Ethiopia

Hello from what might be the most fascinating country I’ve ever been to: Ethiopia 🇪🇹

Where do I even begin to describe everything I’ve encountered here? A rich, uncolonized history shaped by devotion, diversity, and sensations.

There really isn’t a way to put it all into words, because so much of the Ethiopian experience is received in smells. Tastes. Hugs. The air on your skin. But, I’ll have to do my best, because it was simply too rich to keep to myself.

ADDIS ABABA

The whole time I was in Ethiopia, I was like… how am I even here? This place contains multitudes!

History runs deep. Senses come alive. Nature amazes again and again.

I’m so thankful I had a chance to get to know this country through a variety of perspectives. To dance along with the ekista, to sip that smoky coffee, and eat endless injera. To plant trees. To roadtrip through some stunning rocky edges in order to reach that great open space. I appreciated getting a deeper look at the country’s challenges. Poverty. Climate. Patriarchy. Unrest. While all those things are disheartening, they also helped me further appreciate the resolve of the community spirit working to overcome.

One of the big reasons behind Ethiopia’s strong sense of cultural identity has to be its history of having never been colonized. While there’s plenty of influence from interactions with the Arab peninsula, India beyond that, and Italy, Ethiopia’s traditions, language, and beliefs seem to have local roots that go back centuries without ambiguity.

This sense of culture and belonging is pervasive. It’s in everything, from the coffee to the churches to the communities. And I absolutely loved it. Ethiopia, I’m a big fan.

“You don’t need to spend that much time in Addis Ababa.”

“It’s too chaotic and crowded of a city.”

“People will be much nicer elsewhere.”

It’s true that going outside capital cities and major metros is usually a good move if you want to develop a more intimate experience with a country. It’s true that there’s a correlation between city life and being busy, which is often a precursor to less friendliness.

That said, I spent a day in Addis Ababa while passing through and it absolutely had a warm heart.

🇪🇹 Spent the morning exploring Shola Market, checking out the vendor’s crafts, and learning a ton about spices and grains.
🇪🇹 Went to the National Museum and got a deep dive into Ethiopia’s history. Two centuries of immersion in less than two hours. I also got to see Lucy, as in, the human ancestor! I probably forgot the part of 6th grade that mentioned she was found in Ethiopia, and she’s still there.
🇪🇹 A little walk up Mount Entoto for some incredible views over the whole city.
🇪🇹 Spent some time at Maryam Church for the first of many encounters with Ethiopian religious life
🇪🇹 A bit of a turbo food tour, including a proper injera spread, shiro, a fantastic fried tilapia, and a beer & beef pit stop.
🇪🇹 Some rich insight into how Ethiopia’s history sets the stage for its current struggles from our guide Bule.

What does it mean to have never been colonized? There’s a link to culture and tradition in Ethiopia that goes back centuries, with much greater clarity than you’ll find anywhere else. Just about any everyday behavior can be elevated from chore to craft, and that’s something special.

Some Ethiopian Joy 🇪🇹

There were so many things that made Ethiopia a great place to explore. Incredible cuisine. Otherworldly monasteries and forests. Customs that go back centuries.

But as always, it was the people I met that I’ll remember the most.

Ethiopia has maintained its independence going back to ancient times. They were able to resist Italy over and over and avoided being colonized.

As a result, there are so many things that Ethiopia just does in its own unique way, from coffee to the alphabet to Christianity.

One of my favorite uniquely Ethiopian things, though, has to be the calendar. Ethiopians are living in 2016 right now. Their calendar has an extra mini-month, and it runs a few years behind the Gregorian calendar mostly used elsewhere.

Bohol

Philippine Family Trip

We stepped out of the airport at night , and on to the hectic strip of sidewalk where only the sketchiest dudes try over and over to hook you up with a taxi, despite being told for a sixth time, “nah, man. Ride’s on its way.”

Embraced by the car fumes thickening the already dense, warm air, I had to let it sink in.

We did it. We’re really here.

I brought my very tiny crew (3 years, 14 months, & 14 months) to the other side of the planet.

They’ve had some practice, having ventured to Guatemala and Alaska at even earlier ages. Still, those are both only one country apart from us. Crossing the Pacific? A much bigger move.

We planned a stint in Honolulu to turn a 14 hour trip into two days of 7-hour travels. Then it was on to our home base for the next month.

The Philippines.

My kids aren’t likely to grow up with the same proximity to the culture that I did, however. i grew up with trays of pancit and pinakbet at every family gathering. Constant exposure to at least three Filipino languages. Trips to the Philippines every few years. In school, there were always groups of Filipino kids who hung out together, cultural heritage clubs. I actually never participated in those since it already felt like my exposure to the culture was abundant.

However, my kids are a generation removed from the members of our family who actually grew up in the Philippines. My FIlipino isn’t quite good enough for me to use it as a primary language with my kids. Their mom and that whole side of their family is not Filipino. We currently live in San Diego, which has a sizable Filipino community, so we’ve at least got that going.

But I understand that if I don’t put forth real effort, being Filipino might not mean very much to my kids. So we’re spending some time over there.

I don’t think I truly realized how much I value my Filipino ancestry until I became a dad.

My kids’ connection to that ancestry isn’t going to come as easily. The generations above me are getting older. The number of people I get to see in the Philippines is getting smaller. Elders become ancestors. Their childhoods, like mine, are set in the United States, and their ties to people who grew up on the Islands are more limited.

I want them to have a strong connection to the culture. I know it took me most of my life to get to the point where I appreciate it the way I do now, but I want them to have that same chance.

That’s a tall task for me on my own.

Thankfully I’ve got 7,000 islands to help.

Here’s hoping that this is the first of a childhood full of stories about those trips to the Philippines we took, the people we met, and the things we learned about ourselves.

The very first time I heard the term ‘diasporic longing,’ I knew right away what it meant.

It’s the itch for my kids to have their own sense of connection to the Philippines. The way mangroves and mango juice reminds you of your relationship with nature, and how you are not really all that separate from the rest of creation.

It’s the fact that the slower pace of life, the abundance mindset around time in the day, just feels right. It’s amazing how when you refuse to rush through everything, time feels less scarce.

Bangladesh

STORIES

Getting a taste of OLD DHAKA

I was totally wrong about BANGLADESH

Climate Vulnerability and Success Stories in Bangladesh’s SUNDARBANS

photos

Migrant workers from rural Bangladesh transfer loads of coal from ships onto the shore for survival income.

A boat driver on the shores of the Buriganga River.

The path through Banojibi, an eco-village in the Sundarbans.

A brickworker in one of the thousand brick kilns around Dhaka.

A father and son share a moment in an alleyway where metal workers participate in dangerous jobs.

On a food tour of Old Dhaka.

Sharing a cup of tea with my fixer Mudassir.

The sun sets at the docks of Pashur, where migrant workers wait for boats to take them home.

A worker flips bricks at a Dhaka brick kiln.

A bricklayer at one of Dhaka’s thousand brick kilns contributing to pollution and respiratory problems.

A community member of the Banojibi eco-village in Mongla.

A vendor works at a kiosk that serves bricklayers in Dhaka.

A boat driver takes me across the Buriganga River.

