get out your bike and come ride with me we’ll see rows of corn and soy beans hard roads, dirt roads, stone ones too central hoosier land, what else to do get on the river, float a summer sunday away sure that’s cool, that’s how locals like to play p-town, ross hills and then there’s fort-o all you have to do is get up and go  who knows, maybe you’ll find that you like it a whole lot it’s here, which is there, and is like anywhere…why not Read Full Story

the other evening, not too unlike this evening when the coolness of a canadian high blankets itself on the late summer corn of indiana i put my book down after an hour of reading in the hammock on the front porch and i watched the leaves blowing in the breeze that brought a chill to my skin   thinking of you and how the life [...] Read Full Story

Lately I’ve been finding life here to be quite difficult.  Most of it is centered around the fact that I am working long days and have no time for myself.  I swore six months ago that I would never do the exact thing I am doing now.  Poet, essayist, novelist, and farmer Wendell Berry opines that here [...] Read Full Story

(from New York Times)   Published: August 13, 2008 Filed at 9:23 p.m. ET WASHINGTON (AP) — White people will no longer make up a majority of Americans by 2042, according to new government projections. That’s eight years sooner than previous estimates, made in 2004. FOUR YEARS LATER, AND NOW THE NEWS IS WORSE.  2050 WAS TO BE THE YEAR [...] Read Full Story

back by the fencerow near the alley way are 2 sunflowers, one drooping towards the ground and the other smiling in a southeasterly direction   how many americans does it take to melt a glacier how many screaming paraguayos does it take to get the world’s attention   the evening sky lightens and the chances of a possible thunderstorm fades into no chance [...] Read Full Story

Goldfinches hit the thistle seeds in the feeder and crickets are emerging with their night songs.  Dusk is upon me, as is a 3 beer buzz, the third being a Nugget Nectar from the brewery by the Susquehanna River.  It is fairly quiet in my back yard, mind the passing car out front.  My neighbor [...] Read Full Story

We’ll call him Muhammed.  He lives in a Somali refugee camp in eastern Ethiopia.  He is Bantu, a clan that is severely discriminated against by other Somali clans.  Why?  Racism is part of it.  His features are more “African”-looking, and his skin is much darker than the typical “Somali.” He told me that after a week of riding in cars and buses, costing somewhere around 50 or so U.S. dollars, he arrived to eastern Ethiopia and finally was settled in the camp where I was working.  He is there... Read Full Story

I am asked to step aside by our translator.  He tells me a woman is here asking for help.  I go over to her and we she begins to tell her story. I was raped in Moqadishu.  My child [on her back] has no father.  When I leave my home, the other refugees insult me, harass me, threaten me.  I’ve gone out to collect wood for cooking, but they steal it from me.  They’ve hit me.  I don’t go out any more.  Please help me in any way you can. She is a refugee living in one of 3, soon-to-be 4, Somali... Read Full Story

Tomorrow we fly out to Jijiga, a small town on the northern edge of the Ogaden desert in eastern Ethiopia that will serve as base camp for the week.  We will be going to two refugee camps to assess our project’s efforts there. I sit here in Addis somewhat excited about the trip; it will be an adventure, that is [...] Read Full Story

Addis Ababa means “new flower.” “Flasher” is someone who exposes his/her genitalia in public. We’re walking back from lunch and we notice a man pulling up the cloth that is wrapped around his legs, like a skirt/wrap, which is common rural attire that men who have come to the city still wear around town.  We make eye contact.  He hikes [...] Read Full Story