sure their property investment is not infested.

The ADRA office where I work is down a less-developed side street; that's why ADRA was able to afford it! But the value of the property is already skyrocketing, so we're lucky to be positioned where we are. I launched straight into my work this week, meeting the organizational and project staff, important church leaders, and government officials. I am receiving lots of wonderful support for my work – both within the organization and from outside – so I feel confident that this project will be successfully completed. I have a lot of sharp colleagues, too, who have taken the initiative to get a lot of balls rolling before I arrived, so my job is easier.

Aside from work, we've also had time to play already. The day after we arrived in STP, ADRA held its annual beach picnic at the end of a winding road leading through beautiful jungle. The last 500 meters or so were on a dirt/mud track, depending on the weather conditions. In our case, it was mud – super-thick mud – the result of a morning full of rain. The atmosphere was festive, as beachgoers pushed and shoved stuck cars in the direction of the blacktop behind us, while we plowed ahead in our 4-wheel drives, slipping and sliding every which way, regardless of how we turned the steering wheel. What a blast! Some people would pay good money in the US to go off-roading, and we get it for free here!

The Costas have quickly become good friends in our one week here, as they fed us, provided for our needs, and helped us get settled into our new apartment. Emanuel and Raquel are approximately the same age as Kristi and I, and their son, David, is five weeks younger than Zachary. They are inseparable! They don't have a common verbal language, but they totally communicate in ways adults never could. The two little boys love each other to death! Unfortunately, that makes for easy passing of illnesses, and an intestinal bug has been bouncing back and forth between our families since we got here. Zachary has held onto it for the longest out of all of us, but he is just as cheerful and active as normal in between bouts of Montezuma's revenge, so we're not too concerned. We hope he will be done with it soon.

Less than a week after arriving here in STP, I made my first trip to Príncipe, São Tomé's smaller, oft-forgotten sister island 90 miles away. There was no rush or concern to depart on time, and what really felt unusual (and pleasant, in a way) was that I never had to show my ID (even to prove that I am the person holding the ticket), no security check, and no assigned seating. Leve-leve. Just take it easy. In fact, I didn't even present the ticket at the counter myself to obtain a boarding pass; our ADRA logistician did so on our behalf.

Emanuel and I traveled together, leaving our wives and sons behind. It was only a two-day trip (Thursday and Friday), and we needed to focus on our work. Emanuel didn't help me feel any safer when he recounted to me that an Air STP plane crashed about six months ago, killing all on board! Apparently, it was a really old plane, and it was a training flight with a student pilot who had just finished ground school and was on his maiden voyage at the controls. His instructor, who was drunk, left the rookie at the controls while he went back and entertained his three girlfriends, the only passengers on board. The plane went down in the bay within sight of the airport. I crossed my fingers that natural selection had taken out the most unfit to fly, and that only highly skilled pilots remained!

Leaving the ground gave us a great view of São Tomé by day, something we had been robbed of when arriving from Portugal in the early dawn. The color of the water was an incredible azure turquoise, and the island stood out like an emerald gem floating in the ocean. What a truly incredible place to live and work! Príncipe did not disappoint, either. An even more stunning view awaited us, as mist-shrouded jungle-clad granite cliffs rose in vertical thrusts from secluded beaches you could die for! It looked just like Bora Bora from a travel brochure – but here it was before our very eyes, and it's much less commercialized (or even known about) than Tahiti.

Santo Antonio, the capital of Príncipe, is a blink-and-miss town. (By the way, there are a grand total of 0 stoplights in the whole country of São Tomé and Príncipe!). The population of Príncipe is only 6,000, so the capital is quiet and picturesque, with green monoliths as a backdrop rising just outside the city. At 10:00 in the morning on a work day, I stood on the balcony of our hotel and looked down upon the central downtown square. For five minutes, there was only one car in sight, and it didn't move from where it was parked. It was incredible! Shortly after settling into our hotel, however, we provided one moving car for the downtown scene, as we drove off toward the mountain community of São Joaquim. This is one village where ADRA is working on several projects, including the one I am directing. The vegetation was thick on either side of the dirt track winding past sheer cliffs and steep dropoffs. Bright colored birds darted everywhere, some sporting extravagantly long split tails like the trailers on a kite, and all singing the most beautifully haunting warbles that echoed through the forest.

