#already past 1.6 million

[firebirds-roost]

Hoping I can get enough treasure to finally buy that Coatl scroll by the end of this push 🤞

[mariacallous]

With Ukraine’s counteroffensive stalled and the U.S. Congress deadlocked over crucial military aid, some analysts have begun raising the specter of a turning point in the war that could lead to a Ukrainian defeat. While the situation on the ground is still far from dire, it could rapidly deteriorate in the absence of a significant infusion of U.S. military support for Ukraine.

The consequences of a Ukrainian defeat need to be fully understood. The likely geopolitical consequences are easy to anticipate. The defeat of a Western-backed country would embolden Russia and other revisionist states to change other borders by force. A Russian victory would frighten Russia’s European neighbors, possibly leading to a collapse of European collective security as some countries choose appeasement and others massively rearm. China, too, would conclude that Taiwan cannot rely on sustained U.S. support. Indeed, the ripple effects of U.S. indecision have already begun: In a move that recalls Russia’s illegal annexation of several regions of Ukraine, Venezuela this month claimed more than half of neighboring Guyana as its own. While there are no signs of an impending invasion, it would be naïve to think that other countries aren’t watching closely to see whether Russia’s land grab succeeds.

Many analysts have already described these far-reaching security risks. But they pale in comparison to the dire consequences for Ukraine and its inhabitants if Russia wins. It is important for both supporters and opponents of Ukraine aid to know what these consequences would be.

To understand Ukraine’s likely fate if Russia turns the tide, the best place to start is what the Russians actually say. On Dec. 8, Russian President Vladimir Putin made clear that in his view there is no future for the Ukrainian state. On Dec. 5, he spelled out his intention to “reeducate” the Ukrainian people, curing them of “Russophobia” and “historical falsifications.” On Nov. 12, former Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev made Russia’s appetites clear: “Odessa, Nikolaev, Kyiv, and practically everything else is not Ukraine at all.” It is “obvious,” he posted on Telegram, that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is a “usurper,” that the Ukrainian language is only a “mongrel dialect” of Russian, and that Ukraine is “NOT a country, but artificially collected territories.” Other regime propagandists assert that the Ukrainian state is a disease that must be treated and Ukrainians a society that must be “de-wormed.”

More explicitly, Russia’s highly censored state television has, over the past two years, consistently promoted the rape of Ukrainians, the drowning of children, the leveling of cities, the eradication of the Ukrainian elite, and the physical extermination of millions of Ukrainians. For an excellent snapshot of these and other statements, Russian Media Monitor has compiled a must-watch collection of short clips from Russian television, complete with English subtitles. This coordinated campaign is not bluster but a harbinger of what awaits the Ukrainian people. In these remarks, we can see the contours of the atrocities awaiting Ukrainians under a total or nearly total Russian occupation.

We can also project the effect of a Russian victory from the atrocities that are already widespread in the Russian-occupied territories. According to official Ukrainian sources, nearly 2 million Ukrainians have already been removed from their homes and communities in the occupied areas and resettled in Russia, either temporarily or permanently. Other estimates range from 1.6 million to 4.7 million. Russian children’s commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova said that more than 700,000 Ukrainian children have been taken from Ukraine to Russia since February 2022; nearly 20,000 of these are known to Ukrainian authorities by name. Transferring children from their home country and denying them access to their language and culture is not only an internationally recognized war crime. Such forced assimilation is also defined by the U.N. Convention on Genocide as a genocidal act. It is why the International Criminal Court has issued a warrant for Lvova-Belova’s arrest.

Russia is not only ridding its occupied regions of Ukrainians but also replacing them with Russian settlers—a tragic continuity with Soviet and Russian imperial practices of systemic deportation, colonization, and Russification. In the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, where the Russian advance killed tens of thousands of civilians and destroyed 50 percent of the city’s housing stock, a handful of new apartment buildings were recently constructed. Some of that housing is being offered for sale, with Russians carpetbaggers snatching up real estate at bargain prices.

Ukraine’s partly occupied south offers a clear picture of the techniques used by the occupying forces to establish authority. A Human Rights Watch report from July 2022 documents a pattern of torture, disappearances, and arbitrary detention in the region. Citizens endured torture during interrogation, including beatings, electroshocks, and sensory deprivation. Several prisoners died from the torture, and large numbers have simply disappeared. Among the victims were local officials, teachers, representatives of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, NGO activists, and members of Ukraine’s territorial defense. There also is a massive amount of information collected by human rights monitors and journalists about the operation of filtration and detention camps.

Political indoctrination and the militarization of youth are already key characteristics of life under Russian occupation. Political banners and posters promoting Russian patriotism are omnipresent in the occupied regions. New children’s textbooks expunge Ukrainian history and preach hatred for Ukraine’s leadership. The Ukrainian language is being removed from much of the education system and relegated to its colonial status as a quaint dialect representing nothing but a gradually disappearing regional culture soon to be subsumed in the Russified mainstream.

Already, millions of Ukrainians have had their lives destroyed in one way or another by Russia’s monstrous occupation. Were Russia to complete its conquest, it would be a multiple of that number. After almost a decade of war against Russia, Ukrainians are united and highly mobilized in the defense of their country’s borders, democracy, culture, and language, to which many Ukrainian Russian-speakers have switched out of disgust with Moscow’s invasion. Millions of Ukrainians have been enraged and radicalized by Russia’s war crimes and destruction of their towns and homes. Millions of Ukrainians have volunteered to assist the war effort, millions have contributed funds to support the military, and even more have turned to social media to vent and publicly register their rage at Putin and the Russian state.

That would not only make any conquest brutal and bloody. Should Ukraine lose, almost all of Ukrainian society would need to be punished, repressed, silenced, or reeducated if the occupation is to quell resistance and absorb the country into Russia. For this reason, a Russian takeover would be accompanied by mass arrests, long-term detentions, mass deportations into the Russian heartland, filtration camps on a vast scale, and political terror. If a serious insurgency emerges, the level of repression will only widen and deepen.

A major effort will also be required to rid the country of seditious materials, which is to say all films, novels, poetry, essays, art, scholarly works, and music that may contain positive references to Ukraine’s period of independence. Libraries and schools will be purged of all such subversive content—in essence, the majority of all writing and cultural output that Ukraine has produced during the last three decades. Writers and scholars will face the choice of repudiating their identity and past work or becoming nonpersons in the new order. Many will face arrest or worse, simply because they transport Ukrainian culture and stand in the way of Russification. Again, this is not speculation but widespread practice in other territories that Russia has occupied.

Russian territorial advances would be accompanied by a second wave of Ukrainian refugees far more massive than that of early 2022, when some 7 million Ukrainians crossed the border into the European Union. For the remaining Ukrainians, the future would be one of totalitarian controls on culture, education, and speech, accompanied by a mass terror on a scale not seen in Europe since the 20th-century era of totalitarian rule.

There you have in distilled form what a Russian victory would mean. Members of the U.S. Congress are free to vote against assistance to Ukraine if they think—wrongly—that the war’s outcome does not affect the U.S. national interest. But they should not be allowed to oppose assistance to Ukraine without being fully aware of the tyranny they will be helping to empower—and their responsibility for the massive and entirely predictable crimes that will ensue.

[bakuhatsufallinlove]

You know how at the end of Ch403, the tagline says “Their feelings became one”? Do you read into that for bkdk? I like to think it means it’s when they put all the old animosity behind them, but then again that was the apology. Maybe it’s a gradual thing?

Lemme show you something.

This is the final page from the most recent chapter released in Weekly Shonen Jump of a series called Hakutaku. I have never read this series, I know nothing about it, I didn't even read the chapter from the beginning, I just glanced at the last page as I skimmed the magazine.

The tagline says, "Juniors overthrowing seniors at the vocational school!?"

From this and the general energy of the page, I immediately have a sense of the basic elements of the plot and a hint of what might happen next. They are students at a vocational school, there's some sort of team challenge going on with an interpersonal matter at stake, and the lively characters on the right are juniors poised to surpass what I imagine is the protagonist and his team on the left.

Without the tagline, I'd have no sense at all of the relationship between the characters or what is shocking/exciting about this moment. With the tagline, someone like me who is just casually browsing a magazine might have their curiosity piqued. They might go back and read the chapter. They might look to see what happens next week, too.

This is marketing. Horikoshi does not write these taglines.

This is a feature of Weekly Shonen Jump that only exists to draw in new readers. I know this is hard for people to imagine, but Weekly Shonen Jump is the best selling manga magazine in Japan. Every week roughly 1.6 million people pick up the new issue and buy it. Millions more just flip through its pages. Maybe these people like a certain series and check for it every week, or maybe they just look through every now and then to see if something catches their eye.

Even on the digital release, WSJ is a single document readers click through, with hyperlinks in the table of contents that take you straight to a specific series.

Viz's weekly chapter releases do not function like this.

Instead, chapters are separated by series. People visit a specific series' page to find its newest chapter or read the rest of them. The marketing is completely different. The main way people would be drawn in to read a new series is through the art chosen to represent it or it getting highlighted in one of their categories.

These taglines are not narration, they are not diegetic, they have no impact on the story and certainly don't reflect any hidden meaning within it.

Right before Katsuki appears, Izuku is sobbing. Everyone is freaking out, thinking, "This can't be! Won't someone save All Might?"

Someone who has absolutely no knowledge of the series could skim through this chapter, see the world stop as Kacchan dramatically arrives to lock eyes with Izuku, and not really know what that means for the plot. Who is this guy? He obviously has some connection to Izuku and All Might, but what's gonna happen now that he's here?

Chapter 403

This gives that random new reader enough context to think, "Oh, he and Izuku want the same thing. He's here to help. They're gonna save All Might!"

So, no, I don't read into it. It's just there to explain what's already happening to somebody who would otherwise not know.

Also, there has not been an ounce of animosity between Katsuki and Izuku since Deku vs. Kacchan 2. After that, Izuku is never again annoyed or frustrated by Katsuki, and Katsuki certainly does not treat him with real malice.

Chapter 284

What was gradual was Katsuki's journey to redeem himself from his past mistakes. Izuku was not holding a grudge, nor was he expecting Katsuki to "make up" for what he'd done. That was all Katsuki.

Those were his own standards for what kind of person he wanted to be. When Katsuki apologized, he did not do it out of some sense that Izuku would not forgive him otherwise.

Katsuki's words were what brought Izuku back from the brink of his self-destructive isolation and convinced him to accept Class 1-A's help. They were what he needed to hear, and indeed what he deserved to hear. Katsuki apologized because it was the right thing to do, because he wanted to save Izuku, because he loves Izuku.

[not-that-syndrigast]

Does McLaren exceed the cost cap? 

In the course of this year, the McLaren car has been updated from a midfield car to the arguably fastest car on the grid, being able to build a twenty second gap to Verstappen in a RedBull and keep all the other teams that have shown to have a race winning pace behind. Shortly after the win in Zandvoort, Zak Brown revealed that they would bring even more updates for the car in Monza. Quite a few people are confused by this, and ask for McLaren to be investigated on their monetary spend, because people think that they have already exceeded the cost cap, but I want to share my thoughts on McLarens financial situation.

I am not quite sure how people think the teams work the cost cap, but generally we can assume that the administration of the finances works the following; 

First of all, there are certain amounts that teams are aware of from the beginning of the year on. This includes the wages, equipment and the base car that they build at the beginning of the year (important here; base car, excluding updates and crashes). This part makes up the biggest portion of the cost cap, and although teams can save here a bit by not employing as many people, teams that work well will try to stay with similar numbers here.

Second of all, there are expected expenses. Crashes, faulty parts that need replacement, ect. These things can only be predicted and not be guessed as accurately as the fixed costs which is why teams can lose or win most in this category.

Last but not least, there is everything that they have left, such as updates, making spare parts, ect. While teams will also have an estimated amount for these expenses, they are dependent on the expected expenses, and by this, McLarens seemingly financial freedom can be explained.

McLaren has been very lucky this year. Every single one of their updates work, so there is no wasted money there, but they have more money left than probably expected. Why? Their drivers are pretty cheap. While driver wages do not fall into the cost cap, any expenses made by crashes do. McLaren hasn’t mentioned it, but for RedBull the opposite is the case; in the past few years, they didn’t lose as much in crashes; in 2023, they lost estimated $3.5 million, in 2022 only estimated $1.6 million.This season though,they’ve already lost an estimated $4.5 million and we still have nine races left. Important is to keep in mind that these amounts are only estimated, but Dr. Helmut Marko himself said that especially Perez’ crash in Monaco is dangerous for their cost cap, and although I usually do not necessarily think he tells the truth at all times, this does make sense. It’s been discussed by multiple sources that RedBull has probably planned less for crashes this season and had thus to cut back on possible updates.

McLaren on the other hand, has most likely more money left than expected. With only nine races left, they have only had to spend an estimated $1 million on crashes. They won’t use all of their funds of predicted damages for updates, but winning the constructors championship would be of incredible performance for McLaren.

Furthermore, different than RedBull, not only did all of their updates work, but they also have had less than RedBull. While RedBull has had to try their hardest to make their car drivable again, thus bringing rushed updates almost every race week, McLaren has only had updates in three races. These were bigger packages, but they were also better planned and worked so well that they did not lose any money having to redo them.

In the end, these are mostly guesses though, but I am fairly positive that all teams try their hardest to stay below the cost cap. I guess, the reason McLaren finds themselves under scrutiny, is that people quickly make up things because they dislike the team and others just read it and believe it, so as usually, I don’t expect, nor do I want, anyone from just believing my thoughts without any questioning. Look at the data, read the official FIA regulations and think about what is logical yourself, without just listening to others. Sapere aude and all that.

[ophidianrhapsody]

As if there weren’t already enough reasons to keep your cats indoors, avian influenza found in cats in Kansas and Texas (where 1.6 million chickens are now being culled due to same)

[head-post]

Ukrainian refugees in Germany: stay or come back home?

A potential conflict of national interests over Ukrainian refugees must be foreseen and avoided, according to Social Europe.

The war in Ukraine has forced millions of its citizens to flee their homes in search of asylum, including abroad. According to the latest estimates, the majority of refugees have found shelter in Europe – 5.8 million out of 6.2 million people registered worldwide. Among all EU countries, Poland received the largest number of refugees – 1.6 million, Germany – 1.1 million.

Since the beginning of the war, Ukrainians have had no problems integrating into German society: visa-free entry, temporary residence without asylum procedures, employment opportunities – 18% of Ukrainian refugees have already found jobs.

Even if Ukrainians remain unemployed in Germany for the first time,  they receive higher social benefits than in Ukraine and are directly integrated into the support structures of employment centres. This official hospitality, as well as the presence of relatives and/or friends in Germany for many Ukrainian refugees, has created favourable conditions for a more dynamic integration than those who were forced to move in the past. However, will this always be the case or only as long as there is war in Ukraine?

Learn more HERE

[blockinsider]

Mt. Gox Transfers $2B Worth of Bitcoin: Potential Impact on BTC Value

Key Points

Defunct exchange Mt. Gox moved over $2 billion in Bitcoin to two addresses on November 10.

