Adventures in Onionism

So I got woken up last night by some scurrying and discovered a ridiculously large cricket hopping around.  For some reason I like to think that it was flesh-eating, but somehow I doubt it.  I am certainly an economist, because as I was falling asleep again, I was thinking to myself, "What effect do man-eating crickets have on development?  Is the USA's dearth of scary bugs the reason we're so well off?  But then why is Australia so well off? What about endogeneity--maybe development causes the no-bugs, rather than the other way around."   ANYWAY, you should be proud of me because I ate an avocado today.  I'm pretty sure that's a first for me.  There apparently isn't a Costco anywhere near here, so my usual buying a month's worth of food at a time in the form of cereal, bagels, and spaghetti probably won't work.  I also went to the field with the team.  Today I tagged along with Esther.  Instead of the usual fi...

Raaargh! Scared ya, didn't I? (Bonus points for anyone that can name the commercial that come from.) My child, wait first, then protect yourself every time. Fruit Stand

kids with homemade toys do not mess with ICS--typical fencing Mumias Sugar Company at work the signs out front of my office mouse on a fake christmas tree at the internet cafe where plastic bags go to die average housing compound

Can I post a pic by including it as an attachment in an e-mail to my automatic-posting address?

I better get these freaking pictures to upload or I'll be ticked. I failed the stupid labor economics field exam. So yet again, I'm behind in graduate school. All I had going for me was that I took some cool pictures in the field and was going to post them on my blog for all to enjoy. But no, neither Professor Enrico Moretti nor the photos.blogger.com server seem to like me today. Great, just great. Man, I bet this blog seem pretty freaking bitter. Well welcome to my world, baby. I didn't win the "Most bitter, prematurely filled with angst" senior superlative in high school for nothin'. Nah, things are good. We caught some mice using glue traps, I'm getting along with my coworkers, and I manage to either go running or go to the field almost every day. You'll just have to imagine cool pictures of half-clothed kids playing with toys made from sticks, thatch-roofed huts, trucks overflowing with sugar cane, and the office where I work.

I took a couple-three matatus for a couple-three hours to attend LDS church today. I don't know why I should be surprised by this, but the music totally sucked ass. Every song was a funeral dirge. That's par for the course in America, but having heard all the Pentacostal church choirs in Busia, I set my expectations too high. Also, the meetings, the lesson manuals, the Bible and Book of Mormon, and everything else was in English, which I thought was lame. With Pentacostal/Evangelical churches so big around here, I guess we wouldn't want people getting excited about the gospel or singing half-way decent :) A lady offered me some crickets for lunch. I had just bought a bunch of bananas, so I guess crickets'll have to wait till next time.

Yesterday was my 27th birthday. What have I accomplished in the past 27 years? Well, I'm a virgin, I've had all of two girlfriends, and I've earned more than $10,000 a year only twice. Sounds like success to me. If I were to shoot my self in the face with a shotgun or choke on my own vomit I would surely become a rock legend, but I think I'll pass. So how did I spend my birthday? I went out with my tracking team, but we didn't have much success ("My daughter is somewhere in Nairobi" is not so helpful) and while waiting for the rest of the team to come back I took a nap under a tree and was continually getting ants all over me. Then at night I was finally able to unpack my stuff. The previous occupant moved across the hall, and I spent a couple hours sweeping up thousands and thousands of mouse turds. The room is now livable (ie, no large collection of turds on the roof of my mosquito netting) but the turds keep reappearing. Go for a run, find more ...

I'm really good at making fun of people. Or at least I think I am. I'm just fine with doing that in private, either by talking amongst friends or writing it in my journal. But posting it online? That strikes me as a little odd. I'm in Kenya till January, living in the same tiny rural town with about 5 wazungu, most of whom are my housemates. I'm sure I could write some really funny stuff about them: how messy the house is, how emotional girls are, and the quirks about the Kenyan staff. What if I were to make fun of my roommates scarves-and-brandy-bottles collection, and word somehow got back to her that I think such a thing is retarded, even though it's obviously not a deliberate collection? And if I leave out such items, how am I supposed to entertain you? "Went running, got lost again" and "Went to the field, still didn't understand a word of the Swahili or Luhya" would certainly get boring eventually, and "Worked in the office...

Well, I've seen what my job will be like, I think. I spent yesterday in the office doing data work and developing carpal tunnel syndrome. (Seriously. My laptop is freaking death trap for forearms.) Today I went to the field with my tracking team. I don't speak a lick of Swahili or Luhya, which would certainly improve things, but it was still cool to drive around in the bush and stuff. We managed to find 11 of the students, which is pretty good for a days work. Things are good. My first impression of Busia Town wasn't so fantastic, but now that I've left the paved road (of which there is only one) and gone for a run in the bush, I'm pretty happy. Getting chased by kids yelling "Mzungu, how are you?" hasn't quite gotten annoying yet. On a side note, I have a kitten that is a boy named Sue. Its job is to keep the rats away.

Thank you God for Norwegian women. Well, I've left Nairobi now and am in Busia. Am I happy to have finally left the dirty, polluted, dangerous city of Nairobi? Not at all. I spent my last night there hanging out with five drop-dead-gorgeous Norwegian nurses. Maybe I'm just especially forlorn these days, but holy crap. I haven't generally considered myself as being into blondes before, but holy crap. And those blue eyes. Holy crap. The whole time I was thinking about a discussion in Chuck Klosterman's "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs" about how Norwegians engage in the most frequent casual sex of any western people. Unfortunately Henrietta didn't seem to catch my telepathic vibes that we totally needed to make out. Or maybe she caught them and my discussion of how fjords reminded me of fractals and how the research project I'm working on is great because the econometrics are so easy thanks to randomization turned her off. Oh well. At least now I ...

It's Thursday, September 7 and I'm sitting at the Upper Hill Campsite hostel in Nairobi, and thanks to a dearth of powers outlets, I'm sitting directly in front of the TV blaring crappy American sci-fi trying to drown it out with iTunes and my headphones and writing an entry to post on my blog at a later date. Nairobi seems like a pretty boring dirty place, so I'm not that happy to still be here, but my luggage didn't arrive, so I've been taking care of some errands, waiting, and smoking the equivalent of a pack or two of Pall Mall unfiltereds a day by walking around in Nairobi traffic. My bag got here this afternoon, so I celebrated by putting on clean underwear. True, I've gone 93 consecutive days in the same pair of underwear before, so this past 6 days shouldn't be a big deal, but there's a difference between doing it because you want to (while ultra-light backpacking, don't worry, it wasn't 93 days without washing, it was just 93 days...