I was searching for an email address last night and came across this appropriate email from my dad, who passed away almost three years ago.

Megan,
It is over. Kerry conceded this afternoon. He couldn’t win Ohio even with the provisional ballots yet to be counted. Bush gave his triumphant winning speech.

The stock market went up dramatically today. The really big winners were the oil and drug company stocks. They will benefit greatly from the Bush victory. I guess that Bush subscribes to the trickle down theory that if these industries do well it will somehow benefit everyone.

At least Crane is out and we will have a great new senator from Illinois (Obama).

Love,
Dad

At the time of the 2004 U.S. election I was traveling by bus on dirt roads from Jinghong, China to the Vietnamese border. Besides a horrible Danielle Steel novel, the only thing that helped pass the time was the anticipation of election results once I got back to civilization. Email and TV access in SaPa, Vietnam was scarce and my dad sent me updates on the whole vote counting mess. I knew about Obama from his campaigning before I left for phase I of my trip and I was just as excited to see him elected as I was the see my long-time nemesis Phil Crane defeated.

More recently, I had some long conversations with locals in Africa who were incredibly excited about Obama. A 15 year-old Kenyan boy asked me about the odds of him winning the Democratic nomination and we talked about racism vs sexism in the U.S. The conversation was one of the few highlights of my overland trip in a cage from the Ethiopian border to Nairobi. All of Kenya must be going nuts right now (in a good, non-riot way) with the news that Obama is the presumptive nominee. When entering Kenya from Uganda the border guard noticed my place of birth on my passport (Illinois) and with a big grin asked me to tell Barack she said hello.

My dad would have loved this election and I’m sorry he won’t be able to cast a vote in November. He always supported my interest in politics and never discouraged me from setting out a democratic-themed pumpkin on Halloween in my heavily Republican town. I was only 15 in the picture below, and wasn’t old enough to vote for either candidate on my pumpkin but today I feel the same sense of excitement and hope for the future of U.S. politics that I felt back then.

One thing I hear all the time is “when are you going to write a book?” I’m sure most RTW travelers hear similar requests and reply with the same ambivalence as I do. Every once in a while I ask what kind of book they suggest I write and I’ve been surprised by the answer.

One would assume that they mean a book about my travels, maybe an anthology of short stories or possibly a memoir but that’s not the case. Although some people suggest a typical travel memoir, most suggest something entirely different. A number of people seem to think I should write a “how-to” travel advice book or even compile a book of photographs or drawings.

For my own curiosity I wonder what you, my readers, would have me write. I’m putting a poll in the sidebar, but feel free to leave any brilliant suggestions in the comments.

If there’s one thing that I could spend less on when I travel it’s souvenirs. When I first started traveling around Europe in 1997 I bought few souvenirs at all. Europe’s expensive and I couldn’t bear to pay for lunch, let alone cheap imported “stuff” to fill up my backpack. Over the years I’ve bought a lot more, especially when I’m on my way home or ready to ship a package.

There are a number of souvenirs from my two around-the-world trips that I love—like my Ethiopian chair, the paintings I bought in Udaipur, India and my Akha headdresses from Myanmar. Since you can see all of those over at my souvenirs page, I thought I’d show a few of my favorite souvenirs I bought on non-rtw trips. I use #1 often and it’s by far my favorite souvenir of all time. If any of you find yourselves in Rome and are able to find a similar object featuring Benedict XVI pick up one for me.

#4 Hand beaded traditional jacket — Budapest, Hungary 1998

#3 Wooden bracelet, Christmas Market — Prague, Czech Republic 1997

#2 Platform shoes — Barcelona, Spain 1998

#1 Popener — Rome, Italy 1998

Me-go Mix: Track 8
“Wanaume Mabinti” — Lady JayDee
To download using Windows “right click” and save to disk. Mac users, you know what to do.

At the end of my trip I wanted to buy some music that reminded me of my time in Eastern Africa. A lot of the music heard around town is not local (Shakira is quite popular), but the local music I did hear varied and no one song stuck in my head. I ended up buying a compilation called “Bongo Flava” from a music shop in downtown Nairobi. A quick listen at the shop confirmed it was the sort of music I heard around town. I don’t have a lot to say about this song other than Lady Jay Dee’s music was some of my favorite on the CD. It turns out she’s from Tanzania and has had a number of controversial hits in the past few years.

Below is a video for a different song by Lady Jay Dee, “Distance.” She sings in Swahili, Zulu, Lingala, Kinyarwanda, French and English in this song.

Me-go Mix: Track 7
“Gondar” — Madingo Afework
To download using Windows “right click” and save to disk. Mac users, you know what to do.

Traveling around Northern Ethiopia I spent a lot of time on buses, including four days round trip to Lalibela. The long rides were always accompanied by upbeat and high-pitched music. Before I left Addis Ababa I wanted to pick up a CD of music that would remind of me of my long bus rides through the North. The music shop next to my hotel, where I rented DVDs to watch while I was in bed with the flu for three days, had a small collection to pick from. The woman working was confused as to why I wanted to buy traditional music instead of more modern imports (but she also didn’t understand why I would want to watch a movie that didn’t star Denzel Washington, her favorite actor). We weeded out anything too traditional and decided on Mandingo Afework. The music has the rhythm I heard all over Ethiopia but wasn’t played with only traditional instruments.

Gondar is a city in Northern Ethiopia famous for it’s castles and the beautiful Debre Birhan Selassie Church. In the video for “Gondar” below, you’ll see some shots of the city as well as Lalibella, Axum and a few shots of the South. Most interesting are the beautiful dancers in traditional white robes. The dancers show off Ethiopia’s distinctive shoulder dancing, often laughingly attempted by tourists. Fast forward to 5:00 in the video for a good example of an enthusiastic shoulder dance.

