TUNISIA AFTER THE REVOLUTION: Why you will want to go

words by Judith Fein; photography by Paul Ross

I am  in love...with Tunisia. When I close my eyes and think about the kindness, hospitality and open-heartedness of the Tunisian people, I want to jump on a plane and go back. I've been to Tunisia seven times, lived there for six months, made two films about the country. But I hardly expected what has happened over the last week: there has been a grass-roots revolution.  The Tunisian people have risen up against their tyrannical leader, and said no to repression. They have risked their lives in their fight for freedom. 

In my lifetime, the Solidarity movement in Poland catapulted to power. The Berlin wall fell. The Soviet Union fell apart. And now, in a small Arab Muslim nation in North Africa, a despot has been deposed and the people are demanding democracy. 

READ why I think the revolution and the country should be on your radar in my RECENT ARTICLE FOR THE HUFFINGTON POST

And maybe, this year, if the stars are aligned correctly, you'll JOIN ME FOR A TRIP to the new Tunisia.  If you're game, drop me an email. 

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From Africa With Love

words + photos by Dr. Marissa Pei

I went to Africa expecting to have my paradigms blown out of the continent.  And bombs away, my mind detonated, but in a way that was entirely unexpected. 

Dr. Marissa Pei and friend in AfricaI went to Africa thinking that I would learn to be more grateful. And I am grateful, especially for the conveniences of western civilization that I have grown accustomed to. I missed having toilets that flushed, toilet paper supplied, toilet paper that would flush, stalls where I could sit and not have to stand, and bathrooms where I didn’t have to breathe through my mouth. 

Yes I am grateful for sanitization that uses up exorbitant amounts of natural resources. Would I give it up?  Not in this lifetime!  Will I be more grateful for American bathrooms? Absolutely! But by being appreciative for our sanitation and building codes, am I implying that we in the west are more civilized? Well if “civilized’ means beautifully-constructed and aesthetically-pleasing on the outside, yes we in the West are definitely more beautiful on the outside. But are we more beautiful on the inside?  

I went to Africa thinking that I would be triggered by the haunted look in the children’s eyes, you know...like the World Vision pictures or National Geographic images…and to some extent I was. But 88 percent of the time, our eyes would meet, I would smile, and a spontaneous answering grin would break their face wide open, tapping into the reservoir of love and joy in their heart which splatters all over me. 

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Kenya: Rules of the Wild

words + photos by Ellen Barone

It was a few days into my first African safari when I learned the Fourth Rule of Safari Travel: When you think you’ve spotted a lion, casually ask the guide “What’s that?” rather than blurt out “There's a lion!” because 9 times out of 10 the ‘lion’ will be a termite mound.

Later on, I’d learn other rules: No. 7, If you’re squeamish about eating flesh avoid restaurants with the word Carnivore in their title; No. 13, Never run out of the safari tent, half naked, screaming “there’s a creature in my bed” before you’ve determined it isn’t a hot water bottle put there by the room steward to take the chill off a high-altitude night; and No. 17, Avoid standing up suddenly in an open-top Land Rover with a metal roll-bar above your head.

Photo Slide Show by Ellen Barone

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It was from the deck of a luxurious tent (complete with a carved mahogany four-poster bed) amid the amusing snorts and bellows of cavorting hippos in the river below that I first realized I was becoming immensely qualified to draft a new book proposal: The Idiot’s Guide to Safari (or should it be Safari for Dummies?)

Safari rule No. 8, A power outage is more than an annoying inconvenience when all that separates you and a river full of 5,000-pound hippos is an electric fence. (*Note, the Hippopotamus kills more people in Africa then all the other animals combined.)

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Echoes of Our Ancestors in Cape Coast Castle

by Kathleen Koprowski

Photo by bdinphoenix via Flickr (Creative Commons)I stepped out of the flat, gray day and into the black depths of the tunnel that led to the Female Dungeon beneath the Cape Coast Castle. Sensing my way along the stone floor, I followed the footsteps of other visitors ahead as my eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness. Cool air in the tunnel provided no lasting respite from the thick humidity outside; any sense of relief was overshadowed by the heavy weight of souls in this place. We fell silent, immediately sensing the terrible truths housed within.

The castle guide led us down, down underground to the dungeon used to hold female slaves before they were taken from Africa’s Gold Coast (now Ghana) to be sold in the Americas at the height of the slave trade in the 1800’s.  He ushered our small group into a stone chamber and closed the heavy door behind us.  A single bare light bulb illuminated the room for just a moment before he flipped the switch, pitching us into blackness.  No one spoke.  

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