Maybe it's just an illusion, but I have this image in my head of America before the turn of the 20th Century as a place that people traveled by horse and by ox-cart, a countryside where distances were so great that an hour on today's highway was equal to at least a full day's journey, where, if your neighbor visited and stayed late, they were welcome, nay required, to spend the night, and where strangers who knocked at the door were afforded a meal and at the very least a place to sleep out in the barn. There was an expectation then to treat everyone with generosity and hospitality, if, for no other reason, than because you one day might need the favor returned. That's just the image I have. I don't know how accurate it is, but it may inform this entry.
This is the positive story, as promised. It's an example of the best humanity has to offer and one of many reasons why I love people of all creeds, colors, and cultures.
I had a few days to kill before meeting up with a friend in Chefchaouan, so I decided I needed to spend some time away from the cities. I headed up to Al Hoceima National Park, which is situated in the north of Morocco and occupies about fifty square kilometers of protected Mediterranean coast, limestone mountains and cliffs, thuya forest, and an azure-blue sea. It's a beautiful place to visit, but is particularly rewarding if you have no time constraints and are entirely self-sufficient.
Unfortunately, the park hasn't yet been very well developed to take advantage of all the natural beauty that it offers. Most people in the city of Al Hoceima actually didn't seem to know that they lived less than five kilometers from this protected area. A typical conversation went something like this:
- I'm looking for the National Park.
- Park? Oh yeah, it's three blocks that way, you can't miss it.
- No, the National Park.
- What now?
- The National Park of Al Hoceima?
- I don't know what you're talking about.
You can imagine my frustration. So, after about four hours of asking around, I just took off into the park with one pathetic map and food enough for about two days. It wasn't quite like living in a bus in Alaska, but I'm pretty confident I was the only traveler hiking around the trails and villages of this beautiful, secluded reserve.
I decided to camp that night on the beach outside a small village, the name of which I can't now remember. Just to make sure it was cool, I wandered around until I found the café. You're guaranteed to find a large percentage of any village at the local café at any time of the day. There I met Mohammed, an old fisherman with an uncanny knack for throwing his voice, which I was both too tired and too gullible to uncover his trick for about ten minutes, despite the fact that we were sitting about three feet from one another. His friend, much younger, a teacher at the village primary school, told me it was fine to sleep on the beach, but that I should come sleep at his house, eat dinner with his family, take a shower, and drink tea. I told him his offer was far too generous, and I couldn't possibly accept it. We kept talking, and after about ten minutes, he again made the offer, and again I declined. I didn't want to impose. After a bit more conversation, he insisted that I come spend the night and meet his family, and I insisted just as firmly that I wanted to sleep outside so that I could see the stars and hear the sea. This is how Moroccans function: they will always ask three times and are incredibly generous in all they offer. As I had turned down his home, he then insisted that I at least eat dinner with his family. Knowing that Moroccans typically eat around 11 pm or later, I declined. Again he insisted. Again I declined; I was too tired, eventhough I knew I was being rude by declining his hospitality. After his third offer, I pointed to the bread I'd brought along, insisting that I would not go hungry.
And what do you think happened? Around midnight, I woke up to move my tent, afraid of the tide during a particularly strong wind storm, and who do I see walking the beach toward my campsite? My friend the teacher, carrying with him a can of tuna salad, a roll of cookies, an apple, six wedges of Laughing Cow cheese, and a carton of juice. Since I'd refused to eat with him, he'd brought dinner to me, special delivery nearly half a kilometer from his house, through the cold, nasty weather, to me, a guy he barely knew, who he will, in all likelihood, never see again.
That's not the end of the story though. A few days later after a trip all the way to Tangier, I met two sisters, Emily and Cecilia, Americans who were traveling together through Morocco. Emily was in the process of finishing up her time in the country studying Arabic, and Cecilia was visiting from America. Instantly recognizing two very interesting people, I agreed to meet up with them in Chefchaouan (which was about two hours back the way I'd come, my ability to change plans based on the cool people I meet again taking me away from my goal of Europe to a place I'd already been). But I wouldn't have taken back all the extra time I spent with them even if you paid me (well, maybe if you paid me a lot, I'm getting rather poor these days). We went hiking around the area, met two more travelers, Simon and his mom Katerina, and the five of us took off together, back to Al Hoceima. Check it out on a map, that's like six hours in the direction I'd come from.
