Flashback: Hikes

9 May 2009

The plateau had a ravaged and desolate feel. You see the blackened stumps crowning the hilltops, hugged by clouds of white fog, and it feels almost eerie and sad. And just when you are about to spout off something indignant about the deforestation of our planet and the scourge of mankind, someone informs you that all the burn victims were non-indigenous Mexican pines that were brought to the country long ago and proliferated so fast they literally changed the ecology. Apparently more invasive than good, they’ve all been burned and indigenous cedar has been planted in their stead.

Malawian cedar is treated like a national treasure, and after a surprisingly strenuous hike up Mount Mulanje, I was relieved that we could take respite in a log cabin made out of the aromatic stuff.

Together with a group of 9 expats and several porters and guides, we made the hike to the plateau, a trip that took nearly 4 hours and at least three different sweat-throughs of my Tshirt. Dense fog lingered the whole day and stole all the picturesque views.

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Gorillas in the Mist, December 2007

The hike immediately took me back to the Virungas where I made a similarly tough trek to visit the famous mountain gorillas that live in the mountains that straddle the borders between the DRC, Rwanda, and Uganda. Though I had fully intended to write a blog post about the experience, somehow it – like so many others – got shuffled under the rug.

After hiking nearly 3 hours through a thick canopy of trees and bamboo shoots, sometimes waist-high vegetation, and ankle-deep mud, we tracked the Susa group, the largest of the habituated groups with 38 gorillas (as well as the only known surviving set of twins). We first came upon one silverback who sat with his arms crossed, seemingly bored by yet another group of wide-eyed tourists, who had fallen completely silent, equal parts awestruck and stricken by fear. He was massive. Then we came upon a clearing and suddenly, gorillas literally tumbled out of the bush from every direction. Humbling and magical, an experience I wish everyone could enjoy.

Near the start of the hike where there was an actual path

Young silverback (1 of 4 in the group)

Aww... a baby

The photos don’t quite convey how massive the adult males were…

Munching on veggies. (they’re herbivores)

Scampering little one… coming close enough to touch your shoes!
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The spartanly furnished cabin featured a rustic hearth. With a fire going to kill the afternoon chill at almost 3000 meters, the smell that wafts up from the cedar is simply intoxicating. That burst of something warm and fragrant – like towels out of a dryer – is so inviting. You feel a slight pressure in your chest, like you’ve smoked a gigantic cigar filled with cedar-flavoured tobacco.

Relieved to have made it to the plateau.

The cabin.

Happy hikers, chillin' at the cabin.

Flashback: "High-risk situations"

At 6am the stately town hall on Victoria Avenue was already completely surrounded. I couldn’t quite make out if there was in fact a line or in what kind of formation the people stood, but no matter. The point is, people were out in droves ready to vote.

Many arrived at work that morning proudly showing off inked index fingers.

My usual hotel breakfast was frequented by a number of non-regulars: folks in khaki journalist vests emblazoned with “African Union Observer” or “EISA – Promoting Credible Elections and Democratic Governance in Africa” or “EU – Observer Mission.”

May 19, 2009. Election Day in Malawi. The day when Malawians exercised their votes for both President and MPs (members of Parliament).

I arrived in Malawi a mere 3 weeks before the big day, at the height of campaign fever. A crash course in Malawian politics, courtesy of a local colleague, and I quickly learned to identify the difference between blue and yellow.

Blue

At left, a rally for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). It’s hard to see but if you look carefully enough, you might spot the trademark blue fabric. The DPP’s candidate: Bingu.

Ladies and supporters of the DPP wear sarongs or swaddle babies on their backs in that blue fabric, a shade something like cerulean, printed with orange circles, ears of corn, and Bingu’s face. The incumbent President – Dr. Bingu wa Mutharika – has been heralded as a leader whose economic policies have helped Malawi to greater prosperity and turned it into one of the fastest growing economies in Africa. In the 2004 election he rode to victory with the UDF and shared the spotlight with the Chairman of the UDF (and former President) Bakili Muluzi (see below). But in 2005, after a dispute with Muluzi concerning Bingu’s stance against corruption, Bingu split off and created his own party, the DPP.

His running mate, Joyce Banda, is reportedly a formidable politician, having already served as an MP as well as foreign minister in Bingu’s administration. Many believe she will become Malawi’s first female President in 2014.

