A Ray of Sunshine in Myanmar

It's been quite a long time since I offered an entry in my "Ray of Sunshine" series. To refresh your memory, the earlier stories were about Greg Mortenson, who helps rural communities build schools for girls in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Dr. Sanduk Ruit, an eye surgeon who brings the gift of sight to thousands of poor people in Nepal.

If you're like me you're probably getting very tired of the daily gloom and doom that dominates the news these days. Conflict and strife, death and destruction, stalemate and stagnation, calamity and chaos -- these seem to be the media's focus most of the time. Something positive and uplifting would be a welcome relief.

Here's a possible candidate. And it's one from a very unlikely arena -- politics.

Her name is Aung San Suu Kyi,  a dynamic and altogether admirable populist leader in Burma (Myanmar) recently elected to Parliament after being held under house arrest by the military-run government for 15 of the last 21 years. She is pro-democracy, committed to peaceful means of bringing about social change, a proponent of compromise and reaching out to opponents, and so far as anyone can tell she is a person of the highest personal integrity, conscience and intelligence.  In short, a rather unusual politician -- particularly by current American standards.

I first became aware of Aung San Suu Kyi when my wife and I traveled to Myanmar early in 2012 (see "Mini-Monks in Myanmar").  Our visit happened to be during the campaigning for open seats in Parliament and Suu Kyi's popularity was evident everywhere we went.  The Burmese people often refer to her as "The Lady," a term of great respect and affection.  They clearly hold her in very high esteem and reverence for her years of sacrifice for the cause of bringing democracy to her country.

Myanmar gained independence from Britain in 1948. Suu Kyi's father was instrumental in that struggle and likely would have been a very prominent leader in the new government if he had not been assassinated by political rivals in 1947 when Suu Kyi was 2 years old. The fledgling government was democratic and representative, but had great difficulty dealing with conflicts between competing political and ethnic groups. The military took over in 1958 to stabilize the country and establish central control, but peace imposed from the barrel of a gun is notoriously unstable and when hostile factions are forced to coexist lethal pressure explodes when the force is removed.  Several attempts over the years to return to elected government resulted in chaos and the reimposition of military rule with an increasingly corrupt, cruel, and authoritarian leadership that has shown itself to be insensitive to the plight of the average citizen.  By the way, it was the military government that changed the name of the country to Myanmar.  For this reason Aung San Suu Kyi prefers to use the older name Burma.

In 1990 the military held the country's first election in 30 years, and although it tried to squelch the pro-democratic party of which Aung San Suu Kyi was a member by placing her and several other party leaders under house arrest, the vote was overwhelmingly in favor of the party candidates.  The military was of course displeased with the results and barred the winners from taking office.  After five years of continued suppression Suu Kyi was released from house arrest but not allowed to travel outside of Yangon.  Even with this restriction her popularity grew, threatening the regime's control.  In 2000 she was detained again and spent the next decade, except for a brief period in 2002-2003, under house arrest.

In 2010 the military held a referendum on a new constitution -- this one carefully crafted to contain provisions ensuring their continued power even in an elected government.  The referendum was held in the terrible aftermath of Cyclone Nargis in which the military barred foreign relief workers or even foreign planes to deliver aid.  At the time voting took place nearly 2.5 million people were still either homeless or in need of food and medical assistance.  Despite this the government claimed that 98% of the electorate voted and -- surprise -- the constitution was approved by 92%.  Feeling confident their power was secured,  Aung San Suu Kyi was finally released from custody and allowed to run for office, which she won by an overwhelming margin.  It remains to be seen how effective she can be in the restrictive governmental structure, but at least her voice can now be heard and she can exert legitimate influence on shaping Myanmar's future.

Her new freedom has also allowed her to travel internationally and to address audiences world-wide. And to hear her speak about her political and personal philosophy is a delight. She is articulate, rational, soft-spoken, compassionate even toward her opponents, and willing to admit when she is wrong.  Quite a contrast to the rancorous, sloganistic, dogmatic and mean-spirited political dialogue that characterizes most of our current crop of politicians and faux-news commentary. We would do well in the U.S. to follow her example. (If you want a quick taste of Aung San Suu Kyi's views and her personality, I recommend a recent 30-minute interview on our local PBS station show, Long Story Short with Leslie Wilcox.)

I'll close with a few quotes that I think illustrate why I think she is indeed a ray of sunshine:

"Often the other side of the coin of intolerance is insecurity. Insecure people tend to be intolerant, and their intolerance unleashes forces that threaten the security of others. And where there is no security there can be no lasting peace. "  (Opening Keynote Address at NGO Forum on Women, Beijing 1991) 

"A most insidious form of fear is that which masquerades as common sense or even wisdom, condemning as foolish, reckless, insignificant or futile the small, daily acts of courage which help to preserve man's self-respect and inherent human dignity."   (Acceptance message for the 1990 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought)

"To be kind is to respond with sensitivity and human warmth to the hopes and needs of others. Even the briefest touch of kindness can lighten a heavy heart. Kindness can change the lives of people."  (Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech, 2012)

Business Math + Banker's Math II: The Shoe That Didn't Drop

In my first installment in this series I recounted how Budget Rental Car padded their CEO's bonus by adding 4% to my rental bill in Italy for a foreign currency conversion charge, even though I thought I was avoiding it by using my Capital One credit card.  Apparently I had agreed to this fee when I signed my contract in Italy, though I don't recall reading it there and unfortunately I've misplaced the contract and can't check the exact wording.

I contacted Budget's Customer Service and asked how I could avoid this in the future, particularly since I had reserved two more foreign rentals, this time in Chile.  I'll let you go to the first blog the read the email exchange that ensued in which I received confusing and contradictory advice, ending with the rather astonishing admission that there is no universal policy about this fee:

Budget: Thank you for contacting Budget. Budget locations in Italy and in Chile are independently owned franchise locations and may have different policies in place which deviates from standard policy. As advised, renters are to make their currency request [my emphasis] at the beginning of the rental. We apologize for any misunderstanding or inconvenience. If we can be of further assistance, please let us know.

As I pointed out previously the problem with "making a currency request" is that in one Budget email I was advised to request that the charge be in local currency, and in another email told to request that it be in U.S. dollars.

I gave it one last shot by contacting the Customer Service people in Chile directly:

Me:  My wife and I have reserved Budget cars in two locations for our upcoming trip to Chile:  Santiago (#xxx192US3) and Puerto Montt (#xxxxx5US1). I would like to avoid any currency conversion charges for these two rentals by Budget.  My credit card does not assess these and I would like to take advantage of this feature.

 How can I be certain that Budget will not assess me currency conversion charges?

 After considerable delay I received the following reply:

Budget Chile:  Dear Mr. Richard Sherman: According your request, inform you that is difficult for us confirm that you will not have any currency conversion charges, because we do not have any control over foreign banks, also our values and charges are systematized, maybe you could leave the guarantee with your credit card and pay of lease in cash.

