My heart is at home anyplace where I have friendships – the specific location can change (as it has many times in my life) but for me, where I know and am known that is home. It is this personal characteristic that I struggle with the most amidst travel -especially extended travel. Rarely is there an opportunity to move beyond surface communication – “I would like the iced tea and the house salad.” “Which way to the museum?’’ etc. etc. I see all these amazing places and all these amazing people, but so often, there is no connection to the people we interact with. It leaves me wanting. Wishing I knew better how to connect to those around me.
Because this lack of connection is so often the norm, it makes it that much more special in those moments when a friendship is formed and there is an opportunity to move beyond one sentence transactional communication! Today we had two such opportunities. Talk about a red letter day for me!!!
The first happened over poolside chat with a family from Sweden that is staying at our same accommodation. They have three children, Klara, Blenda and Nils, and their two girls are our girls’ same ages. We discovered that our families are likeminded in many ways, and that their travel route and ours’ follows almost the same basic plan. They are on an extended trip as well, traveling next to Aitukaki and then on to New Zealand! We sat for over an hour around a picnic table discussing where we had been and where we were going and how we got to this point of extended travel with our families. It was so wonderful to have a conversation in the middle of Rarotonga with a family from the other side of the world from us and find that we had so much in common. (Thank God they speak English though, because our Swedish is non-existent.)
The second was with Martha, a missionary whose name I found in a YWAM directory and had exchanged a few emails with before leaving WA. In one of those emails, I had asked her if our family could be of any help to her and their YWAM work while we were there in Rarotonga. Of all the things she could have asked for, she requested that we bring chocolate chips and diapers if we had room in our bags. So even though I had planned on “Helping” her, it was Martha who helped us more. She picked us up from our first accommodation and helped us transfer to our second place on the opposite side of the island. And then today, she made us lunch at her house and let us do - a much needed - load of laundry while we ate. All of this is something any of us would do for a friend, but how often do you see people go to this type of effort for a family that they hardly know??? It was such a blessing and a gift for us to have that “Normalcy” of talking and laughing around a kitchen table with another family over lunch and laundry.
Most of the time, there is a space that defines and separates tourists from locals, visitors from residents, and travelers from other travelers – everyone moving within there own routine not wanting to disturb the others. But anytime that natural barrier is bridged, those are the moments, and the stories, and the memories that create the heartbeat of travel for me.
Kia Orana, Lisa
Because this lack of connection is so often the norm, it makes it that much more special in those moments when a friendship is formed and there is an opportunity to move beyond one sentence transactional communication! Today we had two such opportunities. Talk about a red letter day for me!!!
The first happened over poolside chat with a family from Sweden that is staying at our same accommodation. They have three children, Klara, Blenda and Nils, and their two girls are our girls’ same ages. We discovered that our families are likeminded in many ways, and that their travel route and ours’ follows almost the same basic plan. They are on an extended trip as well, traveling next to Aitukaki and then on to New Zealand! We sat for over an hour around a picnic table discussing where we had been and where we were going and how we got to this point of extended travel with our families. It was so wonderful to have a conversation in the middle of Rarotonga with a family from the other side of the world from us and find that we had so much in common. (Thank God they speak English though, because our Swedish is non-existent.)
The second was with Martha, a missionary whose name I found in a YWAM directory and had exchanged a few emails with before leaving WA. In one of those emails, I had asked her if our family could be of any help to her and their YWAM work while we were there in Rarotonga. Of all the things she could have asked for, she requested that we bring chocolate chips and diapers if we had room in our bags. So even though I had planned on “Helping” her, it was Martha who helped us more. She picked us up from our first accommodation and helped us transfer to our second place on the opposite side of the island. And then today, she made us lunch at her house and let us do - a much needed - load of laundry while we ate. All of this is something any of us would do for a friend, but how often do you see people go to this type of effort for a family that they hardly know??? It was such a blessing and a gift for us to have that “Normalcy” of talking and laughing around a kitchen table with another family over lunch and laundry.
Most of the time, there is a space that defines and separates tourists from locals, visitors from residents, and travelers from other travelers – everyone moving within there own routine not wanting to disturb the others. But anytime that natural barrier is bridged, those are the moments, and the stories, and the memories that create the heartbeat of travel for me.
Kia Orana, Lisa
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