Tag Archives: Peace Corps

Peace Corps Macho

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I received a message recently from someone thanking me for an article I wrote in 1979 before returning home from my first stint as a Peace Corps Volunteer, in Nepal.

The message came from a woman in Tennessee who served in Swaziland (now Eswatini) around the same time. “I pulled out a scrapbook and found a copy of your Peace Corps Macho article,” she wrote me. “That saying has reminded me many times not to get too caught up in myself over the years. I thought to look you up and I’m glad to see that you are still writing thought-provoking words on a very interesting life.”

I’d nearly forgotten the article, which appeared in the July/August 1979 issue of Peace Corps Times (which no longer exists). I found it online and, despite some gendered language and outdated phrases (e.g., “Third World,” “villagers,” “far out”), much of it remains timely.

Just in case you missed the article 44 years ago, I’m sharing it here along with some photos of my time in Nepal.

Item: A fellow Volunteer chose one of the most isolated posts here in Nepal. A few months later, he was visited by a Peace Corps staff member. The Volunteer’s quarters were, the staff member later told me, “a hovel worse than anything in the whole village. His kitchen was dirty and he wasn’t boiling his water. It was unbelievable. When I asked him why he didn’t improve his living standard, he said, ‘Well, I didn’t join the Peace Corps to be comfortable, you know.’”

Item: My lifetime friend, Mitch, joined Peace Corps/Nepal a year after me. At the end of his training. he had to choose between Kathmandu and another town, Pokhara, for his post. If he lived in Kathmandu, we could have shared my house and had a great time together. But Mitch chose the other post. One of the main reasons was that we both felt funny about doing something that we would so obviously enjoy. It would lessen the hardship we associated with Peace Corps service.

Item: My first post in Nepal was a village called llam. For medical reasons, I was transferred to Kathmandu. My salary was raised by $16 per month. Now I go to an occasional film or cheap restaurant. When Volunteers come in from their isolated posts, I am sometimes asked whether I have forgotten in my “luxury” what the real Peace Corps experience is about.

The implication is clear: You have to suffer to be a PCV.

It’s an attitude that I call “Peace Corps Macho.” It occurs when the willingness to endure hardship in the course of helping the poor turns into the belief that hardships have an intrinsic worth of their own.

Peace Corps Macho. You have to suffer to sing the blues.

Turning the inevitable hardships of Peace Corps life into a psychic combat medal is, of course, one way to cope with problems beyond our control. We can laugh at our troubles. It gives a sense of camaraderie.

But the problem is that many Volunteers I know — myself included — sometimes feel they have to seek out these hardships to prove how much they can “take,” thus showing how much they are willing to sacrifice to help humanity.

For example, a typical conversation in the Peace Corps/Nepal medical office:

“Hey, guess what? My lab test just came back and I’ve got the amoeba!”

*Oh. that’s nothing. I just got over pneumonia. I almost got a trip to Bangkok out of it, but I got better too soon.”

“Really? Say, did you hear about Bob? He came down with typhoid and had to be helicoptered out. Pretty amazing. First he had hepatitis and malaria, now he’s got typhoid.”

“Well, you know, Bob’s a far-out guy.”

This is the ethic of the missionary. Suffering brings prestige. Like the priest in Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory, the taking on of suffering elevates the soul.

The trouble with this is that Peace Corps Volunteers are not missionaries. Nor are we in Outward Bound. Nor the army. By the Peace Corps charter, we are here for three reasons. The primary one is to help the poor. Second is to give foreigners a chance to see Americans. And third is to create a body of American citizens sensitive to the needs of Third World development.

There’s not a word about suffering.

The line is not always clear, of course, about when hardship is a necessary part of getting our job done and when it becomes a spiritual ego ride. For example, to live in a simple house is to show solidarity with local farmers. But it’s ludicrous not to do what you can to catch the rats, keep your room clean and be happy.

Likewise, if you eat local foods instead of tinned goodies from home, it is a sign of fellowship with the poor. But some Volunteers carry this to the extreme by eating a protein-deficient diet, well knowing that they are endangering their health. Why? To be like their neighbors.

I feel the pressure myself. My lob and life here have been going extremely well. My teaching is successful, I have launched a series of special projects and have made many friends. And yet I sometimes feel guilty because things aren’t more difficult.

