A Welcoming Cup of Kindness in Colombia
A visit to an organic coffee farm forever changed the way I view my morning kickstart. | All photos: Erika Ebsworth-Goold

A Welcoming Cup of Kindness in Colombia

It was overcast, and a bit cool for an early summer morning in southwest Colombia. As I trekked downhill along a rocky trail through lush, green trees sheltering colourful, flitting hummingbirds, I stifled a yawn. I felt slightly groggy, as it had been a late evening the night before. That fatigue would soon fade, thanks to Luis Alejandro Ortega and what’s grown on his family’s farm.

I was far from home in Huila, one of Colombia’s 32 departments. It’s among the country’s most prolific coffee-producing regions. And Luis’s farm, tucked up into the heart of the Colombian Andes, boasts some of the best beans you can find in Huila or anywhere else. I was there to learn about the seed-to-sip process, but took away much more. 

Within minutes, it became clear that life at the farm focuses on family, stewardship, and sustainability, a sweet blend resulting in coffee better than any other I’ve ever tasted. My time spent with Luis went beyond a simple sampling. His warm, welcoming spirit and passion for his craft transcended my scant Spanish and his halting English. He truly provided a cup of kindness, a highlight of my time spent in Colombia, and one I’m most grateful for.

Colombia
Visiting La Cabaña Farm.

Back home in the States, I don’t usually give much thought to where my morning mugs of coffee come from. Often, I brew a pre-ground mix at home. Other times, I grab a cup to go in my mad dash to the office. A splash of cream, no sugar and lots of caffeine equals the perfect morning kickstart. I was only vaguely aware of coffee’s rich 300-year history in Colombia, and once I stepped foot onto the farm, my view of that morning ritual completely changed. It won’t be the same ever again.

Luis’s father first established the farm outside the city of San Agustin more than five decades ago. His 8-hectare farm produces small-batch, organic beans, and exports 8,000 kilograms of Geisha, Caturra and Bourbon varieties each year. The beans are picked, separated from their pulp, sun-dried onsite for a month and then sold unroasted to select customers. Every step of the harvest and production process is done by hand, all of it with a lot of love. 

Along with the farm’s sweet, shaggy dog Apolo, we wandered through stands of sturdy trees loaded with small white blooms and red, ripe coffee cherries. Luis encouraged me to sniff the coffee flowers and chew a few of the fruits. He grinned as I nodded my enthusiasm for their honeyed smell and taste. We then headed to the nursery.

Luis holds back a few of his best beans from market, using them to sow the family farm’s future. First, they are planted in tiny pouches lined with rich, fertile soil. As they sprout and grow, Luis keeps a keen eye on their roots. Only seedlings with the strongest, longest roots will be grown into trees, he explained with a twinkle in his eye. 

With his trademark twinkle, owner Luis shows off some of their painstakingly grown crop.

It takes two years for a tree to flower and produce fruit. At that point, it’s planted in the main fields with its predecessors. Every 10 years, each tree is pruned back to promote peak bean production. It will go through the process several times, reaching the end of its lifespan at age 40, having produced thousands of beans. 

Seven employees help Luis year-round to steward the farm, painstakingly continuing this precious life cycle. They work as a team tending the nursery, caring for the trees, composting the soil, and ensuring there are no signs of disease or insect infestation. 

When we arrived at the outdoor tasting table, Apolo still in tow, I met one of Luis’s most trusted assistants — his son, Ricardo. The two men gestured for me to pull up a stool and watch their meticulous work. The pair’s bond was sweet and unmistakable: Luis watched carefully, nodding in approval as Ricardo ground beans and heated water. He then slowly crafted the perfect pour-over so I could taste their pride. I received each cup with both hands, sipped each blessedly caffeinated drop, and tasted bright fruit, a bit of sweet acid, and a lot of love. It was something beautiful, and an artisan tradition I’m sure will last for generations in the Ortega family.

Time for an outdoor tasting with Luis and his son, Ricardo.

Friends, you’re not getting this at Starbucks. 

As I sampled each variety, I realized Luis’s coffee was perfect on its own. Just as there’s no need to salt or pepper a meal at a top restaurant, cream or sugar wasn’t necessary. I was incredulous, and my face must have shown it. Luis looked at me in anticipation.

“¿Cómo es?”

The question needed no translation. 

“Perfecto! Perfecto, muchas gracias,” I responded. 

