Humanize the Earth!

Looking back: 2007 Travel

FYI - I live in Chicago

• February: Portland, OR for http://RecentChangesCamp.org
• February: Gulu, Uganda for Localizing Global Change conference
• March: Branson, MO vacation with my folks
• March: Northamton, MA for the Smiffenpoofs Spring Jam
• April: Canton, OH for the LoveTrain conference
• May: Punta de Vacas, Argentina pilgrimage for 3 days of spiritual inspiration
• May: Richmond, VA for my cousin’s wedding
• June: Red Bluff, CA for the ceremonial opening of Red Bluff Park
• July: Portland, OR for a week of work with AboutUs.org
• August: Portland, OR for a vacation with my love
• October: Portland, OR for a week of work with my newly full-time job with AboutUs
• October: Montreal, Quebec for WikiSym
• November: Portland, OR for a week of work with AboutUs
• December: Franklin and Rochester Hills, MI to see family for holidays

Wow, what a year!

Sure this was a wiki because then Andreas could have just fixed my mistake instead of having to leave a comment about WikiSym.  How could I forget that?!

Gulu, Uganda open space conference notes

I haven’t quite decided how to organize my notes from the conference in Gulu. I’m thinking maybe general notes in this post with links to the notes about each day, backdated for their respective date. We’ll see how it goes. :-)

• 120+ people, 95% African (Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Zambia)
• About 20% of the people did not speak English well enough to feel comfortable participating in English
• three days (typical open space conference I go to has people arriving the night before, then 2.5 days and leaving that final day, so 3 nights - this one everyone arrived to the conference in time for lunch and we opened the space and had one session that first day, then did two full days and a half day+, spent a fourth night and left the place the following morning)
• breakfast/lunch and water were provided by the organizers
• The venue was outdoors, with the main circle taking place in an open (no walls) thatched-roof structure. Breakouts were under old UNICEF tents or in the shade of other thatched-roof structures, or in a brick building that usually serves as a night commuter dorm.
• Gulu is in Acholiland, which is currently under a ceasefire (expires this week) while peace talks are trying to settle 21 years of war.
• The circle itself was a bit chaotic, with people filling the center sitting on the floor on grass woven mats. There was usually a 2nd row of some kind as well, just outside the thatch-structure, under shade of a neighboring tent or building.
• Very interesting flocking effect I hadn’t really seen before. Each time-slot had 10+ sessions posted on the agenda but typically had between three and five sessions actually take place. The bigger sessions kept getting bigger and not only physically crowded out where other sessions were to happen, but were such a big “draw” that even conveners of other sessions didn’t try to go to their own session.
• Sessions were documented on flip-chart paper which was then posted inside the internet cafe space where all could go read. I never actually saw these, kept forgetting. I was told these were posted online by participants (Day 1) (very incomplete partial session notes).
• My day-specific notes:
  • Day 1 + hospital experience
  • Day 2
  • Day 3
  • Day 4

Overall impressions:

• The decision to have “Acholli-day,” where only the people of that tribe set the agenda went remarkably smoothly, with no complaints. People were totally fine with focusing locally (in Gulu) when giving no other options. This led immediately into the “gift” process which was surprisingly (to me) non-contentious and with very high energy.
• There was a lot of talk throughout the week about the responsibility of governments or others not present. There were also pleas for outside help, but these invariably led to people talking about what “we” can do. Very interesting cross-pollination among Africans from different places/circumstances.
• Logistics: The organizing team did an amazing job of coordinating transportation and lodging in this fairly remote place. Their very hard work greatly simplified the lives of attendees. I’m not sure the event could’ve happened at all if those details had been left to attendees. At the very least, days would’ve been lost dealing with these details.

Gulu, Uganda Open Space - Day 4

This post was typed on 2Mar, but back-dated to appear on its day of the conference.

