Shake N' Bake Baby!

I was sitting in my girlfriend's living room during a party when someone said they heard this tribe in New Guinea made the young men in the tribe perform fellatio on the elders in the tribe in order to welcome their passage from boyhood to manhood. They also said the tribe believes swallowing the bodily fluids that result from this action protects the young men from the wide world of heterosexual diseases. One person immediately responded, "man the rest of the people in this world are sooo stupid!".

As ridiculous as this tribe's beliefs may seem, they are still part of their way of life and it should at least be attempted to understand why they perform these rituals before condemning them and the rest of the world as redundant. Actually, the person who made this comment makes a lot of derogatory comments about people from other parts of the world. Sad thing is, she's never even left the state of Texas. It seems like many people find it easier to demean other cultures rather than understand them, especially when they themselves are ignorant and cannot fathom a world existing outside their realm. I mean, how do you call the the countries of Mozart, pyramids, Budweiser, nut flavored gelato, and Toyota stupid??? Beats me.

Although I never have been naive enough to make a comment of that magnitude, this trip has given me so much more perspective on the world than I had before. I learned lots of information about different countries and the people living in those countries. I learned how to act and to survive when I'm no longer in a comfortable evironment (also known as Shake N' Bake). I sat down and talked world issues with well-informed, middle-aged people and actually enjoyed it. I learned to listen before I give an answer and to really attempt to understand where people are coming from before judging their words and their actions.

More important than the things I learned while in Europe, I developed a passion for travel and learning about new places and cultures. Even though I'm currently stuck in College Station taking classes and walking through cold puddles of water in poorly paved parking lots, I'm already planning for a trip to someplace new whether it be across the world or here in the U.S. Who knows? Maybe I'll end up in New Guinea trying to figure out why they do what they do. Regardless, I'll be eternally grateful for the friends I've made and the times I've had.