Yellow





A short video clip of a passing rally for the United Democratic Front (UDF). The UDF’s candidate: Muluzi.

Muluzi already served 2 consecutive terms as President of Malawi, having won in 1994 during the country’s first multi-party elections. Though Muluzi started his political career as a popular advocate for democracy, his reputation over the years has become tarnished by scandals and reports of corruption.

Although the constitution limits a president to two consecutive terms, UDF supporters tried to exploit the vagaries in the constitution’s language in order to allow him to run and possibly serve another term. In the end, the Malawi Electoral Commission barred Muluzi from running, and the UDF instead chose to back the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and their candidate, John Tembo.

Many MCP and UDF supporters feared that a ballot that included only the MCP and Tembo’s name would fail to garner all the UDF votes… With a literacy rate of 63%, many voters make their choice based on color. Without the UDF’s trademark yellow on the ballot, the MCP might miss out on a number of votes from UDF supporters who wouldn’t know where to cast their vote.

Election Tuesday was declared a public holiday. That day the main thoroughfares in Blantyre were remarkably unchoked by traffic and the usual thick streams of people seemed to have been diverted elsewhere.

With such an overriding sense of calm, you could scarcely believe that anything bad could possibly happen. And given that Malawi has had peaceful elections for years, the likelihood of a meltdown a la Kenya or Zimbabwe seemed infinitesmally small.

My company has developed fairly strict protocols when it comes to “high risk situations,” having sent consultants into dicey climates from Pakistan to Angola. And though Malawi does not normally fall under the category of “high risk,” apparently during election season, it does.

So in spite of the almost laughably safe conditions, my company has stepped up security measures in preparation for the worst possible scenario. Those measures include provisional plane tickets, a backup 4x4 in case we need to evacuate overland via Zimbabwe, dispatch of armed guards at the homes of long-term staff here, distribution of detailed photos and maps showing evacuation paths for all staff in Blantyre, contact information for next-of-kin, notification of embassies, etc, etc. I am required to check-in with the CEO twice a day and failing that, someone will search me out, having assumed that something terrible has befallen me. We have various stages of alert and evacuation which include stage I (all meet at a designated safe point in Blantyre), stage II (all “non-essential” staff evacuated), and stage III (everyone evacuated).

It reminded me of another “high risk” situation that I managed to escape…

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Gambia, Aug-Sep 2008

There were many highlights from my stay in The Gambia (“The” was introduced to differentiate it from Zambia, a country in Southern Africa which actually borders Malawi), including but not limited to the following:

- Befriending so many of the client’s Gambian employees and Pakistani contractors.
Though the Abuko Earth Station where we worked lacked most modern amenities (to phrase it mildly), we had a great time, picking mangoes from the yard, stepping over feral dogs and goats on the way, trying not to electrocute ourselves on a strange metal box in our office festooned with yards and yards of cobwebs, and generally trying to jumpstart the Internet’s heart. It was like the diseased heart of an old man who subsisted on a diet of red meat, cigarettes, and hard liquor.

- Lebanese cuisine.
The Gambia, like several other countries in West Africa, is home to a huge Lebanese diaspora, and they brought with them their absolutely divine food. Unfortunately, I was there during Ramadan, and with a population that’s 90% Muslim, nearly everyone participates in this religious observance whether you want to or not… Restaurants close during the day, many bars shutdown altogether, and the usual club-like atmosphere of Senegambia dies down to a rather dull roar.

- Trying to blend in.
I learned a few phrases in Wollof, a language that is only spoken but not written and was once even mistaken for a Gambian. Apparently the last name “Choi” is not an uncommon Gambian surname, so I arrived to a meeting once to find a number of people astounded to see my face. They saw my name on the list of attendees and did not expect a “Chinese-looking” person to show up. I have been mistaken for many things in my life, but being mistaken for Gambian was definitely original.

- The mouth of history.
Near the mouth of the Gambia river, where it empties to into the Atlantic, I visited James Island the launching point for thousands of ships bound for the Americas carrying millions of slaves from the 1500s through the early 1800s. Conditions were appalling… On average 1/10 of all slaves aboard the ships perished along the middle passage (the Africa to Americas route) and only 1/3 were actually able to work once they arrived. After spending many long weeks in cramped, chained conditions, some were literally crippled upon arrival, among other countless horrors.

