1. Morocco Boxing in Marrakesh

    This picture was taken in the Jemaa Lfna, Marrakesh Morocco. The Jemaa Lfna is a place to see snake charmers, monkeys, story tellers and acrobats and fortune tellers. I had a chance to meet up with my friend Chris for a few hours while he was passing through Marrakesh. Chris has been a mime for 20+ years, and has traveled all over the world. My friend Chris wanted to his routine of magic tricks and making balloon animals. It didn't take him long to find a man (the guy in the red hat) who had ...

  2. Burkina Faso Of Drumming and Lightning in the Faso

    It wasn’t the drumming that woke me.  This was, after all, “funeral season” in Burkina Faso.  A period well after the harvest that this west African country of mostly subsistence farmers has the time and money to mourn the death – and celebrate the life – of those who passed away in the last year with all night drumming and dancing sessions.  Having lived in this village in southeast Burkina as a Peace Corps volunteer for the past 20 months, I was used to going to bed to the rhythm of the dru...

  3. Morocco Camp is Camp the World Around

    One of the best experiences I had during my Small Business Development service was shortly after I was assigned to a site near Marrakech.  The Wonderful Unexpected. A friend in Youth Development co-chaired the spring break English immersion camp near the Algerian border, and asked if I would help.  I got permission from my manager and traveled for two long days and night to get there.  We taught English every morning and had "club" in the afternoons.  Since my Darija (Moroccan Arabi...

  4. Niger Braids

    9-year-old Charifa shows off her Eid ul-Fitr hair.

  5. Niger Mother and child

    Abdul Samad discovers his mother's hijab.

  6. Niger At the Feet of the Chief

    Eid ul-Fitr (the celebration of the end of Ramadan) started a few days after I arrived in my site. I lived near the village chief, and while I was walking by his house one day during this celebration, he pulled me into his entryroom to sit next to him and observe these men serenading him.

  7. Morocco Speaking Up

      “Arabs treat their women terribly…women’s rights in Arab countries are just non-existent…I would hate to be a woman there.” I overheard the gentleman while on a layover at the Chicago O’Hare airport in November 2004. Immediately, my stomach tensed and my blood pressure began to rise. Had I been sitting next to the man a year before, I doubt I would have reacted so adversely. But this year, I was heading home for a vacation from my first year as a Volunteer in Morocco. I had lived and breath...

  8. Fiji Toothbrush Drill

    My host family sister Adi had to improvise in order to reach the water faucet during her morning brush...

  9. Fiji Open Wide Please...

    The dentist and his assistant extract a tooth from a student during a health team school tour on my home island of Kadavu.

  10. St. Lucia Dennery Waterfall

    Up a backroad leading away from my village and toward the interior of Saint Lucia is the Dennery Waterfall, a hidden gem. Here are some Girl Guides enjoying the water after our hike up there. 

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“Sunset at the Railroad” by PCV Nicholas Baylor Hall. Namibia, 2011.