Dhaka is often named the world’s most polluted cities, it’s many brick kilns being the main culprit.

A brick-layer wheels concrete mix across one of Dhaka’s many brick kilns.

A community elder sorts seeds in Mongla.

Riding a boat along the Buriganga River.

About as quiet of a morning as you could possibly have in Dhaka.

A worker from the loading docks of Dhaka stops to share his story.

Shipyard workers carrying coal overhead for a meager payment.

Shipyard workers carrying baskets full of coal and sand.

A shipyard worker at the Buriganga River pauses to share his story.

The interior of a coal delivery ship at the Buriganga port.

The inside of an alleyway workshop in Dhaka. Workers harvest metal from abandoned ships under dangerous conditions.

Being served flaming betel nut leaf in Old Dhaka.

Heavy machinery used in Dhaka’s brick production frequently leads to injuries.

Rajov, an officer for BEDS, an environmental organization behind the Banojibi eco-village.

The “back-view” of Dhaka taken from the Buriganga River.

Being taken around Mongla via rowboat.

A walk through the Sundarbans National Park.

journal

A LAND OF STORIES

Bangladesh- you contain a world of stories!

It makes sense that a place known for being densely packed with people would also be packed with their stories.

So many people I encountered living truly challenging lives, jobs that are the hardest I’ve ever seen being performed right in front of me. At the same time, even the exhaustion couldn’t override the Bengali spirit.

Resilience is a word that often gets misused. It’s admirable, but sometimes we let that warmth of admiration obscure our sense of urgency to remove the conditions that demand resilience from a population. Still, it’s impossible not to use the word when confronted with the hard, full-hearted stories up and down the Buriganga River.

SOMEONE ELSE’S ORDINARY

You go to a new place, a new environment, and every detail pretty much jumps out at you. The tone of the sky. The vehicles you don’t see anywhere else. The energy and pace of life. It stands out as otherworldly. Every new sensation is an invite to ask new questions, occasionally ones you ask out loud.

It’s different. But to everybody else out there, it’s normal.

If you were to approach even the most mundane task with fresh eyes, there’s nothing mundane about it. Take a toddler to a barbershop for the first time for a perfect example. We forget about this when we’re in one place for too long, kind of like how most people don’t recognize the smell of their own house as anything other than neutral.

I love being somewhere I’ve never been, at least partially because it makes me rethink my idea of ordinary. If all these details to me are a novelty, then that’s true in the reverse direction. My ordinary life, the parts I take for granted or think of as unamusing, would be mindblowing from another point of view.

Betel Nut

Paan. Betel leaf.🍃Stuffed with candy, spices, chocolate syrup. Then lit on fire and shoved in your mouth.

Sounds good?

Apparently this snack is illegal! Or at least in a legal gray area.

I have a video dropping next week about the time I took a food tour of Old Dhaka. Really excited to put it out there so make sure you’re following along on the Tube and the newsletter.

Also, recognizing my room for growth here. If I’m gonna do this food and travel stuff on camera, I gotta go bigger with the reacts! 🫠 So stoic for having fire just put in my mouf.

RICKSHAW ROADRAGE

Heat make anyone else cranky?

I hate being too hot. And apparently so do a lot of people, as evidenced by the rickshaw roadrage I ran into on this street through Old Dhaka. South Asia gets some notoriously brutal temperatures. It was an efficient brawl, the two bike cab drivers hopped off for a 90 second fistfight before carrying on their way. Not to condone violence, but at least this approach was efficient, and way less destructive than whatever happened on Beef.

BRICKS & POLLUTION

I came to Bangladesh primarily wanting to talk to people engaged in solving its biggest problems. The most inescapable challenge, particularly in Dhaka, is air pollution. The city routinely ranks as the most polluted in the world.

Surely there was somebody with a plan. A strategy to change this.

I found out that the primary culprit for the pollution were Dhaka’s brick kilns- there were over a thousand of them around the city. At any given brick kiln, you could find hundreds of brick workers, people who took these difficult and dangerous jobs because their rural livelihoods were lost to climate change.

The irony was that Dhaka needed to produce so many bricks because it was growing quickly, but the reason it was growing so fast was because of all the climate migrants arriving to replace their farm income with jobs like these.

A solution to the pollution in Dhaka might not necessarily begin in Dhaka. Anything to lessen the threat of climate change curbs migration, the pressure on Dhaka, and the risk of people working under such harsh conditions.

The Most Difficult Jobs

Bricklayers who worked fourteen hour shifts in the Bengali heat, inhaling the dust from their construction.

Shiploaders who carried two hundred loads of coal and other materials overhead across planks from cargo ships to shores, over and over.

Metalworkers in alleyways who worked without proper protective gear to take apart the scraps of old ships.

In one square mile of Dhaka I saw all of the most difficult, laborious, and underpaid jobs being worked by climate migrants. Obviously, they wound up in this position because of one unfair systemic problem stacked on top of another.

When you see the effects of hyper consumption and a climate crisis firsthand like that, it makes you wish a direct response was a little bit more within reach. But truly, the only sustainable solution was to go upstream. To look at the root causes, and work from there. In the meantime, the best immediate action someone could take was simply deciding to take a posture of listening to their stories and perspectives.

Climate Migration

Climate migration is a serious challenge. I’ve heard so many farmers talk about facing the difficult decision of having to leave their homes to provide for their families once the harvests came up short.

Of course, having to leave your family is always difficult, however it occurs. But it was in Bangladesh, I saw firsthand how challenging it is when people actually have to follow through on this difficult decision.

In Dhaka, I witnessed some of the most difficult and demanding jobs I’ve ever seen. I tried just walking across a plank to one of the coal ships and that was difficult enough. But the workers had to do that two hundred times each day carrying heavy coal-filled baskets over their heads. While I watched the welders and mechanics in the alleyway just behind the shipyard, I saw so many close-calls and nearly-missed accidents. I was told by many people that it wouldn’t be too surprising if I actually witnessed one. They happen frequently.

One of the first issues that made me really care about human rights were abusive labor situations. I heard stories of physical jobs, not too unlike these, in South Asia where severe abuses took place. It occurred to me that creating a healthy climate where people don’t have to leave their homes greatly reduces their vulnerability to ending up in this sort of situation.

INTO THE SUNDARBANS

After hearing so many stories from climate migrants, I knew I needed to leave Dhaka, to see the home villages so many of them referred to. Getting to see the Sundarbans mangrove forest close up. In real life. Bengal tiger territory!

I did not see a tiger… but that’s actually a good thing. The stories I heard of the tiger-and-human interactions were all pretty tragic. For both species.

I did see plenty of macaques, but those guys are jerks most of the time. Lots of white spotted deer, which are gorgeous. And then some crocodiles. I did not realize that a croc can live up to 70 years old until this visit, but that’s pretty cool.

The Eco-Village of Banojibi

My trip to the Sundarbans introduced me to BEDS, a nonprofit working in Southern Bangladesh. I had the opportunity to discover one of their big initiatives, an eco-village called Banojibi.

The people who live on Bangladesh’s coastline are extremely vulnerable to climate change. That became obvious just seeing how their farms and homes were situated.

