Travel and Gratitude

… links in the chain of my life.

Throughout this month, I have thought of this month’s challenge, and wondered exactly how I would word my feelings on the topic.

I mean, it’s pretty obvious that I’m grateful to have been able to travel so much, to have seen so much. In a way, sadly, it’s also based on a reflection that so many other people are not able to travel, not able to share these experiences.

But for me, there’s a more important aspect: I am so grateful for how my travels have changed me and my family.

I am grateful for my parents who emigrated from The Netherlands into South Africa during the mid-50s. (Twice, but that’s a different story…) My brother and I were born in South Africa. I have no idea how our lives would have developed if we’d been born in Europe, but I know that my life would have been very different.

Growing up, my parents’ wanderlust resulted in numerous trips around South Africa (and a couple back into Europe) so that we shared in their fascination for the natural world, and for different people in different places.

So when my own family and I moved to Ghana in the mid-90s, it was a “rinse-repeat” moment. I am grateful for everything that we experienced while living there for 6 years, everything that was so different from our South African way of life. That decision to take up a position in Ghana, is what fundamentally changed me, and changed my family. I am grateful for how our life there opened up my mind to the world away from the rather pigeon-holed existence that I’d experienced in South Africa.

One of the benefits of my position in Ghana, was that I could travel on holiday with my family, twice a year. (And so we converted Business Class tickets between Ghana and the home base in South Africa into Economy Class tickets to various other places around the globe.) I still thank myself for insisting on that clause in my contract, haha!

I think that there are people who think that my life in Ghana should have made me feel something like “Thank goodness I grew up in a more developed place than this!”, but they are wrong. Yes, I am grateful for my youth and schooling in South Africa, of course. And I needed to experience other countries to know how valuable that was. But experiencing Ghana for 6 years (and again later, for another 3 year project) truly enriched me.

If you’ve read a few of my stories, then you will know that I have indeed traveled to many places over the years, for work and for pleasure (and sometimes combined — I’m also grateful that this was possible!).

I am probably flogging the gratitude word a bit much, but in summary, I should say that I am thankful to my parents (hopefully looking down on me from their destination or travels somewhere in the sky), to my various employers and clients who certainly helped to make it possible, and to my family for sharing my excitement in traveling.

But mostly, I am grateful to all the friends I’ve made everywhere, all the various colleagues of different nationalities that I’ve worked and traveled with, all the people with whom I’ve had chats on beaches and in restaurants, on campsites and in aeroplanes. You have all enriched my life.

… and I’m certainly grateful that I can still keep going, doing more of the same!