Preach Rick Steves!
This little essay is so relevant to me. I have had so many eye opening conversations when I was abroad that made me think about America’s core assumptions. Intense discussions about freedom, authoritarianism and democracy in Egypt after Tahrir Square, formative thoughts about the social safety net with a German in Africa many years ago, seeing US funded Contras in Nicaragua in the 90s and realizing the other side of our military intervention, sitting across a table from a group of Afghan Taliban elders at a human rights organization in Kabul and hearing their perception about how the military treated them and their families and about their friends in Guantanamo, and most recently so many discussions with Brits about Brexit vs Trump.
The most relevant right now has to be volunteering at a shelter in the Mexican side of the border and spending the day speaking to be people who had just been deported and immigrants setting off to try to plan their path over the border. I was forever changed by that day and the whole week of migrant related different humanitarian experiences. Our policies are completely out of sync with the motivations there. And I will respect the people who take on that hard path to make a better life and to flea unfathomable horrors even more after seeing their faces up close.
I just wish more American’s traveled and then maybe there wouldn’t be a Trump Presidency…
No comments:
Post a Comment