Peace Corps itself is ambiguous in its attitude towards hardship. On the one hand, it frets over Volunteer safety, programs and the like. But on the other, it prints recruiting brochures that ring something like: “Sure it’ll be tough. You’ll be vomiting up spiders and wishing those poisonous snakes would finally put you out of your misery. But you’ll be a Peace Corps Volunteer!”

The tension doesn’t only concern physical health, but mental health, too. Consider the Volunteer who has been at his post for six months, but who is not supposed to come to the capital for another two months. He is lonely and really wants to see his friends and have a decent meal. Too often a Volunteer in that situation will feel that he has to visibly freak out before he is morally justified in seeking relief. So he stays — after all, hardship is what Peace Corps is all about. Maybe he will tough it out after all. But maybe he won’t.

Another example: During my training, we had several conversations about whether there were times when we ought to drink unboiled water. In certain social situations, shouldn’t we just be gracious and take a few sips?

Well, as one who has now been through giardiasis, amoebic dysentery, hookworm and roundworm, I have no doubts anymore what the answer to that question is. What are you going to gain by drinking the water and vomiting for days: impress the villagers?

There seems to be a need here for balance between our own needs and the commitment we feel to help the poor. Too often there is a tendency among those involved in social service to make the worst of things so as to assure themselves that they are genuinely committed.

The issue is even more pronounced these days since many of us (I include myself) feel a certain repulsion toward the narcissism of many in the so-called human potential movement, what Tom Wolfe and others have called the “Me Generation.” For myself, I feel that many such people, well meaning though they may be, have become so wrapped up in themselves that they have forgotten the poverty of half the world’s people.

But they have their point, too. It’s a fool who doesn’t watch out for himself. So somewhere between suffering to show “compassion” for the poor and getting Rolfed and ESTed all day, there’s got to be a balance.

In any case, Peace Corps should face this issue a lot more squarely than it does now. Is hardship to be maximized as a requirement for successful service? If not, why does Peace Corps so often glorify unhappiness? And more important, why do so many PCVs let themselves get sucked in by such self-destructive logic?

Peace Corps Macho, to be sure, is not one of life’s basic human needs.

While I’m Still Able

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It’s a phrase that may be familiar to older Americans wondering how long they’ll be able to maintain a busy lifestyle:

“While I’m still able.”

I realized recently that I’ve been saying it myself when running into old friends. They’ll say something like: “I follow you online and you sure do keep busy traveling and everything else.”

“Well,” I’ll respond, “I want to do it while I’m still able.”

When I said this again the other day, it made me think of Supermarket Sweep, the television show in which contestants race to fill their carts with as much as possible within a brief time. Grab the steaks! Get some lobsters! Don’t let time run out on you!

I thought: Is this what I’ve become — someone frantically filling their cart before the buzzer sounds?

One of my volunteer projects is with this group in Moldova.

I know it can look that way. During the past year, I’ve taken several big trips, which I’ve written about here. I volunteer with local nonprofits, serve on boards, write this blog and a newsletter, go to local events and spend time with family and friends.

This may all just add up to an “active retirement” but I wonder sometimes whether I’m trying to prove something, to myself above all. Maybe I’m compensating for the fact that I no longer have the title and recognition of a formal job. Indeed, when I return these days to the campus where I used to work, few people recognize me. They just see a random retired guy.

Celebrating my 70th birthday with my seven grandchildren

So maybe I’ve been filling up my schedule as a way to say: Hey, I’m still here. Or perhaps I’m overreacting to medical challenges I’ve had over the past couple of years, or to turning 70. My clock is ticking and I hear it even without hearing aids.

Whatever my motivations, I’ve been busy, perhaps too busy.

Speaking at a local retirement community

An older friend told me recently she’s been wrestling with the same issue. She said she’s finding it hard to juggle numerous volunteer roles with the informal help she provides to friends, family responsibilities, travel and everything else. She laughed that it’s hardly what she expected in “retirement.”

I have no regrets about my own “not exactly retired” life, which I’ve pursued since walking away from a busy job at the age of 62. I recognize how fortunate I’ve been to do this. But it’s never been a retirement in the sense of kicking back. Shortly after I began serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in 2016, I wrote about my inability to ease up and move beyond the packed schedule of my previous life. I noted then how “I keep checking my cell phone for messages. I don’t go home until I’ve completed every item on my mental ‘to do’ list.”

