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At the beginning of this trip, we were told of the ways in which Dragons students tend to form relationships with their peers. We start by forming, first getting to know each other, being friendly and (at times) uncharacteristically kind. After this......Read More
“Sampai nanti Ibu!” I call as I tiptoe across my porch and down the precarious and wobbly steps of our stilted home. I set out towards rumah Andar (our program house in Sampela) tiptoeing, eyes glued to the boardwalk, trying to remember......Read More
“There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.” -J.R.R. Tolkien I came to Nepal looking to learn and to expand my......Read More
“You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no......Read More
As we prepare to wrap up our three month of traveling up the Mekong, we wrote some reflection pieces. Here are our answers to the two prompts: In Asia, I… I found my closest friends, explored beautiful caves, ate the best food, and made......Read More
My experience in Nepal is coming to an end. For my last Yak, I want to write a letter to myself to help me remember all the things I have learned from this trip and to help me make sense of this experience as a whole. Maria, As the city of Patan and......Read More
In the U.S. (and other mega-developed, mega-polluter countries), we live separate from our impact and our ecological footprint. We throw away our waste, old fashions, leftover foods, and clutter we bought but never needed without thinking of where......Read More
This Mountain speaks through cold, sharp breezes. This Mountain out shines Annapurna South directly to its west. This Mountain is held sacred. This Mountain looks down on me.
“The colors of the rainbow / So pretty in the sky / Are also on the faces / Of people going by” -Louis Armstrong For the past three weeks, I’ve had the privilege of painting in Cochabamba with Mario Rolando Vargas Cuellar. Mario, amongst other......Read More
“There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.” -Nelson Mandela We came to N’acion Q’eros in a wooden truckbed bordered by blue walls. We sat on our big bags, talking,......Read More
A little excerpt from my journal in Sampela (the village we are staying in in Wakatobi National Park on the Island of Sulawesi. We are staying with Bajau people, the “sea nomads,” who live on houses on stilts over the ocean. Most people here are......Read More
I´ve always been a kind of idealist. Daydreamer, romantic, nose always buried in a book. My mom would say it´s my artistic nature. My friends would say it´s because I´m a Pisces. Myers-Briggs says it´s an INFP thing. Most of the time, I believe......Read More
As Jeff and I hiked up the Kuang Si waterfall, we discussed a yak I was working on: journey vs destination. I told him how my homestay families in both Camodia and Laos had several family members that work very far away (such as in Bangkok or in......Read More
Attached are some pictures from the recent trek.
Resounding church bells over terracotta tiles. Cries of “¡Churros!” and “¡Masajes!” in cobbled plazas. Six AM sunrises over the glaciated peaks of Auzangate. This is Cusco. Sitting in this internet cafe, licking the......Read More
