Cravings, Sponges

Months, if not years, before we left the US were dedicated to carefully compiling and prioritizing lists of the things we need and want to use on a daily basis. The goal of such lists was the ability, when doing our final packing, to make well-considered decisions about what to bring with us and what to leave behind. It felt a somewhat hopeless activity but one at which we felt obliged to make an honest go. The things we brought with us to Luanda are not things that we cannot get here, but rather things that are too expensive (absolutely in the case of, say, electronics or relatively in the case of, say, maple syrup) or of inferior quality to the goods we can buy at home. The calculus was somewhat more difficult than anticipated, because of the wide variety of goods we can buy here in the city. It’s possible to buy nearly anything you could want so it’s not simply a matter of deciding which thing you need or want more. Instead, you need to decide which thing is more convenient to pack given the guessed relative cost or quality of goods here. For example, say there’s a small spot left in your suitcase large enough to bring either one extra notebook or one extra package of binders. You’ve gotten a pass here in the weight category because they’re more or less similar. You still have to decide whether you think paper or binders will be: a) more easily of available – say there’s paper in the local market but you have to go to the city to buy binders, b) cheaper – both in the US and in Angola, and c) nicer – in the long run will you be happier putting nice paper into really crappy binders or really crappy paper into nice binders? I brought binders, because I knew I’d run out of paper anyway.

I have yet to discover any major oversights on our part and there are no sincere laments so far. I wish, perhaps, that we had packed more sunscreen. Given my complexion the formulation I require (read: 8,000+ SPF) is in short supply here; if it exists at all, the rarity makes it inordinately expensive. There are a few goods that we would not have packed but have been surprised not to find, namely baking soda (baking power isn’t a problem) and brown sugar (there’s also an absence of molasses, rendering useless my usual fix). There is more of something things than anticipated: water and power are far more reliable now than on past trips – a very pleasant surprise – and cell-based internet modems are here and relatively affordable so there’s better web access than anticipated. One even looks forward to the qualitative differences expected on some fronts: the soda here is made with sugar and the catsup is largely imported from Europe so tastes more like tomatoes than corn syrup.

The most interesting part of the experience, though, is the discovery of the small things that I’ve taken for granted or, more likely, that I didn’t anticipate could be substantially different. I knew, for example, that the paper I could buy here at reasonable prices is thin and ugly and generally unpleasant to write on. I did not, however, anticipate how seriously the quality of dish sponges could impact my daily experience. The picture at the top of this post is of two dish sponges (front and back). The one on the left is a “nice” one purchased locally and has had approximately two uses; the one on the left was shipped to us from the US (taking up precious, precious space in our measly mail allotment) and has had approximately two weeks of use. Now, I have to confess that I don’t do terribly many dishes here. An empragada comes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to clean, wash clothes, and do dishes, and the nanny we’ve hired for David does them during his nap on Tuesdays and Thursdays leaving only the weekends. My day, however, is monumentally better if the three cups, two pans, one fork, and 4 sippy cups that I do wash each day can be cleaned with a good, stolid, 3M lovin’, heavy duty kitchen sponge.

Kitchen sponges – who knew? Other items on the list of things to import even though they’re relatively inexpensive and plentiful here: toothbrushes, toilet paper, q-tips, and all manner of kitchen utensils. I’ll keep a running list and post an update later with other top-missed items. In the meantime, the next time you’re in the kitchen and you open one of those fresh, new, beautiful American kitchen sponges, please give a special whiff to the sickly-sweet, processed petroleum odor wafting out of the over-wrought packaging for me.

Housing Update

We haven’t signed the contract quite yet and we won’t be able to move in until the end of March, but it would appear that (after a full month of looking) we’ve finally secured a new place to live. We’re having a great time living with Arthur and Jojanneke, but we’re excited to have our own place for the first time since November. The new place is absolutely gorgeous and far nicer than we expected to have. You enter though a very nice gate into a covered car port with room for two cars. Off of the small front porch there’s a living room that leads to a hallway with two bedrooms on it, ending in a dining room attached to the kitchen. Finally, there’s a small, enclosed outdoor space off the back where the laundry and such happens. The inside has been very well cared for and is very nice. The place has, if you can believe it, a generator, a reserve water tank and pump, and (wait for it…) air conditioners! These things can’t, of course, keep out all of the daily difficulties here, but should help make some things much, much easier. The water tank and pump are a huge labor savers and the generator is really nice because I expect to work from home quite a bit. The car port is handy (even though we don’t expect to get a car) because will make a nice, large play space for David.

