When I was in Stratford Upon Avon, I was standing in line to try to get tickets for a Shakespeare play. I stood for some time when I struck up a conversation with the man behind me who had been waiting just as long. He was actually a tour director from Israel! Â It was right at the time when the tension of the bombings were happening between Israel and Palestine. Â To make a long story short, we never did get tickets, but instead we ended up sitting down to a cold beer on a beautiful sunny evening and talked about his personal experience of every day life in Israel, and of the issues of his country throughout past generations of history.
He was the nicest man with an attitude that spoke of no hatred or self righteousness over the Palestinians, but more of what he saw as a miracle that his country was still his country. What I came away with was the privilege of having met this man, and the greater privilege of how travel allowed me to humanize and individualize the people of the Middle East – it gave me the opportunity to gain my own personal perspective apart from what the media presents as a whole. It confronted my ignorance and my judgement and caused me to see nothing more or less than a simple man, not unlike any of us, who loves and cares about his family and his country.Â
Ironically, I started the evening out wanting to experience history and culture through a famous playwright, and I ended up having a much richer real-life cultural experience. Â
Thanks Ted and Randy! Â I look forward to hearing other stories.
Teresa Bell-Perry