You don’t have to go abroad to travel

At the time of our first meeting as a cohort, I had never been outside of the country. In effort to illumine the mystery, I obsessively watched documentaries, read books, and perused Google Flights in search of a truly foreign experience. But why is there such a pervasive need to travel? I think that people are at their best, most compassionate, conscientious, and meaningful when taken outside of themselves. Traveling to a foreign land surely expedites this outward journey. Witnessing people living differently and communicating with them with different linguistic restrictions presents the opportunity to either hide away in a shell or go outside of yourself to have a foreign experience. This moral argument for travel is all well and good, and a bit more wholesome than the search for beautiful views, in my opinion. Before this semester, I would have said that travel abroad might even be necessary for this kind of situational exposure. I was very wrong.

Refugee interactions in Buffalo and Erie gave me the first inclinations that I may not be giving my immediate surroundings enough credit. There are people of diverse backgrounds in the least suspecting of places. You just have to be open to find them. In my own community, there are many Somalian, Venezuelan, and Ukrainian refugees. Though they can be seen around town, I never interacted at length with any of them. That is until my summer job after freshman year in a large grocery store. Many of the maintenance and dishwashing staff were from these war-torn regions. I started having lunch with some of them, and they were more than happy to share their food. I was more than happy to eat it. Having befriended these people living in my own community, when I am in town I often get to say “a-salaam” or “privyet” along with the standard “hello.”

Though these intercultural interactions certainly got me outside of my normal boundaries, the argument can still be made that those experiences are inferior to the same ends as an immersive travel experience. I am still in the position of power, and the general population is more similar to me than them. Drive north of Meadville for ten minutes and you will be in an essentially foreign country. I very recently befriended a couple Mennonite families who have had me over for dinner and shown me around the Plain community. I was among only three “English” at their Christmas concert attended by at least five-hundred Mennonites and Amish. Without going abroad, I was able to travel to a foreign land. I look forward to continuing relations.