The Odyssey

The other day I was looking through my old things from my first year of college when I stumbled upon my Greek Literature class notebook. I remember my professor was really boring so I all did was take constant notes of everything, but the reading material in class was so good. This has to do with traveling - bear with me here a little further. 

Now the thing is, I never really thought about being a traveler or a tourist. I mean sure, the word tourist definitely popped up whenever I went on vacation or talked about going abroad but I never really thought about it as an essential part of life. Journeys are rituals: public or private, internal or external, emotional or physical, psychological o fantastical...we ALL experience them one way or another. This whole train of thought came to me when I saw my class note's on the The Odyssey, by Homer. If you need a refresher, The Odyssey is about the aftermath of the Trojan War, and greek war hero Odysseus's journey home. It takes him ten whole years to get back. Imagine that! Ten years. Ten years of roughing it, traveling nasty waters, resisting the ever-seducing lotus flower and being stalked by Poseidon, the greek god of the sea. 

I strangely felt connected to this tale that may or may not have happened thousands of years ago. In all honestly, I believe the universe has so many possibilities that one cannot close their mind and say that anything is certain. But what is certain is how funny it was to realise the Odyssey I'm actually on: moving out of my home, going to college, living by myself and learning to adjust. I have a couple of years to finish my bacherlor's degree and hopefully law school after that...if that isn't an Odyssey in itself, then I don't know what is! 

I was thrust from basically being an easygoing teenager and living with my parents to having to assume a whole load of new responsibilites as a young adult. College has not been easy - I'm not speaking so much academically, but more the emotional toll it has taken on me. Sometimes I feel very much alone but I take refuge in books, like I did when I read The Odyssey. It makes me realize I am not the first or last person to go through a journey that is not easy, and that some people might have it even worse than I do. Anyhow, I never knew greek mythology would open my eyes about traveling. It's funny how it seems like everything is connected, eventually. 

Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure

When I first picked up the travelogue “Holy Cow” by Australian journalist Sarah Macdonald, I had no idea what to expect. A rather sudden introduction opens the story in 1988, with Sarah backpacking through India with her friend. It is made very clear that she hated the place. She vows never to go back there again, but eleven years later she finds herself on a plane headed to New Delhi.

 

I felt that, initially, Sarah’s relationship with India was that of a stereotypical tourist: she heavily criticized New Delhi, the people living there and their way of life. Obviously it was a bit of a culture shock, coming from a person used to living a western lifestyle and trying to settle in a country that is completely the opposite of what she’s used to. I do believe she transforms into a traveler during the course of her story. She is clear that she hated India when she first arrived, but then describes how she learned to appreciate its many facets. She mentions that she was raised atheist, but I see her as pretty open-minded because she explores many different religions while there such as Hinduism, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity and Islam.

Personally, I think we all start out as tourists whenever we travel someplace and transition into travelers. There is a very thin line between tourist and traveler, and I get the sense that Sarah is a mixture of both during the novel. For example, her opinion on India’s women and their idea of marriage is initially clouded, as she doesn’t really understand how Indians view marriage. She witnesses several weddings of couples she has met and slowly comes to understand the importance of marriage and who to marry in their culture. Even though she may not agree with their point of view, she is open to accept it. This makes her a bit of a traveler. The times when she rants about India’s filthiness and her impatience with beggars can be coming from the tourist side of her.

 While reading this book I pondered about my own views on tourist versus traveler. I found that I don’t travel because I want to be labeled something. I travel because I want to have memorable experiences that shape me in meaningful ways. I believe Sarah undergoes this experience while in India because she matures a lot during the course of the story. She goes from close-minded westerner to perhaps a more open-minded, if not accepting, citizen of the world.

Being a tourist or a traveler won’t determine whether your experience some place will be good or bad. After all, a tourist and a traveler both want to get the same thing out of a trip: an amazing experience. How they go about it will be different and their experience will be different, but in the end they will have the satisfaction of knowing that they gained a new adventure.  