 Everybody clear?

My interpretation of Budget Chile's email is that either (a) they were being deliberately unhelpful and if I wanted to avoid the Budget charge I would have to obtain wads of Chilean Pesos to pay the final bill, or (b) they had no idea what I was talking about because they never levied conversion fees themselves, unlike the Budget folks in Italy.

I went ahead with these rentals last month when we visited Chile, mainly because Budget's rates were very competitive and because I felt prepared to do battle over this.  Each time we picked up our car I asked the agent if there would be any additional charge for converting Pesos to Dollars, and I asked the same question again when we returned the cars.  All four times the answer was "no."

Of course, the proof is in the credit card statement, and so I have been waiting to see what the final charge amounts would be, as compared to the official exchange rates. The answer is now in, and to be "fair and balanced" (I can't believe I just said that), I have to report that Budget Chile did NOT add a conversion charge!

The lesson here is to travel to Chile and avoid Italy.  No, wait -- that's not it.  The lesson is that we consumers have to be constantly vigilant about business and banking practices in order to avoid unnecessary and unjustified charges.  And we can't become complacent just because we think we are prepared, like my use of a fee-free credit card. This becomes really difficult when you're in a foreign country and foggy from jet lag, but that's when you're most vulnerable.

Confusion, complacency and lack of information are a banker/businessman's best friends.

Mini Monks in Myanmar

Earlier this year my wife and I had the good fortune to visit Myanmar (aka Burma) for about three weeks.  I emphasize "good fortune" because it was one of our best travel experiences ever -- warm, friendly and welcoming people, surprisingly good food, rich history, exotic culture, astonishingly beautiful Buddhist monuments and archeological sites.  "Good fortune" too in that geopolitical shifts suddenly allowed us to make the trip before mass tourism takes its inevitable toll.

We've wanted to travel there for years but didn't want to support the corrupt and repressive military regime that seized power in 1962.  This is the government that caused international condemnation in 2007 when it refused humanitarian aid after a horrific typhoon hit the southern provinces leading to an estimated 180,000 deaths from disease and starvation.  It also held the pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest for much of the last 20 years, despite the fact that in 1990 she resoundingly won the first election held after the military takeover. Recently however the military has introduced significant political, social, and economic reforms that have led to an improvement in relations with the U.S., giving us the opportunity we've been waiting for.

Of Myanmar's 56 million population, about 500,000 are in the military.  A fairly large army is needed because this is one of many countries in the world where order and stability come from the barrel of a gun.  But there are also about 300,000 Buddhist monks in Myanmar, a striking spiritual counterweight to raw physical force. Their orange robes and shaved heads make them stand out everywhere, adding to the exotic atmosphere that emphasizes to a Western visitor that "Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore."  There are also about 20,000 Buddhist nuns who also shave their heads but wear pink robes instead of orange.

The country is 89% Buddhist, a large portion of whom are fairly devout. Christians and Muslims are a tiny minority, about 4% each, with the remainder being mostly Hindu. There are very few Jewish citizens. This is a different variety of Buddhism than the type we saw in Bhutan (see my blog Bummin' With Buddha in Bhutan) though the basic tenets are the same. As was the case in Bhutan, Buddhism incorporated earlier religious beliefs rather than attempting to supplant them. In Myanmar this involves belief in Nats, spirits who inhabit objects and places and who have the power to protect those who worship them.  Monks seem to tolerate this but do not promote Nat worship. In the 11th century the monastic order cleverly declared that the most powerful of Nats had historically paid homage to Buddha, thus making all Nats subordinate to Buddhism. Despite this rather obvious self-serving maneuver, I found Buddhist practice in Myanmar much more agreeable than in Bhutan, where the monastic order seems to actively encourage and benefit from decidedly non-Buddhist beliefs in magic, superstition and demons.

The sight of thousands of monks and nuns is certainly novel to most Western visitors who have at best a rudimentary understanding of Buddhism.  Even more striking is that many of these monks and nuns are children as young as ten years old. This is very hard for someone raised in the deist religions of Christianity, Judaism, or Islam to grasp. For us clerical robes usually signify a consecrated spiritual leader dedicated to transmitting received knowledge to the laity -- definitely not something a 10-year old is capable of doing. Somewhat closer to the Buddhist concept are cloistered monastic orders in which monks and nuns dedicate themselves to a contemplative life rather than service to the larger community. But in Western religions children would not likely be candidates for such an order.

So what are these mini monks and mini nuns doing and why are they doing it?  The answer is a bit different for males and females.  In Myanmar (as in neighboring Buddhist countries Thailand, Laos and Cambodia) all Buddhist males are expected to become members of the monastic order twice during their lives -- once as novices between the ages of 10 and 20, and again as an ordained monk sometime after age 20.  These are usually temporary associations, though about 15% become permanent.  For girls there is no requirement to become a nun, but joining the order offers an attractive means for social advancement, especially for those of low economic status.

The novices reside in a monastery or convent and follow the daily monastic routine which involves secular and religious education as well as meditative practice.  For Buddhists meditation is the primary means of progressing toward the goal of enlightenment and thereby achieving Nirvana, the complete absence of suffering and unhappiness.  Meditation is not prayer or worship in the sense of deist religions but rather a way to gain control over one's mind and emotions, to develop insight into the nature of suffering and unhappiness, and to achieve a deeper understanding of life. I suspect that younger novices might have difficulty with some of the more complex issues but they still benefit in both the short and long term from acquiring the self-control and discipline needed for meditative practice. Thinking back to my own youth I am certain this would have been time better spent for me than the semi-delinquent and angst-ridden things I actually did.

For us the chance to interact with these mini-monks and nuns was one of the highlights of the trip.  Like many children of that age they were very curious about us and eager to practice their English. We had many enjoyable encounters with them but one special time for me was at the beginning of the trip in Yangon, when we paid an evening visit to the famous Shwedagon Paya, one of the largest Buddhist monuments in the world.  Local people gather on the terrace below the central stupa in the evening to socialize and pay homage to Buddha.  I broke away from our tour group and found a quiet place to sit and observe the scene. I was soon approached by three novices 14-15 years old who politely initiated a conversation about politics, religion, and social norms.  This is a situation where my years of world travel caused a cautionary alarm to sound in my head at the beginning but it was clearly unfounded. They were delighted to learn I was an American, and even more pleased to learn I was a teacher (educators in Myanmar are highly revered).  But in this case I was the one who learned the most -- I saw first-hand the disciplined thinking, openness to ideas, skillful concentration and emotional control that are very likely attributable at least in part to being mini-monks.