São Joaquim, like many communities in STP, is built around a decaying former Portuguese plantation that is crumbling into the thick undergrowth. Everywhere you go in this country, you can see remnants of former splendor that were unable to survive the relentless encroachment of nature once their wealthy caretakers departed. Local Saotomeans simply use what they can, sometimes living in still-intact rooms, sometimes setting up shops in still-standing buildings, and sometimes simply taking advantage of the land cleared around the buildings to set up their own homes and gardens. São Joaquim is one of the latter; it is built around what appears to be an unused former plantation house on a plateau looking over the sea on one side and the ubiquitous mountains on the other. We unloaded several large boxes of shoes that were donated by another project to distribute to barefoot schoolchildren. After several speeches and official fanfare and hoopla in the classroom, the distribution began, and we departed to inspect the community health post. This was of particular interest to me, as it falls under the domain of my project. The health post was standing, but that was all you could say in its favor. Because of lack of funds for maintenance, the health post had crumbling walls, rampant mold colonies, and thick dust and detritus strewn all over the floor. Several itinerant puppies had claimed one corner for a midday nap, but it was otherwise unfit for occupation. The community health agent has been serving the community out of his home, but he really needs a workspace to spread out in. Fixing health posts and training community health agents further are two main objectives of this project, so São Joaquim is a prime candidate for participation. I took many pictures "before", so we can compare them with "after" the project is done.

On the way back to Santo Antonio, we stopped at another abandoned plantation property that was completely uninhabited. Jordão, the project manager for Príncipe, said that the regional autonomous government of Príncipe wants to donate the property to ADRA for free! The buildings are in pretty bad shape, but the location is picturesque, close to town while still in the country, and includes five large stately buildings. We had fun brainstorming what we would do with such a property, fixing it up (perhaps with Maranatha help), opening an orphanage/day care center, establishing a college in a country where higher education is virtually non-existent, bringing in friends and relatives with an interest in service to run various aspects of the operations... We'll have to see what comes of it.

In the afternoon, we visited a secondary school where ADRA distributed a large number of textbooks and bookshelves for the library. The regional governor had asked ADRA on a previous visit if we could help him locate some of these books, and it just so happened that many of them were sitting in our warehouse for years, with no apparent intentions for them. The media was there, filming and snapping and interviewing everyone in sight. The next day, we appeared on national television – and I missed seeing it! "National" in STP is not nearly as big as in the US, but it's still nation-wide. National news comes on at 8:00 every evening, so we'll be sure to catch it next time we suspect we'll be on TV.

The next day, we visited the only hospital on Príncipe – one of the participants in our project – to assess their needs. Later that same morning, we met with the Deputy Governor of the autonomous region of Príncipe, as the Governor himself was out of the country. Both parties independently concurred that the greatest need for the hospital is electricity. The city of Santo Antonio has decent enough power, but the hospital got a terrible wiring job when it was built so that they don't have electricity most of the time. They have a sophisticated EKG and X-ray machine, but they are as good as nothing without power. So by supplying an electrician to fix the system, we can effectively give the hospital an EKG and X-ray machine – without actually supplying them ourselves! The littlest things can make such a big difference in a place like this. It's so rewarding to empower people to cast off their constraints and thrive – all with a little bit of well-placed funding. The people themselves have the initiative and the know-how; often the only thing they lack are the means to carry it out. That's what we are here to provide. The real agents of change and development are the people themselves.