We laughed together with an understanding beyond words. I was far from home, could only speak a few words of Spanish, and in a place still healing after years of civil unrest. Yet I felt warmly welcomed thanks to the Ortegas’ joy, enthusiasm, and willingness to share their family’s delicious legacy. It’s a travel memory that I know will far outlast the beautiful beans I brought back with me.

Erika Ebsworth-Goold

Traveller

Erika Ebsworth-Goold is a US-based two-time Emmy-award winning journalist now focused on travel, adventure, lifestyle and culture. She's been commissioned by Fodor's, Matador Network, Midwest Living, Insider, and is a frequent contributor to TravelAwaits, an online travel hub for 50+ travellers and adventurers. Erika is a proud member of the Adventure Travel Trade Association, the Society of American Travel Writers, and the Midwest Travel Journalists Association.

Time to Read:  4 Minutes
31 August 2023
Category:
Travellers' Tales - In this Moment

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Wine Ambassadors of North Macedonia
“I don't like to recite what’s written on the label or tell them what they’re tasting. Because it's more personal than that, right?” | All photos: Matthew Nelson

Wine Ambassadors of North Macedonia

I don’t like sommeliers. They tend to be too pretentious and snobby for my taste. I want to learn about wine without feeling like a lesser being, and I had the pleasure of doing just that with an entrepreneur and “wine ambassador” in the lake town of Ohrid, North Macedonia after finishing an outing on the High Scardus Trail.

While sitting in a natural limestone cavern that houses the wine bar that she opened and co-owns, Elena treated me to a tasting of some of the favourite wines they carry and shared with me the ins and outs of the wine business in Macedonia.

“Macedonian people, they didn’t have a real wine culture, because people usually focus on quantity over quality,” she admits with a laugh. This proved to be one of many challenges in opening a wine bar in a significant tourist destination such as Ohrid. With a short season, for most of the year she depends on locals for business, many of whom drink the wine or brandy they’ve made at home.

North Macedonia

“Our goal here was to educate the people that there is more to just drinking the wine, to create an experience.” And I get to watch Elena do just that, as she moves from table to table to talk about the wines and impart her knowledge of vintages and altitudes to guests attending customised food and wine pairings. Her passion for wine began when some friends had returned from internships in France, and brought select bottles back with them. “And then we started to plan entire evenings around sharing wine and cooking.”

Elena studied graphic design, which she has been able to leverage in the wine business, having designed some bottle labels herself, and more recently designing her own bar’s tasting menus. She also spent a year working in the Netherlands as an au pair before returning to Ohrid. To my question about why she opened her business here, she replied, “I came back because I wanted to change things here. But I must admit I couldn’t stand the lifestyle there, how they were living for me, it was a clash of cultures.”

I asked her what it was like to be the owner of a wine bar in a region where men traditionally dominate the hospitality industry. “In Ohrid,” she says, “I’m not sure if there was [ever] a woman owning a bar. No, they’re just men and that’s why we had the opportunity for financial support because they [the government] like to support woman business owners.”

We eventually spoke about her training and studies of wine tasting and theory. I asked her about the loaded word, “sommelier,” to which she explained, “I prefer ‘wine enthusiast, ambassador.’ When people ask about wine, I don’t like to recite what’s written on the label or tell them what they’re tasting. Because it’s more personal than that, right? There should be no right or wrong answer.”

I’m floored by her passion and knowledge. She knows the history, the process, and all of the local winemakers and their stories. But what makes her so successful is not only her combination of knowledge with passion, but also the patience to work with uninitiated wine drinkers like me. Guests begin to filter in as she tells me about the producer of the Tamjanika from the Tikves region that we’re tasting, and how it won a gold medal in a wine competition in Germany. “It’s quite acidic, but for me, it has a quite noticeable hint of basil.” I’m hoping to purchase a bottle, but as she is now (unsurprisingly) becoming overwhelmed with working with her incoming guests, I tell her I’ll return when she’s less busy.

Upon my return later that evening, I met Elena’s business partner, Almir. The guests had left for the night, but the bar was still open, as it had become a hangout spot for Almir and Elena’s friends. “We close up at 11, but sometimes we end up cleaning and locking up after 3,” he says, as I help him polish some of the wine glasses, an element of the service industry that I had grown fond of in my own days as a bartender. “I find it similar to meditation,” Almir told me, to which I agreed.

