Familiar in the Unfamiliar

Technically Kenya doesn’t yet count on my list of 53 countries that I’ve traveled to. And yet, when I arrive at the airport only a six weeks after having been here, everything is suddenly familiar. I recall the toilet that surprisingly for an otherwise modern airport has one stall for squatting, rather than an actually toilet. I then head straight for the wifi and BLT sandwich I recall from my last eight hour stint here.

The more I travel the more supposedly unfamiliar places become the norm. Places that once would have seemed that they could be nothing but foreign are instead like being in my old stomping ground.

When I’m in Amsterdam I’m reminded of my departure as a Peace Corps Volunteer, and when I travel through Brussels I have my designated bench that I pass out on for several hours and wake up to a terminal swarming with people who wonder how I can sleep through it all. I step off the plane in Afghanistan and it all comes back to me. The world is a massive and diverse place, but it is also extremely small and familiar as well.

I enjoy the journey wherever I am. Traveling for 48hrs straight, and then continuing out into the bush on one of the worse roads on earth is not something most people would sign up for. What can I say? It is simply my life and what makes me, me. Do what works for you.

Safe Journey,

Miel

1 Comment

  1. Anonymous on January 23, 2010 at 11:46 am

    What a great resource!

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