May 2012
2 posts
How to Join the Peace Corps →
a great (realistic, stereotype-dispelling, honest, funny) article by another Senegal RPCV about what it’s actually like… with some nice photos as well!
April 2012
1 post
March 2012
4 posts
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February 2012
10 posts
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7 Worst International Aid Ideas →
Which brings us to the third critique of free stuff. When people in the target community already have an economy functioning in part on the sale and repair of the stuff you want to donate (shirts in this instance), then dumping a million of them free is the economic equivalent of an atom bomb.Why buy a shirt anymore when you can get a five-year supply for free? Why get yours repaired when...
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Innovations in Light →
If you look at the market for solar lighting in Africa, you’ll be excused for thinking that you’re looking at the mobile phone market some 15 years ago. Both are leapfrog technologies — neither land lines nor the electrical grid is going to reach much of the continent, so let’s just skip that generation of technology and move to the next one. Like cellphones, solar lamps are getting cheaper,...
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Exercise as Housecleaning for the Body →
January 2012
22 posts
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Protests sweep Senegal over president election... →
Or, as my host mom said when she called last night, “The people are refusing!” (“Ñit ñi dañu lank!”)
“Anyone who plants a tree before they die has not lived in vain.”
– Beninoise Proverb (via dynamicafrica)
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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.
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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
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WatchOver the past year I’ve become more and more aware of and fascinated by the nascent urban arts scene in Dakar. Both graffiti and hip hop have taken permanent root in the city and are beginning to spread to other urban areas around the country.
This spoken word video is an excellent example of the feel and tenor of this movement, and of a sentiment not uncommon in a segment Senegal’s...
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.