About

Hey there. My name is Jimmy. I teach English, build websites with WordPress, and attempt to blog and write in my spare time. I also produce a podcast called Left Abroad.

As a self-identified philomath with myriad interests in things like geography, language, and culture, I studied linguistics in Oregon. Before taking a break to backpack through Latin America, I taught for years in West Africa, with the U.S. Peace Corps in Sierra Leone and at an international school in Nouakchott, Mauritania.

I grew up in the suburbs outside of Los Angeles, on originally Tongva land, just below the foothills of what we now call the San Gabriel mountains. Now, I live in Galicia, northwestern Spain with my wife and our Peruvian dog Alqo.

I eat vegetarian, practice Islam, overuse commas, try to read widely, and holler incessantly into the void for an ecological and anti-capitalist world. The title of this blog and phrase among the stones is the translated Loko toponym of my host village in northern Sierra Leone.

I guess this blog is about many things:

• life as an estranxeiro in Galicia
• hiking and the rural world
• mobile technology and conscientious use
• Islam and the formation of religious orthodoxies and heterodoxies
• iPhone photos from around
• politics on the socialist left
• interesting hyperlinks

I’m also into fantasy novels, literacy, iOS, podcasts, nature documentaries, camping and the #vanlife, Mandé linguistics, histories of Upper Guinea, maps, Murray Bookchin, notebooks, dub music, Rūmī and American transcendentalist poets, and a low-carbon future.

All opinions, highlights, emphases, other annotations, and photos are mine, unless otherwise indicated. I shamelessly link to Wikipedia (use citations) and Twitter. You can also check out the gear I use or contact me.