A bell tolls from a nearby temple, welcoming the rising sun as it seeps through the valleys, illuminating one pagoda at a time. Dawn marks the hours of alms for the novices that inhabit the hundreds of monasteries and nunneries of Sagaing, the holy center of Myanmar. I watched through the bamboo thatches of my […]
During my freshman year of college, I spent Spring Break in Utila, Honduras. Utila is one of the Bay Islands located in the Caribbean. It is so small that there is no real airport on the island. Instead, I flew to the nearby island of Roatan. Before I left, an overeager escalator chomped at the airport through […]
One of the projects Go Eat Give supports through international volunteerism is an organic community farm in Cuba. A few miles outside of Havana, a large public housing project was created for people who could not afford to live in the city. In 1997, four agronomist Cubans started an organic urban farm, Vivero Alamar as a way to feed […]
One of the places you must visit in Havana, is the community project of Cuban artist, José Rodriguez Fuster. Located in the northwestern part of Havana, the town of Jaimanitas can also be known as Fusterlandia.
When you think of volunteering internationally, generally Europe doesn’t come to mind. I always thought it is the orphanages and schools in third world countries, or the villages and communities in a disaster hit area that really need us, but I was wrong.
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 […]
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. […]
