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	<title>Stet</title>
	<link>http://riabacon.com</link>
	<description>First they came for the verbs and I said nothing, for verbing weirds language. Then they arrival for the nouns and I speech nothing, for I no verbs.</description>
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		<title>Sidi Mansour vs Ma Baker</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Life in Kingston, Jamaica was sometimes like living in a war zone: occasional bursts of excitement &#8212; driving after dark through a ghetto zone, boarding up the windows as a hurricane approached &#8212; interspersed with long periods of boredom, for the city does not offer much in the way of amusement for a young family [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://riabacon.com/2008/07/18/sidi-mansour-vs-ma-baker/</link>
			</item>
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		<title>Addicted to Alice</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
I got a chunky translation job last month, 61 pages of sobering and inspiring information about childhood in Senegal: sobering to read that children&#8217;s charity X allows a maximum grant of US$5 per month; inspiring when I think of the hundreds of people freely offering their time and experience to help others less fortunate than [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://riabacon.com/2008/07/13/addicted-to-alice/</link>
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		<title>Sidewalk scholar</title>
		<description><![CDATA[

I almost fell out of the taxi, holding baby J under one arm and dragging out her buggy behind me.
Source of great amusement to the devout beggars lining the sidewalk around the mosque. Baby J waved wildly at the old men and got big smiles in return.
Having broken the ice, I asked the nearest guy [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://riabacon.com/2008/05/07/sidewalk-scholar/</link>
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		<title>School sacrifice</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Ever on the lookout for the curious news story, I read in yesterday&#8217;s Sudonline of a new outbreak of mass hysteria at a Dakar secondary school. The first occurrence had been last Friday when some 90 students had experienced &#8220;hysterical&#8221; symptoms of screaming, trembling and falling into a trance-like state. Of the group, 88 were [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://riabacon.com/2008/04/23/school-sacrifice/</link>
			</item>
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		<title>Blistering bandwidth!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I signed up with Sonatel last week and got a phone line installed. The broadband services are predictably very expensive, and I chose the cheapest one, which gives us just 512k downspeed &#8230; or that&#8217;s what I thought. In fact I had already warned the salesperson that, annual tied contract notwithstanding, if I didn&#8217;t get [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://riabacon.com/2008/04/22/blistering-bandwidth/</link>
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		<title>Muezzin musing</title>
		<description><![CDATA[One of my first questions to my prospective landlord was whether there was a mosque in the neighbourhood. He laughed and said no.
On the first night in the house, empty except for two double foam mattresses on the floor, I woke at 4:30 am to the sound of the muezzin calling for the first prayer [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://riabacon.com/2008/04/17/muezzin-musing/</link>
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		<title>Chez Ali Baba</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Here is one of the few photos I&#8217;ve squeezed off since arriving two weeks ago.

Chez Ali Baba, central Dakar (click to view large). The best shawarma wraps around town.
And there&#8217;s a long overdue header added to the page. In case you don&#8217;t see it immediately and can&#8217;t be bothered to hit reload eight times, a [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://riabacon.com/2008/03/20/chez-ali-baba/</link>
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		<title>&#8216;Twas the night before Maouloud &#8230;</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I say Maouloud, you say Gamou,
Let&#8217;s call the whole thing off.
Another day off, following the five-day holiday enforced by the hosting of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference here in Dakar &#8212; a huge point of honour for President Wade, who pulled out all the stops to impress his visitors. Unfortunately the road building and [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://riabacon.com/2008/03/19/twas-the-night-before-maouloud/</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Not Cuba</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Just finished Skypeing with a prospective landlady ahead of our move in four days. It wasn&#8217;t the most coherent of conversations as she kept breaking off and shouting in W_____ (local language) at the noisy mob of women surrounding her. She ended every phrase with, &#8220;Inch&#8217;allah!&#8221; &#8212; not sure if this is a positive sign.
She [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://riabacon.com/2008/02/26/not-cuba/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>On the road again, again</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Diptheria, tetanus &#038; polio booster? &#8212; check!
Hepatitus A &#038; B? &#8212; check!
Meningitis ACWY? &#8212; check!
Rabies I, II &#038; III? &#8212; check!
Typhus fever? &#8212; check!
Mantoux test? &#8212; check!
TB &#8212; check!
Yellow fever? &#8212; check!
Malaria tablets? &#8212; check!
We feel like a family of pincushions after all the vaccinations we&#8217;ve had these last few weeks.
No, we&#8217;re not staying in [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://riabacon.com/2008/02/19/on-the-road-again-again/</link>
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