The large-scale transfer has led to market speculation on its impact on Bitcoin’s price trajectory.

The now-closed exchange Mt. Gox transferred over $2 billion to two distinct addresses on November 10. This substantial transfer is one of the most significant movements from Mt. Gox’s remaining assets, adding a new dimension to the decade-long restitution process for the exchange’s numerous creditors.

According to data by Arkham Intelligence, a Mt. Gox wallet identified as “1FG2C…Rveoy” moved approximately 27,871 BTC (valued at $2.24 billion) to a new wallet. Concurrently, another transfer of 2,500 BTC (valued at $200 million) was sent to a Mt. Gox cold wallet.

Recent Movements and Speculations

It is worth noting that Mt. Gox still holds an additional 44,378 BTC. The exchange’s wallet activities, which had been inactive for over a month, started showing movement at the end of October. Earlier this month, the exchange transferred a smaller amount of 500 BTC to unknown addresses.

As Bitcoin prices remain near all-time highs, these transfers have led to market observers pondering the possible effects on Bitcoin’s price direction.

The Mt. Gox saga, which started with a security breach in 2014 and subsequent bankruptcy filing, has been one of the most intricate legal and financial dramas in the crypto world. The collapse of the exchange resulted in the loss of 850,000 BTC.

It’s unclear if the recent transfer is directly related to repayments to creditors, but the timing and size of these transactions have sparked speculation. Historical evidence suggests that Mt. Gox’s remaining assets might be directed towards creditor distributions through centralized exchanges such as Bitstamp and Kraken, although this remains unconfirmed.

Delayed Repayments and Market Predictions

The delay in repayment to creditors continues. Last month, Mt. Gox’s trustee extended the repayment deadline by another year, moving it from October 31, 2024, to October 31, 2025. The delay was attributed to several unresolved issues: incomplete repayment procedures on the part of some creditors and an unexpected “system issue” that reportedly caused duplicate deposits for some recipients.

The trustee has contacted affected creditors, asking for the return of any mistakenly distributed funds.

As Bitcoin’s value surges to unprecedented highs, Ki Young Ju, CEO of CryptoQuant, has issued a cautious outlook. He stated that Bitcoin might end the year below $59,000 due to what he described as an overheated futures market.

Bitcoin is currently trading around $80,995, up by over 2.5% in the last 24 hours. The cryptocurrency has also seen a significant increase in its market cap in the past few days, currently sitting around $1.6 trillion.

Ju’s prediction highlights the tension between Bitcoin’s current bullish momentum and the potential for a significant correction. Mt. Gox’s substantial asset movements could heighten volatility in an already sensitive market, with the potential for increased selling pressure if creditor payouts flood the market.

[thxnews]

Global Economic Growth Stabilizes at 2.6%

World economic growth is projected to stabilize at 2.6% in 2024, according to the World Bank's latest Global Economic Prospects report. This marks the first stabilization in three years. However, 80% of the world population is expected to experience slower growth compared to the pre-COVID decade.  

Stabilizing Growth: A Mixed Picture

After years of economic turbulence, the global economy is finding its footing. The World Bank's forecast shows global growth holding steady at 2.6% in 2024, with a slight increase to 2.7% in 2025-26. This stabilization is a welcome sign, but it comes with significant challenges. Key Projections: - Global Growth: 2.6% in 2024, rising to 2.7% in 2025-26. - Developing Economies: Average growth of 4% in 2024-25. - Low-Income Economies: Growth expected to rise to 5% in 2024. - Advanced Economies: Steady growth at 1.5% in 2024, increasing to 1.7% in 2025. - Global Inflation: Expected to moderate to 3.5% in 2024 and 2.9% in 2025.  

Challenges for Developing Economies

While the stabilization is promising, many developing economies face slower growth. The World Bank projects an average growth of 4% for these economies over 2024-25, slightly slower than in 2023. Low-income economies are expected to see growth accelerate to 5% in 2024, up from 3.8% in 2023. However, three out of every four low-income economies have had their growth forecasts downgraded since January. "Four years after the upheavals caused by the pandemic, conflicts, inflation, and monetary tightening, it appears that global economic growth is steadying," said Indermit Gill, the World Bank Group's Chief Economist and Senior Vice President. "However, growth is at lower levels than before 2020."   Financial Strain on Developing Economies Developing economies continue to grapple with significant financial challenges. The report indicates that one in four developing economies will remain poorer than they were in 2019, pre-pandemic. The income gap between developing and advanced economies is set to widen in nearly half of the developing economies through 2020-24, the highest share since the 1990s.  

Inflation and Interest Rates

Global inflation is forecasted to moderate to 3.5% in 2024 and 2.9% in 2025. Despite the moderation, the pace of decline is slower than projected six months ago. This slower pace means central banks are expected to remain cautious in lowering policy interest rates, leading to higher global interest rates by recent historical standards. "Although food and energy prices have moderated across the world, core inflation remains relatively high—and could stay that way," said Ayhan Kose, the World Bank's Deputy Chief Economist and Director of the Prospects Group. "That could prompt central banks in major advanced economies to delay interest-rate cuts."   Impact of Public Investment The report highlights the crucial role of public investment in driving economic growth. Public investment in developing economies has halved since the global financial crisis, dropping to an annual average of 5% over the past decade. Yet, for economies with ample fiscal space and efficient government spending, scaling up public investment by 1% of GDP can increase output by up to 1.6% over the medium term.   Growth Projections by Economy Type Economy Type 2024 Growth Rate 2025 Growth Rate Global 2.6% 2.7% Developing Economies 4.0% 4.0% Low-Income Economies 5.0% 5.0% Advanced Economies 1.5% 1.7%  

Special Focus: Small States

Small states, defined as those with populations around 1.5 million or less, are facing chronic fiscal difficulties. Two-fifths of the 35 developing economies that are small states are at high risk of debt distress or already experiencing it. Comprehensive reforms are needed to address these challenges, including: - Drawing revenues from a more stable and secure tax base. - Improving spending efficiency, especially in health, education, and infrastructure. - Adopting fiscal frameworks to manage the higher frequency of natural disasters and other shocks.   In Conclusion The World Bank's Global Economic Prospects report provides a cautiously optimistic outlook for global economic growth. While stabilization at 2.6% marks a positive development, the slower growth rates for a majority of the global population underscore the need for targeted investments and international support. Developing economies, in particular, must navigate financial strains and leverage public investment to foster sustainable growth. As global inflation moderates and interest rates remain high, central banks and policymakers face a delicate balancing act to ensure long-term economic resilience.   Sources: THX News & World Bank. Read the full article

[memsmedic1]

Africa! (June 10, 2019- October 1, 2019)

After an uneventful 7 1/2 hour flight I landed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia just as it was becoming light outside. None of the flights I saw arriving during my layover here, even the 787’s like mine, pulled up to the terminal to unload, so as I was disembarking and walking over to the waiting airport shuttles I was able to enjoy the crisp, non-humidified air at our 8,000 plus feet of elevation.

Ethiopia is an incredibly diverse country. The Great Rift Valley runs right down through the middle of the country, creating incredible rock formations and waterfalls and boasts the main aggregation of Ethiopia’s iconic rock hewn churches…

…In the northeast Afar Region lies the Danakil Depression, over 400 feet below sea level, with active volcanos, colorful salt and other mineral formations, hydrothermal vents spewing out boiling water and sulfuric acid, poisonous clouds of chlorine and other gases, and the hottest average yearly temperature on earth— 94 degrees Fahrenheit...

...To the northwest are the Simien Mountains, one of the few places in Africa where snow regularly falls. Walia ibex, an endangered wild goat, and the Gelada baboon live in the ledges and rocky outposts of the Simien Mountains. The most iconic highlands species is probably the Ethiopian wolf, which is now on the brink of extinction. The Ethiopian Highlands are home to 80 percent of Africas tallest mountains as well as Lake Tana, the source of the Blue Nile...

…Southern Ethiopia has the highest concentration of nomadic tribes, many of them living in the same way as they have for hundreds of years.

I was first asked to come to Ethiopia almost 3 years ago while I was in North Carolina taking a remote medicine course from Equip International in preparation for moving to Myanmar. The Dr. who developed the curriculum for that course, Dr. Tosimo, has been working in the Great Rift Valley of Ethiopia for the past 26 years, and been holding rural clinics for 24 years in addition to various other hospital and mission projects. Dr. Tosimo needed a new medical assistant at that time, but I had already committed to going to Myanmar so I couldn’t accept. Earlier this year I received an email from Equip saying that Dr. Tosimo again needed an assistant, this time only for the short term, and all the pieces fell into place perfectly to allow me to be able to come and help this summer.

I had a 5 hour layover in Addis before my connecting flight out to where the city near the clinic I would be working at was located. I wished I could go outside the airport and sightsee but I didn’t think I would be able to make it back in time and get through security.

So I went through immediately and and then walked to my gate to wait for my flight and researched a few of the most interesting facts about Ethiopia:

Ethiopia has just over twice the population of Myanmar at 111 million, and is approximately 1.6 times as big, around twice as big as Texas.

Ethiopia still uses the Julian calendar which has thirteen months per year, and celebrates their New Year in September. Because of this, the Ethiopian calendar is 7 or 8 years behind the international calendar. Yes, when you visit Ethiopia you are actually traveling back in time!

Originally founded in 980 BC, Ethiopia is the oldest independent nation on the continent.

Christianity was declared an official religion in Ethiopia during 333 AD, making Ethiopia one of the first countries to do so. They were not introduced to the religion by Europeans.

Of all 54 countries in Africa, Ethiopia is the sole nation to never have been colonized.

The airport was fairly quiet since all arriving planes unloaded way out on the tarmac. As it started getting close to my boarding time, the sun went away and a large rainstorm rolled in. It rained so hard that my flight was delayed for over an hour.

Finally we boarded a relatively small turboprop and took off. Through about half of the one hour flight I could look down and see mostly flat land below and the other half we flew through big, fluffy white clouds. As we started to descend we flew over two large dirty brown lakes that I found out later were called Abaya, which is over 100 kilometers long, and Chamo.

After landing and picking up my luggage I walked out front where I was picked up by Silas, the driver Dr. Tosimo had sent for me. Counting vans, busses, three-wheeler taxis, private cars and trucks, and the plane we had arrived in, there were less than 20 vehicles altogether in the whole airport so it was very easy to find him. In fact I had been advised by Dr. Tosimo that all I had to do at the airport was “act lost” and I would be approached by my ride! The Dr. lives in south-central Ethiopia 2 1/2 hours from the closest town with an airport so I got to see lots of the countryside as we traveled. One of my very first sights, not 10 minutes from the airport, was seeing a three-wheeler taxi taking a corner way too fast and then swerve to avoid a pedestrian which caused him to flip onto his side and go screeching off the road into the ditch!

There were very few cars on the road, often we were the only vehicle in sight which was a big change from Asia but I was amazed by all the people who were just hanging out on the road talking or milling about as we drove up, often we’d have to thread our way through the middle of a small crowd or honk in order to get by. Just when I’d decided that nothing was going on at these roadside gatherings we came upon another group that were at a partial bridge washout so we had to carefully pick our way across debris and a very narrow, barely drivable path to get through.

Donkeys were thick on the road, either hauling cans of water or pulling carts, and flocks of goats kept playing chicken with us as well.

At one mostly deserted stretch of road Silas suddenly said “crazy baby” and pointed to a naked baby toddling down the middle of the road towards us. As we were contemplating this strange sight a little girl suddenly appeared out of a small opening in the roadside hedge and came running down the road after the escapee!

Soon we started to rapidly gain altitude as we entered the temperate, forest covered mountains where the Drs. town is located. Arriving in the town the weather was cold, foggy, and rainy, as it would be nearly the whole time I was there. At 6,800 feet we weren’t even as high as Addis Ababa, but being in the mountains as opposed to the high plain the weather was much colder.

Not too cold for mosquitoes however. I had to sleep under a mosquito net and take hydroxychloroquine for malaria prophylaxis the whole time I was there, something I never did in Myanmar, plus for 6 weeks after I got back to the States.

We drove up the cobbled street to the small christian hospital in town which is where I rendezvoused with Dr. Tosimo. Even though she is 77 years old, she came to meet me by herself driving her unwieldy manual Land Cruiser with two spare tires on the roof rack. This is the vehicle that we would pack full of clinic supplies and drive out to the rural village where the clinic is held.

After transferring my stuff over to the Land Cruiser and saying thank you to Silas we headed off to the home of the family I would be staying at. I would be renting a manure and stick hut from the night watchman of Dr. Tosimo, and it was in the same compound as his own hut.

Because the dirt track was too steep and slippery to drive on, even in 4-low, I hired a boy who was just happening by where we were parked pushing a clunky homemade wooden wheelbarrow (right down to the wooden wheel) to help transport my stuff down the hill to my new living quarters.

“Hello” I said as I creaked open the rusty tin gate and entered the compound of my new host.

Of course the whole family came bursting out to meet me, and I couldn’t possibly begin sorting out who was who that evening. At first it seemed like there was a least a couple dozen family members, But later I learn that there was actually 11.

After meeting the night watchman, Alamayhu, and greeting him in the traditional manner of a thumb handshake and two or three shoulder bumps, he took me to a little one-room hut and showed me the intricacies of the door lock and finicky electrical situation.

After my luggage was safely stowed and locked inside my hut the two of us hiked back up to the Land Cruiser and we drove to the Drs. house where I had been invited for supper.

Afterward a mild spat ensued between Tosimo and her husband, Dr. Gary, as to whether there was time for tea or if I  had to start back immediately (the night watchman was staying for the night) in order to arrive home before dark, when the giant mountain hyenas, locally known as donkey hyenas, would be on the prowl. There are no lions in the region due to the elevation, but the local hyenas are much larger and bolder than their savannah cousins and are known to kill and eat people on occasion (at least that’s what everyone told me). I ended up leaving soon thereafter armed with a flashlight and had no difficulties finding my way back to my hut.

The next morning I had a closer look at at the construction of my new home. The floor was made of concrete, the walls were framed in small-diameter vertical sticks in the style of a jail cell with a mixture of manure, straw, and muck then chinked in between and liberally spread on both the inside and outside of the sticks for additional strength and insulation. A rusty tin roof capped off the dwelling.

My first order of business was to buy a mop, bucket, and other cleaning supplies and drinking water from town, plus find a shop to buy a SIM card so I could communicate with the doctor. Crossing the compound yard, I walked through the sheet metal gate woven with thorn branches at the top and bottom which opened directly onto the very steep grass and mud “road” outside the front of the compound.

I was immediately inundated by a flock of bright-eyed, laughing, yelling children who probably would have mobbed me when I first arrived yesterday evening if it hadn’t been raining so hard. 

I decided that I needed to take Dr. Tosimo’s advice and hire a boy who could serve as my translator and general factotum to help minimize opportunities for the shopkeepers, taxi drivers, and policemen to overcharge or extort me. 

