At Last, Alexandria
One “is either a Cairo person—Arab, Islamic, serious, international, intellectual—or an Alexandria amateur—Levantine, cosmopolitan, devious, and capricious,” the scholar Edward Said once wrote.[1] I must be both. Over the past decade, I have had a love affair with Alexandria. Exit from the train station, and pop into a little toy taxi, a Russian-made Lada, that
Trading Green for Green: The Truth About Costa Rica’s ‘Eco’ism
With a wild screech, a monkey springs from the trees and grabs our backpack. The pack sits unattended on a bench, but within a few feet of my hand. The monkey knows to grab the straps. But it miscalculates the weight of the pack and cannot leap back into the trees from the bench. My
A Coast with No Water
All I can see are breaking waves. I stand up on the lazarette and lean onto the dodger to steady the binoculars. There is supposed to be a channel clearly marked with lighted buoys, our first entrance to Nicaragua. We left Honduras early and had a favorable current pushing us south from the Gulf of
Reinvent the Wheel
One of the highest-ranked schools in America today, Horace Mann in the Bronx, is named after one of the early advocates for “common schooling” — the notion that we should pool our money to fund institutions of education that all children attend. These days, the school carrying his namesake charges an annual tuition of $43,300,
Protected: Going Home: Perspective on Climate and Culture from a Trip to the US
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
For Girls’ Empowerment: What’s Education Got to Do With It?
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” – Nelson Mandela ABUJA, Nigeria – “Are you sure you know where you are coming to?” asked my cousin in-law as we approached the northwestern state of Kaduna after a two hour road trip from Abuja. He was dropping me off
Beginning Where I Began
In the 2008 edition of the Lonely Planet guidebook, the village of Majene falls near the fold of the map, but is not mentioned anywhere else in that edition. I made this observation in July of that same year, having just learned I would be spending my next nine months there. As I didn’t speak any
Not Too Young: Youth Leadership and Girls’ Empowerment in Nigeria
“This country belongs to you but it’s under the stranglehold of men and women of a generation that have overreached itself. The truth is that nothing will be ceded or conceded to your generation without a fight.”[1] – Yakubu Dogara, Speaker of the Nigerian House ABUJA, Nigeria – Touching
Sultanate and Imamate in Oman
“Allahu akbar wa lillahi al hamd!” cried the imam, sweeping his hands up to signal our response. “Allahu akbar wa lillahi al hamd!” we bellowed. The men around me were pointing their camera phones at the imam to capture what was happening, and many were hugging one another in frenzied celebration. I was in the
The Brewing Storm: Coffee Steeped in Climate Change
I walk into the cabin and have to suppress a gasp. My friend Jon sits on the bed, his entire body covered in lumpy, bright red hives. “My lips feel weird. They’re all swollen.” “I gave him the allergy pill already,” Shannon, his partner, is unnecessarily tidying, something I have noticed she does when she