Once a Backpacker, Always a...!

Hi! My name is Leyla and I'm a backpacker and a nomad - at least in spirit, because wherever I am, I usually want to be somewhere else!

It started many generations before me - rumour in our family had it we could trace our ancestry back to the Golden Hordes that swept across Asia a millennium ago. Nomads, definitely - once mounted on those wild steeds they just couldn't sit still!

I too have this nomadic streak. I was born in France, grew up in Spain and the Middle East, and studied in Canada before moving to Switzerland. I rarely stayed long enough in a country - my engineer father made sure of that - to finish a school year.

I took my first backpacking trip (without my parents' knowledge) to Morocco when I was 15 - I still remember sitting in cafés by the casbah sipping mint tea, watching the ships come in, and feeling as though the world belonged to me.

I became a journalist, a foreign correspondent, following stories across the world and only settling down once in a while - but never long enough to build up a pension and a future.

A few years ago, thinking I had finally beat the travel bug, I left a perfectly fine job to become a freelance journalist for a few months. I was gone for three years, traveling with my backpack and one of the first laptops across Africa (12 countries), Asia (9 countries), Cuba, and the Baltic States.

From 1996-1999, I filed stories from many countries as a journalist concerned with development issues. They were written for The Earth Times, the Christian Science Monitor, many magazines and even websites - although that kind of electronic journalism was just beginning. Even if they describe conditions that are no more, they still reflect many problems and issues that haven't disappeared. A glimpse of the past may help explain the present so I'd like to share these articles with you.

There are many stories of hope, and many stories of sorrow. Here are just a few of them.

Ten years ago, Asmara, Eritrea's capital, was a beacon of hope after years of war, as was Maputo, Mozambique's capital. Havana, on the other hand, braced for uncertainty.

In Ethiopia, microfinance helped women get back on their feet.

In Kenya, destruction of sacred forests, or kayas, is being fought in unusual ways.

But in Thailand, child beggars are often trafficked by gangs who use them to earn money.

These days I'm back in a job, but the bug has never left. So if I can't travel right now, at least I can write about it. This site is the result.

I hope you have as much fun reading it as I am having writing it!