21 Comments
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Megan LilyAn's avatar

Thank you for such a loving portrait of a people, not simply a location on a bloodied map.

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M. E. Rothwell's avatar

Ah thank you, that’s always the aim.

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Miles Kim's avatar

Haha love the extended aside. 6 hours well spent in my opinion-- keep up this labor of love!

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M. E. Rothwell's avatar

The frustrating thing is I found most of the information quite quickly but carried on reading because I had a hunch I was about to find some diamond out there among the weeds. I suppose in a way it’s metaphor for a foolish gold rush

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Nolan Yuma's avatar

I love this piece, Mikey! But you seriously distracted me. Now, I'm going down a rabbit hole to learn more about Lesotho's educational traditions and why it has one of the highest literacy rates in Africa. Also, the last two times I tried to vote, it says I'm not subscribed. There's some strange glitch. I vote Sana's – I always vote for the place I know the least about or never heard of.

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M. E. Rothwell's avatar

Huh that’s weird. I shall mentally add your vote for Sana’a (capital of Yemen) to the ballot

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Cindy O’Dell's avatar

That final proverb says pretty much everything about the world at the moment. Although I’m not a 100 percent sure who are the grasshoppers and who are the crows.

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M. E. Rothwell's avatar

😂 sadly I think you’re right

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Alex Adamov's avatar

Appreciate the time you put into creating these notebooks. Your glimpses transport me to these places!

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Kim Van Bruggen's avatar

A 6 hour rabbit hole. I salute your diligence at trying to find the best nuggets to share with us.

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M. E. Rothwell's avatar

🫡

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Andrew Smith's avatar

Loving the deep dives.

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Marco & Sabrina's avatar

And I thought we wrote about some obscure places! Fascinating....

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Marco & Sabrina's avatar

One of these days we should pick somewhere and write about it from our different perspectives ;)

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M. E. Rothwell's avatar

For sure!

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Marco & Sabrina's avatar

I’ll message you with some suggestions ;)

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Diane BF78's avatar

Love this!

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Renee Hale's avatar

Wow, home to only 2 million people. I live in a city 4 times that size. No wonder I feel like I don’t know my neighbors!

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Aleksandra Buncic's avatar

Wonderful piece! Besides the captivating story about the country and the people, I particularly enjoyed photos. Such serene landscapes!

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Brian Funke's avatar

I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t know this was a country! 🙈

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Oct 5, 2023
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M. E. Rothwell's avatar

That’s a great question - let me know what you find. There’s definitely a relationship between being landlocked and slower development, though of course there are exceptions to that rule (Switzerland, Rwanda etc.)

I’ll make sure to include more donkeys from now on

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