I have no illusions that Buddhism in Myanmar has avoided the kinds of gaps between principle and practice that are characteristic of other religions. History has shown that when religions become institutionalized they often transform from spiritual philosophies to social organizations focused on power, status, dominance and self-preservation.  Self-righteous violence against others, exploitative accumulation of wealth, sexual misconduct of spiritual leaders, and ruthless suppression of dissent are the frequent result. A glaring example in Myanmar is the long-standing conflict between two ethnic/religious groups in the northwest: Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims.  As reported by the BBC, recent violence erupted in late May when a Buddhist woman was raped and murdered by three Muslims. A Buddhist mob later killed 10 Muslims in retaliation, though they were unconnected with the earlier incident. In the violence that has followed about 80,000 people have been displaced and thousands of homes destroyed.

All religions are characterized by such disconnects between behavior and belief, including Buddhism, and my travels have frequently brought me face-to-face with their historical remnants around the world.  Although Buddhism is clearly not immune to this shortcoming, the historical record seems rather more negative for the major deist religions.  I am unaware of any Buddhist equivalents equal in scale to crusades, holocausts, jihads, or inquisitions.

Maybe these mini monks are on to something.

Disney Dreams

Walt Disney opened his California theme park in 1955 with these words: "To all who come to this happy place, welcome."

"This happy place" quickly morphed into the slogan of the park that persists to this day -- "The Happiest Place on Earth."  The recognizability of the phase as referring to Disneyland and now to other Disney parks certainly attests to its success as a marketing logo, but also to the fact that several generations of visitors have agreed with the sentiment it expresses.

Although Walt clearly wanted to make people happy, there was quite a bit more to it than that.  At the 1955 opening ceremony he went on to say,

 "Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past...and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams and the hard facts that have created America...with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world."

His own dream was embodied in his plans for Disney World in Florida,  a project that went way beyond anything he had accomplished at Disneyland.  As I mentioned in my last blog, Disney World was opened in 1971 but sadly Disney died of lung cancer before it was completed. The official motto of WDW became "Where Dreams Come True," perhaps a reference not only to the dreams of visitors but also to Walt's own. At the grand opening Walt's brother Roy alluded to this:

"Walt Disney World is a tribute to the philosophy and life of Walter Elias Disney ... and to the talents, the dedication, and the loyalty of the entire Disney organization that made Walt Disney's dream come true. May Walt Disney World bring joy and inspiration and new knowledge to all who come to this happy place ... a Magic Kingdom where the young at heart of all ages can laugh and play and learn ... together."

And Julie Andrews, host of the televised ceremonies, made the connection very clear, referring to the park as "...a joyful land built by an inspired dreamer for other dreamers and dreams still to come."

It is hard to find fault with these sentiments.  They seem particularly uplifting in this time of economic, political, and social malaise.  After the deaths of Walt and Roy, it fell to the corporate structure they created to carry on the ideals they had espoused in these dedication speeches. For the most part I think the Disney brothers would approve of the changes in the parks and the numerous other new projects and developments that have taken place in their name over the years.

The many times I have visited the parks (almost always WDW) I have enjoyed myself thoroughly.  However, my last stay at WDW produced some nagging qualms that I have been struggling to deal with.  In my last blog I explored one of them, the presence of thousands of school-age children before the end of the school year who did not seem to be there to "...savor the challenge and promise of the future" nor to appreciate "new knowledge."  But they were certainly managing to "...laugh and play"  (well, when they weren't on their cell phones).

Another qualm has to do with the message that seems to underlie the current use of the slogans mentioned above.  It was about five years since I was at WDW, and I'm not sure whether it is me who has changed or whether it is the way the taglines are being used, but during my most recent visit I began to detect a shallowness to the constant emphasis on dreams, wishes, memories and magic -- a shallowness that certainly doesn't do justice to Walt and Roy.  The message, delivered in performances and attractions that were invariably entertaining and thoroughly effective at evoking warm and fuzzy visceral emotional responses, seemed to be that your dreams will always come true if you just wish with all your heart.  Just wish it and it will happen, no matter what you want.

This idea appeared in many venues and was especially evident in the spectacularly well-produced nightly fireworks show called, appropriately enough, Wishes. The show begins with some great fireworks and a few words from the Blue Fairy, who proclaims that when a star is born it has the power to grant a wish.  A song follows ending with the well-known refrain "When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are, anything your heart desires will come...to...you."  Jiminy Cricket then directly addresses those who might be skeptical:  "I'll bet a lot of you folks don’t believe that, about a wish coming true, do ya? We'll I didn’t either. Course, I’m just a cricket, but lemme tell you what made me change my mind. You see, the most fantastic, magical things can happen, and it all starts with a wish!"  The evidence is then presented in the form of the wishes-come-true of Tinkerbell, Cinderella, Snow White, Ariel, Peter Pan, Pinocchio, and Aladdin.  Jiminy concludes "You see, its just like I told ya. Wishes can come true, if you believe in them with all your heart."

Well, ok.  But I wonder if a more beneficial lesson might not be drawn from Disney's own life.  His dreams didn't come true just because he wished them to but rather because he worked hard, took great risks, and sacrificed much to overcome many difficulties and obstacles.  He was frequently on the brink of financial disaster;  his creative ideas and plans were often met with skepticism and derision;  a number of his projects were failures, or were abandoned before they were started.  Despite these challenges he persevered when many of us would have given up.  Wishing and dreaming were necessary to his success, but hardly sufficient. 

In my view that's the true legacy of Disney.

A Disney Education

My wife and I just spent a week at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. No, we didn't take kids or grand kids with us -- we don't have any, and besides in our view they would spoil our fun.

We have visited WDW many times since it was opened in 1971, usually every five years or so.  Any more often is an overdose, similar to going to Las Vegas too often.  Both places offer escapist fantasy of the highest order, best enjoyed after a break to re-center and re-ground your sensibilities.

It is important to distinguish between Walt Disney World (WDW) in Florida and Disneyland in California.  Disneyland was Walt's first theme park, a ground-breaking concept that opened in 1955 and almost immediately outgrew its available space.  WDW in contrast consists of a vast tract of 47 square miles in central Florida, with four widely spaced theme parks (Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, EPCOT, and Animal Kingdom),  two water parks, 23 on-site themed resort hotels (excluding eight more that are on-site, but not owned by the Walt Disney Company),  a campground, two spas and physical fitness centers, five golf courses, and other recreational and entertainment venues in an area known as Downtown Disney.  If you stay on site, as we choose to do, you are immersed in the whole Disney experience 24/7.  Mickey and friends are everywhere, including on the soap in your bathroom;  everything is neat and tidy; everyone is polite, friendly, and happy.  As I said, escapist fantasy of the highest order.  Sadly, Walt Disney died at 65 from lung cancer, five years before his dream opened in 1971.  His older brother Roy delayed retirement to oversee the initial development of WDW and then died a few months after the opening. 

Our visit was at the end of April, a time we thought would be less crowded because it was after most school spring breaks and before summer vacations.  We reasoned that most parents are concerned with their children's education and wouldn't take them out of school just to visit a theme park. This is also a time when central Florida weather is still moderate.  Our other visits have been in the fall, around Christmas, and during the summer, and so we were looking forward to our first springtime visit.

