Working in St. Petersburg, Russia with Native American ancestral foods from the Southwest was an opportunity to bridge a cultural gap. When we serve these foods to others, including chefs, diplomatic leaders, business professionals, culinary students, school children and educators, it helps to build stronger bonds between countries and offers an important setting to further vital diplomatic work.

The students began to loudly beat the circle drum in front of them, performing a traditional Blackfeet song. Their demonstration was part of a cultural exchange between the Native tribes and their Japanese visitors from the Kenny Endo Contemporary Ensemble.

Nephi Craig graduated from culinary school in 2000 and began a promising career. In a few years, he was working his way up the stations at Mary Elaine’s, Arizona’s only five-star French restaurant, led by James Beard Award–winning chef Bradford Thompson. “I was getting a great French, classical training, but something was missing,” says Craig, who is 33. “The French tradition isn’t my tradition, and I wanted to cook in the tradition of my people: Apaches and Navajos.”

If you give us nature, we travelers will come. We will come to take pictures, to be close to wildlife, to learn about different cultures or, in growing numbers, to help. When I went to Namibia in the summer of 2009, I spent two weeks in a volunteer program that is helping to bring back the country's big cat population.

Students from an American Indian high school on a 10-day cultural exchange to New Zealand will take incredible memories, new friends and a better appreciation of their own culture back to New Mexico.

Canadian-based Native American group Tribal Vision recently came to Turkey to present their distinguished songs and dances to people on the occasion of Canada Day (former Dominion Day), which is celebrated by Canadians around the world on July 1 to mark the establishment of Canada as a dominion, on July 1, 1867.

Representatives of 17 American Indian nations arrived in Turkey on Saturday with Turkish Airlines’ inaugural Washington-Istanbul flight as part of a weeklong business, educational and cultural exchange trip.