But this was one of the best memories I have of Morocco, and it was great to end my time there with such amazing people and such positive experiences. Remember in my last post that I mentioned that I sometimes gain a new perspective on my time in Africa through the pointed, insightful questions of other travelers? (You'd better not have skipped that one, or so help me...) Ya, they were some of these types. I literally made the decision to backtrack six hours along the coast with them, by flipping a coin. Honestly though, I probably would have gone anyway.
We had a few troubles, mainly fighting tooth and claw for every dirham we could save on taxis, but in the end, our drivers turned out to be great guys and really friendly once money matters disappeared. We lucked out finding the most amazing guesthouse in Northern Morocco. Let's just put it this way, when you and four friends have an entire house, including kitchen and bathrooms, to yourself on a hill overlooking a Berber village, limestone mountains, and the Mediterranean, it's good. When said house is surrounded by pomegranates, apricots, plums, almonds, and figs, all ripe for the picking, it's great. And when you get it all for just five euros a night, you start to think, "Maybe I could just stay here for the next month or so..." That was the situation we found ourselves in, and I'll keep the village name to myself, to keep it from being overrun by too many people (and because I can't remember it anyway).
And, best of all, we were welcomed by some of the nicest people I've ever met. We went looking for the trail to the village beach. Instead of just indicating the path, we got a ready-made guide in the form of Abdullah, who not only took off the entire afternoon to show us around, but also gave us insight into traditional Berber medicine, finding us some herbs for Cecilia, who was too sick to function. As we returned to the village, we realized we hadn't enough bread to last through the next day. We ran into our old man landlord, who was walking with a younger guy in a pink shirt. We asked where we could buy bread, not knowing that everyone in these tiny villages makes their own. No worries though, as old man Mohammed took us back to his house, introduced us to his family and gave us a loaf of bread about the size of a truck tire. As we were walking back, amazed at our luck, the younger guy in the pink shirt, who hadn't even spoken to us for more than thirty seconds, ran up to us and delivered us a second loaf, the same size as the first, just to make sure we had enough. He didn't say much, just smiled and offered us bread, almost shy at the gift he'd given. Food from their own tables to five people they barely knew. Pretty amazing.
And I have to wonder if this kind of generosity may be seen anymore in the developed world. In an age of personal transport, interstate hotels, and alarmist media, who trusts a stranger anymore, let alone goes so far out of their way to help one? I don't know if this giving spirit is particularly Moroccan, or if those in the countryside just look out for everyone equally. But this charitable energy is the image I have of all rural Americans living before the age of interstate highways and Best Westerns. Like I said, I don't know if it's an accurate image or just a fantasy, but I'd like to believe that it's something the developed world has lost and is slowly getting back. Communities like couchsurfing and facebook allow us to invite those we know and those we don't into our homes, show them around our communities, and share in a better, more positive world, where we learn from one another directly and don't rely on xenophobia or mistrust to tear us down. I like the changes I'm seeing, and I'm glad to have hospitality where I can find it.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Taking Exception to Exceptionalism
As promised, I continue my week of productivity with some thoughts and stories that I've accumulated over the past month. Typically, I like to pair these in positive and negative experiences, the positive usually following the negative to avoid any lingering distaste with humanity. This is no different, despite the fact that the following negative experience occurred a few weeks after what I will relate in the next post. The chronological continuity thus gets a bit confused, but hey, it's my narrative art, and I'll manipulate it as I see fit! Anyway, onwards and downwards. I promise a more heart-warming tale in the next few days.
