Grateful Traveler: Building a Community Through Travel

soviet sculptureOne of the things that I love best about travel is that, if we’re listening, if we’ve managed to leave at least some of our preconceived notions and judgments at home, others can teach us more about ourselves in moments than a therapist might in a lifetime …

Take my time spent in countries with regimes that we in the West don’t approve of.

As I wrote last week, the Soviet Union gave me a big, fat aha moment when I realized that, contrary to what I believed, this supposedly free-thinking American had never questioned my government’s anti-Soviet propaganda.

But that wasn’t the biggest aha moment I had in the Soviet Union. This was.

I had been on the road for several weeks in the company of both Soviets and Americans. Bonds had been made. Friendships forged. We thought we understood one another. Then one night at dinner, a bunch of us (all Americans except for my interpreter Sasha—early 20s, British accent, looked like Sting)—were discussing the future.

soviet army monumentWith typical Western nonchalance, people said things like, “When I get home, I’m thinking of changing jobs,” or “I’m sick of New England winters. I’m moving out West this fall.”

This kind of banter had been going a while, when, suddenly, Sasha pushed back his chair and, looking stricken, bolted from the room.

I went after him to see if he was sick, but when I found him all he said was, “Walk with me. I want to talk.” (Even I was savvy enough to know by now that this was code for “I want to talk where no other ears—as in KGB—are listening).

As we began our stroll he talked about his sadness at the way his life was turning out. He found himself jealous of his parents who, with the country in ruins after World War II, had joined with other young people to rebuild the nation.

“They had a sense of community,” he said. “They were, and still are, bonded to one another. But now, my energy is just fussing. There is no place to put it. No constructive way to use it.”

Then, his voice rising in anger and despair, he continued:

“You Americans come here with your easy ways, your material possessions. You are open, friendly, casual. For one month, you turn our world upside down and then you leave and all we are left with is our drab existence. You’ll go home and if you have initiative you can make things happen. But in this country, initiative is punished.”

This conversation left me with all kinds of feelings. I was grateful that he had enough faith in me to open up and be honest even in a place where doing so could be dangerous. I was sad that someone of so much talent and intelligence felt so trapped and hopeless. But mainly, I was confused.

Here was Sasha, living in one of the most repressive nations on Earth while I lived in one of the most free. Yet we, and many others I knew, were struggling to reach the same goals—to find community and a sense of purpose.

I spoke of this with one of my fellow travelers and her response took me from aha to AHA.

“Don’t you find it curious,” she asked, “that these people are forced to live inside a prison, yet we choose to do the same thing? Here, they are not allowed to be their best, but we do that whenever we tell ourselves we can’t accomplish this or we can’t have that, when we build cages with alcohol or drugs, with bad relationships and boring jobs. When we numb ourselves with popular culture.”

Why is that? What keeps so many of us from being our best, from reaching up toward our goals and out toward each other?

And why is it that out on the road, unencumbered by life’s fussiness and small details, we see the world more clearly, find those people who change our lives, and experience the aha moments.

Will travel help us to find one another and build community on a global scale? Could that be our purpose?

By Jamie Simons for PeterGreenberg.com.

Check out the article that launched the Grateful Traveler series, An Eskimo Showed Me the Way.

Another story along these lines is Transformations Through Travel.

Read all of the stories from our Grateful Traveler series here.