OLD POSTS

 

 

August 14, 2010

I'm hoping that those of you who have written me with your thoughts about how Tales of a Female Nomad compares to Eat Pray Love will take it viral. I think if we can get tons of Tweets out there, TOAFN sales will dramatically increase. I'd love to succeed on the coat tails of EPL. If there are enough sales, maybe I can fund Let's Get Global with the royalties! That would be amazing.  Be sure to mention both titles in your Tweet. Thanks.   The Facebook comments have been incredible.
There's room for more! How about a Facebook post on your site? Thanks everyone. rg

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August 13, 2010

I just wrote this on my Facebook page:

"OK. I confess. I'm jealous of the huge success of Eat, Pray, Love. Not the
movie...but the fact that the whole world is talking about the book! I
wish the whole world were talking about Tales of a Female Nomad."

The two books are similar.....women who are traveling on their own, searching for something.
Elizabeth Gilbert's search is primarily internal; it's a story of self-discovery. I enjoyed her book. There's

a bit of overlap, but my book is mostly external, a search for common humanity.

Happily we both found what we were looking for.

The Facebook comments are pouring in. Several people mentioned that a part of EPL's best-sellerdom was Oprah-generated. We tried, but Oprah wasn't interested in TOAFN. And the EPL movie was a given once the book was a best seller.

I'm not jealous of the movie. I like Julia Roberts. I'll definitely see the movie.I'm especially looking forward to the scenes in

Bali. I've had several feelers over the years from people (none of them stars in the industry) about doing a movie. But the anthropologist in me just could never give anyone permission to bring filmmakers into the jungles and villages that were so precious to me. The intrusion would be devastating. And there was no way Hollywood could recreate the songs of the tribal men in Irian Jaya or the burial of grandma's bones in Borneo.... on a set.

.

So....I'm not jealous of the movie. I'm looking forward to seeing it. I just wish the book, Tales of a Female Nomad, had half the sales of Eat, Pray, Love. I could be funding my Let's Get Global project all by myself. Now that would be cool!!         RG

 

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August 6, 2010

The volunteer letter went out to my listserv last night. If you'd like to see it, click on the link. And once you're there, click on Blog. I'm hoping tons of people all over the country, and world, will sign up to help us build the movement. It's pretty exciting to be part of a movement to change the thinking in our country. Join us. What a huge difference it will make in our population when the majority of us have experienced the world. As of now, more than 75% of the US citizens do not have passports!

Join us in changing the mentality in the US. We need all the help we can get. Fill out the volunteer form and let us know how you'd like to help.  I'll be back in a couple of days and let you know how the campaign is going! Check in again soon.

Love, Rita

PS I'm in Washington, DC at least until December and I'm hoping to find a couple of college interns to help out. My deal with volunteers is that I can't pay you.......but I'll feed you! I'm also hoping someone with lots of experience organizing projects and lots of time to get involved, will come along to help me make things happen. I'm flooded with ideas but I need help figuring out how to make them happen. It's fun and fulfilling to be involved in a cause you believe in. Send me an e-mail.  femalenomad@ritagoldengelman.com

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August 1, 2010

I've been working with Kelli Shewmaker on a form for volunteers. She found a GMail Form and set it up so that when you put in your information, it will automatically go into our spreadsheet. Amazing. That means that we can ask for a list of volunteers in Michigan.....and they will pop up. Or if we need a graphic artist, we just put the words in and voila! Please send in your request and we'll send you your form.

Let's Get Global is going to need volunteers all over the country, in every state and city and town. That's you. The strongest qualification is enthusiasm for the idea that our young adults should have international experiences as part of their education. It's a global economy! Our young people have to know the world they are going to inherit!!

I did a Wisconsin public radio show a month and a half ago and during the call-in part, a man said he was the CEO of a major company and if he has two resumes in his hands and one of those applicants has done a gap year....that's the one he will hire. Respect, understanding, confidence, flexibility are just a few of the rewards of having cross-cultural experiences. And those who do it before college are so much readier for the social and academic challenges of college. Have a look at our gap year site.

Please help us by filling out the volunteer sheet and e-mailing it back. We're almost ready to give out some assignments. We need professionals of all types, speakers, representatives in communties across the country, corporate contacts, volunteers with "people" skills, volunteers who like to work with kids. Want to mentor a potential gapper? Want to help set up a photography show where kids can earn money for their GY? Want to do some research in the corporate world? How about checking out foundations....and gap year programs. Or let us know what you think should be in the kits we provide for the after-school clubs that we're planning to set up beginning September, 2011. Got any contacts that you think would support us.....let us know.

If  you too want to bring the Gap Year into the US consciousness, we want your input. I promise there will be projects that you can take on. And we're hoping that you will bring in a friend to work with you. We're big on the idea of teamwork. It's a lot more fun to work with a pal. And you'll both be a part of changing the kids, the country, and the world.  Watch for our form. Kelli and I are meeting on Monday and Tuesday and we hope to have it set ready to send on Wednesday. 

Love, Rita

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July 19, 2010

http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2010/07/19/burned_out_students_take_timeout_before_starting_college/

Randi Mitchell just sent me this link to an article in the Boston Globe this morning. Check it out and let me know if you want to be a volunteer, wherever you may be. There is so much benefit from a year abroad.....maturity, respect, understanding. We live in a country with far too much intolerance and xenophobia. Connecting cross-culturally is the best tool for fighting prejudice. Join me in my movement:  Let's Get Global. (We're a project of US Servas, Inc.) I'm determined to change the mentality in this country. (75% of the people in this country do not have passports!)

Plus...we are living in a global economy. A year in another country is a dynamite item on a resume.

Isn't there someone in the Washington, DC area who wants to work face-to-face and full-time with me on bringing an international Gap Year to the U.S.? Passion and purpose are keys to staying young, healty, and happy. I need a committed pal to brainstorm and plan with. I smile a lot, partly because I know I'm involved in something important.  Send me a note with your phone number and I'll call you. Especially if you have organizational skills!! femalenomad@ritagoldengelman.com

OK. Back to work.                   Love, me

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July 18, 2010

Just came back from a family reunion. What fun to catch up with Uncle Bob and his family, a whole pile of cousins, some of which needed to be reintroduced, and lots of kids who weren't even born the last time I went to a reunion. My brother and his wife were there from Texas and my niece...from much closer (Danielle and I do see each other).

I have to admit that I prefer one-on-one talks and the kind of conversations that can only happen when two people are intensely sharing lives.....not too much of that at a reunion where there were 42 people to meet and talk to. There were a couple of people I never had a chance to do more than smile at. But I'm glad I went and I'm hoping that some of us can get together on our own.

We're an interestiing family...and several cousins are involved in education and non-profits and law. They had some interesting advice about how I can proceed with Let's Get Global. I came home a couple of hours ago with some challenging ideas to think about.

I'm still struggling with the organization of LGG. Tonight Jennifer, Deena, and Kelli are coming over and we're going to try to talk about all the parts that we have to address. Jennifer goes back to school soon and Deena leaves for England in a few weeks. I really need an executive director....a seriously committed full-time volunteer would be ideal.; but I've found that most volunteers have lives! I would love to find someone else who is free to work daily with me and to devote her or his life to LGG. It's so so important to have a population that has been educated in the world. How can we be leaders if we don't even know the world we're trying to lead? And where will multi-national corporations find employees who will be sensitive and respectful to other cultures in their business dealings? I could go on and on. And, of course, there's all the fear and xenophobia in the US that needs to be eliminated---- cross-cultural interaction is such a perfect solution..

If I can't find a volunteer, I would love to be able to hire an experienced executive director. Then I could be writing articles, giving talks, connecting one on one with educators and kids. That means funding. Cousins Larry and Paul suggested separately that I search for highly successful people who are products of international exchanges in their youth.....for help in funding. Peace Corps returnees, AFS graduates, Rotary scholarship recipients who have made good. If any of you have any contacts or even if you know of people who have gone on from cross-cultural experiences to highly successful jobs, please write and give me details so I can follow up. I'm also open to all suggestions of funding sources you may know about..

Enough for today. I have to get things ready for our planning session in few minutes. Have a good week.

Best, Rita

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July 2, 2010

I probably received about a hundred birthday wishes today on Facebook..and they're still coming in. That's pretty amazing and humbling. Thanks to all of you.

Most of my Facebook friends are readers of the Nomad book where I wrote about my life of living and connecting around the world for 15 years. In the book I don't try to teach any lessons or tell people how they should live. It's very much about the joy I experienced (and continue to experience) connecting with other cultures.

As most of you know, I put my e-mail address on the second-to-last page and the response over the nine years since it was published has been explosive. I've had thousands of letters from readers telling me their secrets. Revealing myself in the book clearly opened the door for readers to open themselves to me. I love it.

I've learned as much from my readers as they've learned from me. I've learned that many of you feel stuck in your lives; others live in fear of taking risks; others of you are having exciting experiences while discovering yourselves and the world.

How fulfilling for me to read letters from people who have been inspired by the book to open up their lives to new experiences, to revisit their dreams. Taking risks, breaking through psychological barriers that you've set up for yourself (often based on the voices of your parents, teachers, uptight friends), can be incredibly liberating.

Some of the ingredients of joy (hey, at 73 I figure I can share some of the things I've discovered...none of them very deep or philosophical, but very human). A lot have to do with letting go of rules. Most of them were designed to keep kids out of trouble and cultures intact. If you're an adult, the whole bit about not talking to strangers doesn't make any sense. Shoot, talk to as many strangers as you can. Everyone has a story and your life will be dramatically enriched.

And all those rules about what you should eat and when, what you should wear to make you look like everyone else, what you should do that is age-appropriate. Forget 'em. I encourage you all to break down your inhibitions by breaking patterns and rules. If you e-mail me I'll send you some simple and wacky things you can do to help you break out of the box  and change your wiring.( femalenomad@ritagoldengelman.com). Ask me to send  you the "Tips."  A lot of them are harmless, but many will make you feel a little naughty....and feeling naughty has a lot going for it!

I've learned from my letters and my life that the pursuit of passion is a key ingredient of feeling good about yourself. You don't have to cross borders to care deeply and work to create a better world, but having a purpose to your days and your life clearly brings on feelings of joy and self-worth.

And finally, the act of smiling always brightens the world, on the inside and the outside. I love to walk down the street making eye contact and smiling at everyone walking toward me. A "Good morning" helps too. Both the greeting and the smile are usually returned....even in Manhattan, where people always tell you not to make eye contact. Don't listen. Make eye contact and smile. If we all did it, the whole world would be smiling.

So smile a lot and talk to strangers. Do a lot of laughing and singing. And try eating new foods.

Ciao. I'm off to have a sushi dinner for my birthday.             

Love, Rita

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July 1, 2010

It's one in the morning. Will someone please tell me why I am writing instead of sleeping?

This afternoon, the one that just was, I got an e-mail from Jennifer Connor who has been doing some research for me at the Foundation Center. She found a Mazda Foundation grant that sounds like a great fit for Let's Get Global. The problem was that the application had to be in tomorrow (that's today). July first.

So that's what I did until a few minutes ago. The worst part of it was that it is one of those PDF files and when I moved the application, everything I'd written disappeared. The application was there....my text was not. There had been a warning that I'd better print it out because it wouldn't save.  That's what I did....but there were a lot of lines that had + at the end of them, meaning like on Facebook that there was more. Except when I printed that out, the stuff after the + didn't print.

And then I moved the document so that I could e-mail it and all my entered text disappeared. Really, it was just a blank application...after hours of work. Fortunately, it was just two pages....but I had worked on the wording and I had to come up with it all over again. Yuck!

It was not a lot of fun realizing that. And I couldn't figure out how I could print it and send it because all those + marks had no continuation on a printed page. And what if the same thing happens again when I try to e-mail it. So I finally retyped the whole thing into Word. It wasn't a lot of fun. And that's why I am up at this hour. I still don't know why I'm writing. I guess to get the frustration out of my system. Of course, if Mazda gives me a couple hundred thousand dollars for LGG, it will have been worth it.

I plan to hand deliver the Word document when I wake up. The offices are about 30 minutes away from my house.

Good night.            Love, me

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June 27, 2010

Starting when I woke up this morning...after a night of horrible dreams...there's been constant negativity to the day: lousy news in my e-mails, depressing articles in the newspaper, and I just discovered that somehow my address book is missing and so is the ginger I need for the cumin chicken I'm making for dinner, and I refuse to go out in the 100 degree day! I can't wait to go to sleep and wake up again. Tomorrow has to be better!    rg

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June 25, 2010

I've been without a computer since June 9th. It was agonizing. The software for writing this is on the computer, so are my contacts and all the material I've been writing for funding proposals. I can get e-mails on the Blackberry that my son-in-law, Bill, gave me before I left Seattle, but learning how to use it and typing one letter at a time made me crazy. And there is always a line at the library...besides, I can't write in the library and that's mostly what I do!

It was still on warranty. First they told me three to five days, then seven, and finally it was sixteen days! Do not ask me what I think of Hewlett Packard? It was not a big job, but they wouldn't let the local shop do the work; they needed the machine sent to them! My next computer will not be Hewlett Packard.

I finnaly got it yesterday and am easing back into work. At the moment, I'm writing the text for an inquiry funding letter to philanthropists, foundations, heads of companies, celebrities. and ordinary folks who agree that bringing the Gap Year to the US will dramatically change the kids, the country, and the world.

I need the funding to hire an executive director, a social networking person, a marketing-pr firm, and to create an after-school pilot program in five schools across the country that will get kids across all segments of the population interested in doing that Gap Year. A dynamite program that will get people talking and schools wanting to be a part of it. We are not planning to sponsor an exchange program....but rather promote those that are already there, help kids find funding, and encourage new programs. When the demand is there, more programs will appear.

Once I have a staff that can handle all the organizational aspects of our movement, I will be free to give talks, meet with funders, government people, educators, parent organizations....and volunteers. We're going to need a lot of them if we're going to make the Gap Year a cultural norm in the country! (And we will.) I will also be doing interviews and writing articles. I'm determined to make this happen.

I'm totally open to your ideas, your comments, and of course, your contributions. If you can help with contacts in the foundation world, that would be great. And if you know any individuals who might want to make significant contributions, that would be great too. For a major contribution ($100,000 or so) I will cook them a fabulous international banquet in their kitchen and I'll sing and dance too!!!

Please check out the LGG site:  www.letsgetglobal.org  It's just a beginning.

I'm hoping you'll send me an e-mail with your concrete, detailed thoughts, suggestions, and contacts. Which celebrities do you think might want to help out...how about companies, corporations, CEOs, friends?

I really do want to hear from you. This has to be a team effort!       femalenomad@ritagoldengelman.com

Thanks.

Love, Rita

PS For those of you who don't know, we are a project of US Servas, Inc., our fiscal sponsor, so we do have legitimacy in the field of non-profits. Servas has 15,000 members worldwide and has been around for 60 years. Check them out online:  www.usservas.org.

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June 7, 2010

Back in DC after a long day that began with the taping of a TV show in Seattle. I will try to put a link to the interview and cooking demonstration tomorrow when I have time to figure out where it is. Check in again after twelve.

Tomorrow, the 8th, I'm doing Peter Greenberg....a national radio program. I don't even know if they do the interview live or if they tape it. I'll find out tomorrow.

Meanwhile it's midnight in DC....but my body-time is still three hours earlier.

I think I'm done moving around through time zones for a while. Don't forget to buy the anthology.....and sign up for the Global Dinner Party. See the menu above.  Check out: www.facebook.com/femalenomad

Love, me


June 6, 2010

I'm still in Seattle. At eleven tomorrow morning, Monday, I'm doing an interview on a new King 5 television show, New Day Northwest. Yesterday they told Teri, a good friend who is helping with PR (teri@cittermanink.com), that they wanted me to do a cooking segment!  That'll be a first for me.

We decided to do the Thai chicken salad called, larb gai; the recipe is in Female Nomad and Friends, and it's easy and delicious. Most people know the dish, but few have ever made it. It's incredibly easy, low-cal, and it can be made ahead of time for parties.

One of the questions they asked Teri was, "Can she cook and talk at the same time?" I sure hope so.

Today Jan, my daughter, and I will go out and buy double the ingredients, one set to cook and "platter" (that's a verb!) before we go....and another to bring, unassembled, to the studio. I think we have to chop and slice before we go (cilantro, mint, lemon grass, Kaffir lime leaves). Another adventure. I fy back to DC after the show.

Two final things: if you haven't done it yet, please try to buy Female Nomad and Friends this week. You'll love the book....and the recipes too. Buy copies for all your friends. Remember that all the author royalties are going for vocational-school scholarships to kids from the slums in New Delhi.

And do sign up for the Global Dinner Party. You can read about it above. Just click on Global Dinner Party in the menu above and then sign up on Facebook (www.facebook.com/femalenomad. We already have hundreds of hosts in this country and in 14 other countries around the world. Please join us for a first!!!

Love, Rita


June 2, 2010

Had a wonderful interview yesterday on Wisconsin Public Radio. They set me up in a Seattle public radio studio. The interviewer was Jean Feraca. Lots of good questions from Jean as well as the callers. It was an hour and it flew by.

On Friday, nine of the contributors to Female Nomad and Friends are meeting in the afternoon to celebrate....and then we're all going to be at:

Third Place Books

Friday, June 4th

 

7:00pm                                        

6504 20th Ave. NE

Seattle, WA 98115

I hope all of you in the Seattle area will come say hello. I did a local radio show this morning and forgot to mention it! Not too bright. The store is small....so maybe we'll have enough people without my help.    rgg


                                                    

May 31, 2010

Collateral damage:  when you fly across the country, east to west, you wake up on day one at five AM! I do love Seattle, though....and it's great seeing my daughter, Jan and her husband, Bill. And Roxy barked and jumped around and made wonderful dog noises when she greeted me.

Today is Memorial Day and I desperately need a haircut. I like it really short so I don't have to think about hair. When I finish this, I'm going online to see if there is a hair place open somewhere. I actually have a place called Changes that I like (Bill uses them) but they're closed.

Tomorrow night I give a talk on Vashon Island. It'll be the first talk I've given on Female Nomad and Friends (pub date is June 1). I've given the Nomad talk hundreds of times....I could do it in my sleep....but this is a new book and I have to spend some time today thinking about what to say. I mean, I'm only one of 41 contributors! It's tricky to be talking for all those people...I haven't met most of them. I do know that giving all the author royalties to kids from the slums in New Delhi for scholarships to vocational schools was a great idea and I can certainly talk about that. Not making any money from the book makes it a lot easier to ask people to buy it, for themselves and all their friends. And I do like the fact that I'm doing it through Rotary, here and there.

I can't wait to shop in Viet Wah. I'm going to buy them out of Bumbu Pecel (a dried block of spiced peanut sauce that I use as a dip for soft Vietnamese rolls (there's a recipe in the new book). It's delicious and easy (you just shave it and mix it with water in a frying pan. I also spoon it on a platter of steamed vegetables (broccoli, carrots, cabbage, bean sprouts. I can find peanut sauce in lots of places but none of it is as good as that block. I did discover that Amazon.com has it, but it's more expensive than Viet Wah.

And I'm definitely going to have lunch at Tamarind Tree. Their Tamarind Crepe is one of my favorite dishes ever.

Today I'm talking to a reader from Food Network in NY. I think they want to get involved internationally in our Global Dinner Party. I'm excited about that! It's such a perfect match. Connecting through Food is the theme...that and the anthology. People all over the world will be sharing food (ideally recipes from the book) and talking about the stories and what they represent: crossing borders, taking risks, communicating without language, trusting, caring.....

If you're reading this in another country, you can get the book on your Kindle in a minute! Starting tomorrow.

Have a look at the Global Dinner Party posts in the main menu above and then rush to Facebook.com/femalenomad and sign up. The night of your party I'm planning to monitor Facebook (for lots of hours given the time differerences) so that we can send messages back and forth all around the world. What fun!

Love, Rita

 

 

May 25, 2010

I've been hanging around here clicking and trying to put in pictures, text, pages, and messages. The only thing I'm good at is writing new posts. Can't figure out how to size a picture or place it where I want it. I've tried clicking and dragging and talking to the computer. Nothing works. So, while none of the images are quite where I want them, there are at least some new images.

Do check out the new page under THE GLOBAL DINNER PARTY called Why, Where, and When and then go immediately to www.facebook.com/femalenomad and sign up to join our Global Dinner Party on June 18th. And don't forget to tell all your guests to quickly order the book and read it so they can talk about it at the party. (If you don't have a Facebook page, send me an e-mail to: femalenomad@gmail.com and let me know you want to join the party. And tell me where you're from.)

Go to www.facebook.com/femalenomad and have a look at EVENTS. We're going to have parties all over the US and in Canada, Mexico, Turkey, China, Colombia, New Zealand, Australia and England. How exciting. Join us and have one in your house. All we're asking is for each of your guests to buy a book and read it before they come. We're putting together a kit for hosts!!! We want your videos, photos, and reports. Please join us. What fun!! And all the author royalties are going to send kids from the slums of New Delhi to vocational schools.

Hurry and add your name. We'll be posting the kit here and on Facebook.

Thanks.         Love, Rita


May 24, 2010

I've been to Fort Collins, Colorado since my last post...visiting family, Mitch, Melissa, Cris and four animals--two dogs, a cat, and a bird. It was great being with them. Cris is six and full of energy, spice, and everything anyone could possibly know about fish!

I just spent the last three hours working on this site and I'm not even half-way finished. I added the Global Dinner pages but I haven't written them yet. I put up a page for Old Posts so I can clean up this home page, and I haven't transferred them yet.  And my computer is having problems. And all the bolded text here disappeared. I guess tomorrow will be more of the same!!! Good night.


May 16, 2010

I just spent four days in Hammond, Indiana, at the Napoleon Hill Foundation. Until a month ago I had never heard of Napoleon Hill. He started the self-help genre nearly a century ago with the book, Think and Grow Rich, not something I would pick up on my own. But they wrote and invited me to speak, and agreed to make a nice donation to Let's Get Global.

I had a great time. Most of the principles that you have to observe if you want to acquire money, can also be applied to creating a richer life, things like purpose, enthusiasm, teamwork. I also learned about essential oils, walking a labyrinth, and how to play a didgeridoo (look it up!).

To play a didgeridoo, you put your lips into one end of a five-foot long hollowed tube and flap them. You don't tighten them the way you do with a trumpet, which I played when I was in eighth grade; you flap them. Dr. Sam Boys, who was the expert giving the workshop, talked about "loose flappage." Don't you love the word? Flappage. I'm sitting here right now flapping my lips and, without the hollow tube, I sound like a motor boat. The looser your flappage, the deeper the tone.

Dr. Sam has developed the art of circular breathing too. He can just keep the air going out without a break for a breath. He does it by storing air in his cheeks and expelling it through his mouth when he takes a breath. He opened with a ten minute session while we meditated....and when it was over, every organ in my body was vibrating. I can see how it might be used as a healing practice. We were all given PVC pipes to learn on.

Now I'm back in DC working more on the Global Dinner that we're putting together for June 18th. I hope you will have a party that day at your house and join thousands of us all over the world. We'll be posting plans (when, where, and some suggested recipes) on:

    www.facebook.com/femalenomad. 

The dinners will be a celebration of my new anthology, Female Nomad and Friends, Tales of Breaking Free and Breaking Bread All Over the World. The book is a testimony to the power of connecting through food; and

                   all the royalties will go to sending kids from the slums in New Delhi to vocational school.

None of the writers is earning a penny!!   We're asking everyone to buy a book now---you and all your guests---so you will have time to read it and talk about it at the party. There are some challanging discussion topics at the end of the book.  So, click on one of the buttoms up top, buy enough books for all your guests, and then go to Facebook and register your party!!

That's it for today.        Love, Rita

 

And if you are a college student in DC or summering in DC...and want an intern position (no money, but I'll feed you), I'd like to add you to the team as well. I'd be happy to talk or write to your college. Let's Get Global is a project of US Servas, Inc., a 501c3 that's been around for sixty years....so your school would most likely OK the position.

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July 19, 2010

http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2010/07/19/burned_out_students_take_timeout_before_starting_college/

Randi Mitchell just sent me this link to an article in the Boston Globe this morning. Check it out and let me know if you want to be a volunteer, wherever you may be. There is so much benefit from a year abroad.....maturity, respect, understanding. We live in a country with far too much intolerance and xenophobia. Connecting cross-culturally is the best tool for fighting prejudice. Join me in my movement:  Let's Get Global. (We're a project of US Servas, Inc.) I'm determined to change the mentality in this country. (75% of the people in this country do not have passports!)

Plus...we are living in a global economy. A year in another country is a dynamite item on a resume.

