2012-11-21
It really is lucky that I now work in the productive development office of the provisional government of Napo, Ecuador. My job is challenging, fun, and allows me to experience things I never could anywhere else in the world. I’m either sitting in an office, sending and receiving emails in a language I have not come close to mastering, calling...
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2012-11-21
By Serigne Saliou Sarr (aka Jordan Ricker) My Senegalese family is pretty average-sized. There’s my father, only one mother (even though polygamy is practiced in Senegal), my five younger siblings, and me. My oldest rakk bu góor (younger brother) is also named Serigne Saliou, 14 years-old, and in troisième (the equivalent of 9th grade), while my youngest is 2 and...
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2012-11-21
Throughout the application process and my Summer Campaign, so many people told me that I would come back a completely different person. I would nod and politely smile at them but I never really believed it. I thought I would go to this other country, which I knew nothing about, learn a new language, maybe a few cultural dances,...
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2012-11-21
It was a semi-normal night for me in Ecuador when a conversation I had not anticipated started to unravel with my host-mom. It was a holiday week and my host-siblings were at their grandmas for the week so the house was unusually silent. My host-dad had decided to hang out with his friends than to join my host-mom and...
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2012-11-21
The clear plastic cup is filled halfway with golden liquid then passed down the line of chairs or around the standing group. The recipient, stranger or friend, nods in thanks, blows the foam onto the floor, and finishes the glass in two quick gulps. He or she throws the remaining foam on the floor with a flick of the...
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2012-11-21
Here is the second video documenting my time in Senegal! Off to Joal
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2012-11-21
Lots of things have passed since the last time I wrote a blog: Fall Training at Stanford in August and in-country orientation in Quito from September and October. But by far the most interesting and challenging events happened to me in the last month and two weeks. Waking up in a rural village to the...
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