Because there were very few apartments available in the city center in our price range we ended up in the Bairro Popular, after all (where we are staying now and where we stayed in January 2006). The upside of the location is that daily life here is much slower paced and the people are more open than in the city -- we’ll have a much better chance to get to know our neighbors and become a part of our little surrounding community. The difference between the Bairro Popular and the other neighborhood we were looking at, Vila Alice, is much akin to the difference between the suburbs and the city in the US. The benefit to living in Vila Alice would have been the in-town location for meetings. Fortunately, however, the house is on the city-side edge of the bairro making transit to and from the city easier than our current location. We’ll be a 5 minute walk from a major road and from there can be in the city with one minibus ride. We’re also glad that we’re still in the same neighborhood as Arthur and Jojanneke, so that hopefully we can continue to see them regularly.

Arriving and Food Costs

Life in Luanda begins! We’ve been here for almost a week now and we’ve been productive despite the jetlag, climate change, and the usual developing country entanglements. Mobile phones are working (kind of), laundry services have been secured (temporarily), real estate agents have been contacted (but not heard back from), and the lay-of-the-land has been re-taken here in Barrio Popular (until the rains re-organize the landscape). Daily life is nice as we’ve landed in the welcoming house of generous friends with neighbors we know. The market is near, the power has been off only once with a generator filling-in after dark, and the water mostly lasts until late in the day and sometimes through the evening.

The largest orders of business have been getting the necessities organized and organizing for when we’ll have our own apartment and need our own necessities. Remembering and practicing day-to-day living habits in a somewhat different environment has gone smoothly. We’ve learned what market items are reliably available and have been able to plan somewhat better each day to reduce the number of trips to and the time spent at the market (though we still go around the corner to get something at nearly every meal). Part of the adjustment has been trying to understand what is and isn’t affordable and what will and won’t work in the budget for the year.

One US dollar is currently buying 74 kwanzas. It was 82 in January 2006 and 81 in January 2007 (down from a high of 87). Inflation has been about 15% during the last year to combine with the weak dollar for a serious impact on our purchasing power. A significant portion of our brain power in the last week has been dedicated to currency conversion. Interestingly it seems that by the time we’re done buying kwanzas with dollars and then converting kwanza prices back to dollars to know how much we’ve just spent on an item, we can generally just take the US shelf price plus 15%. It feels silly to chafe at somewhat high US prices for goods, as they should, then, be near to within our usual budget. The usual annual budget, however, doesn’t include $8500 in plane tickets, a couple grand in vaccines, medications, and visas, Portuguese tutors, and a doubling of the rent. All this for a lifestyle that we greatly enjoy but one quite below what most ex-pats would consider tolerable.

To give some idea about what costs are like here in Luanda and to make a record for myself, here’s the break down for an average, un-indulgent day of food for 2 adults and one baby – not including staples like cooking oil (600 Kwz, $8.10/500ml) and spices (200 Kwz, $2.75/jar). All meals are cooked at home with a fair bit more effort and safety consideration than the usual day in a US kitchen. Note of caution: despite 10+ years of delightful veganism, I play the food game very differently here.

