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Travel
the World... |
Independent advice for |
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traveling the world |
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Photo by Jeff Booth
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Red Eye
By Jeff Booth
I was looking down a ten-foot-deep hole in the ground—it was padded with straw, dripping with fat from sheep’s milk, and straight-up stinking—when the Italian farmer unloading his year’s supply of formaggio di fossa looked up at me and asked, “So, who did you vote for yesterday?”
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It was amazing, this past election, how interested the rest of the world was in our politics. Of course, “our politics” isn’t necessarily an appropriate term anymore. Even in the small town of Talamello in central Italy, in the middle of the cheese-making that’s been a tradition here for centuries, the presidential campaign mattered. The next day, while I was drinking espresso in a café in Venice, the bartender wanted me to explain the Electoral College—in Italian. An Iraqi immigrant to Italy began to tell me about his support for Bush, and later, my pharmacist professed his preference for Kerry.
Two things occurred to me while reading in-depth analyses in foreign papers: The world not only cares about U.S. politics but understands that process as well. And for good reason, too. But what if we Americans were even half as informed about the rest of the world’s policies and leaders?
Travel isn’t politics—at least, not exactly. But spend time in another country, and you’ll gain new perspective on everything from food to fashion to, if you’re lucky, local politics (Blair? Berlusconi? Hu Jintao?). And as travelers, we are ambassadors of the first rank. We have a chance, when asked, to try to explain gerrymandering, pork-barrel politics, and campaign-finance reform, and to learn about the goings-on abroad (everyone has a corrupt official to complain about). At the most basic—and most important—level, we can show that stereotypes of Americans, whatever they may be, simply aren’t true. And if, as Eleanor Cameron does in The Backpacker Caste, her story on Nepal, you happen to run into some rebel guerrillas trying to overthrow the government, it doesn’t hurt to ask, “Why?” And by asking, maybe we move a bit farther away from the guns and Machiavellian backstabbing, and a bit closer to sharing a cup of coffee together.
Get informed, and get out there,
Jeff
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