People here in Macedonia talk about the past a lot. They talk about how much better their lives used to be. They talk about a time when everyone had jobs and enough money for cars and vacations and new televisions. They talk about how they used to be able to travel wherever they wanted. They did not need a visa to go most places and could freely travel to Western Europe.   Read article

Kuala Lumpur: It was 1996. Rebels from Bangui, in Central Republic of Africa, were waging war against the local government. Maheswari Balan, a United Nations volunteer, was on the truck with her first child, Sheeva, that day, undeterred by dangers in a foreign land.  Read article

Banda Aceh, Indonesia: The moment Uncle Jax arrived, the destruction he saw was beyond his imagination. Even after hearing the news and watching the pictures on TV before he arrived did not prepare him for what he had gone through the past week. As he walked around of Aceh, he realised what a natural disaster can do to the mankind. Never in his life did he ever imagine he would be playing a role in aiding the relief effort.   Read article

“You know you go on one of these things as often as I do and you see so much destruction. People without insurance. People that have lost their homes, and they’re just destitute you know and then you just realize how lucky you are," said American Red Cross volunteer Pete Peterson  Read article

This is the latest lesson I'm learning here at my new post: how to live without a fridge, or, as one might put it in the lingua franca of this francophone Central African Country, "sans frigo."  Read article