Observations of a World Traveler

Old Fogey's gems of wisdom gleaned from travels

As many of you know, my husband and I went on a cruise from 1/5/06 until 4/20/06. We went down the east coast of South America to Antarctica, to Cape Town, up the coast of eastern Africa, to India, back through the Suez to Egypt, with various stops in the Mediterranean before returning to the US. From this and two previous around the world cruises, I have a few observations.

1). Too many people want to have been places–without leaving the US. In such places as Tanzania, Madagascar, and Kenya, many of my fellow passengers were dismayed by the lack of shopping opportunities to buy goods found in the US at cheaper prices. They also found the poverty "icky."

2.) Any one who favors arctic drilling should go to the Antarctic and drink in the serenity of the wide expanses of its icy beauty. I was awed by the simple majesty of this wilderness, where only rarely do you see any evidence of the existence of human beings.

3.) A true miracle has happened in South Africa under black rule. In Capetown and our other stops, we saw both increasing prosperity and peace. To be sure, many problems remain, especially in dealing with the maldistribution of wealth. However, when we joined a few of our fellow passengers to visit one of the townships, we were warmly welcomed and felt no fear walking in the area at night. I was disgusted by some passengers who constantly talked about how the miracle can not possibly last. It seemed almost as if they were rooting for failure.

4.) Traveling helps most people see the world from a different perspective. It is an awesome experience to immerse yourself in another culture and get a glimpse at other’s world vision.
However, some people insist on comparing every place to the US. It seems impossible for them to grasp that millions of people do not share our goals. In the face of the apparent happiness of people living in what we would call poverty, several passengers kept saying that those people didn’t "know better." Instead, for some people happiness is not about competition for material conditions but about belonging to a true community. We have spent a lot of time on small islands the remoter part of the Bahamas. Residents there have TVs and know about American culture but instead cherish their close-knit extended families, their slower and less stressful pace of life, the beauty of their surroundings, etc. Many I talked with have no desire to live anywhere else–and they "know better."