Portland is for Lovers
I once fell in love with one of Portland, Oregon’s 583,776 residents. During the autumn of 2008, I packed my belongings into USPS boxes and made the move from rural Georgia to the city. While the...
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Fighting for My Place in Paris
I forced myself to fight for a spot on the ligne 13 this morning. A little girl squeezed my knees and gave me a genuine smile. Her honesty relaxed me. I can feel a lady with a wrinkled forehead breathe...
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Neredesen, Margaret…Where are you?
Life as an exchange student opens up doors to many curiousities. During my summer in Istanbul, Turkey on a full government scholarship for Turkish language study, I did a lot of thinking about the location...
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We Share the Same Blood
Echad, shtayim, shalosh, arba…”The foreign sounds of counting came from the deck of a dhow, a traditional Arab sailboat, cruising through a harbor filled with open sky, twinkling city...
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Les Vendanges in St. Georges
I am a little late on recounting this story, but it's worth telling. Our program director, Joelle, told us our morning class was cancelled and would be replaced by an...
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Upon My Rocky Path
Traveling alone without speaking the local language is no simple task. Why, then, do I continue to do it? This was a question I was asking myself two winters ago when I was traveling alone to...
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Tzedakah in India
Every afternoon, sixteen-year-old Salim came home from school, through the doors of the Nav Jagriti or the “New Hope” orphanage and shook my hand. He asked me: “You are feeling?”...
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Nigeria
My name is Chigozilim Udonna Menakaya and I am a Nigerian-American. Whenever I tell somebody this, they’re always like, “please, there's no such thing as a Nigerian-American. Either you’re Nigerian...
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