“Are you sure?” I ask.  Max nods, “Yes, it’s better than sitting in a drawer. At least it will be used for something beneficial.”  Max is my ex-husband and good friend. He has suggested I sell my wedding ring to pay for a trip to the Congo I am planning. I like the idea. I can’t go without the cash.  I’m not celebrity and have no big Not-For-Profits or NGO’s knocking on my door asking me to represent them and inviting to pay my way. Simply, I am a single mother and screenwriter living in Santa Monica, CA.  I had to find a different path.

I’ve been an advocate for several years, working on the disarmament of child soldiers, the genocide in Darfur, and women’s rights in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But I felt limited in my ability to move our government, to move anyone into real action. So inspired by Nicholas Kristof’s May 31^st Op Ed in the NY Times about how college students should self-educate and experience the world beyond our borders, (third-world that is), I decided to take the plunge and go to the Congo to see for myself how I could help. I’m not the student Kristof exhorts, I’m 45 years old. (But hey, it’s never too late, and sometimes denial works to your benefit).

My journey to the Congo didn’t actually start with the Op-Ed piece, it started three years earlier with a dream,