Breakfast
6 eggs – 120 Kwz, $1.62
2 sm glasses juice – 120 Kwz, $1.62
2 bread – 50 Kwz, $0.68
Cheese spread portion – 100 Kwz, $1.35
Total: $5.25

Lunch
6 sm. slices of Ham – 100 Kwz, $1.35
6 sm. slices of Cheese – 100 Kwz, $1.35
2 bread - 50 Kwz, $0.68
Cheese spread portion – 100 Kwz, $1.35
Avacado – 50 Kwz, $0.68
Pineapple – 250 Kwz, $3.37
1/4 Can Green Beans – 25 Kwz, $0.34
1/4 Can Red Beans – 25 Kwz, $0.34
Total: $8.78

Dinner
2 cans beans – 200 Kwz, $2.70
Tomatoes – 50 Kwz, $0.68
Carrots - 50 Kwz, $0.68
Onions - 50 Kwz, $0.68
Green Beans - 100 Kwz, $1.35
Green Pepper - 50 Kwz, $0.68
Rice – 45 Kwz, $0.61
Bananas – 50 Kwz, $0.68
Total: $8.06

Snacks
Crackers – 120 Kwz, $1.62
1 can of soda – 60 Kwz, $0.81
Bananas - 50 Kwz, $0.68
Cheese spread portion – 100 Kwz, $1.35
Bottled Water – 120 Kwz, $1.62
Total: $6.08
Grand Total: $28.17 per day, $856 per month, $10,282.05 per year

Wow. Okay. Well. I’m a little shocked myself. I guess I won’t be buying that coffee, a weekly bar of chocolate, or that 30 Kwz peanut candy in the street after all. How does the average person here survive, then, on less than $2/day? We’re not really sure. I mean, we’re not actually sure that they do survive. We are sure that they starve. We clearly don't have $10K in the food budget, just for the record. I'll have to do some more thinking and some more math and some more buying and get back to you on all of this. Maybe I can find a Sam's Club and get some of this stuff in bulk or something. Maybe.

Wiimote Experiments

In the interest of time and money I’m giving the Wiimote a spin as I think about hardware for gourdo v.3. The Wiimote has 11 buttons and a 3D accelerometer transmitted wirelessly over Bluetooth for $40 US. They’re available for a similar price nearly everywhere – I got mine at Target in Seekonk, MA. SparkFun.com sells the accelerometer in the Wii (the Memsic ADXL330) for $34.95 and a variety of Bluetooth transmitters starting at around $50 US. They also sell a package they call the WiTilt with accelerometer data over Bluetooth for $109.95. In addition to cost, I’m exploring the Wiimote in hopes of an increase in data stability over gourdo v.2. My current solution and my preferred homemade Bluetooth solutions depend on Max’s serial object – something I’ve never had great luck with. In gourdo v.2 I learned that serial communication on the PC is de-prioritized in such a way that I receive data drops under heavy processor usage (in Mac tests the data was more reliable but audio was severely sacrificed). In the past I’d considered flaws with serial object implementations a product of my own limitations, but recent conversations with Emmanuel Fléty convinced me otherwise. Emmanuel abandoned serial in Max years ago (preferring instead the imperfections of MIDI), so I feel justified in so doing. With the Wiimote, I can use third-party Max externals which see the data as a human interface device (HID).

There is currently an excess of Wiimote "hacking" information of the web. Wikipedia.com’s page on the Wiimote is a good overview of the device and there is an excellent technical specification page at Wiili.org. SparkFun.com did an excellent Wiimote deconstruction with pictures and commentary. Hackawii.com has a page dedicated to Wiimote hacks showing some popular applications of the device.

The WIili.org driver page is the best place to start for getting the Wiimote connected a computer. I’m using an Acer 8204WLMi which happens to contain a Wiimote-compatable Broadcom 2045 Bluetooth device. I’m able to connect to the Wiimote using XP’s system software and successfully view the Wiimote data in Max/MSP using the tk.wii object by Takeru Kobayashi (linked from the forums at Cycling ’74). On Mac the preferred solution appears to be the aka.wiiremote object by Masayuki Akamatsu. I’ve not yet tested the object for Mac, but in a peek at the help patch it appears that the data formatting is different such that the objects cannot be used interchangeably. To maintain cross-platform compatibility I’ll likely make the data collection patch an outside entity which sends incoming data into the primary patch. The correct data collector can then be launched on the side depending on the current platform.

