Cyrus Farivar

Ok, so I found my host family in Yoff. Well, they’re not exactly a family quite yet. It’s a young couple, in their 30s probably. The guy, Dominique, is from Montreal and the girl, Fatou, is from Yoff, a northern suburb of Dakar, where the airport is. They both work at CRESP and are slated to be married in September of this year. They have a pretty nice and new apartment by local standards, including a real oven, which I’ve…

I’m near that pool in the center.

The good news is I made it on to Senegal safely. The bad news is I never managed to meet up with the guy (“Max”) who was supposed to take me to my host family, which was arranged by Mamadou Gaye. The other bad news is that the airport’s ATM wasn’t working, so I couldn’t withdraw money. (Fortunately, I had $20 and 15 euros, which I was able to exchange.) But, the good news is I was able to crash…

It’s almost 4 am, but I really wanted to get these photos and text out. I arrived at Casablanca airport with no problem. The train station is downstairs from the main baggage claim/terminal area. A ticket to Rabat is 65 dirhams ($7.50) for about an hour and 40 minute ride. Train was on-time and clean and easy to navigate. I chatted up a guy on the train who was going to Oujda (way northeastern Morocco, on the Algerian border), who…

It’s been awhile since I’ve been in Paris with a laptop and I’m happy to report that you can buy Net access for six euros for 30 minutes (or 10 euros for one hour, or 15 euros for two hours). The nice thing about this is that the credit lasts for a whole week and doesn’t count when you’re not using it. So I bought it just to use it for two min in Charles de Gaulle but can still…

I’ll be on the road (West Africa, Europe) until February 14. Until then, I’m best reached by email or Skype (cfarivar ; 510.931.5564). I’ll be getting a Senegalese number and an Estonian number as well. Ask me if you need it. See you guys soon!

LA Times: The Gates Foundation has poured $218 million into polio and measles immunization and research worldwide, including in the Niger Delta. At the same time that the foundation is funding inoculations to protect health, The Times found, it has invested $423 million in Eni, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and Total of France — the companies responsible for most of the flares blanketing the delta with pollution, beyond anything permitted in the United States or Europe.…

So due to the magic of EasyJet, I have a $50 flight from London to Tallinn in exactly a month. One problem though, is that the flight is from Stansted Airport, which is basically not near anything — meaning, it’s about 30 miles northeast of London. That’s basically like living in Oakland and flying out of San Jose: doable, but not ideal. Now, normally this wouldn’t be a problem as there’s a convenient train that leaves every 30 minutes from…

25 years ago today I was born at Santa Monica Hospital. During my quarter-century on this Earth I’m fortunate to have had many opportunities to grow up in a loving family, to have been educated both here and abroad, to have learned to play musical instruments, and to have been trained as a journalist. I’m not really sure what the next 25 years will bring, nor where my exact place in the world will be, but I’m hoping to land…

BBC: Hundreds of protesters in France have rung in the New Year by holding a light-hearted march against it. Parodying the French readiness to say “non”, the demonstrators in the western city of Nantes waved banners reading: “No to 2007” and “Now is better!” The marchers called on governments and the UN to stop time’s “mad race” and declare a moratorium on the future. The protest was held in the rain and organisers joked that even the weather was against…