My interest in travel & culture started at an early age through reading National Geographic and classroom
encyclopedias. I was born in the Inland Empire region of Southern California, and grew up in the high desert city
of Barstow. I studied journalism at Barstow College and won a 1993 national essay contest that posed the question.
Who's the most important African-American contributor of the late 20th Century? I chose Supreme Court Justice
Thurgood Marshall. Because of my essay, Pepsi Corporation awarded me a scholarship
and cultural exchange trip to Senegal West Africa, where I visited villages and met with students from Dakar
University. That experience awakened my desire to become a panAfricanist, leading me to my second trip to the
Motherland, when I stayed longer in the nations of South Africa & Namibia.
