A New, New Year's Resolution - December 28, 2009

The Christmas presents are all unwrapped. The holiday feast is over, and now the focus shifts to New Year's and the annual resolutions for the coming year. Hmmm...Should I lose weight?...Should I exercise more?...Should I make an effort to be a better person? Rather than trying to live up to these familiar, difficult resolutions, why not try a new resolution this year that is both enjoyable and will enrich your life - travel outside your country's borders.

Yes, I realize there are many wonderful things to see within one's own borders, but a journey to another land allows a traveler to experience different languages, foods, customs, cultures and ways of thinking. To me, there's no greater thrill than occasionally stripping off everything that is familiar and comfortable in one's own culture and plunging into the depths of the unknown.

A person can't help but learn more about himself and others by delving into such waters, and often, the effects remain long after the trip is over. In 1986, I had a chance to visit Russia, which, at the time, was considered to be THE enemy of the United States. After a few days in Moscow getting to know the people who lived there, I could no more think of a Russian as an enemy as I could a person back home. As Mark Twain put it, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness."

As part of a New Year's international travel resolution, you might also want to add an additional element that will further enrich the trip, while at the same time helping others - volunteer. Numerous companies now sell "volunteer vacation" packages, which can cost thousands of dollars, but you can set up your own international volunteer experience for little to no money.

Last summer when I visited Peru, I spent a week volunteering with the organization Aldea Yanapay, which I found through the website IndependentVolunteer.org. I’ve also read good things about the websites Volunteers for Peace and Service Civil International. I didn't pay a cent to volunteer with Aldea Yanapay, although I did pay a modest amount for room and board to live with a family associated with the program. In addition to the satisfaction of helping children in Peru, volunteering enabled me to immerse myself in the culture and get to know people in a way I never could have by just backpacking.

As the days wind down in 2009, I want to thank all of you who have read my blog and encouraged me with this endeavor. If you haven't already done so, please vote on where you'd like me to visit this summer, and please vote on which charities should receive any leftover funds.

Have a great 2010, and seriously consider a resolution to get outside of your own borders. You will forever be grateful that you did.

Christmas in Guatemala - December 16, 2009

I've lived in several cities during my life, but no matter how far away I might have been at the time, I’ve always come home to celebrate Christmas with my family. It isn’t that my family has an elaborate array of traditions or puts numerous events onto the holiday docket. Actually, it’s just the opposite, which makes Christmas a relaxing time to unwind and simply enjoy one another’s company.

Back in 1994, I couldn’t make it home for Christmas or even make it to the United States. At the time, I was living in Guatemala studying Spanish and traveling throughout the region. Knowing that I planned on staying in Latin America for at least six months, the cost of an airline ticket seemed out of the question.

Life was good in Guatemala. I was enjoying my school. I felt comfortable in the house where I was living, and I was fascinated by the culture, especially the indigenous cultures. None of that seemed to matter, as I looked at the calendar and saw the time winding down ever closer to Christmas, the day when I was supposed to be in Chattanooga, Tennessee, with my family. Yes, I was feeling sorry for myself.

To make matters worse, things in Guatemala were just too different. There were no stockings hung by the chimney with care. In fact, there were no chimneys. There was no chance of a white Christmas. That certainly couldn’t happen with the daily high temperature hovering in the 60s, in the middle of dry season. Even more troublingly, there were no members of my family within a thousand miles.

All I could think about was what was missing. In my state of despair, I couldn’t even see what Guatemala might have to offer me for Christmas. If one of my Buddhist friends is reading this post, I’m sure you are laughing at me right now. Yes, I know I was suffering because my holiday reality wasn’t matching up with my expectations of how things should be.

The question is why did I put myself into this situation. Why had I decided to travel abroad when I really wanted to be home. After all, I didn’t have to be in Guatemala during Christmas. I could have been back in Tennessee enjoying It’s a Wonderful Life.

Actually, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve begun to realize that it’s rainy-day moments like these that motivate me to travel much more than the moments when everything is perfect. In the words of Italian poet Cesare Pavese, "Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it."

Perhaps, I was off balance enough to begin to finally notice some of the preparations going on around me for a Guatemalan Christmas. No, there was no sign of Santa Claus, but I had the pleasure of experiencing my first Posada, a nine-day celebration symbolizing the trials that Mary and Joseph faced trying to find a place where Jesus could be born. No, I didn’t hear any familiar Christmas carols, but I did experience a new Christmas sound of exploding firecrackers echoing nightly through the narrow streets of my town, along with the soothing, festive sound of marimbas.

