Travel as a Political Act

I’m reading Rick Steve’s book “Travel as a Political Act.” It talks about being intentional about your travel, and not just staying on the tourist track, but getting to know the country and the people, and understanding their story.

You may wonder “what does this have to do with raising children?” and I will answer “a great deal!”

When I was young, my family traveled a great deal. We spent a month or so in Mexico City with my Great-aunt Clovee and Great-uncle Pepe, we lived in Bolivia for what was supposed to be 2-3 years, and ended up being around 4 months when I was 6, and then we just traveled all over the US, too.

You may think that traveling with young children doesn’t leave impressions, but I can assure you, it does. I have very vivid memories of our months in Bolivia- memories that stayed with me all these years. They included me realizing at that very young age that not the entire world has all the things we take for granted- hot water didn’t come out of the faucet, you heated it on the stove. The rest of my family took “bird baths”, but I was small enough that I fit in the kitchen sink, so I got to take actual baths in hot water. THAT was a luxury, for sure.

I remember going to the market with my Mom- no HEB’s there- it was an open air market. I still remember the shop owners shooing away the flies that covered the meat, to show us how “pretty” their meat was. We stuck to slaughtering our own chickens and ducks while we were there, thank you very much. I saw homeless people for the first time, and asked my Mom why they had all their stuff with them. Homelessness, 50 years ago, was something very strange to this little girl. I remember Pogie, the native man who ran the little store around the corner from us- where we’d go get tapioca for Mom to make pudding for us. He used to take us riding in his jeep- quite a treat! The “servant class” all spoke Portuguese, the “upper class” Bolivians spoke Spanish, and our English speaking friends were British, so I came home speaking a mixture of Spanish, Portuguese & British English, which was very confusing to my very small Southeast Texas hometown, and put me in for a lot of teasing.

In Mexico, my relatives were from a wealthy and old well-connected Spanish family. They lived in a beautiful home, which, as I recall, was more of an “apartment style”- as in several stories- on one of the “best” streets in Mexico City- right in the heart of the city. It wasn’t polluted then, and we’d go walking to area parks and shopping. We went to bullfights then (honestly, I never thought about the bulls being killed, I saw the beauty of the ballet of the bullfighters,) we went to the pyramids- climbing past frightening gargoyles on the way up to the top, we went to their ranch in the mountains, we experienced what “upper class” families in Mexico experienced then- lots of servants to do all the work, no dangers to us, just wonderful experience after wonderful experience. I loved sitting in the kitchen at Aunt Clovee’s, listening to the cooks working to prepare our food. They’d often try to give me “American food”- spaghetti, hamburgers, etc., but I never wanted that. I wanted what they had. She had one woman who came in each morning just to make tortillas- I can still hear her pat-pat-patting them out.

In Guatemala, as an adult, I’ve stayed in top tier & middle of the line hotels, a “middle class” home, and “pensions”- with nothing but a corrugated fiberglass roof overhead. The "middle class" home was more what we’d consider poverty level here- the shower had a bare electric wire that connected it to hot water (lukewarm was actually more the order of the day, but no way was I touching that bare wire!) Tourists can’t drink the water out of the faucets, and can’t put toilet paper in the toilets, but there are servants to do everything. I remember one friend of mine there saying she almost divorced her husband because when he took her to their newly bought mountain home he expected her to cook, as there were no servants. She was insulted beyond believe that he thought she should cook and clean! Different cultures have different values, for sure, and it is helpful if we understand them.

These impressions have stayed with me all my life. I understand that most of the world does not have all that we think are “necessities” and that we do take more than a “fair share” of the world’s resources and it bothers me.

As an adult, I’ve traveled to Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore, Switzerland, France, Austria, England and Guatemala, Canada. Mexico has been out of bounds for years due to the drug traffic. As a young adult, we did go to the Mexico border areas and went over for dinner & shopping and had a great time. Now I wouldn’t even consider going close to the border, and, sadly, I believe we’ve “helped” that situation happen.
Our country’s hunger for drugs and our (what I believe is stupid) “war on drugs” have fed a multibillion dollar industry, and our gun laws have allowed thousands of guns to be smuggled into Mexico to aid in the violence.

