Human History is Always Dying

Posted on 31 December 2020

A traveling band of robbers fell upon our household one night. They were as senseless and villainous as robbers are in fairy tales. Father stood in the door with a pitchfork and shouted to the older children. “Run! Escape! Fly!” The robbers overpowered my father and knocked out his front teeth. They hit my mother, and she fell to the floor unconscious, and they picked up the baby she had held in her arms and swung her against the floor so that she was killed instantly. … The band of robbers carried away all of our belongings worth anything, and partially razed our house. … “We must leave a country where such things can happen,” said my father, and with that I agreed entirely.…

Categories: Environment, Life, Society

Tagged: Africa, budapest, climate change, genocide, history, hungary, life, politics, Russia, world war ii

Erosion

Posted on 4 August 2017

I’ve learned I can simultaneously expand with wonder and implode with despair. It’s a hard thing, working in a beautiful place and knowing it’s degraded, its soils are crumbling, rolling into the lake, leaving scars of absence. It’s also a hard thing to be degraded, to be regarded either too hard or too little, so like the soil you run away and scars mark your retreat. Walking back to my tent-room after tracking down documents, I’m greeted by a man who shakes my hand and then refuses to let go, he grips harder and I yank away and shuddering, hurry off. He knows exactly to where and I don’t like that. I have to work, or I don’t have to but I want to,…

Categories: Environment, Travel

Tagged: Africa, deforestation, environment, gwassi hills, Kenya, lake victoria, photography, sexism, sexual harassment, suba, sunsets, travel

At Least We Weren’t Lion Food

Posted on 16 June 2014

A tip for those traveling in East Africa: unstructured adventures may be a bit more difficult than they are in, say, Europe. The implications of our hastily cobbled together adventure, hampered by poor internet connections and our work schedules, dawned on Sarah and I as we stood by ourselves on an airplane runway in the middle of the Maasai Mara. Possibly lions and certainly gazelles looked on bemused. Sarah and I were working in Kenya at the same time and we had decided to take advantage of our location and travel a bit. One of us booked flights to the Mara, and from there we’d just see what we’d do next. Shortly before our flight, Sarah called a friend of a friend who worked…

Categories: Society, Travel

Tagged: Africa, East Africa, Kenya, landscapes, maasai mara, photography, resorts, tourism, travel, wildlife

The Pee-Rats and I, or Adventures in Toilets

Posted on 4 June 2014

The first really, truly questionable toilet I encountered was somewhere between Saint Petersburg and Pskov. And toilet is a loose term—I should say a hole. Saving my money had been a theme of studying abroad, so when our group stopped at some train station, I along with a few others opted for the free toilets. I shut the door of the stall, hovered over the hole that was surrounded with—you know—and I failed. I couldn’t figure it out. So I pulled a few rubles from my purse and went to the paid toilet where I could actually pee. I was nineteen and my American self was still innocent and rather squeamish about the span of toilets that can be found in the world. This…

Categories: Travel

Tagged: Africa, bujumbura, burundi, comedy, East Africa, finland, Kenya, rats, Russia, toilets, travel

A Reality Beneath Darkening Skies

Posted on 21 May 2014

Lake Nakuru National Park greeted us with a lion. Peering out of the truck, we could hear its heavy breath. Late that evening, the park sent us off with a rainbow pasted against a possibly stormy sky, flamingoes, and storks scattered around, flitting snatches of color against a brilliantly foreboding sky. We succumbed to the urge to fling our arms wide, spin, look at everything. This is real. Not Discovery Channel, not Animal Planet, but really really real, and of course better than television. Majestic places like this do exist! Even the stink of the mud was astounding and perfect. That night, we came to a consensus that this day could indeed be classified as epic.

Categories: Photography, Travel

Tagged: Africa, animals, East Africa, Kenya, lake nakuru national park, landscapes, nakuru, photography, travel, wildlife