Journalist Sheilah Bright
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 →
Swirls of alabaster dust puffed through the crowd and settled like confectioner's sugar onto Kyauk Sit Tan, Mandalay's famous stone-cutting lane where Burmese workers have chiseled, sanded and polished stone into sculptures for more than 150 years. Here among the whitewashed crowd of Buddha builders and tourists, a woman smeared with soot sat on her haunches and scooped handfuls of black hope... Continue Reading →
On the banks of the Chindwin River deep in Myanmar, I watch mysteries glide through the gossamer curtain fringed with the dew beads of early morning and wonder if this is how it feels to be inside a snow globe. The landscape swirls with every strong puff of wind or when sunlight splinters through the heavy gray blanket swaddling the... Continue Reading →
