On the bus to San Jose

By Amber Scholtsbergh

Travelling has made me see life from different perspectives. It has opened my mind to all possibilities. There is so much to see, to experience and people to meet. I have seen different places, beautiful wild-coloured natural environments with wildlife and also in my opinion less beautiful environments filled with people, buildings and pollution.

While writing these thoughts I am on the Tracopa bus from Dominical to the airport in San Jose Costa Rica. I suddenly feel interrupted in my writing by a woman sitting in front of me who is vlogging in English and talking about a woman who came to sit next to her, assuming a citizen of CR since she was speaking in Spanish with the bus driver and other people on the bus. She is vlogging about how this woman came to sit next to her, that it would never happen this way in the States and about what an adventure this bus ride is to her. I feel aversion because to me she is vlogging as if she is living in a different world and as if the woman is not sitting next to her, and assuming she does not understand English. This is actually what I want to share thoughts and my beliefs about, based on what I have seen and experienced.

Because the thing is that we are all human. We live in different places and we look different, but we all have the same core needs. We want to feel loved, we want to feel seen, we want to feel heard and to feel understood. We want to feel safe and secure. We all have problems. We can struggle and we can be fulfilled. There are humans that are privileged and humans that are not. There is hatred and jealousy and there is love and kindness. There can be different knowings and ways of doing things, due to different histories and different ways of being raised. One person's actions do not define an entire culture. Someone can hurt or love another but that does not mean, others from that culture will. I do believe everyone has the capacity to help and be kind to one another if they want to.

I always try to not judge, I feel like it is the best thing to do because we are all trying here. On the other hand, I cannot deny that I judge too. What I don’t know or don’t understand because I never experienced it I can judge, even if I don’t want to. And I question what makes us humans judge, is it the unknown that gives us an unsafe feeling? Does it make us feel alone as if we don’t belong because we seem different? Maybe it makes us doubt and question what we are used to doing is wrong. What if there is no wrong or right? Just different (And don’t get me wrong there are definitely immoral things that I think are wrong as in the behaviour people can have towards each other, which I think often comes from unmet needs). Everything we do is to take care of ourselves and our loved ones in the best way we know and can to survive. In the end, that is it I believe.

And while feeling aversion for this vlogging woman I also realise she is on her own journey, learning things at her own pace. When I went to Malawi in 2018 I also wrote on Facebook and Instagram a post about the people I met and the lifestyle as if I lived in a different world. It was a positive and observing message but I felt bad knowing that they might have felt as if they were different when reading it back then. But I did not know better and now I do. To me, the most important part of humanity is that we are open and willing to listen and learn from each other, that we see each other and not distinguish ourselves from one another. Something the kindness and love in the people and the beliefs of people I met during travelling have shown me. Because we are not so different after all.