While drying and buffing out streaks in the glasses, I asked about the flight of youth to Europe, and he dismissed their aims as short-sighted, that they’re just searching for ways to earn “quick money.” Elena spoke of her own decision to return, saying, “Sometimes I’m joking, like ‘why am I here?’ Nothing has changed. I’m still not optimistic, things are more or less the same, maybe worse, I don’t know.”

I ask Elena what her hopes are, or what she is most excited about for the future. And she smiles and says, “Well, Almir has been joking that after a couple of years, this will be like a Michelin Star restaurant.” We laugh and make one last toast before closing down the bar for the night.

The writer joined Ethical Travel Portal and Trail Angels on a media-funded trek along the High Scardus Trail through this strongly intertwined region. In visiting Albania, Northern Macedonia and Kosovo, we explored this new and fascinating long-distance hiking route, gaining a greater appreciation for the diverse cultures and natural beauty that it journeys through. The words in the article are Matt’s own, and he has pitched the story according to the same principles as other writers.

Matthew Nelson

Traveller

Matthew Nelson is an American travel photographer and writer from Des Moines, Iowa. An advocate for sustainable travel, he has photographed responsible tourism initiatives in nine countries, notably in the Western Balkans, India, and Nepal, and is passionate about creating opportunities to travel with a positive impact to both the environment and local communities. His work has been published in National Geographic Traveller Magazine. You can follow his blog on transformational travel and find him on Instagram.

Time to Read:  4 Minutes
Traveller: Matthew Nelson
29 August 2023
Category:
Travellers' Tales - Meet the People

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The Joys of Staying Close to Home
When you take a closer look, beauty is on the doorstep. | All photos: Emily Cathcart

The Joys of Staying Close to Home

It might seem strange for the editor of a responsible travel platform to advocate less travel at times — but by sticking close to home, we discover that the small worlds around us can be at least as rewarding as any great adventure or grand tour.

Mind you, I’m not suggesting NO travel — just a mix of bigger, broader experiences and more hyper-focussed local explorations. We may tend to assume that proper travel always means something exotic, seeing the far-flung places of our childhood dreams; but that doesn’t have to be the case. While I’m as dazzled as the next person by the prospect of storybook adventures, I’ve also grown to appreciate what’s in my own backyard.

This was partly by choice, and partly by necessity. Living in the Dublin commuter belt in Ireland, when very strict travel restrictions were put in place by the government a while back with a 5km travel limit during our tightest lockdown, close to home became the only option. Having moved to our current spot only a couple of years before the pandemic began, we’d done some exploration but had been distracted by setting up house, finding local amenities, and the usual everyday work, chores… you know, life stuff.

Suddenly, we found ourselves spending a lot more time on the many trails that cut through our town’s historic areas and wind through nature. We stumbled upon old sites, ancient cemeteries, canal pathways, and wooded pockets filled with birdsong. Though the choice to travel further had been taken away from us, it inspired a different kind of discovery that was just as valuable.

There are many ways to connect with what’s nearby, but here are two…

Microadventure

Made common by British adventurer and author Alastair Humphreys, microadventures are “small and achievable, for normal people with real lives”. As he goes on to say, they’re “short, simple, local, cheap – yet still fun, exciting, challenging, refreshing and rewarding”. The emphasis here is on outdoor explorations that make adventure accessible to those who may have limited experience.

The New York Times described microadventures as “perspective-shifting bursts of travel closer to home, inspiring followers to pitch a tent in nearby woods, explore their city by moonlight, or hold a family slumber party in the backyard.”

It’s a flexible concept, without strict boundaries, extending from your back garden to the nearest mountain or forest. It’s a ‘choose your adventure’ proposition in real life, as long or short as you like. There’s little need for specialised equipment and travel costs are minimal or nonexistent.

The Collins Dictionary blog recognised ‘microadventure’ as a new word in April 2014, and it’s gained popularity ever since as a hashtag for social media users eager to share their own small but mighty microadventure experiences.

close to home

Hyperlocal travel

The concept of exploring nearby destinations rather than travelling internationally is on the rise. Micro-cations — shorter, more concentrated travel experiences — are also trending, and the two ideas naturally go hand-in-hand. Why hop on a plane when you only have a few days to relax and enjoy yourself? Airports really aren’t that serene for the most part.

Adventures on your doorstep are not only great for becoming acquainted with the local landscape; they’re also wonderful for families who could use some quality time and for getting to know your neighbours better. Pop next door to say hello, and you might find a new friendship blossoming. 

