Gelman - Female Nomad and Friends: Tales of Breaking Free and Breaking Bread Around the World

Praise for Female Nomad & Friends

Rita Golden Gelmans book pulsates with lifes flavorsboth in the stories and the recipes that accompany them. Remarkably, all royalties will be donated through two Rotary clubs to provide scholarships for young adults in a Delhi slum. As a Rotarian myself, I salute Rita and savor her book. So will you.

Karin Treiber, Ph.D., Rotarian, Minneapolis, MN

Thanks to Rita and her friends, the world just got a little smaller. This inspirational book simultaneously illustrates how large and small our global community has become. By sharing recipes, customs, and lives, we are ushered through an exotic world of experiences.

John O. Hishmeh, executive director, Council on Standards for International Educational Travel

These wonderfully poignant stories speak to the inner nomad in all of us, reminding us of the joy and warmth we feel when sharing laughter, tears, and meals across cultures.

Sara LaRosa, returned Peace Corps Volunteer, Tonga 20062008

Praise for Tales of a Female Nomad

I loved so much of your book, especially the part about how many of your adventures happened because you simply trusted people. You have renewed my faith in people and Im going to trust more!

Marisa Atamian-Sarafian, Oakland, CA

Your book consistently captivated me and filled me with the warmth of humanity. I was honored to vicariously participate in your experiences and appreciated your humble and personable approach. But most of all, I learned something about not only the fascinating places, but the nature of reality itself.

Tantra Bensko, Rainsville, AL

Im in my mid-thirties and struggle with having made some unconventional choices. It is really validating to read such an intimate and honest account from another woman who didnt follow a traditional path or do what others expected.

Elizabeth Olds, Washington, DC

Your writing, your spirit, your priorities, your outlook just wonderful!

Nancy Zaffaro, West Linn, OR

I LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!!!!!!!! Your life has been incredible.

Allie Hammond, Knoxville, TN

I am 18. After reading your book, I felt like the life I want to have, this interesting, magical, spontaneous, unpredictable life, can actually come true.

Chelsea Bickford, Lodi, CA

It is so refreshing after reading so many cautionary tales of how to keep safe while traveling to read about someone giving everybody a chance and taking each day as it comes. You are so inspirational to all women who feel that something is missing in their lives and feel there must be another way to live.

Gloria Knipe, New Zealand

Everyone believes im crazy for traveling the way i do, and after reading your book, they have a much better understanding, although most still think im crazy!

Elena Slagle, Sacramento, CA

I have just blown through your book in record time and find it the most refreshing and personally inspirational read I have had in ages.

Nora Dunn, nomad

ALSO BY RITA GOLDEN GELMAN

Tales of a Female Nomad:
Living at Large in the World

We are forty-one authors in this anthology, with forty-one ways of expressing ourselves. The editors have tried to retain the voices, styles, slang, even the punctuation idiosyncrasies of the various authors. Female Nomad & Friends is a celebration of diversity and a tribute to our shared humanity. We hope you enjoy traveling with us.

It was not planned; it kind of snuck up on me when I wasnt looking. E-mail was the vehicle.

Let me back up a little. Well, maybe a lot, because this book actually started in 1987, when I divorced, gave everything away (no storage), and took off with a backpack to start a new life. My kids had left home, my husband was an ex, and it was finally my time. I no longer wanted to live in one tiny dot on the giant map of the world. I wanted to explore, to adventure, to connect with the diversity of life on earth. I was ready to live my dream.

I turned off the volume of voices that said, You are running away! I knew I wasnt. I was running toward the excitement and learning that comes with connecting. I wanted to speak other languages, experience different belief systems, share ceremonies and foods, music and art, clothes and the daily lives of people who were different from mepeople with different eyes, body shapes, skin color, behavior patterns, religions, ideas. I knew that travel would also reinforce those shared traits that make us all members of one human family: the laughter, the tears, the need for community, the love of children, and that special tingle of pleasure we all feel when we touch each others hearts.

Connecting is still the central theme of my life. Instead of living within the constraints that tie us to a place, I chose to break free of the world I was living in. In 1987 I opened my life to otherness; it became addictive. I still have no fixed address and hardly any possessions.

I financed my addiction by writing childrens books. I didnt earn much, but that was okay because living in the developing world doesnt cost much if you live with the locals. And the rewards are extraordinary: new things to learn, new friendships to develop, and new ways of life to explore.

In May 2001 my first adult book, Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World, was published. Its about the first fifteen years of my new life. On the second-to-last page, against all editorial advice, I included my website and e-mail address. Back then it was rare to see an e-mail address in a book. My editor was afraid Id be swamped. I was, and I loved it.

Twenty-four hours after the book appeared in the stores, the e-mails began to arrive. (Apparently a lot of people read the last pages first.) The e-mails have slowed down after all these years, but I still meet new readers every day, and I write back to all of them. There are thousands of letters in my computer.

Readers have shared and continue to share their dreams and fears, their adventures and longings, their joys and pain. They share their lives as I shared mine in the book. It is a special kind of e-connecting, and I have been deeply enriched by the readers Ive met both virtually and face to face.

Everyone who reads the Nomad book knows that I have no permanent home; many e-mails include an invitation to visit, to occupy the guest room, to sleep on the couch. I often accept. As a friend of mine likes to say, Ive slept around a lot. Ive also shared tons of lunches and dinners and coffees with e-mailers. And Ive accepted hundreds of invitations to speak to organizations, to book clubs, and to classes at all levels. Because of the book and that e-mail address, Ive given talks in Antigua, Guatemala; New Delhi, India; Arusha, Tanzania; Paramaribo, Suriname; Vancouver, Canada; and hundreds of U.S. cities. The generosity and warmth of the people Ive met is overwhelming.

There are recurrent themes in my e-mails that led to the creation of Female Nomad & Friends. Lots of readers have written to tell me that Im living their dreams, but theyve never had the courage to act. And now theyre thinking,