Thoughts, early 21st century - Home

View from my new office
- 29 Jun 2009
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As the building reparations will be affecting our flat in a few days, we have finally moved out to a similar building 5 minutes away. You can see the view behind my laptop. Now I realize why I don't like to see neighbors out of my window (across the street) in Berlin :) A real-time mutating view with infinite variations is much better. Included features are: bird sounds, GigaTree resolution, fractal clouds, sudden thunderstorms and rainbows, colorful sunsets and sometimes snow. Did I mention I like Finland? :)
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Sunday in Soukka
- 29 Jun 2009
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It was incredibly quiet today, and very hot, about 26ºC. I saw a hundred people at the beach. Probably the rest were in their mökki (weekend house, usually next to a lake). There are 187,888 lakes in Finland. That means one lake for every 28 Finns :)
I have set up my Linux laptop with the 3G Internet for my grandma, and I will leave it here, so I can see her on Skype when I'm away. The attached images and audio were editing using Free Software only. Unfortunately the laptop's display is not very good, so the images may look worse than other times. Sorry about that :)
Today I saw a very interesting and well produced one hour long interview on TV. There was a psychologist that takes care of sexual abusers and pedophiles in prison, and the interviewer. She made very good questions and he gave great answers. Both were very intelligent and calm. It was not an attempt to rise the audience by upsetting people, but a deep thought about the issue. Not black nor white, but shades of gray. I wish there were more such thought provoking shows.
Then I saw a great French documentary about Congo. Reminded me of Uganda. It was created by Diego Buñuel, grandson of the famous director, and titled "Don't tell my mother". In this series he visits rarely traveled areas affected by conflicts and wars such as Afghanistan, Colombia, North Korea, Congo, Venezuela, Israel, Iran, Iraq, The Balkans (Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Kosovo) and Pakistan. I hope I find his other documentaries.

SoukkaSounds.mp3
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Picking up the trash
- 28 Jun 2009
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When I was a kid, here in Finland they already separated the paper trash, and later the organic garbabe. This was maybe 15 or 20 years before it was done in Mallorca, where I grew up. Many people still don't want to "waste their time" with such things in Spain. This is very different in northern countries.

Recently I was surprised to see a sticker in one of our garbage cans in Berlin, saying that "someone threw something wrong in this container. we will not take the trash away until you fix this". If this happened in Spain the container would probably sit there full until the sun melted the container and the content away :)

Here in Soukka, until one year ago, there was a small wooden house with several trash containers inside. A different truck would come to pick up each type of garbage (paper, white glass, colored glass, organic, carton, plastic, or others). This wooden house has now been replaced by several containers that are mostly buried in the ground, probably about 5 or 6 meters deep. You use your house key to open each container and throw away your garbage. The garbage falls into a gigantic and very strong bag. Once a week, a truck with just one person comes, lifts the huge bag with an hydraulic arm, pulls from a rope in the lower end of the bag, and the content drops inside the truck. In the photo you can see half of the bag. I'm not yet sure of what benefits this system has, but I will find out.

One other interesting thing that came to my mind, is that the 10 floor building where I stay does not have any kind of communicator to let a visitor ring a neighbor, or to let someone open the building door from upstairs. During the day you can just enter the building and ring directly someone's door. But after 8pm or during weekends, the building door is locked automatically, and you can only enter if you have the key. Do people never receive visits from friends after 8pm or during weekends? If they do, they have to go down and unlock the door. Now that people have cellphones you can just ring your friend upstairs, but this system has been there for 20 or 30 years. I think people don't have so many visitors around here :)

