An opportunity to visit the Black Sea

These are some of the things that happen when you open yourself up to the Universe...

While I was in Portugal, recuperating from the health problems I had in Africa, I had the opportunity to visit Turkey. The European Commission in conjunction with the Turkish government was hosting a cultural exchange, and student representatives of a handful of countries were going to share a bit of information and exchange with Turkey, a country that has not gained admission to the EU and is clearly a bit put off by it. At the last minute, 2 students from Lisbon dropped out. Talk about being in the right place at the right time! I was permitted to take their place despite not being Portuguese and even more so not being part of the EU whatsoever! In less than 3 days, I would set off to the Black Sea with two of my very good friends from Portugal. I changed my flight home to account for the 8 days we would spend in Turkey and we jumped up and down together in excitement and laughter when I got the green light. Unbelievable!

We routed through Istanbul on our way to Rize, which is the tea capital in the eastern part of Turkey. It was nice to see the lives of people outside of the big cosmopolitan cities and understand the values and lives they lead. The higher altitudes of Turkey look much like what I imagine northern Germany or Austria would look like. Cold, green, and just barely visible through the mist. We would experience our first real Turkish Bath and taste Turkish Delights on this trip. As well as the hospitality and hard work that families put in to make it through their day-to-day lives. We were fed the most sumptuous food, and plates piled with breads and meats and vegetables, followed by endless bowls of fresh fruit plucked from their yards.

The spirit and determination of these young people were amazing. Every night, there would always be dancing. I would not keep up. The traditional circle dance took on a whole new meaning when you saw how everyone participated and it was as natural as breathing to most. The rest of my time spent in Rize and Guneysu was a blur of chai and dancing and young girls approaching me to ask "do you love Turkey?". It was wonderful!!

We participated in some tours, seeing some beautiful schools serving the local children, and drank copious amounts of cai tea. There is so much agriculture here in Rize, but the labor is hard. An entire bush of green leaves is needed to make a single cup of tea. In addition, it was clear that the credit crunch also affected this country. We saw multiple buildings that seemed to have been half-erected and recently abandoned due to project funds simply running out, leaving them with walls and a roof intact but no windows or doors.

We finally departed through Istanbul again, having a night here before returning to Portugal. We tried to absorb as much as we could of this place, which seemed like a chaotic swarm of people, smells and sights after our relatively peaceful and calm time in the countryside. What a diverse and amazing country. And there's nothing quite like hearing the dueling calls to prayer between the Blue Mosque and the Agia Sofia. The chanting is a bit mournful and soothing at the same time. The city was becoming more vibrant and more sensual by the minute.

We made our way to the spice market after visiting the world famous mosques. Stalls inside a huge stone hall sold everything from rugs to lamps to spices to Black Sea caviar. Vendors were helpful and not pushy, seeming to have hospitality at the forefront of everything they did. I came home with wonderful sealed bags of some of the best spices I have ever laid hands on and a box brimming with turkish delight. I would gladly return once a year to get my years' supply of their delightful concoctions. My cooking definitely tastes a whole lot better with them!

Habitat for Humanity Portugal

In 2007, I had the pleasure of being on a Habitat for Humanity Global Village team to Braga, Portugal. On the heels of my trip to Tanzania, I was eager to participate in more opportunities for social change. I've always wanted to participate in Habitat for Humanity, and the international trips seemed to be just the formula for purpose, travel and adventure. Few people think of Portugal when they think of poverty, but of course you can find poverty anywhere. I personally believe that in a country like Portugal, you can actually do a more significant amount of good with the same effort - it does not seem so much like a drop in the bucket. Helping a single family build a house in Portugal will likely house close kin, relatives, and many generations to come. It is a country with enough infrastructure and historical memory to keep a beautiful gift for a long time to come.

Little did I know that I would become lifelong friends with some of the local Portuguese that I met there. The volunteer staff consisted almost exclusively of young adults right around my age. This was in stark contrast to my team, which consisted of mostly women in their 40s and 50s, some of which I also became friends with.

So in May of 2009, while I was still in Europe, I decided to stopover and visit my good friends who I have not seen in about 2 years, with whom I still chatted with on a daily basis. It would turn out that my "stopover" would turn into nearly 3 months of reflection, recovery and participation in one of the most beautiful places in the world - northern Portugal.

Portugal is such an interesting place and very close to my heart. When most people travel to Europe, the common destinations are generally Paris, London, and bits of Spain, Italy and Germany. There's also a certain type of person that really loves Amsterdam. But rarely do you hear someone desiring to visit Portugal! This is a great mistake...