We were right about the weather --  most days were clear and the temperature was pleasant.  And the crowds weren't as bad as they can be in the peak summer months.

But we were dead wrong about the numbers of school-age kids.  Besides quite a few families with one or more children there were many, many groups of junior high and high school kids from all parts of the country, apparently on field trips or senior outings.  And there were thousands of teenage girls who were participating in the annual World Championship Cheerleading competitions being held at EPCOT.  When the cheerleaders weren't competing they were roaming the parks in packs of 10 to 20 giggling and jiggling "nubile nymphettes," as I called them. Needless to say, this altered the "Magical" atmosphere considerably.

The presence of so many kids whose schools were still weeks away from summer break raised questions in our minds about the commitment of the kids as students, the educational priorities of their parents, and the values of the sponsoring organizations (maybe including Disney Corp.).  I'm sure there are all kinds of practical justifications for these children to miss school in order to visit WDW;  parents cannot always control the timing of their vacations from work;  it's easier for organizations to schedule venues at WDW during this time of year;  travel arrangements are cheaper and more plentiful now than in the summer.  It is also true that not all "education" takes place in a classroom and indeed there are a number educational aspects to be found in WDW. 

These justifications seem reasonable but I think they may be problematic in several ways.  First, though visiting WDW can be educational in some ways, that is true no matter when it occurs.  On the other hand certain important educational experiences are closely tied to a classroom --  for example, I've never seen anything in WDW that would substitute for a skillful explanation of algebraic expansion or the laboratory experience of working through an analytical chemistry problem.  Second, the absence of large numbers of students poses significant logistical problems for teachers and schools, both in altering the classroom structure that is supportive of learning and in placing additional demands on teachers to help students make up work they have missed. Third, when parents and organizations endorse school absence they convey to young people that education is less important than entertainment and enjoyment.  I'm afraid this is a general trend in our society today, and I don't believe it serves us well in the global community.  As my wife and I have traveled around the world we have seen many developing countries investing heavily in education and  infrastructure. The support for educational institutions and teachers is striking.  Just the opposite seems to be the case in the U.S., as illustrated by recent budget cuts to schools and universities and salary freezes and reductions for teachers.

Maybe I'm making too much of this.  Or maybe I just received my very own Disney Education.

 _______________________________________________

An additional resource on Disney can be found at http://www.units.muohio.edu/psybersite/disney.  This web site was created by a group of my students as a class project some years ago.

Here are a couple of quotes about Disney you may find interesting:

When Dwight D. Eisenhower was President, called Disney a "genius as a creator of folklore" and said his "sympathetic attitude toward life has helped our children develop a clean and cheerful view of humanity, with all its frailties and possibilities for good."

Prof. William Lyon Phelps of Yale said of Mr. Disney: "He has accomplished something that has defied all the efforts and experiments of the laboratories in zoology and biology. He has given animals souls."

Flying the (Un)Friendly Skies

One of the worst things about traveling is...traveling.  Specifically, air travel. This once-glamorous mode of transportation has now become a stressful, hassle-laden, uncomfortable, and often degrading experience.  My wife and I visit other other places for fun and enrichment, which usually makes up for some of the negatives of getting to our destination.  We have great sympathy for business travelers who endure flying for their jobs and don't have this compensation.

My wife and I fly quite a lot, often to places that are far from home (see my blogs on Bhutan and on the Middle East).  We can't afford Business Class or First Class, so these journeys are in "steerage" unless by some increasingly rare miracle we get a free upgrade. It isn't unusual for the total flying time on these trips to be 15-20 hours, usually but not always broken into two or more segments of 5-10 hours each.  Once we suffer through the cattle-pen atmosphere of checking in, the indignities of going through security, the elbow-fest of getting our share of overhead bin space, and finally shoe-horning ourselves into our seats, the rest of the trip is primarily a matter trying to cope with excruciating boredom and physical discomfort.

At this point I should acknowledge that we have it incredibly easy compared to the days before air travel, and we forget that commercial aviation is a very recent technological marvel.  Someone from the late 1800's would find our complaints trivial in light of the wondrous feat of traveling half-way around the world in a day or two.

But human nature leads us to use a more restrictive basis of comparison, namely how things have changed in the recent past.  Geopolitical events, like 9/11, have led to tightening of airport security. Financial pressures on airlines have led to a host of cost-cutting measures, including reducing the number of flights, cramming more seats in each aircraft, charging for luggage, meals, and on some airlines even for the privilege of reserving a specific seat in advance.  In short, it seems like the situation is getting worse and worse.

The latest round of decline for us involves the recent merger of United Airlines and Continental Airlines.  For years we have been members of United's frequent flyer program primarily because United has offered the best mainland and international connections.  Of course, actually cashing in our award miles has always been a little difficult because we live in Hawai'i -- a popular destination for people to use their miles to visit, making competition for available award seats fierce.  Still, we've managed to take advantage of the program often enough that it has balanced some of the negatives of air travel.

One of the best features of United's program was that if your paid travel in a year totaled 25,000 miles or more you were rewarded with some extra perks (please note -- these must be miles flown, not earned in other ways, like with a credit card):  You could reserve seats in economy with more leg room, check two bags free, and board the plane earlier (thus avoiding some of the slug-fest for overhead storage).  On our marathon journeys these things have made a big difference, particularly having more comfortable seats, and have kept us loyal to United's program.  And given the amount of money required for us to achieve 25,000 miles in a year, these perks seemed a fitting gesture of appreciation from United for our business.

The merger has changed all that -- for the worse, naturally.

A few weeks ago we received notice from United about the new "wonderful" and "exciting" features of the merger, including the merged frequent flyer programs.  Cutting through all the breathless corporate hype revealed new policies that represent a dramatic downgrade of benefits for customers like us at the 25,000 mile level.  The most irksome change is that now reserving seats with more leg room requires 50,000 miles in a year -- double the earlier number and certainly out of reach of the ordinary traveler.  Even many business travelers might have trouble meeting that requirement.  You can, however, pay extra for those seats -- an additional $150-250 per person for trips of the length we usually take.  There is one shred of this perk left -- 24 hours before the flight we can vie for the unsold premium seats with all the other 25k-milers.  Of course, this means that we may not find seats together, or that the available seats will be in those wonderful "middle of the middle" locations.  Spending 15-20 hours in one of those seats is decidedly unappealing, something you might wish only on the CEO who masterminded this new policy.

For us these changes no longer give United an edge compared to other airline frequent flyer programs. The new policies convey that our loyalty and considerable level of spending don't count for as much as they did.  So be it, and we wish United a profitable future. Their profit probably won't be coming as much from us, however, because we will be much more likely to consider alternative carriers.

Bummin' With Buddha In Bhutan

My wife and I recently spent about three weeks in the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan.  It has been in the news recently because the country's beloved young king got married in a stunningly exotic ceremony that made a great visual "human interest" piece for media broadcasts.  Bhutan is also known for its policy of judging the worthiness of public programs and new laws against a standard of "Gross National Happiness," a rather different approach than some of the ideas being promoted currently in our own policy debates.