I will remember The Gambia for all these reasons but also for what happened after I left…

Shortly before I was due to return to the Gambia for the second phase of my project, I received word that my three colleagues (who were working there on a long-term contract with the client) had been abruptly arrested and thrown in jail. They were subsequently stripped of important documents (passports, etc) and not allowed to contact counsel or families etc. Later they were released but detained under “house arrest.” Once my company caught wind of this, of course all work was indefinitely terminated and they started contacting embassies, etc, to extract them from the country. It was a messy, political situation involving money (and likely, corruption) and though my colleagues were not to blame for any of it, they were unfortunately caught in the cross-hairs. After 46 days of being detained in the country, I finally met up with them again, and they proceeded to celebrate their new-found freedom by getting thoroughly soused at the company Christmas party.

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It’s been over a week since election day... Last week, as the election results trickled in, there were rumblings about rigging by the DPP (who at that stage commanded a sizeable lead over the MCP) and that Tembo would not concede defeat… The army began rolling around the city in big tanks and police check points sprang up all over, presumably as a show of force to deter would-be rabble-rousers and disgruntled MCP-ers or UDF-ers from causing trouble.

On Thursday, Bingu was declared the winner and jubilation erupted all over town. People started singing and dancing, cars honked unendingly, and ecstatic people spilled out of pickup trucks, packed to the brim with merry-makers.

I arrived to find my hotel transformed into a hotbed of activity and the lobby had been adorned with a long red carpet and a metal detector at the main entrance. On my floor, I found hotel employees wearing gleaming white gloves standing at nearly every other door.

I asked one, “What’s going on?”

He responded, “Ma’am, there are many dignitaries and heads of states coming here to celebrate the re-inauguration. Like from Tanzania, Rwanda, Mozambique…”

Me: “Sorry, I thought you said Rwanda. Did you say Rwanda?”

Him: “Yes.”

I later found out that Paul Kagame did not in fact stay in my hotel, but I nearly died at the irony. I lived in Rwanda for a year and never came that close to the President. I went to Malawi and “ran into him” at the Mount Soche Hotel.

The next morning, I also found out that Robert Mugabe was rumoured to be staying at my hotel. What a breakfast conversation that could have been! “Bob – how do you manage to keep your inflation rate so high? What is your secret? They make a great omelette here, don’t they?”

Flashbacks, now and then.

Now

The petite lady to my left had the leathery, wizened skin of someone who had spent the better part of her life bucking the SPF trend. She also had the eyes-half-closed-sway-to-and-fro look of someone who had spent the better part of the evening imbibing something stronger than juice. With the DJ spinning throbbing techno music, she was doing some protracted arm-flopping dance that reminded me of a dignified English woman fluttering through a parlor, checking on her guests having tea.

Under the cover of night, on the terrace of “Villa 33” in Blantyre, Malawi, I looked up and saw a silvery disco ball hanging from a tree.

Having had the impression that this “Braai” (Afrikaans for grill or cook-out) would be a more casual affair, I showed up in flip-flops and a boring T-shirt and was unpleasantly surprised to arrive at a veritable scene, where some of the hippest of Blantyre were decked out for a night of clubbing, some in sky-high heels, skinny jeans, and earrings that scream fabulosity.

So I found myself awkwardly bopping on the dance floor, shifting my gaze from that woman, to the tree, to the maroon-painted concrete floor, everywhere except to my German colleague at my right, and asking myself, how on earth did I get here?

Oh yeah, I remember: Feeling both sore from having hiked Mount Mulanje all day and inadequately dolled up for such an affair, I had a burger and coke and was ready to make a discrete exit. I asked Esme, a cute and bubbly blonde girl who worked at the place for the phone number of a taxi company, and though she was from the British Isles (a guess, based on her accent) and should have understood English, her answer to this question was, oh let me take your purse, stash it in some undisclosed location, pour you an apple pucker shooter, and then drag you onto the dance floor.

And there I was, bouncing on the last of my hamstrings, wishing that that apple pucker shooter had been either a cupful of absinthe (recently legalized in the US after all) or laced with arsenic.

