More Thailand Pics (iPhone Edition)

My camera ran out of batteries one afternoon but fortunately my brother let me borrow his shiny new iPhone to take a few pictures. The quality is a little lower but who cares when your pad thai comes in omelette form?

Pad Thai omelette from Thip Samai, Bangkok's equivalent of Di Fara's

For some reason I like to take pictures of the sides of buildings

We were a little tired of temples after Angkor Wat but Wat Arun was completely different with all the porcelain patterns on its sides

Wat Arun (detail)

The stairs were treacherous but well worth the climb

View from Wat Arun

This is why you don’t wait four months to post travel pics

You forget all the details. But at least with food pics, the deliciousness will hopefully speak for itself.

In Chiang Mai, we took a Thai cooking class that was super fun (even for someone like me who doesn't really like to cook)

Fortunately, I didn't burn anything when I took a break from cooking to snap this picture

Fish souffle (better than it sounds)

Yes, we made spring rolls. How could you not?

JP decided to fry an egg and place it atop his Pad Thai because he's a show-off like that

Back in Bangkok: A deep-fried street omelette at seven in the morning (long story)

One afternoon we stumbled across a corner of Bangkok with no street food (which I would have thought impossible!) but we were saved from hunger by a tucked-away bakery selling Portuguese cookies

A Midlands Meander

Watching a bunch of eight year-olds play mini-cricket very early in the morning

One of the best parts about my Kiva Fellows placement in KwaZulu-Natal is that Dan has a bunch of extended family in the region. On his previous trips to South Africa, he spent the majority of his time in Cape Town where his first cousins, aunts, and uncles live and where his grandparents lived before they passed away. As anyone who’s ever visited family in another country will tell you, there’s never enough time to see everyone and do everything. While that’s certainly still the case this time around, we’re really fortunate to get to know this other wing of Dan’s family while we’re here.

Thanks to their hospitality, we spent the weekend in and around Howick eating delicious food, watching kids play cricket, going on runs, reading, drinking tea and wine, driving along the Midlands Meander, catching up with family, and getting the best sleep I’ve had in a long time. I can’t wait to go back….

A delightful afternoon with extended family at a wine estate. Fortunately, we moved inside before the lightning and hail started up.

View of the Drakensberg Mountains from a lovely hilltop cafe

An essential stop before heading back to Richards Bay

Freaking out at the Woolworths

As is the case with most of my food pics, this was better than it looks.

I’m generally not a big shopper but there are two situations where wires cross and I’ve been known to lose touch with reality. The first is buying gifts for people while traveling. I go nuts. Postcards, pillowcases, beaded animals, bowls, bizarro artwork made from cinder blocks, foreign food, toiletries – just about anything remotely portable is fair game.

The other time I go crazy as a shopper is at yuppie supermarkets. Particularly when I’ve been traveling for a while and I’m suddenly presented with organic fresh fruits, muesli, Greek yogurt, pesto, delightful treats in cute packaging, and any number of things in bottles that I’m suddenly convinced I desperately need. This happened at the Woolworths in Richards Bay over the weekend. The fact that I had to go to the mall had already weakened my defenses and even though I didn’t feel hungry at the time, I was shopping like I hadn’t eaten anything in the past week.

But, unlike past instances of Shopper’s Freak Out, I actually made something of the madness. And it was good. Really good. I’d been craving some of the flavors we became accustomed to in Malaysia and I also wanted to prove to Dan that I was totally, definitely going to use the sesame oil, sambal, soy sauce, fish sauce, and rice vinegar that I insisted I needed. So I created a marinade for the chicken then mixed together arugula, cilantro, an orange pepper, and steamed brocollini. Next up, the udon noodles which I eventually fried with an egg. And finally, the chicken. As my friend Jen can attest, I’m very squeamish around meat so the fact that I mostly cooked it myself with only the occasional consultation with Dan was quite the feat. Then I just mixed it all together with a little white pepper and sea salt and called it a day.

