Tag: Africa
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Passing Through
Before each journey, we’re apt to envision ourselves as characters in foreign scenes, playing out fantasies about how our time abroad may pass. And prior to arriving in Ethiopia, my imagination had me crammed into local buses, scruffy and tired, as long, lush sections of open grasslands reflected back against my sunglasses. Nigerian afrobeats would…
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Conversations with Walid
Note: This short piece sidesteps the chronology of my present journey and profiles a Moroccan man I met two and a half months ago at the start of the trip. We are all broken records to some degree. We hitch our carts to ideas we identify with and repeat them to each other, ad nauseum.…
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Stitched up in Ethiopia
Good travel is filled with unexpected moments. I welcome them, hope for them, and make choices that expedite their arrival. Not every moment needs to be a guessing game, but it sure as hell can’t be entirely predictable. “The unexpected” often creates discomfort and distress. Other times, it brings joy and self-discovery. When we walk…
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A Glimpse of Tunisia
In November 2010, I found myself hunched over a table in Amman, Jordan, sitting across from three university professors. The location was a Pizza Hut—the last place I thought we’d be—and I did my best to feign a smile. They thought I’d be homesick after five months of traveling and that a nice taste of…
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Algeria/Tunisia Border Crossing
I waved at Maleyka and her cousins once more before throwing my bag in the taxi. “Sahha, Merci,” I said, knowing this was the last time I’d see familiar faces for a while. Goodbyes are countless when one travels this way for months on end. As travelers, we forge meaningful connections during our time with…
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Desert Discoveries
I wasn’t supposed to be out here in the desert. The plan was to take a simple 1-hour flight from Algiers to Tunis, with the worst of the bumps coming from some light mid-air turbulence. To grant my visa, Algeria required both arrival and departure flights to be booked in advance, but I hated this…
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Algerian News Report on my Travels
Here’s a 10 minute report by El Bilad TV on my journey to Algeria to train jiu jitsu. A journalist thought my writing project carried merit and spent a day with us shooting the above. It’s in Arabic, but the gist is that any chance for human connection is a beautiful thing, and we should…