travel

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Foreign Aid, the Self, Reflection

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Kakubo village, located in Chongwe district outside Lusaka, Zambia, is a quaint place by U.S. Standards. Nestled close to the Great East Highway, actually bisected by it, the village echoes of trucks carrying un-identifiable covered loads, cars screeching to safe speeds in order to prevent being flung into the air by speed bumps stretching several kilometers- these deter ants more deflated from asphalt heated by the mid-day sun then crushed back into the Earth by the ceaseless traffic which plods over them.  Such heat can only be avoided by covering in whatever shade is accessible or a  rain shower that feeds the endless maize crops

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Engage Others, Nudge the World

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During one summer afternoon in 2014 I sat outside overlooking thirty five acres of pristine animal farmland- a few pastures that house three horses and countless sheep and goats, an expansive open field where a lawn tractor is its closest intimate partner, and dozens of acres overgrown with buckthorn and downed trees, which, over time, clearing them has become my greatest domestic escape. The effort to maintain the farm’s namesake, Serenity Farm, can often be anything but. It is a daily reminder that in order to enjoy the things we love, sacrifice often looms immediately preceding.

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6,000 Miles: Where Does it Lead?

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In 2008, I traveled to Ecuador to fulfill a desire to see the world.  That experience was the spark for a new journey the following year to over twenty countries; an experience of ebbs and flows, which ultimately was the kindling for what would become my passion.  In 2010, the fire was raging, and I spent more time exploring the world.  In 2012, after more sacrifices and money earnestly saved, I saw smoke signals coming from a land inhabited by infamous nomads.  I followed those plumes to their source.  Eventually, though, all roads lead to home.

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Nomadic

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Imagine yourself peering at a landscape so vast that the image portrayed through your eyes is just a big mirage. As you walk toward it, its distance never seems to get closer. All you know is that two thousand sheep, goats and a handful of camels are somewhere in front of you and your job is to track them, being sure they are moving in the correct direction. Sometimes your dogs are properly escorting these animals, but whose to say they know the route? You jump off the horse, remove a monocular from beneath your deel and calmly verify the whereabouts of your lifeline. You do this repeatedly. In some cases for up to thirty days, two times a year. Your goal is to find the best grazing land for your animals because without them you cannot eat, you cannot make a living. During this month of travel across the desolate steppe you sleep on the bare ground at night. Finally, at the end of this epic journey you have traveled six hundred miles in combination of horseback and on foot delivering your livestock to mother nature's most impressive landscape, Mongolia.