January 2012
18 posts
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Senegal gets trounced 2-1 by Equatorial Guinea in the Africa Cup of Nations + Constitutional Court deciding whether Abdoulaye Wade can run for a 3rd term in February’s elections = It could be an interesting weekend in the Land of Hospitality. Ndank ndank over there, okay?
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“What we need today more than anything else is to invest in beauty, because...”
– Vangelis on Talk to Al Jazeera
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So what exactly did you *do* in the Peace Corps?
Worked, Played, Lived, and Breathed.
Note: Peace Corps is a complicated thing. These “FAQ” posts are a movement towards making sense of it all in a fair and honest way.
Distributed improved varieties of seeds of common subsistence crops (corn, millet, sorghum, beans) to pilot farmers in 3 villages. Visited the farmers and their fields weekly during the rainy season - these visits,...
Mind Your Manners: Eat With Your Hands →
I think that this is the point:
“‘Great’ does not have to mean one narrative, the European narrative.”
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Africa Is A Country →
“The media blog that is not about famine, Bono, or Barack Obama.”
AIAC (too-ironic-for-this-girl name aside) is easily one of the more nuanced sources of news about contemporary Africa; it covers topics and perspectives often omitted in the mass media’s coverage of the continent.
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Plantgasm: I love plants too much →
I used to read Derek Powazek’s blogs in the late ’90s/early ’00s and his sites were what prompted me to teach my early teenage self HTML. On a whim I looked him up last night and learned that his 2010s self, much like mine, loves plants (maybe just a little too much)
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“The rest of my days I’m going to spend on the sea. And when I die,...”
– Tennessee Williams
With sick days come things to occupy them, and for me on this sick day it’s been dear ol’ Tennessee. This speaks to both that recent haze-induced interest and to one of my own wildly (ir?)rational fears.
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2012: Let's Do This
2011 was incredible. One of the most challenging years in memory, but also one that really transformed my life in some pretty wild ways. And I wouldn’t trade a minute of it for anything and now, looking back, I’m the happiest I’ve been in quite a while*. Cheers to that.
Keep climbing. Go on a bike/climbing trip this summer. I’m a complete and total climbing novice at this...
Guerrilla Grafters →
I came across this group yesterday afternoon while catching up on my agroforestry news and am a little smitten with what they’re doing:
The Guerrilla Grafters graft fruit bearing branches onto non-fruit bearing, ornamental fruit trees. Over time, delicious, nutritious fruit is made available to urban residents through these grafts. Our web application helps grafters to find graftable...
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Is Babyonce Born Yet? →
‘No, not yet.’
November 2011
6 posts
What's Wrong With #FirstWorldProblems →
“All the silly stuff of life doesn’t disappear just because you’re black and live in a poorer country. People in the richer nations need a more robust sense of the lives being lived in the darker nations. Here’s a First World problem: the inability to see that others are as fully complex and as keen on technology and pleasure as you are.”
A Quiet Push to Grow Crops Under Cover of Trees →
“It’s the right tree in the right place for the right reason.”
Home Again, Home Again
I didn’t do a fantastic job of writing publicly about what Peace Corps was like for me, and I sort of regret that. So here we go, retroactively. Over time I’ll get back to all that happened the past two years. If that’s not your thing don’t worry about it - I won’t take it personally.
___
Almost anyone who’s left for an extended about of time and then come...
“At times my life suddenly opens its eyes in the dark.”
– Tomas Tranströmer, Winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature. (via popsong89)
(and recently has been one of those times - E)
“I see you drivin’
‘Round town with the girl I love...”
– Heard at a high school poetry slam by a friend of a friend.
October 2011
2 posts
For Those Who Dare to Repair, Fix-It Help Lines... →
unconsumption:
These days, Americans are more inclined to patch up household products like vacuum cleaners, blenders and mowers rather than junking them.
This wave of frugality is increasing call volume to customer help lines, prompting some companies to boost their call-center staffing and offer more online tutorials on fixing and maintaining household machinery.
This is good to...
July 2011
1 post
8 tags
May 2011
1 post
February 2011
1 post
Plants For A Future →
Plants For A Future is an incredibly useful and user-friendly plant database with a great concept behind it. Sort by ‘plant use’ to find edible/medicinal plants, or define your search to find plants that will grow well in your environment.
January 2011
3 posts
“Above me, wind does its best
to blow leaves off
the aspen tree a month too...”
– Bill Holm
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“I identify with the meaning given to “nostalgia” by Tarkovsky, which in one...”
– Roger Ebert (via bigjlittlej)
December 2010
2 posts
September 2010
3 posts
“If it form the one landscape that we, the inconstant ones,
Are consistently...”
– W.H. Auden, In Praise of Limestone
August 2010
3 posts
The Doorknob →
“What exactly does Kristof know about teaching in a developing country, or about the Peace Corps?”
For what it’s worth, I have no idea how to say ‘doorknob’ in my local language…but to be fair, we don’t have doorknobs.
Things I Have Learned This Year (and things in...
If something is heavy, carry it on your head.
Share meals with others.
Wolof.
Get enough sleep.
We really are capable of getting used to just about anything.
If you want a tree to grow tall, trim its lower-hanging branches and leaves while it is still a sapling.
How to herd animals, how to gut fish, how to graft trees, how to pull water from a well, how to cook complicated meals over a...
July 2010
1 post
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“Wolof has had some influence on Western European languages. Banana is a Wolof...”
– Wolof language
January 2010
3 posts
Thought Problem by Vijay Seshadri →
Replicas of you are everywhere./ Some are Arabs. Some are Jews. Some live in yurts.
this is the time
andyinabox:
tumblelikeyougiveadamn:
the worst that can happen really isn’t that bad. the best that can happen is that your life will never be the same again. and no matter what, you’re going to learn a hell of a lot about yourself and what you’re actually capable of. and i think it’s a lot.
take a risk. make a leap. here, we can do it together.
Word.
You will surprise yourself/selves.
November 2009
2 posts
“O take me to the banks of your Mississippi over there, etc.”
– John Ashbery
“Research has shown that if you eat super broccoli or any other cruciferous super...”
– “Super Super Foods” (via andyinabox)
October 2009
1 post
August 2009
2 posts
Keeping Things Whole, by Mark Strand
In a field I am the absence of field. This is always the case. Wherever I am I am what is missing. When I walk I part the air and always the air moves in to fill the spaces where my body’s been. We all have reasons for moving. I move to keep things whole.
July 2009
3 posts
Merce Cunningham Dies →
‘His choreography showed that dance was principally about itself, not music, while often suggesting that it could also be about many other things as well.’