Isn't there someone in the Washington, DC area who wants to work face-to-face and full-time with me on bringing an international Gap Year to the U.S.? Passion and purpose are keys to staying young, healty, and happy. I need a committed pal to brainstorm and plan with. I smile a lot, partly because I know I'm involved in something important.  Send me a note with your phone number and I'll call you. Especially if you have organizational skills!! femalenomad@ritagoldengelman.com

OK. Back to work.                   Love, me

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July 18, 2010

Just came back from a family reunion. What fun to catch up with Uncle Bob and his family, a whole pile of cousins, some of which needed to be reintroduced, and lots of kids who weren't even born the last time I went to a reunion. My brother and his wife were there from Texas and my niece...from much closer (Danielle and I do see each other).

I have to admit that I prefer one-on-one talks and the kind of conversations that can only happen when two people are intensely sharing lives.....not too much of that at a reunion where there were 42 people to meet and talk to. There were a couple of people I never had a chance to do more than smile at. But I'm glad I went and I'm hoping that some of us can get together on our own.

We're an interestiing family...and several cousins are involved in education and non-profits and law. They had some interesting advice about how I can proceed with Let's Get Global. I came home a couple of hours ago with some challenging ideas to think about.

I'm still struggling with the organization of LGG. Tonight Jennifer, Deena, and Kelli are coming over and we're going to try to talk about all the parts that we have to address. Jennifer goes back to school soon and Deena leaves for England in a few weeks. I really need an executive director....a seriously committed full-time volunteer would be ideal.; but I've found that most volunteers have lives! I would love to find someone else who is free to work daily with me and to devote her or his life to LGG. It's so so important to have a population that has been educated in the world. How can we be leaders if we don't even know the world we're trying to lead? And where will multi-national corporations find employees who will be sensitive and respectful to other cultures in their business dealings? I could go on and on. And, of course, there's all the fear and xenophobia in the US that needs to be eliminated---- cross-cultural interaction is such a perfect solution..

If I can't find a volunteer, I would love to be able to hire an experienced executive director. Then I could be writing articles, giving talks, connecting one on one with educators and kids. That means funding. Cousins Larry and Paul suggested separately that I search for highly successful people who are products of international exchanges in their youth.....for help in funding. Peace Corps returnees, AFS graduates, Rotary scholarship recipients who have made good. If any of you have any contacts or even if you know of people who have gone on from cross-cultural experiences to highly successful jobs, please write and give me details so I can follow up. I'm also open to all suggestions of funding sources you may know about..

Enough for today. I have to get things ready for our planning session in few minutes. Have a good week.

Best, Rita

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July 2, 2010

I probably received about a hundred birthday wishes today on Facebook..and they're still coming in. That's pretty amazing and humbling. Thanks to all of you.

Most of my Facebook friends are readers of the Nomad book where I wrote about my life of living and connecting around the world for 15 years. In the book I don't try to teach any lessons or tell people how they should live. It's very much about the joy I experienced (and continue to experience) connecting with other cultures.

As most of you know, I put my e-mail address on the second-to-last page and the response over the nine years since it was published has been explosive. I've had thousands of letters from readers telling me their secrets. Revealing myself in the book clearly opened the door for readers to open themselves to me. I love it.

I've learned as much from my readers as they've learned from me. I've learned that many of you feel stuck in your lives; others live in fear of taking risks; others of you are having exciting experiences while discovering yourselves and the world.

How fulfilling for me to read letters from people who have been inspired by the book to open up their lives to new experiences, to revisit their dreams. Taking risks, breaking through psychological barriers that you've set up for yourself (often based on the voices of your parents, teachers, uptight friends), can be incredibly liberating.

Some of the ingredients of joy (hey, at 73 I figure I can share some of the things I've discovered...none of them very deep or philosophical, but very human). A lot have to do with letting go of rules. Most of them were designed to keep kids out of trouble and cultures intact. If you're an adult, the whole bit about not talking to strangers doesn't make any sense. Shoot, talk to as many strangers as you can. Everyone has a story and your life will be dramatically enriched.

And all those rules about what you should eat and when, what you should wear to make you look like everyone else, what you should do that is age-appropriate. Forget 'em. I encourage you all to break down your inhibitions by breaking patterns and rules. If you e-mail me I'll send you some simple and wacky things you can do to help you break out of the box  and change your wiring.( femalenomad@ritagoldengelman.com). Ask me to send  you the "Tips."  A lot of them are harmless, but many will make you feel a little naughty....and feeling naughty has a lot going for it!

I've learned from my letters and my life that the pursuit of passion is a key ingredient of feeling good about yourself. You don't have to cross borders to care deeply and work to create a better world, but having a purpose to your days and your life clearly brings on feelings of joy and self-worth.

And finally, the act of smiling always brightens the world, on the inside and the outside. I love to walk down the street making eye contact and smiling at everyone walking toward me. A "Good morning" helps too. Both the greeting and the smile are usually returned....even in Manhattan, where people always tell you not to make eye contact. Don't listen. Make eye contact and smile. If we all did it, the whole world would be smiling.

So smile a lot and talk to strangers. Do a lot of laughing and singing. And try eating new foods.

Ciao. I'm off to have a sushi dinner for my birthday.             

Love, Rita

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July 1, 2010

It's one in the morning. Will someone please tell me why I am writing instead of sleeping?

This afternoon, the one that just was, I got an e-mail from Jennifer Connor who has been doing some research for me at the Foundation Center. She found a Mazda Foundation grant that sounds like a great fit for Let's Get Global. The problem was that the application had to be in tomorrow (that's today). July first.

So that's what I did until a few minutes ago. The worst part of it was that it is one of those PDF files and when I moved the application, everything I'd written disappeared. The application was there....my text was not. There had been a warning that I'd better print it out because it wouldn't save.  That's what I did....but there were a lot of lines that had + at the end of them, meaning like on Facebook that there was more. Except when I printed that out, the stuff after the + didn't print.

And then I moved the document so that I could e-mail it and all my entered text disappeared. Really, it was just a blank application...after hours of work. Fortunately, it was just two pages....but I had worked on the wording and I had to come up with it all over again. Yuck!

It was not a lot of fun realizing that. And I couldn't figure out how I could print it and send it because all those + marks had no continuation on a printed page. And what if the same thing happens again when I try to e-mail it. So I finally retyped the whole thing into Word. It wasn't a lot of fun. And that's why I am up at this hour. I still don't know why I'm writing. I guess to get the frustration out of my system. Of course, if Mazda gives me a couple hundred thousand dollars for LGG, it will have been worth it.

I plan to hand deliver the Word document when I wake up. The offices are about 30 minutes away from my house.

Good night.            Love, me

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June 27, 2010

Starting when I woke up this morning...after a night of horrible dreams...there's been constant negativity to the day: lousy news in my e-mails, depressing articles in the newspaper, and I just discovered that somehow my address book is missing and so is the ginger I need for the cumin chicken I'm making for dinner, and I refuse to go out in the 100 degree day! I can't wait to go to sleep and wake up again. Tomorrow has to be better!    rg

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June 25, 2010

I've been without a computer since June 9th. It was agonizing. The software for writing this is on the computer, so are my contacts and all the material I've been writing for funding proposals. I can get e-mails on the Blackberry that my son-in-law, Bill, gave me before I left Seattle, but learning how to use it and typing one letter at a time made me crazy. And there is always a line at the library...besides, I can't write in the library and that's mostly what I do!

It was still on warranty. First they told me three to five days, then seven, and finally it was sixteen days! Do not ask me what I think of Hewlett Packard? It was not a big job, but they wouldn't let the local shop do the work; they needed the machine sent to them! My next computer will not be Hewlett Packard.

I finnaly got it yesterday and am easing back into work. At the moment, I'm writing the text for an inquiry funding letter to philanthropists, foundations, heads of companies, celebrities. and ordinary folks who agree that bringing the Gap Year to the US will dramatically change the kids, the country, and the world.

I need the funding to hire an executive director, a social networking person, a marketing-pr firm, and to create an after-school pilot program in five schools across the country that will get kids across all segments of the population interested in doing that Gap Year. A dynamite program that will get people talking and schools wanting to be a part of it. We are not planning to sponsor an exchange program....but rather promote those that are already there, help kids find funding, and encourage new programs. When the demand is there, more programs will appear.

Once I have a staff that can handle all the organizational aspects of our movement, I will be free to give talks, meet with funders, government people, educators, parent organizations....and volunteers. We're going to need a lot of them if we're going to make the Gap Year a cultural norm in the country! (And we will.) I will also be doing interviews and writing articles. I'm determined to make this happen.

I'm totally open to your ideas, your comments, and of course, your contributions. If you can help with contacts in the foundation world, that would be great. And if you know any individuals who might want to make significant contributions, that would be great too. For a major contribution ($100,000 or so) I will cook them a fabulous international banquet in their kitchen and I'll sing and dance too!!!

Please check out the LGG site:  www.letsgetglobal.org  It's just a beginning.

I'm hoping you'll send me an e-mail with your concrete, detailed thoughts, suggestions, and contacts. Which celebrities do you think might want to help out...how about companies, corporations, CEOs, friends?

I really do want to hear from you. This has to be a team effort!       femalenomad@ritagoldengelman.com

Thanks.

Love, Rita

PS For those of you who don't know, we are a project of US Servas, Inc., our fiscal sponsor, so we do have legitimacy in the field of non-profits. Servas has 15,000 members worldwide and has been around for 60 years. Check them out online:  www.usservas.org.

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June 7, 2010

Back in DC after a long day that began with the taping of a TV show in Seattle. I will try to put a link to the interview and cooking demonstration tomorrow when I have time to figure out where it is. Check in again after twelve.

Tomorrow, the 8th, I'm doing Peter Greenberg....a national radio program. I don't even know if they do the interview live or if they tape it. I'll find out tomorrow.

Meanwhile it's midnight in DC....but my body-time is still three hours earlier.

I think I'm done moving around through time zones for a while. Don't forget to buy the anthology.....and sign up for the Global Dinner Party. See the menu above.  Check out: www.facebook.com/femalenomad

Love, me


June 6, 2010

I'm still in Seattle. At eleven tomorrow morning, Monday, I'm doing an interview on a new King 5 television show, New Day Northwest. Yesterday they told Teri, a good friend who is helping with PR (teri@cittermanink.com), that they wanted me to do a cooking segment!  That'll be a first for me.

We decided to do the Thai chicken salad called, larb gai; the recipe is in Female Nomad and Friends, and it's easy and delicious. Most people know the dish, but few have ever made it. It's incredibly easy, low-cal, and it can be made ahead of time for parties.

One of the questions they asked Teri was, "Can she cook and talk at the same time?" I sure hope so.

Today Jan, my daughter, and I will go out and buy double the ingredients, one set to cook and "platter" (that's a verb!) before we go....and another to bring, unassembled, to the studio. I think we have to chop and slice before we go (cilantro, mint, lemon grass, Kaffir lime leaves). Another adventure. I fy back to DC after the show.

Two final things: if you haven't done it yet, please try to buy Female Nomad and Friends this week. You'll love the book....and the recipes too. Buy copies for all your friends. Remember that all the author royalties are going for vocational-school scholarships to kids from the slums in New Delhi.

And do sign up for the Global Dinner Party. You can read about it above. Just click on Global Dinner Party in the menu above and then sign up on Facebook (www.facebook.com/femalenomad. We already have hundreds of hosts in this country and in 14 other countries around the world. Please join us for a first!!!

Love, Rita


June 2, 2010

Had a wonderful interview yesterday on Wisconsin Public Radio. They set me up in a Seattle public radio studio. The interviewer was Jean Feraca. Lots of good questions from Jean as well as the callers. It was an hour and it flew by.

On Friday, nine of the contributors to Female Nomad and Friends are meeting in the afternoon to celebrate....and then we're all going to be at:

Third Place Books

Friday, June 4th

 

7:00pm                                        

6504 20th Ave. NE

Seattle, WA 98115

I hope all of you in the Seattle area will come say hello. I did a local radio show this morning and forgot to mention it! Not too bright. The store is small....so maybe we'll have enough people without my help.    rgg


                                                    

May 31, 2010

Collateral damage:  when you fly across the country, east to west, you wake up on day one at five AM! I do love Seattle, though....and it's great seeing my daughter, Jan and her husband, Bill. And Roxy barked and jumped around and made wonderful dog noises when she greeted me.

Today is Memorial Day and I desperately need a haircut. I like it really short so I don't have to think about hair. When I finish this, I'm going online to see if there is a hair place open somewhere. I actually have a place called Changes that I like (Bill uses them) but they're closed.

Tomorrow night I give a talk on Vashon Island. It'll be the first talk I've given on Female Nomad and Friends (pub date is June 1). I've given the Nomad talk hundreds of times....I could do it in my sleep....but this is a new book and I have to spend some time today thinking about what to say. I mean, I'm only one of 41 contributors! It's tricky to be talking for all those people...I haven't met most of them. I do know that giving all the author royalties to kids from the slums in New Delhi for scholarships to vocational schools was a great idea and I can certainly talk about that. Not making any money from the book makes it a lot easier to ask people to buy it, for themselves and all their friends. And I do like the fact that I'm doing it through Rotary, here and there.

I can't wait to shop in Viet Wah. I'm going to buy them out of Bumbu Pecel (a dried block of spiced peanut sauce that I use as a dip for soft Vietnamese rolls (there's a recipe in the new book). It's delicious and easy (you just shave it and mix it with water in a frying pan. I also spoon it on a platter of steamed vegetables (broccoli, carrots, cabbage, bean sprouts. I can find peanut sauce in lots of places but none of it is as good as that block. I did discover that Amazon.com has it, but it's more expensive than Viet Wah.

And I'm definitely going to have lunch at Tamarind Tree. Their Tamarind Crepe is one of my favorite dishes ever.

Today I'm talking to a reader from Food Network in NY. I think they want to get involved internationally in our Global Dinner Party. I'm excited about that! It's such a perfect match. Connecting through Food is the theme...that and the anthology. People all over the world will be sharing food (ideally recipes from the book) and talking about the stories and what they represent: crossing borders, taking risks, communicating without language, trusting, caring.....

If you're reading this in another country, you can get the book on your Kindle in a minute! Starting tomorrow.

Have a look at the Global Dinner Party posts in the main menu above and then rush to Facebook.com/femalenomad and sign up. The night of your party I'm planning to monitor Facebook (for lots of hours given the time differerences) so that we can send messages back and forth all around the world. What fun!

Love, Rita

 

 

May 25, 2010

I've been hanging around here clicking and trying to put in pictures, text, pages, and messages. The only thing I'm good at is writing new posts. Can't figure out how to size a picture or place it where I want it. I've tried clicking and dragging and talking to the computer. Nothing works. So, while none of the images are quite where I want them, there are at least some new images.

Do check out the new page under THE GLOBAL DINNER PARTY called Why, Where, and When and then go immediately to www.facebook.com/femalenomad and sign up to join our Global Dinner Party on June 18th. And don't forget to tell all your guests to quickly order the book and read it so they can talk about it at the party. (If you don't have a Facebook page, send me an e-mail to: femalenomad@gmail.com and let me know you want to join the party. And tell me where you're from.)

Go to www.facebook.com/femalenomad and have a look at EVENTS. We're going to have parties all over the US and in Canada, Mexico, Turkey, China, Colombia, New Zealand, Australia and England. How exciting. Join us and have one in your house. All we're asking is for each of your guests to buy a book and read it before they come. We're putting together a kit for hosts!!! We want your videos, photos, and reports. Please join us. What fun!! And all the author royalties are going to send kids from the slums of New Delhi to vocational schools.

Hurry and add your name. We'll be posting the kit here and on Facebook.

Thanks.         Love, Rita


May 24, 2010

I've been to Fort Collins, Colorado since my last post...visiting family, Mitch, Melissa, Cris and four animals--two dogs, a cat, and a bird. It was great being with them. Cris is six and full of energy, spice, and everything anyone could possibly know about fish!

I just spent the last three hours working on this site and I'm not even half-way finished. I added the Global Dinner pages but I haven't written them yet. I put up a page for Old Posts so I can clean up this home page, and I haven't transferred them yet.  And my computer is having problems. And all the bolded text here disappeared. I guess tomorrow will be more of the same!!! Good night.


May 16, 2010

I just spent four days in Hammond, Indiana, at the Napoleon Hill Foundation. Until a month ago I had never heard of Napoleon Hill. He started the self-help genre nearly a century ago with the book, Think and Grow Rich, not something I would pick up on my own. But they wrote and invited me to speak, and agreed to make a nice donation to Let's Get Global.

I had a great time. Most of the principles that you have to observe if you want to acquire money, can also be applied to creating a richer life, things like purpose, enthusiasm, teamwork. I also learned about essential oils, walking a labyrinth, and how to play a didgeridoo (look it up!).

To play a didgeridoo, you put your lips into one end of a five-foot long hollowed tube and flap them. You don't tighten them the way you do with a trumpet, which I played when I was in eighth grade; you flap them. Dr. Sam Boys, who was the expert giving the workshop, talked about "loose flappage." Don't you love the word? Flappage. I'm sitting here right now flapping my lips and, without the hollow tube, I sound like a motor boat. The looser your flappage, the deeper the tone.

Dr. Sam has developed the art of circular breathing too. He can just keep the air going out without a break for a breath. He does it by storing air in his cheeks and expelling it through his mouth when he takes a breath. He opened with a ten minute session while we meditated....and when it was over, every organ in my body was vibrating. I can see how it might be used as a healing practice. We were all given PVC pipes to learn on.

Now I'm back in DC working more on the Global Dinner that we're putting together for June 18th. I hope you will have a party that day at your house and join thousands of us all over the world. We'll be posting plans (when, where, and some suggested recipes) on:

    www.facebook.com/femalenomad. 

The dinners will be a celebration of my new anthology, Female Nomad and Friends, Tales of Breaking Free and Breaking Bread All Over the World. The book is a testimony to the power of connecting through food; and

                   all the royalties will go to sending kids from the slums in New Delhi to vocational school.

None of the writers is earning a penny!!   We're asking everyone to buy a book now---you and all your guests---so you will have time to read it and talk about it at the party. There are some challanging discussion topics at the end of the book.  So, click on one of the buttoms up top, buy enough books for all your guests, and then go to Facebook and register your party!!

That's it for today.        Love, Rita

 

And if you are a college student in DC or summering in DC...and want an intern position (no money, but I'll feed you), I'd like to add you to the team as well. I'd be happy to talk or write to your college. Let's Get Global is a project of US Servas, Inc., a 501c3 that's been around for sixty years....so your school would most

August 14, 2010

I'm hoping that those of you who have written me with your thoughts about how Tales of a Female Nomad compares to Eat Pray Love will take it viral. I think if we can get tons of Tweets out there, TOAFN sales will dramatically increase. I'd love to succeed on the coat tails of EPL. If there are enough sales, maybe I can fund Let's Get Global with the royalties! That would be amazing.  Be sure to mention both titles in your Tweet. Thanks.   The Facebook comments have been incredible.
There's room for more! How about a Facebook post on your site? Thanks everyone. rg

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August 13, 2010

I just wrote this on my Facebook page:

"OK. I confess. I'm jealous of the huge success of Eat, Pray, Love. Not the
movie...but the fact that the whole world is talking about the book! I
wish the whole world were talking about Tales of a Female Nomad."

The two books are similar.....women who are traveling on their own, searching for something.
Elizabeth Gilbert's search is primarily internal; it's a story of self-discovery. I enjoyed her book. There's

a bit of overlap, but my book is mostly external, a search for common humanity.

Happily we both found what we were looking for.

The Facebook comments are pouring in. Several people mentioned that a part of EPL's best-sellerdom was Oprah-generated. We tried, but Oprah wasn't interested in TOAFN. And the EPL movie was a given once the book was a best seller.

I'm not jealous of the movie. I like Julia Roberts. I'll definitely see the movie.I'm especially looking forward to the scenes in

Bali. I've had several feelers over the years from people (none of them stars in the industry) about doing a movie. But the anthropologist in me just could never give anyone permission to bring filmmakers into the jungles and villages that were so precious to me. The intrusion would be devastating. And there was no way Hollywood could recreate the songs of the tribal men in Irian Jaya or the burial of grandma's bones in Borneo.... on a set.

.

So....I'm not jealous of the movie. I'm looking forward to seeing it. I just wish the book, Tales of a Female Nomad, had half the sales of Eat, Pray, Love. I could be funding my Let's Get Global project all by myself. Now that would be cool!!         RG

 

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August 6, 2010

The volunteer letter went out to my listserv last night. If you'd like to see it, click on the link. And once you're there, click on Blog. I'm hoping tons of people all over the country, and world, will sign up to help us build the movement. It's pretty exciting to be part of a movement to change the thinking in our country. Join us. What a huge difference it will make in our population when the majority of us have experienced the world. As of now, more than 75% of the US citizens do not have passports!

Join us in changing the mentality in the US. We need all the help we can get. Fill out the volunteer form and let us know how you'd like to help.  I'll be back in a couple of days and let you know how the campaign is going! Check in again soon.

Love, Rita

PS I'm in Washington, DC at least until December and I'm hoping to find a couple of college interns to help out. My deal with volunteers is that I can't pay you.......but I'll feed you! I'm also hoping someone with lots of experience organizing projects and lots of time to get involved, will come along to help me make things happen. I'm flooded with ideas but I need help figuring out how to make them happen. It's fun and fulfilling to be involved in a cause you believe in. Send me an e-mail.  femalenomad@ritagoldengelman.com

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August 1, 2010

I've been working with Kelli Shewmaker on a form for volunteers. She found a GMail Form and set it up so that when you put in your information, it will automatically go into our spreadsheet. Amazing. That means that we can ask for a list of volunteers in Michigan.....and they will pop up. Or if we need a graphic artist, we just put the words in and voila! Please send in your request and we'll send you your form.

Let's Get Global is going to need volunteers all over the country, in every state and city and town. That's you. The strongest qualification is enthusiasm for the idea that our young adults should have international experiences as part of their education. It's a global economy! Our young people have to know the world they are going to inherit!!

I did a Wisconsin public radio show a month and a half ago and during the call-in part, a man said he was the CEO of a major company and if he has two resumes in his hands and one of those applicants has done a gap year....that's the one he will hire. Respect, understanding, confidence, flexibility are just a few of the rewards of having cross-cultural experiences. And those who do it before college are so much readier for the social and academic challenges of college. Have a look at our gap year site.

Please help us by filling out the volunteer sheet and e-mailing it back. We're almost ready to give out some assignments. We need professionals of all types, speakers, representatives in communties across the country, corporate contacts, volunteers with "people" skills, volunteers who like to work with kids. Want to mentor a potential gapper? Want to help set up a photography show where kids can earn money for their GY? Want to do some research in the corporate world? How about checking out foundations....and gap year programs. Or let us know what you think should be in the kits we provide for the after-school clubs that we're planning to set up beginning September, 2011. Got any contacts that you think would support us.....let us know.

If  you too want to bring the Gap Year into the US consciousness, we want your input. I promise there will be projects that you can take on. And we're hoping that you will bring in a friend to work with you. We're big on the idea of teamwork. It's a lot more fun to work with a pal. And you'll both be a part of changing the kids, the country, and the world.  Watch for our form. Kelli and I are meeting on Monday and Tuesday and we hope to have it set ready to send on Wednesday. 

Love, Rita

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July 19, 2010

http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2010/07/19/burned_out_students_take_timeout_before_starting_college/

Randi Mitchell just sent me this link to an article in the Boston Globe this morning. Check it out and let me know if you want to be a volunteer, wherever you may be. There is so much benefit from a year abroad.....maturity, respect, understanding. We live in a country with far too much intolerance and xenophobia. Connecting cross-culturally is the best tool for fighting prejudice. Join me in my movement:  Let's Get Global. (We're a project of US Servas, Inc.) I'm determined to change the mentality in this country. (75% of the people in this country do not have passports!)

Plus...we are living in a global economy. A year in another country is a dynamite item on a resume.

Isn't there someone in the Washington, DC area who wants to work face-to-face and full-time with me on bringing an international Gap Year to the U.S.? Passion and purpose are keys to staying young, healty, and happy. I need a committed pal to brainstorm and plan with. I smile a lot, partly because I know I'm involved in something important.  Send me a note with your phone number and I'll call you. Especially if you have organizational skills!! femalenomad@ritagoldengelman.com

OK. Back to work.                   Love, me

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July 18, 2010

Just came back from a family reunion. What fun to catch up with Uncle Bob and his family, a whole pile of cousins, some of which needed to be reintroduced, and lots of kids who weren't even born the last time I went to a reunion. My brother and his wife were there from Texas and my niece...from much closer (Danielle and I do see each other).

I have to admit that I prefer one-on-one talks and the kind of conversations that can only happen when two people are intensely sharing lives.....not too much of that at a reunion where there were 42 people to meet and talk to. There were a couple of people I never had a chance to do more than smile at. But I'm glad I went and I'm hoping that some of us can get together on our own.

We're an interestiing family...and several cousins are involved in education and non-profits and law. They had some interesting advice about how I can proceed with Let's Get Global. I came home a couple of hours ago with some challenging ideas to think about.

