I wasn’t born a woman. I really wasn’t. Unlike most parents in India then, my parents had wished, and perhaps prayed (my father was an atheist then, so, I really cannot be very sure!) that their first-born be a girl child. So my grandfather who was later to dream of the Lord Shiva, not the [...]

Marilyn told of women and hot steaming dung used for fuel, plaster for houses, fertilizer: dung, life-giving, treasured birthday gift for a desperate gardener of a dry garden. What about world meltdown coming? A questioner asked. Marilyn grew quiet, thoughtful. She spoke of dire omens in other countries. Those who have the most (like the [...]

In the Southern stretches of the Sahara, the water only flows at night. Almost as infrequently as the appearance of fresh vegetables at market, dry pipes come to life sputtering and coughing wet exhaust like a tired tailpipe. It is 10pm. Our five-man team is gathered in the courtyard of the tiny compound hidden around [...]

Dr. Seuss may have been a frequent visitor to Nhangau. These marshes are filled with impossible plants and fantastical creatures: ghostly fluorescent trees with fat purple trunks, foot-long striped lizards, perfect lily pads and swaying cattails, pale blue flowers that stand straight out of calm clear ponds, huge intimidating birds with long colorful beaks. Patches [...]

We have reached the edge. Holding on to the railing of the Santa Fe Bridge, I can see the Rio Bravo's dirty water running, and then I feel the electric current again. I face red painted nails I do not recognize, and I tell myself this is not me. I’m not an immigrant, not a [...]

February 14, 2005 Los Angeles Dear Mom, Writing you a letter across America, the Atlantic, and the Aegean Sea feels very awkward. I should have been back home about a year ago. Under the deep shadow of Mt. Gume's snowy peaks, we'd be laughing at old family photographs over grilled chestnuts and steaming cups of [...]

Few people can claim a career as filled with high purpose as mine, yet until a year ago, I felt I made no difference to the world. I have taken a twenty year journey across four continents to discover my vocation and every dead-end and wrong turn has helped shape my final conviction that I [...]