Is it so different...?

Have you ever reached a destination and be completely gob smacked? Wondering where in the world you have landed?

Not necessarily in a negative way, although you are dazed and captivated at the same time, if that is possible.

I have had that feeling. What I did also realize was that after a day or two, perhaps a week, I would feel quite “at home”. I am not certain if it is because I became used to travelling and moving around so often that anywhere could be my “home away from home”.

At home where I could pack my whole life in “24 hours” and be off on another flight to a new equally exciting destination. Start all over again, a new experience, a new work place, new friends, a new routine, a new language, a new social system and so on.

I have wondered and still wonder …why, why, why?

You arrive in a land where you are an alien with nothing familiar available anymore, anywhere.

Yes, it is no different however with anyone else in a similar situation. I am sure if you were to take a person from that land and settle them back in your home country, they would probably have the same experience.

I quite recently realized and perhaps am all still digesting this, that it is not that we are just different but we are different for a reason. If it were that the whole world or a large part of it was exactly the same, would it not make it a bit dull? Would travelling then be worthwhile?

Why on earth would we travel miles upon miles, across the world to have exactly the same things we have back home? I certainly would not want to experience everything I left behind, excluding the good weather conditions perhaps.

When I travel away from home, I would want to return with stories, interesting and uplifting ones – a few hick-ups always make a good laugh afterwards as well. I want to tell about who I met, where I went, what I ate…

Take for example food, in essence we all have similar cuisine, in terms of the staple crops (rice, potatoes, cassava, maize, bananas) but it is really how the preparation of such food that makes them unique and delicious.

Be it the aroma of the spices used, the charcoal stove used by the old lady, the ghee as an added ingredient…

This depends on the cooking methods used to stimulate the taste buds. Like the use of clay pots for cooking, so common in Africa, Europe, South East and East Asia.

It might not be so common these days with the introduction of steel cooking vessels but it is said that the food cooked in a clay pot is also healthier. Food cooked in such a manner loses little of its moisture because it is surrounded by steam, creating a tender, delicious dish.

We are perhaps created different so that we can tell ourselves apart. It is also fascinating to see the distinctive ways of living, how different individuals in different places lead their lives.

Though in essence we are all the same, humans – with the same limbs, yet there is a world of difference.

There is a possibility we just need to take some very deep breaths, settle in a place for a number of days, learn some basic elements of the local tongue and smile more.

Then we wonder to ourselves – was it really so different after all?

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