I'm still struggling with the organization of LGG. Tonight Jennifer, Deena, and Kelli are coming over and we're going to try to talk about all the parts that we have to address. Jennifer goes back to school soon and Deena leaves for England in a few weeks. I really need an executive director....a seriously committed full-time volunteer would be ideal.; but I've found that most volunteers have lives! I would love to find someone else who is free to work daily with me and to devote her or his life to LGG. It's so so important to have a population that has been educated in the world. How can we be leaders if we don't even know the world we're trying to lead? And where will multi-national corporations find employees who will be sensitive and respectful to other cultures in their business dealings? I could go on and on. And, of course, there's all the fear and xenophobia in the US that needs to be eliminated---- cross-cultural interaction is such a perfect solution..

If I can't find a volunteer, I would love to be able to hire an experienced executive director. Then I could be writing articles, giving talks, connecting one on one with educators and kids. That means funding. Cousins Larry and Paul suggested separately that I search for highly successful people who are products of international exchanges in their youth.....for help in funding. Peace Corps returnees, AFS graduates, Rotary scholarship recipients who have made good. If any of you have any contacts or even if you know of people who have gone on from cross-cultural experiences to highly successful jobs, please write and give me details so I can follow up. I'm also open to all suggestions of funding sources you may know about..

Enough for today. I have to get things ready for our planning session in few minutes. Have a good week.

Best, Rita

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July 2, 2010

I probably received about a hundred birthday wishes today on Facebook..and they're still coming in. That's pretty amazing and humbling. Thanks to all of you.

Most of my Facebook friends are readers of the Nomad book where I wrote about my life of living and connecting around the world for 15 years. In the book I don't try to teach any lessons or tell people how they should live. It's very much about the joy I experienced (and continue to experience) connecting with other cultures.

As most of you know, I put my e-mail address on the second-to-last page and the response over the nine years since it was published has been explosive. I've had thousands of letters from readers telling me their secrets. Revealing myself in the book clearly opened the door for readers to open themselves to me. I love it.

I've learned as much from my readers as they've learned from me. I've learned that many of you feel stuck in your lives; others live in fear of taking risks; others of you are having exciting experiences while discovering yourselves and the world.

How fulfilling for me to read letters from people who have been inspired by the book to open up their lives to new experiences, to revisit their dreams. Taking risks, breaking through psychological barriers that you've set up for yourself (often based on the voices of your parents, teachers, uptight friends), can be incredibly liberating.

Some of the ingredients of joy (hey, at 73 I figure I can share some of the things I've discovered...none of them very deep or philosophical, but very human). A lot have to do with letting go of rules. Most of them were designed to keep kids out of trouble and cultures intact. If you're an adult, the whole bit about not talking to strangers doesn't make any sense. Shoot, talk to as many strangers as you can. Everyone has a story and your life will be dramatically enriched.

And all those rules about what you should eat and when, what you should wear to make you look like everyone else, what you should do that is age-appropriate. Forget 'em. I encourage you all to break down your inhibitions by breaking patterns and rules. If you e-mail me I'll send you some simple and wacky things you can do to help you break out of the box  and change your wiring.( femalenomad@ritagoldengelman.com). Ask me to send  you the "Tips."  A lot of them are harmless, but many will make you feel a little naughty....and feeling naughty has a lot going for it!

I've learned from my letters and my life that the pursuit of passion is a key ingredient of feeling good about yourself. You don't have to cross borders to care deeply and work to create a better world, but having a purpose to your days and your life clearly brings on feelings of joy and self-worth.

And finally, the act of smiling always brightens the world, on the inside and the outside. I love to walk down the street making eye contact and smiling at everyone walking toward me. A "Good morning" helps too. Both the greeting and the smile are usually returned....even in Manhattan, where people always tell you not to make eye contact. Don't listen. Make eye contact and smile. If we all did it, the whole world would be smiling.

So smile a lot and talk to strangers. Do a lot of laughing and singing. And try eating new foods.

Ciao. I'm off to have a sushi dinner for my birthday.             

Love, Rita

_____________________________________________________________________________

 

July 1, 2010

It's one in the morning. Will someone please tell me why I am writing instead of sleeping?

This afternoon, the one that just was, I got an e-mail from Jennifer Connor who has been doing some research for me at the Foundation Center. She found a Mazda Foundation grant that sounds like a great fit for Let's Get Global. The problem was that the application had to be in tomorrow (that's today). July first.

So that's what I did until a few minutes ago. The worst part of it was that it is one of those PDF files and when I moved the application, everything I'd written disappeared. The application was there....my text was not. There had been a warning that I'd better print it out because it wouldn't save.  That's what I did....but there were a lot of lines that had + at the end of them, meaning like on Facebook that there was more. Except when I printed that out, the stuff after the + didn't print.

And then I moved the document so that I could e-mail it and all my entered text disappeared. Really, it was just a blank application...after hours of work. Fortunately, it was just two pages....but I had worked on the wording and I had to come up with it all over again. Yuck!

It was not a lot of fun realizing that. And I couldn't figure out how I could print it and send it because all those + marks had no continuation on a printed page. And what if the same thing happens again when I try to e-mail it. So I finally retyped the whole thing into Word. It wasn't a lot of fun. And that's why I am up at this hour. I still don't know why I'm writing. I guess to get the frustration out of my system. Of course, if Mazda gives me a couple hundred thousand dollars for LGG, it will have been worth it.

I plan to hand deliver the Word document when I wake up. The offices are about 30 minutes away from my house.

Good night.            Love, me

_______________________________________________________________________________

 

June 27, 2010

Starting when I woke up this morning...after a night of horrible dreams...there's been constant negativity to the day: lousy news in my e-mails, depressing articles in the newspaper, and I just discovered that somehow my address book is missing and so is the ginger I need for the cumin chicken I'm making for dinner, and I refuse to go out in the 100 degree day! I can't wait to go to sleep and wake up again. Tomorrow has to be better!    rg

______________________________________________________

 

June 25, 2010

I've been without a computer since June 9th. It was agonizing. The software for writing this is on the computer, so are my contacts and all the material I've been writing for funding proposals. I can get e-mails on the Blackberry that my son-in-law, Bill, gave me before I left Seattle, but learning how to use it and typing one letter at a time made me crazy. And there is always a line at the library...besides, I can't write in the library and that's mostly what I do!

It was still on warranty. First they told me three to five days, then seven, and finally it was sixteen days! Do not ask me what I think of Hewlett Packard? It was not a big job, but they wouldn't let the local shop do the work; they needed the machine sent to them! My next computer will not be Hewlett Packard.

I finnaly got it yesterday and am easing back into work. At the moment, I'm writing the text for an inquiry funding letter to philanthropists, foundations, heads of companies, celebrities. and ordinary folks who agree that bringing the Gap Year to the US will dramatically change the kids, the country, and the world.

I need the funding to hire an executive director, a social networking person, a marketing-pr firm, and to create an after-school pilot program in five schools across the country that will get kids across all segments of the population interested in doing that Gap Year. A dynamite program that will get people talking and schools wanting to be a part of it. We are not planning to sponsor an exchange program....but rather promote those that are already there, help kids find funding, and encourage new programs. When the demand is there, more programs will appear.

Once I have a staff that can handle all the organizational aspects of our movement, I will be free to give talks, meet with funders, government people, educators, parent organizations....and volunteers. We're going to need a lot of them if we're going to make the Gap Year a cultural norm in the country! (And we will.) I will also be doing interviews and writing articles. I'm determined to make this happen.

I'm totally open to your ideas, your comments, and of course, your contributions. If you can help with contacts in the foundation world, that would be great. And if you know any individuals who might want to make significant contributions, that would be great too. For a major contribution ($100,000 or so) I will cook them a fabulous international banquet in their kitchen and I'll sing and dance too!!!

Please check out the LGG site:  www.letsgetglobal.org  It's just a beginning.

I'm hoping you'll send me an e-mail with your concrete, detailed thoughts, suggestions, and contacts. Which celebrities do you think might want to help out...how about companies, corporations, CEOs, friends?

I really do want to hear from you. This has to be a team effort!       femalenomad@ritagoldengelman.com

Thanks.

Love, Rita

PS For those of you who don't know, we are a project of US Servas, Inc., our fiscal sponsor, so we do have legitimacy in the field of non-profits. Servas has 15,000 members worldwide and has been around for 60 years. Check them out online:  www.usservas.org.

_______________________________________________________________________________

 

June 7, 2010

Back in DC after a long day that began with the taping of a TV show in Seattle. I will try to put a link to the interview and cooking demonstration tomorrow when I have time to figure out where it is. Check in again after twelve.

Tomorrow, the 8th, I'm doing Peter Greenberg....a national radio program. I don't even know if they do the interview live or if they tape it. I'll find out tomorrow.

Meanwhile it's midnight in DC....but my body-time is still three hours earlier.

I think I'm done moving around through time zones for a while. Don't forget to buy the anthology.....and sign up for the Global Dinner Party. See the menu above.  Check out: www.facebook.com/femalenomad

Love, me


June 6, 2010

I'm still in Seattle. At eleven tomorrow morning, Monday, I'm doing an interview on a new King 5 television show, New Day Northwest. Yesterday they told Teri, a good friend who is helping with PR (teri@cittermanink.com), that they wanted me to do a cooking segment!  That'll be a first for me.

We decided to do the Thai chicken salad called, larb gai; the recipe is in Female Nomad and Friends, and it's easy and delicious. Most people know the dish, but few have ever made it. It's incredibly easy, low-cal, and it can be made ahead of time for parties.

One of the questions they asked Teri was, "Can she cook and talk at the same time?" I sure hope so.

Today Jan, my daughter, and I will go out and buy double the ingredients, one set to cook and "platter" (that's a verb!) before we go....and another to bring, unassembled, to the studio. I think we have to chop and slice before we go (cilantro, mint, lemon grass, Kaffir lime leaves). Another adventure. I fy back to DC after the show.

Two final things: if you haven't done it yet, please try to buy Female Nomad and Friends this week. You'll love the book....and the recipes too. Buy copies for all your friends. Remember that all the author royalties are going for vocational-school scholarships to kids from the slums in New Delhi.

And do sign up for the Global Dinner Party. You can read about it above. Just click on Global Dinner Party in the menu above and then sign up on Facebook (www.facebook.com/femalenomad. We already have hundreds of hosts in this country and in 14 other countries around the world. Please join us for a first!!!

Love, Rita


June 2, 2010

Had a wonderful interview yesterday on Wisconsin Public Radio. They set me up in a Seattle public radio studio. The interviewer was Jean Feraca. Lots of good questions from Jean as well as the callers. It was an hour and it flew by.

On Friday, nine of the contributors to Female Nomad and Friends are meeting in the afternoon to celebrate....and then we're all going to be at:

Third Place Books

Friday, June 4th

 

7:00pm                                        

6504 20th Ave. NE

Seattle, WA 98115

I hope all of you in the Seattle area will come say hello. I did a local radio show this morning and forgot to mention it! Not too bright. The store is small....so maybe we'll have enough people without my help.    rgg


                                                    

May 31, 2010

Collateral damage:  when you fly across the country, east to west, you wake up on day one at five AM! I do love Seattle, though....and it's great seeing my daughter, Jan and her husband, Bill. And Roxy barked and jumped around and made wonderful dog noises when she greeted me.

Today is Memorial Day and I desperately need a haircut. I like it really short so I don't have to think about hair. When I finish this, I'm going online to see if there is a hair place open somewhere. I actually have a place called Changes that I like (Bill uses them) but they're closed.

Tomorrow night I give a talk on Vashon Island. It'll be the first talk I've given on Female Nomad and Friends (pub date is June 1). I've given the Nomad talk hundreds of times....I could do it in my sleep....but this is a new book and I have to spend some time today thinking about what to say. I mean, I'm only one of 41 contributors! It's tricky to be talking for all those people...I haven't met most of them. I do know that giving all the author royalties to kids from the slums in New Delhi for scholarships to vocational schools was a great idea and I can certainly talk about that. Not making any money from the book makes it a lot easier to ask people to buy it, for themselves and all their friends. And I do like the fact that I'm doing it through Rotary, here and there.

I can't wait to shop in Viet Wah. I'm going to buy them out of Bumbu Pecel (a dried block of spiced peanut sauce that I use as a dip for soft Vietnamese rolls (there's a recipe in the new book). It's delicious and easy (you just shave it and mix it with water in a frying pan. I also spoon it on a platter of steamed vegetables (broccoli, carrots, cabbage, bean sprouts. I can find peanut sauce in lots of places but none of it is as good as that block. I did discover that Amazon.com has it, but it's more expensive than Viet Wah.

And I'm definitely going to have lunch at Tamarind Tree. Their Tamarind Crepe is one of my favorite dishes ever.

Today I'm talking to a reader from Food Network in NY. I think they want to get involved internationally in our Global Dinner Party. I'm excited about that! It's such a perfect match. Connecting through Food is the theme...that and the anthology. People all over the world will be sharing food (ideally recipes from the book) and talking about the stories and what they represent: crossing borders, taking risks, communicating without language, trusting, caring.....

If you're reading this in another country, you can get the book on your Kindle in a minute! Starting tomorrow.

Have a look at the Global Dinner Party posts in the main menu above and then rush to Facebook.com/femalenomad and sign up. The night of your party I'm planning to monitor Facebook (for lots of hours given the time differerences) so that we can send messages back and forth all around the world. What fun!

Love, Rita

 

 

May 25, 2010

I've been hanging around here clicking and trying to put in pictures, text, pages, and messages. The only thing I'm good at is writing new posts. Can't figure out how to size a picture or place it where I want it. I've tried clicking and dragging and talking to the computer. Nothing works. So, while none of the images are quite where I want them, there are at least some new images.

Do check out the new page under THE GLOBAL DINNER PARTY called Why, Where, and When and then go immediately to www.facebook.com/femalenomad and sign up to join our Global Dinner Party on June 18th. And don't forget to tell all your guests to quickly order the book and read it so they can talk about it at the party. (If you don't have a Facebook page, send me an e-mail to: femalenomad@gmail.com and let me know you want to join the party. And tell me where you're from.)

Go to www.facebook.com/femalenomad and have a look at EVENTS. We're going to have parties all over the US and in Canada, Mexico, Turkey, China, Colombia, New Zealand, Australia and England. How exciting. Join us and have one in your house. All we're asking is for each of your guests to buy a book and read it before they come. We're putting together a kit for hosts!!! We want your videos, photos, and reports. Please join us. What fun!! And all the author royalties are going to send kids from the slums of New Delhi to vocational schools.

Hurry and add your name. We'll be posting the kit here and on Facebook.

Thanks.         Love, Rita


May 24, 2010

I've been to Fort Collins, Colorado since my last post...visiting family, Mitch, Melissa, Cris and four animals--two dogs, a cat, and a bird. It was great being with them. Cris is six and full of energy, spice, and everything anyone could possibly know about fish!

I just spent the last three hours working on this site and I'm not even half-way finished. I added the Global Dinner pages but I haven't written them yet. I put up a page for Old Posts so I can clean up this home page, and I haven't transferred them yet.  And my computer is having problems. And all the bolded text here disappeared. I guess tomorrow will be more of the same!!! Good night.


May 16, 2010

I just spent four days in Hammond, Indiana, at the Napoleon Hill Foundation. Until a month ago I had never heard of Napoleon Hill. He started the self-help genre nearly a century ago with the book, Think and Grow Rich, not something I would pick up on my own. But they wrote and invited me to speak, and agreed to make a nice donation to Let's Get Global.

I had a great time. Most of the principles that you have to observe if you want to acquire money, can also be applied to creating a richer life, things like purpose, enthusiasm, teamwork. I also learned about essential oils, walking a labyrinth, and how to play a didgeridoo (look it up!).

To play a didgeridoo, you put your lips into one end of a five-foot long hollowed tube and flap them. You don't tighten them the way you do with a trumpet, which I played when I was in eighth grade; you flap them. Dr. Sam Boys, who was the expert giving the workshop, talked about "loose flappage." Don't you love the word? Flappage. I'm sitting here right now flapping my lips and, without the hollow tube, I sound like a motor boat. The looser your flappage, the deeper the tone.

Dr. Sam has developed the art of circular breathing too. He can just keep the air going out without a break for a breath. He does it by storing air in his cheeks and expelling it through his mouth when he takes a breath. He opened with a ten minute session while we meditated....and when it was over, every organ in my body was vibrating. I can see how it might be used as a healing practice. We were all given PVC pipes to learn on.

Now I'm back in DC working more on the Global Dinner that we're putting together for June 18th. I hope you will have a party that day at your house and join thousands of us all over the world. We'll be posting plans (when, where, and some suggested recipes) on:

    www.facebook.com/femalenomad. 

The dinners will be a celebration of my new anthology, Female Nomad and Friends, Tales of Breaking Free and Breaking Bread All Over the World. The book is a testimony to the power of connecting through food; and

                   all the royalties will go to sending kids from the slums in New Delhi to vocational school.

None of the writers is earning a penny!!   We're asking everyone to buy a book now---you and all your guests---so you will have time to read it and talk about it at the party. There are some challanging discussion topics at the end of the book.  So, click on one of the buttoms up top, buy enough books for all your guests, and then go to Facebook and register your party!!

That's it for today.        Love, Rita

 

And if you are a college student in DC or summering in DC...and want an intern position (no money, but I'll feed you), I'd like to add you to the team as well. I'd be happy to talk or write to your college. Let's Get Global is a project of US Servas, Inc., a 501c3 that's been around for sixty years....so your school would most likely OK the position.

___________________________________________________

 

July 19, 2010

http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2010/07/19/burned_out_students_take_timeout_before_starting_college/

Randi Mitchell just sent me this link to an article in the Boston Globe this morning. Check it out and let me know if you want to be a volunteer, wherever you may be. There is so much benefit from a year abroad.....maturity, respect, understanding. We live in a country with far too much intolerance and xenophobia. Connecting cross-culturally is the best tool for fighting prejudice. Join me in my movement:  Let's Get Global. (We're a project of US Servas, Inc.) I'm determined to change the mentality in this country. (75% of the people in this country do not have passports!)

Plus...we are living in a global economy. A year in another country is a dynamite item on a resume.

Isn't there someone in the Washington, DC area who wants to work face-to-face and full-time with me on bringing an international Gap Year to the U.S.? Passion and purpose are keys to staying young, healty, and happy. I need a committed pal to brainstorm and plan with. I smile a lot, partly because I know I'm involved in something important.  Send me a note with your phone number and I'll call you. Especially if you have organizational skills!! femalenomad@ritagoldengelman.com

OK. Back to work.                   Love, me

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

July 18, 2010

Just came back from a family reunion. What fun to catch up with Uncle Bob and his family, a whole pile of cousins, some of which needed to be reintroduced, and lots of kids who weren't even born the last time I went to a reunion. My brother and his wife were there from Texas and my niece...from much closer (Danielle and I do see each other).

I have to admit that I prefer one-on-one talks and the kind of conversations that can only happen when two people are intensely sharing lives.....not too much of that at a reunion where there were 42 people to meet and talk to. There were a couple of people I never had a chance to do more than smile at. But I'm glad I went and I'm hoping that some of us can get together on our own.

We're an interestiing family...and several cousins are involved in education and non-profits and law. They had some interesting advice about how I can proceed with Let's Get Global. I came home a couple of hours ago with some challenging ideas to think about.

I'm still struggling with the organization of LGG. Tonight Jennifer, Deena, and Kelli are coming over and we're going to try to talk about all the parts that we have to address. Jennifer goes back to school soon and Deena leaves for England in a few weeks. I really need an executive director....a seriously committed full-time volunteer would be ideal.; but I've found that most volunteers have lives! I would love to find someone else who is free to work daily with me and to devote her or his life to LGG. It's so so important to have a population that has been educated in the world. How can we be leaders if we don't even know the world we're trying to lead? And where will multi-national corporations find employees who will be sensitive and respectful to other cultures in their business dealings? I could go on and on. And, of course, there's all the fear and xenophobia in the US that needs to be eliminated---- cross-cultural interaction is such a perfect solution..

If I can't find a volunteer, I would love to be able to hire an experienced executive director. Then I could be writing articles, giving talks, connecting one on one with educators and kids. That means funding. Cousins Larry and Paul suggested separately that I search for highly successful people who are products of international exchanges in their youth.....for help in funding. Peace Corps returnees, AFS graduates, Rotary scholarship recipients who have made good. If any of you have any contacts or even if you know of people who have gone on from cross-cultural experiences to highly successful jobs, please write and give me details so I can follow up. I'm also open to all suggestions of funding sources you may know about..

Enough for today. I have to get things ready for our planning session in few minutes. Have a good week.

Best, Rita

_____________________________________________________________________________

 

July 2, 2010

I probably received about a hundred birthday wishes today on Facebook..and they're still coming in. That's pretty amazing and humbling. Thanks to all of you.

Most of my Facebook friends are readers of the Nomad book where I wrote about my life of living and connecting around the world for 15 years. In the book I don't try to teach any lessons or tell people how they should live. It's very much about the joy I experienced (and continue to experience) connecting with other cultures.

As most of you know, I put my e-mail address on the second-to-last page and the response over the nine years since it was published has been explosive. I've had thousands of letters from readers telling me their secrets. Revealing myself in the book clearly opened the door for readers to open themselves to me. I love it.

I've learned as much from my readers as they've learned from me. I've learned that many of you feel stuck in your lives; others live in fear of taking risks; others of you are having exciting experiences while discovering yourselves and the world.

How fulfilling for me to read letters from people who have been inspired by the book to open up their lives to new experiences, to revisit their dreams. Taking risks, breaking through psychological barriers that you've set up for yourself (often based on the voices of your parents, teachers, uptight friends), can be incredibly liberating.

Some of the ingredients of joy (hey, at 73 I figure I can share some of the things I've discovered...none of them very deep or philosophical, but very human). A lot have to do with letting go of rules. Most of them were designed to keep kids out of trouble and cultures intact. If you're an adult, the whole bit about not talking to strangers doesn't make any sense. Shoot, talk to as many strangers as you can. Everyone has a story and your life will be dramatically enriched.

And all those rules about what you should eat and when, what you should wear to make you look like everyone else, what you should do that is age-appropriate. Forget 'em. I encourage you all to break down your inhibitions by breaking patterns and rules. If you e-mail me I'll send you some simple and wacky things you can do to help you break out of the box  and change your wiring.( femalenomad@ritagoldengelman.com). Ask me to send  you the "Tips."  A lot of them are harmless, but many will make you feel a little naughty....and feeling naughty has a lot going for it!

I've learned from my letters and my life that the pursuit of passion is a key ingredient of feeling good about yourself. You don't have to cross borders to care deeply and work to create a better world, but having a purpose to your days and your life clearly brings on feelings of joy and self-worth.

And finally, the act of smiling always brightens the world, on the inside and the outside. I love to walk down the street making eye contact and smiling at everyone walking toward me. A "Good morning" helps too. Both the greeting and the smile are usually returned....even in Manhattan, where people always tell you not to make eye contact. Don't listen. Make eye contact and smile. If we all did it, the whole world would be smiling.

So smile a lot and talk to strangers. Do a lot of laughing and singing. And try eating new foods.

Ciao. I'm off to have a sushi dinner for my birthday.             

Love, Rita

_____________________________________________________________________________

 

July 1, 2010

It's one in the morning. Will someone please tell me why I am writing instead of sleeping?

This afternoon, the one that just was, I got an e-mail from Jennifer Connor who has been doing some research for me at the Foundation Center. She found a Mazda Foundation grant that sounds like a great fit for Let's Get Global. The problem was that the application had to be in tomorrow (that's today). July first.

So that's what I did until a few minutes ago. The worst part of it was that it is one of those PDF files and when I moved the application, everything I'd written disappeared. The application was there....my text was not. There had been a warning that I'd better print it out because it wouldn't save.  That's what I did....but there were a lot of lines that had + at the end of them, meaning like on Facebook that there was more. Except when I printed that out, the stuff after the + didn't print.

And then I moved the document so that I could e-mail it and all my entered text disappeared. Really, it was just a blank application...after hours of work. Fortunately, it was just two pages....but I had worked on the wording and I had to come up with it all over again. Yuck!

It was not a lot of fun realizing that. And I couldn't figure out how I could print it and send it because all those + marks had no continuation on a printed page. And what if the same thing happens again when I try to e-mail it. So I finally retyped the whole thing into Word. It wasn't a lot of fun. And that's why I am up at this hour. I still don't know why I'm writing. I guess to get the frustration out of my system. Of course, if Mazda gives me a couple hundred thousand dollars for LGG, it will have been worth it.

I plan to hand deliver the Word document when I wake up. The offices are about 30 minutes away from my house.