My stay in Valencia wasn't ruined by the American at the bar, though I must say she represented a jarring example of what I fear may be all too commonplace when I return to the USA (or, more specifically, to rural Indiana). Now that I've left Africa, I'm diligently working towards Peace Corps' third goal: Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans. I extend this goal to include a better understanding of other people by all people. The conversations I have whilst traveling are all pretty similar, as everyone I meet on the road tends to be of a certain mentality and tends to be interested in my travels, my work, Niger, Africa, and the sense of community and service that leads so many people to attempt to make the world just a little bit better. At the best of times, I meet other travelers who ask such pointed, complex, and interesting questions that I get a chance to step back and reinterpret my service, always gaining a new appreciation for what a life-changing, unique experience it was. At the worst of times, and this has been rare so far, I run into someone like her...
It was the night of the Holland/Uruguay World Cup semi-final match. With the Dutch win, I found myself winding down over a beer with two Americans beside whom I'd found myself standing during the match. With one, a friendly university student taking a bit of vacation in Spain after a semester spent abroad in England, I found myself reminiscing over my time there and recounting some of my lighter stories about Africa. With the other, an expressionless, plastic-faced, overtan girl on her first-ever trip overseas, I encountered new territory, territory I wasn't prepared to navigate whilst a bit tipsy.
To me, these two girls represented the perfect distinction between the traveler and the tourist. The first was a budding young traveler, living abroad for the first time in her life and ready to go after every new cultural experience with a relish that will drive her friends up the wall when she gets back stateside (I should know, I was the same way). Her friend, however, was the type of conservative, stubborn, uninformed American the likes of which I haven't seen in a long time. (A somewhat delayed preliminary note: this is in no way an attack on Americans. Every country has people like this, people who never leave home but think, despite this, that they know how other people live.) We got off on the wrong foot almost immediately after a conversation about religion (she believed in "the devil" as a personified entity taking an active role in the temptaions of daily life), and though I disagreed with her on many issues, I relish a good conversation with anyone who has an open mind and an ability to listen.
Oh, an open mind! What a wonderful thing indeed! Here was the main sticking point separating the two into their respective tourist/traveler camps, because while the traveler accepted the differences around her as cultural learning opportunities, her friend the tourist questioned everything, compared these differences to American norms, and more often than not found the differences wildly inferior to what she was accustomed.
Thus it was one innocent comment, one phrase I've uttered many times before without any incident, that sparked one of my worst conversations in recent memory with one of my fellow countrymen. It was this, which I still hold to be true: I believe, despite all the hardship and poverty, that my friends in Tanka Lokoto, my village in Niger, were actually happier in many ways than many of us in the developed world. Nigeriens don't suffer from depression, suicide; they don't need a new drug for every perceived problem because they struggle with more basic concerns such as food security and clean water. They appreciate what they have around them and the relationships they build and maintain to help them through life.
Well this touched a nerve, in no small part because this tourist took "the developed world" to mean "America" (she refused to drink the tap water, in Spain, a country that ranks in the top 15 of the most developed countries in the world!). This tourist took my comment as a slight against her country (which is also my country), and decided that any such insult to her country must be countered, vigorously. I honestly wish I could remember how much of this conversation went, but I'll boil it down to it's salient points.
1. America is the greatest country in the world. If this African country you lived in or whatever has been independent for what? fifty years? why isn't it a world power? Why can't it get it's shit together?
Well it's more complicated than that. There are several different ethnic groups, and you have to remember that America wasn't a true superpower until about 1948.
What are you talking about? America beat Britain. Britain was the superpower, America beat it and then became a superpower.
Tenuous grip on American history eh? (I didn't actually say this, I was very polite throughout.)
2. I can't believe you hate America so much. I'm ashamed to call you an American. You're what's wrong with America's reputation abroad.
What? What are you talking about? Peace Corps is what's wrong with America?
You're what's wrong with America. You hate America. You know, I'm going to kiss the ground when I get back to America. I'm going to kiss the ground every single day that I'm home.
I'd really like to see that. Could you send me a picture every single day you're in America. (I actually did say this, little more tipsy at this point.)
