A Trip Across the Pond

Post by Joseff Kolman

During high school, I became fond of journal-ing, recording voice logs, and, in general, recording my experiences to view later. In this blog, I am happy to share the various events and epiphanies which Terrascope's trip to South Africa will bring me. As to provide a slightly different medium for these blogs, I have been making voice logs during the trip (three so far) and I will attempt to upload them to a public Google Drive folder for all to hear. I will try to get more input from other students in these recordings, unlike these first few days which are primarily myself. So. Here are some nice, new, unedited recordings:

1. March 21, 6:48 AM EST, Cambridge, MA:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzmyvgwzXPC3WGpKMWRwU3Nfdm8/edit?usp=sharing

2. March 22, 2014 2:07 AM EST, Dakar, Senegal:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzmyvgwzXPC3M1B3Y0p3M1FhMlk/edit?usp=sharing

(By 'replacing parts', I meant getting trash removed off the plane and the restocking of things on the plane)

3. March 22, 2014 10:43 AM EST, 4:43 PM UTC +2 (local), Johannesburg, South Africa:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzmyvgwzXPC3dnVEVTZGS3lFQ0E/edit?usp=sharing

(Did not get the year wrong)

...And Suddenly We're in Africa

Post by Libby Koolik

All right, maybe "suddenly" isn't quite the right word.  But almost 36 hours (ignoring the time differences that just leave me utterly confused) after we got on a bus in Cambridge, we walked off a completely different bus at a resort in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

As someone who would definitely not consider herself a world traveler by any means, I had no idea what it meant to physically travel from one continent to another.  I saw that the itinerary showed we had a couple different flights, but I guess I didn't fully understand what this travel "day" would be like.

Step 1: Waking up on time.
Sam told us we had to arrive at the bus stop by no later than 7:30AM on Friday.  I met up with a couple of my friends from my dorm at about 6:45, so that we could all head over together.  This involved a couple door-to-door visits to find people around 7:05, two or three runs back up to our rooms to get forgotten things, and eventually a nice shuttle ride that got us to the bus at 7:30 exactly.

Step 2: Getting to DC.
The bus took us to the Boston airport, where we ended up being pretty early for our flight.  This worked really nicely because as soon as the bus dropped us off, we were suddenly all starving for breakfast.  A couple groups emerged and went off to find something to eat while we waited to board our first flight! The overall energy level is incredibly low die to the early morning, but we're all super psyched.

Step 3: Waiting through the layover.
Once we arrived at Washington DC, we had a nice whopping five hours to kill.  Fortunately, there was a really nice Chipotle for a delicious lunch and a very comfy bench for a much-needed nap.

Step 4: Riding an airplane for 17-ish hours.
Me before the flight: "Pshhh 17 hours is nothing! I'll totally just sleep it off and I'll be there in no time."
Me during the flight: "IS THIS EVER GOING TO END!!??!"
Long story short, the flight was really long. The in-flight entertainment was incredible, but there's nothing that can make sitting down for 17 hours truly that enjoyable.  Things I enjoyed: sitting with my Terrabuddies, watching movies, learning that I can comfortably sleep if I rest my head on my seat-back tray table, playing Tetris and Trivia against other passengers, and taking a selfie every hour on the hour with Kristina and Joseff (I think she's going to post them!).

Step 5: Getting off that flight to get on another flight!
After the longest flight of all time, this flight was so nice.  It, unfortunately, got delayed about 40 minutes.  However, the flight was only about an hour, so it felt almost instantaneous as compared to the one before.

Step 6: We're Here!!!!!!!!!!!!
We've checked into the resort and we're all ready for our trip to start for real!
Tomorrow the real fun begins.

And even though logically "suddenly" is the wrong word, I just can't stop thinking:
"Wow.  All of a sudden I'm in Africa."

World Water Day as we travel to ours

All around us are the lively noises of the airport. Plenty of coffee, lattes and water bottles are in view and serving to help us start the day. Logan is the first leg of the journey, and it happens that about the time we reach our destination, World Water Day will be well underway.

This special day comes of age this year; it's the 21st time the UN and others have called out a day to call our attention to this vital commodity and natural gift. This year's theme explores water and energy. "Saving energy is saving water. Saving water is saving energy," their site says. For our future, it is crucial that we find an efficient intersection for these two forces. We will need every watt and every drop of both.

Celebrations have begun in Tokyo as we assemble to board our first flight. When we land after our last one, our own intersection with water will take on new life.

www.unwater.org 

Countdown to Curbside

Post by Chris Sherratt

This morning I awoke to a sound I barely recognized after this long cold winter: rainfall. It was actually warm enough not to be coming down as snow or sleet, and as I accompanied my dog outside at 5:18am, just to be sure it was really raining, I realized we are beginning that transition from snow and ice season to mud.

Now, in less than 24hours, our Terrascope group will also transition from our campus to a country half a world away, to South Africa, where we will look closely at water, the lifeblood of so much of our world. It will be my privilege to study and learn, discuss and see first hand the people, the land, and all that resides there, to share ideas, to make friends, to come home changed.

The planes will take off whether we've remembered everything or not. The doors will close, and we will leave behind certain responsibilities to take on others. The doors close and our minds, ears, and eyes will open, not to all the undone things we've left behind, but to all that lies ahead.

Maps - where we will be, how we will get there and what we have done there

Post by Daniel Sheehan

My path towards my profession as a GIS Specialist began with an interest in maps.  I have always been interested in where I am and what is around me.  To this day, either as an armchair traveler, preparing to travel, or while traveling, I remain very interested in maps.  This is particularly true as a participant in the Mission 2017 field trip to South Africa.  As a GIS Specialist, I work with and find new tools for mapping that are accessible not only to me, as a specialist with GIS technology available to me, but to everyone who is interested in maps and has a computer without a GIS installed.  Here are some maps that I have been working on.

This map shows the great circle routes for the MIT group's flight to South Africa and back.  The great circle route is the shortest distance between two points.  Because the map is projected (web maps are usually in the Web Mercator projection) the line isn't straight.  I made this map with the Google Maps API.  The API has tools for drawing great circle routes.  Here is the map with the great circle routes.

This map is currently just a base map.  It links to a Google Fusion Table, which we will fill in as we go.  It is also made with the Google Maps API  The maps will have clickable points on it.  The points will be linked to photographs that we take, web pages describing places we will go to, and blog posts about where we are going.  To get an idea of what we did in the past, see the blog post about the Sirsi, India blog for Mission 2014 (the map is linked from this page).  Here is the map for this year's trip.  I will be carrying a couple of GPS units for the MIT and NMMU students to borrow so they can contribute to the map.

Finally, I have been experimenting with the MapBox.  MapBox offers an incredibly easy interface for making a map with a GPX file from a GPS unit in less than 5 minutes.  The map can be embedded in a blog post with code easily accessible from MapBox.  I'll be working with students who are interested in this technology to put maps in this blog.  Here is a sample, showing approximately where we will be traveling.