My Travel Bug

Simplify!

2006-07-21T14:57:00.000-04:00

Dear Friends,

I don't read the Bible but I know people who will grab that book or another, open it, and let it 'speak' to them. They look for purpose and meaning in the opened page. Well recently I stumbled along these words (online I admit) and was stood still, if only a moment, by their continued relevance (formatted for emphasis):

"Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!
I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. In the midst of this chopping sea of civilized life, such are the clouds and storms and quicksands and thousand-and-one items to be allowed for, that a man has to live, if he would not founder and go to the bottom and not make his port at all, by dead reckoning, and he must be a great calculator indeed who succeeds. Simplify, simplify.

Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary eat but one; instead of a hundred dishes, five; and reduce other things in proportion... The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, ... ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose.

It lives too fast.
Men think that it is essential that the Nation have commerce, and export ice, and talk through a telegraph, and ride thirty miles an hour, without a doubt, whether they do or not; but whether we should live like baboons or like men, is a little uncertain."*

On a hot sunny day here in Reading, UK as I wrestle with my dissertation, motivation waning, Thoreau's words resonate a century and a half later. Summer is the time for getting back to nature, eating outside, picking fruits and vegetables, fishing. Awoken this morning by the vibration of a text message on my phone, I couldn't help but wish I was in the forest or better yet, on a boat at sea.

I have a friend who is now packing for Mongolia and a year long contract. In the whirlwind of visas, house rentals and school work, I want to tell her that the calm will come when she is on the plane between England and Mongolia. For it is above the earth, away from the phones and emails, surrounded only by clouds that we can give ourselves over to fatigue and let our minds wander. Behind us is the known, in front the unknown and what will be. Isn't that why we travel?

To cut down on possessions and have a little spending money in the pocket is true freedom I say. Simplify indeed!

Happy Travels,

Amanda O'Neil
Executive Director
My Travel Bug, Inc.

*Henry David Thoreau, Walden- Chapter 2

In Memoriam: Coretta Scott King

2006-02-07T18:10:00.000-05:00

Who fought against the three pillars of crimes on humanity:

War, Poverty and Racism.

We are better for her life and her work.

New Year New Hope

2006-01-21T08:51:00.000-05:00

Dear Friends,

Where has January gone?! I've been neglecting this Blog for way too long but I've got 2 1/2 good excuses-

1. Writer's block;
2. I'm in Graduate School in UK (MSc Development Finance) and up to my eyeballs in work;
3. I'm supposed to be on sabbatical, of sorts.

Alas, I couldn't stay away for too long.

The Grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love,
and something to hope for. -Allan K. Chalmers

I'm not very good at making New Year's Resolutions. I like sports not dieting. I'm pretty frugal with my money, easy to be when you're broke. I'm already doing what I want to do, running MTB and studying Intl Development. So I guess my New Year's Resolution is to make a little more money, put MTB in better financial shape and educate a few people about Development in the world.

Well back to that writer's block. I don't have much else to say so I'll sign off with a quote from an intellectual writer whose diaries I will probably never read:

My ideas usually come not at my desk writing but in the midst of living.
Anais Nin
Until next time, Amanda

The past and the future

2005-07-17T12:20:00.000-04:00

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

2005-06-09T19:37:00.000-04:00

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...

2005-05-07T15:43:00.000-04:00

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.

2005-04-08T16:55:00.000-04:00

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...

