I have been seeing images of Wadi Rum all over social media and given my love for deserts in general, I knew we had to include it on our itinerary. The landscape of this Valley of the Moon, as it is known in Arabic, exceeded my expectations on all levels. To better understand what the place is really all about, imagine yourself a thousand years ago, in a land where nomadic herders rule the land and a caravan of brightly dressed camels appears on the horizon at any given time. The ways of life there are dictated by the availability…
Monika and I started to get a little freaked out. The road was getting narrower with each turn and there was not another vehicle in site. Our rental car kept climbing steadily through this winding mountain road, but we had no idea whether we were actually on the right track to our destination. Every turn we took we saw nothing but mountains and not the slightest peek of any civilization. Google Maps had worked wonderfully so far, but judging by our current surroundings, we might as well have been on the road to the middle of nowhere. For the first…
The sun is getting low in the sky as we near the end of our last home visit. The girls are excited to show us their notebooks. Jim and I flip through the pages of perfectly lined up sentences and neatly arranged numbers. “What’s your favorite subject?” I ask the younger sister through our translator, as my Spanish is to this day very poor. “Math” she responds shyly. Both girls are doing incredibly well in school in all of the subjects and their mother cannot hide the pride in her voice. We scan the small dark room where the…
I went to South Africa for the first time in the fall of 2000. I was a college student then and the trip was part of Semester at Sea study abroad program. Cape Town, being a port on our itinerary, quickly became one of my favorite stops at that time, among the ten different countries we visited over a span of four academic months. The trip happened almost eighteen years ago and I still remembered the way Table Mountain stood proudly over the majestic city. Tonight I dug out my old journal from that first trip. I wanted to see…
It has been raining all weekend here in south Florida and I was very tempted to crawl back into bed soon after walking my doggies this morning. I had been working in the ED all week since returning from South Africa and my body is definitely feeling it… But then I remembered that I really wanted to share more of my South Africa experience with you all, so I went to the gym instead, summoned all of my energy for the day ahead and here I am now writing this blog post. I think overall this was the better decision…