Before

Photos and travel sketches

  • Leaving Nicaragua

    Leaving Nicaragua

    Suddenly, it’s over. Martina and I climb from the bus, and wave to Spencer, Marlon, and Myra. A quick, light lunch of fruit and orange-carrot juice and walk in the light rain to Martina’s Esteli boarding house. In a sleep-deprived trance I pack my bag,…

  • Riding on Top of the Bus, with Bags of Beans

    Riding on Top of the Bus, with Bags of Beans

    With a generous blast of a horn, the brand-new bus, striped with brown and red paint, trundles down the gravel hill. Martina motions up the back ladder, and we climb up and up. We nestle down amongst massive bags of frijoles and the journey home…

  • Leaving Miraflor

    The morning is a blur of activity. Breakfast and coffee, hurried packing, long hugs goodbye, last trips to the loo. Then waiting. The bus (that makes a twice daily circuit to Esteli and back) is late. And people begin to gather at the stop outside…

  • Parties and Pinatas

    Hard to believe, it’s our last night in Miraflor. A last ice-cold cup-shower, standing naked and shivering in the little cement room looking up at jungle trees and turquoise sky, as the dirt of the day washes from my body. I have never felt more…

  • Clearing Scorpions from Rock-Piles to Build a School

    I sneak off to an empty hammock, and carefully, carefully lower my aching backside into a semi-comfortable position. I hug my laptop to my chest and hope for sleep. Just 15 minute refresher. Anything to lessen the cracked-out, tireder-than-anything, living-by-coffee feel. But it’s not to…

  • A Morning at School

    After a night of tossing and turning, I wake up in the gray-gold light of dawn to a chorus of roosters and people. I am sore beyond belief. Every little muscle screams pain, and now that I’m awake, there’s no more sleep. After breakfast, Martina…

  • Goodnight, Jungle…

    We pile into Myra’s kitchen at dark, with a feels-like-home familiarity. Dinner of frijoles and fish (caught fresh that morning, hung from the rafters to smoke all day over the kitchen fire). We are careful to pick the bones clean, for Marlon’s approval. Lingering extended…

  • The Downside of Horses & Jungle Showers

    The horses, apparently just as eager to return home after a long day, set off racing home. It’s such a mad dash, as the horses know the path home, and egg each other on. It’s borders out-of-control and scary, but thrilling. To understand my horse…

  • Killing a Chicken, for Lunch

    Martina smile is tense. From the side of her mouth, she says, “They just killed this chicken…for our lunch…” As the don and his son motion for us to sit, his wife hurries around the room, the gracious hostess, and waves her hand at the…

  • The Only Woman Coffee Farmer..

    We criss-cross the fields, then follow a footpath that skirts a row of mossy fence posts, strung with rusted barbed wire, and a row of tiny, white and yellow baby socks, freshly washed, and drying, in the wind. Corrugated roof extends over a rough patio.…

  • Picking Coffee Berries

    We walk across stubbled fields, hopping from patch of grass to the next, under cotton puff clouds. Carefully scaling the wobbling barbed wire fence, sharp spur jingling. Past a dirt-covered outhouse to the clump of trees that shade a tiny, two roomed house and kitchen.…

  • School Visits, Notebooks, and a Life’s Work

    We walk back to the horses and gallop, wildly, over another set of green-gold hills to the new school Martina will begin working with. The familiar two small blue and white buildings in a valley surrounded by mountains and a sea of silver, low clouds.…

  • Interview with a Nicaraguan Coffee Farmer

    We stop our horses in front of a narrow path, leading up a steep hill, through stands of banana trees. Horrific high-pitch squeals screech from massive, mud-covered pig, as farmers in dirt-covered shirts and rubber boots, drag it’s front legs, inches at a time, towards…

  • Racing Horses, Like Jane Austin…& a Dream Come True

    Melodic Spanish of friends and family, shuffling back and forth from kitchen and chores, wakes me up. Bright, white sunshine peaks through the cracks in the slabs of wood.  I finger through the filmy, blue, mosquito nets and grip my phone; 5AM. I don’t think…

  • Cell-Phone Reception, Dinner & the Light of a Single Bulb

    I join the girls for a hike, up the side of a mountain, in search of cell phone reception. It’s no small task as we carefully pick our way, in sandals, through loose rock and dried leaves, following a seemingly impassable steep whisper of a…

  • Breaking a Horse

    I squeeze onto the same, small, slightly lop-sided bench with Spencer and Martina. Our backs rest against the slabs of wood that make up the kitchen wall. The warm afternoon heat filters between the inch wide cracks  between boards. The wood stove belches smoke and…

  • Hugs, Kisses, and Arriving at My Nicaraguan Home…

    A steep hill, a turn of a corner, a brilliant mural (that captures the coffee harvest, the jungle, the village life) sparkles from on an otherwise non-descript, one-story building, glistening in a coat of fresh blue and white paint. Children wave shyly. A dog barks.…

  • The Drive to Miraflor

    The three of us cozy up, between bags of groceries and school supplies, strategically arranging layers of dirty cardboard and bags to carve out a place to sit, careful not to touch any exposed parts of the metal bed, which burns like a bed of…

  • A Newfound Gratitude

    We move to a dim warehouse, walking through the maze of machinery that shakes with ear-numbing racket as it sorts through billions of dried coffee beans. Spencer explains how the beans are jostled across the flat metal surface and eventually sort themselves. Like waves in…

  • Fair Trade, Trace-ability & Lasers!

