The past and the future

NOTE: I'm not sure if our newsletter is SENDING properly so here is what I've been trying to send:

July 16, 2005


Dear Friends,


Well our Fellows are out in the world and writing wonderful stories back to (for) us. The contrast in travelogues could not be more striking. Hart Eddy is finding the future of tomorrow in Shanghai, China while Caitlin Cohen is traveling back in time to Bamako, Mali. In these two travelers we have the yesterday of Africa and the tomorrow of China. We have a continent dealing with all too human problems and China, a country so determined to grow that it is virtually eliminating human interaction with the gleaming skyscrapers of tomorrow. And yet both write about dust- gray construction dust and red terra cotta, reminding us that we are on a planet that is mostly dirt and water.

I’m struck by the current relevance of our Fellowships. Pick up a newspaper this week and you’ll see stories about the G8 nations doubling aid to Africa fro such preventable diseases as Malaria, the Live 8 concerts bringing light to debt-relief, or China’s growing economic power and the affect on American manufacturing sectors. We’re lucky to have two people giving their personal accounts of these stories. Caitlin is working in a medical clinic and finding the sad truth in so many preventable illnesses. Hart is finding the rapid pace on construction in Shanghai fascinating yet soul-less. We hope you’ll enjoy reading these stories and seeing the pictures.

The Photo Gallery Pages are located at www.pbase.com/MyTravelBug under “Fellowship Albums”.


Caitlin Cohen is in Bamako, Mali interning in a medical clinic.
“On a wall at the clinic, there is a picture drawn by a child that said “Embrasse-moi même si j’ai le SIDA. Je ne peux pas te rendre malade.” (Hug me, even if I have AIDS. I can’t make you sick). It was heartbreaking, almost as heartbreaking as the poorly stocked supply closet for the clinic. Malick asked if I had brought any Determine rapid assay tests to test expectant mothers for HIV because they were almost out, and I replied truthfully that I had not. I had not known they would go through the 500 the NGO had brought in January so quickly. I had made a couple calls to Abbott Pharmaceuticals a few months ago about getting donations for the kits, but had not followed through. Now I realize how valuable those few hours of follow-up could have been.” –On dust and details

On dust and details
The medical clinic

Hart Eddy is in Shanghai, China trying to get oriented but finding all the rapid fire construction very dis-orienting.
“I’ve come to Shanghai to research a screenplay adapted from Dostoyevsky’s classic, Crime and Punishment, but I’m starting to think Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas might be a better text to work from. I think back to the subtitle of that book: A savage journey to the heart of the American Dream. In the summer of 2005 it seems that the American Dream is a nightmare tinted red: I’ve departed for China during a media storm of hyperbole tinged with Sino phobia—a near unanimous hysterical shout from the big-box purveyors of public opinion (TIME, U.S. News and World Report, The New York Times, etc.) that we are on the doorstep of a “Chinese Century”.

As we speed towards the central Shanghai, I feel a pang of guilt mixed with a sense of absurdity. How can two countries that are so economically enmeshed be so culturally estranged from each other? And who am I to superimpose a dusty Russian novel on a metropolis about which I know nothing about? I don’t even speak a shred of Mandarin. I start to think about factories, mounds of goods piled high at Wal*Mart, political repression, freedom, decadence—what do I know about any of it? Isn’t this an assignment for an economist or a political scientist—someone with a grasp of floating currency and firm command of historical data? And isn’t my infatuation with Dostoyevsky a kind of young man’s literary cliché?” –Starting to get the Fear

Starting to get the fear
Tomorrowland
Ghost of Shanghai
A purified environment


Have you ever tried to book a Train ticket overseas? It’s not easy. You’re lucky if you can find an English language website to book a ticket in Europe. My Travel Bug, Inc. is working on a deal with RailAgent.com to bring you the best prices and scheduling on train tickets to Europe, Australia and beyond. Stay tuned!

We’re overhauling “how do you say” language center this month. We plan to bring you a complete list of languages around the world as well as basic phrases and audio files for correct pronunciation. We hope you’ll visit often once we get it up and running!

In the meantime, be safe, stay cool and wear sunscreen!


Sincerely yours,


Amanda O'Neil
My Travel Bug, Inc.

P.S. Donating to My Travel Bug, Inc. has never been easier. Paypal members can login and “send money” to Treasurer@mytravelbug.org It’s quick and tax-deductible!

Steps and stutters- end of the mother machine

Well it happened. The computer, my life blood has run its course and after 1 month of patches and restarts and diagnostics it's been 2 weeks of shopping and ordering (or so we thought) and shopping and ordering again...

Truth be told My Travel Bug, Inc. is run on a very fragile laptop- let's call her 'Millie'. From the beginning Millie has had a storied career. Since December 2000 when Millie arrived at my NJ doorstep from the NYC store, Millie has been back and forth to Ho Chi Minh City 3 times. She's a frequent visitor to the Westerly Public Library Reference Section and has even been to see the ABCNews studios in NYC.

She caught a virus and was completely erased in June 2002- thus losing all of her memory. An early alzheimers...Millie was then given fresh black-market blood for 10 cents on the dollar and ran another 2 1/2 yrs fitfully but with the ability to write Vietnamese with all its marks and whizzes.

This year we knew Millie was getting old. The frequent coaxing to open Dreamweaver and Outlook. The often exasperated walks by her owner. Her refusal to defragment and finally in April the last indignity, an unintentional drop on the foot. She was once again taken to the doctor and this time the diagnosis was dire- a bad hard drive with almost 1 gig of bad sectors. She still has her data, accessible on occasion, but we know it's only a matter of time. And so a new machine has been called upon to take over the job that Millie started. My Travel Bug, Inc. will once again get on track and emails will be answered, Fellowship winners announced (tease tease, we already know who they are) and maybe, just maybe, this new Fella will pay for itself with fundraising software.