Banojibi turned out to be a very holistic project. It was part training center, part regenerative farm, an energy hub, an ecotourism center, and more. This community was both equipping them with better environmental management techniques while improving their lives financially and via infrastructure.

Water Solutions

There’s a big irony when it comes to island nations like the Philippines or low-lying coastal countries like Bangladesh. Water should be abundant, but because of the really high salinity, drinking water can still be scarce. Extremely high saline concentrations also makes the water less suitable for farming, which is a problem that climate change intensifies.

I loved these Water ATMs I found in Bangladesh, installed by the organization BEDS. Eco-villages can manage their own water-treatment facilities by using local knowledge, the nature-based solutions of Pond-and-Sand Filters, and technologies like solar power and reverse osmosis.

The introduction of the ATM system has made these services more widely available, connecting about 12,000 people with clean water. Water-borne illnesses are no longer a concern, and local women have more opportunities without having to spend hours collecting water.

The Mothers of Mongla

In my head, I kept thinking of this trio of women I interviewed in the Sundarbans as the ‘Mothers of Mongla.’ While their kids played some customized mashup of football and cricket in the background, they told me that they had joined a weather club that gave them the chance to prepare their neighbors from pending cyclones.

Interestingly, they referred to the place where they lived as a mother. “In the Sundarbans, we feel like we are under the mother’s care. This is my birthplace, I will always feel emotionally connected. As I said, we are under the mother’s care in this area. We are proud to live in this beautiful place.”

Turns out, when you realize your dependence on the land around you, you respect it!

I UNDERESTIMATED BANGLADESH

Confession: Before visiting Bangladesh, my interest was mild at best. When the things you hear about the most are crowds and smog, those aren’t exactly high selling points, and even people from there made it seem underwhelming.

But if you have the right people to show you around to the right places, there is an absolute wealth of stories and things to explore. The people are warm, welcoming, conservative, and absolutely determined to push forward in order to make a better life for the next generation. Problem-solving is an ubiquitous trait, and seeing that applied to major threats like climate vulnerability was eye opening.

Bangladesh is a country that has a lot to teach its visitors, if given a fair chance.

sketchbook

The Bricklayer

Last month, Cyclone Mocha made landfall on Myanmar and Bangladesh, claiming lives and threatening to displace hundreds of thousands of people.

It made me think of men and women I met on the Bangladeshi coast, not far from that area, last winter.

They told me about cyclone seasons. Bangladesh really is one of the most climate vulnerable countries on earth and it intensifies the impact of these cyclones.

I’ve heard so much about the climate vulnerability of Bangladesh. But you know what I hadn’t heard about as much? All the people- local people- who were doing something about it. Mothers, farmers, bricklayers, technicians. Yet another reminder to never see people as totally helpless.

Look for the helpers… but don’t forget to start looking among the locals.

videos

Dhaka

Two Teas in Bangladesh

Bangladesh Loves Football

The World’s Most Polluted City

The Most Difficult Jobs

Banojibi Eco-Village

Making Mangrove Products

Old Dhaka Food Tour, pt. 1

The Buriganga

Bangladesh is Misunderstood

Why is Dhaka so Crowded?

There Are The Sundarbans

Weather Clubs

Dear Dhaka

Old Dhaka Food Tour, pt. 2

The Buriganga Shipyard

The Rise of Bangladesh

Storytelling Changes the World

Tiger Attacks in Bangladesh

The Mothers of Mongla

Alaska

MY 50TH STATE

A few years ago, I realized I was getting pretty close to having been to all 50 states. I decided that of the few I had remaining, Alaska easily seemed like the coolest. As I kept chipping away at the others, I also started making plans to get to Alaska ahead of my 30th birthday.

I thought it would be really cool to rent some large cabin and invite several friends to share the celebration.

Then we got pregnant and put it off one year.

But then a pandemic happened.

And then we got pregnant with twins.

Finally, this year, we made good on that quest and I finally checked off state number 50! And we did have some amazing friends who weren’t intimidated by traveling with three kids under three. Jesse & Raquel, you two rock.

I’m extremely glad I saved Alaska for the very end. The knowledge that its mountains, forests, and tundras stretched on until the very top of the world was invigorating. This was a really, really good trip. Well worth the wait.

I’ve met so many other American travelers who tried to pass themselves off as Canadian. Or who introduce themselves as Californian, Washingtonian, etc… trying to disavow the baggage that comes with the national identity. Travel enough, and you’ll see it too.

I’ve always had a mixed reaction to seeing this, and I’ve never been able to explain why. Like, I get it. The U.S. does plenty to invite valid criticism, and you get tired of having all the other nationalities staying in your hostel explaining this to you as if you personally authorized the coup.

Meeting people from other countries, especially countries that have had particularly bad and oppressive regimes, have kind of changed how I see this. I’ve met people speak proudly of being Zimbabwean, speak critically of the dictatorship, then share their hopes, worries, and what they were doing to create change. Their commitment to action didn’t come from distancing themselves from their national identity, but from refusing to surrender it to those who used it to harm others.

I know it’s a complicated thing, but I do think having a sense of belonging to a place and people is a good starting ground for positive change.

When I learned Alaska’s nickname was the Last Frontier… it struck a chord. Looking back, it’s kind of a loaded moniker, but at the time it stood out because I was only 4 or 5 states away from seeing all 50, and I just knew I was supposed to save Alaska for the very end.

I wanted to finish with a bang. I also wanted to celebrate the milestone with friends and figured it’d be much easier to convince people to join me in Alaska than North Dakota.

Truly, I’m glad I saved it for the end, because despite it being my last state… it’s hopefully the first of many visits to Alaska. It’s such a large state that simply dropping in on one spot within will still leave a lot left to explore.

Who knows when I’ll be back in Alaska, but I really wouldn’t mind if it were sooner rather than later.

Plus, I’m unusually fond of cold places.

Alaska was a whole nother level of beautiful.

I always feel so much more alive whenever I have mountains and forests in my line of sight. Do you get that? I don’t know how else to describe it, but there’s just a different feeling around mountain ranges that takes over and I was definitely feeling that up north. Even more so, knowing that the forests and mountain ranges I saw would just keep going on and on, up until the northern edge of the world.

Getting to sink my hands into the earth and seeing the deep black arctic soil reminded me so much of the richness of Iceland’s beauty, and I think I just have a thing for the far north and Arctic ecosystems. That said, I also like the far south… so maybe I’m just a fan of extremes.

Vienna

A RETURN TO VIENNA

Twelve years later, I’m back in Vienna.

Just like that last visit, the chance to spend time in the city came as a bit of an unplanned but welcome surprise, and this time, I got to spend a bit more time… allowing me the chance to get to know it a bit better. I was completely impressed by the city this time around.

And just like my last visit, Vienna was the perfect site for me to take a few steps back from my regular life and to see it with a lot more clarity. It’s a good city for that.

I’ve long claimed Amsterdam as my favorite European city, but man, Vienna’s making a strong case to try and claim that title.

It’s sometimes called the City of Dreams. And I totally see it. There’s a romantic vibe to it, but it’s also a place that manages to ground you and keep you present. It’s like a long walk around town, late at night, simply being in the moment.

