A Year Abroad…

If you have already heard me talk about my year abroad, you may have noticed that if I was sitting, I probably stood up and if I was already standing, I probably started to jump around. I am very passionate about sustainable engineering. In particular, I am interested in developing appropriate technologies (water pumps, biomass electrification, drip irrigation, solar lighting…) for developing nations (and developed nations too, of course, since we certainly have a ways to go as far as sustainability is concerned). A little less than a year ago, I knew that I wanted to get more work experience in this field, so I started hypothesizing how things would look if I took Fall Quarter of Senior year off. And yet, taking just one quarter off seemed too short to really delve into a project, and I would have to miss several critical engineering classes and sequences that I need in order to graduate. So here I am on June 30^th, about to head out on my year abroad. My Letter of Absence is sitting in a file somewhere deep inside a Stanford vault, my dorm belongings are mostly neatly stored in my room, and the first malarone pill is already seeping its way through my system.

First stop…eastern Africa.

As to be expected, Charly has lined up a schedule that is out of this world (see rough itinerary below).

Ethiopia

• Addis Ababa --> Glimmer of Hope
• Axum
• Hawzien --> Projects
• Mekelle --> Drip irrigation project
• Addis Ababa

Tanzania

• Arusha --> A-Z Bed Nets, BRAC’s health program and ABE’s farmers
• Safari: Manyara
• Safari: Serengeti
• Safari: Ngorongoro

Kenya

• Nairobi --> KickStart
• Nanyuki --> Ecotourism
• Safari: Lewa
• Nairobi --> Keely Stevenson, Acumen
• Lamu

Rwanda

• Kigali --> Paul Farmer’s Partners in Health, Millennium Village
• Gorilla Safari
• Kigali --> Genocide Memorial