Journalist Sheilah Bright
It's easy to savor the quaintness of a country when it has been a forbidden fruit for so long. Cuba's vintage automobiles, revolution graffiti and cigar-puffing characters satisfy the travel itch, but they can upstage reality as they did on my first trip there in 2012. On a return visit in December, I wanted to better understand Cuban life as I traveled deep... Continue Reading →
I left Cuba a day too early - Dec. 16 - the day before the United States and Cuba announced plans to restore a diplomatic relationship shredded by political and emotional events 50 years and more in the making. People will disagree about the decisions, question motives and speculate about why it took so long... Continue Reading →
As we followed the elephants searching for water and watched giraffes rubberneck their way into trees, I scoured the tawny landscape for the flick of a brown tail in the sparse grass. I strained to hear a bellow beyond the snorts of the donkeys drinking river water caught in the footprints of the elephants. I came up empty-hearted.
Something about the barren land felt familiar although sand dunes replaced rolling hills and lions not coyotes shadowed the livestock. When the desert wind kicked up a funnel of sand, the Himba children watched it skip across the dry terrain until it dissolved. It was then that I knew we shared more than a moment in the... Continue Reading →
