If you want to change the world, that passion usually came from somewhere.

Mine was in Ethiopia.  Bahar Dar, to be exact.

I was living in Addis Ababa for a year teaching English and traveled to Bahar Dar on a trip to visit an HIV/AIDS project.

I got to meet women living with HIV/AIDS and their children.  While I was holding one woman’s daughter, she asked me, “Will you take care of my children when I die?”

I had no idea what to say.  I believe I am still answering this question to this day.

But perhaps the passion seed was planted earlier.  I was in Ethiopia because I wanted to travel in the African diaspora, being half African-American.

I think identity has a lot to do with our passions, and I want to explore that more in my writing here.