Global Explorers Blog 
When a Field Isn’t Just a Field
If you were driving along South Africa’s busy N2 highway from Cape Town International Airport towards the city of Cape Town and you looked to your right just before the abandoned power plant and the Athlone Refuse Transfer Station, you would see a field full of trees on the other side of the frontage road that runs parallel to the highway, behind a concrete fence. To most people zipping past on their way to Cape Town’s world famous beaches and other renowned tourist attractions the field probably doesn’t look like much. You probably wouldn’t notice it, or if you did, give it a second thought. It is overgrown with grass and the trees are small and nondescript. The hulking, dilapidated power plant looming nearby, with its broken windows, concertina wire and ‘keep out’ signs, along with the trash strewn along the shoulder of the road, imbues the scene with an air of forsakenness, the kind that permeates the half-forgotten fringes of many industrial cities in the US.
Share on Facebook Post to Twitter Posted by Administrator · January 31, 2012
Initiation Rites
I recently read an interview with Malidoma Patrice Somé, a native of Burkina Faso in West Africa. He is a professor of literature and author of several books on African culture. Dr. Somé has taught in the United States for the past twenty years and has written extensively about the role of initiation rites in society. I was struck immediately by how his ideas resonate with our Global Explorers vision. I’d like to share some of his insights here.
Initiation is understood to be a rite of passage from one stage of life to another, typically from childhood to adulthood. We often associate initiation with membership in clubs such as sororities and fraternities. But many major religions have rites of initiation and passage as well—baptism, confirmation, bar or bat mitzvah. Even getting a drivers license can be seen as an initiation into adulthood.
Dr. Somé believes that in a productive society initiation should raise awareness of life's purpose. Parents want their children to find their purpose, reach their full potential, and acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to be successful in life. We each need to have a personal mission that contributes to the well-being of the world, and finding one's purpose is the primary goal of initiation. Initiation also teaches responsibility toward community, village, and culture. We all come into this world with a gift that we must give to the world. We must undergo initiation to discover what our gift is and how to share it.
Share on Facebook Post to Twitter Posted by Administrator · January 25, 2012
The Exploratory Benefits of Walking and Public Transportation
My dad always told me his favorite way to explore a new place was to walk out his front door and get himself lost. As I got older, and he realized that I was actually going to take his words to heart, he began to add many more stipulations to exactly what was the best way to go about exploring (getting lost was no longer advised) but the basic element of self discovery remained. He also told me to always bring a towel, but that is not entirely his own bit of wisdom and another blog altogether. I have moved around quite a bit this past year. To me, the best thing about living in a new place is trying to figure out the new landscape. In this time I have honed and tuned my exploration skills and believe that there are two fail proof ways to get to know a town well enough to feel like a local!
I love to walk. I walk as much as possible and more than my feet really like me to I am sure. As I have no car, walking has played a large role in my transportation this past year. I walk to work, I walk to the grocery store and I walk just for fun. When I first arrive in a new city, I feel that walking is reading the city like a book. Since you are not moving around at any great speed, you really learn the streets that you are walking down. You know where there is a hole in the wall restaurant where the owner stands at the door all day long and knows everyone in the neighborhood. You know where the best parks are for reading and relaxing. You can name cross and side streets that no one else can remember the names of. You quickly learn all the short cuts that make you feel like you have a huge secret and when you get to share them with someone new you feel really cool. Or maybe that’s just me… I also love the sense of accomplishment that I feel when I walk myself to my destination. In walking, you are committing to getting yourself somewhere. I love it.
Share on Facebook Post to Twitter Posted by Maggie Jeffries · January 19, 2012
Thoughts Under a Night Sky
I was standing under the stars in Estes Park, Colorado, one chilly October night when I fully realized the true interconnectedness of the world that has attracted me to travel for so many years. Standing beneath the beautiful landscape of the sky and the timeless history that accompanies it, I was sucked into the vastness and endless boundaries of the universe. One person in our star-gazing group asked, “I wonder if generations of the future will be able to appreciate what we are looking at now.” I wondered, to myself, “I wonder if people NOW, from all over the world, are able to appreciate what we are looking at now.”
Share on Facebook Post to Twitter Posted by Jane Jennings · January 12, 2012
The Complexities of Conservation and Ecotourism
I just had the opportunity to return to the town of Tortuguero in Costa Rica after a break of nearly 12 years. It was an interesting visit for me. I have studied, promoted and actively participated in the field of ecotourism for the last 20 years. It is something I am very passionate about as a way to encourage sustainable development – as a way to meet the needs of people today and in the future while at the same time providing an incentive to conserve natural resources. Tortuguero is generally considered an ecotourism success story.
Tortuguero town is built on a narrow strip of land adjacent to a pivotal nesting beach for various species of sea turtles. Not so many years ago, people in Tortuguero depended on the turtles as an important food source – both the eggs and the turtles themselves. Once the international community became aware of the importance of the beach for turtles, community members were under pressure to change their lifestyles away from turtle consumption and toward turtle conservation. It took time to shift perception, but eventually it worked. People who used to consume or sell turtles or their eggs now benefit from protecting them. The income for many community members now comes either directly or indirectly from the ecotourist industry that is centered around turtle “watching.” This income is more sustainable in terms of community members being able to count on it as well as sustainable environmentally.