My current 4-week stint in Malawi has brought back a flood of memories from the last two years, mostly memories of Rwanda and other African travels, times and places almost a year since my last post on this blog… Though it started out as another much-loved diary, my blog has lately become nothing but a source of bottomless guilt. It’s not that I haven’t had anything to write about; on the contrary, so much has happened. I have simply lacked the stamina and discipline to write down my thoughts and after a while, it becomes like an old dear friend with whom you’ve totally lost touch: cut off for so long, you scarcely know where to begin and your sense of guilt almost paralyzes you from being able to come across as normal. You wonder if you should just launch into your life as it is, or spend some time recapping everything that’s happened in the intervening months and glossing over the forgotten time in the hopes that he/she doesn’t notice how badly you have neglected him/her.

Then

I thought about the last time I shared a dance floor with colleagues… After a dinner of sushi and white wine, I found myself mangling a rug at Murphy’s, a dance club on the ground floor of the Hilton Hotel, one of two business traveller havens in Ankara, Turkey. My 2009 started with a 2-month project in Ankara, where I proudly watched Obama become the 44th President from my hotel room alone. That sentiment summarizes my time there fairly well, in the sense that my stay in Turkey was overwhelmingly dominated by work and therefore revolved around my hotel room or the client site. In any case, the evening at Murphy’s, a weekend trip to Istanbul, a bomb scare outside the hotel, the start of the Obama years, among others, were all blog-worthy memories that never found their way to paper. A few excuses, some procrastination, and suddenly the opportunity/inspiration to write a Turkey blog post evaporated.

I thought about my last project in Africa – a 5-week sweat-fest in The Gambia. Like Blantyre and Kigali, in no time flat, I found myself tangled in the folds of the expat community of Senegambia, again amazed at how large and small these communities are… Large in the sense that I would have never guessed that Banjul and Senegambia would be home to so many English, Dutch, and Germans; small in the sense that I could not go anywhere without running into at least one familiar face. It was project work of a totally different beast, requiring trips into the deep countryside in the middle of the night and long hours in telecom exchanges staring at masses of tangled cables. I started a love affair with mangoes there that to this day burns unabated (despite not being able to find good ones anywhere since). A trip to James Island, Ramadan by proxy, sabotage and reckless incompetence, and more – all entirely blog-worthy moments, all entirely lost to pure laziness and a dearth of motivation.


There were more moments, including, simply, life in Germany… In 2005 I made my maiden move abroad to Frankfurt and after moving back in August 2008, I felt like it was a homecoming of sorts. Since Frankfurt, I had moved to Brussels and then Kigali and visited countless other places in Europe and Africa, so I arrived back in Germany feeling a bit more like a seasoned traveller. I will never outgrow my inherent naïveté about the world but at least, with all these travels, I have tried to lessen it. Besides happily dusting off my German textbooks, I have enjoyed my job and life in Deutschland. From my perch in Bonn, I have been able to revisit my ole stomping grounds in Brussels, chaperone betrunkenen colleagues at the company Christmas party, take a trip to Edinburgh, wine in a circle during a Carnival extravaganza in Trinidad, celebrate my 30th birthday during a training session in the Netherlands, and go skiing in the German Alps… All, again, fitting stories for my blog but saved from immortalization by a simple inability to get my $%&* together.

Now

I can hardly right past wrongs by writing a bunch of delinquent blog posts now, but I can at least try to resolve to write on my blog with renewed enthusiasm and greater regularity! To that end, this post as well as the subsequent four will be part of a “Flashback” series, meant to recount some of the more memorable interesting encounters here in Malawi, as well as to include snippets of moments past that didn’t make it onto my blog. I hope you enjoy them.

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Malawi Fast Facts

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malawi)

Big City (and the capital): Lilongwe (population ~866,000)

Next Big City (and the financial+commercial center): Blantyre (population ~733,000)

People: ~13,900,000 (more than 10 different ethnic groups, mostly from the Chewa tribe, many Asians and Europeans as well)

Official languages: English, Chichewa

GDP per capita: $312 (nominal)

Size: 118,484 km2 (45,747 mi2, or almost 5 times the size of Rwanda and similar in size to the US state of Pennsylvania)

Elevation of the Shire Highlands (where Blantyre is located): 910 m (3000 ft)

Religion: 80% Christian, 13% Muslim

Primary Exports: Tobacco, sugar, cotton, tea

Life Expectancy: 43

The ravage of AIDS: 14% of population infected, 250 new victims are infected each day, and 70% of Malawi’s hospital beds are occupied by HIV/AIDS patients.