As a tourist destination, Bhutan offers what many of us seek in a travel experience;  a colorful, exotic culture with a rich and important history in a beautiful physical setting.  However, this tiny country also has several unique characteristics that make it particularly fascinating. For one thing, it is a country that -- though friendly and welcoming once you're there -- has historically closed itself off from the outside world.  Tourists were not allowed in Bhutan until 1974, and even now are tightly controlled and even banned in certain areas to protect the culture.  A visitor must travel as part of a supervised group or as many do (including us) with a personal guide and driver, enter or leave the country only via the state airline, Druk Air, and spend a minimum per day of $200 (this will increase to $250 in 2012).  These policies restrict the number of tourists and their activities and so far have mitigated some of the problems mass tourism usually brings to underdeveloped countries. 

It is also a fiercely vertical country, an attraction especially to those who enjoy multi-day trekking expeditions.  We stuck to day hikes and traveling by car.  Even so, my gps measured an accumulated elevation gain of 92,000 feet as we journeyed west to east and back, crossing high mountain passes between picturesque valleys along the country's only main "highway," a very scenic but scary road 1 1/2 lanes wide in most places.  Average moving speed according to the gps was 18 mph, leading some days to what we called "Bhutan Butt Rash."

One aspect of Bhutan traditional culture that appeals to many tourists is the prominence of Buddhism in people's daily lives, especially the many colorful festivals held each year in monasteries throughout the country. Most visitors from western countries are not familiar with Buddhist beliefs, and though Bhutan's monastic rituals and ceremonies are puzzling they are exotically photogenic in the extreme.  Buddhism was first introduced around 800 a.d., but really reached a peak in the 14th-17th centuries with the establishment of hundreds of fortified monasteries call Dzongs that are now an architectural hallmark of the country (the style is similar to the famous Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet). The monastic order still wields great influence in the political, economic, and social institutions of Bhutan, perhaps more than any other country in the world at this time.

Possibly because of Bhutan's self-imposed isolation in modern times, traveling there is a little like taking a trip in a time machine to a Himalayan Buddhist society of the 1500's or earlier.  This is a "magical" experience in two senses of the word.  First, most visitors are charmed by what they encounter, though they probably have little understanding of it.  Second, belief in magic and supernatural powers is pervasive and at the core of everyday life.  These beliefs are not essential to Buddhism though they are often presented to visitors as if they were.  Rather, they derive from earlier religious traditions in the Himalayas that included shamanistic practices, animism, and beliefs in myriad demons and deities that controlled one's fate, and many of these beliefs were retained as Buddhism was modified to fit local sensibilities. We were repeatedly shown sites where Guru Rinpoche, the founder of Bhutanese Buddhism, subdued a local demon and then meditated for 3 months in a nearby cave, usually leaving an imprint of his body in the stone.  Even his arrival in Bhutan was magical -- he flew in on the back of a tiger who was actually a manifestation of one of his eight consorts. Many other historical figures are credited with feats of similar supernatural powers, ranging from creating a new animal from the bodies of two other species to diving under water with a lamp that did not extinguish.  It seems that the monastic order not only tolerates such beliefs but actively promotes and controls their expression -- many of the rituals performed during the yearly festivals at monasteries are based on such ideas.

The magical aspect of Bhutanese culture is perhaps not that different than similar beliefs in many other countries and religious orientations, including our own, but may be problematic in Bhutan in at least a couple of ways.  First, Bhutan is a country that is emerging from its historic isolation with a jolt. Somehow these traditional beliefs must be reconciled with the wider world that Bhutanese will encounter, and this may involve adjustment difficulties at both the personal and societal level.  Up to now there have been no challenges to magical and supernatural beliefs and I wonder if the Bhutanese monastic order has considered how to adapt to such challenges, as has been done successfully in other parts of the world where Buddhist practice is quite compatible with secular and scientific modes of thinking.

A second problem for me is that Western visitors to Bhutan come away with the mistaken impression that magical thinking is an essential characteristic of Buddhism in general -- for instance, that in order to be a Buddhist you must believe that monks can fly on the backs of tigers.  An example is a man from the U.S.we met as we left Bhutan who had just finished a National Geographic tour of the country. He really enjoyed Bhutan, he said, "but I really didn't buy all that Buddhist stuff."  National Geographic organizes high-end expeditions all over the world that supposedly provide highly informative and educational travel experiences. Yet this man's comments suggested a rather murky understanding of what he saw and rather than opening him to the possibility of an alternative religious approach the tour seems to have had the opposite effect. This is unfortunate, because my own study of Buddhism has convinced me of its value without any reliance on flying tigers.

Whatever their beliefs, the Bhutanese have an undeniable charm and gentle dignity about them that is refreshing in today's climate of strife and polarization.  Although I fear the odds are against them, I hope that they retain these "magical" qualities as their society encounters the outside world.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
____________________________________
Suggested Reading:

What Makes You Not a Buddhist by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse
Buddha by Karen Armstrong

Benefits of Dangerous Travel, Revisited

In a previous blog I described a recent trip to three countries in the Middle East, including Syria.  I titled the blog "Dangerous Travel" to highlight the demonstrations that were occurring in Syria at the time and the brutal crackdowns by the government.  Despite the depictions of these events in the media as widespread chaos throughout the country, my wife and I felt quite safe and were very glad we continued the trip.  At that time (April and early May of this year) the violence was in very specific areas at very specific times, posing little threat to tourists.  And most important, the target of these demonstrations was the current regime, not the governments of other countries.

Since then the internal situation in Syria has gotten steadily worse.  Larger and larger demonstrations have occurred, and they have taken place in some cities that were previously thought to be strongholds of support for the Assad regime, like Aleppo. Since we stayed in Aleppo for a few days, this caught our attention.  When we were there things were very calm, and as usual the people welcomed us warmly as they had elsewhere in Syria.  We were struck by the modern sophistication of the city and the charm of its old town area, a noteworthy feature of which was a huge Orthodox Christian cathedral next to an equally huge mosque, and a neighborhood where Burkas and knee-length dresses were evenly mixed on the streets.  The city had prospered over the years from the Assad regime's strong-arm enforcement of stability and had been rewarded for its support of the government's policies.  For demonstrations to occur here was a striking sign of the erosion of Assad's power. 

A second place we visited that is currently in the news is the smaller city of Hama, a picturesque place known for its ancient waterwheels throughout town that are used to draw water from the town river.  We enjoyed it very much, and again we are startled by the contrast between the quiet, seemingly calm place we saw and the images of it as the center of demonstrations by 100,000 anti-government protestors and violent reprisals by Assad's armed forces.  This is the town where Assad's father killed an estimated 10,000 or more in earlier uprisings about 30 years ago.  As detailed in an informative article by Al Jazeera, the recent events began to take place just days after we were there.

