Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash

Oh man. 2017. Whew! I hope this annual holiday letter finds you happy, healthy and well.

Colleagues Lucina, Me and Xian at the 2017 Dimagi Boston Office Holiday Party

2017 was another busy year. I spent most of the year busy at work for Dimagi. I traveled again this year to Delhi and Cape Town for work. I am lucky to have amazing colleagues in both locations and it is always hard to say goodbye when it is time to return home.

In Cape Town, for fun, I went snorkeling with seals. It was a truly amazing experience. They can swim so fast, and swim right up to you and then at the last minute dart around you. They were gorgeous and curious and reminded me of ocean dogs.

In April, I visited my mom in her new home in Louisville, Kentucky for her 70th birthday. It was a great party! (Apparently I had so much fun at the party I didn’t stop to snap a single photo, so you’ll just have to trust me that mom looked great!) Mom has settled right in to her new home and is enjoying spending time with nearby family. I’ll be in Louisville with her and the dogs visiting aunts, uncles and cousins for Christmas.

Summers in New England are beautiful and I did a little exploring of New Hampshire hiking this year:

Here’s me and Keri atop Mt. Moosilauke in July.

This summer I worked for ten days from beautiful Sayulita, Mexico, where I visited one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen. Next time you see me, ask me to tell you about my return trip saga, but probably best for not while you are eating. Here’s me and some colleagues on a boat tour of the Marieta Islands:

And here’s me at one of the great taco stands in town drinking a Michelada bigger than my head for 25 pesos.

I also spent five days in August with the whole team together for our annual summit at a beautiful beach house in Cohasset, MA. This is a rare treat as we typically have teammates working in far flung places such as in Haiti, Uganda, and Guatemala so that even selecting a time zone for a group call is a struggle. It was really wonderful to all be in the same room. We had some training sessions on topics like optimizing data for reporting and project scoping, and also ate like kings and queens (Xian’s dumpling night!) and told ghost stories. It was a blast.

The team on the beach at Cohasset.

In August I also went up on the roof (like a genius) with some colleagues to look at the eclipse. In Boston, you really couldn’t see too much. It was still a fun break in the day.

This fall, I was invited by USAID to participate in a panel on Tuberculosis. I learned a number of things from this conference, among them never to trust them when they say they tested the AV, and that one’s bio cannot be too short.

Outside of work, I played BUDA league ultimate in Boston this spring and fall and ran a couple half marathons (slowly). I have determined that by not training for the race, I can save myself many hours, but only lose about fifteen minutes on race day.

I am enjoying watching the NBA this season and have been to a couple hometown Celtics games. They are a fun team to watch.

I had a wonderful visit in October this year from the four Stouts. It was great to see tiny Lucia and get to spend some time with Viviana. (Their parents, Jen and Brian, are still pretty cool too.) I also had a quick visit from the newlyweds Julie Sussman and Dan Bush in December. If you are passing through Boston, please do let me know. I am always delighted to have guests. I promise to offer you something to drink and tell you where we can go to get something to eat.

I visited my sister Lynn, brother-in-law Robbie and my nieces in Raleigh in July and again for Thanksgiving. Kate is a sophomore in college about to study abroad next semester in New Zealand. Lindy is a sophmore in highschool taking AP classes and dancing and playing for the tennis team. She has her learner’s permit now so probably best to stay off the roads in the Raleigh area. My nieces are bigger now, but still very adorable:

Perfect capture of big sister face and little sister face.

Next year, I am looking forward to trips to Delhi and Senegal, playing some ultimate and spending time with family and friends.

Wishing you peace in 2018. Happy New Year!

~Courtney

@CourtneyMFK

2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

Halloween, Half Marathon & Visits, Visits, Visits

It's true that I haven't been posting much to the blog. That is probably because blogs were a thing back in 2007. Follow me on twitter @CourtneyMFK if you want more current updates. Also, I've been hella busy, but in a great way. I'm really loving Cambridge and the new job. I had a fun work trip to DC in early November and I got to see my friends Sarah, Ingrid, Stacey and a lot of folks at GlobalGiving. Thanks to everyone for welcoming me back!

Sarah's son Nathaniel at 9 months

Me and Nate living it up

Dorko & Stacy on our Chocolate Tour of Old Town Alexandria

I also ran a half marathon in October with some buds from work.

4 Dimagis: Andrea, Danny, Jenny & Me!

And the Stouts visited. Now they are 3:

Jen & Viviana

Brian & Viviana

Cambridge has urban bunny rabbits. They are 1000x better than rats:



I made a pretty rad halloween costume. It's a long story, but I'm supposed to be a kiwi bird.

Needless to say, I won the contest!

ASYV in McGill

In October Keri and I had a great road-trip to Montreal to check in on the fellows at McGill. They're doing great. It was so good to see them. They think it's cold now, so February will be rough, but we had a good time checking out the city together and I was glad to see they are getting settled in so well.

Byusa, me, Henry and Blameless in McGill

Playing foosball in Henry's dorm

Playing a little air hockey in Henry's dorm

Blameless has his own keyboard in his dorm room!

Byusa, me, Henry and Blameless

We checked out a big local market

Keri and I had time to check out the city a little before she flew back to Philly and Montreal is cool and fun.

Downtown Montreal was pretty and I liked these hedge sculptures

Dorko Eating Poutine

Arizona in November

So, this is overdue, but as you've noticed I haven't been blogging much this year.

In November, I went to Phoenix, AZ with Keri Dorko to see two students from ASYV that received full MasterCard scholarships to Arizona State University and to hike in Sedona. It was great to see Immaculee and Jeaninne and they are fitting in well in school and seem fantastic. It was wonderful to see them.

Sedona is beautiful and like I always do (see previous posts on Wilson's Prom and Zanzibar) I mused on what it would take to stay there forever.

I'll just add a few photos and leave it at that. Working on the xmas letter now and this is old news anyway:

Immaculee in front of her dorm room

Me, another MC Scholar from Rwanda, Immaculee and Jeaninne on the ASU campus near the library

Me in on a 12 mile hike in Sedona where we stopped for lunch

Keri being sun safe on the hike

Keri Package

Thanks Keri!  I now have amazing chocolate (20 huge dark bars) and dryer sheets (for my musty smelling never quite dry clothing) and plenty of 70 SPF sun block and some total surprises that I love like delicious olives, sriracha and soy sauce.  I initially tweeted out that Keri sent me 18 chocolate bars.  That was because I blocked out that as soon as I opened the box I ate two (2!) of them in their entirety like a crazed wolf or something.

I've always believed Dorko was something of a superhero, and this has me more convinced.  Thank you so much.

She shipped it on Jan 23, and I got it on March 1, but a fair amount of that is probably time it was at the post office and I couldn't get in to Kigali during Kigali post office hours.  I could not be more happy!