Two Journeys

In recent weeks, I've had the pleasure of enjoying two delightful works of craftsmanship. One, a book entitled "The Places in Between," is a travel narrative of sorts describing author Rory Stewart's experience walking across a good portion of Afghanistan in January of 2002. The second, a superb documentary film entitled "The Lost Boys of Sudan," follows the journey of two Sudanese youth from a refugee camp in Kenya to their new lives in suburban America. This post will share some thoughts on the book, with another post coming soon on the film.

Reading "The Places in Between" was satisfying on two levels. Stewart's lucid prose and keen eye for detail were a source of great enjoyment and were an inspirational example of the craftmanship involved in writing. In addition, the book offered many gems of insight into the richness of human experience amidst some of the harshest of circumstances. Particularly striking were the moments of warm hospitality, kindness and fellowship that emerged amidst the backdrop of material poverty and regular violence that pervaded the region of Afghanistan in which Stewart was traveling. Towards the end of the book and the culmination of his journey, Stewart describes a particularly special evening:

. . . that night in the barracks had felt like a homecoming, a moment of transformation. There was nothing pompous in the way the men had spoken to me. I had savored the hot rice, the firm floor, the shelter from the wind, and the companionship. I had felt how proud the men were of what they could provide and how lucky I was to share their space. They treated me as though I belonged and I had felt that I did.

Whatever I experienced when walking would never approach the hardness of daily life in a village. But I had felt I no longer needed to explain myself to my hosts--that I was at last entitled to sit alongside them and share their food--and I loved that night and those men for it.

Reliance on the traditions of hospitality in the East was an integral part of the author's journey. Every night found Stewart with a roof over his head and food in his stomach, all provided by people he had met only hours earlier. When he left the next morning, many of Stewart's hosts sent family members to accompany him on the next leg of his journey, as in the following passage in which one of Stewart's hosts insisted on sending his seventeen-year-old son with him when he left:

Finally we were on the last slope into the Zarin valley, which was only twenty kilometers from Yakawlang. The pass had taken us three hours, and Asad and his companion were now going to walk back through the blizzard. I offered Asad money but he was horrified. It seemed a six-hour round-trip through a freezing storm and chest-deep snow was the least he could do for a guest.

Upon the completion of his journey in Afghanistan and after flying back to his home country of Scotland, Stewart made his way by foot over the last few kilometers to his house:

Clean metallic signs announced a school and a forty-mile-an-hour speed limit. A cat leaped over a gas station wall. The cars were parked in front of the houses with their noses thrust over the close-mown lawns. There were conservatories, dark green ironware tables behind thigh-high walls, and birdbaths with hanging seed. I imagined knocking and saying, "Where is the headman? I would like to stay."

Admittedly, the encounters Stewart described were not universally positive. The spectre of violence was almost ever-present. Moreover, one of the more striking aspects of the book was something that was nearly completely absent--the presence of women. Yet one cannot deny the positive aspects of the experiences Stewart had amongst a people with little in the way of material possessions or physical security, perhaps the most noteworthy of which was the ease and readiness with which they were willing to invite someone whom they had only just met into their home, feed him, converse with him, and provide him with a place of shelter, warmth, and rest.