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…
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,…
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…
Welcome to New Zealand
Around lunchtime on Tuesday (Monday evening for those on the East Coast) I felt my world shake. The floorboards rattled, lamps and bedside goods threatened to fall from their perch, picture-frames twisted violently…
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….
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
The french work ethic…slanderous remarks
Although my last post may appear to only have been posted an hour or two ago it was in fact posted two days ago…just on the wrong page. Therefore this post within such…
