Guys….I leave for Haiti in 1 week!!
I am so excited! I keep seeing all these pictures onFacebook of friends who are traveling all over the world and can hardly wait to be making people jealous along with them. xD Haha.
I have been lucky enough to have been given many many chances to see the world and traveling has slowly started to take a new feeling for me.
When I was younger, traveling outside of the United States was like a vacation on steroids. Even though my family always went on mission trips so we weren’t exactly bummin’ on the beach, it was a whole new world for me. And I wanted to collect as many new worlds as I could. Traveling made me feel important and “worldly” (whatever a “worldy” 14 year old is), especially since all my teachers and peers seemed to think I was pretty cool for having been so many places. Even in college, there are a lot of people who have never left their home state and my travel experiences were somewhat of a novelty.
Now, I have never thought myself to be better than anyone because I have been able to travel. I am completely aware that I have been extremely blessed to have had the privilege to travel as much as I have, let alone at all. However, I have found that looking back, I wanted to go to different places each time, not having a real desire to return to places I had already been. I wanted to “collect” these experiences and I had the idea in my head that the more places I had been, the more worldly I was and the more knowledgeable about the world I would be.
That is not the case.
The longest amount of time I have spent out of the country in one place is 1 month, when I studied Spanish in Ecuador. This was also the first trip out of the country that I have been have been able to walk around and explore on my own without everything being planned out for me. I also spent my time studying the language and culture of the place I was in, which richly added to my experience. I can definitely say that of all the trips I have taken, including the three times I have been to Guatemala, I returned from this trip feeling more like I was taking Ecuador back with me. Ecuador is inseparable from me.
In one week I will be in Haiti again after being there for a week 2 years ago. I am more than excited 1) because I get to see Stephanie, and 2) because I get to spend more time somewhere I have already been. No, I am not going to a new place. I won’t be adding a new place to my collection. But I like it better that way. Visiting another place just to scratch it off my list is a very entitled way of looking at the world. I am fortunate enough to have been born in a place and into a family where I don’t worry about food or water or education. I have the money to be able to travel and and see other places.
What I don’t think people realize is that when we travel to another country, it is not just a new restaurant to try or a new beach to lay one. We are walking into peoples’ lives. We are experiencing new people. New traditions. New beliefs. And if we stop to think about how important our own traditions, beliefs, schedules, etc. are to us, I think we will see that we need to make a little adjustment to the way we look at our visits abroad. I don’t want to go somewhere just long enough to eat the food and take some pictures. I want to experience that place I am in for what it is. And it takes longer than a week to do that.
So Haiti, not a new adventure, but a wonderful continuation to one that has already been started. Can’t wait to share with you as I continue to fall in love with its people and culture.
bonswa mes amis
j.
The Patio 