    When I meet up with the group again, they’re standing in one of the massive warehouses. Giant 200+ pound bags bulging with dry coffee (not yet roasted) stacked on pallets.  A series of colorful skyscrapers, white, red, tan and red, we wander the maze-like pathways…

  • The Sound of a Single Coffee Bean

    The afternoon flits by, as we walk slowly through the oven-like intense heat of Nicaragua-heading-into-dry-season. I let the others wander ahead, through fields of drying coffee, and linger behind. Silent workers shuffle on top of the coffee, through the blasts of dry heat, baggy clothes…

  • Green-Gold Beans

    We pull off the two-lane highway, onto cobbled-dirt roads, weaving through simple cement-block houses, until we stop in front of a large gate, brick walls baking in the sunshine. Massive corrugated metal warehouses shimmer and stretch against the immense blue sky. He walks over to…

  • Riding in the Back of a Truck

    We walk slowly to the store, through a maze of narrow alleys and along an old cemetery, filling each step with more stories and details of the lives we’ve lived in the last six months, as men in cowboy hats wait on horses lazily grazing…

  • Bus Ride to Esteli

    One last, hurried dip in the cool lake. Howler monkeys groan, to each other, across the jungle. I put my hands on my ears to try to stop their uncomfortable, grating sound as I hike up the hill to my hostel bed. I throw sun clothes…

  • The Long Flight Home

    After a 5 hour midnight flight from Addis to Frankfurt, I stumble (sleep-deprived, silent and shocked) through the shades of early-morning airport-gray. I try to keep up with the sterile, fast-moving, screaming, electric world around me, but fail. I fall into my middle seat in…

  • An Afternoon Taxi Ride, Stories of the Derg, and Finding “Home”…

    The British military musicians find me working in the lobby. They’re full of new stories, describing their eager-to-learn recruits, their (failed) first attempt to work in the midday heat…(first, thinking their students were lazy, until they realized they were just smart.) They can’t believe I…

  • Turning 32 in Ethiopia

    I take the next day off work and rest. I cancel my trip south to coffee country. I slowly re-gain my strength. Then suddenly I only have one day in Ethiopia left. It’s my birthday. October 6th. It’s the fourth year I’ve managed to be…

  • Malaria Scare and Throwing up at the Hilton

    I start my morning with a walk to Kaldis (the Ethiopian coffee chain that looks like green-logo mimic of Starbucks). While the coffee is decent, the burgers are fantastic, and the waitress (who now runs up to hug me upon arrival after a week away)…

  • Working Too Late and Paying the Price

    Sitting in the low chairs of the Hilton lounge, I work late into the night on a caramel macchiato roll. I look up frequently, thinking I’m starring off into the endless Ethiopian evening, conjuring up the right revenue model, the particular word with just the right nuance,…

  • What’s $50…To a Man Walking on His Hands, in Addis Ababa

    I awake from ten hours of sleep, sluggish and tired. But start my routine, shower and buna before the power clicks off. Then lockup, walk along Bole to Meskal. Pausing at the massive, tiered semi-circle to watch an impromptu women’s soccer game as men crowd…

  • Heading Home…to Addis

    When I arrive in Addis, I revel in the familiarity of what was foreign just weeks ago. I know where to go and what to do. The blue-white taxis, the noisy dirt-paved streets, the mish-mash of buildings.  The way “amasegnalo” slides off my tongue (compared…

  • Early Morning Race to the Airport

    I’m up at 5am, power goes out. Then back on. Still, for some unknown reason, they can’t charge it. I’m reading the instructions as we all give it a try. But no luck. I have a 300 birr bill, a flight leaving at 7am to…

  • Gondar Hospital

    The moment I step outside the hotel, there is a choir of children’s voices. Asking me to buy a packet of gum or tissue or merely pointing out “ferangi, ferangi!” (To which I sometimes respond in alarm, “where!? where?!”). I shake my head. Aznalo, mon…

  • Fasilides Bath & the Ethiopian Slow-Bird

    The British boys and I walk a couple miles out of town, down winding country roads, lined with fragrant eucalyptus trees and rows of laughing school children in pepto-pink polo shirts, towards the also massive separate bath also built by Emperor Fasilides (now used as…

  • The Hottest Breakfast Ever and Fasilides Castle

    The next morning starts like the last night ended: at The Coffee House with the British boys. And while we say the words “not too spicy” to the waiter, as the senior Habesha men within hearing distance grin, my breakfast is one of the hottest…

  • Spanish, Sunset and Beer at the Goha Hotel

    I head downstairs, when I spot the guard who bravely defended me from the crazy guy at the hotel gate two nights prior. I can only understand bits of his Amharic (“how are you” “friend” “it was no problem”) and I can only find bits…

  • The Most Unbelievable Moment of My Life

    I catch my breath, as I stand with my little tour-guide/self-appointed guardian, in the shadows of the stone walls of the Castle, well away from the chaos of the inner circle. Where the burning cross had once stood, is now a pile of coal, spewing…

  • Getting Blessed (and Saved From a Beating) at Meskel

    Already wedged between crowds of men, barely able to breath, I can’t imagine the promised fight after the massive burning cross falls. When the muscled army guards, in sand-green camo and guns on their shoulders, come racing down the line. With surprising vengeance, they whip…

  • An Army of Men & Boys Shouting “Flower! Flower!” (& Finding My Place in This World…)

    I ask what the men, dancing in the center around the cross, are shouting. “Abeba” they tell me. Or “flower” (Addis Ababa is really Addis Abeba, which means “new flower”). Flowers. The past time I love above all others, since childhood. Of course, I’m find…

  • The Finding of the True Cross (Or the Story of Meskel)

    In the middle of it all stands the largest cross yet. Like a giant telephone pole, multiple stories high. Roving bands of singing boys and men collide and clash, then circle around the cross. A massive mosh pit, punctuated by the sticks (whole and charcoal),…

