Bedouin LifeStyle Camp (http://www.bedouinlifestyle.com) in Wadi Rum, Jordan was our first project. The Wadi Rum desert is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. I first traveled there in 2002 and returned in 2007.  Over the years, the town of Wadi Rum and the tourism infrastructure has grown tremendously. Gone were the days of pulling up on a little local bus, one a handful of tourists, and chatting with local Bedouins who had a jeep and taking off into the desert.  Today, there is a grand entrance to the town with a registrar and entrance fee for foreigners. Busloads of tourists descend, bringing much needed tourism dollars, and enterprising young Bedouins have built permanent tented camps in the desert to share their world. Our story focused on Attalah al-Bwli, one such young, local entrepreneur and his Bedouin Lifestyle Camp.

Congratulations go to Thia Konig!!!

The winner was chosen by random selection, but wanted to share Thia’s comment…

“Headed to Barcelona in three weeks, but need new camera bag. I hope I win the #Passportsling Lowepro is giving away!! Please, pretty please!!! It’s PERFECT!  I’m a pro, but travel photography feeds my SOUL.”

Excited the new #PassportSling will be making its first international trip soon.

Thank you for all of your responses!

Here’s me with the bag in NYC…

Like most photographers, I’m always searching for the perfect bag. In fact, I have an entire closet filled with bags – one for almost every situation – and the Passport Sling is my favorite walk-about bag.  I love it for shooting in urban conditions when I don’t want

my bag to scream camera, or when I’m traveling and want a more fashionable bag to take out to dinner.  It has a slim profile, padded strap and an expandable section and holds my Nikon D600 body with 24-70mm lens attached, CF cards, my phone, wallet, and other personal items.

You can win one TODAY!   Rules to enter are simple, and you have three different ways to participate. (Yes, you can choose just one way, or do all three.)

1. Send me a tweet (@alissaeverett). Mention why you’d love to get this bag in the same tweet.  Use hashtag #Passportsling  Not on Twitter?  No problem.
2. Share a photo of your current camera bag and why you need the Passport Sling AW on Instagram. Use hashtag #Passportsling
3. Not on Twitter or Instagram? Just add a comment to this blog about how you’d use the bag if you won. We’ll randomly select a winner on Tuesday, January 15, 2013. The winning comment will be posted here and on my Facebook Page - www.facebook.com/pages/Alissa-Everett-Photography/31510273675

This contest is open internationally, but void where prohibited. One winner will be chosen randomly. Good luck!

Read more: http://digital-photography-school.com/lowepro-passport-sling-camera-bag-review#ixzz2Hh3uVnjy

The camp was sobering – as refugee camps tend to be. Over 10,000 refugees from the latest fighting and approx 9,000 waiting to be transferred from the transit center on the border. Most fled as the fighting neared or had just entered their villages. The Congolese are sadly accustomed to war, and when they hear bullets they run. In the chaos, however, families are divided and women grab the children at home, having to leave husbands, other children, belongings, and animals behind. They literally have with nothing but the clothes on their backs and have no idea when they will go home or see their families again.

In the camps, they receive food (corn, beans, salt and oil) from WFP, a tent, cooking pot, spoon, blanket, soap and plastic bucket from the UNHCR, some firewood and very basic medical services. The kids play with plastic bags bunched together to form a ball or a car fashioned from empty plastic bottles.

While there, I watched new busloads arrive 260 in total, 78 families. Other refugees lined up, along each side of the road, everyone searching for missing family members or friends. Some embraced and greeted, other new arrivals continued walking searching for familiar faces.

And yet they smile. They laugh. They joke and greet you with openess and curiosity, they start small businesses (selling vegetables, telephone SIM cards, maize beer), help manage the camp, construct offices for the NGOs, etc. Their undying spirit and determination is humbling and inspiring. Facing war time and time again, losing all and rebuilding over and over, it is truly awesome. I met a man of 70 years old with his wife, “The war in Congo never ends..” He’s been living with this since 1959.

Trust in Education (TIE) is supporting those Afghan girls by building schools and supporting after-school programming in art, science and physical education.  They tackle with work on a grassroots level, their Afghan staff working directly with the local population, and that is why I decided to work with TIE.  Without much infrastructure or overhead, a substantial percentage of dollars donated directly impact programming on the ground.  My work with TIE put a face on their projects, most for the very first time.  I visited projects and villages, documenting the organization’s current work as well as the condition of schools and classrooms in target areas.  Traveling to remote villages, unannounced and anonymous, witnessing the girls’ enthusiasm underscored for me the great risk the students and teachers take everyday, and the passion and dedication with which they push forward from the repressive Taliban-era to modernity.

The Turkana people are pastoralists, living with and by their animals.  They move their herds and manyattas with the weather, following the rains, which provide their livestock water to drink and grass to graze.

The world is changing faster than the Turkana people.  Borders have been drawn, wars fought, and in the past decade, even the climate has changed.  The last great drought they remember in 2001. And since that time, they haven’t seen rain the way they once did, what was once forest and green plains, is now desert.  Spartan rains have left the soil parched and cracked, rivers and vegetation dried, and life is a struggle.

The past year has been the worst, over ten months without a single drop of rain.  The Turkana are surviving solely on the international community, their only water coming from the few bore wells and with most of the livestock having starved to death, the only food is international aid.

The Amazon is also home to over 300 species of mammals, 1,500 species of birds and 300 species of reptiles, with an average of 120 new species discovered each year.  She is as impressive as inhospitable, and we humans cling to her shores in stilt villages to protect again the floods.  Each year, when the rains come, her waters rise and fall with the rains, up to 30 feet, inundating thousands of square miles.

Right now is the time of flooding in the Amazon Basin, and last week I made my first visit to photograph and write a travel story for Traveler Overseas Magazine.

I returned to the US a different person, older, much wiser, more confident and with a part of me now tied to a distant village in Africa, a way of life and a family who had taken me in as their own and loved me.  I finally returned to Senegal last month after 12 years to visit my family and was welcomed with open arms.  They had moved to a larger town, my brothers and sisters had grown up and had families of their own, and though the time had passed, I felt like I had never left.  Here are some scenes of my latest trip.