Woohoo, I’m going to West Africa!

2005 > America

Yes, you read that right, I’m outta here!

yahoo!
I am outta here!
I really don’t know how I go this lucky. How I could find a job that (so far) I love so much. Not only do I get to talk technology all day long to people excited about it, but I get to send hard-core geeks on all-expenses paid trips to Joe-cool countries.

Yeah, its not hard to convince that nerdy IT guy lurking in the depths of your company’s server room to spend four months in sunny Senegal, talking to other geeks who will hang on his every word and copy his every move. The only real trick is to screen for would-be Kurtz that might loose it when light and the space puts a zap to his head.

It is hard to convince USAID to pay for such trips, and I’ve spent way too many 60 hour weeks working every funder angle in the past three months. Too many hours that are finally paying off in multiple ways. One is a quick hop to California I’m doing Tuesday. A one day schmooze for grant money that will rob me of sleep but hopefully give me a great program.

The other is a more efficient program that is now focused on its task much more than when I arrived. Now Geekcorps is moving quick and changing hard in its programs, with successes happening daily.

And the last reward is the sweetest. I’m headed to West Africa for pretty much all of February to check up on my existing programs and look for new ones. We’re talking Senegal, Mali, and Ghana here and I already have goals.

  • Dakar, Senegal happens to be the major trading hub of West Africa and I’m gonna do some shopping. Presents will be purchased so don’t you worry.
  • In Mali, its all about Timbuktu, the ultimate in traveler destinations and worth at least 1,000 bragging rights points.
  • Then there are the slave forts of Ghana, where too many last saw Africa before the long and deadly voyage to American slavery.

Past that, many more adventures await. Adventures that I’ll entertain you with right here! So stay tuned, or subscribe to my RSS feed cuz I’m gonna to West Africa!


Category: America

6 Comments on “Woohoo, I’m going to West Africa!”

  1. Your hard work paid off! You earned your trip by all the effort and dedication that you gave Geekcorps! Congratulations!

  2. Congratulations, man– sounds like a heckuvan adventure– especially since my job really never involves any travel more exciting than going up to Levittown to play videogames for money that time last spring.

  3. hi, just stumbled upon this site, pretty interesting stuff haha

  4. Continue the conquests. “White-ass” man must bring tech to the bad-ass natives. Geekcorps sounds like an awesome way to keep the “world” in world wide web. Spread the love. Word!

  5. What I like best about Geekcorps is that we teach while doing. We don’t just give them code, we show them how to code so they can code for themselves. We like to call it ‘digital independence’.

  6. I will follow your travels with picqued interest. Glad that I found the site.