I could stare at the spire of Stefansdom for hours. It’s not the history, the architecture, or the tourist appeal that gets me, but something else all together. Something the way this building seems to resist the flow of time that you and those around you are subjected to.

Such a timeless city.

Burundi

VIDEO: Rethink Poverty

VIDEO: Storytelling Trip to Burundi

VIDEO: Wet Markets vs Grocery Stores

PHOTOS

JOURNAL

THIS IS BURUNDI

Burundi is drumbeats, mosquito nets, and pineapples.
Burundi is plates of ugali, bananas, pomme frites, meaty chicken, and lengalenga.
Burundi is that baseball score that manages to find your phone after driving for days without reception.
Burundi is amahoro.
Burundi is horned cattle.
Burundi is walking with sensitivity towards its recent history of tumultuous events.
Burundi are bottles of Primus, yellow jerry cans, and plastic discs turned into kids’ toys.
Burundi is the curiosity of children, the bright pattern of women’s dresses.
Burundi is meeting a man who used to eat once a day now feeding all five of his kids three solid meals.
Burundi is families, friends, and new friends taking selfies at the foot of a waterfall.

GEOGRAPHIC WAKANDA

Whenever I tell people about the time I got to spend in Burundi, the most common reaction I get is this:

Cool. Where is that??

Here’s my geography lesson for ya. Go put on Black Panther. Play that opening scene with Sterling K. Brown reading the legend of Wakanda as a bedtime story. Take note of where in Africa they zoom in and out of. Small country, east of Lake Tanganyika.

I learned so much from spending two weeks in Burundi, and geography was only a small portion of it. It’s a gorgeous country, underestimated due to its struggles with hunger and conflict. But there are so many local leaders, women especially, who are driving the country forward while working to preserve its nature and culture.

FIELD NOTES FROM BURUNDI

KEPT OUT OF CONGO

Three days before my trip to Africa, I got an urgent sounding call.

*We’ve got a situation*

I’m not easily dissuaded by travel advisory warnings. For one thing, our State Department kind of issues them pretty freely. A regional flare-up on the opposite end of one of the largest countries on earth? Just post a warning for the whole place, and a few of its neighbors. Not to mention, this is a region where some degree of conflict is taking place somewhere. You really need to pay attention to the immediate area where you’re going.

This time around, however, that’s exactly where the problem was.

I checked in with my friend Birori, who confirmed that indeed the flare-up of protests had gotten pretty bad and that we might have to make alternate plans.

We ended up canceling plans to visit the Congo and focused the entirety of my two weeks in Africa on Burundi. He offered to cross into Bujumbura to meet me there.

The worst environmental news I heard this year was most likely the announcement that the Congo Basin Rainforest would be open for drilling. It’s a rainforest that holds about a tenth of the earth’s carbon, and hosts so many species that can’t be found elsewhere. That seemed like a huge blow to climate and biodiversity.

Getting to talk to Birori, who promotes ecosystem restoration through working directly with communities was a valuable reminder for me.

Even though his team was fully aware of how unfortunate the news was, he knew that forest protection is best when local communities own the process.

Hopefully the next time I’m in this part of Africa, a visit to the Congo Basin Rainforest could be in order.

when the trips go wrong

I share a lot of travel stories, and so I should make it known that behind the scenes of just about every trip I’ve taken lately is something that did not go at all according to plan.

My trip to Burundi was nearly derailed because back when I went, they required a negative covid test 48 hours before arrival… but the journey there is 36 hours, and when you add sleep time, I just had to take a chance flight to New York hoping the results came in while on the first leg of my flight.

I laid out an ambitious itinerary for my Ethiopia visit. Everything happened, except in the reverse order I planned. A death in one of the sites we planned to film meant we had to do everything backwards.

I’m also more conscious now of how much energy these trips take and realize that planning a buffer day to rest and feel alive again before diving in is a necessity.

One of the skills I value, not just out of travel but out of life, is adaptability. I’ve had a number of unexpected things happen in life that derailed expectations, and I wonder if that’s why I’m drawn to things like improv or even Chopped. Looking at a basket of weird ingredients and thinking, let’s see what we can make out of this resonates at some deep level.

These days, I go into trips realizing that every plan can go awry, but in spite of that, it’s still helpful to make the plans. Valuable. Make them down to every last detail, then hold them loosely. Somehow, that’s what works best.

DEFORESTATION IN BURUNDI

So often, when I think about deforestation, I think of greedy businesspeople with fat cigars and gold chains pointing towards the Amazon while dreaming of their next swim through a vault of cash. But that’s not always the case.

At least a third of the time… if not more… deforestation is driven by ordinary people trying to put food on the table for their families. In Burundi, charcoal was the most visible example of how this works.

Trees can be made into charcoal.
Charcoal brings in quick cash.

But the loss of trees drives soil erosion.
Soil erosion leads to food insecurity.

It’s a vicious cycle.

That’s why I don’t see climate action and development against poverty as separate streams. If you don’t pay attention to both, efforts only go so far.

I tell a lot of success stories of people working on climate solutions and resilience, but Antwan’s isn’t one of those stories. I met him because I saw he was burning trees to turn into charcoal and I saw the smoke from the roadside.

Every three years he cuts down all the trees around him for more charcoal.

I share this encounter though, because his reasons for doing so were simply to feed his family. This was the only activity he’s found that could bring in adequate cash when needed. It was a reminder to me that not everybody involved in deforestation is a greedy honcho with a cigar and gold chain. They’re out there, I’m sure. But the more we can humanize each other and understand causes, effects, and motivations, the more effective our solutions will be.

climate legislation

A PLACE IN THE WORLD

Walking into Mugere, a young girl met us along the way to help us make our way up the hill and towards the family home. It was about an hour of hiking, including over some parts that required walking on planks of wood that bridged gaps in the road.

Daniela made sure to take me by the hand and help me get across the whole thing. I think we ended up holding hands for nearly the entire hour long hike.

Her parents, Esperance and Deo, would turn out to be the couple we interviewed for our video.

With Esperance. Her arm was lost during Burundi’s Civil War.

Development Looks Different Everywhere

RETHINKING POVERTY

A random pet peeve of mine is when people talk about middle income countries like the Philippines, India, or Dominican Republic as though they were one of the poorest countries in the world. In fact, they’re squarely in the middle when you map things out.

Why? I mean, yes, there are parts of those countries, especially in the rural areas, where you can still find pretty difficult living conditions and steep poverty, but when we make it seem like the entire country might as well be on par with one of the twenty lowest income countries in the world, we really flatten the story of a lot of good that has happened in the world.

(And yeah, I also don’t like the way we talk about lowest-income 20 countries, even where poverty is widespread and extreme, but that’s for another time.)

Over the course of my lifetime, the majority of the world has seen significant improvements to their living conditions. Most have moved from poverty into more of a middle state, and perhaps if more people saw the world through that lens, we’d be less tempted to think of poverty as an inevitability.

Poverty is a complex thing to talk about.

There are so many stereotypes associated with it, so many examples of people depicting poverty in ways that diminish the humanity of people with that experience.

And yet, it’s a reality for so many people and a root cause of so many problems we need to talk about it. So many people have shared with me their challenges while living in poverty because they want other people to know about them. Sensationalizing poverty is not ethical storytelling, but neither is omitting it entirely, or romanticizing it.

