This story is included in the award-winning Lonely Planet anthology, The Kindness of Strangers, edited by Don George and with a preface by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The book includes original stories by Jan Morris, Tim Cahill, Simon Winchester, Pico Iyer, and Dave Eggers, and won both a Lowell Thomas award and an Independent Publishers award. The story also aired on KUSF’s Traveling Music (now called Tales from Earth).

I didn’t know whether I was being kidnapped or rescued — that was what made my one big decision so difficult. That and the fact that I was young and foolish, and more than a little anxious about being stranded in the North African desert.

It all began quite innocently. Our bus had deposited Alan, my affable traveling companion, and myself at the door of a small, clean hotel in a dusty Tunisian village …
Continue Reading »