On this week’s show...

• A Street Vendor in Nepal sells  handcarved musical instruments that sound like a voice
• Peasants build robots in China, and display them in a new exhibit
• The new trend in tourism, visiting slums and villages
• When our assumptions about people we meet while traveling get turned on their head
• A drug habit in Yemen may make the city’s water supply run dry
• Tour guide training in India
• Finding the last player of the memm
• An audio postcard from a sunset camel market in Nigeria

Sarangi Seller (2:36)

It’s monsoon season now in Nepal and that means few tourists.  Street vendors in the capital of Kathmandu are accustomed to the slowdown in sales.  They don’t worry too much, as long as there’s been good tourist traffic in the few months before.  But that wasn’t the case this year because of volcanic ash over Europe that grounded flights and political unrest that shut down the capital city with strikes.  Thousands of people marched in the streets of Kathmandu and untold numbers of tourists called off vacations.  Shannon Mullen tells us about one street vendor there who’s feeling the pinch.

Peasant DaVincis (4:15)

Shanghai is host to the World Expo this summer, but it’s another exhibit in town that’s stealing the show.  It’s a display of robots made from scrap materials by farmers.  Rebecca Kanthor reports.

Poverty Tourism (14:00)

According to the U.N., there are more than 800 million people around the world crowded into slums.  They live in cheap houses, often with no access to clean water or sanitation.

And people are paying to visit them.  It’s one example of what’s sometimes called “poverty tourism.”  The tours are taking place around the world, from the slums of Mumbai to rural Masai villages in Africa.  Josh Ruxin is country director of the Millennium Villages project in Rwanda.  There are a lot of critics of poverty tourism, but Ruxin is a fan.  He talks with host Peggy Wehmeyer.

Stereotypes (2:36)

When we travel to a foreign country, we often bring our assumptions with us.  That’s what reporter Jina Moore did during a trip to the capitol of the Central African Republic.  As we hear in this reporter’s notebook, a brief encounter made her think twice about those assumptions.

What’s Cooking: Ackee & Salt Fish (5:10)

Jamaica is famous for its sun, beaches, music, and when it comes to food, spicy jerk chicken.  But Jamaica’s national dish actually is ackee and salt fish.  Ackee is a fruit resembling a tiny, pomegranate.  Salt fish is dried cod.  The dish is a fried mixture of chopped onions, tomatoes, flaked salt fish, and, of course, the ackee.  In the latest installment of our what’s cooking series, we’ll hear how the dish is prepared.  Reporter Judith Ritter takes us to the Roadside Grill in Montego Bay where Winnie Allen has been cooking up a storm for decades.

No More Water (6:10)

Experts say the capitol of Yemen quickly running out of water.  It might sound crazy, but the water crisis in Sana’a is due in large part to its unquenchable thirst for a narcotic plant.  Almost all Yemeni men chew ‘qat’, a habit that produces a mild high.  And qat farms are siphoning off a big chunk of Sana’a’s water supply.  Coupled with Sana’a’s exploding population, that means the city is emptying out its water basin at a staggering rate: about four times as much water is taken out as falls into it each year.  Dale Gavlak reports from Sana’a.

Global Guru (2:30)

What is a memm and who plays one?  Those are the questions guiding Rachel Louise Snyder as she explores a dying musical instrument and its musicians in Cambodia.  Here’s our Global Guru report.

New Delhi Tour Guides (6:45)

We all know how easy it is to take for granted those things we’ve grown up around.  But imagine growing up in the midst of historical monuments 700 or more years old and being oblivious to their history.  That was the case for many young people growing up in a relatively poor neighborhood of Delhi, India.  Then a non-profit organization stepped in to train young people in this neighborhood to become guides.  The training is a part of a larger project to restore not just the dilapidated monuments and gardens of the past, but also the living culture of the local community.  Sunita Thakur reports.     

Buying a Camel (2:06)

Camels are critical in parts of Africa and the Middle East.  If you want to buy one, they’re not cheap and haggling over the price is a long established standard in Nigeria. Sarah Simpson takes us to the camel market in Maiduguri.