There was a time when the empires of Portugal and Spain literally divided the world between them, ever expanding. And you can sense this somewhat when you visit. Ancient buildings, bridges, castles and waterways older than America herself are still standing and in excellent condition, adorning this beautiful country of wine, cod and rolling hills. Anything you can think of, is somehow related or finds its roots in this place. One of my favorite Chinese desserts - the egg tart - originated here! Portuguese natas are a flakier, lovelier version of what eventually found its way to Macau, Hong Kong, and then the rest of China. Amazing that something so traditional in China now would have its origins in Portugal.

I have always favored Braga, the 3rd most populous city in the country located in northern Portugal approximately 1 hour outside of Porto, with its beautiful green scenery, farms and animals being raised at every home, and close family relationships. Lisbon, the more famous Southern city, is busier, dirtier and seems to have less identity (and by that I mean it feels like most large European cities) and community than its Northern neighbors. North Portugal boasts clean (but cold) beaches, amazing food and the most friendly people in the country.

There are limitless things to do just in Porto - one of my favorite things to do here is shop. You will discover the most refined handbags, wallets, jewelry and fashionable clothes. And unlike what you find in the US, the goods made here are of high quality materials made with high quality hands. Approximately half the population does very well here, so you will find every delightful thing imaginable at your feet. But the other half does not live so well. Not so much in squalor and oppression, just very much a hand-to-mouth existence. And these are precisely the people that Habitat for Humanity helps.

It's really a shame that such a beautiful country has something like 40% unemployment! Government expenditure is a large portion of GDP and bureaucracy is thick and layered. There is little innovation, but perhaps that will change with the construction of huge Iberian International Laboratory of Technology in Braga. Portugal needs to stop resting on its beautiful and high quality laurels and take a stab at innovation, or raise its profile for tourism. How this isn't one of the most coveted places to go on vacation is beyond me! Luckily inflation is low so it's not quite as difficult to get by and doesn't hit me in the gut the way the rest of Europe seems to. And there is no doubt that the Habitat for Humanity organization makes a crucial difference.

The Habitat team here is particularly kind, fun and thoughtful. If you have always wanted to participate in a Global Village trip to do something positive and character-building - don't give it a second thought and sign up for a Global Village trip to Portugal. You will be so very glad you did. The environment is exceptional, the air is clean, most people speak English (perhaps because the younger generation has some strange obsession with our show "Friends"), and the food and drink are delicious. If you have any questions at all or want some help getting a team together, please feel free to contact me. I would like to return with a team and introduce as many people to this beautiful country as I can.

Here is the link to the official habitat for Humanity Global Villages site: Habitat for Humanity - Global Village

For some reason there aren't any trips scheduled for Portugal, so once again feel free to contact me. They currently have two sites that need volunteers in some of the most beautiful towns in Northern Portugal: Amarente and Braga.

Pygmies in Lobaye

As if it was humanly possible to further marginalize an already impoverished community... I'd like to introduce you to a pygmie tribe in a region of CAR called the Aka pygmies.

Pygmies have a long a history of being abused and enslaved by the Bantu, due to their small stature and lighter skin. There was even a heartbreaking example of a pygmie being brought to the Bronx Zoo in 1916 or so and he was put in a monkey cage. He eventually committed suicide. I didn't know what to expect when I saw them, but an acquaintance had visited a tribe (there are multiple pygmy tribes, numbering something like 13,000 inhabitants in all of CAR) that were doing really well because they were under the care and protection of a catholic nunnery. I honestly didn't expect their living conditions to be this lacking.

When we arrived, there were some villagers standing around these really dismal huts and I thought to myself.. "when are the pygmies coming?!" I guess I was expecting something bizarre, perhaps a very teeny person like in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. But these villagers WERE the pygmies, I figured it out when one lady smiled - some of them file all their front/visible teeth into sharp triangles and let me tell you, it is a scary thing to see - something out of a fantasy film.

Maybe it's because I'm short, but I didn't think they were noticeably small. Not that this is even a reason to be discriminated against, but the difference is literally something like 3 inches or close to that. But this isn't something new in the various continents where shades of skin can be the distinguishing factor between a Brahmin and a servant.


This particular pygmie tribe was nomadic, traveling from area to area in search of larvae, fruit and vegetation to eat. They did not farm, raise animals or participate in anything that would force them to be sedentary. There was a particularly beautiful woman here with tribal scarring and her teeth were filed into points. Perhaps she was the wife of warrior pygmie.

