Thirdworld

DONE

I am depleted. I don’t know how to address the next room or meal or shower or person or bus or price. I am tired. Of my hairy legs and bug bites and greasy hair. Of dust. Of crazy drivers. Of the children at the window. Of rearranging my backpack. Of conserving toothpaste and treating [...]

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Naked Eyes

We started this trip with two cameras. We now have none. Yes, the whole stolen thing really sucked. So did the day-long police report experience. There was disbelief, devastation and denial. But there was, eventually, a solemn belief in the idea that this didn’t mean the world was bad, just that two people were bad. [...]

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Africa Just Is

The soft spongey skin beneath my nails are rimmed with blue paint and there is a spot above my breast, too. It’s from today. We painted a pit latrine at a school for orphans as volunteers for SoftPower Education. It will not be the last bit of blue to stain my body. I felt brighter. [...]

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Status Report: Uganda

The Things We Carry: mosquito cream, malaria pills, sunblock, journal, head lamp, iodine-treated water bottle, Kleenex, The Food We Eat: beans, bread, eggs, tea, samosas, avocados, cabbage, rice, Pringles, The Stuff We Hate: being asked for money, overland trucks full of mzungu, horrendous bus rides, developED country prices with developING country service, The Stuff We [...]

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Soft Kisumu

Kisumu sounds smooth and balmy doesn’t it? Like the texture of a dream where Shamu, a Hawaiian women in a mumu and a squishy kiss are all involved. This is how it felt. Mostly. The soft, square back cushions of the boda (bicycles) felt easy on my ass and much more forgiving than recent mattresses [...]

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City of the Dead

Some call it the Northern Cemetery, Bab el Nasr or the Cemetery of the Great. Those in a hurry might say: el’arafa, meaning simply “cemetery”. We were tourists so we called it City of the Dead, which just didn’t translate. But we were no longer in tour-bus territory. As usual, as education decreases, hospitality increases, [...]

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Red (Wadi) Rum

Michael just loves to take everything in one trip. . . I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you what we were looking at. Climbing the Rum dunes. . .

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Ranya, Kurdish Iraq

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Nebuchadnezzar, Peacocks & Stonings

Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) means between two rivers. In this case, the Euphrates and the Tigris. This ancient land was where agriculture (hey, maybe we should grow something and then eat it! Or sell it!) and writing (hey, if I write it down now, I can look it up later!) were actually INVENTED. First it [...]

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Kurdish Village

Location: Northern Iraq Twenty minutes outside the buzz of Rania, away in an unnamed village, soccer games mixed with goat herds, ratty cows were free agents, houses were made of cinderblock or stone, water for drinking and washing came only from an outside tank and this is the community school: Away from the generators of [...]

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