jesp in tanzania

Give a Kid a Break

Yesterday I received the following email:

"Hello there, Jesp

I don't know if you've heard of the Fresh Air Fund before but I need your help. We're already well into July and I have 200 children who have yet to be placed with host families for August. Since you blog about the ways of the world,I would love your help getting the word out that we need host families who will welcome a child from the city into their homes next month.

Since we need all prospective families screened and vetted by the end of July, time is of the essence. I could really use your help. To make everything simple, I've set up an online resource page with everything you need to blog or learn more, http://freshair.smnr.us

This is so time-sensitive and important to the lives of these children,I want to help you in any way I can. This appeal comes straight from the top, so please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any further questions or need anything at all.

Thank you so very much,

Sara -- Sara Wilson Fresh Air Fund sara@freshair.org

www.freshair.org"

I have no idea how Sara Wilson and The fresh Air Fund stumbled upon my blog or - for that matter - why they think that my blog would be a good platform for promoting their program - after all Dar es Salaam is pretty far from New York city - but if anyone reading this is interested in giving a kid from New York City a break and a dose of fresh air, please click the link above and read how it can be done.

Jesp

Hotel Jesp is closed

It has never been a secret that MS gave me a ridiculously big house here in Dar es Salaam. And that was even when I was a bachelor. My wife and I have tried to make up for it by letting colleagues, friends, family and sometimes strangers live here with us, whenever they came through Dar. And it has been a very rewarding strategy. Many friendships have been formed in house of Jesp. The shortest visits lasted a night, the longest visit lasted six months. Close to 40 people and eight nationalities over the last two years. The people included:

• A PhD student and part time Indiana Jones clone
• A chef
• The chefs girlfriend
• A geography professor (we called him the nutty professor)
• A film director
• Several development workers
• A webmaster
• A law student
• An occupational therapist/singer/trumpet player
• Another PhD student
• A project manager for a software company
• 2 volunteers working at a school
• A high school student
• An administrator
• A lawyer
• 2 toddlers
• 2 nannies
• a baby
• A pastor
• 2 marketing assistants
• An ngo director
• A meat processing entrepreneur
• A Somalian fixer
• A hotel and restaurant manager
• A water purification engineer
• Several kids
• A retired cashier
• A pregnant university student

And last but not least:

• My mom

And it has been a lot of fun. Only a couple of days ago all beds in house of Jesp were occupied, but this Sunday morning my wife and I are enjoying breakfast all alone for the first time, since she came back from Miami.

And since we only have a few weeks left in Dar es Salaam, I will hereby declare Hotel Jesp for closed.

Jesp

Don't tell anyone..

Thank you, Noelle, for the beautiful cake - and for NOT singing.

Jesp

Sponsored by Rungu - the dudu buster!

Last night Japhet Kaseba defended his kickboxing world championship against Ricky Agayas from the Philippines. He won the fight comfortably and without too much effort, on technical knock out after two rounds.

It was the grand finale of a long evening of boxing and kick boxing. Here are a few frozen highlights:

Jesp

Daydreaming...

Jesp

James Bond X-rated?

Never underestimate African ingenuity. A man with a hammer is a carpenter; a guy with a wrench is a plumber. And a person with a DVD burner is a movie-distributor

I doubt if my local video rental has one single non pirated movie. One day I returned a movie complaining that it wouldn’t play, and the guy behind the counter just turned around and burned a new copy for me on the spot.

Other people sell DVDs on the street outside supermarkets, and especially those guys will sell new releases the day after they’ve come up on the big screen. Some of them have discovered that if you don’t care too much about minor details like fancy DVD menus, end titles, stereo sound and picture quality, you can squeeze up to 20 movies down on one disc.

And here comes the predicament: What 20 movies will make a good collection? ‘The Ultimate James Bond Collection’. That is obvious. ‘The Ultimate Disater Collection’ containing small cinematic pearls like ’The Day After Tomorrow’, ‘War of the Worlds’, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ and ‘Dante’s Peak’. Why not? I’ll buy it. At least the idea. ‘The Ultimate Tom Cruise Collection’. Ok, that sounds to me like a weekend project from hell, but I’m sure it will accommodate the taste of some people. And my all time favorite: ‘Sean Connery vs. The Cock’. That just has to be in the collection of every film buff.