But their lives are just so difficult. I thought I saw poverty in Kaga Bandoro. Malnourished children, skinny, young moms, skinny old moms that probably were much younger than they looked, walking dozens of kilometers for food and water. But this type of poverty.. oh my god. They didn't even wear traditional dress, they literally wore RAGS. Children had no underpants and sat on the earth (there were ants and bugs on the ground, mind you) on their bare bottoms. Babies being held in the mothers' laps peed right into their laps.

It was a difficult day witnessing what one can only describe as abject poverty. UNICEF was working in cooperation with an NGO called Coopi to assist in obtaining rights to medical care and citizenship in CAR. Due to the unofficial existance and lack of settlement, many born to these tribes fail to have proper birth certificates or registration, adding to the problems of an already tenuous existence.

Everything stunk no matter where you went in their village. I didn't see water anywhere. And the worst part is that they obviously felt scared and dejected because they had lived most of their history being subjugated and not knowing how to fight for themselves.

 So Coopi is there to do the very, very basics. They come to encourage them to become registered and have their children's birth registered so that they can have the same rights as everyone else, such as attending school or getting medical care or voting. The sad thing is that none of these (except for voting, perhaps) are free. Pygmies live a purely sustainance-only way of life so extra money is unheard of. But the problems in undeveloped parts of Africa are actually MAGNIFIED here (if somehow possible, defying the laws of reason).


But all this absolutely pales in comparison to the interview we were about to have later with the Mayor of the town that this tribe resided near.

Here are notes I jotted down during the interview with the mayor. The goal was to understand the causes of discrimination and what the sentiment was towards possible improvements in attitude towards this very marginalized community.

Can you describe any discrimination against pygmies either now or a very long time ago?"
No, pygmies are never discriminated against, OK maybe a little bit, but now they sit side by side with us in churches, schools. There is a pygmy becoming a priest - isn’t that wonderful news?!

Okay.. forget pygmies. Does it concern you at all that out of 280 births in your town over the course of a year, only 86 of them had birth registrations?

We have a book that tells them it is mandatory. And pygmies, if they get this birth registration, it is a piece of paper to them, they will lose it in the forest!

Rebecca asked what he would ask UNICEF or Coopi to do to help end discrimination. He finally gave up his true feeling and said the following... "We have written to the EU and UN many times to ask them to build a separate village for the pygmies. This way they will not be discriminated in terms of wages and be taken advantage of - they can work for each other! And this way we can keep an eye on them so they won't steal our crops and animals. They are thieves! They always move around from place to place so we can not catch them!" 

I wish this were not a true story, but sadly..  the mayor of Mbaiki wants to create a Pygmy reservation..

Political chats, Chavez' roots in gaudy Venezuela, casual prostitution and the African Diaspora

At a local bar tonight, I met a political advisor to the UN in CAR who is Nigerian. Over a beer for him and a coke for me, I raided his mind for thoughts on Central Africa and poverty at large. Please keep in mind all this is completely anecdotal and not a prepared discourse on poverty in Africa.

He described the reasons for suffering and instability in a variety of different countries. The poverty found in CAR (Central African Republic) is primarily poverty-based, resulting in a quiet, docile suffering. He believes this sort of instability only needs a reasonable cash inflow so that people are not hungry and always looking for their next meal. Quickly ameliorated through foreign investment, a less corrupt government - all in order to bring opportunity. On the other hand, a failed country like Sudan with reasonable infrastructure and technology is in need of a strong, military show of power in order to bring peace against constantly warring factions. And then we come to his birthplace: Nigeria. He sadly but firmly gave his thoughts on how it is completely hopeless to solve poverty in a place like Nigeria because there is SO much money there. A handful of citizens can literally CREATE an army, CREATE a government that they themselves control they have that much money, connections and resources at their fingertips. He indicated that Nigeria will necessitate much time for the people to realize that bribes and short term gains will not last with each regime change.

We then migrated over to the topic of Chavez and Venezuela. I never knew that Venezuela was a dozen years ago - a playboy's paradise. Private islands, multiple private jet strips, homes with a pool on the top floor and a discotec the floor below - it was probably like Dubai in terms of extravagance but with much, much better weather! This political advisor knew Chavez personally and he shared how that particular revolution came about. Latin America has a history of bloody revolution, countrymen putting their lives on the line to stand up for what they believe in. I really do believe Latin American truly perfected the concept of revolution.

