To travel = to be grateful

If you read my post about trying to cram all my stuff in a carry-on bag for an eight-night trip, then you know I'm off to Tel Aviv, Moscow, and Paris on a business trip. I leave on Monday, and could not be more thrilled to get out of the office. I haven't been on a plane since October, and while I actually don't care very much for flying, I do love what flying promises: a chance to discover a new place or revisit a favorite one, eat amazing food (most of the time), buy clothes that no one will have back home, and interact with my overseas colleagues who I've learned so much from.

During each trip, whether for business or fun, there is always a very distinct moment when I feel how very far away from home I am. It comes over me in a wave, and puts a huge grin on my face. I felt this way for the first time when I was on my first overseas trip at age sixteen. I was at a mall in Strasbourg, France with my host family. The store we were in was something like the Discovery Channel store, and there was a world map tacked to the wall. I paused to look at it and was suddenly struck by the distance between Strasbourg and Massachusetts.

The last time I felt that way was on a tour of the Soweto Township outside of Johannesburg, South Africa, in October 2007. The tour starts by driving through the most affluent suburbs of Johannesburg, with massive mansions hidden behind high walls and security guards on streets lined with beautiful jacarandas and bougainvilleas. These neighborhoods are a far cry from downtown Johannesburg, where I've never been so keenly aware of my race and affluence. Streets teemed with people selling anything and everything, from fruits and vegetables to fake handbags. Abandoned hotels and high-rise buildings have been taken over by the poor in need of a roof over their heads. Downtown Johannesburg is stuck in a terrible cycle: businesses don't want to return to the area because of the violence and poverty, but the violence and poverty will continue until businesses return to bring revenue and jobs back to the area.

On our drive out to Soweto while we were still definitely in the city, our guide drove us through a marketplace where medicinal roots and herbs were sold. Next to it was the witch doctor market, where python skins hung to dry over the fence and animal carcases hung in bundles from the market's rafters.

When we enter Soweto, I'm struck by how closely the middle-class neighborhoods are to extreme poverty; they're separated by a grassy area about as wide as a football field. Across the field are rows of buildings made of concrete blocks with tin roofs. The field between middle-class and poverty seems to serve as a reminder of how close and yet how far away we are from losing everything.

Part of the tour included walking through an impoverished neighborhood, with dirt streets and one pipe coming out of the ground to provide water to the whole area. During this part of the tour, our guide was a resident of the neighborhood and made his living off of the tips from tourists. He seemed proud of his home, and the fact they just had a public toilet installed. He enouraged us to take photos, but I felt odd about it. It seemed strange to treat their homes as a tourist attraction, but at the same time I suppose it's the only way the rest of the world will be reminded that there are really few of us who can afford a digital camera and an $80 tour.

A group of children spotted us and followed us down the street, smiling and wanting me to take their picture. Ultimately I did, my discomfort outweighed by the need to remember the experience.

On a Saturday in the middle of a two-week business tour of eastern Europe, Israel, and South Africa was when I felt truly grateful to have the life that I have. I don't have to wonder where my next meal will come from, whether I will have shoes to wear to work or if I will have a job to go to at all. My concerns now, almost embarrassingly, are which restaurant I will go to tonight, which of my 30 pairs of shoes I'll wear to work, and whether or not I'll get a raise.

While on business trips, I've climbed the pyramids at Teotihuacan in Mexico, rode roller-coasters at Disneyland Paris, looked in awe at the mosaics in a mosque in Istanbul, and stared amazed at Michelangelo's work in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. These excursions were fun; the Soweto tour was not. It was, however, by far the most meaningful. I'm forever thankful to be in a position where travel can introduce me to what is truly happening in the world today, to put me in a place where I can feel how far away from home I am and yet how connected we are to each other.