Finally, there are the demonstrations in Damascus and the storming of the French and American Embassies there.  These events are chillingly different because they seem to have been sponsored or at least encouraged by the government in response to the visit to Hama by the French and American Ambassadors.  The claim -- without foundation from everything we saw -- is that the anti-Assad demonstrations that have been going on for months now have been instigated by these foreign governments.  Our interpretation is that this is a very desperate attempt by Assad to legitimize his brutal crackdowns in the eyes of his dwindling supporters.

Is it now too dangerous to travel to Syria?

Prior to our trip my answer to this question would have been a quick "Yes."  After traveling there, meeting the people who are the targets of their government's brutal retaliation, and seeing firsthand the disconnect between filtered media versions of events and the reality we experienced, I'm not so sure.  But I think what would now keep me from going is the change in the government's attitude toward foreigners from being objects of  economic exploitation to scapegoats for justifying brutality.  If a government is willing to use tanks and machine guns to quell peaceful demonstrations and kill thousands in the process, it might not care about a protecting a few tourists.

The Benefits of Dangerous Travel

How do you know when you're in danger?  Sometimes it seems perfectly clear:  a truck barreling down on you as you cross a street;  hiking on a narrow ledge with a 500-foot fall;  a nervous mugger pointing a gun at you; an angry mob around you chanting anti-American slogans when you are in a foreign country.  In these examples the imminence of harm and the source of the threat are certain and unambiguous.

But many times assessing danger requires making an inference, an attribution, or an interpretation that isn't so clear.  As we begin to cross a street, we make inferences regarding the local norms involving drivers versus pedestrians and the likelihood a car or truck will yield to us.  When we encounter a high ledge while hiking we look at its riskiness based our assessment of our physical abilities and experience in comparable situations.  In planning a trip abroad we judge the likelihood of being the target of resentment or anger in a foreign country based on current news reports and personal accounts of other travelers.  We usually feel confident that we have correctly determined the threat or danger -- that we know whether we are in danger -- but in truth we have only really guessed.

I wrote last February that my wife and I were considering going ahead with our plans to visit the Middle East, despite the turmoil there (see my blog of February 15th) .  We did indeed make the trip, and recently returned from a month in Jordan, Syria, and Egypt.  We were there from April 12 to May 12, during the regional upheaval journalists and politicians have now dubbed the "Arab Spring"  or "Arab Awakening" (I suppose these are appropriate labels, but in this case Springtime and Awakening are associated with bullets, tanks, and firebombs).  We certainly hadn't planned to be involved in these momentous events, and new developments along the way forced us to assess danger far more than normal in our travels:  protests in Syria intensified and so did the brutal government crackdown on them;  just as we were about to enter Syria, the Jordan/Syria land border was closed, though it was still possible to fly between countries, which we did;  shortly after entering Syria the U.S. State Department issued a warning advising U.S. citizens to leave the country immediately (we didn't);   in Libya the UN stepped up its military action against the government; about halfway into our trip Osama Bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces; while we were in Egypt there were violent clashes between Christian and Muslim groups.

Were we in danger?  You might infer from the list of events above that we were standing in the middle of the street with a truck barreling down on us -- the clearly harrowing situation I suggested at the beginning.  And to be honest, if all these things happened right before we left home we might have cancelled.  But we're now convinced that would have been a mistake, that we were in fact not in significant danger, and that whatever level of risk present was far outweighed by the positive benefits of the trip.

We weighed the information we received from news sources and from the State Department along with our own direct observations, which contrasted sharply. Everywhere we went people of all walks of life, ages, and social position were genuinely welcoming and friendly -- particularly when they found out we were Americans.  Although we stood out like sore thumbs (it is not possible to blend in there, especially when you're two of only a handful of tourists), we never felt like targets of resentment or anger.  Naturally our inferences might have been wrong, but the probability of our misjudgment has to be considered in the context of 40 years of mostly independent travel that has exposed us to a variety of social situations and interactions requiring us to assess the sincerity and honesty of people's motives.  Based on that experience, we have to regard this as one of the safest trips we have ever taken and probably one of the most enjoyable.

Some of you reading this may wonder why we would travel to a place where there is even a chance of danger -- what's the great attraction that makes the inconvenience and potential hassles worthwhile?  This is tough to answer. In response to a good friend who challenged our motivation for this trip, I said that our rewards for travel here were the same as they always have been for us:  acquiring a deeper understanding of different cultures, including those under the thumb of notorious, disgusting regimes; seeing first-hand the layers of history embodied in the art and architecture of past civilizations and current societies;  appreciating the ecology and geology of other parts of the world.

Paul Theroux put it a bit more eloquently in a recent NYT article on traveling during turbulent times, and I'll close with his words:

"In the bungling and bellicosity that constitute the back and forth of history, worsened by natural disasters and unprovoked cruelty,  humble citizens pay the highest price. To be a traveler in such circumstances can be inconvenient at best, fatal at worst. But if the traveler manages to breeze past such unpleasantness on tiny feet, he or she is able to return home to report: 'I was there. I saw it all.' The traveler’s boast, sometimes couched as a complaint, is that of having been an eyewitness, and invariably this experience — shocking though it may seem at the time — is an enrichment, even a blessing, one of the life-altering trophies of the road. 'Don’t go there,' the know-it-all, stay-at-home finger wagger says of many a distant place. I have heard it my whole traveling life, and in almost every case it was bad advice. In my experience these maligned countries are often the most fulfilling."

Some Thoughts on Egypt's Revolution

The revolutionary events in Egypt over the past few weeks have been extraordinary in terms of their global repercussions. They also have implications for me personally -- the first demonstration in Cairo's Tahrir Square took place the day after my wife and I had put down a deposit for a week's tour of upper Egypt in May.

We've been in Egypt before. We visited about 30 years ago, shortly after the historic Camp David Accords had been signed. We remember the optimism and hopefulness of the people at that time, and the positive regard they had for the U.S., particularly for President Carter. We were treated very, very well during that trip, and it certainly was one of the best we have ever taken. Unfortunately for the Egyptan people, Anwar Sadat was assassinated not long after he signed the accords, and the reign of Mubarak snuffed out their optimism and hope for the future.

Our first visit to Eqypt was a great trip with one exception. We arrived in Cairo very tired and extremely jet-lagged. I think it was late in the afternoon, and we transferred to our hotel, a brand new Holiday Inn near the Great Pyramids of Giza where we stayed for a few nights before heading south. We were on a TWA tour which was very thorough, well organized, and which wasted no time in getting to the good stuff. Our first morning after arriving was to be one of the highlights of the trip -- visiting the Great Pyramids, the Sphinx, and some important sites outside of Cairo. Unfortunately our alarm failed to wake us at the appointed hour and the hotel wake-up call never came. We finally got a call from our tour leader asking if we weren't going to join the group for the day? We threw on some clothes and rushed to the waiting bus with only a few candy mints for breakfast, not even a cup of coffee. Needless to say, we can barely remember what we saw that day.

