At the hotel, Kevin sits alone at the dinner table for six. He’s from Scotland and he’s never been to São Tomé before. We don’t know this, though, when we first sit down with him- four of us to fill the table up better. He is quiet, he eats quickly but at the same time he eats slowly and spreads his food around and studies it. He doesn’t look up.
The three Portuguese guys and I are talking about something, anything, I don’t remember what we’re talking about. One of the …

It was my eleventh day in St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands and my first day of vacation.
Despite the tempting white sands just a few [hundred] steps from my tent cabin at the Maho Bay Camps, I simply hadn’t had enough time to take much advantage of them. I was, unlike 99% of the tourists here, on a work trip, and my days were spent running around organizing a laptop pilot in three schools with my new job, Waveplace, while simultaneously coordinating and executing the first ever One Laptop Per Child …

Here they are again. You can hear them a mile away, like a siren.
They’re unavoidable.
AMERICANS.
My eyes roll to the back of my head. They come in like a storm cloud- a pulsing, absorbing blob of short shorts and flip flops and ponytails and- the worst- shirts with Hawaiian print. They could be in Switzerland in January, and they’ve still got the Hawaiian print. They are an unstoppable force. They dig into their pockets for two minutes fishing out their shiny blue passports. They speak slowly – and loudly – to …

In February I wrote an article about being a Stay Girl, or rather, a woman with a Go Girl mentality who is, for one reason or another, in one location for a period of time. Perhaps it is her job to stay put while someone else is out experiencing an adventure.
In my case, I became a Stay Girl when my boyfriend, Marvin, deployed to Afghanistan in January and I was still jobless in Washington, D.C. So I was at home battling the flag-sewing military wife stereotype while he was busy …

I am in St. John for the first time, having just arrived by ferry. My friend Bill, who lives on the island, picks me up at the wharf. It is night so I can’t see much of anything but house lights on hills and a cool reflection of the moon in miles of water.
I haven’t eaten in 14 hours so I am starving. I call upon my Haiti strength- remembering the children that I met that know too well the feeling of not eating one day, even two. I shouldn’t …

By Beth
I was talking to my buddy Alessandro again today. He’s feeling antsy and wants to get on the move again. He is always such a world traveler, more than myself. He talks about how I am living the “Pure American Comedy,” a life that he finds so hilarious, somehow directly related to the fact that all my Facebook pictures feature me eating and yet I am not fat.
I tell Alessandro that I have always found Italy to be one of the most beautiful countries in the world. Why would he ever …

SMACK.
A hand comes down upon Lidia’s body while she sits in class. You can hear the crack of the teacher’s hand from across the room, I know. No one looks up. Her body coils back in pain. She starts to cry, heavy hiccups that she silently lets loose while tears build in her eyes and flush down her cheeks.
I’m sitting next to Lidia and I am in pure shock. Sitting right next to her and helping her to paint a picture as the hand comes down. “WHY aren’t you working?!?” …

Christo jumps up into my arms and kisses my face, over and over and over and over. His big toothless smile and wide eyes are absolutely irresistible. You never see a kid smile that much. His little arms and legs cling to me so hard that I don’t even need to hold onto him. He is glued onto my hip and he won’t let go.
As I walk toward the orphanage with Christo in my arms, kids run out to greet me. They smile and yell. Some try to climb up …

If you are queasy about “girl things”, don’t read this article.
I was feeling horny as hell in Haiti. There’s really no other way to say that. Hormones are hormones and mine were raging.
I breathed a sigh of relief when my period finally came on. I knew the urges would ease again and that I would make it through what was accumulating into some pretty rough nights. But now I had bigger things to worry about- bigger fish to fry, you might say.
Like this question, for example: how the hell do …

At the end of our two-week stay at our friend Zo’s house in Darbonne, we realized that we never bought his family a parting gift. This is a standard thing to do to say thanks- usually a gift of something they might need like an oil lamp, a laundry basket, a knife. We are slightly embarrassed that we have forgotten but our translator and friend, Benaja, covers for us.
At breakfast, he invites the family into the kitchen and we each take a few minutes telling them how grateful we are …