Hanging at the beach in Richards Bay

Bonus Post

I’m cleaning up my desktop in a vain attempt to make my computer behave and came across some pictures from early January that I’ve been meaning to post. They have no real rhyme or reason but I hope you enjoy them:

Wonderful decor choices in San Francisco

Love those west coast coffee shops

Classic San Francisco

Mushroom hunting in Santa Cruz 1

Mushroom hunting in Santa Cruz 2

I hear it's continued snowing in Fort Greene after we left. Fortunately, it's summer here in South Africa.

Obligatory plane shot

Pizza Calendar

Image from Ashley Macknica's pizza calendar for L'asso

Last night, we descended on neighborhood favorite L’asso for some real New York pizza before leaving the country. Even though we’ll be sad to go without good pizza for several months, my photographer friend Ashley was thoughtful enough to give us a L’asso pizza calendar full of her pizza pictures. Yum!

24 Hours of Hijinx

Dan putting his metal file and clamp to good use. I definitely picked the wrong night to forget my camera.

Saturday night started out on a reasonable note: a haircut for Dan, dinner with KL friends, a Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra performance, and drinks at SkyBar at the Traders Hotel. Then, after we got out of our cab at one in the morning, we made an unpleasant discovery: our keys were no longer in Dan’s pocket. That was going to be a problem.

We woke up a friend, asked her to call the people we shared the cab with and eventually spoke to them – no sign of keys in the cab but an offer to crash. I was holding out that maybe we could check the dinner venue, the performing arts center, and the bar before admitting defeat for the night. So we rushed back to KLCC and walked right into the deserted concert hall to comb the aisles (way to go, security). No luck. No luck at The Apartment or SkyBar either. Okay, we thought, let’s just go crash with these super nice people. Much better than trying to sleep on the couch in the common area of the YWCA.

We arrived at 2am and left by 9:30am – before our hosts had even woken up. Then it was back to KLCC to check the salon where Dan got his hair cut. No sign of those damn keys. At this point, we had pretty much exhausted our options and there was nothing left to do but have breakfast and some caffeine. I felt so terrible about waking up and keeping up friends that we took advantage of being at the mall and bought a few gifty things. I thought we’d just drop them off on our way back to the YWCA and then put our full attention back to the locks.

Unfortunately, we had a blatantly dishonest driver who not only stopped for gas while we were in the car but quite obviously started driving in the exact opposite direction from where we needed to be. So we started arguing with him, as you do when someone is trying to scam you, which added a whole new layer of excitement to the day. What an asshole. But I have to admit it’s satisfying to know your way around well enough to call out unethical drivers on their bullshit.

Anyway! We finished our deliveries, got a new taxi, arrived at the YWCA, and were able to get into our room after a few minutes. At first it didn’t look like we were going to be able to borrow the extra keys which meant that someone would need to be in the apartment until Monday morning (and we wouldn’t be able to attend an event last night) but fortunately, the staff member who let us in relented.

Problem solved, right? Not so much. As an additional security measure, Dan and I have been locking up our computers in one of those mesh travel things. You know what I’m talking about. And there was a very sturdy lock preventing us from accessing our computers. Since I’m in deadline mode with work and Dan has less than two weeks to wrap up his grad school apps, this was a serious issue. I got the numbers of several locksmiths, none of whom were able to come out, while Dan decided to walk to Pudu to buy his own set of bolt cutters. Three hours later, the bolt cutters died on the first attempt. Then Dan took to sawing the lock. The blade broke. And finally, in a last-ditch effort, Dan used a file to weaken the small grooves in the lock created by the saw. Fifteen minutes later and 24 hours after we lost our keys, our lives could return to normal.

A few final thoughts: 1) Dan’s toolkit came in handy and was totally worth the extra travel weight. 2) Even as the drama was starting to unfold on Saturday night, I was remarkably nonplussed. I mean, it’s not like anything was stolen. We’d break into to our apartment and our computer bag eventually and it was pretty obvious that while this was going to be a huge pain in the ass, it had the makings of those “I’m such an idiot” travel stories that everyone loves. 3) Dan now hates the pants he was wearing Saturday night. Not only because he lost the keys but also because he wore the same pants on Sunday night and lost his phone. Poor guy! I bought him a pain au chocolat this morning to cheer him up.

