CROSSing THE GREAT WATERS
"There ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them." —Mark Twain
Our honeymoon in National Geographic Traveler
What
better way than a slow, open-ended trip as a full-immersion crash
course on each other? If I could experiences deep, travel-triggered
discovery and change on my own, wouldn't having a companion—a
witness—give
those changes more weight and merit? Wouldn't the shared mishaps, missions,
and miles help jump-start and build a camaraderie
unobtainable by staying home?
The
fortune cookie said "yes."
And
we were off. Just like that. This trip took us—not
the other way around. Searching for Tay's great-grandfather
in Pakistan opened the doors to the Hunza
Royal Palace. My dream of hiking in the Himalayas led
to glaciers, peaks, and shepherd camps in the Karakorum
(the highest I've ever been).
In India, we found glass in our rice, a live cockroach in my wife's
mouth, and silence beneath the Tree
of Enlightenment. In West Africa, village chiefs blessed
our unborn children (actually, just our unborn sons), and offered fertility
rites of slaughtered goats, Arabic prayer, and sacred crocodiles.
For nearly half our trip, during scattered multi-month assignments,
we worked with the American
Jewish World Service Volunteer Corps. This New
York–based
international development organization places Jewish professionals (and
their non-Jewish spouses) with grassroots organizations around the world.
pictures from our trip
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