Travel
Reconciling my own feelings about working overseas in development is difficult enough. Is there harm done? To what extent? Is there good? Does it make up for the bad? I don’t believe good intentions are enough, that something is always better than nothing. Sometimes the cure can be worse than the disease. But how do […]
At the time I didn’t realize it was a race. In my mind the canoe was simply a lazy way to enjoy the beaming sun as we waited for the border between South Africa and Botswana to open. And so the Orange river was my personal chauffer. I flung one long brown leg over the […]
I felt the bump. Once. Twice. Maybe three times. I even looked around, irritated and my mind vaguely thinking about someone trying to pick my pocket. But downtown Kampala at dusk, sticking close to my BLB (big little brother) and I didn’t feel unsafe. Even so, something made me feel my bag, run my fingers […]
Jeganda isn’t the brightest bird in the nest. When TQ, my roommate, brought her home we blamed it on the traumatic ride. After all, she’d been hung upside-down by her legs on the back of a bicycle. You can imagine she’d be a little off kilter. We tied her to our mango tree in the […]
Two years living in rural South Africa, where the lucky pulled their water from a bore hole and the unlucky walked miles away to gather theirs from a questionable open source, I began to realize the luxury of potable water. And as my eyes and my habits adjusted to village life, I began to understand […]
I was returned to my college days, my peace corps ones. returned to the joy that a tiny slip of paper in my mailbox can conjure. Yesterday I got a package from my parents. And the timing couldn’t have been more perfect, a day more in need of pepping. I almost didn’t trudge down to […]
Iganga Town, Uganda October 27, 2010 Mickey was cute…at first. Funny in his lack of fear and disregard of anyone sitting and watching him meander across the concrete floor, climb the book shelf, and nestle there like we were all pals. He was Ralph S. Mouse minus the motorcycle. Ralph S. Mouse with the added […]
Happily ensconced in skype, I didn’t hear anything until my roommate knocked on my closed bedroom door. I looked up, distracted by my friend talking on the other side of the world. “the guard has caught someone and he’s holding him in the yard.” I smiled and nodded at her. I’m unsure why. It wasn’t […]
Kampala, Uganda October 7, 2010 “I haven’t even been proposed to here, I think I’m insulted.” I was half joking but in retrospect I can hear how it must have sounded. No knowledge of my constant proposals in South Africa, no context for “love at first sight” in Liberia, it must have sounded absurd. James, […]
She lay there. Still. Mechanical breath raising and lowering her chest with a slight pause – a stutter in the system. The monitors flashed green and red, moaned indecipherably, whirs and screeches that – unmet by rushing attendants – were usual sounds. T’s head bandaged tightly at the crown, odd pinkish coloring against her soft […]
Recent Comments