I smiled and tried talking to them to see who could converse in english, only to be disappointed when not even simplest words could be understood. I played with them for a while and then went back inside to start sweeping as best as I could with a short, coarse little stick broom I had seen while I waited for Alamayhu to get back home.

To the left of my front door as I was looking out was the courtyard, with my host’s hut beyond, straight in front of me was a small orchard of avocado, mango, and papaya trees moving off to the right with the garden beyond, and to my far right was a living hedge of acacia bushes, behind which was a garden and another manure and stick hut.

Straight out past the far edge of the garden where a red abyssinian banana grove started, I saw a little girl sitting on a stump and studying a book held carefully in her lap. She appeared to be around 10-12 years old. She was barefoot and was wearing a faded knee-length navy skirt and a red long sleeve shirt with a severely stretched out neck opening and a hole under one arm. A discolored pink scarf was wrapped around a head of woolly black hair done up in dozens of short, skinny braids. Just then she looked up and saw me so I smiled at her and waved hello before continuing with my sweeping, not giving her a second thought.

A few minutes later as I was sliding my suitcase up against the wall I glanced at the open door and saw the girl standing on the step watching me. I smiled again and she raised her hand and gave me a shy “hi” along with a little smile showing her white teeth. I motioned her to come inside and she immediately came over and helped me finish pushing my suitcase to its intended destination. I told her my name and asked hers which she said was “Hallelujah”, and the she was 10 years old. I asked if she lived here and she said that she was one of Alamayhu’s children.

After thanking her for the help she said “you’re welcome” and then she asked if I wouldn’t like to see her book? I said “ok” and she walked back outside where she had set it down.

We sat down on the steps together and she leaned against my side resting her left arm on my knee as she opened the book to show me it was a 5th grade english primer. We discussed some of the pictures and she read a few pages to me. When I complemented her on her English she said that she really enjoyed school in the village, and also went to Dr. Tosimo’s English classes sometimes.

After awhile I told her that I had to go find someone to help me in town and she immediately asked if she could go with me and help. This was a new thought for me because I had only been thinking about finding a boy to help me, but I dubiously agreed. This was to prove to be the best decision I made while in Ethiopia. Hallelujah ran back home but soon returned, having put her braids back in a ponytail, stuck a tiny plastic gold jewel onto her forehead, and put on a pair of little faded pink dress shoes with a large hole in each toe. We walked to a busier road and hailed a bajaj. On the way Hallelujah rested one hand on my leg and the other hand on my shoulder leaning her head against me. Arriving in town we started walking down the busy shop-lined streets finding what I needed when she slipped her hand into mine and chattered away in pidgin english as we walked.

After purchasing what I needed we went to a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant serving injera and wat where she ate with a vengeance; I wondered if she was often hungry at home. The hand-holding and physical closeness continued on the way back home and I realized that Hallelujah had somehow attached herself to me emotionally in the few short hours I’d been there, though I had no idea to what extent until the end of the day after she had worked very hard for me fetching water, scrubbing my floor, helping me unpack, and accompanying me on a couple more trips to visit the Dr. to get my first set of orders, and to see where the my running water (a stream) was located for bathing and washing clothes.

At this point, as it was growing dark, I asked her how much money I owed her for all her hard work, because if they’re not begging, all the children and especially the adults who help you with anything here, no matter how simple, expect to be paid. Hallelujah stepped back and put her hands up saying “Oh no, no, I don’t want you to pay me anything”. I reminded her of everything she had done to help me and again insisted that I pay her, but she just shook her little braids at me and smiled saying “You’re my brother”.

I was shocked and tried to think of what I could do to show my gratitude. I told her that instead I would buy her a new pair of shoes tomorrow. At first she laughed and refused politely but when she saw I was serious she suddenly teared up and ran into me giving me a great big hug. After pulling her close for a minute and letting her wipe her eyes on my shirt I told her goodnight and off she went back home.

The next morning (and every other morning thereafter) Halle was back at my hut with a steaming hot, cracked mug of tea made in the local style (apparently equal parts water and sugar with a little tea thrown in for color). I suspected that this tea was her own portion but she always denied this allegation and insisted I drink all of it. Afterwards she would help me cook breakfast or else we would go eat at one of the local teashops, and then she would just hang around for the rest of the day, going wherever I needed to go and helping me do whatever I needed to do.

The very first assignment the Dr. delegated to me, starting the day after I arrived, was to daily clean the wound and change the dressings of a man who had been shot through the lower back and abdomen while he was having tea at one of the many little teashops in the nearby village.

This was an assassination attempt that happened only a week or two before Dr. Tosimo and I had arrived, and the patient had just been released from the hospital and still needed vigilant care to hopefully prevent or at least watch out for any signs of infection.

This man, Elias, is actually Alamayhu’s brother-in-law! The back story is that Alamayhu had recently been a key witness in a case resulting in the conviction of quite a few local gang members, and a price had been put on his head.

Four men- a policeman, a hospital security guard, and two of Alamayhu’s neighbors, who were all said to have been profiting from the gang’s activities, decided to collect the bounty, but word got out and Alamayhu hid at the Dr. Tosimo’s house for several days. Growing angry and impatient, the men were passing through the village when they recognized Elias, who had had nothing to do with the trial, and decided to kill him instead.

Without any confrontation or warning, the policeman shot him in the back with his AK, and then the other three attacked him and started beating him with sticks and a length of chain, with one of the neighbors screaming to the policeman “Shoot him again!” but almost instantly a large crowd had gathered, and becoming scared for their own lives, the perpetrators quickly fled.

They were all arrested shortly thereafter and held in jail for only a week before being released on bail until the trial.

At first, I could look right through Elias’s wound into his abdomen, and could have fit a finger through the jagged exit hole, but fortunately, he never got an infection and the holes soon closed, healing completely in a little over a month!

If I had had a job title it would have been the Dr’s. intern and factotum. Every morning I hiked for almost a kilometer across a meadow, through a beautiful gorge and stream crossing, and up through a eucalyptus forest to the Dr’s. house to see if there’s anything she wanted me to help her with. Sometimes I would wash the Land Cruiser, help her cook, fill the large ceramic Katadyn gravity water filter or anything else that the house boy doesn’t do, and then we would go through all of the clinic boxes and make sure everything was restocked and ready for the next clinic, all the while she would be teaching me things she has learned from her decades of adventures. Sometimes I would run errands in town for her if Dr. Gary was busy. Everyone on the street would constantly gawk at me because seeing a white person is a very uncommon sight here. I didn’t feel any malevolence in this region, more of an opportunistic sizing-up, but I made sure I always took Halle or another local with me.

On clinic days I would help load up all the boxes of supplies and then we would all pile in behind everything. On a regular day the clinic crew was comprised of three translators, a general assistant, a dermatology student (thank goodness), the doctor, and myself on board.

Clinic is held under the mango and avocado trees in the front yard of a pastor in a village 1 1/2 to 3 hours away by Land Cruiser, depending on the road conditions, and is down out of the mountains in a much hotter, sunnier, semi jungly region. Once we left the pavement and the risk of being stopped at a checkpoint decreases, I drove because the road quickly degenerates into a muddy morass which I have the most experience with (aside from the Dr., who isn’t able to drive and see patients on the same day). Along the way the kids all run out to the edge of the road and shout “Dr! Dr!” or they just wave and yell hoping we’ll acknowledge them. It makes you feel happy thinking you made their day if you smile or wave, but then you realize just how little traffic comes through this area and that they probably respond the same way to every big vehicle that passes by.

After arriving at the pastors house I would park in the shade of the four large avocado and mango trees and start triaging everyone who’s waiting to be seen, which involves measuring whether their arm is skinny enough to qualify them for an examination by the Dr., their name, age, weight, village, and chief complaint. On the very first day there weren’t very many patients at first, but people had seen us drive through and coupled with the amazing way news travels down the jungle grapevine patients quickly began arriving, and we saw a respectable number that day after all. From then on, we always had a large crowd vying with each other for the prized treatment cards we hand out to people accepted as patients.

Patients are only allowed to seek treatment for 1 malady per week, in order to help cut down on the common practice of faking a whole litany of subjective ailments and reselling the medicine they receive. 

According to Dr. Tosimo, 80-90% of the medicine in sub Saharan Africa is either fake or vastly inferior to medicine everywhere else, so the black market value of genuine, demonstrably effective medicine like we have, even multivitamins, is high. Another huge problem is that even though the government gives hospitals and government clinics plenty of needles and syringes, these places often sell them on the black market and reuse their old ones, so even if the medicine is good, after a couple weeks the patient’s liver and belly swells up from iatrogenic acute hepatitis and they often die, or they develop AIDS later, making people distrustful of the medicine from the hospital.

After all the patients are triaged and marked with a sharpie to prevent them from being paid to stand in line and receive a treatment card for a fatter person, I move over to the tree where the Dr. examines and diagnoses the patients, helping with any additional tests or procedures the patient needs. Dr. Mary is an amazing teacher AND loves teaching so she’s fascinating to listen to and watch how she treats the patients.

Lunch break is taken inside the pastors house away from the dozens of hungry eyes, where we share lentil filled asambusas we purchased from a roadside vendor on the morning drive with him and his family, and he shares homegrown coffee and hominy with us.

In the afternoon the makeshift pharmacy opens in the back of the Land Cruiser and all the patients line up (bunch up) with their treatment card to get whatever medicine or other treatment they have been prescribed and then we return back home in the evening. Usually there’s at least a couple patients who are serious enough to require further evaluation or treatment at the hospital so we take them back with us after drinking our farewell coffee in the pastors house.

Once at the hospital these simple country patients then have to be helped through the convoluted and time consuming process of registration and treatment so taking care of them usually keeps me busy for the next day or two.

Followup is easy because these patients love coming to “their” doctor, most would come to the clinic every week if we let them, so we have to keep their card after they get medicine unless we want to see them again.

Something else I enjoyed doing at the hospital was going on morning rounds with the doctors and residents, and shadowing them as they treated patients during the day, helping where I could. Surprisingly, this tiny hospital in this out-of-the-way town is one of only 10 surgical training centers in Africa, and patients travel from all over Africa and the Middle East to be treated here, so I was able to observe and even assist with dozens of surgeries and ask questions to my hearts content because all the doctors there appeared to love teaching.

*****

Dr. Tosimo had warned me before coming here that I would never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than Ethiopia, and I must be cautious. All the local people, excepting a very small handful, are compulsive thieves, and everything not nailed down or locked up would disappear, and I’d even have to hire a boy to guard my laundry while it dried, or it would be stolen right off the line.

I was very fortunate I got to stay with the family I did though, because they really took me in as a member of their family and always watched out for me when they were around. At first they would always take my soap and bucket of water inside for me at night or whenever I was gone, but that got annoying real fast so I explained that the soap and water was a gift for anyone who needed it, so after that it was always there to use, though in frequent need of replenishment.

One night I forgot to lock my door before I went to bed, and after a peaceful night I was suddenly jolted wide awake by a deafening sound. It was a violent clattering which I initially thought sounded like someone was rattling my door handle, and I immediately remembered that I hadn’t locked it. But then I realized that a large bird had landed on the tin roof directly over my head and was pacing around, more than likely one of the local black and white Thick-billed Ravens. After that I never had any trouble remembering to lock my door before going to sleep!

Even a few years ago there was no public transport here to speak of, and a person either had to own a vehicle or try to hitch a ride with someone who did or on the back of a farmers donkey cart. Now however, there are public busses for inter-city travel and gluts of little blue three wheeled taxis called a bajaj (pronounced the way a kazoo sounds) for in town. These tricycle taxis imported from India are very similar to the tuk-tuks of Thailand and were my primary mode of transportation anywhere in or near town when I wasn’t going somewhere with the doctor.

Bajaj’s are funny for two reasons: The 1st is how underpowered they are. Going up any kind of incline they lose all their momentum and eventually slow down to a comfortable walking pace, so the drivers always go as fast as possible on the downhill parts of the road to get a running start.

The 2nd is how full they are filled. The philosophy here is the same as in Asia- any free airspace is fair game, there doesn’t have to be a seat below. What was probably designed to hold 5 passengers and the driver comfortably sometimes holds twice that much, with people squatting in the aisle halfway on other passengers’ knees and hunching over the gearshift, plus maybe a few babies and someone on the outside hanging off the handle you’re supposed to use to help pull yourself inside. If you’re afraid of fleas or lice or Ebola or anything else this ride is not for you!

Living in Africa means you have zero privacy; at any time someone may stop by to smile at you and try to use any English words they know, or the whole family may decide to come drink tea on my steps or just sit on my floor and talk to each other and smile at me. If I thought about it like camping though it was pretty fancy, so that’s what I did!

10 days after I got here I came down with an unknown sickness. Symptoms were fever/chills, severe stomach pain, muscle pain, inability to take a full breath because of chest tightness, hallucinations, and red eyes. I knew it wasn’t malaria because I hadn’t been in Africa long enough for the plasmodium protozoa to complete their life cycle if I had been infected. Of course, I had just traveled from another malarious hotbed but it seemed astronomically improbable that I would acquire malaria three days before leaving Asia after being there for three years without trouble.

The one disease I absolutely didn’t want it to be was Yellow Fever, not because it’s the worst one, even though it’s right up there, but because that was one of the vaccinations Dr. Tosimo specifically told me to get before I came, which I hadn’t done. I had tried to get it, but the hospital I went to in Thailand was out of stock, and there hadn’t been time to try another one before I left. I ended up treating myself homeopathically at home, and along with some solicitous care from Alamayhu’s family began recovering after just a few days.

On Saturday evening, June 22, there was an attempted coup by the Amharas, the second largest of the 86 tribes in Ethiopia, to take back the power they held for hundreds of years up until communism took over in 1974. The attorney general, a state president and his advisor, and 2 top generals were assassinated, but fortunately the prime minister survived. The current prime minister, Abiy Ahmad, has only been serving for a year and two months (April ‘18), and is generally supported by all but this one tribe, but he has survived 4 assassination attempts so far.

Whenever there is civil unrest all the government offices and banks shut down and the internet is turned off throughout the entire country in an attempt to prevent the offending parties from coordinating with each other, but this is also highly inconvenient for students trying to write research papers and study for finals, people wanting to communicate internationally, and everyone else as well! But this is how the situation was for much of my time in Ethiopia.

On the 23rd Hallelujah and Kidist and I went hiking and climbed to the top of mount Demota, which is the mountain Dr. Tosimo lives on the flanks of. It doesn’t look very imposing from the village because even though it’s 9,547 feet high, there’s several smaller hills to go over and around to get to the top and the summit doesn’t stand out by itself, but it takes about 3 hours of steady hiking, longer when it’s raining, which it was. Higher up the mountain it turns into a subalpine zone with stunted juniper trees, elderberry trees, mountain ash, tons of flowers, and wild peppermint and thyme and other herbs. It was hard to remember I wasn’t in Montana until we got to the very top of the mountain and there were little farms with banana trees and bamboo growing around them! On of the farmers invited us inside his hut out of the rain and let us dry off by his fire and gave us coffee and shoombra (dry roasted garbanzo beans). 