We next visited the community of Abade which has no community health post whatsoever. In most cases, we are identifying existing community health posts that are run down and bolstering them both with supplies/repairs and training for the staff. But in a few cases, we have identified communities with no health care whatsoever within any decent traveling distance. This is one of those latter cases. As we scouted the town for good locations to build a health center, we didn't realize that I had locked the keys in the car. Upon returning to our vehicle, we discovered the keys sitting serenely on the front seat! What to do? My cell phone was locked inside the car, too, and my colleague's cell phone was out of minutes! He went off to borrow a cell phone and call back to the ADRA office for help while I scratched my head and thought. This amused the villagers quite a bit, and they all crowded around to see what the foreigner would do. Finally, I placed my hands flat on the window glass and pulled down. It budged enough to get a wire through! I asked around for a long wire, and somebody scrounged around for one. A long plastic-coated wire was offered up; I untwisted it into a more or less straight shape with a "J" hook at the end and threaded it through the gap in the window. I felt like I was playing one of those "claw" games at the arcade where you put a quarter in and try to maneuver the joystick so the claw will grasp the stuffed animal you want! With patience and dedication, I fairly easily worked the keys up to the gap in the window, pulled out the one I needed and unthreaded it from the keychain. A cheer rose up from the crowd as I unlocked the door, and one old man standing nearby shook his head and muttered, "I would never have thought of that. If it were me, I'd still be stuck here tomorrow." "He has a doctorate," my colleague explained matter-of-factly. So my PhD was good for something over here! The only problem is that the title "Doctor" is used for anyone holding a college degree of any level. College education is so rare here (there is no institution of higher learning here at all, to my knowledge) that an associates degree, a bachelor degree, a masters degree, a doctoral degree – they all blend together in people's minds. I could have spared myself all the blood sweat and tears of the past five years and just moved here if all I wanted was the title! It's a little deflating not to have my achievement recognized, but I didn't do it just for recognition anyway. I wanted the education and experience that are a passport to many opportunities in a world that knows what a doctorate is.

We ate out for every meal in Príncipe at a woman's house whose front porch is converted into a café. She has a lot of variety in her menu: brown fish, blue fish, red fish. Fish, fish, fish. That's all they eat on Príncipe! São Tomé has quite a seafood diet, too, but not like Príncipe! The base changed somewhat – rice, rice and beans, plantains – but it was always with fish. I've been a vegetarian from birth, but I do eat meat on occasion, especially when it's all that's available or it's being served to me at someone's house and I do not want to offend them. So I ate fish twice during the two days we were in Príncipe. One time it was a gorgeous auburn-colored fish with little neon-blue spots all over its body – the kind you'd find in an aquarium in the US, not on your dinner plate. But it was tender and delicious. Absolutely no fishy smell or taste. Emanuel told me it was probably caught that morning, brought straight to her house, and cooked up. It's the most delicious meat I've ever eaten, especially with the way she cooked it spicy with fresh tomatoes and onions and a lemon juice sauce. Nevertheless, I couldn't be converted to carnivorism in two days, and I ate other things that were available as often as possible. That amounted to 2 fish meals and 5 egg meals (hard-boiled, omelet, scrambled...)! I couldn't eat eggs for a week after that! The fish is probably better for me than 5 egg meals!

To close off our stay in Príncipe, we drove out to Praia Banana – Banana Beach. It is the most gorgeous beach I have ever seen in pictures, and I wanted to see if it was for real. The drive was again through incredible jungle scenery on a bright red dirt road. At the end of the road is another abandoned plantation with a few people making use of what they can. But it seemed to be only one or two families, not a whole village. It was quiet and peaceful. Just beyond the plantation is a cliff with a concrete platform looking out to sea. And at the base of the cliff jutting out into the ocean is the most incredible little comma-shaped peninsula cloaked in coconut palms with a wide sandy beach on one side and intense blue water! It was an unbelievable sight! The road took a jog to the left and attempted to wind its way down the cliff, but it quickly petered out into a boulder-strewn path, so we parked the truck to get out and walk. In the late afternoon light, the palm trees and banana underbrush glowed with an ethereal light. It looked like paradise incarnate. And flitting about the treetops of this botanical garden of Eden were the most beautiful birds with the most beautiful birdsongs. Among this utopian setting and soothing soundtrack live reclusive monkeys, which can be seen leaping from one coconut palm to another if you walk quietly and keep a sharp eye out for them. Descending down the switchbacks, you finally arrive at peninsula ground-level and enter a forest of nothing but coconut palms – no bushes, no vines, no grasses to get in your way – with dappled sunlight playing on the sandy ground. A 50-yard walk through this forest opens up directly onto the beach, with the water only a lazy stone's throw in front of you. What more can I say? It is the most beautiful beach I have ever been to in my life. Nothing comes close. You'll have to come see it to believe it yourself.

