August 2011
1 post
So, Steve Jobs has left his role as Apple’s CEO. →
drcairns:
So, Steve Jobs has left his role as Apple’s CEO. Like, for good this time. It’s a shame, but it was inevitable, and it sounds like everything’s running pretty well down in Cupertino anyway.
For the purposes of this anecdote, it’s worth noting that I grew up in a house entirely surrounded by Macs….
April 2011
3 posts
Are More Than 1 Billion People Are Hungry in the... →
Excellent article discussing the confusing incentives involved when we try to help feed the world’s poor.
We often see the world of the poor as a land of missed opportunities and wonder why they don’t invest in what would really make their lives better. But the poor may well be more skeptical about supposed opportunities and the possibility of any radical change in their lives....
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Oh, Hello Internet.
So let me start off by apologizing for the black hole this website has been for the past month (actually it’s been over a month since my last legit post - whoops). I could make excuses, saying that we travelled to Tanzania and my 3G modem didn’t work over there, or that staying on Pemba island was too dull to bore you with, or that nothing interesting enough to blog about has happened...
March 2011
9 posts
“As for Obama, only the U.S. president could spend the week touring Latin...”
– March Madness: Democrats vs. Dictators | Foreign Policy
Hilarious.
Safari Photos (from 2008) →
I was going through some old photos this evening (ones from my first safari in East Africa with my dad two years ago) and I figured they were worth sharing. Which is interesting, because in the two years since I got back, I’ve done exactly nothing with these photos.
Until now.
Hope y’all enjoy!
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Changing the World, One Kindle at a Time
Earlier this week, I got an Amazon Kindle. In short: I love it. I won’t spare too many words singing the Kindle’s praises (mainly because they’ve been sung many times before), but I will say that it’s crazy thin and light (about the width of a pencil and the weight of a paper-back), the screen is fantastic, and the idea of carrying around hundreds of books on the thing is wonderful. It reads...
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Changes
Over the past six weeks, I’ve mainly used this blog as a platform for communication. I’ve detailed some of the minutia of our trip, letting “Shajara” serve mainly as a travel-log of our experience in coastal Kenya. And, honestly, that’s OK - I know that many of you reading are people like my mom (hi momma!) and are just trying to keep up with our crazy adventures. However, despite being the...
WatchGod kveld! (That means “good evening” in Norwegian. Rejoice.)
So we’ve finally returned to Mombasa. Over the next three weeks, we’ll all be staying with Swahili families, mainly in Old Town, while commuting every day to the SIT office for a series of lectures on coastal Kenyan culture, history, and politics.
During my commute this morning, it occurred to me that, despite...
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Maulidi
This past week, Lamu held a celebration for the Islamic holiday of Maulidi, which celebrates the birth of Mohammad. Every year, thousands of Kenyans (and hundreds of international tourists) flock to Lamu, which holds one of the liveliest Maulidi celebrations on the East African coast. The island town raises prize money and hosts competitions for swimming, dhow (see above), and donkey races, bao...
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Kiwayu
Hallå från Kenya! (That means “Hello from Kenya!” in Swedish. Cause this is a classy blog, with different languages and stuff.)
Tuesday afternoon, we returned from our three day dhow excursion to Kiwayu, a small island just off the coast of Kenya. It was a fun little trip, really more of a vacation than anything - all we did was chill on the boat, chill on the beach, play soccer,...
February 2011
14 posts
Lamu
Hamjambo!
We’ve spent the past few days getting settled into a routine here in Lamu. Things have been pretty busy, (hence the lack of any new posts since we left Voi), but I do think we’re all enjoying this town quite a bit.
Lamu is a small island just off the eastern coast of Kenya, one that has been a center for Swahili trade and cultural interaction for centuries. The town...
Photos
Hamjambo from Lamu!
Here’s some quick news about photos. All of us over here have cameras (some of them quite nice), and between the eight of us, we’re photographing the snot out of this semester. So, we figured, why not share the love with everybody?
We made a shared account on Flickr (a photo sharing site) where we all plan on posting our favorite shots from the trip. It will be,...
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Taita
Hello from Taita!
After a long, six hour mutatu ride, we arrived in the mountains today around 5pm and met our homestay families. For the next week and a half, I’ll be living with Rosemary and her family - her mother, her brother, her sister-in-law, her daughter, and her sisters.
I’ll try and post photos as I get them (and as my cell connection allows), but, in the mean time,...
