36 hours to go

I leave for Senegal on Tuesday and you’d think that today I’d be frantically running around in last minute trip prep.  You’d be wrong.

I’m currently comfortably installed at the Hotel Daniel (aka Jill & Ian’s house) where the bathtub is as big as the one at the Mandarin Oriental in Miami and the Hermes toiletries, so they say, are imported from the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong.  I should have moved here weeks ago!

I’ve given myself the day off, because this past week, I did two of my least favorite things in the world, moving and taxes.  They say that people’s #1 fear is public speaking.  I don’t know what that’s about.  I’d rather speak to 1000 people, unprepared, on a monthly basis than move.  While don’t disagree with Sartre’s assessment that hell is other people — at least some other people — I’d say that moving ranks right up there.

So I’m done with that, and damn it, I deserve a break.  So today I slept ’til eleven and for dinner, we broke out a bottle of terrific South African wine that I’ve been hauling around with me since 2000.  That’s the year I went to South Africa and returned with a case and a half of wine.  Yes, I brought 18 bottles back with me on the plane — a case in checked luggage, and six bottles as a carry-on.  Those were the days. (I even declared them all at customs, and wasn’t charged a cent!)

So there are a few bottles of wine I’ve been carrying around to drink someday when the occasion warranted, and this was one of them.  It’s not even a super high-class wine, but it’s better than what I normally drink and in any case, I’ve been holding onto it for a while.  When we visited the Rupert & Rothschild vineyard near Capetown, they recommended cellaring the wine for 10-15 years.  I’m not sure if my closet, my friend’s garage, and Public Storage in Santa Clara counts as cellaring, but in any case, it survived the abuse and today was a fine time to drink the ’98 Baron Edmond.

Here’s to making “someday” today!

 

But what will it be *like*?

I keep trying to figure that out myself. Having never been to Senegal, or anywhere else in West Africa, I wanted to know what it looks like, sounds like, etc. I found this video, of SEM (Senegal Ecovillage Microfund), which is a Kiva partner (though not the one I’ll be working with). It does a good job of giving a snapshot of microfinance in Senegal, as well providing some content and context on the country.

Kiva has 3 partner MFI’s in Senegal. SEM is one of them, there is another one called UIMCEC based in Dakar, which you can read more about in upcoming Kiva Fellows blog posts, as another Kiva Fellow will be working there, and Caurie in Thies, which is where I’ll be.

Visit the Kiva Fellows blog if you’re curious about all Kiva Fellow posts from Senegal (including, eventually, my own!)

 

Beware of any venture requiring new clothes

Even as I am packing things up, and making Goodwill runs, I still find I need to shop.  How can this happen?  After all my travels, I find I’m still unprepared to go to Senegal, sartorially-speaking.  Last week’s Kiva training focused mostly on microfinance and technology, but we spent no small amount of time talking fashion in the field.  For as much as we wonder “what will it be like?”, we also all wondered “what should I wear?”

In thinking about it, I need “business trip meets backpacker” clothes — a type of trip I haven’t yet taken.  Sigh.  Out go the Tevas, and I’ll return a few of the REI purchases, too.  Day to day, I’ll be in an office half the time, which doesn’t really warrant the type of clothes that you’d wear on a weeklong Pacific coast trail hike, when you think about it.  So I’m searching for outfits that say “professional” but can be worn in small villages without getting ruined, offer enough coverage for a country of modest dress and strong sun, but are lightweight enough to survive in (and for me to survive in) 100 degree heat.  No wonder I’m having trouble.

My Mali-based counterpart Jessica swears by J.Crew.  Gee, when I got my first catalog in high school, I wouldn’t have thought that J.Crew would carry me from Exeter to West Africa, in equal amounts of style.  To the mall this weekend I go.  Good enough for Michelle Obama and the kids, good enough for me!

 

My assignment

So what will I be doing in Senegal?  Working with a microfinance institution (MFI) called Caurie, which is affiliated with Catholic Relief Services.  For a description of Caurie, see a post by a Kiva Fellow who worked there last year.  After reading it, you’ll know as much as I do at this point.

Meet Caurie Microfinance in Senegal

 

First posting – watch the video!

I’ve successfully avoided having a blog up until now, but now I have two — my own personal one (here) and I’ll also post to the Kiva Fellows blog.  Between that and my new Flickr account (not to mention my old job), I’m all web 2.0′d out.  Don’t you make me Twitter, now.  

I spent a bit of time this afternoon prettying up my blog, selecting format, photos, and colors.  Nice, no?  That’s a Senegalese post box in the header photo, by the way.

I don’t know if I’ll continue this after I return from Africa, since anything of interest I have to say can usually be summed up within the constraints of a Facebook status update (example from November: “Liz is wondering if the two transvestite hookers loitering on either side of the Rue des Dames are intending to be ironic”).  But for now, I’m here on WordPress.  

I’ll be leaving for Senegal in a few weeks on a Kiva Fellowship and for those who aren’t familiar with how Kiva works, I thought I’d use my first post to share an awesome video by a Kiva Fellow named Kieran who worked in Cambodia in late 2008.  Enjoy!

And to any of my friends from PayPal UK who might be reading this, you may want to head on over to Credit Suisse for a bit of a PayPal tutorial.