Cultural Enrichment
Wow. I just heard this story and even though it was meant to be
funny, I was dismayed and even a bit angry. I also found myself
thinking how jealous I would have been if they'd been my classmates.
I came from a very un-cosmopolitan small town in the center of the
country. Things weren't awful
there, but they could be counted on to be relentlessly the same. We
never took a vacation until I was ten years old. Not once. Not an
overnight anywhere. When we finally did go, it was a whopper of a
car trip all the way down the east coast and to Sanibel Island. I
was thrilled. I even got a kick out of seeing other states' license
plates.
I saw mountains in Pennsylvania, stayed on an old estate in Maryland,
and decided that Georgia had lots of things that began with 'P':
peaches, pecans, people on porches, and poverty. I collected
seashells and swam in salt water. We tasted freshly squeezed orange
juice in Punta Gorda. We did go to Disney World, and I thought
Pirates of the Caribbean was neat. We watched President Nixon resign
on TV. It rained briefly every afternoon on Sanibel, then cleared up
so we could go back to the beach. I had so many things to write
about when I came back to school!
Later I studied French and German and saw them as a ticket out of my
confined world. I was nineteen when I went to France for a year --
my first time out of the U.S. (except for Windsor, Ontario -- that
didn't count, although they did have sugar packets that said
"sucre"). I remember that when the plane
landed in Luxembourg, I looked out the window to see how different
this Europe place looked than home. I was a bit disappointed to see
an earth mover emblazoned with "Ford" as my first sight. But it did
get more interesting after that, and I've been a joyful traveler ever
since. And yes, I have an Aer Lingus moist towelette with packaging
printed in Irish. I'm like that. There's so much to see. I can't
understand why anyone would need things to be the same when they
could be different.
There are good experiences and bad experiences, and you'll have those
anywhere, but there are no bad places.
So the next time you're going to the Netherlands, leave the kids with
a babysitter and take me! Maybe they'll be more intrigued if they
sense it's something they're missing rather than something to take
for granted.
Karen
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