3. America is the greatest country in the world. I don't know how you don't see this. It's the greatest country in the world, and will continue to be the greatest country in the world. Forever. I don't know how you don't see it.
(This is where I got myself in trouble.) I'm pretty sure that's what the Brits said in about 1890. Or what the Romans thought in 470. Or the French in 1812. The Spanish in 1570. The Germans in 1943. (Her friend is just shouting STOP at this point...) Or what about the Songhai in 1550? The Ottomans in 1810? I could go ON AND ON!
So you can make your own judgement. We parted ways shortly after this tirade, without a handshake and confident we'd never cross paths again. If I had to say something about the whole experience, I would nicely call her a bit ignorant, but I have to stress that I don't think this would be an issue if she were actually trying to understand the world, accept that people and cultures are different, and that there's so much to learn. But she wasn't. So ya, a bit ignorant. A few more of my creative friends would call her a dipshit. I'll let you draw your own conclusions. Until next time.
My stay in Valencia wasn't ruined by the American at the bar, though I must say she represented a jarring example of what I fear may be all too commonplace when I return to the USA (or, more specifically, to rural Indiana). Now that I've left Africa, I'm diligently working towards Peace Corps' third goal: Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans. I extend this goal to include a better understanding of other people by all people. The conversations I have whilst traveling are all pretty similar, as everyone I meet on the road tends to be of a certain mentality and tends to be interested in my travels, my work, Niger, Africa, and the sense of community and service that leads so many people to attempt to make the world just a little bit better. At the best of times, I meet other travelers who ask such pointed, complex, and interesting questions that I get a chance to step back and reinterpret my service, always gaining a new appreciation for what a life-changing, unique experience it was. At the worst of times, and this has been rare so far, I run into someone like her...
It was the night of the Holland/Uruguay World Cup semi-final match. With the Dutch win, I found myself winding down over a beer with two Americans beside whom I'd found myself standing during the match. With one, a friendly university student taking a bit of vacation in Spain after a semester spent abroad in England, I found myself reminiscing over my time there and recounting some of my lighter stories about Africa. With the other, an expressionless, plastic-faced, overtan girl on her first-ever trip overseas, I encountered new territory, territory I wasn't prepared to navigate whilst a bit tipsy.
To me, these two girls represented the perfect distinction between the traveler and the tourist. The first was a budding young traveler, living abroad for the first time in her life and ready to go after every new cultural experience with a relish that will drive her friends up the wall when she gets back stateside (I should know, I was the same way). Her friend, however, was the type of conservative, stubborn, uninformed American the likes of which I haven't seen in a long time. (A somewhat delayed preliminary note: this is in no way an attack on Americans. Every country has people like this, people who never leave home but think, despite this, that they know how other people live.) We got off on the wrong foot almost immediately after a conversation about religion (she believed in "the devil" as a personified entity taking an active role in the temptaions of daily life), and though I disagreed with her on many issues, I relish a good conversation with anyone who has an open mind and an ability to listen.
Oh, an open mind! What a wonderful thing indeed! Here was the main sticking point separating the two into their respective tourist/traveler camps, because while the traveler accepted the differences around her as cultural learning opportunities, her friend the tourist questioned everything, compared these differences to American norms, and more often than not found the differences wildly inferior to what she was accustomed.
Thus it was one innocent comment, one phrase I've uttered many times before without any incident, that sparked one of my worst conversations in recent memory with one of my fellow countrymen. It was this, which I still hold to be true: I believe, despite all the hardship and poverty, that my friends in Tanka Lokoto, my village in Niger, were actually happier in many ways than many of us in the developed world. Nigeriens don't suffer from depression, suicide; they don't need a new drug for every perceived problem because they struggle with more basic concerns such as food security and clean water. They appreciate what they have around them and the relationships they build and maintain to help them through life.
Well this touched a nerve, in no small part because this tourist took "the developed world" to mean "America" (she refused to drink the tap water, in Spain, a country that ranks in the top 15 of the most developed countries in the world!). This tourist took my comment as a slight against her country (which is also my country), and decided that any such insult to her country must be countered, vigorously. I honestly wish I could remember how much of this conversation went, but I'll boil it down to it's salient points.
