Inzozi Nziza
For my PICA internship, I am spending this summer working at Inzozi Nziza (Sweet Dreams), an ice cream shop in Butare, Rwanda. This may sound like a strange choice, but as an international relations major with a focus in international development, I knew I wanted to spend my summer working in the field. I began [...]
Guns N’ Roses
“Sorry it went straight to voicemail,” he said. “A Grad missile hit the city today so the cell phone lines are going crazy.” No problem. A Grad missile. Cousin to the Qassam rocket, gift package from the Gaza Strip. My plans for the weekend in Be’er Sheva, in the desert area of Israel, were casually [...]
The Natives Are Ambivalent: A Colonizer’s Perception of Italy
The following is a satire and should be interpreted as such: When I told my professor at Università per Stranieri di Perugia (University for Foreigners of Perugia) that I am learning Italian so I can conquer and colonize Italy, she laughed. The good news is that they’re unsuspecting. The bad news is that we Americans [...]
Shalom Shalom Shalom
Welcome to Tel Aviv, Israel. The city that never sleeps…I would admit that I’m ripping that off of NYC but I swear there’s a saying in Hebrew here that means the same thing. And for my first week here I most definitely experienced it firsthand. To preface the next few months of (hopefully) consistent documentation [...]
Junior Jennie Edgar Finds Herself in Mali
As I stood in the dimly lit room of a rural maternity, I watched life begin on a small, rusting table. The likelihood that the woman, who looked into my eyes as her son breathed his first breath, would die from preventable complications was one of the highest in the world. She did not say [...]
A Portrait of the Artist as a Middle-Aged Moroccan
Note: I just took part in animal sacrifice, but had been on the road for a while so I have some content locked up in the vaults. Details of slaughtering a helpless ram to follow soon. Happy Aid! We were unsure. We were uneasy. We both had little spurts of Moroccan diarrhea throughout the day. [...]
Lacking Levity
About a month ago I pulled a homeless man out of the tracks of a metro train after he had passed out, face down in the tunnel. I didn’t want to write about it for a long time simply because it seemed self indulgent and unnecessary and oddly traumatizing. After all, I don’t know this [...]
New London to London
“Don’t be alarmed if someone confronts you with the question, ‘Do you own a gun?’”, she said. “Also, don’t take any attacks on American foreign policy personally.”
Djemma el F’na
Note: Sorry for the lack of posting to any and all that were concerned; there is a lack of good, fresh-squeezed internet in Morocco. As is such, these events happened weeks ago. Much has been written about this circus of food and entertainment located in the heart of Marrakesh’s medina, but I will tell you [...]
Puzzling Professori
In Italy, there is a slight role reversal between students and their teachers. First, my classes commonly do not start on time. The hour marked on our schedules seems to be more a suggestion than a rule. At times, when I feel as though I have arrived egregiously late, the professor has not yet arrived [...]
From feathers to chicken: The backwards evolution of a bird
This program, “WordPress” ( the one we use to put these lovely blog posts on the Internet), is really starting to kill me. Not “kill me” in the Holden Caulfield sense of the phrase but in the “this program won’t let me put videos on the page” sense. Hence I have to post ridiculous videos [...]
The Paris Joy Initiative
This marks week one of what I am referring to as “The Paris Joy Initiative.” That’s right, I am personally bent on injecting joy into this city. Don’t get me wrong, Parisians know how to throw down with the best of them but they also know how to look miserable better than any nationality on [...]
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