I concluded that post by humorously vowing to pay closer attention when the Peace Corps staff told me again to be patient. “Really,” I promised, “I may even put a reminder in my electronic calendar.”

Visiting the Suomenlinna fortress in Helsinki

Now, seven years later, I remain just as persistent about making my days productive, whether it’s assisting a local community group or traveling to some foreign destination with Champa. I’m doing this mainly for myself but, at some level, I suppose I am also asserting my own relevance in a world that can make older people feel invisible.

In any case, I’m determined to make the most of this precious “not exactly retired” stage of my life when I no longer have the responsibilities of a formal job but am still able to contribute and thrive. All of these activities give my life meaning and I plan to keep doing them while I’m still … well, you know.

Expats in Moldova

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They’re leading lives I’ve sometimes imagined for myself: American expats in Moldova who are running businesses, managing programs, assisting refugees and tackling other challenges far from home.

Many of them first came to Moldova as Peace Corps Volunteers, like us. Unlike us, they’ve made a new home here. We’re friends with several of them and it’s been fascinating this week to catch up on our lives.

Chris Flowers, a fellow former Volunteer, is now the country director for the American Councils, managing educational and cultural programs. He recently married a Moldovan attorney, Diana, who’s done heroic work assisting refugees, especially since Russia invaded Ukraine. We met up with them at an Uzbek restaurant.

David Smith opened and ran an American-style barbecue restaurant for several years. He’s also been active in the local small business community and writes a newsletter with excellent analyses of what’s happening in Moldova. He, too, married a Moldovan woman.

Andrew Blakely was two years behind me in leaving Duke University to serve in Peace Corps Moldova. Now he’s back with Church World Service, managing programs to assist Ukrainian refugees and others. He’s working with Casey O’Neill, who previously served in the Peace Corps group between ours.

Bartosz Gawarecki is here, too, working with refugees near Bălți, where he served as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Bartosz is the president of Friends of Moldova. When the war broke out, he left his business in Michigan to join David and others in rapidly creating some of the first centers to provide desperate Ukrainian families with food and assistance.

That’s Bartosz in the photo, in the white shirt, along with Joseph Lutz of Indiana, who’s returned as a Peace Corps Response Volunteer. He and I are working together, with Marjory David, on a project to establish a national Jewish museum here.

The American expat community also includes diplomats, teachers, missionaries and others, along with a Facebook group and other community resources. On Sunday, we reunited with a couple from Alabama, Kathryn and Brian, who lived near us in Ialoveni. They’ve devoted their lives to helping vulnerable young women avoid trafficking, a serious problem here. They live now in Chișinău and continue to pursue this mission along with efforts to promote better foster care and education for young people with disabilities.

I admire Kathryn and Brian, as I do everyone I’ve mentioned in this post. While so many Americans tear each other apart back home, they’re quietly making the world a better place. I could also have highlighted other Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) here, including Courtney Jackson, who’s working with refugees, or Kelsey Walters, who’s raising a family with her Moldovan husband and promoting new agricultural approaches. (Apologies to those not mentioned.)

Back in December, when Champa and I were in Nepal, we had lunch with another RPCV, Anne Kaufman, who served in Peace Corps Nepal a year behind me in the late 1970s. She married a Nepali man, Raju, and has lived mostly in Kathmandu, working with development organizations and raising two daughters. For me, she represented the road not taken, the life I might have had if Champa and I had remained in Nepal instead of moving to America.

I don’t regret our decision. I’ve loved our life back home, especially our family, but this trip has been a reminder that it’s also possible to pursue a rich, impactful existence abroad, especially if it’s in a country you already know. The roads before us are far wider than many Americans realize.

Lasting Impact

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Yesterday we returned to our Peace Corps workplaces and learned, after more than five years, that our impact has endured more than we’d realized.

Champa’s big project as a Volunteer was to help her school’s drama program create a magnificent wardrobe of costumes and props, which were unveiled in a colorful public ceremony in 2018 (see video).

When we returned to the school yesterday, current students greeted us wearing some of the same costumes — Romeo, Juliet, a king and more. The school has been using them regularly and added to the collection.

Champa stopped by an English class and reunited with some of her old students.