1. America is the greatest country in the world. If this African country you lived in or whatever has been independent for what? fifty years? why isn't it a world power? Why can't it get it's shit together?
Well it's more complicated than that. There are several different ethnic groups, and you have to remember that America wasn't a true superpower until about 1948.
What are you talking about? America beat Britain. Britain was the superpower, America beat it and then became a superpower.
Tenuous grip on American history eh? (I didn't actually say this, I was very polite throughout.)
2. I can't believe you hate America so much. I'm ashamed to call you an American. You're what's wrong with America's reputation abroad.
What? What are you talking about? Peace Corps is what's wrong with America?
You're what's wrong with America. You hate America. You know, I'm going to kiss the ground when I get back to America. I'm going to kiss the ground every single day that I'm home.
I'd really like to see that. Could you send me a picture every single day you're in America. (I actually did say this, little more tipsy at this point.)
3. America is the greatest country in the world. I don't know how you don't see this. It's the greatest country in the world, and will continue to be the greatest country in the world. Forever. I don't know how you don't see it.
(This is where I got myself in trouble.) I'm pretty sure that's what the Brits said in about 1890. Or what the Romans thought in 470. Or the French in 1812. The Spanish in 1570. The Germans in 1943. (Her friend is just shouting STOP at this point...) Or what about the Songhai in 1550? The Ottomans in 1810? I could go ON AND ON!
So you can make your own judgement. We parted ways shortly after this tirade, without a handshake and confident we'd never cross paths again. If I had to say something about the whole experience, I would nicely call her a bit ignorant, but I have to stress that I don't think this would be an issue if she were actually trying to understand the world, accept that people and cultures are different, and that there's so much to learn. But she wasn't. So ya, a bit ignorant. A few more of my creative friends would call her a dipshit. I'll let you draw your own conclusions. Until next time.
Monday, July 19, 2010
The Transformed Journey
I'll begin my week of productivity with a word on travel in the developed world. I officially crossed over to this forgotten place (Europe) nearly one month ago when I crossed the Strait of Gibralter on the 35-minute ferry ride from Tangier, Morocco to Tarifa, Spain. In the ensuing weeks, I visited four of Spain's World Heritage Sites, including the Alhambra, Generalife, and Albayzin in Granada, the Llotja de la Seda in Valencia, and the historic cities of Córdoba and Toledo. I met up with a couchsurfer for an awesome Celtic festival on the northern coast before returning to Madrid to see Spain win the World Cup for the first time. Then it was off to Paris for Bastille Day celebrations of all sorts.
So you'd think with everything I've seen and done in the past month that I'd have heaps to write and update. Well I don't, and here's my explanation: I'm just not good enough to do it justice. Cities like Toledo, Valencia, and Córdoba have been written about before and will be written of again by writers who are much more elegant and productive than I. Sites like the Mezquita in Córdoba or the Alhambra in Granada are almost too much for a single blog entry. Washington Irving wrote an entire book devoted to stories inspired by the Alhambra, and I'm not going toe to toe with that giant of early American letters. With news coverage and internet video, the only thing I could add to the parties in Madrid and Paris would be my own politicized commentaries, but this isn't the place to run away with criticisms of France's link to long-serving dictators like Paul Biya (Cameroon, 27 years strong!) or Blaise Compaoré (Burkina Faso, 23 years in October, where does the time go?)who were given honorary seats in the July 14th celebrations. And if you saw videos from Spain's World Cup fiesta, you know that words cannot describe the crazy times in the streets of Madrid.
