Travel Tuesdays: How Traveling Informs My Writing

If you're a writer, all of your experiences influence your writing. Your childhood, family life, friendships, travels- everything that helped shape you as a person also helps shape you as a writer. This is as true for me as for any other writer.

I'm generally pretty reserved about sharing my publication aspirations here, but when I have, readers have responded. I'm also trying to push out of my comfort zone. Today I'll talk about how one specific trip has impacted me as a writer.

Back in the late nineties, I traveled to Niger, West Africa. While each of my travels has changed me or helped me grow, my interactions with children in a village outside Niamey, touched me in a deep and meaningful way. All these years later I can conjure up vivid images of my interactions without ever looking at a photo.

I used those strong emotional connections to write a fictional picture book manuscript about a young American boy who's traveling in Niger with his father. (Note: I have a notoriously hard time thinking of titles for my stories. I LOVE the title of this one, so I won't share it. I don't want anyone to steal it!)

The walk to the plateaus outside Niamey, Niger.

Ryan has heard that camels in Niger dance when the rainy season finally begins. He hopes he'll get a chance to see them dance. But as he and his dad hike up nearby plateaus, Ryan worries the rains will never come. He wonders how anything can survive without water for so long. The village boys he plays with along the way teach him more than the truth about the rainy season and camels.

Did the plot of this story happen to me? No. It's fiction. But the feelings and some of the events did. For starters, I was overwhelmed by the lack of water. Until then, all of my travels had been to places with sufficient (or even too much) water. I never appreciated my sweat until that trip. (It really does cool you!) So it seems natural to me that I would write a story about yearning for rain.

Did I meet local children? Yes. It's impossible not to when you're the only white people for miles and everyone stares at you. Kids run up to you out of curiosity. I also had some lovely interactions with children in a village on the way to the plateaus outside Niamey.

View from the top.

And here's the place that my travels most informed my writing. My sense of place. Everything I write is written with a naturalist's eye. Even when I'm not writing a "nature" piece, my observations of place creep in. Perhaps it's in a direct observation. Or perhaps it's how that place makes a character feel. Or what the environment represents to the main character. These are the details I cannot make up. I can invent a story about an American boy playing with Fulani boys but I can't fully capture how the environment makes those boys feel and how they interact with it unless I've been there. At least that's how it is for me. I know some writers can research a place carefully and capture a sense of place in their writing. My descriptions fall flat if I haven't experienced them.

How about you? Are you a writer? How do your experiences influence your writing? Parents and teachers, how do you help your students use their experiences to inform their writing?

One funny aside: While I was in Washington, DC last week, I ran into a guy I had met in Niger all those years ago (Hi Djimrao!). I couldn't believe it. The world really is small.

Related Posts:
Haying Experiences Turned into a Picture Book Manuscript
Adoption Insensitivity (Inspirations for another manuscript)

Travel Tuesdays: A Sense of Place

I've been thinking a lot about how my sense of place affects me when I travel. When I first arrived in Niamey, Niger, for a few moments, my physical surroundings overwhelmed me. I found myself searching for something familiar-anything similar to something I knew.

Within a short period of time, I found it. I noticed that the buildings had a similar shape and construction to many buildings in the Philippines (where I once lived). Most of the buildings had a cube-shaped, low profile and were made of blocks. In the Philippines, many buildings have a similar shape and are made out of cinder blocks.

We also passed several piles of burning trash along the road. As that smoldering smell reached my nose, I felt myself relax a little more. I know that may sound weird, but to anyone who's lived or traveled in the developing world, roadside piles of burning trash are commonplace. I had lived in the Philippines long enough to make that landscape my own, so while I hated the burning trash when I first arrived in the Philippines, it had become weirdly comforting- a reminder of my second home.

Erg Zhigaga, Morocco

Certainly places that inspire awe in us can make us feel somehow more calm. But not all beautiful scenes do that for me. The giant rolling dunes of the Sahara are certainly beautiful. I know our friend who grew up there feels serene in the desert. But for me, as much as I enjoyed the beauty, I never felt the sense of serenity that I feel in landscapes that are more similar to the one where I grew up.

After leaving those giant sand dunes of Morocco, we headed toward the coast. About 30 minutes before we reached the shore I looked at my husband and said, "Ocean! Did you feel that?" We could literally feel the moisture in the air and knew the ocean wasn't far. Until that moment, I didn't even realize I had that ability.