Tourists/travelers

Tourist. Traveler. Explorer. Wanderer. The meaning of these terms vary, but they all stem from the same core: a journey. Most people won't recognize the differences between "tourist" and "traveler".  Humans stopped being nomads centuries ago, but you can't deny the lingering feeling of seeing more than what surrounds you is still there. Honestly, I see no negative connotation to either terms. I guess the word "tourist" generates an unpleasant image: naive, loud, pestering people. I don't think one should be quick to judge a tourist: we have all been there before. We have all gone to places we don't know, even in our own country. I don't think "tourist" and "traveler" are opposite things to be; on the contrary,  I believe they run parallel to each other.

You don't have to go halfway across the world to go on  a journey. Journeys happen everyday, every second: from your house to the grocery store, on your way to work, even from one room to the other. Each second is different from the one before. I do think, however, that it is curious to take a journey outside your comfort zone. Once outside the familiar, you veer into the unknown. You start out a tourist: straightforward, too afraid to steer off into unfamiliar territory. But slowly, you start to reach out more. You slowly transform into a traveler. You see new things, you learn to listen, you learn about yourself. There's a line from a song that comes to mind when talking about tourists. The song is called "You are a Tourist" by Death Cab for Cutie. The line that stands out to me goes like this:

"And if you feel just like a tourist in the city you were born then it's time to go."

It's an interesting concept: you never think you will become a stranger in your own land.

Tourist or traveler, every journey helps shape up the person you will become. 

Helping

Jim Cooper's Down on the Island is a retrospective view on his time as an English professor at the University of Puerto Rico in Mayaguez. The chapter about "Helping" talks about how students don't consider helping their friends during a test cheating. As a native puerto-rican, the view on "helping" is not a new one because I have been used to it all my life. It was funny reading it from an outsider's perspective. I consider cheating any kind of extra help during a test; apparently this did not constitute cheating to the students that Jim Cooper had in his class. They justified cheating as "helping" because they could not see what was wrong with helping out a friend in need. It was a totally different logic. 

This chapter reminded me of when I was in elementary and middle school. I was a very reserved child, bookish and quiet, always did my assignments on time (a habit that I need to keep up now in college!). Even though I was shy, I was open to help anybody that needed it. But sneaky people, as they tend to be, actually expected me to tell them the answers DURING the test. I always said no. It annoyed me so much how people take advantage of other people's hard work.  I guess that made me kind of a loser between my peers but I didn't care, in time all was forgotten. 

I believe Jim Cooper was astounded at the explanations his students gave him when it was time for a test, especially the excuses they came up with. The more outrageous they got, the funnier it actually was reading this chapter. I felt familiar with the subjects brought up even though I do not share Jim Cooper's exact point of view. I guess words can have more than one meaning. 

Stranger in a strange land

As you may or may not know, I'm not actually from San Juan. I moved here last year for college, but my home city is Ponce, in the southern part of the island. Let me tell you, Puerto Rico may be a small island, but the culture shock I experienced in my own country was quite huge.
I've lived in Ponce since I was born, and both of my parents are there. Most people in the other parts of the island dislike ponceños because we are very proud of our city. I had previously disliked people from the metropolitan area because I always felt that they thought they were superior and were very snobby. This perspective changed the year I moved here (I just realized how small-minded I sound, generalizing people this way. Then again, I had only had negative experiences with people from San Juan until the moment.)

The decision to study at the University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras was one that was made ages ago - since middle school I had decided that it was the place I wanted to study. I always expected college to be a rough transition; surprisingly, the change from high school to college wasn't the rough thing. The change from Ponce to San Juan was definitely one of the most challenging things I have faced! The first few weeks I moved here, I was absolutely flummoxed.

Life was more hostile, the driving was terrible, the traffic was awful and the loneliness was overwhelming. My family and boyfriend were in Ponce, my friends were abroad, and I was one out of the two brave souls out of 70 other students of my graduating class to attend this University. My mom was really proud of me for having been accepted here - I didn't want to let her down by wanting to come back  home!

