Culture

Last year I received a phone call, asking if I would accompany a friend of my grown son on a trip to Ecuador. This was completely unexpected. I hadn’t planned for it. I had projects I was working on and it was late notice. And then I realized these were crazy excuses.

Then I remembered, when growing up, there was an exchange student from Ecuador living in our neighborhood. My mother invited her for dinner a couple of times. I befriended her and we always had a lot to talk about. I had told myself that someday I would like to go see her world. I almost said no to the trip, but began to think about how this was purely a gift and it was an opportunity to stretch my boundaries as a human being in the world. When I wrote this poem, I thought of many cultures. And more about what it’s like to enter another land.

When soles of my feet walk on soil of another land,

my mind shifts and reconfigures as it encounters

red earth, foreign spices, trees with thick bark and enormous girth.

Shadows of volcano spew in the fiery ooze,

ancient language dwells in every adobe and thatched roof house.

Spirits surface in artifacts and caves. Roots uphold generations.

Though I try to speak their language, it is not theirs.

Without ancestry or grandmothers who tell stories,

I do not know their culture. Layers of meaning in symbols,

syllables, accent, flow and cadence, live in every one of their thoughts.

This should not stop me. For to deepen a sense

of who I am, I must walk into the dwelling place of another’s jungle.

Each of them, like me, resides in the ecotone between

earth and sky, with the same needs; food, water, air, and sun.

For as a species, there exists one culture, one tribe, and if I recognize this,

I’ll see each face as if it was my own.

Thoughts:

Travel offers an opportunity to open, release all expectations and take in what surrounds you.

Another human being from the other side of the world shares the same needs that you do, with unique circumstances.

The most serendipitous occurrences can happen when you walk in the veil

of knowing and unknowing - to see others as well as yourself in a new light.

Where and when have you traveled?

What has traveling done to make a difference in who you are?