When we eventually reached Essaouria, I instantly loved the place. I mean, I really loved it. And what made me love it? For starters, the ocean runs right up against the town, just steps from our hotel. The town, which is known for it's blue doors, also employs a major fishing fleet. You can watch them come in at sunset every night.

For someone who grew up in New Bedford Massachusetts, a city that hosts one of the largest fishing fleets in our country, that's a familiar scene. The circles of gulls overhead waiting for scraps. The slightly unpleasant odor of fish being off-loaded or cleaned. While I might call parts of that unpleasant, they're also comfortable and familiar.

Hyderabad, India

But here's what I've also learned. My most transformative travel experiences are those that happened in places where I felt the most uncomfortable, or downright uneasy. I was overwhelmed when I first arrived in the Philippines. I was living in the city of Cebu. I had grown up in the country surrounded by trees and farmland and lakes. But that experience was easily the most transformative of my life.  The city of Hyderabad, India completely overwhelmed me, too. Yet I can barely put into words all that I learned and gained from that one short trip.

For me, overcoming the barriers of culture and language are not as difficult as overcoming my own internal discomfort in places that are so physically different from where I grew up.

How about you and your kids? What kinds of travel are most transformative for you?

You Might Also Like:
Travel Tuesdays: Morocco
Travel Tuesdays: Awakening in a Strange Place
Travel Tuesdays: Pack Your Sense of Humor
Travel Tuesdays: India

Travel Tuesdays: Music and Travel

Not a night we saw Image Band, but friends and location are the same

This weekend, as I was driving my son to a birthday party, the song "Tenderness" by General Public came on the radio. I know I'm dating myself, but I heard the opening lick of that song and I was no longer driving down route 195 in Westport, MA. I was sitting in the lounge in Cebu Plaza hotel with my friends in Cebu, Philippines. The song had gotten popular in the US the year before I left to be an exchange student in the Philippines. By the time I arrived, our favorite local band, "The Image Band" was covering that song regularly at Cebu Plaza. When I hear the song, I'm instantly 16 again- I experience all of the feelings and body sensations I experienced back then- the excitement, the angst, the freedom, the fear, the anticipation- all of the intense emotions teenagers feel.

I'm sure you know what I mean. Many people have similar experiences. There are many songs that have the same effect for me- I can usually name the year they were popular and what I was doing during that time.

There's something about travel, too, that can freeze a song in your mind. Tenderness is one from my year in the Philippines. That same year, Shout by Tears for Fears, Crazy for You by Madonna, and Smooth Operator by Sade were also popular. Then there are the Filipino performers like Gary Valenciano and Apo Hiking Society. These songs/ groups forever take me to Cebu.

Other songs or bands conjure up other trips. For our trip to Peru, bands like Inca Sun forever bring me to Machu Picchu. There's a particular song we called "The Hankie Dance" while in Niger that will always remind me of our first night in country dancing with the locals. And, as I've mentioned here before, Marrakesh Express, Midnight at the Oasis, and Riders on the Storm will always remind me of our camel trek in Morocco- not because those songs were popular in 2001, rather, they were part of our personal "soundtrack" for the trip.

All of this got me reflecting on music and travel. A quick google search lead me to this blogpost over at Rolf Pott's Vagabonding.  It was interesting to read others' thoughts about the role music plays in their travels.

Which lead me to yet another thought... I've been toying around with the idea of using my experiences as an exchange student in the Philippines to write a book for young people. I'm not sure where this seed of an idea will take me, but my first step will be creating a playlist of every song I can remember that was popular or important to me at that time. I'll be able to get into my teenaged emotional brain in no time flat.

How about you? Do you have a soundtrack for your travels? Is it always the same or does it vary with your location?

Related Posts
Travel Tuesdays: Pack Your Sense of Humor
Travel Tuesdays: Exchange Students
Travel Tuesdays: The Philippines: "Growing Up"

Travel Tuesdays: Balleyara Market, Niger

This is part of a much longer (and pretty interesting) story. For this post, I'll stick to the basics that relate to my point.

