Couchsurfing & Kindness

Where the Power Lines End

    The farm where we stayed. . .   “Avaseet” says Catherine, with a big smile and a graze of a hand against her smudged purple apron. Her aura is heavy with sweat and dust but she smiles with teeth that have been brushed. Catherine is the wife of Frances, who is the brother of [...]

Africa Panic Attack

When we arrived at couchsurfer Mutinda’s home after two hours in a matatu, a taxi ride which ended in a flat tire and a forty five minute walk. . .even after we shuffled along the red dirt road lined with cow-herders, vintage bikes and a valley view of coffee beans and bananas, I experienced a [...]

The Gift

Growing up, my Mom taught me that going the extra mile meant giving the extra gift. So I selected souvenirs on trips and kept emergency items in the guest bedroom drawers. You never knew when a silver duck-head wine opener or a pear-scented candle set might be right. A small gift, she said, was a [...]

The first days of Egypt. . .

Every day in Dahab seemed a lot like the one before. Every morning brought flies, breezes, heat and cats. Michael went running. I read or did yoga. Every day, Shepl would deliver our meals. Every day, Mustafa and Waleed would wash another section of rugs, positioning the pillows like crayons in a box before late-rising [...]

A Different Kind of Family Tree

My friend Claire Hamlisch, who has worked for UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) since before I was born, sent me dozens of contacts when she discovered I’d be traveling through the Middle East and Africa. One of those was Ben Yami of Israel. Ben led us to Sali Organic, Farm #19 to be [...]

Contradictions

“Thanks for the ride,” I say, as I slip into the leather back seat and Bose-speaker-studded doors of this guy’s Alpha Romeo. We’d taken an expensive service taxi to the Iraq Embassy. That driver, Tyson, was a blue-collar guy with a Detroit Pistons Starter Jacket and an unmistakable American accent. Tyson had been born in [...]

Screaming Eagles, Live Chickens and Polygamy

The ride to Rania was a roller coaster. Great America’s Screaming Eagle with its shockless, wooden construction comes to mind. Zana’s no-name car was the epitome of luxury—beige and gold, proof of purchase still stuck to the windows, digital dash, cruise control, compact-disc player and leather interior with head-rest to floor-mat dog-fur covers. Unfortunately, drivers [...]

Mom, Dad, Don’t Freak Out. We’re in Iraq.

Not Baghdad, Iraq. Northern Iraq. Kurdish Iraq. Kurdistan, if you will. And we found plenty of research, testimonials and even an English-teaching couchsurfer by the name of Josh Overcast before we made our decision to be tourist pioneers. Oh the places we’re willing to go. On our second night in Iraq, we danced to Madonna’s [...]

Abdullah (Not His Real Name)

He had helped us find a taxi from the bus station to our Damascus hotel. It took longer to find kind strangers inSyria, but all we could do was argue with belligerent overcharging taxi drivers until someone intervened. A week later, we met Abdullah for dinner in the Arabic equivalent of Chili’s. Here, instead of [...]