Our program has a Winter Break in February, between our Holiday Break and our Spring Break. There are a few reasons we are able to do this. We don’t have teacher work days or half days strewn throughout the year. We live in a tourist town where many of our families are business owners and their places are closed for the “off season”. Lastly, we can do this because I love to travel when it’s cold here- and I make the calendar :) During this break, many of our families are able to travel and many do so together, and sometimes even with their teachers.
In the Montessori world, we talk about concrete to abstract learning. Learning about a new place and actually being immersed in it, is about as concrete as it gets. My main teaching priority is to model respect for all cultures and for the planet and to instill in students a lifelong love of learning that guides them to be peacemakers, global citizens, and stewards of the Earth. I read an opinion article in the New Yorker recently, The Case Against Travel, a well-written, though cynical and misanthropic, piece arguing that travel (specifically tourism or even avoiding tourism) makes people self righteous… Travel makes people not appreciate their immediate community… Travel makes real life dull and bleak… Travelers come back unchanged but with artificial enlightenment... He made valid points using stories of curmudgeonly vacationers and from his own travel fails. He used examples from ancient philosophers who lived in different times, when humanity didn’t so desperately need one-on-one connections. I suppose your travel intention determines what you get from it. When I return from traveling and people ask me how my vacation was, hundreds of thoughts go through my head. Was it relaxing? Not really. Do I feel refreshed and reset? Always.
Sometimes we travel strictly to have a vacation, a designated time and place for fun, relaxation, and less responsibilities than our normal routine. Glorious vacation days can help us finish a few books, maybe acquire some passport stamps, a sunburn or a weakened liver, and if we see some new cultures or attractions- yes, some might gain a false sense of feeling well-traveled. After so much “chillin”, of course it’s hard to go back to our real life, creating a perpetual cycle. On these trips, we can return to daily life, still tired, with the same opinions and routines, awaiting our next vacation.
Anytime you go to a new place, you are a visitor, whether participating in tourist activities or not. Travel is sometimes for work purposes or to visit loved ones. Some travel though, is specifically to see new places and shift perspectives for a bit, with less intention of down time. This is a whole different type of reset. This is an immersion into another dimension of real life, rather than an escape. Responsibilities still fully exist, and in many foreign places, staying alert is crucial. Besides the responsibilities that we have as respectful visitors in someone else’s home, routine activities are more challenging- communicating, navigating transportation systems, grocery shopping, parenting, safety… These are easier if you take the time to learn about the places and people of whom you are a guest. Travel such as this can be exciting, stressful, educational, and sometimes dangerous (sorry Mom). From my Montessori point of view again, we learn by doing and learning is growing. And growth always involves changes.
It is not lost on me that it is a luxury to travel (or take a vacation). Neither will make you a better human than anyone else. I have read that about 80% of the world’s population never leaves their country. If you are able, take whatever vital downtime you need, and any form of a reset you can, whatever you enjoy that helps you find meaning and live fully, whether it’s a vacation, travel, a walk, a good book, or just a day off.
Since relaxation is not my strong suit, my trips are heavy on the jungle ATV expeditions, snorkeling, hiking, jogging. We are constantly learning, but the rest of the travel experience is when we observe, live, adapt, and connect. Travel takes courage and it inspires, humbles, and illuminates everything, even when you get home- the exact opposite of making things dull. Sometimes it’s intense and challenging, and we return with wet dirty clothes, blisters, one less pair of shoes, sore muscles (or maybe a giant bruise from slipping onto a muddy boat taxi). More importantly, we return with strengthened friendship bonds, stories for days, first hand knowledge of other cultures, and a profound awareness of the interconnectedness of everyone and everything. If that doesn’t change you, I’m not sure what will.