And, let's face it, most people reading this blog probably aren't that interested in Europe's great cities and landmarks, not for any negative reasons, but simply because the Eiffel Tower or the Museo del Prado are so easily visited these days. Get a cheap flight and see them yourself. Don't rely on me to give you any beautiful descriptions. West Africa, on the other hand, is a place which few people know anything about and even fewer visit. It's easy to understand why: with all the places in the world, there are few who would choose an undeveloped country to spend their vacation money. Especially considering that you go to West Africa, not for sightseeing, but to meet the people, which is hard to do if you can't speak French (or Songhai, Hausa, Bambara, Wolof, Fula, etc.) I feel confident that my descriptions of West Africa and my experiences there are somewhat interesting, if only because it's such an unknown part of the world.
So instead of describing Europe, I'm scaling back to focus on my experiences with other people and my interpretations of a world from which I've been away for over two years. This week's blogs will be a lot more personal for sure, but my personal writing has always been, in my view, my strongest suit. And hey, this is an individual blog after all, not a travel website. For me, it's always been a lot more entertaining to write about the horrorshow old lady vomit on the bus through Western Sahara that it is to actually write about Western Sahara (which was eye-gougingly dull). I prefer to tell stories, stories like the one of my bus ride from Madrid to Valencia. I sat next to a Guinean and in front of two Nigerians. Of course, I love talking to any African I can at this point, so I take every opportunity I can get, and we were in the midst of a conversation when KATHUNK!, something broke off from underneath the bus and started it shaking:
Me: I think the wheels are about to fall off this bus.
John (Nigerian man): This can't be right, it sounds like a train!
Tobin (Nigerian woman): It sounds like an African bus.
John: Ya, but African buses can't go this fast. (everyone laughing)
A little while later another KATHUNK, this one from right under my seat. The Guinean gets up and runs to another seat.
Me: What is this , we're not in Africa!
Guinean: Spain is the capital of Africa, they're just like Africans.
John: He's right, see, the driver just keeps on driving like nothing's wrong.
KATHUNK, BOOM!
Tobin: Oh my God, he's going to kill us all.
The bus eventually broke down with a "flat tire," and now we're stuck on the side of the road for 45 mins waiting for another bus to come get us.
Me: You know, if this WERE Africa, we'd have this thing fixed in twenty minutes.
Tobin: Twenty?! Try ten!
John: And we could eat some foufou while we wait!
This is just one of the more recent adventures. In the next few days, I have two more posts, one positive and one negative. For those of you who know my blog well, I like to pair the two so that they can balance and inform one another. They both deal with people and provide a clear distinction between "traveler" and "tourist," and the amazing and not so amazing interpersonal experiences I've had with people on the move and people at rest. Until tomorrow then,
Tschüß!
So you'd think with everything I've seen and done in the past month that I'd have heaps to write and update. Well I don't, and here's my explanation: I'm just not good enough to do it justice. Cities like Toledo, Valencia, and Córdoba have been written about before and will be written of again by writers who are much more elegant and productive than I. Sites like the Mezquita in Córdoba or the Alhambra in Granada are almost too much for a single blog entry. Washington Irving wrote an entire book devoted to stories inspired by the Alhambra, and I'm not going toe to toe with that giant of early American letters. With news coverage and internet video, the only thing I could add to the parties in Madrid and Paris would be my own politicized commentaries, but this isn't the place to run away with criticisms of France's link to long-serving dictators like Paul Biya (Cameroon, 27 years strong!) or Blaise Compaoré (Burkina Faso, 23 years in October, where does the time go?)who were given honorary seats in the July 14th celebrations. And if you saw videos from Spain's World Cup fiesta, you know that words cannot describe the crazy times in the streets of Madrid.
And, let's face it, most people reading this blog probably aren't that interested in Europe's great cities and landmarks, not for any negative reasons, but simply because the Eiffel Tower or the Museo del Prado are so easily visited these days. Get a cheap flight and see them yourself. Don't rely on me to give you any beautiful descriptions. West Africa, on the other hand, is a place which few people know anything about and even fewer visit. It's easy to understand why: with all the places in the world, there are few who would choose an undeveloped country to spend their vacation money. Especially considering that you go to West Africa, not for sightseeing, but to meet the people, which is hard to do if you can't speak French (or Songhai, Hausa, Bambara, Wolof, Fula, etc.) I feel confident that my descriptions of West Africa and my experiences there are somewhat interesting, if only because it's such an unknown part of the world.
