Let鈥檚 talk about car horns In the US, a honking horn almost always expresses anger鈥攇et out of my way, you cut me off鈥攖hat sort of thing. Don鈥檛 get me wrong, that happens in Bethlehem as well, but a honk can mean so much more here: Warning, I鈥檓 behind you on a small street I want....
ISRAEL-PALESTINE: Desert life and reflections
Why aren鈥檛 more people using THESE alternative energy sources? Throughout our time at Kibbutz K鈥檛ura the group has listened to several lectures and participated in a variety of Kibbutz activities. Perhaps the most memorable for me was the visit to K鈥檛ura鈥檚 鈥淥ff the Grid鈥� village. As an initiative stemming from the strong emphasis on environmentalism....
ISRAEL-PALESTINE: Warm Desert Greetings
(鈥渨arm鈥� = 100掳+ degrees) Hu is He, He is She! Hello from the Negev Desert! It鈥檚 hot. Last week it was 100 degrees at 8:00pm and they told us 鈥渁 heat wave is coming鈥�. 聽It got up to 114掳 two days later鈥� a bit much for a Kansas girl. Bleary-eyed and exhausted from the first....
ISRAEL-PALESTINE: First Steps in Israel: Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Jisr Az Zarqa, Jericho
Sore Feet Saturday, September 2, 2017: Tel Aviv, Jaffa Shalom! Here we are in Tel Aviv, Israel. Our feet have carried us for 29 hours in this exotic city. My first impressions of this land: The sand is hot, the sun brilliant, the skin leather. I feel as if our foreign presence is obvious. We....
RADICAL EUROPE: The Journey Home
We arrived in Berlin on Sunday evening聽and began our city exploration the following morning. During our time in Berlin, we visited Wittenberg to see the home and church of Martin Luther. However, more important than the places we visited is the idea of the Cross Cultural program itself. On our final night in Berlin, we....
RADICAL EUROPE: Free Travel Explorations
Free travel has been the part of this cross cultural I have been so excited for since before we left! Three of my peers and I were originally going to go to Geneva, Switzerland, but there were a sudden change of plans. So, we decided to go to Lyon, France for our 3.5 days. We....
NAVAJO NATION: Homestays
Our cross-cultural (CC) group split into three smaller groups for five-night homestays with local Din茅 (Navajo) families on the reservation. All three homestays were in Leupp, which is a very small town near the reservation border. My group consisted of six guys who stayed in a modernized off-grid hogan. Hogans were a traditional round housing....
BOLIVIA: That language barrier can’t stop this: we keep making new friends
RADICAL EUROPE: And Up the Alps We Go
Since we’ve arrived in Europe we’ve caught glimpses of some mountains. The more we’ve traveled, the more of them we’ve seen. I’ve grown up around mountains, and I’m quite familiar with them, but the Alps are an entirely different story. At the bottom you’re hot and burning up in the 80 degree weather, but you’re....
RADICAL EUROPE: Cross-Cultural: Extreme Follow the Leader
As a child, I played follow the leader. I mimicked the actions of others for fun. As a college student, I find myself in a very similar situation. This cross cultural is an extreme game of follow the leader. Our leaders, Kim and Seth, model how to function in contemporary Europe. They guide us through....