“There is a bay in Mexico that’s very similar to the one here. I think you would love it,” Stefi told me. The pandemic had just began, and we were locked down in a traditional Amazigh fishing village on the Southwest Coast of Morocco with local fishermen, surfers and other travelers from around the world.
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Stefi, a kind and petite cycler from Switzerland, and her husband Lesther, a good-natured, gregarious surfer from Venezuela, had been in the middle of their cycling tour through Africa when they stopped for the night and pitched a tent in front of my flat.

Originally published on Medium - December 4, 2024

When I was a child, my father used to take us fishing. As a Bangladeshi immigrant, he had a nostalgia for things that reminded him of home. And this included fish. He was passionate about them — from catching them to eating them to examining the shining quality of their eyeballs at the market to determine their freshness. Dad’s face would light up at seeing a whole fish, whether on the Discovery Channel or in the supermarket. I suppose I inherited a bit of that spirit too, one that would show up in my adulthood as a surfer and traveler.
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This time, I was headed back to a tiny island off the Northwest coast of Fiji. It was so small you could walk around it in 20 minutes. I had spent some time there whilst on my nonprofit sabbatical the year prior, and managed to return for some needed respite and waves.

​[Read the full story on Medium →]

Our circular surf brand isn't just about creating beautiful products - it's an extension of our values and philosophy - connection, empowerment and love for Mother Earth! 
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To that end, we are STOKED to be participating in two artisan markets in honor of Mother’s Day where we will have on hand some of the first products in our circular surf brand – our small batch, imperfect, handmade soaps, salves and shampoo bars.

Brown GIrl Surf will be among other local makers, artists, musicians and the restauranteurs from Doña and Pomella for an awesome day of creativity, art, community and food! There will be free gift wrapping on site for Mother’s Day as well as artist workshops/ demonstrations and raffles. We hope to see you there!

Date: May 10, 2025
Address: 3770 Piedmont Ave., Oakland, CA 94611
Phone: 510-910-3059
Time: 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM
Cost: FREE
Instagram: @artsandeatsoaktown

For more information visit: https://www.visitoakland.com/event/arts-%26-eats-piedmont-ave/33761/

​This is a pop-up market organized by Coastside Art Collective featuring beautiful creations from local women artisans and vendors. We’ll be there too, debuting our imperfectly perfect soaps and salves just in time for Mother’s Day. We’d love to see you!

Date: Sunday, April 27th
Address: Pedro Point Firehouse
1227 Danmann Ave. Pacifica, CA
Time: 12 – 4 pm
COST: FREE
Instagram: @coastsideartcollective

​After 10 years of leading the nonprofit I founded, I was granted a sabbatical to take some time off and rest a bit from what felt like a decade-long sprint in nonprofit leadership. I craved being in a place where I could be anonymous, live simply and be in the natural world. I was deeply drawn to the South Pacific and her family of tiny islands or motus, as they are called in many Polynesian languages. My love of surfing and years of Polynesian dance study made me ever curious to visit. Plus I had heard from a surfer I once met that Fiji was a place where you could take a boat out to the middle of the ocean and find bejeweled crested waves peeling over shadows of dark coral reef. For me the choice was easy — Fiji is where I’d start....

Originally Published on Medium - August 14, 2024

After a month of traveling in Fiji, I headed to Bali for what I hoped would be the Eat, Pray, Love leg to my sabbatical, a much-needed break I was taking after 10 years of founding and running a nonprofit. Though Bali was a surfer’s paradise like no other, it wasn’t paradise in other respects. I quickly found myself amongst chaotic streets full of noisy motos, surfing in an ocean full of plastics and dodging loud Ozzies who moved through Kuta as if they owned it. 

​Unsure of the energetic match between myself and this tiny surf haven, I flash backed to the advice my friend Tim, the fisherman, had given to me back in Fiji....

After a month’s travel through Fiji as the first leg of my nonprofit sabbatical, I planned to head to a place not only where I could surf more waves, but where I could afford to spend out the rest of my sabbatical time. Bali came highly recommended by someone in my network who had visited the island and loved it. Admittedly, I had also read the book Eat, Pray, Love and noted the way the author revered Bali as a magical place of healing and introspection as she struggled to make sense of her midlife crisis.
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I was not in a midlife crisis, per se, but in search of some respite after the stress of running a nonprofit which often led to me being chronically ill and fatigued. I was also really wanting to improve as a surfer. And well, Bali was a mecca for waves. Surfers the world over flocked to it like pilgrims to a shrine. And so, I decided to join in on the “surf pilgrimage” and headed East towards this tiny island....

​[Read the full story on Medium →]