Adventuring!

I am a 93 year old woman who has lived an unusual and adventurous life!  One of the more exciting periods began in 1960, when I started travelling in remote, isolated areas of the third world.  I was a clinical psychologist in the Mental Health Clinical Services of the City School District in Rochester, New York, and was due to have a sabbatical year.  I had travelled extensively throughout Europe and South America and wanted to go to Asia and Africa.  A requisite for a travel leave was a purposeful study.  I had always been interested in the dynamics of human interaction in families, so I decided to explore family dynamics in remote areas of the world, very different from western culture, where I had no verbal language in common and where children had had little, if any, access to education, paper or pencils.  I would introduce young children 3-8 or 9 years of age to tempura painting as my modus operandi.

   In 1960, the world was a very different place from today.  The Peace Corps had not yet been created.  Instant information was not at one’s fingertips.  IBM would not introduce the personal computer for twenty years.  The internet wouldn’t arrive for still another ten years, and wireless communication, cell phones, and digital cameras yet another five!  There was no “Wikipedia” or “Facebook” or “GPS”.   The “global” world as we know it today did not exist.

            Air travel in the US was well developed, and plane travel to Europe was beginning to replace ships, but travel to the Orient was still in its infancy.  Flights were infrequent and long.  Jet planes were not standard fare!  I remember reassuring my mother, who was elderly and afraid something dire might happen to her while I was away, that “There are three planes to Africa every week and I could be home in a two days!”  Of course, I neglected to inform her that I might be a thousand miles from the nearest international airport!  Travel to famous historical sites and international cities was well established, but outside the mainstream, where I planned to go, travel was primitive and unpredictable.  A white woman travelling alone into the hinterlands of Asia and Africa was a rarity!  Often I was one of the first white persons to interact in a personal way with the children, and almost always the first American!  I was a curiosity!

            I had no set itinerary as I traveled.   What I did and where I went was dependent on friends of friends, non- governmental organizations (NGOs) that had projects in isolated areas, or someone I met along the way who would offer suggestions and assistance.  In time, each day became an unexpected adventure,  and I shall be eternally grateful to all of the individuals who made the journey possible! 

If , in the ensuing blogs, I can  give you even a tingle of the excitement I felt as I met each new venture, reflect even a fraction of the response and warmth I found waiting around each new corner, or if I can get  you to laugh with me at some of the ridiculous situations I got myself into,  I will  have been successful.