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Three weeks ago, in the wee hours of January 29th, I was sitting in a hotel room in Miami Beach, filing a story on what proved to be the last rally of Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign. “Hi Andrea” read the subject line of an email from a friend of mine, Kinley Dorji the editor-in-chief of Bhutan’s first daily newspaper, and like me, a Knight Fellow last year at Stanford University. “I don’t suppose you have the time to come to Bhutan.” “Well, no” I thought, and after several campaign road trips over the last months, I didn’t feel like I DID have the time. But…Bhutan, a land-locked Himalayan nation bordered by China, India, and Nepal is not an easy place to get to. Tourism is tightly controlled, and you need to be invited to go. And the reason I was being invited? Irresistible. To train political reporters who are covering the Kingdom’s (yes, it IS a kingdom) first elections ever. To be a sort of midwife in the birth of a democracy. Who could say no? Not me. So despite the fact that I’d been missing my family and felt too familiar with too many hotel rooms and airports, and despite the fact I was at that very moment lamenting the fact that I was arriving in Miami Beach at midnight only to check out at 7, I said Yes. And tomorrow I am leaving for a flight that takes two days. I am going to the Himalayas. After so many hours spent stuck at O’Hare airport on the way to and from Des Moines, Iowa, I am going to a Bhuddhist Kingdom. If ever the word “Karma” should be invoked, it is now.