The Intention
“To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.” -Aldous Huxley
There is a TedTalk given by Chimamanda Adichie where she talks about “the single story” of a place, a stereotyped view of a country or group of people that only allows a single idea of that place and those people. She uses the example of her hometown, Enugu, Nigeria. In the West, Africa is painted as an impoverished place filled with suffering and unrest. Unsafe, unclean, wild. Sure, there is poverty, there is civil war in some areas. Unfortunately, some form of this is present all over the world. It is also a place filled with tradition, vibrant culture, self-sufficiency, community, love, and natural beauty. It is a place where people celebrate life each day it is given to them.
When I did a Semester at Sea in college, I was introduced to the South African phrase: Ubuntu, which means I am because you are. It reflects shared humanity present across the globe and celebrates the richness of diversity, of culture, of sharing stories. As I have continued to travel, I have held onto this word. Each place I’ve gone has cracked my heart wide open. We all want love, we all want self-sufficiency, we all want community.
This was true on my trip to Colombia in March of 2023. Before traveling alone as an American female, I was met with wide eyes and looks of terror from my grandparents, parents, and older friends especially. “Be carefullllll.” They would drawl. Sure, Colombia has seen its fair share of crime, corruption, and violence. Medellín once saw the most violence per square foot in the world. I coudn’t blame them for worrying. After all, they had only read the single story.
What I found in Colombia was a gorgeous terrain of lush green hillsides, stunning beaches, and vibrant cities rich with bustling life. I was touched by the kindness of its people, the endless generosity, and constant gratitude for another day of life. In a local bar in Salento, the staff took turns leading me through salsa steps. The families I stayed with wanted nothing more than to show me their magical country, to feed me, to laugh with me, to teach me Spanish. As I sat on the beach in Taganga, I spoke Spanglish with Ana Cecilia, an elegant, kind, energetic Colombian woman who takes living life to the fullest seriously. She said, “This is such a beautiful country and yet all the people on the outside see is a place with a hard past, somewhere dangerous and corrupt.” She took her hand and moved it through the air in a sweeping motion. I followed the motion, taking in the tangerine sun beginning its decent, the sea a muted purple, the sky streaked in pink, the hillsides speckled with white homes glowing gold in the evening light, the families dancing on the beach, and the boys playing fútbol barefoot in the sand. She didn’t have to say anything for me to know what she meant. “Yet, here we are.”
I am returning to South America in January. I plan to backpack from Chile, to Argentina, Brazil, and back to Colombia for 3 to 4 months, with the intent of allowing myself to get lost and go where my heart leads me. I want to use this notion of the single story as a backdrop to my travels, to uncover, once more, that the only way to disrupt the stories we’ve been told our whole lives about a place is to go and experience them for ourselves and see that, often times, they are wildly wrong. Debunking the myths and uncovering the truths through unfiltered experience, to tell the stories of people like Ana Cecelia who exist in every corner of the world. I will be using the platform WorkAway to find homestays where I will stay, and, in exchange, lend a helping hand to local families. I will hear stories from families who run hostels in small Chilean towns bordering Patagonia like Cochamó and sustainable farmers teaching permaculture in the hills outside of Cali, Colombia.
