Heya everyone Well there certainly have been some exciting times here lately! I've arrived in Mali but I'll get to that part later. There's good stuff in the middle I think you'll want to hear about... So I finished my 3 week stint in the desert two days ago. I will admit that I was a little sad to leave, but only because I had met some great people there. Hopefully it won't be too long until I see them again! Travel the last few days has been rough, starting with a trip out in the bush where we spent 2 [View Full Entry]

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Heya everyone Short message today. Not much to share, just wanted to show you the pics that I've been meaning to post from here on site. Dust storms, sunsets... enjoy! -Brownie [View Full Entry]

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Heya everyone Sorry there's been a lull in the writing. I've had no end of trouble getting these pics loaded, but here they are, finally! So last week I got a panicked phone call from one of our geos saying that there were issues with one of the villages that needed to be rectified immediately. So this meant an emergency trip into town, then out to the village for negotiations, then back to the bush. This made for LOTS of road travel which I find quite exhausting, but it was worth it. The negotiations went well and the village leaders decided [View Full Entry]

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Heya everyone **This is an older entry I had avoided posting cuz of picture problems but enjoy the text and I'll work the pics out later** Things here in Burkina are good. I'm up at site right now, living in a tin can in the desert. It actually sounds much worse than it is, but compared to other camps this place is quite hospitable. A little story about the tin can housing... We live in "villas" (I find the name ironic to the point of being cheeky) that are basically big metal containers. These are actually former storage containers used to [View Full Entry]

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Heya readers I hope you're all doing super. I am here in my hotel room in Niamey, Niger and it's been a pretty good trip so far. I'm a little grumpy due to frustrations with this continent, but in general things have gone well. I will elaborate, cuz that's what I do best! :) So last night I took the dreaded trip through the Ouagadougou airport to get on my flight to Niamey. I hate the Ouagadougou airport for several reasons. First of all, it's too small so it's always crowded and people's idea of personal space here is not the [View Full Entry]

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Heya everybody, So I am in mourning like the rest of Canada today. Our Oilers couldn't pull it off in game 7. :( It's an unfortunate result, and my condolences go out to Krissy in particular who must live in Edmonton with what is surely a very sour group of citizens. Do you think Hallmark makes a "sorry your team choked" card? Well that's the bad news. Now on to the good news! Stuff in the field went well. All good things to report on that front. I got to check out a dry-season garden that we've been talking about here [View Full Entry]

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Hey folks I hope everyone back home is doing well. Big game tonight! I hope the Oilers stay in it!!! Things here are going well. I can't believe I have been so busy that I haven't written in 4 days. Shame on me. I'm out in the field now on our most remote property, up in the desert near the border of Niger. I used to think this camp was pretty rough, but after having been at some of the others (you all remember the story of the bucket shower I'm sure) this one is practically a Hilton. I have my [View Full Entry]

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Heya everyone! I hope you're all doing well and that the crappy weather Ottawa got on the weekend has improved somewhat. My mom told me it was something crazy like 10 degrees over the weekend.... I seriously think I would die at that temperature now. I'm getting very accustomed to the 37-40 degree heat here! :) So, funny story: I was out in the field on the weekend making another trip up to the villages where I was last time. I needed some details on their needs (how many books of how many pages for the school? What type of tools [View Full Entry]

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Heya everyone I hope you're all doing super. I'm doing well these days. Sorry, I've been remiss in updating you as regularly as I used to. I'm not being lazy, I swear! Just about to head up to the field for quick visit (seriously, I'm outta there as soon as possible). Leaving tomorrow at 6am again... arg... This is actually not so bad, though, because I have been getting up at 5:45 to go running in the mornings with some mining guys here. Before you all get your hopes up, NO they are neither young nor cute. Bummer. But they're REALLY [View Full Entry]

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Hey everyone, I hope you're all well. Today's blog won't be a cheery one, so if you're not looking for a downer you may want to skip it. If you do, though, you'll be missing a big chance to get some insight into another place and way of life, and I think you'd be better off to check it out. Since my trip to the field, I've been chatting a lot with my mom and others who have never been to developing countries about the conditions here. People really can't believe the extent of the poverty, and I really can't describe [View Full Entry]

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