Trivia: Madonna put Malawi on the pop-culture map by adopting a Malawian child, David Banda. She continues to make waves here through her ”Raising Malawi” foundation, which focuses on raising money and building infrastructure to help AIDS orphans, as well as through her bid to adopt a second Malawian child.

Quick History:

1859 David Livingstone reaches Lake Nyasa (today known as Lake Malawi) in Nyasaland, under British colonial rule.

1964 Nyasaland gains independence and renames itself Malawi, under President Banda.

1993-1994 Government reforms enforced, new constitution enacted and first multi-party elections held.

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Maputo and Tofo Beach, Mozambique.

On June 8, Garron and I boarded a flight from Joburg to Maputo, Mozambique. It was my first visit to this coastal nation and a first to any former Portuguese colony.

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Mozambique fast facts

GDP (PPP): $1400
Population: ~21 million
Capital City: Maputo
Official languages: Portuguese
Primary Exports: Cashews, shrimp, fish, cotton, citrus fruits
Religion: ~35% Catholic,~12% Non-Catholic Christian, ~20% Zionist, ~8% Muslim
Independence: 1975
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Maputo (~1.2 million) pays homage to Mozambique’s Communist past by naming all of its city streets after prominent Communist/Marxist figures.

For example, we had lunch at the intersection of Avenue Mao Tse Tung and Avenue Kim Il Sung…

What an address!

The beautiful Hotel Polana (didn’t stay there)

Occasionally you can feel the Portuguese influence in the people and food, especially in a particular fondness for a spicy condiment called “peri-peri” sauce. Fiery and quite tasty.

In Maputo, we visited the Museum of Natural History and I was terrified by the vast collection of creepy taxidermy there: taxidermy on the order of an entire floor filled with dusty relics of wildlife, posed as still life on the African tundra. Specimens such as whole lions, positioned mid-pounce with fangs bared and gleaming yellow eyeballs, were truly the stuff of nightmares.

We also stopped to watch a peculiar boat race along the city’s waterfront, where brightly colored and futuristic-looking aerodynamic things zipped along the surface of the water.

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A dash of sparsely

Mozambique is the 3rd least densely populated African country, which is so diametrically opposed to Rwanda, the most densely populated African country. It came as a bit of a surprise to pass through parts of the country and not see a single person for long stretches of road. In Rwanda, this is a nearly impossible feat.
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Part of our week-long stay in Mozambique included a jaunt to one of Mozambique’s many beaches. We hopped in a “chapa" minibus (crammed in the very back seat with 1) our luggage 2) an entire family of 4 and 3) seemingly the entire season’s harvests, including overflowing bags of raw sugar cane and a duffle of corn husks) and took the long 8-hour plus journey to Tofo Beach. Bone-shattering discomfort comes to mind.

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Beachy keen

Mozambique has 2470 kilometers of Indian Ocean coastline...

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Tofo beach

It was everything a beach vacation should be: completely unscheduled days filled with languorous hours of reading, sunning and admiring the vast stretches of unoccupied white sands. Our most titillating topics of discussion revolved around what we should eat (prawns or sushi again?) and when we should get back in the water (are the waves big enough to body surf?). We stayed in a rustic little grass hut banda that rustled when the wind blew. That combined with the sound of crashing waves was a lovely way to be lulled to sleep.

The sleepy beach town of Tofo had one internet café staffed by one very severe Portuguese woman and a tiny market where the scent of smoky chicken skewers wafted through the air and clotheslines of rainbow-colored pants and sarongs flapped in the ocean breeze.

Sunset


Me, atop a sand dune...

soaking it in…

Joburg, South Africa. Or, Dusting off my Blog.

It has been a loooong time since I have posted on my blog, and for fear that it might die entirely, these next two posts are a feeble attempt to revive it. Many of you have seen some of these photos already, but for those of you not linked to Facebook (a.k.a. World's Greatest Timesuck), here is a short illustrated story of my trip to Joburg.

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On June 4, I flew to the southern most country on the African continent and spent 4 days in Johannesburg, a formidable metropolis.

Joburg was a fascinating city, a study in contrasts and contradictions. It was...