We were super exhausted but we rallied and attended the Global Entrepreneurship Week Awards Ceremony anyway. Fun times in KL.

On a lighter note

Pictures! In no particular order:

Down the block from us after a rainstorm

Banana Leaf awesomeness in Brickfields. A lot more food arrived after this picture was taken.

Trip down memory lane

Subjecting you to another picture from our window. This time it was raining.

The local mosque. I love hearing the call to prayer.

Another view from our friend's apartment. KL does have its moments.

Last weekend in food

Seriously delicious macarons

As usual, there was plenty of eating last weekend. The exception was 1) I actually brought along my camera, and 2) On one occasion, I was patient enough to take a few pictures before eating.

On Saturday, a few of us got desserts at Nathalie’s Gourmet Studio which is renowned in KL for its macarons. I don’t consider myself a macaron person – they’re so often dry and listlessly sweet – but I loved these cookies, particularly the citrus and ginger varieties. In addition to the macarons, we ordered four desserts, the best of which was probably the mango “millefeuille” which didn’t have anywhere close to a thousand leaves but made up for it with amazing mango intensity. Who cares what it’s called as long as it’s delicious?

On Sunday, we went on a mini road trip to the beach. Or, perhaps more accurately, a restaurant right next to a beach. Even though it was dark by the time we arrived, we still had a great time.

Anyway, here are a handful of pics:

I couldn't resist - another macaron shot, this time with cappuccino in foreground

View of chocolate dessert and mango dessert. Also consumed: autumn fruit crepe and a raspberry tart with pistachio ice cream.

Beach restaurant view 1

View 2

View 3

View 4

View 5

Cockles and coconut milk

We ate a lot

I wasn't the only one with a camera

The view from the apartment we took over last night to make dinner. I made a chunky, garlicy, spicy pesto and plopped it on some rocket. Dan roasted pumpkin and garlic and made homemade ravioli. I made a white wine sauce with cinnamon sticks, shaved ginger, a little leftover pumpkin, and butter, and we added a healthy dollop of ricotta when we threw it together with the pasta. And for dessert, banana, plum, and grapes from the night market.

Social Enterprise Follow-Up

I love the Google Docs version of PowerPoint

Two weekends ago, I had the pleasure of participating in Urekaweekend (although, to be honest, I mostly lived vicariously through Dan and his project).

I spoke about a few social enterprises on the Friday night and I just wanted to put them in one place in case anyone is interested in doing more research on their own. My selection process involved thinking about programs that would be accessible and inspiring for people trying to go from idea to action in one weekend. I also wanted to make sure that there were some clear take-aways that participants could apply to their work. Here’s a run-down of who I mentioned plus related links:

Ashoka & Ashoka’s Changemakers: An obvious choice but incredibly relevant. While the Ashoka Fellows Program may be for established social entrepreneurs, I love that Changemakers competitions are accessible to entry-level entrepreneurs and anyone with an interest in innovative ways of addressing social issues.
Links: Ashoka & Changemakers

Dowser: I mentioned Dowser during the presentation since I had just read an interesting interview with Kyle Berner of Feelgoodz, a flip-flop company that takes its triple bottom line (concern about the social and environmental impact in addition to profits) very seriously.
Links: Dowser & Interview with Kyle Berner

Jezebel: Not a social enterprise by any stretch of the imagination but they recently posted about how most products that are labeled “green” aren’t really “green” but that’s what sells. Social enterprises go beyond green-washing or token CSR – the social mission is the core of their work.
Link: Jezebel post

Souktel: I love Souktel’s business model and the value their service provides to their customers. Job-seekers pay a modest SMS fee to search job ads or post their mini-CVs; employers pay higher fees to post jobs and search CVs. And the best part is that they pretty much cover their expenses through the fees. In thinking about Souktel’s model, I suggested Urekaweekend participants ask themselves, “What existing platforms can I use for my project? What low-cost resources are already at my disposal? Who is my target audience or consumer? Is there potential for the idea to be financially self-sustaining?”
Links: Souktel & their Changemakers entry

Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE): SHE uses design, local materials, and local buy-in to increase access to sanitary pads for girls and women. This is a noble enterprise in and of itself but SHE’s business model has multiple positive impacts at each stage of production and distribution. In one product, SHE recycles banana leaf fiber, creates jobs in sanitary pad production and distribution, introduces a product that will enable women to go to school or work even when they are menstruating, enhances sanitation, and reduces stigma, among other things. I asked Urekaweekenders to think about the ways their products can be more sustainable environmentally and financially and how they might take something that has negative value – for example, discarded banana leaves – and turn it into something with positive value. In other words, what are innovative ways to keep your expenses low while maximizing profit?
Link: Sustainable Health Enterprises

A to Z Textile Mills: A to Z Textile Mills is addressing the negative impact of malaria through the production and distribution of specially-treated bednets. There’s a lot of information available about them on Acumen Fund’s website but they’re a solid example of how innovation can come from enhancing existing products or systems. As I told Urekaweekenders, think about how you can build on other people’s ideas by creating something more effective, less expensive, or more targeted.
Links: A to Z Textile Mills on AcumenFund.org plus slideshow

MicroDrip: One of the most effective aspects of MicroDrip’s model is that you don’t have to buy their entire micro-drip irrigation system at once. You can buy what you can afford now, use it on a small section of your land, and see the results for yourself. For Urekaweekenders, is there a way that you can demonstrate impact and efficacy for your new product or service? And are you setting an affordable price-point for your intended consumer?
Link: MicroDrip

BEN Namibia: Bicycling Empowerment Network Namibia (BEN Namibia) won a recent Changemakers competition with their program for training and equipping women to run community-based bicycle workshops. To give you a little background, they started out distributing bicycles but soon realized that people lacked training on basic repairs and maintenance. So they developed a new bike distribution model that involves delivering 350 second-hand bicycles, tools, spare parts, paint, roofing materials, and workbenches to grassroots organizations that then run a community-based bicycle shop. I asked Urekaweekenders to think about the distribution model for their ideas. How are you going to get your product to your consumer? Is there sufficient infrastructure on the ground to support it? If not, what can you do to help build the network and systems necessary for your product to thrive?
Links: BEN Bikes & Changemakers entry

Amul: I was only recently introduced to Amul so I’m not an expert in their work but they are a very successful Indian dairy company. Their three-tier cooperative structure encourages many positive social impacts, including job creation, rural development, and poverty alleviation, and their company has increased the accessibility of affordable and nutritious products. At the same, their place at the cornerstone of India’s “White Revolution” (India is now one of the top milk producers in the world) has demonstrated the importance of taking a commercial/business approach to development.
Links: Amul & Amul on Wikipedia (don’t judge!)

EcoMovement: EcoMovement is a New Hampshire-based company that picks up food waste at a lower cost than trash pick-up, turns the waste into compost, and then sells it to local landscapers. This is another excellent example of taking something with negative value and turning it into multiple things with positive value: compost you can sell, less waste at restaurants, and lower costs for businesses that use the service. Some additional things I asked the Urekaweekenders to think about: if the idea you’re working on has an element of behavior change, for example, encouraging people to recycle, what are ways that you can make recycling easier, cheaper, more convenient, and even more fun than just using the trash can? What are the typical barriers to addressing recycling behavior and how might you need to shift cultural norms in favor of the use of your product or service?
Links: NPR story & SeacoastOnline story

Twitter: While not a social enterprise, twitter is a valuable aggregator and a great way to learn more about the fields that interest you from a variety of perspectives. Do your research, read up on the competition, and stay up-to-date on the latest trends and developments. Once you have a lay of the land, think about what you do best. Where is your competitive advantage? And how is what you’re developing making the most of your unique experiences and abilities? As I say ad nauseam, “You don’t have to reinvent the wheel!” If someone does it better than you, outsource or use their platform.
Links: Twitter (with social enterprise hashtag)

Good luck and happy social enterprising!