Earlier we visited the library where I worked. The librarians proudly showed us a trophy room they’ve created to display all of the awards won by the robotics team I helped to establish with Lidia Rusu (above).

One of my younger robotics students, Alexandru, dropped by to thank us, too. He is now a high school senior, serving as a community youth leader.

Valentina Plamadeala, the library director, in white blouse, hosted a champagne reception for us (at noon; I love Moldova). She posted on Facebook a list of the many projects we did together, several of which are still thriving, notably the Bebeteca room we created for local moms (see video.)

Our reunions in Ialoveni, the small city near Moldova’s capital where we served from 2016-18, were intensely emotional. We were moved to see how we’d touched people’s lives.

At Champa’s school, one of her fellow English teachers, Elena Antociuc, read a certificate saying, “We sincerely appreciate the time you spent guiding us to new perspectives by collaborating with us in search for the best solutions.”

The certificate concluded: “We’re proud to be part of your international family.”

Ialoveni, we’re even prouder to be part of your family, now and forever. As we told Champa’s costume collaborator Ana Doschinescu, at a dinner her beautiful family hosted for us, our lives are so much richer because of all of you. Thank you for keeping us in your hearts.

Return to Moldova

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More than five years since we completed our service as Peace Corps Volunteers, we returned to Moldova on Sunday night.

We endured flight cancellations, an all-nighter at JFK Airport, an unexpected stop in Istanbul and lost luggage when we arrived in Chișinău. In a larger sense, our return was delayed by the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and health setbacks.

But now we’re finally here, and so is our luggage. We couldn’t be happier.

Our first jet-lagged stop on Monday was at the Peace Corps office, to hug old friends and discuss the virtual project I began several weeks ago to help create a national Jewish museum.

Then we reunited with our host family in Ialoveni, just outside the capital, for a delicious Moldovan dinner prepared by our host mother, Nina. That’s her in the top photo with her daughter, Alisa, showing off their copies of Not Exactly Retired with personal inscriptions from the author.

Among our other gifts was this carved wooden picture frame from Nepal displaying a photo of our beloved Bunica, Nina’s mom, who passed away before we could see her again.

Nina’s husband, Mihai, and son, Andrei, joined us for this group photo after dinner. We left with our own bag of gifts, including some of Ialoveni’s famous chocolates.

We also enjoyed reuniting with the family dog, Boss, who remembered us.

On Tuesday morning we attended a ceremony where U.S. Ambassador Kent Logsdon announced a major grant to restore one of the central structures in Chișinău’s large Jewish ceremony. Irina Shikhova, below, with whom I’m working on the museum project, was among the other speakers.

It was an inspiring event and great to finally meet Irina after several Zoom meetings. I also met Marjory and Joseph, two Peace Corps Response Volunteers working on the project.

Champa and I are staying at an Airbnb downtown. We’ve been eating placinte and friptura, drinking local wine and exploring how Moldova has changed over the past five years. More on that later.

For now, we’re just soaking it all in. Moldova, we’ve missed you!

Jewish Museum of Moldova

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If you think of London and Paris as having vibrant Jewish communities — which they do — consider another European capital whose Jewish population was once many times larger in percentage terms.

It’s Chişinǎu, the capital of Moldova, which was nearly half-Jewish at the turn of the last century, before a bloody pogrom in 1903 killed 49 Jews in Chişinǎu, injured hundreds more and led many Jewish families to flee.

Chișinău monument to the Jewish ghetto.

Four decades later, the Holocaust killed most of Moldova’s remaining Jews, only to be followed by Soviet occupation. Today, estimates of Moldova’s current Jewish population range between 7,500 and 20,000, based on different sources, approaches and definitions. Many more Moldovan Jews live in Israel and other countries.

Moldova retains a rich Jewish heritage but, as I discovered while serving there as a Peace Corps Volunteer several years ago, it’s largely hidden amid the broken cemetery stones and synagogue ruins.

Chişinǎu’s Jewish cemetery has more than 23,000 graves.

Now, finally, this is changing. In 2018, Moldova’s government created a national Jewish museum in the capital — focused initially on Chisinau’s large Jewish cemetery but with plans to also establish a building with exhibits and programs.

As the grandson of a Jewish woman who grew up down the road in Odessa, I find this both exciting and overdue. It’s even more inspiring since it’s happening at a moment when Moldova is dealing with the war in neighboring Ukraine and many other challenges.