Good night.            Love, me

_______________________________________________________________________________

 

June 27, 2010

Starting when I woke up this morning...after a night of horrible dreams...there's been constant negativity to the day: lousy news in my e-mails, depressing articles in the newspaper, and I just discovered that somehow my address book is missing and so is the ginger I need for the cumin chicken I'm making for dinner, and I refuse to go out in the 100 degree day! I can't wait to go to sleep and wake up again. Tomorrow has to be better!    rg

______________________________________________________

 

June 25, 2010

I've been without a computer since June 9th. It was agonizing. The software for writing this is on the computer, so are my contacts and all the material I've been writing for funding proposals. I can get e-mails on the Blackberry that my son-in-law, Bill, gave me before I left Seattle, but learning how to use it and typing one letter at a time made me crazy. And there is always a line at the library...besides, I can't write in the library and that's mostly what I do!

It was still on warranty. First they told me three to five days, then seven, and finally it was sixteen days! Do not ask me what I think of Hewlett Packard? It was not a big job, but they wouldn't let the local shop do the work; they needed the machine sent to them! My next computer will not be Hewlett Packard.

I finnaly got it yesterday and am easing back into work. At the moment, I'm writing the text for an inquiry funding letter to philanthropists, foundations, heads of companies, celebrities. and ordinary folks who agree that bringing the Gap Year to the US will dramatically change the kids, the country, and the world.

I need the funding to hire an executive director, a social networking person, a marketing-pr firm, and to create an after-school pilot program in five schools across the country that will get kids across all segments of the population interested in doing that Gap Year. A dynamite program that will get people talking and schools wanting to be a part of it. We are not planning to sponsor an exchange program....but rather promote those that are already there, help kids find funding, and encourage new programs. When the demand is there, more programs will appear.

Once I have a staff that can handle all the organizational aspects of our movement, I will be free to give talks, meet with funders, government people, educators, parent organizations....and volunteers. We're going to need a lot of them if we're going to make the Gap Year a cultural norm in the country! (And we will.) I will also be doing interviews and writing articles. I'm determined to make this happen.

I'm totally open to your ideas, your comments, and of course, your contributions. If you can help with contacts in the foundation world, that would be great. And if you know any individuals who might want to make significant contributions, that would be great too. For a major contribution ($100,000 or so) I will cook them a fabulous international banquet in their kitchen and I'll sing and dance too!!!

Please check out the LGG site:  www.letsgetglobal.org  It's just a beginning.

I'm hoping you'll send me an e-mail with your concrete, detailed thoughts, suggestions, and contacts. Which celebrities do you think might want to help out...how about companies, corporations, CEOs, friends?

I really do want to hear from you. This has to be a team effort!       femalenomad@ritagoldengelman.com

Thanks.

Love, Rita

PS For those of you who don't know, we are a project of US Servas, Inc., our fiscal sponsor, so we do have legitimacy in the field of non-profits. Servas has 15,000 members worldwide and has been around for 60 years. Check them out online:  www.usservas.org.

_______________________________________________________________________________

 

June 7, 2010

Back in DC after a long day that began with the taping of a TV show in Seattle. I will try to put a link to the interview and cooking demonstration tomorrow when I have time to figure out where it is. Check in again after twelve.

Tomorrow, the 8th, I'm doing Peter Greenberg....a national radio program. I don't even know if they do the interview live or if they tape it. I'll find out tomorrow.

Meanwhile it's midnight in DC....but my body-time is still three hours earlier.

I think I'm done moving around through time zones for a while. Don't forget to buy the anthology.....and sign up for the Global Dinner Party. See the menu above.  Check out: www.facebook.com/femalenomad

Love, me


June 6, 2010

I'm still in Seattle. At eleven tomorrow morning, Monday, I'm doing an interview on a new King 5 television show, New Day Northwest. Yesterday they told Teri, a good friend who is helping with PR (teri@cittermanink.com), that they wanted me to do a cooking segment!  That'll be a first for me.

We decided to do the Thai chicken salad called, larb gai; the recipe is in Female Nomad and Friends, and it's easy and delicious. Most people know the dish, but few have ever made it. It's incredibly easy, low-cal, and it can be made ahead of time for parties.

One of the questions they asked Teri was, "Can she cook and talk at the same time?" I sure hope so.

Today Jan, my daughter, and I will go out and buy double the ingredients, one set to cook and "platter" (that's a verb!) before we go....and another to bring, unassembled, to the studio. I think we have to chop and slice before we go (cilantro, mint, lemon grass, Kaffir lime leaves). Another adventure. I fy back to DC after the show.

Two final things: if you haven't done it yet, please try to buy Female Nomad and Friends this week. You'll love the book....and the recipes too. Buy copies for all your friends. Remember that all the author royalties are going for vocational-school scholarships to kids from the slums in New Delhi.

And do sign up for the Global Dinner Party. You can read about it above. Just click on Global Dinner Party in the menu above and then sign up on Facebook (www.facebook.com/femalenomad. We already have hundreds of hosts in this country and in 14 other countries around the world. Please join us for a first!!!

Love, Rita


June 2, 2010

Had a wonderful interview yesterday on Wisconsin Public Radio. They set me up in a Seattle public radio studio. The interviewer was Jean Feraca. Lots of good questions from Jean as well as the callers. It was an hour and it flew by.

On Friday, nine of the contributors to Female Nomad and Friends are meeting in the afternoon to celebrate....and then we're all going to be at:

Third Place Books

Friday, June 4th

 

7:00pm                                        

6504 20th Ave. NE

Seattle, WA 98115

I hope all of you in the Seattle area will come say hello. I did a local radio show this morning and forgot to mention it! Not too bright. The store is small....so maybe we'll have enough people without my help.    rgg


                                                    

May 31, 2010

Collateral damage:  when you fly across the country, east to west, you wake up on day one at five AM! I do love Seattle, though....and it's great seeing my daughter, Jan and her husband, Bill. And Roxy barked and jumped around and made wonderful dog noises when she greeted me.

Today is Memorial Day and I desperately need a haircut. I like it really short so I don't have to think about hair. When I finish this, I'm going online to see if there is a hair place open somewhere. I actually have a place called Changes that I like (Bill uses them) but they're closed.

Tomorrow night I give a talk on Vashon Island. It'll be the first talk I've given on Female Nomad and Friends (pub date is June 1). I've given the Nomad talk hundreds of times....I could do it in my sleep....but this is a new book and I have to spend some time today thinking about what to say. I mean, I'm only one of 41 contributors! It's tricky to be talking for all those people...I haven't met most of them. I do know that giving all the author royalties to kids from the slums in New Delhi for scholarships to vocational schools was a great idea and I can certainly talk about that. Not making any money from the book makes it a lot easier to ask people to buy it, for themselves and all their friends. And I do like the fact that I'm doing it through Rotary, here and there.

I can't wait to shop in Viet Wah. I'm going to buy them out of Bumbu Pecel (a dried block of spiced peanut sauce that I use as a dip for soft Vietnamese rolls (there's a recipe in the new book). It's delicious and easy (you just shave it and mix it with water in a frying pan. I also spoon it on a platter of steamed vegetables (broccoli, carrots, cabbage, bean sprouts. I can find peanut sauce in lots of places but none of it is as good as that block. I did discover that Amazon.com has it, but it's more expensive than Viet Wah.

And I'm definitely going to have lunch at Tamarind Tree. Their Tamarind Crepe is one of my favorite dishes ever.

Today I'm talking to a reader from Food Network in NY. I think they want to get involved internationally in our Global Dinner Party. I'm excited about that! It's such a perfect match. Connecting through Food is the theme...that and the anthology. People all over the world will be sharing food (ideally recipes from the book) and talking about the stories and what they represent: crossing borders, taking risks, communicating without language, trusting, caring.....

If you're reading this in another country, you can get the book on your Kindle in a minute! Starting tomorrow.

Have a look at the Global Dinner Party posts in the main menu above and then rush to Facebook.com/femalenomad and sign up. The night of your party I'm planning to monitor Facebook (for lots of hours given the time differerences) so that we can send messages back and forth all around the world. What fun!

Love, Rita

 

 

May 25, 2010

I've been hanging around here clicking and trying to put in pictures, text, pages, and messages. The only thing I'm good at is writing new posts. Can't figure out how to size a picture or place it where I want it. I've tried clicking and dragging and talking to the computer. Nothing works. So, while none of the images are quite where I want them, there are at least some new images.

Do check out the new page under THE GLOBAL DINNER PARTY called Why, Where, and When and then go immediately to www.facebook.com/femalenomad and sign up to join our Global Dinner Party on June 18th. And don't forget to tell all your guests to quickly order the book and read it so they can talk about it at the party. (If you don't have a Facebook page, send me an e-mail to: femalenomad@gmail.com and let me know you want to join the party. And tell me where you're from.)

Go to www.facebook.com/femalenomad and have a look at EVENTS. We're going to have parties all over the US and in Canada, Mexico, Turkey, China, Colombia, New Zealand, Australia and England. How exciting. Join us and have one in your house. All we're asking is for each of your guests to buy a book and read it before they come. We're putting together a kit for hosts!!! We want your videos, photos, and reports. Please join us. What fun!! And all the author royalties are going to send kids from the slums of New Delhi to vocational schools.

Hurry and add your name. We'll be posting the kit here and on Facebook.

Thanks.         Love, Rita


May 24, 2010

I've been to Fort Collins, Colorado since my last post...visiting family, Mitch, Melissa, Cris and four animals--two dogs, a cat, and a bird. It was great being with them. Cris is six and full of energy, spice, and everything anyone could possibly know about fish!

I just spent the last three hours working on this site and I'm not even half-way finished. I added the Global Dinner pages but I haven't written them yet. I put up a page for Old Posts so I can clean up this home page, and I haven't transferred them yet.  And my computer is having problems. And all the bolded text here disappeared. I guess tomorrow will be more of the same!!! Good night.


May 16, 2010

I just spent four days in Hammond, Indiana, at the Napoleon Hill Foundation. Until a month ago I had never heard of Napoleon Hill. He started the self-help genre nearly a century ago with the book, Think and Grow Rich, not something I would pick up on my own. But they wrote and invited me to speak, and agreed to make a nice donation to Let's Get Global.

I had a great time. Most of the principles that you have to observe if you want to acquire money, can also be applied to creating a richer life, things like purpose, enthusiasm, teamwork. I also learned about essential oils, walking a labyrinth, and how to play a didgeridoo (look it up!).

To play a didgeridoo, you put your lips into one end of a five-foot long hollowed tube and flap them. You don't tighten them the way you do with a trumpet, which I played when I was in eighth grade; you flap them. Dr. Sam Boys, who was the expert giving the workshop, talked about "loose flappage." Don't you love the word? Flappage. I'm sitting here right now flapping my lips and, without the hollow tube, I sound like a motor boat. The looser your flappage, the deeper the tone.

Dr. Sam has developed the art of circular breathing too. He can just keep the air going out without a break for a breath. He does it by storing air in his cheeks and expelling it through his mouth when he takes a breath. He opened with a ten minute session while we meditated....and when it was over, every organ in my body was vibrating. I can see how it might be used as a healing practice. We were all given PVC pipes to learn on.

Now I'm back in DC working more on the Global Dinner that we're putting together for June 18th. I hope you will have a party that day at your house and join thousands of us all over the world. We'll be posting plans (when, where, and some suggested recipes) on:

    www.facebook.com/femalenomad. 

The dinners will be a celebration of my new anthology, Female Nomad and Friends, Tales of Breaking Free and Breaking Bread All Over the World. The book is a testimony to the power of connecting through food; and

                   all the royalties will go to sending kids from the slums in New Delhi to vocational school.

None of the writers is earning a penny!!   We're asking everyone to buy a book now---you and all your guests---so you will have time to read it and talk about it at the party. There are some challanging discussion topics at the end of the book.  So, click on one of the buttoms up top, buy enough books for all your guests, and then go to Facebook and register your party!!

That's it for today.        Love, Rita

 

And if you are a college student in DC or summering in DC...and want an intern position (no money, but I'll feed you), I'd like to add you to the team as well. I'd be happy to talk or write to your college. Let's Get Global is a project of US Servas, Inc., a 501c3 that's been around for sixty years....so your school would most

 

August 14, 2010

I'm hoping that those of you who have written me with your thoughts about how Tales of a Female Nomad compares to Eat Pray Love will take it viral. I think if we can get tons of Tweets out there, TOAFN sales will dramatically increase. I'd love to succeed on the coat tails of EPL. If there are enough sales, maybe I can fund Let's Get Global with the royalties! That would be amazing.  Be sure to mention both titles in your Tweet. Thanks.   The Facebook comments have been incredible.
There's room for more! How about a Facebook post on your site? Thanks everyone. rg

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August 13, 2010

I just wrote this on my Facebook page:

"OK. I confess. I'm jealous of the huge success of Eat, Pray, Love. Not the
movie...but the fact that the whole world is talking about the book! I
wish the whole world were talking about Tales of a Female Nomad."

The two books are similar.....women who are traveling on their own, searching for something.
Elizabeth Gilbert's search is primarily internal; it's a story of self-discovery. I enjoyed her book. There's

a bit of overlap, but my book is mostly external, a search for common humanity.

Happily we both found what we were looking for.

The Facebook comments are pouring in. Several people mentioned that a part of EPL's best-sellerdom was Oprah-generated. We tried, but Oprah wasn't interested in TOAFN. And the EPL movie was a given once the book was a best seller.

I'm not jealous of the movie. I like Julia Roberts. I'll definitely see the movie.I'm especially looking forward to the scenes in

Bali. I've had several feelers over the years from people (none of them stars in the industry) about doing a movie. But the anthropologist in me just could never give anyone permission to bring filmmakers into the jungles and villages that were so precious to me. The intrusion would be devastating. And there was no way Hollywood could recreate the songs of the tribal men in Irian Jaya or the burial of grandma's bones in Borneo.... on a set.

.

So....I'm not jealous of the movie. I'm looking forward to seeing it. I just wish the book, Tales of a Female Nomad, had half the sales of Eat, Pray, Love. I could be funding my Let's Get Global project all by myself. Now that would be cool!!         RG

 

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August 6, 2010

The volunteer letter went out to my listserv last night. If you'd like to see it, click on the link. And once you're there, click on Blog. I'm hoping tons of people all over the country, and world, will sign up to help us build the movement. It's pretty exciting to be part of a movement to change the thinking in our country. Join us. What a huge difference it will make in our population when the majority of us have experienced the world. As of now, more than 75% of the US citizens do not have passports!

Join us in changing the mentality in the US. We need all the help we can get. Fill out the volunteer form and let us know how you'd like to help.  I'll be back in a couple of days and let you know how the campaign is going! Check in again soon.

Love, Rita

PS I'm in Washington, DC at least until December and I'm hoping to find a couple of college interns to help out. My deal with volunteers is that I can't pay you.......but I'll feed you! I'm also hoping someone with lots of experience organizing projects and lots of time to get involved, will come along to help me make things happen. I'm flooded with ideas but I need help figuring out how to make them happen. It's fun and fulfilling to be involved in a cause you believe in. Send me an e-mail.  femalenomad@ritagoldengelman.com

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August 1, 2010

I've been working with Kelli Shewmaker on a form for volunteers. She found a GMail Form and set it up so that when you put in your information, it will automatically go into our spreadsheet. Amazing. That means that we can ask for a list of volunteers in Michigan.....and they will pop up. Or if we need a graphic artist, we just put the words in and voila! Please send in your request and we'll send you your form.

Let's Get Global is going to need volunteers all over the country, in every state and city and town. That's you. The strongest qualification is enthusiasm for the idea that our young adults should have international experiences as part of their education. It's a global economy! Our young people have to know the world they are going to inherit!!

I did a Wisconsin public radio show a month and a half ago and during the call-in part, a man said he was the CEO of a major company and if he has two resumes in his hands and one of those applicants has done a gap year....that's the one he will hire. Respect, understanding, confidence, flexibility are just a few of the rewards of having cross-cultural experiences. And those who do it before college are so much readier for the social and academic challenges of college. Have a look at our gap year site.

Please help us by filling out the volunteer sheet and e-mailing it back. We're almost ready to give out some assignments. We need professionals of all types, speakers, representatives in communties across the country, corporate contacts, volunteers with "people" skills, volunteers who like to work with kids. Want to mentor a potential gapper? Want to help set up a photography show where kids can earn money for their GY? Want to do some research in the corporate world? How about checking out foundations....and gap year programs. Or let us know what you think should be in the kits we provide for the after-school clubs that we're planning to set up beginning September, 2011. Got any contacts that you think would support us.....let us know.

If  you too want to bring the Gap Year into the US consciousness, we want your input. I promise there will be projects that you can take on. And we're hoping that you will bring in a friend to work with you. We're big on the idea of teamwork. It's a lot more fun to work with a pal. And you'll both be a part of changing the kids, the country, and the world.  Watch for our form. Kelli and I are meeting on Monday and Tuesday and we hope to have it set ready to send on Wednesday. 

Love, Rita

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July 19, 2010

http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2010/07/19/burned_out_students_take_timeout_before_starting_college/

Randi Mitchell just sent me this link to an article in the Boston Globe this morning. Check it out and let me know if you want to be a volunteer, wherever you may be. There is so much benefit from a year abroad.....maturity, respect, understanding. We live in a country with far too much intolerance and xenophobia. Connecting cross-culturally is the best tool for fighting prejudice. Join me in my movement:  Let's Get Global. (We're a project of US Servas, Inc.) I'm determined to change the mentality in this country. (75% of the people in this country do not have passports!)

Plus...we are living in a global economy. A year in another country is a dynamite item on a resume.

Isn't there someone in the Washington, DC area who wants to work face-to-face and full-time with me on bringing an international Gap Year to the U.S.? Passion and purpose are keys to staying young, healty, and happy. I need a committed pal to brainstorm and plan with. I smile a lot, partly because I know I'm involved in something important.  Send me a note with your phone number and I'll call you. Especially if you have organizational skills!! femalenomad@ritagoldengelman.com

OK. Back to work.                   Love, me

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July 18, 2010

Just came back from a family reunion. What fun to catch up with Uncle Bob and his family, a whole pile of cousins, some of which needed to be reintroduced, and lots of kids who weren't even born the last time I went to a reunion. My brother and his wife were there from Texas and my niece...from much closer (Danielle and I do see each other).

I have to admit that I prefer one-on-one talks and the kind of conversations that can only happen when two people are intensely sharing lives.....not too much of that at a reunion where there were 42 people to meet and talk to. There were a couple of people I never had a chance to do more than smile at. But I'm glad I went and I'm hoping that some of us can get together on our own.

We're an interestiing family...and several cousins are involved in education and non-profits and law. They had some interesting advice about how I can proceed with Let's Get Global. I came home a couple of hours ago with some challenging ideas to think about.

I'm still struggling with the organization of LGG. Tonight Jennifer, Deena, and Kelli are coming over and we're going to try to talk about all the parts that we have to address. Jennifer goes back to school soon and Deena leaves for England in a few weeks. I really need an executive director....a seriously committed full-time volunteer would be ideal.; but I've found that most volunteers have lives! I would love to find someone else who is free to work daily with me and to devote her or his life to LGG. It's so so important to have a population that has been educated in the world. How can we be leaders if we don't even know the world we're trying to lead? And where will multi-national corporations find employees who will be sensitive and respectful to other cultures in their business dealings? I could go on and on. And, of course, there's all the fear and xenophobia in the US that needs to be eliminated---- cross-cultural interaction is such a perfect solution..

If I can't find a volunteer, I would love to be able to hire an experienced executive director. Then I could be writing articles, giving talks, connecting one on one with educators and kids. That means funding. Cousins Larry and Paul suggested separately that I search for highly successful people who are products of international exchanges in their youth.....for help in funding. Peace Corps returnees, AFS graduates, Rotary scholarship recipients who have made good. If any of you have any contacts or even if you know of people who have gone on from cross-cultural experiences to highly successful jobs, please write and give me details so I can follow up. I'm also open to all suggestions of funding sources you may know about..

Enough for today. I have to get things ready for our planning session in few minutes. Have a good week.

Best, Rita

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July 2, 2010

I probably received about a hundred birthday wishes today on Facebook..and they're still coming in. That's pretty amazing and humbling. Thanks to all of you.

Most of my Facebook friends are readers of the Nomad book where I wrote about my life of living and connecting around the world for 15 years. In the book I don't try to teach any lessons or tell people how they should live. It's very much about the joy I experienced (and continue to experience) connecting with other cultures.

As most of you know, I put my e-mail address on the second-to-last page and the response over the nine years since it was published has been explosive. I've had thousands of letters from readers telling me their secrets. Revealing myself in the book clearly opened the door for readers to open themselves to me. I love it.

I've learned as much from my readers as they've learned from me. I've learned that many of you feel stuck in your lives; others live in fear of taking risks; others of you are having exciting experiences while discovering yourselves and the world.

How fulfilling for me to read letters from people who have been inspired by the book to open up their lives to new experiences, to revisit their dreams. Taking risks, breaking through psychological barriers that you've set up for yourself (often based on the voices of your parents, teachers, uptight friends), can be incredibly liberating.

Some of the ingredients of joy (hey, at 73 I figure I can share some of the things I've discovered...none of them very deep or philosophical, but very human). A lot have to do with letting go of rules. Most of them were designed to keep kids out of trouble and cultures intact. If you're an adult, the whole bit about not talking to strangers doesn't make any sense. Shoot, talk to as many strangers as you can. Everyone has a story and your life will be dramatically enriched.

And all those rules about what you should eat and when, what you should wear to make you look like everyone else, what you should do that is age-appropriate. Forget 'em. I encourage you all to break down your inhibitions by breaking patterns and rules. If you e-mail me I'll send you some simple and wacky things you can do to help you break out of the box  and change your wiring.( femalenomad@ritagoldengelman.com). Ask me to send  you the "Tips."  A lot of them are harmless, but many will make you feel a little naughty....and feeling naughty has a lot going for it!

I've learned from my letters and my life that the pursuit of passion is a key ingredient of feeling good about yourself. You don't have to cross borders to care deeply and work to create a better world, but having a purpose to your days and your life clearly brings on feelings of joy and self-worth.

And finally, the act of smiling always brightens the world, on the inside and the outside. I love to walk down the street making eye contact and smiling at everyone walking toward me. A "Good morning" helps too. Both the greeting and the smile are usually returned....even in Manhattan, where people always tell you not to make eye contact. Don't listen. Make eye contact and smile. If we all did it, the whole world would be smiling.

So smile a lot and talk to strangers. Do a lot of laughing and singing. And try eating new foods.

Ciao. I'm off to have a sushi dinner for my birthday.             

Love, Rita

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July 1, 2010

It's one in the morning. Will someone please tell me why I am writing instead of sleeping?

This afternoon, the one that just was, I got an e-mail from Jennifer Connor who has been doing some research for me at the Foundation Center. She found a Mazda Foundation grant that sounds like a great fit for Let's Get Global. The problem was that the application had to be in tomorrow (that's today). July first.

So that's what I did until a few minutes ago. The worst part of it was that it is one of those PDF files and when I moved the application, everything I'd written disappeared. The application was there....my text was not. There had been a warning that I'd better print it out because it wouldn't save.  That's what I did....but there were a lot of lines that had + at the end of them, meaning like on Facebook that there was more. Except when I printed that out, the stuff after the + didn't print.

And then I moved the document so that I could e-mail it and all my entered text disappeared. Really, it was just a blank application...after hours of work. Fortunately, it was just two pages....but I had worked on the wording and I had to come up with it all over again. Yuck!

It was not a lot of fun realizing that. And I couldn't figure out how I could print it and send it because all those + marks had no continuation on a printed page. And what if the same thing happens again when I try to e-mail it. So I finally retyped the whole thing into Word. It wasn't a lot of fun. And that's why I am up at this hour. I still don't know why I'm writing. I guess to get the frustration out of my system. Of course, if Mazda gives me a couple hundred thousand dollars for LGG, it will have been worth it.

I plan to hand deliver the Word document when I wake up. The offices are about 30 minutes away from my house.

Good night.            Love, me

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June 27, 2010

Starting when I woke up this morning...after a night of horrible dreams...there's been constant negativity to the day: lousy news in my e-mails, depressing articles in the newspaper, and I just discovered that somehow my address book is missing and so is the ginger I need for the cumin chicken I'm making for dinner, and I refuse to go out in the 100 degree day! I can't wait to go to sleep and wake up again. Tomorrow has to be better!    rg

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June 25, 2010

I've been without a computer since June 9th. It was agonizing. The software for writing this is on the computer, so are my contacts and all the material I've been writing for funding proposals. I can get e-mails on the Blackberry that my son-in-law, Bill, gave me before I left Seattle, but learning how to use it and typing one letter at a time made me crazy. And there is always a line at the library...besides, I can't write in the library and that's mostly what I do!

It was still on warranty. First they told me three to five days, then seven, and finally it was sixteen days! Do not ask me what I think of Hewlett Packard? It was not a big job, but they wouldn't let the local shop do the work; they needed the machine sent to them! My next computer will not be Hewlett Packard.