Jesp

The Beach

Kasa Beach has been present on my blog in the past, in one form or another.

That’s not so strange.

It is, after all, my favorite sanctuary close to Dar es Salaam, and even though I work against my own interests, when I advertise for Kasa Beach Hideaway – after all one of the charms of the place is the solitude – I don’t mind helping the owner, Eigil, keeping the place alive. I can not in my wildest dreams imagine that Kasa Beach will keep its bounty land virginity forever.

So when Eigil asked for my assistance advertising in one of the numerous tourist magazines in Dar es Salaam, I didn’t mind at all. After a thorough investigation by my wife – another fan of Kasa Beach – we chose Dar es Salam Guide, a free monthly guide to the events in Dar es salaam, and I created this ad:

I think it illustrates very well that Kasa Beach is the best beach in the region, and I just love that photo of my wife.

One of the determining factors, when we chose Dar es Salaam guide over the other free monthly guides, was that they were willing to print an article about Kasa Beach I wrote a while ago. The article is also available in both English and Danish on oplevverden.nu.

Jesp

P.s. No, I don’t get commission or paid in any way. I just happen to like the place.

Into battle

My friend and trainer Japhet Kaseba will defend his world championship title in Muay Thai on the 29th of June. In time of writing Japhet is sitting in a bus headed for Kenya. He is going to rough it the next couple of weeks, getting ready for the fight.

The challenger is Ricky Agayas from the Philippines. I have tried to Google the guy, but info is very sparse. Japhet claims that he is bad news, though, and I can see that he has won some titles.

In order to help Japhet find sponsorships I have made him a website. I was actually holding back the information a bit, wanting to be completely done first, but now that the fight has been announced, I thought it would be an appropriate time to release the site for real. I will put the last finish on it over the weekend.

The site: http://www.japhetkaseba.com

Jesp

A word from an amateur...

One of the blessings of a place like Miami is high speed, wireless internet - provided for free if you know the right places - and one of the blessings of free high speed, wireless internet is video podcasts. Especially if you’re on the brink of a long intercontinental flight to the other side of the world. Provided, of course, that you have a video iPod.

One of the videos I watched on my journey back to Dar, was an episode of a very interesting Danish program called ‘The 11th hour’ (‘Den 11. time’).  A very simple concept: A host speaks with a selected guest about interesting stuff.

This particular guest was Andrew Keen, and the occasion was the book he has written ‘The Cult of the Amateur. How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture’. I have not read the book – yet – but according to the interview it is a frontal attack on Web 2.0, with it’s user-to-user applications like Youtube, Facebook, Wikipedia, not to mention all these annoying blogs that pop up everywhere.

According to Andrew Keen Web 2.0 is giving the power to the amateur, and he compares the concept with reality shows on TV, were we are watching ‘ordinary’ people doing something they are not very good at.

I disagree with him on so many levels, that I don’t even know where to begin, so let me just point to the fact that I saw this program on my iPod, now I’m writing about it on my blog, I have made a link to his blog, to the book on Amazon, and now I’m going to link to the online version of the program (to non-Danish speakers: Don’t worry about the strange text, just click ‘Start’, the TV host will begin in Danish, but only for a minute or so).

All part of the Web 2.0 concept.

It doesn’t make me a professional, because I’m not doing this for profit, but so what? When has ‘interest in a subject’ disqualified anyone?

Or to turn it around: Andrew Keen complains that YouTube consists mainly of uninteresting, amateur footage and I don’t disagree, but I have just returned from a country where you have 60+ channels on the TV, and at least 50 of them are complete garbage – made by professionals.

Jesp

22 floors above sea level

I’m sipping Columbian coffee on a balcony 22 floors above sea level, and enjoy the view over the Atlantic Ocean. My wife and I have just come up from the sixth floor gym and spa, and soon we will take the elevator back down to the beach.

Inside Lidet effortlessly fit into the beautiful decor of the apartment while finishing some work on her laptop. It is strange how fast you can get used to luxury.

   

Thank you, Maria and Kenny, for lending us your fantastic apartment, and making my last days in Miami, and the last days before my wife and I are parted once again, as luxurious, as romantic and as comfortable as could possibly be…

And if anyone is interested in living on the beach in northern Miami and 22 floors above sea level, the apartement is for sale right here.

Jesp