Circumstances not of my own making brought me from one spectacular, mountainous state to another. Settling into North Carolina's Piedmont, the maps pointed me westward to the Appalachians, unique on Earth. Nowhere have I seen it better described than here, by Sheila Turnage1.
How did the Appalachians come to be here? The Cherokee, who have lived here for thousands of years, say that one day long ago, the Great Buzzard swooped low over the new earth. His wings brushed the impressionable earth, creating the mountain ranges that rise and fall, and then fade into sky. Geologists envision a wilder scenario.
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Some of my most memorable trips have been to places I’d never intended to go. Calabar, in eastern Nigeria, was one of them.
For all practical purposes, to the outside world, Nigeria equals the chaotic megacity of Lagos and Lagos is Nigeria. Peer a little closer of course and there’s a lifetime more to discover. Serendipity brought me first to Nigeria (Lagos, of course), and then farther afield until the little aircraft I was in was taxiing into Calabar, 400 miles east of Lagos and not far from the Cameroonian border.
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It must have been around late 2014 after a full nine years in West Africa: I was deathly bored of the continuous struggle to invest in the governments of poor places while remaining infinitely wary for the fraud and misuse that comes with the pleasure of spending another people's money. I desperately wanted to leave the donor business. "Also," I told Ericka, " if I don't get out of this sector, some day I'm going to find myself on a plane to Somalia or something."
So the irony wasn't lost on me when I boarded a plane for Hargeisa just a few years later.
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Threading my steps along
that stone-strewn way I missed
the breathless luminescence of
cactus flower, hovering among
the spines.
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May 2002: Leaving Nicaragua after so many years it has long since felt like home to me. After such a long and lovely stay, and wondering when it is I'll return to this place I love so much, I'm intensely aware of how much I'll miss.
Here's just a taste of it:
- Sense of humanity, connection, personality, 'confianza'
- That pervasive, brute sexuality: a flowered skirt, a blouse tight against the hip, a touch of lace, long hair flowing down over smooth, muscular skin, that strong femininity
- soft, flowery fabrics
- affection, touching, cariño
- People still dress up, the concept of your 'Sunday best' still exists, and for a reason
- A nation, a people, a culture that still makes the best use possible of the little it has: cobblers, tailors, guys who fix electronics, not to mention the intense recycling that goes on in the countryside
- A people that still pays attention to its children, 'padres orgullosos' carrying their little ones around on their shoulders or the handles of their bicycles
- The lack makes things easier to appreciate; scarcity leads to value
- The tropical colors, Latin architecture of open houses set around courtyards, patios full of palms, the ironwork, the openness of everything
And the list goes on and on ...
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