What about you?
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A NOTE TO THE READERS OF MY WORDPRESS BLOG. I NOW WRITE ALL MY STORIES ON THE WRITING PLATFORM MEDIUM. FOR NOW, I AM COPYING AND PASTING FROM MEDIUM TO WORDPRESS. THE HIGHLIGHTED SENTENCES ARE FROM MY MEDIUM READERS. I CAN TAKE THE COLORING OFF.
THANK YOU FOR READING MY BLOG. PAUL
Rebecca and I will spend next January in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. We wanted to escape at least one month of another cold and snowy midwest USA winter. Arizona, California, and Florida did not appeal. We wanted someplace new, outside America.
This now seems natural to search beyond our country’s boundaries. But it wasn’t always this way for me. As I write this story from the comfort of our home, it still isn’t instinctive.
I’ve broken my trek toward globe-trotting comfort into six vignettes.
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#1. I traveled outside the United States for the first time in the summer of 1987. I joined a group of teachers and their families on a two-week trip to England. On our first night in London, a few of us ate dinner at a pub close to our hotel. As we finished the meal, one couple complained that the food didn’t taste like they were used to, and the beer was warm. Even as a novice traveler, agreeing silently with them about the beer, I thought this was not a good attitude.
And I vowed to myself that I would learn to manage this tendency and develop a habit of comfort with new things. As a guest, I must do my best to learn about a region’s culture, values, history, and cuisine. I need to leave myself at home.
#2. In the summer of 1999, Richard dropped me off in Nottingham’s city center and said, “When you finish exploring, why don’t you take the bus back to our house? I was in Nottingham to direct Luther College’s year-long program in this north-central English city. Richard was the previous year’s director and would spend a few days showing me the ropes. Eleven students would follow in September. My tasks before they arrived included working with Nottingham University on each student’s academic schedule and planning four group trips around the United Kingdom.
But my first responsibility was learning how to get around this city of 300,000 so I could guide the students when they arrived. After Richard left, I recall standing on a busy corner in the Nottingham city center with a house address in one hand and a bus timetable in the other and feeling overwhelmed. One year later, the day before David, the following year’s director was to arrive, I walked from that same city center spot three miles to the director’s house without a map or bus schedule. All good things take time. Learn to live with uncertainty.
#3. Directing Luther’s Nottingham program sparked an interest in global experiences that continues today. Two years later, in August 2001, Mark faced me across the breakfast table at the Imperial Hotel in London. Mark was the director of what was then called Luther’s Study Abroad Office. Mark and I had come to London and Ireland to spend four days scouting locations for a January 2002 three-week study course with students I would lead. “What’s first on our agenda?” asked Mark. I looked at him and said, “I have no idea.” Fittingly, he gently chided me and said, “It’s your responsibility to plan these courses.”
Over the next decade and a half, I would plan, lead, and execute five January study away courses to Northern Ireland, Ireland, and England, in 2002, 2009, 2011, 2013, and 2015. And in the spring of 2018, in my last semester before retirement, my partner Rebecca and I would direct Luther’s semester program in Malta. As part of the Malta Program, we took our 11 students on group trips to Italy, Morocco, and Croatia that were planned, organized, and led by Rebecca and me.
In the fall of 2019, Rebecca and I co-hosted a Luther College alum trip to Northern Ireland and Ireland to study Peace and Reconciliation. And in the spring of 2020 and fall of 2021, I served as a Fulbright Scholar at West University in Timișoara, Romania.
I loved classroom teaching, but living and traveling with students in another country was my career’s most challenging and rewarding experience.Somehow — Luck? Fate? — I landed at a college that valued faculty travel and delivered mentors who showed me the way. They let me fail and fail again. And helped me scratch an itch I didn’t know I had.
Being a competent global traveler has become a part of my identity.
#4. In the fall of 2021, Rebecca and I visited the family of one of my Romanian students. Alex’s mom and dad, Gabriela and Marius, and sister Cosmina lived in Reșița, about an hour from Timișoara. Over lunch, Rebecca talked about how one of her daughters had married an Israeli-Jewish American. After she told this story, Marius looked at her and said, almost apologetically, “That could never happen in Romania; America is 30 years ahead of us.”
About a week later, I told this story during a guest lecture in a colleague’s class. My colleague responded by saying her grandfather had married a Jewish Romanian. She then asked for the hands (the course was taught online) of students who knew of Jewish family members. It looked like about 20% of the class raised their hands. For the rest of the hour, the class discussed Romania’s silence. I listened and silently thanked Alex’s family for triggering this educational moment.
I reminded myself that a traveler gets to know the local people. And listens more than speaks. And respects people, government, and institutions at their current level while garnering new respect for cultural pluralism.
#5. Our guide was a Sinn Fein politician on the 2019 alum trip to Northern Ireland and Ireland that Rebecca and me organized and hosted. Michael arranged a visit to The Belfast Police Museum that honors The Police Service of Northern Ireland. As our coach pulled into the parking lot, Michael said, “I’m sure I’m the first Sinn Fein political official to enter this museum.” As we walked through the museum, I saw how tense Michael was.
Afterward, on our way to Derry, he talked to us about what it was like growing up as a Catholic in Protestant Northern Ireland. Later in the trip, we spoke with a Protestant minister about his fears of living as a part of a united and Catholic Ireland. Like Michael, as he talked, I could feel his tenseness.
The 2019 trip was my 6th group trip to this region of the world. Whenever I walk again through the Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods of Belfast and Derry (Londonderry to Protestants), I am reminded of the power of tradition and history. The more travelers know of a country’s history and traditions, the more they will see and feel like I did with Michael.
#6. Two Romanian classes were moved online in the Covid spring of 2020 after two in-person sessions. This was the first time I had taught an online course. Zooming, to me, was something Mighty Mouse did. Once it became clear that COVID was sticking around, I had no choice but to adapt and learn. Travel has taught me to expect the unexpected. It will likely happen.
Two weeks before every global trip, I get anxious. This feeling will hit me as we prepare for Mexico next December. I’m sitting writing this essay on our front porch. The sights, sounds, and smells are familiar. There is a little in me of that couple with the wrong attitude I described in story #1.
But there is more to life than familiarity. There is challenge and newness. I’m comfortable with both feelings.
What about you?
