In Liberia, splurging on sushi to feel at home – CSMonitor.com – WTF there's sushi in MONROVIA, but not in COTONOU? I AM MOVING. http://icio.us/5JKdux In Liberia, splurging on sushi to feel at home – CSMonitor.com – WTF there's sushi in MONROVIA, but not in COTONOU? I AM MOVING. FT.com / Africa – Cash runs out at Ivory Coast banks – RT @penelopeinparis "Ivorian civil servants – unlike those elsewhere...
Are you looking for a woman working in IT? Someone who’s bright, innovative, and ready to take risks? Someone who’s already trained in the basics and is excited to learn more? Have you talked to a secretary lately? People Online works with a lot of secretaries. It’s all well and good to sell the boss a shiny new website, but when it comes to maintenance and content, he (and it’s...
Last week, I decided that I absolutely needed a hunk of fresh tuna. Never mind that I had no idea how to go about buying tuna. I had to have it. In Cotonou, salt water fish are bought fresh off the boat at the Port of Cotonou. Chaos reigns as fishermen and fish mongers negotiate prices and quantities. There’s never enough fish for all of the fish mongers to get their...
Allada is famous for its escargot (snails). Every well to do traveler stops there on their way up North. Only an hour outside of Cotonou, it’s an ideal place to buy food for the rest of the trip. Or, if you’re Jean Marc, Helene, Bertrand, and myself, an ideal place to waste an hour drinking beer while eating delicoius snails, snail eggs, and fried cheese.
Ah, cheese. The one thing every expat in West Africa misses. Luckily, Benin has a local cheese that’s excellent, both as a cheese, fried, and as a tofu subsitute. Known commonly as wagasi, from Dendi, it goes by many names: amo in Fon, wara in Nagot, and gasaru in Bariba. The French simply call it fromage (cheese).
Hmmm. The difference between “social entrepreneurship” and “entrepreneurship” can break down quickly. When we’re talking about African students building new web applications to make it easier to send money to families back home, what should we designate that? Entrepreneurship or Social Entrepreneurship? Or does it not matter? Should it perhaps make us wonder if we should instead be holding up that type of work to argue that real entrepreneurship is...
We use WordPress for many of our client sites because it’s dead simple to use and has a fantastic plugin system. The only problem? WordPress is stinkin’ huge. And basic functionality depends on JavaScript. No big deal on fast American and European connections, but it’s a huge impediment here in Benin, where connections are unreliable at best, and more typically, just unusable.
I don’t get the hate. If you’ve never been to “Africa” (don’t forget to refer to the continent, never a specific country), you may never have encountered the volunteer pecking order that serves little more purpose than reinforcing guilt and perpetuating stereotypes. Graham North works on the island of Zanzibar, and his disgust for volunteers who aren’t as “real” as him is quite evident on his Squidoo page. Seriously, what’s...
I am an expat, logistician, traveler, writer, runner, weight lifter, lover of books and coffee, and occasionally doting mother. I am also foul-mouthed, undiplomatic, and fiercely feminist.
I am seeking balance between a rewarding professional life, parenthood, and travel. I don't have it all, but I write about trying to as I work, travel, and adventure across the world with my family.