Now, I have a riddle for you: which bird is the fastest flying bird in the world? Do you have a guess? Is it the albatross? Or the Peregrine Falcon? NO! Absolutely not! It doesn't even come close to the chicken! I use the definite article "the" because I am referring to a very specific chicken. Namely, the chicken that rode on top of our luggage on the flight back to São Tomé at nearly 200 mph! We also had a flying fish on board in Emanuel's luggage... Actually, there really are flying fish here – I mean the real ones, not the ones on airplanes. But I haven't seen any yet. Anyway, back to our flight. As we approached São Tomé, the weather turned increasingly sour. Wind jolts buffeted us back and forth, up and down, and the pilots started slaloming around one downpour after another, managing to keep up us in a corridor of dry weather. But dry weather was drying up pretty quickly, and by the time we started making our approach to the São Tomé airport, all the passengers were quite nervous and I found myself wishing we'd just head back to Príncipe 90 miles away, where it was bright and sunny and calm when we'd left a half hour before! That's the nature of the weather here. It comes suddenly, and is pretty localized and intense, so it could be pouring cats and dogs at home and sunny downtown (a 10 minute drive away). It was a small twin turbo-prop 12-seater plane, so we really felt the wind buffeting quite a lot, and the cockpit didn't have a door so we could see what was happening out the front window. We'd get all lined up perfectly for the runway, and suddenly it would disappear out the front window as we were jolted to the left. Then the pilots would line us up again only to get jolted right. They'd line us up again and then we'd get jolted upward. It was like riding a bucking bronco, only we were a lot higher up in the air, moving a whole lot faster, and much more flammable than a bronco is. Don't ask me HOW they put us on the ground, but those well-seasoned South African pilots placed us down as gently as a feather and slammed on the brakes as hard as they could! Once I could pry my hands loose from the armrest, I started a hearty round of applause that was enthusiastically taken up by the rest of the passengers on the plane! That has to rank as the worst landing approach in my life! Before we pulled up to the terminal, the rain had started a violent downpour at the airport, too. One minute later, and we wouldn't have been able to land. Solid ground never felt so good in my life, and having our wives and sons to greet us at the airport was so comforting (they hadn't seen the landing itself, having been parked behind the terminal building waiting for us).

This past week, I also paid a visit to Caué, the southernmost region of São Tomé, furthest from the capital, the poorest region of the country, and the other region where my project is working (other than Príncipe). Rural São Tomé is also a place of stunning beauty, with volcanic cliffs plunging thousands of feet straight to the sea, secluded beaches tucked into every cove, and natural wonders abounding: a seawater blowhole through volcanic rock, natural arches in the water, a giant pillar of solid volcanic rock thrusting thousands of feet into the air from the surrounding forest (remnants of a volcanic plug where the surrounding softer rock has worn away). We visited with the governor of Caué, who accompanied us on several visits to project sites to familiarize himself with what we are doing and intend to do in the future with this project. He was a real trooper, hacking through jungle with us (literally) as we climbed in search of a spring we hope to tap as a water source for a coastal village with no clean fresh water. It was a rainy day, and we were astounded upon our return to cross a bridge which we had previously crossed going the other direction no more than an hour before. What had been a placid, clear, lazy river before was a raging wall of mud forcefully uprooting bamboo stands along the bank and slamming entire trees into the bridge pilings below us! The water level was significantly higher than before, but still a good 10 feet below the road surface. The governor remembered one occasion when he had to turn back because when he approached the bridge, he found that a similar flashflood had covered the bridge itself! We stood in awe for several minutes, taking pictures and shaking our heads.

Okay, I've got way more I could tell you, but I've already dragged on much too long, so I'll save it for the next tome. Just for your information, I've almost got my website revamped and ready to view. It will have pictures from STP, a blog, and general information of interest. I'll let you know as soon as it's out!

Adam