You’ve got to be humble about this, because no amount of research or travel can give you the full insight that comes with lived experience.

Remember that poverty isn’t a fixed condition. People, communities, even entire countries have shown us that living with insufficient resources is not an inevitable condition.

Put poverty in its proper context. Pay attention to where issues like climate change or colonialism have created the conditions for poverty or insecurity. Places don’t have widespread poverty just because.

But most of all, don’t lose sight of the human being in the story. Don’t conflate someone’s personhood with their problems.

““I assure you, because I have met and talked with people who live on every level… the distinctions are crucial. People living in extreme poverty on Level 1 know very well how much better life would be if they could move from $1 a day to $4 a day, not to mention $16 a day. People who have to walk everywhere on bare feet know how a bicycle would save them tons of time and effort and speed them to the market in town, and to better health and wealth.””

— Hans Rosling

WHAT’S GOOD FOR NATURE IS GOOD FOR CULTURE

What’s good for nature is good for culture.

And vice versa.

In Burundi, I was greeted by multiple Ingoma performances… dances set to the thundering royal drumbeats that carried throughout a hillside.

Then my friends showed me the tree the drums were made from. Cordia Africana. AKA Sudanese Teakwood. An endangered tree, whose wood is irreplaceable when it comes to getting the thundering sound just right.

In Alaska, I became intrigued and invested in native languages that were down to a few dozen speakers.

I found a map that showed the correlation between places where languages were going extinct and places where wildlife was going extinct.

And it all became clear.

Countless cultural traditions are at risk as habitats are threatened. But efforts to protect nature can help preserve culture. And promoting the agency of indigenous groups also has benefits to nature.

What’s good for nature is good for culture.

INGOMA

Just imagine it’s late in the day. The daylight is almost burnt up, except for that last orange glow. You hear an elongated shout, then some thumping. Then it explodes into a rhythm.

The drummers emerge. They’re in line. But some cut to the front. And others follow in a pattern. One moves to the center to leap.

Burundi’s the country of big beats, largely because of their tradition of ingoma drumming.

These drums were used in royal ceremonies, like crowning a new ruler or mourning a funeral. Because the drums were made of cordia africana, or Sudanese teakwood, their sound could travel a far distance. Right up close, however, it simply thundered.

Today the big beats are also used to honor and welcome special guests. I kept trying to find out if they were ever used for war. It seems possible, but I never found that explicitly stated. The ceremonial reasons were the main priority.

But i do know the sound of those drums is a bigger pump up than any locker room anthem I can think of. If I was an opposing army and heard the way those sounds echoed… game over.

The Opposite of Watching the News

What do you think the opposite of watching the news would be?

I don’t actually like dunking on the news all the time. One of the first things crooked leaders do is make people distrust the media so they can fill the vacuum of information. The press plays a big role in keeping power in check.

That said, news can distort the way you see the world depending on how you look at it. And it’s not necessarily the fault of the anchors you see on screen or the people writing the articles. We shouldn’t expect the news to be a representation of what-the-world-is-like. In fact, if something is “normal” then it isn’t exactly “newsworthy.” It’s healthier to think of the things you see on the news as exceptions to the norm.

This is important, because I often ask my audience how they feel when watching the news and words like depressed and disenfranchised come up a lot. I don’t advocate shutting ourselves off to it, unless that’s really the thing for you in a personal journey. Most of us just need to do a better job remembering that our world primarily consists of ordinary people doing their best to have a good day and do something good for those around them.

SKETCHBOOK

Ingoma

My visit to Burundi took me to a country full of some pretty tall statistical extremes when it comes to things like hunger and insecurity. This part of the map has been in a lot of headlines this week… and not for especially great reasons.

However, you and I know that those numbers and headlines tell a reductive version of the story and that there’s always a lot more… more that you can’t really start to grasp without some proximity.

It’s harder to reduce people into a simple statistic when you’re up close. And that’s why I’ve been wanting to make this trip happen for years.

REELS

1 Burundi

2 Mariam’s Convenience

3 Three Meals a Day

4 Precolonial Burundi

5 Village Savings Groups

6 Cow Talk

7 A Burundian Welcome

8 Fifty Million Trees

9 World’s Poorest Country

10 Burundi Fuel Crisis

11 Burundi Road Trip

12 Field Hotels

13 Jogging Not Allowed

14 A Lesson on Global Poverty

15 The Nyakazu Rift

16 Tell Deeper Stories

17 Ethical Storytelling Complexities

18 Drilling in the Congo Forest

19 Kayero Market

20 Clean Cookstoves

WELCOME TO BURUNDI

Couldn’t go to Congo

While I was in Burundi, I spent a lot of time getting familiar with Kirundi, which is a really beautiful Bantu language. One thing that stood out to me was how many of their compliments and greetings were all cow related.

“Have cows and children!” (Urakagira inka n’ibibondo)

“That guy is all cows in the field.” (Inka n’imirima)

“You have the eyes of a cow. Beautiful.” (Amaso y’inyana)

I had to confirm with my friend Emile whether I was understanding these phrases correctly. One thing is for sure. Having cows in Burundi is a very big deal in terms of your status. Cattle is wealth. It’s one thing to afford a cow, but once you do, you’ve also got a natural source of fertilizer for your field.

I love languages, and I love that there’s always so much more to switching languages than just translating sentences. The variations in how you compose thoughts and ideas result in different ways of seeing the world.

Road Tripping Burundi

Burundi is a fairly small country, which allowed us to see a large portion of it by driving around. We worked our way from Bujumbura at the top of Lake Tanganyika down to the tip where it borders Tanzania, then back up to the new capital of Gitega, right in the heart of the heart of the country.

You can learn quite a bit just by staring out the window, and the streets of Burundi gave us quite a bit to take in. Life in Burundi is diverse! I love how having a traveler’s eyes can render one person’s sense of ordinary into extraordinary.

Whenever I’m doing a trip somewhere like rural Burundi, my local partners arrange the on the ground accommodations unless otherwise noted. This often means I don’t know where I’m going to stay until I get there.

Cell signal, Wi-Fi, hot water, electricity are all question marks until I get there. Some places I’ve stayed at were camping. Others were surprisingly cozy.

What I love about these field hotels, especially the ones I stayed at on this trip in Burundi, is that the people running them cared for them with such pride.

the people of Burundi

There’s nothing quite like being welcomed with unbridled East African enthusiasm.

I really mean that. I’ve experienced this a few times now: walking into a village only to be met with makeshift drumbeats, songs, claps, ululation, and palm fronds. It’s an unbelievably life-giving experience.

To show somebody ‘welcome’ or ‘karibu’ in Swahili isn’t just a formality. It’s fully celebrating their presence. Their existence.

I know so many people go through life feeling unseen. I think we should at least be open to trying to show people over-the-top enthusiasm over the fact that they exist.

Starting a shop like this takes an investment, and most women in Burundi don’t have access to that capital, or even to a bank that could lend them the money to get started. But she found that support in her community through a Purpose Group. Now her shop has a little bit of everything and she’s not done. She hopes to further expand her shop in the near future.

storytelling work

Ethical storytelling is one of the biggest things I’m passionate about. Storytelling is powerful and can shape the way we see the world, but without a conscious approach, it’s a little too easy to create unintended harm.

