Not sure if this is the place where I welcome you to my blog or you welcome me to the Blogosphere.   Maybe we should do both.

I have returned this week from a very stimulating and helpful conference called MyCharityConnects in Toronto. I went there to get ideas about how to reach out to people about the charity that has consumed me for the past couple of years – The CanAssist African Relief Trust.   I came away with the instruction to “get the story out there” by blogging and Facebook and Twitter so I am going to jump right in.

I have lots of stories. And know lots of very interesting people in Africa.  I hope that by sharing them with you on this blog, I can excite you, too, in some way about global issues, reducing poverty in the third world and just being a global citizen.

I am very proud to be Canadian. But in the past several years I have worked in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina and made over a dozen trips to Africa and I have developed close ties with a family in Italy. I have families in all of these places that have made me feel like I am part of them. I have been given nicknames and pet names in several languages – Oseuri, Otim, John Ole Moiko, Amooti.  My family here in Canada all refer to me as Dedo – Bosnian for Grandpa.  So, although I am Canadian to the core, I feel very globally connected.  I care about all these people who have shown me love and respect and connection that is hard to describe…and in MasterCard terms, Priceless.

Since starting to work in Bosnia in 1998, I have published over 80 articles in the Kingston Whig Standard about my experiences. Perhaps I will uncover some of those to share in this blog as well.

I hope I can make it interesting. I hope I can entertain, educate and enthuse you.  I hope that you will give me feedback and that we can chat about issues and stories for which we share some common ground.

And what I have learned from my travel is that we all share a lot of common ground. This world.