  • Meskel Morning and a Choir of Hundreds

    I wake up coughing. My room is filled with acrid smoke, wafting lazy circles around the ceiling. Panic. Then recognition. Meskel. I fling back the covers and race to my balcony. Outside, the sky is a haze, as if the world was on fire, as…

  • Stuck Between a Gun and an Attempted Kidnapping…

    I work non-stop, the next day, only breaking to walk to the Ethiopian Airlines office in the center of town to re-arrange my ticket to fly back to Addis the day after Meskel, instead. (Which they easily do, with a phone call and no computer…

  • The Man from Sudan and My First Arabic Lesson

    Weary and tired, the party winds down. I share a cab with the American peace-corp couple, and listen to their stories of daily-life, and try to imagine what it would have been like to go that route. We trade Amharic tips. They compliment my speaking,…

  • Being Useless in Gondar

    I duck into the rattling blue tuk tuk of the only driver who seems to maybe recognize where I’m trying to head. We’re heading back through town, past busy streets and stands of eucalyptus. The driver stops in front of a cement block hotel. There…

  • Avocado Milkshakes and Arriving in Gondar

    Inside the tiny Gondar airport, the scene repeats. Talk to the men hovering around baggage claim to find a hotel, then find a taxi. I throw out the name of one I’d researched so I’d at least have a starting point: The Quara. A fast…

  • Coffee with Myrrh, and Going it Alone as a Woman

    White and gold light peeks through the cheesecloth-like tatters that make for curtains, and it glitters against the butter-yellow walls and traditional Ethiopian bedspread, with a brown cross woven across the center, and I stretch out and doze a little longer, in the warm luxurious…

  • Finally, Reaching Bet Georgis

    Then tall mountains give way to a deep valley. On an orange-gold rocky ledge sits, a massive rock skyscraper, sitting three stories down into the rock. One majestic side basks in the sun, where the ledge tapers into the valley below. My heart is pounding.…

  • Wandering the Rock Churches of Lalibela

    Under a massive blue sky, kids sit in the shade of a thatched hut, reciting Amharic chants (or maybe it’s the language’s predecessor, Ge’ez, because I can’t recognize any words) in imperfect, and playful, unison. They paint gilded halos around round, angelic faces, in unique…

  • Seven Olives

    I have no hotel. But it’s no problem – chigreyellum — the tiny airport reception/baggage/departures room is lined with men with hotels. I find the Seven Olives representative, and I’m herded into a packed van with the others, including an Australian consulate who’s returning to…

  • Airport, Yichallal

    Gray-blue light of very early morning for the girl who lives in Africa, works on American deadlines and stays up until 2am local time (but not REALLY local time—for Ethiopians, 1am starts at sunrise of that day a delightfully moving target and guaranteed to cause…

  • New Year’s Serenade, from Addis Ababa

    Walking home today in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, I got caught in a rain shower and took cover in a supermarket off Congo Road and watched the show. Four guys handing out meskel and new year blessings (it’s 2003 here) for spare birr. It was pretty…

  • She’s Two, Maybe Three, with Tiny Tendril Fingers

    She’s two, maybe three. Lavender pajamas, streaked with dirt. Tiny tendril fingers cupped for money. Eyes pleading. And it feels like a locomotive is smashing a massive cavern through my beating heart. But I’ve faced down hoards of similar sad children, soldiering on with my…

  • Walking on Your Hands, in The Dark

    He’s maybe 10, acid-wash jean jacket and plastic sandals two sizes too big, selling tissue on the corner. I reach into my pocket for the small money (It’s two birr, it’s not begging and you can always use tissue when traveling. Three great reasons) when…

  • I Would Like to Meet Your Boyfriend, Too.

    He’s standing on the corner, in a army-camo jacket two sizes too big, a black beanie, waiting for me. Before I cross the street, I can tell he’s waiting for me. A sixth sense developed in as many days (after being approached by no less…

  • “Hey-Baby-I-Love-You-So-Much”

    Whispers of “beautiful”, “hello madam” and my favorite, “ Hey-baby-I-love-you-so-much” all in one hurried breath as I walk the crumbled sidewalks. Meskal square, a confusing, exhaust-filled artery of six lanes converging, turning, stopping, no lights, cars sit and honk. It’s smoggy chaos. I wait. He…

  • Saved from a Very, Very Bad Man, by 10 Year-Old Boys…with Double-Standards.

    When they see my camera peeking out from under my white-netela wrap, the boys wave to me from the primary school. Pictures! Pictures! I have no money I tell them (worried about another embarrassing exchange). Aznalo. But they insist, no money. So I take a…

  • Exploring the Gerji Market

    The rain stops, and I let the earth warm as I eat kinche and coffee and type out emails I need to send. Then head out with my dictionary, backpack (there’s something about slinging on the straps and buckling in that makes me feels safe…same…

  • Learning “Tch”, “Ts” and “Ta”

    Exhausted. Wake up early and walk to the internet café, past the hoards of people, lurching blue vans of people, the shoe shiners, the kid who calls me “sistah” and grabs at my pockets with a cupped hand as I break into a longer stride…

  • Working by Headlamp…

    It feels strange at first. I feel like I’m leaving behind my left arm. After having been together each moment of each day for the last 4 months, I finally give up my camera to the guards, who are more than a little impressed with…

  • The Cost of Stealing a Goat

    Tsbuy’s quietly talking on her cell phone, high heels and tailored skirt and suit. I stare, out the window, like a child. How I could spend 10 hours walking up and down a single Ethiopian street taking photographs all day. Getu drives the van, as…

  • Jealous of the Life I’m Supposedly Living

    My life is not what you think. I promise this. It’s amazing travel and adventure…wrapped in hard, intense work. Ticking of a fifth day in Ethiopia. Beautiful moments overwhelmed with stress-loaded hours spent barely sorting through one little work-related challenge, as I see the next…

