Me standing at the edge of the Sahara in Morocco 11 years ago. I still have a blog up called Afriquiescence: Yielding to Africa. This picture is from the post titled, “From Merzouga to Marrakesh in Technicolor.” You can almost picture my future nappy dreads — which started forming soon after entering Ghana from Burkina Faso.

The Time I Traveled Through West Africa & Didn’t Get Killed by Terrorists

In Memory to Those Who’ve Given Their Lives Saving Adventurous Tourists

French commandos Cedric de Pierrepont and Alain Bertoncello were killed in Burkina Faso.

This is a simple story about how being a stranger in strange places isn’t as dangerous as we tend to project. How we interpret stories in the media, I believe, must always be measured.

And if you’re in trouble, it’s amazing to think heroes like these two guys to the left will give their lives to save your adventurous butt.

I’m just now reading Friday, May 10, on NBC News and BBC about two French commandos killed in Burkina Faso in a rescue mission to save tourists captured by kidnappers. You hear these stories every few months, it seems, as the Sahara and sub-Sahara regions of Africa increasingly are faced with the violence that comes from terrorism. When I hear of a hotel attack in Bamako, Mali, a violent beheading of two Swedish women in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains, or this incident that started in Benin and ended in bloodshed in Burkina Faso, they’re not random West African locations. A decade ago, I was there for six months and was in each of these places. I felt safe. I loved the…