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news
July 25th, 2017 - idle facade, busy behind the scenes
Hey there everybody,
I hope all is well!
MilesAstray must have looked a bit static in these days, at least to those of you who follow me on social media and check in with my website regularly. Behind the scenes, however, I’ve been all the more active.
Over the last couple of weeks I have traveled to remote villages in Botswana to conduct interviews with Peace Corps volunteers for an article I intend to write. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the PC – it’s a US government volunteer program, which has been active in more than 130 countries since its beginnings in 1961. The core mission is to “promote world peace and friendship by fulfilling three goals: To help the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women. To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served. To help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.”
Since I am personally very interested in volunteer work with all its benefits and pitfalls it was an opportune moment to gain an inside perspective by staying with volunteers in various villages throughout Botswana, where the PC is mostly engaged in HIV prevention. The article will be published on MilesAstray within the next couple of weeks, but here’s a little appetizer in pictures:


HIV prevention lesson
office work


power outage at a volunteer house
Botswana view
latest moves
Right now I am in Zambia and a couple of days ago I visited the mighty Victoria Falls – mighty misty if you ask me. At this time of the year the Zambezi River carries so much water that the falls are but a roaring wall of mist for the most part. They are famed as the longest natural falling curtain of water in the world but only in dryer seasons you can see their full 2km span. Right now they are certainly impressive in terms of water volume though and just the right thing if you care for getting soaked to the bone on a hot summer day.

misty veil
My favorite view was completely for free by the way, just outside the National Park crossing Victoria Falls Bridge, which links Zambia and Zimbabwe:

view from Victoria Falls Bridge
latest content
As for MilesAstray, I just finished transitioning to the new design and finally I'm ready to post on a regular base, so stay tuned! Here are some new pieces:
countries | South America | Brazil
Rio de Janeiro / No Hard Feelings
distinguishing between place and experience
...my harshest criticism towards many travelers and especially the ones armed with blogs – that they don’t distinguish between a place and their experience there...
countries | South America | Chile
Valparaíso / TV, Tsunami, Neruda & the Quintessence of Hills & Timing
a matter of perspective and timing
...still, there was no denying that this little TV set now beamed some baffling information at us: an 8.2 earthquake off the Chilean Pacific coast was sending a Tsunami right our way and suddenly we appreciated every meter our journey had led us up the raven hill...
photos | essays
That Candid Moment Before the Mask
perfect imperfection before the stage is set
...portrait candidness is the short lived obliviousness before the stage is set and it thrives on the imperfection of anticipating the "picture perfect" moment...
photos | essays
Disposable Nature
human agency in the enslavement of nature
...equipped with consciousness we are quite possibly the only animal around that has a notion of tomorrow and certainly the only one capable of actively shaping our future days together...
Right now I’m in Zambia’s capital Lusaka and in a week I’ll be headed to Zimbabwe to shoot a wedding, which is a first for me, so wish me luck;)
That’s all the news for now,
Cheers,
Miles
newer updates:
August 16th, 2019 - work on the ground & online
December 16th, 2018 - balanced
October 16th, 2018 - transitioning
May 11th, 2018 - Nat Geo & travel staccato
March 16th, 2018 - bringing home why I set out
February 16th, 2018 - Winterstan
January 16th, 2018 - endings and beginnings
December 16th, 2017 - year coming to a close
November 16th, 2017 - back in the bubble
September 26th, 2017 - out here living these stories
older updates:
May 16th, 2017 - 5 years on the road
April 16th, 2017 - the makeover