Quick Post About the Next Several Days
In about an hour, we’ll be leaving for our rural homestay in South-Central Kenya, near the Tsavo National Park. We’ll be there for nine days before we head up the coast to Melindi and Lamu. While we’re out in the country, I’m not exactly sure how much I’ll be posting - I might have an internet connection, I might not; I might be able to post audio clips via telephone,...
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Dropped Off
Today, we had a fun little exercise called the “drop off”. Basically, we were put into pairs, given a location in Mombasa, and told to go there. Simple enough, right?
Wrong. Or, at least that’s what I thought. Here’s what went down.
Public transportation in Mombasa basically consists of “mutatus” (small buses or vans) and tuk tuks (think motorized rickshaws). The tuk tuks are like...
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What We're Doing →
Hamjambo from Mombasa!
Ok, so before I sound like too much of a white tourist (who are notorious for running around shouting “Jambo! Jambo!” in East Africa, as it’s the only word they know), let me say that we started our study of the Swahili language this morning. I was lucky enough to have taken a month’s worth of classes in Swahili over January in Middlebury, so I have...
January 2011
9 posts
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Mombasa Photos →
Today was a very eventful day - the short version is that I arrived in Mombasa, met the other students I’ll be hanging around with this semester, met our program directors, drove to the SIT house in Old Mombasa, settled in, hung out, ate dinner, and now I’m here, good and tired.
I’ve uploaded 7 new photos onto flickr, showing a glimpse of the travel day and of my new home for...
NAIROBI. boom. #fb
Existential Thinking While Jet-lagged
It’s just past 6am on this flight. The sun hasn’t risen yet, and I’ve spent the past two hours trying to sleep. I’ve caught a wink every now and again, but generally I’ve just been listening to old episodes of This American Life and staring out the window at fuzzy stars and at the vast, dark expanse of Sahara below me.
I suppose it’s times like these that one...
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Hopes
I’m sitting on a Virgin Atlantic plane, still six or so hours from Nairobi, and I figure, while I have the time, I’ll jot a few thoughts down.
I’ve learned from past experience that setting expectations before a trip like this is largely counterproductive. There’s just really no way for anyone to know how events will unfold, and how those events will affect me. However, I...
had to sprint to make my flight, but I’m saddled up for the 12hr haul to Kenya.
about to leave the US to study abroad in Mombasa, Kenya - wahoo! will be blogging @ www.worthbak.tumblr.com
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Mombasa?
I’m leaving for Kenya in roughly one week. I’ll be abroad for four months. That’s quite exciting, isn’t it?
If you’ve been in or around my life over the past few years, you might know that this will be my second time in East Africa. That first time, over two years ago, I left with just the experience or knowledge that a handful of church service trips to Latin...
June 2010
3 posts
1 tag
May 2010
2 posts
iPhone HD Leak? Not Surprising.
So yesterday I was driving from Middlebury, VT (where I go to college) to Syracuse, NY, for my sister’s graduation. I was listening to TWiT’s MacBreak Weekly, hearing them talk about various iPhone leaks, and I wondered: is it all that suprising that the iPhone 4G has been leaked to the extent that it has?
Well, first, yes. Of course it is. Apple never loses prototypes, and it is...
My iPhone is Catching Up to My Laptop
For years I’ve been adamant in my use of a desktop RSS reader. I don’t know why I was so stubborn in my ways, but for whatever reason, my RSS habits been firmly planted in native Mac applications (first NetNewsWire and then Newsfire), unswayed namely by online alternatives like Google Reader.
I tried Reader a couple of times over the past few years. I did see the benefits of utilizing...
April 2010
4 posts
4 tags
There's a Hole in My Tech Life. And It's iPad...
“The iPad is the future,” I’d say, “but it’s the first-gen future. I’ll hold off until at least the second generation.”
That’s what I said last month. That’s what I still really want to say. I want to say I need an iPad like i need a Ferrari: it’d be fantastic to have, but I’ll putter along just fine without it.
What happened?
...
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Twitter Isn't "Over", I'm Over It.
Maybe’s John is right. But can’t all of these social media platforms live and play together? Why can’t tumblr be the content provider, twitter the content aggregator, and facebook the universal communicator? Or is that just silly.
jhnmyr:
Last week in Los Angeles I participated in a live Q&A as part of an ASCAP expo on songwriting. When the topic of Twitter came up, I...
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Oh, why not.
I’ve tried to blog before. Got into quite a habit when I was in Africa. This probably won’t stick, but hey, when Twitter is dead, maybe tumblr will survive.