Being on an actual storytelling trip always highlights the way it’s complicated. You want to portray what you’re seeing with honesty, but not in a way that perpetuates harmful stereotypes and tropes.

I think one of the most important things to remember is that the process of learning is never over. You always want to be open to the likelihood that you can do things better, that there are things you’ll want to course-correct. Perhaps the easiest way to cause harm when storytelling is to think that you’ve reached a point of immunity.

But when you truly listen to the people who share their stories with you with the intent of having them spread to the world, both the stories they tell and their feedback about your handling of the stories, you stay open to that necessary, constant improvement.

on poverty

One of my more memorable encounters in Burundi was with Enos and his family. Burundi was recently named the most food insecure country, and Enos’ experience was typical. He and his kids would eat one meal a day, usually maize or spinach without much variety. Pretty frequently, they would have to skip meals all together.

Now they eat three meals a day. As someone who has never had to skip meals, that is so easy to take for granted. And when you consider that he has a total of seven mouths to feed, this becomes even more impressive.

When you have an impression of poverty that’s based on stereotypes, it’s easy to start thinking of it as something inevitable. Inescapable. But Enos shows us that this isn’t the case. Things like this are happening every day.

Are you familiar with village savings groups?

In many rural villages, banks don’t operate. With nowhere to save money, borrow loans, or invest in a community, these villages can’t make strides against poverty. But village savings groups change that by equipping communities to become their own banks.

This is an increasingly common practice, especially around Africa and South Asia. Each organization runs them slightly differently, but I’m quite partial (and biased!) towards Plant With Purpose’s Purpose Group model that pairs these activities with land restoration and environmental education.

grow your own food

This is the kind of life we used to all have, the life where we grow our own food, and use the market to buy and sell for income and to fill in the gaps.

This is still life for about a billion people, but these are also the people most afflicted by poverty and climate change. This may not be the life all of us live anymore, but our decisions still have a big impact on those who do.

I’ve always been a believer that if you want to get to know the heart of everyday life in a community, head to the market. In a lot of places that means the grocery store or supermarket but in settings like rural Burundi, that’s also an open air market where goods are sold by the hands that planted them.

Toronto

A SURPRISE TRIP

If you ever get the chance to take one of your closest friends on a surprise trip, withholding the destination and coaxing them to come along… go do it.

Especially if it’s to a place as fun as Toronto.

And it’s now one of my favorite cities out there. Such an easy place to get around, so many things to do, surrounded by plenty of nature, and so much cultural diversity.

🏙 Loved the huge blend of cultures that merge in Toronto. Between the food, the neighborhoods, the small businesses, film festivals, and just the faces you see when you’re out, it kind of feels like you’ve got a special portal to the world.

🏙 Toronto’s a pretty big city, but nature is well integrated. From the quick escapes to the islands, the lakes and waterfalls further out in Ontario, or the impressive set of city parks, I was impressed by all the green space.

🏙 I found the city easier to get around than any comparable spot in the US. All we did in one weekend was made possible by reliable public transport and walkable spaces.

🏙 From board game cafes to coffee shops with a ton of personality, there are a lot of spaces there built for fun (a lot of fun) that I wish we had closer to home. While we’re still enamored with axe throwing over here, they’re turning the Squid Games into a VR arcade.

The plain truth: I really love Toronto. 🇨🇦

Of course I thought I would like it, otherwise I wouldn’t have planned a weekend escape there. But I wasn’t expecting to leave thinking it’s perhaps in my top 3-5 favorite cities, alongside the likes of Cape Town and Amsterdam.

But sure enough, I’m a little jealous of the people who get to visit often or call it home.

day one

First Day in Toronto:

Day one of that time I took Daniel on a trip without telling him where we were going and we wound up in Toronto.

The iconic St. Lawrence Market, the Museum of Illusions, Graffiti Alley, and Chinatown all showed up, but mostly, lots and lots of eating.

PS- ever have the peameal bacon sandwich? This thing turned out much tastier than anticipated, and well worth the $7 CAN.

The itinerary:

🏙 Food hunting at the St. Lawrence Market

🏙 Boba break at Chatime

🏙 Visiting the actual Kim’s Convenience location

🏙 The Museum of Illusions on the Eastside

🏙 Graffiti Alley

🏙 Chinatown Food Challenge

Thankful to have a friend who will put aside his preference for the familiar and hop on a plane to some mystery destination with no clue how things are going to go.

Thankful for unearthing his wedding toast where he talks about how much he loves complaining about the stupid situations I get us into, because seven years later that hasn’t changed much.

Thankful for a board game cafe that doesn’t give us too much crap for staying 20 minutes past closing, a city that makes it possible to visit almost 20 restaurants in one weekend, and a border security agent’s interview for giving us a weekend’s worth of joke fodder.

Let’s be real—visiting Kim’s Convenience was one of the big reasons I wanted to go to Toronto. I was kind of surprised, but pleased, with how well the layout of the store matched the set design. This place also really has an apartment above the store. Rumor has it that both are for sale (together), though it is also a Canadian Cultural Heritage Site, so I think it’ll be required to still be Kim’s Convenience.

Got to go start that GoFundMe now.

The Most Diverse City

This is my favorite thing about Toronto… it feels like North America’s portal to the world.

Toronto is home to over 200 different ethnic groups. Over 140 languages are spoken in the city, which includes many different international neighborhoods like Chinatown, Greektown, Little Italy, Little Poland, and Little India. Many of these neighborhoods host cultural festivals throughout the year.

It can go toe-to-toe with other cosmopolitan centers like New York, São Paolo, or Singapore, but there is a lot less separation between groups of different backgrounds and origin.

I’d have a hard time living in a place that lacks having a diversity of people and backgrounds all in one spot. The longer I go, the more I realize, this does so much to enrich my life in so many different ways.

I love how this allows you to experience so many things from different cultures, from food to film festivals… but better yet, it introduces you to new people and perspectives.

exploring the food of toronto

The most multicultural city in the world??

I heard Toronto could make a very good case for the title. Over half its population born outside of Canada. Less segregated than a similarly diverse New York. Very visible examples of multiethnic spaces.

Toronto also happens to be a fantastic food city. Put those things together and it’s basically a giant portal to try nearly any cuisine in the world. You know that had me pretty excited.

With only three full days in town I hoped to try as many different cuisines as possible… but that’s not a lot of time. With limited hours of operation and limited stomach space- I’m pretty proud of what we were able to pull off in such little time.

The Chinatown Challenge

Daniel and I competed to see who could put $30 to the best use during one night in Toronto’s Chinatown. We sought out to create the best lineup of food, snacks, drinks, and desserts we could while managing stomach space and trying to get to restaurants before they closed.

DANIEL’S EATS

Honey Garlic Cauliflower
My Roti
$5.64

Kimchi Fries
Banh Mi Boys
$8.50

Iced Latte
Lait Nite
$4.50

Steamed Pork Bun x2
Juicy Dumpling
$5.50

Cucumber Roll
To-ne Sushi
$4.20

LEFTOVER:
-$0.10

PHILIPPE’S EATS

Mango Lassi
My Roti
$5.64

Banh Mi
Banh Mi Boys
$7.50

Xiao Long Bao
Juicy Dumpling
$4.20

Spicy Salmon Roll
To-Ne Sushi
$6.16

Cereal Milk Ice Cream
Cerealbox
$6.00

LEFTOVER:
$0.16

Results are in from the Chinatown Challenge and we have a winner... me.

