Rebecca Rainbow

It officially began at the age of 17 after winning a Rotary Club award for voluntary work with children with Severe Learning Difficulties. The trip took her to visit the then communist USSR; Russia and Estonia.

This was shortly followed by almost a year, living and working in a kibbutz in Israel. After being sacked from the orange orchard for singing instead of picking she found her home in the betladim (children’s house). She then somehow found her way home overland via Egypt, Crete (living on bread, margarine and melons for a month) and the rest of Europe.

During her degree Rebecca worked at Camp Lokanda, NY State, USA, living in a log cabin for 2 months with dozens of lively American children in a large Summer Camp. She explored, alone, the North American continent East to West and back again on Greyhound buses.

After graduating in 1986 and working to set up the HMV record store in London’s West End, Rebecca travelled to Australia, living for a year and working within Sydney’s music scene.

A brief return to England in the Spring of 1998 then catapulted Rebecca to India where, again, solo she explored the Northern and Western States, including Kashmir and Ladakh. After many months a wiser (and lighter!) Rebecca enjoyed the comparatively calmer waters of Thailand before setting up home in Tokyo, Japan. Work included; television (some shows still pop up on cable T.V in the U.K!), teaching English to children and adults and working in Tokyo’s night club scene. Rebecca had a happy year, enjoying the concise and very contrasting nature of the Japanese way. She still teaches basic Japanese to her London school children!

A year later she left Japan to investigate the stunning scenery and tribal peoples of Northern Philippines, then returning to Thailand and continuing on to Macau and Hong Kong preparing to enter in to China. It was now September 1989, 3 months after the People’s uprising at Tiananmen Square. It was a dilemma whether to cross the border or not but she went for it! Travelling solo for 4 months from East to West China to the borders of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan, Rebecca reached her destination of Kashgar (Kashi) through the Takklaman desert and the outermost regions of the PRC. The trip was often lonely and challenging. Barely any other travellers, just lots of enquiring faces – many of whom had never seen a foreigner before.

Crossing the country again, this time from west to east she exited China in style on the Trans Siberian Railway for 7 days through Mongolia arriving in Moscow with the smell of revolt in the air. After an illegal overstay in snow laden, hunger fuelled Russia Rebecca continued on to East Berlin jubilantly arriving as The Wall was being brought down! (“On time for something for once!”) She continued her overland journey from China through the rest of Europe.

It was not until qualifying as a teacher in 1994 at the age of 29 that Rebecca zipped off again, this time investigating the colourful people and textiles of Guatemala, travelling alone for 2 months.

A year later the stunning island of Madagascar, Southern Africa called and Rebecca travelled the length and breadth of the island over a 6 week period.

It was 18 years after her first visit that Rebecca returned to her beloved India for the 2nd time in 2005. This time focusing mainly on the southern states, including voluntary work with street children and teaching tsunami surviving children to swim at Amma’s ashram, Kerela.

In 2007 West Africa beckoned and Rebecca embarked on an incredible overland journey which took her through Mali; The Sahara for an extended stay in the desert town of Timbuktu, and The Dougon. Crossing borders in to Burkino Faso and then Senegal, culminating her 4 month journey with voluntary teaching at a primary school in The Gambia.

Other expeditions have included trips to the Moroccan Sahara, Eastern and Southern Europe and Mexico where she continued her personal tour of Mayan sacred sites first begun in Guetemala.

Rebecca keeps returning to India, visiting most recently in 2010, 2011….It’s those colours, those smells!!
Peru also beckons. Rebecca was told in a dream that she is to play the wooden Peruvian flute for children!
Where next?……