And so, dear readers, I ask for your patience as we put Millie into retirement and try out the new fella due next week. Besides the weather is hot and sunny. Go to the beach before the high schoolers get out... -Amanda

Words to inspire...

Listen to the MUSTN'TS, child,
Listen to the DON'TS
Listen to the SHOULDN'TS,
the IMPOSSIBLES, the WON'TS
Listen to the NEVER HAVES,
Then listen close to me-
Anything can happen, child,
Anything can be. -Shel Silverstein


There's so much negativity in life and for every good idea there's 10 saying "Don't do it". I feel that about My Travel Bug, Inc. sometimes. I think I could just shut down the website and stop putting money and effort into it... We'd fade out as a nice memory in the travel community but I can't shake off this feeling that we're on the verge of a break out. One more day, one more contact, one more dollar and we'll be solvent.

Maybe it's a fools errand but I've never been good at giving up. And so I leave you with one more gem from 'Uncle Shelby':


Draw a crazy picture,
Write a nutty poem,
Sing a mumble-grumble song,
Whistle through your comb.
Do a looney-gooney dance
Cross the kitchen floor
Put something silly in the world
That ain't been there before.

Why I started My Travel Bug, Inc.

I believe I can change the world.

I believe in education and the expansions of horizons- literal and physical.
I believe travel is educational. It teaches communications skills, tolerance, history, politics, art, music, economics and sometimes, wonderfully- activism.
I believe travel is essential and life affirming not just a luxury.
I believe in the power of the Internet to break down barriers, shatter prejudices and let the light of learning shine.

I believe in combining education, travel and the Internet.

So I need help with my idea. It's called My Travel Bug, Inc.
We have a small Fellowship program. Fellowship winners are required to write travelogues and take pictures of their trip(s) while traveling.
These stories and pictures are published online at www.MyTravelBug.org for the education of everyone.

I’d like to reach a wider audience.
I want to connect Fellows directly with school classrooms while they’re traveling.
I want to have live online conferences with our traveling Fellows.
I want to produce an educational CD- Rom, free to schools and libraries, of these travelogues plus background information about the countries where they’ve gone.

I believe these Fellowships will go very far indeed, around the world, into classrooms, online and into your consciousness.
I believe we can change the world, one trip at a time.

Dreaming big dreams...

“I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.” -Shawshank Redemption

Well it's March. That awful month when winter comes back and spring seems so far away. It's been bitterly cold, sunny and mild and briefly snowing all in the course of this week. The snow is slush under foot and the grass is more mud than leafy.

And yet, here come the applications! In the next six weeks we'll be reading eager, young dreamers' essays and picking the lucky few for My Travel Bug Fellowships. I hope to share some of the best applications with you, dear reader. Each year I start a file with the best essays or quotes from essays. It gives me hope and helps on those days when I get mean emails accusing me of running some evil scheme to export our best students to Cuba when they should go to Disney World for much less money and no language barrier. (You think I'm kidding!) Words and music have the power to transport us to far horizons and people we've never met. Email and the internet have the power to educate. That's why we keep doing what we do.

Cheers, Amanda

One trip at a time

As I walked along the seashore, this young boy greeted me. He was tossing stranded starfish back to the deep blue sea.

I said, "Tell me why you bother, why you waste your time this way. There's a million stranded starfish, does it matter anyway?"

And he said, "It matters to this one. It deserves a chance to grow. It matters to this one, I can't save them all I know. But it matters to this one, I'll return it to the sea. It matters to this one, and it matters to me." -Story of the Starfish

Dear Friends,

I was recently at a party and was trying to explain the purpose of My Travel Bug, Inc. It's not easy to summarize in sound bites but I started My Travel Bug, Inc. because I think that international travel is important. I think it's important to know, to see, to speak and to experience cultures outside your own. We're not saving the world but we are trying to change people, one trip at a time.

It is a time and year of war and natural disasters. It is a time when citizens of the western developed world feel powerless and frustrated. Education is the first step to ending this cycle. I believe travel is a big part of that education as we strive for more understanding.

Travel can bring many things into your life. It doesn't cure everything. In fact, some people try it, hate it and never leave home again. But the point is to try something new. For some traveling abroad is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream or the start of a new career. All that matters to us at My Travel Bug, Inc. is that each year we get to help a few people travel of self-designed trips abroad. Our Fellowship program may be small but it matters- to the Board and myself who volunteer our time and to those who are chosen as My Travel Bug, Inc. Fellows.

We hope you've enjoyed reading the winning Fellows' stories and visiting the website. This year we're offering another batch of Fellowships. The Fellowship deadline is March 12, 2005. For more information about applying, please visit our website at www.MyTravelBug.org .
Two of our Fellows have written in this month. Margot de Messieres continues her travelogue on woodcarving in Bulgaria and Elizabeth Williams has sent us some wonderful pictures from Guatemala, which will be on our *new* Photo Gallery at the end of the week.

Thank you for all your support last year. We know you're giving to the tsunami relief but we did receive almost $1,000 last month in donations. Every dollar helps expand our Fellowship program so that we can award more Fellowships this spring. Won't you tell a friend and increase the circle? It matters...

Sincerely Yours,
Amanda O'NeilExecutive Director

PSSST!! Want to help My Travel Bug, Inc. this season? Why not give $10 for My Travel Bug, Inc.?! We're non-profit and tax deductible. Donate today at www.MyTravelBug.org/donations/donateform.html

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