My name’s Kari.  I graduated from Pepperdine University in the spring of ’07 and decided I wasn’t ready for the real world thing just yet.  So with a few years of video experience under my belt, I piled up the money I’d saved since I was 8, bought a camera, a laptop and a ticket to New Zealand.

 

I earned my keep by making videos, scrubbing toilets, waitressing, bartending, acting as a, ahem, “background artist” in some films, temping, being a door to door salesperson and making some more videos.  

 

And now?  A very circuitous route’s brought me to Boston where, well, I want to make more videos.  Even if that means having to scrub a few more toilets.

So 2 days after graduation my dad and I pack off for a 3 week hike in Turkey along a trail called “The Way of St. Paul”.

 

The trail passes through rural villages where people have never even seen a westerner, let alone a freckly one in a cowboy hat (me) with her seemingly ageless father (they couldn’t believe he was 62).  

 

So despite the total lack of a common language, people invited us in their homes, sat us down and stuffed us full of home-cultivated goodies: cheese, olives, bread, preserves and, of course, great sugary cups of chai (tea).

 

Dad teased that he was glad he’d brought his young daughter along as “Chai Bait”.  I say some people avoid crazy, others invite it in for tea.  Either way, for me the name evokes images of a sumptuous, mysterious land that helped define my love for film, travel and adventure.