Whether it’s tasting snake blood in Hong Kong, talking to local Malians about religion, raising funds for children literacy in Africa, or publishing her own graphic novel, Casey certainly is not living in the slow lane. Currently living in Rabat Morocco, she shares her stories and explains why being all over the place-both physically and mentally, is actually quite a great thing.

Age? 25

Where have you lived? States side: Brooklyn, Claremont (outside L.A.), San Francisco. Internationally: Beijing (China), Bamako (Mali), Timbuktu (Mali), Segou (Mali), Fez (Morocco) and Rabat (Morocco)

Where do you want to live? Shouldn’t everyone live in Paris for a time? Sigh…

Where do you work? Writer/visual artist

As you have lived in so many different places, tell me something about the importance, or unimportance, of environment.

I love to nest– I even rearrange hotel rooms; probably because my mom is an interior designer. On a larger scale, my city and neighborhood are almost more important than my actual building– which is why my boyfriend and I have survived strange living situations, like when we set up camp in the offices of a radio station in Mali. Not recommended to anyone for longer than two months by the way!

What are some of the biggest differences between living in the US and living abroad?

The biggest difference is that abroad you are without your network of anything or anyone familiar– and I’m a big fat sociologist at heart and believe that so much of who people are individually actually comes from the people and customs of which they are a part. It’s why there’s so much soul searching in traveling and living abroad; you’re constantly asking yourself things like: “Who I am here in Beijing? Is it the same person I am at home? Will I even be that same person when I return?”

Can you recommend a place everyone should visit before they die?

Anywhere you can only see nature in every direction because as much as I’m a city girl at heart, I think it’s important to be humbled by the absolute vastness of nature every once in a while. The Marzuga dunes on the Moroccan side of the Sahara are an inspiring place for getting cozy with the idea of infinity and your tiny place in it.

What is the most bizarre food you have ever tried in your travels and where were you?

Snake blood in Hong Kong. It was at a farewell banquet and hopefully it gave me the good luck that was promised.

In your travels, what are some of the biggest misconceptions about Americans?

Some basic misconceptions about Americans seem to be that we’re all rich, we’re all fat, we only speak English, and we aren’t religious, or if we are, we’re only Christian or maaaaaybe Jewish. You can knock out a lot of misconceptions in a single friendly conversation, but the hardest one to shake seems to be the idea that we’re all loaded; if only because most of us ARE in comparison to the majority of the world’s population. Living in Mali, which is one of the poorest countries in the world, this came up quite a bit.

What I find disheartening is the death of international news on American TV. You can see that just by comparing the news content on the BBC versus what you can get on CNN for example. Why do you think this is the case?

American news is definitely not as international as news in other countries, but I don’t think we’re totally unique in our circumstances. In journalism, there is always a fight between what is the truth and what will sell; what is “important” enough to get airtime is often a combination of the two. In America, international news-especially about long- term conflicts, don’t always make the cut. I think it’s important to remember that the industry’s essential freedom is protected. Sure an evening newscast might self-censor in the interest of retaining a certain sponsor, and of course the government doesn’t make every bit of information readily available, but people aren’t getting thrown in jail for writing critical articles about the President. In other countries where I’ve lived, they are. That’s huge.

Being Pitzer’s first Fulbright to Mali, why did you choose that path and how did studying the intersections of education and Islam affect you as a woman? What was the most challenging adjustment you had to make?

I decided to apply for a Fulbright to research education and Islam in Mali essentially because I wanted to live somewhere completely different from the States, use my French and Arabic, hang out with kids, and talk with people about religion. Doing it as a woman had its advantages; people tend to trust women with their children and I could interview fellow women more easily than if I were a man.  It also had its disadvantages: not always being taken seriously as an intellectual or a spiritual peer in a patriarchal society, but being white actually complicated things even more. I was especially lucky because I was living in Mali with my boyfriend Steven, a fellow East Coaster I met while studying abroad in Morocco during college, and so we could bridge the different worlds together. Sometimes though, it was tiring to be part of so many worlds yet not entirely belong to any one of them.

How much of your personal freedom did you have to give up when living in Muslim communities?

I would say that any of the personal freedoms I’ve had to give up in my travels have been as much because of local culture as they were because of Islam. For example, clothing: in Muslim places I dress more modestly than I do in the US, but that’s because it’s the cultural norm. You ask any Malian woman why she wears a long skirt and she’s going to tell you it’s the fashion, not that her local imam said she had to. So any beef I’ve got about not being able to wear a tank top there has to do with the society at large, which inherently includes the mosque.

80% of 10-year-old girls in the US have dieted and overall young girls are more afraid of becoming fat than they are of nuclear war, cancer, or losing their parents. What do you think needs to be done to address this? How do American girls’ perceptions differ from the perceptions of girls in the countries where you have lived?

Our American obsession with skinny girls is of course a sad one, and as the world becomes more interconnected I’m afraid we’re spreading this cultural disease to places that once had an ideal beauty that didn’t resemble a stick. But I think the best thing to do is not hate on skinny, but praise healthy. More specifically I think this means making exercise a part of our recreational culture and knowing more about our food. I know that I feel most happy with my body when I am healthy.

Back in 2004, Morocco adopted a new landmark family law supporting women’s equality and granting them new rights in marriage and divorce, polygamy, and custody of children. That being said, this is only one step in a much bigger battle involving women’s rights. Can you share some of your thoughts on what you have experienced in this regard during your time there?

The Mudawana reform of 2004 was a wonderful legal landmark, but from what I’ve heard from a lot of folks there, there’s still a big gap between what can happen on paper and what happens in real life. It might be legal to divorce your husband but that doesn’t mean the neighbors will like you for it. Still, even with room for improvement, it’s a wonderful thing to have that law signed by the Parliament and the King.

Name one thing you can’t live without.

My literacy. Reading and writing are a part of nearly everything I do. I can’t imagine my life without it.

What is something that truly pisses you off?

In the big picture, hypocrisy. One on one, being talked down to. Together it’s the worst!

I hear a book is coming soon in 2010 published by Roaring Brook Press. Congrats! Can you talk a little about the book and how you became interested in graphic novels?

My book is called “To Timbuktu”. It’s collaboration with my boyfriend Steven Weinberg. He’s pictures and I’m words and together it’s a big fat book about all the crazy people we hung out with and things we did while living in China and Mali for about two years.  I used to be more of a non-illustrated novel kind of gal, but Steven brought me deeper into the world of graphic novels. Now I’m addicted to reading them together and trying to do it myself. It opens up so many more ways to tell a story. Truly. We’ve got some sketches, sneak peeks at final art, and some sample bits up on our website: telephoneandsoup.com. There you can also see all the other kinds of stuff we make, like cartoons, stationery, paintings, zines…We’re kind of all over the place, but it means that every day is different for us and I love that.

Where do you see yourself if 10 years?

Ten years from now I’d love to be doing what I’m doing now but on a larger scale. I’d also like to get more involved with local language issues. After our time in Mali, Steven and I decided to help raise money to print books in Bamanankan for Malian students since through my research and our time teaching we realized just how important it is to be able to read and learn in the language in which you live and dream. So when we got back to the States, we created a nonprofit called American Friends of IEP (L’Institut Pour L’Education Populaire–Institute for popular education americanfriendsofiep.org) and partnered with a Malian nonprofit to create, print and distribute Bamanankan books. In just a few months we raised enough funds to give over 1600 kids books! It’s something I’d like to get into here in Morocco as well, because there are similar issues due to the fact that local languages are spoken at home while most of school is taught in French. So, hopefully in 10 years I will have been able to contribute to this cause more.