The Next Chapter

Its been a couple weeks since i'm home from africa and i've just started the next chapter in my summer... philadelphia! my life is still crazy and exciting and i kind of miss blogging so i figure, why stop? maybe my readers will dwindle... but hey, this is more for me than anyone else right?

so i just moved into the city on wednesday -- decided to sublet a room without seeing it first. mayyyybe not the best idea. while the location is good...i live... in a frat house. okay not really. not officially. but the NINE guys I live with are all in "SAMMY" (a frat) and i just found out tonight that this house is known as "SAMMY II." (Whhhhyyyy was this not posted on craigslist??) Anyway, its not a big deal... the guys are actually all really nice. My room is small and has an up close and personal view of the nextdoor neighbor's kitchen, but my bed is lofted and my fan is solid so im set. plus the kitchen is huge.

luckily, philadelphia is an awesome city so i've been out doing lots of exploring. i live right nextdoor to a pinball arcade and a restaurant that is called "CUPABANANAS" or something. its a burger joint. i know... what? just down the road theres tons of ethnic food -- thai, indian, senegalese, middle eastern, greek, italian, ethiopian, yadda yadda. i found a couple cute used book stores and bought "the end of poverty" by jeffrey sachs yesterday which ive been reading on the trains to and from work... its quite good so far! i'm also really close to penn and drexel so there are lots of young people around and lots of random truck restaurants that sell food out of the back or side.

so on tuesday at work (heres where my life gets crazy), one of my coworkers came up to me and said "hey claire, have you met Adou?" and pointed to this big black dude on the other side of the office. "no" "oh you should come meet him... i think he's from mali."... what??! i got all excited and went over to meet him. small world as it is, turns out hes from Bamako! he used to work for geneva global and has been living in the US for the past 6 years!!! we had a whole conversation in Bambara and he got really excited bc hes never met a westerner that speaks his native language. he wants me to teach his wife (who is american). I, of course, was excited because here I thought I had left mali and BAM! its back! Adou says theres a big malian population in Philly... who knew?

Work has been woooonderful by the way. i love geneva global and they have put me on a really important project -- i'm creating a huge, comprehensive database of NGOs in 10 countries in africa. i've been cranking out a country a day and reading lots and lots of NGO descriptions... which is really interesting (i know, i'm a dork) and also pretty inspiring. everyone in the office is also really hilarious. our boss was out on thursday which happened to be his 50th birthday, so we decided to wrap everything in his office in wrapping paper -- his computer, stacks of papers, the stapler, the phone, pens, a dirty coffee mug, the trash can, EVERYTHING. Then we blew up a million balloons and filled up his office with them and covered it all with a huge yellow table cloth. when he came in this morning, we all surprised him and someone also presented him with a wonderfully photoshopped photo of all of us plus him in a kilt with a wig on. so funny. we had a big birthday potluck for him at lunch and he told us crazy stories about his past... like this time he was captured in Liberia... i know, crazy.

tonight i met up with my malian friend adou and we went to a malian restaurant that he knew of called "MALIBA" We were the only people eating, but there were a bunch of malians hanging out that worked there and they looooved that i spoke bambara and it was really fun meeting everyone. the food was also DELICIOUS and it was so nice to eat with my hands again-- i cant wait to go back. Adou invited me to a party hes having tomorrow that will be all malian people. he said i should wear a malian outfit since everyone will be dressed traditionally. i cant wait!

but before that, i'm going to a flea market with some friends i hung out with tonight at this artsy musicy party on hazel ave. it was actually my friend mirah's brother, and there were lots of very cool, laid back people i would like to hang out with again. i also might go on a bike ride with a few people i met there... one guy says he has 4 bikes and can lend me one...woooeee!

oh! i also made a friend today when i stopped to have some tea (i know, weird) at a coffee shop. he was sitting outside at a table near me and asked me to watch his stuff when he went into the bathroom. when he came back he jokingly said "so, did anyone try to take my books?" and i said "yeah, a few people tried to steal 'Balkans'" (which is actually the name of the book he is reading) and we both had a laugh and ended up talking for like 2 hours. his name is Sam and he just graduated from oberlin last year. he came to the party with us and seems like a cool dude.

so im integrating well into life in philly i think. this weekend should be fun, since it will be the first time i really get to spend the morning/afternoon time in the city (ive been working everyday since i arrived). this entry is looooong but ive been slacking on my journal so

hoo RAHHHH for printers!