When It Comes to Helping Others: Just Do It

May 18, 2011, 6:26 PM By RYE BARCOTT

It’s graduation season, and for the past two months I’ve been traveling to campuses in the United States on a book tour to talk about service in the Marines and social entrepreneurship in Africa. One point seems to resonate with students above all of the others. From a commuter college in the plains of Indiana to Stanford and MIT, students have been latching onto one simple sentence: be a doer.

I use this line to emphasize the larger point that you don’t have to wait to make an impact. You don’t have to wait for wealth, status, or age. This is true more so today than perhaps ever before.

Rye Barcott, co-founder of the organization Carolina for Kibera and author of
Jason ArthursRye Barcott, co-founder of the organization Carolina for Kibera and author of “It Happened on the Way to War,” exchanges a “gota,” or fist bump, with a young member of his organization. Continue reading When It Comes to Helping Others: Just Do It

The Value of Blogger Press Trips

Interview with Jordan Tourism Board’s Managing Director

JTB Managing Director Nayef Al-Fayez with Leslie Koch in Madaba JordanI met Jordan Tourism Board’s managing director Nayef Al-Fayez in April 2011, during the “Restoring the Journey” trip to Jordan and Egypt. (May 18, 2011, By Leslie Koch) 

What is the goal behind your blogger outreach campaign?

Bloggers differ from traditional media outlets because they give a more realistic, firsthand account of the country they are visiting, especially in times of special circumstance. What is more, their coverage is more immediate and can sometimes be more influential. People can relate to the person writing the blog and can depend on their honest, unbiased perspective. A blogger’s integrity is closely tied to their ability to provide a real, honest and unselfish view of their experience; it is what makes people relate. We needed people whose opinions are highly-regarded and genuine to make sure people trusted that Jordan was indeed safe, and not only that, but that it had so much to offer, any time of the year.

What is also great about bloggers is their continued interaction with their audience and their sincere recommendation of a country or experience if they truly believe in it. It’s like getting a recommendation from a friend you trust, as opposed to reading a recommendation in a mass-produced magazine. Continue reading The Value of Blogger Press Trips

Why it Costs $200 a Day in Bhutan?

MAY 17, 2011 By Mary Kay Magistad for the THE WORLD (PRI): Download MP3

Bhutanese are proud of their traditional Buddhist culture – a culture tracing centuries back to Tibet, which has given Bhutan both its written language and its strain of Buddhism. As an independent country, Bhutan has been able to preserve its traditional culture far better than Tibet. And it wants to share that culture – with a select few, well-heeled tourists.

Many climb – though, in sneakers or hiking books rather than in heels – to the Tiger’s Nest in Paro, a Buddhist monastery with gilded roofs that seems to hover ethereally above a sheer cliff face. The hike on steep forest trails winds past rhododendrons and ghostly Spanish moss. With the high altitude, it takes even a young, fit person a couple of hours to make the ascent – and that’s before you get to the more than 700 stairs leading to the monastery at the end.

A Different Kind of Tourist

But few of the foreign tourists on the trail when I visited – or in Bhutan in general – were young or fit. Many rode donkeys up, and used walking sticks to gradually make their way down. Not exactly the energetic young trekkers of Nepal – but then, Bhutan’s tourists are different. Continue reading Why it Costs $200 a Day in Bhutan?

On the Ground with a ‘Gap Year’

May 3, 2011, 9:00 AM By GREGORY KRISTOF

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Gregory Kristof, who took a gap year in China before starting college.

I’ve periodically recommended that high school students take a “gap year” after graduation, by deferring college entrance for one year. Most colleges encourage students to take a gap year, partly because students then arrive a little more mature, a little more ready to study, a little more worldly. It’s becoming a bit more common, and Princeton now pays for some kids to travel during their gap year, but most people are still wary of the idea. In fact, almost every kid I’ve talked to who has taken a gap year raves about the idea, so I thought I’d commission a guest column from my eldest son, Gregory, who is currently taking a gap year in China. He spent most of the year studying Chinese at Tsinghua University and then at a language school in Dalian, and soon he’s going to finish up the year studying Spanish in Peru. On the side, he worked and volunteered. Here’s his take:

–Nicholas Kristof

It took place on a frosty peak tucked away in the Tibetan highlands: my friend Rick and I walked in on a group of monks as they were on their knees, groaning.

They were performing secret rituals involving yak butter.