Today I ordered a tiny video camera, so hopefully next week I can show you how beautiful Soukka is.
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Shoes for 8 Euro
- 25 Jun 2009
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There are many things I like about visiting Finland. One of them is to find everything unchanged. The beautiful lights and shadows texture created by the sun and the trees, the smell of flowers, the nature full of plants and trees, the squirrels running up and down the trees... Those things are still there. The super strawberry cake and all the other great food my grandma does is also there. But this time there is a difference. You can hear it here:
http://soundcloud.com/hamoid/slee-pypiano-and-the-hammer-trio
There is a renovation going on in the building. That's one of the reasons I came here, to help my grandma moving some furniture around and make things ready for next week. So this morning a bit after 7 this extremely loud noises began, that made the floor shake. This happens for a few hours every day until they have drilled all the floors in the building to replace all water pipes. It surprises me that they decided to replace them all, and how they do it. It reminds me of the old movie E.T. They have covered all floors with protective material. All walls. Windows. All walls in the elevator. Each step in the stairs. All doors are covered with plastic. A turbine blows the dust out of the building through plastic tubes. Then they seal half of each apartment (all except kitchen and toilet). All this to avoid damaging anything, and to avoid dust getting around. Most neighbors are temporarily living somewhere else, we will do the same in a few days.
My life here is healthy. I eat tasty food, run in the forest, swim, breathe clean air, I give water to the plants in the garden. But there is something strange. It reminds me of the books from Isaac Asimov, where he described a society where humans did hardly ever see each other except teleconferencing. Each human had 10.000 robots doing all the necessary tasks. Few people lived in that planet, and they were distant from each other. When those people met, the shaked their hands wearing invisible gloves. Very clean and efficient.
At the moment I can not tell you about new exciting birds like one week ago. I can talk about money and objects instead. Today I got a EDGE / HSDPA USB stick that connects me to the Internet for 10 Euro / month. No download limit, and VOIP is allowed, unlike in Germany. I also experienced the extreme discounts you find in this country during summer. I bought new summer shoes for 12 Euro, and warm winter shoes for 8 Euro. And Finland is a expensive country. Have you seen "The Story of stuff"? How is it possible to produce all the raw materials needed for the shoes, transport them to one place, pay someone to put a shoe together, send it to Finland, and then sell it to me for 8 Eur? I mean, it's a serious winter shoe, not a drawing of a shoe...
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From the equator to the Nokia country
- 24 Jun 2009
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I noticed a extreme change in what surrounds me during the last days.
The streets, the people, the air, the sound, the temperature... it's
another universe.

I've seen people with red (almost fluorescent) hair, a Gothic couple
with huge platform shoes, black leather clothes with metal pieces
attached, black paint in their faces, I've seen punks and large
stylish sun glasses... I tried to imagine a Goth in Kampala... would
the kids run towards them screaming "muzungu"? or would they run away
screaming something different?

I imagined explaining someone that you can buy broken jeans that look
old in Europe that cost as much as one months salary in Uganda, and
that extra effort is taken to break them and wear them out. I'm pretty
sure they try to take much care of their few clothes down there.

I also imagined showing these different groups of people to one of the
persons I met last weeks in Uganda and then asking "in which of these
styles would you like to dress?". The idea of a custom party (or mask
party) comes to my head.

Funny how I can feel at home in such radically different places after
such a short period of time.
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School children singing II
- 22 Jun 2009
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The morning I took this photo I had not slept much. But as I heard the music I jumped out of bed and run out to the balcony with my recorder and the camera. There I found Michael, who was filming it. It looks like there are at least two fans of these kids :) The songs still play in my head sometimes. I love the English accent of the teacher :)
I noticed some of my posts were read almost 200 times. Funny, because I have no idea of who is reading these words :)

old_macdonald_had_a_farm.mp3
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Back to 52ºN
- 21 Jun 2009
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Friday we spent the day packing our luggage and our data. We shared photos, transfered video tapes and copied the files we've been working on. The way to the airport was quite interesting. We left the house at sunset time, when a big traffic jam takes place every day. Even there are no traffic lights and cars move slowly, I think drivers don't get stressed. Edward always seemed very calm. I haven't seen people screaming or honking. Actually I haven't seen anyone agressive at all.