I finnaly got it yesterday and am easing back into work. At the moment, I'm writing the text for an inquiry funding letter to philanthropists, foundations, heads of companies, celebrities. and ordinary folks who agree that bringing the Gap Year to the US will dramatically change the kids, the country, and the world.

I need the funding to hire an executive director, a social networking person, a marketing-pr firm, and to create an after-school pilot program in five schools across the country that will get kids across all segments of the population interested in doing that Gap Year. A dynamite program that will get people talking and schools wanting to be a part of it. We are not planning to sponsor an exchange program....but rather promote those that are already there, help kids find funding, and encourage new programs. When the demand is there, more programs will appear.

Once I have a staff that can handle all the organizational aspects of our movement, I will be free to give talks, meet with funders, government people, educators, parent organizations....and volunteers. We're going to need a lot of them if we're going to make the Gap Year a cultural norm in the country! (And we will.) I will also be doing interviews and writing articles. I'm determined to make this happen.

I'm totally open to your ideas, your comments, and of course, your contributions. If you can help with contacts in the foundation world, that would be great. And if you know any individuals who might want to make significant contributions, that would be great too. For a major contribution ($100,000 or so) I will cook them a fabulous international banquet in their kitchen and I'll sing and dance too!!!

Please check out the LGG site:  www.letsgetglobal.org  It's just a beginning.

I'm hoping you'll send me an e-mail with your concrete, detailed thoughts, suggestions, and contacts. Which celebrities do you think might want to help out...how about companies, corporations, CEOs, friends?

I really do want to hear from you. This has to be a team effort!       femalenomad@ritagoldengelman.com

Thanks.

Love, Rita

PS For those of you who don't know, we are a project of US Servas, Inc., our fiscal sponsor, so we do have legitimacy in the field of non-profits. Servas has 15,000 members worldwide and has been around for 60 years. Check them out online:  www.usservas.org.

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June 7, 2010

Back in DC after a long day that began with the taping of a TV show in Seattle. I will try to put a link to the interview and cooking demonstration tomorrow when I have time to figure out where it is. Check in again after twelve.

Tomorrow, the 8th, I'm doing Peter Greenberg....a national radio program. I don't even know if they do the interview live or if they tape it. I'll find out tomorrow.

Meanwhile it's midnight in DC....but my body-time is still three hours earlier.

I think I'm done moving around through time zones for a while. Don't forget to buy the anthology.....and sign up for the Global Dinner Party. See the menu above.  Check out: www.facebook.com/femalenomad

Love, me


June 6, 2010

I'm still in Seattle. At eleven tomorrow morning, Monday, I'm doing an interview on a new King 5 television show, New Day Northwest. Yesterday they told Teri, a good friend who is helping with PR (teri@cittermanink.com), that they wanted me to do a cooking segment!  That'll be a first for me.

We decided to do the Thai chicken salad called, larb gai; the recipe is in Female Nomad and Friends, and it's easy and delicious. Most people know the dish, but few have ever made it. It's incredibly easy, low-cal, and it can be made ahead of time for parties.

One of the questions they asked Teri was, "Can she cook and talk at the same time?" I sure hope so.

Today Jan, my daughter, and I will go out and buy double the ingredients, one set to cook and "platter" (that's a verb!) before we go....and another to bring, unassembled, to the studio. I think we have to chop and slice before we go (cilantro, mint, lemon grass, Kaffir lime leaves). Another adventure. I fy back to DC after the show.

Two final things: if you haven't done it yet, please try to buy Female Nomad and Friends this week. You'll love the book....and the recipes too. Buy copies for all your friends. Remember that all the author royalties are going for vocational-school scholarships to kids from the slums in New Delhi.

And do sign up for the Global Dinner Party. You can read about it above. Just click on Global Dinner Party in the menu above and then sign up on Facebook (www.facebook.com/femalenomad. We already have hundreds of hosts in this country and in 14 other countries around the world. Please join us for a first!!!

Love, Rita


June 2, 2010

Had a wonderful interview yesterday on Wisconsin Public Radio. They set me up in a Seattle public radio studio. The interviewer was Jean Feraca. Lots of good questions from Jean as well as the callers. It was an hour and it flew by.

On Friday, nine of the contributors to Female Nomad and Friends are meeting in the afternoon to celebrate....and then we're all going to be at:

Third Place Books

Friday, June 4th

 

7:00pm                                        

6504 20th Ave. NE

Seattle, WA 98115

I hope all of you in the Seattle area will come say hello. I did a local radio show this morning and forgot to mention it! Not too bright. The store is small....so maybe we'll have enough people without my help.    rgg


                                                    

May 31, 2010

Collateral damage:  when you fly across the country, east to west, you wake up on day one at five AM! I do love Seattle, though....and it's great seeing my daughter, Jan and her husband, Bill. And Roxy barked and jumped around and made wonderful dog noises when she greeted me.

Today is Memorial Day and I desperately need a haircut. I like it really short so I don't have to think about hair. When I finish this, I'm going online to see if there is a hair place open somewhere. I actually have a place called Changes that I like (Bill uses them) but they're closed.

Tomorrow night I give a talk on Vashon Island. It'll be the first talk I've given on Female Nomad and Friends (pub date is June 1). I've given the Nomad talk hundreds of times....I could do it in my sleep....but this is a new book and I have to spend some time today thinking about what to say. I mean, I'm only one of 41 contributors! It's tricky to be talking for all those people...I haven't met most of them. I do know that giving all the author royalties to kids from the slums in New Delhi for scholarships to vocational schools was a great idea and I can certainly talk about that. Not making any money from the book makes it a lot easier to ask people to buy it, for themselves and all their friends. And I do like the fact that I'm doing it through Rotary, here and there.

I can't wait to shop in Viet Wah. I'm going to buy them out of Bumbu Pecel (a dried block of spiced peanut sauce that I use as a dip for soft Vietnamese rolls (there's a recipe in the new book). It's delicious and easy (you just shave it and mix it with water in a frying pan. I also spoon it on a platter of steamed vegetables (broccoli, carrots, cabbage, bean sprouts. I can find peanut sauce in lots of places but none of it is as good as that block. I did discover that Amazon.com has it, but it's more expensive than Viet Wah.

And I'm definitely going to have lunch at Tamarind Tree. Their Tamarind Crepe is one of my favorite dishes ever.

Today I'm talking to a reader from Food Network in NY. I think they want to get involved internationally in our Global Dinner Party. I'm excited about that! It's such a perfect match. Connecting through Food is the theme...that and the anthology. People all over the world will be sharing food (ideally recipes from the book) and talking about the stories and what they represent: crossing borders, taking risks, communicating without language, trusting, caring.....

If you're reading this in another country, you can get the book on your Kindle in a minute! Starting tomorrow.

Have a look at the Global Dinner Party posts in the main menu above and then rush to Facebook.com/femalenomad and sign up. The night of your party I'm planning to monitor Facebook (for lots of hours given the time differerences) so that we can send messages back and forth all around the world. What fun!

Love, Rita

 

 

May 25, 2010

I've been hanging around here clicking and trying to put in pictures, text, pages, and messages. The only thing I'm good at is writing new posts. Can't figure out how to size a picture or place it where I want it. I've tried clicking and dragging and talking to the computer. Nothing works. So, while none of the images are quite where I want them, there are at least some new images.

Do check out the new page under THE GLOBAL DINNER PARTY called Why, Where, and When and then go immediately to www.facebook.com/femalenomad and sign up to join our Global Dinner Party on June 18th. And don't forget to tell all your guests to quickly order the book and read it so they can talk about it at the party. (If you don't have a Facebook page, send me an e-mail to: femalenomad@gmail.com and let me know you want to join the party. And tell me where you're from.)

Go to www.facebook.com/femalenomad and have a look at EVENTS. We're going to have parties all over the US and in Canada, Mexico, Turkey, China, Colombia, New Zealand, Australia and England. How exciting. Join us and have one in your house. All we're asking is for each of your guests to buy a book and read it before they come. We're putting together a kit for hosts!!! We want your videos, photos, and reports. Please join us. What fun!! And all the author royalties are going to send kids from the slums of New Delhi to vocational schools.

Hurry and add your name. We'll be posting the kit here and on Facebook.

Thanks.         Love, Rita


May 24, 2010

I've been to Fort Collins, Colorado since my last post...visiting family, Mitch, Melissa, Cris and four animals--two dogs, a cat, and a bird. It was great being with them. Cris is six and full of energy, spice, and everything anyone could possibly know about fish!

I just spent the last three hours working on this site and I'm not even half-way finished. I added the Global Dinner pages but I haven't written them yet. I put up a page for Old Posts so I can clean up this home page, and I haven't transferred them yet.  And my computer is having problems. And all the bolded text here disappeared. I guess tomorrow will be more of the same!!! Good night.


May 16, 2010

I just spent four days in Hammond, Indiana, at the Napoleon Hill Foundation. Until a month ago I had never heard of Napoleon Hill. He started the self-help genre nearly a century ago with the book, Think and Grow Rich, not something I would pick up on my own. But they wrote and invited me to speak, and agreed to make a nice donation to Let's Get Global.

I had a great time. Most of the principles that you have to observe if you want to acquire money, can also be applied to creating a richer life, things like purpose, enthusiasm, teamwork. I also learned about essential oils, walking a labyrinth, and how to play a didgeridoo (look it up!).

To play a didgeridoo, you put your lips into one end of a five-foot long hollowed tube and flap them. You don't tighten them the way you do with a trumpet, which I played when I was in eighth grade; you flap them. Dr. Sam Boys, who was the expert giving the workshop, talked about "loose flappage." Don't you love the word? Flappage. I'm sitting here right now flapping my lips and, without the hollow tube, I sound like a motor boat. The looser your flappage, the deeper the tone.

Dr. Sam has developed the art of circular breathing too. He can just keep the air going out without a break for a breath. He does it by storing air in his cheeks and expelling it through his mouth when he takes a breath. He opened with a ten minute session while we meditated....and when it was over, every organ in my body was vibrating. I can see how it might be used as a healing practice. We were all given PVC pipes to learn on.

Now I'm back in DC working more on the Global Dinner that we're putting together for June 18th. I hope you will have a party that day at your house and join thousands of us all over the world. We'll be posting plans (when, where, and some suggested recipes) on:

    www.facebook.com/femalenomad. 

The dinners will be a celebration of my new anthology, Female Nomad and Friends, Tales of Breaking Free and Breaking Bread All Over the World. The book is a testimony to the power of connecting through food; and

                   all the royalties will go to sending kids from the slums in New Delhi to vocational school.

None of the writers is earning a penny!!   We're asking everyone to buy a book now---you and all your guests---so you will have time to read it and talk about it at the party. There are some challanging discussion topics at the end of the book.  So, click on one of the buttoms up top, buy enough books for all your guests, and then go to Facebook and register your party!!

That's it for today.        Love, Rita

 

And if you are a college student in DC or summering in DC...and want an intern position (no money, but I'll feed you), I'd like to add you to the team as well. I'd be happy to talk or write to your college. Let's Get Global is a project of US Servas, Inc., a 501c3 that's been around for sixty years....so your school would most likely OK the position.

___________________________________________________

 

July 19, 2010

http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2010/07/19/burned_out_students_take_timeout_before_starting_college/

Randi Mitchell just sent me this link to an article in the Boston Globe this morning. Check it out and let me know if you want to be a volunteer, wherever you may be. There is so much benefit from a year abroad.....maturity, respect, understanding. We live in a country with far too much intolerance and xenophobia. Connecting cross-culturally is the best tool for fighting prejudice. Join me in my movement:  Let's Get Global. (We're a project of US Servas, Inc.) I'm determined to change the mentality in this country. (75% of the people in this country do not have passports!)

Plus...we are living in a global economy. A year in another country is a dynamite item on a resume.

Isn't there someone in the Washington, DC area who wants to work face-to-face and full-time with me on bringing an international Gap Year to the U.S.? Passion and purpose are keys to staying young, healty, and happy. I need a committed pal to brainstorm and plan with. I smile a lot, partly because I know I'm involved in something important.  Send me a note with your phone number and I'll call you. Especially if you have organizational skills!! femalenomad@ritagoldengelman.com

OK. Back to work.                   Love, me

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

July 18, 2010

Just came back from a family reunion. What fun to catch up with Uncle Bob and his family, a whole pile of cousins, some of which needed to be reintroduced, and lots of kids who weren't even born the last time I went to a reunion. My brother and his wife were there from Texas and my niece...from much closer (Danielle and I do see each other).

I have to admit that I prefer one-on-one talks and the kind of conversations that can only happen when two people are intensely sharing lives.....not too much of that at a reunion where there were 42 people to meet and talk to. There were a couple of people I never had a chance to do more than smile at. But I'm glad I went and I'm hoping that some of us can get together on our own.

We're an interestiing family...and several cousins are involved in education and non-profits and law. They had some interesting advice about how I can proceed with Let's Get Global. I came home a couple of hours ago with some challenging ideas to think about.

I'm still struggling with the organization of LGG. Tonight Jennifer, Deena, and Kelli are coming over and we're going to try to talk about all the parts that we have to address. Jennifer goes back to school soon and Deena leaves for England in a few weeks. I really need an executive director....a seriously committed full-time volunteer would be ideal.; but I've found that most volunteers have lives! I would love to find someone else who is free to work daily with me and to devote her or his life to LGG. It's so so important to have a population that has been educated in the world. How can we be leaders if we don't even know the world we're trying to lead? And where will multi-national corporations find employees who will be sensitive and respectful to other cultures in their business dealings? I could go on and on. And, of course, there's all the fear and xenophobia in the US that needs to be eliminated---- cross-cultural interaction is such a perfect solution..

If I can't find a volunteer, I would love to be able to hire an experienced executive director. Then I could be writing articles, giving talks, connecting one on one with educators and kids. That means funding. Cousins Larry and Paul suggested separately that I search for highly successful people who are products of international exchanges in their youth.....for help in funding. Peace Corps returnees, AFS graduates, Rotary scholarship recipients who have made good. If any of you have any contacts or even if you know of people who have gone on from cross-cultural experiences to highly successful jobs, please write and give me details so I can follow up. I'm also open to all suggestions of funding sources you may know about..

Enough for today. I have to get things ready for our planning session in few minutes. Have a good week.

Best, Rita

_____________________________________________________________________________

 

July 2, 2010

I probably received about a hundred birthday wishes today on Facebook..and they're still coming in. That's pretty amazing and humbling. Thanks to all of you.

Most of my Facebook friends are readers of the Nomad book where I wrote about my life of living and connecting around the world for 15 years. In the book I don't try to teach any lessons or tell people how they should live. It's very much about the joy I experienced (and continue to experience) connecting with other cultures.

As most of you know, I put my e-mail address on the second-to-last page and the response over the nine years since it was published has been explosive. I've had thousands of letters from readers telling me their secrets. Revealing myself in the book clearly opened the door for readers to open themselves to me. I love it.

I've learned as much from my readers as they've learned from me. I've learned that many of you feel stuck in your lives; others live in fear of taking risks; others of you are having exciting experiences while discovering yourselves and the world.

How fulfilling for me to read letters from people who have been inspired by the book to open up their lives to new experiences, to revisit their dreams. Taking risks, breaking through psychological barriers that you've set up for yourself (often based on the voices of your parents, teachers, uptight friends), can be incredibly liberating.

Some of the ingredients of joy (hey, at 73 I figure I can share some of the things I've discovered...none of them very deep or philosophical, but very human). A lot have to do with letting go of rules. Most of them were designed to keep kids out of trouble and cultures intact. If you're an adult, the whole bit about not talking to strangers doesn't make any sense. Shoot, talk to as many strangers as you can. Everyone has a story and your life will be dramatically enriched.

And all those rules about what you should eat and when, what you should wear to make you look like everyone else, what you should do that is age-appropriate. Forget 'em. I encourage you all to break down your inhibitions by breaking patterns and rules. If you e-mail me I'll send you some simple and wacky things you can do to help you break out of the box  and change your wiring.( femalenomad@ritagoldengelman.com). Ask me to send  you the "Tips."  A lot of them are harmless, but many will make you feel a little naughty....and feeling naughty has a lot going for it!

I've learned from my letters and my life that the pursuit of passion is a key ingredient of feeling good about yourself. You don't have to cross borders to care deeply and work to create a better world, but having a purpose to your days and your life clearly brings on feelings of joy and self-worth.

And finally, the act of smiling always brightens the world, on the inside and the outside. I love to walk down the street making eye contact and smiling at everyone walking toward me. A "Good morning" helps too. Both the greeting and the smile are usually returned....even in Manhattan, where people always tell you not to make eye contact. Don't listen. Make eye contact and smile. If we all did it, the whole world would be smiling.

So smile a lot and talk to strangers. Do a lot of laughing and singing. And try eating new foods.

Ciao. I'm off to have a sushi dinner for my birthday.             

Love, Rita

_____________________________________________________________________________

 

July 1, 2010

It's one in the morning. Will someone please tell me why I am writing instead of sleeping?

This afternoon, the one that just was, I got an e-mail from Jennifer Connor who has been doing some research for me at the Foundation Center. She found a Mazda Foundation grant that sounds like a great fit for Let's Get Global. The problem was that the application had to be in tomorrow (that's today). July first.

So that's what I did until a few minutes ago. The worst part of it was that it is one of those PDF files and when I moved the application, everything I'd written disappeared. The application was there....my text was not. There had been a warning that I'd better print it out because it wouldn't save.  That's what I did....but there were a lot of lines that had + at the end of them, meaning like on Facebook that there was more. Except when I printed that out, the stuff after the + didn't print.

And then I moved the document so that I could e-mail it and all my entered text disappeared. Really, it was just a blank application...after hours of work. Fortunately, it was just two pages....but I had worked on the wording and I had to come up with it all over again. Yuck!

It was not a lot of fun realizing that. And I couldn't figure out how I could print it and send it because all those + marks had no continuation on a printed page. And what if the same thing happens again when I try to e-mail it. So I finally retyped the whole thing into Word. It wasn't a lot of fun. And that's why I am up at this hour. I still don't know why I'm writing. I guess to get the frustration out of my system. Of course, if Mazda gives me a couple hundred thousand dollars for LGG, it will have been worth it.

I plan to hand deliver the Word document when I wake up. The offices are about 30 minutes away from my house.

Good night.            Love, me

_______________________________________________________________________________

 

June 27, 2010

Starting when I woke up this morning...after a night of horrible dreams...there's been constant negativity to the day: lousy news in my e-mails, depressing articles in the newspaper, and I just discovered that somehow my address book is missing and so is the ginger I need for the cumin chicken I'm making for dinner, and I refuse to go out in the 100 degree day! I can't wait to go to sleep and wake up again. Tomorrow has to be better!    rg

______________________________________________________

 

June 25, 2010

I've been without a computer since June 9th. It was agonizing. The software for writing this is on the computer, so are my contacts and all the material I've been writing for funding proposals. I can get e-mails on the Blackberry that my son-in-law, Bill, gave me before I left Seattle, but learning how to use it and typing one letter at a time made me crazy. And there is always a line at the library...besides, I can't write in the library and that's mostly what I do!

It was still on warranty. First they told me three to five days, then seven, and finally it was sixteen days! Do not ask me what I think of Hewlett Packard? It was not a big job, but they wouldn't let the local shop do the work; they needed the machine sent to them! My next computer will not be Hewlett Packard.

I finnaly got it yesterday and am easing back into work. At the moment, I'm writing the text for an inquiry funding letter to philanthropists, foundations, heads of companies, celebrities. and ordinary folks who agree that bringing the Gap Year to the US will dramatically change the kids, the country, and the world.

I need the funding to hire an executive director, a social networking person, a marketing-pr firm, and to create an after-school pilot program in five schools across the country that will get kids across all segments of the population interested in doing that Gap Year. A dynamite program that will get people talking and schools wanting to be a part of it. We are not planning to sponsor an exchange program....but rather promote those that are already there, help kids find funding, and encourage new programs. When the demand is there, more programs will appear.

Once I have a staff that can handle all the organizational aspects of our movement, I will be free to give talks, meet with funders, government people, educators, parent organizations....and volunteers. We're going to need a lot of them if we're going to make the Gap Year a cultural norm in the country! (And we will.) I will also be doing interviews and writing articles. I'm determined to make this happen.

I'm totally open to your ideas, your comments, and of course, your contributions. If you can help with contacts in the foundation world, that would be great. And if you know any individuals who might want to make significant contributions, that would be great too. For a major contribution ($100,000 or so) I will cook them a fabulous international banquet in their kitchen and I'll sing and dance too!!!

Please check out the LGG site:  www.letsgetglobal.org  It's just a beginning.

I'm hoping you'll send me an e-mail with your concrete, detailed thoughts, suggestions, and contacts. Which celebrities do you think might want to help out...how about companies, corporations, CEOs, friends?

I really do want to hear from you. This has to be a team effort!       femalenomad@ritagoldengelman.com

Thanks.

Love, Rita

PS For those of you who don't know, we are a project of US Servas, Inc., our fiscal sponsor, so we do have legitimacy in the field of non-profits. Servas has 15,000 members worldwide and has been around for 60 years. Check them out online:  www.usservas.org.

_______________________________________________________________________________

 

June 7, 2010

Back in DC after a long day that began with the taping of a TV show in Seattle. I will try to put a link to the interview and cooking demonstration tomorrow when I have time to figure out where it is. Check in again after twelve.

Tomorrow, the 8th, I'm doing Peter Greenberg....a national radio program. I don't even know if they do the interview live or if they tape it. I'll find out tomorrow.

Meanwhile it's midnight in DC....but my body-time is still three hours earlier.

I think I'm done moving around through time zones for a while. Don't forget to buy the anthology.....and sign up for the Global Dinner Party. See the menu above.  Check out: www.facebook.com/femalenomad

Love, me


June 6, 2010

I'm still in Seattle. At eleven tomorrow morning, Monday, I'm doing an interview on a new King 5 television show, New Day Northwest. Yesterday they told Teri, a good friend who is helping with PR (teri@cittermanink.com), that they wanted me to do a cooking segment!  That'll be a first for me.

We decided to do the Thai chicken salad called, larb gai; the recipe is in Female Nomad and Friends, and it's easy and delicious. Most people know the dish, but few have ever made it. It's incredibly easy, low-cal, and it can be made ahead of time for parties.

One of the questions they asked Teri was, "Can she cook and talk at the same time?" I sure hope so.

Today Jan, my daughter, and I will go out and buy double the ingredients, one set to cook and "platter" (that's a verb!) before we go....and another to bring, unassembled, to the studio. I think we have to chop and slice before we go (cilantro, mint, lemon grass, Kaffir lime leaves). Another adventure. I fy back to DC after the show.

Two final things: if you haven't done it yet, please try to buy Female Nomad and Friends this week. You'll love the book....and the recipes too. Buy copies for all your friends. Remember that all the author royalties are going for vocational-school scholarships to kids from the slums in New Delhi.

And do sign up for the Global Dinner Party. You can read about it above. Just click on Global Dinner Party in the menu above and then sign up on Facebook (www.facebook.com/femalenomad. We already have hundreds of hosts in this country and in 14 other countries around the world. Please join us for a first!!!

Love, Rita


June 2, 2010

Had a wonderful interview yesterday on Wisconsin Public Radio. They set me up in a Seattle public radio studio. The interviewer was Jean Feraca. Lots of good questions from Jean as well as the callers. It was an hour and it flew by.

On Friday, nine of the contributors to Female Nomad and Friends are meeting in the afternoon to celebrate....and then we're all going to be at:

Third Place Books

Friday, June 4th

 

7:00pm                                        

6504 20th Ave. NE

Seattle, WA 98115

I hope all of you in the Seattle area will come say hello. I did a local radio show this morning and forgot to mention it! Not too bright. The store is small....so maybe we'll have enough people without my help.    rgg


                                                    

May 31, 2010

Collateral damage:  when you fly across the country, east to west, you wake up on day one at five AM! I do love Seattle, though....and it's great seeing my daughter, Jan and her husband, Bill. And Roxy barked and jumped around and made wonderful dog noises when she greeted me.

Today is Memorial Day and I desperately need a haircut. I like it really short so I don't have to think about hair. When I finish this, I'm going online to see if there is a hair place open somewhere. I actually have a place called Changes that I like (Bill uses them) but they're closed.

Tomorrow night I give a talk on Vashon Island. It'll be the first talk I've given on Female Nomad and Friends (pub date is June 1). I've given the Nomad talk hundreds of times....I could do it in my sleep....but this is a new book and I have to spend some time today thinking about what to say. I mean, I'm only one of 41 contributors! It's tricky to be talking for all those people...I haven't met most of them. I do know that giving all the author royalties to kids from the slums in New Delhi for scholarships to vocational schools was a great idea and I can certainly talk about that. Not making any money from the book makes it a lot easier to ask people to buy it, for themselves and all their friends. And I do like the fact that I'm doing it through Rotary, here and there.

