When you travel, there are moments that will stay with you for the rest of your life. There is something about traveling and seeing the world that opens you up to new ideas, new experiences, and in the end you come home a different person because of what you have seen and what you have done. This is what I love about traveling. You can go somewhere new, meet new people, be whoever you want to be for a brief moment in time, and you can immerse yourself in the culture of where you are.
In 2010, I decided to go to Egypt. I feel as though when most people think about where it is that they want to travel or go on vacation, they typically think about places where you can relax, where you can see pretty things, and where you have a beach you can hang out on. I'm not that kind of traveller. I like to go to places with history, where I can think about the millions of other people who walked where I am walking. I went to Egypt with four friends and we had an amazing experience, but there is one moment that has stuck with me since I left that I felt as though I should share since its Christmas and I think that sometimes we tend to forget the things that are important about this time of year.
On Christmas Day 2010, my four friends and I made the decision to explore Cairo on our own before out tour group got together because we had the whole day to ourselves and wanted to take advantage of seeing the city. For those of you who have never been to Egypt, it is a beautiful country with so much unbelievable history right before your eyes, but it is also a country in the midst of major struggles, where poverty is real, and people live in a completely different way than we do in the west. Cairo has multiple parts to it just like every city. There is the touristy part of Cairo where the Egyptian Museum is; the area with the market; a trendy area; and then there is the area that we ended up walking around.
We were trying to head to the touristy part of Cairo and clearly my sense of direction was a little off that day. Here we were, a group of five friends wandering around the part of Cairo where real Egyptians lived. Where abandoned cars were piled up on each other throughout the street so much that you had to weave your way through the cars to make it from one part of the street to another. We were in an area that tourists must not usually go, because almost every person we walked by, whether they were also walking on the street, working in a store, or smoking a water pipe in a cafe, stopped what they were doing and watched us. Now, I won't lie, we were a very interesting group of tourists. Clearly we were all from America and we came in different shapes, sizes, and colors. Three white women (one of which was Jewish), a homosexual man, and a black woman all walking around Cairo. It is probably understandable why our little group got a lot of attention from the locals.
Then came the moment. The kind of moment I talked about in the beginning of this post that stays with you long after you have left the place you have traveled. While walking we saw a small boy and his father also walking. The boy had just gotten a glass bottle of coca cola and based on his excitement and also the physical state of himself and his father, this was probably a huge treat for the small boy. For me, being Christian and it was Christmas day, I equated the coca cola to being the only Christmas present that the boy had gotten. Now clearly I know that the boy probably didn't celebrate Christmas because of his religious beliefs, but all I could think of looking at that boy was how happy he was to get the present of the coca cola. And then I thought back to how we are in the United States. Many of us get all kinds of presents on Christmas Day. Our families and friends get us everything (or most everything) that we want on our gift list. We get extravagant things, new computers, new iPhones, brand named clothing. Essentially a lot of us are spoiled on Christmas and don't appreciate the gifts that we get or the people who give them to use the way that little boy cherished his bottle of coca cola. We get upset when one of the gifts we asked for isn't wrapped up under our tree or if someone got us the generic gift, not the name brand one we requested. Why is it, when so many other people in the world have so much less than we do, that all we care about at Christmas is getting the expensive gift that in a year or two we probably won't use anymore, might still be in its box never used, or will be replaced by the newest model?
A heartbreaking moment happened during our walk right after we saw the excitement of the young boy. Trying to be so careful with his bottle of coca cola, the boy dropped it in front of us and glass and soda went everywhere. You could see the pain and disappointment in the little boy's eyes. And then I looked down at his feet. The boy had no shoes on and more than likely some of the glass had ended up in his feet. The one Christmas present the boy had gotten, the one treat he had been given by his father was gone. But instead of crying, instead of causing a fuss and demanding that his father buy him a new bottle, the young boy put his head down, took his fathers hand, and continued walking. Clearly, the little boy, though heartbroken, understood what was important in life. It wasn't the bottle of coca cola, but the man who had gone out of his way to show his son he loved him by getting him the treat.
This story reminds me of what Christmas should be for all of us. It shouldn't be about the gifts we get. It shouldn't be about what is and isn't under our trees. We shouldn't be focused on the expensive gifts we want. Instead, we should be focused on the people in our lives. The people who take the time to get us whatever gifts they can, even if that gift isn't something they can buy. Christmas should be about getting to spend time with the people who matter most in your life. Telling them how much you love them and how much your appreciate them. And if you do get that gift you've been waiting for, or even if you don't and you get something else instead, make sure you show that same excitement, appreciation, and love that the small Egyptian boy did.
