A blog about travel, culture and finding joy in the journey!

We did not have a lot of money when I was young. There was often not much food in the house. When I was about 4, I was wishing we had a loaf of bread. But what could I do about it? I looked through my coins and found a two-dollar bill. “Can you buy some bread with this?” I asked my mom. She nodded and quietly took the money. I was so thrilled to be able to eat the bread that I had bought! Sadly, the bread ran out and I only had coins left. A while later, as I was looking at

As I listened to my son’s wail, my own heart was breaking. I pulled him close, wishing I could somehow protect him from this pain. But I could not. “I’m sorry, buddy. Loving people hurts.” One thing I have recently done is allow myself the permission to grieve. As a child, I was bullied and learned to hide my sadness. It became a badge of honour to never allow myself to cry, especially publicly. Instead, I would bottle up my emotions, and later they would come out as anger, e

Returning to my home country briefly has been an interesting experience. I can’t tell you how many times the excitement has hit me as I realized… “I can drink the water!” “I can brush my teeth with tap water!” “Whoa! There’s hot water in the sink! What a novelty!” (At “home” we only have hot water for one of our showers, none of the sinks). And “dryers are so cool! You can get more laundry done, faster, and you don’t have to depend on the weather to cooperate!” Every time I