Life from abroad

Hello Everyone,

Rasa and I have just finished graduate school at Australian National University and are back in the States until April 2010.  I graduated with a master’s in Environmental Management and Development and Rasa with a master’s in Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development.  We hope to use these degrees and the next couple of months to look for development work abroad.  If we do not find anything, we have a backup adventure to tide us over.

As for work, we currently have our resumes in at Peace Corps, USAID, the State Department, UNDP and UNESCO.  These jobs sometimes take up to two years to get through the hiring process so we are waiting.  While we are doing this we are extending our search to short-term contracts with smaller organizations like Action Against Hunger, ACTED, Care or any others you could recommend.  We really have no preference as to where we end up, just that it is someplace worth our while.

If we do not find anything, then we plan to do the London to Mongolia Rally but take our time to rubberneck.  While passing through these countries, we will also be knocking on doors and looking for work in person.  Plus, we need more material for our blogs, especially now that Rasa will be documenting future adventures in video (inspired by Sonia).  If interested, you can subscribe to receive her updates at robrasa.com/herblog (just enter your email in the upper right box).

In the mean time, Rasa and I will both finish our Africa blog posts and then go through our year in the South Pacific before starting our next road trip in April.  I will catch up on our route map through Africa as well, which was last updated in Cameroon.  We will also make a trip to the West Coast some time after February to visit friends and family, until then we are staying in NY.  Lastly, by popular demand we will be publishing a photo journal of our Africa trip.  I’ll let you know when it is up in our book section.

So please keep reading and commenting on my blog, it motivates me to keep it going.  As always, thank you for that.

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After the worst border crossing of our trip, which you can read about in Rasa’s Blog, we truly arrived in the Sahara Desert.  We made a quick stop in Nouakchott, the capital, to restock and then headed deep into the desert to Atar.

The local fishing fleet, which stretches the entire reach of the beach.

Keeping the fish fresh.  Some of the bigger fish in this market are bought and then shipped up to Europe by truck.

This guy was exhausted and took a nap in the fishing nets.

A mosque set against a clear blue sky.

The entire floor here is just sand so instead of trying to build around it, why not use it as part of the theme?

The next day we went inland and North to Atar.  After arriving that night we woke to this sunrise over the town.

Instead of pitching our broken tent (a pole snapped and the zipper doesn’t work because of sand) we started sleeping in khaimas.

We were happy to be back in North Africa with the famous Arab hospitality that we grew to love in the Middle East.  Our next destinations are the small outposts of Chinguetti and Ouadane and more sand (the country is one big sandbox).

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