A couple of weeks ago, NYU Law School contacted me to inform me that I was a finalist for their Root-Tilden-Kern Scholarship. Its a full-tuition scholarship for students who are dedicated to using their law degree for public interest work. They wanted to fly me to New York to interview with a panel of seven people, including a federal judge.

Last week I flew to NY to do the interview and to visit NYU Law. I was skeptical about going back to law school at my alma mater, but on my visit there, I was impressed by the faculty and students and the support they seemed to give to people interested in public service. I also visited Harvard, but was disappointed in my experience there. (more…)

Before we left for Cairo, I got in touch with a former client of mine who works at American University in Cairo.  She offered to have someone meet us at the airport, and especially since we didn’t have any Egypt guidebooks yet, we were excited for the help.

When we got in, though, there were a line of drivers holding signs for people they were waiting for, but none of them were for us.  I walked through the line 3-4 times, but alas, no one.  At a moment of desperation, I saw a sign for “Harvard Business School Alumni” and thought about faking it. (more…)

More Shining American Moments

Lauren: Where are you from?
White Boy with thick American accent: Kenya, actually.
Beth: Okay, but where are you originally from…in the States?
White Boy: I grew up in Wisconsin. I go to school in Michigan.
Lauren: Huh. So how long have you lived in Kenya?
White Boy: Well, about 8 months.

(more…)

From Lake Buynonyi, we had an 8-hour bus ride to Kampala. When we got in, we grabbed a taxi straight to the (other) bus office to book our tickets to Nairobi the next day. The next morning, we ran errands, sending postcards and exchanging money, before getting on the 1pm bus to Nairobi.

The 14-hour bus ride to Nairobi got us into the city around 2am, but we were prepared — we had reserved a room at the Downtown hotel earlier that day. We managed to get a taxi to the hotel and got 5 hours of sleep before getting up to run more errands (internet and gift-shopping) before heading to the airport.

We still had a lot of traveling before us: a 5-hour flight to Doha, Qatar, then a 14-hour layover there before our 3-hour flight to Cairo. But that long layover was all part of the plan. (more…)