On June 24th, I will begin a 6 day climb to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Africa. The purpose of my climb is to raise money for the O’Brien School for the Maasai, and a women’s group that operates out of a room in the school. The O’Brien School for the Maasai is […]

I first tasted pirogi (perogie) when I was on a volunteer vacation in Russia couple of years ago. The lady who cooked for us at the volunteer home in Yaroslavl made this authentic Russian bread stuffed with mushrooms. Being a fan of both breads and mushrooms, this was one of my favorite dishes in Russian […]

I own it. I’m a shallow traveler. When choosing a destination my top criteria are visual drama and cultural civility. In other words, a beautiful place with a relative absence of war, crime, despots, or other forms of antisocial behavior. Delicious cuisine and interesting culture or wildlife are also high on the list. So when […]

When I visited Morocco last Fall, I took cooking lessons from the locals, indulged in the native food and came home with some cookbooks for reference. Eating at home in Rabat was very different than eating at Moroccan restaurants. There were a variety of vegetables that were used in everyday cooking (and were delicious) which […]

This recipe is inspired by Northern Africa where you will often find savory meat pastries. I learned to make Bastilla while volunteering in Morocco last year and fell in love with it. Bastilla is a pastry made with phyllo and layers of spiced ground chicken, omelets, almond paste and powdered sugar. It requires some skill […]

I have heard numerous stories over the years about how people have returned from a vacation with sour stories of stolen passport, money or expensive items. And then there are others that fall victims to con artists and willingly fall into the trap of giving it away free willing. In fact, some people have a […]

As mentioned in my earlier post about the Global Health & Humanitarin Summit, I presented a session on “Volunteering Abroad – from a writer’s perspective” at the summit. My 20 minutes session focused on trends in volunteer vacationing, my personal experiences from my volunteer trips to Morocco and Russia and a perspective on some things I learned. […]

This weekend, I attended the Global Health & Humanitarian Summit at Emory University in Atlanta. It was three days of speakers, networking, exhibits and activities. The organizers want to make it into a movement, similar to the Global Economic Summit and it was a great first event. There were hundreds of people from all over […]