The mountain is named after a diabolical demon who used to terrorize the locals, and in the old witch doctor days (not so long ago) human sacrifices were regularly offered on the summit. But now, even though it is so far from town, a quaint church stands on the spot where the alter once stood and is filled every Sunday.

On the way back down the rain stopped and we had amazing views of the mountains and town below and even lake Abaya off in the distance!

While the lineup of wild animals in the region doesn’t include a lot of the African classics because of the cold and altitude, there’s still a very impressive variety. The apex predator would either be leopards or crocodiles, both of which can be found at this altitude, but the mountain hyena is the animal that everyone is afraid of and always warning me about, they live everywhere in the mountains and are always skulking around looking for an easy meal. Because Ethiopians don’t eat donkeys, when they get too old to work they’re just left out at night and the hyenas eat them. At night I could often hear them laughing in the distance in their psychotic, intoxicated-giggling way.

Other animals include pythons, cobras, vipers, and lots of other snakes, wild pigs, giant African porcupines whose quills I often found laying around, hornbills, the critically endangered Ethiopian wolf, which I eagerly watched for without success, and a cornucopia of small, brightly colored birds that were much more commonly seen than the ones in Asia.

One of delicacies that I enjoyed were the wild blackcaps that grow scattered throughout the steep hillside forests and along the winding mountain trails. Halle and I would sometimes go berry picking when I had the time, which wasn’t often, or I would buy them from the village children. Though a little more seedy than a red raspberry, the flavor is unbeatable and well worth the trouble it takes to collect them. The canes are sometimes close to 8 feet high and can be loaded with fruit but only a few berries ripen at a time so it’s a real challenge to harvest any usable quantity.

Another time I was hiking up in the mountains behind the village with Halle and Tezfanish and got caught in a surprise rainstorm. About a quarter of the way up it started to rain and became cold and miserable. I asked if we should go back home but they wanted us to make it to the top and said no, so we pressed on. After about an hour of drenching rain and bone chilling wind the rain finally let up, though it was still cloudy and blustery. We had all put our ponchos on when the rain started but between the wind deftly flipping them up and blowing mighty sheets of water underneath, and the runoff turning the rocky trail into a big creek we were all soaked to the bone and shivering, with teeth chattering like we were at the North Pole. Then just like that, the clouds parted and the whole mountain began steaming as the friendly sun beamed down and started warming our icy fingers.

Whenever she hadn’t anything better to do, Hallelujah would rummage through my belongings (only after asking for permission). Her prized finds were personal hygiene items such as toothpaste, deodorant, lotion, sunscreen, and my essential oils. As this was nearly my last stop before visiting the States again she inherited most of these things when I left.

One of the local customs is to have bread dipped in tea before the meal (if you’re very poor this might even serve as the whole meal), and whenever she prepared this aperitif something Halle always insisted on doing was feeding me huge bites of tea-soaked bread with her hand. She would do this when we were eating the main meal as well, and on special occasions when I was a guest in Alamayhu’s house or eating somewhere with the doctor, I barely fed myself at all, the preparers of the food or the host would always feed me in this way. I would have thought this act shockingly strange except for the fact that in the inflight cultural propaganda video I watched on my Ethiopian Airlines flight here showcasing the diverse local Ethiopian cultures there was a woman feeding a dignitary some injera and wat this same way. So I at least knew what was happening, that this was a sign of respect, though that didn’t make me feel any less like a baby bird having a beak full of worms poked down his throat!

This custom is called gursha, which is an Amharic word that means “mouthful,” and is a way to show honor to someone. As might be expected, “the practice is a bit of a culture shock for Westerners accustomed to eating from separate plates with sterile forks and spoons,” writes Samuel Mahaffy, author of Eritrean Cooking, “The ceremony defies every social norm in the West around personal space, eating with one’s hands, and much more, placing food in the mouth of another – touching both the food and the one being served.”

On July six I took a bajaj to the hospital where I’d been invited to a late celebration of the 4th of July with some of the interns and doctors and their families. I brought shortcake I’d made in doctor Tosimo’s kitchen and blackcap berry sauce cooked on my charcoal stove from berries that had taken Halle and I a solid 5 hours to forage, but the results were well worth it.

There were fireworks, country music, and a surfeit of genuine American food the likes of which I hadn’t had since last 4th of July; I was in heaven!

In mid-July, Dr. Tosimo’s assistant who usually drove on the paved section of road went to a wedding in Portugal, so I was temporarily promoted to full time driver, checkpoints notwithstanding. While she was there, she stepped backwards off a step and broke her wrist, which was cast wrong and had to be re-broke and re-set once she got back to Ethiopia, so I ended up driving for the entire rest of my time here.

This is an enormous responsibility (not that it isn’t elsewhere) because there’s so many obstacles on the road all the time. If you hit any kind of animal besides a dog you have to pay for it, even though it might have been sleeping in the middle of the road or just sprinted out in front of you. If you hit a person it’s an automatic 2 year prison sentence, whether or not you kill them. In some parts of Ethiopia, if you hit someone, you’re fleeing to prison for protection because the people will chase you down and try to kill you and up to 10 of your passengers to be revenged.

When one of our old translators had to quit, Hallelujah started coming with us on clinic days to take her place. Dr. Tosimo didn’t think that she would have enough comprehension to be useful, but she had a good base to begin with, and had practically been immersed in english since I arrived, and Dr. Tosimo could tell she had improved dramatically in just a few weeks. None of our translators know medical terminology or difficult words, but when the patients talk with us they don’t use terms like that anyway, so all we need is a translator to convert the literal words describing the problem straight across into simple english. 

On one of our hospital days we were just really slammed with patients, some we’d transported ourselves, some we’d referred to see us that day, and a couple were special consultations requested by other doctors. By the time I’d wrapped up everything Dr. Mary needed me to do, all the non-emergency areas of the hospital were closed and it was nearly sunset. So, all sweaty and crawling in phantasmic lice, I headed home to get cleaned up like always.

The bathing area is a quarter of a mile or so up the stream in the gorge below my hut, following a trail in the opposite direction of the one that goes to the doctors house. It was probably sunset when I started out but I passed one or two women still washing clothes and another person scrubbing his boots. By the time my quick, freezing ablutions were completed to my satisfaction twilight was giving way to full night and the last of the other people had vanished.

Anyway, just as I’d finished walking along the creek bottom and was shivering my way up the trail out of the gorge I saw something standing in profile on the trail ahead of me. At first I thought it was a dog, which is not bad in and of itself but could be worrisome since so many are infected with rabies and are much more aggressive at night, but then I realized that at the distance it was from me it seemed to be too large for a dog. It had a large, shaggy head and a back that slouched down towards its hind legs. Then it turned to face me and giggled dementedly and I realized it that it was a hyena. It wasn't hunting me, I just happened to be out and about at the same time it was.

Because I always have to lock my door when I go anywhere I always have my keys with me, which includes a micro Spiderco knife that usually gets through airport security without problems and a super bright little flashlight that I’d been given the first week I moved to Asia, which had always served me faithfully and gotten me out of several jams in the past.

I grabbed my keys out of my water dipper and turned the flashlight on hoping hyenas are afraid of light. It flashed on brightly for about 5 seconds and then suddenly blinked out, leaving me alone in the impending darkness (alas, not All alone). Hyenas are cowardly and don’t attack a difficult target (I told myself) so I broke off a big leafy branch from a bush beside the trail, wondering how many more hyena eyes could be watching me from the other side, and held it up over my head while I started walking towards him. The hyena watched me advance for about 10 feet then he turned and ataxicly trotted off the trail in the direction of the creek, cackling hideously once more after he disappeared and from much farther away. Thankfully I didn’t knowingly come any closer than this to a dangerous animal while I was in Africa.

On Friday August 2nd, while Dr. Gary was at work and while Dr. Tosimo and I were seeing patients at the hospital, somebody broke into their house and stole Dr. Gary’s laptop which was full of very sensitive, important documents. When they found out what had happened the police were called and a crowd gathered outside the house. Some of the kids in Dr. Tosimo’s English class said they had overheard Meret, one of the Dr.’s maids she had recently fired for stealing, bragging that she liked this computer and wanted to steal it, and a 5 year old girl said she had seen two people with black-painted faces at the house. They had seen her too and told her that they would kill her if she said anything to anyone, and she didn’t know their names anyway. But, she replicated the distinctive shuffling walk of one of the painted robbers and the gathered villagers immediately recognized it as the gait of the fired maid’s cousin, so the police arrested them both, and after a long and fruitless interrogation, the police started threatening to send both her and her cousin to Kilinto prison just outside Addis Ababa for 5 years if the computer wasn’t recovered expeditiously. This had the desired effect, and Meret finally cracked and the police got her to confess, after which the computer was retrieved from its hiding place and returned late that night, much to our delight.

On August 7th Dr. Tosimo didn’t have anything she needed my help with and I wasn’t scheduled to volunteer in the OR at the hospital so I decided to go hiking in the mountains and summit mount Demota again. I checked with several friends who would normally want to go with me but they were all either working or busy doing something else, so I foolishly decided that I would just go on my own.

After leaving the compound I walked up several primitive dirt roads until I was out of the village, followed a short trail that led to the main paved road and crossed it, then started across two or three kilometers of rolling, gently ascending country covered with forest and crops and dotted with mud and stick hut farms.

I passed many small children playing and gawking and people out working. Farmers were out in their fields, small children minding the family flock of goats, poor girls hauling water in buckets tied to a bamboo pole balanced on their shoulders, rich girls hauling water by driving a donkey laden with 4 jerry cans at a time, and women washing clothes in the creek.

At one point the trail ran in front of a hut with three guys standing outside the door, they smiled at me and waved as I passed and I didn’t think any more of it. After half a kilometer or so however, I looked back and could see one of those three men coming up the trail after me. I wouldn’t have been intrigued at all by this discovery except that I was walking very quickly, which meant that he must be running when he was out of sight around the corners of the trail in order to gain ground on me.

As I am a diehard procrastinator, I didn’t want to meet him any sooner than I had to, therefore I continued on according to my original design. But after 10 minutes he was close enough behind me that I decided to stop on the edge of the trail in the off chance he simply had urgent business on up the mountain as I did.

Unfortunately, he stopped as well and looked at me with a big, sinister smile on his face as he walked over the small intervening space between us and stuck out his hand. I reached out and shook it, wondering what exactly was going on, but I was quickly enlightened. He was still smiling at me in the most unnatural way possible, and I wasn’t sure what the protocol was for this situation, so I tried to disengage my hand from his while trying a friendly greeting. Then I felt something moving around inside my left front pocket. I looked down in alarm just in time to see that he had reached out with his other hand and expertly yoinked my phone right out of my pocket! I was so shocked I could only think of one thing to do, so I hit him on the chin with my non-dominant hand as hard as I could! He dropped my phone to the mud of the trail and we started fighting, still shaking hands like the handicap in a renaissance festival competition, but soon I was able to retrieve my hostage hand and we started fighting conventionally. He also appeared to be taking a great deal of interest in my little backpack, which only had water and first aid supplies in it, and made a couple grabs for it, but thankfully the straps held. It didn’t seem like any time at all passed before he broke free and retreated back down the path the way we had come. 

I certainly didn’t want to accompany him back, neither did I fancy just standing there waiting for something to happen, so I decided to continue going on my way and hope for the best much like an Egyptian Plover boldly venturing between a crocodilian’s gaping jaws in search of a choice stringy bit of juicy gristle caught between his teeth.

For probably 20 or 30 minutes everything went smoothly, and soon the preceding situation began to seem so bizarre that I thought that just maybe I had misinterpreted or even imagined the whole predicament. Soon enough, far behind me I could just make out the same fellow who had so kindly bethought himself to help me carry my accoutrements following me again, along with a second man from the original three. They were lurking slowly forward around each corner just as I would disappear around the next corner in front of me.

Before too long my trail led past a field where a young boy was attempting to manhandle a handcrafted wooden plow behind an ox, while his father looked on from the edge of the clearing and happily shouted out advice. In fact, there were several family members enjoying the spectacle and they seemed only too pleased to have me join them on the greensward between the field and the forest. I stayed here for 15 or 20 minutes, the subject of smiles and soft chatter while the boy wrestled to control both the stubborn ox and the unwieldy plow, until tiring of his lesson he relinquished the difficult job back to his father and came over to grin at me and flop down onto the grass and catch his breath.

This whole time I’d been keeping one eye on the trail behind me and hadn’t seen any sign of my would-be highwaymen, so I’d hoped that they had seen me stopping to visit with the farm family and decided to take me on the way back, because I was planning to descend on a different trail than the one I was currently on.

Feeling vaguely confident that I had outsmarted my pursuers I said goodbye to the farmer and his family and continued on up the mountain. This is where my route started getting really steep, as the trail left the mixed tree forest interspersed with meadows and farms behind and started cutting up through a darker forest exclusively composed of tall, closely spaced conifers with long, gracefully upturned boughs.

In this forest I came upon a woman gathering mushrooms with her two children, who were delightfully engaged in grabbing hold of the lowest branch on the downhill side of a tree and keeping hold of it while walking away from the tree, pulling the branch down as they went until nearly at the end when the branch would start pulling them off their feet, allowing them to bounce crazy high off the ground with each jump and swing around like two little Tarzans.

After traveling one or two kilometers from the farm I looked back at the bend in the trail as I’d been doing every little bit and once again saw the two men stalking me, and this time they started getting closer no matter how fast I hiked. Eventually, after another couple kilometers of hiking over the more open, grassy country near the summit they had finally got to within 30 feet of me, which is too close for comfort, and I suspected that they were going to make a grab for me any second. 

Now I’m not saying that I was afraid to have a go with both of them, but like I said before, why risk getting stabbed now when there’s a chance to put it off until later?

Right at this spot, slightly off the trail on the downhill side, I suddenly noticed a herd of goats who had been grazing under the watchful eyes of 4 angels in the form of small children. These goatherds had now caught sight of me approaching and were now only watching me with open curiosity. Quickly veering off the trail, I smiled at them and walked down the hill to where they were standing, calling out a Wolaitic greeting. Reaching into my backpack, I pulled out some balloons to share and “chatted” with them while pretending to ignore the men up on the trail, who whisperingly conferred together for a moment and then meandered off on up the trail.

I strongly suspected that the two men had plans to ambush me if I continued up the mountain, and would doubtless overtake me and perform a pincer maneuver with the help of the third stooge if I turned around. I had fallen victim to one of the classic blunders, which says: “never travel through a hostile country without a local companion”, and that was what I needed to remedy in order to get myself out of this pickle. 

A little ways further down the mountain in the middle of an enormous cleared field that appeared to be planted in teff I saw the thatch of a rooftop peeping out from under a cluster of trees (no tin up here), so I went down to the hut to see if anyone was home who might be willing to accompany me on the rest of my journey.