The Maghid website describes Jewish sites across Moldova.

A few months ago, Peace Corps Moldova asked me whether I might help the museum planners, given my professional background and familiarity with Moldova. I said yes enthusiastically and, earlier in July, began working on a Peace Corps Virtual Project with the museum’s director, Irina Șihova. 

I’m interacting with Irina from my home in North Carolina but plan to visit Chişinǎu with Champa in September (at our own expense). We are also eager to reunite with our host family and other dear Moldovan friends while we’re there.

Irina Șihova in the Jewish cemetery.

Irina is a prominent researcher in Jewish ethnology, culture and history; a museum curator; an educator; and a guide for Jewish families who’ve come to Moldova to explore their family roots. She’s organized dozens of exhibitions and cultural programs and written academic papers and books about Moldova’s Jewish history.

She and I have already done some good work together, brainstorming ideas for museum exhibits and publicizing an upcoming festival in Moldova that will include tours of former Jewish shtetls, a klezmer music concert and the premiere of a musical work commemorating the 1903 Chişinǎu pogrom. We’ll be joined soon by one or two “Peace Corps Response” volunteers who will bring their own expertise to work on-site with Irina and her colleagues.

Torah at Moldova’s national history museum.

I feel privileged to have this opportunity, especially at this early stage of the museum’s development, and plan to post updates on this blog. If you’re interested in the project, or know others with relevant expertise who might want to join this volunteer effort, please write me privately with a direct message or by e-mail. (Please do not post a public message about this here).

Because religion was heavily restricted in Soviet times, some Moldovans have ethnic Jewish heritage but do not practice the religion and may not even know about their family backgrounds. My closest colleague on the Peace Corps staff, for example, told me her Jewish grandparents “never practiced during the Soviet era since any religion was taboo.”

Jewish youth event at the MallDova shopping mall, October 2016

Moldova’s small Jewish community is experiencing a resurgence these days, as you can see in this photo from a youth event we attended. The new museum will make it easier for others in Moldova, Jews and non-Jews alike, and for visitors from around the world, to learn about this heritage and honor those who were lost. 

I hope some of you reading this will visit it one day.

The Good Around Us

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I was lucky this past week to encounter the best of humanity just as the 2024 presidential campaign is gaining steam. Two events reminded me of the many good people living among us, no matter what we may see and hear over the next year and a half.

On Sunday, I participated in the North Carolina Peace Corps Association’s annual Peace Prize ceremony, which this year honored a local nonprofit that uses dance to assist disabled veterans and others. The photo shows ComMotion’s Andre Avila and Robin McCall receiving the award from NCPCA Vice President Jennifer Chow.

On Monday, I participated in an event organized by the Triangle Nonprofit & Volunteer Leadership Center to honor outstanding local volunteers — people such as Bruce Ballentine, who has been active with Habitat for Humanity and raised more than $7 million to build new homes for families.

Another honoree, Lalit Mahadeshwar, organized volunteer teams with the Hindu Society of North Carolina to provide food packs to needy families during the pandemic. Dr. Shep McKenzie III provides free gynecological exams for Urban Ministries and also tends its vegetable gardens. Myra Blackwell helps lead a baseball league for underserved youth.

Others honored at the event deliver meals to the elderly, provide music for dementia patients, comfort the parents of hospitalized pediatric patients, care for shelter animals and much more. All of their stories made me feel better about people. The photo shows me introducing some of those in the “senior” category.

I served as a judge for the Governor’s Medallion Award for Volunteer Service and also presented the 2023 “Community Partner of the Year” award to the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at Duke University.

Sarah Cline, the program manager for the AmeriCorps Senior Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP), joined me in honoring OLLI, which recently teamed up with RSVP and the Durham Center for Senior Life to expand programming for older volunteers. I chair the local RSVP advisory council and have been working with Sarah to encourage more local residents to get involved, as we did in a recent radio interview.

I spend much of my own time volunteering — with RSVP, OLLI, the West End Community Foundation and various Peace Corps and Moldova activities. This past week reminded me how important this work is — for my own emotional well-being most of all.

If you’re an older Durham resident who wants to volunteer, I invite you to send Sarah a message. She’s ready to meet with you and find a great match. If you live elsewhere, you can contact your local RSVP office or take advantage of other volunteer resources.