Connection to the Wiimote was simple and data was immediately available in Max so I have begun to test the Wiimote’s sample resolution and rate. While the Bluetooth supports audio transmission, the Wiimote inherits any limitations inherent to the HID protocol. An article on ddj.com reports that HID implemented “mice are polled for data every 8 ms, and respond with 32 bits of data” and that “a keyboard transmits 64 bits of data over the same interval.” Because greater sensitivity is unlikely necessary for such applications these restrictions help keep power usage down, an essential feature in wireless applications. While such information about the capacity of the protocols is interesting, real-world (read: Max) performance may vary. As such, I have spent relatively little time investigating these two technologies opting instead for max-based testing with my existing gourd patches.

Data from with tk.wii object is 8-bit data reported every 5.02 milliseconds on average (with a 4.90 median and 5.86 in one test). The data is represented as a 0.0-1.0 value the tilt of the controller occupying 21% of that range – tilt values for the X-and Y-axis range from 0.396 to 0.608 with sharp accelerations using the entire range. Substituting Wiimote data in my hit-detection patch where taps of the device are reported as triggers proved successful. The data rate doesn’t appear to be high enough, however, to support directional tapping detection reliably enough. With tapping, the difference between subsequent sensor values is sufficiently large to distinguish those actions from tilting. I use a rolling buffer to hold the last 20 sensor values reported and, when a hit is detected, search for the maximum and minimum values in that set. If the maximum value is larger than the absolute value of the minimum, the hit came from the right, if not, it came from the left. Because the sample rate is too low, the peak value is not always captured. When this occurs the “recoil” value is usually recorded and is the highest value in the set, causing the incorrect direction to be reported. The data rate is more than sufficient for tilting applications.

The next step is to try the Tilt, Shift patch with the Wiimote and see if the data resolution over the tilt region is sufficient for performance with the granulator. While gourdo v.2 featured 10-bit data resolution, I believe that 8-bit data over the tilt range would be sufficient. The data from the Wiimote, however, represents the tilt range with only 56 values (the full 256 are for the entire sensor range). My next testing step will be to connect the Wiimote to the Tilt, Shift granulator to see if I’m satisfied with its performance. This will be my first opportunity to physically test the latency of the tilt and see if it’s low enough.

Short, Preliminary Dissertation Project Description

A Music of Vocal Technologies and Angolan Technologies of Voice in Literature

I will spend one year in Angola, beginning December 2007, to conduct the creative research for the dissertation project required for the doctoral degree in Computer Music and Multimedia Composition at Brown University. The final form of this project will be the live performance of a newly-designed electronic instrument which interfaces with a computer to play, process, manipulate, generate, and synthesize audio and video. The source material for this work will be created primarily in Angola and will feature texts by Angolan writers and the voices of Angolan writers reading their work.

This work examines themes of voice, writing, and technology in the context of cultural change. Considering oral cultural practices as technologies, the project will use voice and text to explore how Angolan writers draw from a rich set of oral traditions. The focus will be on the possibilities provided by an encounter between contemporary digital technologies and an Angolan literature successful at adapting narrative technologies to make important contributions to Lusophone and African literatures. Angola is an ideal place to explore these themes of technology, change, and adaptation: it has the fastest growing economy on the African continent, is modernizing at an historically unparalleled rate, and sustains a vibrant literary community. Of particular interest are the successes of Angolan authors in maintaining a uniquely Angolan voice through difficult periods of colonialism and civil war. I seek to trace this tradition through to the current generation of Angolan authors who maintain this voice and forge new ones in the present context of development and social change.

The portions of the project to be completed in Angola will be carried out in three stages. Stage one is focused on Portuguese study with particular attention to the language as is unique to Angola, including local vocabulary, accents, and speech rhythms. This stage includes initial contact with the literary community in Luanda facilitated by introductions from renowned writer Manuel Rui and through sponsorship by the União dos Escritores Angolanos (UEA, The Angolan Writers’ Union).

In stage two I will work with a variety of Angolan authors, their texts, and audio and video recordings of them reading their work to create short musical sketches. This composition allows writers exposure to the computer systems I have designed and allows them to evaluate their interest in further collaboration. The sketch production also allows me to tailor the system to the developing needs of the project and to change the system in response to input from the writers. These sketches will be performed for audiences in Angola as they are completed.

