It is difficult to believe that I first met Maria and Carmen four years ago. It was my second year as director of a development project in Guatemala and though I had seen a lot, I had not been prepared for the realities a visit to a garbage dump near the foot of the volcano…
Benta’s Message Benta is the black woman pictured on the right in this picture. We lost her this week. She was one of the good ones. I did not know her well, but her humble sincerity, the dedication she obviously put into her work, and the love she had for the orphans she cared for…
Today we danced the mud dance. With the energy of puppies locked in a meat locker, we covered ourselves in mud cakes dug from the ground. Mud flew everywhere, it lodged in our fingernails—red soil of the earth, the mythical kind wreaking of life—and probably containing some stuff we’re glad we didn’t know was in…
I not sure how to tell you this story. If I introspect, I’m uncertain of either side of an extreme—worried that the medium of writing won’t throw the curtain separating a happening and it’s recounting far enough for you to peer behind, and also fearful it will swing too far, leaving me exposed. I’ll do…
Why To Lend A Hand It wasn’t our original impetus for coming to Kenya, but after we read Calvin’s email, it became our raison d’être for being here. Calvin, had come across three AIDS orphans (Wilfred [17], Samuel [15] and Simon [13]) a half-kilometer from where he and his brothers had been orphaned by the…
Yesterday I went with Steven, an American I met on the plane from Cairo to Nairobi, to Kibera, the second largest slum in Africa. At a given time up to 1.5 million people are living in the slum’s 2.5 square kilometers. Rick, a 26 year old man who has lived there for much of his…
I’m at the airport right now, waiting for a plane to whisk me away into a New Year. But before we roll over into 2013, I wanted to share with you the encouraging results of the Third World Saving Project that I did with the help of The Integral Heart Foundation who ran logistics…
When I was in high school, my parent’s adopted two Kenyan orphans, Calvin and Joash. After their parents passed away from AIDS, three brothers, Roger, Calvin and Joash, were left alone in their mud hut. Calvin, after reading a novel titled The Color of the Carnations about a Kenyan boy who studies in the USA, began to hope and…
Facebook and Twitter are conflicted today. On the one side we have people are talking about all the stuff they are scoring for Black Friday. Over the fence, down the stairs, into the sublet, we have everyone else calling today Buy Nothing Day. So what’s with today, today? Is it Black Friday or Buy Nothing…
Tomorrow I fly back to Guatemala to get the details squared away with micro-testing a project I’m calling, “The Third World Savings Project.” I’m working with The Integral Heart Foundation to flesh out the details of implementation and since they have the boots on the ground, they are going to see the project through. When…