... an African city that couldn’t seem more un-African (which I suppose begs the question, what is 'African' exactly?) in its preponderance of sprawling shopping centers, gleaming skyscrapers and multi-lane highways. In many ways, it felt more like the US than anything else... a place where I could get my fix of shopping as well as a shocking dose of wintry weather.

... a city of diversity in spite of its sordid, apartheid past. Its dark history of racial segregation is manifest through memorials, museums and tributes, all of which – according to this tourist – give the city a certain pulse, a beat of constant remembrance. A vast immigrant population consisting of Congolese, Zimbabweans, Indians, and more, inhabit many of the city’s neighborhoods as well as the surrounding townships.

The Museum of Man & Science that had little to do with either man or science…


… and more to do with weird, dried animal skins and bones, and other rather creepy items within the traditional healer’s domain.

A vestige of the apartheid era – a sign that designated this shop as a “non-white shop.”

The Hector Pieterson Memorial, a tribute to the student uprising sparked by a mandate to use Afrikaans as the language of the classroom. The stones are meant to symbolize the students' solidarity.

Iconic photo of one of the youngest victims of the violence – Hector Pieterson – being carried by a fellow student.


...a city of opulent mansions fortressed in by imposing walls and arresting coils of barbed wire as well as a city of lawless neighborhoods crippled by violent crime, unchecked corruption, and crushing poverty.


Nelson Mandela’s House, in the leafy, suburban neighborhood of Houghton

St. John’s Boys Academy, also in Houghton

Hillbrow, arguably the most dangerous section of Joburg which ironically sits adjacent (and in stark contrast) to Houghton

... a city of townships, like the Southwest Township more commonly referred to as “Soweto.” Soweto was a vibrant community of unique homes and a surprising lack of crime (achieved through a fierce version of community police). Low crime notwithstanding, Soweto was not without its areas of squalor.

The ubiquitous barbed wire

... a city of gold. Joburg was founded as a mining town, and supposedly there is still gold to mine for another 80 years or so….

Note the yellowish tint of the soil from the gold deposits

Miscellaneous May

May has come and gone and it was filled with no one special event but several miscellaneous ones…

Strumming my pain...
In an attempt to de-oxidize the rust caked onto my musical skills, I have started taking guitar lessons. My teacher, Aimé, has been extremely patient as I whine about my tender finger tips and inability to play the damn F chord. For all the frustrations though, it has been great fun to exercise the repressed musician in me and serenade Melanie and the guards with really abhorrent renditions of Amazing Grace and Edelweiss.

Party on, party people...
Perhaps it’s that time of year or perhaps it’s just the ephemeral schedules of the expat set in Kigali, but I feel like I’m continuously attending an unending procession of parties, often of the ‘welcome back’ or ‘going away’ variety. Some are more titillating than others – a wine and cheese party, for example, has more caché than your average fete since both wine and cheese are difficult to find a) for reasonable prices or b) in good quality. Friends who have recently been abroad sometimes return with such hard-to-find riches and magnanimously host parties to share the booty. Garron and I hosted a dinner party (a follow-up to the wildly successful Mexican Fiesta Fiesta dinner party of March) of our own as well. The highlight was a dessert of pure indulgent genius – vanilla ice cream topped with home-made peanut butter sauce and fried bananas. Comme d’habitude, hats off to the chef extraordinaire, Garron!

The hills are alive... with the sound of running...
Along with some other intrepid runner friends, I ran the Kigali half-marathon on May 11… Crossing the finish line of the 21-km course in Amahoro Stadium, I was flooded with the usual endorphin-high but felt the reward especially hard-earned this time. The hills combined with a shortage of water at most stations made for one tough, tough course… perhaps the most challenging one I’ve ever done.

Remarkably, I was snapped crossing the half-way mark looking relatively uncrumpled and pain-free. Usually these action shots from races are the most unflattering pictures possible, but I was so pleased by this one, I thought it blog-post-worthy. I can’t believe I was actually smiling when I still had 10 more kilometers to go.


Post-race, some friends threw a BBQ at their lovely home where we nursed our sore muscles and gorged ourselves on grilled kebabs, potato salad, cake and champagne!

And they called it, the Birth of the Biz...
For those of you who don’t already know, Garron and two of his bschool friends have started an MBA admissions consulting business… www.elitembaadmissions.com
Check out the website and get them clients. There’s a juicy little referral fee involved…