And as the clock struck midnight on December 24^th, no, I wasn’t able to embrace the members of my family or exchange presents with them or savor a glass of eggnog and Christmas cookies, but I did get to take part in the cherished Guatemalan tradition of “Noche Buena,” meaning good night. With a spirit of revelry that reminded me of a combination of New Year’s Eve and the Fourth of July, suddenly, at midnight, firecrackers began exploding everywhere all at once , and the streets were filled with people yelling to welcome in Christmas Day.

When I walked back inside the house where I was living, the mother of my family didn’t hand me eggnog and cookies, but, instead, a piping hot mug of holiday fruit punch called ponche and a plate of specially- prepared tamales.

The sadness slowly melted away to the point that the only thing I missed, other than my family, was the familiar site of stacks of presents. In Guatemala, rather than adults exchanging gifts, there is more of an emphasis on giving children a few simple presents. As a result, everyone during the Christmas season seemed more relaxed and seemed to be able to focus more on one another and the true spirit of Christmas, rather than being consumed by the holiday rush and the materialistic aspects of the holiday. On “Noche Buena”, the children appeared to be just as excited with two or three presents, rather than 20.

Now, the only thing missing was my family, but I even forgot about that for awhile when the mother of the Guatemalan family took me by surprise by giving me a small gift.

Yes, Cesare Pavese was correct. In the days leading up to Christmas, I had lost sight of “all that familiar comfort of home and friends,” and, yes, I was off balance and a bit empty inside, but Pavese was also correct in saying that being adrift allowed me to embrace something even greater, which in this case, was a new reality of Christmas.

If given the choice, I would prefer to spend each Christmas with my family in Tennessee, but as the years pass and I reflect on past holidays, “Noche Buena” is still one of my fondest Christmas memories, a memory made possible through travel.

Six Degrees of Separation - December 13, 2009

An estimated 6.8 billion people are now living on the face of the earth. Despite this staggering number, some authors believe we are all a lot more connected socially than at first appears.

Six degrees of separation is the theory that any person in the world can be connected to any other person in the world through at most five acquaintances. In other words, I don’t personally know the president of Ghana, but I might have a friend of a friend of a friend, who is the third cousin of the president.

In college, I first encountered this theory during a lecture on the importance of using networking to find jobs. The professor asked students to raise their hand if any of us knew former President Reagan. No hands went up. Then the professor asked if any of us had friends or friends of friends who knew Reagan. Surprisingly to me, one hand was raised.

When I launched Traveling Teacher 2010 back in August, I wanted to test my own theory that the world is basically a friendly place and that someone could travel around the world relying on nothing but benevolence.

I have been humbled by the number of people who have read my blog. At last count, I’ve had more than 900 hits from 31 states, 17 foreign countries and two territories. I’m also humbled by the number of people who have voted on where I should visit and on which charity should receive excess funds that I don’t use on the journey.

I will take votes until May 1^st 2010, when I’ll close the polls and travel to the top vote-getter. If the polls closed today, I would be headed this summer to Turkey, and any left-over funds would be split equally among the charities - Doctors Without Borders, Catholic Relief Services, and Save the Children.

As it now stands, readers of my blog have generously donated $34.05 toward my journey. Thank you! Even though that’s not enough for a plane ticket, I’m optimistic, and at the very least if I can’t purchase a ticket, that money will go to the three charities.

I realize that economic times are difficult for many individuals, so I thought I would throw out my own six degrees of separation request to the airline companies, or if you know Warren Buffet, Bill Gates or Donald Trump, that would be great, too, because they might be able to spare a few extra dollars for an airline ticket. Perhaps, the president of an airline has already read my blog and is waiting to surprise me with a ticket, once voters decide on where I’ll go this summer. If not, perhaps a friend of a friend of a friend, who babysits the son of the CEO of ___________Airlines will pass my blog along the six degrees chain.

While doing so, please let the CEO know that I’m not interested in going to ____________to just sit on a beach. I would hope to use this blog during my trip as an educational forum to shed light on people, places, and organizations that might otherwise not get noticed.

I kept such a blog back in the summer of 2008, when I was honored to be chosen to visit Japan as part of the former Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund Teacher Program. Through the blog, I believe I was able, on a personal level, to teach my students and my community a lot about the East Asian country.

In past posts, I’ve explained all of my motivations for Traveling Teacher 2010, but my strongest motivation continues to be to show my students that anything is possible. As a teacher of English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), I work with kids who, in many cases, have come from some very challenging situations in their native countries and who continue to face great challenges in this country.

If my students are able to see me doing the seemingly impossible – traveling around the world without any money of my own - then maybe they’ll begin to believe in their own seemingly impossible dreams such as attending college.

As the holidays unfold, I want to thank all of you who have read my blog and who have told others about it. I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

In closing, I’ve decided from now on to end all my posts with a travel quote. This one comes from famed travel writer Freya Stark. “To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.” – Freya Stark