First New Job Task: Take Hardtail to Lusaka

Mountain bike shipped to Lusaka

This week, I started a new job. I’ve traded the private sector profit of Deloitte for the public sector promise of the US Government. I am now the Senior Digital Development Advisor for USAID/Zambia, working from the Mission in Lusaka, and when not here, from my home in Chapel Hill. My aim is to increase […]

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Paddle Fast! Your Cardboard Boat is Sinking

Paddle! Paddle! I yell at the kids in their cardboard boat. Paddle faster! Yet, their boat is slowly sinking under them, as the water seeps in the bottom, compromises the sides, and the duct tape fails at the seams. This is the annual Eastwood Lake Cardboard Boat Contest, and trophies – and bragging rights! – […]

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Did You Zorb in Pigeon Forge?

Zorbing

Round and round we roll. Hanalei, Archer, and I. In a giant clear plastic sphere with a lubrication of warm water. Tossed and turned, we yell, laugh, and lurch down a giant hill. We are Zorbing and it’s awesome! To Zorb is to experience the tourist trap that is Pigeon Forge, the Appalachian Orlando that […]

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My New Endorphin Religion

carolina north forest

Concentrate! This is what I tell myself as a turn, brake, accelerate. Survival over speed matters most in Carolina North Forest. I am back outside pushing my exercise limits on a bicycle I nicknamed, “The Beast.” It is Sunday morning and I am reaffirming my endorphin religion by mountain biking along twisting trails with two […]

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A New Day with Deloitte

deloitte

Four years ago, my family and I rolled into North Carolina unhoused, unemployed, and unhappy after my Philippine dream job fiasco. There is nothing quite like losing your job, house, car, and school, and then fleeing a country to put you into a professional funk. Then my wife found at job at Duke, I found […]

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