I decided to face the facts: I'm not a kid anymore. My life is changing fast, and I'm supposed to be building my future, here and now. Life was not always going to be comfortable.
I sucked it up as much as I could, and tried to fit in. Then I realized this isn't high school, people don't pay as much attention to you (what a relief!). I learned how to cook properly, became more organized and let go of some of my shyness. I was really out of my element, but like they say...

A Small Place, indeed

"You are a tourist and you have not yet seen . . ."

In the book A Small Place, Jamaica Kincaid bitterly describes tourism from the perspective of a local in her native country of Antigua. From the beginning, we can feel the hostility she feels against these tourists who visit her country. Kincaid is fiercely protective of Antigua, specifically, the "old" Antigua. She says that tourism is a phenomenon that triggers feelings of envy and inequity among native people, who are “too poor to escape the reality of their lives” and “too poor to live properly in the place where they live, which is the very place you, the tourist, want to go.”
Kincaid personifies the reader as a tourist to the island. From this perspective, the island is a beautiful retreat; then Kincaid starts to reveal to the reader the "real" life on the island. This "real" life is a life of oppression. Present Antigua is little more than a third world country. Natives live in poverty, the government is corrupt, education is poor, and there is no such thing as middle-class. The poor are the poorest and the rich are extremely wealthy.
She explains that the country hasn't always been this way. Prior to gaining independence in 1981, Antigua was a British colony for hundreds of years. Although there were hardships growing up, Kincaid expresses her opinion that the "old" Antigua in many ways was better than its present state.
One thing I found interesting is the way Kincaid repeatedly addressed the reader as "you." In fact, some of the generalizations Kincaid makes about her readers are rather offensive, in my opinion. It's a very harsh reality to her - the dual society of new Antigua and old Antigua. I do believe she has a point about tourists and their...let's call it absentmindedness? Their blatant disinterest in integrating with local culture can be very annoying. Nevertheless, I do not agree that all tourists act this way. I believe it depends on the type of person you are, and how you prepare yourself when you travel. While it is true that some tourists simply have terrible attitudes and are very superficial about the places they visit, some of them actually pay attention to the details, and do not wander off on their own like travelers do simply because they are afraid .
I don't think tourists are the villians here - I believe that Kincaid has gone through tough experiences that have made her feel this way. It is unfortunate, because it sort of feels that she has a closed mind.
Honestly, I cannot judge her because I have not gone through her experience. Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading this non-fiction because it opened my eyes to a new perspective regarding tourists and travelers.

Strange eyes

Pretending to be a tourist in my own country was a harder exercise than I thought it would be. It served more as a reality check than anything else. I didn't veer off my usual routine really, it was the same old wake up, get dressed, make breakfast, go to class, come home, make dinner, study, sleep (give or take a few variations). But I did start to notice things I had not noticed before. I noticed how awful the driving is here in the metropolitan area. I'm from the south, where the driving is much more relaxed and I can honestly say that driving in San Juan is one of the most difficult things I had to adjust to when I moved up here for college. I noticed how drastically the city could change from one block to another: one minute you're staring at fancy office buildings and modern apartment complexes, when suddenly you're face to face with dilapidated shacks and street beggars.
 As I was driving southbound that Thursday, going back home, I realised how beautiful and green the island was once you exit the urbanised area. It must be peculiar for someone from let's say, inland U.S states to be able to see brilliant beaches and enormous mountains all in one day. It's funny how some Puerto Ricans are headstrong supporters of statehood, all while living in this paradise that could never compare (in my opinion) to the mainland United States. I'm not saying one is better than the other, simply that in my opinion, it would feel strange to have Puerto Rico become a state.
Anyway, at first it felt strange trying to see my everyday life through a stranger's eyes, but in the end, I guess it worked.