Our goal this year was to revisit some of those monuments, this time while wide awake, and also spend some time in historic Alexandria, which we did not see on the first trip. We scheduled this week in Eqypt at the end of a longer trip to Jordan & Syria -- note, no possibility of jet-lag while viewing the Sphinx! Also, rather than being on a lock-step group tour, we've arranged for a car, driver, and local guide to take us to those places on our own personal itinerary.

We haven't canceled any of our plans in Eqypt, nor in Jordan & Syria, and we won't unless it seems absolutely necessary.

When we describe this to people we get pretty strong reactions. Some are wide-eyed that we would even consider going to the Middle East at all, let alone after the recent developments. Others are very encouraging, and think that it would be an excellent time to visit these places, assuming some stability and lack of violence, because the people will once again be optimistic and hopeful. Given the economic dependence of many common citizens in these countries on tourism, they are likely to welcome visitors very warmly -- in fact, going ahead with our trip is perhaps the most direct way of helping people and showing support for them. Americans in particular should perhaps show support, given the democratic goals of the protestors. [Please feel free to weigh in on this with your own comments -- anonymously if you prefer.]

We'll see what happens in the next several weeks. We certainly live in interesting times, don't we?????

"Call" of the Wild

Once a month my local hiking club organizes a day-hike to some interesting area. Most of the people in the club are "mature" adults -- meaning the real hard-core young adventure types aren't with us. Still, the group consists of mostly fit people who are serious about exercise and enjoying the great outdoors, and the hikes are often in fairly remote and wild places.

Every other month the hike is publicized in the local newspaper and non-members are encouraged to join us. Not long ago one of these public hikes was a trek along an old historic trail that crossed some very difficult and remote terrain. The challenge of the trail and the isolated setting fostered an appreciation of the hardships and simplicity of an earlier time. I was enjoying the scenery and the physical exertion, chatting occasionally and briefly with fellow hikers, but mainly absorbing the uniqueness of the moment as I hiked alone.

From behind me I suddenly heard a very loud voice describing the beauty of the trail and how wonderful the hike was -- not unusual comments to hear but not at a such a startling volume level. When I looked back I saw a newbie talking into a cell phone, apparently so eager to share their experience with the person at the other end that they didn't mind violating the serenity of the group around them.

There are lots of aspects of this we could explore, like the need for norms of etiquette surrounding cell phone use, or the implications for society when the superficiality of technology-mediated relationships makes people desperate to maintain constant contact with others. The aspect I want to focus on, though, is how technology is changing our perception of natural settings and altering the way we interact with nature.

As my example indicates, many natural areas that used to be remote and cut off from easy communication with the outside are now accessible with a quick cell phone call. The access can include sound, still photos, and even video. Besides cell and internet links, gps technology makes navigation a matter of reading an lcd screen instead of paying close attention to the surroundings (I've written before about my own infatuation with gps -- see my blogs of 7/6/09 and 2/14/10).

This technology has made the "wild" seem less forbidding and more amenable to casual human activity, even when this is demonstrably untrue. One result is that people underestimate the risks and dangers that natural environments may pose. Rangers in our National Parks have seen this first hand, according to a recent investigative NYT article. For example, Jackie Skaggs, spokeswoman for Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming reports “Every once in a while we get a call from someone who has gone to the top of a peak, the weather has turned and they are confused about how to get down and they want someone to personally escort them. The answer is that you're up there for the night.” People with cellphones call rangers from mountaintops to request refreshments or a guide; in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, one lost hiker even asked for hot chocolate.

One particularly telling instance of how perceptions of nature have changed is recounted in the same article:

"One of the most frustrating new technologies for the parks to deal with, rangers say, are the personal satellite messaging devices that can send out an emergency signal but are not capable of two-way communication. (Globalstar Inc., the manufacturer of SPOT brand devices, says new models allow owners to send a message with the help request.) In some cases, said Keith Lober, the ranger in charge of search and rescue at Yosemite National Park in California, the calls “come from people who don’t need the 911 service, but they take the SPOT and at the first sign of trouble, they hit the panic button.”

But without two-way communication, the rangers cannot evaluate the seriousness of the call, so they respond as if it were an emergency.

Last fall, two men with teenage sons pressed the help button on a device they were carrying as they hiked the challenging backcountry of Grand Canyon National Park. Search and rescue sent a helicopter, but the men declined to board, saying they had activated the device because they were short on water.

The group’s leader had hiked the Grand Canyon once before, but the other man had little backpacking experience. Rangers reported that the leader told them that without the device, “we would have never attempted this hike.”

The group activated the device again the next evening. Darkness prevented a park helicopter from flying in, but the Arizona Department of Public Safety sent in a helicopter whose crew could use night vision equipment.

The hikers were found and again refused rescue. They said they had been afraid of dehydration because the local water “tasted salty.” They were provided with water.

Helicopter trips into the park can cost as much as $3,400 an hour, said Maureen Oltrogge, a spokeswoman for Grand Canyon National Park.

So perhaps it is no surprise that when the hikers pressed the button again the following morning, park personnel gave them no choice but to return home. The leader was issued a citation for creating hazardous conditions in the parks."

For me, the telling point in this account is the group leader saying that without the emergency device he would have never attempted the hike. As park rangers have noted, visitors who get into trouble often acknowledge that they have pushed themselves too far because they believe that in a bind, technology can save them.

As this example illustrates, technology may be insulating us from the reality of natural dangers and the necessity of relying on our own knowledge, skill, and courage in experiencing nature. We regard nature as an extension of our hi-def televisions, Iphones, and computers -- configurable to our own user preferences and changing interests, and as having an "Undo" button if we make mistakes.

The problem is that nature doesn't always play along.

Greasing Up In Greece

About 35 years ago my wife and I were traveling in Africa.  As part of our itinerary we were scheduled to visit Ethiopia, but some internal strife there led us to change our plans at the last moment and spend the time we had allotted in Greece instead.  Our improvised itinerary included renting a car and traveling around the Peloponnese Peninsula.  At that time we had sites like Delphi and Olympus pretty much to ourselves, despite the fact that we were there during the summer high season.  These days these sites are on the standard circuit of dozens of group tours and are visited by thousands of tourists.

For our return to Greece this year we decided to concentrate on the islands since we hadn't seen any on our first trip.  We contacted a Greek travel agent who specializes in island hopping packages and booked a custom "tour" for the two of us (hotels, transfers, ferry & plane tickets).

Compared to the extensive planning that goes into many of our trips, this went surprisingly easy.  Until Zeus and his buddies decided to challenge us a bit.  The Icelandic volcano blew up and threatened to cancel, postpone or reroute international air travel.  The Greek economy went into the dumper and the government's economic reforms sparked numerous strikes, some associated with violence, that threatened to make internal travel difficult and perhaps a bit risky.  However, we decided to go ahead -- life's an adventure, right?  Besides, we've found that the news media (both "mainstream" and "fair and balanced") tend to exaggerate and distort the negative aspects of situations like these.  And this turned out to be the case.  We found modern Greece to be one of the safest, cleanest, and most travel-friendly places we've visited.

