Questions of travel

guest commentary from Dr. Jo Alice Blondin, chancellor, Arkansas Tech University-Ozark Campus

Note from the author: I wrote this commentary for The City Wire around the middle of January, about a week after returning from Istanbul and Cairo. Obviously, things have changed. Though my observations no longer seem applicable or prescient, they do represent my experience and that moment in time before the Big Riots.

While I was in Egypt, especially Cairo and Luxor, the constant police presence was not lost on me, nor were the statements made by Egyptians in private discussions, declaiming the corruption of the government and the large number of “have-nots.” The riots we experienced in Cairo were not on the scale of these in the news. However, below are my impressions of my visit at that time, and I hope very much for a peaceful resolution to the unrest in this lovely country.

"Is it lack of imagination that makes us come
to imagined places, not just stay at home?
Or could Pascal have been not entirely right
about just sitting quietly in one’s room?

Continent, city, country, society:
the choice is never wide and never free.
And here, or there … No. Should we have stayed at home,
wherever that may be?"
— Elizabeth Bishop, “Questions of Travel”

Elizabeth Bishop illustrates an interesting point in her poem, “Questions of Travel.” To paraphrase, and please forgive me, Ms. Bishop, she asks, “Is travel worth all of the trouble? Don’t our imaginations suffice?” I guess my imagination is simply not that powerful and inventive: I have to go see the sights myself. And, to answer Ms. Bishop, “No, I shouldn’t have stayed at home.”

Every year, at the holidays, my twin sister, Jill, and I take our big vacation, which has nothing to do with work. It is purely a vacation. Last year we went to India, the year before Greece and Germany, etc. Sometimes I think the only times that Jill and I see each other is overseas. For our 40th birthday this year, we chose to celebrate in Turkey and Egypt.

One of the first questions I get asked when I return is, “Where are you going next year?” But my mom will invariably ask her motherly question, “What did you learn?” Since education is my profession, I do take this question of travel seriously. Some observations:

• Wow, these folks are committed to tourism, and they better be. The tourism in both these countries is a well-oiled machine in which everyone — and I mean everyone — participates. The Turks and Egyptians may not define tourism exactly as we Americans do (coins to give the restroom attendants, sellers hawking merchandise wherever you walk), but you have to respect their single-minded commitment to the bottom line and the economy.

Did I mention that everyone in these countries understands that the economy is based on tourism? Astonishingly, 12% of Egyptian citizens work in the tourism industry. That’s 12% of approximately the 80 million people who live in Egypt.

• No, I wasn’t scared. Except for the time I got my passport stolen in Rio de Janeiro, I’ve never been scared when I travel. Cautious, yes (learned the moment I got my passport stolen), and careful, but scared? No. See Observation Number One. Use common sense. In fact, I observed Istanbul to be one of the safest cities I have ever visited. While I was in Egypt, a Coptic church was bombed in Alexandria, and riots broke out in Cairo, but nonetheless, I toured, cautiously.

• Enjoy the unique aspects and quirks of the culture. Repeat my mother’s quote over and over to yourself: “Nobody wants to hear how it’s done somewhere else.” Yes, some beds are lumpy, and the food is different, but food is good everywhere — really. You will find something you like, and don’t bemoan the fact that it isn’t exactly how it is at home.  Of course it’s not — you aren’t at home. Be hospitable.

Perhaps I take a few risks that I shouldn’t, such as gorging myself on the red carrots of India and the divine oranges of Egypt, but those are my risks to take.

• Let’s exchange and export educational expertise. Technical education is critical to a country’s development, but none of these countries can educate their entire college-aged population. Like India, which only has the infrastructure to educate approximately 11% of its existing population of college-aged people, Egypt, educates about 30% of its college-aged population. While these countries struggle to increase their economic, agricultural, and social capacities, our country’s technical expertise and higher educational institutions stand at the ready to assist.

In turn, we in higher education need to do a better job of exporting our expertise in educational design to assist developing countries in increasing educational attainment for their citizens. I am not just referring to the branch campuses of American higher educational institutions: I’m talking about the U.S. technical education enterprise sharing its successes and curriculum.

• Yes, history is terribly important. Know what you are viewing, study it beforehand and put your sightseeing in context. For example, everything I saw in Egypt was nearly 3,000-4,000 years older than anything I saw in India. Hagia Sophia, the church then mosque now museum in Istanbul, was finished in 537. A.D., with Justinian proudly exclaiming, “Solomon, I have outdone thee!” Indeed.

• Make friends. Last year, on a flight from New Delhi to Mumbai, my seatmate asked if I were on Facebook. One of our tour guides in Cairo has friends at Harding University.
Make friends — have an open heart and mind, and engage the people you meet. Again, be hospitable.

• I loved it all:  the Blue Mosque, the ferry on the Bosporus, Abu Simbel, the Pyramids, the congested Cairo streets, the cruise down the Nile, the Valley of the Kings, and, of course, my sister’s status update on Facebook during our time in Cairo: “Our car just broke down in front of the Ramses Hilton. Thank goodness we are staying at the Ramses Hilton.”

Enough said, and just enjoy the unexpected.

“He who has not seen Cairo has not seen the world.”  from “The Thousand and One Nights.”