Calling out at the front door brought a man around from the back where he had been working in his garden. I greeted him and then realized that I had no idea how to explain my request to him. Fortunately there was cell service right there, but unfortunately even though my SIM card was working fine, before I could get in contact with someone who could translate for me my data packet ran out and the call rudely ended. Embarrassed, I mimed to the farmer that my phone was similar to a nearby pile of fresh goat droppings, and asked if he had a phone, and if I could use it. Incredibly, the answer to both questions was yes, so I used his antique flip phone to finally get a hold of one of my friends from the hospital named Tommy, and asked him to translate for me. I explained what was going on, showed a picture I had taken of the robbers following me, so he could see how the they were dressed, described what they had been doing, and then said I wanted to pay the farmer just to walk along with me, but if we ran into any of the men and things got sporty I would pay him more. Tommy translated everything for me and told me that he was going to call the police just in case we found the robbers.

The farmer readily agreed to this proposal, though he appeared a little bit confused. He seemed to understand what he was supposed to do, but he couldn’t quite figure out why I was there to begin with, wandering around in the mountains for no reason at all. I wasn’t selling anything, I wasn’t farming, and I wasn’t traveling anywhere (the top of the mountain didn’t register as a destination with him). After hanging up the phone he motioned for me to wait a moment while he went to get something. He walked around to the back of the hut and almost immediately came back holding a long, thin, machete, at the sight of which I conveyed my deepest admiration and approval of his good judgment. 

One of the farmers young boys had come out of the hut and was very friendly and seemed to be interested in what was going on, so I asked him if he would carry my backpack for me, just in case I needed to fight again I wouldn’t be encumbered by it, and he thought that was a great idea.

Then we were off, me hiking up the trail and back into the trees with a perfect stranger, not knowing where his loyalties would lie if I needed his help. Would he remember that he had agreed to help me, or would he decide that this unexpected windfall might be even more profitable if he helped rob me and divided any money or things that he found with the others? For all I knew Mr. Machete might even be related to one or all three attackers, and would change sides to help them out of family loyalty. Unfortunately I couldn’t communicate with my new companion, so I had no sense of what he might be contemplating as we swung along the trail single file. We hadn’t gone around more than three or four corners when I suddenly found myself face to face with the two varlets, who had obviously been loitering around on the trail waiting to ambush me. 

For a brief moment a look of triumph flashed across their faces as they saw their plan succeeding, but then they noticed that I seemed to have inexplicably conjured up some backup, creatio ex nihilo, and they suddenly developed an overpowering urge to study the the flowers and scenery along the side of the trail. I had a bold facade as I walked up to them, but all the while was desperately wondering if Mr. Machete was actually on my side, which I still wasn’t entirely sure of. I grabbed a hold of the first guy and started working on restraining him, but the second guy started trying to hit me from behind, albeit ineffectively, and when we went down to the ground he began picking up softball sized volcanic rocks off the hillside and throwing them at me, hitting both of us. That galvanized Mr. Machete into action, and he stunned the man with a hit from the flat side of his machete and then overpowered him. I finally got my guy into a chokehold and soon he calmed down as well.

After we (I) caught our (my) breath, we started walking back down the trail towards the farm, my prisoner frog marching along in front of me, and Mr. Machete holding the point of his namesake between his prisoners shoulder blades with one hand and holding onto a bloody great handful of the back of his pants with the other hand, a most embarrassing and uncomfortable position to be sure, but they were both coming along as gently as little lambs, so something was working.

When we broke out of the trees back into the open farmland, it seemed like people began to appear out of thin air. I had thought this part of the mountain nearly deserted, but suddenly there were farmers and aunties, grandpas and children, mothers and babies crowding around us, all pointing and jabbering excitedly. I was severely handicapped because not only could I not talk to anybody, but everyone could talk to the prisoners, and they did. I couldn’t tell at first which way the mountain people’s sympathies lay, and I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. A man came over to me and took custody of my prisoner, and I sat down and waited. My best estimate is that there was 60-75 people gathered on the side of the mountain within 10 minutes. Soon I noticed that everyone was being friendly to me, and that whatever the two men were saying wasn’t being bought by the people. After a while Mr. Machete motioned me over and gave me his phone, again with Tommy on the other end. Tommy said that everything was going well, that the police had talked to the village chief and were on the way, and just to wait where I was.

During this distraction, robber number 2 sensed a brief window of opportunity, leaped to his feet from where he had been sat cross legged on the ground under Mr. Machete’s watchful blade, and almost before anyone could draw in a breath to yell a warning he had streaked through the crowd and was shooting straight down the mountain through the fields, taking enormous, moonwalking strides. 

The farmer didn’t do anything at all except squint a little, but there was another explosion from out of the crowd, and a teenage boy who I would learn was one of Mr. Machete’s older sons hurled himself over the edge of the trail in brave pursuit.

Now this part of the mountain was really, really steep, and the cleared farmland went all the way down to a ravine with a stream in it 800 vertical feet below. So myself and everyone in the crowd had a birds eye view of one of the most impressive foot chases I’ve ever seen. The robber was fast, and was running from certain punishment, but the boy knew this field by heart, was probably a little more acclimatized to the elevation, and had all his friends and family judging him from behind. They were a close match, but slowly and surely the boy was closing the distance between himself and his quarry, and just before they hit the bottom of the ravine he got close enough to push the robber, sending him spinning and cartwheeling into a crumpled heap next to the water.

A couple men went partway down to help the boy with retrieval, but he handled the robber just fine and didn’t look like he needed any help. It took substantially longer for the two runners to come back up the mountain than it had taken them to go down, and when the prisoner was hauled back up to the crowd of incensed villagers they seemed almost angry enough to kill him on the spot, but the boy was cheered and given a victorious welcome!

We probably sat on the mountainside for another hour before the chief decided that we would start taking the two men down the trail to meet the police part way. So they were prodded up and secured, and off we went. I wasn’t in charge of either prisoner so I took my small backpack back from the little boy and walked along at the back of the procession with him and his older brother the downhill-cross-country racing-champion. 

We hiked for several kilometers back down the mountain before, sure enough, we met Tommy and a single policeman coming up the trail toward us. I was very happy to see Tommy, but I was a little bit nervous because I wasn’t sure what the policeman was going to do. I didn’t have to worry long though. For some reason, probably because he was on his own, the policeman was carrying a large metal bar instead of the standard-issue nightstick, and the first thing he did was take that bar and thwack the first schmuck with all his might across the stomach, doubling him over. He then dropped him the rest of the way to the ground and pushed his face right into the mud of the trail and ground it in several times, despite the robbers attempts to avoid the improvised spa treatment. After that both schlemiels were hit with several more hard, energetic, interrogations before we walked the last kilometer or so out to the road I had crossed on my way to the mountain. Here were two more policemen waiting for us with a public transport bus they had pulled over and commandeered to take into town.

I paid and thanked Mr. Machete and his two boys for their quite unexpected and wholehearted help, and then we were off.

At the police station I gave a statement and showed my evidence before thanking and also “thanking” the policemen who had helped me and leaving.

In Ethiopia there is such blatant graft you openly have to pay the police to do their job. Everyone is so comfortable with it that when I was heading out of the police station one of the officers who had helped me came over and asked for a “gift” to give the third policeman, who had already gone back to work again! Who knows if he ever received it.

In order the properly “thank” the two remaining policemen, Tommy said that they wanted me to take them out for a meal, which sounded like a fair bribe to me. Of course the switchboard operator and the sergeant on duty also felt like they were essential to the success of the operation and invited themselves to join us, (I’m just lucky the whole station didn’t decide to close up shop and come along) and we went to a restaurant specializing in probably the second most famous Ethiopian cuisine, tere siga (www.atlasobscura.com/foods/tere-siga), which is nothing more than a platter of fresh raw meat chunks and spicy dipping sauce. The experience was very interesting to be sure, but I just couldn’t bring myself to try it.

Later on when I was preparing to leave Ethiopia, Dr. Tosimo was fixing me up with all the medicines I would need to treat myself for any diseases or parasites that I might have acquired while I was there, and she specifically mentioned that if I had eaten any tere siga there was two additional drugs I would have to buy to treat the burrowing worms I probably had when I got home, because she wouldn’t treat stupidity!

On the 10th I rented a motorcycle and a couple of us headed down out of the mountains to visit a famous waterfall near the area where our clinic is held. It was raining pretty hard when we started but based on previous experience I knew that the rain would stop and the sun would come out as soon as we made it down to the flatlands as it did every day we went to clinic.

Today of course had to be different, in keeping with all the other foul weather days I tried to do stuff, and the farther we rode the harder it rained, until we were soaked to the bone and freezing cold. I also knew that the dirt track out to the falls would be a muddy morass; challenging in a 4 wheel drive truck and impassable on a bike, so I pulled off the road in front of a small mud-stick hut and we squelched over to the open door to ask for a few minutes at their fire.

This was graciously granted, and we soon found ourselves sandwiched in between 4 or 5 kids and the family cow, all trying to stay warm in the one room hut/stable! After regaining sensation in my fingers and dumping out my boots and wringing out my socks, I gave some money to one of the boys and asked him to buy asambusas for everyone. An asambusa is like a samosa that’s filled with dry cooked lentils and spices, wrapped in thin dough in the shape of a triangle, and deep fried. If only the cooking oil was hot they would be really delicious, but the oil is never hot enough and it seeps in and saturates the whole thing during cooking, making them an acquired taste.

The mother of the house roasted a couple ears of freshly harvested field corn over the hot coals and we ate, feeding the cobs to the pampered cow of the house.

After lunch, the rain had almost abated so we said goodbye and rode back home, determining to try to reach the waterfall another time.

August 13th I woke up early and had coffee at my hosts house because today was the day that the four men who had tried to kill Elias (my hosts brother-in-law) were going to trial!

It had rained cats and dogs all night and the morning was foggy and dark with a cold wind disconsolately blowing in sporadic gusts of rain. During coffee we were informed that last night, one of Elias’s extended family members who had been with him when he was shot and was one of the witnesses had been attacked and horribly beaten with a nailed club and robbed; nobody thought that was a coincidence.

Since the road was a muddy morass I decided to be clever and tie a plastic bag around each foot to keep my shoes clean on the 1 km walk to catch a bajaj into town.

My efforts were in vain though, for when I smugly climbed into the bajaj and took the bags off I found that mud had seeped in through the holes that had developed in each bag and uniformly covered my entire shoe surface in a fine brown film.

I realized it wouldn’t matter though when I found out that we weren’t going to the high courthouse, but instead to a smaller petty court directly outside the local prison. This area was rural and muddy and slippery as well so everyone’s shoes matched mine.

After making it down the steep muddy road to the entrance of the unimposing court we were told that the location had been changed last minute to the high court, so we retraced our way back up the mud road to the cobblestone road and walked until another bajaj chanced along and took us across town to the main courthouse.

By now it was nearly 9 o’clock which was when the judge was supposed to open the courtroom to hear this case, but he delayed for quite some time first. After finally initiating proceedings it was discovered that the four defendants were nowhere to be found! The judge found them in contempt of court and convicted them of all charges in absentia, but withheld sentencing until they could be caught and arraigned in the future. In the meantime, the family members of the four who had initially bailed them out of jail using themselves as surety were rounded up and thrown in jail themselves!

On Monday, August 19th, Alamayhu and I woke up extra early to go out to the area of the clinic to guide some of the rural village ladies we’d already examined at our previous clinics back to the hospital in town to get prolapse surgery. Apparently there is a man who normally does this but his brothers wife had just died and the funeral was today so he wasn’t able to help this time.

At this hour there were no bajaj’s so we had to walk all the way from our village into town and then over to the bus station. Finding a van going in the right direction we started off, and after a couple hours and transferring once to a different bus in the town halfway to our destination, we arrived and found the women waiting for us. Unfortunately though, the money which had been given for their travel and other expenses was still with the man who normally takes these patients, so we had to hire a motorcycle taxi to take us the rest of the way to our clinic village and fetch it.

Returning to our patients we set out to get everyone loaded on a bus, but after Alamayhu and I boarded the next bus heading back towards town the driver immediately started driving away, even though the bus was practically empty!

Alamayhu hollered at him to stop but he said something about having all the passengers board several blocks away from the station, which was really odd. The driver did stop 4 or 5 blocks down the street but he seemed to be in a terrific rush and before our patients arrived the second time he closed the doors and started heading out of town again!

Frustrated we stopped the bus and got off, walking back to rejoin the patients who were walking towards the place the bus driver had said he would let people board. We walked back to the station, on the way meeting some policeman and learning that the driver had tried to leave town without filing the necessary paperwork and was now going to be arrested until he could pay a 5,000 Birr fine ($172.00, an astronomical sum here).

Finally getting all our patients settled into the next bus, we waited until it was full and then started off. Several kilometers down the road we had an unexpected stop because our radiator had suddenly malfunctioned; it had either cracked or been punctured and the engine was overheating.

After impatiently teasing off the cap several gallons of dirty brown river water were poured in but just ran right out onto the road, so one of the bus employees rented a motorcycle from a man in the omnipresent crowd and buzzed off down the road. After 5 or 10 minutes he was back with two small sachets of something, which turned out to be finely ground tea leaves. Pouring both packs into the radiator seemed to fix the leak, and soon we were on our way again.

As we were coming into the town of the half-way bus stop, our bus started making a terrible noise, and just as we were making the turn into the bus stop the transmission went out and it died, leaving us parked orthogonally blocking the main road and the entrance to the but stop. Fortunately the exit was unencumbered, and after finding the right van and getting our patients loaded up in it, the rest of the trip was uneventful. While we didn’t make it back to the hospital in time for all the surgeries to take place that day, all the patients were seen either that afternoon or the next morning.

As my three month Ethiopian visa began to run out I tried to decide whether I should extend it or do something else. Originally I was only supposed to help Tosimo until her regular intern came back, but Dr. Tosimo had offered to have me stay on indefinitely and I’d already spent an extra month. I would have loved to stay longer but I was hoping I’d be able to go on another medical trip to India with my M-EMS team in December, and I had a lot of work to do before then if that were to happen.

Another thing I really wanted to do was visit Tanzania, the country where my dad was born and grew up. Johann, an old friend of mine, also happened to be working on a farm in Tanzania at the time, and I thought it would be so much fun to visit him as well.

Tommy, one of my new friends I’d met at the hospital, was also wanting to visit either Kenya or Tanzania, and I thought that it would be much better to go with someone anyway. So on Sunday, August 25th, I took a bajaj into town to meet Tommy at the main intersection and travel up to Addis to apply for our Tanzanian visas.

When I got to the intersection I went to call Tommy and discovered I was out of phone time, which I hated. In all my travels, I’ve never felt like such a target as here. Guys are always eyeing you predatorily, sizing you up. It’s worse if you’re not purposefully going somewhere, and especially worse with luggage or a backpack like I had on. Several times I had people try to pickpocket me on busses or while walking or standing somewhere, and often one or more guys would either walk right behind me or deliberately try to block my path, looking for an opportunity. Waiting unsuccessfully at the intersection, I finally went to look for a place to buy phone time.

