Scary World

It's time to be honest here: how many of you were worried for my safety when I was abroad?

You don't need to answer, but I will share here all the unsafe moments of my trip.  I will do this to make a point: we are living in a scary world.

Before my journey to the Mideast, I put together a slideshow for my sixth and seventh grade students...and for my loving co-teachers who respectfully pondered what had possessed me to go so far from home.  The photos of modern cities dazzled most of my loving students, leaving them with just two spoken concerns:

Will the city lights give me seizures? 

--I was careful.

What if someone lights a match? With all that oil, what will happen?

--They are careful.

This left my parents as key figures I needed to reassure. Mom was anxious about the plane flights; there is nothing I can do to assuage her ongoing fear of flying except to fly and land safely every time. I have no control over the flights, but I know that there are more road accidents than sky ones.

Dad was quite  outspoken about Sharia law. I can never tell if he is joking or making a point when he uses graphic language about beheadings and other amputations. Mostly, I just shook my head and assured him that I was going to less extremist countries and ones that had it in their best interests to treat a delegation of teachers well.

I have returned home after safe flights and my head is firmly attached to my body.

There were, however, two unsafe moments.

First, a colleague fell backwards on an escalator at the Abu Dhabi airport... creating a domino effect with suitcases and another colleague as the escalator kept rising. This was scary, and painful for the two ladies involved. Luckily, there was no lasting harm.

Secondly, the infrastructure in Doha, Qatar, was not ready for the rainstorm a few days ago. A simple google news  search about Doha and flooding will bring you photos of billions of dollars of airport damage and cars under water. Schools closed due to the rain, although none of our meetings were affected.  None of this affected our delegation, but the hotel elevator broke from water damage. This led to multiple flights of walking for colleagues who were on high levels of the tower.

Although I wasn't unsafe, I was aware that these countries lack some of the freedoms that I am accustomed to. When asked an uncomfortable question or one that would put them in a precarious situation, my international colleagues just silently smiled and kept their mouths closed. Folks in the US embassies were clear that it is illegal to insult the emirs or anyone in the Holy Family. (The omnipresent photos of   smiling faces of royalty also made that quite clear!) 

In Bahrain, the most open of the three countries I visited, I had the opportunity to visit a professor's house for dinner. The whole event was so welcoming and it is a memory I will cherish.

Seated at dinner, my friends and I asked a Bahraini colleague about what freedoms he had. Since he didn't know exactly what we were asking him, we went through the bill of rights.

Freedom of speech? A silent smile.

Right to assembly? A silent smile.

Freedom of religion? Yes...Bahrain is proud to be inclusive of different religions and is even the one Gulf Country with a synagogue.

Freedom of the press? A silent smile.

Right to bear arms?

At this, my new Bahraini friend grimaced. "Why would you even want to have guns? Guns make people unsafe," he exclaimed.  Then he went on, "Look at what happens in schools and at movie theaters and in malls in the United States! That is terrifying. How do you feel safe in such a scary world?"

Bombs are scary. Drones are scary. Isis is scary. What happened in Paris and Egypt and Lebanon is scary. Boko Haram is scary. War is scary.

But fear and terror does not only happen "over there".

Columbine was scary, and Virginia Tech and Aurora. I came home and heard about a shooter/hostage scenario at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado. That is scary.  Sitting in a corner with students during intruder drills and remembering the first graders of Sandy Hook is scary.

Travel to the Gulf was not scary.

I felt safe on my trip. My colleagues and I were treated like royalty. When we were at the American Embassy in the UAE, we were about an hour before John Kerry's visit. We knew that he was an "esteemed  visitor" but we were also called esteemed visitors. At large table business meetings and school visits we were referred to as "distinguished guests."  My head could get swollen!

I felt safe on the trip, but all this violence in the world--here and there--reminds me why forging connections between people is crucial. Whether it be showing kindness around the world or within our own schools and families, we need to be that proverbial change we want to see in this scary world. Only we--all of us, all over, together--can make this world less scary.