Chaka Khan and Africa

Everyone summer outside of our office building, they have free lunch time concerts of the nations greatest cover bands and musical has beens that attempt to relive the glory days. Did I mention they are free concerts? Past performers include John Secada, Chuck Brown, and the one and only Chaka Khan. While reminiscing to the lost tune of 'I'm Every Women', I was reminded of how grateful I am for my job. One of the best perks is being able to travel--in April I was able to go to Guinea and Tanzania in order to do an evaluation of one of projects. Since it was my first trip to the continent I was pretty excited.

Guinea is a beautiful country but very poor. The capital has no infrastructure appears more like a squatter settlement then a main city. The people are wonderful and extremely patient with my French or lack there of. We spent several days in the interior of the country and saw traditional villages that looked like pictures straight from National Geographic.



Tanzania was definitely more developed. We spent Easter Dinner in Dar Es Saalam eating prawns and salmon overlooking the Indian Ocean. I was able to attend church once while I was there and luckily for me it was in English. One of our projects is located on a tea plantation and we were able to spend several days on the plantation. The tea workers did a special performance of us of traditional African song and dance.





It was an amazing experience. Along with Chaka Khan's visit, the trip made me grateful for my job and for the US especially considering this rest stop "toilet" :) Hopefully this summer will bring lots more "famous" peeps to my office!