The Bangui Magnetic Anomaly, refers to a variation in the Earth's magnetic field centered at Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic.

I wrote a story with the same name in response to a friend's question—what is a day like in the life of an aid worker in Central Africa?

The article was written, beer soaked and sunburnt on a back porch, under the cumulative effects of constant low-grade warfare. Magnetism refers to the desire to understand humanity. The anomaly was that it entailed conflict. In Bangui in 2014.

I tucked into the correct latitudes, paid for experience with sanity, managed to hold out, albeit only for a year, and bore witness to the world. But the world was gazing back. And it knew what it saw.

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If you enjoy what you're listening to but would rather hold these stories in your hand, say while riding on public transport to mom's house or to the mirage of self-actualization through travel, you can buy a book or two at miragetravelpodcast.com

I’m calling as I drive through Saxony Anhalt, in eastern Germany, because I’ve drank more coffee than water and need to talk.

We've talked a lot about travel in the past, you know, in our 20s, always writing to one another with the question of where to live. From ever-changing locations, we would hand in our trip reports via email. I would attach crappy poems from Mexico, and you would send photos from a punk house in Florida, the San Francisco Bay Area, the Pacific Northwest. There was you in Asia fighting windmills. Pity we never hopped freight together.

Then in our 30s, it was not where to go, but how to live. The questions about travel had answered themselves. But we never asked why we write, why we tell stories. Since I'm plowing the highway under a lead heavy sky and the cup of coffee is overflowing, why don't we start a conversation about why we write.

And if I told you a random story, say about Haiti, Palestine, California, or France then maybe we could find an answer at the end.

Intro and outro music the South Hill Experiment, Baird, Goldwash, Chameleons. Episode music Floral Shoppe by Macintosh Plus and Tastes Good by Paco Moreno

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I once thought each culture had its neuroses, I now think each culture is a neurosis.

Neurosis is defined as a particular atrophied behavior, the expression of which results from some sort of malady. Mental conditions that are not caused by organic disease, but involve symptoms of stress, such as obsessive behavior, but not a radical loss of touch with reality. You could easily replace the word neurosis in this definition with culture.

The malady would be, for example, the orderliness of German society. The French taste for luxury. Or the American drive to be exceptional. There’s that tweet that made its rounds on the internet captures it well "Every French beach town has a little café called like the Nautilus and every American beach town has a little café called Scratchy Dick’s Big Slut Crab Fuck Shack". Or the meme of a map of Europe divided north and south that names the upper half as potato Europe and bottom half tomato Europe. These stereotypes are just that, generalizations and tendencies that become apparent when placed in opposition to one another. International travel allows for this juxtaposition.

I grew up in middle America, in the northeast, lived in California, was born in the south. I've traveled and lived in Europe off and on for twenty years. What I’ve seen from the vantage point of international travel is that the view from the tower of babel is at best comedic.

French gangsters wearing jogging suits deal grams out of fanny packs at the Barbès Metro Station in Paris. Overweight Germans drive high performance cars in a hurry so as to respect the Prussian value of punctuality. And it took me years to realize I am incredibly American. I will tell you why I am American.

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If you enjoy what you're listening to but would rather hold these stories in your hand, say while riding on public transport to mom's house or to the mirage of self-actualization through travel, you can buy a book or two at miragetravelpodcast.com