Stage three is dedicated to making audio and video recordings of authors reading the primary text or texts of the final project and to designing the overall compositional form of the work. Working with captured footage and with texts written or selected for the project by the collaborating authors, I will begin initial editing of the media and design of the performance system with on-going feedback from the collaborators.

The work will be finished after my return to the United States, incorporating final feedback from my academic advisors, and will receive an initial performance at Brown University. Recordings of the performance will be made available for permanent storage at the UEA, at the National Library and the National Archives in Luanda, and elsewhere as directed by the Director of the UEA and the Ministry of Culture. Every effort will be made for a performance of the final work in Angola at a subsequent date and for primary collaborators to receive invitation to and sponsorship for travel to the premiere.

The project is funded by a Dissertation Fellowship from Brown University and overseen by my dissertation committee chairman and by the Department of Music at Brown University.

So long PVD...

Many, many, many moons and nearly as many changes of plan later, the show has moved on from PVD and hit the road for an extended US tour before heading abroad. For work-related reasons our international departure was slightly delayed, and because it does little or no good to arrive in Luanda during the extended holiday period (not to mention the cost of holiday flights), we decided to remain in the US until the end of January. We’re currently in Atlanta, visiting (read: taking advantage of) friends and we hope to make a swing out west before we depart. Things are still up in the air, however, and no plane tickets for other US destinations exist.

Things that have been accomplished include packing our apartment and moving it to storage in Maine, delivering the lovely if irascible Ms. Egypt to her foster cat parents in DC, and passing my preliminary examinations to become a doctoral candidate and ABD. Technology experiments and dissertation proposal writing are officially underway with positive results in the early stages. I’ll be posting soon with results from max/msp experiments and hardware testing. I’m also going to post the short dissertation description I’ve been circulating and will be blogging bits and pieces as they come.

US Operations Expand, Housing Futures Fall

As our leave date looms ever nearer, we've been dealing more and more with some of the messy details of moving out of this house and into a new one in a land far, far away. Last week the big mission was storage facilities and, with logistical support from the Rocky Mountain office, we're going to be mooching off of family. The operation is now growing quickly as our international launch date approaches. In addition to the home office in Little Rhody, there are now branch offices in Colorado, South Dakota, Virginia (pet operations management), and Georgia (communications hub) with a warehouse in Maine. We really should talk to management -- everyone here deserves bigger salaries and better titles.

This week the ugly issue of housing is front and center. Things kicked-off ominously with a lovely little piece in the Financial Times entitled Rents rocket in Angola's oil boom and it's been more of the same ever since. It's hard not to be a little dejected when you know that if you're lucky and someone's feeling generous you can find a place for $5500 per month. It's reasonable to blanch after you quickly calculate the amount of cash you'll need in hand to secure said lucky find because the going trend is to pay the first year up front. (That's $66k for those of you counting along at home.)

Why are things so expensive? Well, you'll see different numbers different places, but the city of Luanda was basically built to house about 400,000 under the rule of the Portuguese "settlers". Today, Luanda is home to well over 4,000,000 with little or no new construction through 2002 outside of refugee shanty towns. Add to this a new, huge influx of foreigners because of oil and other financial interests (Angola has the fastest growing economy on the continent as measured by GDP) and you've got a royal mess. (I should mention that housing's not the only expensive thing in Luanda, but that's a post for another time.)

The good news, however, is that we've been speaking all week with the powers that be and they tell us that they're putting pressure on those that can put pressure on those that might be able to talk to the people that might be able to give us more money for our housing allotment. The actual relief comes, though, when you've been a couple times so you're sure you've got somewhere you can stay while you find a place. And, better, when you talk to the friend you've got in Bairro Popular who's been on the ground for a long while now and who knows tons of people (local and ex-pat) to enlist to help you (including Os Cheirosos!).

We're nervous and we've got a lot of other things to worry about, too, but we're confident that things will work out. The most frustrating part is simply that it's impossible to get things set up before we arrive. The friends we can lean on are wonderful and will take care of us, but that doesn't really help make a couple of control freaks feel much better.

Ah, well, I'm sure we'll get a personal email next week from an ambassador begging us to house-sit some swank digs on the Marginal for friends for the next year or so. It could happen... right?