The People We Meet

Throughout this trip, I have had the opportunity to meet and interact with many different people from many different places. I have gotten to know my classmates better. I have met other Americans visiting Namwianga. I met a guy from Ethiopia who is about 22 years old on the flight from Washington, DC to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I have met Zambians, young, old, and in between. Because Livingstone is host to Victoria Falls, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, as well as a prime location for safaris, it is a vacation spot for people from many different nations. While there, we shared a bus with two Japanese women from Tokyo and two South African couples from Johannesburg. I also met a guy from London, who is around my age, while doing the zip line in Livingstone this morning.

One thing I learned from all of this is that I should probably pay more attention to the political happenings in my own nation. The world’s eyes are on the United States, and everyone was full of questions about American healthcare, finances, education, and Obama in general. What do I think about Obama? Do I think he will be re-elected next year? Do I think Obama’s healthcare proposal will become a reality? Are all American children confident, or are there still self-esteem issues in the States like there are in other places? How has the recession affected life in the U.S.? Is there a huge gap between the rich and the poor now? These are some of the questions I have been asked on multiple occasions by the people I have met along my journey. I try to answer the best I can, but I typically do not feel adequately prepared to answer these questions. I also do not always have enough knowledge to ask about current events in their respective countries. This makes me want to spend more time updating myself on the news.

On the other hand, I also feel that my relative lack of large-scale information frees me to ask more personal questions and learn more about the individual stories of the people I meet; it allows me to appreciate the beauty of the trees instead of only seeing the forest as a whole. There would be no forest without the individual trees that make it up, after all. Just as all Americans are different, and even different parts of the country have unique cultures, other nations are made up of many different groups or tribes, and I enjoy receiving a first-hand snapshot of each culture represented by the people I meet. The thing that always strikes me the most, though, is that we are all more alike than different, despite the vast differences between our customs and cultures.

Ashley