The islands we visited were very different from one another in terms of geography, geology, size, history, social character, and level of tourist activity.  Some, like Naxos, Milos,  and Crete, have significant economic bases that lessen the importance of tourism and give them a more relaxed and laid-back atmosphere.  Others, like Santorini and Mykonos, are almost entirely dominated by tourism.  For instance, each morning 2-3 cruise ships arrive in Santorini's harbor and disgorge thousands of  passengers who elbow their way through the picturesque main town of Fira for a few hours and then return to the ships for an afternoon departure.  The same thing happens on Rhodes and Mykonos.  This is clearly one of the downsides of cruise-ship tourism.  An upside for those not on the cruise is that after all of those people leave it is very pleasant in the port towns;  having a drink in a sidewalk cafe, watching the cruise ships sail off into the Aegean, is a nice way to spend an afternoon.

 The Greek mainland oozes with history and with important archeological sites.  We were surprised to discover that so do the islands -- even the smallest of them.  For example, we spent most of one day on the tiny island of Delos, just a short boat ride from Mykonos.  Until around 70 b.c. it was the financial and trading center of the Mediterranean, complete with multiple agoras, temples to not just Greek gods, but those of contemporary powers as well, like Egypt, Italy, Syria, and houses of some very wealthy families.  Delos was also considered to be the birthplace of Apollo in Greek mythology.  On Milos we hiked to the spot where the famous statue "Venus de Milo" was originally located -- a niche along an avenue to the ancient theater.  On Crete we visited Knossos, one of the most famous examples of Minoan civilization.  And Rhodes was a major European base for the Knights during the Crusades,  not to mention the location of the famed Colossus of Rhodes.

The Greeks take all this history in stride, as do most Europeans in their own countries.  Having a connection to a place that goes back several thousand years gives them perspective on current issues that most Americans lack. 

One interesting thing we observed is that different islands seem to be favored by different groups of tourists.  In general we saw very few Americans, except on the places visited by cruise ships,  and of course in Athens.  The biggest single group seemed to be northern Europeans, especially Scandinavians, no doubt trying to recover from their sunless winters. The most common language was....English.  Since few visitors spoke Greek, the universal translator was the common language most learned a smattering of in school, which used to be French and now is English.  At restaurants we would overhear customers haltingly order their meals and then return to their native language.  We got along very well because I think the waiters found our English very clear!

Speaking of restaurants, Greece was similar to many other places we have visited where there is little or no  tipping:  the service was uniformly excellent.  This is contrary to the idea that the promise of a good tip is required to motivate a server to do a good job and provide extra personalized service. Nevertheless it is something we've seen time and again on our travels.  One interpretation is that the salary for wait staff is substantial enough that people view their work as valued and important, and strive to perform accordingly.
 
 This trip had many of the features that we value in travel:  interesting and unique locales, exposure to a different culture and way of life, historical richness, charming architectural character, and the opportunity to observe and interact with other travelers from backgrounds much different from our own.  It also reinforced our conclusion that we were fortunate to travel in earlier times,  before mass tourism developed the ability to negate the positive experience of these features.

Returning to Africa

My wife and I just returned home from about 5 weeks in Africa. As with many other trips we have taken over the years, this one made us realize how little we (and most other Americans) really know about the world outside the U.S.

We traveled to Africa 30 years ago and now we wanted to return once more to see how things might have changed. Thirty years ago we had been out of the U.S. very few times, and never to a “third world” country -- except perhaps a brief foray across the border into Mexico. That Africa trip was the first time I experienced culture shock – a feeling of disorientation and loss of control from encountering social conditions that were so alien and foreign to my WASP sensibilities that my familiar ways of coping and understanding were not effective. My wife and I learned to deal with this, however, and returned home with a deeper understanding of ourselves and of our limited experience with life at the most fundamental level. How hard most people must work to make it from day to day!

When we told people about our travel plans the common reaction was (a) an expression of concern for our safety and health followed by (b) clear hints that they thought we were crazy. Why would anyone want to travel to Africa? Much of this reaction was undoubtedly based on incomplete and slanted information. The only news that Americans hear about Africa is all bad – poverty and hunger, AIDs , racial and tribal conflict manifested in massacres and genocidal wars, political instability, environmental degradation, economic collapse, etc. And this is a shame, because the reality is that Africa is complex, diverse, and quite unique – and for us at least, one of the most rewarding travel experiences we have had.

Our trip involved three countries – South Africa, Botswana, and Zambia. Part of the time we were doing safaris through game parks in South Africa and Botswana, and we were pleased to see vigorous conservation and management efforts that seem to be working. “Working” here doesn’t mean that animal populations and habitat are what they would be if humans had never been around to screw things up. I’m using a more practical criterion – there will probably be something to see and appreciate for at least another thirty years. In part this is because through ecotourism there are enough people who are willing to spend enough money to make it economically feasible for these countries to leave vast tracts of their land undeveloped in the usual sense. (Question – how much is it worth NOT to develop a country?)

The rest of our time was spent in a rather different way. We have friends in Zambia who have been working there as community volunteers for the past 5 ½ years. Their current efforts involve economic and social development projects in rural areas. We stayed in Choma, Zambia, and our friends involved us in their work in surrounding villages so that we got to meet many local people and see first hand the kind of problems they face in their lives. We also got a sense of the character and values of the local people. This was a wonderful, uplifting and educational experience. The people we met were living at a subsistence level raising maize, cabbage, onions, goats, and a few cattle. Their biggest challenge was to do this in a climate where it is bone dry for about six months of the year. Our friends help local villages build small earthen dams that catch water during the rainy season and store it for the dry period, allowing the people to grow more food and rise above the subsistence level. Our friends offered expert advice, encouragement, and follow up but the people “owned” the project. Note three important things about these dams: they are simple and require no special tools or materials; they have huge impacts on the quality of these people’s lives; and the people are doing the work themselves.

Other projects include helping with the installation of simple bore hole wells fitted with low-tech pumps. The availability of fresh clean water has obvious health implications, but it also has a tremendous impact on how people (usually women) allocate their time and energy. Without wells water must be carried by hand from sources an hour or more away.

Several of our friends’ projects are primarily educational in nature – running a remedial reading clinic in Choma City, and holding “workshops” in bush locations on topics ranging from simple book keeping for a home business to techniques of conservation farming. We attended two of these workshops and we were struck by the eagerness and commitment of those who attended (often having walked several hours to reach the site).

A potential irony of the wonderful work our friends are doing is that it may someday exacerbate the conflict between values of wildlife conservation on the one hand and social development on the other. This may not be inevitable, but avoiding it will require some enlightened leadership and policy making. The approach our friends seem to be taking to their work – empowering people to enhance their own rationality – may indirectly produce just that kind of leadership.