To add to the overwhelming feels I always have after traveling, my latest adventure was with my daughter and my recently widowed close friend, just the three of us. On the flights (where I am required to relax…), I finished two books by authors who I know personally. I read a short novel by a former student of mine (an old soul, with an inspiring talent for words at 12 years old). It’s a beautifully descriptive, thoughtful story about perfection ultimately being authenticity. I left the book in a Little Free Library in Panama. The next book unexpectedly went hand in hand with the first, a memoir by a new friend, a single mom who lost both legs to meningitis as a teen. She later traveled (not a vacation) to war torn countries to meet and connect with amputees, and even through language barriers, heard their incredible stories. Her accounts of the multiple lifetimes’ worth of things she’s endured- made me cry through my entire flight. I have never chosen two more perfect books to read when leaving my comfort zone. Reading changes you in a similar way as travel. We “travel” in a way, when we read about others’ experiences (I don’t think that New Yorker author has any beef with reading…) The words in both of these books will travel with me forever. Beauty and perfection lie in imperfection- in nature, scars, and authenticity.
My favorite beautifully imperfect places to visit (so far) are in Central America, to the surprise of many other world travelers who ask. I love the people, art, architecture, food, weather, the language… but for me, there is inherently more. I post pictures- the Caribbean colors, palm trees, exotic animals, things that are clearly not our usual daily grind. The rest I do not have photographic evidence of, just stories and memories.
This time, we enjoyed our usual vacation-y things- we went to gorgeous beaches, made some art (in our jungle treehouse!), ate delicious meals and had drinks at restaurants only affordable to expats and tourists. It was the week of Carnaval, so we had some history lessons and culture. We ate Panamanian cuisine and learned of the indigenous Guna art of Mola. We took ATVs to the “ruins” of Pablo Escobar’s Panamanian jungle hideaway and private runway (another interesting history lesson for my daughter…oops) We also learned that Panama is one of only three carbon-negative countries in the world!
This particular trip also included mud, rain, jungle predicaments, cat calls from men, stressful check-ins, interesting shower situations, miles and miles of walking in wet flip flops, many new smells of hot trash/septic/death… then more mud and rain, and plenty of litter. The artist in me wants to document it all- but the beauty, colors, sunshine, and smiles are where it is more appropriate (or safe) to get my camera out.
Anywhere I go, I take it all in and acknowledge the other side of the photos, the big picture in its entirety. In less developed countries that are perfectly situated near the equator with tropical weather and clear waters, the other side is more extreme, especially if you venture out of your comfort zone. You might see the handmade art I bring home that has weeks of work put into it, but you don’t see the artists or their kids following us and selling it for almost nothing. You see the cute and exotic animals, not the emaciated or dead ones. You see a man with his parrot, not the same man talking to himself, drinking out of his rum bottle. You see cute tan kids smiling and enthusiastically waving to every passerby from their waterfront bungalow, finding joy in connection, rather than the holes in their floorboards or the mountains of trash on their porch and in the sea, or the chickens walking in the overflowing septic, or the filtered brown rainwater jugs they drink from. You see the teal water view from the airplane, not the military presence surrounding not only every Central American airport but almost every street corner. You don’t see the rude Atlanta TSA people yelling at and mocking a Costa Rican man who didn’t speak English, or the kindness shown by the witnesses. Each side of these snapshots is authentic, but not on their own. Alongside every utterly beautiful moment, there is struggle and sadness. And every single real-life moment that we encounter forms us. Each one is a lesson for my usual travel buddy, my daughter. Though we balance it all with fun times and laughter, it is all important.
I return to my small town island with unlimited fresh drinking water, my consistent hot shower and my toilets that can handle the flushing of TP. I come home to a town with a modern infrastructure that maintains clean streets and an almost spotless beach with no visible, unsolvable trash issue, to homes that hold belongings and books and art, homes that can withstand hurricanes. I don’t need to be reminded of my appreciation for these things, I feel gratitude and guilt immensely. Mainly, I feel a desire to do more, be more, love more, hear more stories, learn more, and not in a cliche- privileged girl saves the world by posting to instagram sort of way- but in an innate responsibility to humanity and to the earth that brings tears to my eyes, accompanied by an overwhelming sense of non-judgment and understanding of humanity’s similarities and life’s differences. I return to my classroom with a purpose. I return with a need to make connections, help find solutions, to listen, to continue my Spanish studies (I could have helped that man in TSA), and to try to understand as much as possible in this unpredictable amount of time we have. The not-so-beautiful and the beautiful moments are all authentic. This is how travel shakes you. Travel reminds us to do better and our vacations give us the strength to. So, how was my Winter Break vacation? It was Perfect.
~K
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