Sustenance, hygiene and recuperation at Umoja

I hope to get a little more ambitious with my cooking, but it's been enough of a task just to land these fresh fruits and veggies. Everything is so flavorful! I'm especially enjoying the mango and avocado. It turns out we have banana and mango trees in our garden at Umoja. In fact, the bananas are ready for picking now.

 Not to worry, my sense of adventure with fallen and rotting foods does not transfer to a situation such as this one. I boiled the brush the next day.

Shower-toilet combo. My experience so far has yielded about two minutes of hot water each session. Some is better than none. I'll count my blessings.

The mosquito net looks fancy. I slept the first two nights without one, but bites on eyelids are worth avoiding.

Istanbul to Arusha

Liza and I flew from NYC to Istanbul overnight on the 5th, had a 10 hour layover there, then took off for Nairobi for an overnight flight on the 6th. We finally arrived in Nairobi on the 7th at 3:30AM...I think.
As soon as we collected our luggage, we bathed in the bathroom, stacked our luggage, and camped out until about 6:30AM. Are you following all of that?
The sun came up in Kenya as we took in some caffeine, and immediately I was struck by how much brighter it shines.
We hopped on a bus that took us across bits of violently bumpy terrain. We had to stop at the Kenya/Tanzania border to obtain visas, which was a little sticky for me. There was confusion between the visa office and the bank across the road, so I found myself running back and forth, with a worry of being left behind.
It all worked out soon enough and we were back on the road to Arusha.
The closer we got to our destination, the more beautiful the landscape became. About 15 minutes outside of Arusha, we passed through vivid green, rolling hills. The Maasai villages came close to the road, where I also saw herds of goats, cows, and a cluster of camels.
I hadn't eaten anything for the day except a cheese roll that was given to me on the plane, so when I finally got off the bus, I felt terrible. Lupo, a friend of Liza's swept us away to Liza's house, where I promptly ate some peanut M&Ms, and then a well rounded meal of beans, rice and cabbage.
Much has happened since my arrival, but that news is soon to come...

For now, here are some photos:

This one is for David.

This is an entryway to the Blue Mosque. We were scammed shortly after we entered, as a younger gentleman forced a mediocre tour on us and then demanded money. It was an awkward ordeal that is sure to be avoided in the future!

Inside

Thinking through the installation...

This will be installed in the library at Burroughs Elementary. Now that I am in Arusha, David has kindly taken charge of final installation work. I am so excited to see how it turns out!

Burroughs Elementatry BFG Project!

In the last few months, David and I constructed a Big Friendly Giant (based on the story and illustrations by Roald Dahl) for Burroughs Elementary in Columbus, Ohio.

We have truly enjoyed meeting the students and seeing the sculpture reach completion. For now I'll share some pictures of our first day at Burroughs.

Downtown installation cont...

Interior view of plastic house

Broad Street Installation

The installation project downtown has officially concluded. During the month of September I moved an 8x8x8 translucent space from Sherman studios on west campus to a vacant office space at 20 E. Broad. The whole effort culminated in three openings as a part of the Art Squatters Downtown group show. I have many more photos, but included just a few to show you a bit of my playing around with the plastic membrane

before the first tear down.

Above is a view of the roof before the tear-down at Sherman.

The farmers market took place every Tuesday and Friday outside of the installation space windows. For those of you residing in Columbus, head down to Pearl Market some time. It's very active and offers good looking produce, Belgian waffles, handy crafts...

Laying out the framing

This is a view from the back of the space. Near the end, this was surrounded by a large plastic curtain, and filled with cob. I'll post those pictures in a bit, but for now, try to imagine 4 tons of clay and sand in piles near that little ladder.

What a task this was! David and I removed some tiles from the cramped ceiling. Thanks for your help buddy!

...mixing a batch

I left the window blinds open always, even late into the evening, which meant that I experienced a huge variety of interactions with people. Mid-day downtown is bustling, but by night fall it's usually inhabited by a few people waiting to transfer bus routes. I sort of got to know the city side walk patrol-ers near the end of it all and really enjoyed our attempted conversations through the window glass.