So instead of describing Europe, I'm scaling back to focus on my experiences with other people and my interpretations of a world from which I've been away for over two years. This week's blogs will be a lot more personal for sure, but my personal writing has always been, in my view, my strongest suit. And hey, this is an individual blog after all, not a travel website. For me, it's always been a lot more entertaining to write about the horrorshow old lady vomit on the bus through Western Sahara that it is to actually write about Western Sahara (which was eye-gougingly dull). I prefer to tell stories, stories like the one of my bus ride from Madrid to Valencia. I sat next to a Guinean and in front of two Nigerians. Of course, I love talking to any African I can at this point, so I take every opportunity I can get, and we were in the midst of a conversation when KATHUNK!, something broke off from underneath the bus and started it shaking:
Me: I think the wheels are about to fall off this bus.
John (Nigerian man): This can't be right, it sounds like a train!
Tobin (Nigerian woman): It sounds like an African bus.
John: Ya, but African buses can't go this fast. (everyone laughing)
A little while later another KATHUNK, this one from right under my seat. The Guinean gets up and runs to another seat.
Me: What is this , we're not in Africa!
Guinean: Spain is the capital of Africa, they're just like Africans.
John: He's right, see, the driver just keeps on driving like nothing's wrong.
KATHUNK, BOOM!
Tobin: Oh my God, he's going to kill us all.
The bus eventually broke down with a "flat tire," and now we're stuck on the side of the road for 45 mins waiting for another bus to come get us.
Me: You know, if this WERE Africa, we'd have this thing fixed in twenty minutes.
Tobin: Twenty?! Try ten!
John: And we could eat some foufou while we wait!
This is just one of the more recent adventures. In the next few days, I have two more posts, one positive and one negative. For those of you who know my blog well, I like to pair the two so that they can balance and inform one another. They both deal with people and provide a clear distinction between "traveler" and "tourist," and the amazing and not so amazing interpersonal experiences I've had with people on the move and people at rest. Until tomorrow then,
Tschüß!
Sunday, July 18, 2010
A Collection of Stories Unrecorded
Hello all,
Quick update from Germany as I haven't written anything in a long while. First of all, let me apologize for that as there's been almost too much to write. I officially crossed over into Europe almost a month ago now, and there've been plenty of stories. However, the Spanish don't sleep and I didn't either for the three weeks I was there. The past week has seen me in Madrid for the World Cup Final (CRAZY!), then on to Paris for Bastille Day, and now I've landed at my aunt's house outside Marburg, Germany. I'll be here for about a week, which means for all you lucky readers (the few of you who may be left), I have time on my hands to actually get some writing done. So I'm hereby declaring this week "Sterling's Week of Productivity," and I will here commit to writing at least four entries over the next seven days. This one may or may not count, I'm not sure yet.
But watch this space! I've had some time to do some serious thinking, so I should have some good stuff in the works. Hope you all agree and are waiting in anticipation for the words to flow like water.
Cheers!
Sterling
Quick update from Germany as I haven't written anything in a long while. First of all, let me apologize for that as there's been almost too much to write. I officially crossed over into Europe almost a month ago now, and there've been plenty of stories. However, the Spanish don't sleep and I didn't either for the three weeks I was there. The past week has seen me in Madrid for the World Cup Final (CRAZY!), then on to Paris for Bastille Day, and now I've landed at my aunt's house outside Marburg, Germany. I'll be here for about a week, which means for all you lucky readers (the few of you who may be left), I have time on my hands to actually get some writing done. So I'm hereby declaring this week "Sterling's Week of Productivity," and I will here commit to writing at least four entries over the next seven days. This one may or may not count, I'm not sure yet.
But watch this space! I've had some time to do some serious thinking, so I should have some good stuff in the works. Hope you all agree and are waiting in anticipation for the words to flow like water.
Cheers!
Sterling
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