Gulu, Uganda Open Space - Day 4 (Thursday)

• Morning news today was again very late. Days 2 & 3 had an hour scheduled for morning news so starting 45 minutes late was no problem. Today, we had no such buffer, so everything simply got pushed back by a late start.
• We went right into a panel discussion where each of the proposal champions from the previous day gave a brief summary of their proposals and then we opened things up for questions.
• The champions included 5 of the 7 strongest English-speakers from the Acholli community.
• Very few questions were used to satisfy curiosities about points not addressed in the proposals. Most of the questions were used to express opinions, sometimes in question form.
• There were two poultry-raising proposals, one soap-making, one water, and one savings-led microfinance. All pretty amazing on only $5000. All 3 mzungus were in the microfinance group, but I have no idea if that fact was known by the larger body, or if that different kind of education had any affect on the proposal’s quality.
• Only the Acholli people voted. This amounted to more than half the conference, as it turned out. More than 65% voted for the microfinance.
• The plan coming into the day was to do the panel from 9:00-10, a re-opening for “future” and a session from 10-12 and then closing circle from 12-1. After the panel, it was 12:00. We decided to push back the end of the conference, which I’m not sure any participant even noticed.
• The re-opening asked people to issue invitations (post topics, but not on the wall, just hold the paper where they are and convene the session by walking with the paper when we all disburse) for any conversations that still need to take place about how we work together as we all leave this place. What else needs to be planned or decided?
• After about 45 minutes I left the session that I convened. I was feeling that it was over and feeling like the closing circle ought to begin, to keep closer to our pre-arranged ending time.
• When it’s not over, it’s not over. Not only were the other conversations not done, the session I had left was also apparently not done. No worries. I just continue to ring, feeling calm and peaceful and knowing that when they’re ready to wrap up, they will. I love the bells for their gentleness. A more perceptive facilitator might’ve known without ringing that it wasn’t yet time for the closing, and my lack of perception didn’t hurt a bit. The bells might’ve even served to re-focus a group on their task, knowing that time is now (seemingly) very short.
• Eventually the “poof” did happen and we passed the bells for the closing. In a group of 120, this takes quite a bit of time, and people seemed to enjoy. I used a technique I learned from Kaliya Hamlin where I announced before passing that people could pass without speaking, and that the bells would go around the circle twice, with those speaking the first time asked to pass, and those passing the first time invited again to speak, if they wish. I really like this second chance and several people responded to that chance and did speak the second time around.

Gulu, Uganda Open Space - Day 3

This post was typed on 27Feb, but back-dated to appear on its day of the conference.

Gulu, Uganda Open Space - Day 3 (Wednesday)

• During morning news today, we invited only the Acholi people to set the agenda for 2 timeslots this morning.  Acholiland is where the conference is taking place and the topics posted by Acholi people (many non-English speakers) seemed to be crowded out during days 1 & 2 and this afternoon needs to focus here (see below), so we went against all of my open space instincts to ask only certain people to post topics.
• More than 16 topics were posted in the 2 timeslots.  I again had to scramble to add breakout spaces to the agenda-wall, as on day 1.
• Roughly half (or a bit less) of the posted topics actually happened, but those that did seemed very lively, with attendees from everyone very interested in Acholi-specific issues.
• A field-trip to an Internally Displaced Persons camp around lunch-time pushed back the afternoon a couple of hours.  “Whatever happens is the only thing that could have.”
• The Omidyar Network had pledged $5000 to the Gulu community, in a manner to be decided by conference participants.  Christina talked over various ways this might be done with some of us and then decided to split people into five groups, with each one making a proposal, to be voted on by the Acholli members.  Given the language issues, the groups were chosen by color, rather than numbers or names.  The three non-black participants all ended up in the black group. :-)
• Since the IDP camp trip pushed back the afternoon, time was very short.  Because “When it’s not over, it’s not over,” we simply pushed back evening news and let the proposal-writing come to it’s natural conclusion.  Evening news began with the presentation of the 5 proposals.  Guessing from the length of the shadows, we finished at least an hour later than usual and scheduled.
• That evening was Peace Tiles with 200+ Night Commuter children.  In the dark.  Wow.  The headlights from a car was the only light and yet there was fairly organized chaos for hours as these kids cut and glued and painted and created.  Some kids created true works of art while others were just facinated with layering color after color of paint on the whole tile.  One feeling I had watching these kids was of kittens, the way they all pile up and lay on top of one another, with very close physical contact among all of them.

Gulu, Uganda Open Space - Day 2

This post was typed on 27Feb, but back-dated to appear on its day of the conference.