Below is a video I took on a bus in Northern Ethiopia. Although bus music was often more traditional, you can hear a local recording of “Staying Alive” playing. The music on each bus was usually chosen by the bus driver or his assistant from a collection of cassettes. Once I witnessed an older man, probably a farmer, insist a driver play his own tape. This incited a lot of discussion among the other passengers—most objected to the traditional “folksy” music he wanted to play.

Ethiopian Bus Music from Megan Kearney on Vimeo.

Me-go Mix: Track 6
“Manahirana” — Lola
To download using Windows “right click” and save to disk. Mac users, you know what to do.

The owner of the music store forced the employee to pose for this picture against his will. After I was finished everyone looked at the photo and made fun of him, poor guy.

The following video of “Manahirana” is a good example of the fashions worn outside of the capital. You’ll notice the skirts are similar to kangas worn in East Africa, particularly Zanzibar. Woven straw hats are popular in Madagascar and come in countless shapes and colors. I spotted the square woven hats worn by the women in this video on two people in Madagascar and liked them so much I tried to find out where to buy one, showing the sketch I drew to people around the market. I was told the hat is from Fianarantsoa, the largest town South of the capital.

I also stumbled upon the video for song #1 (I Gasikara) on the mix. It’s a great overview of Madagascar, excluding the National Parks and the hard to reach South. Lola starts out in the Northwest tip of Madagascar on an Island called Nosy Be. Most people who go on “holiday” to Madagascar stop in a National Park to see a lemur and then head up to Nosy Be. Even I wouldn’t take the bus (more of a truck, really) up there because of the awful roads. There’s now direct flights from France to Nosy Be, bypassing the capital entirely.

Next Lola pops up in Antananarivo, the capital, to dance down the main street in town in front of the train station. I bought my first copy of Lola’s music just to his left in front of the Air Mad office. This is not an area to be wandering alone at night.

He then continues down the Route National 7 South, stopping in many of the same towns I visited on my trip. He makes his way by road all the way to Tulear in the Southwest and then heads North to the beach town of Ifaty. From Tulear I headed South instead, to Anakao because it was supposed to be more deserted. The roads you see him walking down are the same I drove in for six hours at a time in a packed minibus.

I knew the U.S. Military was desperate for recruits but I didn’t know how much so.

This morning I got a call from a woman inquiring about my “interest in the military.” Apparently I was put on a list as someone who “indicated an interest in the military.” Fess up, which one of you signed me up? I simply laughed and asked her if it was a crank call. She was nice about it but couldn’t explain how a thirty year-old liberal woman got on the list. If they want to recruit me to be a spy they need to be upfront about it. I admit that 50% of “normal” Americans I meet think I’m in the CIA already but I swear it’s not true! I wonder if this is because I listed Delta Force as one of my favorite movies on Facebook? I admit I’ve always wanted to go to Lebanon, but not as part of an “elite strike force.”

Me-go Mix: Track 5
“Superstar” — S.H.E. (女朋友)
To download using Windows “right click” and save to disk. Mac users, you know what to do.

This song was everywhere during my first trip to China in Phase I. It was blasting from every other storefront, sung by teenagers walking down the street and playing every time I turned on the TV. S.H.E., a Taiwanese trio formed from the winners of a singing contest, was huge in China. Although this is the only song I heard of theirs they have apparently released ten albums and amassed 4.5 million in sales. That’s no flash in the pan.

The Superstar video

I am in the process of doing a little housekeeping on this blog and the supporting pages. I appreciate that so many of you have written to tell me how well-organized the site is, but there must be something that is hard to find or confusing. As a usability test I’d appreciate any feedback on things that could be done to make the site even better. This is your chance to complain about my navigation or even to yell at me to write the “country profiles” or finish the last few African maps in the route section. Although I’m mostly interested in the design, usability and navigation of the site I’ll take whatever you got.

The upcoming release of WordPress 2.5 (the software that powers my blog) is the main reason I’ve decided to address the design. I’m running an older version that has become a little broken over time, which is why my subscriptions don’t work as they should. If you would like to unsubscribe from Me-go updates please send me an email or comment and I will manually take you off. The current system isn’t working properly and I don’t want to be the cause of unwanted email. With my recent increase in posting I can understand that those of you that were happy with an email every three weeks aren’t so happy with an email every three days. My policy is that my immediate family (mom, brother and sister) are not allowed to unsubscribe. Everyone else, even family, will incur no bad feelings for unsubscribing. My immediate family doesn’t actually incur bad feelings either, they just get resubscribed!

Update: If you would like to keep your subscription but change your email address contact me as well. It’s an easy change on my end.

The streets are empty around my neck of the woods and it seems everyone’s left for spring break. I was thinking about my trip around Europe during spring break in 1998 and took a look at my gigantic photo albums. Some of you may have heard me reference my cartwheel photos before, although I often don’t post them here. Many of my cartwheel photos from that trip were shot in multiple frames, like a collage. I have to say, I don’t miss film! Here’s two of my “spring break 1998″ cartwheels:

Taken in Marienplatz, the main square of downtown Munich, Germany. I think my travel wardrobe has become much more conservative over the years. You can see I brought a translucent orange raincoat with me on this trip. Even that wasn’t as bad at the bright red pants I wore in Peru a few years later.

Where’s Megan? I’m right in front, look closer. This is the Durmo in Florence, Italy. I remember being impressed by it’s size. The sign at the top of this shot is proof that professional photographers are not always the best cartwheel photographers.