Why So Torn?
For my first official post as The Torn Traveller, it only makes sense to reflect on how I became so passionate about travel and global justice.
My love of travel began at the age of 14 when my dad took me on holiday to India – an unusual choice of destination for someone who hadn’t travelled much himself and had never taken me on holiday abroad before. He was originally planning on going there alone to visit a friend, but I was a curious teenager and, after hours of googling what there was to see in India, I suddenly became very jealous of his trip and begged him to take me with him. We visited 7 cities in the north-west region of Rajasthan over the course of 2 weeks, driving for several hours a day and passing through numerous airports. It soon became clear that I was a natural born traveller. Unlike my dad, I did not get dizzy on the bumpy, half-crumbling roads that swirled up into the mountains. I sat in the back of the car re-reading Jane Eyre for the hundredth time and gazing out in awe at the entire herds of cattle and camels that frequently passed us on the other side of the road. Sadly, the animals were mostly ribs and branding marks so after a while I no longer wanted to look and instead focused on my book.
I enjoyed navigating us through airports as I found their organised, systematic nature rather calming – and still do today. Even at 14, I didn’t let the sometimes inevitable challenges of travelling stop me from having a good time. Despite getting heatstroke and nearly spewing opposite the Taj Mahal, I still powered on through the rest of that day’s sightseeing and captured all the obligatory tourist photos (in which I look deathly pale). Unfortunately, the sickness did catch up to me when we made it back to the hotel buffet that evening, but I bounced back quickly thanks to many free cups of green tea from the staff. Although it was 2 weeks of permanent sweat, I was determined not to let my body’s struggle to acclimatise ruin the experience. The region’s sights, nature and history did not disappoint. Though we only scratched the surface of what India has to offer, I loved leaving my Eurocentric comfort zone and being surrounded by so much cultural and religious diversity.
Pictured below: Hawa Mahal, or the ‘Palace of Winds’, containing 953 windows, the Amber Fort and the unexpected (and upsettingly skinny) Monday morning traffic!
However, immediately upon arriving in India we were reminded of our insane privilege in being there. My dad had booked us a private driver and 4-star hotels for the whole duration of the trip and, as I was young and he wanted to keep me safe, we never ventured out into the streets without a guide. Everywhere we went we were followed by a crowd of people trying to sell us their products – little wood carvings, magnets or jewellery – until the tour guide shouted at them in a few different languages and they all eventually got the hint and left us alone. One very committed seller even followed us all the way up the steep hill to the Amber Fort in Jaipur until we bought a whole bag of wooden statues from him. Once we’d bought all the souvenirs we wanted, it became a guilt-ridden routine of turning people away, but we couldn’t blame them for trying. We clearly had some money to spare, but not enough to take everyone in India off the streets and when you can’t help everyone, where do you draw the line? For the first time, I started to grasp the real scale of the world’s inequality.
One memory that still haunts me is when we were in the car, stopped at a red light, and a woman held a bundle of rags up to the window asking us for money to buy milk for her baby who, from the quick glance I got before averting my eyes, I was pretty sure was already past saving. It was jolting constantly switching between feeling like a celebrity (having my car door opened, bags carried for me and groups of people wanting a photo with us) to feeling the immoral weight of how lucky we were. It was an incredibly eye-opening experience to have at that age, and it got me thinking about how there could be so much economic disparity across the world. In my childish naivety, I thought I had a right to be envious of people who went to private boarding schools while I attended a state school surrounded by council estates in a fairly rough town. Until I saw it with my own eyes, I had no real concept of all the people in the world growing up with nothing at all, let alone an education. I already knew at that point that I wanted to be a teacher, but I think that trip was the turning point that made me dream of having a bigger impact on education and global justice rather than settling for a stable job in a British school.
Nevertheless, even this aspiration has had me feeling torn. I know the direction I would like my career to go in and the groups of people I want to help, but as a young, white, English woman I am constantly conscious of avoiding the white saviour complex. How can I help people in a way that genuinely empowers them to make change instead of using my privilege to make myself look like a hero? We can’t always buy the solution to a problem; we have to work together to fix the systems that failed people in the first place. I am no expert, but I believe that one small change here and there could make an enormous difference to the quality of people’s lives. That’s why I chose to start this blog, not to preach my political opinions online or persuade anyone to act in a particular way, but to analyse these tricky topics in depth so that we can all feel a little less torn on how we can . Let’s learn together and figure out what local communities really need. I hope you enjoy reading the blog, consider new perspectives and keep any comments kind.
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Thank you for reading!
Until next time,
The Torn Traveller