  • Stopping at the Store for Toothpaste and “Fun” Wafers

    I enter a two aisle grocery. Stocking up on essentials: bottled water, Coca-cola, a package of strawberry wafers that literally promise “fun” on the wrapper. (And I can’t resist fun…especially when it’s marketed to me in such uncompromising terms on my junk food!) and toothpaste…

  • Turn Left at the Goats

    I hop into a crowded blue van, the public taxi to the Imperial Hotel & Damschen bank, pleased I know where I’m going (at least more than I usually do) and free to talk up an Amharic storm with the driver and those around me.…

  • Standing in an Ethiopian Kitchen, Holding Hands

    Day four in Ethiopia begins. I pad down the four flights of now-familiar stairs, past the table already set for my breakfast, and softly crack open the kitchen door. Floor to ceiling pale blue tiles, cold cement floor, silver-gray dim morning light, the crisp air…

  • Music & Dancing, at 7,546 Feet

    Addis Ababa sits 7,500 feet above sea level. When it’s sunny, it’s deliciously warm and it takes only a few steps to work up a sultry sweat. Then the heavy, surreal-blue afternoon storm clouds, with monsoon-style gusts of cold rain, roll in and minutes later…

  • Riding the Blue Taxi Home (Alone) and Warm Welcomes…

    Hi sistah. Hi how are you? Hi. Please? Hi, yes? It’s a tiny chorus of broken records, with sad eyes and tiny hands. To exit the bakery door, I have to gently push my way through the 10 or 15 kids, and the 20 or…

  • Photos of Mekane Selam Medhane Alem Cathedral

    He’s in a uniform and tells me sternly, no pictures. Then turns and walks away. So I stand. Taking in the blue sky and massive structure. What now. In perfect English, she asks if she can help me. She’s wrapped in gauzy white and holds…

  • Day 2 – Taxi Rides with Strangers & Heartbreak

    Dirt-smudged tarps and shreds of paper line the gold iron fence that marks the entrance to the sparkling white and blue-domed church. In the brilliant, hot sunshine (after a bitter downpour minutes earlier) a bit of refuse moves. The carpet-like mat is a head of…

  • New Year’s 2003 in Addis Ababa

    The family of beautiful Tsbay, (dressed in a stunning yet traditional Ethiopian white) arrive: mother, sisters, brothers, young children, and a respected government minister (who is has probably traveled more extensively in the US than I have) and his Indian businessman friend (who speaks fluent…

  • Ethiopian Breakfast & Buna (Coffee)!

    I make my way down four flights of massive cement stairs, to the dining room. I exchange careful-smiling selams with the women working in a tiled kitchen that breathes spices and coffee. As the plates are brought out, I ask each name from the demure…

  • Getting Settled

    I stand in the deep red and gold living room, waiting, wondering for a minute how this is going to work. Then am greeted by Tsbay. She gently takes my hands and we exchange Hello & Selam, out of Indonesian habit, I bow my head…

  • Amharic Lessons On Arrival

    I touch the blue ink of my Ethiopian visa as I wait in line. It was handwritten seconds ago by one of the six indifferent people, sitting in front of stacks of receipt books, writing out visas and recording the $15 USD visa transaction through…

  • Bonjour & Merhaba (From Paris to Istanbul, with Airport Applause)

    The next day I sleep in. Something I’ve not done in awhile, no work deadlines or trains waiting. I grab my almond croissant and cafe. I set out on the Paris tourist circuit. The quiet cool Pantheon, the glorious Arch d’ Triumphe (break for a…

  • Paris, at Sunset

    The train glides through farms and cities, sunshine and rainstorms, good and really good songs on my iPod. Until I get stuck on two, over and over for longer than I’d admit to another human being: I listen to Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer”, mixed with…

  • Dancing in the Rain, in France

    An unexpected project is taking an unexpectedly longer time to wrap up than I could have imagined. Instead of flying out to Turkey, I delay it one week (scramble, scramble to re-arrange things). But the upside, is the extension gives me the weekend, in one…

  • The Tour de France

    So much excitement and suspense, so many helicopters circling, and chants and cheers getting louder…and then they arrive, fast, furious and oh-so-hard to capture as they speed up the side of the mountain. After years of only getting as close as my TV would allow,…

  • Pre-Tour

    We get up early, load up on croissants, baguettes and cafe, then head for the tram, with our new Texan friend in tow. Up the mountains, and into the circus that is the pre-tour. For miles the road is lined with fans and flags. Children…

  • Faux Tour de France

    I get up early to wrap up work by 2pm on Saturday. Eight hours later, it’s done. I’m back on my lovely French roads, scanning stations for a word or song I might know, or would like to know. Time passes and roads grow increasingly…

  • Villefrance de Rouegrue

    I need something new. Anything to get my mind off the things in my life not working right now. I email Peter. In minutes he’s arranged for me to arrive at his house in two days, to stay for three (though he insists it’s mine…

  • Castles of Carcassonne

    My friend is coming to visit for 5 days and I couldn’t be more excited. I rent the car we’ll need to get around, independently. I see her standing in Perpignan, after last chatting over wine in Seattle and joking about how amazing it would…

  • Travail ou Vacances (Work or Vacation…)

    Jean-Luc formally invites me to the fourth of July celebration with his family and French friends. (They also celebrate Thanksgiving too, he tells, with a grin). I accept. Endless warm days pass and I work, as much as my aching back and twitching eye will…

  • Je ne Sais Quoi

    When I’m not working. I’m online. A lot. So I’m thankful a few days of quiet working later when there’s a knock at the door. Cameron, Ellen’s son on his bike, invites me over for drinks with Ellen. D’Accord! He looks at me funny. We…

  • Je t’aime Bread Truck Man (I Love You Bread Truck Man!)