When my husband and I visited Niger, we took a bush taxi from Niamey- the capital city where my sister was living at the time- to Baleyara for the weekly market. This normally 2 hour trip was a bit harrowing, to say the least. For starters, there is no schedule. The bush taxi only leaves when it's full. We lucked out and left in a reasonable amount of time (maybe an hour or so). The other challenging part was that the driver dictated where each person sat. My sister and I were placed in the back two rows. I was squashed in so tight that only my left buttock touched the seat. The rest of my backside rested on the Hausa man to my right. Meanwhile, my husband- a male in a Muslim country- sat comfortably in the front row only three people across to our five.
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We hurtled on down the road at what felt like 80 miles per hour until we were stopped by the Military Police. They collected everyone's papers, including our passports. After a scary exchange with my sister, who no longer carried her passport everywhere because she lived there, our passports/papers were returned and the bush taxi continued on its way, minus the one passenger who was removed by the police. Needless to say, this left the three of us on edge. I was already uncomfortable being separated from my family on the bush taxi.  Our interaction with guys with big guns had left me more anxious.

So, a short while later when the bush taxi veered off the road and stopped, I was alarmed. The driver got out and demanded we all exit. Once outside the vehicle, we realized the problem- a flat tire. This wasn't surprising since we were driving on bald tires, but it was a problem considering we had no jack.

The solution?

All of the men, including my husband, lifted the bush taxi and propped it on a block so they could change the tire. The driver and several other men had waved my husband off, like he didn't need to help, but we were passengers just like everyone else. There was no way my husband would take a privileged position and refuse to help. Once the new bald tire was secured, they lowered the bush taxi and passengers began reloading. The driver clapped my husband on the back and said, "Let's go, my brother."

The lesson: don't act like a tourist, too afraid to interact with locals or worry you'll ruin your vacation by getting dirty. For us, this momentary exchange was significant. Until that moment, the driver was pretty quiet. After my husband's help, he called my husband brother. They worked together to solve a problem and a new level of connection, no matter how brief, was established. It also calmed my anxieties- we now had a "friend" driving us to Balleyara.

Have you experienced a brief moment of connection like this while traveling? Not the kind that leads to long-term friendship like I experienced in Morocco, but important, nonetheless?

And, a final question... Have you traveled to West Africa? Can you identify the large pieces of wood that look like giant golf tees? A language barrier prevented us from figuring it out when we were there!

Happy Earth Day 2011

This year, in honor of Earth Day, I scanned some of my favorite images from various places around the world. Yep. Most of them are old-school prints I had to scan.

Erg Zhigaga, Sahara Desert, Morocco. We slept on bedrolls in the open air during our desert camel trek.  From here we went to an oasis where we watched with jealosy as a dog cooled off in a little trickle of a stream (It was 120 degrees in the shade). After the oasis... sandstorm.

Elephants in Parc W, Niger, West Africa

We traveled from the capital city of Niamey to the park in hopes of seeing wildlife. Nature did not disappoint. The night before I took this photo, while sleeping in a tent, we heard lions roaring. They sounded like they were right outside our tent. We were assured they were miles away, but we didn't sleep much that night.

 Rice Terraces, near Marinduque, Philippines. I lived in the southern Philippines, in Cebu, but I took a trip up north with my host family. Rice terraces like these are common in rural areas of the Philippines.

Machu Picchu, Peru. We hiked about 30 miles along the Inca Trail, crossing a mountain pass at 14, 000 feet, to reach this ancient city. I loved the tree in the middle of the open area. I spent some time sitting beneath it writing.

 

Water Spout, off the coast of Cebu, Philippines. My host dad owns a seaweed farm that grows carageenan. The farm is a large building set on stilts in the ocean. Divers harvest the seaweed and dry it on large bamboo racks before shipping it. During dinner one evening, everyone raced to one side of the building looking out over the ocean. I was shocked to learn that this is what they were watching. We had no choice but to watch it and wait, seeminlgy forever. It came straight toward us, then eventually turned and went exactly the opposite way it had come.

Aldea Salamandra, Near Puerto Quito, Ecuador. I was a volunteer headed for Bila Bilogical Reserve on an Earthwatch Expedition called Ecuador's Rainforest Butterflies. We stopped here for an overnight on our way to Bilsa from Quito. I found my cabana in the chiparo tree quite comfy.

Happy Earth Day, everyone. I hope you can get outside and enjoy it a bit today.