But the real winner? Toronto or it's Ministry of Tourism. Cause now we all know what $60 can feed us in Chinatown.

day 2

Second Day in Toronto:

🏙 Egyptian food run in the morning

🏙 Hanging out at the Toronto Harbor

🏙 Ferry ride over to the Toronto Islands

🏙 Following random trails to wherever they splintered off to

🏙 Extended journey around the subway

🏙 Nicaraguan dinner at La Bella Managua

🏙 Ethiopian coffee and a walk through Koreatown

🏙 Snakes & Lattes: Finishing off the day with one of Toronto’s great board game cafes

I think we were in Toronto for it’s fairest weekend of the year. We got the delight of an early summer when we set off for the Toronto Islands.

With another day under our belts, this only further cemented my appreciation for the city’s nature and diversity. I absolutely loved being able to see a quieter side of Toronto out where the kayaks and paddleboards kept floating freely.

I really thought the Toronto Islands would just be a big tourist trap. And they’re not not a tourist trap, I guess, but they’re also gorgeous and worth spending a day at. Especially when it’s perhaps the most ideal beach and park day Toronto might see all year.

My favorite thing about it here is that the ferry ride here starts from the tip of downtown Toronto. So one minute you’re kind of in the heart of the city, surrounded by skyscrapers, and then a short ride later, everything is very quiet and calm.

One of the things that really appealed to me about Toronto was that I would very often find out about little places to go for a simple fun time- and I would see them so frequently that my impression was that Toronto was actually chock full of places to play.

I found several board game cafes in the city. We pulled into Snakes & Lattes to discover a few new board games over drinks.

I think I was right about that. Wish these were a fixture in every city.

Antigua

TRAVEL WITH THE KIDS

This isn’t the furthest I’ve ever traveled, but it might have been my most ambitious trip.

Deanna and I took our crew of three-under-three to Guatemala!

🌋🇬🇹🍫☕️

Our time has been…

…refreshing. After six months of barely leaving our neighborhood, let alone the country, being able to step foot somewhere new is so reenergizing.

…truly memorable. Getting to see my kids in new settings and to explore as a family is some high level wish fulfillment.

…a real adventure. While this trip was both, I don’t think that world should be conflated with ‘vacation.’ It’s all about exploring and stretching your own limits and discovering what you’re actually capable of. New discoveries were made in that area for sure!

Antigua’s the kind of place where you’ll run into people from all around the world in any number of coffee shops, especially with so many opportune for remote work.

I kept catching glimpses that would take you to Lake Atitlan, Tikal, or even neighboring countries. Tegucigalpa. Belmopan.

It made it easy to start daydreaming of the parallel world where I could turn this weeks-long trip into a months-long string of stays across Central America. I did similar trips throughout my early 20s in different regions and I couldn’t help but be nostalgic for the era when “travel was easy.”

The part that seemed the most intimidating was the first part… getting there. The flight itself wasn’t so bad, the kids mostly slept and Deanna packed the magic school bus backpack full of goodies. The bigger challenge was getting through the airport.

We landed in Guatemala City and got a ride to Antigua, about 40 minutes. I probably overpaid for the transport but I wanted our first journey to be comfortable.

We got into our homestay which was really nice. Love that it was built around this outdoor courtyard. Explored the balcony too.

For these trips I say not to plan anything for your first 24 hours to let everyone recoup. We got naps, playtime, and by the end Rhys and I even worked up enough energy for a walk in town.

home life & a birthday

The past few years have made me really rethink my relationship with travel. I still know that I love going places and that’ll probably stick with me for life. But here are some of the bigger shifts:

🏜 Going at as slow of a pace as possible. This is especially important now that I have kids and want to travel with them as much as I can manage. Slow travel tends to be more sustainable, intimate, and it just teaches you way more.

🏔 Trying to go as sustainably as possible. There’s no great way around the emissions of flying right now, and while I don’t think offsets solve every problem, they at can at least help here. Even more so, I want to make sure I’m going places mindfully, making the most of each visit, keeping the number of over-ocean flights small.

🗺 Emphasizing respect for locals. I think I’ve always tried to be mindful of the fact that travel is on other people’s home land, but the sense of entitlement around being able to go places I sometimes see makes me recoil- and I’m not necessarily immune to it. I want to make sure I always remember that going places is a privilege.

I’m 32 today.

What a year. What a life.

I hope this comes across as grateful rather than boastful, but…

Of all the stories I could possibly be living, I can’t think of one I’d rather be in than the one I’ve been given.

The people I get to be around.
The kiddos I get to raise.
The places I get to visit.
The projects I get to work on.
The things I get to fight for.

There’s a lot going on in the world and there’s no shortage of reminders that everybody is going through something, but I can’t help but think that a real deep gratitude for life and the deliberate decision to live makes it a little better for everyone.

GUATEMALAN DAYS

This felt like an old Spanish monastery mish-mashed with a day spa.

But actually… it was a Taco Bell!

A bit before going to Antigua, I did my usual thing of pre-exploring via Google Maps and letting my little street view avatar guy do some walking around for me. He walked me into this rustic alleyway that I couldn’t believe was actually a Taco Bell. But sure enough, I was able to get in there and snag a chalupa.

I know there’s the fancy ocean-view Taco Bell out in Pacifica, and then there’s the one that’s also a luxury hotel in Vegas… but this is probably my favorite of the weird Taco Bells.

People love and romanticize the idea of living like a local when traveling, so here's a big tip on how to do that:

Do really ordinary boring stuff.

Errands.

Except when you're in a different setting, a lot of times it won't be boring at all. Some unfamiliar places.

In Guatemala, ordinary errands for us looked like grocery shopping and tracking down insulin.

But it's when you do these things that you realize the subtle (or occasionally unsubtle) ways these things differ from place to place and how that reflects deeper, underlying differences that make each place unique.

hobbitenango

I love finding quirky things in unexpected places around the world, which is why when I found out that Guatemala had it’s own Hobbit Village in the style of New Zealand’s Lord of the Rings set, I had to go.

Hobbitenango is a fully functioning eco-lodge. You can rent a room in one of the Hobbit shanties and stay the night. There was a giant human rope swing, several replica locations from the movies, and a lot of taverns, pubs, cafés, and restaurants all with Middle-Earth themed meals. The fondue and cocktails were actually quite good.

As a bonus, this place ended up being very kid-friendly. There were several meadows where we could just let them roll around in the grass, and hammocks scattered alongside a nature walk. A lot of different parts offered some pretty fantastic views out into the surrounding mountains to further set the scene.

If you’re into things that are just a bit on the weird side, but still enjoy good views, fun drinks, and feasting in general… this is a good spot. Pretty kid friendly, too.

The Quetzal

New favorite bird alert… kind of. I can never pick one favorite bird. But let’s talk about the resplendent quetzal for a hot minute.