I can't wait to shop in Viet Wah. I'm going to buy them out of Bumbu Pecel (a dried block of spiced peanut sauce that I use as a dip for soft Vietnamese rolls (there's a recipe in the new book). It's delicious and easy (you just shave it and mix it with water in a frying pan. I also spoon it on a platter of steamed vegetables (broccoli, carrots, cabbage, bean sprouts. I can find peanut sauce in lots of places but none of it is as good as that block. I did discover that Amazon.com has it, but it's more expensive than Viet Wah.

And I'm definitely going to have lunch at Tamarind Tree. Their Tamarind Crepe is one of my favorite dishes ever.

Today I'm talking to a reader from Food Network in NY. I think they want to get involved internationally in our Global Dinner Party. I'm excited about that! It's such a perfect match. Connecting through Food is the theme...that and the anthology. People all over the world will be sharing food (ideally recipes from the book) and talking about the stories and what they represent: crossing borders, taking risks, communicating without language, trusting, caring.....

If you're reading this in another country, you can get the book on your Kindle in a minute! Starting tomorrow.

Have a look at the Global Dinner Party posts in the main menu above and then rush to Facebook.com/femalenomad and sign up. The night of your party I'm planning to monitor Facebook (for lots of hours given the time differerences) so that we can send messages back and forth all around the world. What fun!

Love, Rita

 

 

May 25, 2010

I've been hanging around here clicking and trying to put in pictures, text, pages, and messages. The only thing I'm good at is writing new posts. Can't figure out how to size a picture or place it where I want it. I've tried clicking and dragging and talking to the computer. Nothing works. So, while none of the images are quite where I want them, there are at least some new images.

Do check out the new page under THE GLOBAL DINNER PARTY called Why, Where, and When and then go immediately to www.facebook.com/femalenomad and sign up to join our Global Dinner Party on June 18th. And don't forget to tell all your guests to quickly order the book and read it so they can talk about it at the party. (If you don't have a Facebook page, send me an e-mail to: femalenomad@gmail.com and let me know you want to join the party. And tell me where you're from.)

Go to www.facebook.com/femalenomad and have a look at EVENTS. We're going to have parties all over the US and in Canada, Mexico, Turkey, China, Colombia, New Zealand, Australia and England. How exciting. Join us and have one in your house. All we're asking is for each of your guests to buy a book and read it before they come. We're putting together a kit for hosts!!! We want your videos, photos, and reports. Please join us. What fun!! And all the author royalties are going to send kids from the slums of New Delhi to vocational schools.

Hurry and add your name. We'll be posting the kit here and on Facebook.

Thanks.         Love, Rita


May 24, 2010

I've been to Fort Collins, Colorado since my last post...visiting family, Mitch, Melissa, Cris and four animals--two dogs, a cat, and a bird. It was great being with them. Cris is six and full of energy, spice, and everything anyone could possibly know about fish!

I just spent the last three hours working on this site and I'm not even half-way finished. I added the Global Dinner pages but I haven't written them yet. I put up a page for Old Posts so I can clean up this home page, and I haven't transferred them yet.  And my computer is having problems. And all the bolded text here disappeared. I guess tomorrow will be more of the same!!! Good night.


May 16, 2010

I just spent four days in Hammond, Indiana, at the Napoleon Hill Foundation. Until a month ago I had never heard of Napoleon Hill. He started the self-help genre nearly a century ago with the book, Think and Grow Rich, not something I would pick up on my own. But they wrote and invited me to speak, and agreed to make a nice donation to Let's Get Global.

I had a great time. Most of the principles that you have to observe if you want to acquire money, can also be applied to creating a richer life, things like purpose, enthusiasm, teamwork. I also learned about essential oils, walking a labyrinth, and how to play a didgeridoo (look it up!).

To play a didgeridoo, you put your lips into one end of a five-foot long hollowed tube and flap them. You don't tighten them the way you do with a trumpet, which I played when I was in eighth grade; you flap them. Dr. Sam Boys, who was the expert giving the workshop, talked about "loose flappage." Don't you love the word? Flappage. I'm sitting here right now flapping my lips and, without the hollow tube, I sound like a motor boat. The looser your flappage, the deeper the tone.

Dr. Sam has developed the art of circular breathing too. He can just keep the air going out without a break for a breath. He does it by storing air in his cheeks and expelling it through his mouth when he takes a breath. He opened with a ten minute session while we meditated....and when it was over, every organ in my body was vibrating. I can see how it might be used as a healing practice. We were all given PVC pipes to learn on.

Now I'm back in DC working more on the Global Dinner that we're putting together for June 18th. I hope you will have a party that day at your house and join thousands of us all over the world. We'll be posting plans (when, where, and some suggested recipes) on:

    www.facebook.com/femalenomad. 

The dinners will be a celebration of my new anthology, Female Nomad and Friends, Tales of Breaking Free and Breaking Bread All Over the World. The book is a testimony to the power of connecting through food; and

                   all the royalties will go to sending kids from the slums in New Delhi to vocational school.

None of the writers is earning a penny!!   We're asking everyone to buy a book now---you and all your guests---so you will have time to read it and talk about it at the party. There are some challanging discussion topics at the end of the book.  So, click on one of the buttoms up top, buy enough books for all your guests, and then go to Facebook and register your party!!

That's it for today.        Love, Rita

 

And if you are a college student in DC or summering in DC...and want an intern position (no money, but I'll feed you), I'd like to add you to the team as well. I'd be happy to talk or write to your college. Let's Get Global is a project of US Servas, Inc., a 501c3 that's been around for sixty years....so your school would most

May 6, 2010

Well, I sent the Let's Get Global proposal off to Shelley in the Servas office. Since Servas is our fiscal sponsor and the 501c3 that we are applying through (Let's Get Global is "a project of US Servas"), Shelley has offered to work on it with me. Hooray. She has experience writing things like this. I'm not a happy camper when I'm working on my own. I've said it before and I'll say it here. I'm a team player. I burst with ideas in brainstorming sessions....and on my own, I can sit staring into space, totally blank.

Last night Lauren Haimelin came over for dinner. She's a reader who has written me several times and we finally got together. Lauren is an artist, a former teacher, and a creative thinker. We brainstormed for more than two hours about our June 18th global dinner. We just kept firing ideas at each other about ways to bring all the dinners and diners together (I think there will be hundreds....if you want to throw your own dinner party and join the gang, send me an e-mail. We're hoping you'll try to use recipes from the anthology.....but not requiring it.

We'll be celebrating the anthology, Female Nomad and Friends, and the idea of international connecting through travel and food. What fun to know that all over the country and the world people will be celebrating the connections.....all on the same day. Save the day. We'll also be celebrating the fact that all the royalty money is sending kids from the slums in India to vocational schools!

I wish I had a live-in brainstormer. I love it when minds get together around ideas. Brings me back to the elf. I've often said that after writing more than seventy books for kids, I should have been issued an elf......for brainstorming, organizing, vacuuming, washing dishes. Well, for everything. If you have any connections to the magic world, please let them know that I'm waiting. I'd be happy to feed him or her (are there female elves?).....shoot, they're pretty small. They probably don't eat much!!! Goodbye for today. Rita

 

 

 

May 4, 2010

I've been working for days on a proposal in search of funding for high school Let's Get Global After-School Clubs. All I need is one thousand words. You'd think, being a writer, that I'd sail through it! It isn't happening. Tomorrow's the day I am going to finish. I am, really, I am.

On Sunday, May 9th I'm heading to Hammond, Indiana, to talk at the Napoleon Hill Foundation. I'm scheduled to talk three times over three days: about my life and the nomad book, about writing children's books, and about Lets Get Global. I'll talk about the new book as well. I'm looking forward to meeting new people, sharing ideas, and hearing about the philosophy of Napoleon Hill. When I signed up to talk, more than a month ago, they sent me a box of books. I've been reading non-stop.

I'm  traveling a bunch in the next month.

Fort Collins, CO, to hang out for a while with my son's family (Mitch, Melissa, and six-year-old Cris) from the 17th to 21st.

Back to DC for nine days, where I've been living since early fall.

Then to Seattle from the 30th to June 6th or 7th.

If you're in the Seattle area, come hear me talk at Third Place Books in Ravenna on June 4th. I think we'll begin at seven, but it might be 7:30. I'll fix this when I know for sure. Check back in a couple of days. We're officially launching the anthology that day and around ten of the authors will be on hand. It's going to be fun. Most of us are women who have traveled all over the world....alone. One of the two male authors in the book will be there too.

Teri Citterman and Joann Jen, friends of my daughter and ace PR people, came up with a great idea for promoting the anthology...and you can be in on it!. We're planning a global dinner party.....to be held in hundreds of homes around the world during 24 hours. In the US, it will begin at dinnertime on June 18th. We're going to try to get everyone to cook recipes from the anthology. And we're hoping everyone will do a short video of the experience, which we will post. Stay tuned. We're still working out the details.

Crown has promised to send me a PDF of the first chapter that I will link to. In that opening chapter I talk about how the book come to be and what it's all about. You can read it and send it out. They've promised to get it to me at the end of this week. I also talk about the kids in India that it's going to help.

Well, now it's certainly too late (11:00 PM) to get back to writing that proposal. Tomorrow for sure. You will hear me shouting and cheering when it's finally finished.

Love, Rita

 

April 28, 2010

A quick note to say thank you to Dave Chase and to let you know that if you are interested in a blog design, he did a great job with my: 

http://www.letsgetglobal.org.

Even if that didn't turn blue (I need his help here!), do check it out....to see the site and to see what Dave might do for you.

If you are thinking of having someone do a design for you, you might want to write to him: dave@davidechase.com. He's a college student, talented and responsive. He never once complained when I sent him back to the drawing board....and he's very reasonable. And not only that, he never even laughed at me or groaned when I showed my ignorance. If you want a site and don't know what to do, you might want to get in touch. Hmm, I hope it isn't exam time.

April 27, 2010

It is an addiction...e-mail. Every time I get the tiniest break in the flow of what I'm thinking or writing about, I go to Outlook and click on Send and Receive. Almost always there is something that I have to read, link to, or answer. Which takes me far away from where I was just seconds ago, totally distracts me, and messes up the train of thought I was riding on.

Don't tell me I should stay away from Outlook. It's like telling an addict to just give up the heroin. It feels too good. I'm no longer alone and frustrated with my words; I'm interacting, which is really what I'm all about.

Blogs are a lot like e-mail. At this moment I'm in the middle of writing a proposal for a vitally important opportunity on behalf of Let's Get Global, except here I am, posting today's message instead of working on the proposal. I woke up this morning with one goal...do the proposal. It is now after six and I've barely spent any time on it. There were so many other urgent things to do online!

I'm going back to the proposal. Maybe now that I've written this, I will be able to concentrate better and the words will flow! I'll get back here as soon as I have a first draft. Then, yay, I can send it to Servas (our fiscal sponsor) and Lee (my new teammate) for their critiques. And I will have a few guilt-free hours. OK. I'm going to publish this and hit the proposal button.....but I might detour just for a second in Outlook. Maybe there won't be anything! Ciao for now, Rita

PS If you haven't read the last post, please do. I want to give y0u a heads-up about the dinner party we're planning.

 

 

April 24, 2010

An update.

My daughter, Jan, met with two PR professionals, Teri and Joanne (friends of hers), last night in Seattle. Jan has a story in the anthology and she and her friends are coming up with ideas of how to promote it. We're all working to make this book a best seller.....so more and more kids in India will receive scholarships for vocational school.

One of the ideas they came up with is a round-the-world dinner party celebrating the publication of the book, which is all about connecting around the world. (It's a fabulous read!) We're working on a 24-hour cross-border feed.

All the dinner parties would create a short (2-3 minutes) video and we'll post all the videos here!! Might even make it a contest and have some great prizes.

What do you think? Would you like to participate? We can do it across the US and in homes all over the world. I have lots of friends everywhere. We think it would get us some great media. 

Send me an e-mail: femalenomad@ritagoldengelman.com. (I'm working on getting a comment option here. Don't know if it's possible. If you know, please write. I use Adobe Contribute CS 4.

If you haven't read the last post (yesterday), please don't stop here.

Love, Rita

 

April 23, 2010

Oh, wow! A lot has happened since I last wrote, a week ago.

First, my new blog is going to disappear. "Birth of a Movement" had a short run. It was born last fall because I wanted to share the process of starting-up a new movement--LET'S GET GLOBAL--to bring the international gap year to the United States.

I couldn't get this website operable (it crashed in July) and a new friend here in DC offered to set up a new blog. I was actually having fun sharing the details of my life and my work to whomever clicked in.

Ever since I decided to devote myself to the Gap Year project, I've received thousands of e-mails from people who agree that the country and the world will be much more peaceful when the U.S. has a population that has crossed borders and interacted in other cultures....and when those other cultures have had a chance to get to know our youth. I was using the "Birth of a Movement" blog to spread the word, share my trials and tribulations, and along the way, talk about whatever personal stuff was going on.

A couple of weeks ago I fixed this site and began posting here again. Additionally, I was keeping up with Facebook, trying to develop a LET'S GET GLOBAL blog....ignoring Linked In and Twitter, saying no to lots of other social network invitations....and working on the new anthology.

It got to be too much. I'll be doing all that stuff here. I'm trying to find out if it's possible to set up something interactive here, where I can post YouTubes and get something interactive happening. I'd like a chat room too. I will let you know if it's possible. Please check in often. I'll try to post something a couple of times a week.

Please come here again soon. I'm going to try to keep these posts strong and frequent. I want the stats to reflect that we are a huge groundswell of people supporting the LET'S GET GLOBAL movement.

The second thing that happened in the last few days is that one of my readers, Lee Enry Erickson, who has been e-mailing me now and then from Oregon, wrote that she really really wanted to help...as a volunteer. She knows there's no money yet. She's been working non-stop for the last few days, trying to get me organized, working on the LGG site, reading up on the LGG projects. It is sooo nice to be part of a team, even if we're only two at the moment. We've been talking, e-mailing, Skyping. Three hours the other night. I definitely feel stronger when I have a pal. If any of you want to join us, please write. Lee is going to be organizing and working with volunteers.

 

April 19, 2010

I had lunch yesterday with two old friends.

I've known Susan since we were both eight years old in Bridgeport, CT; and I went to college (Brandeis) with Debbie. We've shared our own weddings and those of our kids.

Our lives have gone in totally different directions, but the intimacy of history and our shared values will always connect us. We're all over seventy and still working: Susan produces the television show, It's Academic, a popular high school quiz program; Debbie teaches high school English at the Lab School, a highly respected school in DC for students with learning disabilities; and all of you reading this know what I'm all about. Susan, Debbie, and I are all changing lives and enriching people in different but significant ways. And in the process, we're giving

meaning and purpose to our own lives.

 

Over eggs Benedict, spiced mahi mahi, and crab cakes with chicken, we talked about our successful kids, our shared political beliefs, and the richness and fullness of our lives. For those of you out there wondering what life is all about, I'd say it has to do with dedication and passion for what you do.

I've been in the area since September and this is only the third time we've gotten together. We're all very happily busy.

I've been working around the clock on the new anthology and Let's Get Global (www.letsgetglobal.org). I've been meeting some extraordinary new friends who are helping me with LGG. Most of them have connected with me after they read the Nomad book and checked this website. They are all much younger than I, and we don't have a shared history, but Tales of a Female Nomad has given me an opportunity to share my life in a unique way....most of the new people I meet know so much about me that they begin sharing their secrets within a few minutes of our introductions. How rewarding! You don't have to be wandering the world to be happy.

Which brings me to what I've been saying for years............the richness in life is all about connecting!! So use your smile, your eyes, your words; share your thoughts, your emotions, your secrets..............and connect!

Happy journey.

_______________________________________________________

April 11, 2010

It's sunny and warm in DC today. The cherry blossoms on my street have snowed off the trees and the neighborhood is a fresh vibrant green (last week we had pink flakes every time the wind blew).

I'm still over my head in work and challenges. Every day I am more than ever convinced that our country needs a "Gap Year" mentality. Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan woman who won a Nobel Peace award a couple of years ago, says, "You cannot be a leader unless you understand the world you want to lead."

Check out her interview: www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOnYVeaETps

 

Isn't there someone (or sometwo) in the DC area who is looking for meaningful volunteer work? I need a sidekick to brainstorm across the table with me, help me organize volunteers....and follow through with the research, writing, and sending. At this point my volunteers have all disappeared and I'm way over my head. I'm a team player without a team!

So if you are looking to put some passion in your life, send me an e-mail and I'll send you my phone number. Let's talk.  femalenomad@ritagoldengelman.com

I'm also still collecting volunteers from all over the country....to be LGG's liasons to high schools in your community. I need research too. A movement needs tons of people....we need you.  Send me an e-mail, please.  Read the April first post for details.

As I wrote in the Nomad book:  I can't wait to hear from you!!!! 

Thanks, Rita

____________________________________________________________

April 1, 2010

Today I am writing to a number of people who think their local high schools might like to encourage their students to think about doing an international Gap Year before they go to college. (Our organization, Let's Get Global, is encouraging students to apply to colleges while they are still in high schools, to get accepted, and then to ask for a deferral.)

We are looking for five or ten pilot schools around the country where principals and counselors would be willing to introduce students to the Gap Year option. We are not a program....we just want to let students know that it's a possibility and to help them find programs and funding. And we'd like to reach all segments of the population.

Beginning in September, 2010, we want to set up after-school clubs where students can learn what it means to step into another culture. Sarah LaRosa, a recently returned Peace Corps Volunteer from Tonga and a graduate student in international studies, is working on an agenda for the clubs that will include music, movies, and creative projects that are designed to interest youth in the rest of the world.

LGG believes the young adults will be stronger, more confident, and more focused when they come home....ready for the social and academic challenges that college brings. And there is no doubt that the cross-cultural experiences will be a huge plus on their resumes as they look for jobs in the global economy.

When we have a population that has interacted with other cultures across kitchen tables and soccer fields, prejudice and intolerance will be replaced with respect and understanding.

I am personally determined to make that Gap Year a popular practice in the US. If you want to help on any level, please send me an e-mail. 

_____________________________________________________

 

March 27, 2010

I'm back in DC. My bus trip was great....I was able to work the whole way. But today, my list of things to do is much too long, and none of the chores are creative. I have to go to the post office and send keys back to Karen, my NY host. (She wasn't there when I left and I had to lock the door.) I need stuff from Staples and the supermarket. I need a toothbrush, conditioner, toilet paper. This is turning into an overgrown Tweet!!

I am determined to build this long-neglected website into an active one again. Aren't you thrilled to read about my errands?

 

Here's something more interesting. Mary Katzke, filmmaker, and I are trying to figure out some interesting short films that show the fun and beauty of connecting across cultures. You know, something that shows our shared humanity, how the same we all are. This morning I can't stop thinking about a film called, "Bubbles Around the World."

I have always carried bubbles and there is nothing less threatening in the world. I don't know if we are still limited to three ounce liquids....or if it's possible to make the stuff from powder. You can buy liquid dish detergent and glycerine (or Karo syrup) just about anywhere. Maybe Karo or Joy would fund Mary's film. Hmmmm.

One of the other things we discussed is balloons. And paper airplanes. I've done both in cities and in the bush. I teach rather than entertain and it's fun. Hmmmm again.

Crafts around the world? Face painting is fun too. Some New Guinea tribes can teach us about body painting. That could be fun too.

I also keep thinking about "Drumming Around the World." Every culture does it. Might be fun to film them teaching Mary and her son.

Please send me your ideas.  femalenomad@ritagoldengelman.com 

Thanks for stopping by.

Until tomorrow.  Love, Rita

 

 _________________________________

March 26, 2010

I'm on the Bolt Bus from NY to DC, and I'm plugged into the seat in front of me, connected to the Internet, and answering e-mails. How great! The last time I took this bus from NY to DC, I lucked into a special. I paid $7.00 for the trip. I was sure for that price everyone would be dumped into the Hudson River. But it got me to DC; so I'm back, this time for $17.50.

I just wrote about what happened in NY on my blog, www.birthofamovement.org.

I talk there about making a video for the new anthology (to be posted on B&N and Amazon. After an hour and a half we gave up trying for a perfect video. That was the point when I suggested we hire a beautiful, thin, talented actress. "Hi," she could say, "I'm Rita Golden Gelman." I bet she wouldn't have trouble memorizing my words. For more on that, check the blog.

I love NY. I lived in Greenwich Village for 18 years. I went to NY to seek my fortune as soon as I graduated from college. Bridgeport, CT was not where I wanted to be. NY has an energy and a diversity and a wonderful creative atmosphere that's exciting. But I have to admit that when I stepped off the bus two days ago from DC, I was a little intimidated. I no longer knew how much city buses cost and the subways have been renamed, and well, there are so many people. I took a cab to Soho for $12.00 (it costs $10.00 to breathe in Manhattan).

I was staying with my friend, Karen in her beautiful apartment in Soho. (Karen and I met two years ago when she read the Nomad book and e-mailed me that she had an apartment if I needed a place to stay in NY; I did. She also helped us launch Let's Get Global.) So when I arrived on Wednesday, we caught up a bit and then went out to an Indian restaurant. One of the wonderful things about NY is that whatever you want is never more than two blocks away!!

The next day I went up to do that video. I wish I'd done a better job.

There's more  on the "birth of a movement" blog about the last couple of days. I'm looking to build action on both of these blogs....so stop by. Now that this is up and running, I'm going to try to pop something in every couple of days. Please keep checking it out!

We're almost there! We are in Maryland. What a great way to use travel time!

Check in again soon.     Love, Rita

_____________________________________________________

 

March 23, 2010

Oh my God. I can't believe it! I can finally edit this website! Hallelujah!

To all you readers who saw that the last entry was July 20 and who wrote to ask if I was all right: Thanks for worrying. I'm fine!

Last July my old computer crashed and the software never moved over to my new one. I had bought the software online so I didn't have a disk. I did have a receipt from the Adobe Online Store, but they wouldn't install what I needed. I finally gave up and bought a new one...eight months later.  And Corey, the tech guy, just installed it.

 

The process was gently but firmly moved forward by Crown/Random House who are publishing my anthology on June first (Female Nomad and Friends: Tales of Breaking Free and Breaking Bread Around the World). This website address is on the back cover.

And not only that. The only online bookstore I had here was Amazon. Now we can add Barnes and Noble, Borders, and the independents! I'll do that on Thursday. Correction: I'm hoping the tech people at Crown will do it for me!

The anthology is a collection of stories about connecting and risk-taking all over the world. The stories are funny and sad, poignant and passionate, long and short. All but two of the authors are women who, for the most part, have stepped into the unknown to have adventures and to connect to the world. The stories vary in style, subject, length. What they all share is warmth, sincerity, and heart.

This just in from Emily Lavelle who is doing PR for Female Nomad and Friends. (I am on the bus heading to NY...there's internet on the bus!)

Feel free to add my contact info so that you don’t have to play middle (wo)man to reviewers or media people looking for review copies.

For media inquiries, review copies, and event requests, please contact:

Emily Lavelle

Crown Publishers

elavelle@randomhouse.com

So, Emily, I did. You media people out there.....write to Emily!

 

 

A couple of quick bits of news.

I have two new sites: 

http://www.letsgetglobal.org   and   http://birthofamovement.org

(To all of you who have written and told me I just needed the http part in order to turn those addresses into links............now what did I do wrong?)

I'm headed to NY tomorrow to do a two-minute video about the anthology (it's a great read....and a tribute to the joy of cultural interaction. Forty one authors write about their experiences all over the world.) I have seven stories and a long introduction.

The book is funny and sad, beautiful and poignant. I promise you will run though some pretty dramatic emotions.

All the writers are donating their royalties to send slum kids in New Delhi to vocational schools. The money will go to a fund that I set up, through a Rotary in Maryland to a New Delhi Rotary. The New Delhi Rotary will vet and mentor the young scholarship students. We contributors are excited about the project.

When the book goes on sale June first, we hope you will all buy many copies. I'll remind you. If everyone buys in the same week, it could hit the best seller lists!

That's it for now.    Check this site out frequently. I need to build the traffic again.

OK. Time to get back to LGG.

Education cannot end at our borders.  There's a world out there and we need to connect, across kitchen tables, around fires, and in the workplace!  We're in a global economy; major corporations are looking for employees who are comfortable crossing borders and interacting  cross-culturally.

We owe our kids an international education.

                                                                                   LET'S GET GLOBAL!!!

                                                                          Crossing Borders, Sharing Lives

Thanks, Rita

_______________________________________________________

This was written and posted on July 20, 2009. I just added a couple of notes and it's still relevant.

I am still working around the clock on LET'S GET GLOBAL. I'm absolutely passionate about creating a population that has crossed borders and shared lives with cultures all over the world. For the short version of what we are all about, have a look at www.letsgetglobal.org  (I guess you have to paste that in. I never know why sometimes urls turn blue and other times they don't.)

At the moment we are looking for funding to pay a coordinator.  If you have any advice or contacts, please let us know.  info@letsgetglobal.org. Your note will go straight to me.

