For today’s episode, I’m in conversation with May Alherek, May was born and raised in Salamieh, Syria, and is currently based in Ottawa, Canada. May just completed her master's degree in environmental engineering in Canada with her thesis research on sustainable solutions to provide safe drinking water for low-income communities living in remote areas, such as refugees living in camps. From my conversation with her, I could sense a lot of pain in her voice as she was telling her story, yet a lot of resiliency, courage, and positivity. I also want to take a moment to acknowledge the massive earthquake that struck Syria and Turkey earlier this month. I deeply empathize with the people there and hope everything goes well.

I hope this episode helps you look at war-torn countries from a new perspective. My goal for this episode was not to dwell on war, and crisis because there’s already so much narrative available for that. I just wanted to get to know Syria from a perspective of its culture, history, and people. So that’s why I tried doing here. Hope you are able to enjoy this episode.

In this episode, I am in conversation with Krysten Kaladkarin. Originally from the Philippines, Krysten made the brave decision to leave her home and everything behind to embark on an epic solo adventure, on foot, hitchhiking around the world, collecting memories, and defying expectations, and all the stereotypes connecting to her identity as a "weak passport" citizen, and as a woman.

Krysten is currently based in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine where she is currently volunteering as an English teacher for an alternative learning school and raising funds to distribute humanitarian and medical aid in Ukraine.

Krysten is on a mission to touch lives through sustainable, ethical, and accessible travel. She combines advocacy and adventure and now wants to give back to the community through her blog and social media outreach.
From the entire experience of talking to her, I found Krysten to be extremely optimistic, energetic, courageous, confident, and with a strong desire to explore the world, meet people, and make connections. I gained so much inspiration from the entire conversation as she has a lot of great stories, and I was nothing but envious, equally, in awe of how she has been living every moment of her life as she should. I also deeply admire her ability to persevere through any difficult circumstances and keep moving like a true traveler, she's surely one of a kind!

You can follow Krysten's journey on Instagram and assist with her outreach work in any way possible.

In this episode, I am in conversation with Farishta Afzaly. Originally from Afghanistan, Farishta grew up mostly in Pakistan but is currently based in the United States, where she is also seeking asylum. In this episode, we talk about some of her personal experiences living in immigration for the most part of her life, while also touching on the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.

From the entire experience talking to her, I found Farishta to be smart, brave, resilient, and with a strong need to speak up for people’s rights in her country, especially for women. I hope you can take away something from this conversation as I did.