What’s it like to work amidst the Mexican drug violence?
In the past five years since President Felipe Calderón took office in Mexico, government figures show that more than 40,000 people have been killed in the country. The toll for 2010 was 15,237 — the highest number yet. Many people have had spouses, children and siblings brutally murdered, and many have to endure the machine … Read more
In wake of brutal murder, a nonprofit is born
Liona Lovings, now 52, grew up in the town of Pearl Lagoon, on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua near Bluefields. Nicaragua is currently the second-poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and the Caribbean coast is a particularly difficult part of the country to live in — it’s largely jungle, and is even poorer than the rest … Read more
What’s it like to massage a shark?
Alison Edmunds, now 35 years old, works as the exhibit manager at Melbourne Aquarium in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Aquarists from the aquarium occasionally catch wild sharks outside the aquarium and bring them in for public display in the aquarium’s large tank, or oceanarium. Here the sharks may also be used in groundbreaking shark reproduction research. … Read more
The ghost on the railroad tracks
Keawe Segi is 13 years old, and lives with his mother and grandmother in Lahaina, Hawaii, on the island of Maui. There are many ghost stories on Maui, which Keawe has grown up hearing, but he wasn’t sure he believed them since he’d never seen a ghost himself. In late September 2011, however, he had … Read more
On 10-year anniversary of 9/11, a first responder looks back
Where were you on the morning of September 11, 2001? It’s a question almost everyone in the United States, if not the world, can answer, because on some level we all knew when we saw the photos and video footage of the World Trade Center after the 9/11 attacks that the world would never be … Read more
What’s it like to be a Mormon missionary?
Mormonism has been making headlines lately: Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney’s U.S. presidential campaigns, Warren Jeffs’ trial and sentencing for sexual assault of two underage girls, and “The Book of Mormon” Broadway musical, to name a few. But what’s it really like to be a Mormon? Rolf Straubhaar was raised in the Church of Jesus … Read more
Booze, prostitutes, and Chinese thugs: A day in the life of a rural Czech villager
Jan grew up in a tiny village south of Prague in the Czech Republic. He lived the village lifestyle until his early 20s, helping his dad garden and care for cows, chickens, rabbits, and pigs on their family farm. But he wasn’t satisfied, so at 22 he moved to Prague to work in sales, and … Read more
So, astronaut Mike Good, what’s it like to go into space?
NASA launched the final mission of the space shuttle Atlantis on July 8, 2011, bringing an end to the American space flight program. So what’s it actually like to go into space? Here, astronaut Mike Good shares his answer to this question. Good has gone on two space shuttle missions on Atlantis. On the first, in … Read more
What’s it like to have an eating disorder?
In many ways, Michelle’s story is typical of teenagers everywhere: In middle school and early high school, she was struggling to be popular, figure out her identity, and gain independence from her family. The pressure to be perfect was mounting. Sadly, Michelle’s solution to dealing with these problems was an increasingly common one among teen … Read more
Dinnertime on Little Corn Island
On a trip around Central America in 2005, Leila Kalmbach spent time on Little Corn Island, a dot of land just over 1 square mile off Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast. The island is only accessible by a half-hour boat ride from Big Corn Island, and at the time only half the island had electricity, so it … Read more
