"The Sufis, who are the mystics of Islam, say you need to travel and understand strangers because, if not, you do not know who you are. Safar, the Arabic word equivalent to "trip", known to Westerners thanks to the culture of tourism ("safari"), means "unmasking" ("kashfi l'qina"). According to many Sufis, the "trip" is called "safar, because it reveals the real being of the Musafir ('traveler') ... The hidden face becomes visible." The trip, Safar, as an experience of discovering oneself, involves moving in space, "covering the distance" (qat 'al-massafa). Leave the known terrain to penetrate unknown territories. In the Koran, the root of this word (SFR) is related to the light "and the dawn when it shines in front" (wa al-subh ida asfara) and "illuminates the faces" (wu juhun musfara). "
Fantasies of the harem and new Sherezades. Fatema Mernissi
Traveling brought me closer to myself. I go far to find myself in font of a reality that mirrors my prejudices, my fears, my purest joy… a reality that highlights my deepest needs and truths. Traveling with a camera has allowed me to connect with people otherwise unapproachable and to enter worlds that would otherwise still be unknown for me. But what I appreciate the most about those experiences is how I’m faced constantly with challenges. Traveling is challenging. And I’ve endorsed the challenge even more, since my early twenties, by doing it alone. And it’s right there, in the not-so-picture-perfect places, in the scary and lonely moments, when the weather is awful and when nothing seems to go right… Is right there, where magic happens and traveling pays off.
Coming back home, those are the stories I like to share with friends and family. That time I was in Nepal and wanted to catch a bus to a little village to spend de Dashain. The bus station was a complete chaos, no more seats available and not even one car had a sign with the destination. A young boy “adopted me” and found me a seat, bought me peanuts and water for the ride, payed for my ticket, and left without even saying his name, almost without accepting my endless “thank you’s”. I was in awe, and still am today, of how much kindness there is in the world.
Is the lonely moments, far from home, in the mids of a powercut, in a stone-hard bed… that make traveling such an interesting and intense journey. Eating a mango for breakfast tastes like glory after such a hard night.
The Napalese look at each other indiscriminately, but if you look back at them, you find sincere and kind eyes, curious about the novelty.
They have just passed a civil war, but they have not conserved a whim of scorn or fear. The Nepalese are calm, serene people, who, despite living without norms, without government, without monarchy or traffic signs have been able to find the order and way of living between this chaos and so much dust. They are welcoming people, for whom it is an honor to host the strangers and serve them by sharing what they have grown with their own hands, in their own lands. So much so that his religion not only respects the other religions, but often Hinduism and Buddhism share temples.
In Nepal, however, as everywhere, not all that shines is gold. They are one of the countries with the most natural resources in the world, the amount of water that is between its imposing mountains has an endless flow and during the monsoon season, the 10 water pits flooding the streets of Kathmandu stop the traffic for hours. Even so, people have to spend hours and hours in a cue to have access to a contaminated water source, to fill a single bucket that will have to ration.
Garbage piles up on the corners and on the side of the river, and although it does not smell as bad as one would expect, there is a large part of the population that became visually disabled due to the chemicals that the trash emanates.
Thousands of children are sent to orphanages, as international cooperation has missleaded them to receive better education and future if abandoned and picked up by Western volunteers.
The caste system, subtly in force, condemns the Nepalies from birth to better education, a better job, a position within the power structures of the country, a certain lifestyle, a specific lover.
Their religion teaches them the value of not establishing ties, and although they are perseverant, caring, conscious people of their nature, they face the great abysses of human nature with the coldness of not clinging to their own lives, so Death is less painful and possessions less transcendent.
In turn, however, you just have to exchange a "namaste" and a friendly smile to consider yourself as close as a Bhai, a brother. If you are lost they’ll not think twice, they will close the business and accompany you wherever you need. If you are alone you won’t even be asked, they will keep you company and they will accept you as family.
The concept of passing time is different than in the West. The Nepalese live a steady pace of "now and here", they live up to date, without planning, without expectations, without disappointment. It's funny how we have so many things to learn from a country we call "underdeveloped"!
