It’s taken a long time to write this; I left Bangladesh six months ago. I like to come away from every experience knowing what I learned, knowing what kind of impact it had on me. Bangladesh was just so overwhelming, and I learned so much there, that I am still not sure what impact it has had on me, or what lasting effect it will have on me, for that matter. Living for two years in Dhaka was both not enough and too much. There are so many amazing people to spend time with, and organizations to learn about, that I would have been hard-pressed to get enough of that in two years. I wish I had spent more time learning about the work that Acid Survivors does, the school boats made by BRAC, the medical ... read more

Commutes are the most mundane part of our lives, and yet in each country I live in I find them fascinating. Traveling in other countries I ask people not what they do, but how they get to work. Many people tell me that they live nearby and walk to work, or even better, that they live upstairs from their shop and just have to walk downstairs in the morning. An easier commute, yet worse option in my opinion, is to sleep at work and not have another home. Living in the US, I invariably drove my own car to work, often eating lunch at my desk. In Morocco I walked to work, walked home every day for lunch and walked back again in the afternoons. I enjoyed walking home in the evenings until somebody tried to ... read more

During my Eid holidays from work in Bangladesh I flew up to Nepal for a week with my friend Catherine's family. She married into a Nepalese family almost ten years ago and has been encouraging me to go visit them ever since. Even though she couldn't get away from work this year, her husband Santosh came from London for the festival of Dashian, also known as Durga Puja. I was so fortunate to have Santosh’s family take such good care of me all week. I arrived from Bangladesh with the end of a terrible cold and lingering cough. They prepared endless cups of tea for me, sometimes using ginger from their garden to calm the cough. I stayed in a beautiful room with big windows on three sides, looking out onto the hills up the valley. ... read more

Peru is a vast and diverse country, so with only two weeks I had to severely cut back on the list of places I wanted to go. Machu Picchu was obviously a high priority, as were the ruins of the Sacred Valley near Cusco. I decided to focus only on a small area of the south, which I was dismayed to find out is actually called the Gringo Trail. Welcome back to the Americas. Trying not to read about any of the amazing places in the north, I started to narrow down the list. After reading about vicuñas in a travel magazine I had to find a way to see one in the wild. My hometown of Boise, Idaho is home to the World Center for Birds of Prey; so spotting endangered condors was also an ... read more

Bangladesh is choc-full of charities and NGOs. It’s a volunteer’s paradise because there is an endless number of organizations that need help. This weekend I visited the Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralyzed (CRP), which is a very well-known organization in Bangladesh. Hospitals and clinics all around the country refer people to CRP for services, which are usually provided for free. Few people can afford health care here, and fewer have any form of health insurance. If you break your back in Bangladesh, CRP may be your only hope. Every year they host an Open Day, welcoming in neighbors and thanking sponsors. I was invited to attend as part of a group, which has worked with CRP inpatient children for years, helping them with physical rehabilitation in a swimming pool. We were greeted warmly by ... read more