Aftermath...

Still feeling pretty tired, I had to go to work, today.
We were specifically told to be at work by 0930,because we wanted to leave right away to visit an elementary school in Bayside.
There, we were supposed to give two presentations to kids aged 8 to 10 about Biodiversity and frog ponds.
Well, we didn't leave until 10 o'clock and when we finally left, we not only missed a train but also hopped on the wrong one. To be honest, it wasn't entirely wrong. We just didn't have all the directions we needed to get to the school. So, we got off a little too late.
Summing it up, we were about 45 mins late. To a German, that's pretty embarrassing. And the kids definitely let us know, we were cutting into their lunchbreak.
But they asked all the right questions made the right noises to make us understand they were definfitely listening.

 Where we got off the train, there was that rise to be marveled at.

The other day, I was reading on the internet, the drought in the African Sahel- area in the 1970s to 1990 leading to a massive famine is partly caused by aerosol pollutions in Europe and theUS. The scientist found out, rain shifted from the latitude of the Saharan area further south. They compared global weather charts, and that's what they told them.
It kind of makes sense. I don't exactly know the detailed impacts of aerosols, but the strong use of hairspray (if that's the only use for aerosols) in the 80s definitely was a given.
If those findings weren't shocking enough, the commenst left me really dumbfounded:
a lot of people argumented the rason for the famine was the overgrazing and China today is a worse polluter than the US.
The point is, though, China wasn't nearly as much a poluter back in the days of the Sahel- famine and jsut because we know, stuff isn't working anymore doesn't mean, we are willing to change.
Telling the Africans to kill their flocks because it's harmfull is about as fruitless as telling the Americans they need to be more environmentally conscious. The flocks are a display of wealth to the Africans and the Americans believe they are God's gift to mankind, no matter what.
If I haven't menationed it before, I will now: I recently read a book by a guy named Tony Juniper called "What has Nature ever done for us?" In the book, he describes that overgrazing or large flocks shouldn't be a problem, if the herders would leave a nomad livestyle. He went on to explain that African herbivores on their treks don't overgraze the land they cross. Why? Because the same patch of land is grazed on only every 9 months or so. And that is each time the herbivores are crossing. Again, I'm not too certain, but I believe to remember the Africans in Sahel being just that: nomads. So, did they really overgraze or is it just a lame attempt of an excuse in order to not take any responsibility.
Well, when I say Americans think of themselves as God's gift to mankind, I certainly have to make a few exceptions. That exception would include anyone willing to cooperate and help to make this earth a better place than it was when that individual first got here.
This weekend, I might be moving out of my accomodation. Really looking forward to it:
I am so done having no real privacy, slamming doors and people walking into "my" room at 0400 in the morning. What's even worse: I seem too old for a place like the hostel. When I sit in the lobby to be online (only place in the hostel with adequate connectivity), I plug my ears to drown out the noise as in loud music and annoying German tourists...Well, I guess, I'm just annoyed and over-tired.
Enough already. Today, I will get off 2 hours early from work because we did such an awesome job on wednesday :)