Rather than ask protestors to put their lives at risk, he broadcast to all the people a single task: At 1pm, everyone who was starving - grab an empty pot, go outside and bang as hard as you can on this pot. Give your hunger an audible sound. Apparently the clanging resonated throughout the land and this very symbolic gesture let people throughout the country know that they were not isolated in their poverty and their anger. And that is how he came into power.


He mentioned Chad briefly and I was at once frightened that it was the neighboring country to the north of us and relieved that I wasn't physically IN Chad. Chad is known in the humanitarian world as a country where a soldier or rebel will not just wave his gun around in your face, but actually pull the trigger and put a bullet in you without uttering a word. But his talk about Chad reminded me that Africa is clearly a land of massive refugees. Chadians and Sudanians escape to CAR, Rwandans flee to Tanzania, and Somalis find refuge in Kenya. Sometimes this is due to political/ethnic war, sometimes it's for something as simple as finding grass to graze goats because your land is so arid and as a goatherder, what other choice do you have but to keep walking until you find food for your flock. But these goatherders will indeed carry sub-machine guns to protect their flock, causing all sorts of problems in the lands they venture to. Tensions obviously arise when an outsider tries to take what little resources your country has, even something we consider as paltry as grass to feed on.

A big topic amongst Afro-centric intellectuals is apparently the dichotomy between tribal violence vs. colonial violence. And from tribal violence they refer to things like cannibalism, scalping, etc. From the story above, and countless others I'm sure you've heard of, you can see how colonial violence is massive and can seriously alter the psychology towards violence of an otherwise modern people. Coups in Africa have been extremely violent, perhaps due to all that they were exposed to from colonial powers, this became the only way in which to assert authority.

We then moved onto the topic of prostitution. It is impossible to go anywhere in Africa - bars, restaurants are all full of prostitutes. But it's a little different here than in the US. At least in Bangui, there is little in the sense of a power dynamic of pimps and prostitutes. It's entirely poverty-related and the supply is so vast that it's considered a casual thing that even college students do to make a little money. They get very little, maybe enough to feed themselves for the next day or two. The violence that is rampant in American prostitution doesn't seem to be the case here, and there's actually no guarantee of sex. It's seen kind of like arm candy or companionship I guess. I don't know, I thought that was interesting because I absolutely loathe the concept of prostitution. This version doesn't make it anymore palatable, or the degradation any milder, but it sits differently in my head for some reason. Well, people will always do what they can to survive. And at the very least there isn't the violent territoriality of an organized underground sex trade.

A Bit About Bangui

I had the privilege of working with the UNICEF office in Bangui in early 2009. What an interesting place this was - in the middle of the African Continent and cursed with the evil trio of underdevelopment, extreme poverty, and possessing natural extractive resources (in this case diamonds, uranium, and timber) that will ultimately exploit the people and harm the land.

Luckily there's a murky brown river here, where at the very least fish can be caught for sustenance. The soil is such a bright red that it is unable to sustain much vegetation beyond mango trees and cassava. Even the simplest things such as onions are imported all the way from Cameroon. Locals buy and eat monkeys caught outside the capital. When one is nearly starving, it seems improper to judge how you are getting your food.

Malaria is endemic here. In the month that I've been here, at least half the office has caught malaria. The Malarone I've been taking seems to be protecting me somewhat, but nothing can protect my sensitive stomach from the water and food - no matter how careful I am.

There's one major road through the capital, dammed up by multiple makeshift "checkpoints" to extract money from any expats or private companies that brave the roads to transport goods and cargo. This can be seen as corruption (and accurately so), but it seems more to be a very strong sense of doing whatever is necessary to get by today, with little thought of how it might affect everyone else, tomorrow.

raison d’être

In 2006, I had the privilege of meeting a group of young international contemporaries who were actively making a difference in the world. It was at a stage in my life where I had barely begun my own career, but was well aware of where it would lead me if I continued on this straight and narrow path. We were attending a wedding in Tanzania, and it was on this remote part of the planet that my world-view was smashed open and things appeared all at once so vast, yet richer and more accessible. Since then I've actively worked at grasping at the fringes and snippets of global information and development rhetoric, trying to weave it into something comprehensible, particularly for an American. It is no secret that we are given a biased, tailored and hegemonic version of what truly goes on in the world.

As a whole, we've definitely evolved into a more open, accepting and socially responsibly society. many of us privileged enough to actively participate in this global arena have common interests and desires: far-flung travel, worthy causes, adventure, volunteerism, human interest - all in the name of leading a meaningful, participatory life. My blog will hopefully exist at the heart of all this, and be relevant to all that maintain a curiosity about the world around them.