Posts tagged “Africa

Unexpected Friends and Conquered Summits

Posted on 19 April 2014

There, in a guesthouse at the base of the Virunga mountains, I had great trouble sleeping. I was worried about my friend, who had fallen ill that evening after the bus ride from Kigali. This, in turn, made me anxious about the approaching early morning. Hayley and I had planned to hike up to Dian Fossey’s research station for mountain gorillas, Karisoke, where she is now buried after being murdered in 1985. However, Hayley was too sick for hiking, so I would have to go alone. Not that I mind doing travel activities by myself, but there was the issue of transportation. To get to the base of the trail, one has to rent a 4×4 at the rate of $80 per car. I…

Finding Food in Kenya

Posted on 18 January 2014

Among my first visions of Kenya: darkness, potholes, and eerie stick structures illuminated by the bouncing headlights. I really wasn’t sure what they could be. The tarp draped over them glared back through the night. I arrived in Muguga, where I was spending the summer as an intern. For the first few days in the guesthouse, I was alone. It got dark around 6pm, so after work I sat in my room and quietly gnawed on protein bars that I had brought along for the long plane rides. I refused to pay the relatively expensive $10 equivalent charged by the guesthouse for dinner, given my tight student budget. I was by myself, in rural Kenya, and the only apparent buildings around belonged to the…

Halfway, Forever

Posted on 23 November 2013

That time right before dusk when the strange air swirls around you presents possibilities mysterious, romantic, dark, exhilarating, and final. Yet now, only this small gap of time and space matters. Nothing else because there is only this, this. This moment, it exists and it is dying. You know it and you don’t care. Throw your arms high and wide and laugh! You exist, solidly, in this instant, and that is something to revel in. It is so hard to force only now to matter, and by that, embrace the impending future rather than fight it and fear it. This is the trial of living your limited present, rather than scenes of what probably will not come to pass. The current moment is ever…

The Lives of Others

Posted on 6 October 2013

Travel breeds perspective and perspective breeds empathy. This growth can be spurred in a number of ways, one of which is living as a minority, albeit temporarily. For me at least, this was important. Though I am female, I am also white, heteronormative, and my family is upper-middle class. I am not a member of a minority group in the United States. And though my experience in East Africa is a far cry from an entire life, and though I still held a position of power through wealth during this time, I believe my experience as a racial minority was an important one. I spent three and a half months in East Africa, primarily in Kenya, where my internship took place. This was the…