    Je t’aime Bread Truck Man (I Love You Bread Truck Man!)

    And then the wind is gone. Like a friend who’s gone home after a long stay, it’s strangely quiet. Not good or bad. It just suddenly feels like a different place, completely, as I’ve not known the village without surly gusts of dry France wind.…

  • Donc… (So…)

    Donc… (So…)

    So….the next morning Ellen picks me up. We drop Cameron off at school in neighboring Narbonne, 30 minutes away, then walk through the massive farmer’s market. Mounds of fresh vegetables, meat, cheese. It’s amazing. Intoxicating. Ellen chit chats with me and comfortably flips to fluent…

  • Un Verre du Vin (a Glass of Wine)

    I snap my laptop shut at 6:30pm to get ready. After a day of quiet work, it’s time to meet my neighbors. (I clear my throat) I don’t think I’ve said a word all day. Martina’s already Facebook introduced me to her friend Ellen, who…

  • Rue de Gleon, Villeseque des Corbieres

    The first thing I do when Jean-Luc and Isabelle leave (and I am alone for the first time in France) is unpack my bags. And sing. It’s that little song I always sing when happy or mountain biking. Often the two coincide. But it’s been…

  • Petit Voiture (Little Car)

    A shuffle of old papers, dust, and a stubborn door. Jean-Luc apologizes, small French car. I laugh: Ja! Si…Oui! Small French car! I love it. It’s perfect. Really! In the small French car, 80’s gray hatchback, we race through the most picturesque countryside. Between outcroppings…

  • Vache (Remembering “Cow” in French & Trying Not to Say it…)

    I flip through my newly minted “French” travel dictionary as the tiny plane touches down in the tiniest airport: Perpignan, France. Talking softly to the headrest in front of me, I practice dropping the last syllable off words in my dictionary in an effort to…

  • Vriends Voor Eeuwig (Friends Forever)

    In between lost luggage and lost iPhones, I am thankful (truly, utterly, beyond words thankful) that I still have: 1. my laptop 2. the internet. Because this means I can: 1. work & pay for this trip 2. reserve a ride on the Amsterdam bike…

  • Een Wonder (A Miracle)

    I think a miracle has happened. You are one very lucky girl. The taxi driver found your phone will return it to me this afternoon. Jumping up and down. Henrie! Henrie! Henrie! I knew he’d come through, I knew it! I mean, I’d hoped. I…

  • American Girl

    I drop the money for the fancy hotel within walking distance to the airport so I take no chances with my freshly re-scheduled 7 AM flight. Knowing I’ll be traveling in the morning, I work through the night (between over-priced snack-bar raids) as a gold-orange…

  • A Pint (or Two), with UK’s Coffee Fairy

    Exhausted. I fall back into the cushioned seat as the airport train speeds through the light to sink back underground. Iceland, Amsterdam, London. A whirlwind, but I’m doing it. A Guinness with Martina, most naturally, turned into two. We talked like old friends, about travel,…

  • Riding Trains & Standing Still

    As quickly as my day in London sprang into sudden existence hours earlier, it’s just as suddenly time to go. A rush of goodbyes, laughs, running through more rain to the Tube station and getting sucked below ground with the throngs of corporate types, heading…

  • Telling (Little) White Lies in London

    Hoards of soccer fans, draped in orange, taunt crowds of Brits and tourists as double-decker red buses and quaint black cabs speed through busy streets. Each corner, each road sits some giant, old thing. A monument. A building. A fountain with some inscription that speaks…

  • London for The Day

    The train pulls from tiny Stansted Airport. Under a blue-sky, green fields divided by greener trees and brush, flit by. Ancient brick homes give way to crowds of bigger buildings. Work set aside for this day. I’m riding a train. To London. I couldn’t be…

  • Oranje (Orange)

    I sit at home the entire day waiting for my backpack arrive. I do not want to miss this. And when it arrives, it’s gl-or-i-ous! One massive check off the list. I’m so short on time these days (working, researching one trip in tandem with…

  • Alstublief…Dag! (Please…& Goodbye)

    Early mornings start to blend with late nights. I live, simultaneously, by two clocks: my laptop tracks standard Seattle working hours and an iPhone alarm set to Amsterdam time tells me when the markets are precipitously close to closing for the day. And often, I…

  • Een, Twee, Drie! Gemakkelijk! (One, Two, Three! Easy!)

    The next week I work. A lot. No one wants to hear this part. I know. It’s not exciting. But it’s part of the plan. It’s my deal with myself and is the only way to make the “work-cation” succeed. Work must not suffer, or…

  • Groen (Green)

    I wake to a bright light of a new day and such an intense squawking of a thousand green parrots that’s so loud, in a daze, I first look around for a native alarm clock hiding in one of the night stands. Then realize. Stare…

  • Regen! (Rain!)

