Kayaking the KwanzaIn June 2016, my friend Alfy and I kayaked, hiked and waded 1,300km from the source of the River Kwanza, deep in the Angolan highlands, out into the Atlantic Ocean. Our expedition raised over USD25,000 to fund The HALO Trust’s mine clearance work in Angola. If you are interested in a narrative account…
Sean R. recounts his 2003 trip to Iraq just a few months after the American invasion had begun. Ten years later, reflecting on how he saw the country just as Saddam had been deposed.
Hanad and Abdi sit up against the courtyard wall in the clammy evening heat. A large straw mat has been laid out, which serves both to keep us off the insects and to catch all the pieces of khat leaves they are dropping as they chew the night away. Nearer the perimeter wall, Mohamed and…
I refer to Palestine as that region otherwise known as the West Bank and Gaza and at least nominally under Palestinian political control. I refer separately to Israel as that region on the other side of the 1948 Armistice Line, the pre-1967 borders. I am fully aware that in the complex and convoluted geopolitics of…
“Take as much sovereignty as you can stomach!” was Boris Yeltsin’s message to the regions of Russia in the summer of 1990, as the Soviet Union was collapsing around him. Many areas did just this, and managed a peaceful transition to independence, with fifteen sovereign republics emerging from the ashes of the USSR. But even…
Ever since arriving in Angola for work last year, I had been pouring over maps of the region, examining what travel opportunities my new location afforded me. One neighbouring country in particular stood out: the Democratic Republic of Congo. The true heart of the Dark Continent, the Congo still seems to capture the imagination, over…