It’s the national bird of Guatemala- and it’s clear the country loves the quetzal. It’s on their national team’s soccer crest. It’s on their currency… the currency is even named after the bird.

I would love to see the bird while in Guatemala, except the likelihood of that is quite low. They are unfortunately threatened due to habitat loss.

There’s an old story, it’s kind of a legend, of a quetzal that was caught and caged. When inside they decided they would rather hurl themself at the sides of the cage to die rather than to live in captivity. Thus, the quetzal has been a symbol of freedom for so many.

COFFEE IN GUATEMALA

If food tells the story of a place, then some of the greatest storytellers should be the people who grow the food, right?

That’s how it’s been in my experience, which is why I most often feel like I’ve gotten to know a place once I’ve set foot on a farm.

In Guatemala, it had to be a coffee farm, of course. Guatemalan coffee is known all over the world, and while I visited Antigua, I went out to a new local coffee shop practically every day. But the experience felt incomplete until I met Angel and Francisca. They helped me understand what it was like to see rural Guatemala change over decades, the challenges that farmers face during the climate crisis, and their own unique experiences as parents. I left in awe of how much we had in common. This is what I love about going places.

Kaffee Fernando in Antigua, Guatemala

Coffee plants grown in front of Mt. Pacayan

SAN MIGUEL ESCOBAR

My favorite coffee that I have at home is from Angel in Guatemala.

I wanted to tour some coffee farms in Guatemala, with it being such a coffee haven and all. I wound up on the volcanic hillside of San Miguel Escobar with Angel, a sixth generation coffee grower who’d been drinking the stuff since he was ten. (I’m Guatemalan, he joked with me. What height do I have to worry about?)

I learned a bit about coffee growing in Guatemala, a country whose farming population has endured decades of exploitative practices. But I learned even more about Angel.

Angel was showing me around his coffee farm in Guatemala, talking about how everything needed to be in balance- from the shade to the soil- in order to grow coffee beans just right.

I bought a bag of beans from Angel directly. I handed him the cash, he handed over the bag. We were in his house. His face is the literal label of the bag. No middlemen were involved. This is as direct trade as you can get, so Angel gets 100% of the sale.

That’s important. Much of what Angel earns from his coffee farm enables him to seek physical therapy for his six year old daughter who is developing her ability to walk after being born 17 weeks premature.

It’s good coffee. Really good. But the story behind it is what makes it my favorite.

Angel is my same age. And he’s also a twin dad. Sadly, his twins came early- at 23 weeks gestation. His son didn’t make it. To pay for his daughter’s treatment, he had to take a job working in a restaurant to be eligible for the social benefits.

Today, he sells his coffee to shops in the US, Canada, and Europe, and this helps him afford physical therapy for his daughter.

This encounter captures everything I love about travel, storytelling, and connecting with people.

I’ve had a decent understanding of soil health, built up over time by visiting farm after farm and talking to farmers. But seeing somebody actively maintain the balance needed for truly healthy soil by influencing shade and heat and moisture and sun exposure makes you realize that it’s just as much art as it is science. That it’s both a technical skill and one that benefits from intuitive wisdom.

I’ve never been a detail obsessed coffee connoisseur, but I’ve definitely grown a lot more interested in discerning flavor profiles. I respect how it’s always a reflection of the delicate balance of the land where it was grown.

FARMING IN GUATEMALA

Almost 2/3rds of Guatemala is indigenous and its Mayan roots are all over the place once you choose to notice.

However, so many of the country’s fairly recent pains come from the marginalization of its majority- from being excluded from politics to having their natural resources exploited.

I’ve learned a lot about this struggle through the writing of Rigoberta Menchu, who grew up in a small, remote farming village and in 1992 won the Nobel Peace Prize for her organizing and advocacy.

Some of the things she writes about most include faith- building a Church and spiritual community that stands in solidarity with the marginalized, and our relationship with nature.

🌋🌋🌋

Here are a few of my favorite snippets:

“I think that if one's role doesn't correspond to what one says, if one's life doesn't correspond to what one preaches, if one is not true to one's people, someone else will come as a substitute.”

“This world's not going to change unless we're willing to change ourselves.”

“To be a light to others you will need a good dose of the spiritual life. Because as my mother used to say, if you are in a good place, then you can help others”🫘

“Our reality teaches us that, as Christians, we must create a Church of the poor, that we don't need a Church imposed from outside which knows nothing of hunger. Together we can build the people's Church, a true Church. Not just a hierarchy, or a building, but a real change inside people.”

GUATEMALAN FOOD

One thing I’m going to seek out a lot more often when I travel are cooking classes taught by locals… Here’s why.

It’s not so much that I want to become an incredible chef, though that’d be cool. But people really open up while preparing food. And it’s a great way to meet somebody in a place I’m visiting and learn about their life.

When I tried doing this in Guatemala, I learned how to make pepian. We brought two five-month-old babies with us, though, so it wasn’t so much a cooking lesson as a demonstration. But as we watched Francesca pound peppers into mole and chop vegetables for the stew, she opened up about raising her own twins in Guatemala during the 1970s. Rough, without electricity in her village, but over time things have gotten steadily better… to the point where we could prepare this feast.

It’s wild how many times I’ve gone to remote parts of the world only to find bits of my own story reflected back at me. This has happened so many times.

Francesca’s tips on raising twins:

You have to be patient with the children.

You need to ask for help. You need other people.

I don’t know what it is about being a parent to twins, but you manage to find the other moms and dads of multiples. Even when you’re in a village in Guatemala, taking a cooking class.

Our class was hosted by Francesca. Her twins are now fully grown, but her memories of raising them at a time when her village lacked electricity and was much more impoverished were sharp. She talked about how hard it was to get up several times in the night to feed them by candlelight, or perhaps just by feel. She talked about asking her sister for help, and how things improved gradually. For her. For her village.

I asked her what her tips were on raising twins, and the two bits of advice were perfect. Patience and being willing to ask for help are not things that come naturally to me, but so many encounters in Guatemala drove home the same message: go ahead and face those challenges, you’re not alone.

Pepián is Guatemalan comfort food with Mayan roots. It’s a hearty meat stew made with veggies, tomatillo, gourds, and spices. You’ll find all kinds of variations on it… some using hen or chicken or beef, some include chocolate, some grind up different peppers and seeds to alter the nutty flavor. That allows every abuela to really make it their own, and we loved learning Francesca’s take on the dish.

RUINS OF ANTIGUA

I hope the kids had as much fun romping through the ancient ruins of Antigua as I did. It’s pretty incredible that ruins like these are all over the city, and for a little fee, you can roam through and feel like a video game character.

I love how naturally this crew takes to exploring.

I didn’t *need* this trip.

But only because I try to be careful with applying that word to travel. It’s a privilege and we shouldn’t feel too entitled to enjoy the best a country has to offer without the deepest appreciation.

But I do think we need things like stepping away from our routines, a sense of adventure, and sparks of wonder, all of which I got out of this trip. I can already feel the creative energy coming back. I have so many things I’m excited to be working on, and it feels like being in Guatemala has really helped me get unstuck.

So maybe I didn’t *need* that trip. But I can’t deny that it was a really good one for me, on a number of different levels.