    Parking is hard to find. The closest we can get is still blocks away. We get out in a cold, pounding Amsterdam rain. (Not the sunshine-kissed tulip fields I’d imagined.) Instead, we run and laugh, in spite of the foul weather, my little laptop bag…

  • Saying “I’m sorry…”

    I wait with the others, watching the luggage carousal slowly spin, as I thankfully dig into my “kuri-kuri?” (Anya, remind me the name? ) It’s little bag of snacks & a sweet card–which I reread, then and there–from my South-African sister-in-law, that my big brother…

  • Having No Plan is the Plan (Leaving to Travel for 5 Months)

    I take my first steps outside, into a cool, quiet, gray dawn, after a 10 hour flight across Canada and Greenland, just skirting the Arctic Circle, to land in the tiny Reykjavik airport. I laugh, I’m in Iceland, in June…in flip-flops. I say a quick…

  • … Og Borg til Flugvallar (…and City to Airport)

    The three lane highway is utterly deserted. I leave the bus terminal with map in hand and set off to explore this new land. There is absolutely no one around. Shops and cafes are shuttered. Reykjavik is deserted. Sleep deprived after the long flight, I…

  • Saya Mao Pulang (Heading Home…)

    I get up early, and have the quiet pool to myself. After a morning swim, I walk to breakfast. Rich and Luke, the Aussies, are already there. I greet them with my best lazy Australian. They cheer and toast to my improvement, as I pull…

  • Aku Cinta Kamu, Sampai jumpa Nanti (I Love You…See You Later)

    By 2pm in the afternoon on Tuesday, I’m on my own again, quietly counting down my final 24 hours before I also fly home (Karmarin tamon pulong. Satu hari, saya mau pulong d’America.) and put my increasing Indonesian fluency to rest. I wrap up errands,…

  • Capek deh & Kuta… (Indonesian slang & Kuta)

    It’s hard to leave sleepy, small Amed…and my fabulous-fun-time scooter rides. Bags are packed up once more. We say our goodbyes (and at their request, take final pictures to make our pretend “husbands” at home jealous…;) to our exceptionally flirty Balinese hosts, who – even…

  • Hadidah, Anak & Dinosaurs (Gifts, kids & dinosaurs…)

    Our two night stay in Amed has slowly rolled into four nights and it’s time to start the journey south back to the airport. Our last night the power blows out over dinner, we monitor typhoon warnings from battery-powered laptops before going to bed, but…

  • Berenang… (or Swimming, Into the Wreck)

    We race past parched fields, withered palm trees and dusty concrete and palm houses of eastern Bali. The hot sun above me, the turquoise ocean beside me. My scooter is a laugh-riot. After surviving enough close calls with oncoming traffic and tight, decreasing radius corners…

  • Seribu Tangga di Malam (1,000 Steps in the Night)

    Over dinner after my afternoon search for (and failure to find) internet, we laugh and talk, we all agree that the laki-laki flashing is a sign that work isn’t supposed to happen this day. Christine and Jo are still on a high from cruising the…

  • Laki-Laki and Amed (Boys and Amed)

    A whirlwind of activity, bags are packed, last minute errands, we watch a man shimmy up a tall coconut tree trunk outside the villa to cut down coconuts — only rough ropes tied around his feed to keep tension for the climb — and we…

  • Practicing the Art of Being Real (No Translation Available…)

    The next few days fly by faster than ever. Christine and I trade off using my wireless internet modem to work, in between jaunts into town to explore, we accompany Jo to a raw foods cafe and enjoy wholesome (and surprisingly delicious) raw tacos, ravioli…

  • Bulan, Bintang, Matarhari & Kambing (Moon, Stars, Sun & Goat)

    Christine’s first day mirrors my own — getting used to driving on the left side, weaving within inches of scooters and oncoming traffic on narrow roads, driving past temples and massive statues in the dripping rain and post-storm puddles, swerving around women in sarongs (heads…

  • Kucing Makan Kacung (The Cat Eats Peanuts!)

    The next day, Anni waits to walk with me to meet Jo and bring her back to the Villa. (We’d agreed to meet the next day since I found it hard to give someone directions to the exact random roadside footpath, across from the ramshackle…

  • Saya Mao Jalan-Jalan (I Go Walking)

    I work at a small warung while Anni smokes cigarettes. When I first arrived, I waved her smoking aside. In the open-air villa kitchen it was easy enough to avoid. Now, as she lights up her third cigarette in the last hour, I’m getting annoyed.…

  • Hanya Satu Puloh Ribu Hari (Only $1 Dollar a Day)

    They walk by the fence of the villa. Heads wrapped with old, wet towels to keep cool during the 90 degree days, topped by ragged, grey-brown old straw hats. From the kitchen Anni and I greet them in Indonesian. They all smile and wave or…

  • Ruma Oka (at Oka’s House)

    Just when I think we are on our way home, the children are asleep in the way back seat, the car slows to turn into a lonely road. We’re in the middle of jungle. No one’s said anything to me. It’s just assumed that I’m…

  • Tidak, Tidak, Tidak: Lampang! (No, No, No, Lampang!)

    Are we heading home? I ask. Nanti (later) Is the response I get. The children need food. We drive far away. I laugh at my insistent need to get things done, when I know this is enough. We go for babi guling at a grimy…

  • Saya Tidak “Turis” (I am Not a Tourist)

    Once again, I’m awake before sunrise. Annie and I drink hot copi, eat sweet wild mangoes, then I tuck a couple plastic wrapped chocolate-rice millet sweet cracker into my purse for later. (Annie laughs that when I say I want to try alllll Indonesian food,…

  • Saya Mao Tidur Secorang (I go to Sleep Now)

    After so many days, overflowing with so many golden hours of stunning amazement and emotion and languages and people, I find I am craving some quiet time. I get up with the morning light, jalan-jalan (walk) to the market with Anni, we eat delicious, hot…

  • Pendeta (The Priestess)

    When I feel like I’ve had enough (it’s been hours – sitting, eating, listening in the hot sun–since the priestess arrived) still, the rituals continue. The gamelon plays. The bell rings. The people talk and laugh. I have no familiar context, no familiar words, no…

  • Nanti, Nanti (Waiting for Later…)

    1pm arrives. Then 2pm. 2:30pm. Nanti, nanti (later, later), people whisper but are not alarmed. The ceremony might not start until 4. I struggle to stay awake and smiling. But finally, the priest comes, except the priest is female. Gray-white hair, soft face, serious brown…