You can also stargaze at the night skies over your back garden; go on a safari of the native flora and fauna in your area; and dive into the history and heritage of your town. Have you always wondered about a particular landmark, statue or sculpture that you pass every day? This is the opportunity to dig deep into local lore. All of this is at your fingertips, without the need to book anything or spend a cent.

Take a fresh look at your neighbourhood. This is also a chance to support all the local businesses you’ve been meaning to visit. Set aside a morning to investigate the weekend market that you’ve intended to check out for ages, and buy yourself some tasty low-food-miles treats. Browse the gallery that represents local artists; you might even bump into one of them if you’re lucky.

There are dozens of ways to connect with the people and places around you, once you take the time to holiday close to home or plan a small-scale adventure with big benefits. Discoveries aplenty are waiting when you narrow your focus and broaden your definition of what travel means.

Emily Cathcart

Resonate Team

From her base in Ireland, Emily Cathcart was delighted to join Resonate as a Content Manager and has been revelling in the opportunity to collaborate with writers worldwide ever since. Emily enjoys encouraging authors through the creation process and also helping non-writers to tell their tales — all with Resonate’s ethical principles in mind. When she isn’t busy commissioning or editing, she can be found, camera in hand, seeking out-of-the-way discoveries for her own site that’s literally All About Dublin. And when Emily’s not working on any/all of the above, she’s writing articles and photo essays as a freelance journalist for publications from boutique magazines to national newspapers.

Time to Read:  3 Minutes
Resonate Team: Emily Cathcart
24 August 2023
Category:
From the Editor

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Meet the Kora Cycling Challenge Team, Turning the Wheels of Change
Harnessing the power of community, this homegrown event has a significant impact. | All photos: Rakesh Prajapati

Meet the Kora Cycling Challenge Team, Turning the Wheels of Change

On the third Saturday of July every year, Patan Durbar Square is unrecognisable. Mornings in the square, which is central to the old city of Patan, are typically laid back and quiet; you’ll only find a handful of people, some sipping their first tea of the day, and some out for a walk or a run. But on one particular Saturday every year, the place is filled with hundreds of people. The excitement in the air is undeniable and the sight one to behold. 

What’s happening is the Kora Cycling Challenge, an annual event where thousands of cyclists gather and go on a ride together. 

“It’s incredible that what started as a small event in 2011 with just a couple of dozen cycling enthusiasts trying to raise funds has today become one of Nepal’s biggest outdoor events,” says Raj Gyawali, the founder of Social Tours, a travel company based on responsible tourism principles. Gyawali organises the annual cycling challenge with two other partner companies — Cycle City Network Nepal and Pangro. 

And indeed, the Kora Cycling Challenge has become perhaps the biggest charity ride in the Himalaya, with over 4,000 riders covering close to 175,000 km every year, in several locations in Nepal and around the world. So, what is it that makes Kora so special? 

Crowds of riders ready to go at the Kora Cycling Challenge

“I believe the charm of Kora lies in the fact that multiple things are happening at the same time for different people, and there’s a festive feel to it,” Gyawali says.

“Being a part of Kora makes people feel like they are part of a community, belonging to something bigger than themselves… a larger community, locally, nationally, and globally,” explains Diwash Pradhan, managing director of Pangro, an outdoor event management platform.

Truly, the Kora Cycling Challenge is open for everyone, of all abilities — from those just learning to cycle to those who have been cycling for decades — and rides can range anywhere from 50 km, to 75 km, and even 100 km. 

The event is also a wonderful opportunity for people to make new friends and expand their network. People from different walks of life, belonging to various professions, participate in the challenge and the only thread that connects all of them is their love for cycling. 

“The whole idea behind Kora was to cultivate a community around cycling, and to have fun in the process,” says Gyawali.

The energy of the event is so palpable that communities spread across the Kora trail come together to celebrate with riders even though they themselves are not riding. 

“We have been doing this ride every year for the past 13 years; along the trail every July everyone kind of expects us to come, and Kora has become like a festival of sorts for those who live on the trail, with people setting up water booths, DJ booths, etc,” says Sailendra Dangol, a former president of Cycle City Network Nepal who now engages with Pangro.

But the Kora Cycling Challenge has gone beyond just Nepal’s cycling community. It is not only helping build a sense of community but also urging people to be more engaged in the world around them and helping make positive change. A major component of the event is its focus on giving back. 

