Background
I grew up in the suburbs outside of Los Angeles, California, on originally Tongva land, just below the foothills of what we now call the San Gabriel Mountains. After studying functional linguistics in Oregon, I moved to West Africa for most of my twenties. There, I taught secondary English in northern Sierra Leone with the Peace Corps and first grade at an international school at the edge of the Sahara in Nouakchott, Mauritania.
These days, home is in the heart of the Ribeira Sacra e Serras do Oribio e Courel Biosphere Reserve in Galicia, a small, historical nation and autonomous community in northwestern Spain. I’ve grown intensely fascinated by Galicia since the first time I visited, with its green landscapes, distinct culture, and rich language.
Focus
I work remotely for Castos, a podcast hosting and analytics platform, with a great team. I live with my dog Alqo, my Peruvian canine companion, in a small town nestled in a valley. Outside of work, I spend my time with friends and neighbors, taking many walks, practicing a few languages, reading as widely as I can, and occasionally falling down Wikipedia rabbit holes. On certain Thursdays, I host a language exchange group at a local café. I also volunteer with an NGO called Provivienda that supports asylum seekers, helping with résumés and job searches. Every so often, I get to explore the area in my camper van.
The title of this blog Among the Stones is the translated Loko toponym of my host village in Sierra Leone. It’s also apt in Galicia. But Among the Stones is mostly about me, the things that I give my attention to, and my refuge from algorithmic social networks full of engagement bait.
Interests
Like other hunter-gatherer minds, my interests and hobbies are never-ending and too much for one lifetime:
- Spanish, Galician, language in general, literacy, language meetups, podcasts
- Fantasy, history, science fiction, and anthropology books, coffee, maps, wandering
- “Heterodox” Islam and Sufism, mantras and meditation, Human Design, the Enneagram, perennialism, Rūmī, the transcendentalist poets, neurodiversity, entheogens
- Nature documentaries, histories of Upper Guinea and Iberia, immigration, Murray Bookchin, and the interactions of anarchist, communist, or broadly post-capitalist, thoughts and ideas
- Journaling, photography, poetry, Dungeons & Dragons, woodcarving, sewing
- Camper vans, colivings, coworkings, long walks and hiking
- iOS automations, WordPress, the independent web
