What Borders Will I Cross?

While I was thinking about the borders that I may encounter while on my trip to Belize, I couldn’t really pinpoint any that meant something to me. I know that sounds bad, so I decided to look deeper at some of the readings that really pushed the border issue to give myself a little push in the right direction. The three readings that I chose, Dalrymple, Matthiessen, and Kapuscinski, to me, show the most about crossing borders and how those borders can affect the people crossing them.

In Xandu, written by William Dalrymple, pushed two borders; ethnic and cultural. Dalrymple, who is from England, decides to follow the path of Marco Polo into Asia. During his journey he travels through culturally and ethnically diverse areas that are much different than his own. As he made his way from Israel to Asia, Dalrymple wrote of the different people that he came into contact with and the various ethnicities and cultures that he experienced. For him, as a person just passing through, these borders seemed more important to understand rather than to cross.

The Cloud Forest, written by Peter Matthiessen, pushed the environmental border that he crossed on his travels in South America. Begin from New York City; Matthiessen was way out of his element traveling to the jungles of South America. The Amazon rainforest is a very unique environment, different than any other place on earth. Matthiessen described it in this way; “[…] the forest is truly beautiful; it is difficult to conceive of a lovelier place in the world.”

In a previous post I talked about what I called the “foreigner border” in Ryszard Kapuscinski’s Travels With Herodotus.  Ron seemed interested yet disappointed that I didn’t take it further. So, I will take it further. To me, the foreigner border is the hardest and the easiest to cross. I said that this border was more of a personal problem, feeling like an outsider in an unfamiliar place. When you feel comfortable in a new environment and not like an outsider, you’ve crossed the border. That’s the easy part. The hard part comes with the native people actually accepting you, making you feel welcome, and treating you like one of them. That’s the hardest part, getting others to view you as their equal in their country, society, city, or town. Being a foreigner doesn’t mean you have to travel half way around the world, it means that you are in a place that you are unfamiliar; a place that people can spot someone different. The best example is a tourist from Akron going to New York City. They can tell you’re not from around there, so they might treat you differently. For the sake of my readers I won't take it too much further, but there is another element to this border; time. How long does it take for someone to consider themselves not to be a foriegner, or for natives to accept an outsider as one of thier own?

After taking some time to look at the borders that others have crossed I think that I will absorb them as one’s the I see myself crossing in my future travels. Going to Central America there will definitely be ethnic and cultural borders that I am eager to cross. Environmental borders can make people uneasy … not knowing what poisonous thing could bite you in the jungle, yet I am still excited to cross from the concrete jungle to an actual jungle. The last one, the foreigner border, I think holds the most weight for me. I throw myself into the places that I travel, immersing myself into every aspect of a culture. This is probably one reason why I don’t see myself as a foreigner when I travel, however I think this will be hardest for me because I won’t be accepted as an equal. I will be a tourist; someone to eat, drink, and buy products. It saddens me, but as I prepare for my travels it’s a reality that I have to face.