“Travel as a Political Act” talks about going into a country and getting to know the people, so that you understand why the country does what it does. For example, on drugs, much of Europe treats it has as health problem, not a criminal one. They make it so that people can get safer drugs, clean needles, and help. They return many to productive lives by not criminalizing it. Don’t get me wrong, I hate drugs, but I also hate what our drug hunger has done too much of Central America. They’re just being good capitalists- there is a “need”, they’re fulfilling the “need” and making the sale-a basic retail standard. Much of Europe takes a different tack, and their drug use is considerably lower than ours. Prohibition just enriched the mobsters and got people murdered, and the “war on drugs” is doing the same, but at a much more violent pace.

Knowing how the US interfered in Central America (and much of the world) gives you a better understanding of why there are people worldwide who hate our government-not usually us as individuals, but they do often hate our government. This isn’t a “Republican” or “Democratic” issue- our government has interfered with other governments world-wide for years- it is all about our interests and the heck with being “our brothers’ keeper” or worrying about “the least of these.” Yes, we send foreign aid- less than 1% of our budget is foreign aid, however, and it is usually tied to make sure their government does what we want.

The US has not been a good neighbor to most of the world. We like to talk about “compassion” and our noble goals, and if we actually lived it, there would be no hungry people in this world. We could take a small percentage of our military budget and feed everyone in the world, but we don’t.

Right now, we fight because we want other people’s resources- their oil, their gas, their land (in the case of Central America.)Imagine what the wars over water will look like- we want oil, we want gas, but we can’t live without water, yet we continue to waste it, assuming we’ll get it from “somewhere.” We look at the world and see it through the eyes of “we want” rather than, realizing that we can all have enough if we will just believe it.

In Sunday School, we’re studying “Journey to the Common Good” which exams our lives today through the lens of some scriptures in the Old Testament. It says that we’re fed the propaganda of “scarcity”, when we need to understand that God provides enough for all. One of the stories was about the manna that the Israelites got while wandering through the dessert with Moses. Those who gathered more than they needed for that 1 day had their excess turn to mush. Those who gathered too little had actually enough when they looked. It was about trusting God, or, for those who don’t believe in God, about simply understanding that he who dies with the most toys doesn’t win. When will we all understand it?

An author I admire is James Michener. He said that once he became successful, his accountants wanted him to “tax shelter” his money. He told them “no” because he said that he owed all he made to having the luck to haven born in the USA. He was a “foundling”- found and adopted by the Michener family. He went to public schools, funded by taxes. He was in the military and then went to college, funded by the GI bill, which was funded by taxes. Malcolm Forbes says basically the same thing. His talent is making money from money, and in the US, you can make a very good living from that. Had he been born into a hunter-gatherer society, he would have starved to death, as he is not a good shot, nor is he fast, but he had the luck to be born here, so he believes that he owes taxes to the US as a “thank you” for being here. Wouldn’t it be nice if all rich people in the US understood that and were as thankful? Had they been born into another country, they may not have had the opportunities they have here, yet, instead of being grateful for all they have received from this country, they gripe about taxes and scheme to pay less and less. I hate those “tax free” shopping days in August every year, and won’t shop them. Those taxes that aren’t gathered mean that money isn’t there for our public services. You can get better sales at other times of the year- 20-50% off if you shop carefully, instead of 8.25% off!

OK, I’ve strayed a bit here, but I think that understanding about the rest of the world helps us to have more clarity about what our country is doing. While our “stock” had gone up world-wide with our current President, we’re still killing innocents in our wars. What if, instead of spending $12 billion a MONTH on war, for one year, we spent that on getting food to people who are starving, providing easy clean water access, teaching people to grow food (farming & ranching,) schools, medical care. I believe it would be a lot harder to get folks who want to murder us when they see their villages being built up instead of bombed down. When they see their mothers, wives and sisters not dying in childbirth, when their children don’t die because they can’t afford 85 cents for medicine, do you really think they’ll want to kill us?

Please, read “Three Cups of Tea”, read “Travel as a Political Act”, read “Journey to the Common Good.” Work to understand that we need for our children to understand that we live or die together on this world, that we can’t continue to take from the weaker and not weaken ourselves.

Margaret Mead said “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” I believe that we CAN make change- parents, especially mothers, should be leading the parade on this. It is our children’s futures we’re making right now. Do we want a world of constant war, or do we prefer one where we understand there is enough for all? I don’t know that there is much in between. Constant war and war profiteering is not the best option for children and other living things.