The upcoming campaign seems likely to challenge our emotional equilibrium, regardless of our personal politics. I have my own strong views but also want to resist cynicism and despair. Volunteering isn’t a perfect vaccine but it does help us feel better about our fellow Americans — and ourselves — while addressing the urgent needs of our communities.

Op-Eds for Ukraine

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As the world prepares to mark the one-year anniversary of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, on Feb. 24, few Americans are better qualified to comment than Returned Peace Corps Volunteers who served there.

These RPCVs lived and worked alongside Ukrainians. They learned the local language. They care deeply about what’s been happening, as do many of us who served in Moldova and other countries affected by the conflict. Some of us also visited Ukraine during our service.

This past week, I helped train a group of Ukraine RPCVs how to write op-ed articles to share their stories. I joined with Dylan Hinson, an RPCV who served in Namibia, in teaching the workshop organized by the RPCV Alliance for Ukraine and the National Peace Corps Association.

This video of my presentation is excerpted from the larger program. If you’re interested in learning more about writing effective op-eds, check out my earlier post. A short YouTube video features Dylan encouraging RPCVs to become op-ed authors.

The Ukraine RPCV group and our Friends of Moldova organization both continue to assist Ukrainians affected by the conflict. Especially as Russia prepares to launch a new military offensive, please consider donating to their life-saving work.

Top photo: The Odessa Opera House, which we visited in 2018.

Seeing in New Ways

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Have you ever thought of Baghdad as a “city of peace” and “a miracle”?

Me neither, but that’s how it was described in an exhibit we visited recently — not in Iraq, but at the National Museum of Qatar.

Several of the exhibits there reminded me that people around the world see things very differently than we do in the United States, regardless of who is “right.” Another one highlighted the collapse of the global pearling industry, which was devastating to Qatar but unknown to me. An exhibit about the “Ramadan Blockade” described how Qatar was blockaded by several neighbors a few years ago. I barely remembered that happening.

The museum, which opened in 2019 with a design evocative of a desert rose, wasn’t the only one in Doha that made me think in new ways. Across town, at the Museum of Islamic Art, an exhibit examined how Lawrence of Arabia and other films have contributed to Western misunderstanding of the Arab world. Another gallery showed how modernity has brought prosperity to Islamic nations while upending local traditions.

Both museums featured stunning architecture and beautiful exhibits. Neither was especially political; on the contrary, both were designed to appeal to broad international audiences. Inevitably, though, they reflected the perspective of a society that, for all of its wealth and rapid modernization, still differs from our own.

This is why I love to travel. It challenges my assumptions and broadens my perspective, no matter where we go.

Shortly before we flew to Qatar, for example, we had lunch at the Kathmandu home of two old friends. Here’s what I saw on the gate outside their house:

If you’re startled to see a swastika displayed so proudly, much less beside a Star of David, think about your own vantage point. Swastikas were sacred symbols in Hinduism long before they were linked to Hitler. The six-pointed star, which we associate with Judaism, is also a Hindu symbol. Both symbols are common in Nepal and have nothing to do with Nazism or Judaism, at least in the local context.

Or consider this statue we saw in Ilam, Champa’s home town. It honors Ratna Bantawa, a local Communist leader who opposed Nepal’s former king. Ratna and his brother were denounced as terrorists and killed for their activities. Today Ratna’s memory is celebrated. There’s a road named after him. Communists now play a prominent role in Nepali politics even as “communist” remains an epithet in our own country.

My point here isn’t to debate Iraqi history or communism, just to note how travel changes our perceptions. This latest trip reminded me of something I wrote several years ago after returning to Moldova from a trip to Bulgaria and Romania: “One of the things for which I’m most grateful about serving in the Peace Corps is how it’s made me less fearful about traveling to places that seem exotic or dangerous to some Americans even though they’re actually safe, beautiful, fascinating and cheap.”

As I wrote then, “you hardly need to have served abroad to expand your horizons a bit. … There’s a big world waiting beyond the American comfort zone” for those of us fortunate enough to be able to travel, a privilege the two of us never take for granted.

That big, mysterious, fascinating world is still there and still waiting. Now that the pandemic has eased, I hope more Americans will explore it, as we hope to keep doing ourselves.