2005-03-07T22:35:00.000-05:00

“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

2005-01-31T13:51:00.000-05:00

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

Want to stay up-to-date on the latest developments and stories at My Travel Bug? Join our newsletter! Send a blank email to: MyTravelBug1-subscribe@topica.com

Veterans Day

2004-11-11T20:03:00.000-05:00

These mist covered mountains
Are a home now for me
But my home is the lowlands
And always will be
Some day you’ll return to
Your valleys and your farms
And you’ll no longer burn
To be brothers in arms

Through these fields of destruction
Baptisms of fire
I’ve watched all your suffering
As the battles raged higher
And though they did hurt me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me
My brothers in arms

There’s so many different worlds
So many differents suns
And we have just one world
But we live in different ones

Now the sun’s gone to hell
And the moon’s riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die

But it’s written in the starlight
And every line on your palm
We’re fools to make war
On our brothers in arms -Dire Straits
___________________________________________________________
It's Veterans' Day in America. A time when we remember the Treaty of Versailles signed at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. A diplomatic end to a gory and hard fought World War I. It is a day we remember the grim reality and sacrifice our citizen soldiers gave to live freely in America and Europe. Unfortunately it did not end all war.

Some TV stations are choosing not to show 'Saving Private Ryan' because of the violence but I think that it's right to show it. We bemoan the violence in Hollywood but I think realistic violence serves the opposite purpose. It's parents responsibility to watch it with their (older) children and maybe start a dialogue. Few soldiers talk about combat but Steven Spielberg has done it for them so that others won't forget.

We pray for those in Afghanistan, Iraq and beyond.

We’re fools to make war on our brothers in arms...

Hope on the eve of an election

2004-11-02T11:20:00.000-05:00

“Remember, Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies.

“I find I'm so excited I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head.
I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel. A free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain.
I hope I can make it across the border.
I hope to see my friend and shake his hand.
I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams.
I hope.” -Shawshank Redemption

Well it's election eve and nobody knows what tomorrow will bring. I'm full of hope- the hope of someone who would find unexpected joy in an upset. But mostly I pray that there's no violence or fraud or doubt about the outcome. The office of the Presidency has fallen in the eyes of many. We have been here before and will be again but before that cold January inauguaration I hope that the people's voice will be counted and heard.

"I'm happy. I'm feeling glad.
I've got sunshine in a bag.
I'm useless -but not for long.
The future is coming on." -Gorrillaz

Record voting numbers are good. They say my generation, the offspring of baby boomers, isn't political. Maybe that's true. We don't have much faith in a political system that only elects the wealthy, the hard edged and hardened survivors who make it to election day. Mine is a generation that concentrates on the details, issue by issue, and doesn't expect one candidate to personify a ideal. We are political in a less grandiose way. Here in my town the most active town councilor is under 35.

If I learned anything working on political campaigns it's this: Don't discount the people. Don't discount the belief that ours is a country still worth emulating. This is our home for our families and those to come. We may not tear it down but a little reconstruction is okay from time to time.
The beacon on the hill may dim but won't go out anytime soon.

Disrespect at the Olympics

2004-08-23T12:16:00.000-04:00

"Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind. Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy found in effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles."Olympic Charter, Fundamental principles, paragraph 2

I have to comment on the running of the men’s 100m dash yesterday. During the semifinals, two American runners looked at each other during the race and signaled to each other as though they should take the race. At the finish they bumped chests together and strutted. This is not the behavior of world class athletes in an Olympic games. One of them went on to win the gold medal but it makes me nervous to watch the relay race with twice as much testosterone on the line.

What these runners did was disrespectful to the runners, fans and the Olympics.
What has happened to respect and decorum? There should be zero tolerance for this behavior and a greater awareness that they are representing 281 million Americans who paid for their trip, their training and their right to wear USA of the front of their uniforms.

Time and again American athletes embarrass themselves and their fans. But this was on a bigger scale. This was international. It is a time to remember that you are American first, athlete second, college star third, ‘ insert name’ fourth. A race that lasts 10 seconds will not be as remembered as that bump on the chest and swagger on the track.

We as a country need a lesson in humility and how to win graciously. You don’t have to look too far back, just say Jackie Joyner-Kersee, who quietly raised the standard (and visibility) of the heptathlon while winning graciously. Ms. Joyner Kersee above all has respect for the games, the sport and the spirit of international competition. These men have none.