A bystander pointed to a shop where I could find a phone card, and I went inside. It turned out to be a darkly lit tea house/chat room a few steps below street level,  with several sullen patrons staring at me. I asked for what I needed, fully knowing the answer, and was not disappointed. Next I asked if anyone knew where I could get a phone card, and one of the guys came over right beside me with what I thought was a sinister smile and said “yeah, I know,” without elucidating or breaking eye contact. I thought for sure I was about to be subjected to another attempted robbery, but I asked him to show me where to get it, and he did! I bought two and gave him one, and we were both happy.

After entering the code and topping up my balance, I called Tommy and we finally met up for ginger tea before we had to leave.

11 PM that night Tommy and I boarded the van which would take us up to the capital. Along the way we saw several hyenas, as we do every time when out and about at night, and passed through several severe rain squalls, but didn’t have any trouble.

The next morning after arriving in Addis Ababa we first went to the Tanzanian Embassy to get the application process started. After getting all the prerequisite photos, letters, stamps, and fees out of the way, we left our passports to the tender mercies of the front desk lady, and started looking for a hospital where I could get my long overdue Yellow Fever vaccination, as I could not enter a non-Yellow Fever country without it.

After checking at several different hospitals and putting several miles on our shoes, I found out that in the entire country there is only one Yellow Fever vaccine program, with only one location, and only one nurse authorized to administer it!

Finally finding the tiny Yellow Fever clinic tucked away on the grounds of the Black Lion Hospital, we noted a relatively massive crowd waiting outside. As it turned out, 590 people were waiting in “line” (I use this term loosely) for the nurse to return from lunch break and be vaccinated!

Everything worked out in the end however, because I was able to get the shot for nearly 1/100th of the price I would have paid in America (although it was very possibly only 1/100th the quality as well).

Sunburned for the first time since leaving Asia and with sore feet, we took a taxi to a hotel that one of Tommy’s friends manages and spent the night, returning home on Tuesday the 27th.

On Thursday the 29th I went to Dr. Tosimo’s clinic for the last time, and she even made an exception to the rigid schedule to allow a couple hours in the afternoon to visit the spectacular Ajora Falls. These twin waterfalls plunge 250 meters uninterrupted straight down into a nearly impenetrable rainforest gorge and form one of the countless tributaries of the mighty Omo River.

On Friday I worked my last shift at the hospital, where I helped again in the O.R. and said goodbye to as many of my friends as I could.

Leaving my host family was so much harder than I expected. Saturday evening, the day before I left they decorated the whole living/dining room with juniper trees, wild flowers, and tissue paper and strew the floor with corn leaves and long paper shreds. They also prepared an amazing feast for me, first we had coffee and popcorn, then there was bread and kita with some of my favorite dishes.

After staying up way too late just visiting, there was crying and many sad goodbyes, then I went back to my own hut to pack.

The next morning at 5 AM I was up again getting ready to leave and carrying my stuff through the rain up the steep muddy track to where vehicles can drive. Dr. Tosimo picked me up and we drove into town where she dropped me off along the side of the road where the bus would pick us up on the way out of town.

Even though I’d said goodbye to her along with the rest of the family just a few hours before, Hallelujah insisted on waking up early and coming to the bus stop to see me off with more hugs and tears.

Tommy had bought our tickets already and had told me that the bus would leave at 7 AM but to come at least half an hour early, so I did. Tommy, however, was not there yet. At 20-to-7 the bus arrived, but Tommy and my bus ticket had not. I was hoping that the bus would at least wait until the scheduled departure time to leave, but as soon as the people waiting had boarded, the bus dumped the airbrakes and started to leave!

I would have been completely screwed except that the head midwife from the hospital who I’d worked closely with also happened to be traveling to Addis Ababa on the same bus on the same day on unrelated business, and when he saw that I hadn’t gotten on he was able to hold the bus for a couple of minutes until Tommy arrived!

The trip north was uneventful except for one flat tire half way to Addis. But after arriving in the city, Tommy was very nearly thrown out of our taxi when the front door suddenly swung open going around the first corner on the way to our hotel! I immediately stopped leaning on my own door as a precaution and Tommy had to hold his shut for the rest of the trip.

The next morning, Monday the 2nd, we took a less surprising taxi to the Tanzanian Embassy to pick up our passports, hopefully with our Tanzanian visas inside. I wasn’t worried about my visa, but it’s quite challenging for Ethiopians to get approval to enter Tanzania and some of the other surrounding countries because they have a habit of not going back home. Tommy and I had put an enormous amount of research and work into getting all the necessary paperwork and approvals before applying, but that doesn’t mean anything.

Earlier this year Tommy had tried to visit Kenya and had been denied entry so we were holding our breath this time.

When we arrived at the embassy though we found out that our applications had been approved and we both had our visas! We immediately went and ordered pizza to celebrate!

Very early the next morning we took a shuttle to the airport and by 1030 we were on our way to Tanzania! Landing at 1320 Tommy was ecstatic, having been on his first escalator and first airplane ride! We picked up our luggage and were met outside the terminal by George, an acquaintance of Johann’s, who took us all over the city trying to withdraw money, exchange money, buy bus tickets for the next morning, purchase SIM cards, get supper, and finally took us to a hotel for some much needed sleep.

Compared to Addis Ababa, Dar Es Salaam  is very hot, humid, and flat. It’s also much greener, with cherry trees and coconut palms growing throughout the city and a much greater variety of fruit and street food for sale.

At 4 AM on the morning of Wednesday the fourth we were up and getting ready to leave for the bus that would take us 11 hours southwest into the Southern Highlands to Kibidula, the giant farm Where my friend has been working at.

Along the way I was finally able to catch sight of some of the famous African wildlife including giraffes, zebras, baboons, lots of impalas, and wildebeests, passing through savanna, dry scrub forest, a sandy rocky desert with baobab trees growing in it, and many towns and villages. This was also the first time Tommy had seen some of these animals in person.

Arriving at Mafinga, the nearest town to the farm, we were met by the Printer, who had just returned from vacation in the States and traveled out from Dar on a faster bus that same morning. He had already secured a taxi, and the three of us rode out the last hour or so to the farm together.

Here we met up with my friend Johann, whom I hadn’t seen in years, and started getting caught up and unpacked. We would be staying in his house sleeping on the floor for the duration of our stay.

Kibidula is a 6,000 acre avocado farm and agricultural school located at about 6,000 feet ASL in the Miombo Woodland, Southern Highlands. In the German colonial days, this area grew pyrethrum that was processed in Mafinga.

Because of it’s high elevation and closeness to the equator, there is very little atmospheric buffer and the sun is unforgiving, harshly scorching anything it touches. There is also a vast temperature swing between day and night, and sun and shade, you can easily sweat during the day, but if there’s no sun the air is cool even during the day, and at night becomes downright cold.

Early the next morning the three of us woke up and went over to the farm managers house for 6AM breakfast, and then built tables in the wood shop until lunchtime. After lunch we finished building an improvised screen made out of two 55 gallon drums to protect the intake of the pump which pumps water out of a large reservoir up into the irrigation dam for the farm. The day before a large stick had been sucked into the pump and jammed it so it needed to be removed and a filter placed so it wouldn’t happen again, and I was able to help.

We needed to be able to scuba dive down to clear away debris from the pump intake and secure the screen in place, but we didn’t hardly have any scuba gear, so we had to improvise. One of the farm managers is a scuba instructor, and he had a mask, wetsuit, fins, and a regulator, which was a good start.

We took two canoes and lashed them together with saplings to form a bodyless catamaran for our makeshift dive boat. Next we took an oilless air compressor and a portable generator to power it and secured them in one side of our boat, and used a custom fitting to attach the regulator to the end of two 30-foot compressor hoses to create an improvised hookah dive setup.

Using a length of tow chain as a weight belt and a fisherman’s self-inflatable life vest as a BCD we were ready!

We paddled out into the reservoir towing the screen in the water behind our twin-hull craft and tied off at the buoy marking the pump’s location. Donning the equipment one at a time we dove down 30 feet into the frigid, nearly zero-visibility water to dig out a space for the filter to rest and secure it in place.

After the job was finished we immediately went to our respective homes and took hot showers!

That night after supper Johann and Tommy and I along with several other volunteers and farm residents loaded up three mules with our water and blankets to go camping. Not regular camping though!

Riding out through the grasslands and scrub forest we came to a grove of acacia trees where we stopped and built a fire and relaxed for a while. When we were ready for bed we took our blankets and climbed up into the acacias all the way to their flat tops, well out of reach of any hungry lions, where we carefully searched for a place with more sturdy underlying branches and less thorns to spread out our blankets on and settle down to sleep, at least thirty feet off the ground and directly underneath the waxing gibbous moon and brilliant Southern Hemisphere stars.

This is a Kibidula tradition that happens at least once per year, and as unsafe as it sounds, no one has died yet, although people have broken through and fallen out of the trees in the past!

Sleeping on the treetops evokes feelings of intense peril, as any port or starboard movement will certainly send you plummeting down through a hole in your mattress! In addition, the hard, poorly spaced branches are poking up into the bottom blanket making it impossible to get comfortable; they’re reassuring in a way, but not sleep friendly. Night in the Southern Highlands is also very cold, and even though it doesn’t rain for months at a time during the dry season, a heavy dew falls every night and saturates the grass, trees, and our blankets (somehow leaving the thick layer of powdery dust on the roads perfectly dry).

In other words, it was an amazing once-in-a-lifetime experience and I wouldn’t have missed it for anything!

The next morning we stiffly unpeeled ourselves from the canopy and gingerly climbed back down the wet trees and rode back to the farm. We spent the morning in the shop building tables again, and after lunch hauled some of them to their future home in the avocado packing plant, swept and mopped our house, and then drove way out to a dam construction site to help bring back some of the equipment for the weekend.

The next day on September 7 we hiked out to the old dirt colonial-era Cape Town-Cairo highway that passes near one side of the farm. At one spot an underground spring had abruptly eroded the road down thirty feet or so and we climbed down and explored the resulting box canyon. Even though the road is no longer maintained it is still used, which makes this spot especially treacherous.

On the 8th I finally had a chance to wash my clothes, which Tommy thanked me for, then Johann and I mixed potting soil for a new batch of avocado seedlings for the rest of the morning and early afternoon. Later that afternoon, a group of us took some motorcycles to go bouldering and abseiling in a cool valley full of massive rock outcroppings 45 minutes or so from the farm.

Early the next morning Tommy, Johann, and I left Kibidula to start heading to Dar Es Salaam so Johann could fly back home, but we wanted to go on a safari first, and a few other people at Kibidula did too, so we all went together.

Ruaha National Park is the largest park in Tanzania, and it’s only a 4-5 hour drive from the farm, and not too far out of our way. After entering the park we got to see all kinds of amazing animals, from tsetse flies to lions. That night we slept in the park with an armed ranger escorting us around and lions roaring and coughing nearby all night!

In the morning we explored the park for a few more hours and then headed out to Iringa, where the three of us could get a bus to Dar. After lunch and going to the market, we said goodbye and went to our hotel, while everyone else drove back to Kibidula.

That evening as we were walking back to our hotel after supper we were accosted by a fat man claiming to be an immigration officer who said we needed to  come with him to the police station and answer some questions. He had a hokey ID card he waved in our faces as if we could read Swahili, and then he grabbed Tommy’s arm and tried to force us to get into his non-government-issue car. As he was obviously an imposter we extricated ourselves from his toils posthaste and took a maze of side streets and backtracked several times to make sure we weren’t followed back to our lodgings.

The next morning on the 11th we took the bus back to Dar es Salaam and accompanied Johann to the airport so he could fly back home later that night.

Afterwards we went back into town and met again with a friend of George’s who has a Kilimanjaro trekking company. Tommy and I had really been hoping to climb Kilimanjaro while we were in Tanzania but we weren’t sure if it would work out until after negotiating a second time. It also turned out that there was a tour starting in two days that we could join, which worked out really well for us  time wise, so the next morning we took a bus north to Moshi, where the trek would start from. Arriving in town, we were met by the local tour coordinator who took us to our hotel for the night and made sure we had everything we needed.

The next morning we met our guide, Kaliki, and assistant guide, Douglas, and got outfitted with the rest of the cold-weather gear we would need on the mountain, then drove out to the trailhead of the Marangu Route, which we would be following. Happily for us, the group we were supposed to be joining was under time constraints and had started the climb the day before, allowing us to ascend separately.

While researching this climb, we’d found out that Kilimanjaro is a beast to summit and has a less than 40% success rate: From the wicket gate at the start of the trail we would ascend from 1,879 meters (6,165 feet) to 5,895 meters (19,341 feet), which is 4,016 vertical meters (13,176 vertical feet), and cover 86 km (53 miles) over 5 days.

As one climbs in altitude the percentage of oxygen in the air remains steady at about 21% (up to approximately 21,000 meters or 69,000 feet) but the higher one goes the lower the air pressure will be, and the less densely the gas particles are packed together, so you get less oxygen per breath. At 20,000 feet there’s nearly half the number of oxygen particles in the air as at sea level.

Mount Kilimanjaro is divided into four extremely distinct vegetation zones:

Montane Forest (1,800 to 2,800 meters; 5,850 to 9,100 feet); this zone feels like a tropical rainforest with enormous moss-laden trees, many streams and waterfalls, tropical flowers and vines, and many monkeys and colorful birds.

Moorland (3,000 to 4,000 meters; 9,750 feet to 13,000 feet); consisting of grass, scrub trees, sagebrush, everlasting flowers, Giant Heath, and otherworldly cactusy plants including Giant Lobelia, Giant Senecio, and Giant Groundsels, which can tower over 20 feet high!

Alpine Desert (4,000 to 5,000 meters; 13,000 to 16,250 feet); this is a cold, dry, windy, harsh environment where only the most hardy plants and small animals can survive.

Arctic (5,000 to 5,895 meters; 16,250 feet to 19,341 feet); a moonscape of scree and glaciers. The only plant found in this zone is Helichrysum newii, which grows around the fumaroles (volcanic vents) in Kibo’s crater.

The most dangerous things we had to watch out for (aside from dehydration, Acute Mountain Sickness, and malaria) was probably Cape Buffalo and wild elephants, which left plentiful evidence of their presence in both the Montane Forest and Moorland.

My biggest concern, however, was whether or not my antique pair of EMS boots would survive the mountain. These are the same boots I had been using off and on for the last 7 years, and had been lamenting were completely worn out in Ethiopia (meaning they literally fell apart). I would have thrown them away except I didn’t have anything else to replace them with, so I had the soles re-glued and re-sewn instead. Now the soles were actually starting to disintegrate in addition to separating from the rest of the shoe, and I took pains to avoid sliding them over the trail or wedging them between rocks where possible.

Fortunately for me, the 9 year old Uyghur cobbler at the Chinese Bates Re-education Factory was a master of her craft, and they lasted me all the way to the summit and back to Moshi, where I tried to give them a long overdue funeral, but one of our guides saw me throwing them away and said he could use them or give them to one of the porters, so  now they’ll probably be in service for another 7 years! (Starting in 2017, Bates claims to once again be producing a growing range of military/other uniformed services and motorcycle boots 100% sourced and assembled in the USA.)