Thus, every year, the team of Kora works on a social cause. In the past, it has contributed to developing birthing facilities and health posts in remote villages in Rukum, Baitadi and Dolakha, raised funds for Samata Foundation, a non-profit that works in research and advocacy for marginalised communities, and supported the building of cancer screening centres and cycling trails as well. 

In 2023, the proceeds generated went towards relief work for the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. 

“[The scale of] what we’re doing and how much we manage to raise is not huge but we are trying to help, as much as we can, and in doing so we hope to impart that same attitude of giving back to others,” Gyawali points out.  

But what makes the Kora Cycling Challenge even more special is how people have made it their own. After finishing the Kora, a lot of participants have gone on to recreate it in their hometowns and native countries, organically growing this community of cyclists, making this festival perhaps the first of its kind in the country to be replicated elsewhere. The Kora Challenge takes place in several countries, like Singapore, Canada, and Malta, in addition to about 18 locations in Nepal.

Satish Niraula, a cycling enthusiast and an educator, is one such person; Niraula took part in the Kora Cycling Challenge in 2018 in Hetauda, a fast-developing city almost 90 km west of Kathmandu. “After participating in the challenge there, I felt the need to organise the same in Nepalgunj, where I am from. So from 2019, I started the Kora Challenge there as well and we have been doing it every year since.”

Such dedication makes the Kora team strive to do better with each passing year, to be more welcoming to new people and strengthen its community. For the past few years, they have been working to become more gender inclusive as well. 

“We have made some good progress, with almost 37% of recent participants identifying as female,” says Chakshu Malla, president of Cycle City Network Nepal. The team also gave basic cycling training to female volunteers to encourage more participation. 

“Many of these women are new to cycling and events such as these open up new possibilities for them. Hopefully, more women will join us each year,” he added.

And it is this sense of achievement and community that people get by being a part of Kora that is keeping the festival alive and thriving: “That sense of being a part of something bigger than our individual selves is what keeps the faith intact, and what perhaps brings people back every year.”

Photos: Rakesh Prajapati. Raj Gyawali, one of the organisers of the Kora Cycling Challenge quoted in the article above, is also one of the driving forces behind Resonate and Ethical Travel Portal.

Marissa Taylor

Storyteller

Marissa Taylor is an environmental journalist based in Kathmandu, Nepal. Taylor has been working as a journalist since 2013, and has been a part of newsrooms of The Kathmandu Post, The Himalayan Times, and, most recently, The Record Nepal, where she was assistant editor. Although she covers a wide array of environmental topics, she focuses on writing on the intersections of climate change, poverty, inequalities, and public health. She was among the grantees in Thomson Reuters Foundation’s Climate Change Reporting programme in 2020 and in the British Council’s Women Reporters on Climate Change programme in 2021.

    Time to Read:  5 Minutes
    Storyteller: Marissa Taylor
    16 August 2023
    Category:
    Game Changers

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    Flavours Both Nostalgic and New at a Weekend Market in Manila
    Thai, French, Filipino, Indian, Malaysian, Turkish and Indonesian, tropical fruit and fresh vegetables; so many foods to embrace and explore. | All photos: Oana Racheleanu

    Flavours Both Nostalgic and New at a Weekend Market in Manila

    I come to Legazpi market every Sunday. I’m 9,000 km away from my family and friends, I work remotely and alone. Hence, this market in Manila gives me a sense of familiarity and belonging, but also the novelty I need. I make friends among the vendors but also talk to strangers and taste new dishes.

    In a small, temporarily emptied parking lot in the Makati district — the country’s financial, commercial, and economic centre — potential clients are abuzz, browsing amongst the vendors starting their Sunday morning early. Tourists carrying suitcases, people with dogs on leashes or strollers, mothers holding children, men in skintight Lycra suits with racing bikes, foreigners filming with GoPros or phones, groups of friends. They do some window shopping; nobody is in a rush.

    Most of the time, my route in the market is the same. After I finish my workout in the park, with the exercise mat under my arm, I pass by the pavilion where the mass is held. After 11 am, almost every attendee at the service will have migrated to the market. 

    My first stop is at the booth with Thai food, where I place my order: Pad Thai with whatever they are cooking on the hob — shrimp, tofu, or chicken. One of the ladies already knows my taste, so she makes a note on a slip of paper: “Foreigner, no spicy”. The smells of coriander, tamarind, and lemon juice make my mouth water.

    Manila

    My next destination is Jean’s, a Frenchman who has been selling food in the Legazpi market for six years. 18 years ago, his Filipina wife, a chef, started to sell in another market, on Saturdays, focussing on only two French dishes: beef bourguignon and beef lasagna. Meanwhile, they opened a restaurant and delivered food to the US Embassy for some years. Now, they need two big tables to display their offering.

