Kipilefti

Since I’m no longer in Tanzania, I’ve migrated to a new weblog. Fair warning that it is by no means in its final state.

I promised music and here it is: the current iteration of my ‘Summary’ mix and what happens when I’m bored with a microphone.

Listening to music on the plane, staring (sparingly) out the too-bright window. Two successive endless landscapes in different color palettes, first the red-tan of the Sahara, dunes in graceful curves that tell you that the birthplace of Arabic looked like this, too. No signs of humans. Then the reflective ripples of the Mediterranean, sun bright, […]

So since there was little feedback on the what-should-I-do issue here’s another, easier question: what media (books, music, tv, movies, internet phenomena) from the past two years should I seek out? What was your favorite book? Favorite album?

I sold my camera last week; selling my computer today. It’s all Kindle all the time from here on out. Which is to say, I’ll post more when I’m home. I have assorted music all lined up.

My homecoming looming e’er closer (November 2nd—mark your calendars!) I’ve been considering more and more the sort of work I might be interested in when I get back, and have come to the non-conclusion that I don’t really know. So I thought I’d put it to you, O anonymous readership: do you have any ideas […]

It’s a strange twilight time for me–half the time I feel that I’ll be home unspeakably soon; the other half, I feel that it’s unbelievably far away. In the first mindset, I spend a contented afternoon figuring out exactly what camera and computer I’ll buy when I get home (a Canon SX200 and a System76 […]

“Goats, goats, and more goats!” sings Bret, who likes to make up songs as we walk. We’re on our way to climb a mountain we’ve aspired to for the past two years. Bret unexpectedly knocked on my door this morning as I was psyching myself up for my classes. After the necessary pleasantries (mostly involving […]

Sitting cross-legged on a table near the saddle hut on Mt. Meru, where we wll spend our second night, I can see The Mountain. The mountain that is the only one people think of if you say you went trekking in Tanzania, the one that everyone else up here with us seem to be training […]

This is the coldest part of the year, but it doesn’t seem as cold as it was last year. It doesn’t seem as anything as it was last year, really–it rained less (or so I thought); I’m less afraid of teaching, but less motivated too (as if that were possible); I keep more to myself, […]