After reading Brene' Brown's book Braving the Wilderness, I've thought a lot about her four rules, per se, of living a brave, connected life and how much they apply to travel:
1. People are hard to hate close-up. Move in.
2. Speak truth to bullshit. Be civil.
3. Hold hands. With strangers.
4. Strong back, soft front, wild heart.
Specifically, I'm drawn to #1 and to #3 and how much these rules apply to traveling the world and interacting with people.
#1 People are hard to hate close-up. Move in.
The picture above is of my meeting and interviewing Said, a translator for a basket shop in Morocco. Said--and many others in many countries--showed me what I already knew but had forgotten: people are good.
I have been to Morocco before, and in all honesty, my impression was that most Muslims were a bit cold and unfriendly. This impression, though, was from my time here twelve years ago and from a whirlwind of a trip, seeing five cities in two weeks. This was long enough to get a feel for the country but an inaccurate feel of the people. So for this trip, I spent five more weeks in the country, and I moved in. I moved in by interacting and discussing issues with second-language speakers; I moved in while eating a free lunch from some local Muslim women who shared everything they had on their table with us; I moved in playing frisbee with two street youth who locals called "thieves" but who gave us only enthusiasm and appreciation for letting them play; and I moved in watching my son play basketball with many children who didn't speak English but spoke the universal language of kindness and play.
Then there are the various people we have met along the way and who we moved in with--only briefly--to see their goodness: a Russian couple who left their homeland after Putin invaded Ukraine and who moved to Cambodia in hopes to start their life over; the multiple taxi drivers who warned us to roll up our window or put our phone away or to move our bag away from the window to avoid theft; or the many people who called us taxis, pumped our bicycle tires, or showed us how to do something. These people are not bad; in fact, they are far from it. They are good people living their lives to the best of their abilities and watching out for their fellow human.
#3 Hold hands. With strangers.
Travel puts you out there. You have no choice to interact with people of different races, religions, and beliefs, and it is awesome. It is uncomfortable, sure. But what arises is a building up of understanding and a rekindled faith in humanity.
Harim, our Workaway host in Morocco is a typical Muslim. He lives his life by the pillars of Islam and by the customs he was raised with. This means his wife is covered and stays home with the children, and Harim (seemingly) gets to go about life in a freer and more fluid way. Of course, I recognize that this perspective of him comes from my own Western lens, so I mean no harm in my description of Harim. There is a deeper side to him, though, that I saw revealed as the weeks went by--his devotion to his "guests" who come from all over the world to help with his various language schools. Daily, Harim is picking up or dropping off new guests, taking guests to lunch or dinner (often to demonstrate the customs of his people), and arranging for guests to go on weekend adventures in his home country. Talking with Harim about this, he believes it to be nothing extraordinary. To him, love and respect is part of what Allah wants him to do, and he is happy to do it.
Alice and William, on the other hand, were our Workaway hosts in Kenya, and were more strangers we got to hold hands with. Alice, the founder and principle of the school, and William, her son and main teacher within the school, are no different than Harim--they are good, faithful people (but in Jesus Christ as Kenya is mostly Christian) who are doing what they can to make an impact on the world. They open their arms to volunteers and welcome them into their home. They do the same for orphans who have nowhere else to go, and they do it for the children who live in local slums but who still deserve an education. In so many ways, they are strangers: they are a different race, speak another language, eat different foods, and have faith in someone we don't. But, boy am I glad to have met them and to have held their hands. They have shown me what it is to live a connected and purposeful life, and I am forever grateful.
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