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America, America: Snapshots from a Continent
 
Perhaps it was the eight years of maturing in New York City, together with a melancholy about children I have rarely seen. I'm just too guilty to be charmed by the old vices of Spanish guitars and nubile bodies.
 
Various Authors

 

Lucy, You Got Some Spleenin' to Do
 
She tugged her thrice-pierced ear, crossed and uncrossed her legs, cleaned her shoe off with a tissue, dug deep into her memory bank, and whispered through her medical mask, "Two spleen."
 
Larry Jer

 

Don't Share a Cab in Peru
 
The Inca's brilliant purpose became apparent the moment the heat change brought the sweat to my back. "Up to five degrees at each level," Lucía explained. "Their empire stretched from Colombia and Ecuador to Chile, and from los yungas to la cordillera." They acclimated their crops to the various parts of the empire within these craters.
 
Jason R. Riley

 

Strangers in a Strange Land
 
We became obsessed with this small Laotian village across the river. We kept hearing music, exotic sounding melodies sung by men with high raspy voices through what sounded like a bull horn and accompanied by different combinations of drums, sax, guitar and keyboards. The music sounded like an experiment, as though Robert Plant and Jimmy Page had created Led Zeppelin in Laos instead of England.
 
Mona-Lia Ventress

 

The Shaman of El Mamon
 
The burro path leads us up the other side through great gray boulders, always climbing. All along the trail, the trees are filled with cacao, a whitish green fruit ripening into a deep red. An old woman from El Mamón has followed us to make sure we don't get lost.
 
William Reese Hamilton