After reaching camp each evening and resting for a bit, Tommy and I had to take mandatory acclimatization excursions to a higher altitude beyond camp in order to help minimize our chances of getting Acute Mountain Sickness (altitude sickness) and failing to summit. I was very grateful that I had just come from living and exercising at nearly 9,000 feet, or else I don’t know if the daily acclimatization regimen would have been enough.

On the third day we were met by a team of porters evacuating a well bundled up AMS victim off the mountain on a stretcher, and later that afternoon had a helicopter fly past us and briefly land at the camp we were en route to. We thought they were evacuating another patient, but found out that evening that they were flying in a technical rope rescue team to recover the body of a porter who had fallen off a ledge at a difficult to reach spot inside the crater.

Finally we made it to Kibo hut, the base camp we would try to summit from. Because it’s located at 4,720 meters (15,486 feet) there is a high risk of getting AMS even here, so we’d only be staying for a few hours to try to eat and sleep before summiting that night.

I was already feeling sick, with a pounding headache, insomnia last night and this night, absolutely not feeling hungry or thirsty and having to force myself to do both, shortness of breath, and a rapid pulse. When I checked my oxygen saturation I was at 82% in base camp! (Down from 99% normally.)

At 12 AM on September 16 we woke up, or rather got up because neither one of us could sleep, and got ready for our summit attempt. We put on every piece of warm clothing we had and filled our water bottles, then after having tea we started at 1 o’clock.

There was a brilliant, frosty-bright waning gibbous moon to light our path so we didn’t need to use our flashlights, even though from some places a slip could be fatal. 

We gained nearly 4,000 feet of altitude in 4 km, scrambling up a volcanic scree slide that seemed nearly vertical, with each step seeming to slide back to the step’s starting point every time we moved. Here we could finally feel the full force of the high altitude, having difficulty breathing, gasping for breath, terrible coordination, and overwhelming exhaustion. 

Finally arriving at the top, we followed the rim of the crater around for another kilometer and reached the summit at 0618, exactly at sunrise!

The temperature was well below zero so we only stayed at the top long enough for pictures and then started to retrace our way back down off the mountain.

We got back down into Moshi on the evening of the 17th, and took a bus down to Dar Es Salaam on the 18th. There was an Ebola scare going on in Dar while we were up north and getting ready to go back there, but luckily the autopsies tested negative and we continued our trip as scheduled.

On September 20 we rode the ferry across to Zanzibar and rested our sore muscles for a few days scuba diving and kite surfing before Tommy flew back to Ethiopia and I started flying back to the States on the 24th.

Checking my luggage at the airport revealed it was severely overweight and I had to jettison some nonessentials plus take a second carry-on with me on the plane. I quickly selected some random heavy items to fill my second carry-on and headed through security. My bag was flagged and when security searched it they found my large serrated fixed-blade dive knife and balisong, both of which I’d completely forgotten about while hastily redistributing my luggage. This looked horrible, but fortunately security was understanding, although they had to confiscate both knives.

I flew from Tanzania to Qatar to JFK, where I had a horrible 9 hour layover, and then a 6 hour flight to Seattle, Washington where my grandma and grandpa were waiting to pick me up!

Heading for home we stopped along the way at what has always been an Indian restaurant to eat on our way home, but after it was too late to leave we discovered that, of all improbable coincidences, it was now only serving East African food :(! It was nice anyway, although I wasn’t anywhere near ready to start craving it or wanting it yet.

After supper we started off in earnest and finally made it to my grandparents house around 1230 AM, after nearly 48 hours of traveling. I spent a few days at their house recovering from jet lag, then headed for home, finally arriving on Tuesday, October 1st, after having been gone over a year and a half!

[olko71]

New Post has been published on All about business online

New Post has been published on https://yaroreviews.info/2024/01/average-mortgage-rate-lowest-for-nearly-seven-months

Average mortgage rate lowest for nearly seven months

Getty Images

By Kevin Peachey

Cost of living correspondent

The average rate on a two-year fixed mortgage has fallen to its lowest level for nearly seven months as lenders compete for custom.

Financial information service Moneyfacts said the average rate had fallen from 5.92% to 5.87% in a day.

Major lenders, such as the Halifax and HSBC, have begun the year with rate cuts to keep hold of customers, as their own funding costs have dropped.

More reductions are expected, but many homeowners still face rising bills.

“The mortgage market may be heating up, but this won’t fully ease the pain for the roughly 1.6 million existing borrowers with cheap fixed rate deals expiring this year,” said Alice Haine, personal finance analyst from Bestinvest.

“They still face a heavy jump in interest payments when they switch onto a new product, with the only comfort that the situation could have been much worse.”

Mortgage rates will remain higher than many people have been accustomed to because of significant changes over the past two years.

The interest rate on a fixed mortgage does not change until the deal expires, usually after two or five years, and a new one is chosen to replace it. Doing nothing would leave people on a variable rate, which are very expensive – with an average rate of more than 8%.

However, the UK’s biggest lender, the Halifax, started the year by reducing the rate on some of its mortgage products by nearly one percentage point.

Others have followed suit such as TSB, First Direct and NatWest which will make cuts to some products on Friday, and more are expected to join them with reductions – although not every product will see such large falls.

These changes have already fed through to the average rates, as calculated by Moneyfacts. Both the average two-year fixed rate and five-year fixed rate are at their lowest level since June.

Richard Fearon, chief executive at Leeds Building Society, told the BBC’s Today programme: “This mortgage price war has become very visible this week. There is always a Christmas slowdown, but we’ve seen the market come back with a bang and it’s really competitive. Rates are down one percentage point or so since their peak.”

House prices set to fall and rents to rise in 2024

How interest rates affect you and your money

On Friday, Halifax said house prices rose for a third month in a row to average £287,105 in December, but said it forecast a fall in prices this year with buyers perhaps becoming more cautious due to economic uncertainty.

Kim Kinnaird, director at Halifax Mortgages, suggested last month’s growth was most likely driven by a “shortage of properties on the market, rather than the strength of buyer demand”.

She added that with mortgage rates easing, “we may see an increase in confidence from buyers over the coming months”.

While Halifax is the UK’s biggest lender, its figures only take into account buyers with mortgages – about two thirds of all sales – and do not include those who purchase homes with cash or buy-to-let deals.

While Halifax’s own mortgage approval data showed house prices ended last year 1.7% higher than in 2022, Nationwide recently said its data suggested prices ended the year 1.8% lower.

While both lenders have predicted slight falls in house prices in 2024, there is generally a mixed view among experts.

Separate figures from the Bank of England published on Thursday show that the number of mortgage approvals rose slightly in November, which could be seen as a sign of a touch more confidence from buyers late last year.

Approvals for house purchases were up from 47,900 in October to 50,100 in November. For remortgaging with a different lender, the total increased from 24,000 in October to 27,000 in November.

Guy Gittins, chief executive of Foxton’s, London’s biggest estate agent, told the BBC’s Today programme there had been a “huge movement in confidence” late last year with the more new buyers registering compared to the same period in 2023. “I think the prices that we’re achieving at the moment in the UK are relatively steady, but what we will see is a lot more movement in the market and many more transactions,” he added.

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But Emily Williams, director of research at Savills estate agent, pointed out: “Mortgage lending for house transactions rose slightly month-on-month in November, but were still down 26% against the pre-pandemic normal level of activity.

“Buyers who do not have to move are continuing to hold off while the cost of debt remains high. Looking ahead, there are encouraging signs for mortgaged buyers.”

That encouragement depends on whether economists are correct in their prediction that the Bank of England’s benchmark interest rate will fall relatively soon.

Investment bank Goldman Sachs is predicting that interest rate cuts will start in May.

Such a move may also ease the pressure on costs for mortgaged landlords and, eventually, in turn slow the rate of rent rises for tenants.

However, it will be bad news for savers, with analysts suggesting the rate of return on savings has now peaked.

What happens if I miss a mortgage payment?

If you miss two or more months’ repayments you are officially in arrears

Your lender must then treat you fairly by considering any requests about changing how you pay, such as lower repayments for a short time

They might also allow you to extend the term of the mortgage or let you pay just the interest for a certain period

However, any arrangement will be reflected on your credit file, which could affect your ability to borrow money in the future

Read more here

Related Topics

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[palmoilnews]

GRAINS-Soybeans edge lower after Brazil rains, strong dollar hit prices CANBERRA, Jan 3 (Reuters) - Chicago soybean futures dipped on Wednesday as rain in top exporter Brazil eased supply fears and a stronger dollar made U.S. agricultural commodities less attractive to foreign buyers. Corn and wheat futures edged higher after a steep drop on Tuesday. The most-active soybean contract on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) Sv1 was down 0.2% at $12.71 a bushel by 0430 GMT after slipping nearly 2% on Tuesday to its lowest levels since Oct. 12. The U.S. dollar, which strengthened nearly 1% against a basket of major peers on Tuesday, edged down 0.15% on Wednesday. Rains in northern Brazil -- the world's largest soybean producer -- are helping slowly improve moisture and crop conditions, and are expected to remain "very active" this week, forecaster Maxar said. Lack of rain has already taken a toll on yields, with brokers StoneX cutting estimate for the country's 2023/24 soybean crop by 9.1 million metric tons to 152.8 million tons. However, higher supply from other South American producers is likely to offset losses in Brazil, said StoneX analyst Arlan Suderman. "Buyers have not yet seen the need to increase imports of U.S. soybeans to compensate for a 'short' Brazil crop," Suderman said. "Part of the reason for that has been expectations for the Argentine crop to nearly double this year to close to 50 million metric tons, while increased production is also expected in Paraguay and Uruguay." While U.S. soybean exports have been lacklustre, local demand remains strong, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture reporting that 200.1 million bushels were crushed in November, more than the 199.7 million bushels analysts had expected. Soybeans are also under pressure from falling oil prices, analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence said. "If the world's most significant commodity continues to gravitate toward its enduring mean around $50 a barrel, most commodities will likely suffer, notably the top oil seed, soybeans," they said. "Some combination of poor production and rising crude appears necessary for grain prices to rally in 2024." Funds remain broadly bullish on Chicago soybeans, but were net sellers of soybean, corn and wheat futures on Tuesday, traders said. In other crops, CBOT corn Cv1 was up 0.2% at $4.64-1/2 a bushel after slipping 1.6% on Tuesday, and wheat Wv1 was up 0.2% at $6.07-3/4 a bushel after a 3.4% slump in the previous session. StoneX reduced its forecast for Brazil's 2023/24 corn production by 1.4 million metric tons to 124.6 million tons. Speculators have entered 2024 with some of their most bearish-ever views towards CBOT corn, but in years past, that positioning has rarely proven sustainable.

[mariacallous]

Former Orlen CEO Daniel Obajtek claims he’s not hiding abroad. However, many of his videos on social media were shot in a Budapest penthouse apartment owned by a company close to Viktor Orbán’s government. During the time we were watching the house, a man hiding his face jumped into the same type of car that Obajtek posted about. On another occasion, Orbán’s close aide entered the building.

In the morning  of June 1, a tall woman with colored blonde hair wearing a black hoodie stepped out of a beautifully renovated 19th-century building of Budapest’s elegant Andrássy avenue. A huge advertisement banner above the building’s gate reads in English: “luxury apartments for sale,” and “where values and high quality meet.” The woman crossed Oktogon, the Hungarian capital’s iconic eight-sided square, then disappeared onto a smaller street while talking to someone on the phone.

Twelve minutes later, a metallic gray Lexus ES 300h briefly stopped in front of the same building. At exactly the same time, the ornate brown wooden gate opened, and a man hiding behind a face mask, sunglasses and a cap appeared on the street. The timing was so precise that there was barely enough time for us to start recording what was happening: the man had already jumped into the back seat of the car and disappeared.

Later, when we analyzed the video frame-by-frame, we could identify the driver as a blonde-haired woman — one who looked extremely similar to the one who had just left the building.

Meanwhile, the tinted passenger windows of the Lexus successfully hid the man. The whole process seemed carefully designed and perfectly executed in order to protect his identity. The letters on the license plate of the car, however, signify that it comes from Warsaw’s Mokotów district. 

We had good reason for watching the house on Andrássy, even on a Saturday morning: VSquare and Frontstory.pl’s partner on this investigation, Radio Zet, has learned from its sources that one of the building’s residents is Daniel Obajtek. He is the former CEO of the Polish state-owned oil company Orlen, and his long tenure leading the Polish oil company is embroiled in scandal. 

Was the man who did everything to hide his face while slipping into the car Obajtek? We can’t know for sure. However, a few weeks earlier, on April 10, Obajtek’s official Facebook account posted a photo of him fueling a metallic gray car. Only certain parts of the car are visible in the picture – but from those very distinct parts, the type of car, Lexus ES 300h, is easily recognizable.

This past week, in addition to watching the building at Andrássy in the hope that we could meet Obajtek, we also thoroughly analyzed his social media content. With the help of sources with intimate knowledge of the various relevant locations, we successfully identified the places from which he has been posting his videos — at least since February.

This is how we were able to confirm that many of his Instagram videos are indeed recorded at the same building at Andrássy from a 147 square meter penthouse apartment worth approx. €1.6-2 million. The official owner of the apartment is BBID Ltd, a real estate developer company that turned the previously run-down building into luxury housing. The owners of the company reportedly have close ties to Viktor Orbán’s government and are even business relations with the Hungarian Prime Minister’s son-in-law, István Tiborcz. According to Radio Zet’s sources, the penthouse where Obajtek spends considerable time is rented out, although it’s unclear who is officially renting it.

Obajtek posted his first video from the penthouse apartment on February 19. In April, he even conducted a Youtube interview with a right-wing journalist  in what seems to be his secret Budapest home. Another recurring location in Obajtek’s videos is Budapest’s City Park (Városliget) at the end of Andrássy avenue, from which he appears to have posted multiple videos – including one mocking Polish media by suggesting he is not “on the run” from his scandals but rather getting into shape to face the “media’s attacks.”

Although the videos are carefully edited so as to not show recognizable landmarks, Hungarian text or anything else that would give away their locations, we could still identify them using open source research. 

Recently, Obajtek has been the subject of much attention from the public — as well as from Polish prosecutors, due to revelations about Orlen’s gigantic financial losses during his tenure as CEO. Polish investigators are currently conducting three main investigations into dealings under Obajtek’s leadership:

on the merger of the state-owned Orlen and Lotos energy companies and the agreement to sell a 30 percent stake in the Gdansk Refinery to Saudi Aramco

on Orlen’s huge financial losses, which were caused by the radical cutting of fuel prices on the wholesale and retail markets in autumn 2023 – and which may have been related to the parliamentary elections (the idea being that lower prices would boost the then-ruling Law and Justice government’s chances)

the unsupervised transfer of more than PLN 1.5 billion to OTS (Orlen Trading Switzerland).

