Destination Here & Now

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately.

As some of you know over on the facebook page I’m virtual traveling my way around the Mediterranean in the hope of doing it for real in 2016. We’re in Libya at the moment and while I’m sourcing as many beautiful shots as I can of the country, bombs are going off outside the hospital in Benghazi.

I think about where I live in Australia and if bombs were going off in Sydney or Canberra we’d be watching it on the night time news too. We’d be feeling it more keenly because it’s closer to home, we’d be horrified, we’d be worried for our friends and family living there, but our lives would continue on, largely unchanged.

I often think about the people we met in Syria in 2010, in the countryside and in the cities. I wonder how they have been effected by the violence of the past two years. Are their hotels empty? Is there food on their tables? Is there still laughter amidst the chaos? Does the charming elderly professor we met in a dark Damascus alley at 2 in the morning still visit his sons in Germany? They were both studying to be doctors. Are they still? Is the manager of our hotel in Damascus – who was moonlighting as a waiter in a restaurant at night to put his children through school – is he still working two jobs? Does he have a job? Are his children still at school? Are they all still alive? I hope so. I so hope so.

Slowly. Ever so slowly I am making some online friendships in North Africa through Facebook. It’s happening. I can’t believe it’s happening. And still I have this gnawing feeling that travel is a middle class luxury – virtual or not – especially when a country is wracked by violence.

And then I stop myself and think friendship is friendship – virtual or not.

The thing that I love most about travel is that it allows you to step into someone else’s shoes, or the Putting on Special Clothes Room as the case may be.

It can take you out of your comfort zone. It can challenge you. It can change you.

How can I know what makes people tick if I don’t know the people. It could very well be a cursory, touristic version but with a little bit of local knowledge it could very well not.

If travel can broker a little more understanding, then surely that can only be a good thing – can’t it?

Thankyou so much to the people in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya who have extended the hand of friendship so far.

Mine’s out there too.

I know it’s nothing more than a gesture at this point in time.

Let’s just hope we have that coffee together one day.

Are you free in 2016?

I hope so.

UPDATE 18.5.13: Stumbled on this thoughtful article in the Sydney Morning Herald today. Louise Southerden’s tips on minimising your footprint abroad, while helping communities prosper.