  • Wedding? Belum… (The Wedding? Not Yet…)

    It’s a long drive back to the compound. Already a full day, I realize it’s only about to begin, at 1 with the wedding which I am told will be very, very long. Tired but excited, I am now greeted with familiar waves and warm…

  • Matahari & Air (Sun & Holy Water)

    Oka is waiting at the car to take us to another temple, the temple of holy water. This water you can drink, Annie tells me, or swim. But it is very cold. More highway close calls, and we descend to another temple. We navigate stairs…

  • Visiting the “Stone Temple” of Bali

    Miles away (and maybe a hundred highway close calls later), bapak Oka parks the car in a deserted lot. Annie takes my hand and we head down the empty street. The morning sun has just edged up over the mountains, as we descend the hundreds…

  • Metatah & the Giant (Tooth Filing Ceremony & the Giant!)

    It’s still dark as night when I wake up. Annie dresses me in the sarong and brings up a necklace she wants me to wear today. The wedding of Oka’s daughter will start at 5AM with the traditional Balinese tooth filing, or metatah. Long teeth…

  • Internet & Iyam Burring (Internet & Chicken)

    With Oka’s daughter’s wedding on the 23 of September, I know today is my one day to get work done. Every day I say I will work a few hours, every day Oka or Annie nod only to take me to a new “very Indonesian”…

  • Pura and Gamelon (Temples and Gamelon)

    During the long drive over, Oka tells me about the castes, I repeat their Balinese names and forms of address, but intentionally forget them (I decided I don’t want to reinforce the practice–and learn instead the national Indonesian language which lacks caste distinction–but I am…

  • Cunung Cunung… (Fireflies & Getting Dressed)

    We walk home as it grows dark. My body, still the reverberation of drastic time differences, feels like its floating through the day, ready to drop asleep at any moment, then wide awake the next. I am ready to sleep, but instead, Annie dresses me,…

  • Babi Guling & Pensar (Suckling Pig & the Market)

    Annie tells me Oka will take me to a big, big ceremony tonight. But I must dress Indonesian. She will take me shopping at the Ubud pensar ( or market). But first, lunch. She wants me to try babi guling (or suckling pig) As a…

  • Mangii & Rumbutan (Mangosteen & Rumbutan)

    I learn the Indonesian names of fruit as I eat them. Watermelon, papaya, and mangoes give way to salak – with a hard, brown, snake-like-skin that peels back to reveal strange, white, effervescent fruit. Football sized durian (my least favorite) with the spiked yellow shell…

  • Satu, Dua, Tiga, Emphat, Lima (Counting to 5, in Indonesian)

    Before bed that first night, I count my push-ups in Indonesian. When I get to five, I start over. Five times. I like five (lima!) the best, it makes me think of Peru. I never forget it. What comes between one and five is much…

  • Hanya Satu Hare (Only One Day)

    Annie calls me for dinner. It’s simple Indonesian, just for first night. she apologizes. It smells and looks amazing. We sit to eat. I grip my napkin in my lap with my left hand. Trying to distract it from helping me eat. (Right hand good,…

  • Hujan! (or Rain!)

    Annie tells Oka to stop at the market, rows of fresh fruit and meat. At the check-stands, mediocre karaoke singers take turns serenading shoppers as they come and go in the dripping evening. I point to things like a five year old and ask for…

  • Hati-Hati! (Arriving in Indonesia, Alone)

    It takes two hours to get through the visa line. I talk to equally tired, disoriented travelers as we wait. It impresses them that I’m staying for a month, that I found my house on Craigslist, that a last minute snafu over dates makes me…

  • Sama Sama (or You Are Welcome II)

    I have the entire row to myself, in the double-decker jet. After a chicken and rice dinner served by green pin-striped waitresses, I don EVA Air’s bright green travel slippers and curl up in the 4 pillows and 4 blankets left to my row with…

  • Kemabli (or You Are Welcome)

    It’s 1am at the Sea Tac airport. It’s deserted and dark. Security takes all of 20 seconds. I ride the shuttle, through concrete tunnels, alone. I clutch an Indonesian dictionary and practice. Kembali or you are welcome. The escalator ride up deposits me into a…

  • Teri Mi Kasih! (or Thank you!)

    I brush the last coat of stain on the most exposed wall of my house. Breathe a huge sigh of relief to be done for the year. They show up around 8pm. As I stuff what seems like the equivalent to the REI range of…

  • Last Day and a New Idea

    My last day in Seattle is a sunny, warm blur. No time for slow buses, I drive downtown for the final sprint of last minute errands, in between alternating hours of work and a final coat of stain on my little cedar shingled house, before…

  • Between Pike and Union

    I hear his music before I see him. Deep bass notes push vibrating thuds through cheap speakers to land, rubbery and hollow but welcomed, on my ears. Familiar lyrics make me smile and my hum turns to singing, while he slides by me. Turning, dancing,…

  • Walking Home

    The first overcast morning in New Orleans feebly sprinkles tiny, warm droplets. It’s early and quiet. Something about rain, in New Orleans is strange, even as light and harmless as it’s falling now. My mind tired from a late night, drenched in green, gold and…

  • A Long Drive

    I keep driving and writing. North through Alexandria, east to the cold cobblestones of Natchitoches, through dark pines and green grass. Then south. Tired of the cold rain, I head back south to the water and endless bayous. At my hotel in New Iberia (where…

  • Bayous and Backroads

    A big paper map in one hand, the steering wheel in the other–I amble off the main highway for something less traveled. Today I want to see what’s behind the tourist brochures and swamp tours. So I fly down lonely roads of crushed, white shell…