If you would like to make a contribution of any amount, feel free. You can do it through the LGG site. It's tax-deductible. Our fiscal sponsor is US Servas and we are technically "A Project of US Servas Inc.) They are a 501c3 and that's what makes us tax-deductible. They also legitimize us...Servas has been around for 60 years!! (Actually, I've been around for 72 years....but Servas and LGG are much better investments!)

If you would like be be a volunteer/founder, please let us know. This is going to be big. Together we are going to change the way this country thinks about international experiences, especially our youth.

Our most powerful tool in reaching kids and their parents will be the testimonials we get from people who have done a gap year or parented a gapper. If you or anyone you know are willing to write or video a testimonial, please let me know and I will send you instructions.

                                                   

Thanks for stopping by.          Rita

__________________________________________________

 

July 5, 2009

 

To start off, let me locate myself. I am in Seattle until the beginning of August. Then I'm headed to Mill Valley, CA, for a couple of weeks to be with five-year-old grandson Cris and his parents. I'm not sure where I will be the last two weeks in August. Something will come along! It always does.

Starting in September, I'll be living in a furnished studio apartment in the center of Washington, DC until March, where I won't need a car. I'm planning to be working on Let's Get Global full-time for the next year, and DC has lots of people who were at that June 20th meeting. This is a team effort and DC just feels right. If I need to, I will move around the country from there.

LET'S GET GLOBAL is the name of our "gap year and more" movement.

So what happened on June 20th? Forty-five people came together on the campus of George Washington University to talk about how we can encourage young adults in the United States to discover the world, first hand.

We focused much of the time on the idea of taking a year off between high school and the next phase of life...college, vocational school, job. It's a popular practice in England, Australia, and New Zealand (called a Gap Year or the Big OE); young people save for years and then just take off. If you travel and talk to other people in hostels, you know that the world is full of young travelers...most of them from countries other than the U.S.

The idea of traveling the world, learning about and from other cultures, just never took off (literally or figuratively) in the United States. Most people have never even heard of a gap year.  It's about time to change that. All of us in that room agreed that international experiences benefit the participant, the country, and the world. And we all were pretty much of the opinion that in today's world, we need to expand our education beyond our borders. And we agreed that any international experience is better than none! 

There were many points of view in the room. We had representatives from Rotary International, American Field Service, U. S. Servas, Planet Gap Year, Magic Carpet Rides, Youth for Understanding, One World Now, NAFSA (Association of International Educators), CSIET (Council on Standards forEducational Travel), AFAR magazine, World P.E.A. S., Map the Gap International, Thinking Beyond Borders, Northwest Student Exchange; there were delegates from relevant government offices, the educational establishment (teachers and counselors), gapper alumni, parents, PR people, and a lot of enthusiastic and determined individuals who felt as passionately as I that we cannot be a relevant part of the modern world if the majority of our population has never crossed a border.

We struggled with the wording of our mission and vision and left with the exact wording still to be worked out. We brainstormed in many different small groups about what we were all about. We pretty much decided that we would focus on international programs (not national programs), that we would be open to encouraging any length of visit, that we would w0rk at getting a large number of volunteers to help us all over the country to educate the young people, their parents, and their schools about the importance of international experiential education. We want to make this available to all segments of our population, offering guidance to qualified youth who need financial assistance.

In the end, we came up with the beginning of four committees:  PR , Website, Funding, and Volunteer Management. I agreed to continue to be the leader for the next year, and this week I will contact our "interim" committee chairpeople to discuss "NEXT STEPS."  If you want to work hard and contribute your skills to making this happen, perhaps you want to serve on a committee. The meetings will most likely be virtual..... via the internet, e-mail and telephone conference calls.

I can promise that becoming a part of our LET'S GET GLOBAL movement will add excitement and purpose and fulfillment to your life. It feels good and alive to be passionate about a cause. Together, we can and will change the country. When cultures interact, respect and honor are the tangible results. If we work to help our youth have intercultural interactions, it won't be long before we have a population that honors the differences and applauds the sameness of our brothers and sisters around the world.

 

June 20th was an exciting day for all of us. I think everyone wished we could have had more time to clarify everything, but most of us left feeling that we were indeed a WE.

For those of you out there who would like to volunteer in your state, we need you and all your friends. We want thousands of volunteers of all ages. We are hoping to contact every school in the country. We want everyone to buy the concept that we are a part of the world and that our national education should embrace being a part of a global community.

Volunteers, please send us your name, city, and state, and if you have special skills, we'd love to know.  info@letsgetglobal.org

For those of you who would like to do research for our website, let us know and you will hear from our Website Committee. And if you have ideas,especially out-of-the-box ideas, please pass them on.

And....this is very important....if you believe in the concept and want to change the mentality in this country, please send us a donation. We need money to create a fabulous website, we need a paid coordinator who will keep this all together, and we need money to hire a professional grant writer so that we can wage the best PR campaign ever.  We very much need and welcome whatever you feel you can afford.

Our blog gives information on how to make donations, either online or by snail mail:   www.thegapyearsite.blogspot.com  Y0ur donation is tax deductible.

We appreciate your support, however much you want to send. A thousand dollars would be great.......so would twenty five!

A special note of thanks to U. S. Servas who has agreed to partner with us in this. They've been around for 60 years and LET'S GET GLOBAL is officially, "A Project of U. S. Servas, Inc." The partnership will help us when we apply for foundation funding. If you don't know Servas, check them out:  www.usservas.org   It's my favorite organization in the world.Traveling with Servas opens homes all over the globe.

Thanks for sending that donation.  I'll talk to you soon.              

                                                                              Best, Rita

 

Contact us at:  info@letsgetglobal.org

 

___________________________________________________

 

May 24, 2009

I’m back in Seattle after three days on Fox Island. Fox Island? I’d never heard of it either. It’s across a couple of bridges from Tacoma, that other city in Washington. I first heard about FI on a plane trip from Cincinnati to Seattle.

Jill from Fox Island and I were seated next to each other, way in the back of the plane. We talked non-stop for five hours. Well, we talked—and played Trivial Pursuit on the little screen in front of our seats. (The game was great. You play against everyone else on the plane who is playing at the same time. The results are instantly tabulated, so you know, for example, that the guy in 18D is much smarter than you are!) FYI: it was a Boeing 737-800 on Delta. By the time the flight landed, Jill and I were good friends.

Several months later, I stayed in Jill’s house and gave a talk on the island. It happened last week. Almost didn’t. On the way there, my car broke down (a destroyed clutch) on I-5; and after an AAA tow, Jill had to come get me at Walker Subaru in Renton, more than an hour’s drive from FI.

There are around 3,200 people who live on FI—one store, a gas station, a Post Office, and a museum. And lots of beach. Ralph, Jill’s husband, is a retired pilot (that’s how I know the plane specifications above) and a fabulous cook. He cooked for me and a group of friends soon after I arrived. Over dinner we shared stories and laughed a lot. I just e-mailed my “modest” new friend, Ralph, and asked him to describe the meat we ate. Here is his response:

“The only way to describe the meat. Perfection. You were served the most fantastic BBQ pork baby back ribs ever to be put on the platter. You have to admit the smoke ring had penetrated to a most desired three eighths of an inch into the very tender, but firm, meaty ribs. The other meat was the boneless cut from beef short ribs, as served by the Carnegy Deli. They were prepared with patience and love with tomatoes and an array of spices, baked and taken right up to the char. All grease was separated from the sauce, which was then reunited with the beef and baked to the point of unusual tenderness for this cheap, but flavorful cut of beef. Anyway, I liked it. The pork was prepared on a komado pot over coals and the beef was an indoor project with modern means.”

I have nothing to add. It was great!

The next day Jill and I spent several hours hunting “clay babies” on the beach. I’d never heard of clay babies either. Check out the link. I’ve got a bagful in my car.  I love them.

www.foxisland.net/historical.htm  Click on “What are Clay Babies?”

I also sneaked about 25 mussels into my clay-baby bag and we steamed them for lunch.

There were about 120 people at the talk. A great showing. I talked about my life, the joy of connecting, and my Global Learning Project, which I am planning to work on—full-time—for the next year. Yes, I'm suspending my nomadding for a year!

I believe passionately in the importance of kids’ living, studying, volunteering abroad. In today’s world, where we are all just a click away from anywhere, it’s vital that we have a population that has learned to respect and honor other cultures. I want to help create a population that has learned, across kitchen tables and volleyball courts, that we are all the same. It’s hard to support bombing other countries when we’ve lived among the people. Those foreigners, those strangers are us.

Global Learning is not a program. There are a lot of programs out there. Global Learning  is a movement to popularize the idea that taking a year off after high school to live internationally will benefit the kid, the country, and the world. Many colleges are supporting the idea. Kids who have done a Gap Year are more motivated when they get to college and the dropout rate is dramatically reduced. We’ve got to spread the word.

Check out my new blog:  www.thegapyearsite.blogspot.com

We’re hoping to raise enough money to launch the program—and we need your help. I’m hoping some in the audience at Fox Island will contribute.  (Hi, Fox Islanders. I know you’re reading this!!) And if those of you who are regulars on this site would contribute what you can, we will hopefully raise the $25,000 we need to launch the campaign. We need it as soon as possible. Please help us change the world.

Your contribution is tax-deductible.  Details at:  www.thegapyearsite.blogspot.com

I hope you’ll support the cause and join the campaign.  Thanks.

Best, Rita

 

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Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Hello Again,

It’s time, I’ve been saying for the last three weeks, to update the website.  Finally, I’m doing it.

I’m still in Barcelona, but my heart and mind are in the U.S. grappling with the Gap Year project. I’m spending a lot of time on the computer. I’m convinced that the future of the country rests on getting the next generations out there in the world to learn respect, develop understanding, and feel the joy that comes from discovering that we really are all the same. It comes from sitting together at kitchen tables, passing the ball on futbol fields, chopping vegetables, growing rice, and being a part of host families around the world.

There are programs, good ones, but most of them are for the elite. They can be extended and reworked to make them available to everyone. We don’t have to start from scratch. Why not offer many different choices? Everyone who shares the concept should be working together.

One of the problems is that the whole idea of a Gap Year after high school is totally foreign to much of the country. Kids in rural South Carolina, urban slums, and much of middle-America, and well, in most places in the country, just don’t think about spending a year in Thailand or Tanzania or Indonesia. Bosses think it’s irresponsible. Many colleges are afraid that they will lose the kids and the tuition. Parents who have never left the state they were born in are scared to send their 18-year-olds into the dangerous world out there. And kids are programmed to move on to more schooling and jobs without a break. My current mission is to change the thinking.

Some of the best colleges in the country are coming around. Harvard, Princeton, Tufts, and MIT are all encouraging their incoming freshmen to defer their entry and get out there in the world. The schools have discovered that kids who have taken that year abroad are more motivated, focused, and self-assured…and the drop-out rate is significantly lower. It’s something that every kid should have a chance to do, whatever their economic level or academic achievement.

And there is funding. Some that exists already and some that we will dig up. One of my plans is to launch a major PR blitz of the schools, the social networks, the youth organizations so that everyone is curious enough to go to the fabulous teen-oriented website that we will create. It has to have an edgy look and attitude and it has to answer all the questions the kids will have. What programs? How long? Where? How is it possible to afford it if your family has no money? What will it be like (stories from Gap Year alumni)? And it has to answer the parent-questions as well. What kind of training will the kids get? What happens if they get sick, miss their families back home, and more.

Step one is a brainstorming session in DC in June that will include delegates who are already involved in sending people, young and old, to live in homes around the world. And educators and youth organizations and funding experts and government agencies that are interested in setting something up. It’s an idea that the country is ready for. Have a look at this bill that was introduced by Russ Feingold in the Senate less than a month ago. 

Google: S.589 Global Service Fellowship Program Act of 2009 

And read the bill.  And then send a note to your congresspeople asking them to support it.

I’ll be in Colorado, Michigan, and Seattle at the end of April. Then I’m planning to sit still for a year or so (don’t know where), give up nomadding for a while to work on getting that Gap Year mentality established in the U.S. It’s such an amazing experience and it should be available to everyone!!

That’s it for now. I wrote to my listserv people about volunteering to make this happen and my list of volunteers is just past 100 enthusiastic readers who believe as strongly as I do that the kids, the country, and the world will benefit dramatically from our kids extending their education with a Gap Year experience.  Yes, we can make it happen.

Best, Rita

 

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March 9, 2009

Barcelona, Spain

     Newsflash!

     A Rotary Club in New Delhi has agreed to administer our program to send slum kids who graduate from high school to vocational schools. I just got the e-mail this morning. I'm hoping we can work through a U.S. Rotary group in Minneapolis.The Indian group is on board.

     The funds for this program will come from the royalties from the anthology, "Break Free, Break Rules, Break Bread." And Rotary will add its contribution as well. I'll report the details when I know more.

     Thanks to all you contributors to the book.This will change a lot of lives.

     The book is slated for publication in summer of 2010 (publishing isn't too speedy!) But the first payment will probably come from Random House/Crown this month....1/3 of the money ($55,000) minus fees. That should be enough for this year's graduates if we can get it together in time. I'm very excited!

     I'm working on the Global Learning/Gap Year project too. I will probably be seeking some money from some foundations to hire a full-time coordinator for a few months to get this off the ground.I will ask for enough money to pay the coordinator and fund the beginning steps of the project.

     I'd like to start with a focus group of people who are knowledgeable and experienced in the areas of international exchanges, youth organizations, foundation grants.....and more. Maybe some high-recognition people like Rick Steves and Oprah and Michelle Obama (those three will all be invited). I haven't completely thought it through yet. But it's moving along. A friend is working on a budget.  We will probaby be asking for $25,000 to start it all up.

     I'm thinking that the focus group should take place in DC, sometime in May. I'm open for thoughts on where to meet. A university? An international organization with offices in DC?

    And the big meeting, with hundreds of volunteers, perhaps in September. Any ideas of a camp or retreat center that would work for the big meeting? Do let me know .  I'm open to suggestions.

That's all for now.                                  Best, Rita

 

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March 6, 2009

Barcelona, Spain  (my new favorite city)

Hi,

     I’m sitting in my apartment here listening to the wind whistle outside and watching the leaves on my patio plants dance, violently. It’s actually pretty warm out there; the sun is shining and the sky is blue, but something must be on the way. Or maybe Barcelona is always windy. Or maybe this apartment on the fifth floor is always windy.

     Actually, the apartment is wonderfully located and very comfortable, but I still haven’t figured things out yet. My shower doesn’t want to let me luxuriously bathe with hot water; it’s more like a trickle of warm. Definitely better than bathing with orangutans in a crocodile-river in Borneo, but not what I expected in Spain. One of the reasons I’m in Europe is that, at 71, I’m not too keen on crocodile rivers in Borneo any more.

     And my telephone keeps playing a little four-note tune. Corinne (the person I’m renting from) says it means the phone is charging; but it has been sitting snuggly in its little stand for 24 hours. It can’t still be charging. I think that song means there are messages, but there is no answering machine and no number to call to get messages. Ah, life’s little mysteries.

     Then two days ago, for no reason, my internet connection (cable) went down. That has happened to me before (actually in Atlanta) and I had to unplug the modem and then turn it back on. It was fairly easy when the Comcast guy was at the other end of the phone; I could probably do it again. There’s just one little problem. The modem is inside a locked room out of which, under the door, snakes the cable that I use.

UPDATE: It’s the next day and while I slept,

The Internet crept back into my computer.

Hooray, I’m in business again!

     I’m working hard on two projects. The first one is trying to find organizations in New Delhi that are involved in helping with the education of the poor (see an earlier entry about where the money is coming from). I need to partner with a U.S. tax-exempt organization with a presence in India to administer a program that will send high school graduates from the slums (there aren’t that many) to vocational school. I have the money; I need an on-location administering group that is a 501c3, tax-deductible organization in the U.S. I have set up The Golden Fund, a donor-assisted, tax-deductible fund to park the money (it’s coming from an anthology I just produced. The book contract is being written to the fund. It’s slated for June of 2010 publication. The first third of $55,000 minus agent fee, should be in soon.)

     I’m up for any contacts or suggestions. I’ve written to a couple of Rotary people in New Delhi but haven’t heard back yet. Rotary would be good because I think it would open the doors to Rotary Clubs in the U.S. for promotion. There are several other organizations that I will be writing to this week.

     The other program I’m thinking hard about is my Global Learning idea. I’m hoping to create a movement in the US, in all the high schools, to send kids abroad for a year or so after high school. I just sent out my latest thoughts on the subject to everyone on my listserve. If you’d like to receive the still-in-the-works proposal, let me know and I’ll send it to you.

     I’m wide open to your ideas and contacts and I’m happy to add you to the volunteer list. I’m hoping to put together a big group of people over Memorial Day weekend (three months from now), somewhere in the U.S., to work on the feasibility and facts of making it happen.  If you have any ideas of a retreat center or summer camp where we can meet, please let me know.

     If you happen to be a foundation, I’d love to talk about some seed money for that meeting at the end of May. The Golden Fund could receive money specifically designated for Global Learning. It’s still in the process of getting authorized under a larger foundation. I’ll post the details of how to donate when I have them.

     I’m thinking of organizing the meeting with the structure of a “charrette.” Look up “charrette” in Wikipedia and read the part about community organization. I’m also collecting names of people who want to participate.

           

     Oh, and before I check out, if you are interested in some French cooking classes, maximum four students at a session (three full days of shopping, chopping, cooking, and chomping) with my charming, funny, professionally-trained chef and friend, Lars, in Nantes, France, probably in September, send a note to Nirin_Lars@hotmail.com.  They will send you the information you need. I convinced Lars to give the classes for all those people who have written me for suggestions on how they might “step out of the box.” This would be a great, safe, and fun way. There’s even a possibility that I might drop in.

                                Thanks for stopping by, Rita

                                                

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notepad

 

VaughanTown

I know that many of you are waiting to hear about VaughanTown. It was a lot of fun, though not altogether what I had anticipated.

First, the fun part, which more than made up for the couple of disappointments. We were 19 Anglos and fifteen Spaniards….everyone warm and friendly and eager to get to know each other. The group from Spain were all students in a ten-month intensive program to learn English; it’s called the Masters. They usually have five classroom hours a day…and five homework hours. That’s ten hours of studying every day….more time than I’ve ever put into learning anything. The results are fantastic. They are all speaking and understanding just about everything. And they have six more months to go! The course, for them or their families, or (in this group not too many) their businesses, costs 17,000 Euros, more than $20,000.  They participate in four, five-day immersion programs with us English speakers, talking non-stop. Their dedication is incredible……and their spirit is too. I have never laughed so much.

The week with us Anglos is non-stop talking and listening….from nine in the morning until after dinner (served at 9 PM). The program is tightly organized with a new one-on-one partner every hour…for six hours of the day. There is a break from around three to five. And there are lots of group meetings too……games, skits, presentations, challenges. Dade and Carmen, the two facilitators were great.  Everything went smoothly and with a light, creative spin on all the programs. I felt inspired by the young people and there were tons of hugs when we left and lots of e-mails today. All in all a great experience.

The disappointments. The online website (www.VaughanTown.com) and the newsletter promised a country setting, free internet in the room, a pool, a spa, professional and business people as our Spanish counterparts, and terrific food.

At the last minute, the setting was switched to Salamanca; a beautiful town, but definitely not country. I thought I was going to be in a country village and instead it all took place in a hotel (we also walked around the town while talking).  There was no free internet in the rooms and the hotel was asking an astronomical price to give it to us; no spa or pool either. The food was adequate, but certainly not terrific. And instead of business and professional people, our Spanish counterparts were students in what they call a “masters program,” many of them just out of college. I did love them…they were funny, creative, driven to learn and to get what they could out of the experience, and great to hang around with; but next time I’d like to experience the more mature crowd of doctors, government officials, business men and women that subscibe to the five-day program only.

I did have a terrific time, but, as I said, there were those switches. I'm addicted to the internet and I needed it in my room!

As I said, the job of the Anglos was to talk, mostly one-on-one (scheduled), and participate in whatever other activities were scheduled. Breakfast was at 9, there were six hour-long one-on-one’s in the day. There were times for presentations, games, discussions…all designed to immerse the students in English. Everyone worked hard.  And many drank hard at night (dinner was from 9 to around 10:30) in the nearby bars. I would do it again, and may before I leave Spain. Dade and Carmen, the people who ran the program, were terrific and very good at their jobs…warm, caring, funny, and exquisitely organized. The program ran seamlessly.

The Anglo participants were mostly from the UK, a number of ex-pats living in Spain, another nomad (male) like me, and several who had done numerous weeks with the program. As I said, I would do it again, happily; but next time I hope to do it with a professional and business-people group, just for some contrast. www.vaughantown.com

I did discover that there is a competitive program that is similar, set up by a former partner of Richard Vaughan. If you are interested, you might want to check that one too.  www.puebloingles.com  I’ve heard good things about them too, and I am expecting a report next week from a friend who is there now.

I do recommend the experience. I’m glad I did it. I met some wonderful people, both Spaniards and Anglos.

I fly to France to visit Lars and Nirin tomorrow, the 3rd and I’ll be back in Barcelona on the 17th.  I still don’t know if I’ll stay in Barcelona or travel around Spain. I’m thinking of staying, but I haven’t made up my mind.

That’s it for today.

Best, Rita

  

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January 25, 2009

I'm in Madrid...jet lagging (it's the middle of the night). I thought I slept it off yesterday, but I guess not.

Tonight was a tapas reception given by the folks at VaughanTown to the new crop of English speakers (see Dec. 17th below). We get on a bus tomorrow morning for the three-hour trip to Salamanca, their newest venue.

I do have to say that DC was amazing last week. I got to the concert on Sunday, and it was thrilling. I've never been a part of so many truly happy people, all of us reaching out to whomever was standing within touching or hugging distance.

I was staying in VA and decided not to venture the closed bridges, the shut-down metro stations, and the long walk to the mall. I had a wonderful alternative.  A house party with about thirty activist Virginia pols, most of them together since they worked in the civil rights movement back in the 60's.

The excitement and tears and cheers were fantastic. I felt honored to be a part of them (my friend, Susan, who has been a friend since we were kids in Bridgeport, CT, was my connection.) The biggest cheer went up when the wheels on the helicopter lifted off the ground.

I conclude with an e-mail I received from Wendi Rosenstein. From now on, no more looking back. With all the problems Obama has inherited, I have faith that the future will be something I can be proud of. I have never felt so great about being an American!!  

 

Dear World:

We, the United States of America , your top supplier of the ideals of liberty and democracy, would like to apologize for our 2001-2008 interruption in service. The technical fault that led to this eight-year service outage has been located, and the software responsible was replaced November 4. Early tests of the newly installed program indicate that we are now operating correctly, and we expect it to be fully functional on January 20. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the outage. We look forward to resuming full service and hope to improve in years to come. We thank you for your patience and understanding.

Sincerely,

The United States of America

 

I'll be back when I finish up in VaughanTown.      

Best, Rita

 

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December 29, 2008

Well, the year is almost gone. I'm still in Seattle.......working on two kids' books that I hope to carry to NY when I leave here on the 6th. It's fun to be writing a kids' book again.

In a few minutes I'm going to get back into the little world I'm writing about where the characters eat "beetles and bees and bugs and slugs." Yummm. But before I do, I just want to send you to an op ed piece from today's NY Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/30/opinion/30herbert.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

It's pretty powerful....lest we forget.

Happy New Year.                    Love, Rita

 

PS  I just got an e-mail forwarding me this article from the Washington Post. It is one of the most moving pieces of feature journalism I have ever read.  Save it for when you have about half an hour to savor it.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html

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December 19, 2008

The snow came to Seattle yesterday. I never left the house.  But today I ventured out, and we have about six inches of snow on top of some serious ice. I could barely walk (found a ski pole and that helped). I cleaned the car hoping to drive to the post office with a package for Cris......but I looked down my hill and decided I'd never make it back up.

Couldn't even get the car up my driveway-hill (Before they left for Phoenix yesterday, Jan and Bill opened a space in the garage, but I started to skid halfway up), so the car is back on the street, somewhat clean of snow. Given the ice under the driveway snow, that car is probably going to live on the street for the rest of my time in Seattle (until January 6th).  Not a plow or a shoveler in sight. It's beautiful....just not all that practical if you have to go places.  Even Roxy wasn't much interested in running around. I tried to get her to play, but she just wanted to sit in the car with me while it and we got warmed up. Kids are sledding, tubing, and sliding down my hill. It rarely snows this much in Seattle and they are very happy. There are almost no cars on the road.

Maybe I'll get some work done.   rg

 

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December 17, 2008

I made it to Seattle. Now I'm working on a new listserve letter, opening months of mail from my post office box here (most of it requests for donations), and before I leave Seattle on January 6th when I'll be flying east for two weeks (including January 20th in Washington, DC!! Hooray!!), I hope to finish a new kids' book to bring to NY. (I hope you took a deep breath before you read that last sentence.)