Peeking out from behind animal fur curtains, Rick and I hoped that they hadn’t noticed us yet. They hummed and sat in rows facing a stage of yak butter candles that threw images against the walls like kicked hacky sacks. Back in the shadows, I worried: What would happen if they saw two white dudes chillin’ behind the furs? Continue reading On the Ground with a ‘Gap Year’

Wanderlust travel: Penis worship in Bhutan

What’s behind all those phallus pictures in this remote Himalayan land?
January 4, 2011 By Iva Skoch

Editor’s note: Wanderlust is a regular GlobalPost series on global sex and relationship issues written by Iva Skoch, who is now traveling the world writing a book on the subject.

THIMPHU, Bhutan — Most of the penises painted on houses or suspended from rooftops in Bhutan are larger than humans.

They come in various sizes, color schemes and embellishments. Some have ribbons tied around them like jovial holiday presents. Others are coiled by daunting dragons. A few even have eyes. They typically feature hairy testicles, from the neatly trimmed to full-on Yeti-style. And, of course, all are fully erect.

“Oh, golly,” said an elderly woman visiting from Seattle, when she stepped off the bus in the Punakha valley and found herself surrounded by an alarming concentration of penis imagery, set against a magnificent Himalayan backdrop.

She was one of just 30,000 “outsiders” in 2010 who visited this isolated country wedged between China and India. While Bhutan tops many travel wish lists — thanks to its almost utopic reputation as “the last Shangri La” and a place where the government measures success in “Gross National Happiness” instead of gross domestic product — only a fraction can afford such a trip. Continue reading Wanderlust travel: Penis worship in Bhutan

How Happy Are You? A Census Wants to Know

How Happy Are You? A Census Wants to Know

April 30, 2011; By JOHN TIERNEY: SOMERVILLE, Mass. — When they filled out the city’s census forms this spring, the people of Somerville got a new question. On a scale of 1 to 10, they were asked, “How happy do you feel right now?”

Officials here want this Boston suburb to become the first city in the United States to systematically track people’s happiness. Like leaders in Britain, France and a few other places, they want to move beyond the traditional measures of success — economic growth — to promote policies that produce more than just material well-being.

Monitoring the citizenry’s happiness has been advocated by prominent psychologists and economists, but not without debate over how to do it and whether happiness is even the right thing for politicians to be promoting. The pursuit of happiness may be an inalienable right, but that is not the same as reporting blissful feelings on a questionnaire. Continue reading How Happy Are You? A Census Wants to Know

UNWTO applauds Gross National Happiness country

Taleb Rifai applauds Bhutan’s sustainability and quality tourism model

The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) Secretary-General, Taleb Rifai, has expressed his support for the long-term tourism policy of Bhutan, with its focus on sustainability and quality, on an official visit to the country where he met with acting Prime Minister, Lyonpo Yeshey Zimba

The Royal Government of Bhutan considers tourism “a window of opportunity for the future of Bhutan” said Lyonpo Yeshey Zimba, during his meeting with Mr. Rifai. Lyonpo Yeshey Zimba pointed to tourism’s contribution to the economic security and Gross National Happiness – Bhutan’s measure of wellbeing – of the Bhutanese people. Continue reading UNWTO applauds Gross National Happiness country

US City takes cue from Bhutan

Seattle trying to achieve ‘Gross National Happiness’
by ERIC WILKINSON / KING 5 News
Courtesy: King 5 News, Seattle, WA 

It’s one of the most isolated nations in the world, nearly a quarter of the population lives in poverty and they’ve only had television for twelve years. So why are the people of Bhutan so happy, and why does the City of Seattle want us to be more like them? Continue reading US City takes cue from Bhutan

Bhutan’s endangered temple art treasures

Reclusive kingdom located between India and China has asked for advice on preserving masterworks from the 16th-19th centuries
Dalya Alberge
Courtesy: The Observer (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/)
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A 17th-century paintings of the Lama Lhakhang in Trongsa dzong.

British art experts have been given unique access to the hidden heritage of the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, including spectacular 16th- to 19th- century wall paintings from its 2,000 temples and monasteries.

Specialists from the Courtauld Institute have been amazed by the exquisite quality and technical sophistication of paintings that were largely unknown and unrecorded in the west. Professor David Park, from the Courtauld, said: “The wall paintings are absolutely stunning. Some of the earlier examples, especially, are extraordinary.” Continue reading Bhutan’s endangered temple art treasures