  • Leaving the City

    I left the black asphalt 100 miles ago. Since then it’s been warm, ruddy concrete framed with bright emerald-grass. Against the red background the yellow line in the middle is that much more intense and brighter – and I follow it blindly. I have general…

  • I Won’t Hesitate No More, No More

    Up bright and early, bags packed, and a nice walk to St. Louis Street—-past the street cleaners and sweepers, preparing for the weekend crowds—to pickup my rental car. On the way, I help some grateful tourists find their way to Toulouse Street. I got a…

  • Move if You Wanna, Move, Move

    Food and music. My favorite things about traveling are discovering and enjoying both. The street musicians on every corner are phenomenal. The other are the street performers and the (dirty South!) hip hop. Walking through stately Jackson Square. I’m greeted by a loudspeaker, broadcasting the…

  • The Second Line (Life & Death in New Orleans)

    Barbara dropped the paper off yesterday, Look. A second line on Frenchmen St. It’s tomorrow. So I wrapped up work early, locked up shop at 1pm like everyone else in town, to walk down to The Spotted Cat, to watch the funeral procession, trying to…

  • Hey Lady!

    I was walking home from the French Quarter. Had a craving for lemonade, baguettes and raspberry sherbet, decided instant satisfaction was well worth the beautiful walk to Rouse’s at sunset. Walking through the meandering streets, past pepto-pink stucco, worn brick and peeling paint of the…

  • Trained Killer

    She calls him the trained killer. The brother of the woman next door who’s come to stay in the other room at the bed & breakfast. When I meet him, he pulls away from his cigarette to shake my hand. The sleeve of his black…

  • All My Shortening

    An afternoon like any other, Tom and Barbara had made their way to the front porch, drinks in hand. I’d just returned from gumbo and reading in the French Quarter. We sit outside and listen to the river boat calliope play playful, ghostly melodies as…

  • Dynamics of Katrina

    Tom offered to drive us, a resident tour-guide. The lower 9th Ward is not as far from Marigny as I thought it would be. Houses get gradually rougher and less ornate. Floor to ceiling bars now grace the front porches of many a front stoop…

  • Katrina

    Listening to Barbara and Tom’s own horror stories of feet of water, trees through the roof, on alert for looters, fighting rising waters to save elderly parents – all while 70 themselves – it was strange to try to imagine something worse. But there it…

  • In the Midst of it All…

    There is a steady stream of volunteers, grass roots groups making a noticeable difference–from cleanup and re-building to mowing back overgrown lawns. New houses are slowly erected and homeowners move back in. Most notably is Brad Pitt’s “Make it Right” organization. Modern, crrrrrazy-futuristic looking, super…

  • In the French Market

    Louisiana sluffed off the chillier weather and temperate breezes blow gently through blue-sky days. The morning routine starts at 7 or 8 am (5 or 6 am Pacific Time), coffee with chicory, shutters opened to let in the light of the day. Door left open…

  • The Hairspray’s Just Better Here….

    By the end of the first day, we’d tracked down a mini-mart and stocked up on feminine essentials: shampoo, conditioner, etc. The next morning’s shower was glow-or-ious after traveling for the previous couple days. Jamie realized it first: the girl products just smell better here.…

  • You Gotta Give All You Got!

    A thoroughly satisfying day of working behind us, another delicious dinner, we walked arm in arm down Royal to the tiny shops on Frenchman Street, in search of a grocery and a bottle of wine. Interesting thing about New Orleans, grocery stores are few and…

  • Forging the Great Mississippi…and back.

    On my list of things to do in this life, I’ll admit, crossing the Mississippi River never ranked very high. (Ok, maybe it wasn’t really on this list at all…). But with the interwebs not working correctly at 2216 Royal, I needed a solution –…

  • The Orange Couch

    Sometimes, after wandering block after block, you realize the best things are right there in front of you all along. This is true for coffee in Marigny. A couple blocks from the house is an ageless building newly transformed by fresh, snow-white walls, bright green…

  • The Scene

    Waking up the first morning to the sounds of the south. Ok, maybe it sounded like any other street—a car or two, a bus, unapologetic sunshine peaking through the half-closed shutters of gigantic windows, the constant bluster of a freezing northern wind that had swept…

  • Southern Hospitality

    The rental owner, our gracious host, Barbara appears through the crack of one massive shutter, waiting for us. Short gray hair and lipstick, a commanding way of talking to you that makes you feel both welcomed and taken care of in the same instance. She…

  • Make Some Big Jumps (Living in New Orleans)

    Our taxi driver from the airport, born and raised in New Orleans, is soft spoken with that soft lilt that teases the most mundane words into something soothing and seductive. It’s the voice of my grandfather, the voice of a southerner. In a very un-scientific…

  • Magic Taco Bus

    We prepared by drinking a Corona (Light) in the afternoon sun of the first truly beautiful Saturday of an otherwise overcast June. That’s all it took for my light-weight buzz to kick in and accompany Nic and I down Rainier Ave to the taco bus.…

  • Bank of America Tacos

    The craving for tacos can strike at the strangest times. Soaking in a hot, steaming bubble bath–after a cold, wet mountain bike ride that ended in me (the heroine) riding gallantly down some stairs to crash on pavement so I could avoid hitting the (insolent)…

  • You have to start somewhere…

    Upon opening the white styrofoam package of goodness, I quickly realized I would be starting close to the bottom. (Or at least, I hoped…) I’d made my first mistake ordering carne asada combination plate. Lesson number one: stick with tacos. The meat was about cardboard…

  • Taco Truck Tuesday!

    Tonight, as I drove home from Bellevue, across an abysmal Lake Washington, cold rain dripped from new spring leaves and collected in muddy puddles. A far cry from the sandy, warm beaches of Mexico. And yet all I could think about were tacos. No time…