culture
Get the authentic cultural experience on your next foreign jaunt. Wander like a local; here, there, and everywhere.
Electric experiences
There it is - the night I have been waiting for. I am driving through the brightly lit highway into my future, highway that belongs to the city that I lived in my entire twenty-one years. I am well travelled- (who wouldn't be, living in Europe), but I had never before decided to leave everything familiar behind to enter the great American unknown. All I know about what to expect- is what had seen in the movies and what little I had picked up from a handful Americans I had gotten acquainted with in the last ten years. It isn't much- they all are proud to announce: "The US is huuuge!" or "I'm from Georgia" as if being from Georgia should impress me. Yet, I play my part and tickle their ego by widening my eyes and knowingly nodding in return: "Oooh Georgia? Yes-yes, I heard it is beautiful!". I smile back at the memory, hopeful that now, I am going to the country where my authentic self will be celebrated. Where you can't impress anyone by being "THE AMERICAN" and where everyone is equal. "Goodbye, corruption! Adios, to the never-smiling Slavic faces!" And as if to remind me what terrible life I am leaving behind, a whiff of sewage treatment plant waves goodbye back to me. The August night fell quickly on the city today. I still can make out the silhouettes of skyscrapers on the right bank of Kyiv and a cluster of well lit Orthodox churches on the left. I will miss taking tour groups through my city, pointing at the golden domes of Churches to wonder-eyed Americans and telling them the sacred tales of one of the oldest domains of Christianity. "The domes are golden, because it is believed that when God looks down on Earth, the domes shall reflect the sunlight and catch God's eye, thus letting Him know which country to send His blessings to". And I receive amazed "Oohs" and "Aahs" in return. Or this one: "This particular dome is blue with golden stars can you guess why?" and while my American tour group is coming up with witty answers, I withdraw to my swarming thoughts, among which my mother's advice lingers: "Americans are easy- they love being entertained- like children". I smile; She is one of the greatest entrepreneurs I have met in my life. Suddenly, I am violently jerked from my musings by a suffocating urge to throw up. My father pulls the car over and I tumble out on the grassy curbside. My mom follows me out of the car, supporting my arm. Hot tears are rolling down my cheeks, my stomach, though empty, heaves, as if my whole body is trying to purge itself of memories of my old life. I am mortified: There, fourteen hours and nine thousand kilometers away my new life is eagerly awaiting me: My future husband is buying a new car for our small future family. My future father-in-law is pacing nervously, in anticipation of his new daughter. I fall on my knees and look at my mom and for a brief, comforting moment I am a child again. I am five years old, and I am small. She is looming above me, smiling tenderly and tells me that all is well and she is near. And agonizing wave of adulthood covers me. Two searing streams pour out of my puffy eyes carrying my memories and my emotions. All the words I have said to her, all the things I have done, and she is still here, near me, supporting my arm as I'm throwing up my fears. How can she love me so much and how can I dare to leave her behind? "What date is your ticket for?" I ask mom. "I'll be there soon after you- in December" "It's a half year! what will I do without you?"
By Salomé Saffiri5 years ago in Wander
Global Citizen or Hometown Misfit?
When I was nine years old my father was headhunted to save a suffering advertising agency in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I had just entered the fourth grade, yet within six weeks our entire house was packed in boxes and his company flew us, first-class, on the long journey to South America to begin our new lives.
By Shannon O'Flaherty5 years ago in Wander
The Gun That Changed the World
Nobody comes here. Not by choice. Sometimes, a bus full of school kids will pull up outside. The young minds of the future will be forced through the echoing halls like toothpaste through a tube, counting the hours until they can escape.
By Ryan Frawley5 years ago in Wander
The Caucasus Beyond the Mythical White Person
High in the mountains running along the border between Azerbaijan and Georgia, in the garrison town of Zaqatala, former outpost of the famed Imam Shamil who in the mid-nineteenth century led the longest resistance to Russian rule, I meet an elderly woman crossing the street.
By Rebecca Ruth Gould5 years ago in Wander