Right now I hear people honking all the time here in my street in Berlin because they have to drive slower than usually. Today Fete de la musique takes place and some streets are for pedestrians only, so cars have to drive other routes. Sometimes someone even screams. Why are they so stressed?

While driving to the airport I found it sad to see a woman sitting on a dusty sidewalk grilling corn to sell. She was there with her small son that tried to climb on her. The kid smiled and laughed, and she played with him. Around her there was some trash. The corn was quite black after a long time in the small grill. I wonder if someone was buying any of it. It's strange that it felt sad for me while they seemed happy.

Edward took a different route to avoid the traffic jam. We drove on some dirt streets with huge holes and bumps. The car's bottom often hit those bumps. I saw the night life in Kampala. There were some pickup trucks with loud speakers, pool tables, bars and lots of people hanging out there. It was a busy and very interesting area. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabalagala

In the photos, a mobile card shop. Then Sarah, Miquel with Conejo, Solomon, Hakim and I, and finally someone being driven around in a bicycle on the way to the airport.

It was amazing how bright the stars were on the road to Entebbe. You could see some even near the horizon.

Tuesday 60ºN :)
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Last video shooting day
- 18 Jun 2009
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Today was our last day out there filming. We drove back to Rakai (across the equator), to the same place where we did the circumcision filming last week. From there we drove to the country side to visit some community health workers in a AIDS help center. I showed the phone application to a doctor and two other workers while Michael controlled the camera and Sal made the questions. We received positive comments and some good ideas for new features. On the way back I could not stop taking pictures from the car. I filled my card with 150 images. I enjoyed shooting at high speed (1/500s) while I turned my body quickly to follow objects and people at the side of the road. It was very hard to aim with the car moving at 80 km/h... a fun game :)

At the equator I checked using the phones GPS feature if the line was at latitude 0º, but there was a 12 meter difference, whatever that means :)

Today we said goodbye to Bob and his son Daniel. Tomorrow early Michael and Sal (filming crew) will leave very early in the morning, and Miquel and I will fly back to Amsterdam in the afternoon. This will be the end of my first visit to this continent. Hopefully more follow :)

During the last week every evening when I get back home I'm extremely tired after so much travelling and exciting events. I only have energy now to write these lines and upload some new photos to http://www.flickr.com/photos/hamoid/
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MU-JHU
- 17 Jun 2009
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Today I spent many hours with Sal and Michael Jackson doing video shootings at the MU-JHU (Makarere University - Johns Hopkins University Research Collaboration, http://www.mujhu.org/). I heard very interesting stories of how they investigate and got successful results for avoiding mother to child HIV transmission. I feel lucky to meet so many smart people in charge of projects that try to improve other people's lives.
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School of public health
- 16 Jun 2009
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Today the video shootings continued. First with the Dean of the School of Public Health. Bob and Miquel presented him the phone and the application, which he found very interesting. After this Bob and Miquel explained to the camera the project and the technology used. It was a bit tricky because it was outdoors and the wind forced them to repeat the takes a few times. After eating a pizza we attended (and filmed) a very interesting event (the Grant Rounds) in the same campus, at the Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI). In this event, they connect the local auditorium with another one in the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore using a satellite link. Cameras and microphones in each side transmitted live feed to the other side. 3 uncommon medical cases from Uganda were presented, the participating doctors in Baltimore tried to diagnose and give their opinions on those cases using the given data, and finally the local doctors presented what was the actual diagnosis, and interesting discoveries. So basically it was a videoconference between doctors in Kampala and Baltimore that brings new knowledge to both sides.
Finally we visited the Davis theater. There was a short discussion about the planned modernization that will bring the latest technology to the theater.
After a great dinner in a beautiful Thai restaurant surrounded by nature it's now time to sleep.

Only three days left here. I know I will miss it.
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Hello. This is the blog of Abe Pazos. Here I share my creations and ideas. You can find more about me at http://gplus.to/hamoid I recommend watching the photos in full screen mode: press F11 (Firefox or Chrome) and click the photo.

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