As Kevin Connolly travels around the world on a skateboard documenting photos of what he encounters as a travelers with no legs, Keese Buchanan reflects on an encounter with a un-named disabled African man in "Remembering Why I Travel":
There are few wheelchairs in Africa and even fewer wheel-chair accessible areas so people who can't walk will buy flip flops and put their hands in them, using them to drag themselves along through mud, garbage and crowds of people's feet. It always breaks my heart, imagine all day scuffling along without anyone to even look into your eyes as they step over you.A man like this was dressed in a suit, the navy blue sleeves skimming through piles of garbage. He pulled himself up to the table I was at. I bought him and myself some steaming french fries (chips) wrapped, as usual, in someone's old math homework on notebook paper.
Maybe it is hard to travel the way I do, but I travel more to meet people than to see sights, and traveling alone I have opportunities I would never have if I always took solace in other travelers. ... It is scary and lonely sometimes, well, a lot of the time. But in the end, I know traveling this way is the most powerful way to travel. It gets me under the skin of a culture- blisters and all.
And hopefully the reason you write is to open the world that only you see to the rest of us. Thanks, for sharing lunch, Keese. It fed multitudes.
For the full post see Remembering Why I Travel:
http://dailycamera.com/blogs/community-blog-journey-through-africa/2008/mar/16/whytravel/
Posted by rollingrains at March 17, 2008 12:32 AM