In Angola, I visited 'HeroRats' that have been trained to sniff out land mines (and, in some countries, diagnose tuberculosis). In a day, they can clear 20 times as much of a minefield as a human, and they work for bananas!
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Working with kids in Soweto in South Africa, it's rough out there. But the bottom line is you've got to go to know. In Cambodia, there are 10,000 landmines. Same in Afghanistan, same in Colombia. I'm totally addicted to traveling.
Electronics companies are purchasing the minerals that come out of the Eastern Congo, and they are illicit; they're dirty.
When my kids started preschool, the teachers had to take away all the fake bananas because all the boys would pick them up and pretend that they were guns. Boys find sticks to play swords and anything that looks like a gun to shoot. It's just inside of them. It's who they are.
To be honest, I think bananas are a pathetic fruit.
I asked a Burmese why women, after centuries of following their men, now walk ahead. He said there were many unexploded land mines since the war.
Be able to recognize the dangerous snakes, spiders, insects, and plants that live in your area of the country.
On a regular basis, I conduct work in the Amazon, establishing trade for medicinal plants, and working with small communities to improve their economies and to help protect forest acreage.
What I remember the most really was just running wild there. Barefooted, swimming in dirty lakes, selling fruit, picking mango trees, hoping not to get caught because they don't take kindly to thieves in Africa.
I consulted a Chinese herbalist and spent two weeks on an island off the coast of Zanzibar. I was away from any kind of contemporary technology.
I'm cooking 42 years, and I didn't know bananas are good for my brain.