I fly to Spain on January 22nd.

If you are an extrovert, like talking, and haven't checked out Vaughan Town in Spain, do it now. I plan to be there the week of January 25th and probably for a second week at some point. I'll be in Spain for three months and they have new programs every week. Today I got the Vaughan Town Newsletter telling me what to expect.  Check out the newsletter, but first go to their site for on overview of what they're all about.   www.vaughantown.com   

Don't know why that didn't turn blue, but do go there first for an overall look at the program and pictures of the places; then go to the site below for details of the program.

http://www.vaughantown.com/english/newsletter3.pdf

They even sent me the e-mails of the other English-speaking guests. It really sounds like fun....and work. I can't wait. I speak some Spanish, but none is permitted on the site.

While I'm in Spain, I'm planning to fly to Nantes to visit Lars and Nirin in France (they are in the book!) and maybe to Frankfurt to visit an international school....if they want me and are willing to pay travel expenses. I'd like to visit a couple of international schools in Spain as well, but I haven't gotten around to writing to them yet. If any of you have contacts at English-medium schools in Spain, write me. I'd love some leads.

OK.  On to wrapping Christmas gifts, writing that listserve letter, and then visiting Chloe, my friend Heidi's new baby. It's freezing cold here and snow is predicted. I love snow; so bring it on!

                                     Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Happy New Year

                                                      Happy Kwanza and Solstice too.

                                                                    

                                                                     Love, Rita

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December 3, 2008

I'm in the process of closing up shop in Atlanta where I rented an apartment next to my son and grandson for three months. One minute it was unfurnished....then the rental stuff arrived. Couch, bed, tables, chairs, lamps, chest and all the other stuff a person needs, like blankets, sheets, towels, shower curtain, dishes, pots and pans, dish towels, silverware....it was amazing. I got it all in one place (Aaron's), one package...and on the 11th, it all goes back. I fly to Seattle on the 12th. 

I'm still meeting readers wherever I go........and I love it. My world is constantly expanding. I'm so glad I included my e-mail in the book.

In Seattle I'll have some time with my daughter, take charge of grand-dog Roxy over Christmas, and on Jan. 6th I'll fly to NY, CT, MD, and DC. I'll also visit several elementary schools when I'm in Washington state.

I'm working on a couple of kids-book projects. I'm hoping they will be finished by the time I leave Seattle. I'll be happy to let you know when the books are settled into a publisher.

Then, finally, I'll be headed out of the US again. For Spain. My first week will be spent in Vaughan Town.  The Vaughan Town people have two country villages in Spain where only English may be spoken!!!  Spanish professionals and business people pay a lot of money to go there for English immersion! Like all the other foreign English-speaking guests, I have to get myself to Madrid.....then I will be picked up and delivered to a four-star hotel and fed three meals a day.  My job?  To talk English.  Several readers wrote me about the program and I couldn't resist. Google:  Vaughan Town.

I'll hang out in Spain for three months. I'm open to house-sitting opportunities there....and up for any invitations that might come my way. At the moment I'm writing to some international schools to see about teaching visits. And I hope to do some Servas visits as well (www.usservas.org).

I'm also planning to visit Lars and Nirin in Nantes, France. They're my friends, a chef and a doctor, who gave me that wonderful birthday dinner in Seattle. And there's a possibility of a visit to the international school in Frankfort, Germany.

I'm back on the trail of the collaborative story/cookbook. It's sitting on someone's desk at Crown/Random House.  When I know more, I'll write more.

Hmmm.  During the campaign it was much easier to fill this space with interesting stuff. I'll be back again when I have something else to say.

I plan to be in DC with politically active friends for the inauguration. I know Obama is going to call on us all to participate in a very active way in his administration. I'm waiting for the call and I'm very willing to help. We're a country in a lot of trouble!

After the last listserve letter one of my enthusiastic readers, Tiurlan Sitompul, wrote to say he wished I had set something up where readers could talk to each other. I told him I wasn't up to it, but then he volunteered. He has just started an interactive blog for those of you who want to share stories and "talk" to each other. If it interests you, send him a note.

                                                      talesoftravel@yahoogroups.com

Happy Holidays.                Love, Rita

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I posted this on October 1, 2008. Peru and Mexico were my last out-of-the-country trips.

OK. It's time to talk a bit about my summer trip to Peru.

.

Peru was wonderful. There were six of us in the forest village of Pamashto, helping to build a lunch room in the school, working alongside parents, teachers, even the principal, whom we all loved.  Preparing holes, cutting wires, twisting them around rebar posts (those tall iron posts that reinforce the cement)), carting cement, pouring it, and more.  

The village was in the forest, in the northeast mountains of Peru. Waterfalls, rivers, trees, fields of corn and beans and oranges, but mostly trees. There were moments when I would stand on a hill and look out at the mountains, at a sky that was bluer than any I had ever seen and clouds that were puffier and whiter. And the night sky was breathtaking. That “I’m-so-lucky-to-be-here” emotion surged through me throughout most of our one-week visit.

Each of us lived with a family, and we all felt blessed, both guests and families. There were hugs and tears when we left.

I turned 71 during our visit and I definitely felt my age. I’d spent most of the last year in the Seattle area and hadn’t taken on any physical challenges. I did discuss this with the Global Citizens Network (www.globalcitizens.org), the people who sponsored our volunteer trip (and lots more all over the world. Check them out and pick a trip. It was great!)

Before I signed up, I was worried that I might not be up to the physical labor. They assured me that I could work at my pace and capacity.  I did. I wasn’t up to shoveling cement or digging pits or carting pails up ladders. I cut wires, twisted them, watered cement pillars, taught an English class.  But I definitely didn’t contribute one/sixth of the work. (It’s not fun to face the facts of aging…and I was disappointed in my weakness. The group was understanding. It was my problem, not theirs.)

When our trip was over, we spent a couple of days in Lima. We all went para-gliding off a cliff, over the ocean. It was awesome!!! I loved feeling like a bird and I’d go up every day if I could. It was tandem....which made me a passenger. All I had to do was fly!!

And then we all went in different directions.

I spent ten more days hanging around Peru…I visited the northern coast and stayed with Maribel’s family in Chiclayo. Mari is a nurse whom I had met in the village (when I met her she was helping to start a library in Pamashto). We had time to visit some fascinating ruins….uncovered in archeological digs. Peru is loaded with fascinating ruins. (I didn’t go to Machu Pichu. I decided that I wasn’t up to summer crowds.)

Finally I spent four days with two wonderful Servas families (www.servas.org) in Lima. 

After Peru, I took off for Mexico to spend a couple of weeks with my grandson, Cris, his mom, Melissa, and two friends of mine, Renee Nicolo (her son, Daniel, was working as a “manny” for Cris) and Billie Letts (author of “Where the Heart Is”) who just finished a book tour for her latest, “Made in the USA”). I met Renee when I was hanging out in Reliance, Tennessee; and I met Billie, Renee’s friend, when we got together in Mexico. We all had a great time in Todos Santos, Baja Sur.

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September 13, 2008

Telluride and Ridgway, Colorado, were gorgeous; and my talks (four to kids, two to adults) went well.

It snowed in the distant mountains, first of the season. Yesterday morning the sky was blue, the clouds were glowingly white, the trees were still green, and the distant mountains matched the clouds. Absolutely spectacular.

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From my August 30th entry:

I apologize to all of you whose e-mails have been sitting in my Inbox for a few months. I intend to answer you all....don't despair or disappear!!     

The story/cookbook has not been abandoned. There's a new proposal (thanks to Maria who assembled it while I was in Peru) on my agent's desk. Hopefully she will do something with it.

Love, Rita

 

(I didn't do anything with my computer when I was in Mexico and Peru....thus the huge gap in entries.)

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June, 2008

I'm still in Reliance, Tennessee...for another nine days. Then I'll be in Texas until I go to Peru. My niece lives in Houston, and my brother and sister-in-law have just moved down.

Yesterday I made balloon animals at the Athens' Fisher Library Festival- launching the kids' summer reading program. We went through more than 300 balloons! Hats and dogs. I decided not to make swords, which can turn a peaceful event into dozens of sword fights. Balloon-swords don’t hurt anyone, but they are symbolic.

It's easy to learn to make balloon animals; there are books and online lessons too. I learned how to do it when I was at clown school in Minnesota several years ago. You can order balloons (260's) and a pump online. Go for it. It’s a fun skill to have.

I’ll be going to Peru on the 27th, and I'm trying to figure out how I can limit my Peruvian baggage to one large book bag. While I was in Athens yesterday, I bought a maroon duvet cover at Goodwill, and today I cut it in half and turned it into a lightweight sleeping bag with the help of my friend Renee and her sewing machine. I also bought a thin towel, the well-worn kind most people give away, to add to my travel pack. Three pair of pants, five tops, a sweatshirt, a flashlight, a small toiletries bag, sandals, sneakers, a cap, and hopefully not much more. I'm just starting to think about what to take. Traveling is so much easier if you don't have to carry a lot of stuff.

Tarapoto, Peru, is in the mountains and I promised myself that I would walk and get in shape before I left. But once again, I am failing in the physical fitness department. This time I'm using the weather as my excuse. It's very hot here in Tennessee and I don’t feel like exercising.

My garden isn't doing very well either. It's sort of a grass forest at this point. I'm too lazy and it’s too hot to weed.

  

Last night I wrote to Maria in Mexico and she is having a go at shortening the proposal for the collaborative story/cookbook so we can sent it out again.

That's all for now.  More later. Thanks for coming by.

 

Rita

 

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Thursday, May 29, 2008

I have another three weeks and then I’m off again…to Texas. For now, I’m loving Tennessee and all my new friends here. And the trees and the birds and the river and the garden, all pretty much in my backyard.

The peas and beans are more than six inches tall; I have to get out there and string up something for them to climb. The corn is nearly to my knees. And there are tomatoes on the four big plants (the smaller plants aren’t doing anything). And the millions of tiny lettuces are almost ready to be thinned. The last garden I planted was in Massachusetts more than forty years ago and we couldn’t even put the seeds in until after Memorial Day. Yesterday I went out to visit the garden and a rabbit hopped away! Not a good sign.

A few miles from my house here in Reliance, Tennessee, is a Mennonite community. They have a farm market where they sell wonderful vegetables which they grow and I’ve been going there since I arrived. The people who work in the market are all men from the community, bearded and clothed in dark colors. I’ve never seen a woman except occasionally in horse-drawn buggies on their way to town. Then, last week, I was walking on a beautiful trail along Gee Creek when I stopped to rest near a small waterfall. After about ten minutes, six beautiful women in long blue dresses and white caps were walking toward me. It was a scene that could have been out of a fairy tale. A mother, four daughters, and a friend. The five girls were all under twenty two.

We talked for about fifteen minutes and I asked them if outsiders were permitted to visit the community. They said yes and we made a date. A few days ago I visited Michelle’s house. She and three of her five brothers spent an hour or so chatting with me. They live without electricity or phones or machines of any sort.

There was a ton of laundry in their yard, literally hundreds of shirts, pants, and dresses all strung up on multiple clothes lines. I asked if they did all that laundry by hand and they said no; they do it with horse-power; horses turn the paddles that wash the clothes in a huge tub!!  They could teach us a lot about living naturally in a world that is choking with pollution and going to war over oil. I plan to go back next week to learn more; Michelle promised me a buggy ride around the community.

Yesterday I had lunch with Rozetta Mowery whose book I was given when I arrived here in Tennessee. Her memoir (TRAGEDY IN TIN CAN HOLLER) is absolutely horrifying. Her grandmother was a beautiful serial killer who lured men into her home and killed them. Grandma Grace also had babies she didn’t want, so she chopped them up and fed them to the hogs. Rozetta’s father battered her mother to death. And Rozetta and five siblings were shipped off to a home for children that placed them in foster homes, some of them homes from hell. All of Rozetta’s siblings experienced abuse in their marriages, and a number of their children are carrying on the tradition. Rozetta is now in her fifties, beautiful, charming, and not the least bit crazy, which amazes me. She does a lot of speaking; her mission is to tell the world her story and to educate people about abuse and its consequences….child, spousal, elderly….even animal abuse.

Her website is:  www.tragedyintincanholler.com

 

PS There are about 12 migrating goldfinches crunching seeds on my porch at this moment. They’re actually flying around kicking each other off the perches. The goldfinches all take off when the red-winged blackbirds come along. They’re a lot bigger and more aggressive.

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Monday, April 28, 2008

Reliance, Tennessee

OK, OK. It’s time to talk about southeastern Tennessee where I have been for the past three weeks. (I’ve had two letters in the last couple of days asking me if I’m all right. Yes, I’m fine. Just having too much fun to write.)

Reliance is in the Cherokee National Forest on the Hiwassee River. It’s beautiful. Spring is exploding in these here mountains: newborn leaves, blossoming red-bud trees, white and pink dogwoods, lots yellow and purple flowers along the roads, gorgeous rivers, and warm sunny days.

Two days ago I filled the bird feeders and yellow, blue, red, black and white, and other not-so-colorful birds are constantly chirping and eating outside my living room windows. Only two hummingbirds have discovered the sugar-water, but I’m hoping they’ll tell their friends.

The cabin I’m in belongs to Rebekah Williams Cessna, a friend whom I stayed with in India a few years ago. She’s from here, and I used to tell her I’d love to get to know Appalachia. She wrote a few months ago and invited me to hang out in Reliance for a while. She’ll be here in two weeks. Her father, my new friend, Baptist preacher Jimmy Williams and his friend, Martha, took me for a drive along the Tellico River a week ago….waterfalls, rapids, fly fishermen, a trout hatchery, all tucked into mountains that are turning greener by the minute. It was spectacular.

My first community event, just a few days after my arrival, was a graduation ceremony at Miracle Lake, a rehab center that focuses on helping newly released prisoners to accept Jesus in their lives. The celebration and ceremony were deeply moving. The three graduates gave “testimony” to the dramatic change in their outlook on life and their new hope for the future. The parents, grandparents, kids, siblings, and friends of the three graduates spoke, and we all cried. Then there was more than an hour of fabulous Gospel singing….groups, soloists (including my friend, Jimmy), and those of us in the pews. It was a joyous evening. I love singing.

A week ago I delivered four of Rebekah’s antique quilts to the committee preparing a show at the Appalachian Heritage Museum in Athens. Rebekah is a collector and there are dozens of quilts in this house. I spent more than an hour at the museum learning about quilts from real quilters. I have a lot to learn, not only about quilts, but about faith and food and family values.

I’ve scheduled a couple of talks and school visits, thanks to Marilyn Joiner (a reader who e-mailed me when she discovered two months ago that I was headed her way) and Renee Nicolo, who runs a Young Authors’ Conference for local kids. I’m too late to be a visiting author at the conference, but I will be going as a guest.

Both Marilyn and Renee have been introducing me to local events and culture. I played Bunco for the first time the other afternoon in the Senior Center of Athens; I had breakfast at a local hangout; participated in two book club discussions in Knoxville and another at the library in Athens; I visited an amazing used-book store (McKays) in Athens). I’ve also been to two schools and am scheduled to talk in two more…first, second, third, and fifth grades. And I have two adult talks set up in May: the Etowah Arts Commission on the 15th at seven PM, and the Athens’ Fischer Library at one PM on the 20th.

And that’s not all. I’ve been busy. Rebekah’s brother-in-law plowed and planted a garden in my yard that will ripen when they are here over the summer. Corn, beans, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers. I’m planning to add spinach and lettuce and peas. I’ve been to church, shopped at Piggly Wiggly, gotten a membership card to Bi-Lo, and had family and new friends over for dinner several times.

Everyone I’ve met has been welcoming and warm. I get my e-mail down the road about a mile at the Fly and Tackle store. I can sit in my car and use their unsecured wireless. Jerry (most people pronounce it Jury) and Sharon, the owners, are another part of my education. Yesterday, I spent more than an hour in the store, talking, answering e-mails, listening to the fly-fishing guys in those rubber pants that go all the way to their chests. They buy lures, eat lunch (I had a hamburger), and pile up on bags and bags of chips. Jerry says mornings people buy stuff for fishing, mid-day, they buy lunch, and late in the day, it’s beer. (No liquor or wine in this county.)

My next door neighbor, Dane Law, leads fly-fishing trips in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Georgia. In the winter he guides groups in Pategonia, where it's summer. (www.southeasternanglers.com.

The other two neighbors that I’ve met aren’t technically local, they’re weekend- summer people from Chattanooga and Knoxville. And there’s a family across the street that I haven’t met from Atlanta, two-and-a-half hours away. The good news about the Atlanta family is that there are kids and they have two swings in their yard. Rebekah’s niece, Andie, has seven-year-old triplets, cute, smart red-headed boys who love that tire swing.

I knew when I chose to hang out here that I would be meeting lots of people whose views about the world we live in would differ from mine. That was one of the reasons I decided to come to Appalachia. I'm here to learn about a culture within a culture, not teach or get upset, but to learn. A sort of personal challenge. So far I’ve been able to listen and learn about other people's beliefs regarding faith, politics, patriotism, the War, immigration, states’ rights and lots of other things.I'm determined to bring the same "participant-observer" role here as I do when I'm in other countries. The questions I'm asking myself are: How do we develop our beliefs? What is it in our environment and upbringing and life-choices that determine our belief system? Does it ever make sense to think we have the only answer?

I'm enjoying the language and the sounds of Tennessee. My friend, Martha, says she likes to listen to me talk because of my accent. And I’m having fun with the local accent as well. The biggest difference is the long “i.” It’s “ah”  as in  naht,  or simple “ah” as in “I.”  Nahse, kahnd, Hah. One of these days ah’ll sit down with a friend and make a long list to put here. Ah’ll include some phrases too. Rebekah sent me the following a couple of months ago:

"You'ns" means You all and "Y'oun" means You in the singular. You might could get by with Y'all too as they have gotten used to that. Reckon and Yonder are not archaic there and "Tendin To" means Taking care of. As in "I reckon you'n is tendin to your grandbaby, then?" They are also extremely polite most of the time.

I’ll try to add to the list next week..

OK. Enough for today.    rg

 

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A special request if you are planning to e-mail me:  please put your city or country in the subject line. That way I can write to you when I'm in the area and perhaps we can have coffee. I've met some great readers along the way and I love the contact.

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Oh, and I have to tell anyone who wants to know, that I recently had a computer tech guy, Stan, over to help me with a couple of problems, and he convinced me that I should gradually wean my e-mailers off Hotmail and back to my webmail address (femalenomad@ritagoldengelman.com).  It’s the address that is in the book but I haven’t been able to access it for several years.  The Hotmail address is the one that has been on my website and most writers go to my website, get the new address, and write to me at Hotmail.  

While Stan was doing what tech people do to make things happen, he reactivated the above address, and 546 e-mails, which I never received, popped up, all of them written during the last year. (I guess they save them for a year.) If you are one of those people whom I never answered, I’m sorry. I wonder how many others were written in the years before that, when I couldn’t get to those either.

I’m going to try to answer them all….. but it won’t happen in a day. I apologize if you are one of the unanswered readers….but if I didn’t answer you, you probably aren’t reading this. If you are one of the ones from previous years, please write again….your earlier e-mail is floating somewhere in cyberspace, never to be read.

And for those of you who are using my Hotmail address……I will get your e-mails. Stan has had those letters “aliased” to my webmail account (don’t know if I’m using the word correctly)…..but it will be more direct if you write to me from now on at:  femalenomad@ritagoldengelman.com.

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For people looking for ways to live and work in another country

Have a look at the website, www.TransitionsAbroad.com. There’s stuff on teaching English, on cultural trips, on other jobs, and tons more. 

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Attention:  Book clubs

 

If you are part of a book club…..I hope you will suggest NOMAD as a choice…….and tell other book clubs how the discussion went. It’s usually a pretty lively evening.    E-mail and if I can, I'll "visit" your meeting on speaker-phone.  
.
Click here for some suggestions for topics to discuss.

At this point, book clubs are the answer to keeping the book in print, so any help is appreciated.

 

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Some interesting links:

As part of my new PR mode, I am inviting fellow writers with websites to exchange links. Here are the first five.

This is commercial but interesting and a fit with my passion about "connecting." Maura Cassidy has created cards with questions for family people to ask each other. I see it as especially useful if there are teen agers in the house. www.goaskanyone.com

 

Kelly Hayes-Raitt has shelved her political career to travel to countries that have difficult relations with the US.  Her blog, www.PeacePATHFoundation.org, carries her personal stories of the people she's met in pre- and post-invasion Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, and more.  She intends to travel to North Korea, Nigeria and Iran soon, putting a human face on US foreign policies.

 

Heather Hapeta is another passionate nomad. She ran away from her New Zealand home when she was fifty. She then reinvented herself as a freelance writer and wrote, Naked in Budapest. You have to buy it from her directly.

www.kiwitravelwriter.com

 

Beth Whitman is a veteran traveler. She has motorcycled, climbed, and wandered all over the world. Her book, Wanderlust and Lipstick, has some great advice for women who want to travel alone.: www.WanderlustAndLipstick.com  Her travel blog at the Seattle PI: :http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/travel

Meg Noble Peterson has traveled off the beaten track for the past twenty-five years. In her memoir, Madam, Have You Ever Really Been Happy? An Intimate Journey Through Africa and Asia, she writes about her first solo backpacking trip around the world--across four continents and twelve countries--from Cairo to contentious apartheid South Africa, to India, to the Himalayas. Approaching sixty, the newly divorced mother of five grown children takes off, armed with an open ticket, a backpack, a camera, and empty journals. www.megnoblepeterson.com

  (Watch for more.  rg)

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Promoting NOMAD

 

I’m trying promote TALES OF A FEMALE NOMAD to keep it alive.

If you are part of an organization that has a budget for speakers, I’d be happy to come and talk.

I do get a fee and travel expenses, unless you are a small book club and I happen to be around the corner.

Know any Women’s Study programs at universities or Rotary Clubs or travel organizations or AAUW meetings or Wild Women groups, or even not-so-wild women's groups? Whatever. If they have a budget for speakers, I’m up for the trip and the talk…and when I’m in town, I’ll throw in some free visits to classrooms to talk about and read some of my kids’ books. Second grade is my favorite age group.

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Calling all Nomads

I’m still looking for other long-term nomads so I can pitch talk-show hosts for a program on an “alternative” way to live. Nomad candidates should have already spent a few years "nomadding." They can’t have a home

somewhere….or lots of stuff in storage. If this show is to have an impact, we all have to be committed to the nomad way of life. I suspect we’d all probably have to do a short home video so the producers know what they're getting. I'm hoping to get to this after the cookbook is ready.

What's driving me is that I have lots of letters from people who say they read the nomad book and felt inspired to revisit their own dreams. Some took off….and they've "never been so happy."  Most of them are not nomads, but they have discovered that there is more to life than living it in a box. I’d like to reach millions . There is such joy in connecting!!!

I've also had a lot of mail from current and former Peace Corps volunteers.........and I just want to pass on the news to you alumni that a friend of mine, Jane Albritton, is working on a book about the first 50 years of the Peace Corps. If you think you might have something to contribute, check the website, www.PeaceCorpsat50.com.    

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Attention AAUW Book club members

 

I learned recently that AAUW recommends a monthly book to its Adelante book clubs. If you're a member, and if you think NOMAD would be a good choice for your club, I'd appreciate your recommending it. Apparently it's too late to get into the 2008 list.....but I'd take 2009! Thanks. Here's how to do it:

Download the ¡Adelante! recommendation sheet and fill it in.

The copyright date of Tales of a Female Nomad is 2001.

ISBN 0-609-80954-7

Publisher--- Three Rivers Press/Random House

Audience--- Adults

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Here are some web sites you might enjoy...


Global Volunteer Network   


Global Citizens Network    Interesting volunteer trips around the world. I like the people and I'm going to Peru with them in June, 2008. They tell me that they might be able to help with the

trip cost, so check out their website.

www.servas.org or www.usservas.org - Stay with the locals while you travel. Great and safe way to go.

www.bookcrossing.com - A way to liberate and track books by releasing them into the world as nomads.

www.wwoof.org - Working for room and board while on the road.

www.womenwelcomewomen.org.uk - Cross-cultural home stays with women around the world.

www.idealist.org - Volunteer opportunities, internships, jobs with non-profit groups around the world.

www.nancyzaslavsky.com - Nancy runs small culinary tours to Mexico. I loved the one I took.

rita golden gelman
You can order TALES OF A FEMALE NOMAD today.
If you are planning to buy TALES OF A FEMALE NOMAD online, you can order it now, thr
ough this site at Amazon (Paperback - Hardcover). If you do it that way, I will get an extra commission on all the books you buy (even someone else's).

 

rita golden gelman

rita gelmanRead about my children's books.
If you click on
Bio for Kids, you will find a bio written for children. There is also a list and description of my books. Eventually I will include the full text of some of the books that are out of print.
rita gelman

E-MAIL ME

femalenomad@ritagoldengelman.com