In 2010, I decided to go to Egypt. I feel as though when most people think about where it is that they want to travel or go on vacation, they typically think about places where you can relax, where you can see pretty things, and where you have a beach you can hang out on. I'm not that kind of traveller. I like to go to places with history, where I can think about the millions of other people who walked where I am walking. I went to Egypt with four friends and we had an amazing experience, but there is one moment that has stuck with me since I left that I felt as though I should share since its Christmas and I think that sometimes we tend to forget the things that are important about this time of year.
On Christmas Day 2010, my four friends and I made the decision to explore Cairo on our own before out tour group got together because we had the whole day to ourselves and wanted to take advantage of seeing the city. For those of you who have never been to Egypt, it is a beautiful country with so much unbelievable history right before your eyes, but it is also a country in the midst of major struggles, where poverty is real, and people live in a completely different way than we do in the west. Cairo has multiple parts to it just like every city. There is the touristy part of Cairo where the Egyptian Museum is; the area with the market; a trendy area; and then there is the area that we ended up walking around.
We were trying to head to the touristy part of Cairo and clearly my sense of direction was a little off that day. Here we were, a group of five friends wandering around the part of Cairo where real Egyptians lived. Where abandoned cars were piled up on each other throughout the street so much that you had to weave your way through the cars to make it from one part of the street to another. We were in an area that tourists must not usually go, because almost every person we walked by, whether they were also walking on the street, working in a store, or smoking a water pipe in a cafe, stopped what they were doing and watched us. Now, I won't lie, we were a very interesting group of tourists. Clearly we were all from America and we came in different shapes, sizes, and colors. Three white women (one of which was Jewish), a homosexual man, and a black woman all walking around Cairo. It is probably understandable why our little group got a lot of attention from the locals.
Then came the moment. The kind of moment I talked about in the beginning of this post that stays with you long after you have left the place you have traveled. While walking we saw a small boy and his father also walking. The boy had just gotten a glass bottle of coca cola and based on his excitement and also the physical state of himself and his father, this was probably a huge treat for the small boy. For me, being Christian and it was Christmas day, I equated the coca cola to being the only Christmas present that the boy had gotten. Now clearly I know that the boy probably didn't celebrate Christmas because of his religious beliefs, but all I could think of looking at that boy was how happy he was to get the present of the coca cola. And then I thought back to how we are in the United States. Many of us get all kinds of presents on Christmas Day. Our families and friends get us everything (or most everything) that we want on our gift list. We get extravagant things, new computers, new iPhones, brand named clothing. Essentially a lot of us are spoiled on Christmas and don't appreciate the gifts that we get or the people who give them to use the way that little boy cherished his bottle of coca cola. We get upset when one of the gifts we asked for isn't wrapped up under our tree or if someone got us the generic gift, not the name brand one we requested. Why is it, when so many other people in the world have so much less than we do, that all we care about at Christmas is getting the expensive gift that in a year or two we probably won't use anymore, might still be in its box never used, or will be replaced by the newest model?
A heartbreaking moment happened during our walk right after we saw the excitement of the young boy. Trying to be so careful with his bottle of coca cola, the boy dropped it in front of us and glass and soda went everywhere. You could see the pain and disappointment in the little boy's eyes. And then I looked down at his feet. The boy had no shoes on and more than likely some of the glass had ended up in his feet. The one Christmas present the boy had gotten, the one treat he had been given by his father was gone. But instead of crying, instead of causing a fuss and demanding that his father buy him a new bottle, the young boy put his head down, took his fathers hand, and continued walking. Clearly, the little boy, though heartbroken, understood what was important in life. It wasn't the bottle of coca cola, but the man who had gone out of his way to show his son he loved him by getting him the treat.
This story reminds me of what Christmas should be for all of us. It shouldn't be about the gifts we get. It shouldn't be about what is and isn't under our trees. We shouldn't be focused on the expensive gifts we want. Instead, we should be focused on the people in our lives. The people who take the time to get us whatever gifts they can, even if that gift isn't something they can buy. Christmas should be about getting to spend time with the people who matter most in your life. Telling them how much you love them and how much your appreciate them. And if you do get that gift you've been waiting for, or even if you don't and you get something else instead, make sure you show that same excitement, appreciation, and love that the small Egyptian boy did.
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