    When my husband and I first arrived in the Philippines in 2018, this couple’s cuisine was the closest to Romanian food that we could find in the market. Because I was homesick, I then adopted the habit of coming here every Sunday. I felt at home while chewing the juicy lamb shank with lemon sauce, biting into the tasty chicken skewers, or devouring the flavourful moussaka with eggplant. On the flip side, when we were back in Romania during the pandemic, we also missed Jean’s food when we were missing the Philippines. 

    I always take the food home to share it with my husband at lunch. So, with the boxes of French dishes in my hand, I stop at the Filipino booth. They sell chicken, pork, and intestines on sticks, along with fish and squid. Everything is cooked on two large grills. Even if you’re not hungry or you don’t feel like eating meat, the smoky fragrance that fills the air will make you at least stop and look. My favourites are the sweet, boneless milkfish and the mouth-watering squid stuffed with succulent tomatoes and crunchy onions.

    I think about going home, but I catch the sweet and tropical aroma of the jackfruit, a mix between ripe pineapple and mango. A girl is peeling a jackfruit somewhere nearby, and I can’t resist the smell. Out of a kilo of the whole, spiny fruit, the sweet, edible part is only 250 grams. I buy one box, and, on my way out, with my full and heavy bag on one shoulder and my mat under the other arm, I know I will struggle if I buy anything else. But I can’t say no to a buko — young coconut with its refreshing juice. A guy with half the thumbnail missing on his left hand is shaping and opening the round fruit with a machete for me, and now I have to waddle like a penguin for five minutes home, carefully carrying the tasty food.

    Though I do have a routine, occasionally I spend time discovering new dishes and exploring the market. The selection is generous, displayed under tarpaulins, protected from the heat of the tropical sun: Filipino, Indian, Malaysian, and Indonesian food, fresh fish, fruits and vegetables, bouquets of flowers and potted plants, boiled peanuts, local coffee and honey, bread and naan, all kinds of rice, and even a zero-waste booth. 

    Last week, I discovered a new dish I now love: köfte, a Turkish food consisting of ground meat served in pita bread with tomatoes and salad. Walking through the lively market, I heard a welcoming voice calling me: “Come here, my friend!”. The vendors who shout joyfully to their prospective buyers always have the most clients, and this Turkish gentleman is definitely a prime example of the technique. His booth was buzzing with activity, and I couldn’t resist popping over to see what he had to offer. I was about to find out as he handed me a sample: the most delicious seasoned minced meat I had tasted in some time. I asked him not to use onions in my köfte, and he yielded, saying to his staff: “All the onions that we have, so nobody will kiss this girl!”

    Once in a while, I buy dirty ice cream, my favourite treat from the Philippines. Also known as sorbetes, it’s not actually dirty, but they have referred to it this way for generations because it is traditionally sold by street vendors and potentially exposed to all sorts of street pollution as a result.

    Stored in metal canisters in colourful pushcarts, the milky, delicately sweet ice cream is made of churned cream and chunks of mango, jackfruit, avocado, or cheese. “We call this dirty ice cream,” an old, smiling lady with green-brown eyes told me last week as I waited in line, close to a giant fan. “But we still eat it, since childhood.”

    Familiarity is a powerful feeling, especially when it comes to food, and French and Turkish cuisines have become my personal sources of comfort in the Philippines. It’s incredible how the flavours and textures of certain foods can evoke a sense of nostalgia and warmth, no matter where we find ourselves in the world.

    Oana Racheleanu

    Storyteller

    Oana Racheleanu is a passionate freelance journalist with a keen eye for bringing characters to life in her writing. Based in Bucharest, Romania, she embarks on frequent travels that inspire her storytelling. With a love for profiling individuals, Oana has crafted nearly 60 profiles of Romanian teachers dedicated to transforming traditional teaching methods inherited from the communist era. She approaches people's lives like a puzzle, respectfully collecting each piece and skillfully arranging them to create a vivid and clear picture of their stories. Always curious and excited about the amazing world we live in, Oana writes about the environment, education, and artisans. See her portfolio here, follow her work on LinkedIn, and her travels on Instagram.

    Time to Read:  5 Minutes
    Storyteller: Oana Racheleanu
    16 August 2023
    Category:
    Local Stories - Food and Drink

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