Gulu, Uganda Open Space - Day 2 (Tuesday)

• R was quite sick on the airplane over to Uganda and after the bus ride yesterday, skipped the opening day to rest. We ended up taking her to the hospital in the evening. That’ll be a whole post of it’s own, but in short, we both spent the night in the hospital. I expected to get picked up between 8 and 9am so I could have breakfast and do morning news at 9am. R was discharged about 9:15 and no pickup yet. And I had no phone numbers to call to even find out when the ride was coming. Shortly after 9:30 G arrived to drive us! I just kept thinking to myself, “Whenever is starts is the right time,” and “If I’m missed, maybe they’ll send someone to get me,” and “They can certainly do morning news without me, or even just skip it and start right in on sessions.”
• Turns out I wasn’t missed. Breakfast had been late and they weren’t quite ready for morning news yet when I arrived. All was well.
• The rest of the day went as per usual, morning news, two sessions, lunch, two more sessions, evening news.

Gulu, Uganda - Day 1 - Hospital Experience

This post was typed on 2Mar, but back-dated to appear on its day of the trip.

Gulu, Uganda - Day 1 (Monday)

• This morning we took a 5 hour bus ride from Kampala to Gulu on pretty rough roads. R had already had a fever on the airplane coming over and really wasn’t doing well when we arrived that the conference. She spent the afternoon in the motel room rather than attend the opening. As soon as evening news was finished, I left to go check on her. We decided pretty quickly that she needed to see a doctor. So …
• That night George Ovola drove us to the Gulu Independent Hospital around 9 or 10pm after he finished logistics for some conference participants that hadn’t registered.
• The intake proces at the desk took less than 5 minutes and she was in to see the doctor immediately while I paid the fee (about $6).
• The doctor took her vital signs and asked about her condition. He made a very quick diagnosis of ear infection and the beginnings of pneumonia. He asked to admit her and give her intravenous drugs. I was terrified. We asked about the needles and found them to be single-use (disposable). George also arranged for us to have a room with two beds so I could stay with her. By morning her fever was gone!
• To get her chest x-ray in the morning, the nurse led us down a hall and through the female ward (20+ women) to a fairly steep outside ramp to radiology, in another building. Again, very little waiting time for the x-ray to be taken and us to be led back to the room.
• A short time later the nurse came back to tell us R was discharged, where to pay (about $70 for the whole experience), and where to find the pharmacy (in the lobby).
• Overall, it was a very good experience. None of the African staff felt rushed to us the way we feel at medical establishments in the US. There were some mzungu staff we saw in the morning and they did feel rushed. Interesting.

RecentChangesCamp07 - Portland, OR - Feb 2-4

I will be co-facilitating this event and would love to see you there!Invitation - RCC 2007

You are reading this Invitation because someone (Ted Ernst, actually) wants to see you at RecentChangesCamp 2007. RecentChangesCamp is an un-conference (BarCamp) of, for, and by folks who want to ‘build communities worth having’ both online and off. This especially includes the OpenTechnology/OpenCulture movement. We are coming together to make connections, write code, have fun, revise the CyberneticRoadmap, do as much good work as each and every one of us can … and then go home more connected, more energized and more capable of building great communities and the tools they depend on. Bring your friends and join a good party that’s growing even better!”

The day before, also in Portland, Emerging Futures Network is having a one-day gathering: http://emergingfutures.net

2007 travel

Here are trips I have planned or am thinking about:

• January long weeked to Portland, OR
• February possible weekend to Portland, OR for http://recentchangescamp.org
• February week in Uganda for o/net conference
• April weekend in Canton, OH for o/net conference
• May week in Argentina for dedication of Punta de Vacas park
• May weekend in Montreal for RoCoCo (bilingual RecentChangesCamp)
• May weekend in Virginia for my cousin’s wedding
• end of summer Youth to Youth reunion in Columbus, OH
• October Montreal for WikiSym

Other trips to schedule:

• Switzerland to see Regula’s family
• Detroit at least twice to see my family

edited as plans have changed

Wealth Bondage: Wiki Van and RecentChangesCamp

I never thought I’d live to see my picture at Wealth Bondage, yet here it is. More about RecentChangesCamp when I come back to earth.

San Antonio

I’m in San Antonio for the Open Space on Opening More Space in the US. The event is at the Menger hotel, literally across the street from the Alamo. It’s really fun to walk around such great public space as the square where much of the Alamo used to stand. There are cars here, but I hardly noticed them. The riverwalk is also really awesome. The river might as well be a canal (as many urban rivers turn into, I suppose) at an fairly uniform 15 ft across, but that doesn’t matter as it’s the shimmer and sound of the water that matters. The sidewalks on both side are nearly at water level, and the whole thing is at least one story below street level. Both sides are lined with tons of restaurants, primarily, but there are also quieter spots with places to stop and just sit and enjoy. Fantastic!