So far Obajtek is expected to testify in the prosecutor’s investigation as a witness – he is not charged. Though according to Gazeta Wyborcza, staying abroad might be a preventive measure for him to avoid any potential charges before the European Parliament elections. Obajtek is running as the Law and Justice’s candidate from Podkarpacie (Southern Poland).

Obajtek is not the first person from outside of Hungary who, when scrutinized by their home countries’ authorities, feels that it is safer under Hungarian jurisdiction. In 2018, after he was convicted and sentenced to jail, former North Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski fled to Hungary, where he was granted asylum. In early 2024, facing charges at home, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro spent multiple days at the Hungarian Embassy in Brasília, as the New York Times has uncovered. Both of them reportedly closely coordinated with Hungarian government officials. 

There is no information on whether Obajtek also enjoys the protection of Hungarian authorities or communicates with them. However, shortly after 6pm on Monday, June 4, we spotted Viktor Orbán’s close personal aide Dávid Héjj entering the Andrássy avenue building. We have no information as to which apartment he went into, but he routinely typed in the gate code without any help, suggesting it is not his first visit there. There was no indication that Obajtek was also in the building at the time.

What is public knowledge, however, is that Obajtek knows Viktor Orbán: back in 2022, when Orlen and Hungary’s MOL oil company entered into a deal over acquiring gas stations in both countries, the deal was “welcomed” by the government and Obajtek was received by Orbán in his office.

We sent requests for comment to BBID Ltd. and the office of Viktor Orbán, none of them reacted before publication. 

Obajtek replied: “I have never made a secret of the fact that I conduct business talks not only in Poland, but also abroad. It is, therefore, natural that I have to stop somewhere during these trips. As a private person, I do not have to explain myself. Please do not look for sensations. I am not asking you where you are staying during your trips.”

[bitcoincables]

Spot Bitcoin ETF Inflows Could Surpass $50B Crypto ETP Market

United States-approved spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) could potentially surpass the entire $50 billion global crypto ETF market, according to BitMEX Research. Currently, the global market for crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs) consists of around 150 products with $50.3 billion in assets under management. This includes spot and futures funds that usually track the performance of Bitcoin and Ethereum. The largest ETP on the list is Grayscale's Bitcoin Trust, which is aiming to be converted into a spot ETF product.

Market experts believe that the approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF by the SEC, potentially as early as Jan. 10, could double the amount of money invested in crypto ETPs. Bitwise predicts that spot Bitcoin ETFs could gather $72 billion in assets under management within the next five years, more than doubling the current market size. However, Van Eck offers a more conservative estimate, suggesting that around $2.4 billion could flow into spot Bitcoin products in the first quarter of 2024.

While a spot Bitcoin ETF has not yet been approved in the US, it has already been implemented in several other countries such as Canada, Australia, and Germany. This optimism surrounding spot Bitcoin ETFs reflects the growing trend of institutional investment in crypto products over the past few months. According to ETF research firm ETFGI, crypto ETFs listed globally attracted net inflows of $1.6 billion year-to-date, with $1.31 billion of that amount added in November alone. This marks a significant increase as compared to the $750 million net inflows into crypto ETPs in 2022. The top 20 ETFs out of the 150 listed attracted the majority of the investment, with $1.3 billion flowing into them in 2023. The ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO), launched during a bull market in October 2021, saw the largest individual inflows, securing an additional $278.7 million in 2023.

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Hashtags: #Bitcoin, #ETFs

[musicinfooy]

Under the current “pro rata” model held true in Spotify and Apple, money from your dedicated fans goes into a giant pool that’s paid out to artists based on their share of total streams. This mostly benefits mega stars.

Spotify figures out how many streams came from a given country and then calculates the portion of those streams that went to specific artists. This causes smaller artists who might not have such a massive reach, but have a dedicated loyal audience, not getting much money because they share a smaller portion of the overall streams.

Effectively, if The Weeknd or Harry Styles gets 5% of all streams on Spotify in any given period they and their labels will get 10% of your monthly subscription fee, even if you never listened to any of their songs.

Rolling Stone reported in 2020, that the top 1 percent of streaming artists end up getting 90 percent of the revenue.

If you were to take the more than 1.6 million artists who released music to streaming services in the past year and a half and ranked them by their total streams, you’d find that the top 16,000 of those artists pulled in 90 percent of the streams. And it doesn’t take more than a basic grasp of math to realize that this leaves 1.6 million artists with just 10 percent of the streams.

FYI the current number of artists on Spotify has now grown to about 9 million, this means more share less.

This “pro rata” model typically benefits the major labels and the most popular artists. When you listen to music on the streaming services what do you hear on these platform generated playlists, radio stations and suggestions: More of the same top artists represented by the biggest labels. This has changed very little if at all over the last 3 years.

Obviously this is not acceptable. Not only from the view of the music creator, independent label and self-publisher but also from the fan’s’ point of view. It too sucks knowing that these superstars are taking money away from your choice artists.

Yet, I cannot feel too bad about using streaming services. The subscription fee is for using the service. No longer do I need to carry around all my CDs or be limited to the storage capacity in my device. And new releases are automatically available. But there must be a better way to focus user and fan activity and payments in a more meaningful way.

Lets see how the biggest record labels will get their fingers into the new payment models. We’ll take a look at the most recent deal with Universal and Deezer, as well as the first change in the “pro rata” model founded by Soundcloud and Warner.

Micropayments and Tips: A Better Way to Pay Your Artists

If only there was a way for a fan to pay directly to the artist. Wait, hold up there is. Though Netease and Tencent in China use the “pro rata” model, they calculate the accumulated streams of a given artist and pay out according to the type of user: free, subscribing, or VIP. So the pay per stream varies from user to user. Already there is a distinction between users. But even, is the possibility for the listeners and fans to give gifts directly to their artists.

Yet another advance in China that the western services are lacking and struggling to “catch up to”, if that is even a tangible consideration for the streaming services to implement?

Micropayments and digital tips are common in China. There are apps that allow people to tip or give monetary gifts. However, many platforms have this function built into their system as they do in the music platforms in China like QQ and Netease as well as Douyin and others. And you can always use a 3rd party app to send a gift to the ones you choose. How awesome would it be to go to Spotify or Deezer or Apple and leave your thoughts and show your love as comments to your artist as you listen to their music, as they do on Netease and QQ. And also showing your support by giving them a tip or virtual gift.

Moving Beyond Pro Rata

Universal has struck a deal with Deezer or is it vice versa? Deezer CEO Jeronimo Folgueira says that the deal is the “most ambitious change” to the economies of music streaming since it first started.

Focusing on artists who have a minimum of 1,000 streams per month with a minimum of 500 unique listeners will get a “double boost.” Is that 2x per stream?

They will get another “double boost” if the song was actively searched for by the user rather than suggested by the system or on a playlist. Is that 4x times per stream?

This Artist Centric streaming model is definitely a move forward. It seems though that the ones it benefits the most are the artists who are already taking the majority of the royalties. So any artist who has more than 1000 monthly streams and 500 different listeners will now be taking double of what they are already taking. Where is this coming from?

Denis Ladegaillerie of Believe, expressed his concerns that this 1000 streams/500 listener threshold will increase over time. Essentially squeezing out any upcoming artist with fewer than the threshold.

Jeronimo Folgueira of Deezer has addressed a very sore point in the streaming world, “There is no other industry where all content is valued the same, and it should be obvious to everyone that the sound of rain or a washing machine is not as valuable as a song from your favorite artist streamed in HiFi.”

Deezer is planning to replace non-artist noise content with its own content as functional music which won’t be included in the royalty pool. And of course tackling fraud by driving a better new and improved fraud detection system, making it less attractive to fraudsters and protecting the royalties.

So at least we can count on 2 things: Artists will receive a smaller payout if their songs play as part of an algorithmic playlist and will not need to compete with background noise tracks. Please remember this is only on Deezer. And how about all artists that are not part of Universal Music Group do they share pro rata of whatever is left over?

As of now Spotify is not on board, “We are willing to make the switch to a user-centric model if that’s what artists, songwriters, and rights holders want to do. However, Spotify cannot make this decision on its own; it requires broad industry alignment to implement this change. The research we’ve seen to date suggests that a shift to user-centric payments would not benefit artists as much as many may have originally hoped.”

Another possibility implemented by Tidal is their Direct-to-Artists payment model established in 2022. As a listener and subscriber your monthly fee will be allotted to a pool of royalties based on your subscription tier. As a premium HiFi plus subscriber it is estimated that 10% of your fee will go directly to your artists you listen to.

At the forefront we have Soundcloud and their Fan-powered royalty model since 2021. This is only available to independent artists who monetize directly with SoundCloud. The more time your dedicated fans listen to your music, the more you get paid. So a user paying $10 a month only listens to five artists, those five artists will get a split of that $10, after SoundCloud takes its cut, no matter how many times the user listens to each of them.

This model that seems to benefit independent artists is a collaboration with Warner Music Group, having cut a licensing deal with SoundCloud to adopt the streamer’s Fan-Powered Royalties system. WMG is the first major label to adopt the system, and its embrace of the model could signal a larger shift for the industry. Warner and independent artists are like oil and water, could there still be a light at the end of the tunnel for independent artists?

Conclusion

The structure of payments between streaming services and labels or independent artists are in need of change.

There is an inability to distinguish premium content, any stream over 30 seconds in length counts the same. This means that the music that has a higher value is not recognized.

An alternative is a more flexible artist-centric model that seeks to distribute payouts based on the value an artist creates and provides for the platform.

Fan-powered royalties means a subscriber’s subscription fee or advertising revenue will be shared among the artists they actually listen to, rather than going to a big pot and being split up among the platform’s most popular artists.

Streaming platforms have more pricing power than they have demonstrated in prior years as several major music streaming platforms have increased their prices on their standard services; however, the average revenue per user on paid streaming music services has fallen by 40% since 2016.

Apple Music and Spotify have essentially lowered the value of their catalogues by introducing family plans and smaller prices for bundled users, but maybe they are preparing for the next generation of users.

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[ailtrahq]

In a significant development for the cryptocurrency market, the bankrupt exchange FTX has received court approval to liquidate its crypto assets worth over $3.4 billion. The decision, delivered by Judge John Dorsey, overruled objections and permitted FTX to proceed with selling, staking, and hedging its holdings.  The exchange had submitted a filing in August, arguing that such activities would mitigate downside risks and generate returns on idle digital assets for the benefit of the estates and creditors. FTX Authorized To Liquidate Digital Assets Holdings FTX’s crypto assets include several notable holdings, with $1.1 billion in SOL (Solana), $560 million in BTC (Bitcoin), $192 million in ETH (Ethereum), $137 million in APT, $119 million in XRP, and $46 million in STG.  However, concerns have arisen within the crypto community regarding the potential implications on the prices of these cryptocurrencies as a result of the liquidation. On this matter, renowned crypto expert Michael Van de Poppe suggests that the market impact of FTX’s approval to sell $3.4 billion in crypto assets, combined with worse-than-expected Consumer Price Index (CPI) data, is expected to be limited.  Market participants anticipate that FTX’s selling activities, including the weekly sale of up to $200 million of assets for corresponding clients, may exert some additional selling pressure, but this is likely already factored into current market prices. Notably, a significant aspect of FTX’s holdings is Solana, which comprises a substantial portion of the exchange’s assets. Van de Poppe highlights that the majority of SOL is staked, rendering it unavailable for sale.  Only approximately 7 million SOL, a majority of which have already been liquidated, can be sold. This factor plays a pivotal role in shaping market expectations, as the anticipation of a massive sell-off in Solana may not materialize due to the limited supply available for sale. According to Van de Poppe’s analysis, FTX’s approved liquidation plan aims to address its liabilities through a gradual asset sell-off. While this strategy may have some short-term market impact, it is anticipated that the “sell the rumor, buy the news” phenomenon could come into play, particularly in light of the recent sell-off of Solana observed in the past week. FTX’s court-approved liquidation of its crypto assets marks a significant development in the crypto landscape. The implications on market prices, investor sentiment, and the broader crypto community will be closely monitored as FTX navigates the process of selling, staking, and hedging its holdings.  SOL’s 1.6% gain over the past 24 hours on the daily chart. Source: SOLUSDT on TradingView.com As of the time of writing, the price of SOL stands at $18.11, exhibiting a 1.6% surge within the past 24 hours. Notably, this positive price action defies expectations of a substantial sell-off following the recent news concerning FTX’s crypto holdings and the court’s green light for the liquidation plans of the defunct cryptocurrency exchange. Source

[hotholic]

Saudi Arabia extends oil production cut even as US gas prices hit nine-month highs

OPEC leader Saudi Arabia is extending its oil production cut for at least another month in a move that threatens to drive gasoline and other energy prices even higher.

An official source from the Saudi Ministry of Energy told state-run news agency SPA Thursday that the kingdom will extend this voluntary cut of one million barrels per day for the month of September.

The source told state media the cut could be extended further and the move is aimed at supporting the stability and balance of oil markets.

It’s the second time the kingdom has extended the cut, which was first announced in June after a meeting of the alliance between Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Russia and other smaller producers.

At almost the same time, Russia announced plans to cut oil exports by 300,000 barrels per day, in September according to Reuters.

US oil prices rose 1.6% on Thursday to $81.05 a barrel. Brent crude, the world benchmark, jumped 1.5% to $84.50 a barrel.

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Analysts say the moves by Saudi Arabia and Russia were already largely priced in to the oil market, which has been moving higher in recent weeks.

“This announcement supports those increases but is not likely to drive prices much higher by itself,” said Rick Joswick, head of near-term oil research and analysis at S&P Global Commodity.

The prolonged supply restraint from Saudi Arabia and Russia comes even as oil prices have rebounded in recent weeks, helping to lift pump prices for US consumers to nine-month highs.

“It flies in the face of the US effort to tame inflation,” said Robert Yawger, vice president of energy futures at Mizuho Securities. Yawger noted that Russia and Saudi Arabia are relying on higher oil prices to fund their budgets.

A White House official responded to the Saudi output news by noting that prices have come down significantly since last year.

“We will continue to work with producers and consumers to ensure energy markets support economic growth and to lower prices for American consumers,” the official told CNN in a statement.

The national average for regular gas climbed to $3.82 a gallon on Thursday, according to AAA. That’s the highest since late October 2022 and marks a 28-cent increase over the past month.

The gas price spike has been driven by a combination of OPEC’s supply cuts and extreme heat that has derailed refineries. At some point, gasoline prices could rise to levels that become so painful that it hurts demand.

“$4 is the line in the sand,” said Yawger. “Once you get to $4 you get demand destruction. It kills the golden goose.”

Diesel, a key fuel that powers trucks, trains and boats, is also getting significantly more expensive.

Saudi Arabia needs Brent crude to trade at around $81 a barrel in order to balance its budget, according to the International Monetary Fund. The kingdom slipped into a budget deficit this year after reporting a surplus in 2022 for the first time in almost a decade.

Russia is trying to boost revenues to support its war effort in Ukraine. According to estimates published by the International Energy Agency last month, Russia’s revenue from oil exports plunged by $1.5 billion in June to almost half the level a year ago.