Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is not known to have written much about his epic, and often painful, travels – to Kazakhstan and his years in the gulag, to Germany when exiled and made stateless by the Soviet authorities, later around the world as a celebrated Nobel laureate, and eventually back to Mother Russia. But he did write … More Gift of the Gulag: Pebble on the Tongue
Spring may be the season of daffodils and birdsong, but a shift in the jet stream also lifts a curtain on the annual drama of tornadoes. We once sat enthralled while listening in disbelief to the nonchalance of friends in a Tulsa, OK suburb who described the ravages of a storm that passed within hailing … More In A Potato Cellar: Beneath the Sign of a Ropey Tornado
Not only the road to Mandalay, but city streets the length and breadth of Myanmar stream today with protestors flashing the three-fingered salute, with flotillas of motorcycles and scooters, monks in maroon robes, even the occasional elephant. Unseen are the armies of government workers, railway staff, nurses and doctors, power plant personnel and bank tellers … More Myanmar: The Road Beyond Mandalay
Few cities in Europe can match Barcelona for its storehouse of cultural riches. The tourist industry knows it only too well, sending 30 million visitors coursing its way every year. Very nearly all of them were surrounding the famous Sagrada Familia basilica the day we arrived by train from Valencia. We’d been foresighted enough to … More Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia: Beware the #30 Tram
During the harrowing years of the AIDS pandemic in southern Africa, a saying was frequently heard at memorial gatherings. It went something like this: a In this sea of sorrow, we must not be strangers.
No darkness on earth can match the depth of a desert night. No firmament of stars can rival the spectacle of a desert sky. For the most part it is only the drifted face of sand and the beasts of the wild who are witness to such silent marvels. Except a small fraternity of herders … More Kalahari Yuletide: A Cattlepost State of Mind
I traveled with a friend one day to visit a woman healer in a village at the edge of the Kalahari. She received us eagerly as we chattered about her late father, a prominent bishop whose mantle she had taken up. She set out some hand-crafted folding chairs slung with strips of cowhide of a … More Minimalist Safety: Story For a Cluttered World
Make your way, as we did once, southeast from Marrakech up the Ourika Valley into the Atlas mountains of Morocco, and you could well find yourself on the second floor of a stone cottage, sipping sheeba, a hot cup of Berber hospitality. With the roar of snow melt in the background, our host explains that … More Souvenir: Wormwood and Mint in the High Atlas
Proverbs, often referred to as ‘deep language’, are a ready mark of traditional societies. And their absence from everyday discourse marks a shift away from ‘wisdom’ toward a knowledge, or information culture. I once heard a hacker say that creeping into a guarded digital domain is like breaking into a gothic cathedral; finding architecture replete … More Trekking To the Polls: Proverbial Wisdom on Leadership
When we set out on travels to remote locations, I’ve made it a habit to carry in my satchel a small shortwave radio even in this age of the internet. Deep in the Himalaya, in equatorial rain forest, or the desert interiors of Africa, a small hand set with fully extended aerial has permitted access … More Truth-Telling in the Darkness: Grief Turned To Delirious Joy
